It’s… it’s so organized… no words, should have sent a poet…

“What about this one?”

My husband held aloft a horror triple feature, retrieved from the depths of the Blu-Ray bin at Wal-Mart.  A weekend tradition held over from his post-college cheap entertainment quest, we often peruse the $7.88 bins in search of the germs and gems of cinema.  There’s a plethora of decent older releases to be found, but I wanted something off the beaten path to determine if there was any merit in these value-buys.  I looked over the jacket briefly, featuring three older films with a range of actors, everyone from Dennis Hopper to the guy who played Andy Warhol in the opening sequence of The Watchmen.

“Oh, that looks terrible.  I’m in.” Continue Reading »

Fanfiction, as a whole, does not have the best reputation.  Name any two characters from any work of fiction, and I guarantee you there is some ridiculously smutty and terribly written fanfiction of them as a couple.  Jean-Luc Picard and Elrond?  Done. Indiana Jones and Lord Voldemort?  Done and done.  Dr. McKay and Jason Fox?  Done, somehow.  Feel the horror.

That’s the bad side.  It exists, it’s out there, but let’s move on.

Here’s the good side.  It turns out, given a large enough population that’s interested in playing around in a sufficiently interesting sandbox (such as the world J.K. Rowling created in the Harry Potter series), there exists some small but significant number of talented, brilliant writers who can blow you away with creativity and passion.

These few, these happy few, can do an incredible thing: they can make you rediscover a world that you loved, and moved on from, a long time ago.  There’s a certain feeling when you close the last book of a beloved series, a very bittersweet feeling.  For me, it was Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series.  When I turned the last page, I felt completion and a profound sadness.  It was finished, it was over.

But what if you could turn the page and keep going? Continue Reading »

Some time ago, I finally upgraded my ancient flip phone to a big-boy smartphone.  It was a whole new world.  And by “whole new world” I mean when my wife calls me, The Who’s “My Wife” now announces her. That’s life poetry, people. I also now potentially had something better to do than play a one minute previews of Tetris or Pac-Man on my phone while waiting in public for whatever reason. A whole world of addictively simplistic free touch-screen games was spread out before me. Poultry that has a beef with pork, undead-repelling vegetation, and other pastimes of filthy casuals were now mine to play wherever I wanted. But I quickly tired of them.  There must be more… something for me.

Here’s a little Verboon fact for you all: if there is a shark in it, I will watch it/play it/read it, no questions asked.  Why?  Because sharks. They’re awesome, right? So scrolling through the free games list, I came across the title “Hungry Shark” by Future Games of London and all relevant information was in the title; there is a shark, it is hungry, and presumably it will get the opportunity get to satiate that hunger, possibly by consuming living creatures. I almost broke my touchscreen mashing “download and install”.

Playable sharks in videogames are a spectacularly underutilized concept. I remember playing “Jaws” for the NES, back in the day.  A terrible game by most standards, but I played it for days and days in spite of the fact that you didn’t even play as the shark.  Really, who makes a Jaws game and forces the player to play as the humans? Continue Reading »

Considering that we had a realization yesterday that not only games, but (some) movies can also raise capital through Kickstarter, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the development of some projects that got this whole thing started in the first place. It’s been a little over a year since Double Fine had their revolutionary Kickstarter campaign, legitimizing crowdfunding as a way for game developers to raise large sums of money without having to go through a publisher. With that being said, the companies who have raised cash through Kickstarter haven’t released anything yet, so I figured given yesterday’s Veronica Mars campaign I would find out how far along some of those game projects are to actually being completed. Continue Reading »

Far be it from me to pee in another man’s pool. For the record, that ain’t the purpose of this week’s humble installment. In the chatbacks of a piece that occurred recently in these parts, I’d even said as much – that I’d been tinkering off-and-on with some ideas about the very topic of Film Criticism. Since it garnered so much attention, I thought it’d be interesting to get another take on the State of That Union.

See, I’ve always thought of watching films as more of a ‘cultural experience’ than it ever was an artistic expression. (Eff you, Susan Sarandon, and take your ex Tim Robbins with you.) How can I say that?

Well, I can say it because – simply – there are many types of films in my universe. Think what you might, but I don’t think of a bawdy Apatow comedy or a Japanese Pink film (look it up, I’ll wait) is so much about ‘artistic expression’ as it is about exploring a cultural norm or maybe even defying one (for art’s sake!). So, in that respect, one man’s art is – as they say – another man’s toilet tissue, but never – and I mean never – try wiping with a strip of 35mm. That’s just a recipe for failure … or a visit to a gastroenterologist.

What we are as a people – who we are, where we come from, where we’re heading – that’s the stuff of film. Continue Reading »

Zack doesn’t write here anymore, but I dug up a post of his that somehow never got published. It’s a sequel to this one which ran some time ago.

Well here we are again. Summer has come and gone, although if you’re like me and live inSan Francisco, it was never really there to begin with. Regardless, the calendar tells us we have entered fall, and with it a season of rainy days, blustery winds and the chance to read some damn fine books has arrived.

As I mentioned in my first installment, the modern world does not lend itself well to reading. Not only is it hard to find the time to commit to a book, but finding a worthy read can be as challenging as finding the “good part” of a Nicolas Cage movie. Lucky for you, my life outside of these digital walls involves a career as a bookstore administrator. Just as many of the best movies of the year are released around the holidays, the fall is the peak season for highly-anticipated book releases (and no that phrase is not an oxymoron). You know that woman who wrote those books about that wizard? I think her name is J.K. Rowling or something. Well she’s publishing her first adult novel this month. Another name likely to ring bells is that of Mr. Stephen Colbert, who will publish his sequel to 2007’s hilarious sort-of book I Am America (And So Can You!).

But I trust you to do the research on the megablocksters like Rowling and Colbert. I’m here to outline some titles I think you might really like. These aren’t all brand new titles, but one of them is hot off the presses. To help connect you with the best possible paper and ink mentioned below, I’ve listed each book in the context of films that should appeal to potential readers. Remember: if you read them now, you can give them away later when you’re too cheap to do any Christmas shopping! Continue Reading »

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Depending on whom you ask or what review you read buying the new SimCity through Origin is either a completely normal and fun gaming experience or a sign of the end of times (Thanks Reddit!). I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and that differing opinions and critiques can often be good for the game industry, but these days I can’t tell if reviews are actually honest or are just written as reactions to what people already want to hear in order to increase the amount of people who come to a site. Kotaku even wrote not one but two “Sim City Doesn’t Work” posts in two days while also managing to write another piece to give players tips when playing the game.

It just seems like one gigantic mess; there are reviews for people who like the game and articles for those who don’t. To me this isn’t actual coverage, but pandering to those who have already formed an opinion as to whether or not they will buy the game. What about when someone like me just wants an honest review of the game before they buy it? Continue Reading »

Growing up I had one of those 10 disc CD shufflers that could, incredibly, play more than one album at a time. While I was always psyched to hear some new tunes, I only ever changed the first few albums in the tray, leaving the last five or so as the same few records for years; my “go-to” records if you will. No matter what I was interested in at the time, the same few CDs always populated the last couple of spots in that amazing CD shuffler. My gaming habits were, and still are, fairly similar.

In between the releases of new games or rentals from my local Blockbuster, there were a handful of games throughout the years that I could always count on for a good time. When I was bored of the other games I had or there were no new releases out, these games were my “go-to” games when I had nothing else to play. They weren’t the best games or the most popular, but whenever I became bored or had some time to kill these games provided me with fun and entertainment over very long stretches of time; they are the backbone of my gaming experience. Continue Reading »

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7 Things I Learned About Dota 2 after my First 100 Hours

It took me a while to wrap my head around the idea of DotA 2. I played the original for a long time which explains why the shortcut icon for Warcraft III remained on my desktop years after I stopped playing the campaign. I was happy that the game and the genre were finally getting the recognition I thought they deserved, but I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about a big company like Valve taking over when the efforts of fans and volunteers had proven so successful. I did agree, though, that the game needed to progress out of Blizzard’s Warcraft III custom lobbies in order to continue to grow.

I wasn’t impressed when I booted up the game a few months ago, I didn’t feel like it brought anything new to the genre in the same way that League of Legends had. But I gave it another chance; a few weeks ago I loaded it up and found that many of the updates since my first few initial games had cleaned up the overall experience quite a bit. 100 hours later with an incredible record of 46 wins and 46 loses I think it’s safe to say the game is growing on me. It’s not perfect, but it’s much better than I originally thought. Continue Reading »

Anyone who knows David Lynch knows that they’re going into one of his movies with the expectation that their minds will be blown.  If you’ve ever seen Lost Highway then prepare to be scared as well.   Personally I find this to be one of the freakiest scenes in movie history.

I think it’s just because Robert Blake has no eyebrows and it’s just flat out scary.  Plus the fact that they mute the entire background is a little whacky.   It’s also cool that Bill Pullman is in this movie.   It’s definitely not a Pullman type of a film.  If you’re into stuff like this then check out the film.

I’m in one of those 80s kind of moods today.  And while I know that many of our “older” readers AKA people my age have most definitely seen this film, all you new kids out there really need to check out Down and Out in Beverly Hills.   Here’s a quick synopsis of the film:

Beverly Hills couple Barbara and Dave Whiteman are very rich but not happy Dave is a hard working business man, his wife is only interested in yoga, aerobics and other meditation classes, and he sleeps with the house maid. Their teenage son is confused about his sexuality and their daughter is suffering from eating disorders. While they are celebrating thanksgiving having plenty of food, street tramp Jerry is hungry, homeless, sleeping rough and has lost his dog. Jerry decides to end his life by drowning himself in their swimming pool. Dave rescues him and invites him to stay for a while. How does this stranger change the life style of this family?

The movie stars Richard Dreyfus, Nick Nolte and Better Midler.   And there’s even some great appearances by Little Richard!  Check out the trailer after the jump….

Continue Reading »