Kick Ass the Review

Movies

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the movies and Kick Ass brought me back to the picture house.

Based on the Mark Millar (many Batman books, Sin City…) comic, Kick Ass is the story of Dave who is your average kid who wonders why no one has tried to be a real super hero. One day he gets the courage to try it out, makes a costume out of a wet suit and proceeds to get his ass kicked.

This movie was a ton of fun, just what I was looking to watch. Funny, exciting, crude and rude. There’s a solid dose of violence (that has been hyped up much higher than it really is) and the action is really well done. I really enjoyed the direction and cinematography. The movie looks great outside of some rough blue screen and CG, but there are some great transitions and set ups. The 3D comic back story of Big Daddy and Hit Girl was terrific, the fight choreography was really well done and one of the better soundtracks I can remember in quite some time.

Kick Ass is just short of 2 hours long and the story hits a lull half way through. But the characters really kept me engaged, the entire cast was really good. And that includes Nicolas Cage! His resume is filled with craters but he was really enjoyable here, his Adam West homage as Big Daddy was brilliant. He had a real chemistry Chloe Moretz who plays his 11 year old daughter Hit Girl. They are in every major action scene together and their last one was actually really touching at the end of all the carnage (which oddly enough had both the best and worst looking sections of the movie). I’ve never heard of Aaron Johnson (a bloke from the UK) before but I gotta say I’m a real fan now. His American accent is perfect and he made Dave into a completely realistic and likeable person. Dave isn’t a complete nerd, he’s not obnoxious and I could really relate to him. When he gets beat up you feel sorry for him and when he gets the girl you’re totally psyched for him. And Christopher Mintz-Plasse (of Superbad fame) is great, as always, as Chris/Red Mist.

Kick Ass is one of the best movies I’ve seen in awhile. It takes the standard comic book conventions and mixes them up to keep it new and interesting. The characters are great, the action fun, everything I really look for in this type of movie. It’s been getting shit reviews from old critics, but this movie isn’t meant for them. It certainly isn’t perfect. It pushes for shock value that often times doesn’t work, but it’s a small complaint in an otherwise terrific movie. The audience I was with really liked it. I’m thinking this is going to have a terrific opening weekend and beyond as the release was timed perfectly.

A lull

Games, Music, TV

Had a bit of a lull recently, I’ve seen a few movies on DVD, but none really worth mentioning. They haven’t been bad per say, just not anything worth writing about.

TV has been going strong, Spartacus finished, but I haven’t watched it yet. Fringe is back and is on a roll, been a great season. Fox really needs to stop taking shows off for weeks at a time and starting them up at seemingly random. Cable always crushes network TV channels in this regard. They worst thing you can do is make a popular show stop in the middle of a season. Whatever reason they have for it is completly outdated and does nothing to help shows. You get a fan base and you keep them happy. People are way too busy and there are way too many options today to make a show vanish for a month. And forget about moving an established show to a different day, that is another nightmare. Fox has shot too many shows in the head that way.

A bit of a lull game wise this month, but May is going to be unbelievable. It might be the biggest May to date for games, it’s looking like a holiday release schedule. I think I’m going to make a release list to show how crazy this summer is going to be.

Korn III: Remember Who You Are looks to have a release date now. July 13th, 2010. Later than I hoped, but that is a day before Mayhem Festival kicks off so the timing is right. I think a lot still has to be done to get it ready for release despite the album being done. The single, “Oildale” looks to hit the radio on May 3rd so that’s something to look forward to. I really want to hear the studio cut.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand, “Revelations”

TV

With one episode left, just about every secret was let out of the bag on this episode. Some of the best fight choreography was on display here along with the brilliant writing, pacing and acting.

This show has been like a runaway freight train since episode 2, the premiere was basically just the train loading at the station. I can’t wait to see how they end this season, it’s been an amazing journey.

What I’m watching update

Movies, Music, TV

Last weeks episode of Lost was good, the problem is it was like 3 weeks late. More episodes like that please.

Spartacus! So good it makes me happy just thinking about it. Something important, major and intense happens every single episode. The whole show really revolves around politics, from the slaves to the politicians themselves. Gathering secret info on others, looking for outs out of problems, revenge moves, upper crust political movement, you name it.

Great fight choreography, sexiness all over the place. There’s 3 episodes left, I see Crixus taking a huge loss next that will unite him with Spartacus again, where they’ll take the steps to bust out of the Ludus that imprisons them.

Breaking Bad continues it’s title as best show on TV with it’s second episode of the season. The direction is really fantastic, film quality really. Couple that with brilliant writing, acting and careful editing and music decisions make this show tough to beat. The tension for the last 5 minutes was incredible.

I finished Bayonetta for 360 as well. Good action game, if a bit long. Looks good, but I hate the monster and boss design. Just ugly and stupid. Controls like a dream though, it’s worth playing.

What’s on TV?

TV

With Nip/Tuck done, the show is officially out of my rotation. Now it’s Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, The Office, Archer (which just finished it’s first season, great adult cartoon). I’m still digging Americas Best Dance Crew, this season has had a very good mix of dance styles feels like a better season than last. ABDC has 3 or 4 episodes left now. FX has started their new show, Justified and I think I’m a fan. U.S Marshall played by Timothy Olyphant gets moved back to his home town to lay down the law. In typical FX fashion it has fantastic actors, writing and production values.

The Ricky Gervaise Show on HBO is a hoot, it’s his podcast animated. HBO also started airing The Pacific which is a war mini-series much like Band of Brothers. This time it’s about the time(s) just after the Pearl Harbor attacks. Don’t get a good feeling for any of the characters yet, seems to be a slower build.

I’m still with Lost, it’s not as gung-ho as everyone expected and wanted but I think it’s still enjoyable. I’ve stuck with it so long, I gotta see how they end it. The next episode is about Richard who at this point is the most mysterious character, we know next to nothing about him. Should be a lot of reveals. Spartacus on Starz is far and away my favorite show on TV right now. It’s basically 300 on TV and it has it all. Action, mystery, violence, nudity, cursing, gore. Everything I love pretty much. The acting is so good, and the writing is just out of this world. I can never guess what’s going to happen. The political backstabbing is off the charts. Liars and thieves constantly making moves to one up each other and the shit storm just keeps getting bigger and bigger. The 9th episode aired on Friday and was titled “Whore”. Never has there been a more appropriate title. I haven’t been knocked retarded from the end of a show since the first 2 seasons of Nip/Tuck! A second season has already been given the greenlight so that is awesome news. I’m constantly amazed at the momemetum that Spartacus has been able to maintain. The worst episode was the first one, they’ve been crafting this masterpiece of a story ever since without missing a beat. But the old champion enters the ring tonight!

Breaking Bad starts Season 3 tonight on AMC! So excited, it’s been a long break after last seasons stunner of a finale. So much to watch it’s crazy. Fringe starts back up in April too which also starts the months of awesome movies coming out and May is packed with AAA video games. Some crazy entertainment coming up in the next few months. This summer should be fantastic.

Quick hit movie reviews

Movies

I’ve been slacking on my reporting duties, so let’s catch up.

Zombieland-A fun zombie movie. Very simple, 2 months after a outbreak, Columbus makes his way from his college dorm in Texas though zombie land to get back home in Columbus, OH. He’s made it so far by living by a strict rule set, like good cardio for running, beware of bathrooms, double tap, buckle up and don’t be the hero. He meets 3 other people on his trip (woody harrelson rules and Emma Stone is gorgeous) home where they team up to survive. It’s not as violent or gory as I thought it would be, but it’s still good. Fun characters, fun scenes and one of the greatest cameos ever by Bill Murray. Great rainy day movie.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the third movie in the franchise. It’s a good movie, it continues the traditions set by the last movie(s). It’s cute, funny, and really well animated. Simon Pegg’s character is probably my favorite addition.

Pandorum– one of the better sci-fi movies recently made I think. Two crew members on a large space ship get woken up from deep sleep a long time later than they were supposed to. The soon find that they aren’t the only ones moving about the ship on their quest to figure out where they’re going and what happened to the thousands of people that were supposed to be on board with them. The story takes some new twists, it’s well directed and acted. Convincing visual FX and fantastic set design make this a creepy movie. I recommend it.

District 13: Ultimatum is the sequel to 2004’s District 13. The first is famous for introducing the world at large to parkour, or “free running” which became a huge trend. Think Jackie Chan’s famous moves for climbing and moving over objects in fast and unorthodox gymnastic movements. District 13 is one section of a city that is a constant battle zone between politics and gangs. Here, the two unlikely heroes from the first movie team up again to stop the secret service’s plan to wipe out the 5 gangs that control the sector in one devastating and sneaky plan. Some really wild action scenes, though one or two more would have been nice. You watch this movie manly for the stunts, but the story is well done and it’s a well made movie. It’s French and I chose to keep the original language with English subtitles.

Ong Bak 2 It took it’s time getting to these shores, but Tony Jaa continues his run as the best action star today. Forget the story, just fast forward through any talking. It meanders, makes no sense and just gets in the way of the insane fight scenes. More weapon work than the first movie, Tony Jaa is the new Jackie Chan. He’s just amazing. This is simply an action scene show case, plain and simple.

Chocolate– I have no idea why this action movie is called Chocolate. This one is a slow boil, it takes awhile for the movie to break into a run, but when it does! Oh man. This is the story of an autistic girl (Zen) who happens to have a gift. She can learn martial arts just by watching movies. And her favorite movies? Tony Jaa of course! Zen’s mother gets cancer and with the help her friend they find out that people around town owe her a lot of money! So Zen goes around looking to reclaim those debts and no one seems to be willing to pay up. Enter ass kicking Mai Tai fight scenes! This girl is insane! She’s right there in Tony Jaa’s shoes doing crazy stunts and beating the stuffing out of every stuntman they could find. Stick with it, the last half of the movie is practically all action. Great direction, very easy to see and good use of slow-mo.

Gaming update

Games

Here’s been what I’ve been playing:

Mass Effect 2- Finished it in about 35 hours. Fantastic game, I imported my character from the first game to continue the story so that made it a bit cooler. Coming across people (or “beings” I guess is a better general term to use) from the first game and seeing what my choice led to were really cool. It’s a streamlined game from the first. They tossed the Mako ship sections which I greatly appreciated and they got rid of the “RPG statistic” under pinnings of the combat system. That really doesn’t come into a great deal of a difference at higher character/skill level, but it makes the beginning of the game much smoother. Also gone is all of the garbage pickups that did nothing but take up space and they made the necessary tweaks to the interface. The feeling of combat is much, much improved. Sound effects, impact, easy of use makes every fight fun and stategic. They also gave the game engine an incredible amount of polish so it runs unbelievably well. Very little pop up, solid framerate, reasonable load times, fantastic texture and model work. It really feels like a unique sci-fi universe. Morality wise I made choice based on how I think I really would if I was Captain Nick Shepard. I was more good than evil, with some devious choices made when I felt really necessary. I’m anxious to see what goes down in the 3rd game. One of the best games of the year.

Bioshock 2- The original is one of my favorite games of all time. Fantastic story and one of the most atmospheric games made to date. I love Rapture. Now I didn’t have high hopes for the sequel, but I’m pleased to say it stands right next to the original. It takes a hit story wise because it’s not the breath of fresh air that Bioshock gave us in 2007 and it brings us back to an already established location. But, you do see all new places in Rapture and the story they came up with is very strong. 10 years after the first game, their is a lot to take in and explore. All the changes they made were really for the benefit. Better hacking game, greater weapon selection (rocket harpoons are a scream), duel wielding weapon/plasmid, video style research just make the gameplay better. The production values still hit the mark with excellent visuals and sound work. I didn’t check out multiplayer, but I highly recommend this, had a blast with it.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood- A Wild West FPS essentially. Gave this a spin before Red Dead Redemption comes out, it’s a really good rental. It starts really slow, the first stage is rather boring. But the game picks up as you progress. Playing as the brothers is really fun, I really like their dialog and the story is some classic Western stuff (war, betrayal, women, guns, redemption, revenge). Looks pretty good, controls well, 2 play styles based on which brother you choose to play as and there is a lot of location variety.

Starcraft II- Fundamentally SC in High Def which is what it should be at the very least. Looks and sounds amazing, I have to give this more play time to really say anything about it. I’m horrific at it, getting stomped is the worst.

(500) Days of Summer the Review

Movies

(500) Days of Summer has one of my favorite actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt so I have a certain expectation for him. Expectations have been met as he’s fantastic as Tom and he plays off of Zoey Deschanel (Summer) really well.

(500) is a relationship movie, one where the boy falls in love with the girl, but the girl doesn’t fall in love with the boy. The 500 days catalogs their time together, but it doesn’t play out in sequence. It’s edited so that we enter the story when they’ve broken up and jump to parts of the relationship out of order. It’s kinda like how we remember things in pieces, out of order. And for Tom, since he gets dumped, he remembers all the good parts first before thinking about where the warning signs started to show up.

The story is really well told, it’s told honestly. You can tell it came from the writers real life experiences…it’s sweet, it’s sad, it’s happy, it’s funny and it isn’t fair. JGL and Zoey really sell the movie as a convincing couple. The first time they meet, their courtship, their breakup all feels real and genuine. Editing is spot on and the soundtrack is finely chosen.

I really liked it. About 90 minutes long it’s the perfect run time, I’d recommend it to anyone.

Nip/Tuck – Hiro Yoshimuri

TV

S7E9
“You know I always wanted this to last forever.”

The final episode was a good one. It avoided doing a over dramatic, soap opera style murder spree or natural catastrophe to kill off characters. It was really like saying goodbye to friends. I knew Sean and Christian wouldn’t, and couldn’t last. It looked like death was going to be the only way for them to split and I was partially right. Christian was on his way to killing Sean eventually. Sean gave up, reserved himself to what he thinks was his only choice: tit jobs, booze and Christian standing nearby.

Surprisingly Christian cut the strings. He has to live with what he did to Kimber for the rest of his life (although saying he “eats souls” is pretty over the top) and he can’t let the same fate happen to Sean. He’s gotta push one love away so they can be happy and live. Their final patient, Mr. Yoshimuri was the mirror to Christian. In his golden years the guy was having fun, doing what made him happy, unflinching to the moment he died. It’s really impossible for Christian to really change, we’ve seen it time and time again. Christian has kept Sean from changing, from doing what he wants to do. Now I’m unsure if Sean is going to raise the child Ava left behind, but at the very least his new life has started.

Now, good old Matt! The true train wreck of the family. He can’t handle life by himself, he has to have a dominate person watch him and tell him what to do. He knows it. He can’t fight it. It was surprising that he actually managed to come up with a convincing argument for Ava to let him tag along. Who knows, maybe the two pieces of shit will be able to live together (doubt it). Matt McNamara will go down as one of the shadiest TV characters of all time. The amount of awful things he’s done is staggering when you think about it.

While there was a lot of “Hey! This is the last show!” moments (like the revolution around the last dinner table) I’m happy with general feel at the end. You know that everyone is still going, it’s just that this saga is over. While everyone is going their separate ways, they could still be in contact with each other. Some people have changed and for the most part there isn’t a smoldering wreckage left behind in their relationships.

They of course did get away with murder. Dumping that last woman, the investigation surrounding Escobar was barely a mention. A big sticking point for me is that we never got a sense for Sean’s relationship with his two youngest kids. Especially Conner who was more of an after thought since his hand surgeries were complete. The kids always took a back seat on the show (Matt did get a lot of screen time) but the last scene where the kids leave dinner, it was like “everyone give the extras a round of applause!”. I never got the feeling that Sean would miss Conner at all since he never saw the kid.

Nip/Tuck has had it’s ups and downs to say the least, but it’s still one of my favorite TV shows ever made. I’m going to watch the first 2 seasons again soon to walk down memory lane again. While it’s time is certainly done, I am going to miss looking forward to new episodes.