Howdy, I am the Crappy Music Man. I know you all are tried of critics (except for That Guy With The...uh...I forget). They review old (or new) movies. But what about MUSIC GAMES. This is a comparison of Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour. What is the better game? Hope you enjoy
Outside most of our windows and residential zones is a swirling mass of human beings fitted with ties and tea breaks, twisting within its own existence as to create autonomy within the nine to five world. Whether the native tongue is different at home or the food is spicy or bland, a cumulative effort is given to professionally create a manner of speaking and living politically correctly in the workplace as their blazer suits and high heels hold hands. Inside all of this is the gamer, the man or woman who sees Tetris in the cubicle design and has professional looking spreadsheets set to open on the touch of a global hotkey as to mask the newest Total War game. So as the gamer population spans a wider age group with each year, this article will try to examine the psyche of the gamer as we get older, and maybe even how elementary teachers can still feel good about themselves teaching eight year olds after an alien slaughter-fest. It's about not becoming diluted by the transition from Baldur's Gate to Peggle (I know there are a ton of Peggle fans out there, but if you ever put that on a top 5 list of games I will publicly support your slapping in the face, glove or no glove, your choice), it's about self-esteem and the inherent value in games.
We know ourselves within our groups. We're the ones in the corner laughing about how in Civ 4 Ghandi always becomes Jewish and war-waging as he tears your non-Jewish-non-Indian colony to bits. We know where "I dreamt I was a moron" comes from and the new meme's, no matter how new or how many go-karts are involved. We debate over whether the correct spelling in a fantasy setting is "dwarves" or "dwarfs" and are most definitely not the people whose facebook pictures are taking a picture of themselves in the bathroom without a shirt to show that they, in fact, have a chest and mirrors can reflect flashes while pro-actively demonstrating by always being the one taking the picture that no one in their right mind would actually take that picture for them. And we take pride in this. I won't define us much more because, if you are one of us, you know this stuff. So I won't be like the IMDB pages that consider plot keyword spoilers things such as "death", "beautiful woman" and "male female relationship" (look at the Gone With the Wind page if you don't believe me). However, I will not be able to describe how we can still feel good about ourselves after our grandmother beats us at Wii bowling.
Before we tackle our refusal to age, let's stay with granny and how games are changing right along with us. We had lots of confidence when we used to walk into Best Buy with a confident nod to every employee with a condescending "I know your job better than you do" look in the eye as we walked around with that one annoying friend that everyone has condemning brick and mortar stores, especially Best Buy, as you scourge the cages for that laptop on clearance and seriously considered having a makeshift sign that says "I'll do it for 30 times better and for less", tape it on yourself, and then stand beside the geek squad employees. Heck, places like that were our zeniths of power, ziggurats of giving your life for Aur or something. But now there's no longer just the people with horrible music taste, but soccer moms in the gaming section, our ground zero. But not to buy games for little Timmy, who in this age probably has an iPhone instead of watching anthropomorphic singing animals like I did growing up, the jerk. They're checking out wii fit or insert newest phenomena here instead, which means that although gaming is becoming more socially acceptable for "cha cha" chai tea drinkers, I still can't play Disgaea in front of my family without feeling strange, much less playing Harvest Moon. "I'm a farmer...I water these onions every day... Dad, why are you leaving?". Instead, it's become as cheap as language in the instant message era, becoming "that's real neat...move your arm like that huh? Ok guys, the burgers are ready."
I am exhausted, pissed off, and sufficiently sunburned on both my forearms and neck, which can only mean that principal photography with FPS Productions has started. I took yesterday off to recover and attempt to not use my arms (much more difficult than it sounds), but I am back and ready to vent for your amusement.
Principal Photography: Day One
We made the paper with our production, not surprising, as we were able to shut down a couple of city blocks near the local court house to shoot on. Unfortunately, like many press outlets, they constantly mention us as a student organization first and foremost, despite my specific interview to the contrary. Its difficult to promote a student film, much less so than it would be to plug an independent film. We are also a registered film company, but at this point I am just splitting hairs, as I am unsure of my level of commitment to my organization once I transfer to Irvine this fall. I did get specific mention, a sentence, in the article, so that's pretty cool...
To give you the skinny, our film is tentatively called Slick, (we give shooting titles based on names we can find without too many results coming up on imdb.com), and revolves a group of 5 thugs turned against each other after their leader is poisoned on the post-heist toast. The shoot for today involved the scenes with the thug leader, Locke, in discussion with a police lieutenant [morning] and the actual heist of the money [afternoon] were a group of police officials are ambushed by our thugs and shot down. We had five cameras for this shoot, each manned with an operator and assitant, along with a dolly and crane for the really fun shots. Our final crew count, based on what I could see, was about 35, with a dozen or so cast.
The shoot begun, as all future days will, at 7am, which meant I would have to spend the night at my friend Tom's, the film's special effects supervisor and credited writer, house in order to ride with him directly to the set the next morning. I am most definitely not a morning person, but setting off early meant we would be done by the evening, and I am only one of few people that cannot function well in the early hours. My first duty of the day was talking to the police, thankfully it's always sobering enough to help me wake up, and put out a general announcement to the main departmental office about our shoot and the specific logistics therein. This film was specially important do to the level of what we are doing. Despite the noticeable decline in bloodwork and stunt work, cordoning off downtown Main streets with extras in SWAT gear and faux weaponry would have to be explained carefully to avoid cops showing up and disbanding the shoot.
We began filming at a local park near our director's house, specifically around the benched area. We only needed to cast members on set, so thankfully that reduced our crew numbers to a manageable dozen. Our new makeup artist, a role formerly filled by Tom, was a sweet girl that really had knew her stuff, which made the routine go faster. It was a surreal experience, running around to get everything settled and seeing her perform the same things I had before only in DVD featurettes. Made me believe a bit more in the professionalism of our exploits. The scene(s) were short, inter spliced bits that we filled straight through, never exceeding six takes. We never have a grand assortment of takes, mostly due to our director's visual style, but with the digitally animated storyboards we were able to frame the shot long beforehand, the only reason we were doing multiple takes at all were for logistics (sound interrupted by passersby, dolly/crane goes to fast) and performance of our actors. Our casting decisions were pretty solid, if yesterday was any indication, the majority of direction I gave our actors focused on very minute line changes.
The morning park shoot lasted from 7am to around 11, and I went back home with Tom briefly in order to get his supplies for the afternoon Downtown shoot. We attempted a few stops at some hardware stores, in order to pick up some bullet decals for the cars to be used, but none had them in stock, and we carted ourselves to the set. The rest of the staff and cast had already settled into our next location, and a tent was set up for our extras to get armored with SWAT costumes and guns while we waited on lunch to arrive. BT (the director) sent me off to secure the barricades around the set and make sure all were prepared to go once lunch was finished. One of our leads; Michele Boyd, who we had worked previously with on our film Incrimination, was running a bit late, so we prepped the set with the needed cars and stuntwork while we waited.
Once Michele arrived, we began following along with the storyboard and got the preliminary shots in the scene, so we can focus on the more action-oriented shots with the most of our time. Despite these scenes looking fast paced and entertaining when edited, but in actual filming the process is terribly tedious. The rest of the day really blurs into general duties of keeping track of the storyboard, getting the needed crew/cast on set for their shots, and keeping quiet on set. I noticed that our barricades, a few flimsy cones and a few cars parked in the middle of the street, weren't keeping out enough people. I sent Rich, our security guy, to get the jist, and it turns out that a personnel from the City complained at our barricades, claiming that people cannot reach their businesses, despite our permit covering every single action we took. Kate, our production manager, kept on the phone for the rest of the shoot in order to placate any of these complaints, none of which reached our ears.
I was reminded on why I signed up for this tedium and suffering when our director suddenly collapsed behind one of our cars, clinging to his leg. He suffered a severe cramp up from a mixture of lack of food and intense stress. I blockaded the area from public view and helped his parents, who were attempted to massage out the offending muscle. It was this level of stress that I saw in my director, even before we began this project, that kept me involved past my comfort point. I founded this damn thing with the dude, and ever since then he has nearly killed himself in attempts to constantly outdo our previous efforts. Its been my job to slap him across the face every so often and sit his ass down before he has an stroke. Luckily, the cramp subsided quickly without a lot of our crew seeing, and after sitting him down for a few minutes, I called for shots to be resumed.
About this time the local paper arrived and began milling around our set taking photos and soundbites. Both BT and I took brief interviews and sent the reporter off to meet his deadline. The shoot wrapped with little woes, the martini shot (last shot of the day) was finished and we took a final crew photo to commemorate the occasion, although I probably fucked it up because I thought it was a funny photo. Our dolly was run over by a crew member on accident, so that's a bit of a backstep, but otherwise we appear to be in great shape for the continued schedule. We packed up our equipment and sent the rest of the crew home. During this clean up I noticed one of our crew preaching to another member of the crew, about the inclusion of Creationism in science class. I immediately leaped in and attempted to correct this situation, but arguing with these people is like arguing with a brick wall. I'll write more in depth on that later.
Tom dropped me off shortly after the debate debocle, and I was made fully aware of the extent of sunburn by my roommates' comments. Usually, my high-oil skin has never required sunscreen, as at most it'll sunburn only slightly and tan over by nightfall. This time, however, it appears I shall be red for a bit, and I dunno if I'll peel or not. Shooting will resume on Friday, and continue all through that weekend. Thankfully its mostly interior, which means a bit of heat but not a lot of sun so that'll work in my favor.
Just got off the phone with the second AD, my assistant. This'll be the first time I have an assistant on the set, but it should be very helpful to delegate some duties to her if I'm needed elsewhere. Its a weird feeling though, kinda like I'm copping out after doing all my own shit all the time for the past films. But since we have helicopters in addition to a SWAT team and gunplay, I'm not sweating it.
Random Thoughts
If Ann Coulter gets laid at least once every week, I'm such we can see a measured increase in liberal-ness over the course of the next few months
It is still illegal for the government to fund any educational projects that focus on homosexuality in a positive light....no joke here, that just sucks.
Pissing people off is one of the smartest things anyone with a published image can do. Offending, annoying, irritating, and making people mad gets them bitching around the public forums about you, which gets your name out in a greater range. No such thing as bad publicity, right?
Plugs
- As always, check out my best friend for-longer-than-forever, Bennett the Sage's, pad here on TWTG, or be checking out his funny stuff on Youtube or alongside myself on Gamepartisan
- Both Gumba and Quicksilverscreen are wonderful sites to wade through and find videos on all subjects, from documentaries to Family Guy episodes.
Note: If your haven't seen Doctor Who a highly recommend you pick it up your copy of Season One at Amazon.com, its that freakin' good. I guarantee its better than any season you've seen on TV in the past year. Also if you do have an interest in seeing the show or are currently going through the DVD sets, I'd advise you to stop reading THE REVIEW IS GONNA BE SPOILER INFESTED.
So not even a minute into the episode, the cliffhanger from "The Stolen Earth" is resolved and how they do it is pretty damn genius in my opinion. While The Doctor is regenerating the energy from it is transfered to his severed hand and gets stored in the hand, and saves The Doctor from regenerating into his 11th incarnation. I especially love how Tennant plays it off as nothing has just happened. That's what I love about Tennant's Doctor, the man could save the world from being split in two and he play it off as though he just deleted an email from his mailbox. The way Davies gave resoulution to the cliffhanger got a helluva alot flack from critics in the UK, but I didn't see what the big deal was (Then again I'm an American). Davros manages to find out where the TARDIS is and teleports it and its crew to The Crucible, the Daleks main ship. During their confrontation Davros disposes of the TARDIS with Donna still inside. As its burning up in the lava like stuff, Donna touches the severed hand's jar and it's gives her the energy from the recent regeneration, while in return it gives the hand the genetic makeup of Donna to make a new Doctor, who just in the nick of time saves the TARDIS from being destroyed.
This is where it starts to get complicated. The first time I first saw this episode I missed the first half hour and missed everything I just discussed and missed a hell of a lot, which left me confused for the whole episode. The actor that plays Davros in the episode is terrific and captures the character almost perfectly, in some scenes you see a bit of Wisher's Davros come out of the performance. The scenes between The Doctor and Davros are well played out, one of my favorite scenes has got to be when Davros shows the Doctor that even though he's a pacifist, he's turned his companions into weapons themselves.
In light of the new Dark Knight movie, I decided to rank the top 10 best and worst super hero movies that I have seen. Keep in mind, there are plenty I have not seen, but out of the ones I have this is how they ranked. And feel free to tell me what your favorite and least favorite super hero movies are!
BEST SUPER HERO MOVIES 1) Spider-Man 2 - This movie represents the ultimate comic book film to me. And no, not just because I'm a Spidey fan. The action is thrilling, the story interesting, and the characters are well developed. While Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst aren't too special, Alfred Molina steals the show as the charming tragic villain Doc Ock. But what truly makes this movie enjoyable for me is that it's not non stop action. It gives the audience time to relax and throws some great gags their way. A story that is enjoyable for audiences of all ages.
2) Dark Knight - A wonderfully dark and complex story, with an amazing cast. But perhaps a bit too dark which limits it's audience. Still, this did not stop me from enjoying it. This movie keeps it's audience on edge the whole time with spectacular action and sinister characters. I was personally a little more drawn to the under hyped Two Face, who got very little commercial focus after the late Heath Ledger. Yes, Ledger was definitely exciting to watch, but don't ignore other great characters and actors. The only thing that separates this film from Spider-Man 2 is that there were no moments where the audience could relax and laugh.
3) Spider-Man - A great starting point. Like the sequel, the action was good, and had a nice sense of humor. The sequel definitely built on everything this film already had going for it. And a personal side note, the scene where the citizens of New York tell the Green Goblin "if you mess with Spidey, you mess with New York" is very touching.
4) Batman Returns - This is why I don't trust critics. Batman Returns was criticized for being "too dark", but Dark Knight is praised for it's dark and sinister characters. MAKE UP YOUR MIND PEOPLE! Anyways, until Dark Knight came out, this was my favorite Batman movie. I liked it because it was dark, and the villains were incredible. And it has Christopher freakin Walken in it! How can you not like that? The score for this movie is also one of my favorite by Danny Elfman. It's dark, but adds a nice heroic touch.
5) Batman Begins - Well, Joel Schumacher screwed up Batman. Think we can fix the series? No, so let's just restart it! Which was a brilliant idea! Christopher Nolan had a lot of balls when he did this movie. Not only did he dare to make a movie about a super hero that failed before, but he chose to use villains the are not well known, and took his time in showing how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. And somehow, he pulled it all off. My complaint about the movie was the villains. It seems like Scarecrow is the main villain, but then he gets discarded and Rah's Ah Ghul comes in again during the last 20 minutes. If it didn't work for Venom, it won't work for Liam Neeson. But other than villains, the movie is able to hold up very well on it's own.
6) Iron Man - I was never a fan of Iron Man or Robert Downey Jr. until now. When I heard they were making a movie about Iron Man, I figured it would be a piece of crap thrown together to make some more money. I have never enjoyed being wrong more in my life. Iron Man is just plain fun. My only complaint is the last part of the movie. The end fight was very anti climactic, which is just a nasty little tease. But then Samuel L. Jackson shows up and saves the movie after the credits end. Seriously, that man is good in anything. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes in the sequel and we can expect another great movie.
7) X-Men 2 - I was not a big fan of X-Men 1. It just seemed too cartoony for me. But this film had a very nice realistic touch that by far surpassed the last film. I particularly liked that Magneto and the X-Men joined forces. The action scenes were nothing amazing, but the story is over all enjoyable.
8) Batman - I'm gonna say this right now. Jack Nicholson may not be the best Joker, but nobody ever complained about it until Heath Ledger commercials showed up! I'm telling you, if you put Heath Ledger's Joker in this movie it would not work! Stop comparing the two! They were both fine for their time and separate movie! With that said, this movie is a great 80's action flick. Lots of explosions and guns and cool machines for Batman. It's certainly not the best of the Batman series, but not the worst. It was good for it's time.
9) Incredible Hulk - never really liked the Hulk too much. He's not exactly a super hero in my mind, just a big green disgruntled guy that we are supposed to root for. This movie is interesting and fun to watch, but mainly it gets my vote for Edward Norton who I think is an amazing actor. Blonsky was a pretty cool villain too (up until he became Abomination and was just like Hulk). The fighting was fun to watch, but in the end the Hulk just seemed to randomly get the upper hand. It just did not make a lot of sense to me, but was still entertaining.
10) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: I HATED the first movie. So I watched this one with the lowest expectations possible. And because of that, it actually seemed like a good movie. The characters were a bit more enjoyable this time and actually got along instead of always fighting with each other. Another reason I was a little more drawn to this movie is because Monsters 2 was filming when I watched it. A movie with 3 guys and 1 girl as super heroes hit home for me.
WORST SUPER HERO MOVIES 1) Spider-Man 3 - This movie single handedly managed to kill the franchise for me. They took everything good they had going for them and fucked it all up. The jokes were so over the top they weren't funny, the acting was terrible and stale, and the music was disgusting (that's what happens when you replace Danny Elfman). And the villains just were not interesting by any means. There was so much they could have done with the "black suit" but was never shown. There is no character progress except for Harry. In fact, the character lose progress. In Spider-Man 2, MJ and Peter are happy, but now their relationship has gone to shit. *Sigh* this movie had so much potential but it all failed. What really sucks is I assumed it would be so good, I bought tickets for two different days! I will constantly criticize this movie until Sam Raimi personally admits he wrong me and gives me my money back.
2) Batman and Robin - Bat nipples and bat asses. Need I say anymore? The plot is just ludicrous. Freeze the world? Are you serious? This movie series has ceased being dark and complex and instead has turned more colorful than a Las Vegas casino. Many often criticize Arnold Swarchenager's ice puns, but in my opinion that is the one and only thing this movie had going for it. It was so bad, at least it knew it could make fun of itself.
3) Batman Forever - Many say they actually like Batman Forever. When they do, I ask them why. "Uh, Jim Carrey was good". I would like to set the record straight. Jim Carrey was not good. Jim Carrey was Jim Carrey! He was over the top and manic, which would have worked for the 60's Riddler, but not the modern one who is much more collected. And second, you should not say a movie is good just based off of one actor. The villains sucked, the scenery sucked, and the story line was "eh" which I guess is a good thing. Not only that, but they totally ignored the last two movies. In Batman, we see Harvey Dent. Yes, he is black, but none the less that is the established Harvey Dent. But in this one we get Tommy Lee Jones, with a totally different story. Actually, we never even see his story really. He's just kinda there. The only real reason this movie is number 3 on my worst list is because they kept Elfman around to score the film.
4) Dare Devil - I don't remember much about this movie. All I know is I hated it. It was just Marvel's attempt to get some more success like they did with Spider-Man. End of story!
5) Hulk - This movie was interesting right up until the Hulk's 3 appearance. By then it was nothing but 30 minutes of the Hulk jumping and smashing military helicopters and tanks. There was no real villain in this story until the very end. And for some reason, they made the final fight (which was very short) so dark you can't even see anything. This movie makes me angry. And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry!
6) Fantastic 4 - Yet another film that is trying to cash in on the success of Spider-Man. The heroes only fought the villain for 5 minutes. During the other hour and 25 minutes, they fought with each other! And why is it that these 4 can cause a major accident and then make up for it and are considered heroes, where spider-man is constantly hounded by people for doing good things? The only good thing that came out of this movie is my cousins "Fantastic Four in a nut shell" and the song Noots by Sum 41.
7) Hellboy - another movie I don't remember much about except the fact I did not like it. Many say "Guillermo Del Torro does good movies" and think this would be amazing like his other stuff. Something I've learned about movies. Don't think every movie a director makes is going to be good or bad just because one is. Judge each movie independently. I think I was one of the few people that was not looking forward to Hell Boy 2.
8) X-Men Last Stand - This movie isn't necessarily bad, but it's not very good. It focuses pretty much on Wolverine and only him (like we have not got enough exposure of him from the last films). Almost any other character takes a major back seat, but we're still expected to connect with them. The end fight could have been seriously epic, but wasn't. And Magneto got taken out in a matter of seconds. I think the only part that lived up to the hype was the infamous line "IM THE JUGGERNAUT BITCH!"
9) Superman - I don't think this is really a very bad movie, I just personally did not enjoy it. I can't really explain it, it just was not my cup of tea. Maybe I would have loved it if I was around when it came out, but I didn't.
10) The Spirit - This one is personal! There is already a Spirit in a movie, and that's The Spirit in the Monsters trilogy! FUCK YOU OTHER SPIRIT! FUCK YOU!
World
