Cloud Atlas the Review

Movies

Cloud Atlas is a tough movie to sell in a trailer. Marketing struggled to explain it as this movie kinda floundered in theatres.

Essentially, it’s the story of the human spirit spread across multiple life times. Reincarnation is in full effect here as we see people meet up life time after lifetime. They don’t necessarily remember each other and they aren’t the exact same people. Our energy never completely leaves Earth, it comes back and is often tied to the same energy that it traveled with a lifetime before (for better or worse).

It’s tough to really explain Cloud Atlas fully as it is complicated. The timelines jump back in forth between many people that live through 7 lives so it can be a challenge to keep track of everything and everyone. Each time and place is labeled at the start of the journey, but it’s never displayed again. The times are very different so it’s easy to visually keep everything separate, but there is a lot to take in. They stories are carefully thought out and cut, it’s up to you to keep up which I think could lose a lot of people. It is a long movie.

I found it to be an uplifting journey though. There’s a lot of human struggle, love, life, death, fear, injustice and evil. You see people do terrible things for various reasons (through various rationalization to he time) but one big focal point is the eternal struggle of good versus evil. Slavery, social strife, the powerful and greedy dominating the landscape. But it can be changed, it can take just one person to decide enough is enough and stand up to turn the ship the other way.

It’s a visually striking movie, as the Wachowski’s are known for. The future New Seoul in 2144 (I think that’s when it was, I may be wrong) especially stands out. It’s a heady movie that’s not for everyone, but I think it’s worth checking out. It probably works better at home where you can feel most comfortable and digest it in chunks if need be. It’s a movie you can watch multiple times and get more out of it every time, picking up all the threads and tying them together easier and faster as it goes along.

Spring Breakers the Review

Movies

I wasn’t too sure of what I was going to see out of Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. With a title like that, one can expect young debauchery in the flat, sun baked lands of Florida. While there’s an abundance of debauchery, it’s a bizarre and rough coming of age story for the four female friends who anchor the movie.

The big deal over this movie was initially in it’s casting. Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are Disney kids and these roles are far from the lands of the Mouse Club. There’s drugs, sex, violence and plenty of cussing. The girls are in bikinis for basically the entire movie and the movie isn’t afraid or shy of showing off bare flesh. It’s a really weird movie and it took me some time afterward to really understand what I had watched.

Spring Breakers is shot almost in a documentary style. A lot of hand held camera work, close ups and neon lighting (hello, Florida). It feels like you are a fly on the wall, watching these girls coming face to face with the darker side that lurks in life. The editing pushes this as dialog is often repeated, time is pulled and pushed around mimicking the intoxication of the characters.

The initial push for the girls to go to spring break in Florida is to get the hell out of town. Break the monotony and boredom of their school lives, go on an adventure, meet new people, see new places and experience real life. To explore and see what’s out there. In their desperation to scrape up enough money to get to Florida, Candy, Brit and Cotty rob a local restaurant. This is the first push into the darkside, which shocks Faith but she goes a long with it to be with her friends. After all, adventure awaits!

Once in Florida, the party never stops. Everything is going according to plan, until they get into trouble. This shakes Faith and then when they meet Alien (James Franco) she gets completely spooked. This starts the division of the friends. Lines are crossed and the soul checking begins. While these girls started as very close friends, traveling as a pack, they are individuals who by the end clearly see the world and its “opportunities” differently.

James Franco is really great in this, Alien is such a character and Franco really enjoys playing what can only be described as a dirt bag. He was easily my favorite part of the movie. I thought I’d like this movie more, but I found it to be surprisingly boring. There’s a lot slow motion filming that just makes everything drag on more than it needs to. It never feels like much is going on or being side, it’s like a haze of distant temptation hanging in front of you the whole time (which is probably the point). Plus, the final scene was too unbelievable to enjoy. More meandering than I’d like to see in any medium, Spring Breakers left me feeling a bit cold at the end.

Cell 211 the Review

Movies

Every so often I stumble upon a really great movie I’ve never heard of before. I added Cell 211 to my Netflix queue some time ago after seeing the trailer. Working my way through the list, Cell 211 finally graced my DVD player.

Juan Oliver is a young man who just got a job as a prison security guard. Looking to make a great first impression for his new bosses, he goes to work a day early to learn the lay of the land. Turns out he picked a really bad day to that has he gets trapped in the prison when a mutinous riot breaks out. To save his skin and insure that he sees his pregnant wife again, Juan manages to trick the inmates into thinking he’s been incarcertated for 19 years as a convicted murderer.

Cell 211 is one of the best foreign movies (Spanish to be precise) I’ve seen in quite some time. The concept is great and the movie manages to stay grounded and believable for the most part (more on this later). It’s really carried by the two man actors Alberto Ammann (Oliver) and Luis Tosar (Malamadre, the leader of the prison riot) who are both fantastic. They have great on screen chemistry, their conversations are always great. It’s a weird game of cat and mouse as Malamadre doesn’t really know about everything he’s dealing with. It’s a really well made and paced movie. It looks great, the pacing is terrific, and the story has many interesting and unexpected turns to keep everything sharp and entertaining.

It’s not a prison break movie, it’s more of a political bend kind of picture. There are ETA prisoners (Basque terrorists) being held in the facility who are basically a political time bomb. Their lives are worth a lot more than any of the other prisoners, so these guys basically have political hostages to use as leverage (or a quick death if anything happens to them). With lives across borders also at stake, Oliver has to work even more carefully to keep the peace and get out alive.

It’s not a perfect movie though. While Malamadre is a terrific character, he’s presented a little too softly. He’s the leader of the prison block, but you never really see why. Sure he threatens people left and right, but everyone around him jumps to his every whim. This is slightly countered by some of his lieutenants pulling string behind his back, but Malamadre is way too trusting for the kind of person and position he’s in. He becomes fast friends with Oliver who was never seen or heard of by these guys until the riot starts. Oliver makes many bold moves for a new guy with “one murder” as a wrap sheet. Most of the guys in these block are complete nutters who wouldn’t be intimidated by that in the least. Malamadre does threaten Oliver once, but the guy pretty much gets to be suspicious as much as he pleases.

That said, I really liked Cell 211. A great, thrilling movie that I highly recommend. The only thing that would hold someone back from watching this is hating to read English subtitles. Aside from that, go all in.

This Is The End the Review

Movies

There is nothing quite like a great, wild comedy. It’s a tough genre to make really well but in recent years the Judd Apatow crew has been able to turn in some really memorable stuff. This Is The Endis the wildest and craziest movie in recent memory.

From the central minds of Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, This Is The End is the story of the end of the world, as seen in Los Angeles. To be more precise, James Franco’s house during a party. It’s the true end of days and watching this go down with more celebrity cameos and comedy guys of my generation than you can almost count made this movie seem a bit more special to me. It’s a crazy cast with all funny guys playing themselves, turned up a notch. Just seeing the likes of Danny McBride mock Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Seth Rogan and Jay Baruchel as each other is a scream. There’s a certain amount of real world weight that really works here, it kind of feels like you’re watching a documentary.

While the movie cranks up the crazyiness at every turn (a ton of horrible deaths, absurd and backstabbing behavior, hell spawn walking the Earth and demonic possession!), Jay Baruchel keeps things grounded compared to everyone else. While Seth Rogan holds down the good vibes too, Jay is more unknown and that let’s him stick more to the honest straight man. Now everyone isn’t perfect, which the movie explores, but it’s Jay the sees the movie through starting with his LA visit to hang out with Seth.

Describing any of the funny parts would really ruin the movie as most of it needs to be seen to be believed. That said, the cameos are some of the best parts. Michael Cera steals every scene he’s in, Emma Watson is a real treat to see in a movie like this and there’s a few people they kept a secret that leads to great gags. It’s a movie that deserves and revels it’s R rating so be aware that there is horror violence, adult (haha) situations and a boat load of cursing. It also helps to know the actors, you’ll understand the characterizations and absurdities right away which I think makes the movie work so well.

I had a great time watching This Is The End, made better watching with a big crowd. I’m pretty amazed that they wrote such a movie and got major funding for it. There is some really fantastic special effects that really helps sell the end of the world to the audience. Congrats to the cast and crew for making such a great movie.

Xbox One does a snap kick

Games

I was right, the only thing that MS could do about its DRM plans for the One, that raised absolute hell, would be to reverse their stance. They did it today. It’s going to work just like the 360 does now. Internet connection needed at set up and that’s it. No 24 hour check in. It now sounds like the Family Share plan is out the window which is a real shame as that’s a real game changer for the industry, a real progressive step (which is what I thought the 24 hour check in was mostly for). Now it sounds like Valve is working on just such a program for Steam, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m hoping they end up putting that feature on the back burner and introduce it sometime later in the consoles life. Maybe wait and see how it works and is received on Steam? Could be good to have in the back pocket to bust out to add another bullet point feature to the box. I think it should be there at the start, but I can at least hope it comes to fruition in the future.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/19/4446060/xbox-one-drm-used-games-online-restrictions-180

First day of E3: Fisticuffs

Games, Tech

There’s no other way to say it, Sony just drop kicked MS into next week. That’s with MS having a good show earlier today. They showed a lot of games that I’d like to play and that’s a good thing. But there was complete silence about anything else. The fears that gamers have about XBONE DRM are still high and mighty.

Sony shows it’s games and then says, we have none of that DRM that our competition has and the system is $100 less. That’s insane. I don’t know how MS spins this. Each guy has a few exclusives so that’s kind of a wash really. But the draw to everything else Sony just dropped can’t be understated. They’ve learned from the PS3 launch, they are completely in the good graces of gamers. I really, really, don’t know how MS can combat this. There has to be people in MS HQ sweating bullets. Billions of dollars are on the line here and it looks like Sony just stole a huge portion of xbox fans. Nintendo can just be Nintendo and wiggle their toes in 2nd place
happily. I’m legitimately shocked. The PS4 is pretty ugly though. I think I just want a XBONE controller for my PC.

The only thing MS can do is scrap their DRM plans. Say, “we were just thinking about this stuff, we didn’t really lock it in…” Tomorrow should be interesting. I’m sure MS will say the price is more for the One because of Kinect, which is understandable for the hardware. But the rest? Nope.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 prelude

Games, Uncategorized

E3 is next week and nothing positive has changed on Microsoft’s Xbox One. It’s kinda gross to be honest. 24 hour online “check in”, weird used games policy…it’s a mess. They might have some good ideas somewhere in there, but the message is pretty lost and being overlooked by everyone. It’s a terrible place to be in for MS, it’s a really shocking image of a man in a suit with his black loafers jammed into his mouth. So this E3 is super important for everyone. Here’s my take a few says ahead of E3.

Nintendo
With hardware that many consider an overpriced joke with an anemic software line up, things have looked dicey for good old Nintendo. In recent weeks, Microsoft has pretty much been selling how honest and simple the Wii U is to people. It plays games, it can do a few other side things but it’s really straight forward now. No weird rules, no one watching you, it’s just a game system. Now they just need to release games for it. That is of course coming. The Nintendo stable is being worked now, Mario is in the works, Mario Kart, probably a Smash Bros. game, Animal Crossing. Nintendo is doing direct videos to it’s fan this year and all they need to do is give dates for the games that their fans are waiting for. It’s been a rough 8 starting months, but I think Nintendo is going to right the ship. A nice little price drop wouldn’t hurt either.

Sony
Smart move letting MS take egg on the face. Let their biggest thorn in their side twist in the wind while you get your ducks a row for the show. Now I think Sony is going to have some online DRM too, but it’s hard to really know how much. There’s been no real word on what Sony is up to, it’s all been doom and gloom rumors about Xbox One. Now, if they tell people they aren’t going to be strangling games like Microsoft, they will have a leg up. Sony has some serious talent in it’s software studios, they got the best console indie support so Sony is really in a place to pounce. Show games we haven’t seen, show the hardware, give a date and price (I’m thinking $400 is the likely sweet spot). The PS4 is poised to be the good guy of the Next Gen.

Microsoft
They have to climb out of the hole they dug and I don’t this company is capable of doing it. Their PR has been a complete disaster. It’s these new policies that have gotten them there and I don’t really see them changing them much. Sony must have had these same conversations with publishers and developers so that makes me wonder what Sony’s stance on online DRM is going to be. Now, if Microsoft adopts the way Steam prices and puts stuff on sale, it’ll win a lot of people back. They’ve announced that all games will be able to download or buy in stores at retail on the same day. Now if they keep ridiculous pricing for downloading games over time, it’ll be a dead service. Steam does 2 or 3 big sales a year with a lot of great titles for insanely low prices. Group buys, bonus material out the wazoo. Plus all the sales sprinkled about over the year. People love Steam for the value and convenience. The XBOne [i[could[i/] be the Steambox of the living room before Valve can get their Steambox out. A lot of the XBOne new policies are similar to how Steam currently works, but the value looks completely in MS’s favor. That’s mostly conjecture at this point, but MS has not been one one value these days. MS has to make the right moves and this is one of them. So that leaves us with this: They have to show a ton of games. Exclusives will be pretty important. You gotta give reasons for gamers to want to go anywhere near this hardware, because right now it looks like they are losing a large portion of good will and fandom that they’ve been striving for these passed 13 years.

It’s an uphill climb. They have to show new games to get attention and pricing that makes sense software and hardware wise (it cannot be sold for a penny more than the PS4 does. It’ll be killed if that happens). It’s a hard sell.

Good luck next week fellas.

Argo the Review

Movies

I don’t have much to say about Argo. It’s so good that it stands fine on it’s own. The Hollywood-ized telling of the 1980 secret joint CIA and Canadian rescue mission of six American fugitives in Iran. Six US diplomats manage to get out of the US Embassy during a riot (the others were taken hostage for over a year) and take cover with the Canadians. With time running out, a wild plan about a fake movie (Argo) being filmed in Iran is hatched. Send one “Canadian” guy in with the front of scouting for a sci-fi movie and return with his “Canadian” crew. It’s a crazy, brilliant idea.

Argo is an award winner for a reason. It’s a top notch, super engaging movie. Every bit of it is great, casting to production, top to bottom. Really well shot, excellently paced, just a terrific movie. Highly recommended.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Movies

I’m really not the best person to judge anything Star Trek because I’m pretty apathetic to the whole franchise. Then again that might be of some help.

I enjoyed the 2009 reboot. Fun little sci-fi picture. Looked good (ode to the lens flare), great cast, good story and acting with enough nods to the franchise past to keep everyone smiling. Now the sequel comes along and I find it to have all of the same qualities. Into Darkness has a much better villain with Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch devouring each scene he is in. Since it’s a sequel everything is kicked up a notch. More at stake, grander action set pieces. It all works well, I really like the set design in particular and the SFX are top notch.

A lot of hate from the Trek purist comes from an apparent “that’s not homage, that’s a rip off” on the writers part. I know very little about Star Trek lore so I’m left out in the dark in this regard (which probably helps me like the movie more). But, I gotta say there seemed to be a lot more impersonations in this one. The first movie, the actors played their characters with a certain understanding of what was done before them, but also made it their own. Here, things got out of hand (I’m looking at you Karl Urban). There is a lot of lazy writing going on in this flick actually. The good guys get a lot of convenient ways out of trouble. Things just seem to fall just right into place in almost every single encounter. There’s some goofy editing too. For example, someone says “we have 3 minutes to do this or we’re dead!” and a lot more than 3 minutes go by. Later, a ship is careening into Earth and if they don’t get control quickly, they’ll be burned alive by the Earth’s atmosphere. They get power back and hit the breaks about 200 feet above the clouds. Yeah, sorry, you didn’t make it. How did that get through the common sense department? On a more goofy note, we get a glimpse of the always enjoyable Alice Eve in her underwear and it looks exactly like what’s sold today. We figure out space travel but no advancements in undergarment tech in the next 300 years (at least they are consistent, Uhura was rocking underwire in the last movie)?

Good start to Summer 2013 movies.

Xbox One: Climbing out of a hole

Games

It really makes you wonder how Microsoft decides on it’s PR message (and they people they hire for it). The day before the Xbox One reveal. they let it out that the event was going to be an hour long introduction, the “future of entertainment” and that they’re going to talk about a lot of games at E3 about 3 weeks later. It makes sense to hold off information for the biggest industry event in the world (give or take) but why not just hold everything off for E3 at this point? Especially with how this event was handled.

True, it was an introduction. They showed the hardware, talked a bit about what it can do and the improvements to what they’ve been building for the passed 10 years. Now this whole adventure was started with a gaming machine and they barely talked about games. The games they did talk about, were obvious franchises that were of no surprise so they didn’t swing much weight with them. One new game was shown, but that was more of a teaser announcement.

So all the fans who got the Xbox platform to where it is today, were shown no reason to be into this next machine. In fact, they were so vague this whole reveal has turned into a PR nightmare for MS. Instead of laying everything out there, they held back information on the really big issues. How does this thing work? What’s being locked down with this “games must be installed to the HD and authorized by our servers.” You can say stuff like that, raise every console gamers eyebrows and hope for the best. I understand they are trying to do something new with TV integration, a full set top box experience with a ton of stuff that can be switched on the fly. But the focus you are trying to change, the way games are bought and sold and used is some scary thoughts to a lot of people. Valve did this on the PC about 10 years ago with Steam to great success. But they finessed it. They eased into it and laid out how Steam was set up. The message from this Xbox One event confused the hell out of people, making them asks questions…which were answered by multiple people through the rest of the day, long after the event was over. Plus, the answers were all different, so that just made the rumors worse by freaking everyone out. Will I be able to lend a game to a friend to play? If I have a family is the game I bought only going to work on my “console” and not the one in my kids room? How family friendly is this thing?

The Xbox One has turned into what sounds like a money pit to own and MS is holding the shovel with a blank stare. I can’t believe they didn’t think this out at all. They had to be super clear and this shady talk from the side of the mouth about key issues just makes people mad. There was so much not said in the presentation that came up after, questions and deeper looks on the things people actually wanted to know. The rumor for weeks has been that the NextBox would need to be connected to the internet at all times in order to pretty much do anything (like play single player games which is a deal killer for just about everyone). The event pretty much alluded to this and when asked they go, eeehhh, it’s just gotta talk to the servers once every 24 hours. What’s the difference (steam checks every 2 weeks I think)? Did I not buy this freaking game? This goofy thing needs to check my credentials every single day? Games have to be installed to the HDD to play, it won’t run of the disc. There’s a FEE if you want to put it on another machine. I can’t let a friend borrow a game like since the dawn of home consoles? The HDD is 500 gigs and if I’m putting 15Gig game installs in there how long is that going to last? I have to delete and reinstall disc based games as I go (that’s something that could happen and it sounds like they prepared for it by having the game playable as it installs). So many questions.

The new Kinect comes with every box and it is required to be hooked up for the xbox one to work? I think? That’s what it sounds like. It makes sense that it comes with every One so developers know that it’s a standard feature and they can be assured anyone can use it with whatever they come up with. The tech is greatly improved which is great! But even that bothers everyone because it listens to you when the machine is off (you can turn it on with a voice command). That’s some future tech there, but it doesn’t make people feel good thinking that MS could listen and record anything said near this machine. The UI looks amazingly fast, which is a huge plus. The media center aspect of it (which they talked a lot about) lets you switch from game, music, tv, internet, phone (skype!) instantly. The 360 is crazy slow on switching between areas so this is neat. Getting this all up and running is another question mark. The One has 8 gigs of RAM, but 3 of that is reserved for the OS (partly explains how it switches so fast and keeps multiple apps open at once) but does that mean games will only have 5 gigs of RAM to work with? 3 gigs is a lot to lose in that regard.

They say nothing is locked down yet and that’s pretty clear with every contradictory answer. It’s stupid that the company making this thing don’t really know how it’s going to work yet. So now MS is neck deep in a PR hole that has got to have a lot of people over there concerned about their jobs. If they don’t pull of some magic at E3, this thing could turn into the next 3DO. I giant box that pretty much collects dust on a store shelf.

They got some serious long hours to look forward to over in Seattle until E3. I’m talking all hands on deck to get this thing making sense. People are literally afraid of buying an Xbox One right now. A pariah of plastic! A controversy is sitting in their lap and they have to work to win just about everyone back. That means: make sure this thing is consumer friendly, the penny pinching of this thing sound ludicrous. And show the games. Show A LOT of games people haven’t seen before. Show why it has the Xbox name on it and not the MS Media Center Deluxe Duke. They have to clear up the message they’ve drooled out. Odds are accounts will work just like Steam, PSN and Live. Sign into your account and you’ll have full access to your content. This mess can’t be as dire as it looks now, there is too much at stake. I hope they have some incredible games and game features (why should I pay for XBL Gold?) to show because Sony and Nintendo (!) are licking their chops waiting to steal away Xbox users. They’ve said they were holding on to games for E3 and not to panic about it, I really hope they meant it.

The Next Xbox

Games, Tech

In 2 days the next xbox will be shown to the world. It’ll be 8 years between generations and there is a lot of expectations for Microsoft to meet. Sony has already tipped their hand giving a look at the PS4 and Nintendo is off skipping stones in their own world. Here are my thoughts.

I’m surprised they’ve been able to keep quite for so long on the next xbox. It’s good and bad. The hype and hope is at an all time high, but so are the rumors. If you cruise the message boards, many people are convinced that the roles between MS and Sony have switched. Sony is set to make all the right moves for gamers and MS’s hubris will bring them crashing down into the dirt.

Here are the a few things I think we will definitely see on Tuesday. The actual console. They’ll show the physical box, controller, name the system and a “holiday 2013” release date. The next version of the kinect will also be talked about and it’s going to come with every xbox. The kinect has sold well and is a defining feature for MS, they put a lot of time and money into the tech and I think they’ve been able to greatly improve it in the last 3 years.

With E3 so close, they can’t show everything. They’re going to save some stuff for that press conference, which I think will be many 3rd party games and a real release date with launch titles.

That said, MS needs to be really careful how they approach this. The xbox started as a video game console and has been morphing into a set top box. Those set top box features will continue to grow, but at this point I think they really need to focus on the games portion of the machine. Talk about the guts, how it’s going to make games better. Show and talk about all first party stuff they are working on. Exclusives have fallen by the wayside for the xbox in the passed 2 years or so and MS really needs to drum up that kind of support and dedication to the machine. Give more reasons to get an xbox because the competition has closed all the gaps.

Xbox Live isn’t the draw the used to be. Sony has made some great moves and has improved year over year. MS has raised prices and added things that are available on many other products. Making people pay for stuff that you can get for free elsewhere isn’t a feature. The xbox platform has cemented itself as FPS juggernaut. The Call of Duty fan base is absolutely massive on xbox and pulls all those players in year after year with no effort. People pick up that game on xbox because all their friends play it on xbox. The early start, the much better Live service grabbed those guys in early and kept them there. There was no need for a person to drop hundreds of dollars to switch systems (look at how COD did on the WiiU, the online lobbies are basically a ghost town). That could change during this hardware switch. Then need to get people to stick with Live as their premiere online gaming experience by raising the quality and usefulness of the service in every way.

Xbox Live needs much bigger incentives to stay relevant. The friends list limit will definitely be raised to a huge amount. Paying for multiplayer is beyond lame, you can’t push netflix as something special any more. PS+ is a brilliant idea on Sony’s part. Reward your fans for a higher level of service and loyalty with great incentives. MS has a great thing with Xbox Music, but it’s completely worthless on the xbox. There is so much competition in the streaming music space that it’s hard to tear anyone away from the ecosystem they already use. Without paying for Gold AND a Xbox Music sub, you can’t use the Music service. It’s just empty, useless windows sitting in front of you. That service works on very little, it’s an incentive for Windows 8 and it needs to be an incentive on Xbox. It’s a cool and useful service that no one even thinks about because it’s behind so many walls. You get Gold, you should get full access to Music. Spotify is perfectly usable for free on PC for crying out loud. They should get it to stream music through the machine regardless of what you are doing on the box, don’t confine people to having just the Music app open, think multitasking. It makes it much more useful. MS has to bring Live to another level. Give big discounts, prizes, exclusives to your paying fan base. They love it and will feed into your eco system.

They also better learn from the RROD fiasco. Don’t build a piece of junk. I know that regardless of what they put out, I ain’t touching one for at least 6 months to make sure it’s not another faulty machine. They took a beating in the press, loss billions in repairs, they cannot afford to get through another piece of junk scenario. Make sure that thing is reliable before it goes out! Stress test the hell out of it and FIX what is wrong from the start!

I don’t expect to see much difference in the controller and I think they’d be wise to hold back on the “extra” feature talk for E3. Talk about a lot of games, it’s social features and a few apps like Skype and stuff that makes it a complete ecosystem. Be VERY clear about what does and doesn’t need a internet connection to work. I don’t think it’s going to be as doom and gloom as many thing because the internet infrastructure around the country, let alone around the world, varies greatly. It’s just not reliable or equal just a few towns apart. They’d lose a huge potential userbase if everything has to be online to work. I expect some sort of cable TV integration like google TV, but I don’t know how many people are look for or looking forward to that. Leave those big details for E3, win over your core video gamers first.

Head returns!

Music

Last year Brian “Head” Welch played on stage with Korn for the first time since 2005. It was a sign that their relationship was returning. Then a few months ago, it was announced that Head would be playing a few summer festival dates with Korn in Europe (with his band Love and Death in tow). Then came the US tour dates, which kick off their entire summer tour (I’m going May 22nd, couldn’t pass up seeing a show with Head back).

Now it’s official, Head has rejoined Korn! He’s been recording new material with them since January! The sample in the video above makes me happy beyond words. It is so beautiful, I can hardly believe it. 10 years since he was on an album and 8 since he left the band. There have been little bread crumbs sprinkled about for a return. I was happy to hear that he had reconnected with Fieldy around 2010 and slowly began mending bridges with JD and Munk. The guys I had listened to and loved since high school were becoming friends again. Head playing a song on stage, then a video from producer Ross Robinson saying exciting things were happening for Korn. Now this teaser video of the sounds that are to come? I had high hopes for the album before, with Don Gilmore producing and the early word that it was going to be a return to a more guitar focus sound over Path of Totality’s experimental dubstep fusion. Now with Head back in the lab with Munky? My two favorite guitarists creating together again? This album could knock me right out of my moon boots!