Hoorah, For Burn Notice Returns!

Burn Notice is ridiculously fun and entertaining and tonight, it was back with the start of it's third season, which is already starting off ridiculously fun and entertaining. Except for being a little exposition heavy up front, no worries. Always great to to awesome TV back on the air.

More Catch UP

Ah. The continuation of all the shit I’ve watched but not blogged about.
Let’s start with the big guns first.

E3 - Still Boring

E3 is something that no longer interests me. It should, I'm still a huge video game nerd. But nothing huge gets announced there anymore, 75% of the time is taken up by stupid press conferences and Nintendo just makes me sad now.

But, hey, remake of Secret of Monkey Island and new Monkey Island episodes! That's awesome. Might be my most anticipated gaming of the year, now.

I forget I have a blog.

Ok, ok. Catch up time, but for only like half the time.

Oh Boy.

Bakula was really good on Chuck tonight. Chevy Chase was ok. Damn bloated, too.

Chuck is fun. More people should watch so it doesn't get canceled. It's a nice, goofy show to just chill to on Monday nights and doesn't suck mountains of ass like Heroes.

Bolt is Boring

Yes. I know. Talking animals. I understand that it is not real. But I still can't buy the stupid premise of this movie which totally killed it all for me. Maybe it's because I understand how a movie/TV show is made. Maybe it's because they take every chance to shatter my disbelief ("18-39 year old demographics"? They don't fucking believe in a magic goddamn dog ANYWAY!). Maybe it's because I saw some of the early version of Bolt art when it was still looking like Lilo & Stitch's sweet-ass style. But I could not dig this movie.

I'm sure it's fine for kids who don't question anything, and again, I understand the silliness of accepting talking animals but not the McGuffin for the story, but still. Every human was a stereotype and unfunny. The action is good, but the whole time I was thinking how much better The Incredibles was. Sooooo much better. The art style is generic CG flick with no pizzaz.

This is another one of those times where I am so glad I don't have kids just so I don't have to endure these kinds of movies over and over and over and over and over and...

Scissors are scary.

Timecrimes is a great little flick. It reminds me of cool mind benders like The Usual Suspects and Memento and Donnie Darko and mostly, Primer. It's the kind of movie you show friends to melt their brains. And also, great Spanish boobs.

They've created a slick time travel flick that has some cool rules and a great looking bad guy, The Scissor Man! All right, not quite that classic villian from the SNES and PS1 era, but only because Timecrimes' S-Man has smaller scissors. But that look is very cool, very memorable.

It's a good movie, one you'll grin at as you start to put the pieces together. It won't turn your brain to mush and demand an instant, second viewing like Primer, but you also don't need a degree in quantum physics to know what the hell just happened, either.

It's really not that racist. Unless I'm playing.

Danny and I beat Resident Evil 5 the other day.

It's ok. Not as good as 4, but solid. There's some really annoying shit in it, though. QTEs that just happen, no warning. Bullshit bosses. Lame bosses. Bullshit AND lame bosses. Weird inventory restrictions.

But on the plus side, you shoot A LOT of black people. I mean zombies. I mean black zombies.

The biggest kerfuffle about this game was due to one of it's first trailers which kinda painted the game as a white supremacist's wet dream. "Wait. Hold on. There's *insert racial epithet* all over the place and I'm encouraged to kill them? Sign me the hell up!" And that kinda made people feel icky about the game. And so, they changed it. Or not. I don't fucking know.

OK, there's obviously some changes to the game that probably weren't in the original design doc. Like I'm pretty sure Sheva was originally a non-black lady who was quickly give a dusky coloring before her reveal to the world. Do I have any proof? Nah. Just a hunch.

And other things, like red glowy eyes, random white people in the crowd and the removal of Chris's 3rd alternate costume, a sheet and hood with special lynchin' rope attachment.

But, as you play the game, you do get the feeling that it's not so much racist as just plain ignorant. Like whoever made it didn't "get" why some people would find, oh, I don't know, natives dressed in grass skirts, covered in war paint, throwing spears at you kinda offensive. Yep.

Still, when it all boils down, it's RE4, in Africa, with co-op. And, as we all know, co-op makes EVERYTHING better. Shooting down wave after wave of zombies while yelling for more ammo and trying to not get your head cut off by Chainsaw Man was very fun and I'm glad I bought the game.

I hear rumors that Capcom is restarting the series for 6. I think that's a good idea. Make it zombies again, not these 28 Days Later infected humans. Or vampires. Or werewolves. Shit, werewolves would be cool. Werewolf zombies...anyway. But whatever they do, they need to lose the co-op and let you walk while shooting or hell, just with your gun out. Because we've moved on as gamers and standing still to shoot ain't cuttin' it anymore.

Damn you, Fatty!

I like Johnny To. Every movie of his I've seen, I've liked. Maybe not loved, but had a good time. PTU : Police Tactical Unit (or Into the Perilous Night:PTU which is just a sillier, cooler title) joins the likes of Exiled, The Mission and Fulltime Killer as movies of Mr. To I had a good time with.

I wonder how many of the names in the movie are real vs. bad/lazy translations. Fatty, Bald Head, Eye Ball...what the hell, man? I won't bother getting into the story, it's just a McGuffin for cop shenanigans to occur. And honestly, that's part of the reason that I didn't find this movie just super badass cool. After you've seen The Shield and The Wire, every other cop thing just feels 2nd rate.

But there's a lot of menace to the proceedings. The main band of roving cops, led by Sgt. Ho, rove the street like a gang, and in many ways, are. Beatings happen, people. And slappings. Slapping...not as shocking as allowing a man to lose his teeth thanks to the help of a law book (The Shield. Watch it if you havn't. You'll thank me, then God.) Maybe a slap means more on the streets where Ho is from.

It's definitely worth checking out for the opening scene in the restaurant, though, which I totally want to homage whenever I get around to making movies. The general air of menace is very cool on the shadowy streets of what appears to be a business district at night. It's Johnny To and he might not make the best movies, but he makes them damn entertaining.

What this is all about.

Maybe this should've been the first post. I don't know. But, what I do know, this is the official first post.

What this blog is all about is somewhere to collect my thoughts on the media I ingest over my life. It's not reviews or anything, just snippets of my headspace when I watched a movie or a great line from a terrible book or a song that makes me sad and I don't know why. There's already the brief tale of an epic duel between big budget action and indie drama and I will have some more stuff upcoming about the end of Galactica, an Asian flick called PTU and why Tokyo Suckerpunch is a great title for a book.

If anybody reads this, I hope they enjoy. Leave a comment, send me an email or just enjoy it silence.

Universal Soldier vs. Rachel Getting Married

In a happy turn of events, somewhat controlled by me, I received both Universal Soldier and Rachel Getting Married from Netflix today. I find that awesome, fantastic and amazing. I only briefly wondered which I would watch first. But the obvious choice was, of course, Universal Soldier.

But only because it would probably try to kick my ass if I didn't.