This brilliant video from Australian TV tells it like it is–too many countries owe too much money to each other. Well worth a watch.
Via Dean Whitbread
After watching 2012 with with my friend’s 12 year old daughter (yes, a mere day after watching it with Neil–the things we do for friends), we were talking about the likelihood of the impending global disaster on December 21, 2012 that some think was predicted by the Mayans. I told her why I think it’s highly unlikely, and she said “I wonder what Stephen Hawking would have to say. He’s the only person I would trust about this.”
She makes a good point. What would Stephen Hawking think? So I turned to Google and a search for “Stephen Hawking 2012″ turned up this video.
You’re welcome.
This baby has better moves than both you and me.
Via Jezebel
If I had to choose a single defining word for the film 2012 it would be “EXCESS”. Yes, in caps and everything.
As Roger Ebert says, 2012 is “the mother of all disaster movies (and the father, and the extended family)”. At approximately two and a half hours it’s bloated, unwieldy and needs a heavy edit.
After the grand success that was our viewing of Big Trouble in Little China, Neil and I decided to watch another bad movie. And what could be badder than 2012? With disaster after disaster after disaster, it was guaranteed to have cars being chased by the ground falling away and at least a couple of explosions. And when it comes to those qualifications, it doesn’t disappoint.
John Cusack plays a likeable everyman trying to save his family (that is, his children, ex-wife played by Amanda Peet and her boyfriend Gordon), Chiwetel Ejiofor is Chief Science Advisor to the President (Danny Glover) and Woody Harrelson is the crazy guy/conspiracy theorist in Yellowstone who actually does know exactly what’s going on. Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton and a LOT of other people are in this movie.
So what exactly happens? In a nutshell, solar flares are getting so intense they’re causing the centre of the earth to liquefy (or something). Ejiofor’s character finds out what’s going on, tells the President and then a huge fundraiser starts where rich people are being charged 1 billion Euros per person for a spot on an ark (I’m not kidding). Flash forward to 2012 when all hell breaks loose and the rest of the movie is about the main characters trying to make it to the ark.
I wasn’t expecting to learn anything from this movie, to experience any real growth or to feel moved by it. But I also didn’t expect to be editing in my head (or out loud, as Neil might say) for most of it either. There was too much of almost everything. Did we need three scenes of parents and children saying goodbye? Or multiple scenes of planes trying to take off while the ground is falling away? Entire characters could have been cut out, like Gordon, and the movie would have been the same, if not better. They could have trimmed an hour off the film and it would have been just about perfect.
At the same time , the first hour was a lot of fun. It was exactly what I was hoping for in an action movie and I loved it. So if I can make a recommendation it would be to watch the first hour and then decide if you want to watch the rest. And in the meantime, check out this reaction from the crying wife over at cryingwife.com.
Buy 2012 from Amazon.com
Buy 2012 from Amazon.ca
Oh Fable 3. Why can’t you be out now? This trailer is stunning.
Saturday night Neil and I watched Big Trouble in Little China and I walked away from it with glee, wondering where this movie has been all my life. It’s the best kind of bad movie–hilarious, schlocky with fun fighting scenes and cringe-worthy dialogue.
Directed by John Carpenter, Big Trouble in Little China stars Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, a truck driver who wins $1,500 while gambling in Chinatown, only to have to follow the guy who lost to the airport so he can collect his winnings. Of course, he doesn’t collect his winnings right away because many things happen first, starting with the kidnapping of the loser’s fiance and his truck being taken by a Chinese gang.
I didn’t know anything about the movie going into it so I was surprised to see that Jack Burton isn’t the typical ass-kicking, always winning hero. He’s ineffectual, just this side of bumbling his way through Chinatown, but more than charming enough to pull it off.
Many stereotypes about Chinese culture come up in this movie as Burton and the other main characters traverse through the (somewhat literally) mystical underbelly of Chinatown. Neil and I wondered if we should have been offended like we were when watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but we weren’t. I’ve been thinking for a couple of days about why that could be and the best I can figure is that Big Trouble in Little China stuck with one culture and Temple of Doom created a weird cultural/religious mashup of Hinduism and a creepy, Hollywood version of voodoo.
Did I learn anything from this film? No, except that Kurt Russell is fantastic, although I already knew that. But it’s a damn fun film and one that I’ll be returning to again and again.
One final thing about Kurt Russell: he was up for the part of Han Solo (check out his audition tape below). Is there any role of Harrison Ford’s that he couldn’t have done as well if not better? Seriously, take a moment. Consider Han Solo, Indiana Jones, The Fugitive. They all would still be gold. Now think about it in reverse and try not to cry.
Buy Big Trouble in Little China from Amazon.com
Buy Big Trouble in Little China from Amazon.ca
In the last month or two I’ve played Jade Empire and Scribblenauts and together they helped me solidify my gaming preferences. Namely, I love roleplaying games and I hate puzzle games.
Released in 2005, Jade Empire is an original Xbox roleplaying game from Bioware, makers of my favourites Dragon Age and the Mass Effect games. It takes place in a fake region of ancient China and lets you play as the hero, taking you from a remote martial arts school all the way to the capital city to figure out and fix the corruption crossing the country.
When you’re setting up a character you can choose to be male or female and then choose between normal, fast and slow yet heavy-hitting fighting styles. I chose to create a female character that uses a fast style of fighting. It was sort of akin to the rogue class in Dragon Age, and once I got used to the weird controls (let’s face it, the game is 5 years old and companies have figured out how to do better since then), she was a lot of fun to play.
I also enjoyed some of the companions available, particularly Henpecked Hou and Wild Flower. Henpecked Hou is a bun master who used to be a revered fighter in the Imperial Arena. He doesn’t fight because his wife won’t allow him to, but he can enable you to use the Drunken Master fighting style by throwing bottles of booze your way. Rather than simply having a supportive function like Henpecked Hou, Wild Flower is a little girl who died in a flood but whose body was chosen as a host by a Heavenly Gate Guardian (read: good demon). Any time a combat situation takes place, Wild Flower sort of Hulks out and becomes a big ass-kicking demon. The rest of the companions were varying levels of okay, but none of them are really worth noting.
Overall, the story was good. I was very surprised when the big reveal happened. I left the game feeling very satisfied, wanting to play more games. Unfortunately, one of my next games was Scribblenauts.
Oh Scribblenauts. I don’t think I’ve hated a game this much since Professor Layton and the Curious Village. But really, what both of these games revealed to me is that no matter how cool the premise like with Scribblenauts, or how beautiful the art like with Professor Layton, I am destined to become enraged approximately five to ten puzzles in.
But let’s backtrack. Scribblenauts is a Nintendo DS puzzle game by Warner Bros that delivers on its tagline “Write Anything. Solve Everything.” For each puzzle there’s a problem–someone needs you to bring them something or you need to get your character to a specific place. How you solve that problem is up to you. Just think of what object could fix the solution, write it out and it will appear. Sounds simple and yet… ten puzzles into the game post-tutorial, I wanted to throw my DS into the wall. I had genuine hate in my heart for Scribblenauts.
But I gave it a day, thought through the puzzle, and came back. After approximately forty or fifty tries between both days, I gave up and looked at a walkthrough, which is probably for the best because I wouldn’t have thought of a bear on my own. Once past that puzzle I progressed though another five or six without any need for a walkthrough but rapidly knew I still wasn’t having fun. I just hate this game.
I am by no means saying Scribblenauts is a bad game. I doubt it made any “Game of the Year” lists, but the creators were also clearly swinging for the fences and I applaud their effort. But at the same time, I can’t get behind it. At least, not enough to try playing any further because I don’t like puzzle games.
But at the end of the day Scribblenauts was worth the try because I learned something I’ll take with me for the rest of my gaming life: I know what games I love and I know what games I hate. And that’s worth a few hours of rage.
Buy Jade Empire from Amazon.com
Buy Jade Empire from Amazon.ca
Buy Scribblenauts from Amazon.com
Buy Scribblenauts from Amazon.ca
