Somewhat Manly Nerd

Link to NBC.com site.

It’s too late. I can’t think of anything witty or entertaining to say about this preview. I just know it took a ridiculously long time to load.

The preview shows off probably the first 30 minutes of the movie. Two corny heartfelt scenes with a long action sequence. Maybe it was my monitor, maybe it was the video, but the integration of Parker and the Hobgoblin in that action sequence looked pretty awful at times, but it was still decent overall. Oh well, I’ll enjoy the movie just as I did the first two. Just nothing mind-blowing.

Goodbye, old friends.

Courtesy of 1up.com.

Sakurai [director of SSBB] announced Bowser Jr., the “Celda” version of Link, and Ridley, the archenemy of Samus, would all be joining the cast of characters for the Wii release.

We’ve also, unfortunately, learned of three current characters that will not be returning: The Ice Climbers, Mr. Game & Watch, and Young Link have no home in SSBB. We don’t know who exactly will take their place just yet, but Sakurai stated he wants a roster 40 deep, with 1-2 more non-Nintendo characters.

I can’t say I like this news too much. I don’t mind Young Link being switched for Wind Waker Link, but Ice Climbers and Mr. Game and Watch being taken out is garbage. I’m not a big fan of Ice Climbers or even Mr. Game and Watch, but they were arguably the two most unique characters in SSBM, and I know a few friends of mine were big supporters of Mr. GnW. And Bowser Jr? That’s awful. Ridley is the one addition I’m somewhat interested in, but I can see some Metroid fans being somewhat upset about it, considering he’s going to get nerfed to be balanced within this game. One of my friends already reacted pretty harshly to the news.

Of course, we will see how all these characters fit together, but right now I’m not very impressed nor excited by this news. There needs to be Sonic, or Simon Belmont, or Viewtiful Joe – just to name a few.

Link to “300 Seconds of Mayhem”.

Nothing is really spoiled in this clip, but if you want to go in absolutely fresh, obviously don’t watch it. It showcases just how awesomely violent and stylized the action is, and shows a bit of that mutant that you see in the trailers for the movie. I can’t wait for this film. IMAX, here I come.

This man is truly an American hero. I really hope he patented this idea. In a few months, you could be seeing these in Wal-Marts across the country. This is civilization’s next great step. There is now one less reason to move. We Americans are closer to our goal of being fat, immobile slobs whose lives are dominated by activities that require no physical strain whatsoever. I can think of no greater goal than that. That is why I wrote this commercial. If I had any sort of vocal ability, I would make an audio version, but alas, I am but a lowly man – I can only supply you with the script. Budweiser will just need to make a commercial now. You advertising guys know how to contact me.

Bud Light Presents Real Men of Genius
(Real Men of Genius)
Today, we salute you, Mr. Robotic Beer Launcher Inventor
(Mr. Robotic Beer Launcher Inventor)
For all eternity, men needed to get up to receive ice cold refreshment, now, we just need to press a button. Another remote for the good of mankind.
(Don’t gotta move now)
Commercial breaks were always the designated time to grab a beer, because of you, there is instant gratification. Just like a Victoria Secret model commercial.
(No more waiting)
Man’s greatest invention since the tailgater’s companion, the hibachi. Never again will a John Madden comment be missed due to an emergency trip to the fridge
(Tough actin Tinactin)
So crack open a nice, cold Bud Light, Mr. Robotic Beer Launcher Inventor, and hope that it doesn’t spray all over your couch.
(Mr. Robotic Beer Launcher Inventor)
Bud Light Beer, Anheuser-Busch, St, Louis, Missouri

Actually, this is the “Deluxe” edition, which means you’re going to need a lot of spare time and patience to ever finish this quiz. I might have played the original sometime during the past two years, but I can’t remember. I’ve definitely played games like this before – ones even more abstract and random ones than this particular one – but I found this one ridiculously addictive, at least for a little while. It gets painfully tedious to start over and over again and have to click through 70 questions that you already know the answers to. Apparently, it has 110 questions, and I don’t think I’m ever going to get around to beating it. Maybe if you got some sort of prize for wasting hours to beat this “Impossible Quiz,” or if I was a 15 year old with a ridiculous amount of free time, I’d do it, but as it is, it’s only a fun distraction for as long as you can stomach it.
The Impossible Quiz Deluxe.

First off, how do The Academy Awards get off with having two names? Does anything other event like this have two completely different, but both completely accepted and official names? That always confused me growing up. I thought they were two different events. You know you did too. Imagine if the World Cup was also called The Football Championship. Now that would confuse the hell out of Americans.

Anyhow, we all know the biggest story at the Oscars was Martin Scorsese finally winning his first Oscar after five previous nominations. The man absolutely deserved it. The Departed will not be remembered as fondly by film critics, or even the general public, as his earlier masterpieces such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull or possibly even Goodfellas, but who else deserved it? (Actually, the Academy has a hard-on for Clint Eastwood, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if they gave him the Best Directorial Oscar.) The Departed was an absolute blast from beginning to end and it deserved all 4 Oscars that it won, especially Best Picture. The stellar cast performed perfectly together (even though I do not feel Wahlberg deserved an Oscar nod for his performance), William Monahan won for his terrific script, and I don’t know much about film editing, but I’ll just say it deserved that too. But I guess it is sort of strange that Scorsese finally won his Oscar due to arguably his most mainstream, and inarguably most financially successful, film. Maybe if the competition stronger this year Scorsese would have been denied again, but I guess the Academy knew there was no way they could conceivably get away with it this time.

I don’t really get the critics that say this was a “pity” or “lifetime achievement” Oscar for Scorsese. Just look at the competition. There was nothing as entertaining as The Departed. On the other hand, it does seem to break the recent mold of Best Picture Oscar winners. I’m surprised that Babel didn’t win, like it did at the Golden Globes. Besides, if the Academy was all about giving out lifetime achievement awards this year, surely they would have given Peter O’Toole the Oscar for Best Actor. The guy is 100 years old. He looked like he could’ve died during the awards show. On the other hand, he already did receive an honorary Oscar for his entire body of work, so I guess they decided to just let the old guy stay seated. The show was already four hours long – they didn’t need to prolong it by watching an old man take 15 minutes to walk to the stage.

But while my favorite movie of the year was sufficiently showered with awards and praise from the Academy, my runner-up from last year – Children of Men – was shutout. At least it got nominated for three awards, but I don’t know how they picked Pan’s Labyrinth over it for Achievement in Cinematography. For the climatic final action scene ALONE, Children of Men deserved that award. Yes, I’m just echoing the sentiment from my previous review of CoM, but when Pan’s Labyrinth won what seemed like it’s 10th award I was pretty infuriated. Well, as much as angry as a normal person can get at an awards show.

I just have a well-documented mild hatred towards Pan’s Labyrinth. Have you noticed that I love having a reason to link to my own old posts? But just as it seemed that Pan’s Labyrinth was an unstoppable juggernaut, it lost in the foreign-language film category. That got a hearty laugh out of me, considering it had just robbed another movie of an award. And it was obvious that the winner was not expecting it at all, which was nice to see. Guillermo del Toro probably drowned himself in a tub of nachos when he got home, especially since he didn’t win for Best Original Screenplay either. He had to watch a bunch of people that worked around him on the movie get awards while he probably sat there with a glazed, murderous look on his face.

So overall, it was a pretty decent night. Pan’s Labyrinth got beat in the one category everyone thought it a mortal lock to win and Scorsese got his Oscar. I didn’t see enough of the other movies to really comment on the rest of the awards, but it was nice to see a film like Little Miss Sunshine get two Oscars.

Now go see The Departed if you haven’t already.

I really was ready to go animal on this shit holiday, but I’m in a decent mood. This is despite the shitty conditions I had to walk through to get to class this morning. Amazingly, we didn’t get all that much snow on Long Island. Maybe I shouldn’t say amazingly, because most of the time we seem to get the least snow when a storm comes around. I still can’t believe the insane amount of snow they’ve gotten upstate though. 11 feet. You haven’t lived until you’ve shoveled your house out of a 20 foot snowdrift.

Anyhow, to all you couples out there, have a nice sex-filled Valentine’s Day. I’m going to spend the day with my valentine – The Departed DVD.

This just in: Perry Bible Fellowship’s take on Valentine’s Day.

They couldn’t have planned it any better. At this point, Warner Brothers and Sony should just go all out and cross-promote these two pieces of entertainment. 300 is set to inject an ungodly amount of testosterone into theaters on March 9th, while Kratos is back for his much-deserved sequel only four days later on March 13th. Looks like that’s official “Go Shirtless” week.

The reviews for both have already started to roll in – and they are glowing. GoW2 is being heralded as the great swan song for the PS2, pushing the system to its limits – with the result being possibly the best game to ever grace the system.

If you don’t own a PS2, find someone who does and sit yourself down in front of their TV for 12 or so hours as you’ll otherwise be missing out on one of gaming’s most intense and engaging experiences available.

That quote from IGN alone should convince you to buy this game. And if you haven’t already played the first, you have failed at gaming. It’s easily beat under ten hours, but it was one of the greatest gaming experiences I had last generation. The pacing was absolutely perfect, the mythos was damn cool, the controls were effortless, and the gore just topped off the entire package. Its sequel looks to improve upon it in every possible way.

Meanwhile, 300 has been reviewed by a couple of not-so-respectable outlets for movie reviews (IGN and AICN), but those are precisely the places one has to read a review for this movie. Roger Ebert (actually, is he still alive?) will not understand how this movie will increase the birth rate nine months after its release, or how the violent crime rate will have a spike in the middle of March. Men are told to be pussies at every turn nowadays – 300 is going to let out the repressed urge to throw a spear through another guy’s chest.

I bet the U.S. military loves this movie. Not only because of the testosterone-pumping reasons I already gave, but also because the trailers portray the Spartans as fighting for freedom. That’s goddamn hilarious. What’s the name of a democracy that leaves babies on the hillside to die? On the other hand, I’m not going into this movie expecting an accurate historical account – that went out the window at the first sight of a Persian mutant that looked like it was out of a comic book. Oh shit, it is based on a comic book. Nevertheless, this movie will still rock, plain and simple. Even if the acting, the script, and the plot all suck, it will still be the most visually stunning movie this year.

March is going to be fucking awesome.

I just played some Halo 2 last night with my friend. I feel like I’m looking at it when I look at these screens.

The sense of scale seems to there in a few screens, but the only screen that looks impressive at all is the fifth. Maybe Bungie is going the complete opposite route as Sony did with their bullshit Killzone 2 video. Don’t blow their load too early and then wow the gamers with the final game. On the other hand, the beta had better look more impressive than this, or else people might start doubting Halo 3 a bit. For sure, there’s a ton of gamers out there just waiting for this game to come out so they have a definite reason to buy a Xbox 360, but there’s definitely a decent amount out there that are skeptical after Halo 2.

Bottom line: I just hope this isn’t at all indicative of the final build of the game.