WraithRants

Summer Movies 2008

2008-07-10T17:41:08Z

I'm actually going to try my hand at real reviews with a format and everything this time. I have a scale for movies that I've used personally for years, and I've seen with variations with other reviewers. Here's how it goes: Full Price - Buy it on DVD or go see it in the theater at full price, highly recommended. Matinee - Still worth seeing, but don't forget the popcorn and drinks(and personal loan to pay for it all) Rental - Worth $4 at the video store/your rental queue at Netflix. Cable - Wait for it to play on TNT/TBS/etc. Crap - Not worth your time. Now that that's out of the way, the movies: Iron Man The Good: Damn near everything, really.]]> The Incredible Hulk Full disclosure here: I LIKED the 2004 Hulk that Ang Lee did. I thought it was well-done stylistically, well-acted and the story was good. I will be comparing this movie to that one at points. The Good: The opening shot of the tenements in Brazil that went on for a good minute was absolutely breathtaking, as was most of the cinematography in the movie. In contrast to the 2004 movie, this one was mostly shot in daylight, and I think that helped out a lot on the visuals of Hulk. I know a lot of reviews have disagreed, and even my own family prefers the old Lou Ferrigno look, but this is 2008 and Hulk is supposed to be 8' tall and huge. Let the CGI folks do their job and make him look like the beast he's supposed to be. At least they had old Lou do the voice of Hulk, which was a nice surprise, and Stan Lee's cameo was comedy gold. The action sequences were pretty well done, though they do still have a perspective problem with Hulk and other objects sometimes. In the park, he's as big as a tank. In Times Square, he seems to have shrunk a bit(but the police car Hulk Hands were pretty f'ing cool). Most of the acting is in the "bad" column but part of the Bad was really Good. Tim Roth played a really great evil bastard in this movie. His Emil Blonsky was way over the top evil and that made for a really uncomfortable experience, but in a good way. The Bad: Edward (don't call me Ed) Norton was OK as Bruce Banner, but really not great. Banner is supposed to be a meek, mild-mannered guy. Not the wise-cracking self-confident guy played in this movie. I liked Eric Bana's Banner better in the 2004 movie, but I guess I liked the artistic Hulk better than "Hulk Smash" Incredible. Liv Tyler is Liv Tyler. That's all I can say. I love her to death but I think she peaked with Arwen in LOTR and even that wasn't that good. The Ugly: Abomination. Hate to meet him in a dark alley. The Verdict: Matinee. The movie is definitely worth seeing. Pretty good popcorn fare, and if you're getting into the chained-together Marvel movies you'll want to see the cameos near the end. Kung-Fu Panda I was not expecting much from this movie, and was really going to pass on it until I caught the HBO First Look/shameless movie promotional tool. After I saw that I knew I had to see the movie and ended up going with my younger nieces. I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie. The Good: OMG the artwork was absolutely gorgeous. I mean stunningly good. Possibly worth getting the Blu-Ray version to see it as high-quality as possible. I'm very happy that Pixar, Dreamworks and Disney are starting to have the technology available to make the computer-generated cartoons look like they are hand-drawn but still have a modern look. The sound was also top-notch. Nothing too muddy, very crisp-sounding, and very good music to go with the animation. The story was the standard unlikely hero taking on incredible odds yadda yadda but it was not bad at all. Jack Black should really do more voice work. He was absolutely hilarious in the role of Po the Panda and I'm sure he will have fun in the numerous sequels sure to be generated by this franchise. I was also shocked by Dustin Hoffman's voice work as the Master Shifu. It was like nothing I've ever heard him do, and it was very good. Also good was Ian McShane as the evil Tai Lung. That guy's voice is just scary awesome. The Bad: I can't believe I'm saying this but Angelina Jolie's performance just didn't really connect with me. She just sounded bored. Maybe it was just me. Also, and this is not Jackie Chan's fault, but if they're going to have one of the legends of action/kung-fu do a voice for a major supporting character, please give the guy more than 4 lines. The Ugly: Panda Ass. Fat Panda Ass. Shudder. The Verdict: Full Price, for sure. Be sure to stay through the credits to see some of the incredible background and concept art. Hancock Hancock should have been a really good movie. Instead it's not really even a good superhero movie..... The Good: Will Smith actually came off as a badass.....for about the first 20 minutes. The threat with the head up the ass....and then delivering on it. Charlize Theron. Smoking hot. Jason Bateman. Funny, sometimes. The Bad: The plot. If they would have stuck with Hancock is black superman with abandonment issues from the beginning, it would have probably worked. Instead we get a Greek tragedy, in the literal sense. Even though they didn't really specify WHICH ancient gods created them, you can be pretty sure there was a Zeus and Hera behind the scenes somewhere. The two powerful former lovers can never be together or they lose their power and have to live on as mortals for the rest of their days...which would have been powerful if the scriptwriters hadn't done such a bad job making it make any sense in the context of the story. The Ugly: Head up ass. That looked really silly, but really painful. The Verdict: Weak recommendation for Matinee if you get bored with Iron Man, Hulk, Hellboy, Dark Knight or any of the other superhero movies this summer. This is easily the weakest of the batch. Otherwise, Rental. Wanted 6 weeks ago, Wesley Gibson was an ordinary guy in a shitty job with no confidence. He had an annoying boss with an ego problem, a best friend who was sleeping with his girlfriend behind his back and a severe addiction to anti-anxiety meds. Then he found the best support group he could: a group of assassins. Wanted is based on a comic book by Mark Millar, and while it has the same story for oh, roughly the first 15 minutes/6 pages, it diverges wildly from the source material and it may be better off for it. In the comic, The Fraternity is a large group of Supervillains who got tired of getting their asses kicked and banded together to kill off all the Superheroes in 1986(around the time of a certain Crisis on one or more Earths, we assume). In the movie, it's just a secret society of assassins with some vaguely-defined superhuman powers. Of course, in both versions these people are cold-blooded killers. The body count is just smaller in the movie version. The Good: Angelina Jolie looked like she was having fun in this one and it showed. Same with James McAvoy. Morgan Freeman also showed his range as a well-spoken utter bastard. The fight scenes were fun with some really interesting computer-aided gunplay. Not quite the Gunkata of Equilibrium but still fun stuff. The Bad: They could have tightened up the story a little, seemed to drag at points. Otherwise, nothing too bad. The Ugly: No full-frontal Angelina. But full backside is niiiiiiiiiice =) The Verdict: Full Price Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Final Verdict: Matinee. It's an Indiana Jones flick, what else would it be? Easily the weakest of the series, but it's never been off-the-charts good anyway. Just turn your brain off and enjoy. I'll have more after I see Hellboy II, The Dark Knight and whatever else Hollywood can coax from my pockets this summer.

Best lolcat evar

2008-07-10T17:33:51Z

I really loved this one. Off the charts cute and heartwarming. Makes me miss my cat a lot. It's almost been a year since Cyber died and I have had more people offer me cats than I'm comfortable with. Thankfully my sister adopted a couple of balls of energy so she can keep one in proxy for me. I've seen a bunch of movies this summer and when I get off my lazy ass I'll post some reviews. For now, feel teh luuuuuv.

Not much to say...

2008-03-15T02:26:05Z

see more crazy cat pics

Mayweather-Hatton, Assassin's Bore and other stuff

2007-12-16T03:50:59Z

"The referee's a wanker" I believe that in Boxing, Referees should be there to enforce the rules but otherwise be invisible in the ring. I would have hoped a guy with as many fights under his belt as Joe Cortez would know that. For the first 6 rounds of the fight, he would not leave the fighters alone and I believe he changed the outcome of the match. His interference shackled Ricky Hatton for the first half of the fight, and I believe the point he took away from Hatton was unjustified. If anyone should have been penalized, it should have been Mayweather for all the illegal elbows he threw. I'm not saying for sure Hatton would have won but I think it would have been a better fight if Cortez had left them alone. On Assassin's Creed: Definitely a rental. Don't buy. It's a good game, interesting story but full of glitches and very, very repetitive. There's very little variation in any of the missions and by the end you're just going for the 100 points to add to your gamerscore. I will say that Ubisoft should be embarrassed to have not patched the duplication glitch in the next to last mission. It makes the game seem like it was rushed out the door or that the mission was just tacked on at the last minute. Took me over 2 hours for a mission that should have taken maybe 20 minutes. Not good. On Rock Band The game still rocks. The peripherals....not so much. The microphone I got in the bundle was defective and I had to get it replaced. EA's replacement process is pretty silky and I got a good replacement within a week. I also had what I thought was a defective guitar. In long rhythm sections, the strum bar doesn't register every 4th or 5th note. I sent it to be replaced and the replacement does the same thing so I guess it's just a defect with the guitar design. I've seen a fix online so I guess I'll just try that. In the meantime the Guitar Hero XPlorer I got works just fine. Randomly speaking... On a totally random note, I'm watching the new Batman series on Boomerang right now and it's a lot better than I thought it was. I really like the update on the Scarface character in this particular episode, and any series that has Dan Castellaneta and John DiMaggio doing voice work can't be that bad. Not sure about the attempts to humanize Bruce Wayne but whatever. Think I'll need to track the series down and start from episode one.

Random stuff and junk

2007-11-24T21:57:31Z

Some random thoughts on things and stuff.

Rock Band came out this week and I've had a chance to play it solo and with 2 other people. Very fun game, nice extension of Guitar Hero with some quirks.

The drum controller is nice, but it's a pain to play with the kick pedal. The demo they had in the stores allowed you to play without it, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. I wish the option was in the main game.
The Fender Strat is a nice-looking controller. The strum bar has issues though. Occasionally it will not register and this is very frustrating when you're doing sections with repeating notes where you really have to jam on the strum bar. I picked up a Guitar Hero controller so I wouldn't have to deal with this. There's a fix posted online here that I will try. Hopefully it will work for me.
It's really lame that your main character in Group Tour mode is static. If you try to use a different character/instrument in that mode that isn't the Band Leader, you can't play. That's pretty lame. Hope they fix that.
I have no issues with the Logitech mic that comes with the set. Nice and sensitive.
I have issues with the USB hub, much like a bunch of people do. I normally have to unplug/replug the hub to get any of the instruments to register on boot. Additionally, the microphone will not work when plugged into the hub. Not sure what the deal is there.

Overall, Rock Band is vgg so far. I'm sure Harmonix will address some of the issues in patches. I haven't tried any of the DLC yet but I've heard the Metallica set is incredibly hard. Will have to give that a look ;)

Virtua Fighter 5 Online is another game I've picked up in the past few weeks. This game is one I built my arcade stick specifically for. Unfortunately, some of my solder points came loose again and I have yet to fix it. Fortunately, the game controls nicely with the standard X360 pads but I still want to give it a shot with my big stick. I haven't tried any of the online matches yet but the reviews say the Live matches have little to no lag, which is essential in a game like VF5. I'll withhold opinion until I play more, but if you played VF4, you know what you're getting. If you liked it, you'll like VF5. If you don't like the series, this probably won't change your mind.

Call of Duty 4 is incredibly fun in Normal mode. Incredibly annoying in the harder difficulties. Haven't played Arcade Mode yet but I will soon.

Oh yeah, guess I should say something about Halo 3. Very fun multiplayer, kinda eh solo game. Not the best game ever, but it is the first 360 game I've spent much time online with and I guess that says something about how entertaining it is.

On a totally random note, I want to see The Golden Compass. Just saw the new trailer in glorious HD during the Tennessee-Kentucky game. There's something incredibly hot about Nicole Kidman playing an evil bitch.

Just a few hours before Clemson-Carolina 2007. Hope the Tigers can Finish The Job and not Continue The Suck. I'm not optimistic. Go Tigers.

Lazy, lazy me....

2007-02-07T23:07:44Z

I took the time to upgrade the MT software, apply new templates but not say anything. Lazy me. It's been a lazy time for me. Got the WoW: Burning Crusade expansion, played it for a week, got bored. Got a XBOX 360 for xmas, been playing around with it. Can't get into Gears of War for whatever reason. Call of Duty 3 and NCAA Football 2007 have been getting most of my attention. Picked up Scissor Sisters - Ta Dah! last week. Not a bad album, got some real catchy beats. Think it blows their debut out of the water. Bought myself a proper media center pc about a month ago. I like the MS Media Center 2005 interface but I'm waiting for the Vista upgrade. It's a lot better, interface-wise. Gonna try Myth soon just for something different. Who knows, I may end up liking it better. Going back to the 360, Namco needed to release the fast version of Ms. Pac-Man with the arcade version they released. How many people have been able to play the original anytime in the past 10-15 years that isn't playing it through MAME? Or that shitty 20th anniversary edition? Yeah, didn't think so. To a lot of people the speedup version IS the classic Ms. Pac. Just one guy's opinion. I could be wrong. But I'm not.

This is a test

2006-11-05T08:34:47Z

If this works, I'm really fucking lucky.

It's official: I'm old.

2006-10-02T22:07:54Z

Today is my 30th birthday. Kinda hard to believe that I'm still here after the last 10 years of my life. It's been a rollercoaster ride but I'm still standing, if only barely. Go me.

Been fairly crazy since I last did the whole "dear diary" thing. I have a 14-year-old niece who is going to be a mother(sigh), I have tons of debt to get out from(nothing new there) and I have this nice shiny laptop(debt from which to get out from). I still don't like my father, I still have issues with just about everything but I'm shockingly OK with that. In short, 30's looking a whole lot like 29 did.

I guess I should get all introspective and find things I want to change about myself. Find a nice girl, settle down and have kids, etc. That last sentence is bullshit btw. I suppose I should just start with finding a woman and getting laid. Or just finding one to talk to that isn't my mom or one of my sisters.

When you get messed in the head about something that should be easy, it's not that easy to get out from under it. Something like starting a relationship, talking to someone you find attractive, not worrying if they even like your company. Guess I'm just a neurotic mess when it comes to the womenfolk. Meh. This too shall pass.

The last thing here is a bit of a departure for me. I hate political discussion, and I'm not fond of Keith Olbermann, but I found these rants to be dead-on. I figure the maybe 3 people that look at this may find something to talk about, even if the 3 are spambots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDg1WclMAfI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTnmTZWRDOw

Here's to another 10 rotations on this crazy blue ball of rock....

Random stuff

2006-06-14T23:06:22Z

Been awhile.

Saw X3 a couple weeks ago. Not as good as the first 2, still pretty good.

Saw Domino over the weekend. Don't know why the critics dumped on it, it was a fun movie. Lit my subwoofer and rear speaker up, good stuff. Also naked Keira Knightley. gg.

Also saw The Aristocrats and Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic over the weekend. Best Buy had a $5 off thing if you bought both. gg.

The Aristocrats was by far the sickest, filthiest most vile joke I've ever heard. Also funny as hell in parts. It was a good documentary in the way that they broke down the joke, showed that there was a history behind it, variations of it and by the end I was satisfied with the purchase.

Sarah Silverman is my most favorite comic at the moment. She's hot, she's talented and most of all she's funny. Plus she's hot. Did I mention that? There were nice touches with the transition between the stage show and the music videos and the backstage segments. I had no idea she had musical talent, but she's got a nice voice. Very funny stuff.

Been trying to ween myself off of World of Warcraft for the past couple months now. It's tough. I like the people but the game is just boring me to tears, folks. Oh well.

Just Another Victim?

2005-11-14T21:59:01Z

One of the first rules of writing, at least from what I've heard, is write what you know. There are quite a few things I know, as many of you are aware. Some of you may not know that I have watched Pro Wrestling since I was 3 years old. It's true, it's true. I watched Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA and Nikita Koloff. I was there at the Winthrop Coliseum when the Rock and Roll Express beat the Midnight Express for the NWA tag-team titles, I was there in the new Charlotte Coliseum when Steve Austin beat Kane for the then-WWF Title. And I was there in the Winthrop Coliseum to watch along with a few hundred of my closest friends just for fun. One of the most fun guys to watch over the last 10 years had to have been Eddy Guerrero. Eddy was the kind of guy you just instantly liked. Whether he was playing the good guy or the heel, you couldn't help but get into it. He was the total package. He could wrestle anybody and put on the best performance of the night. He had a good backstory too. Son of a wrestler, all of the males in his family wrestled. He had outstanding character. Good father, good husband by all accounts. And he was very honest about his problems. About 4 years ago he went into rehab to deal with some very real problems with painkillers and alcohol. He literally turned his life around and got even better as a wrestler and as a person. Seems like the good guys never last long. Eddy Guerrero was found dead in his hotel room in Minneapolis on Sunday morning, apparently of a sudden massive heart attack. There will be speculation as to why he passed. According to family and friends, he had been clean and sober for just over 4 years. He had just had a late-night snack with his nephew just hours earlier after sharing a plane ride. He was in good spirits, ready for the tapings to come that night and the tour of Europe coming this week. He leaves behind a wife, three young children, and many, many people who will miss the performer and the person. I happen to be in the latter. vaya con dios, amigo.

About F#cking time

2005-11-01T00:24:08Z

Slashdot Article About 5 paragraphs down. Blizzard is finally doing something about Paladins. Sounds good. Hope it doesn't suck.

Kinder, gentler

2005-07-28T06:59:53Z

Currently listening to - Duke Ellington - Take The "A" Train Porter Project - Night And Day Digging The Porter Project. Chill-out versions of Cole Porter tunes. Good listening. Little bit more fun chat session tonight, kiddies. Feels good to not be pissed off. Really feeling the rage the other night. Gonna share some of my patented positive reviews. The kind that people hate to see, the "it wasn't THAT bad" type of review. So sue me. I know what I like... Constantine - Keanu as a pissed-off demon hunter trying to buy his way into heaven. Pretty decent effects, Keanu playing the same part he's played for years....with lung cancer, some characters that could have used more fleshing out but that's just about every comic movie these days. Refreshing change of pace not spending half the movie introducing the character but a little confusing playing catch-up along the way. I was never big into the Vertigo line of comics so I never read Hellblazer. Probably a good thing cause I ended up enjoying this quite a bit. The Order - Heath Ledger as....a pissed-off demon hunter who ends up sending people on their way to heaven via a loophole in I assume Catholic dogma. Really kinda mindless, a little pointless cause you can see the ending and the main antagonist coming a mile away, but fun to watch Peter Weller playing the over-the-top bad guy for once. Appleseed - The new version, which contains no demons, catholics or cel-based animation. This time it's a love story wrapped in a bit of a cautionary tale. The cgi is absolutely astounding, in places looking like traditional cel-based animation, both good and bad. The story is pretty good but the star is the animation. I didn't listen to the English dub so I can't comment on it but the Japanese was crystal clear and the English subtitles told a clear story so I can't really complain. No inexplicable Engrish that I could see. Good stuff. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Tim Burton is a mad genius. The movie was much better than I expected. The children fit their parts almost perfectly, the scenery was dead-on. The Oompa-Loompa(s) and the song sequences were out of this world. Even the little tweaks he made weren't distracting, in fact the small violent change to Mike Teevee was an eerie reminder of our times. The only complaint I have in the movie was Johnny Depp's Wonka. Sure he was creepy and out there but he seemed just a little too stiff. Not enough to detract from the wonderful job Burton and company did on it. Definitely not a kid's movie tho. But whadda ya want? It's Tim freaking Burton. Last but not least a short review of Dream Theater's newest. Dream Theater - Octavarium - Still rockin after all these years, their newer efforts seem to have taken a more political and religious bent and this one is no different. They still have the same rocking and theatrical style but the themes have changed a bit since 9/11. Better than their last album, IMO. Well that was longer than I had wanted to go. Oh well. It's my blog, I'll do what I want to. Till next time.... Currently listening to - Guns 'n Roses - Sweet Child 'o Mine

The Working Man's Blues

2005-07-26T06:02:14Z

Currently playing: Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time Not to sound like a total ass but why must people be so stupid? Supposedly intelligent people, people with pieces of paper that say they know shit. People that spent the time to get an education to supposedly be prepared to do a job and then fail miserably at it? People with journalism degrees that cannot spell. People who do a job daily but cannot grasp the simple concepts entailed in that job should not be doing that job. Why in the world people in this situation continue to find employment amazes me. Much like the people that are promoted to management positions that do not have the skills to manage an ant farm, this seems to be a continuing problem in my workplace. Maybe it just bothers me. Maybe it's just my failing that blatant stupidity, blatant ignorance bothers me to the point of anger. Guess that's why I'm not management. My axe would be too sharp for the job. Fuck it. I've wasted too much energy on this already.

Long time, no blog

2005-07-25T03:48:52Z

Guess I'm a bad blogger. Almost 8 months since my last update. So...where to begin... Been a house owner since December 18, 2004. Fun city. Got hair almost shoulder-length now. Makes me happy. Bought a PSP, been playing nothing but NES games on it. Great use for $300 tech, playing 20-year-old games on it. Gave up on World of Warcraft as of sometime this week. Yes I know, not exactly grammatically correct there but true nonetheless. Really fun game but not enough new content to hold my interest. Guess I need to work on the whole ADD thing... It also appears that I caused a rift in the guild with 3/4 of the people that formed it wanting out now. Never really wanted to be a trendsetter or anything. Guess it was just time. Don't know if any of our guildies read this but if you do, sorry guys. At least I'll have time to do other things I've wanted to do. I have several RPGs lined up to play. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Atelier Iris among them. I bought a guitar and some books and I'm hoping to have something going there soon. I might even try dating again... Anyway, I keep saying this but I hope to not be away again for so long next time. I like typing this, even if nobody is reading. I might put my thoughts on Harry VI, Charlie and the new AppleSeed next time. Until then...

Thanksgiving MADNESS

2004-11-26T21:35:52Z

While people are out there killing each other over toys and gifts and the "BEST DEALS OF THE YEAR, WE PROMISE!!!!!!", I get to sit here in my cozy office and...well....not do very much honestly. There are very few people around, as per normal on a Friday-after-a-holiday. Not much for a tech guy to do but sit around, cruise the good old interweb and chat it up with some folks. Got some good things to chat about now tho. I'm in the process of buying a house. This is some scary shit, lemme tell ya. Not just all the things involved, that's scary enough, but just the fact that you're buying something that you have to pay on for the next 25-30 years, have to keep it fixed, have to care for. Something substantial and of value. It's pretty daunting. Kind of a big task if you think too much about it. Then there's securing financing to buy it, securing financing to buy things FOR it, paying other people to LOOK at it to make sure you don't have to secure financing to FIX it. Fixing up little things inside that was perfect for the previous owner but NOT QUITE what you want, moving in.....and then securing financing to add shit on. It's enough to bring a man to tears. I can handle it. I'm strong....:sniff:.... If I can swing it, I'll buy a digital camera and take some pics. It's a very nice old place, got plenty of character. I can't wait....