Kinect

I'm sorry but who are you people and what are you doing on my screen? Yes the trailers
from E3 for kinect have been released to the general public and they look like something'
a disgruntled ex-ad chief from Nintendo would have come up with trying to display a cross
section of society with the decent looking chick, the asian chick, the dorky looking man,
the cute chick, your dad, blondy, geek, another woman and Blondy again. I get it Kinect
is supposed to appeal to everyone on the family friendly specturm, stop beating me with
it. But then it only gets worse as we are introduced to a small child, here playing the
obligitory black section of society and her happy family who are playing with the first
game kinectimals. Not only does this game look odd as you replace domestic anmals with
cute man eating monsters but it appears to suffer from what I will call the Nintendogs
problem, where for about a week or so you will happily play with your animal treating
them as a beloved pet until you grow bored and move onto another and immensly more fun
game. Seriously the reason we keep pets past the 'cute stage' is because we can't ignore
them, they piss on the furniture eat our food and ruin things if we don't look after them,
here there is no such reason to care. Then we come to the TV aspect of he kinect, where it
allows you to watch ESPN and other channels on the xbox and control it with your voice...
Why the hell do I want to do that, if I want something like that I'll just buy Foxtel, not
only do I get more channels but I also don't have to pay as much for the experience.
Although I must say that at least for the feel of living in the future having the voice
controls appears interesting. I'd like to tackle the dance games next, this is the one
thing that appears good for this glorified controler, If it can acuratly desipher my
moves then this will work well and allow for the freestyleing Dance Dance revolution never
has. Okay up next are the sport games, honestly I don't see this as winning any fans
because frankly Xbox if they weren't sucked in by the Wii then they won't be sucked in by
you. Now try and explain to me why I want to stand there looking like more of a tool than I do
with the wii wheel attachments. seriously, someone send me an email or leave a comment
telling me why. But I guess that's pointless anyway because if families will get sold by
the cute tiger they'll be buying these sport games to further justify the devices price.
And then we're back to the people again. but there is nothing there that will sell a
hardcore gamer on the virtues of kinect and even when Fable 3 comes out with its
components it may only gain the idea more of a beating as gamers are unable to avoid it.
But to paraphrase a political leader one day we will all just have to begin moving
forward from these motion controls.

Mad Thought: Brain Wave

So I was bored... here is the result:

Game of the Week

The game of this week is Exit Path, a running jumpy game where you avoid rotating death traps as you traverse the many levels. Despite all the levels having a very Portal feel to them this game was quite fun to play, if short, and I would recommend it as a basic time killer:

What If God Of War was made into an Indie Film?

Let us Begin the Campain Trail

During the week Edward Norton and Marvel seemed to have fallen out of touch, leaving Marvel to recast the role of the Hulk. Current rumours are that Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Fillion and Adrian Brody are all in contention, but there is one name that is currently floating under the surface, David Tennant is also rumoured to be in contention.

I would like to make my position clear, I blamed RTD for any issues with the Tennant era series, David Tennant managed to somehow give heart to what should have been a meandering bit of fan gratification, he has the heart and intensity to carry the role of the Hulk, and there is this video of him getting into character:



So here is my campaign, I want everyone who would stand behind DT to put this logo at the bottom of their blog or on your facebook as a show of our power. Come On get involved:

The TARDIS teleports sideways and into your Wii

So as most of the people who read this know I started my life as a Doctor Who blog before I became a general thoughts (with a bit of a film bias) blog, but occasionally I find a bit of information and decide it must be shared with the world.

That being said I read today that the BBC has decided that they will release a Doctor Who video game on the Wii since it is family friendly... Now guys I have no real problems with the Wii aside from its gimmicky nature, but seriously you are going for the cotton candy jelly-bean crowd? The Pandorica Opens ends with Amy and River dying, this is not a show just for children this is a show also for hardcore fans who write angry blog posts.

The game play its self is another thing that could prove dangerous. There have previously been games on the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, PC and the PlayStation 2 and I don't think there has ever been an unbridled success amongst them. As the BBC pointed out: "You can't have Doctor Who blowing things to bits with a laser gun. That would massively change the nature of the show." so doing it won't work for the fans and not doing it won't win over gamers. Although I can see how this will work on the Wii, we could have the Wii controller as sonic screwdriver in a point and click adventure where the Doctor is locked in a cage and we use it to control a robot to fight off other robots... best of both worlds right?

Oi! Thought you'd slip past me did you?

Thats right lovers of all things random something has attempted to slip past you, another favorite of your childhood is going for a dip in the Live Action / CG pool but is hoping you don't notice. So who is up to the plate this time? Not another Alvin and the Chipmunks we hope... Thunder Cats? No... Casper? No but it is Hannah Barbera... Snaggle Puss? Pretty close.

Yogi bear is coming to your theatres December 17, 2010. No trailer has been released as of yet, which I do find strange considering most films of this kiddy nature choose to build the hype early in  favour of a slow burn. Regardless there is a plot out:

 Everyone's favorite pic-a-nic basket-stealing bear comes to the big screen in "Yogi Bear." Jellystone   Park has been losing business, so greedy Mayor Brown decides to shut it down and sell the land. That means families will no longer be able to experience the natural beauty of the outdoors -- and, even worse, Yogi and Boo Boo will be tossed out of the only home they've ever known. Faced with his biggest challenge ever, Yogi must prove that he really is "smarter than the average bear" as he and Boo Boo join forces with their old nemesis Ranger Smith to find a way to save Jellystone Park from closing forever.

I am so sick and tired of these films coming in and trampling all over my childhood. A movie like this can only go two ways 1. They come up with a clever way of attracting business while they do some Furry Vengence style shananigans to the Mayor fellow or 2. hey do some Furry Vengence style shananigans to the Mayor fellow. Both fill me with a cold fear, but their is something else that could just ruin it more and that lies within the casting, Tom Cavanagh has been cast as Ranger Smith (meh it seems like the NPH casting in Smurfs, someone who has a good fan following), Anna Faris will play a nature documenter (this is the arbitrary love interest that all films seem to need to shoe horn in... not happy but I know I won't win this fight), Dan Akaroyd has been cast as the voice and motion capture actor of Yogi (Not too bad), and Justin Bloody Timberlake will voice/motion capture BooBoo (Que steam from ears).

As soon as I find a trailer it will go up. But don't let this movie just fly under the radar people force it to the surface for what it is.

Question: Who would you cast in this film for Yogi, BooBoo and Ranger Smith?

Who reads the papers anyway

For this week I am up in Sydney participating in a Model United Nations, but another delegate directed me to this clip, from Yes, Prime Minister. I quite like this show it was always well scripted and very poignient. This clip talks about who reads British papers and is totally true:

5 things I learnt from: TOY STORY 3

Thats right folks the thoughts are getting a staple, everyone needs something to make them stand out in the crowd even if it is just a funny hat, so here is how I will review things by looking at 5 things I learnt wether they be good bad or otherwise.

1. Animation is not just for kids


I know for some of you out there this isn't new information, movies like Shrek, last years monsters versus aliens and pretty much every Pixar movie up to now have featured some adult humor, but up until now it has more felt as though this was in place to amuse parents who had been dragged along by their toy loving screaming spawn, but Toy Story 3's overt humor really takes it to another level. Jokes about Ken's sexuality and even terms such as Lincoln logs are used with abandon, while sight gags like the tortilla head and flamenco dancing Buzz seem further removed. But that seems to have been done for a reason. Which moves me effortlessly into my next point. 

2. Toy Story 3 was not made children of the 00's but the 90's 

I know this may be easy to argue through the near incineration of the toys (oh did I not mention this is a spoiler filled review? Cause it is) but it was even before that when I came to this conclusion, the entire opening sequence is geared towards us, for any child entering the theatre who was born in the 00's they're watching some kid, whom they can assume is called Andy, playing with a bunch of toys. hurray. While for the 90's child it's our old buddy Andy and look there is Woody, Mr Potato head, Buzz, Jessie... the list just goes on and then we are casually informed that Bow Peep is gone, for any one who didn't grow up with the series that is like a throw away line, but for me it blew my mind. Woody was now all alone and that neat rift of sexual humor had disappeared.


3. Just because you expand an ensemble it doesn't mean that everyone becomes thinly spread

Taking movies like Batman & Robin, Spiderman 3 and Iron Man 2 (and ignoring the fact they are all superhero movies) we could deduce that films who increase their heroes and villains beyond the number 3 will inevitably become thinly spread and leave us unfulfilled with each character. This is something I have always belived this to be true, but not only did Toy Story 3 break that mould, it threw it in a fridge and shot a nuke at it! The thing is we know all the central characters of Toy Story 3 so that was never going to be the problem, but it was all these new characters, such as Bookworm, Big Baby, Mr. Pricklepants and the Monkey, that we needed to learn about that was going to be a challenge. But they were all developed, even if it was for a moment, to a point where I can describe them; Bookworm is a social defunct who enjoys his time in the company of books and looks down his nose at people; Big Baby is an individual who is easily controlled by Lotso but still cares for people to much and is really good at heart, Mr Pricklepants is a thespian who takes himself all to seriously but again has a heart of gold and the monkey is a dumb individual who will do what the person in power tells him.


4. No one will ever best Pixar 

This lesson was one that I had nearly learnt in Up but was only truly hammered home in this film. Pixar will forever reign as one of the top studios in Animation comedy for one simple reason, they are not afraid to make you cry. In Up Pixar came out and but the massive amount of balls they had on the table at the start, we got to see a montage of  one mans happy life leading up to his wife's death. I know people who were brought to tears by that, and here they do it again having all the toys sadly accept the fact that they are about to die and you can't help but feel that this is the end even as you dimly remind yourself that a happy ending was promised you still get this terrible niggling feeling that it may all be a lie and that these wonderful friends of yours are about to bite the big one. Now I hear some of you asking but this is supposed to be a happy film how does immense drama put it above others? Well quite simply it makes those funny moments more poignant, LGM's using 'the claw' is a running gag the last time it gets dragged out should only elicit a giggle, but put it next to instant death and you'll get a full belly laugh of relief from me.


5. You can draw any points from Pixar films

Okay so I got this from reviews after the film which goes against what I set out to do but shut up its my blog and I'll do what I like. Anyway so something that every reviewer seems to enjoy banging on about is how you can draw death metaphors from Toy Story and there are latent homosexual themes living in the character of Ken. But I don't think they are digging far enough, there are so many other juicy parallels you can make for this film. The first one I thought of was Marxist theory. Where Lotso portrays the Tsar Nicholas, the Butterfly room occupants are the Bourgeoisie and the Caterpillar room are the repressed working class. All continues with its oppression until the intellectuals arrive (here played by Andy's toys) and educate the people in how to rise up for themselves, and they do disposing of their leader and creating a land where people wear gold sparkly clothes and are groovy... Okay so the metaphor slides off at the end there but you get my drift.

 

Question: What other themes or ideas can you draw out of Toy Story 3? They could be as loose and thin as you like.


So thats it the first of what will be a number of reviews of anything I can find, movies, video games and other stuff.


Hope it was enjoyable.

Free game of the week: Super Mario Bros. Crossover

Okay so during the week I found this game floating around the interwebs, it is basically the original Mario game but you can now play with other iconic SNES characters such as Link, Samus and Megaman. You could play with other characters but they are so obscure and useless that it isn't worth it. Still its a fun little time killer and I recommend it.

Pac-Man: The TV Series

According to Namco Bandai's Japanese Website Marvel exec Avi Arad is developing a Pac Man TV Series for release in 2012. The series will be set in the 21st century (because obviously everything is better if we modernize it) and will feature Pac Man as a high schooler who must save the world with the help of his ghost friends; Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde.

Why oh why do we need to do this to Pac Man? The original game was simple, you were a yellow ball that ate things and the ghosts chased you. So how does that equate to you being friends with the enemy, being in high school and saving the world? Well Avi Arad had this to say:

“We wanted to keep Pac-Man the same lovable guy he has always been, but (put him) in the 21st century, we (also) wanted to talk about real stories and … see how they can relate to our lives, being in high school and being a teenager. At the end of the day, it’s the story of a reluctant hero.”

... If you want to tell a story about a teenager who is a reluctant hero why don't we tackle some other property where these parallels would make sense, such as... Oh I don't know... Spiderman??

Although trying to move Pac man from the interactive media of a video game to any sit and watch media has never really been an unbridled success. The original TV series stunk of a bad smurfs copy, it revolved around Pac man and his extended family (here playing the role of the smurfs) fighting off Mezmaron (here playing Gargamal) and his henchmen the ghosts (as Azreal). The show didn't last more than 2 seasons (which isn't something to be proud of when you're being run by Hannah Barbera).


Is it so hard to find simple ideas for a feasible Pac-Man movie/TV series. I say it isn't and present you today with 3 ideas to bring us the Pac man movie we deserve:

1. GHOSTS

It is half past the future and a mad genius working for the government has managed to create a creature whose blood has lead to a cure for cancer and other diseases, but as usual the creature has become self aware and broken free killing everyone inside the underground bunker. A group of 4 soldiers known as GHOSTS are dropped in to search for survivors and recover research notes which would allow the authorities to recreate this experiment. It would be a tense thriller as the GHOSTS become the prey in this labyrinth.

2.ARCADIA

In the present day arcade video games are slowly losing their war against the consoles, the Arcadia generals learn of more troops joining their enemies as remakes of their former selves everyday. Sealed away from the end of the war in the a time locked space invader ship Pac man, Frogger and an entity known only as PONG-ball reawaken to find themselves in a Dystopian world where FPS's have crushed everyone's free will and ground all video games into a constant state of boring. it is now up to our rag tag bunch of heroes to build and lead a glorious rebellion to victory.

3.A Pac Knight

In the far distant past, Pac man a brave warrior from the future has been teleported back by mediocre wizard Murray (younger brother of Merlin (obvious joke haha)) to save a bandit who has been kidnapped by a princess, in what will be a HILARIOUS role reversal. So using the magical power of the pellets Pac Man sets out to complete this task.

Scott Pilgrim will be defeating your favorite super heroes this August

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World will be coming to cinemas this August.

I did find it amusing when someone pointed out to me that Chris Evans (who will be playing Captain America ) and Brandon Routh (who played Superman) will both be evil exes in this film. So by simple super heroes math Scott Pilgrim beats both Marvel and DC's best characters.

Doctor WTF

Okay as much as I loved beating the stuffing out of Russell T Davis last week it turns out, unsurprisingly, that there will be no Johnny Depp led Doctor Who American movie. As much as this news warms my heart it does set me off on a train of thought as to what an American Doctor Who movie would look like???

Well after some thought I have come up with what I would expect:

Lindsay Adams (Megan Fox) is a large-chested and rich socialite who seems to have it all, until the day she meets Doctor Who (Johnny Depp) a rough and tumbled alien scientist on the run from his own planet of time-travelling authoritarians who want to kill him for just being to awesome.

[side note he will introduce himself as Who?... Doctor Who!]

But now a mysterious entity known only as Master Evil (Arnold Schwarzenegger), along with his comical and bumbling assistants known as the Daleks (Tommy Wiseau), is trying to alter the fabric of time as we know it, by blowing up some arbitrary Macguffin. With time running out Lindsay and Doctor must race against every clock in order to heal time. But how do you heal what is in flux?

From visionary Director Micheal Bay (Transformers) and Executive Producer Uwe Boll (Alone in the Dark) comes this summers most magical adventure.

DOCTOR WHO
AND HIS MAGICAL TIME AND RELATIVE DIMENSIONS IN SPACE MACHINE

 

I think I should become a screen writer.

Twi-nightmare

Okay okay, before I sink my teeth into Twilight (haha its a pun) I would like to preface this with the fact that I have not seen and might never see any of the Twilights so this is just for the purpose of point out how ridiculious the whole Twi-fad is.

So incase anyone didn't notice the high pitch squeels going off from cinemas around the country at midnight last night, the third movie in the Twilight Saga was released, now as I've already pointed out I have not seen it and my only contact with this seires is through reading the first book, which wasn't terrible I must admit, but does not deserve a place at the top of bestseller lists.

So what is this third installment of the Saga of Angsty Bitch and Lord Sparkle-Britches about? Well according to credible review site Rotten Asparagus (May or may not be something taken from Rotten Tomatoes I have edited):

As Seattle is wierded out by a whole bunch of 'hot' teenagers going missing (Cause no one over 20 and ugly can be a vampire) and a character with a motivation as thin as a rice crispees wafer continues her quest for revenge by, rather than sneaking in and breaking some necks, builds a giant army which manages to scream 'Hello we're here to kill you, but don't come and fight us though cause then all our plans will turn to shit', Queen Frowns-a-lot once again finds herself surrounded by Heroin adicts and people with magically disappearing shirts. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her Blind and wierd devotion for the sparkling fag and her the other kid who she only keeps around for a bit of a peep show - knowing that her decision is balatantly obious to everyone watching and that the likelyhodd of this maguffin threat of war is as small as Robert Pattersons whoopsie. With her graduation quickly approaching for no other reason than to give the plot some pace, you the viewer has a choice to make, walk out and take medicments to forget the horrors you eyes have seen or take a power saw to your temple . But which is which?

So thats what I'm assuming most of us are missing out on, I know it sounds so good... Anyway I did want to respond to a fee comments I have found floating around the interwebs:

"I absolutely loved Eclipse. It was awesome. I haven't read the books so had no idea what to expect whcih made it extremely exciting."

Just because you read the source material the movie shouldn't be any less exciting, you should be going to see how your favourite actors translate the good bits from page to screen

"Watched all three last night - have had only 3 hours sleep but couldn't care less"

Ladies and Genltemen I present you with a torture method to replace waterboarding

"I'm still on a high and can't wait to watch it again. Now the countdown begins for the next instalment."

Apparently the next film will be out next year in July, so it is more than a year away. Thats the one thing I don't get from these fans it is as though there is nothing eles in the world for them to do than giggle and scream whenever some thing about twilight comes in. I may be waiting for Scott Pilgrim but atleast I devote equal time to Toy Story, Kick ass and Iron Man 2

"As for which team I am on - have to admit I'm torn between them both."

Look I need someone to explain this to me, what is the point of having a bloody team when there is no contest, there was a whole film setting uo the fact that the stoney that sparkles is the main romance/pedophile interest and even in the book that was meant to bring the shirtless dance troop in as a threat to those feelings we were still having a bit of a cry over the other guy.

"Eclipse is the most anticipated film of the year"

Okay look, yes there are a lot of young and desperate girls who want to see people with tops off and a sparkling Crack adict, but there are plenty of other movies that people are anticipating, such as Toy Story 3, I've been waiting 11 bloody years for that movie so you can't tell me the anticipation hasn't risen above the hight of the empire state building.

"They tried to make the movie more suitable for everyone .i.e. Action, love, comedy, instead of serious like the tone of the book."

I dare anyone to go look up the trailer and tell me this is an evenly spread movie, there is more than 90% spent pummling home that fact that there is a love triangle... although the two dudes don't love each other so it is more of a V.... and the chick dosen't love one of the guys so it is more like a love line with a small thread hanging off. But still trying to shoe-horn in some action scenes to widen your audience is kinda tacky, the action crowd won't go cause they know this is a shitty love story no matter how you try and dress it, and you're fan base will be let down by those scenes because it isn't what they came to see.

So what am I trying to say here... well I guess it is that I don't have any feelings for twilight and probably never will, since the movie could be acuratly simulated by dousing one guy in a pool of glitter, telling a girl never to smile and getting a fury man to walk around with his top off. But I do hope this continues like it is for the next 2 years because it always gives me something to bitch about