mario July 5th, 2008
 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!
—
–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.
–Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
SEQUEL
–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.
–The Dark Knight
SEQUEL/ADAPTATION
TOTAL: 66.67% (4/6)
—
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!
[discuss]
mario June 27th, 2008
 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?
—
–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 Tale of Despereaux
Sucks to be you, Universal! The definitive rodent movie came out like a year ago! Your ADAPTATION of a children’s novel has no effect on us. Mostly because it looks kind of saccharine.
–Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
I could feel my entire group cringe when they started playing that horrible “I Like To Move It” song. Then animal asses started swaying on the giant screen. It all went downhill from there. A SEQUEL I may just miss.
–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)
—
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.
WALL-E was so cool!!!
[discuss]
mario June 20th, 2008
 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.
(courtesy of Nintendo Wii Fanboy, twice times, plus one)
[discuss]
mario June 14th, 2008
 I won’t even do the precocious beat-around-the-bush-not-a-review-but-it-actually-is-a-review thing this time. I saw The Happening on June 14th with friends at AMC Saratoga 14, and it sucked. It was the worst movie ever made. Marky Mark played a constantly confused science teacher, but either M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t know what science actually is, or hates it with a passion and is trying to covertly take it down by having dumb scientists in his movies. Zooey Deschanel has insanely creepy giant bug eyes, and stares at anything and everything in the film determinedly. But perhaps the worst offense a film called The Happening can possibly have is for nothing to happen during the entire movie. Oh sure, people die and the main characters run around aimlessly through the countryside, making mad dashes to outrun the scary wind, and hide out in Plot Point House at the end. But the characters never come to any concrete conclusions about what The Happening is supposed to be. The thing simply Happens, and then it stops Happening, and then it Happens again. On the bright side, the hot dog guy was somewhat amusing (he said he likes the shape of hot dogs; presumably it is left up to the viewer to decide what that means).
But yeah, the God-damned worst movie ever made. My friends and I weren’t sure if he could top Lady in the Water but I’m happy(?) to report that this is exactly what Happened.
Um… trailers!
—
–The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Oh hells yesses. I miss this friggin’ TV show like I miss no other, so I’m very excited to see the continuing misadventures of Mulder and Scully. I certainly don’t have any complaints about them classing up the joint with Billy Connolly. I gotta say though, Scully (since that is your real name, and not Gillian Anderson like you keep trying to tell me), you look a lot prettier with shorter hair. I’ll still ogle you during the whole movie, don’t worry, I’m just sayin’ is all. A SEQUEL and an ADAPTATION, of course, I won’t delude myself, but I’ll still be happily standing in line. I’m a sucker for beloved franchises.
–Mirrors
Probably because I’m kind of weird, I have a lot of difficulty seeing Kiefer Sutherland onscreen and not thinking he’s Jack Bauer. So when I see him as the father figure in a family being terrorized by mirror monsters, I don’t worry for a second. I know that Jack Bauer will make short work of the mirror monsters, probably by shooting them in the knee and asking them where the bomb is, or simply garroting them if he doesn’t have time to deal with them. Apparently this is a REMAKE of a South Korean film. I don’t really care in any case; Jack Bauer just doesn’t feel very Jack Bauery on the big screen (he rarely even kills one guy, much less fifty, though he did some lovely assisted suicides in Flatliners), so I’ll just wait until the next season of 24 to get my fix.
–Babylon A.D.
Oooooooooooh, Vin Diesel in a sci-fi movie with explosions, punching and guns. Best part: Vin Diesel shouts out “What is wrong with her?”, and the “what” sounds completely ridiculous. I can’t even describe it in text. I’m sure I’ll be watching this at Geoff’s house; the man has something of an unhealthy obsession with Vin Diesel. Oh yeah, ADAPTATION of the French novel “Babylon Babies.” I love how Wikipedia lets me say stuff like that, and it looks like I’m just really knowledgeable when it comes to French novels. None will be the wiser!
–Wanted
ADAPTATION
–Swing Vote
Hooray. Nothing more timely than a movie about voting ballots not being counted in an extremely close election. OH WAIT, THAT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO. AND EIGHT YEARS AGO. Also, why does this movie have a thousand actors I recognize? I’m normally terrible with actor recognition, but I saw Dr. Conrad Zimsky, Howard Payne, Major Kira and Frasier! Just so you know, if it were up to me, I’d elect Dennis Hopper over Kelsey Grammer, but that’s just because Speed was so awesome. And- wait, what’s this? ORIGINAL?!? A bright shining beacon amidst a sea of all-this-has-happened-before-all-this-will-happen-againses! Well okay, it looks stupid, but that might just be Kevin Costner.
–Nights in Rodanthe
Hey look, that guy from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Otherwise I don’t give a shit about this ADAPTATION based on the novel of the same name by Richard Sparks (thanks again, Wikipedia!). Is Richard Gere sexy? He seems to be in so many romance films, comedy and otherwise, but I just don’t see the appeal. Maybe people are remembering a time when he was more attractive?
Total: 83.33% (5/6)
—
Wow. As of a June 14th screening of The Happening (sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked) at AMC Saratoga 14 in Saratoga, CA, Hollywood was careening toward 83.33% unoriginality. Hollywood, this is basically a fail for you, especially if The Happening is the best you can do for original scripts.
[discuss]
mario June 8th, 2008
 My recent acquisition of LostWinds brought up an issue I was hoping I’d never have to deal with. As I attempted to purchase the title, I found that my Wii did not have sufficient storage space for the download! With much hemming and hawing, I deleted Paper Mario and made the purchase, but I know I’m gonna go through the same process when Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People is eventually released (BOO DELAYS).
What is Nintendo’s solution to my predicament? Delete more old games to make room for the new.
Sorry Nintendo, but YOU’RE WRONG. This is an absolutely terrible solution. I know I can always go back and redownload the games I delete for no additional charge, but this silly tinkering goes completely against the spirit of your home console that’s easy for everyone to use. The entire Internet probably agrees with me that you need to start using those USB ports on the back for an external storage solution. I’m talkin’ USB hard drives here. If we could simply plug in a hard drive externally and run Virtual Console and WiiWare titles from it, all my problems would be solved.
The reason I bring this up on my fancy Interblog instead of just mumbling and grumbling about it offline like I have been for the past few weeks is because of something I read on Games Are Fun today. Apparently Nintendo is hiring hardware and software testers with a focus on those underutilized USB ports! This is potentially awesome news, because my powers of conjecture and random guessing lead me to assume that support for USB hard drives is 100% definitely in the works. I would even be happy buying a special Nintendo-branded hard drive if it helped me achieve my dream of storing all my digital Wii downloads in one place!
You listening Nintendo? Obviously you are, but I’ll reiterate: I will give you money for the ability to run games from a USB hard drive. Right now you are giving up money. That’s just bad business really.
(courtesy of Games Are Fun)
[discuss]
mario May 26th, 2008
 Two weeks ago, Nintendo finally unveiled their WiiWare download service, wherein developers can distribute small games through the Shop Channel for direct download. I must confess that most of the titles didn’t interest me at all (except Dr. Mario Online Rx, but that wasn’t available at launch), but after seeing a trailer for LostWinds via the new Nintendo Channel, I knew I’d have to give it a try. The novelty of tossing Toku around with the Wii Remote pointer function representing gusts of wind was too cool to pass up, and I’m glad to say I enjoyed every minute of the game.
That said, one aspect of this game bothered me: no one told me it was an episodic title.
Now I don’t have any inherent qualms against episodic games. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the Sam & Max series, I bought Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One the day it came out and am loving it, and I eagerly await Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People‘s debut on WiiWare next month.
My issue lies with the fact that I bought LostWinds with no indication present that it wasn’t going to have an ending. I was getting into a serious groove, gaining new wind powers, becoming more skillful in my blowing-around prowess, and fighting a novel “put your newfound powers into practice” end boss, and suddenly the game goes into epilogue “To Be Continued” mode! Credits rolled just as I was really starting to enjoy the game! Witiff?
Please note that this would not have bothered me one smidgen if it had been clearly identified as part of a series on the box (er, the digital eBox). When a game starts with a cutscene talking about evils rising and a hero is revealed to stop said evils, you expect some serious evils-punching by game’s end, not another cutscene talking about how you really need to get around to that someday. Anyone that beat Golden Sun (and *sigh* Golden Sun 2) knows exactly what I’m talking about here. At least with Rain-Slicked Precipice, I know I’m in it for eighty-some-odd bucks by the time it finishes. How much will it cost me to see LostWinds through to its conclusion? And will I still be interested by the time I find out?
Oh yeah, for anyone that hasn’t yet finished LostWinds, Golden Sun, or Golden Sun 2… spoiler alert.
[discuss]
mario May 24th, 2008
 Please don’t mistake this for a review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I saw today with Bevin at Regal Davis Stadium 5 (apparently the place to go for the popular films around here). I mean, sure, this movie was an absolute riot, a wonderful revisiting of a beloved character that I felt fully lived up to the legacy set before it not by being amazing but by simply being entertaining throughout (not quite as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark, but really, what movie could be?). The important thing is, HOW WERE THE TRAILERS?!?
I absolutely love going to big blockbuster films close to their release dates. Even when they’re complete crapfests, the experience of sitting in an audience full of enthusiastic moviegoing patrons is like no other. There’s a genuine electricity in the air. But best of all, they have more trailers! Not to mention a wider variety of trailer genres. Unfortunately, these trailers must be so new that they haven’t all been put online yet; I’ll update these entries with links when I can track ’em down.
—
–Traitor
Ah, Islamic terrorists. My generation’s Nazis/Communists, these pesky middle eastern extremists find their way into pretty much every film nowadays (including Iron Man) as the go-to generic villains. I dig Don Cheadle, and Jeff Daniels was in Speed, so I might hit this up if I’ve got the cash, and someone to go see it with. Wikipedia tells me Steve Martin came up with the plot and is executive producing! Take that for whatever it’s worth, but he didn’t seem to be inspired by anything beyond the Iraq War, so at least it’s ORIGINAL.
–The Dark Knight
SEQUEL/ADAPTATION
–The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Now this one intrigued me. There is almost no dialogue in this trail, which depicts the story of a man who ages backward and falls in love around the middle of his life. I’m not some kind of Brad Pitt superfan, but I certainly appreciate his acting ability, and hey, Cate Blanchett of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fame is there too! The lack of voiceover certainly made me sit up and pay attention, and the imagery was compelling enough to keep my eyeballs on the screen. A quick Wiki look, however, tells me this is based on a 1922 short story, and is therefore an ADAPTATION. Not necessarily a terrible thing (if you’re gonna base a movie off a short story, stories of antiquity are probably the way to go so that no one remembers how they went), I’m just sayin’ is all.
–Hancock
ORIGINAL
–Australia
*puts on Jerry Seinfeld mask* What is the deal with exterior shots in movies being so blatantly bluescreen CGI these days? *takes off mask* That opening shot of Nicole Kidman starting to tell a random little girl a story (a really boring generic one by the sound of it) just looks awful. Poignant opening scenes shouldn’t look like they’re on a soundstage. Is it that difficult to roll a camera in the desert around sunrise/sunset when there are some clouds in the sky? Also, is the little girl a Hollywood movie producer, and is Nicole Kidman pitching her latest movie idea? If so, I wouldn’t buy it. Like Benjamin Button, this trailer has a long stretch of non-dialogue, but the images simply weren’t as compelling to me. Huge Ackman of Swordfish fame doesn’t compel me to shell out $10 either. ORIGINAL, but not necessarily good. I’m not seeing much intersection on that particular Venn diagram.
–Kung-Fu Panda
Ugh. No no no. As much as I love Jack Black, I refuse to see a vehicle movie starring him as a fat cartoon panda. I prefer movies starring him as a fat human who rocks. ORIGINAL? Sure, I guess.
–Eagle Eye
Apparently there’s a small “trailers starring characters from the movie you’re about to watch” theme. It’s like some shitty recommendation system: “If you like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you may also like…”. Sorry, but I don’t actually like Shia LeBouf. The bitter taste of Transformers and those voyeuristic robots watching kids dry-hump is still fresh in my mind (if minds could taste things, anyway). When the phone rang, I thought for a split second that it was one of those “please turn off your cell phones” ads, because the whole thing’s just so damn generic. Shia LeBouf gets phone calls BROUGHT TO YOU BY SPRINT and there are guns and explosions and jumping from high heights, but at the end I had no idea what the hell was going on. Is it still ORIGINAL if I thought it was some kind of new Matrix movie, with the prescient phone calls and the slightly green tint on everything? I guess it still is.
Total: 28.6% (2/7)
—
Let’s break it down: as of a May 24th screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at Regal Davis Stadium 5 in Davis, CA, Hollywood is en route to being 28.6% unoriginal. I can’t remember the last time I counted this many movies not derived from a prior story at one screening. I’d consider this quite refreshing… if Kung-Fu Panda didn’t exist.
[discuss]
mario May 19th, 2008
the story arcs even further somehow! is that… possible? i will make it possible. that doesn’t really work very well as a phantom menace quote.
Continue Reading »
mario May 18th, 2008
 Be forewarned: this is not a review of Iron Man, the latest comic-book-turned-blockbuster-film Bevin and I went to see last Sunday at Regal Davis Stadium 5. It is completely irrelevant that the movie was a delightful action-packed romp that didn’t suck like all those other comic-book-turned-blockbuster-films thanks in no small part to Robert Downey Jr.’s acting chops and Jeff Bridges’ having been totally awesome in Big Lebowski so it always rocks to insert his Dude lines into every movie he’s in. We’re here to talk about the trailers!
—
–The Dark Knight
Apple hasn’t put up the trailer I saw yet, but this should get the fact across that the Joker is in it. (Update: correct trailer linked) The Joker’s in it. I’m sure this movie will get a lot of extra asses in seats on account of it being Heath Ledger’s posthumous celluloid appearance, but I was excited about the latest entry in the fat bloated puss-seeping Batman series before his untimely demise. Batman Begins was a wonderful movie despite anything that starts with the word “Batman” being an ADAPTATION of the comic book series of the same name, and its SEQUEL is shaping up to carry on its grittier depiction of Gotham City and its inhabitants with aplomb.
–Hancock
You know what? Normally I wouldn’t give Will Smith a second glance beyond seeing his movies because they’re so shit-tastic, but… I think this one looks like fun. Certainly they’re capitalizing on the general success of superhero movies (more on that below), but taking a comedic slant without it being Superhero Movie is an admirable goal, and Jason Bateman has settled quite comfortably into his stiff Michael Bluth typecasting and made it work for him. And to top it off? ORIGINAL. This is the rare diamond in the rough I love to find amidst all the also-rans.
–The Love Guru
God! Please! No! Not another movie where Mike Myers plays a sexy dude that the ladies all desire to have sex with and also he’s a walking stereotype with a crappy accent! I think this movie might actually be my fault; there was a distinct moment where I was walking down the street and thought to myself: “it sure is a good thing Mike Myers ran the Austin Powers franchise into the ground, and that we will therefore never see another movie like that collective pile of dreck”. Clearly Fate is a cruel mistress that listens in on my internal monologue. Bitch. ORIGINAL, with more offensiveness than you can shake a midget at. And they do. Shake a midget at offensiveness, that is.
–You Don’t Mess With The Zohan
Here’s the one I forgot to mention before. My unconscious mind had almost successfully removed it from memory, but I had to be curious and ask too many questions, and it all came pouring back. At this point I remember asking “Why only one comic book movie trailer? Are no more coming out any time soon, that we have to sit through this bullshit?” One thing is for certain: Rob Schneider will never want for employment as long as Sandler continues to star in movies. ORIGINAL, except for the Prince of Persia/Assassin’s Creed-evoking wall-jumping at the beginning of the trailer. Oh yeah, also it will blow. Adam Sandler and all. (fun fact: Bevin and I simultaneously turned toward each other and grimaced after both this and Love Guru. Great minds, I suppose)
–Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Yay! Somehow the still-bitter taste left in my mouth from the Star Wars prequels has not affected my excitement for this long-rumored SEQUEL to the Indiana Jones series. Maybe I’ve got faith in Harrison Ford, maybe I think Steven Spielberg has the ability to cancel out George Lucas’ immense shittiness, or maybe I’m just really happy to see Marion Ravenwood again, but I have a good feeling about this one. The trailer is pretty generic, and it felt weird to watch a preview for a movie due out in four days, but screw it, Indy is so cool. Lucas had better not fuck this up.
Total: 40% (2/5)
—
To sum it up: as of a May 18th screening of Iron Man at Regal Davis Stadium 5 in Davis, CA, Hollywood is poised to be 40% unoriginal. Oh, and I didn’t stay ’til the end of the credits, because I knew that the footage couldn’t possibly meet all the hype everyone gave me. I was right. Spoiler alert I guess:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djiBN5aeskw
Does anyone actually care that there might be an Avengers movie? The Avengers weren’t cool; I would have been much happier with a straight-up Iron Man sequel, though one isn’t strictly necessary. All it shows me is just how bottom-of-the-barrel they’re getting with the Marvel/DC properties. I’m still holding out for the Aquaman movie. It’s coming, just you wait.
This really just exemplifies the whole reason I keep track of things like Hollywood’s unoriginality. If I hadn’t just dropped $7.50 on a movie ticket, I would talk about how we need to stop going to see comic book superhero movies, so that they stop making them. Please, do your part like I didn’t do.
Oh yeah, one more thing about Iron Man: there were several scenes that would have been better places to insert “Iron Man” then where they put it. I get it, he says “I am Iron Man” and then you play the song, very cute and all, but that riff was begging for an ass-kicking scene.
[discuss]
mario May 11th, 2008
While perusing the RiffTrax Blog (as is my wont), I came across an entry detailing the fascinating concept of chocolate-covered bacon. But this was different from any other ol’ blog post of the “wouldn’t it be crazy if they combined X and Y” or the Photoshopped picture combining rancid milk and bees variety, because it referenced a real place that sold a real product consisting of bacon dipped in chocolate, and most importantly, a real place that I had access to! So this Mother’s Day, when my mom declared her desire to ride the Giant Dipper at the Boardwalk and eat lunch on the wharf, I had the opportunity to stop by Marini’s at the Wharf! And did!!!
Whether a much braver man than I, or just quicker on the draw, my brother Carlo had the first bite of Amalgamation Christmas. The twisted contortion on his face can only possibly be the result of amazement at the synergistic effects of these seemingly clashing flavors coming together at last.
And here’s me having my fill. Some of the other attendees didn’t feel like finishing off their pieces and handed them off to me. Clearly they couldn’t handle the bacon-powered intense flavor rush.
Final verdict: kinda nasty, but now I can say “I’ve tried chocolate-covered bacon. What have you done with your life?” Of course, I’ll need to quickly vacate the immediate vicinity of the conversation so as to not give them sufficient time to respond.
[discuss]
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