Pleasantville - Movie Review

I thought I'd try something different this time. If you thought I was annoying before, wait until you actually have to look at me and listen to me talk! Here are my thoughts on the 1998 comedy-drama, Pleasantville.

Let me know what you think!

My Top 10 Favorite Video Games

It has been a while since my last post. Blame my full-time job, school commitments, and my weekly tabletop gaming sessions. But just in case people actually DO read this thing, I thought I'd take some time on my day off to put something quick up, just for you. So here's a rundown of my top 10 favorite video games of all time, in no particular order. I did my best to sample different genres. I could probably fill a top 10 list from action games, survival horror, platformers, and so on, but I figured you might enjoy some variety.

Comix Zone: Sega Genesis

Sketch because he's an artist, Turner because he turns pages. Get it?

"Look at me, Sketch -- I'm just a drawing! But I'll be free soon enough... as soon as you're dead!" Oh wow, this one's fun. You are Sketch Turner, an appropriately-named comic artist living in New York. One night, lightning strikes the pages of the comic you're drawing, bringing the villain Mortus to life. Mortus manifests in the real world, but can't actually harm you, so he sends you into the comic world in an attempt to kill you. As Sketch, you move from panel to panel, across the pages of the comic, in the hope of escaping. The game takes full advantage of the format, offering branching paths within each level, meta-commentary by Sketch, and a few interesting weapons and power-ups (the paper airplane is a personal favorite). It's only six levels, but it's got a wicked difficulty curve to it. It's been featured in several Sega compilations over the years and it's available for digital download on every modern console, so I recommend it highly for a fun afternoon.

Max Payne: PC/PS2/Xbox

My favorite line from the whole game at 3:12.

"When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, time slows down." You've seen my thoughts on the recent 3rd installment, but the original entry of the series has given me many fond gaming memories. A film-noir detective story mixed with copious amounts of John Woo inspired gunplay, Max Payne is the story of a man on the run, framed for murder, at war with the mob and a shadowy government conspiracy concerning a new drug on the streets. What gives you an edge over your enemies is Bullet-Time, the power to slow down time and dodge incoming bullets. This was revolutionary for it's time, in development BEFORE The Matrix popularized the concept. As a young child watching a demo on display at Radio Shack, I was in full-on fanboy mode from day one. The game had many amazing set piece moments, with special mention for the finale in which Max fights his way to the top of a skyscraper, mowing down dozens of enemy goons and dodging a pursuing gunship, only to knock a radar tower down on top of it at the game's end. Even now, over a decade later, I still go back to this game and replay it for the sheer action-packed gameplay.

System Shock 2: PC

The shotgun is your friend. Mother. Secret lover.

"Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone. Panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect immortal machine?" In making this list, I tried to add a game from every genre. When it came to the FPS adventure category, I considered Bioshock, Deus Ex, Doom, Dead Space (I know it's not first-person, shut up), Amnesia, and several others. Ultimately I came down to System Shock 2, because it arguably constitutes the best aspects of all of those games (and is considered the spiritual ancestor to Bioshock since they share the same developer). Here's the rundown: The year is 2114, 42 years after the events of the original game, in which a rogue AI named SHODAN took over a space station and killed most of its inhabitants before being defeated by an unknown hacker (the protagonist). In this game, you play as a new recruit on-board a military spacecraft escorting another ship that is testing out a brand new Faster-Than-Light engine. You wake up from cryogenic suspension to find that everybody else is either dead or transformed into some sort of zombie-robot. You fight your way across the ship, pursued by the organic hive-mind infestation known as The Many and the renegade AI controlling the ship. You start off with nothing, and have to scrounge up whatever weapons and tools you can to survive, constantly under attack by horrific monsters. When I ran across my first enemy, I had a visceral fear response, as this former-human came running at me with a pipe, attempting to bash my brains in, all the while screaming "I'm Sorry!" and "Please Kill Me!". And let's not forget the spiders...

Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem: Gamecube

May the rats eat your eyes!

"You too, will come to understand Fear, as I have." People accuse Nintendo of being a system for kids, but every now and then they can bust out something very adult. I love survival horror games, and this is one of the best. The story revolves around a quartet of ancient gods who rule over our universe, and an evil book known as the Tome of Eternal Darkness. Your story focuses on Alexandra Roivas, who comes across the book while investigating the murder of her uncle. The book chronicles the journeys of several individuals across history who have all encountered the ancient gods and their influence. Each chapter of the story concerns one of these individuals and takes you to various diverse time periods and locations. This game was one of the first to implement a Sanity level, in which exposure to unusual items and creatures would gradually lower your sanity, which would cause stress in the form of hallucinations and decreased combat effectiveness. I was going to show you a video of all the different sanity effects, but it's best that you discover them on your own. Though for your own sake, Avoid The Bathtub.

Advent Rising: Xbox

Eric Matthews: Savior of Mankind

There is a myth known among many races in the galaxy concerning an ancient and powerful species, prophesied to one day save the universe from a great evil. This race was called humanity. So, it's the future, and Earth has opened diplomatic relations with the Aurelians, a distance alien race that is just totally psyched to have found real live humans. The party's crashed by another alien race known as the Seekers, who are apparently the galactic powerhouse and don't want to be upstaged by some newbies, so they annihilate the planet. You are one of the last living humans in existence, and as you fight to save your species from extinction, you soon discover that the legends are true and you do possess innate powers. As the game starts you're using the standard gaming arsenal of pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and rocket launchers. But as you gain experience, you unlock various powers like energy projectiles, forcefields, and telekinesis. By the end of the game, you don't even need to pick up a weapon, because you are the weapon. In addition to some frantic, action-packed (and rather glitchy) gameplay, we get some great voice acting by Will Friedle (Batman Beyond, Kim Possible), the story is co-written by Orson Scott Card of Ender's Game fame, and the soundtrack is composed by Tommy Tallarico (and it's f*cking epic, in every sense of that word). Plans for a trilogy fell through when the game didn't sell very well, so the cliffhanger ending will likely never be resolved. This game is basically what Mass Effect would have been like if Shepard had superpowers and didn't have to fight the final boss by talking it to death.

Fallout 3: Xbox 360/PS3/PC

I don't want to set the world on fire...but I'm probably going to.

War. War never changes. I'm writing this under the assumption that you aren't familiar with the backstory of Fallout, so if you are, forgive my simplified summary. It's the post-apocalyptic future of the 1950s. A nuclear war between the USA and China has left billions dead. To survive the devastation, people took shelter inside of enormous underground vaults designed to indefinitely support human life. Little by little, humanity has attempted to reclaim the surface world, but radiation and mutation have created an environment not altogether friendly. In this story, two hundred years after the war, you are born inside one of these underground vaults (in a first-person birthing scene, no less), and you find out that your dad is Liam Neeson, which is automatically awesome. You grow up in the vault under his parentage and interact with the other inhabitants of the miniature town, living your life, until one day your dad decides to unexpectedly leave the vault and travel out into the wasteland that used to be Washington DC. You follow him, and thus begins your journey. You start with little more than the clothes on your back and attempt to scavenge what weapons and items you can to survive, while you search for your missing father. The world you are given to explore is huge, and even after 60+ hours of gameplay you're unlikely to see everything the game has to offer. I mentioned before I'm a fan of survival horror games, but for me the most important part is the Survival aspect, and this game really does make you feel like you're constantly against the wall, down to your last bullet, fighting for your life (well, if you're playing on a higher difficulty level). The game's sequel New Vegas did this even better with the addition of a Hardcore mode in which you were required to maintain yourself by eating and drinking regularly, but I still give the edge to Fallout 3 because I prefer it's Terminator-style atmosphere to NV and it's Mad Max feel.

Phantasy Star IV - The End of the Millennium: Sega Genesis

So many eyes, so many teeth...

But just as things look brighter, beyond a threshold long thought closed, a dark and very ancient evil stirs... PS4 is the final chapter in the Phantasy Star series, and my favorite RPG of all time (yes, it even beats Chrono Trigger, though it is a close fight). The story starts with Alys and Chaz, two monster-hunting mercenaries hired to clear out a nest of mutants from beneath a local university. What starts in that basement will eventually lead them across the face of the planet, and even across the solar system, in an ultimate battle against the very essence of evil for the fate of every living thing in existence. It's hard to top that in terms of scale. The story is well-written and ties in with the events of the previous games, and even features some powerful moments I remember to this day. Gameplay is simple for an RPG, as your utilize spells and special abilities to attack and disable enemies or aid your own party, and you can even combine certain abilities for combo-attacks. Definitely a gem in my collection.

Need for Speed - Most Wanted: PS2/Xbox

EVERYONE!

"You'll never hold on to the Number 1 spot. Not with me on your tail." Yeah, I do play racing games now and then. And they've never been as good as this one. If you're interested in story, you're an underground street racer looking to make a name for yourself in the city, working your way up the Blacklist - a ranked list of the most wanted street racers. In addition to earning reputation from winning races, you also have to engage and escape police pursuits. The longer the pursuit and more damage you do, the harder they chase you. Faster police vehicles, roadblocks, spike strips, helicopter pursuits, they do not give up easy. You have to drive smart to keep moving in this game. Don't let them get up against your back wheel or they'll spin you out, keep hitting the destructible landmarks to slow down your pursuers, and if you're ramming a roadblock, hit the car in the rear because the front of the car is heavier (that's where the engine is, after all). I've been on the edge of my seat during some of the more harrowing pursuits, and at one point even managed to finish a pursuit with only two wheels left on my car, having lost the others to a spike strip I failed to dodge.

Eternal Champions: Sega Genesis

Have some gore!

Yup, there's a fighting game in here too, and it's way different than what you might be used to from the genre. The backstory is thus: The universe is imbalanced. Nine of the greatest fighters throughout history have met untimely and unjust deaths. The Eternal Champion, an immortal being of good, has gathered them all together to compete in a tournament. Whoever wins will be returned to the moment of their death and given the chance to live again, and the potential to change history. Characters range from a pre-historic Caveman, a Yakuza assassin, a 1920s gangster thief, a merman, a vampire, a wizard, a cyborg, a gymnast, a bounty hunter, and still more in the sequel. What made this game great for me was the story. Rather than a standard Good vs Evil battle, none of the original cast are bad people, strictly speaking. They all have the potential to do good things, and they're just fighting for the chance to do so. The sequel game, Challenge from the Dark Side, opens the playing field with the introduction of the Dark Champion, who seeks to maintain the imbalance by introducing his own fighters, individuals whose influence will negatively change history. This ambitious story would have concluded in a 3rd and final entry in the series, but Sega canned it in favor of a new Virtua Fighter game (good job there, guys...), so we got what we got. Oh, and it's got some pretty wicked fatalities and finishers thrown in for those of you who are into that sort of thing. :D

Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory: PS2/Xbox/Gamecube/PC

Stealth action games have always appealed to me, and Splinter Cell does it better than most. Part of the Tom Clancy family of action games, it puts an emphasis on realism and tactical thinking whenever possible. You are Sam Fisher, an NSA spy operating as part of a black-ops program where a single operative - you - are inserted into dangerous, high-security situations to gather intel and eliminate threats to the United States and global interests, all without being seen or heard. Ideally, if you can get through a level without a single witness, you've done your job right. I picked this entry for multiple reasons: improved graphics, well-written story, and the inclusion of non-lethal takedowns. It's always cool to make it through a stealth mission without being detected. But doing it without a single casualty? That's professional. I like to go for zero fatality runs in games whenever possible, just as a matter of skill. I also like to bring morality into my gameplay, and I just don't like killing if I don't have to.

Southland Tales - Movie Review

Spoiler Free Review Synopsis: This is a great movie, because it's just so bad. The plot is tangled and senseless, the characters are flat and incomprehensible, the premise is ludicrous, and the acting is just hilariously bad. It's a lot like Tommy Wiseau's The Room in this way, and I recommend it for an enjoyably weird experience.

I have to take a different approach to this one. This movie is very weird. No, really, you don't even know. Southland Tales was directed by Richard Kelly, who you might know as the writer/director of Donnie Darko. Basically, this is what happens when you give a guy like that a bigger budget and forget to proofread his work. I actually kind of feel bad for him, since it seems like he really wanted this to be an epic saga. There's even a prequel trilogy of stories that was released as a tie-in comic, and the movie itself is structured in three acts, labelled as Episodes IV, V, and VI. It frequently quotes the Bible, specifically the Book of Revelations, and the main plot focuses on the end of the world. Having said that, the words "plot" and "focus" really don't belong in association with this film.

With a movie like this, you can't deal with it the same way that you would a conventional movie, because it's not built the same way. It's like comparing a Rubik's Cube to a book of Mad Libs, or Apples to Pens. Thus, I am not going to address the overall breakdown of the movie like I normally would. I am going to come at this from the angle it deserves, as a movie that is composed of totally random arrangements of characters and plotlines. This is a top 10 list of the best lines in Southland Tales. I'll try to give them as much context as I can. It won't help at all though.

1. "I am going to tell you the story of Boxer Santaros, and his journey down the road not taken."

The first lie of the movie! Justin Timberlake is the narrator, playing a wounded Iraq War veteran who is only peripherally involved in the events of the movie and has a musical dance number near the end of the movie for absolutely no reason. Anyway, he gives us the premise of the movie in a ten-minute narration at the start of the movie, followed by this little nugget. Boxer Santaros, played by Dwayne Johnson, is just one of 30+ named characters in the film who figure into the plot, and he is hardly the main character of the story. Though he is prominent, this is no more his story than it is his porn star girlfriend's (Sarah Michelle Gellar), or a kidnapped government police officer and his twin brother (Seann William Scott), or the crazy arms dealer (Christopher Lambert), or the porn producer/revolutionary leader (Will Sasso), or the homicidal cop/evil lackey (Jon Lovitz). Nobody's running this show.

2. "The ocean is a perpetual motion machine. Fluid Karma is a simulation of the principles you see working right here. As long as the waves continue to crash, Fluid Karma will exist." 

A crazy scientist (Wallace Shawn) has invented a new energy source because America is currently embroiled in a "world war" with a half-dozen other Middle Eastern countries and doesn't have access to its oil supply anymore. This power source is called Fluid Karma. It works by using the motion of the ocean (hah!) to generate energy, which is then transmitted via some sort of wireless technology to vehicles and devices. I'm not sure, but I think this guy just invented the Morphing Grid from Power Rangers. But while he's explaining how all this works, some weird tiny fat lady just pipes up with this line...

3. "Quantum Teleportation."

No, really, that's it. She just says it, and stops talking. Nobody gave her a reason to say it, and she doesn't elaborate. It's weird, but what's even weirder is that this is apparently a hot-topic in this culture. Later on, a porn-star talk show briefly mentions the issue, once again with no prompting or details. If you just spouted that in the middle of a conversation, people would just look at you as if you had slapped them. Go ahead, give it a try the next time you talk to someone. Then slap them. That's what watching this movie feels like.

4. "You're not really here."

This one needs context. And a stiff drink. So here's one of the movie's subplots broken down: USIDent is a government agency that monitors people. Like, all the time. They have a division that is purely devoted to watching you while you poop through surveillance cameras. It's Big Brother without the pretense. Naturally, this doesn't go over well with the rebels, who hatch a plan to bring the system down. Their plan is simple, and also stupid: They kidnap government officer Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott), and have his twin brother pretend to be him. He takes Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson), a movie star, on a ride-along to research his next film role. While being filmed on this ride-along, he acts like a racist jerk and is called to a staged domestic disturbance, where he is going to pretend to shoot and murder the couple (complete with blank bullets and pre-set squibs to simulate the gunshots). Naturally, if one cop is racist and murderous, that logically means that the whole system is corrupt and must be brought down. The plan wouldn't have worked even if it had gone down as planned, but it was foiled by the arrival of another cop (Jon Lovitz), who walks into the room, shoots the couple dead, then turns the gun on Seann William Scott and tells him "You're not really here." Then they leave. WTF, movie?

5. "I haven't had a bowel movement in 6 days. I haven't taken a piss, either."

This is apparently supposed to have some sort of biblical significance. But how, I couldn't tell you. During a conversation between Santaros and Taverner on the ride-along, in which Taverner is racist and Santaros is crazy, Santaros mentions a top-secret experiment in which a newborn child returns home with his parents from the hospital, and a week goes by without the child producing a bowel movement. Supposedly, this baby is special, and processes energy differently. Taverner confesses that he hasn't had a bowel movement in six days. What is the significance of this? I think the movie is trying to tell us that Stifler is Jesus, but I can't confirm of deny it using the facts the movie lays out. I also don't care.

6. "But deep down inside, everyone wishes they were a porn star."

Not in this world, but that's actually a good point for why this movie is so damn weird. The weird alternate-universe this movie occupies has a radically different culture than the one we're used to (see my American Reunion review). In this world, everything's exaggerated to a ridiculous degree. The Republican Party took office and turned the country into a police state, while Democrats have apparently become underground Marxist terrorists. This would be interesting if either side actually had any deeper motivation besides "screw those other guys". Nobody comes off looking good, since everybody's out for themselves. If you're looking for a movie that gives you hope for the human race, try something else. Maybe Terminator 2.

7. "Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted."

The hell? What does that even mean? This line comes from Krista Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the porn star talk show host I mentioned earlier, who also gave us the earlier quote. The movie can't seem to decide if she's a visionary or a moron, and it's quite possible that the two are synonymous in this world. Don't even get me started on Senator Bobby Frost (Holmes Osbourne). He seems to exist in this movie only to play the stereotypical arrogant redneck politician, and randomly quote Robert Frost...get it? This movie doesn't do subtlety.

8. "Did I just see two cars porking each other?"

Yes. We all did. I may never forgive you, Richard Kelly. This is another gem from Frost, who has just viewed a European commercial for Fluid Karma. In the commercial, which I will show below because I want you to suffer like I did, two cars receive power transmissions from Fluid Karma. One drives up behind the other and proceeds to mount it from the rear, as it's tailpipe becomes a chrone penis, while the receiving vehicle grows labia where its muffler is. Once again, this movie exists in a universe radically different from our own. And even in that universe, European commercials are MESSED UP.

This is Super Bowl level weirdness.

9. "We are going to take the ATM machine with us to Mexico."

No. You don't get context for this one. Context would only dilute the flavor of this moment. I'm apparently going to start linking a lot of videos for the rest of this list, so enjoy!

Hell Yes We Are

10. "Ladies and gentlemen, the party is over. Have a nice apocalypse."

The final scenes of the movie take place (for the most part) on-board a giant blimp, where a Republican fundraiser is taking place. While on this blimp, we learn the secrets of time travel, watch a weird techno-opera rendition of the national anthem, and it ultimately explodes because a wannabe thug who's been drafted into the army shoots it with a rocket launcher that he got from a crazy arms dealer while he stands on top of a levitating ice cream truck containing two magical twins having the most epic handshake of all time. The weirdest thing about all this (HAH!) is the announcer on-board the blimp, who chimes in with a bunch of these random lines. Who is this man? Why does he know there's an apocalypse? Why is he still announcing things? He keeps right on going even up to his impending death, cheerful as ever, giving all those doomed souls the weirdest final thoughts ever.

 

Bonus: "I'm a pimp. And pimps don't commit suicide."

This one's repeated a few times. It actually has no context in the overall story, but it has something to do with time travel creating duplicate people, and suicide causing a temporal paradox. Boxer Santaros knows that he would never commit suicide, because he is a pimp. Not literally, but figuratively. Nobody actually mentions suicide before this point, so the line literally has no context. It's as though entire pages of dialogue were ripped out of the script and nobody noticed. That's the charm of the movie: It's a mess, and it's up to you to put the pieces together however you like.

Bonus #2: Just watch the clip. I can't even...

WTF, MOVIE?

Death Sentence - Movie Review

Spoiler Free Review Synopsis: Damn, do I freaking love this movie. It's crazy dark and morally grey, and packed full of badass. Just had to get that out of the way before I dove right into the review. If you like gritty action-dramas about violence and justice, by all means check it out.

Death Sentence is the 2007 film adaptation of the 1975 novel of the same name by Brian Garfield. It was written as the sequel to Garfield's Death Wish, earlier adapted into a film series starring Charles Bronson, about a family man whose life is destroyed by gang violence, transforming him to a vengeful vigilante. This film is a self-contained, unrelated story to the original, so it's an adaptation in name only, but no less significant or powerful for the change.

The film centers around an upper-class everyman named Nick Hume (played by Kevin Bacon) whose oldest son is killed in a gas station robbery gone bad. He witnesses the murder and identifies the killer, a small-time local gang member, who is caught and arrested. However, upon being advised by the officer in charge of the case Detective Wallis (Aisha Tyler) and the prosecuting attorney that the gang member will likely make a deal in exchange for a reduced sentence, Hume recants his testimony and allows his son's murderer to walk free, much to the dismay of his wife and younger son. Wait, what?

As it turns out, Hume decides that if the law can't give him justice, he'll just have to take matters into his own hands. He follows the gang member back to his home, brings a knife and stabs him to death. Having avenged the death of his son, Hume is willing to move on with his life. However, the act is uncovered by the rest of the gang, led by the victim's older brother (Garret Hedlund), who seek out Hume in retaliation. They track him down at his work, and proceed to attack him. How do they accomplish this? They chase him down in broad daylight, through the downtown streets and local businesses, firing guns with dozens of witnesses present, cackling insanely.

In the pursuit, Hume makes it to the parking garage where his vehicle is parked at the top level. On the way up, he sets off every car alarm he can, hoping to draw attention to the scene. I guess nobody in this city has a cell phone, since neither Hume nor any witnesses think to call the police. Special attention must be paid to the camera work in this scene. Normally I wouldn't go into detail with this sort of thing because I'm not educated on the finer points of cinematography, but the whole scene is an uninterrupted tracking shot that follows Kevin Bacon as he climbs three levels of the parking structure, then drops back down a level to follow the pursuing gang members, then moves to a crane shot that rises to the top of the structure, where Bacon is finally reaching his vehicle. If you catch this on DVD, check that out in the special features, it's really cool.

Anyway, in what is probably the movie's coolest fight scene (though it has some competition there), Hume engages in a brawl with one of the gang members. The fight starts among the cars, then moves into a nearby car. The parking break is disengaged, allowing the vehicle to slowly roll down the incline, gaining momentum. Just as the car is about to go over the edge, Hume leaps out the rear window, allowing the car and the man inside to plummet several stories and smash into the ground.

However, the gang members obtained Hume's briefcase during the chase, giving them all of his personal information. They opt to contact him directly, making direct threats against his life and that of his family. Faced with this, Hume contacts Det. Wallis and asks for her help. She berates him for taking the law into his own hands, basically telling him that he started all this. Still, she assigns two officers to protect them in case the gang decides to attack their home. Not for a moment do they think of running away...

Hume stands watch over his family in the night, and upon hearing noise from outside, looks out the window to see the officers have been brutally killed, and that the killers have come. He manages to fight them off surprisingly well, swinging hard with a baseball bat and dodging shotgun blasts before he is finally overpowered. The gang leader shoots Hume's remaining son, his wife, and then him, leaving them all for dead. Hume's wife dies, and his son is left comatose, while he sustains severe injuries including the gunshot wound to his gut, a major gash across his scalp, and various cuts and bruises. Det. Wallis is waiting when he awakens to once again chastise him for getting his family killed. Wait, WHAT?

I'll point out at this point that the original author of the novel, Brian Garfield, actually praised this movie for not glorifying the use of vigilante violence like Death Wish had. In those movies, Bronson's character is almost universally praised for his righteous crusade against crime and criminals that have threatened the fabric of our society. It reaches fantastic levels in the 3rd installment, in which gangs have near total control of a major city, the police are helpless against them, and it is only Bronson's willingness to engage in open warfare that saves the day. He guns down purse-snatchers in the street, mows down crowds with a military-grade heavy machine gun, and blows the gang leader through a brick wall with a rocket launcher (at point-blank range no less), and is allowed to walk off into the sunset at the film's end. This message runs in direct opposition to Garfield's original novels, which cautioned against vigilante justice because of the harm it does.

Having said that, I would like to pause the film for a moment to take a quick look at the situation Hume finds himself in, and engage in a little ethical musing. His innocent son was murdered (along with an anonymous gas station clerk) by some punks as part of a gang initiation. Our legal system couldn't do more than put the murderer in prison for a couple years. Hume took matters into his own hands and got justice for the death of his son, taking an eye for an eye as the saying goes. Whether or not you agree with this decision is a matter of personal opinion. It was certainly illegal, and Hume deserves punishment for his actions, however understandable they might be. But then the gang retaliates by chasing him through the streets with guns to try to kill him, then chasing him to his home to kill him, his wife and son, and two police officers. Hume and his son survive by sheer luck, and it is at this moment that Det. Wallis decides to lecture him about the morality of his actions? What exactly have you been doing this whole time? Instead of wagging your finger at the guy who's laying in a hospital bed, maybe you ought to be arresting the armed gang members who opened fire in the middle of a downtown street and murdered five people during the course of the movie, including two of your fellow officers? These guys have been killing people LONG before Nick Hume ever got involved, and what have you done about it? No, it's far easier to blame the ordinary guy who's defending his family and avenging the death of his son than the psychotic miscreants who've been treating your city like a playground. Get out of my movie. Don't come back until you're ready to be useful.

Nick doesn't buy her sanctimonious speech and escapes the first chance he gets. Once again the police are shown to be totally incompetent by their absence, as they are unable to track down a severely injured man traveling on-foot wearing a hospital gown and a big head bandage, even as he returns to his home to change and later goes to his bank. He empties out his son's college fund, then he's off to buy some guns. Here's where the movie shifts into a whole different gear of awesome. He finds his way to a black market weapons dealer, played by John Goodman. As it turns out, he's been backing the gang this entire time, and is in fact the father of both the gang leader and the younger brother Hume killed. However, despite all this, he respects Hume's plight as a father and makes no move to stop him. It also helps that Hume's a paying customer with fat stacks of cash. We've seen Goodman's character in small bits throughout the movie, where he berates his son for his reckless behavior. Goodman is sadly underutilized in this role, and this scene is a highlight of the film. He loves his children, but recognizes that they've made their choices and have to pay the consequences. He sells Hume a couple pistols and a shotgun, plus ammunition and instruction manuals. If you're like me and you enjoy a little gun porn here and there, this is a nice little treat.

The following montage is subtle, but powerful. Hume takes the weapons and a first aid kit into a shed, where he takes the time to become familiar with their workings and patch himself up. He starts off fumbling around with the guns, but eventually works it out. He shaves his head and puts on his son's old leather jacket, heading out for his vengeance. Kevin Bacon delivers a great performance here as his character develops over the course of the movie. At the start of the film, Hume is a mild-mannered individual who is unaccustomed to violence. When he confronts his son's murderer, he barely manages to keep his emotions in check, appearing nervous and panicked before, during, and afterwards. As he is being pursued through the streets by the gang, he is frantic but manages to keep his head, activating the car alarms and using his own to distract an attacker. When they come for him at home he's ready for them with a baseball bat, leading them up the stairs and managing to take out two of them with improvised tactics. From this point onward, Hume is unrecognizable from the start of the film. He is angry, but steady, and his actions are brutal and direct. He's scarred and bruised, but far tougher as a result of what he's been through. I love strong character arcs, and this is a great one.

Hume tracks the gang members down to their hideout, which is also a drug lab. Still not sure why the police were having trouble nailing these guys, but it's far too late for those kinds of questions. He blows the doors down and storms the place, taking out everybody he sees with deadly efficiency. Limbs and digits are blown off, bullets punch through bodies like wet sacks of meat, and everybody reloads when they're logically supposed to. Director James Wan had previously been known only for his work on the Saw series (he directed the first one, wrote the first and third, and produced them all), but he also directed the 2011 sleeper hit Insidious, which was also a great film. You can see his influence on the film in the darker scenes, where the muted blue/grey colors and off-putting camera angles serve to unsettle the viewer, in addition to the gory violence.

In a point blank shootout, Hume fatally wounds the gang leader, but is himself shot. Both men wounded and out of bullets, they collapse together on a bench and share a brief moment, as the gang leader remarks that Hume has become just like him now; a cold-blooded killer. For his part, Hume simply draws his second handgun and cocks it. The film ends with Hume returning home, clutching his wounds, to watch a home movie of his family enjoying happier times, as Wallis arrives to inform him that his son has regained consciousness. In the Unrated cut of the movie, he then dies of his injuries.

While watching Liam Neeson's Taken, in which a father goes to outrageous lengths to rescue his kidnapped daughter, including cold-blooded torture and shooting innocent bystanders, I had a debate with my friend about the morality of taking extreme measures, and whether or not the ends justify the means. Works like Taken, 24, and Death Sentence approach this topic in different ways, and any work of fiction that inspires debates like this is a good one in my book. On top of that, we get strong performances from Bacon, Hedlund, and Goodman, an engaging drama, and great action pieces. Very much recommended.

American Reunion - Movie Review

I meant to do this one way earlier, but various obstacles kept me away from it. I first saw it about a month after it came out, because my best friend dragged me kicking and screaming to watch it. We watched the first ones on VHS together in high school, so he thought it would be a fun nostalgia trip. And to be fair to him, it was. Except now that I'm 10 years older, I'm a little bit wiser in my old age, and I recognize things that my younger self would likely have glossed over. See, here's my biggest issue with American Reunion: It's fiction. No, really, it's not the least bit believable. None of these people behave rationally, and the whole premise is just ludicrous. You might think I'm over analyzing what is basically a teen sex comedy, but there's more to it than that, and it's problems are all the more obvious because of it.

I'll just walk you through the plot. 13 years after graduating high school in the first movie, and we see Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) living happily as husband and wife, with a young child no less. And what is the first thing we see them doing? Secretly masturbating while he's in bed and she's in the bathtub, as their child walks in and the whole zany situation is revealed. Yeah, that's basically how they all start, but here's my problem: Jim is a 30+ year old man. He can't just be this hapless all the time, right?

Jim's the central character, but we also get to catch up with the rest of the main cast. Oz (Chris Klein) is a famous sportscaster with a nymphomaniac trophy wife, Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is an architect, Stifler (Seann William Scott) is an office temp, and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a... drifter? I'm still not clear on that one. Anyway, they're all invited back to their hometown for a high school reunion, so we get to see them up to the same old antics. Pretty much every named character from the original series turns up at some point, even if it's only for a quick cameo. If you had a favorite character (and why the hell would you?), you get to be disappointed for a few brief seconds before they shuffle off camera to collect their paycheck.

Anyway, Jim and Michelle stay with Jim's dad Noah (Eugene Levy), who is now a widower. As Jim is arriving, he runs into girl next door Kara, whom he used to babysit when she was a child. However, she is about to turn 18, and decides that she wants Jim to take her virginity. Wait, what? Kara, who is still in high school, apparently very popular, and has an attractive boyfriend of her own, suddenly decides she wants to jump the bones of her 10+ years older former babysitter that she hasn't seen in years? That's an odd dot to connect.

Anyway, Kara invites Jim and his friends to a beach party to celebrate her birthday, and she gets black-out drunk. Jim drives her home, but in the process she attempts to seduce him, throws her clothes out the window, and passes out. Now, I want you to consider this situation. You've done the sensible adult thing and given this young girl a ride home, and in her drunken state she's done something embarrassing. Do you:

A) Call her parents, explain the situation, and let them handle things?
B) Call your friends to hatch an elaborate scheme to covertly sneak her back into her room?

Again I must remind you that Jim is 30+ years old. He's not a teenager, he should know better than this. Absolutely nobody would (or at least should) look down on him for being in this situation. But nevertheless his neurotic mind decides that the shortest distance between two points is wacky hijinks. Later, he attempts to have a romantic encounter with his wife, as the two have been having intimacy issues of late. However, Kara once again attempts to rape him. Her boyfriend attempts to assault him, his wife is horrified, and Kara herself is insulted that he isn't interested in her. Again, WHAT? What is wrong with you people? Is sex the only thing you freaks think about? Well, I'll come back to this at the end...

Oz reunites with his old girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari), who is dating a heart surgeon/stereotypical douchebag. Naturally, they start to fall for each other all over again, despite the fact that they had been dating in every other movie, thus must have broken up at some point between the last movie and this one. The writers could not find anything else for these two to do, so they slapped this together and we're just supposed to buy it. Anyway, they both ended up with people who are very much wrong for them, and after they end up cheating on their respective partners with each other, they get back together. That's a great lesson: Cheating's okay as long as you're in love.

Kevin's whole character arc is that he meets up with his old girlfriend Vicky (Tara Reid), and after a night of drinking, they wake up in bed together. He suspects that they slept together, and she is offended by his reasonable assumption, so naturally he has to apologize. How dare he suspect Tara Reid of doing anything unseemly...

Finch tells the gang a bunch of stories about his legendary globetrotting adventures, but it all turns out to be a pile of lies, and he's just an assistant manager at Staples who stole a motorcycle belonging to his boss. Oddly enough, his story is the most realistic of the bunch. Who hasn't met up with an old high school classmate and wanted to embellish a little about their success? Anyway, he still manages to hook up with another classmate and they decide to take a trip to Europe. Sure, why not.

Jim's dad Noah is in a pretty rough place when we see him at the start of the movie, still mourning the loss of his wife from however long ago. He is encouraged by Jim to get back into the dating game, and after a rocky start on J-Date, ends up finding companionship with Jeanine Stifler, Steve's mom and the "milf" of the original trilogy. The film ends with them going on a movie date together, where she gives him a blowjob for some reason.

Stifler, still fancying himself a ladies man after all these years, tries unsuccessfully to hook up with several women throughout the weekend. We ultimately learn that this is the result of a major lack of confidence, brought on by his temp job crushing his spirit and forcing him into a submissive position. This reaches a breaking point when Stifler is called back to work on a weekend night to finish a presentation by his boss (I do so love Vik Sahay when he shows up in stuff I watch). The gang comes to encourage him to stand up for himself, so he quits his job and finds the confidence to talk up women again. In an ironic twist, he has a romantic encounter with Finch's mother, but elects not to reveal this to the group, showing that he has indeed matured. So mature that of all the places he could have had sex, he chose the 50 yard line of the school's fully illuminated football field. Again, what.

This movie does not take place in our reality. That is the only context in which I can accept this movie and the characters within it. Common sense does not exist in this realm, and the driving force behind all thought is sexual gratification. These people honestly haven't changed much in the 13 years since their graduation, and I have a thought about that: Is that what the writers think of their audience? We're supposed to relate to these characters, and every trailer is pushing the nostalgia factor pretty hard, urging us to be interested in what these people are up to. Are you the same person you were in high school? Not a chance! High school is way different than the real world, and these people have been independent adults for a decade. I cannot believe that these people are making the same mistakes they have been making for three movies. The way I see it, the American Pie universe is like one of those parallel dimensions that you see at the start of an episode of Sliders. Somewhat amusing, but you're still glad when the timer goes off and they slide to another, more interesting reality.

Continuum: Pilot - A Review

Showcase has been putting out really good shows lately. First there's Lost Girl, a supernatural crime drama about a succubus who takes a job as a private detective solving unusual crimes while investigating her own mysterious past. It's basically Joss Whedon's Angel, but it has its own unique flavor and an interesting universe to work with, putting a modern spin on mythological creatures akin to The Dresden Files. Next they released XIII: The Series, an adaptation of the French comic about an amnesiac spy who has to uncover a massive conspiracy (no, it's not The Bourne Identity). Good acting and great action choreography, with a developing plot that keeps you invested. Really looking forward to that second season...

I first learned about Continuum from the side of a bus, and that was as good a recommendation as I needed to check it out. The year is 2077, and after the world's governments went bankrupt in a massive financial crisis, private corporations have taken the reins of society. The result is a futuristic utopia of holographics and chrome (think Perfect Dark, or Shadowrun), but crime is still an issue. This is the responsibility of Vancouver City Protective Services, and our protagonist Kiera Cameron, played by Rachel Nichols. You might remember her as Tamara from the recent Conan remake, or Scarlett from GI Joe, or...

You better put her in the sequel, J. J. Abrams...

...yeah, she's been "the hot girl" in a lot of her films, but as the lead actress of this series, she gets to flex more of her acting talent than her previous roles allowed. Kiera's a dedicated officer, wife and mother, and we get plenty of chances to see her kick ass throughout the pilot while she comes to terms with her new situation and the loss of her family.

Apparently the change from government rule to corporate ownership came with a loss of individual rights, which means the loss of free speech, right to peaceful assembly, and the rest of the contents of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms we learned about in high school and promptly forgot. A group of terrorists known as Liber8 (because there are eight of them, and they want to liberate, get it?) blow up a bunch of corporate office buildings in order to assassinate the CEOs and board members of said corporations. To me, this seems like a really inefficient assassination plan, since the collateral damage of 30,000 deaths to kill 20 people is not likely to get popular opinion on your side. But despite this, I do appreciate making the dividing issue more morally ambiguous, so we can see both sides. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and it's easier to see that when you're the one without freedom. I would even be inclined to favor such a view, if it wasn't for the aforementioned bombings and murders.

As the members of Liber8 are about to be publicly executed for their crimes, they stage an escape. Using some presently undefined piece of technology, they create a focused energy burst that sends them back in time to present day Vancouver, appearing in the middle of downtown along with Kiera, who was standing near the prisoners and had been caught up in the burst. Trapped in the past without backup, it is now up to her to capture the prisoners and prevent them from altering the future. Wait, this sounds familiar...

 It's surprisingly similar.

Filmed locally, it actually takes place in Vancouver as opposed to standing in for Seattle or other Midwestern cities as it often does. Rachel Nichols shares the screen with several other noteworthy local actors you will probably recognize. Erik Knudsen (Saw II, Scream 4) plays Alec Sadler, a young tech whiz who invented the technology used by Kiera in the future, and thus is able to provide her with tech support; the voice in her ear, as it were. She also has an ally on the police force in Detective Carlos Fonnegra, played by Victor Webster (Mutant X). The fugitive terrorists include Roger Cross (First Wave, 24) and Lexa Doig (Andromeda, Stargate SG1), who will likely gain prominence in later episodes. Also keep an eye out from William B. Davis of X-Files fame in a cameo that raises several interesting questions for later.

The pilot showcases plenty of special effects gems, with special focus on Kiera herself. Her shiny gold jumpsuit (fanservice ahoy!) serves multiple functions, as we see it giving her optical camouflage abilities, absorbing bullet impacts, and generating electric charges to stun enemies. Her body is also implanted with a kind of neural recorder, allowing her to playback anything she's seen and heard for later review, giving her literal photographic memory. Pilot episodes tend to have bigger budgets than the rest of the series in order to draw audiences in, so it's likely that we won't be seeing as much of this sort of thing later on, but it's still cool.

Ratings were quite high for the first episode, but shows like this need to be able to maintain consistent viewership in order to convince executives to sign on for more than one season. There's a lot of room for development with this one, given the possibilities inherent with a time travel story (altered futures, multiple timelines, and so on). Some of you might remember The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which was cancelled at the end of it's second season right when things were starting to get interesting (watch it if you haven't, it's awesome). So I strongly recommend that you check out Continuum. You can watch the pilot and learn more about the show at http://continuumtheseries.com/ and catch the next episode Sunday at 9pm, ET/DT.

Max Payne 3 - A Review

The first time I ever played Max Payne, it was as a store demo on one of the computers at Future Shop in Metrotown. I spent roughly 20 minutes glued to that PC until one of the staff finally pried me off. It blew my 13 year old mind when I first hit that Shootdodge button, time slowed to a crawl as I dove through the air, watching bullets whiz by and firing back dozens of my own. Every sniper rifle bullet fired was tracked by the camera as it left the barrel and rocketed into a bad guy's crotch (I was aiming for his head...) and when the final opponent went down, the camera spun around them in all 360 degrees as the final bullets hit home.

Not only was it absolutely kick ass from a technical perspective, it featured a gritty film-noir story of a man at his most desperate, facing insurmountable odds with nothing to lose. Though the course of the game, his wife and daughter are killed, he is framed for his partner's murder, hunted by the police, the mob, and the shadowy corporate forces determined to protect their secrets. Everybody lies, everybody dies, and Max is the last man standing.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was very similar to its predecessor, with slight enhancements. Max now has the ability to stay prone after a dodge to continue shooting, and Bullet-Time 2.0 enabled him to reload faster to keep the action fast-paced. Max's character also faced more development with the re-introduction of Mona Sax, an assassin from the first game who develops a relationship with him, complicated by the fact that he is investigating a murder in which she is the prime suspect, and she's been given orders to kill him.

You might be asking yourself why I'm going to the effort of describing the first two games in the series, since this is a review of Max Payne 3 and not a series analysis. Well, early previews of the game had fans worried that it would be a radical departure from what made the games great. Max is no longer running around New York City in the dead of night in a black leather coat shooting mobsters, he's now a fat bald guy in an ugly shirt shooting gangbangers in broad daylight in South America.

So the big question: Does Max Payne 3 live up to the legacy of the series? For the most part, yes.

Let's address the story first. Eight years after the second game, and Max has been fired from the NYPD, drinking every night and addicted to painkillers (layers of irony!). An old friend from his academy days comes along and offers him a job with a private security firm, protecting a wealthy businessman in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Seeing it as a chance at a fresh start (and having recently killed the son of a local crime lord, making him the most wanted man in New Jersey), Max takes the job protecting Rodrigo Branco and his family. When Branco's wife is abducted for ransom, Max and his partner set off to save her, and in the process he uncovers multiple hidden agendas and a deadly conspiracy. In an effort to avoid spoilers, that's as far as I'll go, but for all its intrigue and drama, there are a few issues I have with the story of Max Payne 3. Firstly, the story lacks the personal significance for Max that the first two games did. In the first two games he had a personal stake in the situation and thus his motivation was clear. Here the only reason he sticks around is either because he's getting paid to or he's decided that this whole thing is suddenly his problem. There are at least three points in the story where Max could simply have given up and moved on, with no repercussions. Secondly, Max is quite the dumbass. He constantly fumbles around and fails at almost everything. This could be explained in character with his constant intoxication, but it diminishes the character to see him as such a screwup. Thirdly, there are a couple random WTF moments in the story that make absolutely no sense:

• A major villain responsible for horrendous actions is turned into a psuedo-ally later in the game with no real justification, and gets off relatively scot-free.
• A hostage is held at gunpoint by four enemies, and despite being repeatedly shown that Max has the ability to shoot a half-dozen guys in a single breath, he decides to walk into the room, loudly announce his presence, throw away his gun, and attempt to negotiate.
• Max will occasionally fit a silencer onto his pistol and attempt to stealth his way into an enemy stronghold, only to completely abandon any pretense of stealth after about a minute and start mowing people down with machine gun.

It's worth noting that this entry in the franchise was developed by Rockstar North, unlike the first two which were developed by Remedy. I can't say for sure that this is the cause of all the changes, but it's not a big deal either way. A couple levels of the game do occur in New York as flashbacks, so we get a little bit of classic Max to go with our new flavor. It's a worthy entry into the series, even if it's a little different.

Gameplay wise, the game is very much Max Payne, with a significantly greater push towards realism. Unlike the first two games, Max no longer has bottomless pockets to carry every gun he finds. He can carry a maximum of three guns, consisting of two one-handed weapons which can be holstered and a larger rifle or shotgun that is carried in the off-hand when not in use. Using both small guns in tandem forces you to drop the big gun. It's very realistic and never feels overly complicated or compromising. Shootdodging and Bullet Time are still alive and well, along with new features. Bullet Time is accumulated when you shoot enemies (or get shot at), and is employed when you need an extra edge against multiple incoming enemies. Painkillers are still the go-to healing item, but now if your health is depleted while you still have one left, you initiate the Last Man Standing feature. Time slows and you start to fall, but if you can return fire on the enemy who killed you and kill them in response, you regain some of your health and get to continue the fight. The game also employed a cover system, complete with the ability to blind-fire around cover when you just don't want to poke your head out to aim. It's a different feel from the first two games, but considering that you spent most of those games strafing left and right to duck behind pillars and boxes, this is an improvement.

The graphical leap from the previous game is very noticeable, allowing for some impressive set pieces and frantic action. Individual bullet trails are visible again, after their conspicuous absence from Max Payne 2, and several guided bullet time sequences allow you to focus on your shooting while Max is running, sliding, or falling, as the case may be. Further cinematic elements have been introduced for the sake of style, including a fancy bullet cam that is triggered by the death of the last enemy in a given group. By holding a button down, the bullet can be slowed to a crawl, and you can also continue firing to riddle your enemy with dozens of shots before their lifeless body finally drops. The level of violence in the game is severe, as well it should be. Enemies react to gunshots in a visceral manner, jerking and collapsing until they finally take enough damage to stop entirely. Gore is present, almost to a grotesque point, which serves to emphasize the brutality. Bullets travel through the body leaving exit wounds, and blood sprays from the holes, particularly with head shots. The moment you finish someone off with multiple slow-motion close-up shotgun blasts to the face and see the resulting mess, you gain a new respect for video game violence.

Surprisingly, Max Payne 3 also features an intricate multiplayer mode, similar to Call of Duty. You can customize your appearance, as well as your loadout of weapons, items, and armor to suit your tactics. Too many guns and armor make you a slow tank, but going in light makes you faster and regenerates health. You also get to choose from a selection of special abilities, called "bursts", which can help you or your allies, or hinder your enemies. The balance is well-handled, particularly with respect to the team-based gameplay modes. Of special note is the Gang Wars mode, which has two teams competing in a series of challenges (defend a location, retrieve a package, hunt a moving target, etc), culminating in a final battle that is handicapped based on the outcomes of the previous challenges. These challenges actually maintain a narrative structure that ties into the main story, which is impressive. If I have any tips for those of you starting out in multiplayer, it would be to take the high ground when possible, use cover, and remember to use your bursts when you get them. At higher levels they can really screw with an enemy team, like turning off their Friendly Fire or jamming their weapons intermittently. It's just as action-packed as the main game and a lot of fun.

Overall, I'm happy with Max Payne 3. While some might be turned off by it's linearity compared to most of Rockstar's other games, its longevity will be enhanced by additional difficulty levels, collectibles, and the multiplayer experience. I would highly recommend Max Payne 3 for anyone who enjoys an action-packed gun fest.