Rambo (2008) dir. Sylvester Stallone & War (2007) dir. Philip G. Atwell

I'm gonna get this out of the way - you either want to see this movie or you don't. If you don't that's fine and understandable though First Blood is a good movie. If you are going to see Rambo then you know exactly what you are getting.

Personally I liked it. I had a crappy morning and went to go see it with some buddies and it turned my mood around. Rambo kills the living hell out of bad Burmese. It's not quite as gory as I was led to believe - yes it is gory and intensely violent - but a good amount of the blood is digital. Digital blood just doesn't cut it in my book. There are some moments of cheer worthy carnage though.

Here's the plot: Rambo is a snake hunter/collector in Thailand. He is very sad and alone with his anger and pain. Christian missionaries need his help getting up river to Burma to deliver medical aid and care. Rambo says, "Go home.". Missionary lady says, "Help us." Rambo says, "Fine." Rambo drops off missionaries and goes home. Missionaries help people then get captured by evil Burmese warlord. Rambo finds out. Everything goes to hell. Rambo kicks ass. Bad guys die. Fin.

I thought the direction was perfectly reasonable and all in all there was nothing wrong with the movie - what'd you expect fucking Chekov? It's Rambo. I really enjoyed the ending - it tied up the entire series very nicely.

* * *

War is a Jet Li/Jason Statham action movie by Philip G. Atwell (director of rap videos). We watched it last night after gorging ourselves on Chinese BBQ and shredded Nanking pork. We wanted something totally mindless, violent, and about as challenging as Go Fish. War not only delivered but it was actually pretty good and an excellent example of what a non-HK/HK-styled movie should be like. All the elements were there and put together in a proper fashion. Jason Statham plays some ass kicking Asian crime unit of the FBI guy. His partner gets killed by Jet Li - a super bad ass CIA trained assassin who is only known as "Rogue". Rogue disappears. Three years later there a territory is breaking out in San Francisco between Triads and the Yakuza. Side note: Just to let everyone - including Jason Statham - know "Yakuza" is plural for "Yakuza". A Yakuza club is shot to hell by...that's right...Rogue. Jason Statham is on the job. Action and vengeance ensues.

War is absurd and pretty cut and dry - especially if you've seen a good amount of HK action movies - but the direction is slick, the violence is bloody, there are fucking ninjas, the cast is a good who's who of quality supporting actors, the music is good cinematic hip-hop, and it's actually a good Jet Li/Jason Statham movie. A good Saturday afternoon movie, hell I'll buy it when I see it for about $10.

Burnout Paradise, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, GTA IV, and more...

If you're not familiar with the Burnout series then drop whatever it is you're doing and go buy a copy of Burnout 3. It's my favorite racing series because:

1. I suck at racing games and yet I can play the hell out of a Burnout game.
   
2. People can just pick up and play these games.
   
3. The level of destruction and lots of pretty pretty sparks.


4. In real life you really wish you could slam some annoying bastard's car into oncoming traffic or into a median.
   

Burnout Paradise is the latest installation in the series and so far is proving to be an exciting addition. I put in about five hours last night and was beginning to think it was too easy. Then I played a race and got totally wiped so I guess it's not too easy. What I like about the game is that the map is totally open from the start. Every intersection and stretch of road has some kind of event to play. Starting a race consists of driving around, coming up to an intersection, and pulling LT & RT. The race starts. There's a lot to find and explore in this game - which is one of my favorite tasks in games. The Road Rages are fun especially since the other cars will find you instead of having to find them - meaning you can careen through construction sites and cut throughs at top speed instead of sticking to the main streets. I like addition of the Marked Man races - get to the finish line in one piece with enemy vehicles trying to wreck you all the way. The Racing is fun though frustrating because there are so many ways to go. Once you have a solid knowledge of cut-throughs and sneaky way then it makes it a lot more fun - i.e. I won a backwoods curving roads race by simply driving straight down the railroad tracks at full speed.
The game looks great, the cars are fun to drive, the crashes are wicked gnarly, and I look forward to playing it online. The one downside is the music. It's a strange mix of old and new and cuts from earlier Burnout games. After a while I turned it off and just listened to The Sword.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is a DS Lite turn based strategy game based in a post-apocalyptic world. Meteroids struck the Earth and everything went to shit and now it's up to our heroes to band together and fight bandits and assorted whackos. So far it's addictive as a sonofabitch and hopefully has a boatload of replay value.

There is finally a release date for GTA IV 04-29-08. Finally a reason to get up in the morning.

Heath Ledger overdoses. Permanently.

Wow. Well at least Batman was finished. I just hope we don't have to see millions of retrospectives like we did when River Phoenix died.

Pandora, Metal, Work, and the Tree of Woe.

I finally got a day off after 18 days in the tall grass. Fortunately the hours have gone back to normal (9-5) though the hours may still be 9-7.

One good thing to have come out of the last few weeks was the amount of labour I've put into working on my Pandora playlists. If you're not familiar with Pandora then let me fill you in - it's a "Music Genome Project". Basically it's a music player based on your tastes...more or less. You can thumbs up and thumbs a track a la yahoo radio but with better results and better music. If you scroll down a bit after reading this you'll see radio stations I've been working on. Click the link.

Another good thing that has come out this Pandora experimentation has been my finding of "new" and "interesting" music. From here on out I'm gonna be talking about Metal so if you don't have any interest in Metal quit reading.

I am a Metal fan. However I am not a metal fan that will listen to anything and in all honesty most Metal would be better off if there wasn't a lead singer - especially one who barks lyrics. So one day I checked out Pandora's "Stoner Metal Rock" station. Diretly before tuning into the station I was bitching/whinging/being Josh about, "I wish there was Metal that was actually good...you know like the first three Sabbath albums...etc, etc, etc..." I turned on the station and heard The Sword and my jaw dropped.

The Sword fucking rock. After I did my chores I cracked open a beer. Yay rewards! I played some music and just dicked around and then I said, "Fuck! The Sword!". I downloaded the album and have listened to it pretty much nonstop for the past several hours. It's heavy. It grinds. There are songs about wolves. I'm amazed this band is from Austin. It's awesome. I wish I was listening to it right now. In fact:

Witch is also good but after a while I realized that it sounds...too polished. Witch is a project of J. Mascis - Dinosaur Jr - and is good but sounds like an album that was made by someone who plays other stuff normally. Still makes for good Heavy Metal listening though.

More news to follow. Going to see Cloverfield tonight.

"I pray to Shiva - Please, let me die."

How's that for a flashback? I first saw it in '96 and it warped my fragile little mind. Thanks, Mike! What is kind of strange is watching EBN's videos and they are still pertinent. Y'know what with the war and everything.

Still busy at work but I had to make a post. Check out this trailer. If you've seen it already you'll understand my excitement:

Oh. Hells. Yes. The other day I was shipping books and chatting with Mark and said, "I wonder what Neil Marshall's been doin'?" Apparently he has been making awesome. Sheer and total awesome. Comes out March 14th. I can't wait.

There's more assorted news and reviews coming down the line but that'll have to wait until I get a day off.

Update and a minor rant.

Going to be absent for a bit longer folks. School starts on Monday and all the students are coming back and going to storm the walls.

Oh yeah, minor rant.

Spiderman 3 was so bad that when it was over I said, "I want to starve a badger, hit it constantly with a stick, and then mail it to Sam Raimi. When he opened the box the badger would latch onto him, peel the skin off his face, burrow down his throat, and tear him open from the inside." I hated Spiderman 3. I'm not a Spiderman fan, personally I don't like Spiderman period, but Spiderman 3 was almost worse than Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and the Tom Jane Punisher combined. Don't waste your money on this crap splatter.

Hope all of you are well. Upcoming reviews and a return to regularly scheduled blogging ASAP.

"Can you not see that I am direspectful to dirt?"

Hope all you fine folks had a perfectly reasonable holiday season. Ours was good. Saw Amanda's family. Drove around in the new car. Ate too much. Drank too much. Got presents. Oh yeah and Amanda and I are officially engaged. I'm sure there will be some kind of formal announcement of some sorts, consider yourselves warned.

In other news:

Amanda bought me a DS Lite and it is awesome. Okay she bought me one because I wouldn't stop using hers truth be told. I'm a couple of hours into Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and am enjoying it. Basically it's a noir-ish plot with lots of dialogue and some interesting puzzles. Nothing mind bending but nothing too simple either. I like the character design - black and white hand drawn - and the plot has been interesting enough for me to keep playing. Warhammer 40K: Squad Command is something I would recommend to a Warhammer 40K fan or possibly and turn based tactical game but for most people I wouldn't recommend it. It's cheezy and not the easiest game I've ever played. Personally I think with a little bit of spit and polish it would make an excellent XBOX360 Live game but that's just me. I love playing it though and have gotten some good laughs out of it - i.e. the catch phrase "I AM THE BRINGER OF DEATH!" makes me giggle. I am waiting for Amanda to finish Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon because well...it looks kind of damn neat and she's been playing the living hell out of it. Plus I'm in the mood for a soul sucking RPG.

As far as movies watched over the holiday break well...didn't see much. The only movie I got to see in the theater was Sweeny Todd. It was okay I guess. I really didn't enjoy it very much at all but they - Amanda & her sisters - liked it and had a good time. I guess I'm just done with Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter and the whole Burtonverse.

Saw Once on DVD. It was charming, bittersweet, Irish, and all in all was a pretty good movie that didn't go quite in the direction I thought it was going to. The soundtrack by The Frames is solid singer/songwriter guitar/piano stuff. Personally it's not my normal cup of tea but for a quiet afternoon it was a nice movie.

Watched the latest Harry Potter & the Whatever Whatever last night. It was pretty good I guess but I could tell that there was a lot left out from the book or glossed over or cherry picked. I haven't read the books either and I could tell. All in all it was a Harry Potter movie. There was some magic and some Alan Rickman and some Voldemort and a John Williams score.

That's the long and short of it folks. I'm going to be going online to wage war in Call of Duty 4 so you can expect a review/rant about me getting "pwned" by fourteen year olds.

Grahgh! Finally a word from Hooligan Youth!

December buybacks have come to an end. That was exhausting. Those of you fine folks who are getting presents in the mail will be getting them when I have the chance to - no worries.

I will try to get a post up about the movies and games and assorted goodness during the break. I hope that all of you are well and have/are having a good holiday. Don't panic.

Much love and assorted warm fuzzy feelings.

xoxoxoxo

Hooligan Youth a.k.a. Joshua

Hooray for cthulonic fantasy!

Hellboy II: The Golden Army trailer

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I liked the first one but this movie may actually be good!
enjoy!

Finally the real thing!

Thats right kids the First official poster for the new Indiana Jones film.
I'm sorta worried about this movie, but after seeing that they went with the original style poster art I am sorta warmed in the cockles by it...but maybe that just the wool pants I have on.
But hey, its our old pal indy!

Woo! Warhammer! Woo!

Mass Effect (2007)

I polished off Mass Effect on Sunday after forty something hours of gameplay. I'm pretty sure that I did everything in the game - I managed to get the Completionist achievement - but it didn't seem like there was that much to do. Maybe I'm just used to other RPGs that are pretty much time sinks *cough* Oblivion *cough*. I guess I was expecting something more...well more...

Mass Effect is an impressive game from character creation all the way to the cliffhanger ending. I enjoyed the hours of dialogue and depths of the Codex. I enjoyed driving the Mako across planetscapes and using it the run over Geth. There were a few moments where I worried about the characters and the events unfolding around them. Hard decisions were made and consequences were felt. The Universe was saved but was the cost worth it? The storyline is pretty straight forward if you're familiar with the Space Opera genre: bad guys are up to good, grim hero and companions are out to right wrongs and kick ass, experimental space ship with smart ass pilot - very ably voiced by Seth Green, pissed off alien allies, a seriously daunting foe, and a touch of romance.

I don't really have any problems with Mass Effect. I would recommend it to a friend or neighbour. A lot of the problems reviews had - slow elevators, load times, cumbersome inventory screens, driving the Mako, etc., etc. - didn't really bother me all that much. Personally I liked the elevators - they were an opportunity to have a stretch or go get a drink - plus there was dialogue between characters and on the Citadel there were news casts. So where is my vague sense of dissatisfaction coming from? The voice work of Jennifer Hale as the main character Commander Shepard was top notch, the story satisfying, the graphics great to look at, gameplay was perfectly reasonable, and yet I feel like I didn't get my fill. You ever been to a top notch restaurant and been blown away by the food but afterwards you realize that you're still hungry? That's the way I feel about Mass Effect.


Quite possibly the fact that I played Mass Effect very soon after I was playing KOTOR led to some disappointment. Where KOTOR allows for much more character control and influencing other characters and events Mass Effect just allows you to go in one direction or another. I also noticed that the other characters weren't terribly bothered by your actions. Where in KOTOR characters would make you guilty for being bad in Mass Effect they don't really care too much.

Sad to say the more I think about the game and what I liked and what I didn't like I and what I'm on the fence about the more I think, "Meh." If you're in the market for a RPG then I certainly recommend it - just don't expect the epic scope that some RPGs have - but if you're not an RPG fan I wouldn't bother.

The Mist (2007) dir. Frank Darabont

The Mist has been one of my favorite Stephen King novellas for years though I can never remember if it's in Skeleton Crew or Night Shift...I think it's in Skeleton Crew. In any case I wasn't particularly thrilled about a movie adaptation until I found out that Frank "Shawshank" Darabont was directing. He has a good handle on the whole King vibe and in any case it's a horror movie and I have a bad habit of seeing whatever horror movie is in the theater unless it's Saw XXIII.

Long and short The Mist is a good solid monster movie that for me took a nose dive into melodrama in the last minute - literally the last minute of the movie. I would have enjoyed the movie more if there weren't a couple of jerk offs talking through the movie and some old guy whose snoring was primordial. Seriously this guy sounded like a sound effect from the movie.

If you're going to see The Mist then I do recommend seeing it in the theater. Personally I would like to see it at a Drive In but that's just me.

Because I love you all so very much...

Hitman (2007) dir. Xavier Gens

I'm gonna get this out of the way right at the start here and say, "Hey reviewers who panned this movie - go fuck yourselves. Go watch another fucking Wes Anderson movie."



With that out of the way Hitman is not a great movie but what the hell are you expecting Chekov? It's not only an action movie but an action movie based on a video game. Hitman is better than The Transporter series, better than The Marine, and better than most of Van Damage's movies period.



This is the kind of movie you go see with your buddies - or kick ass girlfriend - and have a good time. You cheer when Agent 47 kicks the hell out of dudes, wolf whistle when the hot Russian chick wanders around half naked, laugh at a particularly gruesome kill and just enjoy yourselves on a Saturday afternoon.

What really sets Hitman apart is how high quality the movie is - a fact the reviews don't mention. Cinematographer Laurent Bares makes every shot look professionally slick and cool in a European way - not in the cheap made on HD way a lot of action movies have now. The music was perfectly reasonable for not being a Jesper Kyd score. It was mainly some kind of Euro electronic action-y score. Nothing really special but at least it wasn't some bullshit hip-hop score.

Hitman delivered for me. Hell if you don't believe me then see what Ebert had to say.

Thanksgiving, Signature Pork, Mass Effect, and an upcoming Hitman review.

Like my grandpa used to say, "There's another Thanksgiving shot in the ass." but in a good way. It used to piss me off when he would say that but now I'm beginning to appreciate the sentiment. There's lots of work and build up and what not and then it's over. "Is that all there is to Thanksgiving?"

Actually Thanksgiving was a good time. Thanks to Bart & Sarah for cooking and letting me use the grill - I made beef ribs. They were pretty good. Friday went off without a hitch - this year I realized that prep work makes cooking much easier. I might put up a post on the food site.

Better than feeding and fellowship and hugging fun I got to spend some serious time playing Mass Effect.

How good is Mass Effect? Well...if you like sci-fi space opera RPG talkies with some action, a lot of sci-fi codex mumbo jumbo, and a game that will suck up all your free time to the point you don't want to eat - Ctrl+Alt+Del has a good comic about this - then you might want to pick up this game.

The appeal of Mass Effect really comes down to the story and the ability to shape and direct conversations with NPCs. If you've played KOTOR then you'll know what you're in for. I am pretty interested in my responses to situations and other characters. I've noticed that I don't respond well to aggression or authority or both and have a tendency to help aliens. I miss the bounty hunter and double crosses of KOTOR but in Mass Effect I have plenty of opportunities for graft and corruption. Oddly enough this means my character is pretty much in the middle neither good nor bad - Paragon and Renegade in Mass Effect.

I want to put together a big review of the game once I finish it which at this rate should be soon.

We also went to go see Hitman. I liked it, I liked it a lot actually. It was exactly what I was expecting. A lengthier review is pending.

Happy Preemptive Thanksgiving Airstrike!

"I don't know if it's art..."

Going to have a good block of time off for the Thanksgiving so I won't be posting for a bit. Figured I'd throw together a post to tide you over.

I was weak and broke down and picked up Mass Effect. Just to let you know I don't have a sack full of money with which to buy games - I've been basically rotating credit. On the upside I don't think that there are any more games I want to pick up before the new GTA comes out.

Looks like I'm gonna be putting ribs on the grill this Thanksgiving. I know, I know, "It's not turkey?!?" but since turkey has become a non-holiday food I'm just not very impressed. I don't know if I'm gonna be doing pork or beef. Chances are I'll be doing beef since I plan on making my slow roasted pork on Friday for the Misfit Toys Thanksgiving.

If you feel so inclined gimme a call or drop me a line or send hate mail. Hope you guys have a good holiday. Don't kill your loved ones no matter how much they ask for it.

xoxo

All of us at Hooligan Youth Reviews...except me.

Assassin's Creed, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, and Fresca.

After a good chunk of game time with Assassin's Creed and an another block of time with Kane & Lynch: Dead Men this weekend. When all is said and done I should have picked up Kane & Lynch.

Assassin's Creed is a great looking game that is fun and exciting to play but there's not really anything to do after a couple of hours. The story is the only thing keeping me playing truth be told. The problem I have is that there's really not much substance to Assassin's Creed gameplay wise. You enter a new part of the city, scout out the View Points, rescue citizens, beat information out of a few folks, run a few timed missions, pickpocket, eavesdrop, head to the Bureau, get the assassination mission, go kill the target, escape the guards, get back to the Bureau. You do that for each hit - 9 hits total. The first couple of times it's fun but after awhile - to paraphrase - "I think to myself is that all there is to Assassin's Creed?" I'm gonna give it another shot at least to finish out the story but my heart's not really in it.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is quite possibly one of the meanest games I have ever played. Parts are profanity-inducing difficult but that's not what I mean by "mean". Kane & Lynch plays like one of my favorite violent crime movies. The characters are just straight up bastards, psychos, sociopaths, and degenerates with no redeeming qualities. Add in a pervasive sense of depressing, violent stoicism and you've got a happy Josh.

Some of the reviews I read knocked the game because of the controls but they work for me. The reason they work for me is because they are Io Interactive controls. The game plays very similarly to Freedom Fighters with a radial inventory, the same squad command icons and controls, and desperate run & gun combat. Personally I think the combat kind of kicks ass and if you can use your squad effectively then it makes survival much easier but not by much. Expect to die...a lot. The amount of firepower that sometimes is directed towards you is daunting at times. While trying to escape a Japanese high rise through the front door gave me pause. I sent my squad out first and hung back lobbing smoke and frag grenades and picking off any SWAT who stuck their heads out. I still got picked off and had to restart the scene several times. Another level is based in a nightclub and makes for some awesome gunbattle action what with strobes, smoke, pumping techno, gunfire, and hordes of fleeing patrons screaming in Japanese. This is the kind of game where you can clear a path in the crowd by mowing them down to get a clear shot on your opponent. I noticed too Lynch executes the wounded - cops, gangsters, and civilians alike - if he gets near them. It's actually kind of disturbing but another detail that makes the game so effective.

Of course I have to mention the Jesper Kyd score - yes, yes we all know I heart Jesper Kyd. It's a really bad ass score - even for him. While Hitman had a slick ambient assassin score and Freedom Fighters had an epic "Let's kick Commie ass." score Kane & Lynch has an "I am a bad man doing bad things." score. Don't know what I mean? Imagine that you and your crew are rappeling down the side of skyscraper after getting into a gunfight on the roof. You set explosives to blow out the glass and proceed to machine gun everyone in the room. Got it? Okay now what music is in your head? Probably something pretty similar to Kyd's score for Kane & Lynch.

Kane & Lynch is one hell of a game but in all honesty it's not a blockbuster, there's not a lot of gloss and glitz to the game. I give it a bit more slack because I view it as a training wheels game for Io on the 360. Sure they made a version of Hitman: Blood Money for the 360 but it was just a glossier version of the PS2 version - actually the 360 version looks so much better I was surprised at how rough the PS2 version looks in comparison. It's not a sophisticated example of tactical squad combat at its best. If you're into hardboiled crime/action movies where everyone is pretty much violent, cruel, bitter, and emotionally scarred then you'll enjoy Kane & Lynch.


Oh yeah and Fresca is pretty good even if people think it's an old person drink.

Something totally inappropriate that amuses me.

"I have seen shit that would turn you white."

I could dork out but you gotta see this: