Midnight Movie Review: X-Men: First Class

Apparently I'm never talking about another board game again.  :P

Midnight Movie Review: Thor

Previews! Previews! I WANT PREVIEWS!

Katie over at Just Plain Something posted a trailer yesterday for a movie that I'd forgotten that I was anticipating! Black Swan comes out later this year, and looks to build on the simplicity of The Wrestler while adding a psychological horror component. I'm so excited about this movie.

You probably aren't asking yourself what other movies I'm excited about, aside from Tron Legacy. Well, you're a jerk sir or madam! Here are two trailers for movies that I'm pumped for. One graces the screen in a week, while the other waits for 2011!





Two more awesome events also happen next week. OU kicks off our 2010 campaign and PAX happens in Seattle! I'll be at PAX covering the event for Late Nite JengaJam as well as cosplaying for the first time ever and just having a blast. Speaking of Late Nite JengaJam, next Tuesday is our Draft Show for the D&D 4 JOX fantasy football league! Tune in at 9pm Central for our analysis and picks and hijinks!

Midnight BONUS Review - The Expendables!

DU_Stars_Fan AKA @damnitjason joins me for a special weekend review!

Midnight Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Random Thoughts #9

• First off, here's my spoiler-laden review for Inception!  If you've not seen it yet, you really do owe it to yourself to see it this weekend!

• Tonight on Late Nite JengaJam, it's a super podcasting mash-up, as Joe and John from The Javaheads call in and hang out.  We'll be talking about life, liberty and the pursuit of poutine, along with the upcoming RvBTO awesomeness.

• Speaking of RvBTO, that happens in just over a week!  Once again I'll be trekking into the untamed wilds of Canada with my friends on a weekend moose-hunt.  Canada and its capital of Toronto are savage lands, but the natives are friendly if not sophisticated.  :P

• Finally, I've been hard at work on the next Awesome On Its Own video for Lady Gaga's Telephone.  I'm very close to being finished, and hope to have it completed by this weekend!  After that, I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself.  Maybe catching up with True Blood would be a good place to start!

Midnight Movie Review - Inception

I'll post the spoiler-filled geek-out video on Tuesday. For now, here are my thoughts on Inception, minutes after the midnight screening up in OKC.

Random Thoughts #8

• I just finished both seasons of The Tower of Druaga. Very cool, and I'll have more in-depth thoughts next week!
  
• Today was also a big day on the PAX front for Late Nite JengaJam. We've just gotten word that we've been approved to receive media passes for PAX Prime 2010. What does this mean? First off, our passes are free. Also, there are special media-only events that we'll be able to go to. We're still trying to figure out how to best take advantage of this opportunity, but count on lots of interviews and maybe even a special live show. We'll see!
  
• Well, The Last Airbender may have been a bust, but I'm looking forward to Predators this weekend, and Inception next week!
  
• I picked up Borderlands on Steam. I haven't gotten to play much, but I get the feeling I missed a bunch of exposition by running the opening without my headphones. Oh well, you just shoot stuff and make them dead, right?
  
• Must not think about the sweet STI Trojan in 9mm that I shot last week. Must not think about the sweet STI Trojan in 9mm that I shot last week. Must not…
  
• Moving on, this whole dog and pony show featuring LeBron James has been absurd. ESPN started this crap 3 years ago right after the Spurs kicked the ever-loving shit out of the Cavs in the NBA Finals. Since then, it's been "WHERE'S LEBRON GOING TO GO?!?!?!" practically every night on Sportscenter. "Hey assholes", I would tell the indifferent TV set, "LeBron's got a team. Let's not talk this up while he's still a Cavalier!". This always came off as very rude to the fans that had been rooting for their hometown hero for 7 years. I'd never thought ill of LeBron, and always thought it was cool that he got to play professional ball in his home state. As for the talk of free agency, the NBA itself was more than happy to play along with this shameful display. Sadly, a lot of people bought into the hype, and it finally came to a head last night as James joined Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh with the Miami Heat. Echoing a comment I made on Facebook, the whole thing has been utterly disrespectful to the Cleveland fans. Sure, this is probably the best shot at a championship than he's ever had or will ever have again. However, it's not fair to Cleveland to not only be flippant about the decision to stay or go, but to help feed the media hype that's constantly reminding Cavs fans about what they might lose. LeBron has come off like a twat, and it seems to me that he could learn a thing or two from OKC's own Kevin Durant, who handled his contract talks with poise and dignity. Also, I can't wait for the Spurs or the Thunder to walk into Miami and whip the Heat's ass. I hope that LeBron James is remembered as the greatest player to never win a title. That's a petty thought to have, especially considering that D. Wade's already been to the top, and Bosh is a talent like few others. As long as Miami can actually fill out the team with the proper supporting players, they will be a force to be reckoned with. I instead choose to be spiteful for no good reason, and hope that he fails again to rise to the top.
  

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 Review from Jonathan Serna on Vimeo.

Was that review not enough for you? Check the last three posts over at Just Plain Something, where Katie deftly ranks her preferences in Pixar movies!  While I think most of us can agree on the bottom 2 Pixar flicks, the other eight's standings are highly debatable and controversial.

Random Thoughts #6

• Movie season is really starting to ramp-up in the next few weeks, with The A-Team movie coming out today, and Toy Story 3 coming out next week. Reviews for both will be forthcoming.

• :D Rock Band 3 looks like it's actually going to be very cool!

• All this talk of college sports and what will happen to the PAC-10, Big Televen, and Big XII is bothersome.  All that said, comments like the ones made by Bob Stoops about the possibility of playing in the Big PAC 16 make me think that it's a very real possibily, and that the PAC-10 will indeed invite all or most of the current Big XII South to join them in a super conference.  No offense to Sherri Cole (hottest. coach. evar. <3), but Bob Stoops is a company man.  It seems out of character for him to make such fanciful remarks, unless he felt like he in line with the people making the decision like OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione.  That still makes Mizzou a goddamn whore that will probably get left out in the cold, or at best in with the Mountain West.  So is this good for OU?  Yes and no.  Yes, because it will intensify the new rivalries that are developing between PAC-10 schools and OU, namely Oregon and USC.  The conference champion of this new league will have to be a better team as a whole, and that makes me feel better about not only going to a title game, but actually winning it.  No, because OU had an easy road to the Championship game in the last few years, assuming that we took care of business.  The case for Big XII Women's Basketball, which has flourished in the Big XII, also must be considered.  There's also talk of each division champion in this BigPAC16 getting an automatic BCS bid.  I suppose we'll see, probably in the very near future, how this all shakes out.

Iron Man 2

For those watching this review on Wandering Gamer, thank you! Here are some additional thoughts that didn't make it into the video. Enjoy!

- Every comic book based movie franchise has a slump or decline, thanks to the amount of material that the movie is expected to cover. I've seen many potenially awesome movies get crushed by the weight of their own characters and story-arcs. Spiderman 3, X-Men: Last Stand, Batman and Robin, Wolverine, Fantastic Four, I'm looking at all y'all. Iron Man 2 has just as much material to cover, yet does it's best to remain focused and entertaining. Jon Favreau does a great job balancing the introductions of new people and expanding the characters we already know. In this respect, Iron Man 2 is stellar. Sure it's not as good as the first movie, but if this is the franchise's "slump", then it's a very well executed and enjoyable "slump".

- Speaking of new people, Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow (although she's never referred to as this) is HOT. Seriously epically hot. Also, she's very flippy with a good helping of unrealistic but entertaining acrobatic combat. I wonder who would win in a fight between Romanoff and Hit-Girl. Hmmm...

- One of the other new people is the Crimson Dynamo/Whiplash hybrid character of Ivan Vanko played by Mickey Rourke. Vanko is one of the few weak points in the movie, as just about every scene he's in and not fighting is awkward and hard to understand. No, I mean he's literally hard to understand with his mumbling Russian accent.

- Sam Rockwell turns in a decent performance as slimeball rival industrialist Justin Hammer. He's ok, but he constantly comes off as whiny and incompentant rather than a real threat to either Tony Start or Ivan Vanko. I suppose that's probably intentional, but I like my bad guys to be real challenges for the heroes. I suppose that's where Roarke's Ivan Vanko succeeds where Rockwell's Justin Hammer fails, as a suited-up and battle-ready Vanko feels like a genuine menace to Iron Man.

In the end, I'll probably go see Iron Man 2 in the theatre again. That might just be the best praise of a movie there can be.

Kick-Ass

We interrupt our PAX East reminiscing to bring you my first midnight movie review of 2010! Enjoy!

Looking back

This has been a most interesting year for me. At the same time, I’ve been very very bad.

Not bad in the moral sense, but more bad in that I’ve really neglected things that interest me greatly. Activities that used to bring me so much joy, like working out, updating this space, seeing movies, playing a variety of games, all of those things I’ve not been too good about doing, especially in the last part of the year. Movies like 9 (the stitchpuck adventure), Nine (the musical), Sherlock Holmes, Ninja Assassin, and more recently the apparent visual feast of Avatar, all have been passed over in favor of playing games with my buddies. Whether it’s Agricola with local pals or Modern Warfare 2 with friends from afar, that has been the main focus of things this fall and winter.

In fact, for all my laziness, I’ve had a lot of fun. All those reviews I’ve been promising have been for some really good games. I relish the chance to play Dungeon Lords again, and look forward to replaying the newest Dominion Expansion.

In more RPG-related matters, my D&D sessions that I’ve been involved in have been really enjoyable, and the new material coming out has really given D&D 4th Edition the kind of depth that 3.X had. The best part about it is definitely the D&D Insider material available online. From the handy character builder, to the almost indispensible Monster Generator, to the added character flavor in Dragon, the year in D&D has been pretty fantastic. Add in the fact that I got to introduce several new players to the game in a sleep-deprived and half-drunk session in a Toronto diner over the summer, and it’s been a pretty solid year for XPz and lootz.

So maybe the year wasn’t a complete loss. So what about the decade that’s about to end? It’s been nothing short of fantastic for me. I got married, got a house, and got to travel! In doing so, I got to meet some of the most awesome people in the universe. At the same time, I’ve seen good times and a few bad with the friends that I’ve had for over 13 years. At this point, I’d call them family, brothers and sisters all. As for my family back in San Antonio, I’ve welcomed a new member into our family in my brother-in-law, and also recently met my first niece!

Sports were also big! The Oklahoma Sooners won a National Championship, and my beloved San Antonio Spurs won two NBA titles. I got to see Oklahoma City get the Hornets, then the Thunder. I got to sit courtside at a Thunder game too! In the gaming realm, I got more heavily involved in board gaming than ever before, meeting the outstanding people in the OKC Super Fantastic Gaming Hour group, and starting this site to bring my love of games to the world. Music was a big focus for me as I started going to concerts! I saw Nine Inch Nails six times, Sevendust three times, and Disturbed twice, among a multitude of other shows.

Yup, I’d say I’m pretty blessed. Happy New Year, and I’ll see you all in 2010!

(500) Days of Summer

This has been a most interesting summer for movies, where the big budget movies have tended to fall flat while the movies that I was most on the fence about, namely District 9 and Star Trek, ended up hitting it right out of the park. There were also some great surprises, like The Hangover, and more recently (500) Days of Summer. While The Hangover is a comedic romp that revels in guilty movie pleasure and extremely base but effective humor, (500) Days is a thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly energetic look a relationships that hit very close to home for this reviewer. This was the perfect movie to end my summer reviews with, and though I may yet see GI Joe, I probably won’t review it anytime soon.

(500) Days of Summer makes two things very clear from the beginning of the movie. First, the movie is the story of a boy and a girl, and girl is someone that one of the film’s writers is no longer on good terms with. Second, is that the boy and girl do not end up together. Watching the movie, I was confused as to why the filmmakers would choose to tell us essentially the end of the story at the beginning. This is because the end isn’t as important as how the end came about, which is what the movie concerns itself with. The story is told non-chronologically, which works excellently as every happy moment the characters’ relationship is tempered with scenes from the decline of the romance. This makes the film seem much longer than its meager 95 minute running time, but this works well since such an emotional rollercoaster can’t be sustained for too long without tiring and eventually boring the audience. The movie is briskly paced, and engaging for the entire its entire length.



There are far too many good things to say about the two leads of the movie, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. They are excellent in their roles, never outshining the other and keeping their balance throughout the film. There are times when you want to hate their characters, and this is because you actually begin to care about both of them and question their actions out of concern for their well-being. This is a credit to both actors and their expertly understated performances. The rest of the cast is also well utilized, giving their support when needed and staying in the background when they’re not. The camera is absolutely in love with Zooey, and does an excellent job of showcasing her stunning beauty and her character’s almost force of nature-like personality. As the story is mostly told from Gordon-Levitt’s character’s perspective, his turn as the helpless romantic is the backbone of the story, and the emotional highs and lows that his character faces were especially relevant to my own experiences.

The movie is not only about relationships, but about personal perceptions as well. Just because you see something and want it very badly, it will never work out if everyone isn’t totally onboard no matter how badly you want it too. This was a lesson that I as a young man from San Antonio, who met a girl from Detroit in college, had to learn for himself a long time ago. I asked that girl out many time, only to get rejected time and time again. I was so sure that we were supposed to be together, that it nearly cost us our friendship. Finally, I grew up and was ready to move on. It was that realization, finally understanding that just because I wanted something didn’t mean I would get it, that was a key factor in my growing as a person. Eventually, that girl and I did get together, but not until she saw that growth in me, and realized that I had the potential to be there for her. This is a lesson that inherent in the movie, and is one of the reasons that I enjoyed it so much.



(500) Days of Summer deserves your attention, more so than any other so-called romantic comedy that has come out this year. I’d say it’s the best movie of the summer, but Star Trek was pretty excellent as well. Both movies are satisfying in their own way, and both are excellent for their own reasons. 10/10

District 9 and Inglourious Basterds

When I updated the other day, it occurred to me that I'd completely left out any mention of some of the movies I've taken in recently. EGAD! Sometimes I have to remind myself that my geekery need not be limited to games and sports.



This summer was all about the remakes and sequels. Some of them were good, like Star Trek and others were rather bland or just sucked all together like Terminator Salvation and Transformers. It's extremely refreshing when something new and awesome is given to us to enjoy, and nothing more represents that feeling than Neill Blomkamp's District 9.

District 9 is essentially a big-budget remake of Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joburg, with obvious expansions of the plot, characters, and special effects. The movie is about a group of errant aliens who's ship settles just above Johannesburg twenty years before the film is set. Having nowhere else to put the growing alien population, the South African government settles the refugees into a slum known as District 9. This is just one of several not-so-subtle references to apartheid in the movie, and this along with the slow start of the film is one of District 9's few failings. Once the movie gets going you're almost unprepared for the massively epic finale to the film, and before I spoil too much I'll just say that the alien weapons in the movie are definitely video game inspired and utterly awesome.

Speaking of the aliens, they look fantastic. Not only are they exceptionally animated, they're everywhere on-screen. The filmmakers are not shy in showing off their masterfully crafted aliens, but it never feels like they're hogging the spotlight. Further, I suspect that a lot of the time and effort in animating the aliens comes from the aborted Halo movie, that special effects house Weta was also working on. The aliens are sized just about right to be Elites, and one of the alien crafts looks an awful lot like a Pelican. I don't consider this to be a mark against the movie, as any means by which to deliver quality special effects is alright with me. Weta does a great job of making the Prawns, a slurish nickname for the District 9 aliens, different enough in size and texture from Elites for most people not to notice.

District 9 is now required viewing for any fan of good science fiction, and manages to challenge the epic Star Trek for being the best sci-fi movie of the summer and perhaps the year. Really, it's not fair to label District 9 as merely good sci-fi as it stands on it's own as an excellent film quite well. 9/10



From a virtually unknown filmmaker's work, we shift now to a guy that everyone knows and his movie that's been a long time coming. Quentin Tarantino has been working on Ingourious Basterds for over a decade, and I remember when I first heard about the movie right around when Kill Bill came out, and I was pretty excited about it. Some of my favorite movies are World War II films, including Kelly's Heroes and The Dirty Dozen, and this looked to be aiming for being that kind of WWII flick.

Inglourious Basterds definitely delivers such a movie, complete with Tarantino's trademark dialogue and violence. The movie is almost more of an exploitation movie that revels in the brutal killing of Nazis, with many breaks of tense but polite conversation. It's not a film for the squeamish, as many people are regularly and gruesomely dispatched throughout the movie. It's also not a movie for those that dislike killing for killing's sake, so if you didn't like movies like Hostel or Saw, you might want to skip this.

That said, Nazis make for the perfect villains as Indiana Jones and Wolfenstein both proved to us. Killing is not OK, but tempering that notion by killing Nazis is perfectly acceptable in most forms, and is almost cathartic for people who really REALLY hate Nazis, like Jake Elwood or Jewish-American soldiers that make of the Inglourious Basterds in the film. If you already are a fan of Tarantino's work, you need to check this out. Look for excellent performances by the unknowns of the cast, like Mélanie Laurent as the scarred Shoshanna and Christoph Waltz and the polite, evil, and multilingual Nazi Colonel Hans Landa. I for one like this a lot, Nazi killing and all. 8/10

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Up

Terminator Salvation

Star Trek

Random Thoughts #2

• STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!! STAR TREK IS TOMORROW!!!
• Last night's appearance on Late Night JengaJam was a lot of fun. Hopefully we'll get to do it again at some point. After the show we talked about doing some live board game playing at some point in the future, so we'll see what happens with that.
• NFL draft was last week. OU sent 5 players to the pros, including 3 offensive linemen. Texas sent 4 players, including 3 defensive linemen. This year's OU/TX game should be more interesting than ever.
  
• Halo was also fun last night. There's a special kind of joy associated with blowing up a Warthog full of enemies with a missile pod, or blowing up two enemies at the same time w/ a single rocket. TOTAL CARNAGE! I LOVE IT!
• Current D&D Campaign Count: 3. One party of three 9th level guys (Dragonborn Paladin/Warlord, Dragonborn Warlord/Barbarian, Human Bow Ranger), another party of three level 5 dwarves (Battlerager Fighter, Warlord, and Beast Ranger), and the big party of six level 7 guys (Human Rogue, Human Swordmage, Human Fighter, Dwarven Wizard/Fighter, Dwarven Cleric/Warlord, Tiefling Warlord).