HYR - #100!

Trailer film hitman
Uploaded by nofrag

For a hundrededeth post I think the Hitman trailer is pretty cool. Sure it's already six hours cold but hey it's new to me.

Happy 100th post readers.

Hitman trailer!

Booyah! Finally a reason to see the new Die Hard. I'm not apologizing for juding the movie before it comes out - it looks disappointing. John McClane fighting hackers while working for Homeland Security? We really do live in different times don't we? I'll still see it but I don't have to like it.

In any case the trailer for Hitman is playing before the new Die Hard.

EDIT:
Die Hard 4.0 is only going to be rated PG-13. I'm mildly confused why they decided to suck even worse but I need a Coke so maybe I'm missing something

"At the sound of the whip, turn the page."

I take my Indiana Jones pretty seriously. I honestly don't know how to feel about a new movie. The cast looks pretty strong though I don't know much about this Shia LaBoeuf kid. However John Hurt, Ray Winstone, and Cate Blanchett are in it and that makes me happy though there's no word on John Rhys-Davies and Denholm Elliot's passed on. Oh well.

Thanks to Mike for this link: http://www.indianajones.com/community/news/news20070621.html

Possible upcoming reviews and other info.

Season one of Barney Miller is on DVD. This is one of those shows I watched with my Grandpa.

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We're going to see 1408 on Tuesday - not sure where but probably in the 7 o'clock block. If interested please contact me or BC3. Hell. Yeah.

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The Dobie here in Austin is showing the new 35mm rerelease of Labyrinth for the 20th anniversary. Personally I'm with my buddy Frank Whaley on this one:

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If you've never seen Taxi Driver in the theater then you owe it to yourself to see it at the Paramount June 28th & 29th. No you don't have to see it both days. If you've never seen Taxi Driver then well, huh, I guess that's okay. You should see it, then wander the streets drinking peach schnapps and popping speed - make an evening out of it.

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Apparently a 100 foot deep lake in Chile disappeared. No horseshit Jack. The world is coming apart at the seams. We should have listened to Dennis Quaid.

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Upcoming DVD reviews:

War Photographer (2001) dir Christian Frei. A documentary about James Nachtwey - a combat photojournalist. Considering that combat photography is one of my favorite uses of the medium it should be a good depressing watch.

Into the Blue (2005) dir John Stockwell. I don't care, I want to see this movie. I wanted to see it in the theater. Yes, Jessica Alba is in a bikini. And...

Oddly enough I checked Mr. Stockwell's back catalogue. He's directed:

• Crazy/Beautiful (2001) Kirsten Dunst plays a rich bad daddy's girl who falls for a straight shooter Latino from the wrong side of the tracks. Saw it on the WB one Sunday. Kirsten Dunst is pretty hot.
• Undercover (1987) I can't...you gotta check this out for yourselves - Undercover.
• Turistas (2007) Haven't seen it. Not really into torture/horror lately.

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There was another piece of news but I can't remember what it was so...here's a Baroness fan site.

Peter Gabriel 3: Melt (1980)

I've never really been a Peter Gabriel fan. I pretty much know him from his radio/video hits Shock the Monkey, Games Without Frontiers, and Sledgehammer and his score for The Last Temptation of Christ - which is a great score that has a sound that is a few years of its time.

There was a copy of Peter Gabriel 3: Melt in my iTunes and figured I'd give it a shot before I just deleted it out of hand. I have to say that there are some awesome songs on this album - after doing a bit of searching it turns out that Melt is considered to be his best "masterpiece" album.

It kicks of with Intruder - a song that might warrant a few more listens just so I can figure out what he's talking about. At first - several - listen(s) it sounds like another one of the 80s stalker songs - i.e. Every Breath You Take. The rest of album is solid except for track 3 that I deleted as soon as I heard about ten seconds of - it just was awful in a pre-smooth jazz bridge way. Games Without Frontiers is track 7.

Melt is definitely worth a listen if you're a fan of 70s/80s electronic art rock. Some of the tracks could work very well in a soundtrack - if Lead A Normal Life hasn't been used in an indie dysfuntional family drama then it should. Stat.

This is why I love wikihow.com

We're all familiar with wikipedia but are you familiar with http://www.wikihow.com/?

It's pretty cool and sometimes useful information about how to do stuff.

So far this entry has to be my favorite, especially step one: Survive a Monkey Attack.

My way to survive a monkey attack? Don't go where there are freakin' monkeys! Why are you going where monkeys live anyway? Leave the critters in peace - serves you right if you get your arm ripped off by a monkey dumbass.

Woo! Bond!

Marc Forster will direct the 22nd James Bond film.

Forster directed "Finding Neverland."

Forster will start work shortly with screenwriter Paul Haggis on a draft of the screenplay by Neil Purvis and Robert Wade.

Daniel Craig will reprise the role of James Bond.

Thanks to Variety for the heads-up.

Video game news: Manhunt 2, Warhammer 40K, & more.

1. Yeah, yeah, yeah - the Brits are putting a ban on Manhunt 2. If the first game is any indication then the sequel is gonna be a bloodbath funstravaganza. I'm buying it even if the first game really creeped me out after a couple of marathons. Something about wrapping some goons head in a shopping bag and smashing the hell out of it just gets to you after awhile.

2. This autumn will see the release of a Warhammer 40K for the DS Lite. Oh. Hell. Yeah.

3. Here's a bumper crop of video game blogs of people playing through entire series of games:

• Final Fantasy
• Dragon Quest
• Zelda

They are entertaining and well written and since I played a good number of these entertaining.

Overlord demo=glee.

I downloaded the Overlord demo on Saturday and let me tell ya - the game is gonna be great fun. I am worried that it won't be particularly long or have much replay - a real concern when plonking down $60 for a new release.

Impressions from the demo:

A great looking, fun, and psychotic laughter inducing game. What can I say? Any game that allows me to set halflings (aka hobbits) on fire - by immolating the field they are hiding in - makes me giddy. The screams are just icing. The minions under your control are gremlin/imp critters that mob up and destroy/pillage/bash/smash/loot/pee on/and generally muck up everything. In an assault on a pumpkin patch some of the little monsters ended up with jack o'lanterns on their heads, after battering sheep I saw one minion wielding a mutton leg as a club.

The controls seem very, well, intuitive. It took me almost no time to get the hang of summoning and control the minions. The right analog controls the "sweep" of the minions across the land - they destroy anything the come into contact with so there's no extra fiddling as far as that goes. I don't know where they got the "recall minions" sound effect - a warped foghorn/tugboat from hell - but it sounds awesome.

The game looks great - the farm level I played was pure idyllic and butterflies and sunshine and all that horrible fresh air. Once the minions and fire took their toll the landscape looked ravaged. It made me happy.

Once I get some more news on this one I'll pass it along.

Here's a joke for ya:

"Remember The Matrix MMO?"

Gets me every time.

The Future of Rock'n'Roll.

97X logo circa 1981.

I found this station on iTunes while digging for something to listen to that wasn't Radio Nigel or whatever crap I didn't feel like listening to. It's a solid mix of tunes that actually span several decades. In all honesty though this station plays stuff I listened to growing up & in high school.

The painful part is that it's known as "vintage". The 90s are vintage? Uh. Damn it. I don't even have something apathetic and sarcastic to say about that.

97X really plays a bit of everything from stuff that rocks to stuff that sucks so much I has scrubbed it from my mind, i.e. Spin Doctors, Live, and Silverchair. Fortunately they play more rock than suck. From time to time there will be something heavy and awesome. Sometimes they play awful "I kissed a girl" LUG Lilith Fair music. Just saying.

All in all I pretty much keep it on most of the day at work when I'm not listening to the news or trying to find a new horror music station. There's a link on the right that will be there until they yell at me to take it down.

In Soviet Russia Night Watches you!

Bad Joke I know but I just ate and am in my afternoon naptime slump. Thought I'd toss out my quick review for Night Watch - the book not the movie. Well...

It's not bad. Not terrible at least, maybe poorly translated or just poorly written and poorly translated. This ain't Tolstoy or Chekov or Zematyin. If you're unfamiliar with the story here's the run down:

Modern Russia. Supernatural creatures known as Others - i.e. warlocks, witches, vampires, shape shifters, etc. - have been fighting an eternal battle since forever. The powers of Light have the Night Watch to keep an eye on the bad guys. The bad guys a.k.a. the powers of Darkness have the Day Watch to keep an eye on the good guys. Balance of power, blah, blah, blah. I've seen it before, you've seen it before, we've all seen it before. This time it's Russian.

The book starts off strong: snappy writing, grey this, grey that, stuff happens, hoodoo, amulets, fire, shape shifting and assorted cool supernatural happenings. I like Anton - the protagonist - he's a programmer/tech guy for the Night Watch and this is his first heavy duty street mission.
The first third of the book is great fun.

The rest of the book just chugs along. Anton has philosophical crisis, blah, blah, blah, does he buck the system or does he play his role. Is he a good guy? Is he bad? Y'know what - I could care less. I only have about ten pages left and I can't bother to finish it. I don't even care what happens.

Don't bother with the book, just watch the movie. The movie has all the cool stuff in it and while the plot is barely worth paying attention to it does look awesome.

First third of book: B
Rest of the book: D-

"Welcome to CostCo. I love you."

This is going to be one of those random pop culture/assorted insanity posts so you're just going to have to bear with me:

1. The picture above is of our favorite assassin Agent 47's dome - jacked from Hitman: le blog officiel du film - as portrayed by Timothy Olyphant. I'm not sure how it's going to be but I'm going to see it. I think it's funny that Amanda said, "They put the barcode up too high." She's one of the good ones.

2. Imagine if this DS game got stateside?http://www.senakablog.com/archives/2007/06/post_943.html I don't imagine anyone being allowed to play it in public. If I can find a trailer I'll post it.

3. Apparently the new Tenchu is a trainwreck. Damn it. I love the series but I can understand how it could just fall to pieces. There's $60 I don't have to piss away.

4. Two things about the 360:

• I finally figured out how to play music during gameplay. It kind of rules. A lot. For Elder Scrolls: Oblivion I've found that The Way of the Gun soundtrack works really well...except for the last track. Now I am trying to dig up my soundtrack for Highlander so I play Princes of the Universe when I battle in the arena. I'm joking. Kind of. Shut up.
• The wireless controller sucks the soul out of batteries - worse than an old skool Disc-Man. I'm sorry I didn't listen to those of you who told me to get the recharger.

More "news" to follow. Feeding time.

Yay! New Pixar! New Pixar!

According to the info in Variety today the new Pixar movie is going to be released in 2009. It's titled Up and will directed by the guy who did Monsters Inc and will be about some oldster who teams up with an adventurer and they go out and do cool stuff.

I love Pixar movies - except for Cars because well...I'm not a racing fan unless it's that insane rally race across the Outback type of thing - and this sounds like it could be right up my alley.

Will post updates as I find out about them...a year or two from now.

Here's something for you Transformers dorks:

Yes, that is an Optimus Prime Mr. Potato. Go ahead nerd, you know you want one.

Red Star finally released and a MMORPG set in Rome?

I played a demo for The Red Star - a sci-fi arcade styled shooter with Russians running everything - about a million years ago. It was pretty fun but not really my cup of tea. I've never had the skills needed to succeed at games like Gauntlet, Contra, or Shinobi. Yes I suck at those games. This game looks like it would rip off one of my arms and beat me to death with it. Here's the official site. At the very least the universe looks awesome.

Yes, there is going to be an MMO set in Rome titled Gods & Heroes. No Amanda they don't speak Latin but I'm sure there's some Latin fanboys wishing it was in Latin. It could be cool. Maybe.

Assorted news & Updates:

I have to admit that we haven't been up to much since Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has practically consumed our souls. It's a good thing that I have to go to work and into the sunlight because otherwise I'd be transforming in a Morlock and developing rickets and big transluscent eyes the size of dinner plates with "controller-claw" hands.

So here's a few pieces of news:

1. The guys over at twitchfilm.net got all in a snit because Midway Games was supposed to fund the New York City Asian Film Festival and they bailed. Here's the article. Being bent out of shape that a sponsor bails is one thing but calling for a ban? That's a little absurd. The info I got from Midway was, "Regrettably, Midway is not able to be the title sponsor of the New York Asian Film Festival because Stranglehold's development schedule did not allow time to attend; however, Midway still plans to be an event sponsor."
2. Apparently the Indian cops won't let five year old Budhia Singh take part in a 310 mile walk. The kid broke a record last year for running 40 miles in seven hours and two mintues - uninterrupted. This little dude is the Indian D.A.R.Y.L. .
3. There should/might/probably be a review of Day Watch - if we can actually get into the preview screening tonight. I'm about half way through Night Watch and it's a pretty decent book though the movie only covers the first third of the book. It's not badly written but the translation is a bit...choppy. A review will show up after I finish it off.

There's not much else news right now besides the fact my character in Oblivion somehow got up to 71 alchemy points and I just bought a Dwarven Bow and a horse. The bow is awesome, the horse is okay for roaming around on but not much else. See, just gamer crazy talk. Fortunately Amanda is addicted too so we have something to talk about over dinner.

My new XBOX360 - Day One.

"I remember Revelations 7:12...'And I looked, and he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake. And the sun became as black as sack cloth, and the moon became as blood.' "

and then I bought a 360.

I broke down and bought the unholy contraption because the voices told me to. It's actually pretty darn neat. Granted it took me the better part of two hours to rewire and tinker and curse to get everything up and running and I still have some bugs to work out but all in all everything is tip-top. Once I get everything synched up it should be pretty sweet. Until then I'll just have to keep digging through online manuals.

Straight off though I am pretty impressed. The reviewers who commented negatively about the power pack/cord weren't far off - the thing is confusingly immense - Yog Sothoth immense. The fan is louder than the PS2's. Not too much of a big deal yet. Worse comes to worse I can just continue to use the PS2 as a DVD player. The XBOX360 controller is surprisingly comfortable, easy to use, and enjoyable to use. Getting used to a non-PS2 controller is gonna take a little time - maybe one or two good heavy duty gaming days.

I only purchased one game - Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I've only barely kinda sorta maybe put my toe in the water but this game seems like it's going to be a truly gargantuan RPG. The impression that I get is that you can play anyway you like, wander where you want, and pretty much just go off the deep end. I'm already having a difficult time sticking with my character's race but I'm gonna stick it out for a while and try to get the mechanics under my belt.

I'm sure I'll have much more to blather on about in the upcoming future. For now I will sit here at work, read manuals, and wait.

The coming end of an era.

It's a strange feeling going through the new releases and marking off the last few games that I will be purchasing for the PS2. I feel like there should be a long montage of me with my PS2 while Memories plays in the background: feeding ducks in the park, flying kites, working at the ASPCA rescue shelter, visiting the elderly, saving the world just so I can destroy it myself.

Unless there are any major changes in release schedules here are the final big three I am picking up for the system:

Tomb Raider Anniversary (06/05/07) Like a good many other gamers Tomb Raider blew me away. This was a truly amazing game that took gaming to the next level. Ten years later they have revamped, polished, and overhauled the game completely and restored a lot of reviewers & fans faith in the entire franchise. Apparently the adventure is back in the game - no silly convoluted "wheels within wheels" plots - it's just exploration and a pistol packin' mama. I'm in for a penny.

Manhunt 2 (07/10/07) As a Rockstar Games whore I can't not buy this game. I played the hell out of Manhunt no matter how much it creeped me out. It's in my top five favorite horror games for any console and I still throw it in every so often for some good twisted enjoyment. Manhunt 2 seems to have a more coherent plot in the asylum school a la The Suffering. I like the look of the protagonist of Manhunt 2 - bespectacled and not some 'roid rage convict. I'm expecting a lot from this game and have no doubt that it will deliver in spades.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (07/24/07). Persona was released for the PS waaay back in ye olde 1996. It was a completely bizarre Japanese high schoolers vs demons kind of game that sucked me in because characters used modern weapons instead of fantasy crap. Plus it was just insane - read the review. The newest installation sounds like it's going to be more of the same only with better graphics, better gameplay, and a darker story. Oh yeah and Atlus is putting it out - a sign of quality if you're unfamiliar with Atlus.

So that's it - two more months of new PS2 gaming unless there are some Japanese back catalog releases brought over. Yep. Guess I should start saying my goodbyes now. Good old PS2. Sniff.