OMG! The Cataclysm truly is upon us. Feralmedic dinged 80 oh… about 20 minutes ago. Less than 100g at the AH (and stealing some boots from the Guild Bank, thanks Mal!) later and she’s not an embarrassment. She was still rocking a cloth belt from Heroic Shadow Labs. I’m ashamed.
As I review pt1, I realize this is more than a wish list than a prediction. Michael Jai White is not the next Stallone, though he should be.
Anyway, let’s take a look behind the camera. Aside from Spielberg, who in the old guard is really producing quality work these days? As I thought about it though, I realized that the new crop of directors is already here with several hits under their belt.
Christopher Nolan – Batman Begins. The Prestige. The Dark Knight. Inception. Ok, I haven’t seen Inception yet, but word has it the movie doesn’t suck. Nolan’s going to get the Oscars in this list of mine.
Robert Rodriguez – From Dusk till Dawn. Desperado. Sin City. Planet Terror. Who doesn’t lover Robert Rodriguez movies. C’mon. It’s almost enough to make me add Spy Kids tot he Netflix que. Almost.
Zack Snyder – I know a lot of people get irritated with Snyder’s slo-mo fetish, get over it. This guy’s got the goods. His first feature was the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and he followed up with 300. While upon repeat viewings I’ve found Watchmen a bit to slow, I understand Legend of the Guardians is great and Sucker Punk promises asskicking babes. Snyder’s eventually going to supplant Michael Bay as event action king, trading explosions for slo-mo.
Peter Jackson – Eh… possibly. Jackson’s still a bit of a wildcard in my book. Yes, LotR ruled, but I think of it as one big movie rather 3 seperate sucesses. Given a blank check, he fumbled his next project. King Kong was to long and to boring. More Kong vs T-Rexes please.
Other possibilities - Alexandre Aja (Hills Have Eyes ‘06, Mirrors), Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Replacement Killers, King Arthur – hey I liked it), Jay Chandrasekhar (Beerfest, Super Troopers – I love Broken Lizard)
Notable Exclusions – Uwe Boll
I happened to be running my Horde pally into Thrall’s throne room to train just as that event I posted about yesterday was starting. Kinda cool to see it in person. I do think it’s a little weird Sylvanus, Cairne and… whoever’s in charge of the Blood Elves wasn’t there, but ok.
As I was watching, something occured to me… Garrosh has a really small head. Like, freakishly small. The model they used is just tiny. Like all the other orcs have softballs for their head, Garrosh has a golfball. Garrosh, hated by all, has apparently had a run in with a voodoo head shrinker.
Wait… Vol’jin??
Blizz released the intro to Cataclysm. I noticed the other day while fishing (shutup) there was an Earthquake in Western Plaguelands, it took a few minutes for me to realize it was Deathwing having a temper tantrum. Of course, as the video shows Deathwing’s Tantrum causes… well, watch.
This is apparently Live if anyone has a Horde character and wants to hang around Thrall’s throne room for awhile. Essentially Thrall decides something's up, with nature acting all funky (incoming Cataclysm!). Thrall leaves for Nagrand to consult the spirits there, they saw the same events happen in Outland and may help here. Thrall leaves Garrosh in charge with instructions to listen to his advisers, Cairne and Vol’jin. Garrosh is not actually made Warchief, it’s clear Thrall is still in charge and will be returning. If that last AFTER Deathwing arrives…
I saw Red this weekend and along with The Expendables this summer Hollywood seems to be acknowledging that it’s biggest stars are getting up there in years. Don’t get me wrong, several while old aren’t geriatric and still have a few good films in them. Some though (Morgan Freeman I’m looking at you) are pushing 70 or beyond. So, who’s gonna step up and be the next generation of stars? No, I’m not talking about Shia Labeouf.
Timothy Olyphant – I’ve been a fan of Olyphant since his role as the drug dealer that seduced Katie Holmes in Go. Since then he’s had an impressive B-list run while never quite making to the A-list. Staring in Deadwood, Hitman, Live Free or Die Hard, he’s currently staring in FX’s Justified. I can’t complain about his work and I kinda hope nothing changes.
Michael Jai White – I’m not sure what it is about this guy. His work so far has been all over the place in quality. He just oozes charisma and potential to me, and I want to see him in more mainstream work. Give him Arnold and Stallone’s job, The Rock obviously isn’t eager to take it.
Natalie Portman – Ok, so this is a gimme, but she’s only 29 so she definitely fits as the new generation, next.
Maggie Grace – You may remember me remember me referring to her as ‘Leggy Blonde Bitch’ from Lost. Grace seems to be going through the paying dues phase of her career with several small roles under her belt and quite a few projects in the works. Plus, her legs go up to HERE.
Paula Patton – She co-stared with Denzel in the underrated Deja Vu and recently stared in Precious. She reminds me of Halle Berry both in looks and with her ability/willingness to tackle different genres.
Chris Evans – Scheduled arrival July 22, 2011. Unless Captain America fails Chris is here to stay.
Other possibilities include - Joseph Gordon-Levitt (great buzz though I haven’t seem him to comment), Gemma Arterton (nothing negative per se, but I almost feel she’s being groomed to much like Shia Labeouf), Chris Pine (only seen as Kirk, but good fun, let’s see him in a few action comedies), Zoe Saldana
Notable exclusions – Megan Fox, Shia Lebeouf, Michael Cera
Tune in later for a look behind the camera!
If you happen to have Pokemon HeartGold or SoulSilver and a Wi-Fi connection, you’ll definitely want to access the Mystery Gift function by the end of the month. You’ll get your very own MEW! That’s right, Nintendo is giving away the cute little bastard to anyone with Wi-Fi, don’t miss out.
I got the patch installed pretty late so I didn’t get a lot of play time. Still, I setup a new talent tree and hopped in a random to how things go. Got dropped in a Uk. Then WoW crashed. After logging back in some asshat in the random was spamming ‘go go go’. So uh, we go’d.
First pull went ok, you know the two guys? No problem. Second pull, the one with the 8 guys? Yeah, that didn’t go so well. It’s at that point I realized consecrate is now on a 30s cooldown and still last 10 seconds. SO instead of being up 100% of the time, it’s up 33% of the time. I also no longer have Seal of Command and Seal of Truth (Vengeance) only affects primary target now. Holy Shield no longer exist, nor does Blessing of Sanctuary – both contributors to AOE threat. Hammer of the Righteous DOES still affect multiple targets, and now without a 3 target limit, but it does less damage and shares a cooldown with Crusader Strike. Overall I feel nerfed and there’s a distinct lack of… something missing from the rotation. Holy shield is gone and consecrate had it’s CD tripled.
A couple specific notes:
Ok, enough bitching. I’ll check out more tomorrow.
I keep seeing articles recently about Avatar Collector’s Edition. And I keep thinking of Avatar: The Last Airbender, not the space smurfs. Pisses me off.
The Force Unleashed II is coming out the end of the month and I’m trying to decide where to get it. Now, I’m gonna get it. I liked 1, and all the little annoying things in 1 are supposed to be fixed. So, yeah.
If I get it at gamestop preorder gets me a Maulkiller skin (Darth Maul/Starkiller hybrid) and a silver lightsaber crystal (reduce Force power used and looks f#$%ing badass).
Amazon has a preorder bonus of 2 bonus levels and $10 my next game purchase. I also already have $20 off from preordering Halo Reach, so it’ll be quite a bit cheaper there, and making the next game cheap and theoretically the next game etc… Nasty loop there Amazon has, isn’t it.
I’m leaning towards Amazon due to the cost factor. In all likelihood the ‘exclusive’ Maulkiller skin and saber crystal (silver! What’s more badass than a silver saber?) will be DLC, and prolly for less than the saved $20 from Amazon.
Preorder bonuses really piss me off. I shouldn’t have to put this much though into where I’m going to get something. War for Cybertron made you chose which extra character you wanted – Shockwave, Jazz or.. some other dude. Things got really stupid when Star Trek Online came out. Now I didn’t get STO, but if I did, some of those looked pretty damn good. I’d be pissed missing out on the other options.
I think preorder bonuses should have no effect on the game itself. Give me a soundtrack, a mini hint book, a comic or a t-shirt or something. These options all cost more than a code to redeem DLC, but oh well. If you want to stand out from the other guy, stand out.
**** Full disclosure **** Free Juggernaut for Ultimate Alliance 2 was badass. Also while I didn’t pre-order Batman: Arkham Asylum, Gamestop did have extra codes laying around I got all available DLC for free. But you know, I did go into Gamestop to buy Batman not Walmart. Maybe they don’t have to bribe people after all.
One thing that always amazes me is how the exact same song can be completely different depending on who’s singing and mixing the tempo up a bit. One of the best examples of this phenomena is probably Fly Me to the Moon, a song I’m familiar with from Neon Genesis Evangelion and most people think Frank Sinatra wrote.
The Sinatra Mix
The Eva Mix
My favorite and most recent – The Climax Mix from Bayonetta
File this under ‘This is going to be awesome if they don’t fuck it up!’. Announced today, Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) will be directing the new Superman movie. Writing credits go to David Goyer (Batman Begins, Dark Knight) and Christopher Nolan (think he did something, don’t remember though). Nolan is also producing.
I figure we got story covered with the Batman people, but Snyder directly? This makes me excited. Snyder definitely knows action, something for some reason Superman movies don’t have. I want to see Darkseid or Zod or Brainiac or a mental Captain Marvel. Damnit, I want to see Superman go toe to toe with someone and feel pain, from POWER not from a Kryptonite shiv (though I’ll forgive a shiv if Lobo’s wielding).
Also, Snyder gets flak for using slomo to much, but I propose this. The entire Superman movie will be in slomo, Superman just moves so fast it looks normal speed most of the time.
I found Krypteria from an iTunes reccomendation after liking Nightwish. I liked it. However, it was months later playing around on YouTube before I realized the lead singer is absolutely gorgeous. I somehow feel iTunes should’ve disclosed this information.
Seven Samurai (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Pre-order is 36.49
Seven Samurai (The Criterion Collection) [DVD] is 38.49
Prices at Amazon for Seven Samurai. Something screwy is goin’ on.
I don’t know why I decided to watch this. I mean, it’s a video game adaptation (sorta) directed by Uwe Boll. This shittiest director ever. Least that’s the rep, I’ve ever actually seen one of his movies before.
Postal is surprisingly watchable however. It’s one of those movies that so stupid it’s good, if you’re in the right mood. Or high. I highly recommend being high. It’s entertaining in a Troma Films kinda way. Noone would ever say The Toxic Avenger is high art, but in the right mood it is entertaining.
Postal has several scenes that are just laugh out loud funny, and most of them are also offensive as hell. If you’re insulted easily do not watch this. Subject matter includes 9/11 highjackers in flight discussing how many virgins they’ll get afterwards, Verne Troyer getting raped by 1,000 monkeys (yes, you read that right) and Osama bin Laden attending a motivational speaker to learn how to better motivate his people. Frankly once the gunfire starts (you know, the part from the game) the films drags for another 30 minutes. First hour though has sporadic moments of hilarity.
3 Stars – My Review
2 Stars – Netflix Prediction
