Geoff, Kyle and I walked down to Century 12 Downtown in San Mateo last night to take a gander at the latest James Bond flick. Though I have been a big fan of Bond movies in the past, I hadn’t seen one since The World Is Not Enough, as that film (and the previous, Tomorrow Never Dies) left something of a bad taste in my mouth. I still consider GoldenEye to possibly be the best Bond movie ever made, so it was disappointing that they couldn’t keep up the momentum. The later Brosnan films went heavier on the action and lighter on the comedy, which didn’t really feel very Bond-ish to me at all, so I wasn’t in a hurry to see it through to its logical conclusion.
“Come on man!” I hear you protesting, “We must know what trailers preceded this movie you saw last night!” I do apologize for keeping you waiting. On the bright side, with this post several months after the last HUR, there’s no trailer overlap!
–The International
Stop the presses! Clive Owen plays a guy that shoots guns and protects a lady?!? It’s an odd typecasting, but I suppose it works for him. Make sure you watch this one for a glass-breaking shootout scene that would seem to exceed every glass-breaking shootout scene ever made before. In terms of how much glass is broken. That building looks like it was designed to be shattered by Clive Owens’ bullets. Hooray for more ORIGINAL screenplays!
–Star Trek
Hooray for trailer #2! Whereas the first was basically the biggest tease in the world, the new trailer delivers some genuine content. Zachary Quinto was a brilliant choice for a young Nimoy-alike, even if I keep thinking he’s going to kill Kirk and steal his woman-seducing powers. Simon Pegg’s Scotty clip, though brief, gives me additional hope for a better film than *shudder* Nemesis. Finally, J.J. Abrams has proven himself to me with the amazing success of Lost, so I’m extra-pumped that this will breathe some much-needed new life into a dying franchise (thanks a lot, Enterprise). Of course it’s an ADAPTATION and a PREQUEL, but it’s also friggin’ Star Trek! I’ll go see it in theaters like I have every other one since Generations.
–Yes Man
Wait, didn’t Jim Carrey already star in a silly comedy wherein he was forced to respond differently to situations, with supposedly hilarious results? I wish I could label this as unoriginal based on its similarity to Liar Liar, but luckily I don’t have to! It’s based on a 2005 biography of the same name! ADAPTATION. Also stupid-looking.
–Bedtime Stories
Adam Sandler is doing kids movies now? For Disney?! I thought his whole appeal was his crude adult humor, and I can’t imagine he gets to do much of that in a Disney film. Instead he’s being surrounded with lavish CGI dream sequences. At least he gets sprayed in the eyes with flame retardant. ORIGINAL, though none of the storytelling segments appear to be anything but derivative. Also: was that music from the Back to the Future Part III score in the western story? Why yes it was.
–The Day The Earth Stood Still
Color me very wary. I am a huge fan of the original film; it’s rare that science fiction stories are told so seriously as they were in that brilliant allegory. While this movie looks like a perfectly solid sci-fi experience, it would seem to bear little resemblance to its predecessor. The potential destruction of Earth appears to be happening in the movie, whereas the original gave warning of dire consequences if our ways were not altered. I suppose you need action to sell tickets. I probably will go see this REMAKE, mostly because Keanu Reeves makes me crack up whenever I even think about him.
–Valkyrie
Welcome back to movies, Tom Cruise. Can’t say I missed you. Despite his presence, if we have to have ADAPTATIONs, at least they chose an interesting true story (the 20 July plot, specifically). I was amused to find that this story has been retold in movie form many times before, but hey, maybe there’s something new to add to it. Maybe they pull off the assassination this time! *fingers crossed*
TOTAL: 57.14% 4/7
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As of a November 22nd screening of Quantum of Solace at Century 12 Downtown in San Mateo, CA, Hollywood is geared for a season of 57.14% unoriginality. Not a bad ratio at all, and beyond that, I might even go see a few of these! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go rent Casino Royale. Thank you, Daniel Craig, for renewing my faith in the Bond franchise!
I’m sure everyone’s excited about the DSi and the new Punch-Out!! and the Chibi Robo Wii port and all, but the big news I took from Nintendo’s recent flurry of press releases was Iwata’s announcement that we will finally be able to play Virtual Console and WiiWare games from external storage!
This is the best thing that could have happened for my Wii.
See, I haven’t been playing much Wii these days. In fact, I haven’t been playing any Wii for the past few months. It’s not for lack of desire either. I’m extremely eager to pick up Mega Man 9 and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People and play them all hours of the night, I really am. But my Wii’s 512MB of internal storage filled to capacity a long time ago, and I really didn’t care for Nintendo’s original “delete old stuff” recommendation. Now we’ll be able to use SD cards to offset internal storage woes! And with 2GB cards being so cheap nowadays, this is going to solve my problem quite readily.
So I guess I’ll be playing these newfangled VC games some time around Spring ’09. No spoilers please.
Figured I’d be a few hours late to the party instead of a few weeks (like normal): Stardock (developers of one of those OS X Dock hacks for Windows and probably other stuff) and Gas Powered Games (developers of the technology to end games’ names with “Siege”) have teamed up to pen a Gamer’s Bill of Rights. Edge Magazine ran a piece by Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, who lays out his mandates in a clear-cut manner and goes into a little detail on a few of the juicier declarations. The document is basically a laundry list of complaints both old and recent regarding the PC gaming environment (the consoles are largely devoid of these grievances). Though I try not to make a habit of reposting large chunks of others’ content, I feel having the entire body of work will help the discussion along (go check out the article as well, of course):
The Gamer’s Bill of Rights
We the Gamers of the world, in order to ensure a more enjoyable experience, establish equality between players and publishers, and promote the general welfare of our industry hereby call for the following:
1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will adequately play on that computer.
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their express consent.
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.
Personally, I would have liked it if such an important document had been created by some sort of gamer legislature, instead of a missive from above (you know, a series of laws instead of a pair of stone tablets), but it’s hard to argue against any of the points made. The efforts on the part of game companies to curb piracy has resulted in an environment that hinders the average legal game owner’s ability to actually play the game they paid for. I love The Orange Box, but it feels awful weird having to connect to Steam whenever I need a quick offline Portal fix.
The saddest part about this whole document is that it had to be made in the first place. Most everything listed (except maybe having the physical media in the drive to play; it’s an effective anti-piracy measure that every owner of the game should be able to easily comply with, so quit yer whining) is common sense.
Of course, I do understand the needs to stop piracy, and a company blindly accepting these as policy without coming up with alternative means of protecting their assets is just asking for trouble, but it’d be nice if they gave some thought toward their customer’s… well, I wouldn’t exactly call them rights. More like ideals. In any case, I’ll readily support any company that supports such a bill (printing it on the box would be a nifty gesture). Speaking of which, this is apparently a picture of the document, possibly as seen at PAX?
A trailer was released at E3 for the Duke Nukem Trilogy. Watch it please!
As far as I can tell, Apogee had nothing to show for their efforts but felt they should at least release something for the big show. Too bad that something was so completely devoid of content as to be almost four minutes of the titles of the games jumping around to a metal track. And why did they linger so very long on Duke’s crotch at the end?
I suppose we won’t soon forget the names of the games, seeing as how they featured the titles so prominently. And repeatedly.
This trailer just makes it look like another Duke Nukem Forever, doomed to development hell for all eternity. I don’t think it helped their case to make a trailer with absolutely no game content, gameplay information or release dates. Do they think the killer Duke Nukem license is enough to hype up the product? Because they’re mistaken. Duke Nukem’s time as a game-seller has long passed.
But at least the trailer is freakin’ hilarious in its utter lack of substance. Won’t you laugh along with me?
UPDATE: Friend Matt just showed me this, and I thought you all should see: Burger Time trailer!
Anyone else hear about this Mega Man 9 news? Game news sites across the Web basically exploded a few weeks ago when it was learned that the new entry in the series would be presented in a style akin to the original games on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Anyone who knows me should be aware that this prospect excites me to no end (to those who don’t know me: this prospect excites me to no end). I figured I’d wait to talk about it until some kind of fancy official trailer was released to drool over, and IGN delivered!
Neat, huh? I realize they very well may not be treating NES-style graphics and sound as the legitimate art style I consider them to be, and that they likely are depending on old-school gamer chumps like myself to fork over hard-earned cash on something that may have taken them very little effort to complete, but a guy can certainly dream. There do seem to be some indications that they put some good time into this title. I’m no Mega Man aficionado, but I don’t recognize the music from past entries in the series (Die-hard fans, please correct me for likely being wrong). They lay claim to having created like a million new enemy sprites for the ninth entry in the series, and I suppose I can buy that.
But the most important thing is, they made a retro sequel to a classic game series! New Super Mario Bros. was fun and all, but this, for all intents and purposes this is a new NES game, and that’s something very special in an age of fancy Mode 7s, breathtaking full-motion video intros and advanced spline reticulations.
Carlo and I went to the Regal Cinema Stadium 5 in Davis this Independence Day weekend to see Get Smart. I must admit having somewhat low expectations going into this, but I like Steve Carell enough to give his projects a chance. It was basically an Agent Michael Scarn movie, which is not a bad idea at all. Instead of doing a Don Adams impersonation, Carell decided to take his own spin on ol’ Agent 86, and I thought the results were pretty okay!
“But how were the trailers, man?!?” I hear you asking. Well ask no more!
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–Journey to the Center of the Earth
Hmm. I hate to nitpick, but if you were to fall thousands of miles and land in water, you would die. At terminal velocity (and probably even at lower speeds), hitting water is supposedly a lot like hitting concrete. It bugs me when movies use bodies of water as magic cushions to protect their freefalling protagonists. The rest of the trailer, with its crappy CGI and Brendan Frasereses, did nothing for me. This is like the third ADAPTATION of a classic story, and I’m going to guess it’s probably the worst of the bunch. PROVE ME WRONG, HOLLYWOOD.
–Step Brothers
Is there some script writer in Hollywood throwing darts at a board covered with situations for Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly to play out in their buddy films du jour? I’m not complaining necessarily since I enjoyed what they did in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby so much, but I don’t necessarily want to see the same two actors portraying the same two stupid guys in the same kinds of movies for the next decade. Wikipedia says ORIGINAL, and Wikipedia is always right.
–Hellboy II: The Golden Army
I could have sworn I saw a trailer for this movie during a previous HUR, but the archives yield nothing. SEQUEL of an ADAPTATION. I had no interest in seeing the first movie, and was about to write this one off until I learned it was helmed by awesome director guy Guillermo del Toro! It’s got a freaky monster guy without eyes, which just made me think of the similar freaky eyeless monster guy from Pan’s Labyrinth. Then I found out that del Toro did the first movie too! Guess I’ll have to check them both out…. on Netflix or something.
–The Accidental Husband
I guess this is about as ORIGINAL as a romantic comedy can be. Except it isn’t, because it’s a romantic comedy. The trailer actually reveals more than enough of the plot that no one needs to go see the movie; Uma Therman initially doesn’t like the guy but eventually does like him! Who saw that coming? The answer is: nobody saw that coming. We are shocked.
Bottom line: as of a July 5th screening of Get Smart at Regal Davis Stadium 5 in Davis, CA, Hollywood is all set for 66.67% unoriginality. And the ones that were original, I probably won’t go see. Sucks to be you, Hollywood!
WALL-E was so cool! Incidentally, I went and saw WALL-E on opening night with some friends at, uh… damn, I have no idea what theater we went to, as someone else bought the tickets. I do know I was in San Mateo though! That ought to count for something.
WALL-E was so cool! This very well may be my favorite Pixar film to date, and that’s saying something. Any critics complaining about the lack of dialogue probably weren’t paying attention to the movie. It expertly conveyed emotion and backstory with minimal spoken lines. So yeah, critics are dumb, and WALL-E isn’t.
Perhaps I’ve become a little too attached to the HUR portion of this blog, but at least some of my pre-film excitement revolved around seeing a set of trailers from a rarely-explored genre: kid and family films! Let’s see how that went, shall we?
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–Bolt
I was a little confused with this trailer. Though the computer graphics looked to be of a similar quality to Pixar’s works (the human character models in particular look like they were directly ripped out of The Incredibles), Pixar’s logo and name were nowhere to be seen; the movie was branded as a solely Disney affair. Perhaps Pixar did have some involvement (not an unreasonable assumption, since Disney owns them, and they seem to basically run the animation department now), but it doesn’t show in the writing. ORIGINAL, perhaps, but it also looks a bit boring.
–Beverly Hills Chihuahua
AAAAAAAAAAH!!! I caught a glimpse of the teaser for this film awhile back when the RiffTrax blog brought it to my attention (presumably because they hate decency over there), and my brain died for like a week. The film did not redeem itself to me upon repeated trailer-viewing, no matter how ORIGINAL it may be. What inspired this movie exactly? The fact that numerous soulless celebrities carry around small dogs in purses? Is that the audience we’re pandering toward now?!? (EDIT: OH GOD HE’S POSTED ANOTHER REMINDER THAT THIS FILM EXISTS. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH SANDPAPER IN THE WORLD TO SUFFICIENTLY SCOUR THE SURFACE OF MY BRAIN AND REMOVE ALL TRACES OF MEMORIES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS MOVIE)
–The Pink Panther 2
Steve Martin is dead to me. SEQUEL of a REMAKE of a once-good film series starring a once-funny comedian.
–The Longshots
Am I too hard on movies made for kids? Because this ADAPTATION of a true story doesn’t look appealing in the slightest to me. I try to argue that kid movies were a lot better when I was a kid, but am usually accused of viewing my childhood memories through rose-colored glasses. Then I punch the other guy and win the argument by default. Ice Cube is annoying!
–Fly Me To The Moon
0_o Bad pun title. Poop-eating jokes. Tech college commercial-caliber CGI. ORIGINALity cannot save this waste of hard drive space and processor time.
TOTAL: 57.14% (4/7)
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Let’s rock-talk: as of a June 27th screening of WALL-E in San Mateo, CA, Hollywood (or at least the part of Hollywood that little kids care about) was primed for 57.14% unoriginality. I had expected a much higher value, since kid movies are so often grabbed wholesale from books about witchcraft or wizardry or lions or witches or wardrobes. That said, the “original” films seen here were generally pretty derivative. My biggest disappointment stemmed from the fact that we didn’t see a trailer for Pixar’s next project; I can’t remember the last time that happened, and hope this doesn’t indicate the Next Great Film from That Totally Awesome Animation Studio will be a long time coming.
IGN and Joystiq have both released huge detailed accounts of their experiences being shown the latest build of Guitar Hero World Tour (read one or the other, the information is pretty much the same in both). Sounds like a decent revision to the formula, with Neversoft adding a few Rock Band-y features (drums and vocals with accompanying expanded multiplayer modes) as well as their own touches (full song creation, extreme customization of characters and instruments). Of course, as a Wii owner, the only thing that I could think of was how we’ve been shafted for features in both Guitar Hero III and Rock Band, what with the lack of DLC and the complete removal of online modes in the case of the latter title. Luckily for me, the developers appear to have been sympathetic of said shafting, and went out of their way at the ve-eeeery end of IGN’s write-up to mention:
Activision was quick to point out that the Wii version will have the same features as the PS3 and 360. You can create songs, upload them, download them, and purchase famous downloadable tracks on Wii.
This is excellent news! Couple that with the promise of backwards-compatibility with the Les Paul controller (minus some fancy touchpad functionality in the new controllers, which I’m not so sure is necessary outside of the song editor), and I’m suddenly once again happy about the future of guitar-based rhythm games on my favorite next-gen console! I did find it amusing the way IGN stressed the fact that the screenshots were not from the Wii version, but hey, Guitar Hero III looked decent enough.
EDIT: Further details have come out! According to GameDaily, the Wii version of the game will support the storage and playing of DLC via SD card!
GD: With those downloadable packs, will players download that directly to the Wii’s internal memory or have you worked out a way to store those music packs elsewhere?
KB: Players can either download songs to the Wii System Memory or store songs on a SD Card, called the “Rock Archive”. When you want to play songs from the Rock Archive, players can create a custom set list, and then choose a venue and play!
GD: Will the packs feature music that’s more compressed to make sure that Wii owners can download other packs and save memory?
KB: The music is stored in a custom format for Wii so it’s as compact as possible, but still sounds great.
The good news keeps on comin’! Have to wonder why Nintendo insists that playback of media on SD cards isn’t a viable option if a third-party figures out a method of accomplishing this very task. Guess I’ll finally be picking up a big ol’ honkin’ SD card.
Geoff, Kyle and I walked down to Century 12 Downtown in San Mateo last night to take a gander at the latest James Bond flick. Though I have been a big fan of Bond movies in the past, I hadn’t seen one since The World Is Not Enough, as that film (and the previous, Tomorrow Never Dies) left something of a bad taste in my mouth. I still consider GoldenEye to possibly be the best Bond movie ever made, so it was disappointing that they couldn’t keep up the momentum. The later Brosnan films went heavier on the action and lighter on the comedy, which didn’t really feel very Bond-ish to me at all, so I wasn’t in a hurry to see it through to its logical conclusion.
I’m sure everyone’s excited about the DSi and the new Punch-Out!! and the Chibi Robo Wii port and all, but the big news I took from Nintendo’s recent flurry of press releases was Iwata’s announcement that we will finally be able to play Virtual Console and WiiWare games from external storage!
Figured I’d be a few hours late to the party instead of a few weeks (like normal): .jpg)
Special thanks to 
Anyone else hear about this Mega Man 9 news? Game news sites across the Web basically exploded a few weeks ago when it was learned that the new entry in the series would be presented in a style akin to the original games on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Anyone who knows me should be aware that this prospect excites me to no end (to those who don’t know me: this prospect excites me to no end). I figured I’d wait to talk about it until some kind of fancy official trailer was released to drool over, and IGN delivered!
Carlo and I went to the Regal Cinema Stadium 5 in Davis this Independence Day weekend to see Get Smart. I must admit having somewhat low expectations going into this, but I like Steve Carell enough to give his projects a chance. It was basically an Agent Michael Scarn movie, which is not a bad idea at all. Instead of doing a Don Adams impersonation, Carell decided to take his own spin on ol’ Agent 86, and I thought the results were pretty okay!
WALL-E was so cool! Incidentally, I went and saw WALL-E on opening night with some friends at, uh… damn, I have no idea what theater we went to, as someone else bought the tickets. I do know I was in San Mateo though! That ought to count for something.