The big scary this week was killing people by biting their spines open and sucking out their juices. They made a big deal about the teeth being human:
#WritingFromIsolationWard
Tag: review
I’ve been enjoying the “Dark Reign” crossover storyline; so much so that I look forward to what I get to read of it from time to time. In Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2, Reed is scanning the Marvel Multiverse looking for answers to where he went wrong and it looks like he’s coming to “I’m so smart, I can’t fail” as the answer. Look for “Evil Reed” to show up soon.
Fringe this week did little (overtly) to move the over-arching plot along. However, there was a bit of covert 80s and 90s action to check out!
Hey! Becky! Almost didn’t recognize her until she sneered; that sneer is going to be burned into my memory for years. OH HOW I HATED THIS BECKY! When Sarah Chalk took over, I was a fan of Rosanne again; I will admit that Alicia Goranson was a better fit for the character, Canadian Sarah Chalk was too pleasant (which is why I preferred her over snarky scowlpuss here)
Anyway; this episode had two hairless freaks in it. One is involved in the main plot. so I won’t spoil him here; but check out who appears for a few moments on screen again:
The Witness is here again to watch over the proceedings again; this time from the sidelines of the episode.
There was one clunker of a line in the episode when a character (Played by Erik Palladino of Law and Order) walks out and says to his cell phone “I’m at the hospital, we have another one”
WHAT HOSPITAL? This is Boston right? Aren’t there more that one? Another What? That isn’t enough information for a phone that doesn’t contain a greeting or jargon.
Also; this happened:
This is going to be a very spoiler-heavy review; as I want to save you from seeing this one. I have enjoyed every Nic Cage movie that I’ve seen over the past decade; but I have to say, avoid “Knowing” until you can watch it for free or you are having a “bad movie” night.
Outlander
Aliens and Vikings vs Super Alien Predator!
During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan (Caviezel), a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking’s Iron Age weaponry
My rating: stars
I wasn’t too sure how this would come out; I’d been reading about the impending “Aliens Vs Vikings” movie since before I left the States and was equal parts excited about the concept and concerned that I’d be handed another Pathfinder. I’m very glad to say that no, Outlander is not pointless and stupid. It’s not some kind of action opus (the actors are WAY TOO PRETTY) for that.
This was actually something that annoyed me, Caviezel and his rival Wulfric (Jack Huston) are two of the prettiest “hardend soldiers” that have ever walked the earth, with nary a scar or mussed hair to distract from their guylinered eyes. Even after being sorely beated, Caviezel’s character never really shows the damage one would expect; as if the director was telling the crew “you keep those boys clean, who want’s to see an action hero all beat up and dirty?”
Otherwise the action is great, happens mostly in the dark with no clear view of it, but it’s still fine. I didn’t get too bored during it and while the plot is as complex as “Dick and Jane are illiterate mutes” it’s not so boneheaded that I wanted to just quit the movie. I recommend this movie for a pizza and beer group watch or a lazy sunday type movie.
I’m a big fan of the Transporter movies, I got into the series on number 2, instead of the traditional Number one. In Number two there was a “Girl With Problems” character who spent a good deal of the movie in soggy lingerie shooting twin machine pistols. It was an Instant Classic.
The (crazily named) Megaton Boomstick directed this movie and expanded the “Girl with Problems” role into “Annoying Ukranian Freckle Face that we force Frank to fall for”
This did not derail the movie, but it made the whole “What means Talent and Looks?” jokes come fast and furious while we were watching. I should also point out that freckles are cute, the femail lead appears to have skin somewhere between her freckles, but I’m sure that will clear up the next time she is under a good strong lightbulb.
I’m spending too much time on the Female lead; true. I should be posting about the action, but the action is good, it’s rediculous and incredible, you’re assured that if Frank doesn’t pound the bad weasel into fine jelly the bad guy will get his anyway at the hands of Freckles McPouty’s daddy. So why bother?
Bother because it is the next movie in the series and we need to get them to make at least one more before they hand off the franchise to Shia Lebouf or Lindsay Lohan or something.
See it because it’s another Transporter and you gotta admit it’s fun to watch an Audi drive like a Bugatti.
The Show that Smells
The Show That Smells is the most SHOCKING story ever shown on the silver screen! It’s also the tale of Jimmie, a country music singer dying of tuberculosis, and Carrie, his wife, who tries to save him by selling her soul to a devil who designs HAUTE COUTURE CLOTHING! Elsa is a powerful Parisian dress designer, and a vampire. She wants to make Carrie look beautiful, smell beautiful – AND THEN SHE WANTS TO EAT HER! Will Carrie survive as her slave? Will Jimmie be cured? Starring a host of Hollywood’s brightest stars, including Coco Chanel, Lon Chaney and the Carter Family, The Show That Smells is a thrilling tale of HILLBILLIES, HIGH FASHION, AND HORROR!
My rating: stars
Dead Space
A repair crew visits a damaged mining ship in orbit around a planet that has yielded more than just pure mineral goodness; now the repair crew need to fight off the crazed and mutated remains of the mining ship’s personnel and escape back into space and home.
Dead Space plays about the same as every other Over the shoulder third person horror game. Aiming is fairly good, scares are plentiful and the Graphics are above par. Some notable game play mechanics issues that I found annoying, no jump. Fire was not always fire, it was sometimes “flail” at air, requiring you to remember that the right mouse mutton needed to be pressed … OH DAMN I’M BEING EATEN AGAIN!!!!.
Never mind that you can’t run & shoot at the same time. The game just punished you for having the gun out, you walked extra slow if you brandished any weapon larger than the empty gloves, but ran fine if you just “carried” the weapon. I spent the majority of this game cursing or panicking, it was high school all over again. Whether it was running down halls praying that nothing would pop out or frantically trying to get the damn gun to fire (which never seemed to work if I didn’t keep it at “the ready” before a fight. Did I mention that I kept the gun “ready” for more than 5 hours in the game?
I took to launching mines into every room I entered, but that made no difference, as the monsters were often non there until I saw them. Let me state that again, if I couldn’t see the monster, it often wasn’t there. Which means I could shoot a mine into a room, have it explode, then run face first into the monster behind the door that wasn’t there until I saw it.
Perhaps if Issac ran through the whole game with his eyes closed, there would have been no monsters at all!
My rating: stars
I’m being overly critical, of course.
I played the game in small bursts; letting my heart rate slow to a near attack between firefights and enclosed space battles with small crowds of dessicated infants with serious worm issues. It wasn’t a “dark” game, which was refreshing, as many horror games hide the monsters in the dark and rely on them jumping out to get you (Doom 3, and so on). Dead Space scared you by letting you know the monsters were coming well in advance and that there was nothing you would be able to do to stop them, save gird your loins and find a solid wall to stand against or a long open space to run through.
The dismemberment mechanic worked fairly well, but beyond the really touch monsters, I was able to bludgeon or stomp most of them to death with minimal effort; which happened more than I would have liked. Also, I don’t think I killed a single human in the game. Which was a crime, as more than one human character needed to be dismembered by my line gun. C’est La Vie.
I played the Game on my Core Duo, on Windows Xp Sp3 with an Nvidia 8500GT video card and 2 gigs of ram. I turned off bloom, blur, motion blur, advanced lighting and shadows and played it at 1440×900. I don’t think I suffered one slowdown or hiccup in game play. Not one. It was solidly beautiful and fluid throughout, even without added dressing.
As for the plot, there were some fairly severe inconsistencies introduced; not the least of which was the Marker itself. I won’t stray into spoiler town, but I will state this, [spoiler] “THE MARKER WAS NOT THE SOURCE OF THE EVIL, IT WAS THE SOLUTION TO IT. “[/spoiler]
Step Brothers
John C. Reily and Will Ferrell play the Man-Boy roles they may have been waiting their entire careers for as two spoiled and pampered manchildren of Single parents, they are faced with losing their status as the sole focus of their respective parent’s attention and fend for themselves.
An uneven and sometimes hilarious comedy. That is the single best thing one can say about this movie. Both Actors do exactly what you expect of them and 60% of the good laughs are in the trailer. I actually stopped watching the movie at points; cringing at the craven way the two men behaved. There are some notably funny moments, but the package as a whole is flawed. I’d recommend watching this as a rental or borrow it from your friend who buys all of Will Ferrell’s movies without question.
My rating: stars
Criticism aside, there is one scene in the movie that literally brought me to coughing racks of tears, I was laughing so hard. Imagine the massive fight between Neo and Agent Smith but 100 times more brutal and with school-aged children in the role of the massive crowd. Now imagine Will Ferrel swinging a small child as a weapon.
That one scene almost redeemed this movie to a solid 4.0. almost.
Crossed Issue One Preview, originally uploaded by Kevin Wardrop.
I’ve read a number of “Horror” comics, and more than my share of Zombie Comics in my day. I don’t think that I’ve ever really turned a page and then immediately wanted to skip what I’m seeing so quickly until I saw the Climax of this Comic.
It’s a real achievement for a Writer and Artist to come together and create something that shocks as effectively as the best horror movie. Better still if one can be equally repulsed at the same time. This Comic is truly horrifying and frightening.
Frightening like crowds of flesh hungry Peckerwoods with permanent viagra hard-ons and shrieking harridan meth-head women.
Frightening like the total breakdown of society into Paunchy Nerds and Wiry Speed freaks with Knives and dangerous libidos.
Not to mention the fact that a Nuclear Bomb has gone off in the Geographical Neighborhood.
Not To Mention that society has broken down.
You can Check out Crossed at your local Comic Store and if they don’t have it, check out Avatar Press
Story by Garth Ennis, Art by Jacen Burrows
You can check out more of my photographs at: Flickr