Thoughts on HBO’s Hung and EA’s FNR4

June 30, 2009
Alec Baldwin, heavyweight champion of the world

Alec Baldwin, heavyweight champion of the world

My entire week’s been dominated by Fight Night Round 4 and Hoop It Up over the weekend (apparently now named Ballers Unite, which is very gay). Seeing that my team and I did disastrously in our bid for basketball dominance (it was the first time I met and played with two of my team mates) let’s just talk about FNR4.

The Good:

  • Amazing graphics, but anyone reading this and actually cares already knows that. Fighters sweat, bleed and swell up all nice like. Knockouts are just as outrageous as ever, though I guess mouthpieces aren’t in the game anymore.
  • Killer soundtrack. The songs included are all awesome and the ability to import your own tune for your intro is a nice touch.
  • Create a boxer. I literally spent HOURS making fighters. I’ve made a Conan O’Brien, Jack Bauer, David Boreanez, amongst two dozen others. The ability to scan in someone’s picture and have the gamew build a face makes it rather addictive to populate your game with pop icons.

The Bad

  • Gamer face is kind of wonky. Yes, it works to a degree, but I had to manually adjust everyone to make them even resemble their real life counterparts.
  • Online seems laggy. This may very well just be me and my connection, but I’d think a 10MBPS pipeline was good enough. Turns out I was wrong, I guess.
  • Not a lot of modes. Just Fight Now, Legacy and online fighting.

The Ugly

  • Legacy is broken! Nearly every time I use a menu my 360 freezes up completely. Voicing my concerns at the FNR4 forums, it seems I’m not the first to experience this. Apparently it’s a bug with importing created fighters into the world. I guess I can alleviate it if I start over and not bring Jack Bauer into the fray, but fuck that. I was mainly excited about a career mode with Michael Jackson and Roky Balboa, and fuck EA if they don’t fix this.
This image is not indicitive of the show.

This image is not indicitive of the show.

The other part of my week was looking forward to the new Thomas Jane HBO vehicle Hung. Well, it premiered on Sunday and…

The Good

  • Thomas Jan still rocks. He’s just the perfect guy for this role, making me feel his plight.
  • Fat children. Too much TV has the characters having perfectly beautiful children, but not here. Jane has two fat twins who are far from attractive and I’ll give the show kudos for that.
  • Good concept and funny, to boot. It’s like Weeds and Breaking Bad, but with prostitution instead of drugs and it has the potential to be as good as Weeds. Not Breaking Bad, but definitely Weeds.

The Bad

  • Anne Heche kind of sucked. She was just consistently annoying at all times.
  • The children are walking stereotypes. The son is a finger nails painted goth while the daughter is dating someone named Hammer. Real original there.
  • The poet pimp. I like the idea of Jane having a female pimp, especially a poet pimp, but something about the actress who plays her just rubs me the wrong way.

The Ugly

  • Multple, shrieking orgasms.

2009 Emmy Predictions

June 29, 2009

emmyAwardEmmy season is right around the corner, with the official nomination announcements for the Primetime Emmys coming July 16th. Of all the awards shows, this is by far my favourite on the virtue of television being a far bigger part of my life than movies, video games or music. Of course, is also means it’s the most frustrating award seeing that I rarely see eye to eye with the winners and sometimes the picks.

Last year surprised me because of Alec Baldwin and Bryan Cranston’s deserved wins. I didn’t really expect it, but damnit I wanted them to make it. I was glad to see the judges weren’t all retarded chimps.

I know the actual awards ceremony isn’t on until September, but with most of the shows it’ll be focusing on over and done with I think we can all indulge in a bit of early speculation. Here are my personal predictions on the nominees and winners for the major categories.

Drama Series: I would think Lost was a shoe in for a nomination, but it’s heavy sci-fi flavour would definitely alienate a good deal of the voters. I would personally love to see Breaking Bad win but I doubt it’d even be nominated, so I’ll settle with AMC’s other big gun in Mad Men. Dexter definitely deserves a nomination for last season’s spectacular return to form and here’s hoping House gets some attention for a fantastic year. The critics seem to love Rescue Me, but my choice of winner? The fucking Shield. The final season was disturbingly, violently epic and deserves the kudos.

Lead Actor – Drama: It’d be kind of ridiculous if Bryan Cranston, last year’s winner, doesn’t at least get a nomination especially for an even better performance. I hear Gabriel Byrne was nice in In Treatment, but I haven’t seen it yet myself. Michael C. Hall, Michael Chiklis and John Hamm are signed and sealed as nominees, but the winner will in all likelihood be the always inexplicably snubbed Hugh Laurie. He’s won two Golden Globes but never an Emmy, so this has to be his year, especially after the best season of House in a long time.

Lead Actress – Drama: Kyra Sedgwick and Glenn Close are probably in for a two horse race this time around. Close was great in Damages and Sedgwick is a critical darling (I haven’t seen The Closer yet). The dark horse would be Anna Paquin for True Blood, but I’ve always thought her character was far and away the weakest aspect of a great show.

Comedy Series: The most predictable category, really. The Office and 30 Rock are a lock to be back, but seeing that both have won already I don’t know if their chances are good to repeat despite being the two funniest shows on TV. The Big Bang Theory probably has the biggest chance at winning by virtue of being the only other viable candidate even though How I Met Your Mother is by far the funnier multi-camera sitcom. For some reason, the Emmys hate Mother. The show I really want to see nominated is Chuck but there’s a snowball’s chance under Kristy Ally that happens.

Lead Actor – Comedy: Steve Carell will probably get a nomination for another outstanding year as indefensible, yet lovable, Michael Scott but really, who are we kidding? Alec Baldwin has this category locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Baldwin’s been a comedic tsunami since 30 Rock began and even if you don’t like the show, you like him.

Lead Actress – Comedy: You can say names like Poehler (she was good in a really crappy show), Ferrera, and Collette, but the only name you need to know is Fey. Hopefully another Emmy for Tina can propel 30 Rock with a much deserved ratings boost. Damn the show is funny.


The good, the bad, and the ugly of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

June 28, 2009

transformers-revenge-of-the-fallenI’m not a picky movie goer. I love brainless action movies as much as the next guy who happens to love brainless action movies. I actually thought the first Transformers was a halfway decent movie. It was a nice blend of spectacular action and humour. Not something you’d ever consider showing in a film class (unless it’s a class on CGI), but you didn’t mind spending two and half hours on it.

Revenge of the Fallen? I went into the movie with good faith, believing that at the very least Michael Bay would give me another dumb extravaganza to waste nearly three hours of my time. Instead, I got lobotomized. My mind was intellectually molested. My very humanity was offended that something like this actually came from us, as the advanced society of this planet.

But enough of that, here’s the good, bad, and ugly of the movie:

The Good

  • It’s very, very pretty. If nothing else, the CGI army working on this movie delivered the goods. There were many scenes that I just accepted the robots were there, inhabiting the same space as the actors.
  • Optimus Prime. The geek in me absolutely loves that they didn’t compromise Optimus at all with any silly “realism.” He is still extremely melodramatic, to the point the cheese is mouldy. But that’s how Optimus should be and damnit, they delivered. Plus, he kicks all sorts of ass. The big bad guy? He owns the sucker in about 20 seconds.
  • Megan Fox when she’s not talking. Damn she’s pretty.
  • John Turturro. I hated his character in the first movie, and yet here he is playing the exact same person, but minus the authority trip he’s actually the best human character of the movie by 400 miles. He’s extremely funny and badass at the same time. If anything he’s too good to be in this movie.

The Bad

  • Human characters. I think the script writers (which are, oddly enough, the writers of the excellent Star Trek) went out of their way to make the human characters both useless and retarded. The soldiers resort to machine gun fire that they should realize doesn’t effect the robots in any way, while the main characters are tasked with being helpless and a liability as they’re propelled along on their adventure.
  • Stupid story. I know, I expected this. But not only was it the expected stupid, it didn’t even follow it’s fucking title! There was NO revenge of the “Fallen.” The movie establishes this badass ancient robot to be amongst the most feared ever, but he is NEVER RESURRECTED! The Decepticons never even bother to go to his tomb despite it only being a couple of miles away.
  • No logic. There are no rules in this movie. Even some of the worst movies I’ve ever seen at least try to adhere to their own stupid logic. Not Transformers, though. Apparently the Decepticons have a base out on a moon of Saturn! If they can travel that fast between there and Earth in a few hours why can’t they just swoop in a destroy everything in milliseconds? How did the Decpticons know where Sam’s parents were while they were dining t a random restaurant in France when they couldn’t find Sam? Why do the robots have testicles and hump legs when they’re born in gelatinous sacks asexually? The list goes on for 2 hours and 40 minutes.

The Ugly

  • Transformers heaven. I shit you not Sam dies and goes to fucking robot heaven. There he meets the spirits of past Primes who revive him so he can save Optimus. Do I even need to write anymore about this?
  • Human transformer. The movie actually has a transformer that’s disguised as a human being! If the Decepticons were capable of this why the hell didn’t they start replacing the important human figures of the world? Are super advanced robots supposed to be stupider than us mere humans? Are they supposed to be dumber than our dogs, too?

The Fugly

  • The “ghetto” Transformers twins. Watching the movie with a black friend, I have first hand experience that these two characters (I never bothered to remember their names) offended him a great deal. They were perhaps the most stereotypically racist things ever put in a summer blockbuster. Fast jive-talking? Check. Gold tooth? Double check. Acting like mindless thugs? Uh huh. Can’t even read? Super. It was akin to watching robots dancing around in black face.

So yeah, the movie was shit. It makes the original look like Citizen fucking Kane by comparison. This feels like a Michael Bay experiment, really. The parameters? He makes the biggest, most expensive piece of shit ever and sees if the public is stupid enough to watch it.

He’s won.


Oh yeah, there was a Last Airbender trailer!

June 26, 2009

Yeah, so there was this trailer that was put out a few days ago. I didn’t bother watching it until a few minutes ago. So, was it any good? Who knows. It just shows Ang spin his staff around and then push a giant gust of wind/fart out of the temple.

At the very least, I like that they selected a really skilled martial artist for Ang, even if there’s controversy over his race. What I still don’t like about the movie? EVERY OTHER FUCKING CASTING CHOICE!


Drake’s Fortune movie on the burner

June 26, 2009

Draked!Who honestly didn’t see this coming? With video game adaptations being in “vogue” recently (though many are being shelved), studios are in heat over the which franchise to bring to the big screen.

And then there’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, whose Nate Drake is pretty much a hipster’s version of Indiana Jones. He’s pretty much Indy, if Indy were more sarcastic and didn’t tuck in his shirts all the way. Nate had high adventures in exotic locations and against supernatural foes. Perfect, we have our next Pirates of the Caribbean!

So, who will be responsible for the film version? Kyle Ward was just hired to write the script, who has a past resume that I guarantee you have never heard of, seeing that it involves the sum total of one movie. I don’t think it was ever released. Oh, now my hopes are so high! Good thing scripting Uncharted shouldn’t be too tough, seeing that the game was already written like it wanted to be on the big screen.

No actors or directors are yet to be attached.

The movie is produced by Avi Arad for Columbia Pictures, a Sony subsidiery of course.

Originally reported by THR.


Michael Jackson, RIP

June 26, 2009
Beat it, Jacky...that looks a lot meaner than in my head.

Beat it, Jacky...that looks a lot meaner than in my head.

I was a huge Michael Jackson fan growing up. Thriller is still my all time favourite song. In fact, MJ dominates maybe half of my all time top-10. His musical talents were astronomical and nobody else was close.

Fame got to him in the most peculiar way – he became a white man obsessed with being whiter. It was…strange, but damnit it was Michael Jackson. As long as he continued churning out the chart toppers, nobody really minded. Bought a giant mansion and naming it Neverland? Sure, why the hell not. He’s rich so he’ll be forgiven some eccentricities.

But then he slowly grew out of relevance, with little to show other a couple of molestation charges. I still don’t know how to feel about those. On the one hand I’m pretty sure he’s never had sex before (you know why his children are white) so the kids were ultimately safe, but on the other he still diddled a couple of kids.

But you know you’re beloved when the populace forgives you for child molestation not once, but twice.

MJ, you’ll be missed by most people over 20. Hopefully heaven teaches you being white is all that great.


So, Oscar has 10 nominees now?

June 25, 2009

Well that’s super, they found a way to not only make the 3-4 hour long telecast marginally longer but they’ve also diluted the field. I’m sure it’s to create more excitement, but where’s the prestige of being “Nominated for Best Movie” when people know nine other movies were nominated that year?

I understand there were larger fields in the past, but there was a reason they cut it down to five. Why not seven nominees? That seems like a diverse selection group without being overwhelming by going into the double digits.

Oh well, as long as Star Trek gets a nomination for this to make up for Dark Knight’s omission I guess I’ll be sated, if not satisfied.


A random reason to read Invincible

June 23, 2009

Look at these two panels. Now imagine 23 pages of this quality every month.

Just a flesh wound, folks.

Just a flesh wound, folks.


David Fincher makes the Facebook movie?

June 23, 2009
What the hell did I just sign on to direct?

What the hell did I just sign on to direct?

Wanna hear about a batshit crazy pairing? Apparently awesome director David Fincher (the reason this caught my attention) just signed on to direct The Social Network, which is the dramatization of the creation of Facebook. Not only that, the movie was written by TV-genius Aaron Sorkin!

What? What the hell? Huh? Wha?

First off, a Facebook movie? Will people who use Facebook really give enough of a shit about a couple of young University students creating a social network and becoming billionaires from it? I doubt they went through any trials and tribulations making the code or promoting a MySpace alternative. I don’t think there were any split personalities or serial killers stalking about.

It’s about tech geeks writing code! What the fuck?

The movie’s produced by Columbia Pictures, though nobody ever gives a damn about which studio makes what.


5 beloved gaming icons that should be hated!

June 22, 2009
Oh know! It's old man Kirby comin' to git ya!

Oh no! It's old man Kirby comin' to git ya!

5. Kirby (of being pink fame)

I’m as big a fan of the Kirby series as any red-blooded gamer, but just take a step back and think about what you’re loving.

Kirby is, for lack of a nicer term to come to mind at this very instance, a God damned monster. A cute as a button spawn of Satan. He’s an adorable pink blob that spends much of his life devouring all those who dare stand up against him or happened to just be randomly walking by. Did they have children? Were they sons or daughters? Married? Did they have a disabled parent they were caring for? A puppy trapped at home, doomed to slowly starve away, waiting with love for its owner to return, never realizing they never will?

We’ll never know in the wake of Kirby.

Not only does he blatantly commit murder of the most vile kind, he sucks the very souls of the poor bastards he eats and becomes them. Mocking the memory of dead. He’s the type of creature you should tell your children of so they’d stop touching themselves at night, lest Kirby comes and devours your willy. I know I’d be a hell of a lot less blind.

Related: Jigglypuff. I mean, it’s just a gay Kirby that sings that annoyingly catchy song over, and over, and over again. And over again. And then draws shit on your face when you fall asleep! Err…I didn’t know that. I’ve never seen the series. Never.

If Cloud had longer hair, she'd be hot.

If Cloud had longer hair, she'd be hot.

4. Cloud Strife (of spiky haired fame. And Final Fantasy VII)

I’ll probably be called blasphemous for mentioning Cloud here. Despite already being the realm of being ironically liked, there are still a good number of purists out there who would literally contemplate murdering me for besmirching the great Cloud Strife. And I’m not being comical about that. They would actually track me down and shank me and all of my loved ones.

But guess what psychos? Cloud Strife is a huge, raging, douchebag. This guy is an ass. And not the “hey man, you’re fucking annoying” ass, but rather the “I’m a creepy sociopath who’s also fucking annoying” ass. The worst kind of ass! First he deludes himself into taking up another man’s life, doesn’t bother reviving Aeris (fuck “Aerith”) despite having 99 Phoenix Downs, and is generally a dick to everyone who cared about him. And according to Advent Children, he never even bothered to tap Tifa.

Dude, Tifa is the perfect woman – she’s hot and knows Matrix karate. Which is much better than stupid real life karate by at least a factor of three.

Cloud Strife is only popular because he encapsulates the anime/RPG fanboy’s wet dream – a vehement anti-social who still saves the world and gets any girl he wants. He can also wield giant swords without having any muscle mass to speak of, which is instantly appealing to the average enfeebled geek.

Also Considered: Squall Leonheart. He was only saved saved by the fact that he did, in fact, tap the girl.

29 Eevees were killed during the time it took to write this article.

29 Eevees were killed during the time it took to write this article.

3. Pokemon in general (of Michael Vicks approval fame)

Get two dogs. Starve them by isolating them in confined cages. When the time comes, unleash them upon each other, clawing and tearing at the other’s throats. Do this while a crowd cheers on. This would be, for the majority of the west, an inhumane, barbaric, and illegal act.

In Pokemon? It’s a celebrated activity, made all the more disturbing by the fact that children, and adults, are buying the games by the millions. It’s made selling like hotcakes, “selling like Pokemon.”

And I’m not trying to get all PETA-like here (I kind of despise animals in general), but just pointing out the innate craziness of the Pokemon concept in general. You’re essentially enslaving animals against their will (note the immense struggle they emit once you chuck a metal Poke-ball at their skulls) and then pitting them in gruelling cock fights.

And not just any ol’ cock fight, but one with lightning and magma and fucking psychic powers. Thinking about it, why the hell aren’t the Pokemon rising up and throwing off the shackles of their oppressors? With all the fire power at their disposal, why isn’t it them using us as the cocks? Why isn’t Pikachu locking Ash up at night, letting him piss and shit in a corner of the cage and forcing him to breed with Misty to “evolve” a superior human? Pull up your bootstraps Pokemons (would this be the proper plural? Pokemen? Pokemii?) and get your due rights.

Until then, just know that the adorable Piplup you send out to “battle” is getting viciously mauled and that by healing it, all you’re doing is snatching it away from the peaceful embrace of death and patching it up for another beating, creating a cycle of abuse that will reverberate through generations of Piplups for games to come.

Food for thought: The Pink Dragon Millipede is one animal I wouldn’t mind seeing extinct. Google it and you’ll know why, too.

Bringing bondage to the mainstream, babe.

Bringing bondage to the mainstream, babe.

2. Alucard (of being the digital Robert Pattinson fame)

Let’s get this out of the way – Symphony of the Night is one of the greatest video games ever created and a curse upon you and your family if you don’t agree. If you’ve never played it before, then too bad, you’re cursed by default. That’s the rules so don’t complain to me about it when the Lamia drags you to hell.

But let’s face it, during the interim between his greatest showing and now, we’ve gotten a goth trend, gotten to hating the goth trend, gotten the emo trend, gotten to hating the emo trend, and have most recently arrived at the vampire trend via Twilight AKA a preteen visual vibrator. From my experiences, the backlash is starting and I’m jumping on the bandwagon early because I’d like to think myself a trend setter, or at least a diligent follower.

With the inevitable hatred of all things slender and vampiric, I’m afraid Alucard will be taking the brunt of the videogame vitriol. He’s got the great feminine looks, form fitting clothing and fabulous hair.

He’s gotta go.

Even Konami has noticed, and the latest iteration, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, has a manly man wearing manly armour wielding a manly cross shaped bludgeon. To hypothetically bludgeon manly monsters to manly death, of manly course.

So take heed current lovers of Alucard, you’re not supposed to like him anymore. Mindless media trends dictate it!

Look at all that armour. There's nothing compensatory about it at all!

Look at all that armour. There's nothing compensatory about it at all!

To jump on the next bandwagon, we must now all like Brock Lesnar, the most undeserved champion contender in any sport, ever.

Unrelated Note: Zombies have always been better than vampires. That is a fact. But werewolves trump all. I mean, they’re wolf and man? That’s like kicking ass twice.

It's-a-me, your lazy-a contractor. That-a will be $5,000 dollars. Hoo-hoo!

It's-a-me, your lazy-a contractor. That-a will be $5,000 dollars. Hoo-hoo!

1. Mario (of plumbing and porn fame)

He’s a fucking plumber. He’s a fucking plumber who doesn’t plumb. So not only does he have a very undesirable job, he kind of sucks at it, too. Plus, he’s our very own 40 year old virgin, forever unable to tap Princess Peach despite a two decades long courtship. I’m pretty sure she already shacked up with Donkey Kong a few times over the years.

I’m sure even Toad scored with a koopa troopa or two.

Mario, the very most pathetic character in existence and also gamings greatest icon. Whatever that says about our society at large, I’ll let you figure it out.

And seriously, he looks like the type of guy you don’t want living across from the school your kid goes to.


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