Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on January 25th, 2008
As promised last week, this monster-lover’s thoughts on Cloverfield. In a word: joy. In the pantheon of giant monster rampages, this one should find a place of honour. There have been a few good such films in the last while (most notably The Host, though one could argue that its creature is too small to make it a proper Giant Monster Movie), but this is the first really fine example to emerge from Hollywood in decades. Among other accomplishments, it washes away, once and for all, the sour taste left by the Emmerich/Devlin Godzilla (partly by taking some similar moments and showing how they should be done).
I won’t say too much about the plot, out of deference to those who might not have seen the film yet. The less you know, the more fun you’ll have. Suffice to say that a giant creature attacks New York, and the whole thing is presented as being shot on camcorder by a terrified witness and his friends. But then, you already knew that.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on January 23rd, 2008
Xbox is Crack, SNK breaks out the catalog, and Counter-Strike deemed not Brazilian friendly? - Welcome to the column that keeps living in the past as long as it can keep making money in the future known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. My new router is going pretty well. Speed has picked up a good deal, however I still feel the pain when I'm doing something at peak hours. WoW is much improved as is the Xbox Live Marketplace. I actually sat down to play a little WoW even though Guild Wars is still my choice of poison. I have a level 11 Troll Rogue(Lantanador/ server: Killrogg if you want to look it up), thanks for asking. I still like my Guild Wars, but I can understand why some WoW players are paying their monthly tithe to play their characters. It's very addicting, thankfully I've learned to control myself due to years of gaming and realizing that each game, while maybe fun isn't the cure to living a rich and full life. Unless that game is the original Metroid or Legend of Zelda. I lived on those.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on January 18th, 2008
And so here we are, on the opening night of Cloverfield. This is a film that, as a huge fan of creature features, I devoutly hope will be good. So my thoughts on that perhaps next week. But with the possibility of the first original giant monster movie to come out of Hollywood since... since... Tremors?... being worth seeing, an unfortunate screening experience last night has moved me to reconsider some remarks I made here some time ago. At the time, I was mounting a defense of cheap CGI creature-featrues (of the sort that inevitably winds up on the Sci-Fi Channel) by making the case that they were analogous to the B-level monster movies of the fifties.
To a certain degree, I stand by those remarks. But I do wish to temper them somewhat, because I just watched Lake Placid 2. In the first place, this is a sequel a little tardy in coming. But perhaps the filmmakers were counting on the fact that most people would remember little else beyond the original’s title and the fact that there was a crocodile, since they re-use the same character types (only none are at all interesting). The humour of the original has also gone AWOL, even though the film seems to think that it’s being funny (it isn’t).
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on January 16th, 2008
Goldeneye XBLA in the can, EGM Blackballed, and Mass Effect could give a case of blueballs? - Welcome to the column that is like going to the bathroom after Mexican food night, full of gas and plenty of things you can't pronounce known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I had to purchase a new router this week. See my old one was giving me fits. I could connect to Xbox Live just fine but any downloads from marketplace was ridiculously slow and PC Gaming (WoW or Guild Wars) was no walk in the park either. Sure the web moved alright, but any gaming was like surgery for lab rats. I ended up getting the D-Link DIR-625 which supports Wireless N and everything inbetween. It also has that QOS engine which means better gaming priority structure. I hope it just honestly means I can play a game in peace and not have to reset my modem and reset my router everytime the temperature changes in Houston. The only city I have ever seen where you could need a long coat in the morning and shorts in the afternoon followed by long pants at night.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on January 11th, 2008
Some films have the sort of subject matter that just screams “cult in the making.” Sometimes, the attempt at cult status is so blatant that the sense of the film trying too hard is off-putting. On other occasions, said status is a by-product of a filmmaker simply having assured fun with torqued material. Bubba Ho-Tep is one such example. A brand new one is Black Sheep.
The tale is basically one of family tragedy. Years ago, a young boy is traumatized when his nasty older brother torments him with the corpse of his murdered pet sheep, and moments later they find out that their shepherd father has plunged to his death from a cliff. In the present day, the now sheep-phobic young man (Nathan Meister) returns to the family farm, hoping to confront and dismiss his fears. Unfortunately, his still nasty older brother’s genetic projects get out of hand and result in a horde of murderous sheep. To make matters worse, being bitten by one of these critters leads to a very hilarious form of lycanthropy.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on January 9th, 2008
GPS on the PSP, DTV on the Xbox 360, and Provo gone? - Welcome to the column that recommends you take heavy doses of LSD and PCP to enjoy the sarcasm to its full extent known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. All Pro Football 2k8 is a mother. Well the season mode is, I'm currently trying to beat the Legends squad which is just as bad as it sounds. John Elway at QB, James Lofton at WR and a whole list of defensive squad all-stars guaranteed to make sure they score often and you score close to never. My team's gold players consist of Walter Payton and Jerry Rice. My QB is Randall Cunningham. I actually used my own likeness as a Bronze Tight End. I should have a lot easier time on offense but for the most part my defense does better which is anchored by DE Too Tall Jones and MLB Karl Mecklenberg. But you know what kills me in this game. The short pass. Screen passes murder me and there is no good package I can find to combat it. Not to mention they do it constantly. I also made a team to resemble the '85 Chicago Bears since the game seems fit to include 6 Bears already that played on that team. It was just a matter of creating five more. I chose Jim McMahon (QB), Kevin Butler (K), Steve McMichael (DT, but I had to put him as a DE since they list Dan Hampton already in the game as a DT and William Perry is the other DT), Richard Dent at DE and Jim Covert as OT. Four starred defensive linemen. Quarterbacks are going to run in terror. I really love creating teams & players, I just wish they didn't have a cap of twenty players which I will max out when I'm done with the current Philadelphia Eagles squad.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on January 4th, 2008
All right, after a longer delay than expected (my apologies), here with go with John Brahm’s The Lodger (1944). This is actually a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 effort, but Brahm’s film stands just fine on its own, thank you very much. Laird Cregar plays the title character. He is none other than Jack the Ripper, renting an upstairs room in a fashionable district. There he performs some rather dark medical experiments and obsesses over his deceased younger brother. Meanwhile, the family (pater familias Sir Cedric Hardwicke, mother Sara Allgood and singer/dancer daughter Merle Oberon) have more and more unanswered questions about their tenant. Hardwicke holds his suspicions at bay, but Allgood and Oberon become more and more nervous. Oberon has every reason to be, as her profession marks her as a likely Ripper target (so, yes, the fact that the actual killer’s victims were all prostitutes is rather glossed over). George Sanders shows up as the Scotland Yard detective assigned to the case, and also as Oberon’s love interest.
There have been so many Jack the Ripper movies, one must be very, very cautious about calling this or that one the definitive tale. I won’t make such a claim for The Lodger, but it is easily one of the best. Unlike Brahm’s The Undying Monster, which, as I wrote two columns ago, is fun but uneven, here Brahm has a film that is perfectly consistent in tone. The opening murder is chilling, a textbook perfect exercise in showing just enough to set the mind in overdrive, imagining all sorts of brutal horrors. Thereafter, the film becomes a case of gradually mounting suspense, as Oberon unknowingly places her neck in a slowly tightening noose.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on January 2nd, 2008
Smack the Wii, Scalp Half-Life, and XBox Live Broken Down - Welcome to the column that realizes that the gaming newsworld is a vacant wasteland during the holidays but trudges on anyway known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. The girlfriend and I are trudging on through Marvel Ultimate Alliance, we finished the Atlantis stage. Saved Prince Namor, beat Kraken and thankful I don't have to touch another water stage. I really don't like them. Perhaps it's all of the "authentic" water-like sounds. Like gurgling. I also received my copy of the Xbox 360 Arcade Compilation disc that was packaged inside the 360 Arcade machine. Ebay is a wonderful thing. I quickly became addicted to Pac-Man Championship Edition. I usually suck at Pac-Man, well actually I still do. But for some reason, I'm just a little better or feel like I am when it comes to this version. I completed the Championship Mode fairly easily and almost beat Extra Mode #2 (3 seconds left, I'm not kidding) but the rest of the modes I'm usually a couple of minutes off from beating them (10 minute timer). I've gotten half of the achievements and it's listed as an easy game on Achievement sites. I think the reason behind that though is so many people in their younger days threw bucket after bucket of tokens into the game or Ms. Pac-Man. However, I did not. I spent my time playing Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mappy & Galaga. So as to my meh Pac-Man scores, I hope to improve. If not, I'll still own you all in Mappy!
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on December 26th, 2007
The Penalty of Death, MegaMan turns twenty, and Microsoft gives the gift of giving - Welcome to the column that will have a Ho Ho Ho for Christmas but most likely sleep on the couch known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. The girlfriend and I decided to start a game together in Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Special Edition) for 360. We played through the first two levels and had a blast. I rotated between controlling Spiderman and Wolverine (and sometimes Iron Man) while she primarily stuck with Venom once he was available. It's a cool multiplayer where somebody can switch off and on in the game at any time. So if she doesn't want to keep playing, she can just switch off and I can keep playing if I desire. Then she can resume an hour later if she so desires. Makes for a game we will come back to a lot. Especially since she is cycling off of WoW. Speaking of MMO's, I finally reached level 20 on a character on GuildWars (equivalent to a level 60 in WoW). Nice feeling until you realize there is so much to do even when you reach the level cap. Oh well, that game benefits from playing here and there for a few hours at a time and not really miss anything.
Posted in: Brain Blasters, Regular Columns by David Annandale on December 21st, 2007
Last week, I said I’d talk about John Brahm’s The Lodger this time around. I want to hold that off for another week, in order to put in my two cents’ worth on I Am Legend.
So here we are with the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic novel, and the first to actually use the title. There was certainly room for improvement on the other two. The Last Man On Earth (1964) is still the closest to the book, but Matheson himself was sufficiently displeased with what was done with his original script that he had his name replaced in the credits with a pseudonym. The Omega Man (1971) has some great early mood stuff and neat makeup for the creatures, but descends into risibility by the end. So is the third time the charm?
