I just got my custom Starcraft II map to a point where it has few enough bugs that it’s playable, and released it for all on Bnet.  Now all that’s left is to sit back and wait for all the ten’s of people that will play it.  If you have any suggestions – about the map and not my use of free time – please send them my way.

Christopher Nolan has created another fantastic film, in Inception, and it will be hard to talk about it without giving anything away, but here we go.

This is definitely one of those films that demands a 2^nd viewing just so you can try to get a handle on on the concepts. Inception knits a web of ideas and world rules so thick that I often found myself taking pause to try to figure out just what was happening. Inception walks that fine line between richly complex, and needlessly cryptic.

The characters definitely run the gambit of quality in Inception. Leo’s character, Cobb, was nicely layered and felt on par with the magnitude of the film, though not as strong as the one he gave in Shutter Island. Ken Watanabe’s character, Saito, was almost completely impossible to understand at times, because of his heavy Japanese accent, and Ariadne, played by Ellen Page, felt rather useless and unimportant, and her performance – while not bad – was nothing to talk about.

The music was brooding and worked extremely well. Though it lacked a strong theme element, it had repeating patterns of low brass sustains that took their place.

The visuals were also great, from bending cities, to explosions, to sweeping establishing shot vistas.

The major thing that held this film back for me was also it’s cornerstone. The relationship between Cobb, his wife, and his children never effected me on the level it should have. It felt more like they were going through the motions, and I never felt for them as a couple. This seems to be a theme with Nolan, as he is fantastic at bringing smart action to the screen but he has a hard time delivering the emotion.

Inception is another great film by Nolan film to tide us over till his next Batman movie.  He really is becoming one of my favorite film makers, though I’m going to wait to see if he succumbs to the Comic film shitty 3rd movie curse.

Predators

Ok….. Every Predator film after the first one has been progressively worse culminating in the Pg-13 AvP bullshit churned out for mass appeal. That didn’t bode well for the franchise next attempt.  However, when they announced that it was going to be rated R, a small glimmer of hope came forth. Then I found out Adrien Brodey was the male lead, and the glimmer fizzled out. Then I saw images of the Predators, and they looked great. They were reminiscent of the the original design, and not WWF’ed out with overly muscular body builders with predator heads on.

So…. Did it earn it’s R? Well, kind of. It certainly had the gore, but it felt subdued and not as intense as the original. There were a few Gory moments but they felt few and far between. I would have like to have seen a little more liberal use of blood and spines.

Adrien Brodey, did surprisingly well in his role. I believed him even though he was nowhere near the size of Arnold, but it worked. It would have been a bad thing if they had gotten someone to try to be Arnold, instead of create something new. His nose is still extremely distracting though, i’m sorry.

The predators were also great. They looked cool, and moved well, and I really don’t have anything bad to say about them. The CG predator dogs however, where the week link. They were obviously computer generated, and didn’t fit with the rest of the practical effects in the film.

I also really enjoyed the score, as it was basically the same score from the first film, re-done and altered slightly in a few places. This coupled with the fact that there running around a jungle really help place this in the canon of the first movie.

The rest of the characters were fairly weak. I would have like to of had a few of them fleshed out a little more, so we cared more when shit happens. There is also a moment at the end that feels drastically out of place, and really put me off a bit.

Overall Predators is a solid action movie. It’s not very deep, or even well written, but it’s fun and has plenty of references to it’s inspiration, and is fun to watch. It could have been better, but it’s the first squeal to feel like it belongs with the Original.

Iron Man 2

I was really hoping that Iron Man 2 followed the growing tradition amongst comic movies where the squeal is a vast improvement over the first. Such was the case with, Spiderman, X-men, the new Batman franchise, and the Hulk reboot, etc, etc.

Unfortunately what I got was less attention on characters, and a more effects-heavy, and staged visual extravaganza, where more CG =’ed better. There were some fun sequences where the visuals provided some fun eye candy, but it all felt rather hollow.

One thing that can be learned from the horrifying bad Transformer movies, is that when you have CG things, fighting other CG things the visceral sense of danger is removed, and with it the tension and suspense. I never felt as if anyone was truly at risk, and this coupled with the bland character development, and evenly paced story pushed the Iron Man franchise back below it’s predecessor on the quality scale.

Now with all that being said, the film is still fun to watch on it’s own. As an action movie it still provides some thrills and, while hollow, the visuals are all bright and sparkly and shiny. I was just expecting so much more.

Though scaled back a little this year, it was another fantastic Motorama with some really cool cars, and nice weather to boot.  I think I have yet to be at a Motorama event where the weather was not great.  The car pictured above is a 3 wheeler and all electric.  The back tire is fat as two normal tires put together and is very reminiscent of the Bad Pod from, “The Dark Knight.”

The rest of the car pics can be found here

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Los Angeles area to attend Bruce and Asako’s Wedding which took place in Long Beach at the Maya Hotel on Saturday June 12^th . It was a beautiful service, and a wonderful event, and I’m so happy for both of them, especially because now, Bruce might actually start going home at a normal hour.

I also got some time to hang with my old roommate Aaron, and his wife and my friend Monique. They let me stay at their place, and borrow their car. I even got the chance to visit Neversoft, where Aaron works.

All in all good times, but way too short.  I have posted pics of the Wedding in the personal section of my gallery, but you can also get to them quickly by clicking the link below.

Link

This is a bit of a mixed bag for me.  I really liked the fighting and some of the movies offbeat moments.  The ultra violence was a plus as well.  For me the problems came during the quieter moments in the first half of the film when the writers are trying to establish character.  I found that the humor was not extended to these moments very successfully.  I also found most of the main character’s interactions with his best friends uninteresting, and a lot of it felt like time filler rather then character development.  The film has these moments throughout it where it starts to pick of steam then slows down, then start again only to grow sluggish once more.  It’s not really until the end of the movie when the pace picks up and stays up and it’s here that the film is the most fun.

Despite Kick Ass’s premise that it’s about real world people trying to be superheroes, the characters in the film are over the top, or in the case of the main antagonist over the top and one dimensional.  However this is not necessarily a bad thing for this non-serious gore laced fair, and while I usually like my villains to have some depth to them, Mark Strong’s portrayal of Frank D’Amico, works for this kind of movie.  It just is oddly hypocritical that these supposedly real and true-to life people live in a cartoon world that feels oddly off and unrelatable when compared our own.

However, when Kick Ass is in those moments when it is working, it’s a lot of fun, and great entertainment.

How to Train Your Dragon

Well it’s been a little while but this is Dreamworks’ best work, surpassing – in my opinion – their last acclaimed hit, Kung Fu Panda, of which I was not a huge fan.  It’s got all the right ingredients as well.  It has a solid story, and characters that are more then one dimensional without the need for special glasses.  It had some great action, and some really nice fire and water effects as well.

I have liked someone else do the voice for the main character Hiccup, as the performance given by Jay Baruchel was nasally, and borderline obnoxious.  I also thought Toothless looked a bit too much like stitch, but that’s really more of a personal nit picky thing.  Lastly I thought that John Powell produced a serviceable soundtrack, but think it needed stronger themes.  Thinking back on the film I can’t hum a single tune from it.

All those things aside I think this is a great film with a surprising moment that I did not see coming.

Clash of The Titans

Release the Cracken!!!   Ok, if your going to have a movie with no soul, heart, compelling characters,  or well constructed story, then you better at least have an effect’s budget like 2012, or Transformers: ROTF.  At least that way the film viewer can pull something of value from 10 spent bucks, and two hours of life.  Sadly Clash of the Titans effects ran the gambit from piss poor, to good but dated.  The best effect was probably the Cracken which despite having a head with many teeth seemed less menacing then version in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  I hope that reason it’s grossed 420+ million world wide, is because people had fond memories of the original and Ray Harryhausen, and not because of  Sam Worthington, who once again gives his usual flat performance.  How he got to be Hollywood’s golden boy I just don’t know.

Dammit Burton…

I was really hoping this one was going to be good but alas. Instead what’s offered is a flat story arch that lacks any sense of building tension, characters that are amazingly one dimensional, and visual effects that are entirely out classed by todays standards. The whole end sequence reminded me of an extended Marines commercial. You know… The ones with the bad blu-screening, and ridiculous situations with fire breathing dragons and and extreme mountain climbing. Even the score by Elfman felt a little on the dull side. It wasn’t bad, but it felt a uninspired.  I think Butron and Elfman need to take a break from one another.  Mabey see other people for a while.

Most of the situations in “Alice in Wonderland,” felt like a rehash of things from the Animated Disney movie which surprised me seeing as how this is supposed to be a new story.  Why go back and do everything again.  This may be an example of to much fan service.

The acting was all over the place. Johnny Depp was one of the more entertaining characters to watch but with out substance to back the interesting character quirks Depp came up with even he becomes tiresome to watch.

I wish Burton would have taken more chances and brought the characters and the world somewhere new. Instead “Alice in Wonderland,” brings back up the vomit that was his re-make of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which had finally settled in my lower intestine and was almost forgotten. Now it’s all I can taste.

The Crazies

This is a remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 film of the same name. While I have not seen it I have heard that it was not a very strong film when compared to the rest of his offerings. This remake was done by Breck Eisner, and what is offered is a fun and well made horror movie. The characters felt a bit stock but there are some nice surprises and some decent development over the course of the movie. You also really feel the desperation of the protagonists, as well as the constant threat from the crazies as well as other forces. However the movie relies to much on your standard jump scare – of which there are a ton of.  Also it stretches on a bit to long and could have been shortened by 15 + minuets. There are only so many times you can watch people escape by the skin of there teeth before it becomes a bit redundant. That being said, The Crazies is surprisingly decent for what it is and is certainly worth a look if your a horror fan.

Shutter Island

I’m a Scorsese fan, and so I was fairly excited to see this when it hit theaters. It’s kind of hard to talk about without spoiling anything, so I will just talk about it in general. Right off the bat I’ll just say that I liked this movie. I liked the atmosphere, and the pace of it. I liked the other worldly feeling that certain repeating thematic sequences had. I even liked the very prominent self aware score that accompanies the opening of the film, and brought chuckles to the theater. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio did a great job, and felt that the acting was great all around. There were a few people that were a tad off, and a few hammy bits from some of the extras but over all it was a solid package. In talking with my friends about this movie I’m discovering that it seems to be fairly polarizing. People either love it or hate it with not much common ground in between. I obviously fall into the camp that liked it.  It’s not perfect but it’s sure a lot of fun and I would recommend that you check it out.

Unfortunately for me the night also had a sour note as the pictures below will illustrate. The fuckers didn’t even steel anything. They smashed it for fun. Ironically, I was supposed to park in a paid-for underground parking spot within Eric’s Apartment complex, but when I arrived there was someone there. So we ended up parking on the street near that garage. Uggggg.

I initially thought about driving the car home, but there was fine glass dust everywhere that I didn’t want to be inhaling. I also cut myself trying to removed chunks of in front the drivers seat.

I ended up moving my bashed car into Eric’s parking garage and put it in one of the many random open spots at around 4 am in the morning. We new full well one of them could have belonged to a resident but I wanted my car off the street. Then we immediately went inside to tell the guard about were we had parked and there was a man already in the office complaining that someone had parked in his spot. Guess what? I moved the car again but this time no complaints followed. Eventually – thanks to Eric’s hospitality – I got some sleep on his couch.

In the morning I found a place that was open Sunday that would fix my window. I decided not to involve the insurance company. The told me that if I placed a claim my premiums would not go up as long as I was with Progressive, but they speculated if I ever moved to another insurance company the premiums might increase. Since the payment for the window was less then my deductible I canceled the claim and paid for it out o f pocket.

An expensive fucking weekend for me. Happy figgn’ birthday Robert.

Done by Raoni Nery www.raoninery.wordpress.com

Cool, but just a little creepy.