It’s kismet, I tell you. Yesterday, driving around town, I was listening to this CD all day. Lo and behold, that night, as we were flipping through channels, TCM was playing Harum Scarum in glorious HD! Admittedly, this is not the strongest Elivis soundtrack you will ever hear but it makes up for it’s rock and roll shortcomings with a heaping dose of cheese. The movie is about as anti-politically correct as you can get and features a browned Elvis seductively wooing an exotic 10-year-old dancer. Great stuff. Girl Happy is about a bouncy as the king could get (I think they actually sped up the tape to make it extra-jumpy) and provides the rollicking that Harum Scarum was missing.
Another great two movie compilation from The King. Everyone knows how great “Viva Las Vegas” is, but track two, “If You Think I Don’t Need You,” is really the best song on the record. Roustabout is the weaker of the two soundtracks because it goes for a more standard movie musical vibe than the rock ‘n’ roll. Yup, there’s a song called, “Carny Town” and it’s not the only carnival themed song on here.
Quite possibly the weakest of the Potter movies. Nothing seems to happen and it feels overly long (and there is still another half to go). At this point in the story there doesn’t seem to be any surprises left and we are left just connnecting the dots from the shocking ending of the previous movie to what I expect will be a wild and exciting CGI-rific climax in part 2. Unfortunately, those dots consisit of mostly brooding teen angst set against a tent. Well, a magical tent.
I do love pinball and this documentary is about a bunch of people who also love their pinball too. It was entertaining but not particularly informative. Sure, anyone who sees this thing will cite the story of how pinball needed to proven as a game of skill rather than a game of chance in order to become legal. That interesting but it’s only about five minutes of the running time. The rest is mostly devoted to the connection players, collectors and creators have with pinball. I have seen this type of documentary too much: dip to black, overlay a text comment/chapter title (as opposed to narration) then fade in to some weird guy who is obsessed about a niche topic yammering on about how important his niche interest is. If it counts for anything, this documentary does have great title graphics.
Mass Effect had a really interesting storyline and I was pretty excited to delve further into the universe of Shepard and his tight-clothed comrades. The game starts off with an exciting cinematic which fulfilled goal number one of any RPG sequel: strip the player of all their powers and loot so they can start from square one again. Well, all was not completely lost. I imported my character from the first game so it remembered a few of the major decisions I had made which, for all the hype, seemed to have very little significant bearing on most of Mass Effect 2.
Game play remains mostly the same. Things seem to be a bit easier this time around and the hideous inventory system has been ditched altogether and replaced with… nothing. So, inventory management is gone and now you can just blindly click through and upgrade everything without having to put any thought into your decisions. Okay, fine. I’ve said I’m a lazy gamer in the past, but this seems to defeat the role playing aspect of the experience. The new-found focus seems to make this more of a twitch-free shooter with only hints of role playing in the mix.
The majority of the game’s decisions are made in your dialogue choices. Choosing wisely gains you the benefit of avoiding conflict later on, and can help shape the loyalty of your crew. This time around I was more careful to build relationships with my crew which help me care about them more during the character killing climax of the game. I also spent more time mining resources for upgrade. This was the thoroughly boring process of mousing over the surfaces of dozens of planets and waiting for beeps to get faster. Couldn’t they have made a mini-game out of the process? Even a tertris clone would have improved this.
Fortunately, the story keeps things interesting and makes much of the grinding worthwhile. Each character is given some back story and you actually care about them all. The main plot is rather simple and lacks the grand mystery of the first game but there are plenty of side quests and lots of character development to make it seem deeper than it really was. In the end I like Mass Effect 2 and ME3 may actually be a day of release purchase for me!
Portal 2 is incredible. You’ll find plenty of gushing reviews just about everywhere else on the ‘net so I will keep this short. The game combines a wickedly funny narrative with innovative and engaging game play mechanics. Portal 2 isn’t terribly difficult (it’s much easier than Portal), but there’s still nothing more satisfying than completing a particularly rube-goldberg-esque puzzle. Also, multiplayer co-op adds a whole new level of complication to the puzzling. Hopefully Valve will keep releasing new maps for the co-op game in the near-future. This is one of those games with a fairly universal appeal which you try to get your non-gamer friends to play just so they can get hooked on gaming (and heroin).
This is another Miyazaki film to watch strictly for the visuals. The story is pretty inane, but, as far as kids movies go, you could do worse. Many of the Miyazaki clichés are there: story takes place in rural Japan, humans are evil polluting beasts, all the elderly people look exactly the same, and the main character is a little girl facing huge, fantastical obstacles (what’s Miyazaki’s deal with little girls? A little creepy I must say.).
The third movie in the six film DVD set Icons of Suspense: Hammer Films is, so far, the best. The story takes the somewhat novel approach of showing you who the killer is within the first three minutes. The suspense then comes from wondering how (or even if) the other characters will be able to see the clues which are obvious to the audience. The acting is all very good and baddie is given an extra edge of creepiness with his choice of corny (although era-appropriate) high-waisted pants and skimpy speedos.
Spinout remains my favorite Elvis record. You could pair it with thirty minutes modem noises and this CD would still be awesome. Fortunately, it has been matched with Double Trouble, another good Elvis movie soundtrack… not Spinout good, but good nonetheless. I was first attracted to the cheese factor of some of these songs like “Beach Shack” and “Smorgosbord,” but the more I listened, the more I realized there were some real gems here: “Stop, Look, And Listen,” “Adam and Evil,” “Never Say Yes,” and “Spinout.” I really could go on and just name every track. Did I mention I love this record? Double Trouble is a little more mellow and showtune-ish but the title track and “Long Legged Girl (With the Short Dress On)” bring the rock ‘n’ roll. These Double Feature CDs are worth every penny.
This is a French horror film that often gets lumped into the sub-genre of torture porn along with Hostel and Saw. I can surely see why, but this film feels like there’s more to it than that. The majority of the movie feels like a j-horror psychodrama in which you don’t know whether to believe what you are seeing. Just when you think you have it all worked out the film makes some crazy twists and it becomes something else entirely. It’s very dark and, at times, seriously cringe-worthy but is worth seeing through to the end if, for anything, the discussions you will have over what it all meant.
