This is essentially a Death Wish style vigilante story about a cop who really, really doesn’t like the drug trade. There is absolutely zero character development and the plot goes nowhere but there are a few exciting moments when the anti-hero is taking out the scum.
(a.k.a. Double Face) Mediocre giallo featuring Klaus Kinski in search of his estranged wife’s killer. Noteworthy moments: super fake model train vs. car collision and naked hippy motorcycle party.
After Interior Design, Sparks wisely took a six year break to go back to their rooms and think about what they had done. Gratuitous Sax was a refreshing return to the lyrical wit of their earlier records with a new found commitment to pure euro-style dance music. These tracks really feel like they’re numbers from a forgotten Broadway musical. Not show tunes, but stories that are sung from a character’s perspective. Anyhow, this isn’t their finest work but it was a nice nudge back in the right direction. I remember buying this CD at a shopping mall record store and pony-tailed clerking being overly amused by the cover. I’m not going to say the cover is that funny, but I will say that it is awfully yellow.
I’m not a huge fan of 2-D platform games. Even modern ones tend to be rather shallow when it comes to story. Rather, these games tend to lean a bit too heavy on item collection as a player goal. This can be a fun challenge, but its appeal is of a more casual, occasional pick-up-and-play type. A Boy and his Blob follows this formula, and more specifically uses the puzzle-platformer tropes laid out by earlier puzzlers like Oddworld or Braid. The focus here isn’t twitchy platforming skills, it’s finding the correct solution for getting from point A to point B. In your toolkit is Blob—a polymorphic alien whose transformations are controlled through the ingestion of various flavored jelly beans. Need to get up one level? Turn Blob into a ladder or a trampoline. Need a weight to hold down a button? Turn Blob into an anvil. You get the idea. There are about a dozen different objects he can become, but you only are allowed access to a few of these powers per level. Towards the end of the game this becomes a real challenge. Beyond that, what this game has going for it is its hand-drawn animation and art direction. Even the universe swallowing enemies are cute and squooshy. Also includes a “hug” button.
Aside from the incredible Hercules starring Lou Ferrigno, I have not seen many of these Italian swords and sandals epics. This one, however, was on my checklist of Mario Bava projects that I need to watch as I have been making my way through Tim Lucas’s book, All the Colors of the Dark. Although only credited as the cinematographer, I think Bava actually directed much of this (haven’t gotten that far in the book yet). Even if he didn’t, his style is all over the place. The film is awash in beautiful colored lighting and filled with great sets and effects. I have not seen enough of these types of films to know if this is a better example of the genre, but I found myself a little bored by much of the story. A plan on watching more, so my opinion of this film may improve with time.
This not so much a movie as it is a seemingly endless collection of stylized hero shots. The dialogue is terrible, the story is terrible, the acting is bad (Milla Jovovich is only capable of a single facial expression) and the CGI effects are on par with those of an episode of Xena or Power Rangers. The action sequences are completely unbelievable and feel like they come straight from a video game, boring cut-scenes and all. The only thing this movie has going for it is an overabundance of colorful style. As a matter of fact, it’s drowning in style. If ever there was a movie that qualified as over directed, this is it.
My least favorite Sparks album (Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat is a close second). Pre-2000s Sparks have tended to follow the audio trends of the day. A Sparks record from 1988 sounds like just about every pop record from 1988, and let’s face it, pop music in the late 80’s was pretty awful. Interior Design is at times indistinguishable from a Paula Abdul record. There’s lots of digital synth sounds, trash can electric drums, and basslines that use that electric bass guitar patch straight off the Seinfeld soundtrack. The only song that I actually like is “The Toughest Girl In Town.” I guess there might be some decent song writing buried in here, but I just can’t get past the arrangements. Maybe it’s just giving me flashbacks of my senior year of high school. Shudder.
Technically this CD is titled The Best of Sparks: Music That You Can Dance To. I imagine that horribly misleading title is due to some rights issue with the label or distributor. In any event, Music That You Can Dance To was the sparks returning to the more dance oriented sound they had back when they collaborated with Giorgio Moroder in the late seventies. The music is very much a product of its time with the digital technology that was available to them. The songs have a Theme from Miami Vice feel. For the most, when combined with Ron’s quirky song structures, this works rather well. “Change” ranks up there with the band’s best songs. “Figertips” and “Rosebud,” on the other hand, are terrible almost being embarrasing. Still, I’m surprised at how much I still like this CD, especially knowing the train wreck which was to follow it.
Another “secret life of _____” CGI animated feature. In this case it’s the secret life of video game characters. I went into this expecting it to be a wall-to-wall nostalgia blast, but that part of the movie ends after the first fifteen minutes. From then on the film focuses on the characters from various fictional games. It’s entertaining, but it’s your average by-the-book storyline and characters types.
This game had one of the best trailers ever. None of the narrative spark that permeates the trailer is in the actual game. The closest thing you get is a few paragraphs of backstory on the character selection screen. This is unfortunate because Dead Island is a big open world game that gives you no incentive to explore it’s lush and detailed map. Rather than tell a story or develop characters, the quests are of the fetch and return an item variety. Even the opening cutscene is an insult. It consists of the worst “beeyotch”-laden rap song a 12-year-old wannabe gangsta could come up with.
The combat mechanics are fun and keep the game going for a while. But without the narrative hook, the chopping and bludgeoning just becomes tedious. The game doesn’t even let you play it as a pure action challenge because it uses a horrible recovery from death system that removes any real challenge in defeating particularly tough segments. Hit a thug, die, come back to life and hit him again… repeat until you win. Such a disappointment.
