Finally someone has the right idea!

So, apparently in some small Australian state they are proposing that not only should there be regulations on the ridiculous overpricing of snacks & beverages at movie theatres, but that people should be allowed by law to bring in other food. Now normally, I'm not stupid enough to buy anything at the theater (although I did buy a ridiculously overpriced box of dots when I went to see Elektra because I was starving and didn't have time to run out and grab something from a nearby place), but the price of snacks in theatres is really getting ridiculous (plus they need to offer a wider variety of food in my opinion, although some offer stuff like pizza, salads and sandwiches, most have they same small offering of popcorn, bad hotdogs and overpriced small candy). I luckily live in a small town and normally catch a bargain matinee for about 5 bucks, but add even a small soda and one of the cheaper snacks and it quickly becomes 10 or more. The biggest ripoff is the nachos. Nachos are essentially my favorite food to eat at any kind of entertainment (if they offered good nachos at the ballet, I'd probably go all the time), but theater nachos are generally a complete rip off. They offer very small bags of chips you have to open yourself and a small little container of cheese, and if you want extra, they charge you something like a $1.50 more. I understand that they make the most profit from their snacks, not movies, but maybe something in their buisness model needs to change because pretty soon nobody's gonna have the money to spend on it anymore (but us americans are slow to catch on to these kinds of trends that involve any kind of common sense, so maybe not).

So, as I stated previously, two horrible-looking horror films are opening up this weekend, and I don't really intend on seeing either of them. First up is Alone in The Dark, with Christian Slater and Tara Reid. I don't know how, but somewhere along the line Slater became the poor man's Kevin Bacon, even though he's a pretty good actor, and now he gets shlock like this. It's based on the series that actually started the whole survival horror genre, but has been not only irrelevant but dead since the Resident Evil series of games came along and really defined the genre. Not only does this look nothing like the series it's based on (did we learn nothing from the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?, I guess not, because they are also doing a movie based on the Doom games that is already reportedly going to have very little to do with the games), but it also stars talentless blonde Tara Reid. Reid's a hottie with several great magazine layouts to her name, but I rarely have seen an "actress" with so little talent that seems to continually get movie roles (maybe she's a poor man's Elisa Cuthbert?). On top of that, it's directed by Uwe Boll, who did the abominable House of the Dead film and is determined to ruin several other video game films that he has snapped up the rights to because unfortunately he knows how to make a movie so cheaply that it'll make a profit from the opening weekend alone before word of mouth really gets out.

And then there's Hide & Seek, starring previously distinguished actors Robert Deniro & Dakota Fanning. Deniro's been slumming it for awhile with his awful sequels to mildly amusing comedies, but the cheesy horror genre represents a new low and I bet at this point, Fanning will take any high profile job she can get, regardless of the fact that she's the best child actor in a couple of decades. I've always liked the idea of evil kids (one of the few horror films I actually enjoyed was The Omen), but this is going to be another one filled with cheap scares, big plot holes and an incomprehensible "twist" ending like every horror movie in the last decade or so. I seriously think the last horror film I enjoyed on any level was "Scream 3" and that whole trilogy was more of a campy comedy with slasher level violence than an actual horror film. Next week is not looking too good either, but there are a couple of promising films on the horizon, namely Constantine with Keanu Reeves and March looks somewhat interesting.

On the videogame front, Oddworld: Stranger came out this week for Xbox. I'll hopefully be able to rent it tommorow, even though the bastards known as EA are publishing it, the Oddworld games have always been very creative and entertaining while managing to make good social commentary, and this one looks to continue that tradition while taking the series in a fresh direction.
Then there's Playboy: The Mansion for Xbox & PS2. You get to live out every man's fantasy and be Hugh Hefner. Unfortunately, you don't get to just hang around the grotto and sleep with several girlfriends. You have to also run Playboy magazine, which means getting key interviews and knowing trends of the public so you can actually make money. Now if this all comes together it sounds like a pretty good idea, but my guess is they didn't put much thought into it and are just going to sell it on the Playboy name alone.

And that's pretty much it for now. I know Johnny Carson passed away this weekend. Everything that could be said has been said about the man who defined late night, so I'll just end with a fond farewell to the consumate entertainer who we invited into our room for 30 years. Goodbye Johnny and hope you are giving them one hell of a show up there...

na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, GOODBYE!!!!!

Finally that spineless dipshit Michael Powell has announced he's resigning from the FCC. Maybe the next chairman will tell parents to take some fucking responsibility and be their own children's censor(that's probably just wishful thinking). I just find it incredibly ridiculous that the two biggest "scandals" were about a little nudity during a football game(let's not even got started on how much BS they put Howard Stern through). Not that I don't enjoy football (long suffering Chargers fan in fact), but it is a sport that celebrates violence, mostly sponsored by sex & alcohol. I hardly think a little nudity (especially the very amusing Desperate Housewives skit) is something we should be so shocked by, and it has had far reaching implications thanks to people who not only refuse to take any sort of responsibilty, but also have no real life.

On a side note, I saw Assault on Precinct 13 today, I'll have a full review up at the site tommorow, but in essence it was a ugly and violent remake with little in the way of redeeming values. And since the only things opening in the next couple of weeks are crappy-looking horror films(Alone in the Dark, Hide & Seek and Boogeyman), this is probably the last movie I'll be reviewing for a little while. Or maybe I'll catch up on films like Aviator if they are still playing...

The price is wrong

All right, can somebody explain to me the reasoning behind why the price for DVD TV shows is all over the map? I love picking up TV shows on dvd, it's a great way to catch any episode of any TV show, anytime you want (currently my collection is Angel Seasons 1-4, Buffy seasons 1-7, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys seasons 1-3 & Simpsons seasons 1-5). Most of the sets I buy are around $45 and I've never paid more than $60 for any one season of any show. So then can someone explain why some sets are around that price and others are anywhere from $80-$150 dollars? Law & Order, Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, any of the Star Trek Shows, Babylon 5 and many others fall in this ridiculous price range. There aren't any big extras to justify this and in the case of cable shows you are getting far less bang for your buck because they usually have a max of thirteen episodes as oppossed to most network shows where you get anywhere between 18-26 episodes. There's just no reasoning behind this whatsoever aside from some assholes in marketing decided to see just how high a price they can get away with. Oh well, time to go scour ebay...

The first step is admitting you have a problem...

I have something to confess, even though I gave Suikoden IV a rather mediocre score of 6.5, I fully intend to beat it (mainly because there are no other rpgs I'm interested in out now or coming anytime soon). Let this be a lesson in following your instincts, becasue my gut was telling me it was a bad idea to open my pre-ordered copy. This is unfortunately not this first time I have done this with an rpg (I've lost count of how many hours I wasted on complete crap like Beyond the Beyond just because there wasn't anything else out there). Granted, if it becomes too frustrating or tedious, I will trade it in, but since I've already got 12 hours invested, I don't see that happening.

In other news, I don't mention TV too much (mainly because I haven't had cable for months now), but I did catch a bit of the Golden Globes last night (mainly during commercial breaks of Family Guy, that show gets funnier each time I watch it), honestly the only highlight was Robin Williams acceptance speech of his long overdue Cecil B. Demille award. Otherwise it was yet another bunch of awards given to people and films for reasons other than being the most qualified like every other pointless "let's kiss our own asses" awards show out there. Just the fact that neither Napolean Dynamite or Garden State were nominated for anything is proof of that.

Assault on Precinct 13 comes out on Wed. I haven't seen the John Carpenter original, but my guess is this won't be a good remake considering they released it in the dead month of January.
There's seriously nothing remotely interesting out till Hitch on Feb. 11th (Will Smith's first romantic comedy, and it actually looks funny).

All right, I'm off for some more banal seafaring expeditions......

Ed Asner is one tough SOB

One of the more interesting things about the Knights of the Old Republic series is that both games have Ed Asner voicing the no-nonsense cynical Jedi Master Vrook. Even if you are the most evil Jedi in the known universe, you never get to see just how suprsingly strong he is in the first game, but in the second, if you are evil, your main goal is to eliminate all existing Jedi so you get to fight him, which I got to do this past weekend finishing off KOTOR II as a dark side Jedi. And much like Master Yoda, this old and feeble-looking man whooped my ass many a time. Ed Asner is officially the toughest RPG boss I've fought in years, cause I rarely die more than once at any boss in an rpg, and it took me a good 10 tries to finally kill the bastard (although the fact that I was a Sith Lord didn't help, it's one of those classes where you are really weak until you get into the higher levels and then can lay waste to tons of enemies with your almost unlimited spell power).

On the movie front, Elektra opens this weekend, and while Jennifer Garner's forte is kicking ass in really tight outfits, there's plenty of warning signs that this will be a bad film. The first being that it's a spinoff of Daredevil, which was fairly mediocre, but what really scares me is the line they use in most of the TV ads: "From the forces that brought you X-men". Yeah, they brought us X-men. They also brought crap like incredible Hulk. And it's not like any of the geniuses invovled in making the good comic book films worked on this, i.e. Bryan Singer (X-men), Guillermo Del Toro (Blade & Hellboy) or Sam Raimi(Spider-Man). That's hollywood speak for no one worth anything wanted to touch this crap with a ten foot pole. it's the same thing when they say it's from a producer of a hit film or a director who had a great film years ago but hasn't done anything noteworthy since. It's not necessarily a sure sign of doom, but it's something to be weary of before you lay down your money on a complete waste on time.
On the other hand, there's Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson, which just seems like a guaraunteed waste of time. I mean really, how many more fucking movies do we need about a teacher/coach who teaches a bunch of unruly inner city kids about improving their life? I can tell it's gonna be a rough couple months ahead for movie goers like myself.

VIVE LA FRANCE!!!

Granted, I'm about as fond of the French as most Americans, but in case you haven't heard, in EA's latest attempt to homogenize the gaming industry, they have bought a rather large share of French-based game company Ubisoft and reportedly ready to attempt a hostile takeover. In case the name doesn't ring a bell, they've made some of the more brillaint titles over the past few years, namely the Rayman & Prince of Persia games as well as cash cow Tom Clancy titles. Luckily, the French government wants to pitch in to stop the takeover, as well as Vivendi Universal (although that may be just as bad) . It is readily apparent that EA is trying to be the one and only big dog in the gaming industry as they literally own football and tried to strike exclusive deals with every other major sport. They are also intent on running their properties into the ground as they apparently are planning to release LOTR titles on a yearly basis, alternating between the action and rpg format. I'm gonna publicly say now that I will never buy another EA game as long as they are pulling crap like this. Granted, I haven't been a huge supporter of theirs for years, but I at least used to respect that they normally put out quality titles despite some questionable buisness decisions. But it's clear EA is just becoming bad for the game industry. If EA and big companies like them snatch up everybody smaller, the bottom line will matter a lot more than innovation, and that will kill the game industry. It's happening right now in Japan, gaming's mecca. They are suffering a gaming recession from releasing way too many "safe" and mediocre mainstream titles. It may not be too long before we see it on these shores.

On the brighter side of gaming news, the first couple months of the new year are normally pretty sparse, but we have a few promising titles coming out next week. First up Suikoden IV for the RPG nut in me. In case you aren't familiar with that one, the entire series revolves around a hero gathering the 108 stars of destiny in order to save the kingdom (that's right, you gather up 107 other people, though not all fight in your party). I've loved every game in the series so far, but the reviews for this new one haven't been too kind. I don't get skittish about one or two reviews, but several mags have all come out and said it's average at best, and when lots of people are saying the same bad things about a product, you tend to listen. Oh well, I'm sure I'll enjoy it enough to keep me busy until next month when Xenosaga II comes out (which I'll talk about more when that when it gets closer to release).
Then there is Mercenaries, which I honestly don't have much personal interest in, but it sounds like a fun filled with mayhem game. It really does look like a game where all you do is blow shit up, but as long as that's done well, it can be an incredibly fun time.
And on the Gamecube front, there's Resident Evil 4(although it's really like RE40 with all the spinoffs and remakes in typical Capcom fashion). I haven't really enjoyed a survival horror game since Resident Evil: Code Veronica on the Dreamcast, but this one seems to be finally doing something different. No more limited saves, tons more ammo and this one is actually suppossed to be scary (although I've heard that a lot before). Unfortunately, the awful control scheme reportedly has not been changed, but maybe it'll work betterwith the new setup.

Finally, on the movie front, the only thing actually opening this weekend is White Noise, which is yet another awful-looking horror film(and after the Grudge, I'm not paying to see another one ever again), so I will most likely play catch-up and see either The Aviator or Life Aquatic, possibly both if I have the time. Video-wise, I HIGHLY reccomend both Garden State and Napolean Dynamite, both excellent films out now. And if you're looking for a little something different, I also just watched an excellent Asian film this week called Infernal Affairs, about two moles, one in a gang and one in the police force.
That's it for now, but one of my many new year's resolutions is to update this damn blog more often, so I'll try for at least twice a week but I guarauntee at least once a week.

All I want for Xmas....

IS A SYSTEM THAT CAN PLAY ITS OWN FUCKING GAMES!!!! Ok, here's the story, after whizzing through the light side of KOTOR II in a mere 2 and a half days (although it's an amazing game I plan to go through it several more times), I decided to treat myself to Working Designs latest treat, Growlanser Generations for the PS2. Working Designs is responsible for bringing some of my favorite rpgs of all time over here (namely the Lunar series), so I was expecting a great experience. What happened? Blue fucking discs, that's what. Sony is notorious for fairly crappy hardware, but the kicker is that a lot of early games don't play on the older PS2s because they are cd-based (which have a blue/purplish underside) rather than dvd-based. Now what possessed working designs to release their collection on this format when they know it would cause problems for a fairly good percentage of PS2 owners is beyond me, but the real fault lies with Sony. Since I bought mine only a few months after release, it's far past warranty, so Sony won't replace/fix it for free (and don't even get me started on trying to play most dvds on the damn thing). I tried cleaning the discs, the system, and I even took my ps2 apart trying a "gauraunteed to work" trick that was on the G4techtv website, and all that led to was a couple of hours of setting it right just so it would play normal games again. PS2 is the pretty much the only system in history I'm aware of where games made specifically for it have a serious possibility of not working because a company deicided to use a particualr format that's suppossed to work on it's anyways. This pretty much ensures I won't be first in line for a PS3 since it's bound to have some horrible technical issues such as this.

The waiting is the hardest part...

So, I finally beat Shadow Hearts: Covenant last night. The last boss wasn't much of a challenge (what is it with games and final bosses either being a sinch or nearly impossible?) and the ending was very weird (something like the heroine travels back in time and actually is the hero's mother and the hero travels back in time to meet his lost love again for the first time so they can start anew). I still highly reccomend it as a good under the radar purchase (although buying the original first will help clear up much of the plot, hell I beat the first one but it was awhile ago and my memory is pretty fuzzy about it, so I was still lost at some points). But what this mainly creates is a problem. I'm an rpg nut and I pretty much always need to have one I haven't beaten handy. I have money down on Knights of the Old Republic II, but that isn't out for a few more weeks, leaving me with a pretty big void and several interesting options. There's Baten Kaitos, which looks sort of interesting but has a card based battle system and I loathe those.
Then there's Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. This is one of those very weird titles from Japan that somehow makes it's way to our shores, but it's got a fairly interesting hook: You can't save the world, it ends ten minutes into the game apparently. You are instead integral in the rebuilding and you recruit demons to help you in your cause by negotiating with them in battle. It's sort of like Pokemon with an extremely twisted dark side. But it also has that hint of being way too Japanese for any but the truly hardcore to get into.
Then there's also Growlanser Generations. This is the LONG time coming latest release from Working Designs (note that their last rpg port was for the PS one) this is two games in one and looks to have some strong battle roots, but the last WD releases haven't exactly been quality (namely the horrific Arc The Lad Collection), although since all they really do is translate and publish, I shouldn't hang it on them, just question their judgement in brigning it over here.

Of course, I still haven't beaten Halo 2 or Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal yet, I may decide to do the reasonable thing and beat at least one of those before getting anything else (note that if I concentrate on one in particular, I'll probably have it beat by this weekend, so that may not matter much).

And on another note, the Nintendo DS finally relases next week. I'm not buying it, and I don't really plan to. Same goes for Sony's upcoming PSP portable system. Has anybody seriously looked at the release list for either of these systems? It's either kiddy crap or downgraded versions of stuff we can already buy on consoles (and don't even get me started on what a horrible idea a card-based Metal Gear game is) And while the DS' dual-screen setup is an interesting idea, I haven't seen any real inventive uses for it, even from Nintendo. Of course, I also said that I wasn't planning on getting the game boy, the super nes (diehard genesis fan at the time), the ps, the xbox, the ps2..........

Dear God Do I hate EA

You know, I've never really liked Electonic Arts. They can pretty much be noted as the company that started the idea of yearly updates of games with at best minor improvements (see all their series for example, but especially sports). And they never really supported Sega after the Genesis, which is definitely a big factor in why Sega isn't a contender in the console wars anymore (although to be fair it's just one in a long line of factors that were mostly Sega's fault). But I at least used to respect them because they usually put out some quality software.
Apparently, EA, the biggest publisher in the U.S., is getting sued for having almost sweat shop like conditions in their workplace. Now, I'm not nieve. I know that putting a game together takes a whole lot of dedication and man hours, more than most people would really be willing to commit. But what EA is doing is pretty much illegal, not much mention extremely disrespectful to those people who make the big wigs at the top so rich. And while it's unfortunately not a uncommon occurance, EA as the big dog on these shores should really be the one to step up and show that it actually gives a rat's ass about their hardest-working employees.

On a side note, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to music, but I noticed that Britney Spears just released a "Greatest Hits" album. I'm not judging on quality, but I really think you should be in the industry at least a couple of decades in order to have the right to release a greatest hits album, less other similar artists who not only suck that haven't even been around that long follow suit.

It's raining games! Hallelujah?

It's been a few days, my only excuse is that between the games coming out this week, Shadowhearts & Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (which is my early pick for best PS2 game of the year), and planning for the big release of Halo 2 has taken up plenty of my time.

A quick movie note: Since the Incredibles is out this weekend, I thought I'd check out director Brad Bird's previous animated effort: The Iron Giant. I can easily say that this is one of the best animated films I have ever seen. Anybody who is a fan of animation or great 1950s style adventure movies should check it out, it's a great underrated classic.

Ok, so november has started, and with it a huge avalanche of high profile (if not high quality) games are coming. This week alone Up Your Arsenal, Raw vs. Smackdown & Lord of The Rings: The Third Age are out. In the next 25 days we have Halo 2, Jak III, Metal Gear Solid 3, Goldeneye :Rogue Agent, Prince of Persia 2, Blinx 2, Baten Kaitos, Viewtiful Joe 2, Metroid Prime 2, Killzone and Call of Duty: Finest Hour. And those are just the major titles. Even if you have the money, who has time to play more than a couple of these? (I'm personally just sticking to Up Your Arsenal & Halo 2 this month, maybe if I have any time Prince of Persia 2). This many titles packed into such a short time span is sure to make many deserving games not get noticed by the public. I know christmas is the big release season, but most gamers aren't little kids who depend on santa for their games anymore. They have jobs and can afford games on their own, so the game industry should really take a cue from the movie industry and spread the releases out more throughout the year. It puts less pressure on companies, allows titles to grow an audience andmore importantly, gives gamers a chance to discover and be able to afford them. Just some food for thought.

Surviving Bad Box Office

So after torturing us with wave after wave of fairly awful films, lots of people are saying Ben Affleck's career is done and over with after Surviving Christmas failed to scare up enough to cover paying the janitorial crew at your local cineplex.
I actually consider this a shame, cause I actually like Affleck, which I know immediately makes me the enemy of about 99% of hate-filled cyncial internet geeks out there, but I still remember the great performances he gave in films like Chasing Amy, Mall Rats, Dogma, Boiler Room (even though he was only in that for a few minutes) and Sum of All Fears was pretty good as well. He's hardly the only talented actor to be in a string of rotten films. Granted, I wasn't dumb enough to go see Surviving Christmas (not that the Grudge was a much better choice, see my review here), but I'll be more than willing to see his next film as long as the previews are decent. He said he's done with action films, that's probably a good start. Maybe he should go the Robin Williams route and start doing mostly creepy psycho roles that are against what people generally think of him. But I'd hate for someone to skip a great movie just cause they don't like the star in it (aside from guys like Rob Schnieder and David Spade, just about anything they do is just plain unwatchable).

Rollin wit' my krew...

Well it's officially tommorow, so I thought I'd update (hell, maybe I'll do this several times a day if I have enough to say). GTA: San Andreas hits most stores today, I will definitely rent, but don't plan on buying it. Sure, it's a lot bigger, but does that just mean you'll be running over hookers in different cities or will it make a difference in actual gameplay? I enjoyed Vice City, but reckless mayhem is only fun for so long and the missions weren't that entertaining. And in case you haven't heard, they have this whole diet system where you have to eat to keep up your stamina, but you also have to exrecise to keep off the weight. I think that's one of the stupidest ideas in game history. Games should never be that realistic. I don't want to have to worry about food or water supply in a game. If I want that, I'll go to the desert for a few days with nothing but a backpack and a canteen. It's sorta lame that I could arguably fail a mission because I took one too many trips to Burger King. Well, I guess we'll all find out in a day or two.

Start with a joke...

So I'm now playing a game where you actually have to search all over the place for gay porn in order to get powerful dresses for a doll. The joke is that this isn't a joke. The name of the game is a quirky but brilliant rpg called Shadowhearts: Covenant.
Hi, my name is Eric Chrisman, and this is my first atempt at a blog. The title has to do with what I'll mainly be talking about on here, the entertainment medium. Video games, movies, music, tv, dvds, etc. (honestly mostly video games). There won't be any big reviews on here, you can check those out at the websites I write for-rawfeedvideogames.com & rawfeedmovies.com. I probably won't update this daily, but I'll try as often as possible, so let's start with a couple of quick comments on gaming as of late and on a very odd film.

Having beat Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door in a mere 5 days (somehow I managed to squeeze in 35 hours in 5 days and I have no idea how; it's really freaking me out) I recently picked up Phantom Brave for PS2, now as it wasn't available at any of the 3 main rental chains I go to, I didn't really get to play it for full review in a timely manner (within a couple of weeks of release), which is a rule I try to make for myself. This is from the same geniuses who made Disgaea & La Pucelle, so I was expecting it to be great. I won't say it sucked, but it definitely wasn't up my alley. The lack of grids is very confusing, they put weird limits on how many guys you can make and drag into battle, the fact that you have to restore guys who aren't even damaged after every battle is a costly and annoying thing, and finally I hate that your guys can only be on the field for a limited amount of turns. So, I claimed my copy didn't work and got Shadow Hearts instead :), despite the whole thing about gay porn, it's a rather brilliant rpg that any fan of the genre should pick up.

I saw "I Heart Huckabees" yesterday (mainly because the last 3 showings of "The Grudge" were completely sold out, I'll have a review up at my website on monday of that one), this is one of the wierdest fucking movies I have ever seen. It's basically about existential detectives who try and figure out how everything is connected. It was entertaining and I laughed a lot, but there were many moments where the movie completely lost me.

Ok, that's it for today, now I have continue on my quest for gay porn (uh, in Shadow Hearts I mean).