Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 25th, 2008
This BBC mini-series has the unenviable task of winning over audiences very likely familiar with Ang Lee and Emma Thompson’s excellent theatrical adaptation of the Jane Austen novel. And the opening scene might very alarm many a viewer: the rather steamy seduction on display does not, at first blush, seem to fit in to the comedy of manners one is expecting. The post-credit sequence is also rather more gothically melodramatic than one might anticipate (or hope for). Thereafter, however, the series settles into a tone more befitting Austen. The script is by Andrew Davies, easily one of the best scribes British television has to offer. He has graced us with contemporary pieces such as a version of Othello set amidst the members of the London Metropolitan Police and the House of Cards trilogy (an adaptation that is superior to its source material), as well as superb period adaptations (Middlemarch, for example). Here, his acid wit finds kindred spirit in Austen, and the result is very fine indeed.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 23rd, 2008
Think of it as Coach meets Newhart. That’s about the best way I know how to describe this somewhat quirky sitcom from CBS. It was mostly intended as a television project for its star, Burt Reynolds. The character would echo Reynolds’ own life somewhat. His character, Wood Newton, was a running back who had moderate success, just as Reynolds himself had. In the show he retired to his rural hometown of Evening Shade. He ends up coaching the local high school football squad which had a propensity for getting blown out in their games. The show was filled with the usual small town hick kind of characters, most notably the show’s narrator and owner of the local barbecue joint, Ponder Blue (Davis). Wood’s family consisted of his wife, Ava (Henner) who was much younger than Wood was. She was a young attorney who gets elected the town’s prosecuting attorney. There was a ton of comedic material to be found in his rather dimwitted intelligence and her more formal education. In this first season she was pregnant with their third child. Wood’s dad was played by Hal Holbrook, and he owned the local newspaper. Wood’s assistant coach was Harlan Elldridge, played by Charles Durning. Eldridge was really a math teacher and pretty much a geek, which offered plenty of comedy fodder for Reynolds. The relationship was very much like that of Craig Nelson and Jerry Van Dyke on Coach.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 23rd, 2008
It should not have come as such a surprise to me what Stop-Loss really is. It presents itself as this generation’s Deer Hunter, but it’s actually just another mindless film that, once stripped down to its essentials, is intended only to further a blatant political agenda. I keep hearing that the film is intended to honor our troops, but it presents all of them as mentally messed up idiots who are a hair away from committing crime sprees akin to Natural Born Killers. The aforementioned Deer Hunter also offered up a bleak image of the mental health of vets returning from war, but centered on a particular case. I have no doubt that war affects everyone who participates, but I’ve known returning soldiers who did manage to cope.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on July 23rd, 2008
Ubisoft Hacks themselves, Warcraft Achievements & Sonic’s got a Sword? - Welcome to the column that slices off their nose to spite their face known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. 50/26/22. I finally did my last pvping for my rogue. I worked my way back up to 20 marks and got my blooming blue ring. The rest of the time was spent in dungeons mostly amassing money & items for my hunter to disenchant. I also finished a bunch of quests for dungeons like RFK or ZF that I just didn’t turn in because I thought it would put me over the 49 barrier. In addition, I went back to work on my blacksmithing and I’m 75% done with the initial Weaponsmithing quest. The blood elf hunter on the other hand amassed a couple of levels just killing peasants in Hillsbrad. His skinning is nearly maxed again (over 200) and his enchanting is still on par with his level (135). I have a feeling when he gets to 29, he is going to be a beast on the battlefield (well against the non-twinks anyway). I’m not super gung-ho for getting to 30 and the mount because as far as I’m concerned the mount limit is still 40 metaphorically speaking. I’m sitting back and having fun, trying not to care too much about my characters. Way too many people take the game so seriously and have to have something done as fast as possible. But then what do you do after that? They never really have an answer for that.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 21st, 2008
According to Wikipedia, Bruges is the capital of Belgium and home to the college of Europe. Much of the architecture from the 12th and 13th centuries is in good shape and preserved fairly well. The Church of Our Lady is one of the tallest brick buildings in the world. The Basilica of the Holy Blood purports to be a church that houses some blood from Christ. It also serves as the backdrop for a couple of hitmen who have to find comfort in the town for awhile in the film set in Bruges, called In Bruges.
The film was written and directed by Martin McDonagh, whose previous work was in the Oscar-winning short film Shooter. Ray (Colin Farrell, The Recruit) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson, Kingdom of Heaven) are forced to stay in the town for two weeks, after an assassination assignment given to Ray turns particularly brutal. The two look at this presumed exile in two different ways; Ray thinks of it as purgatory; he loves the lifestyle of London and access to anything he wishes. Ken rather enjoys it. He views it as an opportunity to enjoy a place he’s never been before. The nuances of Bruges are also memorable; aside from a little person in a movie and a drug dealing local named Chloe (Clemence Poesy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), the film is chock full of hilarity and hijinks. When Ken and Ray’s boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes, Schindler’s List) comes to meet with the boys, things take a bit of a dramatic turn.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 19th, 2008
To be bloody honest, I was never a huge fan of Speed Racer. Actually I spent most half hours watching the cartoon (in college) poking fun at it and wondering how many drinking games could be compiled by just analyzing various components. It was a serious cartoon with some brief comedic relief that did not come off as funny, what was funny was all of the seriousness of driving the Mach 5 and figuring out who this Racer X character was (it was Speed's Older Brother, sorry if I spoiled it). Anyhow, it's 2008. Speed Racer has experienced a resurgence including a movie and a new cartoon series. The movie hasn't done very well but many times the cartoon can be the saving grace. It was supposed to follow a new Speed, with a mysterious past. Ooooo, well as long as no Chim-Chim or Spritle is around, we'll be okay.
In the not too distant future, a hopeful racer who goes by the name of Speed wants to attend the Racer Academy founded by the original Racer bunch. However he knows nothing of his past and finds that his name & lack of friends is a source of much teasing and criticism as he tries to ascend to the top of his class. There are other major players such as Headmaster Spritle (he grew up? I thought he would have gotten run over by the Mach 5 by now), X who is Speed Racer's son and X's girlfriend Annalise, both of which try to thwart the young Speed. Annalise's father, Zile Zazic is the main funder for the school and serves as the evil mastermind and antagonist to Speedy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 19th, 2008
The movies of National Lampoon haven't always had the best track record. On on the good side, we have Christmas Vacation, Van Wilder or European Vacation (Chevy Chase is gold after all). On the bad side we have movies like Senior Trip, Dorm Daze, or Dorm Daze 2 (Wretchedness has sequels?) But every once in a while, you can take a bad movie and suddenly realize that you are holding something that is worse than any National Lampoon movie to date (I don't care what anybody says but Loaded Weapon wasn't half bad). A movie so bad, that even Jonathan Winters or Diedrich Bader could not save it.
Richie (played by Thomas Ian Nicholas) doesn't have the greatest luck in love. His best friend, Sherman (played by Andrew Katos) wants to bed as many chicks as possible regardless of the fallout that might occur. They hatch an idea that involves taking discarded casting call pictures and actually having their own casting call to find their perfect soulmate (or in Sherman's case, just a hot chick or several). However, they have to impersonate having a real film in place before they get any real girls to fall to their claim. They also need an office and resources. They decide to include their friend Glenn (played by Diedrich Bader) who has the office space and resources to make it happen.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on July 18th, 2008
Last week, as I was writing about lost films, I was musing about the many films I had read about in my youth but had never seen. Many of those from the early decades of film history are, I assumed, lost forever. I was thinking particularly of the really early stuff, and particularly of the films of Georges Méliès. While many of his films are still extant (and I have extolled the previous Kino release previously), many of those I had wished to see were those Denis Gifford describes in his Pictorial History of Horror Movies. A prime example would be The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906). The single still in the book – of carriage drawn by a skeletal horse with an accordion-like torso – has always fascinated me. So I was going to mention this film as an example of the lost but lamented. Just to be on the safe side, though, I did a quick search, and discovered, to my delight, that it is NOT lost. To my further delight, I found it on a collection which can best be described as mind-blowing.
There have been a number of Méliès collections to date, but not one, I feel safe in stating, has come close to what is on offer in Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913). Five discs. 782 minutes. 173 films. These are, it seems, all the known surviving films, arranged in chronological order, boasting new scores, and, where possible, narrations following the original English text written by Méliès. Those narrations underline just one of the charming, fascinating aspects of these films. They are very clearly documents of cinema aborning, and the language of visual storytelling is only just being created. Méliès was a man of the theatre, and that way of thinking and visualizing carries through in his films. For all that he created the special effects extravaganza, his films are also redolent of filmed theatre: static camera, everything in medium long shot (as if we were in a good seat at the theatre), entire scenes played out in what is in effect (if not reality) a single continuous shot. The spoken narrations are thus often necessary for the audience to make sense of what is happening on the screen. For instance, because of the lack of close-ups and the like, the meeting of the astronomers at the beginning of A Trip to the Moon (1902) is nothing more than wildly gesticulating chaos, and no clear narrative is possible to discern without the narrator telling us where to look. As Méliès’ career was winding down, D.W. Griffith was busy pushing cinematic storytelling to full maturity, taking visual storytelling to a level of sophistication that is still what we are most familiar with today. But this very shortcoming in Méliès’ technique is part of the his work’s appeal: when we watch these films, we become conscious of seeing a new art-form in mid-formation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 16th, 2008
If it's Wednesday, that must mean another batch of SpongeBob cartoons. The lead-off here is the is title episode, a 22-minute piece that recounts the adventures of SpongeBuck SquarePants, our hero's 19th-Century ancestor. The rest of the episodes are an eclectic bunch, and the thematic consistency is less than that of some other collections (there is a vague adventure link that runs through several of the stories). At any rate, the silliness is just as engaging and bizarre as ever, and there are plenty of quick absurdist sight gags to keep you chuckling.
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Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on July 16th, 2008
Xbox 360 Price Cut, New Wolfenstein & Xbox 360 Hard Drive madness? - Welcome to the column that went to E3, got way too belligerent with the Wii hard drive Booth (and later found out one didn’t exist) and was asked to leave known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. 49/24/22. In World of Warcraft News, the patch for 2.4.3 is out as of Tuesday. The real news of course out of the patch is that level 30 characters get mounts, where it used to be that level 40 was the magic number. The cost of the mount training has also decreased, to 35 gold. So the twink bracket that existed at 29 is for most practical purposes is gone, and the 39 twink bracket will actually exist again. I mostly played with my hunter which would explain why he was the only one to gain levels (2) this week. He finished the Ghostlands, took a quick trip to Razorfen Kraul & landed in Tarren Mill to start questing. He should have the 45 gold (35 training + 10 for the actual mount) by the time he hits 30. I just need to skin as much as possible and not dump as much money as I was into my enchanting skill. My enchanting skill is on par with my level (120), but I can always get my 49 rogue to solo anything up to and including Razorfen Kraul to get items to disenchant for mats. Plus, my rogue will be moving past the 49 barrier after this week I would imagine. I’ve pvped enough for the current bracket and he needs to make the first steps so he can start moving towards 60.
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