Troll 2
Yes, it’s as bad as you’ve heard. Definately falls under the “so bad it’s good” category. I would recommend watching this, but only with a group of like-minded, cheese-loving people and, preferably, with a constant flow of alcohol.
Author: Robert Gomez
Dummy Image Bookmarklet
This afternoon I came up with a handy little bookmarklet (or favlet) that uses the site dummyimage.com to create a place holder graphic. Simply drag the following link to the button bar of your browser:
Dummy ImageHere’s the code:
<a href="javascript:var q=window.prompt('Dimensions XxY (for example 640x480)');if(q){void(window.open('http://dummyimage.com/'+q))}else{void(0);};">Dummy Image</a>When you click the bookmark it will prompt you to input image dimensions. Use the format, WIDTHxHEIGHT (for example 640×480) and a new window should open up with a downloadable GIF with those exact dimensions.
Copyright and YouTube
I just noticed today that a video I had posted in YouTube was just blocked in the U.S. because of some music I used in the background. Specifically, they blocked my PC Transporter video that I used to demo some hardware I was selling on eBay. The video is pretty mundane, but I used a Señor Coconut track in the background along with various beeps and noises from the Apple ][gs. Come on, who is going to download the song with all sorts of disk drive noises on top of it? WMG thinks people will do this, so now only people outside the U.S. can view the video. But, get this, if you can view the video in your region, it gives you direct links to download the song on iTunes or Amazon! That is a brilliant business move, but apparently using user created videos as a promo tool in the U.S. is beyond the pea brains at WMG. So, for my sake, please steal Señor Coconut’s record off the Internet (search for it on Google, you’ll find it for download from Rapidshare or similar site) and don’t buy the record if you live in the U.S.A.! I will find a way around YouTube’s blocker soon and repost the video here as soon as I can.
Black Dynamite
This is not so much a parody as a straight-up recreation of a low budget 70s black exploitation film. The humor comes from the exaggeration of the style and it spares us (for the most part) from the Scary Movie-style moments of obvious jokes.
Zonbi Jieitai
No-budget Japanese zombie movie with a dumb story a few good gore shots and lots of horrible iMovie-quality digital effects. I guess it’s played for humor, but there aren’t really any truly funny moments.
Barbarella
The French comic upon which the movie was based. Stunning 60’s stylized artwork, but the story is just a series of bland sci-fi episodes with a little titillation thrown in here and there.
Aliens Omnibus
This is a collection of the Aliens comics that were released by Dark Horse in the late eighties. These came out before the awful Alien 3 went and killed all the characters we loved from Aliens. The plot picks up shortly after Aliens with characters returning to LV-426 to explore the crashed alien ship. I think I would have preferred it if the later movies took this direction, but the comics are just poorly written fanboy garbage for the most part. They try to be deep and end up just being a confusing mess of clichés and movie re-quotes.
Giallo
Giallo isn’t quite the return to form I wanted from Dario Argento, but it’s a much better movie than the majority of his post-Opera films (I still think The Stendhal Syndrome and the Masters of Horror episode Jenifer are much better). Gone is the visual style that really was what made Argento’s best movies so great. Instead, we have a good Italian-style thriller with the usual graphic violence, bad acting and plot holes. Generally, this is enough for me, but I always want more from Argento.
Video Games Are Derivative? No!! Okay, yes.
Ya know, I love me them video games. I would go so far as to argue that video games are, well… can be, art. However, I have to admit that even the best video games are a bit lacking in the originality department. Take, for example, this screen shot from Yahoo showing three upcoming games:
Stubble-faced muscle men abound in the video game world.
Klonoa on Nintendo Wii
This was a cartoony and fun side-scrolling platformer with nice2.5-D graphics. A bit easy and lacking the exploration and precise control of a Mario game, but enjoyable and worth playing through especially for the unexpected ending.