New Watchmen Teaser Poster

I am a huge fan of Watchmen and am really excited about the movie coming out. All the footage I have seen looks great even some of the early posters looked liked it belonged. However the new official teaser poster has been released and I am not a fan.

It looks very bland and considering the fact that its revealing on the most climatic scene in the book and I'm sure in the movie it all looks rather stale. Not to mention the tagline on the poster is god awful. I know it fits the ending theme of the book but on the poster its out of place and conveys poorly on the message its trying to communicate. I'm just disappointed.

"Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense." -The Comedian

Censorship's Gone Wild!

Kevin Smith has his moments but I've never been an avid fan of his outside of Clerks and his stance against the MPAA and censorship in America. "Zack and Miri make a Porno" is Smith's latest outing and a film I am looking forward to, mostly because the concept itself seems really interesting. In the film Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are best friends who decide to make a porno when they are running out of cash. The rest of the film is filled with great character actors and comedians that will fill the film with a strong supporting cast.

The problem though is the ridiculous censorship of this film. First up is the poster fiasco that the MPAA had taken down in the US. The poster depicts Seth Rogen and Elizebeth Banks on the poster and at the bottom of the poster you can see the top of the opposing characters head. Each character is fully clothed and nothing can be deducted from the poster unless you know exactly what's going on. Well in response Smith submitted a poster that passively aggressively protested the decision by having the new poster have nothing but stick figures.

However just today it was announced by CNN that around fifteen newspapers, several tv stations, and several cable channels are refusing to run adds for the film simply because the word "porno" is in the title of the film. Also there have been complaints about posters in Philadelphia at bus stops and now those posters are being taken down.

I am sick and tired of these uber conservative, uneducated, cum drinkers complaining about shit that doesn't matter because they believe that the word porno will ruin their pitiful, sad minds. The movie is fucking rated R, its not NC-17 and it sure as hell isn't unrated and being shown on Skinamax at about one in the morning. These idiots really think that what they believe is exactly what everyone else should believe and have to rain down their shit stained superiority complexes onto the majority of people that don't give a shit. Things like this just make me sad.

"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen." ~Tommy Smothers

To Trek or not to Trek. That is the question.

Since I was a kid I have been a trekkie. I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation years before I ever saw a single Star Wars film. Not to mention I've been an avid watcher of Deep Space Nine and Voyager, but fuck that Enterprise shit. I don't want to see fucking Scott Bakula unless he's leaping from life to life, striving to right what once went wrong, and hoping with each leap will be the leap home.

Anyway's lately Star Trek has gone underground ever since Enterprise went off the air and since the late Eighties a Star Trek tv show or film has not been in production until now. A little while ago production started on the new Star Trek film helmed by Lost creator J.J. Abrams. I don't like that little snot but I am excited about the new film which is accomplishing the trendy reboot fashion statement that is so ever popular with movie studios nowadays.

Also there is the Star Trek MMO coming out by Cryptic Studio's. When I first heard about this game I wasn't really excited because it was being headed by another studio but when Cryptic took over my Trek senses went on Red alert.

I'm just happy that a franchise I love is being reentered into pop culture and in good hands at that.

"Eaten any good books lately?" -Q (to Worf)

Don Cheadle: War Machine

Well the big news of the day in at leas my world is the fact that Don Cheadle has been signed on to play War Machine in the next Iron Man film. A role that was held by Terrance Howard in the last film in which I thought he played the role perfectly.

The first Iron Man film was a lot of fun to watch and did a good job in setting up the Avengers film and Terrance Howard made a great James Rhodes. He looked like a military man and someone that could eventually fill one of the Stark armours which of course was hinted at in the first film. On top of the Favreau has already said that War Machine would play a bigger part in the next film. Which brings up the question why change the actors?

Don Cheadle is undeniable a great actor and is one of those human activists that I don't mind so much unlike Tim Robbins, but can he be War Machine. Cheadle has never looked like a military man to me and doesn't have the stature that the character Rhodes has in nearly all of his incarnations. I just don't like the fact their changing actors in the middle of two films that are anchoring the Marvel movie studio's.

The Growing DC Universe

As always there an ass load of of comic book movies coming out. With the Marvel studios putting together an Avengers film Warner Brothers are trying to retaliate with its DC license and creating a slew of films riding on the coattails of the recent Batman film. Thankfully they have abandoned the JLA film which produced nothing but awful sounding rumours. But they are making some movies now in production that sound a lot more interesting which confounds me.

First up is the new Green Lantern film which needs to be fun and have a load of action. If it isn't fun and action packed audiences just won't care because Green Lantern, although well known in the DC Universe, isn't that well known to general audiences. So far the news has been good, evidently they are using the Hal Jordan incarnation and they have plans on having huge space battles and so forth. Link. Now to play Hal Jordan you have to get a semi identifiable face mixed with good actor and I can't argue with the choice of Ryan Gosling as Hal Jordan.

Second up is the very ambitious "Super Max." The films main character is Green Arrow who is sent to a prison filled with supervillians and attempts to escape. This film just seems that its way to high concept for the "play it safe" movie studio's.

Now nothing has been mentioned a new Flash movie and Nolan has nearly gone into hiding and no information on the next Batman has been released no matter what anyone has heard. Its nice to see these films taking chances and trying to be closer to the source material and coming out of the DC camp its very refreshing since the Marvel studio's could get the next couple of films disastrously wrong. Marvel is pushing their films out to quickly and it could restrict the creativeness of the people involved.

"I think I feel a Jackson Pollack coming on." -Kyrten from Red Dwarf

South Park: Nuking the Fridge?

Well the new season of South Park opened last night and I have to say the episode wasn't that great but still relevant with its commentary on the failure that was the new Indiana Jones film that came out a while ago. Even though we are all trying to forget that film I think its important to have some one championing the fact that not enough people stand up and fight against stupidity.

I was not a fan of the first couple of seasons of South Park however when they turned and started talking about issues in our world I really began watching. Right now I believe that South Park is by far one of the best satire's of our age. No topic is off limits and at times Matt Stone and Trey Parker have had to deal with some of their episodes being taken off the air because people refuse to look at themselves with a critical eye.

However what's interesting is that most satires make specific points and take one side at the end of the day and South Park doesn't do that in the tradition sense. Instead they take both sides and show how ridiculous each of them are. The most recent example is the past episode that came on last night. Yes George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg have essentially raped everything that is Indiana Jones but does everyone have to keep crying about it. In the end what Matt and Trey are trying to say through each episode they make is that yes some things suck but stop throwing five year old temper tantrums about it.

And it makes me sad that people have been turned off by that. A lot of people that originally liked the show now avoid it at all costs. They just don't like the fact that the show has become satirical instead of just being ass and fart jokes. However I do believe that South Park will be looked back upon as one of the best modern satires of the 21st century.

"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits" - George Carlin

Evolution of the Music Simulator

A few years ago I decided to pick up Guitar Hero. At the time I was watching E3 and they were showing a demo of Guitar Hero 2 and I was really interested. The very next day I picked up the first game for the PS2 and immediately fell in love with the franchise. Naturally I researched who made the game and the publishers and was curious on how the series would evolve. This was a game genre that I had not been exposed to and didn't really know existed and if done correctly could really change how people viewed music and more importantly viewed gaming as a social event instead of games just being viewed as a toy created for nerds.

Harmonix's first foray into the music genre was Amplitude and Frequency which honestly I don't consider "music simulators." They felt more like games that were trying to accomplish something more and now looking back I think those goals have now been achieved and it was nice having these games as the biases, the foundation, of what was to come.

First up was the very limited but the Godfather of music games in North America, Guitar Hero, which opened the floodgates to the world that we know today. However it did not contain a single master track even though some of them were decent but most got in the way and were just bad. One interesting aspect of the game was the inclusion of multiplayer. The reason this is interesting because the game completely lacks any options, modes, and has no ingenuity in the multiplayer whatsoever. This multiplayer mode consisted of someone playing a few notes and then the other person playing the second bit of notes and so forth from there.

Just around a year later Guitar Hero 2 arrived on a white horse of Amesomeness, with a fucking capital A. The song list was a lot of fun even though only a couple of songs had a master recordings in the game. However the co-op was a lot of fun since bass was finally playable in co-op and reinforced the social aspect of the game. My friends and I played countless hours of GH2 either trying to beat each others high scores or playing co-op. And it seemed we weren't alone, the word started spreading. More people were playing the game and telling others about it.

Activision then became greedy and decided they new best. Naturally Harmonix became pissed and the two companies split creating a rivalry that is far from over. Activision took the GH franchise and gave it to Neversoft a company that will do everything that Activision tells them too. This match made in hell birthed GH3. GH3 added a lot of elements that turned this series into more of a game than an experience of playing music which is what made everyone fall in love with the series to begin with. Examples would be the addition of boss battles and silly inclusions into the multiplayer, like invisible notes or the lefty switch which had more in common with a Twisted Metal game then a music game that allowed you to experience the music that you were playing. Not to mention that the difficulty skyrocketed due to the addition notes that didn't even exist in the songs themselves.

One thing out of this there was some good. Harmonix had been learning from their own mistakes and understood what music games could be. Music has always been a form of self express, music is a social interaction and even if you are playing fake instruments its the fact that you are sharing the experience makes it all the more meaningful. This is precisely what Rock Band accomplishes. The first Rock Band focused heavily on the fact that you are playing together and playing by yourself it isn't that much fun. Mostly this is due to the fact the song choice is focused on everyone playing together and not just playing one instrument.

Music games are still transforming and right now I'm playing Rock Band 2 as if I stop I'll be raped by the hobgoblins that live in my 360. What I am scared of though is the fact that Activision is going to flood the market with Guitar Hero products that if anyone even sees another plastic guitar they'll hurl vomit so hard they'll end up on Venus. I haven't played Guitar Hero World Tour so I'll reserve judgement until I do but if Activision's business plans and Guitar Hero On Tour and 3 are any sign I don't think World Tour will be that great not to mention that I don't really like the set list.

In the end I just hope that Harmonix will be able to continue their evolution of the music genre after Harmonix makes everyone sick of it.

Development Arrested

I recently finished watching all three season's of the show Arrested Development. I know its been off the air and that I'm really late to the game but I have to say I really really love this show. But what I love about this show is not just the humor but for its commentary on television, censorship, and the modern family dynamic.

The first season has most of my favorite episodes and the second season follows up nicely. It wasn't until the third season did they know that they were being canceled and decided to go all out with the show. The story lines became increasingly insane where as the first and second season was much more character based.

But what really got me was the way the show was very aware of itself without over stating that fact. I think its that the narrator contributes so much and acts as another character in the show. Every once and a while the characters make references to being on a TV show or something of that nature but the narrator out right talks to the audience and gives us the answers to questions that the characters don't know about. The narrator gives us insight into the show without the characters looking at the screen and winking all the time.

This pretty much turned into a love fest but I don't really give a shit. If you haven't checked out the show all the episodes are up on Hulu.

Spore: The Sum of its Parts?

Everyone right now is throwing a fit over the DRM issues on Spore, and has become a huge talking about amongst gaming journalists and bloggers. But I don't really care that much about it because its just pandering between the people who want money and the people that don't want to spend it. And yes I am referencing Penny Arcade.

No, I want to talk about the game of Spore itself. Now I do understand every one's complaints. Most of the stages are very simplistic and aren't very compelling in of themselves. The only stage that is actually interesting is the space stage but even then its very repetitive which isn't good when your the longest stage in the game. All in all Spore is nothing more than an elaborate game of Play-Doh.

However I don't think the game is any of those things but the conglomerate of all of those aspects. The game may be split up in separate stages and the creation tools do seem slightly separate from the rest of the game but I viewed it was one huge game. Everything I've read about people's reaction to Spore is the fact they view each part as if it were a separate game. When I play the game I viewed each part more like a level instead of a separate game.

Perception is relative and I think that is the main difference between the people that enjoy the game and those that don't. That's not saying not liking the game is bad and this is more of a blanket statement on most games out there. Different people enjoy games for different reasons and Spore brings that to the forefront with its unique structure.

"Steve Holt!" - Steve Holt from Arrested Development

The New Bond Song: Shitty or just wait a while?

Being a massive Bond fan I always try to keep up with all the news that I can about any new James Bond film. And with the recent installment of Bond having been so good I'm really excited about the upcoming film "Quantum of Solace."

Besides the title not being that great everything else that I have heard and read about Quantum is right on the money until recently. As always there is a huge deal about how writes and plays the song for the opening title sequence of the Bond Films. Well after a long time of everyone thinking Amy Whinehouse was going to do the song, which isn't a bad idea, the official song has finally arrived sung by Alicia Keys and Jack White.

That's right Mr. Indie singer himself Jack White. Now I don't have any problem with Alicia Keys because her voice is well suited to match any of the great Bond songs of the past. But mixed with Jack White's nails on chalk board voice it just didn't work for me. The song itself is fine using new guitar riffs mixed in with classic horns which is a great throw back to the older songs.

Now the music video for the song has just been released and I have to say that its warmed up to me a little more. Now Casino Royale's "You Know my Name" by Chris Cornell I was not fond of either, even when the music video came out I was not thrilled until I saw the opening credits for the film. But this time the music video has warmed up to me so as long as the visuals for sequence are good I'm sure the song will fit in well.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/--201553123

"Fighting for peace, is like screwing for virginity." -George Carlin