Haha. I LOVE that Garrett will HATE this. I am so cruel!
Look at Shia's stupid face! It rules!
Also, I never saw the first Transformersmovie (and by "first Transformers movie," I clearly mean the Michael Bay-directed, Megan Fox-sexified Transformers, i.e., the only one ANYONE CARES ABOUT) (I'm not even going to link to the totally-forgotten animated movie's IMDb page--suck on that, Garrett!). So, if you could, maybe let me know what happens in that atrocity fun movie. In, like, 8 words.
Anyone who was watching animated features in the early 90's should be familiar with Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland. Now, I doubt that it's anyone's favorite film, but it has it's moments. The animation is fluid, the characters are endearing, and most importantly, it's fun. With that said, what could have made Little Nemo better? The love and care (and immense talent) of Studio Ghibli, perhaps?
In pre-Ghibli 1982, Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) and Isao Takahata (Grave Of The Fireflies, Pom Poko) were developing the then titled Nemo as an American/Japanese joint project for TMS Entertainment. One of the duo's key animators, Yoshifumi Kondo (Whisper Of The Heart), put together this test pilot, which in under five minutes, far surpasses the version that we ended up with.
The production folded due to creative differences (i.e. Big American Dollars = Our Way Or The Highway), and Miyazaki and co. decided to pursue other projects. Namely, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind; the movie that sparked the formation of Studio Ghibli. Although I admire them for leaving a production that compromised their integrity...I really, really wish they made it anyway! Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland holds a little place in my heart, but it's a little place. Not a BIG place like Ghibli's phenomenal library. C'est la vie.
Little Nemo didn't get a US theatrical release until 1992...a decade later! It's production is a bit of a legend in Hollywood animator circles due to the vast number of "hands" the movie went through before it's completion. Oh, and remember this?
Jimmy Page. The Edge. Jack White. Three generations of guitar virtuosos. Three of the best rockers to touch finger to string. They live music. They are music. Each has created a sound that is instantly recognizable. Each has built his own guitar(s). Each are worthy of praise. I'm very excited for this film!
Warning: You may find this blog boring. If you choose, you may skip to the section labeled "My point."
With modern video game consoles and their wide array of online content (i.e. Wii's Virtual Console or Xbox 360's Live Arcade), I have noticed a resurgence of classic gaming...and I love it! Be it re-release or remake, keep 'em coming. Top prize goes to Mega Man 9, which is a completely brand new game in glorious 8-Bit, made to be an original Nintendo game. Of course, they didn't distribute cartridges, so it's only available as a download. But I'm not complaining about that. Quite the opposite. I love my Nintendo more than a limb or any family member. So to get "classic style" games in the midst of big, graphically lavish, 20 minutes to load, explodie modern games, is a dream come true. Maybe I'm getting old? "Back in my day, we only needed two buttons, sonny!"
As much as I adore the Nintendo Entertainment System, I can't deny there were some terrible games that came out for it. And there were fan favorites that just never seemed very interesting. If you were to fill a room full of nerds and have them make a list of the best NES games, everyone's list would be somewhat similar. They would all have Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid and then seven of their favorite titles (that are probably just as universally adored). One such game that could likely rank on these hypothetical lists is a game I could never get into, no matter how hard I tried. A Boy And His Blob. I know, I know, you're thinking, "Get to the goddam point, please."
A Boy And His Blob is about a boy...and his blob...Blobert, actually, who when fed jellybeans can transform into a useful object that corresponds with the respective treat. Licorice jellybeans turn Blobert into a ladder and tangerine turns him into a trampoline. You use these abilities to progress through the levels collecting treasure (and more jellybellys). You and Blobert must face the evil emperor to save Earth and Blobolonia. Sounds...okay? It was actually pretty boring. I don't know if I ever figured out how to get out of the first stretch of sewer, literally, at the beginning of the game. Again...what's your freaking point?!
My point: Although I'm not a fan of the original, I'm really excited for the Wii sequel to A Boy And His Blob! It has its own style yet retains the flavor of the original. It looks immersive, adorable, and fun.
I think a majority of my excitement may be rooted in my love for these classic style games, and it makes me forget that I never liked the original...this may be no exception. But I'll give it a whirl based on principal. 2D games are still hanging on in the 3D age(Braid and Mega Man 9 sales reflect this), but they're few and far between. More than anything I just want more games like this and fewer first-person-shooters. Thanks for indulging me.
Away We Go follows Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph), an unmarried couple who are preparing to have a child together. They live in the middle of nowhere in a house that looks like a sneeze could blow it over. They can work from home (or via telephone) so the only real tie to their current residence is that it's close to Burt's parents. With Verona's parents deceased, they want to be close to Grandma and Grandpa. But when Burt's folks announce they'll be moving overseas, the couple decide to take up stakes and go searching for "home". They plot a course hitting up major cites that have one acquaintance or another that could be their friends if the choose to start their new lives there. As you'd expect, misadventure and hijinks ensue.
Away We Go is certainly a charming little film. Its characters feel like real people in real life situations. Granted, they're strange, uncomfortable situations with odd-ball (and often loose) acquaintances, but never anything outlandish. Or least it wouldn't feel that way if the film treated them a little more seriously. With the exception of the leads, Burt and Verona, every character feels heavy handed. I don't blame the characters in the script so much the actor's use of the characters. It's like they read the script thinking they would be alongside Maya in a series of SNL sketches. That sort of over-the-top caricature acting works if that's what the source material is requiring. Take Christopher Guest movies, for instance. But I don't feel that's what Away We Go was trying to be. It' a sweet, poignant film about love, family, and the meaning of home. Oh, and being scared silly of bringing a life into the world. How can you care for a life when you don't even know how to live your own? As their journey progresses and they encounter bad parent after bad parent, you start to realize they're going to be wonderful parents. This hits you during an impromptu puppet show the two give for Burt's neice as they are tucking her into bed. Maybe love is family and family is home?
Overall, I enjoyed this film. It was hard for me to warm up to it, and again, I wish it took itself a bit more seriously, but the good bits outweigh the bad. Don't force jokes to try and make things funny. Let the humor of the situation reveal itself. You may want to strangle almost everyone Burt and Verona meet along the way(Maggie Gyllenhaall's character LN! Ugh!), but that makes you love the couple all the more. Life can be scary and nobody has all of the answers. People are different and there is no definitive right or wrong way to live your life or to raise a child. In this case it took a cross country trip and a lot of soul searching to come to a conclusion they knew all along. As The Beatles say, "All You Need Is Love".
Nintendo has some great things in store for Wii in 2010! First up is Super Mario Galaxy 2! Now, Super Mario Galaxy could be described as "the most fun had playing a video game" and it'd be totally true. So a sequel (with Yoshi!) is very welcome! But wait! There's even more Mario heading your way!New Super Mario Bros. for Wii. Four player classic style Mario? Who do I make the check out to?
No three words are sweeter than "New Metroid Game." There has never been so much as a blemish in the series' history and I'm sure Metroid: Other M (from Nintendo and Team Ninja!), is no exception. So...totally...sweet.
I'm also super excited for the update to A Boy And His Blob, but I'll save that one for another blob, er, blog.
Oh yeah, and something called Zelda? More on that as it develops.
Does it make me a bad person when Patrick Swayze's dire health condition--so dire, in fact, that his publicist has to publicly deny rumors that he is already dead--makes me want to watch Ghost? Yes.
(Remember when they'd send one of us to do what thousands are incapable of?)
In the start of the film you witness a prisoner put to death via lethal injection. To keep it clichéd, this is administered by mustachioed, grimacing Texans in ten gallon hats, stroking their gaudy bolo ties. As the fluid slowly drips down the vial and is being pumped into the convict's veins, all I can think is, "Save some of that for me!" It's generally a bad sign to long for death when you've yet to reach the 10 minute mark. I'm sure plenty of people will like (or love) Terminator: Salvation, but I'll take T3 over this any day. T3 is not a good movie, but it at least feels like a Terminator movie (albeit by ripping off its predecessors). Salvation does not. A few music cues and the use of classic lines and names from the series doesn't make it a part of the series. It doesn't even feel like it was influenced by Terminator. It feels like Aliens meets The Road Warrior...plus every other action movie you've ever seen.
And boy is it an action movie! There is never a moments peace for these poor characters you couldn't give a shit about. I personally am sick of watching stuff blow up. Correction: I'm sick of watching stuff blow up for two hours straight. If I want explosions and shooting and no story whatsoever, I play video games. This movie opens the door to many questions but chooses not to answer any of them.
Here are a few I had: Why is Skynet doing this? What is the purpose of wiping out humanity? Why are Terminators humanoid if they don't need to be disguised as humans? Shouldn't the machines be threatening or at least hard to thwart? How did Christian Bale manage to be a more annoying John Connor than Edward Furlong? When will they realize rappers can't act? How many times are they going to say Kyle Reese (it could be a drinking game)? Why is it that Marcus Wright (a Terminator, for anyone who didn't see the trailer) is the most human character in the film? ( It must be his strong human heart).
Marcus is easily the most interesting character in the film, so it's sad he doesn't just destroy John Connor and the resistance and travel back to a time before this script was "written" and start fresh. Terminator: Salvation is as unnecessary as a junior novelization or comic book adaptation. It doesn't contain anything you needed to know, wanted to know, or didn't already know about the mythos. But it's big, expensive, and explodie, so if that's what you're looking for...go play Halo.
Back in the late 70's, Marvel had made a deal with Toei, a Japanese film and television company, that allowed them to use the Marvel characters in any way they saw fit. In exchange? Probably large sacks of money (with a large $ painted on them) that were hand delivered to the states by Godzilla himself. The result? The shittiestbest Spider-Man ever!
Peter Parker, or rather Takuya Yamashiro, is a motorcycle racer who acquires not only radioactive spider powers, but also a giant battle cruiser called Marveller that transforms into the fighting robot Leopardon. He endlessly goes head-to-head with the villainous Professor Monster, Amazoness, and their evil army of Iron Cross Group soldiers. I'm totally serious. And did I mention it takes place in Angel Grove? ( it doesn't)
You can stream the first 11 episodes of this exilharating 41 episode series over at Marvel.com. Here's episode 9, which had my favorite title, "Motion Accessory is a Loveful Beetle Insect Spy." Enjoy! (and if you don't feel like sitting through the whole thing, skip to the 20:00 mark and watch the last few minutes)
Note: Although I like the image of Godzilla carrying bags of money over the Atlantic, in 1978 he would've been property of Toho, a rival company to Toei. Although Toei now owns Toho, back then I'm sure the business deal probably went down with suits and wire transfers. Not giant lizards.
A Boy And His Blob is about a boy...and his blob...Blobert, actually, who when fed jellybeans can transform into a useful object that corresponds with the respective treat. Licorice jellybeans turn Blobert into a ladder and tangerine turns him into a trampoline. You use these abilities to progress through the levels collecting treasure (and more jellybellys). You and Blobert must face the evil emperor to save Earth and Blobolonia. Sounds...okay? It was actually pretty boring. I don't know if I ever figured out how to get out of the first stretch of sewer, literally, at the beginning of the game. Again...what's your freaking point?!
I think a majority of my excitement may be rooted in my love for these classic style games, and it makes me forget that I never liked the original...this may be no exception. But I'll give it a whirl based on principal. 2D games are still hanging on in the 3D age(Braid and Mega Man 9 sales reflect this), but they're few and far between. More than anything I just want more games like this and fewer first-person-shooters. Thanks for indulging me.
Nintendo has some great things in store for Wii in 2010! First up is Super Mario Galaxy 2! Now, Super Mario Galaxy could be described as "the most fun had playing a video game" and it'd be totally true. So a sequel (with Yoshi!) is very welcome! But wait! There's even more Mario heading your way! New Super Mario Bros. for Wii. Four player classic style Mario? Who do I make the check out to?
Does it make me a bad person when Patrick Swayze's dire health condition--so dire, in fact, that his publicist has to publicly deny rumors that he is already dead--makes me want to watch Ghost? Yes.
