The Queue: Zombieland
I still don’t know how I totally feel about Zombieland. I know that it wasn’t a bad movie, as I was laughing quite a bit while watching it. However, there were also moments during the middle where I was checking my watch like I was waiting for a a frozen pizza to cook in the oven. The movie had a lot of promise in the beginning. The introduction of the Columbus character with his rules was done really well, and watching slow-mo deaths were always enjoyable — that woman in the mini-van really should have worn her seatbelt. I’m also a sucker for low-budget horror/action flicks where very talented makeup people get to flex their prosthetic muscles to create some incredibly realistic effects. Between Zombieland and District 9, it’s nice to see some of this old-school style.
What killed the momentum for me was about halfway through, when I’d realized I’d seen this before. I had already seen the campy take on the zombie genre with Shaun of the Dead, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was watching a movie about Left 4 Dead. Four unlikely heroes team up to stave off a zombie-type infection while traveling across the country in search of a “safehouse”. On top of that, they spend the last act in an amusement park! With a clown zombie! And that’s why I’m thinking that Zombieland falls in the “average” realm for me. Originality. I can’t say it wasn’t fun to watch, but I can’t say that I plan to watch it again either.
New Website: It’s Coming
Finally my home page is actually accurate! I really am working on a new website design. Currently, it’s in the early development stages (i.e. moving things around in Photoshop) but now that I have a plan and a timeline, I hope to have something new up around the first of the year.
Until this is done, I won’t really be posting anything new here — even though it’s been quite a while since my last post anyway — but once the new theme and site are live, I plan on coming back with more posts, more updates and more artwork to share with you guys.
While I’m working on the site, you can follow me on Twitter to get my latest updates and thoughts, and even if my new site can’t throw knives into heaven or dip ladies’ hands into acid, like George Washington, the new website is coming.
To leave you with something opinionated — it is a blog after all — here are some micro reviews of things I would normally post about:
Bionic Commando (Xbox 360): An incredibly fun and enjoyable rental even if the story is about as captivating as an empty trash can.
Iron Man (Netflix): One of the better comic book movies. The writers got the characters right, the designs right and the story was solid. The only thing missing was a more convincing bad guy.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine: As I’m trying to talk myself into X-Men Movie-verse Deadpool, I can’t help but be bothered by the fact that there was a complete lack of blood in this movie. A group of mutants killing people with claws, swords, guns and everything else, and no blood to be found.
Quick Queue: Tropic Pineapple Rising for Coraline
It’s been a while since The Queue has reared its head, so I’ve got four movie reviews to fire off here (although in a slightly shorter format). Let’s get started.
Pineapple Express
Not since the masterpiece Dumb and Dumber have two best friends with less than stellar intellect and decision-making skills made a funnier pairing. Pineapple Express starts out funny and ends in insanity. When Dale Denton accidentally witnesses a druglord-related murder and his identity is traced back to his drug dealer, Saul, the two men have no choice but to work together to out-run their would-be assassins.
When you start watching this movie, you expect it to be a slapstick comedy with some raunchy humor, but it comes out with guns blazing. Does it have Gary Cole and Seth Rogan having a machine gun fight in an underground weed bunker? Yes it does. Is Danny McBride running over people in a Daewoo? Yes he is. And it all wraps up in time for breakfast at the Waffle House.
What To Add It For: It’s funny, man.
This really is a funny movie. With everything from comedic dialog to over-the-top action scenes that are hilarious in their ridiculousness.
What To Remove It For: Low brow humor.
Comedy is definitely subjective, and while I love a crass-humored stoner comedy done right, it’s not what others may like.
Rating: 4/5
Fallout 3 Review: A Boy and His Dog
Most of the time when I start playing a game, if it fails to really sink its teeth into me or doesn’t seem that fun in the beginning, it ends up another discarded case on my pile of shame. With my limited free time and the never-ending stream of games to try, I don’t have the patience or hourly resources to force myself to play something just because reviewers say it’s “good“.
When I heard that Fallout 3 received multiple game of the year awards and was generally praised in the gaming circles, I wanted to give it a try. After I started looking into the artwork, gameplay and features — an action RPG with exploration and moral choices — I bought it outright, something I rarely do in this economy.
The problem was that I was so behind on the games that I had, I put off playing Fallout 3 until this past summer. When I finally got the chance to sit down with it and started my vault dweller, I hated it.
In the beginning I was having fun and I thought it would evolve into a game I could play for a while, but once I had been playing for around 5 hours, I started to become frustrated and wanted to stop. The game just hadn’t been what I had expected.
I told myself I would give it until I reached Level 10 to turn up the fun dial (another 5 hours or so). All I can say is that I’m glad I did. What started out as ten hours of mediocrity ended 100 hours later as one of my favorite games ever.
Resident Evil 5 Review: What Was That?
Even though I never had an original PlayStation, I knew people that did, and these people seemed to always have Resident Evil games. As I mentioned in my Dead Space review, I’m quite fond of the survival horror genre, and Resident Evil is no exception. I was particularly happy when Nintendo decided to re-release the original on GameCube so that I finally had the chance to own one of the games.
Over the years I’ve spent a good amount of time familiarizing myself with the games, the back-stories, the characters and (shudder) the movies. When Resident Evil 4 was released, I purchased it day one. I thought the reboot of the series and control style were very ingenious, but sadly, I never did finish that game, and it remains one of the great games on the top of my pile of shame.
After that, Resident Evil fell off the map for me and I continued my gaming life without it. When Resident Evil 5 was announced, I got excited but I also worried that it would suffer the same fate as the fourth game and become another forgotten gem. After being turned off by the demo, I finally decided to give it a shot a couple of months ago. And it is awesome.
Up Review: Unexpectedly Awesome
Once again, I’m back with another review and another reason to proclaim my love for Pixar. I can honestly say that if Up wasn’t a Pixar creation, I wouldn’t have been excited to see it. Even though the commercials and trailers featured some great comedy moments and showcased the great characters, a movie about a traveling septuagenarian, on its own, just doesn’t sound that appealing to someone who likes comics and books with spaceships on the covers.
I am grateful, however, that Pixar did release this movie because without that motivating force, I would have missed out on a truly fantastic story. It’s hard to accept that a movie with a 78-year-old protagonist moved and entertained me just as much as, if not more than, any other Pixar movie I’ve seen. Including Wall-E. I kid you not.
The Queue: Triple Threat Match
The Queue posts have built up quite the…bottleneck, so I thought I’d catch up by giving you a three-for-one deal.
Bolt
If someone told you that Disney was going to make a new animated film without the help of Pixar, wouldn’t you think that it would be a 2D animated feature, possibly about a princess? You might, and you’d be wrong. While Disney and Pixar were separated, but on speaking terms, Disney didn’t want to lose precious time in the theater and thus Bolt was created. While I have nothing against so-called 3D animation, I get somewhat discouraged when John Lasseter and company aren’t involved. There are some surprises (Kung Fu Panda), but mostly the movies are disappointments (Shrek, Antz, etc).
Bolt is about a canine actor that has spent his entire life on a television set. Because of this, he doesn’t know that he’s not really a super-powered dog that continuously saves the world from an evil, cat-loving mastermind. When he manages to get free after a particularly realistic-looking capture of his owner, Penny, not only does he have to find his way back to her, but he has to come to terms with the fact that his entire life hasn’t been what he thought it was. Along for the ride are a stray cat, Mittens, and an energetic hamster named Rhino.
Overall, this movie falls into that middle-of-the-pack realm. It’s not terrible, but there’s not enough high-quality content to bring you back for additional watches.
What To Add It For: The Animation.
For what it’s worth, the character designs and animation are fairly well done. I wouldn’t say it’s Pixar good, but there are some impressive moments.
What To Remove It For: The Voice Acting.
John Travolta and Miley Cyrus, really? I can understand Miley, but what the hell is Travolta doing in this movie? His lines are so labored that I picture him sitting on a couch with a snifter of Brandy, stroking his greasy hair. Or, just reading the script over cell phone.
Rating: 2/5
Transformers 2 Review: Face-Ripping Robot Action!
I have an undying love for all things Transformers. As I’m writing this, hundreds of figures adorn shelves in my office, Generation 1 DVD sets sit on my bookshelf, the animated movie poster hangs over my desk, and Optimus Prime and Megtron leer at me from the sides of my monitor. I love these things. I can’t say exactly what it is that makes Transformers so significant to me. I know that besides my Care Bear (Cheer Bear specifically), Transformers are the first toy I can remember being excited to play with. Like all children growing up in the 80s, I had Dukes of Hazzard toys, Ninja Turtle figures and LEGOs, but was something about these shape-shifting aliens that I enjoyed more than any other toys. I even made my own Transformers out of LEGOs!
Growing up, I was fascinated by machinery and form. As a young boy, like most boys, I really liked trucks and construction. Monster trucks, bulldozers and heavy farm equipment fascinated me, and I always loved cartoons and characters. When the two met, and I saw a tractor-trailer semi transform into a robot, that was it. Ever since, I’ve been collecting Transformers toys — I have ones that I received as gifts when I was four — and I still look forward to the new figures coming out now. I’m sure a therapist could explain the true, and possibly disturbed, reasons I hold onto and collect these toys, but for me, it reminds me that no matter how old I get, I never have to really grow up.
Okay, enough about me. I just wanted to warn you the the so-called “review” below might not be totally subjective.
The Queue: Slumdog Millionaire
I’m always very skeptical of Oscar-Winning films, especially Best Picture Winners. It’s one of those categories that just never gels with my taste in movies. Besides Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and a couple others, Best Picture films are usually, in my opinion, boring duds that are full of pretentious drivel Hollywood likes to spew out a few times a year to pretend that it makes art movies instead of the next vehicle for Comedian of the Moment. I hate to say it, but Slumdog Millionaire is one of those over-hyped duds. I don’t think it’s a bad movie, and it wasn’t too boring, but I can say that I had a very hard time seeing what was so great about it.
Slumdog is about a lower-class Indian teenager that finds himself competing for the top prize on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”. When he is accused of cheating, flashbacks tell the origins behind his obscure knowledge, as well as some of the horrors of his growing pains. My problems with this movie don’t extend to the actors — they did a wonderful job portraying the characters. You feel for the protagonist, root for the good guy and despise the evil characters. What I found lacking was imagination. While the location backdrops and characters were pretty spectacular, the story was too predictable and the dialog was straightforward. Overall, I think the movie is worth a watch, since it was an Oscar winner, and my taste in movies can be a little obscure.
What To Add It For: The Atmosphere.
From the urban sprawl of downtown Mumbai to the sheltered slums of the city’s underbelly, the scenery breathes on its own.
What To Remove It For: Been There Done That.
Enjoyable characters and locations don’t make up for the same old story with the same old predictable ending.
Rating: 2/5
HotD: Overkill Review: Welcome Home
Some of my favorite types of games to play at the arcade (as in the actual building kind) are light-gun shooters. There’s something about those games that calls to me when I enter these places that makes me happily jump into the role of cop, soldier, mercenary and even John McClane. That something could be that these games are generally a good time, or it could be that every other game in today’s arcades is crap in a cabinet.
House of the Dead: Overkill brings the light-gun experience to your living room on the Wii. I had already played through some of Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, and even though I’m a huge Resident Evil fan, the game just didn’t click with me. I think RE:UC’s biggest problem was that it was trying to be a good game, and this philosophy goes directly against what light-gun games are about. The reason I enjoyed Overkill so much, and I did, was because it knew it was a bad game and had a lot of fun with being bad.