This is one of my wife’s CDs that made its way into my collection. Shonen Knife is one of those bands which you kinda laugh at when you first hear them and then they grow on you. They draw upon a lot of the same sources as The Pebbles—a band which I like much more—but they don’t quite have that 60’s girl group appeal. They are more a product of the Ramones rather than The Beatles.
This is the story of an American GI who returns to Sicily years after the war to find the girl he loved only to find himself held captive by the Mafiosi who run the town. The story is pretty good but it falters in the third act without ever really paying off.
Costume Quest feels like an off-hand idea thrown out there at a pitch meeting. I’m sure the designers had just taken their kids out trick-or-treating for the first time and thought to themselves, “Geesh, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a game where you were trick-or-treating and your costumes gave you superpowers!” Well, it might have been cool except for the fact that knocking on doors only to have repetitive battles is not fun at all. If there is one thing Doublefine Studios is good at is creative art direction and silly dialogue. Much like the critically lauded Psychonauts, this game is dripping with style and creativity. But, also like Psychonauts, the actual game play is just ho-hum. The game is just a lot of walking around, picking up candy and then having the occasional timing-based (ala Mario RPG) and strategy-free battles. This game was entertaining for about a half hour but got old really fast.
Syberia II picks up right where the first game left off with you racing by train into northern Russia in search of the mysterious island of Syberia. Of course there are plenty of obstacles along the way and lots of new and fantastical places to explore. The writing here is top-notch (with the exception of the completely redundant side story of Kate’s employers attempting to track her down) and I genuinely cared about the characters and their fates. My usual complaints about point-and-click adventures still apply here, but I never felt the game was (too) unfair with its puzzles.
Oblivion is a huge, open-world RPG made by the same folks who made Fallout 3. In fact, it plays very much like Fallout 3 in terms of quest structure and interaction with the world. The main storyline is not terribly interesting, but I found myself getting sidetracked by the optional quests and dungeons that litter the entire world map. I must have spent the first ten hours of the game trying to recover from a vampire’s bite. I also wasted a lot of time in the colorful expansion world of the Shivering Isles. When I finally got around to completing the main quest it took about 5 hours. The fun of this game is more in the exploration of the world map and character building by honing your various skills. Combat is fun but can be hectic and confusing if you are fighting alongside an ally. In the end it’s just a click-fest in which you are just trying to time your health potions and spells when there is a moment between the attacks.
After years of searching through record bins and online auction sites I have finally purchased a copy of The Golding Institute’s Sounds of the International Airport Restrooms! This was Planet Pimp’s final release and it has become the rarest title from that catalog. I am not sure why this one became so hard to find but I think when Sven-Erik decided to close shop he ending up destroying a lot of his stuff (just a guess). For years I have chatting up the rarity of this record on my Unofficial Planet Pimp Tribute site which may have lead to the ridiculous prices that I would see this 7″ would go for on eBay. At one time I thought that twenty dollars was too much for me to pay but then I kept seeing it going for higher and higher prices—the last few auctions I tracked had it selling for seventy dollars. I paid forty dollars to a seller on Discogs.com which is still ridiculous, but I have a feeling it may be the lowest price I will see this going for.
In the interest of liberating this record from the clutches of the evil record collectors, for a limited time I am going to post a rip of the entire album for you to download and enjoy. See the download link below!
A mediocre giallo that felt a lot like early 60s Bava without the style. Although the twist, which should have been plainly obvious, fooled me.
Outside of Bava’s Rabid Dogs I have not seen many Italian Eurocrime movies. This one was pretty good. It had a groovy wah-wah laden soundtrack, lots of violence and a by-the-numbers revenge plot. I especially liked the 70s style car chases complete with fruit stands getting obliterated and scaffolding being driven through.
I think this is my least favorite Shellac album. Sure there are some great tracks on it, as there are on any Shellac album, but are also a few that just seem lazy in their delivery. I am not too keen on the experimental/talky moments on the first side either.
I am a fan of Westerns, especially the spaghetti kind, but I not very familiar with many of the classics of the genre. The Magnificent Seven can now be crossed off my to-watch list. The story about a group of would-be heroes hired to defend a helpless village has been done a zillion times from the obvious Seven Samurai to A Bugs Life. Because the plot has become a cliché, you watch these various iterations for the characters, the action sequences or visuals. There are plenty of great actors in this version and a few hammy ones too. Overall, I was entertained throughout the film and especially enjoyed every scene with Eli Walach.
