Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 11th, 2008
If you are a regular reader here, you know how much I love Ray Harryhausen. Over the years I’ve had the chance to spend many casual hours with him and his wife. They are both extraordinary people, and I’m always amazed at how modest Ray always acts. After over a half century, he still acts surprised that so many people continue to be affected by his work. I was lucky enough to have been invited by Ray personally when he finally received his star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. With that said, I’m going to avoid repeating myself and spend less time here talking about Ray. You can see more details of my talks with him and just some great Ray Harryhausen information by looking at my previous reviews.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2008
Sean Patrick Flanery is Harry Balbo, an introverted nobody at a nothing job where he constantly mocked by the unfunny office clown. One night, on his way home from the convenience store, he sees a female vampire rip off a homeless man's head. No one believes him, and his feelings move from frustration to terror when, a couple of nights later, he sees her at work again, and she scratches his face, marking him. He turns to crippled vampire investigator Michael Biehn for help, and eventually captures the vampire. Unable to bring himself to kill her, he is torn between sacrificing himself or others to her bloodlust.
This is a film that finds its strengths in its incidentals. Harry's depressing work environment, the tossed away dialogue from minor characters, the little humiliations of his life and his eccentric little obsessions all work well, and are very funny. The actual vampire storyline isn't quite as fresh and witty, though nestled in such an enjoyable context, it works well enough.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on April 9th, 2008
Finish GTA IV in 25 hours, Give Uwe Boll a million, and Unreal on 360? - Welcome to the column that realizes a number is just a number unless those numbers are 4 8 15 16 23 and 42 known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. More and more levels we go, where it stops? Nobod...err probably in the 50's to low 60's. The dwarf priest has moved up to 18 with some nifty gear while the troll rogue in World of Warcraft has hit level 35. My dwarf priest played through dead mines and received a very nice blue staff in the process. Tailoring and Enchanting are also maxed out until I hit level 20. The troll rogue is currently in the third leg of the Barbaric (Horde only) blacksmithing quest chain. A whole lot of iron is being mined wherever I can find it. However, I am up to mithril which is nice for all of those nodes that I had to pass up prior. Now, what exactly to do with the mithfril ore once I get it is in question for the time being (yes, I know I will eventually use it); but it is nice to see my professions expanding on my rogue again. Hopefully I hit 200 in mining and blacksmithing soon. I got to make a decent sword for myself one of these days.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 9th, 2008
He might not have been “shootin’ at some food” but for Daniel Plainville it’s all about that “bubblin’ crude. Oil that is. Black Gold.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on April 5th, 2008
Severed hand films. Gotta love 'em. Not because they're necessarily good, as such. The ones that have been (the various versions of The Hands of Orlac, or The Beast with Five Fingers) have been, ultimately, psychological thrillers. There have been honest-to-god crawling hands, of course, in wonders such as Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn, but Bruce Campbell's misbehaving limb was a supporting character, rather than the central menace. But I return to my initial statement. Even if the film isn't that good (or good at all), you have to love it for the crawling hand.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 3rd, 2008
Will Smith finds himself in a bit of a career quandary if you ask me. Sure, one of the good sides to being as as he is is that he’s quite the popular guy that nobody wants to see get killed. But the popularity has seemed to stymie him a little bit. When he does dramatic work, it’s clear that the push is for him to win an Oscar, like in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness. So when people look past that intent, even when he might want to do dramatic work, he’s forced to take on slightly darker roles in action films, which I guess serves as his happy medium of branching out while still pleasing the people. I Am Legend is another one of those examples, very similar to another Smith sci-fi film named I, Robot.
I Am Legend is based on the Richard Matheson novel and is loosely inspired by Charlton Heston’s 1971 film The Omega Man. This version is adapted by Akiva Goldsman, who won a Screenplay Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, and directed by Francis Lawrence, whose first feature effort was the supernatural comic book film Constantine. But in case you don’t know much about the film or really had a concern to go see the Smith film, he plays Robert Neville, an Army virologist. Robert was responding to an effort of a virus that ironically was supposed to be a cure for cancer. But instead of ridding the body of cancer, it became a bug that infected humans, turning them into psychopathic, ultraviolent zombies, out to kill any members of the living. Neville continues to work on a cure for the virus, even after it has decimated the world’s population.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 3rd, 2008
So what did we all learn with the Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest opus, an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country For Old Men? Well, suffice to say, along with the creative resurgence of the brothers, we get a film that’s part modern-day Western, part action, part comedy and even perhaps part-horror, but in the adoration and adulation, to want to pin the film down as something is to forget that above all else, the film is a tale about changing times, told by someone who’s seen better days and is nostalgic for them. It’s that story that seems to be ignored to a certain degree by people, which oddly enough is ironic considering the title of the film.
The story that’s pushed along by the film surrounds a drug deal where all the concerned parties were killed in cold blood. The bodies were found by Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin, Planet Terror), who also managed to find several million dollars in the vicinity. But as is the case in both movies and real life, that kind of money is not going to not be missed for long. So enter Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls), a man with a mysterious past. But there are a few certainties we know about him: first, he’s hired by someone to recover the money. By whom is immaterial, though through other recollections, he’s made out to be an killer with ice-cold veins, and we find this out within the film’s first several minutes, when he kills a police deputy in a gruesome fashion at a police station. So Chigurh is after the money and, inevitably, after Moss. The crimes occur in a sleepy west Texas town whose sheriff is Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive), and all three men find themselves near the border in 1980, on the cusp of a serious influx of drugs to the U.S..
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 2nd, 2008
In 1973 Elton John had his best selling album to that time in the double release
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on April 2nd, 2008
The Failure of Wii Online, Blizzards starts up the Sue wagon, and the British offering cash for lies? - Welcome to the column that promises to stick to the truth except when it comes to whether or not Silent Hill still makes us wet the bed at night known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. After bludgeoning people with my Bloody Brass Knuckles all week in WoW, this fist weapon is here to stay for now in my 34th level Troll Rogue's arsenal. I find this to be the case because simply there aren't a lot of appealing blues at my level to begin with. My mining skill is just 4 away from mithril & my blacksmithing skill is progressing too. I finished part 2 of the Barbaric BS quest chain which basically forced me to mine a beep load of copper and tin to make bronze. Burnt me out a little bit to be honest, but since it is a horde only quest chain; I feel it is important to complete. My dwarf priest is cruising along at 16th level and apparently is developing into one powerful holy guy. I grouped with an 18th level rogue and a 19th level hunter over the weekend and found myself serving double duty as healer and dealing the most damage. I'm going the discipline route as well and not shadow which would make me a much more severe damage dealer (but still not a tank). That just shouldn't be, at least they were holding aggro for the most part. Of course I broke off from the group once we completed a few quests and got owned 15 minutes later by a mob of Gnolls. *sigh* Gnoll paws.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 1st, 2008
Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bohnam Carter, and a 1970’s Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim about a barber with a penchant for truly close, and rather bloody, shaves. With these kinds of ingredients you have a can’t miss recipe for Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. The finished product is a wickedly clever and most unusual movie experience. Tim Burton’s style blends so seamlessly with the dark humor of the original production. If I had any reservations going into the film it was the casting of
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