Anthony Bourdaine digs Hannibal

I'm a huge fan of the nerdist network, and today they dropped one of the best interviews in a long while. Not that there's been a quality dip, I just liked this one personally quite a bit. For one; Matt and Jonah sat in, that's always a plus, but I also got to check in on Bourdaine. I hadn't heard from him since his Girl on Guy episode about two years ago.

It's a damn good interview and worth listening to all the way, but the best part for me was hearing him rattle off his viewing habits near the end. Yep, I love Justified's second season too. Yeah, Fargo is pretty damn good. Hannibal?! He watches Hannibal?! Thank god, if anyone would appreciate the food photography (literally one of the hardest things in the world to photograph well) It'd be him. And he just... gets it. Everything the show does well does not go unnoticed by him. It's rare to have an accomplished chef/journalist/author/cinefile in general. I'm just happy he didn't pass on it.

Anywho, check it out. He's a fiercely interesting guy.

...his sexist joke about foie gras that my sister won't stop reminding me about, notwithstanding.

So twitter changed yesterday...

Now I gotta find a whole new banner and my background's gone.

Damnit.

The Watchdogs Launch Day Spectacular!

"Citra? No... no, Clara"

Watchdogs is out just in time for my 3 day weekend that happened to start yesterday. Launch quibbles aside, i.e. not being able to ping my activation code for 4 hours, everything runs decently. But only just so. I didn't invest in a high end PC (GTX 780 SC and a I5 3570k) to run at 30 frames per second. And WD veers wildly in the fps ditch whenever I hop into a car. Everything else is smooth as silk though, and it's a damn sight better than AC Black Flag. The thing makes my rig grind and whir like nothing I've ever heard, but if I'm being honest, it only looks slightly better than Sleeping Dogs and runs about 30% worse. There's clearly some next gen voodoo going on in there somewhere, but I don't see it on the screen.

As for the game itself... I like it. It's a very close cousin to AC but manages to do it's own thing. The protagonist is a raspy cipher, but I can handle that. Your sociopath fixer buddy has more than enough personality for the both of you. The main missions are fun, and the script is better than I thought. When meeting a hacker femme fetale (I know, I know, but just go with it) for the first time, she rolls her eyes at you saying "you're exactly what I expected." It's nice to see AAA video game writers hang a lampshade on their bore of a leading man. If nothing else, it's good to know that they know.It's not like they wrote a racist character arc for him, realized their mistake too late in the game to change anything about it, then had the gall to call it "satire."

Watchdogs is worth it. It's not the half assed insult that GTA IV was (performance wise) and it's original enough for me to recommend financially encouraging it. For all it's familiar choices I can say it's stands on it's own. But can you imagine what would happen if this fails? Can you imagine how much more homogenized AAA development could get? I'm not saying this game is a $60 ballot in the new IP electoral process, but don't pretend powers-that-be aren't paying close attention.

Josh Sawyer Speaks!

It's gonna to be an agonizingly long time before we hear anything else about the next Fallout game. We have Bethesda's torturously mediocre MMO to thank for that. But in the mean time, the New Vegas director sat down with Eurogamer for a chat. The timing seems perfect seeing as I've recently fallen in love with the Mojave Wasteland all over again.

Hit the link y'all!

Hannibal Season Finale Post Mortum: "We're gonna need a bigger body bag..."

He never actually duel wields those kitchen knives. Damn near broke my heart.

I've followed Bryan Fuller for a very long time now. From Wonderfalls, to Dead like Me, to Pushing Daisies, and finally Hannibal. He's become a very different kind of artist since the beginning, one that isn't scared of where he has to go next season. Because he's never actually made it to a third season... ever.

With that in mind, Hannibal's second ended in what I'm choosing to call a bloody, fiery, temper tantrum the likes of which I've never seen before. An ending whose prevailing message seems to be "You can't fire me, I quit!" We will see Hannibal again next year, I'm over the moon with that knowledge, I'd have gladly sacrificed both Community and Parks and Rec to make that happen. Good thing I only needed half a recipe.

But what if this was the end? What if we were all left with Alanna, Will, and Jack all bleeding out in Hannibal's kitchen? That would be some confoundedly grim sh*t made worse by the mockingly upbeat end credits. So yeah, Fuller went full tilt Macbeth last Friday, and made one hell of a meal out if it.

We all knew Crawford was gonna get it, we knew Hannibal would see his trap coming, but damn if there wasn't one little surprise left. Abigail was alive this whole time, presumably living under house arrest to kill in the event Will broke Hannibal's heart. And Will did exactly that.

Thankfully Abigail wasn't just a human sacrifice. She managed to get to Alanna and throw her out a second story window. I for one can't wait for the indoctrination flashbacks for season 3. We already know how fond he is of keeping "pets."

The whole bloody affair was gorgeously filmed as always. Especially the shot with Alanna flying out the window. The way time slowed and the music swelled as everything went into soft focus and then the tiny particles of glass became sparkles? Phenomenal. Better photography than most movies I've seen this year.

So here I sit after gorging myself, week after week, on the best new show on TV. I'm stuffed. Almost glad it's over and I have time to digest. Does the whole plot string together? I'm not sure. The whole business with Dr. Chilton felt rushed. I mean, how long was Hannibal grooming him to be his fall guy? It had to be years. But that's beside the point. I'm not chomping at the bit for more, I'm happy sitting back and letting Hannibal slid into periphery of my attention.

Just so it can come out of nowhere next April and let me have it.

Here's a teaser for Disney-Marvel's first animated feature, and don't worry, it's pretty damn good.

Good physical comedy is a confoundedly rare commodity these days, especially in America. That's why I'll always have room in my heart for anything and everything Aardman produces. Actually I have this whole screed rattling around in the back of my head about how that's why Spongebob got such a strangle hold on the last decade. In that Stephan Hillenburg just knew physical comedy backwards and forwards, while nearly everyone else in TV animation largely ignored it (Dexter's Lab being the obvious exception).

But that's not why you're here; Big Hero 6 is being adapted, and it's teaser is a delightful about-face from the typical "you're so special, you have destiny" garbage that was trite more than 40 years ago. It's just a quick physical comedy sketch between a boy and his poofy crash test dummy robot.

I think you're gonna love it.

BIG HERO 6 Trailer #1 - Early Trailer by itsartmag

Superego's H. R. Giger at Home

What better way to celebrate the death of a great artist than an animated short of a nearly 3 year old improv sketch? I really got to tip my hat to the Nerdist on this one, recently there were rumblings that superego was coming out of retirement and I can't help but think Chris Hardwick had a lot to do with it. So... I dunno, yay? Yes, YAY!

God bless Nerdist industries and long live the Superego Institute!