"I fixed the White House, I fixed SNL, what else can I fix?"
I really liked the West Wing in its day. I was way too young to really "get" what it was about, but I loved the feel of the dialogue and characters. I guess I should call it an influence, in the same way I should call Friends one (because people complained that Icould not sound more like Chandler Bing in 7th grade).
When Sorkin went on to make his SNL show, Studio 60, I was excited! Comedians behind the scenes are miserable, dramatic, bastards and I could not wait for Sorkin to mine that gold. But a couple episodes in I began to realize why Lorne Micheals had refused any involvement. Not that he was jealously guarding his legacy (he may have been) but that he clearly could smell something on Sorkin, something he didn't like. That he was dramatist who didn't get comedy. But uh, good luck telling the creator of The West Wing he can't do something.
It wasn't as big a disaster as some seemed to think, but man, it shouldn't have been what it was. A painful act of hubris slowly bleeding out for several months. The audience deserved better, Hughley deserved better, Whitford deserved better. But it was what it was.
When the word came down from press mountain about The Newsroom last year, I heard what I expected. That Sorkin was even more entrenched in his ways with hindsight politics and sermon preaching. That can be fun though...but the critics didn't make it sound like fun. Also Olivia Munn kinda bothers me, she always looks acutely aware she's an actor in a scene instead of a character. Anywho, I passed.
But now it's summer, I'm nursing a stubborn surgical scar, and I'm bored as peanuts. See? I'm trying to coin new phrases, somebody help me! I know I shouldn't take critic's word as gospel, but I just find myself disagreeing with Rotten Tomatoes so rarely, I always do. I'm giving the Newsroom a chance, I love Jeff Daniels, I like Sorkin, I'm not a sheep.
Bah! who am I kidding?
The second season's better? I knew that...of course I've seen it.
Have you ever talked a physicist down from a bad salvia trip? Because that's what this movie feels like. It waxes poetic about interconnected worlds, the finality of death, the perspective of eternity by a super computer, and flying, screaming, mustache monsters.
The adaption of David Wong's opus "John Dies at the End" is refreshing to say the least. This is a bargain basement film to be sure, but if you saw Bubba Ho Tep (required viewing for any Bruce Cambell fan) you know exactly what to expect from John Dies as well as it's director Don Coscarelli. Well... not everything. This is a stupendously weird movie with a very straight face and some people may not realize that its part of the joke. To borrow a tired phrase, this isn't funny "ha ha" but I promise you'll be smiling half the time if you give it a chance. David Wong is the son of a dead beat dad and a druggie, spiritualist, cannibal, mother who spent her welfare check every month on "Black Candles" (is that a Jack Daniels joke?). What does that have to do with the overarching story of an interdimensional hallucinogenic called soy sauce? Nothing. In fact, nothing in this film has much to do with anything...until it does. The story is all over the place and if you stop trying to take notes and just go with it, you'll be much more forgiving of the limp finale. Though I promise its still a fun scene with a cameo from Kevin Michael Richardson who obviously makes everything better.
"The next person that calls me a low rent R-patz is getting cut"
But while the special effects do their job they will not blow your mind. This is as shoe string as budgets get and its a testament to the material that everything it tries up until the big bad is so convincing. But why? The cast is why. I'm sure you've seen Paul Giamatti in the trailer and I'll have you know everyone else is up to his caliber... actually that's pushing it, but not as far as you'd think. Chase Williamson as Dave has a grip on droll absurdity that may not approach a young Bill Murray but is definitively a stellar effort with near impenetrable material. Rob Mayes as John is much more interesting than the annoying best friend he could have been and does somersaults with both prat falling drug overdose scenes as well as long winded exposition. That is thankless work. Doug Jones and Clancy Brown have tiny, but likable cameos and Giamatti has a deeper story arc then you'd think. So yeah, genre comedy like this rarely sees acting this good outside of an Edgar Wright joint. And anyone who knows me, knows I love me a flick done the wright way.
Did I ever tell you about that soul crushing boondoggle called The Goon?
I'm not going to be the guy who says the "book was better." In fact, it's my least favorite thing to say about an adaption and in my opinion, one of the laziest criticisms movies get. The book is wonderful (here, go buy it!) and the film is wonderful for different reasons. Yes, vast swaths of it are missing (this isn't a mini series) yes, the dog's name is different, and sure, the ending cuts a ton of corners. But there's no budgetary restriction on page counts; and comparing a book to a movie as if they are similar creative processes is naive at best and close minded at worst. Only when an adaptation is patently dismissive of the source and makes changes for the sake of marketability do I think "the book was better" ever holds water. People complain about skimmed subplots or several characters being condensed into one, but there are almost always damn good reasons why this happens. Publishers don't pay more for books that have too many characters with speaking roles, movie producers do. John Dies is both faithful and loving to the book's cadence and humor, which before I broke down and watched it, I was convinced it was unfilmable. I hesitate to use the word flabbergasted, not because its dishonest, but because that word is stupid. In the end, John Dies was so breezy and likable, yet so high mined and funny, that I wish this was the pilot of a cable series than a standalone feature. They say you should always leave a audience wanting more, and on that note, I pray some day down the line I'll write a review about a movie full of spiders.
Blogger Jon Negroni has made something incredible, and I'm not just talking about his section on The Incredibles. He has managed to create a fairly reasonable daisy chain of connections to prove every Pixar film takes place on the same world. He goes chronologically, explaining how each film affects the next in such a self possessed kind of way, it feels natural instead of forced.
Not every piece fits as well as others but it is stunning how thorough it all is. So if you have 45 to spend going down a rabbit hole today, spend it here.
So everyone who's dropped by steam's summer sale has probably noticed some new stuff popping into their "inventory." I had steam for 2 years and didn't realize I had one. Valve obviously knew that and has decided to make the functionality of it's social network more interesting. That thing is cards. Trading cards fashioned from some of the more popular games. I tried compiling a list of those games, but they're so many, and more seem to be added every day. So I'm gonna try my best to tell you what I've made of them so far and what they're ultimately used for.
Play the game. Get Cards.
From what I've seen, buying the game nets you about 2/3 of a game's cards. But don't expect them to show up all at once. My best guess is that you get one card per 20 minutes spent with a game after card support went live. Except I got all three of my Handsome Jacks for Borderlands 2 instantaneously, so maybe I don't have a clue.
But I don't have all the Cards!
No you won't, that's kind of the whole point. Trading! Steam wants you to form friendships of convenience across many different games and gamers to get a whole set from a single deck. The logistics of which I'm not sure of. But I've never been a card trader, so maybe this could work if you know what you're doing. Steam talks about "Booster Packs" but I wouldn't count on ever getting one, nobody seems to know how they work.
I got em' all! ...Now what?
Now you craft a Badge! (what happens then?) Coupons! How's that for a pat on the head? Collecting cards and crafting badges to personally invoke Valve's greatest super power: Steam Sales. Better yet, your own personal Steam sale! I'm not sure how powerful these coupons are (I'll probably never finish a deck) but the idea they'd try something like this is really heartening. It's Valve, if there's one thing we know they're not, it's stingy.
Oh, and every card is a wallpaper.
Just browse them in your inventory, zoom in, copy the URL and copy/paste:
It's that magical time of year where the doldrums of summer give way to credit shattering deals you won't find half as good anywhere else. The truth is I used to hate steam. In 2008 it was the dumb thing I needed so I could play Half Life 2 to see what all that fuss was about. And then it became that stupid thing that kept me from playing New Vegas so profusely I had to crack the damn thing for six months.
I know, I was disappointed in myself...please don't ban me!
But all was forgiven once I saw all the carrots on sticks they had for my loyalty. I mean, I got the complete Saint's Row The 3rd for 7 bucks. That's nuts, that's just so much nuts I love it. So hop in, see if there's anything you like for the next two weeks... Whoa, the Bit Trip Runner 2 character pack for $1.50?!!!!!
Insomniac Games has had a ROUGH couple of years. Resistance 3 disappointed at the market so much the whole series was iced. The Ratchet and Clank brand has fallen into disrepair after two failed attempts to make it translate to a co-op shooter and a tower defense thingy. Last and certainly not least, FUSE was the first new IP they launched since 2006. At first it looked like the Incredibles sequel we always wanted...but someone, somewhere (I'm not saying it was all EA's fault) turned it into the drab, uninteresting shrug it is today. Oh right, and looked like they were jumping ship to Microsoft with the Left 4 dead-Borderlands hybrid Sunset Overdrive:
But fear not, it's finally happening. A brand new feature length Ratchet and Clank is headed our way this fall and it looks more than promising. It will have been 4 years since a Crank in Time when that releases, and I hope its the last great lombaxian hurrah that CIT came this close to being. So how does it look? You tell me:
Darker tone? Anti gravity? Someone who sounds like Juanita? Orchestral-ASS soundtrack? You had me worried there for a few years guys, but I think we can do business again. Wait...Thugs 4 less is back too?! UNCLE, Insomniac, UNCLE!
Lone Ranger's 4th of July came and went...and I promised myself I wasn't going to make a train wreck joke but come on, what the hell else would you call it? The critics slow roasted it, and the box office ignored it. But why? How did Johnny Depp (bein' WACKY!) open to less than $50 million? To less than $31 million. I think I have an idea, actually I have a couple, see what you think.
Who the Hell is The Lone Ranger?
This guy was the cream of the crop in the mid 50's. There was Davey Crockett and there was the Lone Ranger. But nobody under the age of 60 has an idea about any of this. The character died out with a whimper 8 years before I was born. No one was going to see this movie having been charmed by the character's legacy... not even parents of teenagers. So why did they do it?
You could make the same argument about Pirates of the Caribbean's cache before Disney struck gold with that number. But I'd disagree. At least they had a beloved ride that reached children for decades before that movie was made, all the ranger had was a made for tv movie in 2003. Yeah, I have no idea what they were thinking... wait, yes I do. The idea was that Depp could turn straw into gold. Speaking of which:
Depp's Tramp act is played out.
Everybody loved the first pirates movie. It was fun, refreshing, delightfully both self aware and deprecating. They bottled lightning with Jack Sparrow and couldn't keep a lid on it. Over the course of three more films Mercutio killed the play, so to speak (which is a Shakespeare reference to overexposing a character I probably screwed up somehow). I wasn't bored of Depp as an actor, but he seemed to just be on auto pilot for ten years after that. What with pedophile Willy Wonka and the Mad Hatter, he didn't seem to give a damn any more.
Its as if he resigned to being the clown for the sake of the industry and stopped caring about the craft in the process. I think a lot of people are sick of it too...or they just want him to be Jack again. They probably just want him to be Jack again. But I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up Rango. I thought he'd break free after that. But no, it looks like the guy is back in the salt mines making faces. Instead of subversive, intelligent, comedy for all ages.
The Popular Western is Dead...again.
What else is there to say? Its sad sure, but what was the last really good movie western you remember? Appaloosa? 3:10 to Yuma? Those were a long time ago guys, and they made peanuts. This isn't because they're played out, I mean they were, but there's been an entire generation since. The western should be fresh again, it should have found new ways to reach audiences. I say it did in terms of the popularity of post-apocalypse fiction. I'd be pretty comfortable calling The Walking Dead this decade's great western. But it looks like the classic flavor is radioactive to these times as well.
No one is more upset than me, I stopped watching HBO for 5 years after Deadwood. God, I am still so friggn' angry about fu**ing Deadwood. Either way, if it wasn't dead before, it sure as hell is now. Why you would spend $240 million on any movie is beyond me, but they barely made 30% of their investment back during one of the most lucrative holidays on the American calender. It's absolutely finished.
The next great western will show up where all great new cinema inevitably shows up now: on TV. Because you won't see it again on the silver screen for years. Consider the big budget western the Bikini Islands. Its not the end of a genre, but the wake up call for it to try harder.
