It was hard not to be skeptical about a fourth season of Eastbound & Down. The show was inconsistent through three seasons before ending with Kenny Powers leaving baseball and even faking his own death in order to be with the woman he loved. A fitting and fittingly over-the-top ending to a quirky HBO comedy about a redneck baseball player with a big ego. Or so we were told.
Season 4 picks up a few years down the road, long after "happily ever after." Kenny's wallowing in middle class suburbia, working a shit job and getting out-earned by his wife. He wears a tie and khakis. He listens to NPR. He keeps reminding himself that he "won," and that this is exactly what he wanted. But then one day he runs into an old teammate, now a major "sports network personality," and for the first time in years Kenny gets another taste of the world he left behind. The fame, the money, the drug-and-hooker-filled parties - and all of a sudden Kenny Powers is Kenny Powers again.
What follows is a neat little eight-episode epilogue of sorts, aptly able to stand alone as a one-season summary of the show and its main character. Eastbound & Down was always easy to dismiss as crass, crude, and too zany to be considered "good" television. But here, at the end of it all, I have to admit - I liked this fourth season when it aired, and I really liked binge-watching it again over the last twenty-four hours. There's a confidence here, in the acting, the editing, and the overall production, that quietly rises way above what you'd expect from a show with such deliberately tacky and low-class characters, conflicts, and environments. And there are real stakes for the characters here, too, amid all the cheap laughs.
I didn't think I'd miss Eastbound & Down, but re-watching these final eight episodes has reminded me what a great show it was, at least in the end.
Going into 2013 I made the New Year’s Resolution to not buy
any movies. And here we are nearing the end of 2014 and I’ve only purchased two
in close to two years. Yes, I’ve acquired a few other movies for free/as gifts,
but I’m still proud of my performance. Anyway, this is one of those two. I
heard Adam Carolla talking about how good it is and I decided that I had been
away from it long enough to give it another watch. Target sells it for $7.50 so
why not?
I was under the impression that I had seen this movie from
beginning to end, but it turns out that I probably fell asleep back in the
North Apartments (as was often the case). Anyway, there’s no denying that this
is an awesome movie. Great performances. Great writing. Great everything. There
are three main characters here. The good guy who is incorruptible, the bad guy
who is incorruptible and the good guy who lets greed corrupt him. The
incorruptible good and bad guys are both on the hunt for the corrupted good guy
for very different reasons. One wants to save him; the other wants him dead. It’s
super compelling stuff and I’m doing it a disservice here due to my laziness.
However, I think there should have been a little more time spent with Tommy Lee
Jones, the incorruptible good guy (sheriff) who is struggling with a society
that has all but passed him by. Also, don’t watch this movie if you are hoping
for a satisfying ending. It’s the perfect fit for the movie, but it didn’t
leave me in the best spirits.
So, Smash Bros. is out on the 3DS. Everyone knows this already, and I assume anyone reading this has already played the hell out of the game. I mostly love it, and my gripes are few, but still exist. First off, The online play is a major step up from Brawl, but Nintendo still remains far, far behind the competition when it comes to decent online play. If you play against three strangers using wi-fi there's definitely going to be some lag, so the best games are usually one-on-one, where Nintendo forces you into a 2-stock battle, no exceptions. Why are there no lobbies? Why can't I search for a good custom fight? I get why you'd want to penalize people who drop out of a fight, but a ten-minute ban every time? Talk about overkill. Still though it is indeed fun to jump into a quick battle or two to test out your abilities. The game controls fine enough- we all knew the 3DS wasn't going to be anywhere near as good at the GameCube controller, but with some customized controls I feel like my characters are doing what I want them to. And the line-up here is fantastic- I've already put in some serious time with at least ten different characters, played a few matches with many more, and yet I've still probably only used half of the playable characters so far. Yoshi and Wii Fit Trainer are my top two so far. Let's Smash.
I got this one, along with its prequel-sequel (co-quel?) Oracle of Ages during a Nintendo eShop sale about a month ago. It was a fairly standard old-school top-down Zelda adventure. The central gameplay gimmick here is the appropriately named Rod of Seasons, an item that allows you to control which of the four seasons it is at any given time. This allows you to reach different locations at different times, the staple of any top-down Zelda game. For instance, depending on what season it is, you can cross frozen bodies of water, pick mushrooms, avoid piled up snowbanks, and climb vines up onto new rock ledge platforms.
A fine gimmick for an old game. But did Oracle of Seasons hold up as a solid experience 14 years later? Eh, not really. There was an annoying amount of backtracking and a less-than-streamlined way to equip and use items. Granted, the whole game took all of a dozen hours or so and had its moments, but this is easily one of the least essential Legend of Zelda games I've ever played. And I expected that much going in, really. The dungeons felt just a little too similar and long-running for me to enjoy or differentiate them. That's fine - Seasons is allegedly the more combat-oriented game in the Oracle duology, and I still get to look forward to the reportedly more puzzle-centric Ages. Ultimately, I appreciated the way the overworld in this game was designed - every corner of it made with the season-changing gimmick in mind - but the dungeons and bosses themselves, the core elements of any great Zelda game, left me a little underwhelmed.
As I mentioned in my review of From Dust, I've moved on from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One, thanks to a pretty sweet deal Keith found and passed along. It came with a free game of my choice and since Halo-creator Bungie's new game, Destiny was recently released, I picked that up too. And so far it feels... not all that different from Halo. The gameplay itself- shooting, melee-ing, general running around, is mostly unchanged from the Halo series we all know and love, but there are a few attempts to try something new. First off, the game comes with a leveling system wherein you gain experience and upgrade weapons and armor the further you progress. This is mostly meaningless in multi-player competitions where your character's level is ignored, but it makes the game play a bit more like an RPG. On certain levels I was getting my ass kicked, so I'd have to replay an old level or two to get more powerful. Speaking of levels, this isn't really a linear game either. You'll play on several different planets, each containing an open area where you and a few other online players can run around looking for levels and side-quests; getting killed in this area will merely result in re-spawning after a few seconds. As you spread further out in the game you'll eventually come upon re-spawn restricted zones where you'll actually lose progress if you die, which for me actually led to some seriously tense firefights. I was playing the game solo the entire time (thanks, Keith!) and as such took on the bosses without the aid of some friends, and I found it pretty challenging, considering my history of FPS campaigns mostly involves breezing through them as quickly as possible on easy mode. The game is always online so I'm sure there was a way to recruit strangers to my party, but I never found it in my brief attempts; it would have been nice if this was more like Borderlands which really made multiplayer co-op easy to jump in and out of. I mostly liked the campaign here more than those in the Halo series (Peter Dinklage's low-quality voice work aside), but found the multi-player competitions to be a step down. Options were few and the levels always felt a little too large and empty. The game also wants you to rely on the weapons you used in single player as well, meaning there's not nearly as many super-powered weapons spread about the level and ready to cause mayhem. What's more, the game seems to ignore a simple K/D spread for its scoring, instead counting stylish plays like vehicle kills and headshots for bonus points that affect whether a team wins or loses. If I'm doing significantly better sitting at a turret and waiting than I am running around, something has gone wrong. Still though it's not as though the game lacks content; there's just a much bigger focus on co-op multiplayer here than playing against each other. I doubt I'll have a reason to jump back into Destiny once The Master Chief Collection comes out in a month, so I'm going to sell it and see what else the Xbox One has to offer.
The fourth and final game I conquered today was Golden Axe III. I don't have much to say about this one. I loved (on a relative Sega Genesis scale) the first installment of this series and thought the second one lost some of the charm and appeal of the first one. This time around? Almost entirely unplayable. Golden Axe III somehow felt clunkier and slower and graphically inferior to the first two games. That doesn't make sense to me, but then, if there's one thing this Genesis project has taught me, it's that the video game industry outside of Nintendo was a scattered mess of arcade game ports and half-baked ideas running on the same gameplay engines as previous half-baked ideas. "This guy attacks people with his severed head!" "This game's levels are pages of a comic book!"
I was worried I was going crazy - how could the third game in a trilogy look and feel completely inferior to the first game in a trilogy? - but I'll leave you with some pull quotes I found that offer me some reassurance. Take care everyone.
"Sega of Japan is not going to release this title here in the States - and for good reasons! The graphics are by far some of the most plain looking on the Mega Drive. Plus, the new magic effects aren't as impressive as before. So, if you are considering purchasing this title from an overseas seller, don't waste your bucks!" -Electronic Gaming Monthly
"Legend has it that SEGA thought the quality of the product was so low, that it would be worthless or, worse, damaging to even publish the game in the States. And whether or not that's actually true, the quality assessment at its heart is on target – because Golden Axe III is certainly the worst of its franchise trilogy." -IGN
Ecco: The Tides of Time Ecco the Dolphin Arrow Flash Golden Axe Alien Storm Virtua Fighter 2 Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master Streets of Rage 3 Gain Ground Streets of Rage 2 Golden Axe II DecapAttack Comix Zone Vectorman 2 Vectorman Streets of Rage Chakan: The Forever Man Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle The Ooze Columns III Columns Crack Down Golden Axe III Altered Beast Bonanza Brothers
The game starts at a chemical plant known as "The Corporation," with scientist Dr. Daniel Caine sneaking into the research lab where he worked, in order to find evidence that crimes were being committed using a toxic gas he created. Caine discovers that his colleagues are planning "Operation: Omega," a plan to release a plague upon the populace and make a fortune because they hold the only cure. However, the Director of The Corporation discovers Caine in the lab. Caine is disposed of by means of chemical waste, but the chemicals do not kill him; instead, they alter him into the angry, sentient, formless creature known as "The Ooze." Swearing revenge, the doctor seeks two things: his former colleagues, and to assume his human form once again. He must now find the DNA helices scattered throughout the wasteland or else end up imprisoned in the Director's lava lamp.
Players control Dr. Caine as a puddle of ooze with a head, who can move around and use two attacks. One is stretching out a maneuverable sliver of ooze whose length is only limited by how much ooze he currently has to attack. Players can also spit gobs of ooze, which reduces the size of the ooze. Enemy attacks deplete the size of the ooze puddle as well, and the Ooze will die either if he becomes very small or if his head is attacked directly. He can also die by dropping off the edges of certain areas, or staying on a drain for too long. Numerous puzzles must be completed in order to progress from one level to another. An optional goal of the game is finding and collecting all 50 helices, in order to see the game's good ending.
First off, was the "plot" of every Sega Genesis game created by a twelve-year-old in a backwards hat shooting Nerf guns off a skateboard while whining about how much he hates school and vegetables? These things feel like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode script rejects.
Secondly, everything about this game was terrible. The premise actually seemed kind of decent. Who wouldn't appreciate a top-down puzzle-like game amid a sea of mediocre platform shooters? But everything about the execution was botched. No aspect of the gameplay felt intuitive, from graphically glitchy enemies to unclear objectives. The "puzzles" described above were rarely more complex than opening a gate by hitting a switch. The whole thing just reeked of disappointment. And for a game released in 1995, holy hell, did this look ugly. If Vectorman deserves praise in that regard, The Ooze certainly deserves demerits.
There is no thirdly.
Ecco: The Tides of Time Ecco the Dolphin Arrow Flash Golden Axe Alien Storm Virtua Fighter 2 Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master Streets of Rage 3 Gain Ground Streets of Rage 2 Golden Axe II DecapAttack Comix Zone Vectorman 2 Vectorman Streets of Rage Chakan: The Forever Man Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle The Ooze Columns III Columns Crack Down Altered Beast Bonanza Brothers
I initially purchased this game as a multiplayer game to play with Andrew. That lasted a few weeks, but my backlog has felt those two weeks for going on two years. I finally used Columbus Day as an excuse to put this bad boy out of its misery. I admit it - I was pleasantly surprised. I don't really enjoy Call of Duty multiplayer, but the gameplay really works well within the confines of the campaign. I imagine they use the same basic formula in all of their games. Lots of cutscenes, lots of explosions. It plays like an action movie and it feels large in scope despite the fact that when you are playing, you are really limited to a small area of the map. The combat is fun and the story was surprisingly fulfilling. They give you a choice or two per level which alters the story. Some have little impact, while others drastically alter the course of the game. I played the way I thought a solider would play (following orders, not doing the things I actually wanted to do) and I wasn't necessarily rewarded. Still, it was fun to see my choices make any impact at all. I enjoyed myself with this game. Just be warned - there's a scene after the credits that can really take away all the emotional impact the story tried to achieve.
Naturally, I moved right along to Vectorman 2. Because what else is there to do once you've played Vectorman? I praised Vectorman, in my post minutes ago, for having the best-looking graphics of any game I'd seen on Sega Genesis. I must immediately correct myself, for Vectorman 2, which came out in 1996, blows Vectorman away.
Eh, no it doesn't. There's an animated GIF-quality 3D rasterized intro, in which we see Vectorman bopping along in his spaceship, but beyond that this was virtually the exact same game as the first one, from the graphics to the gameplay. They didn't even switch up the HUD presentation at all, opting to use the exact same typefaces and icons and such to show how much damage you've taken and how many lives you have left.
The real kicker here? Vectorman 2 doesn't even get its own Wikipedia page. Instead it shares a page with Vectorman. What more do you need to know?
Columbus Day is one of those weird holidays where I don't have to go into work but my wife does. It always comes in mid-October, which means it's generally a cold, dreary day. Generally, circumstances lend themselves well for it to be a great day for mindless gaming. And I can think of no gaming task more mindless than plowing through my Sega Genesis backlog, still sitting at twelve games strong as of this morning. It's only 1:30 now, but holy hell, I can't take this anymore. It's time to make some posts and then run some errands and then make some dinner, effectively running out the clock on this weird pseudo-holiday once again.
I started off with Vectorman. Vectorman came out in 1995 and as such is is basically the prettiest Sega Genesis game I have ever seen. We're still trapped in the late '80s when it comes to gameplay conventions - once again, we're running linearly through a number of levels with a few lives and a few continue options, and we're armed with a very limited array of abilities. Oh, did you want the plot? Here is the set up, from Wikipedia, because God knows you don't get it when you start playing the game:
In 2049, the human population of Earth embarks on a migratory voyage to try to colonize other planets. They leave mechanical "orbots" to clean up the mess they made on Earth through littering and pollution. Raster, a high-level orbot who watches Earth through a planetwide computer network, is accidentally attached to a working nuclear missile by a lesser orbot and goes insane, becoming an evil dictator named Warhead. He declares himself ruler of Earth, and begins preparing to execute any humans who dare return to their planet. Enter Vectorman, a humble orbot in charge of cleaning up toxic sludge by simply discharging it into the sun. As he lands on Earth after his last trip, he finds chaos and confusion. Because all the other Orbots are controlled by Warhead (Vectorman having not been affected because he was away), Vectorman takes it upon himself to destroy the errant orbot and restore peace to Earth.
Holy smokes. I had no idea. None at all that I was mankind's last hope, shooting my shooty-thingies in eight cardinal directions while wandering through futuristic industrial wastelands.
Vectorman wasn't aggressively bad, but I don't think I smiled once while playing it. Seems about par for a Genesis platformer-shooter.
The protagonist of this novel is an extremely gifted and intelligent man born with the grim knowledge, handed down by some divine source, that the earth is doomed. When the man is thirty-six, a comet will collide with the planet, wiping out every living creature. Understandably, the guy goes through his life in a melancholy state that wavers between apathy and drug-abusing depression. And why not? After all, with the world and everybody on it facing certain and impending extinction, nothing matters.
Except, no! Everything matters! It's right there in the title, exclamation point and all. Because after "everything" comes nothing, so "everything" is the only thing that matters at all! I've royally botched the delivery on the book's intended uplifting takeaway, heinously underselling it I'm sure. Still, I've only spoiled that the title - so boldly proclaimed on the cover and everything - turns out to be the thematic conclusion to the book. And what a book!
Ron Currie is an economical story-telling wizard, developing life histories for the protagonist and his family members in a narrative that spans thirty-six years in just 300 pages. There are tragedies big and small throughout the story - abusive parents, teenage break-ups, drug abuse, brain injuries, significant handicaps, cancer, car accidents - and still there are all kinds of redemption and salvation arcs.
Now, I know a lot of you must be sick of hearing this name on this blog, but comparisons are inevitable, so just roll with it; with his grand scopes told in simple sentences, and by injecting humor and small happiness into a tragedy-filled story that the reader knows will end in armageddon, Ron Currie absolutely evokes a strong sense of - yes - Kurt Vonnegut. But where Vonnegut's stories were scattered and often temporally sloppy, Currie's moves with a strong sense of continuity and structure. I'm not ready to dump too much high praise on Currie, but this book holds up as well as the best efforts from Vonnegut, who many of you know has become my favorite novelist over the course of this blog's history. David Foster Wallace is another name that I've seen mentioned a few times in descriptions of Currie's work, and although I've read very little of his stuff personally, I know a few blog members are big fans of that man, too.
A few days ago I finished Michael Crichton's The Lost World, and to draw a simple comparison, that book went really quickly but accomplished very little, plot-wise, in 400 pages. A few crazy scientists and businessmen honed in on, and then visited, an island full of dinosaurs, where several of them were very predictably eaten and the rest made it out on a boat. In Everything Matters!, Currie packed multiple life narratives into 300 pages that went by even quicker, but will stay with me for so much longer.
Give this one a shot. Currie has two other books that I'll be sure to check out soon enough, but in the mean time I can at least vouch for this book and vouch for it hard.
Light spoilers ahead. What's your favorite part of the A Song of Ice and Fire series? Some love it for the characters- specifically Tyrion really. I've heard more than one person say they will give up on the books or show if Tyrion is killed off, but there's so many more- Daenerys, who improbably rose to power, raises dragons and frees slaves; Jaime Lannister, with his fantastic redemption arc; or even Joffrey Baratheon, not exactly likable, but a child-king who took the concept of 'evil' to new heights. Some love it for that sheer brutality, as the series is known for numerous shocking deaths and the idea that no "good guy", if you can even call them that, is safe. For me though, I think my favorite aspect of it is the scope. The two continents of Westeros and Essos are so fully realized and are jam-packed full of story to the point where it wouldn't bother me that much if say, Tyrion, or Jon Snow, or Daenerys were killed off, because every time a big death has occurred, the story manages to keep chugging along just fine. The books are written from the point of view of a dozen or so characters, and each new book adds in a few new points of view to the story. Because of this, I wasn't as worried about A Feast for Crows as I probably should have been; I had been assured that it wasn't nearly as good as any of the three preceding books of the series (especially the excellent third installment A Storm of Swords), specifically because those three characters I just mentioned- Tyrion, Jon Snow, and Daenerys, three of the most beloved characters in the series, are nowhere to be found. This was understandably disappointing for fans who had waited five years to find out where their stories go, but as George R. R. Martin has explained there was just no way to fit everyone's story into one book and he divided up the point of views, having A Feast for Crows take place during roughly the same time as the next novel, A Dance With Dragons, which took another six years to come out. What's happening up on the Wall and and across the sea in Essos is only hinted at in the stories we have here; for now we mostly focus on King's Landing and the surrounding areas in the immediate wake of Jaime freeing his brother just before his execution, leading to the death of the Hand of the King.
Overall, it was still pretty good, but unfortunately there just wasn't all that much happening in King's Landing now compared with the non-stop action of what was happening at the end of A Storm of Swords. What's more, one of the least-liked characters of all, Cersei, becomes the central point of view character in this book, racking up the most chapters to herself. We also get Jaime and Brienne hanging around nearby, and while their stories are a little better, they don't really get all that great until the end. As I said before though, what I appreciate about the series is its scope, and as such there are fringe stories that get a few chapters, which I thought mostly worked well. Sansa's was a bit slow, but it's always good to see Littlefinger up to some scheming; Arya's were great, and honestly I think she's my favorite character at this point; Samwell's varied (including a stinker of a final chapter). What's more, we started getting "settings" chapters- we gets a few one-off point-of-view chapters for some of the Greyjoys in the Iron Islands, and a few more featuring the Martells in Dorne (Oberyn's family- you remember him, right?). Overall I liked the stories in Dorne and the Iron Islands, but I still think they could have been accomplished by focusing on a single character as usual- probably Asha Greyjoy and Arianne Martell, but I'm no writer. Most of the stories here felt more like 'place-setting', which makes sense as the general structure of the series was at some point supposed to be two trilogies set a few years apart; we read the exciting end to the first in A Storm of Swords, and now it was time to slow down and take a few breaths before moving forward. Most of the different storylines here end pretty well with major cliffhangers for a few, which has me curious why Sam's mediocre final chapter was made the last of the book, but I can safely say that the slowest book yet has not killed any interest I had in the series- I'll probably jump into A Dance With Dragons within a few weeks.
Halloween time again, folks. Time to decorate the house with pumpkins, candy, and decapitated heads -- and If you work at a department store, you're already late to putting out the Christmas decorations. Oh! And, of course, tis the season for horror movies. First up on the list is a recent hit, Oculus.
This is a story about a haunted mirror. (Which has nothing to do with Keifer Sutherland's film Mirrors. You see, Oculus is a story about a family who has this antique mirror with a demon or something in it that torments them to death while Mirrors is about Keifer Sutherland hunting down a demon who only seems lives in mirrors in some sort of mirror universe. Yes, everything has slightly been done before.) Now that I've confused you all with something entirely irrelevant to the post, we can begin.
A movie about a haunted mirror is told in a very intelligent and compellingly complicated way. The story unfolds two storylines simultaneously. We start with our main characters, brother and sister Tim and Kaylie (both children), are in their new home hiding from their insane father who's wielding a bloody axe and trying to murder them after already killing his wife. Smash cut 11 years into the future. Tim is being released from a mental institution into the custody of his older sister for the murder of his father when he was a kid. It's quickly pieced together that the horrible tragedy they witnessed is remembered differently for both children. After years of therapy, Tim has chosen the rational belief that he has a nutzo father who was having an affair with some mysterious lady which lead his wife to go nuts as well... and everything ended in catastrophe. Then there's the other belief -- the one that Kaylie supports -- that their old antique mirror their father bought for the new house is evil and brainwashed everyone into going crazy against one another. Not only that, but Kaylie hasn't forgotten their pledge to one another after that fateful night: they will get their revenge again the evil that lies within the mirror for destroying their family. Working for an antique auctioneering company, Kaylie has finally tracked down the mirror again and is in the position to fulfill the promise to herself.
Next thing you know, Tim and Kaylie are back in their old house and with the dreaded mirror Kaylie has absconded away with from the auction warehouse. Only this time Kaylie has tricked out the house with various supplies to help her defeat the evil within. One thing that stands out most of all is her kill switch. A 50-pound pointed anchor hanging from a pendulum and mounted to the ceiling. In case things go bad, the anchor is set to be released by a 30-minute timer unless someone resets the timer. If not, it will swing down and bash the mirror, which everyone just takes for granted is the way you stop this monster. (It's also just an over-elaborate, and, frankly, dangerous way to destroy something like a mirror. Even if it's capable of defending itself -- in that it will get in your head and stop if you come at it with a hammer -- just burn the house down with the sucker inside while standing far away from its influence. Ugh... Just comments from the peanut gallery as I replay the film in my head. Back to the post!)
So that's the layout for the film. Brother and sister have returned to their childhood home to destroy the horror that ruined their lives. Only, they're not quite on the same team as Tim thinks his sister has gone crazy, yet refuses to walk away from the whole thing altogether. Meanwhile, we continue to flashback to their past as we learn everything that lead up to that terrible night that started everything off in the first place.
I'm doing my best to restrain myself from ruining anymore of this film (not that I've exposed anything you wouldn't learn from the first 10 minutes), but I could go on-and-on about this movie. Why? Because it's fucking great! It's really one of the smarter horror films I've come across in a long while. At least story-wise. The way the movie flips back-and-forth between the past and present so fluidly shows a strong understanding of story development. (It's framing style is similar to Slumdog Millionaire and they won an Oscar for their script!) On top of that, we still got our suspenseful moments of things that go bump in the night -- that's always fun. And for those squeamish about gore, the film doesn't rely too heavily on that. (In fact I would says Black Swan is more gory with those hangnail scenes... yesh!) While there are disturbing images from time to time, it's really more about what you may-or-may-have-not seen lurking in the shadows that will haunt you.Not some monster running at you wielding a chainsaw ready to cut you in two.
Perhaps the best part of the film is it's editing. (Note: slight spoilers here.) The monster in the film kills its victims by slowly confusing them into hurting themselves and others. At the beginning of the movie, Kaylie has the mirror being monitored by two cameras in their office. The two kids leave the office to have an argument on whether or not the mirror is actually evil and return to the room to see that the cameras have been rearranged so that they're facing away from the mirror. The kids quickly check the footage expecting to see a ghost or something moving things around and are surprised to see it was them doing it, yet they believed they were in the kitchen or something having a talk. That sense of delusion and confusion is what the editing of the film is able to achieve on the audience. The past and present begin to flip back-and-forth so quickly, actors being interchanged with their younger and older versions of themselves, that the audience can't help but begin to become confused. Mind you, not confused at what's happening in the story, but confused and terrified for the safety of our heroes. It's mind-numbing fun.
The one thing that really holds this film back are the actors. It's not that their bad, but they're not all that great. Older Kaylie, played by Doctor Who's Karen Gillan (who I have a bit of a crush on -- as do many other nerds), does an alright job, but her character just seems too strong-headed at destroying this mirror. As she meets her brother (freed for the first time in years), she instantly recruits him on this mission. It seems a little too aggressive and farfetched. Not to mention that the chemistry between the actors of the siblings isn't all that compelling either. However, the film does leave me wondering if Kaylie's obsession at destroying the mirror (and documenting it's destruction in such a drawn out and dangerous way) might be influenced by something more than just her desire for revenge. Have I said too much? Then I suggest you stop reading and watch the film for yourselves.
For some reason, I had always been under the impression that Crichton's sequel to Jurassic Park was an entirely different book that took on an entirely different tone than the first book and also explored entirely different themes. This is not correct. The Lost World felt entirely like a straight-up sequel without anything new and meaningful to leave behind. This makes perfect sense; Crichton never intended to write a sequel, and only did so after his fans and Steven Spielberg pressured him. It was a cash grab, then, plain and simple. And it kind of feels like one.
The Lost World isn't without its merits. It's an exciting book that moves along at a great clip while exploring a lot of science and biology along the way. But there was no real climax or closure to speak of, and any semblance of "conflict" was thrown out the window when the only non-reptilian antagonists were aimless buffoons from the get-go. It was pretty easy to figure out who was surviving the trip to Isla Sorna and who wasn't. (Women and children? Untouchable. Any non-academically inclined grown man? Food.)
An easy and worthwhile read, The Lost World just didn't impress me in a significant way. It's worth a few hours if you love the author or the subject material, but most could probably do better elsewhere.
Oh man oh man. Smash 3DS is finally here, and even though it's clearly just an appetizer for the main course of Smash Wii U, I'm still titillated by the prospect of a handheld Super Smash Bros. game. Sure, technically, I've already beaten this one. Most of the characters are unlocked, I believe all the stages are, and I've tried out every game mode and seen "end credits" twice. All in all, I like what I'm experiencing. The controls feel a little weird, but at this point Smash with anything other than a GameCube controller is going to feel weird to me. The game also feels a little slow, but perhaps that's because I'm still used to Melee and Project M; this newest game is certainly faster-paced than Brawl.
Online play started out fine but was disappointingly laggy on my ninth or tenth match, and I haven't been back since. Hopefully they smooth out some of those rough patches.
I still haven't had a chance to play as every character yet - in addition to the five or six I still need to unlock, there are a good fifteen or so that I simply haven't tried out yet. I do love Mega Man, though. And the Villager seems pretty fun too.
This post feels pretty pointless, but, hey, I've got the game and I've "beaten" the game, even if I'm nowhere close to being finished with it. Granted, I do expect to be finished with it the day Smash Wii U comes out.
