Category: Film

More like “Retardedbution”

The Wife and I went to see Resident Evil: Retribution last weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever said “What the F?” so many times during a single film.

Yeah, it was pretty much as retarded as can be. And not retarded in an awesome way like Lollipop Chainsaw, but retarded in a “how did anyone think this was a good idea?” kind of way. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who liked the four previous Resident Evil movies, and went into the theater pretty excited for the next chapter.

The movie opens right where the last one left off, with Alice and a bunch of no-names on a huge boat and Umbrella…jets? I don’t know how do describe those things. Umbrella flying vehicles surrounding them. Only, it starts at the end of the scene, and the opening credits are set over the “battle” on the ship being played in reverse slow-mo. This is not a bad way to do your opening credits. Kind of artistic, but nothing super-original. The only problem I have with this is that Chris and Claire are on-screen for about three seconds and then vanish forever. They are nowhere else in the movie. It’s right after this scene that things go to Hell.

The opening credits are immediately followed up by Milla Jovovich spending ten minutes or so giving a rather thorough summary of the first movie, and then bits and pieces of the three sequels that preceded this one. Kind of odd that they spend so much time talking about the first one instead of the fourth film, Resident Evil: Afterlife, but it turns out to be foreshadowing, so I guess it’s okay. What’s not okay is that they just spent ten minutes of our movie summarizing the entire series up to this point! I know it’s Hollywood and they have to assume that all moviegoers are idiots, but geez. Once you’re in the fifth installment of a so-so action-horror franchise that’s (very) loosely based on a video game, you’re pretty much only attracting the people who’ve seen the other movies and need closure.

Then, then they have the gall to show us the boat battle. Again. In normal speed and not backwards. Again, you’re just doing this for the morons who didn’t understand the slo-mo-rewind version that they just saw ten minutes ago. There’s no need to show this scene a second time! We got it!

After that, there’s a “dream sequence” that does serve as more foreshadowing, sort of, but is still not entirely necessary. If you’re keeping track, after the opening credits are done, roughly the next half hour of movie is a big waste of time. Why could this time not have been spent fleshing out the plot a little better? Maybe instead of telling us stuff we (should) already know and showing duplicate scenes and a stupid dream sequence, maybe explain a little bit about the damn viruses! That’s actually really important and not something that has been discussed at all since the second movie!

I’ll take a little rage break to educate those of you who haven’t followed the games, and don’t know the Resident Evil virus lineage. The first movie starts with the T-Virus. This is accurate, and discussed at length in the first two films. It reanimates the dead, and has a mutation effect on most species, which gives us things like lickers and Nemesis. This is uncomplicated and without being nitpicky, it can reasonably carry us all the way to the end of third movie, Resident Evil: Extinction. But then in Afterlife, suddenly the zombies start sprouting Plaga tentacles and we encounter an Executioner. What’s that? What’s a Plaga, you ask? The Las Plagas parasite is introduced in Resident Evil 4, and genetically improved in Resident Evil 5, which is where the creepy mouth-tentacles come from. It’s also the reason why the “zombies” are now able to retain their intelligence and move at increased speeds: they’re not zombies, they’re giant bugs puppeteering the corpses of their human hosts. This is never explained in the movies, and you could have hand-waved it as a T-virus evolution until Retribution.

There are two points in this movie where the Las Plagas are mentioned by name. One is quick and subtle enough that you’ll miss it if you don’t know what it means, but the second is made a very big deal at the climax of the film. Never, ever, does anyone explain what the Las Plagas are, or where they came from. More infuriating still is that none of the Plaga hosts transform at any time. They just remain super-powered humans, though all but one look like vampires from Buffy. It’s not that this isn’t plausible, but it’s a huge waste of an opportunity! In a movie that’s about special effects and gruesome creatures, why wouldn’t you have the cool bug-monsters sprout out of their host bodies? (Big spoilers follow, highlight to read) More annoying still is that the main character who is injected with a Plaga ends up being eaten by the “Plaga Undead,” as the movie calls them. This is completely retarded, and makes absolutely zero sense. Plagas are supposed to have a hive-mind thing going on. They know damn well not to eat one of their own. Aargh! I understand that the movie series is taking some creative liberties with the franchise, but not explaining important plot elements is bad. It flies in the face of proper world-building and is just sloppy movie-making. I’m sure the rest of the entries in the series have their own problems like this, but none were nearly as noticeable to me.

While a lot of Retribution was pretty hard to watch, there were some good elements! They were named Ada Wong, Leon Kennedy, and Barry Burton. Three very awesome fan-favourite game characters that have only finally made their debut in the movie franchise. I have to especially hand it to the casting director, because Bingbing Li is a dead ringer for Ada, though maybe ten years younger. The costume designer is clearly a fan of the games too, because Leon and Barry’s outfits were spot-on to their game incarnations. At least to someone who doesn’t pay a huge amount of attention to costumes. Barry had his trademark red vest, and Leon had his super-swank jacket and shoulder-knife. Perfect.

All was not good surrounding these three though. The dude who played Leon very obviously had some issues with the awful dialogue, and his delivery on a handful of them were almost as bad as the writing itself. Then there’s Barry’s big part in the escape scene… you’ll know it when you see it, and you will either groan the biggest groan ever or actually hurt yourself because  you facepalmed so hard. I did the latter.

In conclusion, Resident Evil: Retribution has a few more issues than any of the other movies in the series. And I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for crap like this. It’s got some ups, a lot more downs, and an elephant-sized licker for some reason. The only reason you should see this movie is, like I said earlier, if you’ve seen the other four and need a little closure. Oh, but you won’t get that anyway because they all but said “stay tuned for the sixth one!” at the end. Yeesh.

Nostalgia trippin’

Hey, so does it mean you’re old when just the air can cause waves of nostalgia to wash over you? Because I’m totally getting that right now. It’s been a beautiful fall day, and the first real one as far as I’m concerned, because it’s just got that feeling to it. I love this weather, and it brings back memories of everything I’ve ever associated it with. I have no way to properly convey these feelings in words, but I can feel them in my heart and I need to get them out somehow, so I kept a running list of every memory that came back to me today because of the cool autumn air. Here’s what I got:

  • Trick-or-treating in general
  • Beating Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes for Nintendo 64 one Halloween night
  • Playing Silent Hill for the first time
  • Daily visits to the Heath Sciences Center
  • Watching Criminal Minds on Stephanie’s laptop in my car
  • Guitar Hero 5
  • Visiting a small corner store downtown that smelled like curry, and buying Pepsis at said store which also smelled of curry
  • Treehouse of Horror
  • YTV’s Dark Night specials
  • McDonald’s Halloween McNugget toys
  • Driving around with the family to look at Halloween houses
  • That old McDonald’s Halloween cassette tape. “Spooky Sounds” or something of the like?
  • Pokémon Silver Version
  • The beginning of Christmas madness at Toys ‘R’ Us
  • Donkey Konga
  • Traipsing through yards covered in crunchy, fallen leaves
  • Finally earning my driver’s license
  • Purchasing my first car (I still love you, Spirit)
  • The beginning of hockey season, and all those dreadful practise sessions
  • Carving jack-o-lanterns
  • The last family trip to Fargo
  • Chasing a bunch of egg-chucking hooligans down the street while dressed as the red Angry Bird
  • Playing Rock Band 2 at a Halloween party, and my sister-in-law commenting at how intense I looked while I was playing
  • Creating the alias “Tito Sanchez” for reasons I cannot recall
  • Going to a corn maze and haunted house with a group of friends, and being thought of as a goofball (not in a good way) by the females of the bunch.
  • Playing Magical Starsign in the upstairs storeroom of Toys ‘R’ Us instead of working
  • My brother’s friend Brent dressing as a woman for Halloween, and being called “Brenta” for many years afterwards
  • Not giving out free cookies to trick-or-treaters at Tim Hortons
  • Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, for some reason. I don’t know why, because I never played that at Halloween time
  • Pillsbury cookie rolls, with pumpkins coloured into them!
  • Enjoying those cold, foggy mornings where nobody’s around and silence abounds
  • The many times I said I’d participate in (or at least check out) a zombie walk, but never did
  • Pumpkin pie
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas
  • Specifically, “This is Halloween”

Terrible Monster Costume from the Haunted Sea

It wasn’t long ago -in my second-to-last article in fact- that I proclaimed my love for campy old monster movies. Really, I’m a huge fan of the “drive-in movie” regardless of whether they contain monsters or not. Creature features just seem to be the dominant sub-genre in this case. Any why wouldn’t they be? Cheesy monster movies just work better when you’re huddled up in your car, out in the blackness of the night. You’re much more vulnerable and secluded that at a theater or in the safety of your own home. Not that most of these movies were ever frightening, but the setting definitely added to the movies’ atmosphere.

I don’t know for sure if the average drive-in screen is really bigger than your run-of-the-mill movie screen, but just by merit of it being out in the open, being forced to look up at it, it sure seems bigger. Maybe it’s because most of my drive-in experiences took place when I was about as tall as an Ewok. Anyway, whether it’s really bigger or not, putting a monster up on that big screen makes the monster seem bigger too, greatly enhancing the flavour of the film. Also, add a pinch of salt and a sprig of basil. Delicious!

Not that I’ve ever had the true drive-in movie experience. By the time I was old enough to understand complex concepts like “movies” and “the drive-in,” the golden age of cinema was long over, and with it the drive-in movie. By that point they didn’t make (nevermind show) movies like Phantom From Space or War of the Worlds anymore. No, when I went to the drive-in, I got to see stuff like Batman Forever and The Phantom. That said, going to the drive-in was definitely more about the experience than the movies for me.

Continue reading Terrible Monster Costume from the Haunted Sea

So laaazy

You know, I’ve had a new movie review sitting around for over a month now, but I have no idea how long it will be until I post it. It was originally supposed to go live in July. And it’s pretty much done, too! The bulk of the writing is done; I still have to go back over it to do a little spellchecking and other fine-tuning, but the words are essentially done. The thing that I’m stuck at it getting some screengrabs.

Normally, that’s the part I’d do first. I’d watch a movie/show, and then go back and take a few shots of important part, and then write the article around those. This time I did all the writing first, and the way that I wrote it calls for a lot of images. And not just the basic screengrabs either! No, I worked myself into a corner full of photoshops and collages. I suppose I could go over the article and edit the parts that call out images I don’t want to take/create, but at that point I’m cheating the reader of a fuller experience. Oh, what a world.

It’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s just that taking screenshots o a movie is dull and tedious. Making sure I printscreen jsut the right moments, making sure everything is sized and named properly… It’s boring.

This is sort of similar to the reason why my Monster Hunter Let’s Play is stalling. Playing Monster Hunter is one of my favourite pastimes, and talking about Monster Hunter comes in at a close second, so in that case I’m mostly blaming Camtasia. With sprite-based games, I can set it to record and then just have at it as long as I need, then stop when I feel like the session is done and do a little chopping to make everything nice and neat before I produce it. Monster Hunter, being a PS2 game, I guess eats a ton of memory while being recorded. If I go over about 15 minutes of footage, it stops recording sound and just replaces my narration and the game’s audio with a horrible extra-loud static track. So I have to time myself to make sure I don’t record too long, find a suitable spot to pause, and then wait while to video is processed, then wait twice as long while the video is saved to a file. The processing/saving part eats up all my PC’s resources too, so I can’t do anything else with it while I wait. Then I have to do the usual editing, which is not terrible, but annoying after all the other hoops I’ve had to jump through to get that far. Especially if I screwed up the timing and have to fix the sound problems. And then, then I have to hope that while it was paused for Camtasia to do all its things, that my PS2 emulator hasn’t crashed. That’s happened twice now, and it’s even worse than when the audio breaks, because not just footage is lost, but actual game progress. This was the worst project I’ve ever started.

But that movie review? It’ll be done… maybe this weekend. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I’ll do with my Friday night.

Mass Review Time – Honeymoon Edition

Internet, I have a problem. I’m addicted to Fargo.

Maybe it’s not so bad as addiction, but the summer trip south to Fargo has become a tradition that I can surely not break free of. I need it. I need it so bad that I managed to convince my now-wife that it’s where we should spend our honeymoon. So maybe it is bordering on addiction. I’m not a psychiatrist, I don’t know these things. Surely there’s a better way I could have started this article.

As usual, the trip was mostly to get away, relax, and just be together for a few days. And from what I’m told, that’s mostly what a honeymoon is about too. So to that end the voyage was perfectly successful. Of course we also spent a buttload of money. Like, way more money than we were even allowed to spend while down there. By some random stroke of luck, the amount you’re allowed to spend when crossing the border increased on the day we came home, so we didn’t have to pay duty on what we spent over the previous limit. It’s the first time crossing the border was a truly pleasant experience.

To that end, I should note that this is by no means a complete list of things I bought in the States. I’ve obviously excluded anything The Wife bought, because this website is about me me me me me and God forbid I give anyone else more than a passing mention. I also spend a bit on a few little house things and some clothes that I don’t feel are nearly interesting enough to write about. On that note, let’s take a look at exactly what I judge to be “interesting.”

Continue reading Mass Review Time – Honeymoon Edition

Teenage Martian Ninja Turtles

I don’t know if anyone but me keeps up with this kind of stuff, but there’s a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in production. It’s actually just called “Ninja Turtles,” which is kind of a strange departure from the norm, but I suppose it helps to streamline a title that’s a bit of a mouthful, as well as define it from other works that use the whole title.

The big news about this one though, is that it’s being produced by Michael Bay, and he’s changing the lore so that the turtles are aliens instead of mutants. The fan community is in an uproar, with hateful letters to Bay flying left and right. You might think that being the TMNT fanboy that I am, I would be pushing my way to the front of this spiteful bandwagon. In fact, I am not. At first I wasn’t ready to believe it, but after spending a good hour or so reading what we know about this film so far, I’m not too worried about the change.

I will admit that I do worry about how Bay is going to handle the Turtles otherwise. He’s not exactly a man who understands the concept of “subtlety” and that’s kind of the whole point of ninjas. Overall though, I trust him to keep mostly in line with where the franchise should be. I really loved the reboots of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, even if they did take themselves a little too seriously. TMNT is a fairly light-hearted franchise, so I’m really just hoping that it’s not all grimacing and dull colour palettes. Even the grim black-and-white comic book Turtles lighten up and start cracking wise after the first couple issues.

Anyway, the alien turtles thing. It’s a little ridiculous, but I can’t imagine that it would change the story that much. It’s been confirmed that the Turtles will be the same characters we all know and love, so does their origin really matter? I’ll admit that I had reservations about it at first, but sitting down and really assessing the situation cooled off my terror gauge pretty quickly. Especially given the fact that Eastman and Laird have both been privy to a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that the general public doesn’t have access to yet, and they’re both pretty optimistic about the project. Their direct involvement seems to be limited, but as long as they’re showing upturned thumbs, I believe that everything will turn out alright.

The other thing you really have to consider is that there are plenty of other franchises that have been rebooted or otherwise completely rebuilt that have worked out for the best. In my case, I am thinking explicitly about the Silent Hill series. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, if you want to get really specific. Aside from names, Harry’s line of progression through the town, and the general atmosphere of unease, there really isn’t all that much in common between it and the original Silent Hill. And that was okay! Though Shattered Memories changes nearly everything about the game it is inspired by, I have room enough in my heart for both, because they are both quality products. Yes, someone went in and changed a story that I am very familiar with and treasure as a part of my personal development, but they did a really good job of it! Who’s to say that Michael Bay can’t do the same by altering a mostly irrelevant part of the Turtles lore?

“But… they’re from space!” you may scream like a moron on fire. Yes, they are. Did you know that in the original TMNT lore, the mutagen that made the Turtles into what they are was from space? Kinda makes the transition seem a little less like a major shift than just cutting out the middle man. Yeah, yeah, I know there was none of that in your 80’s cartoon or 90’s movies, but that’s the straight dope. And consider those too; this isn’t the first time a production studio has taken creative liberties with the Turtles’ lore. Hell, the 80’s cartoon took all sorts of wacky departures from Turtles canon, so I think it’ll be okay here. Even worse is that most people (fools) believe that cartoon to be the Turtles canon because it was the most mainstream iteration of the TMNT.

So I guess what I’m saying here is not to make any snap judgements. Yes, the Turtles are going to be from space. It’s not a huge departure from the original lore, so stop saying that the upcoming movie is “sodomizing your childhood.” You’re being nitpicky dumbasses. We don’t really know anything about this movie yet, and odds are that it will be pretty good. As long as it doesn’t take and inspiration from The Next Mutation, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. If it does turn out to be awful, I really doubt it will be because the Turtles came from space. There are much more important places for you to direct your hate: maybe send some towards that retarded-looking Battleship movie for existing. And for casting Rihanna. God, I hate Rihanna.

Good job, zombie arm!

The woman and I went to see The Cabin in the Woods last weekend. Perhaps you’ve seen the trailer? It’s the one where it starts out looking like just another slasher flick, but then a bird crashes into an invisible wall of future-technology and explodes into a fireball. Maybe there’s something more to this…

Since I love cheesy slasher flicks, the interest was already there for me. But then there’s the fact that there’s a whole other level there that we don’t really know anything about, and also it’s written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard? Effin’ sign me up, man! I did read a (very convincing) review in the paper on the Friday too, which at that point was just preaching to the choir.

The Cabin in the Woods was even better than I’d hoped for, and might even beat out Drag Me to Hell as my favourite “horror” movie. If you’ll recall, I really liked Drag Me to Hell. I’d have to watch them both again, but regardless, they’re both amazing films, and I heartily recommend them both. That’s a little too straight to the point though; let’s talk a little more about The Cabin in the Woods.

The movie is played off in the trailer as a pretty generic slasher flick, where four sexy teens and Topher from Dollhouse head off to a creepy, secluded cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway. Does that sound like a million other movies? Yeah, a little.  But there is a second plot! It involves professionally-dressed men (and Whiskey from Dollhouse!) in some kind of fancy complex monitoring and ever-so-slightly controlling the fates of our cabin-goers. It’s not a spoiler, because it becomes apparent that this is happening within the first half-hour of the film.

Eventually the stories truly intertwine, and we see that they’re two sides of the same coin, equal parts of a bigger picture. This is still sounding a little generic, but there’s a lot of subtext here, and the whole movie is really one big deconstruction of the horror/slasher genre. But all pretension aside, what matters at the end of the day is that The Cabin in the Woods is hilarious. Sometimes in a tongue-in-cheek way, sometimes ironically, and most of the time very blatantly.

This is a movie about making fun of other movies, and it is a beautiful thing. You know all those terrible [Genre] Movie parodies that are terrible and should be forgotten from human history? The Cabin in the Woods is exactly what those movies wish they could be. It is poking fun at many, many other movies, but not doing it with an endless stream of references and fart jokes. The closest thing to a reference in this movie is… ah, I don’t really want to spoil it. But I will say that there are a couple short scenes that will leave Hellraiser fans grinning. Anyway, The Cabin in the Woods is funny and very smart, but it’s not inaccessible, which is what puts it head and shoulders above pretty much every other parody ever.

The Cabin in the Woods even spends a lot of time satirizing the people who go to the kind of movie it’s ripping on. Yeah, me. And that’s cool. There’s an element of reality TV parody here too, and I found it to be much more entertaining than the other movie doing that, The Hunger Games. But that’s another story entirely.

So again, The Cabin in the Woods is great. Go see it, and be ready for copious amounts of hilarity and blood. Also a unicorn.

24 sentences of materialism

Alright kiddies! I totally forgot to do a “24 Days of Materialism” feature this year, and the best thing I could come up to sort of replace it is this: The 24 Sentences of Materialism. It’s basically the same concept, I choose 24 things I like and tell you to buy them, only this time I’m ripping off the long-dead Video Game Article‘s “One Sentence Reviews” feature. So here’s a list of video games, albums, books, and TV shows that I love and think you should buy for yourself or your loved ones (and also a link to a related webpage for each). Honestly, I think this is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. It’s terribly difficult to express everything I want to say about a product in only one sentence.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Take one part Ocarina of Time, one part Wind Waker, mix well, and then tweak everything just slightly: provides a surprisingly fresh Zelda experience!

2. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite – Why not help persuade Capcom to bring MH Portable 3rd or MH3G by picking up what is easily the best game in the series to date (that is available outside of Japan).

3. Groove Coaster – A rhythm game that’s incredibly simple, but will still suck you in with its trippy visuals and eclectic track selection.

4. Volchaos – A rather superb Xbox Indie game that brings back the glory days of video games: short, challenging levels, and a great sense of satisfaction when you get them right.

5. Fallout 3 – I don’t know why I don’t spend more time with this game; it’s so unlike anything else I play and all the more wonderful for it.

6. Super Mario 3D Land – The game that justifies the 3Ds’ existence.

7. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island – Getting this game (and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap) for free because I paid too much for my 3DS makes it totally worth it.

8. Anima: Ark of Sinners – It’s not really very good, but you can see potential shining through the blandness and kludgy controls.

9. Tron Legacy Soundtrack – Oddly enough, this is probably my favourite music to listen to while playing Minecraft.

10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – The Live Anthology – Just slightly less than four hours of pure delight.

11. Bound Together – Who could ask for more than an Earthbound tribute remix album?

12. Back in Blue – I love OC Remix but don’t generally love their albums, but this Mega Man 9 tribute is awesome all the way through.

13. Private Line – 21st Century Pirates – There must be something in the water in Finland, because they’re so good at hard rock/metal.

14. How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack – This one really should be mandatory reading for every human being.

15. The Forever War – Best novel I’ve read in… forever?

16. 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth – This comic collection goes beyond hilarity and does its best to teach you some very important lessons.

17. GameSpite Journal 10: The SNES Turns 20 – What kind of gamer wouldn’t want to read a book all about SNES games?

18. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 – A huge, beautiful history lesson.

19. Futurama Season 6 – The first few episodes are kinda weak, but the quality shoots up after that and has me very excited to get BD set of the second half.

20. Community Season 2 – Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas.

21. Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour – It’s like Criminal Minds if Criminal Minds sunk all the budget into the script and had first-year college students do the rest.

22. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (80’s) – Campy, cheesy, corny; whatever you want to call it, it’s all goofy nostalgia.

23. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – I liked the original series, and this one is better in every conceivable way.

24. Fringe Season 3 – Somehow this show has gotten to a point where I feel it might be better than LOST.

TE @ C4

It’s gotta be… weeks now since I went to Central Canadian Comic Con. It was cool, I must say. Though I guess I’m not as much of a nerd as I thought it was because it was (local) Nerd Mecca and I wasn’t super-psyched about it. Oh well. I took a few (blurry) pictures while I was there. Everything from Minecraft to papercraft, and even one ass that did not belong in that costume. Actually I took a few pictures of those, but I figured one is enough to prove my point and deleted the rest. Be thankful. There’s an alternate universe where this post is all pictures of asses that shouldn’t be seen by human eyes.