It’s not very often I take to this column to debate one very specific plot point in a movie, but with everyone and their mother seeing Iron Man 3 over the past week or so, I figure it’s a topic that more than a few people might be curious to talk about.

I had an overall positive experience with Iron Man 3, and I can see how it can be called the best movie of the three (though I won’t say I enjoyed it more than The Avengers). But one aspect of the movie has troubled me during and since, and I figured I’d discuss it here. It’s how The Mandarin was handled.

Obvious spoilers follow, so it’s time to divert your eyes and ears. Continue Reading »

This happens every year. A slate of cool looking, flashy summer blockbusters are advertised to death, and nearly all of them look pretty good. But there will always be winners and losers, and it’s never the case that each and every one of them is going to pan out.

This year, we have not Transformers or Twilight installments, so there aren’t any obvious picks right of the bat. We do have a slate of promising films, but I can’t imagine that they’re all going deliver on their potential. What do you make of these? I’ll give my own abridged thoughts below: Continue Reading »

Remy: The reality is as odd as I may be, Paul and I share pretty much the exact same thoughts on the exact same things. Outside of him not liking Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, him and I have been uniform on games and on movies. Until this week (cue the DUH DUH DUUUUH dramatic music). In case you are all wondering what I am getting at, Paul gave the Evil Dead remake a 2.5, which equates to a C grade. I saw that and wept a little. But when I saw he thought of some of this films violence was torture porn I felt compelled to write him and beg for an UNREALITY DEBATE about Evil Dead

Paul is a laid-back cat, so he was like: No problemo, let’s do this, and here we are.

So first, I have to ask you, (with all due respect because you are the coolest boss I’ve ever had) why did you think of the (extreme) violence in this movie as torture porn? Continue Reading »

It’s happened to all of us at one point or another if you’re an avid enough gamer. Eventually you find a game that simply clicks with you on such a level, you can’t stop playing it. Sometimes, that can just result in a few hundred hours of play and some missed meals. Others? A few THOUSAND hours and some missed months of your life.

Mine? Well, as you can see above, it was Diablo 2. I lost several months of my life to that game as I attempted to acquire armor sets and reach max level. Turns out I’m sort of a sucker for action RPGs like this, and have found similar addictions to Torchlight and Diablo 3. I’m still freaking playing Diablo 3 now. Who does that?

Anyway, I’d be curious to hear about any games you’ve been addicted to, and how serious it was. I’ve heard some real horror stories about having entire lives sucked away by MMOs, which is why I stay away from the genre most of the time.

My video game life is quite interesting these days. Usually, I’m playing whatever new release is out rather quickly in order to write a timely review about it. It’s still fun that way, but hardly what I’d call a laid back playthrough. And when you’re done with most of these games, especially the single player-heavy ones, you’re done, that’s it. There’s really not that much to go back to later.

Then there are the perennial games that never go out of style, but I would hardly describe as a “leisure” activity either. They may have been out for a while, and can be a lot of fun, but I have to say I’m usually incredibly tense during a match of Halo, League of Legends or Call of Duty. They require a decent amount of focus and can induce copious amounts of rage when they don’t go properly.

That leaves game that I would classify as true “leisure activities.” Games that are actually pretty relaxing to play casually. I don’t think there are really all that many for me, but if I had to pick a few, I have to say that quest/looting/ARPG/MMO type games are what I’m talking about. You can play Torchlight 2 or Diablo 3 or Guild Wars 2 whenever you want, for however long you want, and don’t have to worry about playing either fast, or competitively. You can simply quest, level and loot at your own pace, and I find this to be the most rewarding game type when I’m really just trying to unwind.

What about you? What games do you play when you want to relax?

When I was younger, it was a big deal for me to watch a rated R-movie. It involved a fair amount of sneaking, as my parents would never allow such a thing. It couldn’t be in the theater, at least not at first, because that was a whole other level of mission impossible shit.

Rather, it was on DVD, and I was on a MISSION to see Gladiator. The trailers were amazing, it was getting nominated for every award there was. I HAD to see it.

And so I did. At my friends house, after the thing came out on DVD (at least I think DVDs existed in 2000, right?), I watched it, and I had never seen anything like it.

This was when I was thirteen, and after leading a relatively sheltered media life where the most violent movies I watched were Jurassic Park and Independence Day, Gladiator was a new level entirely. Blood everywhere, heads rolling, I felt like I was one of the crowd, cheering every kill.

But buried inside was a rather excellent movie, and even at 13 I could appreciate that. It became one of my favorite films, not just for the gore, but for the quality, and it still is to this day.

So, what was yours? What sort of impression did it make on you?

Though there are many TV programs universally recognized as being the “classics” of the medium, real life doesn’t always match critical perception. Due to either personal preference or everyone else simply being wrong, it often can be the case that you simply can’t stand something everyone else loves. 

Writing that down can result in some very nasty internet comments (as I’ve found), but I’d sort of be curious to hear what other people’s dark TV hate secrets are. I’ve had a friend tell me he hated Arrested Development because it was “slapstic humor,” and I looked at him the same way people look at me when I say “I just couldn’t get into Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I  know, I know, but it’s the truth.

So, how about you? What’s one show that’s been highly recommended that you honestly gave the old college try, but simply didn’t like? I predict a lot of “Lost” related answers, as that show is particularly polarizing, but I’m curious to see the spread of personal preference across other shows as well.

I just read a rather interesting article over at THR which asks a simple question, though one that hasn’t really been asked before.

What if a network promised to air a full season of a show before cancelling it?

“Yes. Make them a promise. I know that in this town, promises are basically lies told through handshakes or back-slaps, but in the real world you’ll have to stick to it. And really, what’s the harm in that? You paid for it. The costs are sunk and you’re going to eat them anyway and then burn off the damned show in the summer, so why not roll the dice and discover what could very well be true: If viewers know you’re not going to waste their time, they will be more interested in watching and more patient when they do.”

The idea is that if viewers know a show isn’t going anywhere, they’ll be more likely to tune in and give it a chance. This is what cable does, and it’s supposedly how we have all our great serialized dramas.

I can see the advantages, but I disagree with the central premise. I don’t think the primary reason people don’t tune in to new shows isn’t because they fear the show will get canceled. I have personally said I’m worried about getting into a new show not because I fear it might be suddenly killed, but that I’ll slowly discover that…it’s not actually a good show.

I think people don’t watch many shows simply because they’re just not that good. The Event was not that good. Terra Nova was not that good. V was not that good, even if it got picked up for a second season. When Revolution gets canceled next year (it will), it’s because it’s not that good. But the shows that last? A lot of the time they ARE that good. Sure, bad shows get picked up too, but there really aren’t THAT many examples of truly great shows that get canceled. Sure, you can name some, but it’s a very, very low percentage of the total number of shows that have aired. And this is assuming that networks know how to spot this small percent that have the potential for greatness.

Now of course we can all say “if they starting doing this ten years ago, we’d still have Arrested Development and Firefly on the air.” Yeah that’s great, but hindsight is 20/20. Networks would be taking a huge gamble by paying for an entire 20+ episode season of a show banking on the fact that it will be as good as its first few episodes.

I don’t know, I’m not sure I buy this concept, as good as it may sound on the surface. What do you think?

There’s a lot of things that I miss from the 90s, like Tamagotchis, gangsta rap and Power Rangers. While I’ve proudly replaced most of these fads with modern ones, one obsession that I can’t renounce is Jim Carrey. His exaggerated face, expert mimicry and slapstick humor made him the funniest man of that decade. Currently, however, his career is in a very tepid state. In the last 10 years, Carrey has achieved moderate success. He’s even given us a few memorable characters. But nothing can compare to what he achieved in the era of slap bracelets and VCR’s.

This year, Carrey will return to the screen in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and Kick-Ass 2. In the first, we’ll see him as a David Blaine-type street magician who specializes in dangerous acts. The latter will show him in a completely different light. He’s playing the born-again ex-mobster Colonel Stars and Stripes. A red-band trailer for the comic book sequel hit the web a few days ago, and Carrey’s grizzly character is the most arresting part about it. Even though both of these roles are supporting ones, Carrey has a great reputation for being the best thing about the movie. Continue Reading »

Well how about this? I knew we were using Kickstarter to fund video games and probably-going-to-fail consoles, but full length feature films? That’s a new one. But it’s exactly what’s happening now.

As of last night (when I wrote this), fans swarmed a Veronica Mars Kickstarter to raise $2M in about ten hours to full fund a feature length movie for the long-dead show. There are many shows with devoted fanbases who wished their program of choice would come back, but I had no idea that Veronica Mars still had this many die hard fans. Warner Bros. greenlighted Rob Thomas to do the Kickstarter to gauge “fan interest.” Well, I think they have their answer.

But I have questions about this now. Can a movie studio really get away with having the people who would pay to see the movie, actually fund the movie and then pay for tickets on top of it? I mean I guess when you buy a ticket, you’re subsidizing what it cost to make the film, but to pay $10, $20 or even $100 or more ahead of time? On the surface, it seems insane.

Is it really though? I don’t think so. This may seem odd from the outside for those of us who aren’t huge Veronica Mars fans, but pretend it was a show YOU loved. Would I be doing the same for a fundraiser to bring back Firefly or Arrested Development (if Netflix wasn’t)?

Yes, I would. Absolutely. It’s not just about pre-paying for the ticket price, it’s about believing that you’re doing your part to see that something you love lives again. Kickstarter is not an investment, it’s a charitable donation that makes you feel good about yourself. Sure, kids in Africa could probably use water instead of you paying for Kristen Bell’s next pair of jeans on set, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the idea that you have some small part in reviving something you thought was dead. I’d shell out $100 to feel like I helped put Firefly back on the air.

This won’t work often though, so Hollywood shouldn’t get any bright ideas. For example, Michael Bay couldn’t put one of these up and raise $200M to make Transformers 4. The money is too great for this to work for most films or shows, and the fanbase has to be absolutely RABID for this to even come close to succeeding. That said,  I’m wondering what will happen now that this has panned out for Veronica Mars. What other dead stories will come out of the woodwork begging for a cash resurrection?

First things first, I am not here to hate on Twilight. I like to approach things as if they were religions – you respect mine, I’ll respect yours. (Or, let’s just agree to disagree.) In the great debacle between Twilight and any other YA adaptation, I root for the others, but I get it. Vampires are mysterious and sexy and they live for ever. But I prefer witches and wizards. I always have, and always will.

A few weeks ago, a new YA adaptation hit theaters. Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia’s best-selling novel Beautiful Creatures debuted on the big screen on Valentine’s Day. It tells the tale of a 16-year-old boy named Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) living in the small Southern town of Gaitlin. One day, he falls in love with a mysterious new girl named Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert), the niece of town’s recluse and the girl of his dreams. Ethan discovers that Lena is not like the other girls – she possesses powers and is a witch of sorts. Together they embark on journey to try to uncover the dark secrets about their families and their town.

Continue Reading »