Lazy Movie Review: Kick-Ass

Kick ass.

Seriously, great movie. Story follows hapless nothing Dave as he dons a costumes and fights crime to embarrassing results. Also entering the show are Hit Girl and Big Daddy who skip the embarrassing jump right to the results. Funny and quasi realistic (Kick-Ass’s first crime fighting adventure sends him to the hospital). I eagerly await the inevitable sequel.

Huge stand out performance by Chloe Moretz who literally steals every scene she’s in as Hit Girl. Swords, guns, flashlights even, this pint-sized lil’ ninja will kill you with relish any number of ways. One paticular exchange bu Kick-Ass’s friends upon seeing her in action made the audience laugh out loud:
”I think I’m in love.”
”Dude, she’s like 11.”
”I’ll wait for her.”
While I personally didn’t  get any creepy vibes with her (I was ogling Lyndsy Fonseca, Kick'-Ass’s GF), here’s to hoping her career follows Natalie Portman and not Lindsay Lohan.

Random Thoughts

Is it racist Mr. T’s character in the animated movie ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ is black?

Whedon directs The Avengers?

Latest news seems to indicate Joss Whedon has won The Avengers. Honestly I’m a little torn. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joss. Buffy’s awesome, FIrefly was awesome, Serenity was awesome, Dr Horrible… well, NPH makes awesome and understatement. I haven’t really seen Dollhouse or Angel so I wont comment. Whedon has perhaps more geek street cred than anyone – offhand I can only think of a few coming close, Tina Fey, Natalie Portman and Betty White. (Don’t fuck with Betty White).

However, Whedon has made only one feature film. Granted it was Serenity, but this the freakin’ Avengers were talking about. He’s not dealing with a cast he got to know and work with during Firefly, he’s dealing with huge stars and their egos. Serenity had a budget of about 40 mil, Avengers will be 100+. It’s a realisitc fear that he may be overwhelmed. Obviously I’m not syaing turn it over to Michael Bay, but… gah, don’t fuck this dude or your nerd cred will vanish and you may too. We know things.

Shockwave is my new desktop wallpaper

Promo art for War for Cybertron. Micheal Bay take notes: This is how you update character designs. See how he’s got robot parts and wires and servos – and yet he’s also got armor plating keeping the basic original design.  I look at this and I know it’s Shockwave.

Lazy DVD Review: 30 Rock

In the last day and a half I’ve watched season 1 and 2 of 30 Rock. Um… great show.

Excellent show all around with great writing. The episodes are all self contained though carry forward some plot points so watching in order is advisable. Season 2 has throwaway comments about stuff that happened in season 1 creating a sense of continuity.

Tina Fey is as always awesome. Baldwin is cool and you gotta love Kenneth. Here’s to hoping he hooks up with Cerie. Giggle.

There are two issues that do annoy me with the show though. One is any comment about at Fey’s character being dumpy or unattractive. The character it seems, is intended to be a bit of an ugly duckling, though smart and capable. Frankly, Tina Fey is way to smokin’ for this. Maybe if Rachel Dratch was the main character instead of a frequent guest star…

Also, Tracy Morgan annoys the hell out of me. I can’t think of a single thing he’s done that I liked.

Anyway, barring any shark jumping I’ll have season 3 finished soon.

‘Beating’ Games

I was playing Dante’s Inferno and I came across with optional guy that I can punish or absolve his sins for some bonus souls (cash) and XP. I couldn’t reach him though due to a really tricky jump and after almost a full hour trying I gave up and moved on. This means I wont be getting the higher end trophies. Now normally I don’t care to much about trophies, in fact I wish there was way to delete them so games I no longer have don’t show up and (to me anyway) clutter things up. I had however reviewed the trophy list for Dante’s Inferno and though it all looked very doable (I don’t consider myself a particularly good player) so I’m a little annoyed the platinum is out of reach now.

This got me thinking about how I’d consider the game beat. By getting a platinum trophy, or simply by ‘beating’ the game. Apparently I’ll have to go with beating until my jumping skills drastically improve and I go for another play through.

This line of thought got me thinking about how many games I’ve actually beaten, finished to the credits and all that jazz. Not very many I realized as I went through the list, and it’s been awhile. I realized thinking about that list, RPGs get played the most, but I always seem to burn out on them, after what seems like 80% through and then just don’t get back into them. Action games I’m just not very good at so the list is short, and old.

Games I’ve beaten:

• Contra – NES – yay Kanomi code!
• Metroid
• Legend of Zelda - NES
• Dragon Warrior – NES
• Shining in the Darkness – Genesis
• Phantasy Star 4 – Genesis
• Lunar – Sega CD
• Symphony of the Night – PSX
• Metal Gear Solid - PSX
• Pokemon Blue – Gameboy
• Pokemon Silver – Gameboy Color
• Devil May Cry – PS2 – EasyAuto Mode, game took pity on me
• Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance – PS2
• Civilization 2 – PC
• Alpha Centauri – PC
• Diablo - PC
• Star Wars: Rebellion – PC
• StarCraft – PC – with codes, last 3 ‘Toss fights are impossible!
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 – PS3

Sigh, seems like a fairly short list considering I’ve been a gamer for some 20odd years. Prolly a few I’m forgetting, I hope.

I  will say though, looking at that list, I think I’m most proud of Phantasy Star 4. That was an awesome game. Late in the Genesis lifespan it was one of the last gems for the system with awesome graphics and superb gameplay. And the story, I still remember Alys dying and the party leader shifting to Chaz. WTF?! A game character dying and staying dead? Blew my mind. We traveled to multiple planets and ended up killing an evil that’d then plaguing the star system for thousands of years. PS4 was one of those insane cartridges that cost like 90 bucks, I think I ended up renting it 3 times in a row to finish.

Update: I remember Civilization 2 and Alpha Centauri

Nintendo is racist

Pokemon Black/White to hit Fall-ish 2010. In Japan anyway.