It's been a while since I've seen a movie that failed to be entertaining on any level.
Maybe I'll watch Heat to round out this Michael Mann-ish weekend, and hopefully end it on a high note.
Heat's supposed to be pretty good, right?
Whenever I watch a movie I make a point of looking at its IMDb page afterward, because I love that site and all its mindless trivia. And I know that I should expect all sorts of completely random and obsessive stuff on the trivia page, but I still can't help but be a little freaked out when people submit stuff like:
The guns that Vincent carries are a Heckler and Koch (HK) USP .45ACP and a Ruger Mk III .22 with integrated suppressor. Vincent didn't use a silenced USP Tactical or Mk.23 SOCOM as was previously suggested. The silenced pistol was a .22 Long Rifle caliber Ruger Mk III with the upper receiver and barrel replaced with a custom integral silencer.
Sup creepy gun nuts. It's like the guy who almost shot his neighbor through the wall got an IMDb account.
But then, scrolling a few entries down:
The USB flash drive containing Vincent's prep is a PNY Attaché.
Yeah!! USB flash drive enthusiasts unite! There's room for every sort of niche on the Internet.
Oh yeah, about the movie. I really enjoyed Vincent's all greyed-out getup. "I can't tell if it's Tom Cruise or Richard Gere!" It was like regular Tom Cruise was too busy filming The Last Samurai or something, so Michael Mann had to cast his player 2 costume.
I've been working on this UT2k4 model of the beefy Brock Samson for about a week, and I finally got the skeleton inserted today. So naturally this was the first idea that popped into my head.
(Please excuse the unsightly protrusions and obnoxious watermark. I'm adding the weights to fix the former at the moment, and I suppose I'll take care of the latter at some point.)
Lately I've found that my ability to objectively evaluate a movie has an inverse relationship with the movie's length and how much hype there is surrounding it.
With that said, here's my review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest:
It must have been around 1996 or so (yes, ten years ago—frightening) that I was looking at one of those import shop ads in the back of a game magazine, and a couple of images caught my eye. The first one was for some Super Famicom Dragonball Z fighting game, showing two of the characters shooting fireballs at each other in 2D, sprite-based glory. Then right next to it was a shot of Square's Tobal No. 1, featuring two fighters battling in full 3D. The juxtaposition between the detailed, hand-drawn sprites and the blocky polygons was particularly striking since both games starred characters designed by Akira Toriyama. Even then, I had the feeling that 2D was on the way out and wondered if 3D graphics would ever be able to recapture the bright, animated look of classic SNES games.
So, ten years later, they're getting pretty close. The last few years have seen plenty of great-looking cel-shaded games released, with Dragon Quest VIII and the amazing-looking Wind Waker among the higher profile titles, but for some reason Trusty Bell (previously seen here) has really grabbed my attention as making a lot of progress in that area. I think a large reason is that it's HD, which means less pixelated outlines and smoother textures. The environments are done in more of a realistic style (sort of like in DQ8), which I first thought was sort of incongruous. After considering it, it actually reminds me of cartoon background art on TV, so maybe that's sort of the accepted aesthetic.
Still, I'd like to see a game that's got hard cel-shading on all the characters, and really cel-looking environments. Or maybe some clever developer can switch things around and have realistically shaded characters exploring a cartoon world.
I both started and finished (not surprisingly) Half-Life 2: Episode One today, and I have nothing bad to say. It's more of HL2's great gameplay and more fun tossing things around with the gravity gun. Although the reviews I've read have lamented that the episode's short length is its biggest (if only) downfall, I think it actually worked out well. The smaller scale probably made it easier for Valve to fine-tune the game, and the results are evident in the quick pacing and how naturally everything comes together, even though pretty much every new chapter brings several twists on the standard Half-Life experience. And the HDR effects looked great, even if I had to bump the resolution down a bit.
I managed to get my copy while it was $8 at Circuit City, and while it's great having more Half-Life 2 to play, if I had paid the full $20 I think I might have felt a little cheated, since I got through the episode in about four or five hours. Of course, I still have to do another playthrough with the commentary on, which I'm really looking forward to. I guess that still makes it a way better deal than going to a movie, or even buying a cheap DVD.
So this surprise image of Team Fortress 2 has been making the rounds, and right when I saw it I wanted to give Valve's art department an A+ for such a coup. With so many upcoming (mainly PC and 360) games sporting that ultra-generic Doom 3/Unreal Engine 3 look, this should really grab TF2 some extra attention. Not that it really needs it, with the original being incredibly popular. Actually, I'm wondering if this will turn away a lot of the fans who were looking forward to the game, since I get the feeling that a lot of them are in the "GRAH GUNS GUNS BULLETS" camp of Counter-Strike players who care more about whether every detail of their sniper rifle is realistically modeled than art direction. I love to stereotype, though.
Here's an old screen of what TF2 used to look like. Of course, the graphics in general are pretty dated since that's probably from about five years ago, but you can still get an idea of the look they were going for. That was a close one!
This is kind of late since I saw the movie last week, but here's the stuff that comes to mind when I look back on Superman Returns. (may contain minor spoilers)
- Was this Superman Junior or something? Although Brandon Routh looks eerily like Christopher Reeve, he seemed a bit young to be playing the Man of Steel. (Even Dean Cain1 looked younger than I imagine Superman to be.) Also, I can overlook Routh, but Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane? She would have been 18 when Superman left. (I was going to make some remark about how I'm older than she is, but I looked it up and she beats me by a maddening three days.)
- I think Kevin Spacey actually is Lex Luthor.
- I wonder if Bryan Singer is a big fan of Harold and Kumar2, what with all the lingering shots of the dialogue-less Kal Penn.
- As anticlimactic as the ending was, Superman saving the plane and the aftermath with everyone erupting into applause was the most incredible thing I've seen in the theater this year. Also, the opening titles = great. Thanks, Mr. Singer. (Please go direct X4 now.)
- Could you please stop killing characters off for no reason???? Oh wait, that's for my Serenity post later on.
1 Lois & Clark was pretty good.
2 what the lol
I've been having some weird dreams lately. The other night I was in a nuclear missile attack, which would be extra weird if I hadn't already had that dream a few months ago. Last night's was more personally stressful, since I was heading towards the front lines of an impending war. However—and this is the really great part—it was the war between humans and mutants. And yes, I was on the mutant side. Looking back on it now, I'm disappointed (and sort of confused) that I had some lame rifle instead of optic blasts.
(I will now try to incorporate optic blasts on here at least once a week.)
In honor of X3 and now Superman Returns, here are some new Famous Actors! Plus a couple other requests. Ooh, I've been meaning to do Wolverine for so long.
Halle Berry!
Kate Bosworth!
Gary Busey!
Hugh Jackman!
Vinnie Jones!
Frank Langella!
James Marsden!
Ian Mckellen!
Anna Paquin!
Brandon Routh!
Robert Vaughn!
I was going to suggest that maybe he shot the piano with his optic blasts.
