December 2008

Stargate Universe
Submitted Monday, December 29, 2008 - 6:39:01 AM by Klaitu

I've been a Stargate fan for a long time now. I really liked SG-1, but over time my love for Stargate has been waning.

Once SG-1 was thrown off the air, it was left to Atlantis to carry the Stargate torch, and Atlantis is what I would consider to be "not good". I mean, it's not horrible.. it's great as a "side-story" to SG-1, but on it's own it's pathetic.

Why is Atlantis pathetic?

1. I don't care about the premise. I don't care if people in the Pegasus Galaxy live or die. Season 1 was alright because the Atlantis team had a vested interest in protecting themselves, but since they can go back to Earth any time now, there is no peril.

2. I don't care about the characters. Teyla is the worst character ever written.. worse even than Neelix or Counselor Troi. I don't care about her baby, and I find myself cheering on the wraith so that they'll kill her.

The rest of the characters are pretty bland with the exception of McKay, and he's not enough to hold the series together.

3. The original story of Atlantis is that they went to discover some sort of technology that could defend Earth. 5 years later, they still haven't come up with anything that completes that premise.. nothing to justify why the Atlantis Expedition is even still there.

4. Atlantis stories have little or no impact on the SG-1 Universe.

Now Atlantis has been cancelled, and it's just as well, because they are out of ideas. The two remaining Atlantis Episodes? One is an alternate reality story (which means it's even more irrelevant to Stargate than a usual episode) and the other one is the finale.

Of course, the Stargate people want to keep their jobs, so they have pulled a new series out of their butts.. Stargate Universe.

After unlocking the mystery of the Stargate's ninth chevron, a team of explorers travels to an unmanned starship called the Destiny, launched by the Ancients at the height of their civilization as a grand experiment set in motion, but never completed.

What starts as a simple reconnaissance turns into a never ending mission, as the Stargate Universe crew discovers the ship is unable to return to Earth, and they must now fend for themselves aboard the Destiny.

The crew will travel to the far reaches of the universe, connecting with each of the previously launched Stargates, thus fulfilling the Destiny's original mission. Challenges will arise though as the ship comes into range of Stargates placed centuries ahead of the Destiny and the crew is unable to control the ship's navigational schedule. If someone is left behind, there is no way to go back for them, adding to the drama of encountering new races, enemies and adventures.

The Gift of Farscape
Submitted Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 8:58:13 AM by Klaitu

Don't you hate it when you're watching an episode of your favorite TV show, but then you hit the end of the episode and get "To Be Continued"?

It's bad enough when you have to wait a week, it's even worse when you have to wait an entire season for the conclusion.. but what about if the show got cancelled?

That's what happened to Farscape. The Sci-Fi Channel committed to 5 seasons of Farscape, but cancelled the show at the end of the 4th season. The show's producers expected to have another year to wrap up their story.

The result is that they left us with the most dastardly and evil cliffhangers of all time.. and now I share it with you!

Baby Parachute Squadron
Submitted Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 7:53:49 PM by Klaitu

Who says they don't make good music videos anymore? This one has everything! Hot chick in lingerie, parachuting baby squadron, and a passable 1960's remix.

Soldier
Submitted Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 7:48:15 PM by Klaitu

What the crap is a "Sidequel"?

It's a way to make a sequel without paying royalty fees!

Kurt Russell is a Soldier. Hand-picked at birth by the government and programmed for his entire life to do battle. He led dozens of victorious campaigns.

Then one day between wars, the government replaces him with a genetically engineered soldier that is superior to him. Just to press home the point, they make the old soldiers fight one new soldier, and they get creamed. Our hero is presumed dead.

They put the dead soldier's bodies on a transport to dump on a trash planet, far away from earth. Kurt Russell isn't dead though, and ends up on the dump alive.

Turns out that a community of humans are there, having crash landed before the place became a dump. They heal is wounds and try to absorb him into their community, but because he has been programmed not to show emotion, he scares the crap out of them.

He tried to teach a small child how to kill a snake, but the villagers misunderstand and cast him out.. until the boy kills a snake about to bite his parents.

Turns out those new super soldiers show up on the trash planet as part of a training excercise. People aren't allowed on the trash planet, so the evil colonel is going to have his new soldiers kill them all.

Enter Kurt Russell and his soldier training.

So, Soldier is a pretty good movie.. but what about this Sidequel business? Well, it's set in the same world as "Blader Runner" and the new soldiers are nexus-6 replicants.. you know, the kind that beat up Harrison Ford.

Overall Score: 7 of 10

The Postman
Submitted Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 7:39:41 PM by Klaitu

After Waterworld, Kevin Costner's career was pretty much over. At least, his popularity as it was ended.. and this movie didn't save it. The Postman is yet another post-apocalypse story starring Kevin Costner.

However, it's really unfair to judge this movie based on Waterworld. The Postman is actually a very excellent movie, sort of like Dances with Wolves in the future. It shares some plot elements with Waterworld, but takes them in a direction that doesn't suck.

Earth has been decimated by a nuclear war recently, it's been perhaps 15-20 years since the great war. The people survived by hiding themselves away from the climate changes caused by the fallout. Now, people are spread out all over and there's a lot fewer of them.

Costner is a loner, he's learned to stay away from all people, as he invariably runs into trouble. After a long stint without food, he decides he will need to go into town to eat, but sure enough when he arrives he is captured by the evil army of 8.

The army of 8 was founded by a farmer who united a bunch of people for survival, and over the years they became thugs, terrorizing whoever they could and taking whatever they want. Costner doesn't like them much, but he's forced into being one of their soldiers.

He manages to escape the army, and in his haste he comes across a half-buried mail truck, complete with dead mailman. He takes the uniform and the mail and decides to use it to gain entry into a nearby town posing as a postman.

Although Costner's plan is just to get some food and shelter, the people of the town are curious about him, so he ends up making up a story about the New United States reclaiming its territory, starting with the postal routes. It pretty much instantly polarizes everyone into supporting Costner, and they give him a horse.. just because. He also deputizes an eager young man who wants to be a postman.

Though Costner is not altruistic, the people flood him with mail to deliver to nearby towns, so he decides to go ahead and do it.. and everywhere he goes is the same story, people are all over the New United States and it's postal routes.

Meanwhile, the army of 8 shows up at the first town that Costner visited and they do some evil stuff, like burn the post office and kidnap a woman.

Later on, Costner and the kidnapped woman sort of rescue one another when the army catches up with him. They get snowed in at a cabin for the winter, and when the show lifts, it turns out that the young guy who Costner deputized has created an actual postal service with more than 20 routes.

So, as is always happens with a Costner movie, there's a fight at the end between Costner and the bad guy, and Costner wins.

The Epilogue shows that Costner's postal service restores a version of the New United States 30 years later.

The Postman flew under the radar pretty much, but I liked the film.. and actually, I'd say it's probably Kevin Costner's best film.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

THX 1138
Submitted Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 7:24:49 PM by Klaitu

One of George Lucas' first films, it predates Star Wars. Is it any good?

Well, this particular version I watched was the THX 1138 special edition. It's been a long time since I saw the original, so I couldn't tell you how they differ.

THX 1138 is the story of a worker named THX 1138, in this future world humans take drugs to suppress their emotions, and everyone is a working machine. THX's roommate, a woman named LUH 3417 has stopped taking her medication and begins to experience actual emotion. She tricks THX into taking placebo medications, and he too begins to experience emotions, and they fall in love.

However, this is against the law. They are caught and arrested.

THX is dumped in a prison called limbo, which is a vast white room that is so large you can't see the walls. The prisoners there seem content to stay, but THX decides he wants to escape and wanders through the limbo. He eventually finds an exit.

THX attempts to locate LUH, but discovers through the city computer that she has been killed and her name has been assigned to her child, which was conceived by she and THX. The police are onto him though, and he spends the rest of the movie attempting to escape the city.

Anyway, the film is interesting to look at, but it really doesn't have a spectacular story. It's sort of this.. sciency abstract concept world that if nothing else is different than what you usually see in the movies.

Check out the trailer, and you'll see what I mean:
http://www.thx1138movie.com/trailer.html?play=1&size=lg

Overall Score: 7 of 10

Earth 2
Submitted Friday, December 19, 2008 - 5:55:43 PM by Klaitu

You remember Earth 2? The crappy Sci-Fi series that barely lasted 1 season?

I decided to check out the pilot on Netflix, because I was running out of stuff to watch. I hadn't ever seen the pilot, because in my region the local station removed Earth 2 from the lineup and replaced it with Star Trek TNG (a choice that I wholeheartedly support).

So, Earth 2 has a bunch of colonists who are trying to get to a planet that is 86% similar to Earth 1. What happened to Earth 1? THEY DON'T EVER SAY!

This drives me nutty. What's wrong with the Earth? They say that people live in space stations now because Earth is uninhabitable. Okay.. tell me why! Was it nuclear bombs? was it "pollution"? Well, it seems Earth has contracted plot device.

Plot device is an insidious infection that often goes undiagnosed in bad movies and TV.

The main character is supermom. Supermom is, of course, a single mom. She has a kid who is suffering a disease that is caused by "lack of disease".

This is another stupid moment for the show, I can't begin to explain how wrong this is.

First, you mean to tell me that the people who left Earth and went to these space stations.. essentially refugees, none of them at all had any diseases period? The thought of this is ridiculous.

Everyone on the entire planet has at least 1 disease. Even newborns have diseases... incurable diseases. Have you ever had chicken pox? Well, there's no cure for chicken pox, that's why you're immune to infection after you've had it!

Okay, let's assume that in the future they have invented superdrugs that cure everything and that if anyone aboard these space stations had diseases, they're cured now, and all diseases have been eradicated.

How could Supermom's son develop a disease from that? Cancer.. sure, but they didn't say cancer. If Supermom's son were exposed to a disease, he wouldn't have any resistance to it, though he would be capable of developing a defense eventually.

At any rate, the idea that in a world where there are no diseases, your body will spontaneously develop some "just for fun" is ridiculous.

That doesn't stop Supermom though, she somehow mounts an expedition to lead colonists to the most distant planet that anyone has ever discovered, Earth 2! The idea here being that "fresh air" will cure her son.

Apparently "lame-creativity" is also a symptom of living in a space station.

The government wants to stop her from going, they don't buy the whole "my kid is sick because he can't get sick" thing either. It doesn't matter, because they daringly make the world's slowest escape ever.

So slow it takes them 22 years.. in cryogenic suspension.

Oh, and it only gets worse once they arrive. Plot Device has followed them! For some unexplained reason their ship malfunctions and they take escape pods to the surface of Earth 2, where they encounter cute alien critters that the sick kid befriends.

The End.

Oh, there are also like 8 other episodes where the kid befriends an alien creature, but after the pilot, I couldn't take anymore.

Overall Score: 2 of 10

Philadelphia
Submitted Friday, December 19, 2008 - 5:10:45 PM by Klaitu

Despite the pop song which I have heard about 3 billions of times, I never actually saw the movie one time.

Philadelphia is the story of Gay Tom Hanks. He has contracted AIDS, but not from his partner, Gay Antonio Banderas.

You know, Antonio Banderas makes an excellent gay man. It's no wonder the ladies got the hots for him.

Anyways, Gay Tom Hanks is a lawyer at a firm where nobody knows that he's gay or has AIDS. As the disease progresses, he develops Kaposi's Sarcoma, a disease which causes lesions to develop on the skin. His co-workers put everything together and discover he has AIDS, and they fire him.

Gay Tom Hanks, being a lawyer, decides to sue his former employers under wrongful termination, so he hires Straight Denzel Washington to help him out.

The trial scenes go on for a long time, but because Gay Tom Hanks is the hero here, we know the outcome already.. but aside from that, the movie doesn't even try to give the law firm a chance in court.

Here's the arguments:

Denzel Washington makes a simple argument. Gay Tom Hanks was fired because he has AIDS and is Gay.

The Defense makes a ridiculous argument which boils down to "but.. he's GAY!"

It just seems like the movie is trying to teach us all not to be afraid of AIDS people and forgot that sleazy lawyers are much better at covering their own butts than arguing the prosecutions case when they are the defense.

Anyways, Gay Tom Hanks wins, and the day after, he dies.

The thing is, you might think this movie is about Gay Tom Hanks, or Gay Rights, or stuff like that, but it's not.

Philadelphia is really the story of Denzel Washington, who starts off as prejudiced against Tom Hanks, but then comes to discover that *gasp* the law applies to everyone equally.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

Justice League: The New Frontier
Submitted Friday, December 19, 2008 - 4:55:19 PM by Klaitu

This movie was actually pretty good. It has a lot of elements that add up to make it unique. Of particular note is that it doesn't actually contain the Justice League.

The coolest thing about it is that it's set in the 1950's at the conclusion of the Korean War. The superheroes are all wearing their period-correct costumes, too.

Everyone is voiced by someone you've heard of before. Wonder Woman for instance is voiced by Lucy Lawless. Neil Patrick Harris is the Flash.

Anyways, the superheroes who we know make up the Justice League haven't yet formed the Justice League, there's just Superman and Wonder Woman. The rest of the heroes just sort of.. happen.

Who's the villain? A giant psychic island.

Yep. The Justice League has to fight an island. An island that spits out dinosaurs. No Joke.

Oh, and all you batman lovers, what good is batman against a giant flying island that spits out dinosaurs? Answer: He's worthless, the dinosaurs eat his bat-plane.

Oh, and this movie also contains another sequence of Superman "dying". Don't worry, he's not actually dead, he's rescued by.. Aquaman.

How embarassing.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

Superman Doomsday
Submitted Friday, December 19, 2008 - 4:46:50 PM by Klaitu

Remember back like 15 years ago when Marvel kicked DC's butt all over the comics world?

Well, maybe you don't. Anyways, Marvel was kicking DC's butt all over the comic world, so what did DC do to get attention? They killed Superman.

Superman Doomsday is the animated version of the comic book where Superman dies.

Except Superman doesn't die. Lex Luthor clones an evil Superman and the real Superman has to stop him.

Now, call me crazy, but this is the third time in a week I have seen Superman "die". He never dies. It's always a cop-out.

Unlike, say, Captain America who when they killed him actually stayed dead.

Way to go DC.

Overall Score: 5 of 10

The Next Karate Kid
Submitted Friday, December 19, 2008 - 4:41:45 PM by Klaitu

Mr. Miyagi takes on his toughest pupil yet: Hilary Swank!

This movie was apparently so bad that it was released as a double with Karate Kid III.

Going into it, I have to say that TNKK was about what I expected it to be, except with less karate. This isn't some Daniel-san trying to win some karate tournament. This is some girl who just wants to be left alone and a crazy old guy tries to teach her Karate.

The movie is chock full of muscly buff teenagers, and I suspect this is to try to suck in the girl crowd, because I've never seen so many jocks outside of a sports movie.

Hilary Swank is in the movie, perhaps explaining her abscence from all other movies. Acting? Not so good. Those internet people like to call her "butterface" because it looks like her face is melted, but in this movie, that's actually not a problem because it's supposed to be about an awkward teen girl.

In the end Hilary Swank learns that Karate comes from the inside, then she beats up the jock who beat up her boyfriend (and blew up his oldsmobile 442). Mr. Miyagi beats up Michael Ironside.

Overall Score: 5 of 10

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Submitted Friday, December 19, 2008 - 4:25:22 PM by Klaitu

Jim Carrey goes to a doctor to have the memories of his girlfriend erased, but during the procedure, he decides he made a mistake and attempts to hide her memories from the machine that erases them.

He fails, but thankfully it's a movie and the two bump into each other again and fall in love with each other again without remembering that they've done it before.

The movie is only marginally better than Punch Drunk Love, in that is is only partially crap and not complete crap.

Overall Score: 4 of 10

Netflix on Xbox 360
Submitted Friday, December 19, 2008 - 4:21:56 PM by Klaitu

I recently took advantage of a free xbox live gold trial code to check out the new netflix features that the 360 has to offer.

The general idea here is that you can choose movies from netflix, and then instead of waiting for them to come in the mail, you watch them on the 360.

So, how well does it work?

It works alright, but the video quality is really not all that good. The netflix program will downgrade the picture to a level acceptable for streaming, which means that during the day (when everyone is using netflix) it's very hard to get a full quality picture. Even at maximum quality, the video still doesn't match DVD quality. Even the videos that claim to be in HD don't match DVD quality.

The second problem is the seemingly arbitrary catalogue. You can't just watch any movie in the netflix library, you are limited to only a certain subset.. and that subset appears to be random. I spent hours and hours looking for movies to watch that weren't low budget TV movies.

Another problem is that the movie you watch doesn't have any of the DVD special features. None of the commentaries, none of the special features.

I can see the potential of this technology. It's a very cool technology. Unfortunately, we're not there yet. The Xbox Live Marketplace is a better model for video delivery, too bad it's so expensive.

Overall Score: 3 of 10

Dropping like Flies
Submitted Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 5:02:40 PM by Klaitu

Who is the next original Star Trek series cast member to die?

Majel Barret Roddenberry, in her home, with the leukemia.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry widow of Gene Roddenberry, died today at her home in Bel Air, California.

As reported by Access Hollywood, Barrett-Roddenberry died after battling leukemia, which was diagnosed earlier this year. Her son Rod was by her side.

Majel Lee Hudac was born in Cleveland, Ohio on February 23, 1932. After moving to California in the 1950s, she found roles in shows such as Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Lucy Show, Leave it to Beaver and The Lieutenant as well as her work on Star Trek.

Barrett-Roddenberry appeared on the original Star Trek pilot, The Cage where she played the role of Number One. That role was not continued into the series when it was picked up, but Barrett-Roddenberry changed her hair color and became nurse Christine Chapel. She also appeared in Star Trek: The Voyage Home reprising her role. For Star Trek: The Next Generation Barrett-Roddenberry portrayed the Betazoid Lwaxana Troi, mother of counselor Deanna Troi.

In addition to acting roles in Star Trek, Barrett-Roddenberry did voice work, in the Animated Series and she was the voice of the computer for several of the Star Trek movies, including the forthcoming Star Trek XI.

The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in her name to the CARE Organization or Precious Paws both of which share Roddenberry's love for animals and dedication to animal rescue.

Shaun of the Dead
Submitted Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - 5:15:35 PM by Klaitu

It's a zombie movie.

People have been telling me for some time that Shaun of the Dead is "hilarious" so I decided to see if they were right.

Shaun works in an appliance store, and is basically like any retail worker: stuck in an unending loop of boredom. In fact, you could say that Shaun is a completely boring guy, but as it turns out, he totally rocks at kicking zombie butt.

It's the hilarious part that I don't get. I mean, don't get me wrong, Shaun of the Dead is an awesome zombie movie, but I didn't find it to be particularly funny or hilarious. There were parts where it was amusing, but that's it.

I think maybe it's because Shaun of the Dead goes against zombie conventions like "everyone dies". You don't ever know where the zombies come from, and you never really care, because the movie is all about the characters who are not zombies and how they react to a zombie attack.

Anyway, if you haven't seen Shaun of the Dead, check it out, it's pretty good. I wouldn't call it hilarious though.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

Speed Racer (the movie)
Submitted Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - 5:04:08 PM by Klaitu

You know, this movie has been out for some time, and I didn't ever see it because, let's face it.. it looks like crap. Eventually though, I got bored and curious, and I broke down and watched Speed Racer.

And you know what? It wasn't nearly as crappy as I thought it would be. In fact, I was actually impressed.. but let's start with the crap:

The first thing that is crap? There may be 45 seconds of the film that don't contain CGI. I understand you're going to need CGI in a film like this, but come on, can't you show anything real? It's got more CGI than Star Wars if you can believe that.

Secondly, the car combat. Speed Racer was never about car combat, Speed Racer was always about racing cars in races where only cheaters tried to wreck the other cars.

Thirdly, and most heinously, to any adult watching this film it is obviously intended for kids who are probably aged 8 to 10.. except there's tons of cussing in the film! Who makes a children's movie that contains enough cussing to get a PG rating? I don't know anyone who would let their 8-10 year old see this movie.. so that leaves older kids, who will be less interested in the ridiculous nature of the movie.

Now, let's move on to what Speed Racer does right!

The entire film is blatantly colorful, it's been hosed down with cotton candy colors, then hosed down with polish, and then hosed down with a generous dose of "Spy Kids" effects.. and while this is revolting, it suprisingly works for Speed Racer because this is exactly what the animated series did, except in cartoon form.

The story stays true to the original story of Speed Racer, and the characters are perfectly written to preserve the meaning of each character. Speed Racer, Trixie, and Racer X are exceptionally well written. Other characters, like Pops Racer get some fleshing out that wasn't in the series, but fits nicely.

The "rally race" portion of the film is like it was ripped out of an unaired episode of the series. Dangerous races, ridiculous courses, Speed drives up the side of a mountain. It's all here, including Trixie's ridiculous pink helicopter and Racer X's shooting star.

Particular mention needs to be made of the music. The visual part of the film is a sort of "updated look" on the same story, and the music follows in that same vein, it's the original music, but completely remixed and updated.

So anyway, as I mentioned, Speed Racer is confusing in who the intended audience is. If you want to show it to your kids, you should watch it first and make sure you're okay with the cussing. Otherwise, it's a perfectly good kids movie that they will no doubt want to watch over and over again. If you're an adult, I'm going to have to tell you to pass on this one, unless you're a huge speed racer nut.

Overall Score: 7 of 10

I think that I might be biassed though. Here's my senior picture:

Saint's Row 2
Submitted Monday, December 15, 2008 - 1:43:44 AM by Klaitu

Merry Christmas to me, one of my gifts this holiday season was Saint's Row 2.

As you are no doubt aware, the Saint's Row series is an attempt by THQ to cash in on the Grand Theft Auto franchise by making their own, somewhat identical open-world shoot-em-up game. I'm going to skip over the basics that this entails.. stealing cars, shooting ho's, stickin it to the man.

I'm not going to say that Saint's Row is a bad game. If GTA didn't exist, I would call this a good game.. but everything that Saint's Row 2 does, Grand Theft Auto has done before.. except better.

Aiming is abysmal, though it is better than the first installment. They've decided to go with the free-aiming system which really wipes out a lot of the gameplay, as you spend a lot of time shooting things.

Driving feels weird, all the cars are stuck to the road, and they don't slide. It's next to impossible to get a car to flip. You can't ram cars out of the way either, as they too are stuck to the ground.. and the very worst thing is that it seems your vehicle is coated in velcro. If you barely touch anything, your vehicle becomes stuck to it. It makes it very hard to untangle yourself from a relatively minor collision.

Flying helicopters also feels strange. You control the direction of the helicopter by camera angle. It's an interesting idea, but it just doesn't work very well.

The radio stations are as horrible as the original installment. The original content in the stations (the ads and so forth) are really not funny at all. They aren't even interesting. The musical selection I suppose is decent, with a lot of licensed tracks. The 80's station they have apparently stole the less popular songs from GTA: Vice City. All of the songs on the station are duplicates of Vice City except A-Ha's Take on Me and Duran Duran's Reflex.

Saint's Row 2 also has a strange fondness for timed missions. "Do X before time runs out!" is the instructions for probably 80% of them.. which is fine if you enjoy timed missions. I don't know anyone who enjoys them.

SR2's worst crime, however, is the graphics. The graphics are complete crap.. actually, I dont think they even bothered to improve them from Saint's Row 1. The game really looks like the primitive launch title which spawned it.. in actuality, it looks like a previous generation game being displayed in high defition. The colors are bland, wrecked cars look pathetic, and the fire effects are worthless.

It sounds like I'm being negative.. but Saint's Row 2 did get some things right.

Firstly, customization. Customization is awesome. You can choose what your gang wears, what their signs are, the cars they drive, the spray paint tags they spray (if you care about that sort of thing). You can also completely customize your character.. you can make a guy or girl character with 6 voices to choose from. This is something that GTA hasn't really attempted.

Secondly, the cutscenes. The cutscenes are amazing and superior even to GTA's fine cutscenes. Some of them go a little over the top, but it all fits within the game's feel. They also added a menu so that you can replay the cutscenes at any time, a feature which GTA sorely lacks.

Finally, the Voice acting. I don't want to say the voice acting is better than GTA, but they didn't skimp here, and certainly the voice acting is on par with GTA. After all, a game that casts Worf from Star Trek as a monster truck driving redneck gang leader deserves some props.

So, what's the bottom line?

If Grand Theft Auto 4 were The Godfather, then Saint's Row 2 would be a Vin Diesel movie. There really is no comparison as to which is better, but the Vin Diesel style offers more explosions and one-liners (that aren't funny).

Overall Score: 7 of 10

Playstation Home
Submitted Friday, December 12, 2008 - 4:05:09 PM by Klaitu

Since I have been accused of being a PS3 apologist, I suppose that I am obligated to start by saying something positive about PS Home.

Playstation Home.. uh.. Well, you can log into it successfully.

Home is like logging into a giant, boring metropolis populated by people you don't know and don't want to meet. There's a music studio that plays music you don't want to hear. There's a movie theater that plays movies you don't want to see. There's an arcade that has games you don't want to play. There's a mall that has things that you don't want to buy.

If that weren't bad enough.. the Home universe has approximately 100 square feet of space for the 10,000 people who are logged into it. If you want to go somewhere you have to plow through like 300 people, all of whom are wearing the same clothes as you are.

When I first heard about Home, I thought it was a neat concept.. and I suppose that's still true, the concept is cool, but its execution is horrible.

I really sort of feel sorry for the people that worked on Home.. it's been something like 3 years in development, and this is the best thing they can come up with? What a waste.

Overall Score: 1 of 10.

Now, for all of you who are disappointed that I didn't defend PSHome (that would have been ridiculous.. believe me) I still like the PS3 better than the 360 as a console, however I believe that the Microsoft guys have a better idea of what gamers presently want. Maybe Sony has gone too Japanese Hardcore on us. The fact that the 360 has made such an impact in Japan is evidence that the Sony guys are out of touch a bit over there too.

The 360's "new experience" completely blows PShome out of the water.

Maybe You're Just Fat?
Submitted Thursday, December 4, 2008 - 5:11:42 PM by Klaitu



Wow. What an invention.

House, MD
Submitted Tuesday, December 2, 2008 - 4:31:00 AM by Klaitu

You know, the biggest thing about this TV show is the actual title. Everyone calls it "House" even though the title card says "House, MD". I'm going with the printed version, but you can feel free to just call it "House".

House is one of those shows that is suprisingly popular. How suprisingly? It was the third most watched program on all of TV during the 2007 season. That's how popular.

I came to know about the show from a coworker at Hertz.. of course, I never really had time to check it out until now. I've watched half of the first season, and I have to say.. the show is not bad, not bad at all.

The characters are interesting, the problems are interesting. The only thing I can really fault them on is spending oodles of money rendering CGI innards for people for no apparent reason.

The show is pretty weak on continuity, there's not many "last week on house" snippets at the first of an episode. In fact, if you pick a random House episode from any season, and then choose any other random episode, you wouldn't be able to tell where the story was in relation to each other. It's modular, and modular is something I am not a fan of.

But FOX is! This no doubt explains why FOX has not cancelled the show, despite its popularity.

Anyways, House is the name of the main character.. Dr. Gregory House. He's a master of diagnosis, taking on people who have really weird illnesses. He also has a bum leg, walks with a cane, and is pretty blunt with people.. all of which is hilarious!

Strange thing, though.. I was able to beat House to the punch in 3 episodes since I am a huge watcher of Scrubs. This either means that Scrubs is stealing all their strange and rare illnesses from House.. or there are just not that many weird illnesses out there.

At any rate, watch House, it's good.

Overall Score: 7 of 10