Why I Hate Scott Pilgrim

I saw a decent amount of movies last year. Here are all the ones I saw that were released in 2010:

The Book of Eli

Shutter Island

Kick-Ass

Iron Man 2

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

The A-Team

Toy Story 3

Inception

The Expendables

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

The Town

The Social Network

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

True Grit

Of these movies, I was only disappointed in two. Iron Man 2... and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Iron Man 2 is a story in of itself, but in my opinion it was still better than Scott Pilgrim. I went to the midnight release of this film, ready to be wowed beyond my wildest dreams. What I got out of it was a rushed movie with a douche-y main character with a few good moments and characters packed inside. I came out of the theater and I seemed to be the only one of my friends who viewed the movie this way. Everyone else called me crazy, hailing it as the greatest movie of 2010. For those of you still confused - wondering as my friends did why I think such a thing about the movie - here's why. 

First, the pacing of the movie was way off. The movie seemed be cruising along at a decent pace for about... forty-five minutes. Then around when the fourth evil-ex shows up things start to roll forward with rocket speed. They completely bypass the fifth and sixth exes (the twins and the most interesting of the bunch) all to get to the ending of the movie. The fact that it moved so quickly wasn't helped by the fact that it was roughly an hour and twenty minutes long. The movie desperately needed at least another twenty minutes to help flesh things out and not cram as much drivel as possible into eighty minutes.

Scott Pilgrim is a douche bag. It's pretty much acknowledged in the beginning of the film by his band mates. Fair enough. But usually movies have what's called "character growth" in them. This is where during some time in the film the main character is supposed to have some sort of epiphany and realize his ways are wrong and change them. That... never happened with Scott Pilgrim. Some sword just grew out of his shirt and told him all his problems were solved, twice. This also plays into my feelings on the ending, which lacked any sort of resolution to Scott's character. He just sorta "won" and that was that. Knives was okay with everything and Scott and Ramona got go off in their little door thing to the end credits.

Now this all isn't to say there wasn't anything I liked in the movie. I loved Wallace as a character. He had the best lines and easily the best moments in the entire movie. The first two evil-exes were fun action scenes as well. It's just too bad they steadily got worse from there on out. There were some great lines in the movie as well and the music wasn't half bad. The movie just didn't come together as well as it could have. 

For a series that spans six graphic novels, it deserved more than an eighty minute film. I would have preferred two films, but considering how much money it didn't make I can see why that wasn't going to happen. Maybe Universal should have shown the movie to everyone for free multiple times. 

I also don't think that film is the proper medium for Scott Pilgrim. Something more like video games (which they have) or a great animated series (which they made... four parts of?) would be much better suited to the series' style.

Insomniac

So, I'm still sick and....... It's been a blast to say the least. I hate having such a sore throat. Now it's not as bad as when I had strep, but it's still aggravating to no end. Either way, things did happen today that are worth discussing so I'll move right along now.


The first thing is the first photo of the new Spiderman movie. It's of Andrew Garfield in costume. If you're curious about what it looks like, here it is:

Cool right? At first I didn't love the new pattern of the costume, but the more I see the more I like it. I like that it's new and completely different than the old movies (which weren't terrible, they just had issues). He's also more slender than Spiderman usually is. That more than likely means they're going with the Ultimate version, which other signs have been pointing to as well.

The fact that they're releasing stills now makes me hopeful that they're going to gear up some sort of a marketing campaign soon. They began filming in November for two weeks, then took a break for December and resumed on Monday I believe. My hope is that they'll have plenty of footage show at this year's Comic-Con. Of course CC's ticketing is in shambles at the moment so even if they have it it's possible no one will get to see it. They hope to have a new registration date by the end of the month though. We'll see, fingers crossed!

Yesterday on Dark Horizons I saw that the magazine "W" (which I admit to never having heard of) had done a decent sized article on Rooney Mara, David Fincher, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie. I've heard so much about the Millennium Trilogy and how successful it's been all over the world. Naturally, I was curious about this movie. The fact that Fincher (an amazing director) is doing it also had me curious. The transformation of Rooney Mara, who played Zuckerberg's girlfriend in the beginning of The Social Network, is stunning.

You'd never recognize here by the photo here, and that's what's so interesting about the character. There's a link in Dark Horizon's page to the article where they interview Fincher on his approach to her character and how he directs his movies. It's an interesting read for those with an interest in film. I myself have been inspired to direct again - though opportunities are few and far between. I hope to make my own though soon enough.

I also wanted to give an update on my New Year's Goals, as well as add a new one. Like I said in my last post I've finished the first of the Dark Tower series "The Gunslinger", but I just finished another movie as well. Despite what my tweet said, movie #1 was in fact "Tron: Legacy" a movie I hope to talk about soon. Movie #2 was "Insomnia".

 

Insomnia was one of Christopher Nolan's first films. He did it two years after Memento. In short it's about two cops who are sent from L.A. to a small Alaskan town to track down a murderer of a seventeen year old girl. The main cop (Pacino) accidentally shoots and kills his partner in the beginning of the film. The killer (Williams) witnesses this and uses it against him to try and escape. It's a very, very good thriller. The main cast is excellent, even Hilary Swank, who I've seen in a few not so good movies before. Williams especially though is worth mention. I haven't seen him in many serious roles before and boy do I wish he'd do them more often. He was amazing in this movie, so different than how I usually think of him. More actors need to diversify themselves like Williams does (or did, I haven't seen him anything good in a long time). I certainly recommend the movie to anyone interested in Nolan's past films, in thrillers, murder mysteries, or just good film in general.

Now to get back to my New Year's Goals, I've posted them below again with updates stats and the extra goal I want to accomplish by the end of the year.

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Read 25 Different Books: Completed 1/25

Finish the Dark Tower Series: Completed 1/7

Complete 20 Different Video Games: Completed 0/20

Write 25 Reviews: Written 0/25

Watch 50 Different Movies: Watched 2/50

Reach Gold League in StarCraft 2: I love the game, it fascinates me the speed at which players need to move in order to be the first to win. I'm not a terrible player, I have roughly 30 more wins than losses at the moment and am quickly moving up. The problem is that I'm still stuck in the damn Bronze League. I need to get out of there and into Silver and beyond. My realistic assumption is that I can reach Gold in 12 months of playtime.

Here's hoping right?

A Symphony of Violence

So since my last post a few things have happened. One, I got sick. First with an annoying stomach virus, and now with a cold. So I technically have both. It's been awesome... Secondly, school also started, which I managed to attend. The first day wasn't so bad, and neither were day two or three (even if my screenplay reviewed terribly). I've made it so my entire schedule doesn't begin until 11 AM. Last semester my day would start at 7 AM and that drove me nuts. So now I don't have to get up so early and I can get more sleep. Hopefully it'll be great.

While I was sick I watched a ton of YouTube. I perused some of my favorite channels and got big into Freddiew's videos. If you don't know him, then he's a guy who does a ton of action movie videos. They're short, at most four minutes long. He does amazing special effects though. All of it is home brewed as well. On his second channel: Freddiew2 he helps walk you through how to do some of these effects. He's even gotten some star talent to guest in some of his videos (such as Andy Whitfield, the one time Spartacus from "Blood and Sand"). He does videos based on popular video games as well. He has one on Portal, a TF 2 rocket jump video, and a whole video in the world of Call of Duty. If you love first person shooters, I highly recommend Freddie's channel.

In fact it's his videos that have inspired me (once I'm well again) to try making some action videos of my own. I used to a few years ago but I fell out of touch with it and now I'm feeling the energy returning. Plus with technological advancements things will be easier... I hope.

New Silent Hill 8 info appeared over last five days as well. It's now called "Silent Hill: Downpour". The title could certainly be worse. I'm glad they didn't go with a number though, the series doesn't really need them anymore.  There's tons more info on it in the new Game Informer issue that I don't have yet - but have found scans of online. After scouring over them for an hour I learned plenty of things that make me happy, and few that make me worried.

The return to standard combat mixed with Shattered Memories' chases sounds good to me. Breakable weapons from Origins? Fine as well. The fact that you can only carry one weapon at a time makes sense as well. Puzzle difficulty is returning, one of my favorite things from the older games. Boss battles are also making a return (excitement!).

There's more as well. Water is the new nightmare effect. That sounds like it could be really cool. It also sounds like they're making it somewhat of an open world. I say this because they mention that they've created a train system for you to use to travel around town. That and there are side quests so... I don't mind these things though, I just hope they're properly implemented.

The one thing that has me worried so far is the inclusion of quicktime events. Now they were in Silent Hill: Homecoming and they weren't too great there (granted SH:H isn't a game anyone should be taking tips from) so I'm a little afraid as to how they'll work in SH: D.

Overall though I'm super excited for the game. There's no release date yet, but I'm expecting it to be around the end of the year. It was announced last year at E3 and we've finally got some details so I'm hoping this is the beginning of their marketing campaign for the game. I want to see (and hear, I love the music) as much of it as possible.

It's also worth mentioning that I've completed my first book of the twenty-five I wish to complete over the course of the year. Book #1 was "The Gunslinger" or book 1 of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It was excellent, I loved the atmosphere and the characters. It's got some great mysteries to it as well. It's certainly my type of story. It's not very long either, roughly 220 pages (I'm spitballin' here), so I recommend you guys try it out if you're the least bit interested in the series.


Well that's all I've got for now. I was hoping to blog more often but now that school has started up that's pretty much a lost cause. I'll do it as often as possible though!

New Challengers Have Arrived! Get Ready for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHT!

You may or may not have heard rumblings of this before. It's doubtful as before now it's only been kept to a small ring of friends. Unfortunately most of those people no longer participate in FNF due to time constraints and what not. Now though I feel the need to open this up to more people. Mostly because I'm tired of getting my ass beat by only Ian.

So to explain, Friday Night Fight is a game night for Super Street Fighter 4. Ian (Next-Gen-Gamer) keeps tracks of the wins and losses. He usually posts them but now I'll be doing it. There's really nothing else to it. We start at 8 PM EST and end at 11 PM EST. Come February though we'll be switching from SSFIV to Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Oh and one other things, it's PS3 only. Ian says he wants to open it up to 360 eventually but I doubt that will happen. He only has time for one Fight Night a week and that seems to be the PS3 one for now.

If you need more information or would actually like to join us, you can send me a PSN (PlayStation Network) friend request at Rising_007. There are only 8 slots to a lobby so everyone gets in on a first come first serve basis.

Hope to see you all there!

The Perfect Grilled Cheese

I've decided not to make this blog about video games only, mainly because I don't have something to say about games every single time I want to write. Plus, I want to write about things other than games when it strikes my fancy. So from now on I'll pretty much post anything on here that catches my interest.

So like the title suggests, this post is about grilled cheese. Why? Because I made some the other day and to be honest, I burnt it the first time and had to start over. Normally I don't do this but I was busy cleaning out our dishwasher and forgot to flip the damn thing. It was this mistake that helped me discover the secret of the perfect grilled cheese.

Yes, I'm being over dramatic, but wherein lies the fun of just being "normal"... I don't get it. Anyways, when I restarted my lunch I found that simply switching the heat of the oven between medium-low and medium-high helps control how quickly your bread cooks, as well as how fast the cheese melts. Normally the problem I have is getting the cheese to melt before the bread goes black on me. Thankfully, the heat switching trick works out quite well and you wind up with something that should look this:

The perfect grilled cheese, eh?

If not, then you obviously did it wrong. Honestly though, it's simple, easy, and effective. Not to mention it tastes great and is quite filling. It helps when you're trying to eat just a little bit better than you usually do.

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So anyways, now that this is the new year, I've decided to set some goals for myself. These aren't "resolutions" or whatever - I already decided on what those are. These are things I want to do or accomplish by January 1, 2012. I'll be keep track of them here on the blog to help me push through it all. So without further stalling, here they are:

Read 25 Different Books: Simple enough right? The thing is, I don't read a whole lot. It's mainly due to time or the fact that I'm interested in something else. On the flip side, I keep buying books... So I kind of need to read them, right? Currently I'm reading the first of the Dark Tower series ("Gunslinger").

Finish the Dark Tower Series: This goes inline with what's above, but it's also a separate goal even if I finish 25 different books. The Dark Tower series is seven books, and probably over 7,000 pages in length when combined. I'm determined to finish it by the end of the year.

Complete 20 Different Video Games: One of my new years resolutions was to complete more games so hopefully this won't be that hard. That said, they have to be new games, replaying and completing a game doesn't count. So far on my list to beat I have "The Sly Collection", "Dead Rising 2", "Fallout: New Vegas", "Metroid: Other M", and "Donkey Kong Country Returns". But I plan on buying tons more games in 2011 so the list will get much, much larger.

Write 25 Reviews: I don't write enough, simply put. Plus if I want to become a games journalist eventually I'll need to practice my writing skills. What helps that more than writing? Plus I love to voice my opinion on things, I'm just lazy about doing it. Hopefully this will whip me into shape.

Watch 50 Different Movies: Again, these have to be ones I haven't seen before. Now I love to watch movies so this shouldn't be an issue, but I'm hoping to integrate some classics into that 50. Suggestions are most welcome.

Looking Forward: Nintendo in 2011

A lot is happening next year for gaming. Tons of highly anticipated titles will be released (we hope), but the future is ever moving, and things easily change. What might get delayed? What could get announced? What – god forbid – will get canceled all together? What might Nintendo bring to the table though? I have a few ideas:

New Console Announcement

You all probably think I’m crazy, but here me out. As many people have cited beforehand, Nintendo’s consoles only run about five years before they produce the next one. Well, the Wii has hit its fifth year, and as everyone can see, it’s running out of steam. It’s no longer as new as it seemed before. Nintendo needs to breathe some fresh air into their home console market. Announcing a new system is just the way to do it.

Now usually Nintendo doesn’t reveal its systems at E3. Most of the time its systems are revealed at its own personal press conference. This happened with the Wii (the “Revolution” at the time) and the N64. While details about the systems have been given at E3, their initial announcements took place outside of E3. The notable exception to this of course, is the 3DS, which debuted at E3 2010.

Despite their track record, I think more people are paying closer attention to E3 than ever. What each company shows off during their press conferences goes along way with the consumers’ faith with that company. Especially now that gaming is no longer such a limited user group, Nintendo would need to reach as many people as possible and E3 is the way to do so.

When will they announce it for? My guess is that the Wii can’t hold its own much longer, another year at most. Nintendo originally had a pattern of releasing a home system in the summer, then fall, and so on until the Wii, which was released in the fall after the GameCube was. The earliest I see them announcing it for is holiday 2011, but even that seems really early. Does that leave much room for marketing? Not exactly, but then Nintendo would have something for everyone. The 3DS is still set to launch sometime in March in the US, giving the handheld crowd something to buy while launching their newest system in the back end of the year will make for a perfect Christmas present.

What will the system itself be like? Take a look at a post I wrote up a few months ago on what I think the features of Nintendo’s next system will be: (put link here).

No Mention of Vitality Sensor

The Wii Vitality Sensor hasn’t been heard of since E3 2009. It failed to wow… just about anyone and still has people puzzled over what exactly it does. If I were you, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no mention of the peripheral at E3, GDC, CES, or even Nintendo’s own press shows. As far as everyone – including Nintendo no doubt – the sensor is dead.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword to Release on Both Wii & New Console

Yup, Nintendo is going to pull the same move they did with Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess was set to release near the end of the GameCube’s life cycle and near the launch of the Wii’s. Soon Nintendo decided that Twilight Princess would instead launch with the Wii and the GameCube version would be pushed back a month.

Skyward Sword is “theoretically” set to launch sometime in early 2011. Considering rumors I’ve heard about how far along the game actually is it would more likely make a summer debut. If the Wii has really run its course, why would Nintendo want to release such a high profile title on a dying system? Why not make it the primary focus of their new and shiny console, thereby bringing all of the attention over there? It makes sense marketing wise.

Retro Studios Working on New Star Fox Game

Retro Studios, famous for developing the beloved Metroid Prime games on the Nintendo GameCube, returned to the Wii with Metroid Prime Trilogy and Donkey Kong Country Returns. What could their next project possibly be? Well, I have a guess. As the title above suggests, I believe Retro is developing a brand new Star Fox game.

Here why: For starters we haven’t seen or heard of a new Star Fox game since Star Fox: Command was released in 2006 for the DS.  The newest piece of information we have on the series is that they’re remaking the N64 game for the 3DS, but that hardly counts as a “new game”. The other reason I have is that Retro is responsible for reviving two of Nintendo’s beloved franchises. Star Fox is also the only other series (besides Pikmin) that has yet to receive a Wii release and since Nintendo owns Retro, what else are they going to work on?

Now the question of course is whether or not this game will be released for the Wii, or Nintendo’s next system. For me, the same theory on Zelda applies here. Why release a high profile title on a system that is no longer selling when you could announce for the newer system and drive all the attention and marketing there. Nintendo doesn’t need to fight itself, and releasing this game for the next generation console is the easiest way to avoid that.

How to Save the PSP

Let's face it, Sony's PSP has been a failed venture. The first iteration of the PSP didn't do very well financially, so to compensate... Sony releases another version - the PSP Go - that has no UMD drive and pretty much caused as many problems as it solved. What are they doing now to "compensate"? There are rumors of a PSP 2 which we'll no doubt see sometime next year.

In the end, the system is still doing terribly in America. In Japan the system seems to do fine from what I've seen. But in America, Sony has only dug themselves a hole they've yet to climb out of. Their PR plan with Marcus hasn't helped at all and Sony in general isn't supporting the PSP properly at all. What they need is a drastic reshaping of how they present the system. Here is my plan:

1. Discontinue the Sale of Both the PSP and the PSP Go
Now hear me out. With the upcoming PSP 2 there will be three different versions of the PSP out on the market. Whether or not the PSP 2 has a UMD drive will prove which of the remaining two will still be popular. None of that should matter though. Sony needs one SKU out there that they can focus on. Right now they're spread thin and developers aren't properly supporting both either. Look at Square Enix's "Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep". The game was only released as a UMD, segmenting the audience they could sell the game to. If Sony were to only have one system out on the market, this wouldn't be a problem.

2. Don't Try to Innovate 
Again, here me out. What I mean by this is that Sony keeps trying to be so different from everyone else that people dislike their device. Give the people what they want. They want dual analog sticks, they want trophies, they want support. There's no need for them to try and be new and fresh, because that obviously isn't working out for them.

3. Launch Games... Make Them Good!
If I'm remembering correctly, most of the good PSP games didn't come to the system until nearly a year after it launched. Until then all we had were poorly made games that didn't utilize the systems potential properly. What Sony needs to do is give developers enough time with the tech that they know how to build a great game out of it, and release it with the system when it launches.


4. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
Next up on the list is how they advertise the system. What they're doing now just isn't working. Marcus... Really? He was only funny in his originating commercial with Kevin Butler... And Kevin was the reason to watch. They needs to get yet another adult - who knows how to act - to market the system. Marcus makes the system seem childish and "gangsta". Somehow, I doubt that's the image Sony wants to give their system. 

My hope is Sony will take a good hard look at what went wrong with their previous PSP systems and try to fix the problems for the inevitable launch of the PSP 2. If they don't at the point, why even bother?