The Force Unleashed II

The Force is unleashed yet again on my Wii and boy is it kinda fun. I'll be upfront: I totally enjoyed the first installment of the Starkiller franchise. The feeling of wielding a lightsaber and controlling the Force in a way my young pre-teen mind could never have ever conceived of while playing the super fun Super Star Wars trilogy on my ol' SNES is enough to make your brain explode from the sheer nerdiness of it all. The game made you feel powerful. Could it have been better, definitely. But I still enjoyed it.

The sequel, on the other hand... I should start out by saying I found it used at Blockbuster for 10 bucks. I only say that because how much money you spend on it might dictate what you ultimately feel about it. The game is short. Very short. Just when I was getting in the swing of things, the whole show is done. In short, I'm glad I only spent 10 bucks on it. The original 50 dollar price tag would have left me feeling very ripped off.

Starting out, I was a bit thrown off by the controls, as they have been changed up a bit for this installment. I'm the first in line to poo-poo change in anything, so I started out thinking it was all balderdash. These were not the controls I had grown accustomed to from the first game! How dare they! Getting used to this led to a couple of early cheap deaths with me trying to dispatch of enemies using the same gestures and buttons from FU1. But get used to it, I did, and realized that the control scheme wasn't so bad after all. There are a few new Force moves, like Force Sight and Force Rage that use the Wii Remote very effectively and give you a feeling of even more power. Plus, two lightsabers. That's always awesome.

Unfortunately, there's a laundry list of things that I feel let this game down from the previous one.

- It's SHORT
- Lack of variety of levels
- Lack of variety of enemies. Stormtroopers, spider-bots, robots bearing shields and a few two legged walkers. That's about it.
- I enjoyed the story of FU1. This one doesn't feel like much of a story at all
- SHORT!

I wish they had fixed a few of the shortcomings of the first game (as much as I enjoyed it, it ain't perfect). The levels can be repetitive. The quicktime "waggle your wii-mote" scenes are nice, but I would like to be a bit more hands on in those parts of the game. After fighting through endless stormtroopers and it gets to the cool part, I wanna piece of that action, not be relegated to the sidelines to watch while I swing the remote left or right and Starkiller does something impossibly awesome.

I will say I thought it was very fun, what game there is of it. I don't regret buying it (because I bought it stinkin' CHEAP). I'm a Star Wars nerd and I always enjoy romping around in the universe wielding lightsabers. The couple of boss fights are pretty fun.

Apparently, there's a mulitplayer, but I don't really have anyone near me at the moment to jump into the arena with and kick their butts, so I really can't comment on that aspect of it.

I just felt it was waaaay too short. I got through it in about 6 hours. And they way the story ends in a cliffhanger, it really just feels like a couple of bridge levels simply to have a reason to bring the character back to life (in a manner of speaking) after the first game to kick more butt in a meatier story in the inevitable next game. I think a game like this would have been a great use of downloadable content for whatever system it was on and could have accomplished the same thing.

However, any excuse to go crazy with the Force, I'll take.

The Oscars 2011

The Oscars 2011!


I honestly don't know how much I can comment on this. I must be honest: I've not seen a lot of this past years nominated movies. It was a bit of a stay at home year in our household with a new kid and some work issues. In fact, one of the nominated movies I saw because we took our daughter to see it and have subsequently seen it about 5,202 times since she got it for Christmas on DVD.

I'm looking at you Woody and Buzz.

  

The other best picture nominee I saw was Inception, which I loved to pieces, but realized was not the kind of movie that wins Best Picture at the Oscars.

So as far as the nominated and the winners, I cannot say too much. My lack of info on these subjects is truly depressing.  I do know I thought that The Social Network would get more love, but there was a point in the show you just realized The King's Speech was gonna tear it up. I haven't seen the movie but there's no doubt these guys looked at the blueprints on how to win an Oscar and followed it to a "T".

What I can comment on is the presentation, which seems to be getting a lot of crap dumped at it's feet. I'm not sure it deserves all the bile being hurled its way, but it was definitely not the greatest ceremony to ever feature the little gold naked dude.

Let us start with the hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco. I know Anne Hathaway annoyed some viewers, but at least she showed some energy and seemed like she was interested in the proceedings. Franco, on the other hand, spent most of the time standing stiffly by her side staring off somewhere just off center with a strained smile plastered on his face.

Most of all, I think the duo was let down by the writing. There are some hosts, the type of hosts the Oscars usually get; your Steve Martins, your Billy Crystals, who have a background in performing comedy in front of live audiences and probably help come up with their own material and are able to make it work and flow a lot more naturally. When you get a couple of young actors who don't appear to have such a background, I think it's unfair to expect them to do anything other than keep the show moving. The bits come off more stiff and unnatural and definitely fall flat.

That being said, I think the biggest problem with the Oscars this year was that they were flat out trying to go young. From the hosts to the presenters, there is no doubt they were reaching for that demographic. I'm sorry Oscar, your demographic is not the hip Jersey Shore generation, it spans the generations of movie fans. Specifically movie fans that see the kind of movies that win Oscars. I have a hard time believing many Justin Timberlake fans went out of their way to see The King's Speech or even know what the heck Winter's Bone is, except for the fact that the Wayne's World guys found the title hilarious.

Let's forget young, hip and edgy. You're the Oscars, not the MTV movie awards. Act like it. When the highlight of your show is Billy Crystal introducing the digital ghost of Bob Hope to introduce the effortlessly funny duo of Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, that should tell you something. Give the keys to the thing back to Crystal or Steve Martin, or heck, even Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Because if I find out Justin Bieber is hosting this thing next year, I'm out.

Super Bowl Movie Trailers!

The Super Bowl came and went. The game, by all accounts, was pretty good. I missed it, due to having to work. Of course, the biggest news the next day, the thing that most people talk about is not whether or not Big Ben was eyeing some college gal in the third row or if Brett Favre was home crying, but the commercials. And due to the miracle that is DVR and the internet, I was able to catch up with the commercials that personally get my man juices flowing; the movie previews.

There were a lot to choose from, but here, I will only highlight the ones I'm looking forward to...

*Battle: Los Angeles

Every other month, we are treated to another alien invasion movie. I remember seeing previews for Independence Day all those years ago and getting so pumped to see that massive scale of alien destruction and getting all that and more in the final product. Ever since then, that scale of destruction has become sort of common place and as epic as Battle: Los Angeles looks, and it does look epic, I hope there's something more to it than eye candy. The preview has me intrigued, but I will have to wait and see more before I make up my mind whether or not to get seriously pumped for it.



*Transformers: Dark of the Moon

I know it's hip to hate on the Transformers movies and Michael Bay, but they are wildly popular for a reason and that is that they are entertainment. That being said, part 2 pushed it about as far as I think you can push it as far as sensory overload plus movie running time and if this one tries to out do that installment, it could jump the shark something fierce. I'm simply hoping for some good old fashioned entertainment and robot mayhem and it looks like that will be delivered. Just don't go all Batman and Robin on sensory overload and silliness.



*Thor

I grew up a bit of a Marvel nerd, no doubt, but Thor was never really a favorite. It just seemed a bit silly. Yet I was never really into Iron Man and that movie was all kinds of rocking, so Thor, especially with the impending Avengers movie coming out, has got me a bit excited. Plus, this movie has Natalie Portman in it, whom I've crushed on since The Phantom Menace.



*Pirate of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Captain Jack is back and as far as I'm concerned, that's never a bad thing. I thought the last movie was a bit too long and over convoluted, yet still had some good action and entertainment. This one looks as though it's going to be a nice little one-off adventure in the vein of the first Pirate's movie, which can only be a good thing, if true. I like the idea of these movies keeping it simple with a nice adventurous tale than getting bogged down in it's own mythology.




*Captain America

Oh yes. This looks pretty dadgum awesome. I love the World War II setting and I love the look of the movie. If this can be the good old fashioned pulpy period adventure movie that it looks like it's gonna be, then there's no way I will not like it. I've always had a fondness for ol' Cap and it's great to finally see him getting some big budget love. This could easily slip into cheese, but if they keep the tone right, we could be in for a classic comic book movie.



*Super 8

I'm officially juiced for this movie. I wasn't at first.  Seemed kind of interesting, I guess, but didn't have much to go on.  Then I saw this preview.  Still not a lot to go on, storywise, I guess, but the whole feel of it screams classic 80's Speilberg and that in itself pushed all the right nostalgic buttons for me. I'd still like to see a whole trailer to get a feel for the story, but the images and the feeling the clip was going for did it for me. I love those old 80s Speilberg directed/produced kids on adventure movies like E.T. and the Goonies and here's hoping this delivers on that promise. If the movie captures even half the magic of those movies, I'm a happy man. The fact that Speilberg himself is actually producing this is a promising sign.



*Cowboys and Aliens

I love the idea of splicing the Western and the Sci-Fi genre together. There's always been something old-westy feeling about a lot of space set movies and it seems only right that they would join forces. I love the it's directed by Jon Favreau, the man who brought us Iron Man. I love that Daniel Craig's granite faced steeliness seems to fit that of a cowboy. More than anything, I love that Harrison Ford is playing a grizzled, hell raisin' mean sunuvagun who hates Craig's character. Lordy, I've missed Harrison Ford the past decade or so (not counting Indy) and I'm happy to have him back.

Things We Forgot Were Cool

A few days ago, I was surfing about the World Wide Web as movie music soundtrack was playing in my MP3 player (go ahead, judge my nerdness; my wife does at least twice daily), when the theme to a certain movie began playing. A theme that took me back to the far away land of 1989, when I was about 10 years old. The movie to see that year, if anyone can remember, was a little film by Tim Burton called... Batman.

And oh, how I wanted to see Batman. And I did. And it was glorious. And I think now that we have been graced with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, we tend to treat Burton's movie as an afterthought; "Oh, for its time, I guess it was all right." No sir, it is still a cool movie.

Are Batman Begins and The Dark Knight better movies than Batman's first major big screen adventure? Yes, I think they are. But I think that doesn't mean we suddenly have to dismiss Burton's version of Batman. It was still cool and it introduced a world of us familiar with the campy 60s show what could really be done with the character. And without it, we wouldn't have Nolan's terrific versions of this fine hero.

And let us not forget Jack. I went in to that movie knowing Batman would be a cool dude, but was totally blown away by The Joker. It's hard for me to compare Jack's Joker with Ledger's, as to me they are two totally different characters. I tend to like both of them, but I loved the crazy energy that Jack exuded as the character. Whereas Ledger's Joker seemed like a psychotic who liked to wear makeup and cause anarchy, Nicholson's Joker truly came across as a deranged clown, which is how I tend to picture the character myself.

Once again, I understand that as movies, Nolan's movies are more mature with better characterizations, but let's not rewrite history and suddenly make Batman '89 a piece of crap. It might not be as good, but it's still pretty cool.

My Best Summer?

Well, late Spring/Summertime is amongst us and it got me to reflecting. What was the best summer of my life? I had some fun ones as a wee lad growing up. There were several trips with the grandparents.

Like the one in '89; I was 9 going on 10 and my Papaw was working as a carpenter at the Hilton Hotel in Mobile, Alabama, so we got to hang out down by the gulf for a couple of months. This summer became known by my grandparents as the summer we were in the hotel watching Jaws 3 and Papaw Don tossed his shorts at me in a perfectly timed throw just as Jaws was attacking, nearly making history by creating the youngest heart attack victim ever.

Fortunately, no 3-D glasses were involved

He still enjoys telling this story, 20 years down the road. In fact, he was kind enough to relay the story to my wife just this past Christmas, so that was an awesome summer.

Also, Batman came out.

What could be more epic?

Then there was the summer of '99, ten years later; I was 19 going on 20 without a whole lot of responsibility. I had a full time job, yet no real authority as of yet. Mainly spent the summer hanging with friends, going to the movies and whatnot. Trips to Longview, buying the crap out of DVDs and CDs. I think a new “Weird Al” Yankovich CD may have been involved.

Yeah, I looked it up, there was. And I did buy it.

And let's not forget Star Wars Mania.

Even the haters thought this was awesome.

Now, I know some were disappointed with Episode 1, but this isn't your summer, it's mine and I saw that sucker at least six times. All in all, a pretty decent summer.

Then there's the summer of '08; I was 28 going on 29. I was a married man with responsibilities. I went to the emergency room with a fun case of kidney stones. I had shoulder surgery and had to go through a couple of months of rehab, which I don't recommend unless you just like to torture yourself. Our house got flooded and we had to live with the in laws for two months until the insurance finally realized they would actually have to pay something to help us out (seeing as how we've been paying them monthly for just such and emergency and all).

And I would have to say that was the best summer of my life. No, that wasn't a misprint. Cause those paying attention will remember that was the spring/summer we became parents to a great little girl who was a loooooooong time coming. The answer to a lot of prayers and the cure for more heartache than either of us care to recount.

For all that went kooky that summer, that one event rises above and lifts that summer head and shoulders above any other. Of course, we'll see how this one plays out as we anticipate the arrival of our little boy in July, but so far, the Summer of '08 rules supreme.

Also, Batman came out.

20 years later, even epic-er.

Things I Notice in Kid's Entertaiment

You're probably wondering why a grown man such as myself is spending a lot of time on kids hows. Short answer, my daughter is 18 months old. In point: Yesterday I was sitting there watching The Librarian 2, which is nerdy, cheesy and awesome all at once when Allie starts getting a little fussy. Sondra is like "Can we put something on she can watch." So, this is my life.

As an adult, as I rewatch some of this stuff I remember from childhood, I've noticed a couple things that may have escaped my attention back in the day.

1. The Little Mermaid: Prince Eric is a bit of a himbo. He may have leading man looks, own a loveable pooch and surround himself with quirky servants, but clearly some of his tools appear to have gone missing from the toolshed, if ya know what I mean?

Yeah, that hottie? Evil witch in disguise. Genius.

2. Sesame Street: Couple of things on this gem.

A. When did the kid muppets overtake the street? I my not have watched it religiously, but I remember old faves like The Count, Oscar the Grouch, and Cookie Monster. Big Bird, who I always found the lamest (feel free to disagree with me if you like, lame-o), is still pretty prominent. But all the old favorites seem to have taken a backseat to the likes of Elmo, Zoey, Tully and something called a Baby Bear. All I can say is "C" is for Cookie and that will always
be good enough for me.

For a bear, not very terrifying.

B. If I were Bert, I would long ago had to have kicked Ernie's teeth in. All he does is cause that poor banana looking man grief.

Ready to shove that Rubber Ducky you know where.

3. Aladdin: So *this* is the Robin Williams I remember before he got kind of annoying.

He works better as a cartoon.

4. Toy Story: Still pretty awesome.

Buzz Lightyear is never not awesome.

Tattle Tellers Are Annoying

Tattle tellers are annoying, no matter what age they may be.

The other day I was doing a little outside work at the store. Off to the side a little ways, a truck was sitting in the fire lane beside the curb. I thought nothing of this, as many cars park there as customers run in and out real quick. This probably isn't the right way to go about your parking business, but I find it less annoying than the twenty two year old who thinks nothing of parking in the handicapped spot. I do notice, however, a stern looking dude standing beside the truck with his cell phone out taking pictures of the truck and, I'm assuming, it's license plate.

A woman approaches the man and is like "Um, excuse me sir, is there a problem?" He just looks at her with what I can only assume is a permanently engraved frown on his face and says "You're not supposed to park there." Then he briskly walks off. The woman kind of scratches her head, gets in her truck and moves it out into the parking lot while the man, I'm assuming, was going to send his pictures off to the authorities.

I was out there another half hour or so doing my thing as no less than three cars parked in that same spot with nary a sign of the Cell Phone Vigilante.

It got me thinking. I personally don't condone parking in spots that are forbidden or otherwise engaging in any activities that might be considered suspect that would, more importantly, separate me from what little money I have in my bank account. But tattletales kind of irk me. Like when I was in elementary school. The teacher would leave the class and some kid would
say something really dirty. Something that would just blow my sheltered mind through the outer atmosphere. But I would say nothing to the teacher; I would merely think "Holy *bleep*, he just said the H-E-Double Hockey stick word!" But there was that one girl. You know the one. The one who sits at the desk right in front of the teacher's desk. The one who reminds the teacher that we were supposed to have a quiz today. The one with her nose up in the air and the smug look plastered on her face. She tells the teacher. Yeah, nobody liked that girl.

When I'm trudging on along 635 and some idiot with a car that's not nearly as awesome as he thinks it is blows by me in the next lane doing 125 miles per hour, I may say to my wife "I wish there was a cop around here to show him what for!", but my first instinct is not to whip out my cell phone and speed dial the nearest Police Station to report that someone has the cojones to be speeding on the interstate. I'm just not that guy and it's hard for me to be in the mindset of that guy.

So yeah, unless something violent is happening to someone, I don't see it as my business to go around reporting on every little wrong thing I see someone doing. If the cops drive up and find you parked where you ought not to have been, well, you took the risk pal and it didn't quite pay off for you. That extra 20 steps you saved to run in and buy your 1.99 gallon of milk hardly seems worth it now that you have a 200 buckaroo fine staring you down. So good luck with that. Just know, I'm not the one who called the cops. It was the guy with the cell phone camera. Seriously, who died and made that guy Batman?