Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on October 15th, 2008
Xbox Live upgrades, World of Warcraft education & addictions, and the Age of Booty! - Welcome to the column would probably be delisted if Metacritic even ranked us in the first place known as Dare to Play the Game.
The Ike debris is gone, the Ike debris is gone. *Happy dance* *Just a jump to the left* *And then a step to the right* *Put your hands on your hips* *You bring your knees in tight* *But it’s the pelvic….errrr. Perhaps I should stop right there. But the lawn has undergone a rather large improvement since last Saturday. I’m happy because this Friday I am off to O-HI-O. Full of bitches and hoes. And that’s just the cornfields. Oh wait, that’s Nebraska. Ohio, the home of the Buckeyes. A Buckeye is a tree that derives its name from the unflattering odor generated from the tree’s flowers, crushed leaves, twigs or chipped off bark. In other words, the place smells. I’m going to catch so much hell for that. Seriously though, it will be a good vacation, needed in so many ways I can’t begin to explain here.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on October 12th, 2008
The other day, I was watching Pathology, a release from Fox that is terminally mediocre, but is surprisingly gory for what is, minor-to-nil theatrical release aside, essentially a mainstream release. I won’t rehash its silly, empty-headed plot here, other to suggest that you look to spend your entertainment dollar elsewhere. What interests me about the film is that gore. As our characters about their titular activities, corpses are opened up and messed around with in a manner that, not too long ago, would have been unthinkable outside the realm of the more extreme exploitation flicks. For quite a while, since the horror film was revived at the end of the 90s, much of the chatter about violence in the films conveniently forgot just how graphic the situation was in the 70s and 80s, but over the last few years, the gap has been bridged. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. It isn’t the quantity of gore or its explicit nature that I’m ruminating about. Rather, is it still possible to distinguish the genuine, wholesome sleaze from its production-line counterpart emerging from the major studios.
In this light, a double bill of Pathology and Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness might be instructive, in that both films feature much gutting of corpses, including that of the protagonist’s beloved. They are both silly, dumb films with despicable heroes. And yet, there is still, I would argue, a wide gulf between the two films. Idiotic and incoherent as it is, D’Amato’s film still covers one with an oily film. You definitely need a shower after watching this. Post Pathology, all you’ll need is a sympathetic ear in which to pour your complaints.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on October 8th, 2008
Retired NFL’ers want their cuts, Rockband 2 Glitches , and World of Warcraft Patches - Welcome to the column that the first step was not admitting they have a problem but deciding the problem never existed at all known as Dare to Play the Game.
Ha, well the Ike debris still exists. It’s like a fungus actually. At some point, I expect it to sprout wings and engulf my house. Somehow, I don’t think FEMA or my insurance covers such things or the deductible might be too high. It has moved (by me, not spontaneously) to the front where I was going to try and load it into my Corolla. This didn’t work as planned and is now in a neat pile waiting for next weekend. Hopefully, I’ll be able to corral a couple of friends with larger vehicles or better knowledge of what to do with it. I would like to tell what I would like to do with it, but there are children listening. I wish I could burn the pile, but I am not sure anybody wants to entrust me with setting fire to something.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on October 3rd, 2008
The latest issue of Rue Morgue has hit the stands, and its cover story is a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Naturally, there is plenty celebrating the man behind the world’s first horror/SF magazine, Forrest J. Ackerman. Permit me, then, to take advantage of the occasion to do a little celebrating myself.
That Ackerman is the most important fan in the history of fantastic film is one of those facts so obvious as to hardly bear repeating; to do so is tantamount to announcing that the sun is warm. So rather than belabor the point, let me simply give a bit of historical perspective. Consider this passage:
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on October 1st, 2008
Tough Games, GTA IV saving Windows , and Rock Band 4 Ever - Welcome to the column that took Cotton Eye Joe out back and shot him…dead known as Dare to Play the Game.
I’ve been a little busy this week. That might be a good thing, I think. Debris is still being picked up around my home. It’s going a bit slowly since I don’t have access to a truck and for the most part people in my subdivision rather keep to themselves. Shocking I know in this day and age, people are selfish even when offered money. Anyhow, no matter. I will have the sucker cleaned up and looking alright by the time I leave to go to Ohio on the 17th of this month. The column for the 22nd should still run as long as I have some access to a computer at that point. We will have to see.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on September 26th, 2008
And now, another bit of musing on Mario Bava, brought on by a recent screening of Lisa and the Devil.
Coming in 1972, this was late in Bava’s career, and from a period when seeing his films the way he intended became very difficult. Until recently, when the original print resurfaced, this has been most commonly seen under the title The House of Exorcism, an exercise in butchery by producer Alfred Leone, which not only removed much of Bava’s footage, but replaced it with a ridiculous Exorcist rip-off. Fortunately, Bava’s original film has been restored to us. It is a prime example of that moment in European cinema where the distinction between horror film and art-house production vanished.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on September 24th, 2008
Avatar Rights, The Patch that was the Pub , and Lego Batman, Lego Batman!! - Welcome to the column that is happy to report that we are alive and in one piece (not pieces) known as Dare to Play the Game.
I’m still here. Aren’t you glad? Don’t answer that. After a rather rough two weeks, I hope to return to a fairly normal column with fairly normal jokes and fairly normal news which don’t involve me huddled on the floor with my thumb in my mouth and my body in the fetal position. It’s not a pretty picture and I don’t want to repeat it. The impact after Ike is still a big part of Houston and gas supply is a pain in my arse. I’ve filled up my gas tank as little as possible but then I am back home now and work is roughly 55 miles each way. So outside of biking 10 hours a day thru Houston city traffic (yeah, like that even makes sense), I don’t see how I’m supposed to conserve gas. Move closer to civilization as one of my friends puts it. I’ll have you know that most of civilization as they like to call it didn’t have power for a week or more depending on location. We were out of power for 2 ½ days. I might be living in the boonies folks, but it isn’t out in a field somewhere with a couple of guys in overalls speculating over their corn crop if you catch my drift. It is a nice subdivision and gives me a nice peace of mind away from the hustle bustle of the cubicle world. I might move closer, but I don’t plan to be in the thick of things either.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on September 19th, 2008
I can’t quite decide how I feel about Paul W. S. Anderson. On the one hand, he clearly has a great deal of affection for his inspirations, and since most of his filmography, as either a director or producer, consists of adaptations, this is to the good. He is, for instance, one of the few filmmakers who actually seems to respect video games, even if his Resident Evil films consciously depart from the games’ story arc in a fairly massive way. Unlike Stephen Sommers, he does not feel the need to trivialize his material by giving up on the suspense and going for the cheap laugh.
However, his most interesting work remains his original material. Event Horizon, though wearing its influences on its sleeve, is still a nifty and nasty little exercise in SF/horror, and is head and shoulders above AVP. Weak as that entry was, it at least afforded the creatures a modicum of dignity, and didn’t descend to the Jason-like antics of AVP:Requiem (leading candidate for most meaningless title ever).
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on September 17th, 2008
Ike sucks, Rockband & Guitar Hero tracklist comparison and did I mention I hate hurricanes? - Welcome to the column that is free and there is no need to stand in line for half an hour known as Dare to Play the Game.
There wasn’t a column last week. I know, I’m sorry. I was too busy deciding what to do about Hurricane Ike. I had parts of it written last week time and time again. But I never could complete it because my heart wasn’t into it. My heart still isn’t 100% into it. You can blame it on Ike, or just hurricanes in general. I live in West Columbia, Tx; approximately 30-40 miles from Freeport, Tx. On Wednesday of last week, I evacuated from where I live. I didn’t board up the house because I had lost my pyre-locks and every Home Depot in a 50 mile radius was out of them. No, there was nothing to nail the boards to despite my boards being in great shape. However, I took what was hard to replace and did what I could to make the rest of my belongings safe from a flood situation. I could care less if I lost the carpet (I need a new one anyway), but some of the other stuff including electronics were a lot less favorable if they went under.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on September 13th, 2008
This is going to be half a review, and half nostalgia.
In 1980, Dario Argento’s Inferno was released, and, bizarrely, it was one of the films profiled on a kid’s SF TV show I watched back then. The scenes on display sent my terrified little self fleeing from the room. But the images I saw stayed with me, as did the spookily elegant poster I saw on Paris theatre marquees in the weeks that followed: a purple-and-blue skull with a single drop of blood forming at the still-fleshy lips.
