Short Reviews of Stuff You've Seen Recently

Ready Player One...

If "nerd empowerment" isn't a recognized genre yet, it should be, and this story is its' Great American Novel. That's both a good and bad thing.

On one hand, its prose is amazing, and the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot is pure genius. I don't even want to think about how long it must've taken to dig up those thousands of old pop culture references and craft a coherent story out of them. The author probably did ten books' worth of research just for Halliday's quest alone.

On the other, the relentless assault of geekiness gets kind tiring. It's like what I imagine being forced to attend every panel during all three days of a con would be like. At first, it's fascinating, but after a while, you're pretty sure the next self-congratulatory Shout-Out to an obscure text-based video game you hear will make you want to punch someone.

Also, I know it's intentionally troperiffic, but it sometimes still comes off as a Cliché Storm. Where you draw the line between the two is up to personal preference, but after a million and one stories about the hard-raised-but-bratty Kid Hero taking 99 levels in badass (and, oh yeah, losing weight, because every fat protagonist has to do that at some point) defeating the Evil Empire, getting every badass weapon and ride imaginable, landing the beautiful-but-intelligent girl of his dreams, becoming an international celebrity, and getting rich... It still gets tiring, you know?

out of .

edited 5th May '13 2:46:16 PM by Wheezy

Moonrise Kingdom.

Best. Soundtrack. Ever.

Also, I think I have a new favorite director.

Its A Wonderful Life

Nothing is more depressing than watching a Christmas movie in February.

Especially when it's a Christmas movie about depression

Killzone 2

I'm not exactly sure playing video games count as 'seen', but what the Hell? I finished it yesterday and have formulated what I think of it.

To get it out of the way, I found the game a blast in general. It plays well, it looks great and I bought myself the soundtrack to it, I liked it that much. Listening to Radec's Personal Guards right now as it so happens.

Anyway, there a few things that I found annoying about the game.

First of all, the ISA are your stereotypical 'MURICA fighting force and the Helghast are all British-esque. Subtle Guerrilla Games, subtle. That said, the Helghast being all British only makes them that much more awesome. Even if it is clichéd.

Also, I hate Rico with a passion. He is the biggest turd pile of an 'ally' I've ever had the misfortune to have to drag along in an FPS. Frankly, I was really hoping Colonel Radec would have gut the twat in the final confrontation.

All in all, Rico is the biggest problem I have with this game. Maybe my hate for him is irrational, but some of the plain retarded actions he takes in the game just made me unload entire clips into him for fun.

I'd give it a 8/10. It would be 9/10 if Rico just didn't exist.

edited 27th Feb '13 2:32:41 AM by TopographicOcean

Watched a few recent-ish movies in the past week or so:

Fat Kid Rules The World. This was okay. To me it kinda felt like an ever so slightly Darker and Edgier update of Angus. And I always appreciate when a teenage garage band in a movie actually sounds like a real teenage garage band.

Sinister. Could have been better, but I enjoyed it. If nothing else, the super 8 reel bits are quite creepy and well-done.

Safety Not Guaranteed. Surprisingly more thoughtful and less overtly wacky than I was expecting.

edited 4th Mar '13 6:58:39 PM by MikeK

Sherlock: Amazing. Tightly plotted, strongly acted, action-packed but with wonderful character development, nice filmography... I watched all 7 hours in one weekend, I'm re-watching it now (which is unusual for me), and I already have the DVDs marked as a gift idea (highly unusual for me). It's not perfect—particularly, there are certain character portrayals I don't like—but there's enough wonderful other stuff that it's compelling all the same. Highly recommended.

I love Sherlock as well! I unfortunately haven't gotten my hands on Season Two yet, although the Internet spoiled the season finale for me a long time ago. The character work in that series is a thing of beauty—the risings to stardom of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are wholly justified. The pacing and writing of the episodes is excellent, as well—they seem to cram in several seasons' worth of plot into a single episode. While the show's fandom might be a bit, ah...eccentric, and fixated on postulating a romance between Sherlock and John, much the same can be said for the fans of the original stories at the start of the 20th century. Some things never change....

If I may ask, what character portrayals didn't you like?

A few things tonight.

After putting it off out of fear from what I've heard about it, I managed to sit down and watch Beyond Thunderdome, and I have to say, I kinda liked it. There's a lot of things about it that I like (the fight between Max and Blaster being one of the highlights for me), and overall, the characters are rather likable. However, there's also a lot I don't like about this film, namely the increased silliness when compared to the previous two films. Overall, I'd give it a 7/10.

In the music department, we have Hotel California by the Eagles. The title track needs no review, it's good. However, there are a few overshadowed gems on the album, namely Victim of Love and New Kid in Town. Overall, 8/10.

Finally, Denpa Teki Na Kanojo. The main dynamic of the series, the relationship between Juu and Ame, is itself rather interesting, as it relies heavily on ambiguity, which, in my opinion, made it better. Shame about it's length, though. Again, 8/10

Briefly, some aspects of Sherlock and of Irene Adler. I'll give more details in a PM, in order to avoid derailing this thread.

The Avengers: It's quite a different beast than The Dark Knight. But that's certainly not a bad thing. It's more upbeat and it really works. It's quite fun and the actors are pretty good. I can't even say which one I like the most. Tony Stark is an amusing, slightly jerkish, but still great guy (especially towards the end), Steve Rogers feels like an actual human, not just an embodiment of ideals and Bruce Banner is endearingly dorky, while also a little bit touchy and, while he is generally nice, he can be quite a troll too. The latter actually surprised me, since I was more interested in Hulk, but at the end I liked Bruce more.

Well, I really liked it and while I haven't watched the other Marvel movies (only X-Men 2, which was over ten years ago and doesn't have anything to do with this movie. It's not even part of the MCU.), it made me want to see Captain America and, maybe, Thor and Iron Man.

edited 5th Mar '13 12:09:26 PM by Nyarly

Some movies leave you in the dark in a "You wouldn't understand, puny human" sort of way, some in a "Trust me dude, it'd only distract from the story" way. Drive is one of the latter sort and all the better for it. There's a lot that's not explained and that needn't be, the focus is on the story being told and on the characters, without dwelling much on their past and focusing instead on their present actions. The story and atmosphere are highly engaging and the very 80-ies soundtrack is brilliant. Keep in mind that there's a number of scenes to earn it its age rating.

Controversy was to be expected and controversy is what Quentin Tarantino's newest work, Django Unchained got. Regardless of people throwing fits about this or that aspect, it is very entertaining thing and will have you feeling you're watching a Real Movie™ right from the (glorious) opening titles to the very end. Great characters (well-deserved Oscar for Christoph Waltz), amazing music drawn from any number of sources (a particular high point), over-the-top-violent and highly funny bits (often enough combined, with a chance to have laughter stick in your throat), closeups on bare female feet, the cameo you'll be eagerly looking for and more references than one could hope to spot without help from any number of trivia sections, the Tarantino staples are all there and combine with shameless bashing of the pre-Civil War American South to make this movie something you won't want to end, even with the 2:45 running time.

edited 5th Mar '13 1:14:36 PM by Catfish42

Vanishing Point.

WARNING: SPOILERIFFIC

Wonderfully Seventies, deceptively simple at first glance and essentially pointless. In a good way.

Our 'hero', if that's the right word in this film, is a car delivery driver by the name of Kowalski who, after what is implied to be quite a long drive, decides not to sleep and instead gets off his nut on Bennies then decides to deliver a car from a firm in Denver to a customer in San Francisco in only 15 hours.

Kowalski is, despite having very little dialogue or backstory, an incredibly tragic character. He is or, rather, has been pretty much every action film hero archetype on journey along the road whose home stretch we get to view, yet almost all of it is off-screen apart from his flashbacks and none of it really counts for anything or helps him do anything but evade arrest for a minor driving offence by means of a fiery crash into a police roadblock. In any other film he'd beat the bad guys and get the girl, but here there are no real bad guys- just very human and sometimes not particularly bright policemen trying to catch a dangerous driver whose antics have become a personal affront- and the only girl he's interested in is, shall we say 'unavailable'?

Overall the futility of his drive is partly what I love about this film. After all, what is life but a bunch of loosely connected experiences on our way to be mashed by the immovable Bulldozer of Time?

Apart from that, the sheer bleak emptiness of the scenery is amazing and it has the Sheriff from Blazing Saddles as the DJ, Three Dog Super Soul.

There are, as you'd expect from a chase film, periods of action, but on the whole the film is a strange experience of quiet, contemplative melancholy as opposed to the full-throttle, banjo-fuelled shenanigans of later road movies.

A great film for late, late nights when the beer is running low.

Maria Holic

Utter garbage, even by animu standards. 0.2/10, would not even wipe ass with.

Is it all right if I gave mine in a Haiku?

Soul Calibur V:

An otherwise fun, Enjoyable fighting game Bogged down by story.

Tanpopo

This is one of the few books that made me genuinely wonder what the fuck I was reading.

Not in a Mind Screw sense, but in a "if it wasn't for the back cover blurb, I would have no idea that this was even supposed to be a story instead of just random lines from other peoples' poetry illustrated by mediocre animesque sketches" sense.

I don't think I can give it a star rating.

edited 5th May '13 2:55:23 PM by Wheezy

Injustice Gods Among Us

Best fighting game I've ever played. Whilst in other games, there are clear tiers, and general consensus on who is better than others. However, I have not been able to tell a single OP character from the roster, nor a particularly horrible one. I cannot play Bane or Ares, but I have encountered both of them online and they have annihilated me. Similarly, Batman is meant to be pretty OP, but I've seen at least one good Batman destroyed by other characters.

The stages are all brilliant, working in interact-able elements, transitions and little easter eggs for the comic book fans. Watching the whole place crumble around you is always magnificent.

The story is good, but doesn't delve into certain character's reasoning more than "OH MY GOD THEY DID THIS! BEAT THEM UP AND MOVE ON!" and it is woefully short. I finished it within two hours, and speed ran it in half an hour.

Multiplayer is good, but most of the people will pick Deathstroke and spam. If you can get up close, he's dead, but usually there's a wall of projectile fire blocking you.

All in all, great fighting game, but the story is woefully short and multiplayer features too much projectile spamming. 8/10.

The first episode of the anime Azumanga Daioh. I haven't found anything laugh out loud funny just yet, but it was cute and charmingly bizarre enough that I'm gonna stick with it... Although I'd sort of feel obligated to anyway because I bought a couple seasons on dvd without having seen it before... and seem to have lost the receipt I was aiming on keeping in case I decided it wasn't for me.

Just spent all night marathoning all the episodes of The Legend Of Korra. Oh my God, what an emotional rollercoaster. That was nothing short of amazing.

Really?

Have you watched the original series? I never did and I'm not sure if I can watch Korra without it. I mean, I know the general story of the first series, but I don't now a lot of specifics.

You can watch Korra as a standalone, no problem, but you'll have a much deeper emotional connection if you watch th original series. Plus, it's freaking awesome, so theres that.

Emotional connections don't happen with me and fiction so that's a bit of a moot point.

But if I can watch it standalone, I'll give a whirl.

Well, I mean you'll be watching the series and go "Oh so THAT's what happened to that guy! Oh he reminds me of x! Just like y!" And so on. I wouldn't say Continuity Porn, but it's got plenty of callbacks.

Hmm.

I might watch the first series then depending on how long it is.

Three seasons, sixty-three episodes. Goes by quickly.