Fanboys

Fanboys, somewhat the Duke Nukem Forever of movies. It kind of got released without me noticing, despite being so hyped up for it at some point or another. After looking at some score aggregates, I was a tad disappointed. This film was getting bad reviews. But, surely not! The trailers the looked so good! So, I had to see for myself, was this film worth the wait?

It depends. There's one thing you have to be clear about when it comes to Fanboys. This film does not set out to poke fun at fanboy culture, and doesn't satirise is as opposed to simply portraying it. No, going into this film expecting to laugh at some nerds will result in disappointment. What this film is, is a celebration and a reminder. It reminds you of 1998. More to the point, it reminds you of being a Star Wars fan in 1998.

I was only 7/8 at the time, but I was a heavy Star Wars freak. I was brought up being spoon fed good cinema, and I watched the Holy Trinity at a young age. When I was told there was going to be another in just under a year, I went insane. I rewatched the films over and over again, started buying the comics, I became a nut in anticipation. I suppose, in my young state, I became a fanboy. And this film reminds of that time. The jokes are hit and miss, the story is kinda weak, and the acting sometimes goes a bit over the top, but it gives you the feeling. It gives you a feeling of love.

Star Wars died. I think we can all accept that. The new trilogy brought a few good ideas to the table (Darth Maul, and...uh...) but overall was a mess that ruined the franchise. But when watching Fanboys, just for a second, I can forget that. I can remember before Episode 1, back when Star Wars was everything to me. Back when I collected all the figures, all the pointless crap and comics that over the years I threw out in disgust. And if a film can make me feel that again, then it's done its job. If you were ever heavily into Star Wars, you owe it to yourself to watch this. Not for the acting, story, or comedy, but for the raw feeling it gives you.

Everything you like is rubbish.

I saw a friend yesterday that I rarely get to see. Anyway, let's begin:

Transformers (2007) and Transformers 2 (2009)

Transformers the Animated Series was created in order to sell toys. Saying otherwise is silly. BUT, it did it so well it can be forgiven. Awesome overarching stories, a darker feeling compared to most animated series of the time, and a wonderful cast of robots made the series a joy to watch as a child.
Michael Bays adaption can be summed up like this: BOOM EXPLOSIONS SHIA LABEUF SHHH DONT WAKE MY PARENTS UP OPTIMUS
I wasn't a fan of it. I felt Michael Bay built a film around the effects, instead of the effects being there to enhance the experience. I felt the story was too human-centric, with the Transformers being more of a plot convenience. I mean, if they put any effort into the Transformers themselves, the fight scenes wouldn't be so confusing. That's one thing that the bugged the hell out of me, shaky cam + all robots being grey = You're confusing me Mr Bay, who is winning?
If I were to make this film, I'd start the film with Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots doing things, maybe chasing the Decepticons through space as they hurtle towards Earth. I wouldn't have 20 minutes of watching a failed actor buying a car.

James Cameron's Avatar

Not many people can put their name in front of their films. I'd say Cameron can though, he did Aliens and Terminator. He also did Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, Ferngully.
Oh wait, no he didn't, he just shamelessly ripped them off and got away with because it was in 3-D. If you want a full rant, read my Avatar review. I don't want to waste more words on this.

All Friedberg and Seltzer movies but in particular Disaster Movie

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Disaster Movie made a profit. What the fuck. I want you to watch this trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tihG_2BSUqg
All the while thinking "One Liner, get hit by something".
Whats that? You noticed that it does that 4 times? Essentially uses the same joke 4 times in one trailer? Yeah. I know. These movies are unfunny, uncreative, and yet it still makes millions at box office. They seem surefire hits, which is somewhat annoying. Critics everywhere love to pan these movies, and yet the general public seem to lap this shit up. It seems us denizens of good movies are in the minority. Is a shame. If you like this movie, you are everything wrong with the world

I will be doing a videogames one of these soon. Expect a lengthy paragraph on Halo.

Broken Hearts lead to Broken Swords

Well, after months of barely talking, me and a girl have finally admitted it's not working. It's a long story, but in short, it made me motivated to go and complete Broken Sword on the Wii. I'm not about to let both me AND George Stobbart be single!

For those of you who don't know, Broken Sword is one of the greatest games ever developed. It had an amazingly likable main character, an amazingly sexy set of pixels named Nico, a plot that oozed with conspiracy and some truly memorable scenes. The game is one of the few I could label as "Timeless". The graphics were a cartoony 2-D, so even the original PC game doesn't have the "Bad graphic overload" you get with older titles, and the story is better than most games nowadays.

The (original) game began with George sipping coffee outside of a cafe, as it promptly explodes. The cafe that is, not the coffee. Though I think the coffee was probably injured, being in such close proximity...sorry, got sidetracked. However, this isn't the original game, this is the Directors Cut, with all new fancy Wii bits. The game here begins with Nico Collard, struggling reporter for La Libertie, going to interview a man about some murders. This sets off the chain of events that make up Nicos side story, which is all new for the Wii/DS versions. It's nothing too interesting, but it does give us a peek into Nicos private life, which in turn strengthens the story marginally.

Other extras include new puzzles, new dialogue and edited sequences. The new puzzles are a fairly disappointing affair. The Wii version absolutely fails to even function at some points, requiring great patience to get the thing to work as opposed to figuring the puzzle out. For example, one puzzle has you twist a safe combination by twisting the Wiimote. However, my wrist can only twist so far, meaning I can't do a full turn in one swift movement. But if I stop turning, then the game freezes for 5 - 15 seconds. This, on top of the new puzzles being fairly simple, makes me wonder if it'd be best to have just left them out.
Speaking of just left out, some of the rerecorded dialogue is silly. Not the actual dialogue, but the placement. In the new sequences? Fine, can't help it. In the middle of an old sequence? Well, sorry developers, but you have better recording hardware this time round, you get a horrible jar when George suddenly switches from old recording to new recording mid dialogue. But that's not the worst of it; there's a different voice actress playing Nico. She's a good girl, the acting isn't bad, but the two voices are different enough to make the new/old cuts sound ridiculous.

But, at the end of the day, this game is Broken Sword. It's Broken Sword. That's all I can say. No matter how much the directors cut tacks on or changes, at it's core, it's Broken Sword. It's one of the earliest games I remember playing, and even today I can still laugh at some of the lines. It's a game I've replayed countless times, and the Wii version isn't so much inferior to the PC version, just different.
If you've never played Broken Sword, shame on you. But this is the perfect chance to repent. Now they need to re-release the second game and I can officially regard the Wii as a viable console.

University: The Final Frontier

I've had a hard life. And by "Hard", I mean "Incredibly predictable". The guy who likes films and likes writing wants to become a screenwriter or journalist, yawn. Oh, he went to college to pursue film, absolute yawn. Predictable.

Buuuut, doesn't stop me being UBER excited about University. I just got accepted today into Ravensbourne, one of the top academies for media in Britain. I've also just found a stunning house up for rental. It all seems to be coming together, lil' Jamies dreams of living in London. But not only that, I'm finally growing up. It's an odd thought. One that half plagues me, and half excites me.

So yeah, come August this year I'll be living in London, preparing for University. That's some scary shit, let me tell you. But I can take it, I have the power of the schwartz.

Spaceballs hasn't aged well. It's not that funny anymore. But schwartz jokes never die.

Pump it Up

What the fuck is this shit? I saw this game in the arcade, and the songlist seemed to contain some fairly obscure Japanese stuff. Being the Japan-ophile weeaboo naruto pocky bleach is so deep faggot I am, I decided to play a bit.
Now, me and my friend Jim, we play a fair bit of DDR. I think it's fair to say that a lot of people play a fair bit of DDR. So why, WHY, does this game have a COMPLETLY different layout to it? I can assume to avoid people calling it a ripoff, but I don't see why that should stop them. All you're doing, is making the game impossible. DDR has a good set up with its "left, right, up, down and combos" thing, why make things complicated for us dined on DDR with a "diagonal and centre and combos" bullshit?

Ah well, such as life.

At least the songs turned out to be catchy

Jamies Top 5 Movies of All Time

I'm bored and am waiting for a friend to come online. So whilst I'm waiting, JAMIES BEST MOVIES EVER GO:

5

Quentin Tarantinos first foray into the world of directing, and in my opinion, still his strongest piece of work. A crime story taking place almost entirely after the crime, it focuses on the meetup afterwards at a warehouse. This warehouse becomes the stage for a brutal torture, some amazing dialogue, a double cross and an awesome standoff at the end. Theres a lot to like in this film, and I could watch it over and over again. Everything fits, and like the other films on this list, I see it as a truly fantastic contribution to film making.

4

The second and fifth outing into the Star Wars universe gives us a true gem. I've often said that Star Wars is every fairy tale told at once, and Empire really shows that. You have the romance that was undercurrent in A New Hope brought to fruition, with Han and Luke fighting over Leia, all the while Luke is discovering things about himself which throws his romantic troubles into an all new heap of trouble. Luke comes of age in some fantastic training with the eccentric Yoda, Vader starts to move in on the Rebel Alliance and Hans has to deal with the betrayel from his best friend. A lot goes on in this movie, and it culminates in one of the greatest endings to any film I've ever seen. From Hans epic line "I know", all the way to Vaders reveal, this film will stay with you for a while. In fact, about 11 years after first seeing it, this film still affects me.

3

A film can sometimes be preachy, and the plot can be lost in the message. If a film wants to deliver a message, it should still concentrate on plot and characters. And Fight Club does this so well its somewhat astounding. You'll walk away from this film with a deep appreciation for the characters and story, whilst at the same time, you'll understand the message of ant-commercialism. The film ranges from the humourus to the downright shocking, with plenty of classic scenes to keep any watcher hooked from start to finish. The film also has Meat Loaf as a man with boobs.

2

Jack Nicholson is one of the greatest actors of all time. Batman, A Few Good Men, The Shining, he usually steals the show in any film he's in. But one film, he not only steals the show, he is the show. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest has probably the best acting I've seen in a film, especially from Jamie Favourite Nicholson, who provides a stunningly likeable character. The film poses the question: What if a rebel was put in an insane asylum? Because thats what his character is, a rebel. He's not insane, he's pretty okay in the head, but he doesn't like bowing down to authority. But because of this, they hospital staff fear that he is going more insane, and impose more rules on him. It's a true character piece, and the film is stunning to watch from start to finish.

1

Terry Gilliams has had a rocky post-Python career, but Brazil was definetly a high point. I LOVE this film. From the social and political commentary (thats still relevant today, in some places more so) to the amazing preformance from Jonathan Pryce, this is a film that every cinema-lover should watch. The plot centres around Sam Lowry, an office worker in an Orwellian city, trying to woo a girl he saw in his dreams, as well as sorting out a mistake on a form which caused the death of a man. The film deals with serious issues, and has some downright disturbing scenes, but at the same time it keeps an air of humour about itself. It's a film that can be slapstick hilarious one minute, and serious and dark the next. And it can pull this off without seeming unfocused. A wonderful film, and Gilliam was really unlucky to not have struck oil with it. Because truly? Brazil is a masterpiece of cinema.


And those are my top 5 films. I may do a "Bottom 5 Films" later on, consisting mainly of Michael Bay films

Dark Void demo

I'm gonna be honest, I had barely heard of Dark Void when I downloaded the demo. All I knew it was Gears of War with Jetpacks.
Wait a minute
Gears of War, an awesome third person shooter?
Jetpacks, an awesome way to get around?
Oh dear God, this game is gonna be great!

So I started the demo with fairly high hopes. Suffice to say, that this game didn't meet up to those hopes, but it did come close. The demo is fairly short, around 10 - 15 minutes long depending on how long it takes you to do things, but it does give you an idea on what the game is about. The highlights of the demo were:

• An aerial fight with some flying enemies. It felt like I was playing a flight sim. And not a shit one, like, a really good flight sim.
• Landing on a platform and going seamlessly from large scale aerial combat to cover-based shooting.

Both of these gave me an idea of what the game will be about. But to be honest, the game felt a little...light. I don't know if that word accurately describes what I mean, but with a name like "Dark Void", I didn't expect the bright sunshine and the Halo-like visuals. With a name like that, I was expecting more of the dim-brown-gray we've come to expect from games these days. But still, the game offered a nice 10 minutes of fun, but it didn't really give me a full appreciation on whether I should but this game or not. I'm gonna wait for a price drop on this one, it seems.