The Crusades of a Critic

About

2015-11-26T05:45:00.000-08:00

The Crusades of a Critic putting pop culture in its place every week with sharp verbal bullets.

Welcome to the cold oppressive inner sanctum of my mind that gave birth to the beast known as The Iron Criterion; armed with high expectations, a short temper, a lyrical spirit, and a raging God complex the literary equivalent of letting Dick Cheney loose in the suburbs with a high velocity hunting rifle. So this is my personal crusade against a wide range of "unjust villains" of the Movie, Television, Video game and Literature varieties - that is abit like a drunk hobo stuck in a rental store. (A special thanks to my friend Allan Anderson for designing the original logo which is now BURNING IN HELL WHERE IT BELONGS).

My reviewing style is very analytical and critical, while simultaneously aiming to be comical and entertaining. I automatically hate anything mainstream unless it can prove itself to me, I'm also a foreign film purist and a lover of the English Language and the literature it has spawned. Recurring elements in my reviews include surrealism, cynicism, nihilism, misanthropy and strange references that most people probably daren't even attempt to understand - think Jon Stewart meets Friedrich Nietzsche.

Want to suggest a review? Then simply e-mail Iron.criterion@googlemail.com

For archived posts visit the categorised links above or for this week's post scroll down:

I Less Than Three You

2011-08-22T17:52:00.001-07:00

I for one am looking forward to the inevitable atheist wars as depicted by popular television programme South Park. In my mind it makes infinitely more sense to engage in a vicious conflict for lexicographical reasons than to fight over whose vision of a deity is the definitive one. After all, language is important – more so than belief in a mystical force whose best argument for existence is that you cannot disprove its existence. The reason for my being as wrathful as Travis Bickle in a brothel is due to the fact I was reading an article regarding some of the new ‘words’ added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Like many I regard the tome as an authority on the English Language; though apparently not as much as they do, the smug fucks. So like a murderer waking up secured to a table to witness a power tool wielding Dexter Morgan stood over them I was horrified to discover that the following was being added to the dictionary - <3

"This is just like 'Nam all over again."

At best that is a symbol or a character. Claiming it is a word is like rolling a man around the floor in a barbershop and then parading him around as the missing link. Firstly how do you even pronounce that? Would one say it as what it appears to resemble – a HEART? Or would we be expected to take it on a more literal basis and pronounce it as its components - lesser than three? It is settled then. In 2012 for a beautiful romantic Valentine’s Day message that appears to have been written by Isaac Asimov you could tell your partner that you lesser than three them.

Obviously I understand the need for language to evolve, I’m not a literary equivalent of an Alabama redneck brandishing a rifle at anyone who dares to suggest my favourite words evolved from a dirty primate of a word and not a part of some intelligent design set in motion by a Word Wizard. But if the supposed ‘evolution’ of the language adds nothing but reasons for opening up the nuclear football, than it is more of a mutation or retrograding. Now I realise that I shall sound like Glenn Beck for stating such ludicrous tosh, but it vaguely resembles Newspeak; the idea of removing all shades of meaning from language and to leave simple dichotomies featured in 1984. Clearly that very notion is fantastical but it is clear that <3 represents language death, partly because it doesn’t add to the language (we already have words which convey such an emotion) but also because there isn’t much use for <3. There are currently no synonyms, alternate spellings, antonyms or other uses for <3. It is language at its most debased and for me defeats the purpose which a ‘word’ should serve.

I also don’t agree internet terms such as such as ‘LOL’, ‘BRB’ and ‘WTF’ being added to the dictionary. They are more at home in a colloquialism or slang database. The reason being is that they have limited application in the real world, since they usually serve to portray a human behaviour or emotion that cannot be displayed via text based communications – therefore they have as much use as a grass-court specialist on a clay court. Some could serve as a quick explanation, such as WTF, but frankly if you are in the actual presence of another human being and have the desire to enquire about something you find shocking, blurting out WTF seems to be an inadequate way of achieving this. Which is why in my humble view they will never be little more than internet slang, as tools vital for quick and easy communication on a medium were preventing a friend’s impending suicide may very well depend on your typing speed and resilience to carpal tunnel syndrome.

"I saved a friend's life and smashed a world record for typing out a 5,000
word speech. Worth it."

Though I admit that I do personally know someone who religiously uses such acronyms in his day to day speech, and do actually tolerate being seen with such a creature. Some of his inane utterances can almost be forgiven but his usage of LOL/variant, an initialism for expressing laughter when texting or instant messaging, in a situation where he is physically capable of actually producing laughter, well that cannot be forgiven. I would rather spend the remainder of my natural life trapped in a Michael Cera simulation. Mind you, he does prefer the 2001 version of Planet of the Apes over the original, so that should have served as a glaring warning sign.

Short Rant on the Riots 2011

2011-08-08T16:42:00.001-07:00

No. Before any liberal vigilantes bombard my comments section and claim the rioters are victims of Britain’s austerity due to the difficult times the country is suffering, I thought that I would put it out there that I couldn’t give a shit. Sure perhaps society has failed these people and instead of facepalming I should actually feel guilty that I have accomplished that which society expects of me; instead of expecting someone else to do it for me yet complain when things don’t work out in my benefit. There are probably hundreds of factors to consider with situations like this, but only one discernable cause – the shooting of Mark Duggan by armed police unit CO19. He who lives by the sword…

It was his death that started this orgy of violence, but now that is all it is – an orgy of violence. People are destroying London, its surrounding areas, Birmingham and Liverpool because they want to, not because of some twisted crusade to avenge someone who was shot to death for pulling a gun out on police, pulling it out on an armed officer who had no idea of what Duggan would do and had to make a decision to save himself and fellow officers. Whether his killing was justifiable or not is not the issue here; the issue is whether scorching the Earth, shattering communities, striking fear into the hearts of many and causing hundreds of thousands pounds worth of damage when Britain has record debt, is a righteous way to protest the death of a man. I also feel it is irresponsible of the British media to focus on the role of social media such as Twitter in the same way that they did during the revolutions in the Middle East. It is not the same. In countries such as Syria there are a revolutions being fought against corrupt and evil governments, to bring about civil liberties. In England we are destroying our cities because a man who was possibly a gangster or drug peddler was killed by the police whom feared that he was going to open fire.

Like I said, I don’t want excuses posted in my feed, something which is as inevitable as Valve still not understanding that nobody gives a fuck about Team Fortress 2's damn hats.) I’ve already seen enough in the rioters portraying Mark Duggan as a god damn hero. Regardless of his 'guilt' decent people do not get themselves into such a situation. And frankly just imagine how many of the rioters are there to just fuck the establishment and for a chance to steal. Watching the scenes of selfish behaviour it is reminiscent of the scene in Escape from L.A. (yes I acknowledge it wasn't a very good film) in which Snake Plissken addresses the viewer with - "welcome to the human race". It is animalistic, though that is a word that I dislike using because animals never do anything so mindless without a reason. Maybe now the government will learn from the mistakes of the previous Tory government – this lady is not for turning? Perhaps a ravenous mob with petrol bombs will help. At least if the government does collapse and we regress to a primal and anarchistic feudal society, I will look good draped in the NCR Veteran Ranger armour.

"This time last week I was reading a book in Starbucks."

Second Birthday Celebrations

2011-07-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

As The Crusades of a Critic turns two years old today I've decided to take the day off,after all everyone else treats their birthdays as a license to do sod all. What I have chosen to do is select what I deem to be the greatest metaphors written during my two full years of ranting. Call it the greatest hits of a man living in the age where he can play a Doom Deathmatch with someone on the other side of the planet, (using 7.1 surround sound headphones) whilst on the toilet, and is still able to find something to complain about.

• Meanwhile on ITV after half a dozen documentary series chronicling Peter and Katie’s marriage we now have Peter: Going it alone,shows us how low TV has gone as ITV have actually made a program following a man who has been dumped. Wow, join the club – seriously what’s next? Peter: Takes a bath or Peter: Misses the bus to work. (Television Round Up August 2009)

• Presumably because the only time the plebeians like to see foreigners on screen is when they’re impaled on Rambo’s serrated edge. (ILS Review October 2009)

Pictured: An old Sylvester Stallone pretending to be Rambo

• It really boils down to whether you are really into the fab four or don’t have the latest editions of either series – if so then get it. Otherwise I wouldn't bother as you’ll feel robbed, bit ironic considering they’re from Liverpool... (The Beatles Rockband Review November 2009)

• Now is it just me or does the term homeboy sounds like a term an opponent of gay marriage status would suggest as a proviso? (Christ Music Review December 2009)

• Throughout the first half hour there are a multitude of flashbacks and references to the first film to try and convince us that it actually had a plot instead of being two plus hours of Edward Cullen making young girls swoon. (New Moon Review December 2009)

• The head Volturi Michael Sheen, that's his character Aro and not actually Michael Sheen, is amazed because he can't read Bella's thoughts but personally that’s because she is that gormless she isn't capable of independent thought without at least one prospective paramour around. (New Moon Review December 2009)

• Though I do weep when I see what has happened to the Human race – call me passé but 50 years ago these people would have been carted off to their nearest mental asylum for electrotherapy and given a shock greater than what George Michael experiences whenever he is in a public toilet and a cop enters. (Rant on Style January 2010)

"The News of the World hacked my phone? Oh God no...They have no idea of the horrifying depravity they have unleashed."

• Alternatively if they really are that far gone that they are unable to separate fantasy from reality then the army should recruit them and ship them off to Afghanistan “to raid the Desert of Death to obtain the power source known as oil from the mystical sand people”…(Rant on World of Warcraft Addicts January 2010)

• There are so many rules for being a socialite it’s like a fucking game of Dungeons & Dragons. (The Hills Review January 2010)

• And it doesn’t help that they have all the talent of a disabled dog and share rapping skills with your average white Anglo-Saxon protestant holding down a job in middle management. (Jedward February 2010)

• Upon hearing those lyrics I knew it was going downhill from that moment on, congruous with how black horror movie characters must feel upon discovering there is a vicious serial killer stalker their group of friends. (Taio Cruz & Kesha May 2010)

"No one has died yet? Shit...."

• And while the multiplayer is good the closest the original ever needed to involve other players was forcing your impoverished friends to watch you play on your expensive Jaguar just to see the look of jealousy on their faces, like enjoying the world’s last Twinkie in front of Sergeant Al Powell. (Aliens Vs Predator May 2010)

• Now wait just an udder fondling minute every 'diamond geezer' across the country will now be shouting in-between pouring their ninth pint of Fosters down their oesophagus; comparing football to Hitler is ludicrous they will cry - after all with a moustache like that watching sweaty young men run around chasing each other would be slightly too weird, even for him. (World Cup Madness June 2010)

• But what Jon Harris did here was have the character go into a panic attack due to the fact she has phobias of both the Hydra and Claustro variety, but because the director doesn’t try to force that sense of fear and dread onto us Elen comes across as annoying; when we should have felt as though we were using the middle urinal in-between two obese men. (The Descent Part II Review July 2010)

• Because Michael Bay has never done a single bad deed in his life *cough* Transformers 1& 2 *cough*. (Animal Abuse Rant September 2010)

• Because the doing it out of mercy argument is a mere ruse, the equivalent to the get out of jail free card from Monopoly albeit renamed “The slaughter innocent beings and lie your way out of prison card”. Also known as the being OJ Simpson rule. (Animal Abuse Rant September 2010)

• And in an attempt to sound as pithy as the show’s writers wanted to be, they couldn't have missed the point more if they followed directions from a woman reading a map. (I'm in the Band Review November 2010)

• The actual opening line of the advert ‘…Grow Your SmallDick’ (bad grammar aside for a moment) only creates the illusion that they are the Alan Titchmarsh of enhancing male genitals; not an image one wants if they wish to obtain the allusive ‘ALL-NIGHT staying power’. (Enlarging Your Penis and Other Scams November 2010)

• Despite having only being released about three months prior to time of writing there has been a twenty-three date tour announced and already four singles are available (with a fifth on the way). Christ, Tinie Tempah has already produced more singles than Gene Roddenberry. (Tinie Tempah Review January 2011)

• To put it in one of my pithy metaphors, Disc-Overy is a Sisyphean punishment like being the cleaner in a hotel which specializes in Sialorrhea sufferers. (Tinie Tempah Review January 2011)

• Rebecca Black loves Fridays and who can blame her; with the obvious exclusions of Jesus Christ, the Fishermen of the Eyemouth disaster, John F Kennedy, The Seven Bishops and The Black Watch of Canada. (Rebecca Black Review March 2011)

"Oh-ho-ho! Is funny because they all suffered misfortune of a Friday! Oh-ho-ho!"

• But when you tackle the question of which car seat to take a sit in as though it were a great philosophical mystery you are clearly taking the levels of piss required to arouse Havelock Ellis. (Rebecca Black Review March 2011)

• As the farmer waiting patiently to receive a ring swallowed by a bull might have said “Bull...shit!” (The Mechanic Review March 2011)

• As was my earlier conjecture, The Mechanic is barely functional and wastes it’s time wooing women and engaging in casual violence, just like a real Mechanic. (The Mechanic Review March 2011)

• What is there to entice sound minded individuals to spiritually bind themselves to their idea of God who is actually the ultimate bunny-boiler? He is demanding, manipulative, unreasonable but by George if you piss him off you’ll know about it; basically making him Alexandra Forrest from Fatal Attraction. (Rapture Rant May 2011)

• Which is like saying Debbie Does Dallas is not a heartwarming tale about a young woman trying to follow her dreams. (Airbourne Review June 2011)

Above: The young girls' perfect role model

• Well none except for the strip club level, because as Socrates might have said “when don’t tits feel shoe-horned in?” (Duke Nukem Forever Review July 2011)

It is strange that as I turn two I have achieved several milestones, such as reaching 100 followers and surpassing 10k in readership. So a thanks to all of my followers, especially those that have stuck with me for the past two years; if only having endure following a blog that is updated as often as nerds admit that Firefly was cancelled because it was as noteworthy as a non-cut breadloaf at a sliced bread convention. Here's to the next two years...

The Shock Labyrinth Review

2011-07-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

That this movie is called The Shock Labyrinth and a product of a Japanese mind, immediately conjures images of something nefarious a Japanese woman has to endure once she comes of age. I’ve mentioned previous of my love for foreign horror movies, an opinion that I’ve often attributed to the fact foreign directors are experts in the art of horror since they experience it on a daily basis. European nations are inundated with Orwellian bureaucracy and have a currency that looks like a rejected first draft for monopoly money, and not even God dares to guess what sexualized Lovecraftian monstrosities lie in wait in the Far East. With that in mind I was looking forward Shock Labyrinth but was disappointed to find it was as much fun as spending an evening with Bobby Trendy.

Pictured: Someone who isn't as shocking as they would like to think they are.

The plot is suitably bizarre, a revenge supernatural mystery with a time travel twist (or Japanese family movie to give it the correct name.) It revolves around five children who break into a theme park dark attraction named The Shock Labyrinth, only for the experience they expect to frighten them in the “ghoulishly fun” way to turn out to be frightening in the being picked up in a gay bar by Jeffrey Dahmer kind of way. This premise alone should have been good enough to drive the movie, it is something we can easily identify with because as children we all suspected there was always something dark and sinister to seemingly innocent and mundane things; a belief that I still hold about Tony Danza. However the film focuses on the group of friends ten years later who fall victim to the most inconvenient of plot devices, being forced to relive your traumatic past as though you are visiting a therapist, when their missing friend reappears.

The story should have employed the Michael Moore route of focusing entirely on one side of the story instead of the befuddling mess that it is, endless repeating the same plot points like an author with the memory of a goldfish. During the movie the characters see something that frightens them, such as a sinister looking door knob and it brings all their suppressed memories ‘rushing back’; which in reality means we have to watch the same fucking clips over and fucking over like we are in the same room as a stuttering projector.

See The Shock Labyrinth is good at recycling; the writer has two primary scare tactics that he decided to use over and over. Either the group will encounter Yuki’s ‘ghost’ wandering around doing sod all as is typical of a Yurei, or they will encounter her child counterpart’s rabbit bag floating through the hospital seemingly sentient. Both could be creepy had they been used sparingly, but they eventually boarder on the ridiculous, especially the latter which becomes as attention seeking as the campest of the camp. It is only in the last fifteen minutes that it actually begins to transform into a psychological horror. However the writer obviously referred to the Keiichiro Toyama rule book too many times, as suddenly demonic mannequins chase lone survivor Ken (Yuya Yagira) through the hospital which now represents an Ethiopian hospital. It feels as though any creepy imagery the writers could dream up was thrown in, and I was half expecting Bleach’s Mayuri Kurotsuchi to make an impromptu appearance. The last section fits into the movie’s atmosphere the same way that Casey Anthony belongs to the human race; as in not at all.

Speaking of atmosphere, this is something that the movie does extremely well. The style of directing places the movie in an eerie dreamlike state leaving you unsure as to what is real or not. There’s an underlying and unsettling feeling to the movie, as though there is constantly something disturbing lying in wait, and the creepy audio used throughout only lends to this idea. Though it is in the aesthetics were the film’s strengths lie, the hospital is depicted as a cold place with steel blue corridors and chartreuse boiler rooms. Often Takashi will contrast these soulless environments with objects such as the eye catching electric crimson carpet that runs through the corridors, which stand out much like how Shia LaBoeuf stands out in his movies; i.e. the same way that Jar-Jar Binks did.

Of course due to the fact the movie is the brainchild of Takashi Shimizu (the man behind Ju-on) it’s as confusing as a visit to the locker-room in a Thailand stripclub. The narrative changes time and location more often than a globe with Parkinson’s disease, and provides little warning. The incoherence and repetition of the plot detract from the atmosphere that I was praising like trust fund brats smugly congratulating themselves after a hard day’s shopping. It also has a twist, which being a J-Horror cliché is not problematic in itself; but, whilst not wanting to ruin anything, once the twist unravels it makes all that has come before seem as useless as Castruchio’s genitals. The plot suddenly blurs the line between reality and fantasy in such a way that is tantamount to solving an algebraic equation only to be told the answer isn’t relevant.

I noticed a few other unusual artistic choices displayed in the film. Firstly Rin’s lack of visual perception isn’t so much a disability rather a mild inconvenience. It transpires she is actually able to see by utilizing a sonar of sorts, though no explanation is given for this and one can’t help but believe that out in the world somewhere is a disability benefits officer feeling cheated. Clearly the reason for behind this was to relieve actress Ai Maeda from the pressure of acting blinder than the oblivious member of a love triangle; but not even this makes sense for at least once in the movie Rin cowers around in confusion, indicating she cannot see and even asks “what is happening?” Essentially Rin is a blind woman who can actually see but periodically chooses not to even when absolutely necessary; this is otherwise known in video games as NPC escort mission syndrome.

The other aforementioned choice is the fact this is a 3D movie. I understand Japanese film companies must have been desperate to create the country’s first feature length 3D movie, what with the country usually being at least three generations ahead of nongermane fads, but The Shock Labyrinth did not warrant being 3D (even by the usual lackluster standards.) There are two moments in the entire movie that utilize 3D; one in which the past Yuki falls from a balcony onto the present Mikoto (Ryo Katsuji), as seen from his perspective, something which is quite possibly the only example of temporal manslaughter. The other moment is far more surreal, one involving the previously innocuous stuffed rabbit and time dilation. Had I actually paid extortionate 3D movie rate like a Sicilian business paying pizzo to the Mafia, I would currently be enduring gallstones caused by excess bile.

Overall The Shock Labyrinth is simply a run-of-the-mill J-horror, featuring a few promising moments rising like Jaws out of the sea of genericness only to be blown up by its flaws (masquerading as Roy Scheider.) The seasoned foreign horror buff will not find anything new here, only disappointment at an often moody movie with an interesting premise that fails to live up to its promises. It is let down by a confusing story coupled with utterly ridiculous scare tactics and it tries to make its 3D work but like a rotten relationship there are few worthwhile moments amidst brutal violence. The acting is what you’d expect from a Japanese horror, as in the characters act as though they had just been informed that they have been infected with a strain of HIV which can only be caught by having sex with a Velociraptor.

Duke Nukem Forever or: How I Learned to Stop Bitching and Like the Game

2011-07-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

Duke Nukem Forever has received a negative reception? Well this is as surprising as the average man suddenly developing a desire to own an expensive sports car on the eve of his 40th birthday. It was as inevitable as fatalism that the game was going to be chastised more than a pet undertaking a mischievous dog course; it took fourteen years to make after all. The production took longer than booting up a laptop powered by the processing power of Kanye West’s modesty and since it has been in more hands than Smurfette, it would have been nothing short of a miracle to avoid it being an overhyped flop. Expecting it to succeed is like expecting Duke not to attend ‘bring your homosexual teenage Swedish daughter to work’ day at his local strip club.

Quite why the knickers of so many have decided to play the classic Hasbro game is beyond me, Duke Nukem Forever isn’t a bad game. It isn’t perfect, but since you are probably downloading music whilst leading this, neither are you. I found the game to be a more thoughtful and enjoyable take on games such as Halo and Call of Duty. Unfortunately since the ideology of democracy indicates the opinion of the majority is correct, I obviously have no idea what I am talking about. Regardless, I will look at some of the common complaints leveled at the game.

What the critics say

• Bad level design. The most notable complaint of this comes way of Eurogamer: “Duke Nukem Forever is linear to a fault, and huge chunks of the game are spent simply walking from one fight to another through uninspired corridors."

• Gameplay Issues. Of this Kotaku said:"Old-school shooters, and this is definitely trying to be one of those with its basic AI and lack of cover mechanics, always had two great things going for them: speed and a ridiculous arsenal of weapons... Forever eschews this in favour of a plodding pace and two guns"

• Sense of Humor. One sequence in which Duke encounters abducted women who have been forcibly impregnated with aliens, having to kill them before the alien's birth does so, was received negatively, being called "outright revolting" and turning Duke into a "thoroughly detestable psychopath" by 1UP and Destructoid respectively.

• Graphics and loading times. One other common criticism was leveled at the game's technical side including inconsistent graphics and overly long loading times with Game Trailers calling it "unholy" with GameSpy finding the console version to take up to 40 seconds when loading.

Now whilst under normal circumstances I am as pious as a pelican I will now provide a similar list, but one that provides reasons as to why gamers and critics alike are being more fastidious than an obese man complaining about the quality of the food at a humanitarian aid effort for the starving.

What Iron says

• Level design. So the level design is too linear? It is quite interesting how this wasn’t an exigent issue when reviewers were handing out five star ratings to Call of Duty and F.E.A.R. like tissues to wankathlon contestants. Almost every modern FPS has become what I call The Mantelpiece Shooter; dragging you from one ridiculous sequence to another like an overzealous hunter showing off his latest kills. DNF actually attempts to be more entertaining than simply watching a silent soldier slowly and agonizingly die from the fallout of a nuclear warhead.

Duke Nukem is actually far more interactive than those aforementioned games, you can extend your health bar or ‘ego’ by interacting with the environment and objects in it in a Duke-like way; it encourages you to search your surroundings rather than just blindly get from one objective to another as though the protagonist is saving the world during his lunch break. There are very few ‘true cut scenes’ that break up the flow of the gameplay like you are driving the world’s least fuel efficient 4x4.

The level themes are varied too; i.e. urban, completely alien, Wild West styled and military/industrial. Admittedly they aren’t as inspired as Duke Nukem 3D (Mission Impossible based ‘It’s Impossible’ and ‘Pigsty’, which takes place during that Terminator scene), if the game had dropped the Wild West and the later Hoover dam segments (a fucking underwater level and the scuba kit does not appear in this game) like the limbs of a Jigsaw victim then it wouldn’t have been the worst thing. However all the levels serve a purpose, never once does a level feel like it was shoe-horned in because the developer suddenly realized they were one continent off target for their seven continent total. Well none except for the strip club level, because as Socrates might have said “when don’t tits feel shoe-horned in?”

• Gameplay. Darwinism states that all life forms have to attempt to adapt or face extinction. The same is true about video games, it has to be this way or else we would still be playing the NES game Wrestle and convincing ourselves it is an accurate depiction of wrestling. Which smoothly leads me to the main criticism of DNF’s gameplay, “it’s not Duke Nukem 3D.” The point is that it carries over the spirit of the series, but adopts a more modern approach (not always to its benefit). Ten weapon arsenals and health packs have been replaced by weapon limits and regenerative health, in an attempt to add tactics to the game; which feels as cynical as the teacher talking to his students about his favorite 50 cent track. Contextual mini-games such as the pinball machine are fun and a good way to break up monotonous shoot ‘em up sequences, but are often frustrating to use for they are as user friendly as a masturbation machine for vicious Rottweilers.

However once immersed in the experience it is pure nostalgic fun, the lucid free flowing gameplay only being broken by encounters with the somewhat difficult Pigcops and the now seemingly weak weapons. Gearbox also made good use of physic based puzzles and intuitive platforming sections, though the vehicle sections have a special place in a Gulag reserved just for them. The characters are embarrassing however. They are either how the developers imagine the player (crass, sex obsessed, unintelligent) or they are serious characters such as the president who feels out of place as he rants about responsibility in a game where you punch a bipedal organic death-machine in the testicles.

The game doesn’t feature much in the way of a story except for; kill this, see breasts, have the government call you an asshole, so I’ve found pretending DNF is a parody of the 80’s action star renaissance is an effective replacement, with the old-skool Duke struggling to keep up with modern shooter clichés and mechanics. Gearbox missed an opportunity because all of the short comings would have been looked upon with affection, and not being derided with a saliva producing mouth like an internet forum based IT.

• Sense of humor. In the most delicious case of irony since Che Guevara’s face was first printed on a shirt, those that castigated the game for not being more like DN3D also criticized DNF’s humor. Those who played the former game will understand it was a pop culture swiping, sleaze-fest; which is exactly what Forever is. As for ‘euthanizing’ the captured and impregnated women, the ability to perform the very same action was also present in 3D. The player is never actually encouraged to commit this act nor are they informed they are able to do this; everyone who murdered the bound women did so of their own volition. So to be ‘shocked’ by a feature that is neither new nor mandatory is like playing World of Warcraft and being offended by the level-based taunts from other players.

There are two reasons for this criticism, firstly those that played Duke Nukem 3D upon its release are now old enough to not care about pixilated nude women and dick jokes. Out of a sense of entitlement we arrogantly seem to ignore the fact the game isn’t aimed at those that were twelve in 1996, but rather a new generation of juveniles. Though it should have focused less on sexual imagery, because with the advent of wide spread and fast internet access it isn’t going to have as much impact as a game that when released the average time it took to connect to the web and download pornography was directly disproportionate to the length of time a state of arousal lasted for.

The second reason is building block of the Orwellian state; political correctness. Critics are seemingly willing to pander to all forms of excessive equality by chastising anything ‘offensive’, regardless of the intent, out of fear of appearing uncouth. This has led to DNF being labeled as immature and outdated by the very critics who probably once hailed DN3D as ingenious. Are we to believe that the world has drastically changed in fourteen years, meaning that the Duke Nukem series can officially be classed as primitive? It seems doubtful; all that has changed is the willingness of people to laugh at something that isn’t politically correct. And besides what kind of humour is to be expected from a character who probably believes misogyny is a type of Japanese fetish.

• Graphics and loading times. Ok, so the loading times are not something that I am able to defend. You can practically hear the rusty gears spinning whilst waiting for the bloody level to load. I’ve literally spent less time casting a vote. The game also suffers from textures not loading, with the first 30 seconds of a level often featuring textures that appears as though they’ve come straight from the burns unit. As for the graphics, do we really need to have this argument again? Graphics do not make a game, the same way that aesthetically appealing icing does not make a broken crockery cake edible. If a game appears to be a straight port from the drawings of a five year old than yes you may complain. But when the graphics are only slightly worse than average you are doing enough nit picking to officially be called a headlice comb.

So to conclude, providing you didn’t spend the entire fourteen years insanely waiting for the game like Miss Havisham, Duke Nukem Forever makes for an adequate experience in spite its flaws. The gameplay is generic but is varied, and coupled with Duke’s trademark humor and pop culture references it does make for an interesting game. The interactive world and mini-games shows the direction 3D Realms wanted to head with the game, however because they spent as long as they did it is no longer the groundbreaking event which was intended. Perhaps it would have been if it had been released fourteen years ago, so the best thing to come from the experience would be a lesson in punctuality.

It would be easy to write Duke Nukem Forever off as a dated shooter but I am unable to because I found the experience to be far more enjoyable than Black Ops. You’ll have noticed that I’ve mentioned fun and entertaining to the point of repetition, but it is most definitely a worthy recipient of those tags. To give a recommendation that The Redner Group wouldn’t respond angrily to; it is a deeply flawed game saved by its humor, entertaining variety, and nostalgia or in the context of the game; it is a mixed experience, like receiving a lap dance from Rosie O’Donnell.

The Alcohol Karaoke Equation (video)

2011-06-25T17:34:00.000-07:00

As I am a busy man this week, in lieu of my witty shredding (which sounds more like it refers to comedic guitar work- here's looking at you Cannibal Corpse), I present to you my drunken rendition of the immortal The Clash classic; I Fought the Law. Yes you can have a signed copy of my EP once it is released. And yes ladies, you can send your underwear to the usual address.

Airbourne: Putting the fun back into music since 2003

2011-06-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a simple spermatozoon I’ve been an avid Rock fan; not any of that Rock n Roll nonsense, which despite once being seen as rebellious in the modern age is it as controversial as a Carry On film. Since the frequency of me being positive is up there with brown bin collection, I decided to review something that I actually enjoy. Which leads us to Airbourne who much like how every nerd argues endlessly over something as asinine as whom is the greater captain of the Enterprise; Kirk or Picard (it's the latter by the way), are also part of such an argument with many arguing that they have a similar sound to ACDC. Some even claim that they stole ACDC's sound, but to that I say "callate cabron". Sure they may share similar styles but that is entirely the point. Airbourne are clearly influenced by ACDC and want to play the same music, which is where it ends; there is no Crooked X stealing the main riff from Iron Maiden’s ‘Wasted Years’ situation here. Influence is far different from living in the clonus compound like the pop industry.

Typically the themes of their music focus on sex, drugs and keeping the spirit of Rock alive; you know things that are actually fun. To truly appreciate the riffs and solos you would have to enlist in the army, evade foreign soil and play them at full volume whilst taking a ride in a Bell UH-1 Iroquois over battle scarred land Vietnam style. Airbourne truly are a breath of fresh air in a rock and metal scene that has become too serious and too indited with rules of what it should and shouldn't sound like because of the fans. If you were to go to Youtube and open a Metallica video you would witness more senseless debate than in the Bolivian Parliament.

Rockers and Metallers are like the revolutionaries that have overthrown their oppressive leaders, enjoying the freedom of their way of life to begin with before becoming just as bad as their enemies, and it shouldn't be. So this is why Airbourne hold such a dear place in my heart, they are capable of writing music that you struggle to not bang your head to when you're on the back of the bus, but more importantly they understand the importance of fun. It's a fantastic feeling to be able to appreciate a band without having to worry about how to categorize them, unlike when my media player becomes possessed by the Spirit of Chuck Schuldiner and brazenly claims that Death are not a Death Metal band which is like saying Debbie Does Dallas is not a heartwarming tale about a young woman trying to follow her dreams.

Runnin’ Wild is the perfect child poster child for this, as it is a song simply about breaking up with his partner who is a complete vulva and taking to the open road. The Runnin' Wild video (the soulless bastards at Roadrunner won’t let the official video be embedded) features the band playing in the back of a speeding truck driven by none other than Lemmy attempting to evade the police with the arrogant determination of Ryan Giggs trying to enforce a super-injuction. I honestly can think of no greater metaphor than that to describe how incredibly fantastic the song actually is, unless I were to say listening to it is like being Charlie Sheen minus the crippling feeling of your entire life crumbling all around you.

The riff for the chorus is a very concise and catchy rhythm that draws you into the experience so when Joel O'Keeffe sings “the open road is all I need” you actually feel it. This is an art that Airbourne have mastered, writing riffs for the verses that just want to make you head bang, then tightening it up for the chorus to make you feel exactly what they want you to feel. Do not take this as an indication that Airbourne are not technical players, because they certainly can be as technical as an essay by Albert Einstein when they need to; quod erat demonstrandum ‘It ain’t over till it’s over’ which features several blistering solos. All in all listen to both albums (Runnin’ Wild and No Guts. No Glory.) and you’ll feel like you are collateral in the aftermath of antimatter gate crashing a matter house party.

Revenge of the Prince of Tolfi & Thrashed

2011-05-31T14:05:00.001-07:00

Remember those Bussokuseki ditties that I wrote sometime back? Well those were based on some spare lyrics I had left over from my band days, as though I was hoarding them like I'm an overly zealous survivalist. As it turns out I've procured some more. The Revenge of the Prince of Tolfi based on the 1830 William Mudford novel The Iron Shroud, in which the protagonist is locked in a cell and eventually crushed to death. The other is called Thrashed and is a good old fashioned song about being beaten for undisclosed reasons, just to show that any iota of happiness born in my mind is instantly bound down and given the Derek Vinyard special. And you can put your 'thrown together at last minute' detectors away now.

The Revenge of the Prince of Tolfi

The wicked Prince passes down judgment
to my life he demands an end
I am the Hero of Naples no more
stripped of everything that I knew
he will soon destroy my being too
this cell is to become my tomb

Betrayed, by the one whom I serve
abandoned, left to my fate
oh, when will my torment end?

Will I simply wither away
or will the end finally come today
driven to the brink of madness
there’s nothing to stave off the sadness
a torment I cannot escape

Betrayed, by the one whom I serve
abandoned, left to my fate
oh, when will my torment end?

Now I’ve discovered his evil means
the walls push forward by machines
they will become my Iron Shroud
reduce me to a mere dust cloud
let it be quick merciful lord

Betrayed, by the one whom I serve
abandoned, left to my fate
oh, when will my torment end?

I have reached the end of the line
to be crushed by that evil swine
my blood debt to pay for his sin
all around my world closes in
as it reaches the final point

The bed buckles under the strain
and soon will come my very own bane
from the intense force of the walls
no one is there to hear my calls
when the device breaks my body

Thrashed

You lie broken on the floor

An empty shell that can take no more
A body thrashed to and fro,
A psyche dealt a killer blow

You’ve been brought a world of pain
A captive in my cruel domain

You are thrashed, devoid of all life,
Battered and shattered, dragged through hell,
You're at the end of the line,
Thrashed!

I, I will take your life
You will fall to your knees
Death's door is now open
You, you will bow to me (x 3)

They say you got what's coming,
My punches a beat that's drumming
I stomp a never ending thresh
My hatred is one with thine flesh

For your life nobody cared
Ending your life alone and scared

You are thrashed, devoid of all life,
Battered and shattered, dragged through hell
You're at the end of the line,
Thrashed!

I, I will take your life
You will fall to your knees
Death's door is now open
You, you will bow to me (x 3)

You are thrashed, devoid of all life,
Battered and shattered, dragged through hell,
You're at the end of the line,
Thrashed!

I, I will take your life
You will fall to your knees
Death's door is now open
You, you will bow to me (x 3)

People get ready Jesus is coming, apparently

2011-05-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Judgment Day is once again neigh and frankly I’m enervated of waiting to be purged by God’s holy fire as though Armageddon were a plotline in a TV show and God the writer, trying to spread it out over a two part episode. Either God is an indecisive bastard who changes his mind about the date of the rapture as often as Moll Flanders became pregnant, or the human race is rather impatient in waiting for its inevitable bloody demise and continually shouts out random dates for the apocalypse like it suffers from prophetic Tourette’s syndrome.

I’m not antireligion nor am I prejudice towards adults who choose to believe in an omnipotent elderly date-rapist. I believe both religion and science can serve a harmonious relationship. Science can help us explain the correlation between entering a room and forgetting why we did so, whilst religion provides some comfort toward the daunting thought that upon death our bodies will merely become food for worms and playthings for necrophiliacs. However as with most things co-opted by lonely people religion has become the breeding ground for the zealous types who take every single word in the bible as absolute fact, like a small child listening to their parents’ fantastical stories about tooth fairies. These are the people who constantly pull the dates for the rapture out of their hat-like arses, and will often claim society is corrupt and the only path to redemption is to utterly bow down to a ira suffering invisible being. Evangelists of this degree are never wrong; even if they claim Spiderman is better than Batman (a statement which clearly erroneous) they will never ever admit to being wrong.

In accordance with their beliefs God will destroy the human race if you even so much as have inappropriate thoughts about your secretary. Life is reserved entirely for veneration and for riding the world of its inequity. But why should we completely succumb to this type of Lord? What is there to entice sound minded individuals to spiritually bind themselves to their idea of God who is actually the ultimate bunny-boiler? He is demanding, manipulative, unreasonable but by George if you piss him off you’ll know about it; basically making him Alexandra Forrest from Fatal Attraction.

The subterfuge this time comes by way of one Harold Camping an evangelist who made similar predictions in the past that never came to fruition. He even wrote a book about it entitled ‘1994?’, lest the sweeping brush of convenience let us forget. The findings come after he used ironclad calculations based on dates and figures in the bible and Jewish calendar. Because the most accurate and reliable form of arithmetic is known to be the ‘random stab at the dark based on approximate dates in an ancient book and the rejection of dates that screw up the calculation’. But on the chance that Harold isn’t actually seeking attention in order to get his ashamed children to visit and today (21^st May 2011 – for those left behind) the sinful are punished I’m going to create a list of things to do in this situation.

Quit your job

Very few could claim to actually enjoying going to work, except Liam Gallagher who working as a full time prick routinely completes a 168 hour work week. And since the end is upon us you might as well quit your job so you can ensure your final hours aren’t wasted poking people on Facebook or looking up lolcat memes.

Abandon your family

Now in order to spend your last day on earth in total tranquility you’re going to need to abandon your family in order to prevent any emotional obstacles. This may be difficult for you to do so you’ll need to get into mindset of a male Jersey Shore resident who has just had a child maintenance form handed to him.

Become religious

Since the world is going to metaphorical be crushed under the creator’s giant boot you probably want to be in his good books. So you convert and join in the demonstrations as the final hours tick away, chastising the dirty heathens to whom you belonged only three hours prior; but at least you're safe in the knowledge that when you die you’ll go to heaven and spend eternity with the being that sent everyone you know to an agonizing fate in hell.

*Spoiler warning: Read only after 6pm in your respective country*

Become insanely religious

Well it’s the morning after and apart from a handful of mysterious suicides and deaths caused by a "might as well do it once" attitude towards bizarre sexual experimentation the world's population has hardly changed. You were expecting millions to have suddenly disappeared and for the surface of the Earth to resemble Andy Dufresne's posterior but this is God’s plan you realize, he is merely testing your resolve preparing you for the actual Day of Judgement. Whilst you wait for the next time you decide to recruit more followers to your cause, because really faith is all you have left; no job, no family just the belief that one day the world will end from non-global warming related causes and that will make all your sacrifices worth it. Maybe if you perform enough offence demonstrations at the funerals of fallen soldiers you’ll get to the afterlife just that bit quicker.

Miley Cyrus: Smells like an Awful Cover

2011-05-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

I imagine for many children being a fan of Hannah Montana only to find out that her counterpart is whorish, arrogant and a drug user is comparable to that moment you realize Barney the Dinosaur is simply a guy in a suit, a man who probably drowns his sorrows in his Blaue Maus filled swimming pool every night. It is hard to decide what is more lamentable – the low quality ‘music’ that Miley continues to produce like a leaky sewer pipe or the fact that no matter how risqué Miley becomes her relatives and representation will continue to defend her actions like a serial killer represented by Johnnie Cochran.

Miley Cyrus has divided opinion more than a Pol Pot branded marmalade; you either hate her or love her, and if it is the latter then you are probably a child and therefore lack taste. She patented the act of singing like a cat choking on Greek yoghurt in a large tiled room and has a grin adorned on her face as though The Joker has been out on a Glasgow Smile bender. However of all her worst traits and ‘achievements’ (4chan sarcasm optional) her cover of Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit really takes a drunk John Galliano to a synagogue.

Miley introduces the song as though it is the be all and end all of alternative music that everyone seems to believe it is, just like how Star Wars fans continually defend the franchise as the greatest Science Fiction saga of all time even as the ratio of the good to the dire represents that of the nitric and hydrochloric acid components in aqua regia. And what’s worse is that she has deluded herself into now believing she is a rock chick; perhaps appearing as though you’ve been stumbling through the S&M section of a sex shop during a blackout and doing a mangled Mick Jagger style dance strut across the stage does that to you.

It’s an awful rendition of an awful song, going from one extreme to another; like escaping from a Dracolich only to encounter the Tarrasque. Miley tries to copy Cobain’s slurred and guttural vocal style but just simply comes across as a drunken girl that has accidentally ended up on stage, which is probably an apt description. She experiences such difficulty in holding notes like a sweaty palmed Banjo trying to collect them in the Banjo-Kazooie video game, and changes pitch as often as Paris Hilton changes ‘best friends’. If Cobain had sung the original in such a fashion then I would have been fully sympathetic and understanding toward the reasoning behind his suicide. In fact he would be spinning in his grave right now if he didn’t fear Courtney Love would somehow be able to exploit the act to further her career.

This is very clearly an attempt by Ms Cyrus to reinvent herself as ‘grown up’, the outfits are becoming increasingly burlesque-like and she is attempting to branch herself out into songs that probably seem ‘edgy’ and ‘rebellious’ to her nine year old fan base. Personally I’m anticipating the day when Miley has an on-stage breakdown and simulates sex with an inflatable banana whilst high on weed. Its official, I need help.

Short Rant on Scum II

2011-04-08T01:07:00.001-07:00

Unless you happen to exist within a Shakespeare play and have been brutally slain by a treacherous brother you should never live through your children. If you personally lack the necessary talent and ability to make a success of your life then you get to enjoy your menial job as John McCririck’s wife. What you don’t get to do is exploit your child as though they are some kind of temporal rift to escape failure; unless you are Kerry Campbell, mother and nefarious demon [sic], that is. She has some pretty interesting views on what it takes to be a celebrity; i.e. copious levels of cosmetics and the beginings of a mental disorder. However being far too plain to even feature in an advertisement for gunmetal grey wallpaper Kerry is forced to put her eight year old daughter Britney through this vigorous regime; think Training Day if it were set in Mumbai’s The Beauty Shop.

In an insane bid to make her daughter famous later in life Kerry pumps young Britney’s face with enough poison (or Botox as it is politely referred) to cause another outbreak of Minamata disease and subjects her to more waxing sessions than a John Keats poem that waxes lyrical about a cocking mundane and inanimate object. Despite this she fails to actually focus on helping her daughter cultivate any particular relevant skill. Just what exactly is Britney going to become famous for, being more of a waste of oxygen than an oxygen bar managed by Paris Hilton? Or perhaps for having a face that’s more of a grotesque spectacle than a San Marino football match, after the years of many unnecessary cosmetic surgeries have ruined it.

Tellingly there are signs of how warped Britney’s psyche has become, she claims that whenever she discovers a ‘wrinkle’ she desires further doses of Botox. Now being an insufferable misopedist I am no expert regarding children but surely the skin of the average eight year old naturally resembles the surface of a pair of trousers that have just been pressed? She also apparently wants breast enlargement surgery which frankly seems like trying to shove two melons in a pillowcase. The fact that she uses the terminology “so that I can be a star” leads us to question whether her mother is actually a supportive yet misguided parent or if Kerry Campbell is an anagram for Svengali the evil hypnotist. Whilst the family hails from England (nice bit of public relations for our already tarnished nation) they currently reside in America, where they have become exposed to the insane and competitive world of child beauty pageants; surprise bloody surprise, that bit of information is as unexpected as King Lear’s betrayal at the hands of his daughters.

Much like how Darth Sidious claimed to be pious and well intentioned whilst assuming his role as Senator of Naboo, Kerry claims she isn’t doing anything illegal or immoral since she is only trying to give her daughter an extra edge in life. Illegal? No. Immoral? Unquestionably. Not only has she destroyed her daughter’s childhood, and brainwashed her completely but she is also doing potentially harmful things to her body; all in the name of achieving her own ambitions. The fact that she also believes the ability to achieve fame is simply a matter of how you outwardly appear means this can either be seen as a cautionary tale of a pushy parent’s single minded ‘quest’ or as an indictment of a society where to become a celebrity all you need is a CV that states you got your tits out ‘that one time’ on MTV.

Rebecca Black: An ode to Friday

2011-03-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

Rebecca Black loves Fridays and who can blame her; with the obvious exclusions of Jesus Christ, the Fishermen of the Eyemouth disaster, John F Kennedy, The Seven Bishops and The Black Watch of Canada. Now you will indubitably be aware of Rebecca Black and/or her song Friday, mostly due to the fact that they have both received a more vigorous lampooning than Libya's idea of Democracy. Obviously being a capitalist shill who routinely has his weekends stolen from him in order that some chief executive, whose position on the chain of command practically reaches Tian, can enjoy extended holidays in Venice I cannot fully appreciate why people treat Friday as anything other than just another day. So without further ado Rebecca Black will explain just how superlative the fifth day of the week (a week should start from Monday and not Sunday as many inerudite berks try to claim) actually is:

Now because I am a lifelong member of the Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu I am able to discern exactly what you are envisaging, is this video part of an elaborate marketing campaign to peddle a reissuing of Robert A. Heinlein's novel? Or could it be a parody suffering from over intellectualism brought on by its hubris? Or, actual conclusive proof of the relative state formulation, as a thing this abhorrent could only exist in a universe fallen into the trappings of Cosmicism. Everything in this entire package is simply rotten, as rotten a zombie trapped in a boiler room. The lyrics were clearly written by someone whose last social contact was when they savaged a yuppie with blunt force trauma in a motel circa 1987. The video itself was probably made during the murder of the aforementioned yuppie. This is evident in the fact that it is the most impertinently eighties style video I have ever bore witness to; the production costs must have been equivalent to that of a Chinese Paperflower, and it contains more cheesy imagery than the American Cheese Society photo gallery. My auditory and visual systems found it difficult to recognize Rebecca Black as a natural human, as for the most part she resembled the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood attempting to pull off a human impersonation during the Wolf Moon. She also sounds as Auto-Tuned as a robotic Kesha.

If you have beheld the video then you will more than likely noticed the majority of the lyrics are simply Rebecca describing her routine as it happens on screen, essentially making it as redundant as the Betamax tape at a optical disc storage convention. "Gotta get down to the bus stop, Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)" she cantillates and in both instances as soon as she mentions the subject (the bus stop and the friends) it appears on the video. It’s as though she is armed with the Seal of Solomon.

She then spouts this gem: "Kickin’ in the front seat, Sittin’ in the back seat, Gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?" Look Rebecca I appreciate that you may be too young to conclude why internet users are dispensing as much hate towards you as the average Islamic nation does towards the West once it has issued a Fatwa, but when you tackle the question of which car seat to take a sit in as though it were a great philosophical mystery you are clearly taking the levels of piss required to arouse Havelock Ellis.

The chorus: " It’s Friday, Friday, Gotta get down on Friday, Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend,Friday, Friday" just raises the question, what the hell can the average thirteen year old do on a Friday that constitutes the use of the phrase "gotta get down"? Do they get to stay up and play Pokémon until four in the morning? No, it in fact apparently consists of standing in the back of the world’s slowest moving convertible and dancing as though the video were being filmed by the creepy uncle of one of the group; in his basement and after he threatened that if they didn’t take part he would inform their individual mothers just how iniquitous their behavior is meaning there would be no Disneyland trip this year.

She later goes on to sing what are probably the most infamous lines of the song; “Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday. Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’). We-we-we so excited, We so excited. We gonna have a ball today. Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes after...wards.” Surely there can be no one in or out of existence who genuinely believe that these are good lyrics, if they can even be called lyrics since it is essentially reading a calendar aloud. Not how she pauses briefly midway through afterwards as though to just clarify whether previous statement was accurate like an obtuse Barney the Dinosaur

Since the creators of Friday puerilely thought it necessary to list the days of the week in order, I have charged myself with tutoring them in proper English and pronunciation in the style of the play Pygamlion. So let us begin; instead of saying "we so excited" one would usually state "we’re excited" or "we are highly excited", now please repeat the previous phrases until your IQ rises to above that of a can of out of date Tuna. Speaking of lack of intelligence, one of the song writers (Patrice Wilson) appears in the video as the obligatory guest rapper, a trend in pop that is as insidious as the mandatory virgin sacrifice in movie cults. He presumably believes himself to appear cool and virile, but generally men who drive behind school buses and rap about ‘how crazily’ a thirteen year old girl parties are not considered cool; though it is a direct shortcut to get onto your own exclusive government list, now how cool is that.

This song was intended as a party anthem, the next Saturday Night if you will, though instead of being sung into hairdryers by teenage girls as they get ready to go out on the town it would be better suited to the likes of John Coffey because it could only truly be at home somewhere as depressing as The Green Mile. The simple lyrics do not make it catchy or a karaoke hit, they barely even qualify for troll status. Rebecca’s vocals are Auto-Tuned to the point that she doesn’t even need to have a physical presence in this charade, all she brings to the experience is a repertoire of unsettling facial expressions; so the video could easily be replicated with the auto tune machine’s vocals set to a picture of Jack Elam. Though it is a damning indictment of the Auto-Tuning business because despite the ‘best efforts’ (non-optional sarcastic quotations) of the producers she still sounds like she is suffering from laryngeal cancer; and in all honesty I haven’t heard anything this terrible since The Backwards Music Station was turned into a phone in sex line for machines.

"Uhm, Skynet, its Bjork again she wants us for a video?"

However I will now go down the Loki route and go through the heel face turn and face heel turn rigmarole by briefly defend Rebecca Black (even the protagonist in The Pit and The Pendulum had a trial). The internet vigilantes (me included) have lambasted Rebecca Black for being involved in a song that is like listening to a loved one being tortured in a Middle Age English dungeon for three and a half minutes, but no one has ultimately focused any of that excess ira they have from living comfortable lives onto the song’s writers; Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson. This is surprising because what we have here are two supposedly professionals whose song writing skills are on par with the average toddler’s drawing abilities. They are two grown men who supposedly have the benefit of life experience and years of learning and understanding, whereas Rebecca Black is just a child whose mother could afford to piss away the expense of building a well in the average African Village. Whatever they wrote was never going to be adopted into our musical heritage the same way as say ‘Johnny B. Goode’ but they could have at least pretended to put some effort into their contribution. It is as though as though a brain damaged Platyrrhini were given a pen and paper and told to “go bananas”.

Unfortunately by dissecting the song and video with a lancet of spite, we are to Rebecca Black what Victor Frankenstein was to his monster. See, her video on Youtube has already received over forty seven million hits in the time it takes Dominos to deliver a pizza. The connotations of this are the fact that the song has become a hit for the record label Ark Music, guarantying we will be seeing more of her in the future (which leads me to suspect the apparent haters are fans of Mortification of the flesh ideology). She will almost defiantly have an album out before the year passes to the history books; this is in part our fault for descending upon this like clowder of cats upon a ball of wool, but the fact the youth eats up anything that is popular (especially if we hate it) is also to blame (which is my I am thankful we are leaving them a planet that is as poisoned as Charlie Sheen’s insides).

Consider this; this time last month she was simply 'talentless generic person Rebecca Black, who had the fortune to have parents who can afford to attempt to launch a pop career', whereas now she is all the things mentioned before but with 'now millions of people know of her existence' added as a suffix. Sure she may be a hate figure to a large percentage of that number but she has regardless accomplished what she had set out to do - achieve fame. And you thought that forwarding the video throughout the office was harmless and counted towards the team work improvement goals set by your boss. I am also aware of the hypocrisy of that last line when I too have contributed towards the video play count by embedding it to this post, but for you to come to my blog and point this out would be like going to 1970’s China and pointing out to Chairman Mao that The Little Red Book is just a book of rejected fortune cookie quotations.

'The force at the core leading our cause forward is the Chinese Communist Party. The theoretical basis guiding our thinking is Marxism-Leninism' "Mum! I got another rubbish fortune again!"

The Mechanic (2011) Review

2011-03-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

As the metal drummer might have affirmed upon trying to make sense of the Theory of Relativity “you should stick to what you know”, which in this case would be nothing. In terms of acting, there isn’t a lot that can be done with Jason Statham; after all he is a man whose chest resembles a house with a bear pelt stuck on so one wouldn’t expect him to portray the likes of Gandhi, making it perfectly logical for him to etch a niche in action movies. But Christ at a Gay pride march, I wish he would mix things up a bit every now and then and not just play exactly the same character over and over like Myron Castleman trapped in this loop for all of eternity. He always portrays an illegal professional for hire, and at some point said character will be betrayed, because that is what tends to happen when you work for people who are as cartoonishly bastardly as Dick Dastardly. Though you’ll be pleased to know that this remake of the 1972 Michael Winner version is as religious to this formula Aleister Crowley was to being creepy.

Jason Statham is Arthur Bishop, a professional Hitman or Mechanic as they have come to be known, due to the fact that they ‘fix problems’ just like a regular mechanic but with the additional violence. The idea that violence can solve practically any issue helps to reinforce the might is right mantra, sending a positive message to this generation’s already troubled youth. We are told he is the best but we only see him flawlessly carry out two contracts (one of whom is busy swimming and the other wheelchair bound); so for the director to actually expect us to believe he is at the same standard of professional butchery as Leon is on the same lines as Gordon Ramsey expecting us to believe in his cooking prowess, when all he does is swear at others for being shit. And I’m sorry but I forgot that he demands his contracts be called assignments, which frankly makes him seem like a pretentious serial killer. Moving back on track; just like the comrades in Bertolt Brecht’s Lehrstuck, The Decision, Arthur is forced to change everything he knows with a single bullet when he kills his mentor Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland). The leader of the ‘mysterious’ organization Dean (Tony Goldwyn) orders Arthur to kill Harry because he is endangering the organization, again just like the comrades in The Decision; hell at this rate the director Simon West will also end up in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Harry in his brief screen appearance never really feels like an actual character, he is more of a plot point since it is established that he and Arthur have a deep bond making it clear he will soon be dropped like the clothes of a wannabe starlet during a photo shoot. The ‘emotion’ when Arthur kills Harry feels forced and somewhat obligatory as though, because action movies are mostly for drooling men or lesbians so butch that they legally should be classed as men, it treats emotion in the same way most people treat vegetables – in small, medically recommended daily portions. It is painfully apparent that Harry’s death is merely a framing device as it leads to Arthur becoming a mentor to Harry’s narcissistic and mentally unstable son. Very clearly Arthur doesn’t watch a lot of movies and therefore is unable to work out that this is never a good idea. This becomes very clear when Steve (Ben Foster) decides to go out and kill random car jackers in the hope that he’ll get the ones that killed his father (Arthur made it look like a carjacking gone wrong). Now this can be applied to anything, not just vengeance, but his approach is like forgetting where you exactly live so you try every house along the way assuming that you will eventually find yours. Arthur’s decision to mentor him is unfeasibly stupid and creates an alliance akin to starting a pro wrestling tag team partnership with unexploded Second World War artillery shell.

As the character of Arthur Bishop is a heinous murderer supposedly disconnected from his emotions why does the murder of Harry affect him in the way that it does and why would he take Steve under his wing even though the man continually proves he is as much use as a attempting to destroy a Lich without first destroying the phylactery storing it’s very soul? The obvious reason for this is plot advancement since it would make for a rather boring movie if Jason Statham killed Harry, shunned Steve and blindly went on with his life not bothering to ask the vital questions; which is along the lines of how the average citizen of China lives. Speaking of unimportant plot strands, for a few scenes of the movie we are introduced to Sarah (Mini Anden) who is a red light bulb fan if you catch my drift, she also serves absolutely no bloody purpose. Sarah makes no contributions to the story and since Arthur only visits her to have his man-handle polished she isn’t there to bring emotion to the table.

In the original Charles Branson’s incarnation of Arthur Bishop hires a prostitute to write convincing love letters to him in a bid to compensate for the fact that his lifestyle means he is resigned to a life of solidarity. In the 2011 remake in lieu of the love letters we are treated to soft-core sex scenes, evidently subtlety and restraint are considered terminal illnesses by Simon West. What’s more annoying is the fact that there is an implication that Sarah is going to become his love interest as she clearly wants more than just sex, and Arthur begins to warm to her; even going as far as giving her a puppy as a pet. However after a certain point in the movie she is no longer seen (nothing happens to her for this to be valid) resulting in her story thread being a complete waste of time; I know it would have been clichéd for the hero to win the girl but at least a cliché is better than nothingness as the time traveler fallen victim to the grandfather paradox would probably say if he hadn’t destroyed his own mortality. The most logical explanation for this is because the movie was written by a Neanderthal for Neanderthals; featuring sex, brutal violence and pejoratives forming the perfect trifecta to keep the troglodytes entertained.

So at twenty to thirty minutes into movie we have already identified that the plot is ripe with inconsistencies and holes and is a horrendous mess which somewhat metaphorically resembles Cyäegha. This is not even taking into account the idea that Jason Statham could be anything other than ruination incarnate is ridiculous; the characters he plays are often as good at avoiding unwanted attention as the stereotypical Jew in a gymnasium. Aside from Steve and Arthur’s partnership the film focuses on Statham investigating what happened during the failed mission in South Africa, a failure which Dean (Tony Goldwyn) blamed on Harry’s treachery resulting in the man’s death. By investigating I of course mean he accidentally bumps into one of the mechanics who supposedly died during the mission, in the same way that one might ‘accidentally’ bump into an ex partner who your garrote vil really wants to meet. The writer, Lewis John Carlino, should have referred to Richard Bingham’s guide to faking your own death and not the one written by Connie Franklin because he needs to learn how to write characters that are able to keep a low profile. Christ, the mechanic cum Lazarus doesn’t even wear a fake mustache. It isn’t the posting footage of the Japanese tsunami set to When the levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin onto Youtube variety of unsubtle, just more of the fact he makes little effort to mask his appearance and walks around in public as though his soul motivation is to move the plot along.

Not that I am complaining because sod all has happened thus far in terms of the overarching storyline. After taking Steve under his wing, Arthur buys him a Chihuahua and gives him a routine to adhere to which includes taking the dog to a coffee shop every morning; I didn’t realize being a paid assassin involved the having the same routine as the citizens of Paris, perhaps for his next assignment he’ll have to grow a goatee. Later Arthur takes him on a first date to a drug dealer’s house where they bond over asphyxiating said dealer and attempting to make it appear as though he were taking part in the David Carradine Olympics. It is revealed that the routine which Steve was forced to adhere to was simply an attempt to attract the attention of Burke (Jeff Chase) a mechanic who works for a rival company. The task at hand is simple – the apprentice is to go on a date with Burke and kill him by drugging him with an overdose of Rohypnol; how difficult could that possibly be, it happens all the time in clubs after all. Instead, presumably because he is a practitioner of the Old Norse religions and therefore wants to fight for the glory of Odin, he decides to go to Burke’s house and finish the deed there. Now consider that Burke is a trained killer with the concupiscence of a rake owned by Lord Byron and an unarmed Steve is alone in his house and you’ll realize that this is equivalent to caring for a Ya-te-veo plant. Steve waits until the last possible moment to kill Burke as though he was actually contemplating going through with the intercourse and of course because he has to improvise the actual murder is as sloppy as a dog eating its food with chopsticks.

This is what happens when you type Dog and Messy Eater into Google.

Dean obviously realizes it wasn’t Arthur who snubbed out Burke, due to the crime scene resembling the raging bull in a china shop metaphor and cautions his rogue employee. Now a logical person would have taken this opportunity to step back and evaluate their failures, namely taking a psychopath into their home but instead Arthur takes him on a mission with even bigger stakes; which is like taking a recovering gambling addict to Vegas after they relapsed in Atlantic City. Their target this time is Andrew Vaughn (John McConnell) a leader of a cult like church, though the movie isn’t very clear about why Vaughn should be eliminated; yes he does appear to be slightly corrupt and yes he appears to run a cult but there are no indications to show that this is the Charlie Manson type of cult and not the one that Tom Cruise is in (you know which one I mean). Since Vaughn is somewhat of a celebrity and protected by a host of armed guards this is certainly a mission that requires some degree of tact, so obviously this is going to go as well as for the protagonist and the deuteragonist as the Battle of Agincourt did for Charles VI of France’s army.

There is also a pretty glaring hole in the story here, as Bishop’s plan is to inject Vaughn with an overdose of adrenalin which would cause a heart attack and if it doesn’t kill him then the paramedics will hopefully give him a dose of epinephrine, which is apparently poisonous when mixed with adrenalin. As the farmer waiting patiently to receive a ring swallowed by a bull might have said “Bull...shit!” Epinephrine is simply another name for adrenalin so Bishop’s silly rock, paper, scissors rules don’t apply here as it wouldn’t have poisoned Vaughn; through granted it probably would have been a case of death by overdose. Contrary to what Bishop claims Adrenaline does not counteract Ketamine either which means the botched plan is only botched due to the fact he clearly wasn’t present during science class. So they asphyxiate him, which leads to their eventual discovery due to Steve’s idiocy and whilst somewhere in the world Glenn Beck is shouting “I told you so” at Bishop this is hardly a bad thing as it leads to the first true action movie set piece of the entire movie. Yes a movie claiming to belong to the action genre doesn’t feature an extended shootout until ¾ of the way through its runtime.

This leads to the airport sequence which as I said is basically investigative reporting Statham style. Now by a divine coincidence Dean must have already sent his men to kill Bishop because after discovering the betrayal Bishop contacts Steve only to discover that several Mechanics have infiltrated his house. This just seems too much like perfect timing for my liking. To cut a boringly long story short, Bishop (he arrives rather quickly) and Steve kill their attackers an act which produces this response from Dean; “Those were my two best teams, I guess I’ll just have to send more” he says displaying the leadership skills of General Patton. Look this isn’t World War One, when locked in mortal combat you can’t just throw men into the Lion’s den in the hopes that after enough men you’ll eventually win – either due to luck or by fatiguing your foes. If they really were his best teams and had been bested by Arthur, then to a logical person this would prompt a change of tactics. But unfortunately for his men Dean adopts the six year old playing plastic soldiers versus household dog approach to murder.

They decide to take the battle to Dean and when Steve is instructed to gather supplies from the garage for the battle he discovers his father’s gun which is half-arsedly left in a perceptible place. Considering Harry’s death disturbed Arthur I can’t understand why he would want to keep a memento of the occasion, especially one that directly ties him to the murder. But since so far any plot points featured have been so bloody obviously plot points why was I expecting a more subtle variant of Chekhov’s gun? After their payback on Dean this evidence leads to Steve’s betrayal of Arthur, when the former tries to incinerate the latter at a gas station, something which the latter has anticipated right down to the fucking tee.

You really have to question just how Bishop knew Steve was going to betray him. I don’t mean generally, it was only a matter of time before that loose cannon snapped and bit the hand that feeds. But Arthur had everything rigged to destroy both the car and house before he realized Steve had discovered he was responsible for Harry’s death. Its one thing being prepared but it becomes something else entirely when it results in your annihilation the next time you put on a record. The saying God is in the details may be the mantra of most serial killers but it is highly improbable that Arthur could have predicted the exact moment Steve would betray him, and even if he did why couldn’t he have just snubbed the guy during the car ride? It’s not like Steve would have anticipated that Arthur knew of his impending treachery; killing Steve in the car would have had the benefit of pre-emptive killing, and still being able to enjoy a carpool lane.

But as Ed Wood once said; “What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?” a statement which, while it could certainly be applied here with validity, can easily be brushed to the side when you consider the fact that though Bishop tells Steve to not touch his audio equipment (which he does later activating the bomb) it isn’t stated that it is always rigged to an explosive; further more I doubt Bishop left the note in the Jaguar E-Type from the very beginning of their relationship as that would have been easily detectable and antithetical to its purpose. Or maybe he had taking these preventative measures from the outset, since his characters are so used to betrayal at this point it would have been redundant for him to utter “Et tu, Steve?”

All in all the film is a terrible waste of time; it’s not well executed enough to match some of Statham’s excellent earlier work such as Crank or The Transporter, nor is the story strong enough to be a rehash of Leon or The Matador. It certainly tries to be both of those movies but is geared more towards a younger audience as is evident in its excessive indulgence of slow motion (yes bullet casings do look cool when filmed coming out of a gun in slow motion as we already bore witness to in The Matrix) and sex. The last quarter of the film is the only part that could really call itself an action movie with a straight face and even then it is clearly in a rush to finish the experience as though the action scenes are ruining its vision of a grander story. The fact that the main villain is eliminated within ten minutes of the protagonist discovering he is the antagonist of the story shows the film’s inadequate pacing. Another issue is the characters themselves, Arthur Bishop is meant to be the sophisticated, cold intellectual type but unlike Charles Bronson before him Statham doesn’t come across as any possessing any of these traits; and Steve McKenna is just annoying. He is aggression personified and continuingly ruins Bishop’s missions in his bid to take out his anger of those that deserve it as a way of compensating for not being able to kill his father’s murderer. Dean is a generic enemy; shoehorned in for plot convenience. His motivations and subsequent actions can be found in almost every single action movie. As was my earlier conjecture, The Mechanic is barely functional and wastes it’s time wooing women and engaging in casual violence, just like a real Mechanic.

Why I hate Black Ops' Multiplayer (Video)

2011-03-06T18:41:00.000-08:00

"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue" an infamous line from the seminal text based game Zork, one that taught that it would serve you well to step into fucking line and do exactly what Infocom told you (i.e spend your money on games only slightly more powerful than a novella). I propose we create a similar line for use in multiplayer gameplay; something along the lines of "You are online. You are likely to be repeatedly killed by an overweight twelve year old from Korea". See I like games, and would like to believe that I am somewhat decent at them in the same way that Alex Reid mistakenly believes he has evolved from a Gorilla into a Human and is not currently still half way through the process. However for me no matter how good at a game I am, as soon as I go online it becomes as difficult as having to break bad news to Hitler.

Which is why I have recorded the following video, so that you may gain some idea of my average experience. That way once I murder half the population of a small town at least the media will be able to blame video games and focus their intense scrutiny on pixelated violence instead of the bloody obvious fact that I must be several chins short of a darts player to actually commit such atrocities.

Die Hard Horse, Die : A review of all 4 Die Hard Films

2011-02-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

If the Die Hard series were a horse then at this point in time it would have been beaten to death by John McClane and thrown out of the top story window of a skyscraper directly onto a stationary patrol car. You may be away of the upcoming fifth installment of the series, tentatively titled Die Hard 24/7, which frankly sounds like a brand of Viagra, and is set to be released in the Year of the End of Time (2012). Since Bruce Willis has recently announced the filming of the fourth sequel to Die Hard will be most likely this year, I thought I would briefly review all four movies in the order of worst to best and give my comments regarding the fifth.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

Yes the installment most people hail as one of the best simply because it stars Samuel L Jackson and people would buy ground up baby remains sold as a food supplement if it were endorsed by him; is my worst. Now there are several reasons for this; firstly it was essentially an action oriented road trip movie. Think about it. John and Zeus travel the city in a car and get into all manner of hilarious scraps, the only difference being that the innuendos and sexual shenanigans that normally inhabit the former genre are replaced by puns and penetration by bullets and sharp objects.

The second reason is that the story just isn’t very good, which may seem like I am being unfair here since after all we don’t watch a Die Hard film to see if it can be the next Citizen Kane, we watch it because we want to see John McClane stab a fucking guy with an icicle. But bringing back the popular antagonist from the popular original in the form of the villain’s brother Simon Gruber does feel like the cheap trick you would expect a soap opera to pull and clearly shows Jonathan Hensleigh had little idea of where this film was heading and had to pull an idea out of a hat as he sure as hell wasn’t going to abandon the project – he needed to build a penthouse suite in his built to scale money hotel after all. Also after two movies, 255 minutes and Battle of Passchendaele level casualties I had hoped there would be no schmaltzy scenes involving McClane’s wife or his personal problems, because at the end of the day it is not necessary and feels tacked on since I’m not trying to identify with the man; that would require going postal in the La Scala opera house in order for that to be made possible.

The film should have used the alternate ending in which John’s life is destroyed by Simon whose plans are an outstanding success, forcing the disgraced police officer to track Gruber down to Hungary to force him to play a form of Russian Roulette; taking form in the unsubtle way that you would expect from such a series and Taliban insurgents. It would have portrayed McClane in a whole new light and would have been the much needed new life for the franchise, making this ending in essence the life force stealing scourge device from the Corean Chronicles which punishes wayward Alectors. Unfortunately Hensleigh dropped this in favor of the theatrically released ending, the ending which is like an unstoppable force (Gruber + a helicopter + a minigun) meeting the unmovable object (John McCLane + pistol + two rounds remaining) resulting in the force saying “Sod this!” and allowing himself to be liquidated. I understand this is an action movie and a prerequisite is that you are supposed to leave your belief precariously suspended in S&M restraints, but the conceit displayed by the villain and his subsequent defeat left such a bitter taste in my mouth it felt as though I had just performed felatio on a cynical lemon.

Rating: Tried too Hard.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Basing the plot on the A Farewell to Arms article written for Wired magazine was always going to be a bad start. Die Hard may be the preponderant action movie series, one which all imitators shall be measured by, but it is not intellectual. Therefore taking an articulate essay on the possibility and connotations of an E-War and applying it to an action film is as good an idea as a Dingo babysitter. Live Free or Die Hard comes across as knowing as much about computers as a time traveler from 1670 aka The Net Effect. Yes a cyber war could theoretically destroy our entire infrastructure reducing the western world to the dark ages of a typical American trailer park; but no, a cyber terrorist cannot blow shit up using a computer (unless they are playing a video game or using it to control a remotely controlled projectile, or, enlarging pictures of fecal matter – pun #386283.)

However it was a Die Hard movie nonetheless, unlike With a Vengeance which was simply a chance for Samuel L Jackson to fill his angry black man quota for that year. The set pieces are pure Die Hard; John destroys a helicopter with a car and a car wreckage flies perilously over head on a motorway. The villains are pure Die Hard; outlandishly over the top like a flamboyant Gary Oldman, with flimsy motivations to boot. All that remains to ruin the experience is Justin Long who is essentially Shia LaBeouf and Dane Cook if they were caught in a head-on collision and somehow merged together by the forces of sheer retardation. He is that one personality that features at every party who is the life and soul of the room yet the minute he leaves everyone plots his murder in various macabre ways. The presence of Justin detracts from the experience since every moment of danger that passes becomes a disappointment as it is yet another extension of Long’s character’s life.

The plot must take place during Take Our Daughters to Work Day as we are introduced to John McClane’s estranged daughter who has formed rather nicely since we last saw her in the original Die Hard. This is an act designed simply to provide emotion to all the senseless violence, and maybe even a little suspense, but that is clearly as redundant as the upcoming The Thing prequel (look we already know what happened to the Norwegian base so it’s going to be as gratuitous as The New Labour Government) since this is the fourth time John has been thrown into this situation and just like going on a date with Anand Jon we know by now how it’ll work out. This movie marks the third time McClane’s family has gotten in his way while he attempts to kick ass. Look I know family is important John, but you have your precious guns and they are attempting to take the precious guns away; you should kill them now whilst you have the chance…spake the voice inside John McClane’s head.

Rating: Died Hard on the vine.

Die Hard (1988)

It is written in The Epistle of James, lines 1:2 &1:3 “Consider it the greatest joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you encounter various types of difficulties, because you know that the testing of your faith will produce perseverance.” The reason I arbitrarily bring this up like a Chief Executive arbitrarily mentioning his Aston Martin Rapide and villa in the Maldives during small talk at a dinner party is because the majority of readers will be shocked that the original Die Hard has come second; shattering the very fabric of their mortal existence. Look believe me when I say that choosing between Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder was like choosing between Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian in a contest to choose the most useless person to have by your side during your savage and bloody survival in a post apocalyptic wasteland.

The original Die Hard is what I call the Space Invaders of movies; a minimalist storyline that is simply a thin veil for engaging and entertaining set pieces. For those of you that are not familiar of the storyline, and first of all, congratulations for finally awakening from that twenty three year coma and secondly; it concerns McClane trapped in a skyscraper with several heavily armored antagonists who also have hostages. McClane, who is outgunned, outnumbered but never outvested slowly fights back using his wits and humor blacker than a seminar for gothic black sheep. The relationship between John and the leader of the saboteurs, Hans Gruber, is one of the highlights of the movie. Hans is not your run of the mill James Bond ‘generic megalomaniac who has burning desires to crush the world and must be stopped last minute after he captures the protagonist who escapes due to said megalomaniac’s arrogance’ type of antagonist. Instead Hans is ruthless, unpredictable and has a dry sense of humor. John’s adversaries are not limited just to trigger happy terrorists cum thieves; he also has to contend with the local law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – which marks a departure from a large number of action movies in which the protagonist is a conduit of such agencies.

But if I’m pushed to be critical (this is The Crusades of a Critic and not Captain Nice’s Lovey Dovey Happy Magical Fawning Hour after all) then I must mention De’voreaux White. No, that’s not the name of a fucking shade of paint; it’s the name of the actor who played the limousine driver Argyle. He plays Argyle as the stereotypically sassy, cool black guy who only really can be found in American movies, just look at this quote “Man, if this is their idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Year's.” He is just annoying and unnecessary like a Crazy Frog ringtone, which is a shame because humor is what Die Hard does well. The police and FBI also suspend the disbelief somewhat; through their sheer idiocy they make disastrous decision after disastrous decision and continue to throw men into the slaughter as though the law enforcers were Christians and the terrorists Lions. Yet one man armed with a vest is able to do the job a heavily equipped SWAT team fail to do. I know in real life that in the public’s eye law enforcement agencies are often shrouded with an air of incompetence but…erm I’ve kind of lost my trail of thought here, something about the FBI being excellent at handing out cruel and unusual punishment to foreign lawbreakers I guess.

Rating: Too Hard to Die.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)

Well here we are, numero uno, as they say (which is Italian in case you were wondering who ‘they’ were). Die Hard 2, my favorite of the franchise thus far; most likely forever, because just like the 4^th installment the 5^th will probably be gratuitous and overdone as though all 83 editions of the OSCARS were magically combined by some kind of Molestiamancer. Whilst my love for Die Hard is just as close I felt that generally as a package, Die Hard 2 was tighter than a Virginity Pledge created by the Skoptsy. By imposing a time limit on the events, 58 minutes and not any of that Jack Bauer ‘real time’ nonsense either, it creates an exciting pace since John doesn’t so much have time as to stop for a manicure and a latte but if he did all it would achieve would be to put further pressure on the his time constraints. Therefore events have to move at a steady pace and consequently there is much less of the standing around having extended chats to the Twinkie spokesman cum police sergeant that featured in the first movie.

The story is superior to that of the first film, as throughout we are unsure who the bad guys actually are like a Chikan during a blackout. Oh sure we know that the mercenaries with the automatic weapons and tendencies towards violence are the bad guys but once Major Grant and his men show up and secretly aid the mercenaries it forces us to question exactly who is on the level, giving the story an extra dimension. It helps that the deaths more brutal than being at the front of the crowd during a Napalm Death concert; for example there’s the aforementioned icicle death but there’s also Major Grant’s death by way of being sucked into the aircraft’s engine. Add to this the fact that John McClane manages to kill General Ramon Esperanza, a South American dictator, and I would say that this installment has more than upped the ante.

However to suspend your disbelief during this installment you would have to put it on the Boeing 747 that the terrorists are demanding and take it to its maximum certified altitude of 45,000ft. For example the planes are unable to land so therefore have to circle the air waiting for permission to do so; however what exactly is stopping them for simply radioing to Washington National Airport and asking for the clearance to land there instead? They are near Washington Dulles Airport after all which is a stone’s throw away (keeping in mind this is a plane we are discussing here) from national so if they have the fuel to mindlessly fly around then I confident that they could have gone there. Secondly where are the armed forces? Sure SWAT teams and airport security continuously attempt and laughably fail to contain the situation but the only thing even slightly related to the armed forces present are the Special Forces team secretly working with the bad guys. There are two possible reasons for this, either everyone in the Die Hard 2 world has seen Die Hard 1 and subsequently know that John McClane is the only competent person in that reality or it could be because the movie is set before 9/11 and back then airport security was just something backward European nations had.

Rating: Died from being too Hard

Die Hard 24/7 (2012?)

Sporting a title that is one backstroke away from representing the number of installments the series will have by 2030, Die Hard 24/7 is the soon to be released fifth movie. And since as the series progresses the area which John must liberate increases in size and population, resulting in him being responsible for saving the entirety of America last time round, this will logically mean in this installment it will be a globetrotting affair so he had better find an airline that provides a body count to air miles conversion service. As John loses more and more of his image as the everyman fallen victim to circumstance (and his hair, a correlation?) with each adventure he undergoes he will likely in this movie resemble a Hound of Tindalos.

Many people will claim Bruce Willis is too old to continue playing John McClane but the way I view this is that it fits the role perfectly; John will spend the majority of the movie draped in a vest and in a state of confusion trying to figure out what is going on whilst simultaneously trying to outfox younger foes. If that doesn’t sound like the perfect role for a fifty something year old then you can just stop being pedantic. And I’ll particularly be looking forward for the film’s release onto DVD as it’ll be fun to watch the blooper reel and attempt to guess whether a word stumbling Bruce has simply forgotten his lines or if his Alzheimer’s has finally kicked in.

Die Hard 24/7 is in all probability just the film’s working title but honestly I couldn’t think of a better one as "Die Slightly Harder Than Last Time (which is going to take some doing as in the last one John destroyed a helicopter with a car)" doesn't make for a good title. But honestly it’ll be an enjoyable romp provided Justin Long and Samuel L Jackson don’t show up on filming day. If that happens then it should be titled “Die Hard /wrists”.

Predicted Rating: Died Hardon the bathroom floor, alone.

"How dare you make old people jokes! What? No, I'm not pulling a face, I'm having a stroke."

Skyline Video Review

2011-01-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

I present to you a review which I've been putting off for awhile now, (about three months in fact) like the cleaner of the Cretan Labyrinth. Since it never seemed to work on paper I decided to do a video review of it, so you will finally be able to see me in all my glory, lucky devils. I sometimes stutter and pause in this like Hugh Grant on a date but that is simply because I am reading notes off my computer or because I am pausing for thought.

Tinie Tempah: Disc-Overy Review

2011-01-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Going by a stage name that is to correct English what Top Gun was to the masculinity of young Navy aviators, Tinie Tempah is the latest in a succession of rappers that follow what I call the ‘chatshow host’ rule of album producing. That is, in order to disguise the fact you are just another generic artist entering a music scene that is already more overcrowded than Dharavi, you have already ‘established’ artists on guest vocals for the majority of the album’s tracks. Sounds lazy? Well this is the modern music industry after all – essentially an acceptable form of the eugenics movement, in actual quality of the music not mattering as long as the singers sound and look perfect. Regardless, the industry being as shallow as the average guido isn’t Tinie Tempah’s fault so I can’t begrudge him that. So I shall judge him on the quality of his music by reviewing the singles from his debut album Disc-Overy, and despite having only being released about three months prior to time of writing there has been a twenty-three date tour announced and already four singles are available (with a fifth on the way). Christ, Tinie Tempah has already produced more singles than Gene Roddenberry.

As the starving Olympic diver might have said upon seeing a jelly-filled swimming pool; “let’s just dive right in”.

Pass Out – A creatively titled track that is, in the words of Tinie himself, about “getting so out of it that you pass out". And who ever said rap was unoriginal? Now whilst not wishing to cast aspersions on the good man, I don’t think he actually has any idea what his own songs are about. For example only the chorus (listed below) actually fits within the context he mentions (also as a just for fun fact; the second verse of the chorus is sung by Labrinth. Who apparently is a misspelling of an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus. The first of his many many guests):

Yeah (yeah) we bring the stars out,
We bring the women and the cars and the cards out,
Lets have a toast a celebration get a glass out,
And we can do this until we pass out.

(so) Let it rain,
Let it pour away,
We wont come down,
Until we hit the ground and pass out!

Let’s just pause at this juncture, look at the first two lines of the first verse – notice how he mentions we bring the women and the cars and the cards out? In the world of Tinie Tempah women are in the same party aid category as cars and cards, and puts it across so bluntly that you would think we live in some kind of Mad Max style society where women are little more than commodities for social occasions.

The rest of the verses are just about how he lives a lavish lifestyle. Examples;

I live a very very very wild lifestyle.

I got so many clothes I keeps em in ma aunts house.

20 light bulbs around my table and my dresser
ClC Kompressor, just in case that dont impress her.

Quite why he thinks the fact that he has more clothes than fashion week and keeps them at his aunt’s house is something to gloat about especially when it means he has to go to her house every time he wants to change shirt, is beyond me. He should have said he has so many flowers he keeps them at Chelsea Flower show as it has just as much effect. He claims that his possessions are so great he can impress a metaphorical woman with them, and whilst that may be true in the age of the shallow do you really need to be so materialist Mr. Tempah? Couldn’t you have just said that you have a nice personality and good nature? Also is the product placement actually vital? He was probably hoping if he mentions a BMW CLC Kompressor as a lyric then he would be sent one as a sign of good faith, but that doesn’t work – hence why I don’t mention the Porsche 911 every single paragraph (Though if you guys at Porsche deem it necessary to gift me then e-mail me for my address).

He also apparently likes a good pop culture reference as well, though he fails to grasp exactly how they work; not realizing one cannot simply mention a character or celebrity out of context, it has to fit within the intention. Yet several times throughout the song he includes the names of pop culture icons in scenarios that make less sense than a drunken Scotsman;

Say hello to dexter, say hello to uncle fester
Got them gazing at my necklace and my crazy sun protectors.

Im pissed I never got to fly on a concord,
I bin Southampton but ive never bin to Scunthorpe,
Im fucking crazy with the kicks, call me Jean Claude.

I live a very very very wild lifestyle,
Heidi and Audrina eat your heart out.

Of those above examples only The Hills reference makes even the slightest sense, as at passing it sounds as though it could work but put enough thought power into processing it and it is as flimsy as an anorexic Paper Mario. This song would make more sense if it was about a lonely man downing several six-packs of Carlsberg in front of the television and in his inebriated and delusional state confuses the images he sees on said television screen with his own life, leading him to believe he lives this decadent life of a party animal alongside all the mentioned icons.

In terms of music quality it is incredibly boring, mostly due to the fact that Shortie Tempah is the Ernest Hemingway of the rap world. And when I say it is boring I of course refer to the grandfather recounting stories of his youth at a family gathering post-Christmas lunch variety of boring. This is truly emphasized in the music video which simply features the two artists against a black back drop with simple visual effects flashing on it. Tinie then simply speaks the lyrics slightly faster than usual talking rate whilst a generic four-on-the-floor dubstep tune that would make even the soundtrack to the videogame 1942 sound as technical as a Steve Vai solo, plays in the background. This is not just a problem relating solely to this song; it is Smaul Tempah’s actual style which is copy and pasted onto all of his songs. A metaphor to help you visual this would be to be picture Tinie with his own cooking show and telling the viewer a recipe as music plays in the foreground to create ambience, only the recipe is how to be a pretentious douche.

Frisky- While ‘Pass Out’ showed us how Tinie Tempah likes to party (with product placement and cultural references) his second single Frisky gives an insight to what type of women he enjoys and how he goes about getting them. Again this is his official meaning behind the song but again I can provide evidence proving it has an alternative and sinister meaning. The song opens with the following intro/chorus;

I just can't stop the feeling, don't seem to go away.
So if I hurt your feelings, don't blame it all on me.
I just can't stop the feeling (nothing else to say),
And now they have to stay.
So if I hurt your feelings (don't take it the wrong way),
It's just because I'm..

Oh la la la la, la la la la la
Oh la la la la, la la la frisky
Oh la la la la, la la la la la
Oh la la la la, la la la frisky

Clearly Tinie Tempah is a man who is literally controlled by his genitalia, a throwback to that laughably unscientific stereotype that all men have actual brains in their Private Johnson. It is through TT that the adage transcends into truth, and one must stop and ask how does this man survive his daily routine if his trouser Leptotyphlops carlae is responsible for all of the thoughts he processes? The only conceivable way that he hasn’t yet been hospitalized for being embroiled in sweaty coitus with a garbage disposal is if his penis were the Ray Mears of penes. But seriously, the entire human race is preprogrammed to want to reproduce yet he acts of though he was built in a Japanese Artificial Intelligence manufacturing company owned by Playboy by being in a constant state of frisson. This of course lends credence to my theory that the song is about a Patrick Bateman style serial killer controlled by his insatiable urges forcing him to stalk the night looking for women to strike down with his blade. Several lines clearly display this;

I think I found a winner, with no ring around her finger.

I wanna pick her up, and put her down.
She gon be waking up my neighbors if I bring her round.

Girl you better keep your distance I just wanna have eh eh
I'm on a mission I don't even wanna kiss her
Honey I won't even miss ya when I'm done with ya eh eh

I would put her in positions like the mission from my staircase to
My kitchen leave her twitchin, twitchin, twitchin, twitchin....

Yeah, I'm suspicious, she looks delicious.

Study those above passages intently, and tell me if you were a five point FBI profiler would you include all of the above on a list of signs to watch out for in a potential mass murderer. From the first line which implies that he chooses unmarried victims as they as less likely to be missed to the last which sounds like the sort of thing Hannibal Lector would inscribe on a Valentine’s card, all of these chosen lyrics give the song a disturbing edge – even more so than the fact that Tinie Tempah wrote those to have sexual connotations and thought it didn’t sound about as disgustingly sleazy as every word that exits the typical night club owner’s vocal tract.

Because after all that is what this song is - an encyclopedia for the perverted. Tinee Tempah wants all the girls to know that when he is around they shall become apetalous. The truly sad thing is that having this sort of mindset is likely to gain you your own claque. Anyone who firmly believes that “If I told her I’m a boxer, would she let me down her knickers…” is an appropriate sentiment towards dating has evidently quantum leaped into Peter Stringfellow.

Written in the Stars/ Invincible – The third and arguably best single from his debut album is Written in the Stars, if only because it is the only one that can’t be recreated by rewriting the Karma Sutra on an Anheuser–Busch InBev company report. It chronicles Stumpy Tempah’s pre-frame life and unsurprisingly is highly vainglorious. It is essentially an exercise in self-indulgence comparable to releasing a new autobiography every time you change your partner – yes your ears are burning Katie Price. The lyrics concern the impecuniosity of his early life, how he was dragooned by local bullies and how he yearned for success – writing lyrics in his battered book. I hate to break it to Lilliputian Tempah but there is innately nothing special about his plight that makes his success more deserving – he comes across as possessing an attitude that because he was once Tiny Tim that he deserves to live a life that will inevitably end with him faced down dead in a crack cocaine filled swimming pool. However he fails to note that millions of people live their lives on the breadline, the same people who want an escape before they have a stress induced stroke transforming them into the Frank Nelson type character from the Simpsons. In fact you could say that I am the white middle class version of Pygmy Tempah writing this very blog in order to escape the harsh reality of the fact once Ireland’s economy completely collapses it will likely create a chain of events that will culminate with me dying on a beach á la The Road long after society falls.

The song opens as per usual for a Diminutive Tempah song- with his guest belting out the chorus line with so much passion you would be forgiven for thinking the song is a musical about Fred West and the vocalist is playing a victim pleading for his life. The guest vocalist this time around is Eric Turner, a man you won’t have heard of from a band you won’t have heard of, who looks like a more downtrodden Eric Cantona. Eric opens the song with the intro and chorus before we return to the formula, i.e. an uninspired and repetitive beat playing in the background while Tinie does his thing as hip hop’s William Shatner. Typically of his writing style there are many lines that don’t make sense at all, as though he had the line penned for awhile and thought he might as well force it in randomly like trying to fit two wrong pieces of a jigsaw together and producing a result that is seriously incorrect.

Man I’m like a young gun fully black Barrack
I cried tear drops over the massive attack
I only make hits like I work with a racket and bat

Look at my jacket and hat
So damn berserk
So down to earth
I’m bringing gravity back

“I only make hits like I work with a racket and bat” is a cringe worthy pun that would even a Christmas cracker roll its metaphorical eyes. The entirety of the second set is clearly just phoning it in. “Look at my Jacket and hat” does not work in or out of context; he is not wearing a hat in the video so all I can conclude is that he realizes how boring he actually is and therefore decides to stimulate brain activity in his listeners to stop them becoming officially comatose. “I’m bringing gravity back” cue a discriminatory joke about how rappers will steal anything but Tinie Tempah isn’t a very good rapper so he has to return what he stole to disburden his conscience.

Even when Tinie isn’t trying to be a Family Guy joke writer and focuses on the emotional core of the song, i.e. how squalor his life was, it still doesn’t have the impact it was probably meant to – since it reads as though written using Baby’s First Slum Dog Millionaire Writing Kit.

Look Im just a writer from the ghetto like Malory blackman
But have you ever been so hungry that it keeps you awake
Trying to turn a tenner to a hundred grand

He overplays the poor hand fate dealt him- yes poverty is still an issue in Britain but due to our wonderful Marxist welfare system at least half the population can afford to feed themselves and buy iPhones whilst the working saps can barely afford rent; in fact so twisted is British society that the song would have been more harrowing if it followed the perspective of a nine to five retail worker. It amounts to nothing more than a man trying to appear deserving of his fame so that he has a legitimate reason for abusing those that don’t enjoy his music or haters as he would call it. Yet if he were so thankful of escaping this destitute fate then why is he filling his aunt’s house with clothes instead of food, money and salvation from the hell he crawled from? If what he claims is true then essentially he appreciates his break about as much as Broadway’s thespians would appreciate a mentally handicapped man who could only utter the word “Macbeth” repeatedly.

Proving Tinie isn’t averse to beating a dead horse until the corpse resembles a character from The Hills Have Eyes; his album Disc-Overy released its forth single Invincible which once again chronicles his humble origins, except for this time he claims it was the power of love that helped him to succeed – and amazing this is the hallmark brand of love and not the Tinie Tempah kind which he displayed in his song Frisky. Basically it is a ballad featuring Kelly Rowland and sounds like every single RnB ballad in the third millennium, i.e. shrill female vocals, brass horns and pianos. The lyrics are packed with schmaltz and sentiment, the type you wouldn’t expect from Tinie Tempah, the type that leads you to suspect he has been replaced by romantic body snatchers:

“As bad as the odds were looking, Push yeah we kept on pushing,
And every time I nearly hit the ground, you were my cushion,
There's evidence that proves, That you were heaven sent
'Cos when I needed resucin', You were there at my defence”

The video features Tinie walking down the street with scenes from his life projected onto the sides of buildings forcing us to put up with more of his immoderate indulgence of his personal desires. In hindsight he should have simply decided to release an audio biography instead of an album.

All in all, Disc-Overy is not a good album. The songs are uninspired and clichéd, the music repetitive and boring, and it relies too heavily on guest vocalists. No doubt it sold enough copies for him to create a second album and bore us to death with yet more songs from his ‘humble origins’. I’ve only reviewed the singles of the album but in my defense they make up a large percentage of the track listing and demonstrate the album’s range or lack thereof as heard one song and you’ve pretty much heard them all. To put it in one of my pithy metaphors, Disc-Overy is a Sisyphean punishment like being the cleaner in a hotel which specializes in Sialorrhea sufferers

Resolutions for 2011

2010-12-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

The joy of Christmas has swiftly left like an expensive date absconding from the restaurant moments before the bill arrives, whilst simultaneously the depression is only just kicking in - akin to the bailiff forcing entry to your domicile after you are unable to pay your Christmas gained debts. So another year almost finished and another year closer to impending doom if the Mayan prophecy is to be believed, and when I say Mayan prophecy I actually mean drugged up college student prophecy; as logic would dictate that just because your 2010 calendar ends on 31st December 2010 it doesn’t mean the world will following suit, so why should it be any different for an ancient calendar? But I digress, following below are a few things that I ort to get around to finally doing in 2011;

Go to Australia

I’m not a man’s man by any definition of the term – I couldn’t down fifty pints of fourex and still be capable of smoking a chicken on a BBQ. Nor could I tackle a spider with a body circumference double the circumference of the glass I’m trying to catch it in. And unlike a resilient TV dinner I’m opposed to extreme temperatures. However with all that in mind I’ve wanted to visit Oz for many years now – with its yellow brick roads and winged monkeys, and 2011 seems like a good as time as any. Though how well I’ll fair in an English speaking country where the language is spoken in an accent often so unintelligible that I would have more chance understanding the musings of a person suffering from the pathological condition idioglossia is a riddle best not attempted to be answered. First I should probably purchase a passport as drowning on a smuggling boat does not make for an ideal holiday.

Put up those shelves

You know to which shelves I am referring, the ones you’ve been meaning to erect for some time now in order to create ‘floor space’ but due to a busy schedule you’ve put it to the back of your mind and let the laziness take over; which is probably how institutional discrimination begins. The seeds of the project are already planted; I have the boards of wood and the vision of where they shall be hung like the protagonist of a failed game of hangman. However my acedia prevents me from accomplishing this and thus I have to share the same floor space with vases filled with various plants and tins of food making it resemble the nuclear fallout shelter of an insane botanist.

Buy an Exotic Pet

I’ve had all manner of pets before but none of those have ever been of the exotic variety. There is something about owning a Snake that just feels greater than owner a pair of Guinea Pigs named Patty and Chips. It’s also rather hard to claim to be a Warrior of the Darkness and Scourge of Humanity when forced to feed and care for a hoard of kittens instead of tossing a vagrant to a Llamhigyn Y Dwr dwelling in the basement. It’s as appropriate an image as a range of Clive Barker children’s birthday cards. So this coming year I am determined to become the proud owner of either a Burmese python or an uromastyx lizard. Because as I’ve always held claim to; nothing suggests loving companionship between man and beast quite like a creature that would kill me given half the chance.

Change my birthday date

In a world where you would be hard pressed to find examples of the cruel and merciless rule of Darwinism at work, birthdays seem pointless. Celebrating another year of living feels forced, especially when the most danger we face in our day to day lives is accidentally hearing a Kesha song. Granted a birthday in modern society brings promise of small wealth and celebrations, but with my birthday taking place two days after the beheading of Saint Anastasia (and this little holiday known as Christmas) the majority of people I knew are already in debt enough without having to reward me for not being stupid enough to die whilst partaking in a game of extreme ironing. There is also the fact that on my birthday people are too fatigued from the tremendous levels of energy it takes to celebrate Christmas to actually muster the strength to involve themselves in an activity of my choice; because clearly ripping wrapping paper to shreds and gorging yourself with Marlon Brando sized helpings of food requires the energy one would use to summon Beleth. It has been suggested to me that I have my official birthday on the actual birthday date but celebrate it somewhere in the summer, which sounds like a lot of work just to get given a gift which was probably gained by the giver as a lagniappe– but then at least I could knock the Queen from her two birthday monopoly. The selfish bitch.

Look above for the face of selfishness.

I'm in the Band Review

2010-11-25T06:27:00.000-08:00

My relationship with Disney is comparable to the one Montresor and Fortunato share; we were once close as they filled my childhood days with amazing animated features and I still feel that buying Pixar was the best decision the company ever made. However in recent years due to the diminished quality of the material they keep churning out like an ill dog (namely Hannah Montana and The Jonas brothers) I’m forced to resign myself to seal Bob Iger and Mickey Mouse in an underground chamber using bricks made of political correctness.

I’m in the Band is Disney’s latest attempt at trying to please everyone like Vishnu at a swingers’ party, the subject this time is heavy metal which happens to be my forte; and as a consequence watching Disney pull off their usual trick of taking a subject and watering it down until it’s nothing more than Tesco own brand Gin is as uncomfortable as watching Donald Duck bludgeon my father to death. And in an attempt to sound as pithy as the show’s writers wanted to be, they couldn’t have missed the point more if they followed directions from a woman reading a map.

There are two main reasons why the show doesn’t work. First of all it belongs to that bizarre Stepford wives style universe that all Disney’s programming takes place in. This twilight zone where teenagers sing songs about homework, bake cakes for teachers and the only form of bullying that occurs is quips about how someone’s hat looks stupid. A bit of realism would be nice; how about a few pregnant teens and burnout cars? I appreciate it is a children’s show but by fucking Jove Grange Hill is an indictment of British youth in comparison. Though programmes such as these serve as an antithesis for Skins, which usually play like the thoughts of the world’s most paranoid/delusional emo – were each episode is essentially a social equivalent of 2012. Skins is a ludicrous show that wouldn’t know reality if it was branded onto its ballsack – but at least it is the darker than a blindman’s basement style of ridiculousness as opposed to the aforementioned skip to the loo kind, which being a cynic is difficult to swallow.

The second reason why IITB sucks harder than the prostitute’s malfunctioning dyson is that the show’s writers have clearly derived their perceptions of heavy metal from watching 80’s hair metal videos on VH1 from across the street using a kaleidoscope. Just the premise alone is enough to make Rob Halford quake in his boots; essentially it follows ‘legendary’ heavy metal band Iron Weasel who recruit a teenage guitarist as they prepare to make their comeback. The whole scenario smacks of the delusional fantasies shared by every teenager who has so much as brushed past a guitar; and the more you stop to think about it the plot has more holes than an apple pie in Jim Levenstein’s house. I mean if the band is so awesome and revered as we are led to believe why aren’t droves of experienced guitarists lining up to join their ranks? And why would they settle for an angsty teenager who fits in as well with the band as a miner does at a Conservative party conference?

To be fair Logan “Tripp” Ryan Campbell (the teen) joining Iron Weasel is met with opposition - if only because they fear losing their cool, edgy appeal. Unfortunately if your discography consists of Pull My Finger – a song about the timeless flatulence gag, I Wanna Punch Stuff – which sounds like an anthem for the typical hormonal adolescent and Spiders, Snakes and Clowns which covers the subject of being scared of the titular creatures, then you are as edgy as Super Mario Brothers. Yes I appreciate this is a children’s show so understandably the humour isn’t going to be as sophisticated as Private Eye but the infantile nature of the show is not only damaging to children’s intellect but patronising too. It carries on the tradition that all rockstars must be immature caricatures Derek, Burger and Ash engage in mindless activities such as water bomb fights, make fart jokes and are involved in all many of slapstick scrapes. The show essentially takes the rock stardom experience and performs a frontal lobe lobotomy on it so that it can only be enjoyed by children who will laugh at anything provided there is a laugh track and those in the body of a child (in the Tom Hanks kind of way and not the Gary Glitter type).

Forming the crux of the show are two key elements, firstly there is the long struggle for Iron Weasel to regain its former glory – something that proves rather difficult for a band that is still inexplicably rather popular despite being dropped from their record label. The other focuses on Tripp’s life as a high school, you know that time in human life which is just a plethora of red tape made of social awkwardness and hormones. He has all the typical teenage turmoil and turbulence – girl troubles, parent troubles and homework troubles, yet we are supposed to accept him as a rock god? That’s like a new incarnation of Doctor Who trying to appeal to the same audience yet simultaneously not applying to the rules of quirky habits and hipster dress sense. There is something odd about a band with an average age of thirty when one of the members has to be home by 9pm. Disney are obviously trying to tap into the fantasies of all the teenage amateur musicians who want to be inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame and become the most popular student in school; what they unfortunately don’t realise is that is often doesn’t work that way and that quickly. Isabella "Izzy" Fuentes (Caitlyn Taylor Love) is these fantasies personified as she dreams of becoming a rock vocalist herself but this is proven unviable time and time again, something which is pointed out by Tripp himself in his pretentious and hypocritical manner.

One thing that is accurately portrayed is the intelligence of the drummer, which to avoid any confusion is on par with roadkill. This may be perceived as an unfair stereotype but the fact that even Phil Collins can drum is an indication of the IQ levels required; it doesn’t take much intelligence to beat a tightly stretched artificial membrane with a stick. Just ask the caveman Ugg. Ashley "Ash" Tyler (Stephen Full) is the perfect character for this sort of show as he is in nature a Forest Gump style character and it doesn’t feel forced whereas reducing the talented Steven John Valentine (playing vocalist Derek Jupiter) to throwing pies around feels somewhat tragic.

All in all it is the atypical Disney show which seems to be plaguing our screens at the moment, and it doesn’t even need to exist as it treads ground that has already been worn straight through to hell. And it is also damaging, giving young viewers the wrong idea of metal by passing it off as a juvenile lifestyle. It may seem wrong to judge a children’s show when viewing it from the perspective of someone who is legally allowed to care for themselves but do remember that I’m the type of guy who would starve to death if left alone for an entire weekend and as such the equilibrium of the universe hath been restored.

And as a special bonus for those amongst you who are trying to create a garage band or if you’re a Disney hack writer planning to create a similar show, here is;

Creating a metal band 101

Step One

The creator(s) of the band must decide what genre it is going to be because this dictates everything from who joins, to the name and even decides which direction the band goes. Iron Weasel actually succeeds here because they very clearly belong to the glam genre in terms of the music they play, but hey give a retarded simian a Gatling gun and he is set to hit something.

Step Two

Obviously a band without musicians is like a maximum security prison without minorities and whilst there is no ‘set’ limit of members allowed it’s usually quartets or quintets. One thing is for certain- that no matter how hard Jack White states just two people can never make a proper band, especially when the percussionist has the natural talent of a soggy biscuit in a Jaffa Cake lookalike contest. Which brings me to my next point, the members actually have to be able to play.

Preferably your band members should share an interest in your chosen genre; otherwise the whole experience for them is going to be comparable to a weekend conference on quantative easing taught in Sweden. Also for example death metal bands don’t want a bassist that dresses in luminous orange shorts because they are clearly allergic to anything that evokes images of flowers and puppies as opposed to concentration camps.

Step Three

You’ll need to name the band and since this will be your label for the rest of your career it’ll need to sound good. Unfortunately you are probably only in this for the money and therefore lack the required creativity to pull off an imaginative name like Megadeth, Metallica or Fireclown so you’ll stick with a generic sounding name. To make this easier you just stick to a simple template for example think of a hard substance, i.e. a type of metal, or object such as rock or ice. Next add an animal or object to add as a suffix and thus complete the band name. Ideally this should be something that invokes power such as a leopard or a panther or even a hammer. This is tried and tested by many bands – Iced Earth, Iron Maiden, Steel Panther or even Iron monkey and is the easiest route to undertake especially if you want to minimalize your chances of coming up with a band name such as Dankon and discovering years later it is a Japanese word for penis.

What you don’t do is name the band Iron Weasel not lest because if you say it quickly it sounds like “I am weasel” and I don’t think we need to be reminded of that show. It’s a fucking retarded name sounding less effective as a heavy metal name than cotton fabric. Of course the unusual choice in name becomes apparent once you view the tie-in music video, which contains a delicious pun (or a bowl of cyanide if you weren’t depraved of Oxygen as a newborn) in the song title and chorus line – weasel rock you. Think about that. Yes we-shall rock you was the best the tired writers could come up with, and in their grand vision children were laughing, and also women were praising their witticisms one can assume.

Step Four

Write lyrics, riffs, licks and solos as you begin to build up your set list. Choose lyrical themes that suit your style with music that compliments them, for example if you are a disenfranchised angry Thrash quartet who dislikes the man, tell the audience how the corporate machine stole your virginity by screwing you by expecting money to be paid in exchange for goods and services. Just don’t write about being a group of man children who hang around with teenagers getting them into all kinds of “trouble.”

Oh and practice makes perfect.

Step Five

Perform gigs to build up a fanbase. One would assume this would be common knowledge after all you aren’t you just writing and uploading songs onto Youtube so the people can who accidentally navigate off amusing cat videos and Asians who upload themselves covering pop songs can enjoy them. However Iron Weasel rarely manage to get to a gig despite being serious about making a comeback, at the end of season one they probably aren’t even reliable enough for a take-away to actually bother to deliver them a pizza.

Step Six

Act like a band, and no that isn’t in a snort a line of cocaine off a groupie’s breasts or throw a TV set out of a hotel window kind of way but more like being the metal Gods the fans want to see. If they wanted to bear witness to flatulence they would visit their grandfather in the old folk’s home. So make sure you put on a tight performance, with hand banging, devil horns and other dark theatrics that we have come to expect. And if you must then snort a line of cocaine off a TV set and throw a prostitute out of a hotel window.

Enlarging your penis and other scams

2010-11-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

Spam; whether it be greasy offal in a tin or e-mails from a schizophrenic who firmly believes he is the Nigerian President, nobody is capable of saying that they actually like Spam. Today we will be focusing on the latter, for though as disgusting as the food product may be there is, like the repugnant smelling student at school, only so much you can animadvert on before beginning to repeat yourself in a manner befitting an elderly landline user. The ultimate goal of spam is to defraud its target of their bank details and subsequently any money held therein. This sounds simple enough, and any right minded person would understand subtly is the game. However as the majority of spam e-mails are produced by people who get their grasp of language from low budget pornographic films and their outlook on humanity from Rob Schneider movies it often reads like a novel regurgitated by an intoxicated Dan Brown.

Presented below are typical yet humorous examples of spam that I located in my spam box like a raccoon scavenging in the trash can. And just like I would with regards to said raccoon I hastily hit the delete key.

This takes form of a standard template of spam in which a distant and often unnamed relative has left to join the great non-Floyd related gig in the sky leaving the recipient a fortune worthy of a bank director’s redundancy pay; and all you have to do to redeem the fortune is to send them your bank details and perhaps several coupons collected from a tabloid news rag. But it is the minutiae of the writing that sets this particular example apart. Details such as “Hello dear” as though the sender believes calling my sexuality into question would actually reduce my imperviousness to scams. He could have researched general letter openings that could be used for either sex but I can only assume opening Google and keying his query in would have burnt off valuable calories. Also despite supposedly being the next of kin to this woman my actual extremely British ancestry couldn’t be further removed from her Nigerian surname and therefore presumed heritage. I know that the sender must obviously be so over-whelmed with bereavement that he is unable to cogitate with logic and coherence and if he hadn’t burgeoned this message together surely he would discovered a universal surname like Smith would have been sufficient; after all you wouldn't expect the moniker Reginald D. Hunter to appear in an action film which focuses on the ancient traditions of the ninja.

This one is the work of a genius; and into put it in terms of a metaphor that could be misconstrued as an advert for the 2012 London Olympics – it takes the primitive mould and sprints an extra triathlon with it, by creating a back story so deep it probably spent time down with the Chilean miners. Apparently in my life I have been the victim of corrupt officials who metaphorically tore my human rights asunder and as a result I am to be awarded five million sterling as compensation; an act which has been sanctioned by the United Nations of the Republic of Benin themselves. If you give any thought about how the writer of this e-mail has gone to all the pain staking trouble of meticulously attempting to create a professionally written document by later dissecting the inner workings of economics and bureaucracy and the connotations of both, it actually creates sympathy for your would be scammer; especially as they came so far but ultimately failed to process the fact that this lavish and over the top back story isn’t going to be compatible with the majority of their potential victims’ own lives/common sense. After all the worst human rights violation the average Briton has received at the hands of corrupt officials was the discovery that John Prescott had been breeding.

Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to bare-witness to television’s equivalent to the medieval torture rack aka the Hannah Montana show will have realized that Miley Cyrus’ wig expectorates lethal levels of radiation which impairs the cognitive processes of her friends and as a result they remain completely oblivious to the fact the two are identical, produce the same shrill noises and both act like a fart trying to deny its existence. Also,mysteriously, neither are seen in the same postcode as one another which is terribly similar to the slasher movie breed of serial killer. Well the radiating wig theory is also true with my e-mail address as I apparently have a secret life. So not only have I fallen victim to the hands of corrupt officials I am also intricately involved with the Tunisian ministry of commerce and foreign trade department. And in case anyone doubted that my ability to surpass Quantum Leap’s Sam Beckett in the Jack-of-all-trades department I’ve also been elected by the will of Allah for ‘altruistic’ purposes, although this could explain why I have the feeling that if I accept this money to ‘help’ the orphans that it will end with me gaining seventy-two houri.

However unlike the previous spam e-mail this message has darker undertones, with one paragraph even deviating into the philosophical; ‘Am doing this so that Allah will forgive my sins and accept my soul because this sickness has suffered me so much’ and just slightly before the writer even alludes that her husband’s five day illness was the result of his wicked relatives ‘I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not good not even good at all because they are the one that were responsible for the death of my late husband in other to have all my late husband's properties and I don't want my husband's efforts to be used by those that conspired for his death.’ Surely the writer doesn’t actually believe that the best scam available is to convince their intended target that they are starring in an Islamic remake of Dallas?

Probably the most efficient scam in the spammer’s arsenal, as the most effective way to hook a victim is to play to his insecurities about the taunting sobriquets such as Earthworm Jim he receives in the male locker room. Obviously they try to make it seem as appealing as possible, but typically fail miserably as who amongst you can honestly read the phrase ‘ROCK SOLID HARDNESS’ and not think of the Thing in a state of extreme arousal. And who can also read extreme arousal and not picture a reality show in which the contestants forcibly attempt to pleasure great white sharks. The actual opening line of the advert ‘…Grow Your SmallDick’ (bad grammar aside for a moment) only creates the illusion that they are the Alan Titchmarsh of enhancing male genitals; not an image one wants if they wish to obtain the allusive ‘ALL-NIGHT staying power’. Not only does it presume I am this man…oh who am I kidding, I’m not going to delete this one.

Stalaggh Review

2010-10-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

I once had a quotidian reverie which involved an allusive and sinister ye olde alchemist/serial killer who, using arcane methods, bottled his victims’ insanity in a bottle and sold it to me. Upon opening the bottle, which was supposed to be a potion of flight, I was subjected to a world of utter madness comparable to being at a black metal disco with Tim Burton and Vincent Van Gough. The reason I have mentioned this rather bizarre insight into my psyche is because it turns out the alchemist actually exists, in the form of a band with a name lifted directly from an old ones’ scrabble game. Stalaggh are a black metal/ industrial/ noise band known for their avant-garde techniques, albeit avant-garde in the same way that mass murder can technically be called therapy because it quells the dark voices.

The name is actually derived from the German term for P.O.W camps – Stalag or Mannschaftsstamm- und Straflager to put it in full for all you lovers of Mary Poppins type words. The suffix GH or Global Holocaust (just because referencing camps of organized death isn’t provocative enough) is added to form their name, Stalaggh. Now according to their Myspace page (the source of all knowledge pertaining fecal stains on the underpants of human culture) Stalaggh represents the total annihilation of human life, which is exactly the sort of thing you would expect from ‘musicians’ who are supposedly ‘extreme’. Oh you know the types, bands such as Bloodbath who write lyrics such as “I've had one desire since I was born. To see my body ripped and torn. To see my flesh devoured before my eyes” to try to illicit a response like an attention seeking teenager dressing as though her entire collection of clothing fell into a wood chipper. Stalaggh adopts the same tactics and takes it to the logical conclusion.

Stalaggh wanted to portray the hatred and pain of the holocaust in a realistic manner, and so like any right thinking people would do they hired mental patients to create the vocals on their albums. That may not seem so bad in itself, but the ‘vocals’ actually consist of horrific, eardrum perforating screams of mental anguish. Forget representing the total annihilation of human life – the only thing being annihilated is my ability to hear. From all accounts producing a Stalaggh album counts as much as a form of medieval as actually listening to one. When producing Projekt Nihil the ‘musicians’ and the mental patients were confined in a small studio basement with the whole thing being recorded; which sounds like the premise for post-modern horror movie, only with more carnage and slit wrists. Projekt Terror resulted in the same 300 levels of madness, except one of the ‘musicians’ was almost killed – presumably the very same reason why he chose this line of work. For Projekt Misanthropia the band visited an abandoned warehouse with the sole purpose of extirpating everything inside and recording the noise this created. Later they played it over the patients’ wails, just in case there was anyone left who could still hear whisper quiet noises.

On its own the music is pretty much unlistenable, not due to being a disturbing subject matter but because it is the human noise equivalent of a rusty nail scrapping down a chalkboard. However if you watch the music video then it becomes particularly poignant, transforming into an endurance test for the soul. The video is archive footage comprising of various atrocities carried out in the name of fascism and misanthropy, the exploitation of which I would label as trying too hard under usual circumstances; but these aren’t usual circumstances. Combining the anguished wails and disturbing footage makes for a deeply unpleasant experience as though you are a tenant in a property owned by Jeremy G. Smart. In that sense they are an extreme band but the fact of how hard they had to try is somewhat detrimental, like owning a World’s greatest lover mug that you bought yourself.

After their Stalag based trilogy the band decided that creating offensive music based on that one chapter that is always missing from German history books just wasn’t satisfying enough and thusly became rebranded as Gulaggh. For those idiotically unaware a Gulag (remember the extra gh stands for Global Holocaust!) was a state sponsored hard labor camp and essentially is what I plan to turn the Job Centers into once I take office. The new trilogy will be called 'Vorkuta', 'Norilsk' and 'Kolyma' which are all names of the most notorious of the camps north of the Artic Circle. Gulaggh have upped the ante this time however, the music is classical rather than in the style of an anarchic 90’s shooter industrial nightmare; and also they used 30 children from a youth asylum to record the anguished vocals. Yes you read that correctly. The only conceivable way that this could be topped would be if the next trilogy were an all drunken hobo ensemble giving a rendition of the musical Cats.

Observant readers will have noticed that throughout this review that instead of simply referring to Stalaggh’s members as musicians I have added the cynical quotations – an effective tool in a critic’s arsenal of language. Now I didn’t do this purely because I am sat in a Rupunzel-esque ivory tower looking down on Stalaggh’s own brand of music with contempt simply because it doesn’t feature Twelve-bar blues chord progression. No my irascible stance originates from the irrefutable fact – you would be hard pressed to refer to Stalaggh as musicians in any shape or form as their tracks essentially are what you would get if you tried to capture an EVP in Aokigahara forest with a few morose guitar riffs and presentiment drum beats sloppily layered over the top; like adding intravenous fluids to an already rancid Kladdkaka. It’s somewhat telling when a supposedly music track features less notes than a SMS alert.

In conclusion Stalaggh are inarguably abysmal and do not work as artists, story tellers or even human beings. As I mentioned previously the audio-visual combination does succeed in creating an unpleasant atmosphere (or atmosfear for all the pun fanatics out there) with a feeling of overwhelming dread, but consequentially due to its unlistenable nature any tension created is immediately vitiated due to the fact you are now copiously bleeding from the ears. Obviously blinded by their cupidity to be as extreme as possible, when if logic had prevailed and they put an iota of brain power behind the concept whilst simultaneously making it somewhat listenable they could have succeeded in creating one of the most foreboding depressing bands to have ever exist; and probably be revered by a demographic other than nihilists whom dwell in the cesspits of the forum society. But instead they went all out and in turn became as ‘extreme’ as a Pepsi max advert featuring Tony Hawk and Bam Margera. Everything points to fact the people behind Stalaggh are either criminally insane or sadists; exploiting both mental illness and the horrors of the holocaust to create their own brand of music. The fact that they won’t reveal their names or faces to the public shows that they acknowledge what they are doing isn’t exactly moral, similar to when your puppy hides behind the sofa out of shame after voiding its bladder all over your new Mahal rug.

X-Factor Trading Cards Rant

2010-10-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

Look after the above picture, and tell me how you interpret it. Do you see an original idea, created purely to enrich the lives of X-Factor fans and trading card collectors? Do you, like me, see Simon Cowell dressed in a Dick Turpin costume? Do you, also like me, see a product as necessary and vital as bottled spring water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae?

However you see it one cannot deny it is simply an effort to try to turn the X-Factor into a penny pinching franchise that would make John Elwes seem frivolous with money in comparison. An unholy alliance was formed when the cards were made available exclusively from Tesco; creating an ominous feeling as though Bushyasta has taken a job as a personal fitness trainer. The set totals at no less than 198 trading cards, and contains imagery from the auditions, boot camp, and features all the finalists, winners and stars from previous series; because as we know all children want a badly produced card that features a picture of a generic TV set or a delusional wannabe from last week’s show whose name no one remembers. The cards are split into three sets, 100 cards make up the standard set and the other two sets are made up of foil chase cards to encourage trading.

Pictured: The art of not trading.

Now 198 cards seems several dozen too many especially when you consider the set is based on a show that has featured presumably no more than ten almost notable people during its entire course. Quite why you would want to own them all and spend £0.99 per six card pack and/or £6.99 for the collector’s starter box, is a mystery worthy of the Mary Celeste official league. Anyone who feels the desire to own Leona Lewis or JLS (should seek a priest) could just purchase their respective albums as those will have more ownership value than 99p cards. Although how much more value is debatable.

In truth it isn’t so much as the basis for the trading cards that has got my metaphorical underpants doing a Hank Ballard metaphorical twist as there are already several trading card games based on a myriad of pointless subjects including Gone with the Wind and hot air balloons. I could probably launch a trading card series with portraits of me expressing different varieties of scowls. No what makes them awful is the fact that they serve little other purpose than for the sake of collecting them, when usually these sort of collections are also intended for gaming; whether it be as simple as top trumps style stats V.S stats or as rule laden and socially unappealing as Magic: The Gathering. With no stats or information of any use featured about the selected personality, drawing stick figure interpretations of the symmetrically perfect contestants underneath their names has just as much effect.

Factory Entertainment have also revealed they are producing 12 special promotional cards to give to the 12 finalists who can do whatever they like with them, i.e. use them as toilet paper when they run out mid-way and only have the card to hand. They are essentially pointless as pretty much everyone that bothers to collect the cards will never so much be in the same room as one of these exclusives; and those that have invested the time, money and effort into obtaining these will be so unappealing to the human race they might as well own a coat made entirely from infant Black Lemur pelts.

All in all, the cards are of shoddy quality and almost definitely aimed at an audience that still thinks Myspace is cutting edge. Not only does the X Factor totalitarian regime, sorry franchise, gain a powerful ally in Tesco and (to a lesser extent) Factory Entertainment but it also gets your money – after all why should you have spare money if you aren’t going to waste it voting for the constants in their silly soap opera masquerading as a talent show. The manufacturers Factory Entertainment are obviously hoping that the exclusivity of the 12 promotional cards will garnish enough interest in the collection to turn us into Wombles who will recycle this rubbish in useful and ingenious ways, i.e. a makeshift dartboard.

The Event: Pilot Episode Review

2010-09-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

And on the eighth day God created Lost, which was as confused as a Franz Kafka protagonist. But as addictive as Lost may have been it proved to be too contrived for even a celestial being to draw a clear conclusion from and so God chose to end his creation after six long seasons without bothering to answer a damned question, much like visiting your local Citizen’s advice bureau. But now Lost has gone creating a feeling of relief - yet sorrow and longing at the same time, which is how the ugliest of wenches must have felt upon discovering marauding Vikings pillaging their home village in search of buxom maidens to ravish. Despite the show annoyingly being akin to talking to that one friend who on Microsoft Network Messenger always answers questions with fucking questions it was at least something different to the usual boring shows which take up 98% of the airwaves; such as “John Bland buys a carton of milk”.

If you miss your weekly helpings of layer upon layer of mystery drawn out longer than Sean Connery’s death in The Untouchables, then fret no longer as there be a new pretender to the throne – creatively titled The Event. Along with the show title and the title of the pilot episode “I haven’t told you everything” the viewer should instantly realize that the creator Nick Wauters is an alumnus of The Snoop Dogg School of Subtlety. Also why does the logo have the third E backwards reminiscent of a 3? Is it going to be part of a Da Vinci code style plot which stays true to Wauters’ terminal lack of subtlety? Regardless these three signs set my brain’s warning siren off like the inebriated but fame hungry woman’s rape alarm on a football team night out.

One thing that I gauged from the pilot episode is that this show is going to command more concentration than an ADHD suffering sniper targeting a scene kid house party. The plot is told mostly through a series of flashbacks which irrefutably means this show must be better than Lost because that only had a measly four/five per episode, and they were nowhere near as confusing as this. The flashbacks feature two perspectives, the first focuses on Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) whom is arguably the man most hated by that bitch fate. In episode one the viewer discovers that Sean went on a cruise with his girlfriend Leila and planed to propose to her, but she disappeared along with any trace of her existence – but hey we’ve all been there right? Also Leila’s mother is brutally murdered by intruders in her place of residence and Leila’s sister is kidnapped – phew, keeping up yet?

Walker later attempts to hijack a plane that is to be used in an attempt on America’s President (Blair Underwood) by, unsurprisingly, Leila’s father. The President had recently discovered the existence of a secret Alaskan detention facility named Mount Inostranka – which is pretty hard to swallow as I naively didn't realize that the leader of a formerly powerful nation was on a need to know basis. President Martinez vows to close Inostranka (a black President closing down a detention facility sound familiar?) against the objections of his advisors who still refuse to explain why the place even exists. Naturally he decides to host a press conference with one of the prisoners to disclose the existence of the facility, which would make sense on opposite day, because Martinez doesn't even know why the prisoners were detained and doesn’t seem to realize how America openly acknowledging it has secret prisons that hold white English speakers captive would be a bad thing. Creating a possible motive behind the over-the-top assassination attempt. This is not convoluted enough for Wauters however so despite Walker’s failed attempts for control of the plane (or Steel Bird of Death as the would-be assassin should call it) the motherfucking aircraft is stopped when it flies into a hole in the space-time continuum, disappearing into the unknown.

After the attempt on Martinez’s life went the same way as Frederick Valentich he is told by the former prisoner Sophia Maguire (Laura Innes) that it was “they” who had saved him. And instead of simply telling the President who “they” actually are she decides to do the dramatic pause waiting for the ominous music to start up and respond “I haven’t told you everything” – of course you haven’t, it’s not like he is important, he is only the leader of America. Just episode one into the series and I'm already as confused as though I've dressed John and Edward Grimes in clown outfits and tried to decide upon which one is the bigger twat.

As is typical in conspiracy/mystery thriller serials the viewer will be expected to suspend their disbelief somewhat, although judging by the premise of this show it’ll probably have to be suspended in the style of modern primitive flesh hook suspension. Despite what conspiracists believe if there was a secret detention facility in America it would almost have defiantly been constructed under the directive of the President, or failing that he would defiantly know about it. The disillusion people have is understandable though, it is natural to feel our leaders are evil, especially when they try to create a free health care system (curse your benevolence Barack Obama). Also the idea a rogue commercial jet could get close enough to the Whitehouse to pose the mildest of threats is so utterly laughable that even Michael Moore would be hard pressed to create a believable conspiracy out of it.

If you’ve seen Lost or even been in the same town as someone watching it then you should know what to expect from the script, characters have only two modes of conversation – either overly cryptic like a crossword clue that has gained the power of human speech or dramatic to the point where you would be forgiven for thinking each word could be their last. According to Wauters he isn't going to adopt the Lost approach of dragging out mysteries and arcs for several seasons, he instead is planning on building a mythology over the course of the show but having individual mysteries such as the fate of the plane revealed in a matter of episodes. Whilst this is a good idea, no one wants to be left hanging like their disbelief, it probably means the show’s writers are going to be using an elaborate throwaway plot device every episode which is going to put the cluster into clusterfuck cornflakes. Somewhat annoyingly the characters refer to ‘the event’ as ‘the event’ in the same manner as your friends adopting a code to criticize you with when you’re in listening distance. And since these throwaway plot devices aren’t ‘the event’ it probably means the characters are going to refer to everything that happens in the show each week as “being somewhat eventful but still not the event.”

So only one episode in and already it’s as formulaic as the process of washing hair. Maybe it’ll improve as it goes along, but the juxtaposition of having a complex, hard to follow storyline and cheesy, clichéd setting makes the show hard to take seriously. In just one episode there has been a secret facility that overrides even the President’s authority, an attempt on his life and a portal to an alternate dimension where the show Lost actually answered some damned questions. Ok so maybe that last one can’t be counted as the archetypal formula but if it doesn't lead to some evil parallel universe or the discovery that aliens have secretly conquered and dominated humanity plot then I shall eat my top hat…which should be ‘quite eventful.’

(See the updates page for my comments on episode two)

Animal Abuse Extravaganza

2010-09-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

It certainly has been a good couple of weeks for animal cruelty, especially in backwater nations such as Bosnia and England. First there was the incident hilariously dubbed ‘The Cat Bin Woman” by various media outlets, giving the illusion of the crazy old homeless cat obsessed woman trope. The incident involved Mary Bale a 45 year old bank worker, whom resembles Father Ted (Dermot Morgan) if he wore glasses, as she took it upon herself to throw a random feline into a waste disposal bin for seemingly daring to show the spinster affection. And worst of all she violated the totalitarian waste recycling scheme that we have in England by putting a non-plastic (The Cat) into the plastic waste bin – punishable by ten years tolling in the salt mines. The cat was found 15 hours later by its owners and the proverbial cat was let out of the proverbial, erm, plastic waste bin.

CCTV footage was recovered of the woman petting the furry critter before picking it up and throwing it away like a fetus at an abortion clinic. This footage alone was all the online vigilantes who dwell in the cesspit otherwise known as 4chan needed to track down catwoman; presumably whilst furiously masturbating to images of decapitated nuns. Once she was unveiled to the world she did the old trick of issuing a public apology without really ever apologizing which I dub the Member of Parliament method. However Mary Bale would have us believe that it was done for “lulz” despite the fact that much like that aforementioned fetus we weren’t born yesterday. See there are several things wrong with her story, firstly she checked if the coast was clear at least twice before recycling the beast, showing she both understood what she was doing and that it was premeditated not spare of the moment like she had previously claimed. Secondly she stated that she thought it would be able to escape – remember this is an 8lb 13 oz and 10 inch Felis catus trapped in a 5ft tall heavy bin that we are talking about here and not sodding Battle Cat.

Despite this I do not condone the death threats that animal lovers have been dishing out like there were free night club entry leaflet distributors. Everywhere on the interwebs that has featured this story has been plagued by commentators posting messages with ironic bad lolspeak grammar such as “Strin teh bish up 4 wut she did 2 teh kitteh!” (String the bitch up for what she did to the kitten). The cat did not die or sustain serious injuries, and Mary Bale is statistically less of a public menace than Gary Lineker from the Walkers Crisps adverts. So capital punishment is a pretty over the top punishment to hand out for a crime as trivial as trivial pursuit, especially when you could force her to sit on the /b/ forum of 4chan for 15 hours instead. That is a punishment worse than death. Worse than being George Best’s alcoholics anonymous sponsor for that matter.

The other incident was a slightly more somber affair brought to us by way of Bosnia. Naturally. Video footage emerged recently of a young woman systematically throwing young pups into a fast moving string. The video caused international outrage much like laughing at a funeral, and even Michael Bay got in on the act by offering a 50,000 dollar reward for information leading to her prosecution. Because Michael Bay has never done a single bad deed in his life *cough* Transformers 1& 2 *cough*.

Seriously though, this incident is despicable and helps highlight with a luminous highlighter the inherent inhumanity of humanity – something that I mention on a fucking daily basis on Twitter (which by the way you should follow me on to get more doses of misanthropy sent directly to your frontal lobes.) The girl in question allegedly issued a follow up video issuing (surprise plot twist) an apology and an explanation trying to absolve herself from her actions. Her excuse? The puppies were ill and thus they had to be put down the cheapest way possible.

Numerous cretins online have taken her side for this very reason, and to them I present my prestigious Dickbrain award – as there are arguably numerous free and easily available execution methods, most of them less painful than her chosen method which rates on the pain scale as being close to watching an M Night Shyamalan movie. Also why did she choose to film the incident and post it online if it was truly an act of compassion? And why was she laughing and making ‘wooo’ noises like she was riding the fucking Nemesis at Alton Towers? Because the doing it out of mercy argument is a mere ruse, the equivalent to the get out of jail free card from Monopoly albeit renamed “The slaughter innocent beings and lie your way out of prison card”. Also known as the being OJ Simpson rule.

(Yes I dislike OJ Simpson.)

The Descent Part Two Review

2010-07-25T17:08:00.001-07:00

Many iterations of the lunar cycle ago a film know as The Descent came along teaching the valuable lesson that if you happen to go camping take care not to accidentally take a wrong turn and end up in The Lord of the Rings hunted by an army of Sméagols. It was an enjoyable exercise of claustrophobia and claret that made clever use of paranoia that breeds in the dark; with a script writer that obviously realizes a group of women spending time in the same space will invariably argue over something as trivial clashing cave expedition attire. Also the ambiguous ending was a fresh air from typical horror films where always as the protagonists facing certain death they will be rescued by a power amour wearing, FAMAS wielding Nordic superhero, and everyone will survive to skip along in meadows hand in hand.

Well in one fell swoop that ending has been swept aside like an Anemic during hurricane Katrina as a new installment has been added which retcons the ending for no reason other than pulling an old Dick Turpin. The continuation of the story has less credibility than Pinocchio at an Honesty Conference; somehow Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) who lest we forgot was left without hope at the end of the last 99 minutes has survived, and been left with a case of plot convenience amnesia – the type that fucking Jason Bourne has been hogging. This set up is so that we are subjected to another 94 minutes of exactly the same movie - pretty much like every single RomCom ever made (I fully expect angry single middle-aged female readers to send their vicious cats to me in revenge for that comment).

So instead of letting the audience formulate their own opinions as to the fate of the protagonist we have this dross crammed down our throats; and it is somewhat insulting to my intelligence like I'm a retard being taken to the cinemas by a helper who feels compelled to explain the ending. Now you may be confused as to why I treat this film the same way I would treat a time traveler from the 1970's when it is almost identical to the prequel which I enjoyed. The reason being that not only does it not add anything new to the table as if it were the World's most timid poker player, but it also doesn't do things as well as its predecessor. For example:

Atmosphere

The cave dwellers don't bother hiding in the shadows thus the audience gets to examine the antagonists in detail, breaking the major rule of horror movies. The rule that things become less frightening once they are clearly visible and out in the open, except perhaps male genitalia. In the 1950's having 'creature features' with monsters that looked like the actor that was supposed to be portraying them had an unfortunate accident in a tire yard en route to work would have been enough to frighten most movie-goers; but I would like to think that in the modern age cinematographers would employ more subtle techniques, merely alluding at the presence of some evil force that wants to display the protagonist’s thoracic cage on the lair’s mantelpiece by giving us (the viewer) teasing glimpses of eldritch creature #46. Or to just stick a sex scene in there ala Uwe Boll.

The sense of claustrophobia isn’t used to its potential either, used perhaps once when Elen Rios (Krysten Cummings) and Sarah have to navigate through a narrow, water filled tunnel. However Mr. Jon Harris (The Director) I think much akin to the blind archer you missed the vital point. Characters in horror movies are conduits to evoke emotions from the audience, so by making the babysitter slowly navigate through a dimly lit clown daycare centre it draws on the audiences’ fear of the dark and clowns. But what Jon Harris did here was have the character go into a panic attack due to the fact she has phobias of both the Hydra and Claustro variety, but because the director doesn’t try to force that sense of fear and dread onto us Elen comes across as annoying; when we should have felt as though we were using the middle urinal in-between two obese men.

Part of the reason why the original worked so well was seeing how the survivors dealt which the combination of fighting off randomly spawning creatures in dire need of Vitamin D, being in a cave as unstable as Ronnie Wood’s relationships and of course each other. Often they made bad decisions, which was fine because it hit home as I have the survival skills of Jedward’s hairdresser. Enter a surly young chap known as “the sequel”, with an ensemble cast of three cave experts (which removes the threat of navigating the cave), and two Police Officers – one of whom brings a gun, however the gun serves about as much use as Karen Carpenter’s dietarian. Oh yeah and Sarah and Juno (Natalie Mendoza) (the latter of which is still inexplicably alive) have fell victim to the typical horror movie franchise rule – any female lead that survives the original will become a bad-ass. Towards the end of the film if the pair didn’t have sweater meat you would be forgiven for believing you had accidently tuned into 300.

Characters

Riding straight off the back of that metaphor; the characters in the first film were a closely knit group helping their friend Sarah come to terms with the tragedy which had befell her. They were everyday people, the type you pass on the street or in my case observe through a telescopic sight on a bolt-action M40A3 from several rooftops away. As the proverbial excrement hits the proverbial fan the women act in the manner an average Joe would - panicking as they face an unknown enemy in an unknown environment. Juno even proves the 'every man for himself' concept extends to the fairer sex. Part two has a co-ed cast all of whom are about as interesting as sitting an advanced algebra course at Universal Studios.

Sarah continues to play the tragic role for most of the film, as she suffers from amnesia and slowly regains memories of the horrors that begot her and her friends. Dan (Douglas Hodge) fills the role of resident douchebag. Sheriff Vaines (Gavan O'Herlihy),looking like a cheap Captain Birdseye impersonator, is the world’s worst Sheriff – yes beating even Sheriff Will Teasle from First Blood. Greg (Joshua Dallas) and Cath (Anna Skellern) are mostly forgettable, Cath spending most of the movie trapped under rubble before inevitably becoming the latest recipient of The Darwin Award. Aside from Vaines, who uses his superior sleuthing abilities to come to the conclusion that any competent law enforcer would have arrived at around the time Sarah is admitted to hospital covered in her missing friends' blood, there is no real confrontation between the characters; making the tensions between the group seem very passive like a rave in the House of Lords.

Pacing

Pacing is where the majority of horror movies fail, usually falling into one of two categories – either being so quick to get off the mark and have the unlucky protagonists torn out of their birthday suits that it forgets to tie its shoelaces or setting the mood and establishing characters that slowly the only thing to fear from said movies is unrelenting boredom. Part one etched a middle ground, not taking forever to give us what we wanted (an abattoir worthy offering of gore) but taking enough time for relevant character development so the entire experience couldn’t be replicated by watching Big Brother and squirting ketchup on the Telescreen every now and then.

The Descent Part Two is in the style of the former, by the first ten minutes a reason for re-entering the cavern has been established, at the 15 minute mark they have become perilously trapped and who knows if it had stretched out to 100 minutes the group probably would have been the first Civilization to build a wonder. Not only that but when the writers place a character in-between a rock and a hard place, it serves pretty much as a guarantee that character is going to be killed off instantly – there is no fight for survival or struggle to up the stakes in tension and keep the viewer on the edge of their seat. This is a prime example of bad storytelling, after all even Goldilocks had the constant fear of a mauling.

***

Getting back on track, I just don’t believe this film has anything new to add especially since the original worked well as a standalone movie, and just like Daniel Baldwin doesn’t need to exist. Aside from a particularly brutal standout scene in which Vaines’ hand is hacked off with a pick-axe it’s a pretty standard affair which could have been produced from the mind of the laziest Hollywood hack in a coma. The acting being serviceable is not a good enough reason to salvage a movie, and while I’m here – why in a cave with no access to light sources other than emergency flares and flashlights is it brighter than the average lighthouse? Why in a police investigation searching for several missing women does the search party consist of only six people? And how the hell is Juno still alive – Divine intervention or poor research?

These were just several thoughts circling my mind as I tried to distract myself from what a truly uninspired film this was. It could be recommended to horror fans and fans of the first movie but there are too many flaws and not enough redeeming features; a line that should be used as the motto for the Miss Alabama beauty pageant.

Stop right there before you act like an over-excited child on Christmas Eve and open all your presents early, because as Ron Popeil said “But wait, there’s more!”

The Crusades of a Critic Awards 2010

A year ago to this date a Marquis of Hell known as Amon bestowed upon me the gift of Wrath which coupled with my megalomania led to the creation of The Crusades of a Critic, a personal torture chamber. Now as my brain child reaches its first anniversary I take time out to hand out awards and pay tribute to some special people I met on the way.

Awards to Bloggers

The Stalin Approved Misanthrope Award

Goes to: Scrappy

A fellow misanthrope who also suffers from a condition known as ‘bluntlystateitgitis’. She receives this award for putting douchebags in their place monthly and for being the result of an insane experiment to turn the Hulk’s anger into something productive.

You Just F**ked My Mind Award

Goes to: Smith

This award goes to a wordsmith who enjoys writing short stories with content that can only be found elsewhere in H.P. Lovecraft’s therapist’s mind. Or etched onto the wall of the basement of Josef Fritzl for that matter.

Pussy Patrol Award

Goes to: Smith

Another award for Smith because of her ability of locating highly amusing lolcat memes without fail, as though she were built by Skynet for that very purpose and sent back in time. The last person with this level of pussy tracking ability was Jack the Ripper.

Wise Old Man Award

Goes to: Legacy

I have no fucking idea what Legacy looks like, but I do imagine it’s a cross between Gandalf the Gray and Father Christmas. He receives this award for being an entertaining personality on the site’s forum and for displaying more wisdom then two of the fucking wise men who thought it would be a good idea to give baby Jesus embalming oil and incense.

Mass Effect Revelation Review

2010-06-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

Mass Effect: Revelation (Book)

By Brotherhood619

Yes, this is the self-proclaimed book hater writing a review for, shock horror, a book, but don't despair children, the world is not coming to an end. Well, not yet anyway.

Just as a warning, in this review I will be assuming you have played through the Game Mass Effect, or that you just don’t care about the spoilers.

Revelation is a prequel to the stunning Video Game, and soon to be Blockbuster Movie, Mass Effect. It follows David Anderson (the Original Captain of the Normandy) during his time as a Lieutenant for the Alliance, trying to find and bring to justice the Mercenary's that destroyed a research station, with only one lead, Kahlee Sanders. He is not the only person investigating the attack, however, A spectre named Saren (boo hiss) has been appointed by the Council to bring the perpetrator to justice, by any means necessary.

The book was... quirky, it had the mix of investigation, sci-fi shoot outs and brutality that I was expecting, but when it switches you between Sanders, Anderson and Saren almost every chapter, you tended to get a little confused. Why is Saren cowering in a crumpled heap? Oh wait, that’s Sanders. Still it got a lot easier to manage during the later parts of the book when the characters have finally come together.

David Anderson was almost exactly what I expected him to be from the games, but I guess this is easy when Drew Karpyshyn writes both the books and is the lead writer for the game. There was less description of him than maybe some new people to the series would like, but his "features" are supposed to be "seen" in the game. Kahlee is where Karpyshyn shows his style, to me she was a blonde bombshell that should not be in the military, but then shows her strength later on (and even more in Mass Effect Ascension). I honestly like the character; she gives a healthy breath of fresh air to the story compared to the rough and tough of Anderson and Saren.

Some of the locations they visit, I wish were described a bit better, and yet there were some that were described almost perfectly, I’m not sure if this was intentional but one location, Saren in the Brothel, was described really well, but then the worker camp near the end wasn’t covered much until... well a certain spoiler event happens. In the end you make the story yourself just by imagining the scenery, rather than have it described to you.

I liked the book, not as much as Mass Effect Ascension, the sequel, but it was a good read and it did leave me wanting more.

I'll give it a 6/10.

If by some chance you disagree with me, and Yes you have to read the book before you are allowed to disagree with me, Leave a comment below.

P.S. After putting this through a spell checker, I realised something… I can’t spell for toffee.

World Cup Madness

2010-06-25T16:29:00.001-07:00

Despite hailing from the land of Engs the team England does not have my support. This isn't just because football is to me what compassion is to the Conservatives or due to the fact I am as patriotic as a flag burning American named Osama. No the disdain stems from the fact football is the game of men...if those men happen to live in Nazi Germany.

Now wait just an udder fondling minute every 'diamond geezer' across the country will now be shouting in-between pouring their ninth pint of Fosters down their oesophagus; comparing football to Hitler is ludicrous they will cry - after all with a moustache like that watching sweaty young men run around chasing each other would be slightly too weird, even for him. What the FIFA World Cup does do however is promote casual racism...think about that logically for a moment; demonising your opponents so that non-English nations are seen as vile, faceless enemies - this is how most right wing parties begin.

The Knights Templar attitude that our national side has the divine right to win simply because we are English is reminiscent of The British Empire and I hardly think we need reminding of THAT Michael Caine film. That belief evokes images of drunken holidaymakers angrily demanding staff at a restaurant speak English not French whilst in Paris. Whether a country deserves to win the ultimate prize is not based on geography or what skin colour the indigenous population have but rather on merit and skill; which judging by how the England side have played in every World Cup after 1966 they would probably be better sat on the coach playing tiddlywinks.

Speaking of 1966 I would like to talk directly to my fellow English here - "Shut the fuck up about nineteen sixty fucking six". I appreciate how that is our sole moment of glory in a past otherwise as checkered as a douche-bag flannel shirt, but holding onto that moment is like how teenagers put their role as a paper deliver on their CV when applying for a job because I guess masturbation and video games aren't great employment qualities. To further agitate the point in the manner of screaming at King Leonidas are cretins whom believe that having a kit which mirrors the 1966 team's will aid the effort. If you are one of these people then I would like you to pick up the nearest and sharpest object and proceed to perform an autopsy on yourself.

None of this matters however, as on Sunday the team will lose to Germany who may not be on top form but are still capable of playing football better than a drunken giraffe unlike England who have banked all their dreams on Liverpool's version of Shrek. And thanks to the incessant howling of the vuvuzelas I am off to invest in shares in hearing aid manufactures.

Bussokuseki Styled Ditties

2010-06-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

This week, akin to the man who discovered cows excrete milk, I felt that I would try something different and as such here are a collection of short songs that I wrote in Bussokuseki-style, an archaic poetic device in which lines are written in a 5-7-5-7-7-7 mora pattern. Feel free to exact cruel and ironic revenge on a critic who normally attacks his subjects like a starving dog in a butcher shop. And before any smart arses mention otherwise fier isn’t spelt incorrectly, it is spelt in the medieval style because as we all know I am secretly a time traveller…not as believable as the excuse of illiteracy admittedly.

Midnight Fier

This covers the subject of nuclear war/annihilation, which being a misanthrope was hard to portray as negative.

On the Judgement day
The sirens begin to sing
A callous warning
The president gives the word
His enemies will now pay
There stood once the Narva gate

Blitzkrieg Symphony

This is about WWII and was inspired by a game of Risk of all things.

Roll out the Panzers
Destroy with the Howitzers
A species at war
Smashed bones, It’s our hymn of gore
The virus of man spreading
Human souls sent for shredding

Shadow of Lonewolf

In this a mysterious figure known as the Lonewolf seeks justice against a mysterious oppression – ok you caught me it is hard to create detail in 6 short lines.

Prowler in the night
The master of the battle
Clutching steel justice
And crushing all that oppose
Walking, hidden among you
With the Reaper by his side

Humanity for Sale

Inspired the recession, and I managed to avoid the whole “Who is to blame? The bankers, God how I hate those wankers’ route.

Human life sacred?
No, as now it is priceless
Worthless in a world
That is bankrupt of morals
Humanity is for sale
For only a dollar or less

Aliens V.S Predator 2010 Review

2010-05-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

At the risk of entering into arse kissing territory worthy of an Oscar winner’s acceptance speech I would like to say thank you to AVP. That is for shattering my illusions of what I thought were once great movies. The game coldly reveals the Xenomorph has as much sense of direction as an Alzheimer’s sufferer sailing through the Bermuda Triangle; that Predators are as graceful as a sumo that has undertaken ballet lessons and the more obvious fact of Humans being pointless sacks of gore and pus.

Now I have a history with Rebellion (the developers) because I remember wasting my childhood away on ‘Alien vs. Predator’ for the Atari Jaguar. And as we know nostalgia acts as beer goggles for the memory, so I look back at every single school grade damaging second as if it were a kind gentleman rescuing a street urchin version of myself from a life of poverty; when in reality it was probably like receiving a twig for Christmas – disappointing and joyless. Regardless my exacting standards are higher than Pete Doherty in Amsterdam.

As always the game concerns an interstellar pub brawl which would frighten even the most hardened Australian, between three wildly different races. This allows for three varied campaigns each with their own unique game mechanics; unless we are referring to the Human scenario which is so by the numbers that even ancient civilisations that couldn’t anticipate their own demise would be able to predict how it plays. Quite why you would want to rent out an apartment in generic FPS town by playing as the meatbag when two vastly more complex lifeforms are available is beyond me – unless you happen to be Dexter Morgan and need to know what it’s like to be human. But being the third wheel, only really there to make the numbers and balance game play it should probably be renamed Charles Conrad (yeah I’ll wait while you Google search and prove my point).

Probably the most boring of all three factions, especially when you consider the other two either let you play with iconic and intriguing weaponry or at least fight like an overly excited feline. The human arsenal is the standard shooter set, simply given a futuristic and cosmetic make-over with a design tweak and by adding random nonsense numbers onto their names to create portmanteaus such as ‘ZX-76 Shotgun’. A weapon that stands out from the rest is the ‘M59/B Smartgun’, a heavy assault rifle that has an auto targeting system that will accurately perforate your enemies for you. Now while I can see the obvious advantageous applications this might have, especially against the faster of opponents, it does somewhat detriment the merit of the kill if you have the weapon do all the ground work for your lazy-ass. You’ll also be expected to utilize a great deal of equipment, all of which serve the same roles as the other species’ natural traits but less competently, such as flares to help illuminate your surroundings and a motion tracker to give a vague allusion to the location of nearby opponents. The portrayal of humanity’s ineptitude showing their infancy in galactic matters makes this the Friedrich Nietzsche of video games.

As the alien you’ll spend more time stuck in airvents than an obese cat burglar, casually dropping down every now and then like the stock prices for indecisive incorporated. Rarely will direct confrontation be an option which was strange because I don’t ever remember Ellen Ripley stating the Xenomorphs are made of wet tissue, surely shooting that exoskeleton will have as much use as trying to knock a house down with a crab mallet. If a bizarrely weak body isn’t to blame then I guess he is just shy. Stealth as the alien is part Che Guevara part Spiderman as you’ll weave in and out of airvents as well as every nook and cranny to rip your prey to shreds. Strangely enough the game’s engine went to the same stealth school as Splinter Cell, because as long as you are shrouded in darkness then it’ll be fairly forgiving as to whether you go unnoticed by the meat-bags, I guess that mysterious silhouette hanging off the ceiling like kebab meat in a take-away could be anything after all…

In combat the Xenomorph is quite capable, it can attack with its claws, use the tail as a blade or for a blunt force attack, as well as pouncing from above onto the sitting ducks below. It is here that you can perform what is known as a ‘trophy kill’, for the Xenomorphs this involves an unlucky target being pinned to the floor, and from the point of view of the aliens mouth we see their inner mandibles rip through the prey’s skull. For the Predator it is slightly more gruesome and seems as though he is showing off. Oh yeah and if the whole metaphorical male rape aspect of the facehuggers ever gave you the urge to try it for yourself well that is now possible, as at times it’ll be vital to propagate the race. Ironically enough where the Xenomorphs aren’t all that capable is their acrobatical prowess though this is down to the game mechanics being designed by disabled mouse, as invariably you latch onto walls you don’t need to be on, hampered by invisible barriers and jumping between surfaces is like trying to play Tomb Raider on a laptop using just your tongue. And while I’m on this harangue never include switch puzzles in a campaign other than the marine’s because it is out of place and shows that you haven’t got creativity; after all you don’t hire a biomechanical weapon of mass destruction to wash your car.

Aliens have an unfair advantage because whilst they are lounging safely around they can also see their enemies through walls, and evolution has certainly looked kindly on them as your vision is colour coded (threats being highlighted red, synthetics are blue and civilians are green). Quite how this ability developed in the short time its race has been in contact with the colonists is a question the game slyly avoids as if it were dropped soap in the showers of a male prison. As an addendum to my previous statement, the creature’s perfectly honed senses are capable of penetrating even the Predators’ cloaking mechanisms, giving you an edge over a prey that believes it still has the element of surprise. However this is complete bullocks and biscuits because it completely negates the tactics of players whom step into the massive shoes of Predator, as you lose the stealthy edge.

I understand that it is done to balance gameplay, but I felt this had already been achieved by giving the aliens the ability to hide and run at super fast speeds. And the implications of this reach the carefully crafted universe that Rebellion have created, since despite spending millennia mastering the art of cracking Xenomorph skull, the Predators either haven’t figured out that they may as well be holding neon signs reading ‘I’m next’ above their deformed heads, or are unable to brainstorm a solution. Whichever the case may be it’s an uncharacteristic moment of impotence for a species that make Ming the Merciless seem like Ming the Messiah.

The final faction are the aforementioned Predators, tribal warriors who have mastered the art of honourable warfare by using their hyper-advanced technology to decimate more primitive lifeforms – very honourable indeed. Again you can utilize the same party tricks that the Predators from the two (and only two) movies use such as; active camouflage, mimicking voices to cause a distraction and jumping from surface to surface, before moving in for the kill. He also has a nasty habit of packing more heat than an Eastcoast gang, here are just some of the weapons that you’ll use to maim, lacerate and dissolve all those that are foolish enough to cross lances with you: wrist blades, throwing spear, throwing discs, proximity mines and shoulder canons. But don’t have too much sympathy for the nameless marines, because frankly if you’ve just witnessed a colleague’s spinal cord being perfectly ripped out by a hideous 7ft creature that epitomizes murder only for it to escape, and you go back to patrolling the perimeter loudly declaring every noise as ‘a little odd’ then flaying comes highly recommended.

The Predator’s famous Heat Vision is available for use which allows for crystal clear vision of the marines even from great distances, as though they were an attention seeking Christmas tree. However this will result in the Xenomorphs becoming almost impossible to detect, assumedly meaning they are Ectothermic entities – that noise was the sound of the door slamming shut as anyone with any self respect has just left. To counter this you must either return to the normal vision HUD,(which admittedly doesn’t help because this generation’s graphics are as good for the peripheral vision as a wacky carnival mirror would be for deciphering a M. C. Escher painting) or use Alien Vision mode once you have obtained the ancestral Predator mask – though this makes everything else impossible to see.

Obviously it was designed this way to create tactical gameplay because if you are in a scuffle with two different races you’ll have to juggle between the HUDs – however I’ll tell you why this is a worse design choice than Mark Croft. In the heat of combat all of your senses need to be alert, especially vision- now the Heat vision and Alien Vision HUDs are wildly different; the former engulfing the screen in a thermal rainbow of blues, purples, reds and yellows and the latter is essentially night vision with a hint of greyscale. Being forced to rapidly switch between the two is a good way to disorientate yourself as well as drawing a percentage of your focus away from what you should be doing…killing things that are different, Nazi. I guess the point I’m tediously alluding to is that you shouldn’t ask a chef to juggle chainsaws while making a Frittata.

If you have read the comics or played the previous games then you will know what to expect in terms of story. Humanity having just got their cunt license that entitles them to conquer space attempt to colonise planet BG 386; however the Predators disgusted by this because it is one of their many sacred Xenomorph hunting grounds decide they are going to slaughter every last human. Meanwhile Mr. Weyland obviously feeling having both an evil disposition and intelligence would be letting the side down, has been conducting experiments on the Xenomorphs - namely one of the protagonists, specimen six. Unsurprisingly specimen six escapes and releases its fellow aliens causing the proverbial shit to hit the proverbial fan. The colonial marine protagonist’s over arching goal is to escape the planet and once he does Weyland discovers the location of the Xenomorph home planet, exactly where the playable Predator elite is heading – which is probably the most obvious set up for a sequel since The Matrix Reloaded’s ‘to be continued’ ending. While the story is interconnected to the three characters their respective campaigns can be viewed as separate stories that merely fill in the each other’s plotholes.

Well I say that they fill in the plotholes when I really mean explain how it was the Xenomorph that drank all of the Marine’s milk after the empty milk carton is discovered in the Human storyline. I found the only character that drew any emotion from me was the Xenomorph simply because its race was only on the planet to provide live game for the Predators, and to top it all off the race is held in captivity. Any sympathy for the creature is somewhat tarnished after it has helped itself to abit of face for the 40th fucking time. AVP fails magnificently in providing a reason as to why Weyland continually attempts to capture the creatures that have repeatedly bypassed his security and slaughtered the entire company payroll – if he wants trouble that badly he should become a bartender in Edinburgh.

Inconsistency is also an issue here, for example by the end the gun toting space cowboy has ploughed through more extraterrestrial foes than you can shake E.T at; yet when a single Xenomorph is controlled by the player the sneaky bastard is responsible for more human deaths than John Wayne Gacy. So this creates an interesting scenario where both sides are a destructive force to be reckoned with unless they are in a party of two upward in which case they are unable to get a table at the restaurant called competence. A more obvious reason for would be because the A.I is thicker than Paris Hilton. And that isn’t comedic exaggeration. If you anthropomorphised the A.I, sat it and Paris in a room together and forced them to undertake an IQ exam at least she would nearly be able to spell her own name correctly. The NPCs have next to no survival ability as they’ll either adopt gung-ho tactics or take cover at the wrong end of a wall leaving their back exposed. When you are taking a stealthy approach and your cover is blown simple evasion is enough to make them forget the toothy death machine that almost made them brunch is still in the area, which is something I’m pretty damn sure I would at least make a note of.

Only Norse mythology fanatics will understand this reference but the game is comparable to Grid and Hildr from the Fornaldarsaga ‘Illuga saga Gríðarfóstra’; we are drawn by the outstanding beauty of Hildr only to discover it’s hiding the hideous Grid. The graphics are really fucking beautiful but unfortunately not beautiful enough to mask the fact the levels are uninspired, linear, generic and recycled more than a crackwhore at a drugs party. I have composed a check-list of all the locations you will visit in the game; a generic laboratory, a generic military complex, generic jungles and generic alien ruins. It’s as inspired as the homework of the world’s number one plagiariser.

During the Xenomorph campaign the level designers could have let their creativity run free, creating multiple routes by using its acrobatic capabilities, this would have allowed for non-linear navigation, instead of leading us around with a leash and diluting the appeal. The marine’s early escapades take place in poorly lit, tight and confining corridors where danger can lurk at any angle and being British this creates an image of trying to return an overdue library book, without being caught by the demonic, jobsworth librarian. These levels effectively create a constant feeling of dread and paranoia, as well as fuelling your trigger finger’s temptation, thus forming the trifecta otherwise known as ‘United States military strategy’. Once the action moves outside of the decrepit complex where you realise everything is actually bright and cheerful, and if Daybreakers taught us anything it’s that things stop being good once you involve the sun or Ethan Hawke for that matter; effectively shattering any flimsy pretence that the game isn’t completely pedestrian.

Finally a quick overlook at the multiplayer, because I will argue that this is what’ll provide most of the draw since the single player is only just substantial enough to be classed as ‘training’. There are few modes, but they tick the required boxes; deathmatch (allowing for faction limitations and variations), domination (an offshoot of capture the flag), infestation (virus mode from Timesplitters – that’s not to say it is like virus mode but that it is a damn clone), Predator hunt (exactly the same as infestation except you are pursued by Predators) and survivor (an online skirmish mode, the type that has flooded both 1st and 3rd person shooter town like refugees, after being popularised by World at War and Gears of War). Ok so the selection of modes may not be anything to write home about, unless asked to document genericness but locate 18 people (and preferably ones you know because online gaming with anonymous players is an experience you don’t want to go through) and it makes for interesting games especially if the ratio between the three species is properly proportioned.

Overall AVP is a decent effort to revive the glory days of the franchise using our hyper technology of today, but it tries to be the jack of all trades and ends up being substandard at all. And while the multiplayer is good the closest the original ever needed to involve other players was forcing your impoverished friends to watch you play on your expensive Jaguar just to see the look of jealousy on their faces, like enjoying the world’s last Twinkie in front of Sergeant Al Powell.

Avatar: Micro Review

2010-05-21T21:36:00.001-07:00

Inbetween polishing off a review of another James Cameron license Aliens V.S Predator (2010) and dissolving the bodies of my homeless victims in a vat of sulphuric acid I have decided to write down my thoughts on Avatar, since recently many have eagerly asked what these thoughts are – this must be how those in religious authority feel. Personally I found the experience to be ambitious but a letdown which is probably how Michael Bay’s wife feels every night. Not angry enough for you? Fine I’ll bite…

So Avatar, a film concerning Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former Marine who decides to betray his entire indigenous because of his love for a bipedal azure feline - Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) or as the film tries to convince us a member of an alien race called Na’vi. This may be a testament to the whole love conquers all fortune cookie business but it makes me worry for the pets in Mr Cameron’s house. The story is simply yet another take on the whole Pocahontas scenario so realistically the promotional posters instead of reading ‘James Cameron’s Avatar’ should have read ‘Michael Blake and James Cameron present’ because Avatar is essential Dances with Wolves if the hue was cyclically shifted to 240.

However all the lovers have tried to silence haters such as myself by describing the film as a visual extravaganza, worth watching for the groundbreaking effects alone. And yes it is extremely pretty and Cameron has indeed managed to create an immersive world, but all it does is serve to distract the viewer using its beauty from the fact that it hasn’t actually achieved anything other than mediocrity; a technique that Megan Fox has perfected. The 3D has amazing scope shows the geography has been intricately planned to maximise the draw-in, and even if you didn’t get a chance to see it in all it’s glory at cinemas it is still worth watching on blue-ray; though when the Na’vi are stood side by side with the non-CGI human characters you get a slight Roger Rabbit effect. And even if your are forced to slum it and watch the film on a standard DVD player at least it will be considerably better any of the Na’vi based porn that is bound to be lurking around on the internet like a nerd outside of Skywalker ranch attempting to get his screen-play published.

It seems that when Cameron wasn’t busy finding novelists to plagiarise, he was stealing ideas from the ultimate think-tank…nature. Every living creature on Pandora is a compound of existing Earth bound creatures, Q.E.D Humans and Cats to create the Na’vi or the Hammerhead Titanothere, combining both Rhinos and Hammerhead sharks. So did he think of any original ideas? Judging by this quote “When you see something that reflects your id, it works for you.... Right from the beginning I said, 'She’s got to have tits,' even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals.” I would say he has one over on nature.

I know I’ve touched upon the story already, but I want to dust it up some more. Following are a list of points I raised during the film:

• The colonisation of Pandora is based around obtaining the ridiculously named valuable mineral ‘Unobtainium’. How did the RDA Corporation gain permission to go raid a naturally rich moon of its resources? And more importantly since the entire expedition is financially motivated the sheer amount of resources and money that would have to be injected to get the project just to get it off the ground, let alone maintain a colony for years, would probably mean it would hardly be worth the effort. After all I am sure the old moniker “you have to spend money to make money” doesn’t apply to raping a healthy alien world.

• Must the juvenile fantasy that anyone can instantly become the most awesome member of a society or clique that they aren’t a member of by merely flexing their muscles continue? Because as Offspring’s ‘Pretty Fly For a White Guy’ proved all the baggy trousers and undecipherable tattoos in the world won’t change the fact that you’re always going to be the middle management type.

• Why do military personal and executives never listen to scientists? It’s not just a problem limited to Avatar but the science-fiction in general. In any narrative where the military or a corporation are dealing with an unprecedented situation, whether it be discovering uncharted territory or a breakthrough of some nature, they understandably employ a team of scientists to help them make sense of everything. However after they somehow manage to create a thesis despite dealing with overwhelming pressure and unknown variables, the big bad wolves will inevitably scoff at this declaring they know better than the highly educated geniuses. What possible qualifications does Colonel Miles Quaritch have to discuss Ecological matters other than the fact he has access to serious firepower. How different would our scientific understanding be now if Richard Taylor (SLAC), Henry Kendall (MIT) and Jerome Friedman (MIT) had been shoe-horned out of the picture by Dirty Harry?

• And bows, arrows and guerrilla tactics trumping over technology that would make even Iron Man flee for the Victorian age? I appreciate the sentiment Cameron, after all the theme is spirituality rising above dirty capitalism, but I don’t think I’ve ever come out of a cinema feeling as though I had just paid to have bullshit shovelled down my throat until this film. Even revealing the titanic to be a transformer that morphs into its true form and carries the survivors to safety would have been less of a cheat. And to continue this donnybrook, did Cameron ever plan on adding an iota of tension to the film? There are brief moments during the skirmish scenes that could be misconstrued as tension, but because the characters are generally undeveloped (due to focusing on Jake's development as a person through his falling in love with Pandora and Neytiri) or played by Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Rodriguez, therefore unlikeable. From start to finish the whole experience is as taxing on the nervous system as the my little pony series.

The acting is perfectly adequate and so it should, you could have the best designed fictional universe in all of entertainment history but it counts for nought if the actors’ acting abilities are below haemorrhoid cream commercial levels. And they do a commendable job when you consider that the script was probably written on toilet roll to compliment its nature…I’m tenuously stating that it is shit. At roughly 162 minutes the film is a good length, especially as we are given plenty of time to breathe in the beautifully designed environment. I do feel however that the last act that was pushing 1hr should have been 30minutes at the very most, because while the battle between the species provides a nice change of pace and appeals to my gung-ho sense of conflict resolution it is mercilessly drawn out to the point of frustrating agony like being forced to watch Tom Sizemore’s home video collection.

In conclusion Avatar is narratively and thematically an average film at best, its only saving throw the groundbreaking special effects that can’t even be fully appreciated at home with current technology. However it is a film that you must see before you die, which in our cruel modern world could well be right after this very sentence. The majority of critics seem to take this stance that the plot is a critique on America’s imperialism, militarism and abuse of capitalism as well as highlighting the fight to save our natural environment. And while I’ll argue that these elements are clearly there, especially pantheism, I think what we need to remember is that he simply wanted to make a film that about Felis catus that gain dominance over lesser creatures by forcibly inserting their tendril into it. A lesson we can all aspire to.

Kick-ass Review

2010-05-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

The superhero genre has always baffled me; tirelessly risking your own personal welfare for the good of all mankind is as appealing as shoving Pineapples down the urethra. Outcasts once weak and vulnerable gaining the strength to fight back and avenge their pasts, which are often too tragic for even a Shakespeare play, does make sense until they have achieved this goal and decide to carry on wearing the spandex for the greater good of a society that shunned them; which on the scale of asking for trouble is right up there with walking the streets of Whitechappel on a foggy night while dressed as a prostitute. There's also the fact that the writers of such lore have a notion of mutation that would make the survivors of Chernobyl shake their tumorous heads in disgust.

Iron Man the original subverted this because its protagonist Tony Stark was a charismatic Billionaire genius, simply atoning for his lifetime of profiteering from the misery of war. But Stark was still an arsehole as he was never the underdog to begin with and certainly wasn't once he invented his power armour suit made of pure death. The whole idea of Tony Stark is that you root for him out of admiration of his 100% unfiltered coolness. I'm certain when I go to see Iron Man 2 I will once again emerge more pleased than the male patrons of the cinema that gave out free blow jobs with every film.

Until then; Kick-ass, a film with cynic levels to rival my own and if there is one thing that I love it’s proving to nerds that no matter what scenario they place themselves into they’re always going to be as proficient in combat as a wet tissue is at putting out roaring fires. The film concerns Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) a comic obsessed geek who sick of the injustice of the World decides to become a superhero, transforming into the titular Kick-ass. A rather ironic title to give yourself because it implies you are at least capable of doing what it says on the tin, after all that would be like Abu Hamza applying for a job as a masseur.

The plot is a standard superhero affair; Dave in his quest to make a difference is forced to confront some rather brutal antagonists, where the difference lies however is realism – Mark Strong excels as Frank D’Amico, head of a criminal syndicate that’ll stop at nothing to maintain their stranglehold of the city, including actually putting a bullet into their arch nemesis’ head (though revealed to be a deus ex machina, in this case mistaken identity). But my point still remains that as antagonists they are not afraid of getting their hands covered in blood and actually suppress all dissent without needing the typical drama-queen thespian level of theatrics the majority of supervillians display. Homages are paid to the camp side of the genre, particularly Damon Macready/Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) who is defiantly a walking tribute to Batman’s Adam West days, Dave’s opening scenes are obviously based on Spiderman and Hit-Girl’s attire is something you would find lurking at a cosplay convention – probably stretched over a 40 year old virgin’s voluminous body frame.

As always Christopher Mintz Plasse is the highlight, brilliantly playing dual roles – one as Chris D’Amico (Frank’s son) who is sarcastic, spoilt and has the charisma of Gordon Brown. The other role he plays is as Red Mist, a fake superhero who in essence has the same personality as his alter-ego with an added Machiavellian element; undoubtedly the best scene in the entire movie is when the two heroes meet and cruise around town in the Mistmobile. If I have to be honest, and I do, Plasse plays almost exactly the same character he does in Superbad, well towards the end of Superbad when he is in the company of the renegade police officers drunk off his tits. And I think I’m making good use of the ‘super’ prefix in this review.

Akin to an ADD suffering jack of all trades the film isn't sure exactly what it wants to be. One moment it pulls us down the bottomless pit of despair as Kick-ass and Big Daddy are savagely beaten with no hope of survival before transforming into an absurdly surreal moment in which the ten year old Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) infiltrates the facility with all the subtlety of a PS1 action game character. Expecting us to feel tension at that particular moment is like expecting James Bond to choose a secretary based on their typing and filing skills. It’s billed as a dark comedy and I must say it exceeds on both counts, because the style of humor is generally scathing and cynical it works well on its own and as cathartic relief during the darker scenes such as the aforementioned bloody beat down of two vital characters. A lot of the best lines go to Hit-Girl such as her retort to our inept hero when he asks how to contact her: “You just contact the mayor's office. He has a special signal he shines in the sky; it's in the shape of a giant cock.” Dave’s friends Todd (Evan Peters) and Marty (Clark Duke) playing the generic teenage types you expect, have some decent lines as well including the whole “I solemnly vow to save myself for her” exchange.

What’s also notable is the most unpleasant onscreen adult-child relationship since Lolita, courtesy of Damon and Mindy Macready. This was the strongest aspect of the plot – Damon manipulating his ten year old daughter into helping his quest to avenge their tragic past was certainly moving, and the duo’s uncompromising conflict resolution which basically is the equivalent of hunting an army of bears armed only with a trident, was powerful even if it was handled carelessly like transporting Plutonium in a shopping cart. And yes there are copious levels of blood spilt, especially by these deux – a couple of standouts scenes come to mind; one where Big Daddy mercilessly slaughters a group of thugs occupying a warehouse to the ominous tones of ‘In the House - In a Heartbeat’. In t’other scene Hit-Girl murders a mobster in a car crusher after interrogation – prompting the words “Fatality” to protrude my lips. Wet blankets across the land have called Kick-ass out for displaying more violence than an inner-city street gang, but who honestly wanted their puritanical opinions – and besides the movie is like SpongeBob SquarePants in comparison to Mark Millar’s original comicbook.

However unlike God (see -Joacim Cans) the plot is not without flaw. For starters I disliked how quickly Dave’s superhero identity was accepted by the public, never once was he heckled in the streets which in real life is as inevitable as fucking Azathoth having trouble eating spaghetti – oh but wait Kick-ass has his own MySpace page, the modern equivalent of the Number of the Beast from the Book of Revelation. The screenplay writers Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn seem to have this view of the entire audience being American and as such can only understand pop culture references, hence the vital role Youtube and MySpace play. The relationship between the protagonist and love interest Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca) starts off as a parody, since superhero lore dictates that an avenging one must long for a girl he deems ‘unobtainable’ and thus places on a pedestal; however Dave gets his girl the twist being that she believes him to be gay and seeks a gay bestfriend. A well played move, unfortunately Goldman and Vaughn had other plans – developing the relationship into a romantic one as Katie apparently felt the deception was ‘cute’ and not grounds for a sexual harassment case; somewhat detrimental to the realism, like placing Hitler in Eastenders.

Naturally at the conclusion the general cynical feel is locked in a safe, chained up and stored far beneath the abysmal sea in the lost city of R'lyeh. The whole concept of an average person trying to make a difference seems a bit lost when the supposed underdog has a motherfucking jet pack with Miniguns attached; the battle becomes as fair as having Poseidon on your side in a water fight.

In conclusion Kick-ass is a very enjoyable film. In this era of "dark/gritty" superheroes Kick-ass is a breath of fresh air because it captures the defeatist attitude of modern life. Lets be honest here The Dark Knight would have been vastly improved if Batman for all his efforts had been awarded speeding tickets or a fine for disorderly conduct. This metaphorical "fresh breath" in the genre is occasionally marred by Halitosis, plot points that I previously pointed out that detract from the experience but not enough to actually ruin the movie. It's a shame that the film didn't suck arse through a straw because in the weeks leading up to the film's release I anticipated just that scenario and begun working on puns using its title, Q.E.D. "The Iron Criterion kicks 'Kick-ass' in the ass", etc. On the flip side at least for once I am pleasantly surprised, probably a feeling similar to going to a Catholic School and not being molested

Oh yes and a quick word regarding the ‘controversy’ surrounding the character of Hit Girl – I honestly feel that her overly liberal use of violence and swearing added another dimension to the character, symbolizing a loss of childhood innocence as a result of the father depriving her of a normal childhood in order to further his twisted crusade. And anyone who foolish believes children are not capable of that should live on a typical British estate and try to say the same after seeing all the burnt-out cars and grandparents who in their late twenties. Innocent my left testicle, a large percentage of today’s ‘yoof’ are as innocent as OJ Simpson.

Taio Cruz & Kesha - Dirty Picture

2010-05-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

When I first started blogging it felt like a moment out of a Fantasy movie, the moment were the protagonist obtains a magic sword capable of slaying his enemies; as it rendered me capable of decimating such grievances which despite hating had previously only been tortured in my mind. Taio Cruz is one subject I've been meaning to write about for some time, partially because if his latest album "Rokstarr" is anything to go by he derives his grammar from old SNES ROM translations, but mostly because his work is so steeped in faecal matter that analysing it would keep Coprologists busy for years.

His latest single Dirty Picture features everyone's favourite yapping dog Kesha (yes I am perfectly aware that she markets herself as Ke$ha but frankly the day I start using that pseudonym is the day my cerebral cortex escapes from my brain and emigrates to Dubai). Dirty Picture revolves around two lovers that are apart for reasons unknown and in a desire to ‘see’ one another decide to send erotic photographs. So in essence it is an R&B song with the subject matter of 'sexuality' - well hold your tracks there Seabiscuit because pointing out that fact is as necessary as saying H.P. Lovecraft was absolutely insane.

The problem that I have with the majority of artists in genres such as R&B, hip-hop and grime is the distinct lack of originality and imagination displayed; probably owning to the fact the single brain cell shared between their demographic is unable to grasp such concepts. Take the genre of power metal for an example of what I am referring to, song subjects can range from Dragons that plunder cheese from villages to New World Order conspiracies about menacing plants. Note the aforementioned "majority of artists" before you decide to email in examples of ground-breaking urban songs and we'll have no ad hominem either.

To begin with the song sounds capable of being a decent R&B love song about a man who misses his girlfriend; naturally all hopes of this are thrown out the proverbial window just like how the hopes of having a strong government were last night, once Taio sings the lyrics “I need to see a picture of you. A special picture just for me, yeah”. Upon hearing those lyrics I knew it was going downhill from that moment on, congruous with how black horror movie characters must feel upon discovering there is a vicious serial killer stalker their group of friends. Then these lyrics follow:

“So take a dirty picture for me
Take a dirty picture
Just take a dirty picture for me
Take a dirty picture
Just send the dirty picture to me
Send the dirty picture
Just send the dirty picture to me
Send the dirty picture”

You’ll notice that they are absolutely inspired and if you look to your left you’ll also notice that my arse is orbiting the moon. After the intro the song descends into the mediocrity of dance music. I cannot understand the lure of this form of music – dancing in a small dark room to repetitive noise produced by machines (apparently part of Skynet’s plan to eliminate mankind) only sounds enjoyable if you happen to be Pac-man. And even then he was constantly high. The music from the verse could be the theme to the audio-book of generic as it sounds exactly alike all the snippets of other dance songs I’ve ever heard. After those previous lyrics Taio rather bizarrely mimics a camera “snap, snap, click” regarding which Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian wrote “Cruz saves the day with British humour”. Naturally I disagree with her statement simply because I feel that she doesn’t understand the point of British humour which is meant to be cynical and embarrassing yet relatable, whereas is pretending to be a camera is more American style, i.e. more cringe worthy than being caught giving your pet dog a sensual massage.

Next are undoubtedly the worst lyrics of the entire bloody farce, they are the same low grade as the rest of the lyrics but the grammar is appalling enough to make even the meekest of English teachers throw a thesaurus;

“Whenever you are gone, I just wanna be wit ya
Please don't get me wrong, I just wanna see a picture”

Actually a fun game you can play with your associates – every time you stumble upon incorrect grammar and spelling in the lyrics detract further points from your faith of Humanity, I personally guarantee reaching misanthropy by the end is achievable. The next four lines of that verse, simply alternate between “Take a dirty picture for me” and “Take a dirty picture for me” followed by Kesha parroting the previous verse in her best sex call line voice. A compressed version of the intro is played for the next verse and then taking cues from shampoo packaging the formula closely repeats itself.

Dirty Picture is a perfect example of elementary music, streamlined to maximize its potential catchiness at the cost of a soul however – something which should be christened ‘The David Cameron’. Being catchy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good, after all on the list of highly recommended things I doubt Cholera peaks. So overall a mind numbingly tedious song that'll probably leave you feeling filthy long after listening to it, as though you've just taken a mud bath with Mother Teresa.

Short Rant on Scum I

2010-04-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

After three weeks away I return feeling like a wanderer crossing the Sahara desert, minus the scraggly beard and rags for clothes – ok just the former. In actuality the duration of my absence has resembled a family meal at the horseman Pestilence’s house, what with using more tissues than an average over-sexed teen upon discovering their father’s prized collection of Playboys. Since events have left me with more excess bile than you can drown a Hydra in I’ll project my inadequacies onto a scenario I held witness to during the illness period. A somewhat haunting scenario because it could well be used as the fucking portrait for modern life, or life in ‘Great’ Britain at least. This whole symbolic indictment was simply a chav-tastic (trailer trash or wiggas to you sweaty foreign types) couple buying more alcohol than George Best when he is trying to fill the storage in his nuclear bomb shelter. Which may not seem as bad as I am about to make it especially when you consider Britannia is by all definitions a chav Valhalla or Chavalhalla, and that bumping into one is as common as finding a misanthropic elf in Rivendell.

The couple where in front of me as I was shopping in Sainsbury’s and as well as having several crates of generic alcohol #57 in a basket, bottles of Cider held in their arms they were also using their fucking baby’s pram as a storage for yet more alcohol. Now accuse me of being more puritanical than a Borg version of Oliver Cromwell but even being a child hating extinctionist I can still see that it is clearly wrong to not only bring your child along as you purchase such a quantity of alcohol anyone would think it was bottles of God’s fucking unfiltered piss, but to use their mode of transport as storage for the deed. This was probably their exact reasoning for having a child in the first place, well, besides that nice weekly cheque that the government will be giving them like a bacon sandwich to the homeless at any rate. And not to mention that the child will probably grow up to murder me as I’m drawing my pension, which is something to look forward to.

You’ll probably feel I’m being overly harsh and I probably am, that’s what weeks of illness will do to you, but it was an image that showed me the sad side of this once great nation an image that haunted me. And besides it is ok because these are the people who feel that because I dress differently from the norm it necessitates starring as though I just broke into their house and pissed all over the living room rug whilst draped in a confederacy flag.

Oscars 2010

2010-03-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

A somewhat belated analysis...

Step into a world that’s more make believe than fucking Wonderland. A place where sexual deviants, illegal substance abusers and genuine arseholes give themselves to the limelight, wearing expensive suits and gowns and of course fake smiles. Where the overpaid and over appreciated bask in the glory of their self-panegyric, and no this isn't a description of MPs. Having a room containing all these superegos is as good an idea as organising a field trip for a special school to a glitter and paste museum. Yes this was the 82nd Academy awards and it has to be asked exactly what the point is? We all have our opinions as to 2009’s best films so do we really need a luxurious ceremony to confirm these opinions or even tell us why we are wrong? No because that isn’t what the Oscars are for; their main purpose is to examine fashion on the red carpet.

They might as well rename the whole bloody charade ‘FARs’, as in Fashion Awards for Retards. Because while those that cover the spectacle still carry on the pretence they are interested in which undeserving fuckwit wins which menial accolade, it is blaringly obvious that they would rather show us who is wearing the most fabulous frock and then proceed to overstate the beauty of said frocks for the next ten minutes. No I am not interested in what outfit Sandra Bullock is wearing I just care if she is winning an award, wait - I don't even care about that!

The concept of the Oscars seems conceiting to be perfectly honest. Take say Jeff Bridges who is an actor, which is his chosen profession. He may incidentally be good at his job (evident by his winning of the best actor award), just as well as you shouldn’t get paid for doing a half arsed job. If Mr. Generic worked in an office and was good at the role he wouldn't expect to get an award at a fancy ceremony. In fact he would probably be praying to God to not be made redundant, thank you very much Lehman Brothers.

Anyway four paragraphs in and I’ve only touched the surface so to get this inmate to the execution chamber. Beginning with the always calamitous red carpet jaunt grand inquisitors Carrie Ann Inaba and Chris Harrison mercilessly grilled Sam Worthington, discussing his life pre-Avatar, his love life and bizarrely enough Zac Efron’s hair (but not Avatar) using sentences almost entirely non sequitur. They wasted Lee Daniels the director of Precious in a two minute interview merely alluding to his film, not that he helped proceedings. When the inglorious duo finally got around to inquiring about Precious, Lee grazed over this to mention that although he is friends with all the nominated directors his courtesy is outweighed by the complement to win (isn’t that the whole point?). But the crowning glory for worst interview since Tom Cruise appeared on Oprah goes to Miley Cyrus. Picture this – Miley appeared to have all the understanding of the English language as an Albanian farmer mauled by a combine harvester, coupled with the fact her voice is rankling like a vest made from live Piranhas.

Unfortunately all tedium elongated once proceedings began, the nominees for best actor and actress were paraded around in such a fashion normally reserved for those whom have slain the mighty Geryon; which only served to elevate the self-importance of the award and marginalize all other categories. After this display of camaraderie Neil Patrick Harris alongside an ensemble of dancers and a big band opened the show with a musical number and I was genuinely shocked, not the returning home from school early to discover your father sampling lingerie type of shocked either. He put on an entertaining performance and actually displayed raw talent tainted somewhat by feeling shoehorned in to waste time.

If you were anything like me then that moment served as a memory to longingly look back at an hour later. Once the musical opening had finished our introduced ‘esteemed’ hosts for the evening, Steve Martain and Alec Baldwin both of which produced such classic jokes as “Over here is the Inglorious Basterds section. And over here are the people who made the movie”. These two were terrible, and so was their reading of an autocue with jokes that obviously got lost en route to the Christmas cracker factory.

Now hold a bumble bee by its wings I hear you cry, just because the opening ceremony was audacious and the hosts insufferable doesn’t necessarily mean the whole occasion is a write off. And that initially crossed my mind as I endured the rest of this shambolic mess, but the whole thing is held together by more weak links than a suit of chainmail armour bought from Poundland. Interchangeable celebrities presented awards to categories that seem somewhat mis-matched to them, such as Penelope Cruz presenting the best supporting actor award (I can think of at least two things wrong there). Those that got awards gave incoherent speeches, for an example look at Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech for the best supporting actress award in which she almost appeared to be a little too grateful for the horrible abuse suffered by the character in Precious and the novel Push. Mind you she could have revealed she was a Nazi sympathizer and it would have been no worse than Robin Williams’ lame joke about “Balls held all over Hollywood”, yes pun intended.

Ben Stiller was arguably the highlight with his ‘pithy’ dressing as a Na’vi to highlight the irony that Avatar wasn’t even nominated for the best make-up award (which went to Star Trek), although the audience didn’t respond as well to this subtlety as they did the fact he was painted in bright colours. His act akin to a Succubus victim got really old really fast but it outshone the rest of this dreary tosh. The lowlights of this year’s proceedings (the selecting of which was like trying to find a pacifist on Peckham estate) included the whole Cameron V.S Bigelow business which dominated the entire pre-Oscars coverage. It would have been more tolerable had it been focused on who had the better movie – Cameron with Avatar, and Bigelow with The Hurt Locker, but the media went at the they were formally married angle with more enthusiasm than an excitable dog in a fire hydrant store. It was presented as a ridiculous ‘War of the Roses’ style game of one upmanship, and I expected Danny DeVito to arbitrarily turn up, when in reality neither party appeared to give two hoots.

And if Dante Alighieri wanted a vision of Hell than he couldn’t have done much better than get a clairvoyant to look 700 years into the future and show him the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers doing an ‘interpretative’ dance to music from films in the best score category - Up, Avatar, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Hurt Locker, and Sherlock Holmes. Sharing Napoleon Dynamite’s dance moves puts me in no place to insult a professional dance troupe but this was as interpretative as a phallus drawn on a piece of graph paper, and had all the same merit. Oh yeah and there was more Nazi jokes than there would be at a party at David John Copeland’s house.

Pieces that had the potentional to work disappointingly fell short because assumedly those in charge of co-ordinate said events were infected with the stupid virus that has recently had resurgence. Take the tribute to the late John Hughes – Matthew Broderick and Molly Ringwald take to the stage to inform us of their experiences working with the man giving an insight into the type of person that he was, and rounded it off with segments from his more memorable movies. It was amicable and well meaning. However this being the Oscars it didn’t end there as a truckload more of Hughes’ protégés emerged, including Macaulay Culkin (who I remain convinced has a Dorian Gray complex) to not only flog a dead horse but eviscerate it too. I appreciate the sentiment but if you’re going to prolong the experience just so you can reiterate the same points then you slowly eradicate all meaning. Thankfully it didn’t descend into the ‘epic’ that was Vanessa Redgrave’s commendation at the BAFTAs.

Finally a look at the winners;

• Hurt Locker – Best picture, best sound mixing, best film editing, best director (Katherine Bigelow), best sound editing (Paul N.J Ottosson) and best screen play (Mark Boal).
• Avatar – Best visual effects, best art direction and best cinematography (Mauro Fiore)
• Crazy Heart – Best lead actor (Jeff Bridges), Original song
• Precious – Best supporting actress (Mo’Nique), Best adapted screenplay (Geoffery Flector)
• Up – Best animated film, Original score (Michael Giacchino)
• The blind side – Best lead actress (Sandra Bullock)
• El secreto de sus ojos – Best foreign language film (Argentia)
• The new tenants – Best short film
• Music by Prudence – Best short documentary
• Logorama – Best short film (Nicolas Schmerkin)
• The Cove – Best documentary
• The young Victoria – Best costume design (Sandy Powell)
• Star Trek – Best make up

In a fitting end to this exhausted and prolonged micro-view of the academy awards I shall present my own idea for a category, which I have called 'Award for most painful insight into human avarice'. And the sole nominee and winner are Hollywood. Congratulations come and collect your award - a fucking one way ticket to Hell.

Portal 2 ‘Excitement’ & other weird tales

2010-03-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

Enough already, we get it; Portal was a fantastic game, one that undoubtedly deserves a sequel. But shut up about it because Christ on a pogostick this week was like being trapped in a pet store that specialises in Parrots once owned by Carrot Top. Please allow me to elaborate since at this point you probably have as much sense of what is going on as the inebriated sorority girl at the decadent Fraternity party.

The week began with our benevolent overlords Valve releasing an update for their three year old game Portal, a somewhat unusual act as old games usually end up in a residential home to be forgotten. The update appeared to be a rather desultory addition with the only new supplement being an achievement and several sound files. This was the firing pistol in a masterfully created Alternate Reality Game by Valve – who essentially had their legions of fans jumping through hoops. Now I’m not going to go into the details of the ARG as it involved Morse code and Slow Scan Television (an audible way to transmit an image) which were contained in the .wav documents producing an MD5 Hash, because frankly it sounds like extracts obtained from the interests section of the World’s dullest man’s MySpace page. The end result was a collection of concept images from the then rumoured now confirmed Portal 2 and I’m willing to wager that there hasn’t been this much obsessive interest in a gallery of low quality images since the first erotic Daguerreotypes emerged.

Now the gaming community is treating Valve as if they are the Red Cross handing out aid to the destitute. And I was confused as to exactly why. Valve have engineered a fantastic marketing strategy granted, unfortunately this doesn’t make them the infinite projection of love but rather shows their ability to manipulate their audience and do so in a way that ensures maximum publicity as opposed to simply announcing the game. Worse still the hardcore gamers have emerged plaguing gaming forums with ridiculously detailed manuscripts chronicling their theories, in which of course they can’t see the slightest fault and regard whomever disagrees as unintelligent. Despite these ideas resembling the outcome of Robert Shea stumbling onto the set of Tron and copiously disgorging. Yes I appreciate the inevitability of the intense scrutiny surrounding the announcement of a new title (or pedestrian sequel in this case) but a mere week later it feels as if I’ve already bought, played, reviewed and left the fucking thing to gather dust.

In other news a Korean Otaku (that’s Japanese for a young male who doesn’t have a girlfriend, sorry it’s actually somebody with obsessive interests - although the two are perfectly interchangeable) has married a Dakimakura, which is a ‘huggable’ body pillow with the face of an anime character printed on it. Seriously. You hear that noise? That is the sound of the Kraken lamenting; yes even a creature of myth is expressing its disdain. I had already abandoned faith in Humanity while I was still undergoing Embryogenesis but the remnants of my depleted soul died after reading the article. It has to be asked who exactly deserves God’s wrath more; the supernerd? The inventors of the Dakimakura? Or the Korean government for allowing such a ceremony to take place instead of stepping down on his head with steel capped boots made from pure oppression?

To think this is in a country that does not legally recognise same-sex marriages. The article also provided photographs of the groom treating his blushing bride to outings to theme parks and restaurants, just incase you weren’t already contemplating playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver. Globalised media once again has simply served as an indictment of the Human condition, with it constantly challenging our perceptions of the world by allowing access to this type of article. What’s next – Mr Generic buying a house in the suburbs for his mannequin wife and two baby doll children? Congratulations Mr Otaku you have let Humanity down and I would state you have also let yourself down but the honeymoon will serve that same purpose.

And finally, another week and another weak attempt to peddle the idea that video games promote violence. Coming once again by way of our Australian cousins, who lest we forget are descended from our deported convicts, a more logical explanation for Australia’s increasing violent crime perhaps? Leading experts (in idiocy I imagine) have controversially claimed “the link between violent video games and youth crime is greater than the connection between smoking and lung cancer”, though obviously fail to provide any solid evidence to back this up. They point to spates of brutal senseless slayings and rather than admit that the fault belongs to society’s failings; i.e. Lack of parental discipline, poverty, lack of social cohesion and a soft touch justice system, they link it to the violent mainstream video games simply because it is an easier scapegoat.

Most of these so called experts probably haven’t played the games they are condemning, operating on what I like to call ‘The LAPD approach’ - judging before the subject has had a chance to do anything based on appearances. Which is a crying shame because if they actually had taken the time to play Modern Warfare 2 they would find it provides a cathartic experience and does not “rewire a child's brain making them more amenable to violence”. If a cretin takes it upon himself to murder his fellow man then it was only a matter of time until this disturbed individual actually followed through thus making the catalyst irrelevant as his rampage could have equally been caused by a video game, waiting in line at the Post Office or even watching an episode of EastEnders. Actually the latter option is understandable. As for the claim that gaming causes more harm than smoking, well this is simply the etchings of retard, because while it is difficult to pinpoint crimes that are the offspring of violent media we know that lung cancer is the product of excessive smoking. I’ll conclude with this soundbite - killing civilians on MW2’s infamous ‘No Russian’ level does not fuel my desires to sacrifice a virgin to the Dark Lord.

John and Edward Grimes - Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)

2010-02-25T17:51:00.000-08:00

Pardon my French but Chatouillez ma flanelle dans une tour de cloche. After seeing a genuinely good yet unsigned band recently I was unexpectedly in an optimistic mood. That was until, like the Galactic Empire mainstream music struck back; with this tripe that does for music what Irreversible’s fire extinguisher scene did for my mentality (look it up kids). Yes this is John and Edward Grimes’ (I don’t use the portmanteau Jedward because that would indicate I acknowledge their celebrity status) rendition of that ‘timeless classic’ known as ‘Ice Ice Baby’ but in what amounts to curb stomping an injured puppy it amalgamates with Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’. The first single by the poster children for ghetto abortions also features Vanilla Ice reprising his song, and like a maggot infested corpse he has simply become more vomit inducing over time.

One thing I will quickly mention is that I hate this song because it is the lord of the shits and not due to it being the epitome of mainstream music. Frankly I don’t think you can really get more mainstream than the X-Factor…not until Sonic the Hedgehog starts claiming Windows 7 was his idea whilst patting himself on the shoulder with one hand and masturbating in his own pomposity with the other. And besides I think at this juncture we’ve firmly established that I am the least fair Human being to ever plague the planet.

The video is the tackiest thing I have seen since that dressing room for supermodel dogs, which I have completely made up but wouldn’t be phased in the slightest if it turned out to be true. During the opening, the ‘Under Pressure’ section a large sign spells out ‘Jedward’ as if we could ever forget these two morons especially as they flail around with all the mannerisms of a spastic fish. Then penetrating any defence your mind is able to conjure, the song descends into the ‘Ice Ice Baby’ section and the only fathomable way to describe it would be along the lines of a Disney movie set in Harlem. Complete with an ensemble of ‘street dancers’ the duo attempt to rap while dressed like matching bellends who dance in the style of a tourette's sufferer having a seizure and a tramp with an angry Bee stuck in his pants.

Despite John and Edward utilizing two different styles, i.e. wailing and rapping there is about as much variety here as there is colours in a tailor’s specialising in robes for the Ku Klux Klan. Perhaps because Vanilla Ice clearly plagiarised Queen and David Bowie’s song(i.e. one sung by two amazing vocalists), switching between the two seems to have the effect of utilizing a cardboard box bomb shelter in the epicentre of a nuclear attack…but the latter would admittedly be less painful. And it doesn’t help that they have all the talent of a disabled dog and share rapping skills with your average white Anglo-Saxon protestant holding down a job in middle management.

An appropriate line to quote from the song would have to be “It’s the terror of knowing what this World is about” because knowing that out the millions of sperm the one that confected these two was the fastest doesn’t help my tapering sympathy for mankind. Just to put this out there but the terrible twins are clearly the bastard offspring of snap crackle and pop with a hint of Peter Pan. John and Edward to their credit manage the incredible feat of making Vanilla Ice appear cool which is as difficult as a blind man trying to complete a colouring book with just his elbows and not go over the lines. Overall the song sounds as the sort of remix that you would hear playing in a disco for retards, an establishment where when you buy a pint you receive a free pair of swimming bands so you don’t fucking drown.

At three minutes and forty-three seconds long it feels as though it is a Spanish Inquisition era torture and I shall be writing to Geneva requesting the song be banned under the Geneva Convention. How diminished does your fucking intelligence quotient and sense of dignity have to fucking be for you to not only enjoy this song, but for you to also buy it? And if you’re that retarded why not go sit in the middle of Highway 401 and play with a bleeding weebel. Seriously for the next UK census it should be mandatory for the population to reveal whether they bought this single or not, and those that have will be bundled into military trucks, processed into dog food and the remains be fed to the homeless. And who says I’m not charitable.

Damaged Inc. (Metallica Tribute Band) Review

2010-02-08T23:23:00.000-08:00

As Gary Schofield said to the rest of his striptease act “Lads hold on to your hats” because this week is going to be somewhat unusual for two reasons. Firstly I am going to be unconditionally positive an event which happens as often as Cthulhu popping round to his local. Also I am reviewing an unsigned band which is absolutely mad considering the majority of metal bands are below the ‘enlightened’ perceptions of mainstream society; an unsigned metal band is going to be more illusive than Mrs Claus’ G-Spot. So forgive me if this turns out to be on the same lines as describing a Van Gough painting to a blind man with partial hearing.

So Damaged Inc are a tribute band to metal band and overall superegos Metallica, taking their name from the song Damage, Inc featured on the Master of Puppets album. Now whenever someone mentions tribute act to me I picture a middle aged man poorly impersonating Elvis at Butlins, or countless ABBA tribute acts - the type that make you wish you were living in Texas with their unbelievably lax gun laws so that you could buy a revolver and shoot the place up. But then that underused and famished creature that lurks in my brain otherwise known as optimism reminds me that Tim Owens the sometime singer for Judas Priest and Iced Earth started his career in a Judas Priest tribute band known as British Steel, and that Black Sweden (Metal ABBA tribute) and Beatallica (Beatles and Metallica tribute) are fucking awesome bands.

DI is compromised of Martain Doyle - Rhythm guitar and vocals, Ewan Metcalfe - Lead guitar and backing vocals, Kev Alderson - Drums and Merky Brimacombe -Bass guitar and backing vocals (Though when I saw them live they had a different bassist but who the fuck cares). Covering a great many of Metallica’s classic backlog including: One, Whiplash, Master of Puppets and Seek and Destroy, with Martain sounding a hell of a lot like James Hetfield (yes I understand that’s the point, shut up) made for a surreal experience where I’m confident if you closed your eyes you could picture yourself watching the genuine article in crowds of the unwashed with some bastard purposely flicking his fucking hair in your face…oh wait never mind.

I begrudgingly went to see the band play at a local rock bar, which is never a great move as my disgust for my fellow man is well documented but whenever I go to a bar or club it transcends to the House of Blue Leaves battle from Kill Bill. It’s as if some celestial being took the worst aspects of the Human condition and Frankensteined them into a single idea. Initially the crowd surrounding the stage would have made even Dead Rising look conservative but Christ midway through their set it became like selling ASBOs on a typical British housing estate, I’ve seen cans of sardines that had more breathing space. Of course from the band’s perspective this would have been only a good thing showing they were doing something right, but for me it was as awkward as going to a Catholic Church in a suit made entirely of used condoms, which is my only grievance regarding the entire event.

Actually one thing that should be brought up is that some of the guitar work was particularly slapdash on a couple of songs namely One and Whiskey in the Jar coming across as rather obtuse. However committing to the bizarre idea of being positive has forced me to be willing to overlook this fact which is just as well as the playing wasn’t bedraggled enough to be detrimental to their overall performance.

The most important aspect of DI was the fact that they captured the raw energy of Metallica’s heyday performances, elevating them from ‘look I have a guitar and access to ultimateguitar.org’ status to levels worthy of the actual band, and finding a tribute act that can manage this is like trying to find fidelity in John Terry’s dictionary. The majority of the audience were fixated in the same way that Simon Cowell is with being a complete and utter cunt. I mentioned previously that the singing was pitch perfect, well the rest of the band were also commendable, though this is significantly less of an achievement as matching the vocal style but still an important attribute. Thankfully the members didn’t seem to be aiming to be doppelgangers. While emulating your heroes music wise is perfectly acceptable adopting their appearance is downright creepy. Martain managed to convey the confidence required to set the atmosphere without ever appearing arrogant, quintessentially making DI Metallica without the egos, well unless they are so dedicated in their tribute that they’ve decided to recreate scenes from Some Kind of Monster in their spare time.

As ever this is the space I use to come to a conclusion, and as ever you don’t need to be Nostradamus to predict what follows. Pushing two hours and resulting in my body feeling as though I had stayed the night at Kobe Bryant’s, make of that what you will, the gig was worth the entrance fee that they didn’t charge. These words to me are what “squeal like a pig” were to Bobby Trippe but I whole heartedly recommend that you check out Damaged Inc. Of course only if you enjoy the music of Metallica which is an important factor being that DI are a fucking TRIBUTE BAND, and my advisors inform me that unfortunately people still have the freedom to herald opinions different to my own. And now drawing to a close feeling somewhat dilapidated I’ll use these closing statements to express my impertinent hatred of Lars Ulrich and describe him as the man with a smile akin to that of the local paedophile after being asked to carpool for the under ten’s ballet club.

www.damagedinc.co.uk

The Hills Review

2010-01-25T07:47:00.000-08:00

I can imagine my idol Che Guevara looking down from Heaven at our modern world, one colonized by mega corporations and owned by the elite who we of course worship dearly – to such an extent we don’t even notice our cruel masters branding the word ‘Sheep’ into our fucking foreheads. “Oh well, so much for World Revolution” he would sigh before returning to his idyllic paradise of eternally stalking Karl Marx. Just to clarify in my previous statement when I referred to ‘we the sheep’ I did of course mean the gormless public who jump when Simon Cowell tells them while saying “How many singles should we buy while doing so master?”, and not myself because I ignore social trends much like how I would ignore the Jewish man in the Good Samaritan parable.

Yes time was we were willingly to risk our very freedom to overthrow our betters, now we seem to not only accept it as a matter of fact but also enjoy having our faces rubbed in their fabulous wealth. I am of course referring to the prosperity and subsequent aggrandisement of shows following the obscenely wealthy youth of America be it fictional i.e. ‘The O.C’ or a documentary such as the Hills. The appeal of said shows is in the words of the prostitute with the broken jaw “a little hard to swallow”. It’s the equivalent to the starving man standing outside subway all day looking in the window longingly. Maybe you need to be highly stylized to truly appreciate this, which is a shame for me as my predetermined style appears to be whatever I could steal from Metal bands’ recycling bins circa the eighties.

To steer this ship back on course to Moby Dick, The Hills is a documentary series following the privileged life of the young folk of LA, who are convinced their lives are spectacularly arduous despite having more then I will ever have even if I take to cat burglary. The show is entirely interchangeable, seen one episode you’ve pretty much seen them all. One of the brats will almost certainly be feuding with another because Party B has the ‘audacity’ to wear the wrong coloured bag on the wrong day or Party A made out with the guy who works in Starbucks when Party B expressed her interest in him; there are so many rules for being a socialite it's like a fucking game of Dungeons & Dragons,

If you enjoy shows with more depth than a half-filled freezer bag, then chances are you won’t enjoy this. The versatile subjects range from Fashion, Shopping to Romance and Partying – the stuff Barbie dreams about. Add to this more bitchiness than backstage at a beauty pageant for female dogs, and you have a one way ticket to Ohdearsvile. The cast in this charade primarily involves: Audrina, Heidi, Lauren, Whitney, Kristen, Spencer and everyone else who makes up their entourage, like the proverbial drunk driver I’ll quickly run through some of these (The ones who annoyed me the most).

Firstly we have Lauren Conrad former star of Laguna Beach, who narrated The Hills until she left in season 5. She tends to over react and thinks everything is a conspiracy against her – America personified. Like every rich woman to have the brain cells required to throw on some clothes she has released her own fashion range. Heidi Montag – formerly a close friend of Lauren’s but the duo fell out because Heidi’s boyfriend Spencer spread rumours that Lauren created a sex tape (of course she didn’t everything is done on DVD these days). Heidi receives my wrath for creating an utterly shit album ‘Superficial’ – an electropop album because we need another one of those the same way we need more bloody children. Her promise of "This is the first album of many to come. As long as I can keep affording it and keep doing it, I will because it’s my love and my passion", gives me the same ominous feeling I would experience from walking through a sanctuary for starving Bears wearing only a suit made of meat. Spencer Pratt (rather befitting last name) is the true meaning of Machiavellian. The last time I saw a man this sinister I was watching footage of a Nuremberg rally circa 1939. Seriously he would only attend his own mother’s funeral for the free food at the wake. Lets not forget Audrina Patridge who is leaving the show in the sixth season to pursue other things, namely star in a reality show called ‘The Audrina Show’ that follows her everyday life as she tries and fails to have a successful modelling and acting career, which to all you naysayers is nothing like The Hills!

Of course there are more, but frankly who really cares. All the guys in the show are painful rich douche types, who treat people like shit and yet women still fall at their feet like they have a deadly plague, whereas the girls are all ‘half-empty’ types – by which I don’t mean pessimists but rather that they are as intelligent as a bowl of Muesli.

At 20 minutes each the episodes are far too long, this feels as though it should be web series with episodes that are five minutes long because at their current length it has become like trying to cover over an Olympic size swimming bath with a single roll of Clingfilm. Also twenty episodes per series (on average) may sound unnecessary but on reflection perhaps it helps when trying to unravel the group’s complex relationships – a task like trying to make sense of M.C.Escher’s Relativity. I won’t divulge into the directing style because it is a reality show and if so far you have never seen one then your mind deserves to be preserved so you can be the beacon of hope for Humanity. But basically several cameramen follow the girls around at an overly eager stalker’s distance and what passes for scene transition is gratuitous aerial shots of LA usually accompanied by a cheesy American pop song.

A considerable number of events in the show are believed to be manipulated by producers for dramatic effect/production purposes – so obviously they have been getting their ideas from Millie-Vanillie. This isn’t reality; reality is a group of middle aged men sat in a wet field getting overly excited about finding a piece of medieval toilet brush. No, what this is, is teen drama that heralds the charade of being real, the lyrics ‘Master of Puppets’ ring true when the show’s producers manipulate events such as prolonging Heidi and Lauren’s fractured friendship or Spencer and Heidi’s ‘fake’ wedding. Not that it matters it doesn’t stop the show from being any less boring, but I would appreciate being told if that what I’m buying isn’t a bottle of Apple Juice but rather steaming piss.

So this is the part where I tell you whether the show is good or not, and quite honestly no it isn’t. I found the show the be extremely tedious with only one or two relevant events happening in the entirety of the show’s five season run – such Holly Montag’s drinking problem and she isn’t even a main cast member. I also find this style of show to be the epitome of a capitalist system gone wrong but I doubt light social commentary is on the minds of its target audience. If you are a 13 year old girl or have the mind of one then I’m sure you’ll get some entertainment out of it even if it is just from looking at the pretty attire.

Begrudgingly I will admit that I admire the show and as the blind woman’s gambling addicted lover said “bet you didn’t see that coming”. The reason for my out of character behaviour is because that it takes a subject that is so stodgy and pretentious it might as well be renamed Hideo Kojima, into a successful franchise running several shows (The Hills, Laguna Beach, The City, The Audrina Show). Which is impressive because even Jesus only turned water into wine and while certainly a way to win friends it would be a handicap if you plan on working in a water treatment plant.

Style

2010-01-15T14:54:00.000-08:00

If I was asked to personify the years 2000 – 2009 it would be pointless to provide allegories to capitalists lambasting the plebeians and then charging them for wasting time, or terrorists angrily flagellating those who have the audacity to hold different beliefs – because that could be an analysis of any decade. Instead I would present the image of a juvenile standing gormlessly in a public space while wearing a luminous tutu, proclaiming how cutting edgily fashionable they are whilst simultaneously hanging on to Simon Cowell’s every word like every fucking Sheep and its Sheppard. Yes the decade I steadfastly refuse to refer to as “the noughties” (because it frankly sounds like a rejected title for a series of erotica novels), really did belong to the moronic fashion victim. The decade that style was taken outside, savagely beaten and forced in pink leopard skin pants. I mean the previous decade shouldn’t have been that hard to beat but we still somehow ended up looking more ridiculous then those plaid shirt wearing tossers.

The decade gave birth to some malodorous and deformed children such the scene kid, emos and just general fashion victims like Lady Gaga – whose outfits are compromised of collections that look the aftermath of CP30 making love to a cereal box to outfits that appear to be a net curtain regurgitated by a dying cat. I tend to avoid social trends much like I would ignore the cries for help from the children locked in my basement. Not conforming to any of these supposedly non-conformist fashions resulted in me once again being “unfashionable” but frankly I couldn’t give a flying piss as the less I am associated with society the better. Though I do weep when I see what has happened to the Human race – call me passé but 50 years ago these people would have been carted off to their nearest mental asylum for electrotherapy and given a shock greater than what George Michael experiences whenever he is in a public toilet and a cop enters.

A Rant on World of Warcraft Addicts...

2010-01-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

Recently I caught a programme called “How World of Warcraft stole my life” or something so similar it makes you want to invent a fucking jetpack just so you can distance yourself as far as possible from Humanity. As you can imagine the show was about people who claimed to be addicted to the MMORPG although we all know that the show’s title is inaccurate since for WOW to steal your life you would have to have one to start with, the losers. I must profess that watching this documentary brought my rage to the surface like getting stuck behind the single mother in Tescos who insists on paying with pennies and whose kids wail like fucking Banshees who trapped their fingers in some type of celestial car door. It wasn’t even the game itself that caused these rare levels of anger it was the self confessed ‘addicts’ displaying patheticness not seen since Steven Segal misguidedly thought he could act.

One of the ‘subjects’ compared WOW addiction to that of cocaine. I’m sorry but it is hardly the same is it? Granted I suppose they both work by the reward system, (the collection of brain structures which attempt to regulate and control behaviour by inducing pleasurable effects) but I seriously doubt we are going to see thugs on street corners mugging old ladies just to fund their online gaming habit. Nor will we see the Columbians sneaking boatloads of subscriptions into America. So to compare playing games for extreme periods of time that force even the Star Trek nerds call you sad, to that evil social disease is a bit irresponsible to say the least. It is a game, not a way of life and turning around and blatantly blaming the game for you wasting your life is like going into a posh restaurant, ordering a soup, emptying your bowels into the soup and complaining to management that there is a fucking shit in your soup!

The programme explores rehab for Warcraft players, and no it doesn’t involve moving out of their mother’s basement. What the hell is the first step, admitting you are a 32 year old loser who is probably over-weight? The World of Warcraft rehab is the epitome of a society gone wrong. It is a nonsensical and round about way of dealing with the issue, I mean after all they are nerds so surely the best method would be to promise them some naked flesh of the female variety. Alternatively if they really are that far gone that they are unable to separate fantasy from reality then the army should recruit them and ship them off to Afghanistan “to raid the Desert of Death to obtain the power source known as oil from the mystical sand people”…

A Christmas music compilation

2009-12-19T01:22:00.000-08:00

The season to be jolly and spread festive cheer instead of exotic sexual diseases is apparently upon us, so I thought I would review the staple of the season – the music. The good thing about Christmas is that it puts me into a more appropriate mood – one of pure hatred. That’s right I don’t like Christmas, which should come as no surprise as I’m pretty misanthropic at the best of times, but when it comes to this time of year it boils over to levels that even bloody Joseph Stalin couldn’t rival. It’s an empty shallow capitalist holiday that has sucked all the true meaning of the occasion out and what we are left with is long queues, ramped up prices and everyone walking around pretending they are happy. I could certainly shop online but then I would feel like they had won, plus going outside prevents the state from declaring me legally dead. Yes I defiantly am the Grinch in the flesh, and in case you’re thinking that I’m going to start this review like Scrooge but by the end I’ll be George Bailey at the end of it’s a Wonderful Life then you are sadly mistaken and may want to leave now before I offend you and the rest of the boy scouts.

Christmas songs are for the most part bad, so I have searched internet for songs that fail so badly they as well be in charge of our fucking economy. And here are the ten arguably worst Christmas songs to disgrace this planet.

1) Metro Station – Last Christmas
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTR5uk7ci_s

Thought this would as good as place as any to start. Yes the band that I reviewed previously as the sexual deviants in the disguise of shit musicians they are, have covered Wham’s eternal classic ‘Last Christmas’. Listening to the song is a bit like your cat dying and your parents trying to replace it but can only get a goat at short notice so they stick the goat in a cat costume. It may appear the same but it just doesn’t feel right. Even the Crazy Frog version was less embarrassing because it didn’t take itself seriously. This version is like living inside a futuristic scene’s mind. Mason’s vocals sound as though he is pleasuring himself while he sings, the stupid little twat. Also knowing Metro station giving their heart is probably an innuendo for Chlamydia.

2) Alvin & the Chipmunks - Christmas Don't Be Late
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzTG0fTLAlU

I’ve never found Alvin & the Chipmunks cute or adorable. People often ask me why as they’re lovable – but what some find lovable others find utterly repulsive and disgusting just look at Ronnie Wood. That doesn’t include the fact that I find them incredibly annoying, like if Joe Pasquale inhaled Helium and recorded an album. Imagine the same generic Christmas beat looping in the background while these three buggers squeal along to the 1950’s cheesy animation that looks as though you are watching in drunk-o-vision. As for the lyrics - which frankly are hard to understand, it is a song about how much they are looking forward to Christmas, and is full of lame rhymes – such as “Want a plane that loops the loop. Me, I want a hula hoop” But what the hell do I expect for a Christmas song - fucking Ava Maria? It’s the type of hell that should only be reserved for Gary Glitter.

3) East 17 – Stay Another Day
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4jLfCjlYD0

Yes one of those interesting songs that seem to plague the modern music scene - in the fact that it has bugger all to do with Christmas but is deemed as a Christmas song because it got the ‘prestige’ of being No 1 in the chart during the festive period. I’m sorry but you wouldn’t go to a Michael Jackson look-a-like contest dressed as Jack Black, and you wouldn’t expect to win if you did. But I digress, this is East 17’s effort and I use the word effort loosely in the same way you would apply the term ‘vampire movie’ to Twilight. I suppose at a stretch you could describe the song as a Christmas song, East 17’s heartfelt pleas to the enigmatic individual to stay could be extended to Father Christmas – because maybe they love Christmas that much they want to prolong it. Though that scenario would be overly creepy considering they use lyrics such as ‘babe’ and ‘Oh, don't leave me alone like this, don’t say it's the final kiss, won’t you stay another day’. In fact scrap that idea. Now I need to go get a lobotomy.

4) New Kids on the Block – I still believe in Santa Claus
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS01fBjJK5k

There are some things you just can’t take the piss out of, Robert Mugabe being one on them – unless you want to start learning to masturbate with your left hand that is. This is so bad I don’t even know where to start and it would probably be best if I just leave it alone like the strange man with the knife collection who moves in next door and wants to have you over for dinner. But I’m one to never follow my own advice which is unfortunate for my ear canals and dignity. So a song about still believing in Santa Claus when your officially old enough to be tried as an adult. Considering the group were so young when they formed I was going to be kinder to it…but I did my research and discovered when this song came out most of the members were in their twenties and decided that I can call them sad bastards after all. At least they were closer to being kids when this was released unlike now – still called New Kids on the Block despite the fact they are in their forties and old enough to be their own fathers. Clearly the songs lyrics ‘I still believe in Santa Claus, maybe that's just because I'm still a child at heart’ really does apply. The song is one of those sweet spread the magic of Christmas type and as such makes me want to uncontrollably vomit like eating at that dodgy take-away near me, only considerably worse.

5) Fallout Boy – Yule Shoot your eye out
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxoRerJwnbs&feature=PlayList&p=8FE9B272266035DF&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7

An entry from yet another whiny fag Rock band, this time - Fallout boy. The song title pun is so cringe worthy it makes Horatio Cane’s wit seem inspired. Hell I’ve seen porn films with better puns in their titles. The opening riff sounds almost like Jingle Bells - if it was played by someone who had just come out of brain surgery and forgotten they how to play guitar. Then it descends into a more ‘rock’ style tune or should that be a generic American teenage rock band style tune? The song certainly has more to do with Christmas than East 17’s song but it’s more of an anti-Christmas song in many respects because it chronicles a break up during the festive period and so is more depressing than a party Kurt Cobain’s house attended by just you and him. I actually found the song rather sinister to say the least the singer ends up sounding like a manipulative and obsessive serial killer type, just look at these lyrics – ‘The gifts you're receiving from me will be, One awkward silence, And two hopes you cry yourself to sleep staying up, waiting by the phone. And all I want this year is for you to dedicate your last breath to me, before you bury yourself alive’. Christ I hate Christmas more then the next man but this song has as much festive cheer as a Christmas card from the Grinch.

6) Jingle Cats – Meowy Christmas album
- Listen at: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/GWwQObs63Fc/

It may surprise you to know I am an animal lover, I guess hating one’s own species requires you to find solace in another. However after listening to this album I wanted to go to my nearest cat shelter with a hammer and a bag of catnip. Yes I decided to review the full album instead of a particular song purely because I couldn’t decide upon the worst song of the album. If you don’t know what Jingle cats is then I shall tell you because your not fucking remaining happily unaware while I’m suffering the mental trauma. Basically it is a series of Christmas novelty songs in which cat’s meows have been painstakingly edited so it appears they are ‘singing’ along to well know Christmas songs. Apparently Jingle cats are quite a phenomenon and since this 1993 album there has been several others including a spin-off called Jingle dogs. The songs on the album range from Silent Night to Auld Lang Syne to Oh little town of Bethlehem. It really is one of those things that have to a be heard to be fully appreciated so I recommend you check out Jingle Cats Medley (Jingle Bells, Hark the Herald, We Wish You a Merry Christmas) for maximum shame. Anyone who bought this and enjoyed it should be placed on some kind of register – the sex offenders’ register for instance…

7) Nate Dog, Bad A$$, Snoop Dogg- Santa Claus Goes Straight To the Ghetto
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQfSIZiv8q4

I find most rap and Hip Hop dire to tell you the truth, so this is here simply to please fans of the genre because lets face it fans of say 50 Cent are more likely to murder me than some bubblegum pop freak. Anyway the track starts off with a surprisingly sentimental tune, not something you would expect from a rap featuring Snoop Dogg a man whose lyrics are usually dirtier than the wares at a used condom sale. If you watch the video then you will see the exact moment we descend into Might Boosh level of madness – when a fucking purple Cadillac flies past the moon. A traditional gangsta rap concomitant with Christmas may sound bizarre and it is. The lyrics ‘It's 12.30 AM, Christmas Eve I'm out with the gangstas and thieves’ sound perfectly ordinary and then he goes on to rap ‘Celebratin', postin' up with eggnog [head up up] in my cup’ – I mean what is that? I know even rappers have to drink but that’s hardly hardcore is it? Snoop Dogg’s parts really are difficult to take seriously such as these classics ‘Santa Claus on the ceiling, Jack Frost chillin', Pinch the Grinch for being a holiday villain’ – which is so bad it is almost good. As well as ‘Now on the first day of Christmas, my homeboy gave to me - A sack of the krazy glue and told me to smoke it up slowly’, now is it just me or does the term homeboy sounds like a term an opponent of gay marriage status would suggest as a proviso? A very unusual song that isn’t that great but is so lame that it is genius like Robocop or Bruce Campbell.

8) Deadbolt—I’m the one who gunned Santa down
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxzsitBQyEU

What would you get if you put a mentally deranged John Wayne in a room with a Parkinson’s sufferer playing drums and a failed guitarist and told him to rant on while flicking paper at a plugged in bass? Other then one hell of a house party, you would get this piece of insane tripe. A very simplistic song in terms of drum beats and guitar/bass riffs about a man who discovers his girlfriend is having an affair with Santa and the two get into a gunfight which could rival Scarface’s iconic scene. It is basically a singer talking fast about fighting Santa and killing him. It is so bizarre you can’t imagine hearing anything stranger – that is until the singer starts doing accents such as the elves and what sounds like Solid Snake’s sexline voice, he also tries to convey emotion which includes pain, quite literal for the listener. I guarantee it would make even the most emotionally detached serial killer laugh. Obviously it was done in good humour but that doesn’t excuse it for being so rubbish it belongs on a refuse site. For example of how this song is like spending a day as Judge Dread here are some of the lyrics ‘Santa put on his cloths and, Patted my girl in the butt, He gave her a peck on the cheek. Damn you! Damn you I said! Damn you! You'll never get away with this!’ It makes you wonder what his defence in court would consist of – perhaps singing ‘I fought the law’ while line dancing?

9) John Denver - Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas)
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXpYIbkO7ZA

This is the very definition of Melancholy, I mean Christmas must be my least favorite event on the calendar but there is such a thing as making a bleeding effort. But not old John Denver - his song Please Daddy only serves to make the whole experience that much more uncomfortable. A song about having to deal with your father’s drunkenness over the festive period. Why he couldn’t just sing about snow like everyman and his fucking reindeer I do not know. Anyone who thinks these are good lyrics – ‘Mumma smiled and looked outside the window, She told me son, you better go upstairs, Then you laughed and hollered Merry Christmas, I turned around and saw my Mumma's tears’, clearly is as cynical as me. If he were alive today I’m positive he would release follow up songs chronicling torment during other events – such as being abused by his uncle dressed as an Easter Bunny during Easter…

10) Basshunter - Jingle Bells
- Listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SKToXZj43E

There were several contenders for the final slot and then I heard Basshunter’s rendition of the classic Jingle Bells. Yes it is a dance version, which begs the question what kind of freak listens to Jingle Bells and says ‘I would enjoy this more if it had a better Baseline?’ What’s next make Santa more sexy and modern? Or maybe change the nativity story so it’s set on some chavy estate to make the tale more accessible? At least Jingle Bells is a traditional Christmas song which is more then what I can say for the others. I have nothing else to remark about, it’s a dance version of Jingle Bells I think that speaks volumes without me having to spit all over it like a special child.

This concludes my round up of the ten worst Christmas songs of all time. There are of course many more songs that are so bad you want to burst your ear drum with a pen, but these are just a few that stood out. Feel free to comment and leave your own and Merry Xmas from the Iron Criterion – there I said it and now I feel all dirty…

New moon Review

2009-12-03T11:40:00.000-08:00

My second ever review was the eternally dire Twilight, and I felt I had done enough shit raking to last the entire saga but after seeing this I was forced to reap my plants of hatred. In case you haven't heard of either of the films and book series, or remain blissfully ignorant as to it's plot - although this does probably mean you live in Atlantis and run a day care centre for unicorns with your best friend Percy the non-existent Griffin, the Twilight saga is a fantasy love story between a Human and vegetarian Vampire and isn't very good. Continuing the chronicles of the 18 year old necrophiliac Bella Swann, the Robert Pattinson show: Part 2 as it should be known follows the break up between the Human appearing Robot (no not really) Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) - which adds another layer of angst onto the film. Directed this time around by Chris Weitz, the director of the phenomenally confused Golden Compass film and with the screenplay written once again by Melissa Rosenburg.

There is something very wrong with the Twilight saga being more popular than God's wife while he is busy working. Time was the aficionados of vampire culture were the weird gothic type people who everyone else was afraid of and avoided now it’s the other way round. I wouldn't be surprised if the Twilight fans started sacrificing all us filthy heathens to appease Robert Pattinson, and that’s just my sister.

Throughout the first half hour there are a multitude of flashbacks and references to the first film to try and convince us that it actually had a plot instead of being two plus hours of Edward Cullen making young girls swoon. Though as I mentioned in my Twilight review I am still perplexed as to why, he is paler than an albino's arse and pulls faces like he has been forced to undergo a cavity search in a gay bar. You can imagine the female cinema goers closing their eyes and pretending Edward is talking to them.

So Bella and Edward break up when Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) tries to drink Bella’s blood after the world's bloodiest papercut. I found the break up bloody pathetic, yes she is understandably heartbroken at first but several months in she is still having nightmares and depressed though it is quite similar to how she acts when happy if I’m honest. She also plays mind games with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) by exploiting his feelings for her so she has somebody to get her over Edward which leaves him rather unstable. Call me cynical but I seriously doubt at 18 she could have found somebody that she loves so much that without him she would just wither and die. But what would I know, as the only thing that has ever shown affection for me was my cat and even his motivations were questionable.

Jacob joins what has got to arguably be the campest gang ever - five well toned guys running around the woods wearing only jeans. In reality they're members of the Quileute tribe who are in fact werewolves or at least the film claims because despite looking impressive they are evidence that Stephanie Meyer hates folk lore. Yes she has gone and ruined the werewolf tradition as I expected - werewolves in her world can transform at will without ever being around a full moon, so even during the fucking day. The reason being because they are 'shape shifters' a result of a genetic abnormality or rubbish author syndrome as I call it. We discover the Quileute tribe are mortal enemies of the vampire and who they hunt such as the nomad vampire Laurent (Edi Gathegi).

Thankfully Robert Pattinson isn't in this film that much - for about 20 minutes at the beginning, 20 at the end and appearing briefly several times in between. His spirit appears whenever Bella does anything dangerous – which being a bint like Bella is pretty much everything she does. She takes up thrill seeking activities such as cliff-diving which for someone as clumsy as her is like the elephant man getting a job testing pillows. Of course they make the absence of Pattinson up to the swarming masses of goo formerly known as girls by having a shirt removal scene - not that this should come as much of a surprise in this film - yes I'm talking to you Taylor Lautner.

Through a contrived plot twist in which Alice (Ashley Greene) is unable to see Bella’s future because of Jacob's proximity to Bella, Edward believes when Bella jumps off the cliff she kills herself and so travels to Italy to have the Volturi (an ancient and powerful vampire cult) kill him. Bella travels to Italy with Alice to stop him, and this shows just how selfish that woman is. When she is dumped she spends the night in the woods prompting the town to begin a manhunt only for her to return without explanation, also she wants to be a vampire but doesn’t think of how this will affect her family or even Edward. Now she travels to Europe without so much of a text.

The Volturi were actually pretty good, a throwback to old school vampires and expanding on the vampire world showing us more of its history and traditions. Onething I couldn't understand was why they kept making a big deal out of the individual special powers of the vampire race. What, isn't being psychically superior to humans and being immortal enough? Do they sit there and weep 'if only I had telekinesis then I could steal a better script'? It would be like Superman being upset because he can't cook. The head Volturi Michael Sheen, that's his character Aro and not actually Michael Sheen is amazed because he can't read Bella's thoughts but personally that’s because she is that gormless she isn't capable of independent thought without at least one prospective paramour around. This is also the reason why Jane (Dakota Fanning) wasn’t able to use her power of making people feel pain by looking at them.

The Volturi express their desire to kill Bella because she knows too much about the vampire world, but she is spared when Alice has a vision. The vision is of quite possibly the single most embarrassing vampire sequence ever recorded. The scene in question has Edward and a vampirised Bella run gaily through the woodland glistening in the sun dressed like characters out of a fucking Jane Austin novel. This is the essence of why I hate the series not because it tries something different with vampires but rather because it doesn’t have the feel of a vampire movie – more like a teen drama in which the characters have unusual diets.

So that is pretty much New Moon in a nutshell, an improvement over the first one partly because I had low expectations to begin with but for other reasons as well. Firstly because unlike the first one which was as slow as a Benz Patent Motorwagen this film has more action scenes than a pornographic version of Rambo – with several intense fights involving vampires and wolves. The film also focuses on characters other than the Cullens such as Jacob whose character goes through some extensive development psychically as well as emotionally. However judging by my friend's various complaints the film is fairly different to the book in places, I don't know how different because I haven't read the book nor could I be bother to ask her as it has no real bearing to my stance on the film.

The acting like in the first film is passable but there are a few characters who excel such as Kristen Stewart who annoying as she may be portrays a character who is heartbroken and literally is unable to cope with life and Taylor Lautner is good as the love rival dealing with his overwhelming love for Bella and his man-issues. The script once again appears to have been written by the band Lost Prophets on a depressed day. This effortlessly brings me to the soundtrack which is very similar to that featured in the original - very bland. Such as Muse's disappointing effort or the band called Death cab for cutie which frankly is how you might describe a ride in Travis Bickle's taxi.

I generally didn't like this film, sure it had its moments but they were few and far between. It was a definite improvement over the first film but not enough to make me a fan. Here is a little test to see if you’ll like the film: Did you like fantasy romance or use the term R-Patz or enjoy programs such as One Tree Hill? If so you'll enjoy the movie if not then I would stay away because it isn't a traditional vampire movie more of a teen drama and as such doesn't really appeal to vamp fans. But nothing I say about this film will have effect as it made $72.7 million on its first day alone leading to a revenue of over $400 million in total, and you just know that the next film will earn just as much if not more due to the 'cliff-hanger' ending; in which Edward asks Bella to marry him. We all know what the outcome will be - Edward realises he is portrayed by a terrible actor and is forced to go back to making embarrassing underwear adverts...

Jennifer's Body Review

2009-11-27T09:22:00.000-08:00

Recently I went to the cinema to see Megan’s Body – sorry I mean Jennifer’s Body though the former would be a more appropriate title considering it is capitalizing on the attractiveness of its star like a typical pimp. I didn’t really have high expectations for Diablo Cody’s black comedy horror which was only reinforced by the fact I was one of five people in attendance. I left the cinema with an incredible sensation – that I was completely right as usual.

The film is about Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) an unlikable bitch who when brutally murdered in a ritual killing becomes possessed and has to devour Human flesh to stay alive – while the typical hot yet nerdy best friend Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) is forced to stop her. I'll say no more of the plot since that is all it entails. You know the story it’s been done countless times in the hundreds of cheap ‘factory produced’ horror films that get churned out in a single week alone. In fact it tries to be a cult classic so hard that if it were a person it would be Lady Gaga – the attention seeking freak. Clearly it feels there is a checklist to fill out; cut and paste characters, cheesy dialogue that mistakes cheap innuendos with wit – the type which would be rejected by even the carry on films, gory violence combined of course with enough sexuality to please the average internet dweller. You’ll have heard of the ‘lesbian scene’ between Fox and Seyfried which frankly was the best bit of marketing the film could have had – in reality the scene is tame, derivative and utterly pointless. Diablo Cody apparently wanted the film to be about female empowerment and I have to ask why it is always synonymous with sex? Maybe sex is a sure fire way to lure a man to his death but it doesn’t make you empowered it just means men are fucking retards because you could do the same thing with a bacon sandwich.

Being a comedy horror about teenagers it tries to be funny, scary and explore teenage issues and I have great pleasure to say that it that it completely fails almost as badly as a moonlight powered sundial. The dialogue just makes you groan such as when Jennifer is impaled with a pole by Needy to which she retorts “Do you have a tampon I could borrow?” – To which Needy responds “yes” and when it has absorbed all Jennifer’s fluids she beats her to death with it to teach her not to pretend to be funny, or that’s what happened in my mind at least. Occasionally an actually funny line will be quipped for example when Needy and her boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) are having sexual relations Needy begins screaming because she has a psychic link with Jennifer which might I add is never explained, and she sees a vision of Jennifer murdering Colin (Kyle Gallner) to which Chip says “Am I too big for you?”.

The horror elements are probably where this film really excels which is like saying Hitler was a great leader because he built the autobahns. Using the school of thought that to frighten simply use loud bangs and have things jump out – that every film uses, the film succeeds in being absolutely bloody standard. The only decent horror scene is when Jennifer is sacrificed by the indie band Low Shoulder simply because it is the only time we see her Humanity. Even before she is transformed Jennifer is supercilious and superficial and no that doesn’t make her a superhero.

Now as for dealing with teenage issues the only real issue is sexuality, and I’m not sure what the film is trying to teach us – perhaps Cody is an old school puritan and is trying to educate us by showing if we have sex we will die a horrible painful death. Needy’s relationship is an interesting one as it explores the bond between two best friends and how deep that goes before spoiling it all by hinting at lesbianism.

The story is absolutely ridiculous, dad dancing at a wedding style ridiculous. Ignore the fact that it is a film about a succubus serial killer for a moment while I run these discrepancies past you. So Jennifer becomes possessed after she is wrongly mistaken for a virgin and is sacrificed by an indie rock band who are seeking fame and fortune, claiming ‘that it is next to impossible for an indie band to succeed in the music industry these days’. I’m sorry but what? I can’t turn on the bloody radio without hearing some fucking indie whooping and playing their three chord songs. It would have been a better choice to have satanic Goths do the murder - mind you I would then have to complain that it is stereotypical. Not that you could say anything else about this film because it is clear it has been awhile since Cody was at high school since the characters she has created are absolutely generic cardboard cutouts, from Jonas (Josh Emerson) the hulking jock type to Ahmet (Aman Johal) the foreign exchange student who typically doesn’t speak a word of English you could honestly find these characters in any high school movie – but on the bright side at least they don’t attempt to sing.

The town’s police force is entirely incompetent, because in the hunt for the cannibal killer we don’t witness them doing any actual police work other than collecting the bodies. A tense atmosphere could have been created as the police investigate the serial killer, but this opportunity is missed. While I’m on this subject no one in this world seems like real such as Chip who takes Jennifer’s word that Needy has been cheating, and begins making out with her pretty much instantly despite claiming to love his girlfriend. Though this film does seem biased towards males as it portrays them as clueless sex starved idiots whereas the females have more emotional depth. I liked J.K. Simmons’ character Mr. Wroblewski because he is utterly insane but at the same time is the only one who feels as if he really belongs in the movie as he doesn’t take himself seriously.

The tone is more confused than a transgender schizophrenic prostitute, take the fire at the bar for instance it’s done in a very B-movie over the top style which directly conflicts with emotional scenes such as when the parents’ of the victims see the bodies of their children or when Jennifer kills Chip. We are supposed to feel for the characters when they die, but since they have been comical characters until that point it is just not going to work, nobody sympathises with the clown.

Needy far too understands Jennifer’s transformation to be plausible, for most of the film she simply asks if Jennifer has made a faux pas along the lines of telling a joke about disabled people in front of somebody in a wheelchair. After Jennifer has offed (in more ways than one) several young men including Jonas, Colin and Chip Needy goes to put an end to the slayings by killing Jennifer but at no real point stops to ponder the fact that Jennifer is a fucking demon. I mean is Needy actually Buffy and are demons everyday occurrences in Devil’s Kettle?

Much of the acting is passable when you consider the script they had to work with, but Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried really excel. The chemistry between them is enough for Britain to invade on the grounds it could be considered as a WMD. Fox is incredibly sultry and believably evil while Seyfried provides more of the emotional side.

In conclusion Jennifer’s Body is dire, really dire. It tires too hard and doesn’t excel in any of the genres it covers. Cody clearly has a lot of ideas but completely fails in covering them with any real depth. If the whole film wasn’t banking on Megan’s sexual aura and its deep rooted lesbian connotations then I would have been kinder to it. But as it were I can’t really recommend this film to even my worst enemies though on the plus side at least you’ll forget it as soon as you leave the cinema. Throughout this review I was struggling to remember much of the film, bit like date rape I suppose…

The Beatles Rockband Review

2009-11-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

At this current moment in time I am avoiding DJ Hero as though it were the Minstead Rapist, as well as expressing only mild interest towards the gimmicky Lego Rockband and refusing to pay the Mount Everest style steep price tag of Band Hero which is ironic when you consider its soundtrack is made up of pop music possibly the cheapest genre known to man. So this leaves me with The Beatles Rock band, Harmonix latest attempt to milk us gullible cows dry until our teats shrivel but it was either this or play Singstar Takethat.

Everyone I know, and I mean everyone has recommended this game to me claiming it is a fun new way to enjoy the fab four’s music – well call me pretenious but if that were my motivation I would listen to the Beatles CDs that I already OWN while wrestling penguins in a container of grease, and not pay over £100 to pretend to play a small selection of their hits. Although in all fairness the game only cost me £30 as I cheated and used the Rock band 2 peripherals. The new guitar peripherals do look pretty but so did Ted Bundy, and since previous controllers work just as well the only purpose they serve is being a masturbatory aid for those who like the Beatles a bit too much. Also I find the band extremely overrated, because while in the 60’s they may have appeared to have descended from Heaven on a golden pissing chariot by today’s cruel standards they’re absolutely average at best. Anyway I’m not here to tell you why your taste in music is poor I’m here to judge the game.

Anyone who has played a Guitar Hero or Rockband game will know what to expect, for those that haven’t I shall explain all. The premise of the game is that you press the corresponding colour button in synch with the visual cues a task which becomes harder when they begin to appear faster and in greater numbers. The overall effect is that you simulate playing the guitar or even drums. If you opt to sing it’s the same premise as karaoke except you’re sober enough to feel the sting of humiliation. Usually the songs progressively become more complex until on the last set of songs you are strumming like a masturbator having an epileptic fit. That doesn’t really apply to this game because while some occasional songs seek to punish you with unholy ardour most require you to move your hands with the same level of urgency you would display when catching a dead moth in an oversized net. Plus the difficultly curve is way off kilter since the game follows the band’s career from start to finish and as such you may be strolling through easy county only to randomly encounter a ravenous beast that is difficult to master, though you shouldn’t meet the game over screen too often provided you can dress yourself, especially since it includes the fucking stupid No Fail option from Rock band 2.

There are very little differences between this and the regular Rock Band, with most just being aesthetic such as overdrive mode now named ‘Beatlemania’ something that I find repulsively fanboyish. You are no longer booed off stage for failing a song because I guess the players would find that too distressing, since to enjoy the music you really have to be so mellow you make Buddha seem aggressive. The whammy bar still fills up the overdrive gauge but it doesn’t have any audio affect strangely enough. An additional I did like (by which I mean I fucking hated) was the three part harmonies, because when I’m playing and some tone deaf berk is singing in my ear the first thought I have is “golly this could only get better if I could get more of my friends whaling!” In theory the other singers have to sing in harmony but they can still score points if they follow the lead’s pitch not much point there.

The soundtrack includes their most popular hits, and if your favourite song wasn’t included don’t worry as Harmonix are releasing the Beatles’ discography as downloadable content – the bane of my existence, with the proceeds going to charity so at least this highway man has a conscience. Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s lonely hearts club band have been released with Rubber soul on its merry way. Personally I’m glad they have included the only songs I really like in the actual game as I can’t be arsed with DLC. In case you were wondering the songs I like are – A hard day’s night, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, yellow submarine and Back in the U.S.S.R so Harmonix could have released a game with just those four songs on and I would be happy – mind you they would have still charged full price.

The modes are the typical bunch; story which is the career mode – this also includes challenges to unlock archive videos/photographs of the Beatles to help you on your path to complete fanboydom. Solo/Band Quickplay is probably the best mode as it allows you or your friends to get straight into the action minus all the foreplay. Tug of War allows two players to play alternating sections of the same song; where as Score duel has both players play the song simultaneously. Training modes are available for all the instruments.

Before I wrap things up I feel that I should give a quick mention to the games graphics which are quite simply amazing. The visuals are like Crysis raped Borderlands and produced a mutant offspring. At times the visuals can be hallucinogenic which doesn’t represent their drug fueled period. Honest. The interface also represents the period they are in so for example when you are playing Yellow Submarine little pink unicorns float about – or was that just me? Clearly many man hours have gone into making the game look like a pair of designer dog’s bollocks, which is a shame since you have to concentrate on hitting the notes and the visuals can only be truly appreciated by the loser who visits your house uninvited to watch you play games and eat all your Doritos.

In conclusion the masses are right by saying TBRB is a prime example of how mature and accessible games have become – something that angers me to admit. The only real issue is that it’s simply hard to justify paying full price for what is essentially a stripped down version of Rock band solely so your impoverished friends can enjoy Beatles songs, however pretty the visuals are. It really boils down to whether you are really into the fab four or don’t have the latest editions of either series – if so then get it otherwise I wouldn’t bother as you’ll feel robbed, bit ironic considering they’re from Liverpool...

Harper's Island Appendix

2009-11-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

*Spoiler Warning*

Since my review of Harper’s Island I have seen the final episodes which has altered my opinions somewhat. Thus there are a few points I would like to mention in this special appendix, but fret not as I promise after this I’ll never mention Harper’s Island’ again.

The characters seem as good a place to start. I originally saw the characters as unidentifiable Olympian beings with so many fatal flaw up the arse even their doctors are baffled. My opinion of them now is less mustard gas and more tear gas, as facing excruciating dissolution brings out their Human traits i.e. snivelling patheticness. Also knowing impending death is round the corner helped them to reach an anagnarisis making them bearable, only to die moments after reaching this epiphany. The writers even tried to characterise Wakefield by exploring his reasons for mass murder, which as you’ll imagine aren’t all that great. It worked as well as your typical chav. So just what were his reasons for his bestial behaviour? Incredulously his spree revolved around being betrayed by the love of his life (Abby’s mum). Obviously rather than cope with heartbreak by fucking a prostitute like the majority of middle aged men he decided slaughtering a truckload of halfwits would work better, and I could see his point as the spree appeared incredibly mirthful.

It was revealed that Wakefield had his own PA and those coked up writers tried to dupe us into thinking that it was Jimmy, but in order for this to work he had to act ludicrously dodgy by becoming prone to long mysterious disappearances and turning up after brutal slayings acting vague about his whereabouts. They must have confused that breezeblock Jimmy with Lord Lucan. It is the level of story telling I expect from Scooby Doo, which leads me to my ‘M. Night Shyamalan contrived twist of the decade award’, this accolade shall be awarded to the placebo brain who conceived the idea of Henry being the second killer; an unexpected twist admittedly if only because of how ridiculous it is. Henry’s modus operandi boils down to having dating skills that are inferior to even mine. As apparently he has loved Abby since childhood but after moving away it became hard to find a reason to ‘hang out’ with her so he created this elaborate wedding plot in order to kill everyone who close to Abby meaning they could be alone together. He would have had more luck using the ‘get in the van line’. You may ask why is he working with Wakefield to which I respond don’t bloody interrupt before going on to say because he is the son of Wakefield and Abby’s mum. Henry was secretly put up for adoption but once reunited father and son bonded over murder as Wakefield trained him as an apprentice ala Star Wars. So one wants revenge while the other wants his own half sister…

Henry kills his father in order to save Abby, and this lead to the worst aspect of his already dreadful plan – trying to create his own happy ending. He set fire to the town church with all the murdered individuals inside confident if they found Wakefield’s body the authorities would not bother to search the island – which they didn’t. This would allow him to live happily ever after with Abby provided the boisterous shrew stopped trying to escape every five minutes. Mind you using excessive force to detain your prisoner while in the same breath trying to convince them they are safe is going to teeter the situation to say the least. Inexplicably Jimmy was alive to use as a scapegoat in case the shit hit the fan, and it hit the fan - by the barrelful. Abby and Jimmy escaped and Henry trying to recapture her was slain. This of course allowed for the couple to sail off into the sunset in an ending that made me want to vomit into my own socks then bludgeon myself to death with the ensuing result. Am I surprised by the disgustingly happy ending? Of course not it is practically law for slashers to end in this manner but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

While I’m venting about the story I would like to point out the most utterly diabolical low point of the show. After spending 11 episodes being maimed by Wakefield the characters finally apprehend him, understandably you would expect them to execute him on the spot. But no, instead they capture and restrain him, and keep him captive in a cell – unguarded might I add. Anyone who is murdered after his inevitable escape doesn’t have my sympathy in fact it shows Darwin’s theories at work.

There were of course more problems which a greater man would simply write off as petty complaints, things I’ve already covered in my actual review but like an exotic rash have inflamed. The set pieces for example, I already mentioned they were quite detrimental but towards the end they take the biscuit and sell it back to you at a hyper inflated price. Guns begin to jam at key moments on a regular basis and a survivor will suddenly become a dead aim when presented with an opportunity to kill Wakefield. After the same two plot devices reiterate for the tenth time you can’t help but feel that even Michael Myers is rolling his eyes. I found the show to be three episodes too long as for the last three a decelerated game of cat and mouse plays out, and since it is obvious who is going to survive the experience becomes comparable to a psychic watching the entire Presidential election campaign. The writters kill Trish (Katie Cassidy) off who in my opinion was one of the few reasons to actually watch...

The plot became increasingly attenuate before trying to tie everything together in the last 10 minutes, making it as dishevelled as a bacchanal. At least the script is no better or worse which is something that I can be thankful for, but the finale just feels like it is in a rush to get finished and explain everything that pretty much bypasses everything else, like someone suffering from an unusual sexual disorder. Maybe the writers wanted to get back to their mountainous piles of cocaine. The slow build up leads to a frantic finish were the audience is left just as confused as that gormless bint Abby.

In conclusion it is an ill executed finale to a pretty decent series that will leave you dissatisfied and even cheated. Oh and Shea and her terminally creepy daughter Madison also survive thus proving that the make a wish foundation actually don’t grant wishes…

Wolfenstein (2009) Review

2009-11-06T05:47:00.000-08:00

Well surprise, bloody surprise my copy of Duke Nukem 3D which has been reliable for the ten years in my possession has broken midway through a reply/ So while scouring the depths of the internet for a new copy, that is reasonably priced might I add, I've decide to review a game I've found disdainful recently; the new Wolfenstein. But for me the experience wasn't difficult as it was a simple transition from a game about an oppressive blonde superman who enjoys killing things that are different to one featuring an entire nation of them.

Developed by several companies – Raven Software, id Software, Pi Studios and Endrant Studios you would have suspected the end result would be close to perfection especially with all the man power from prominent developers. But it was published by Activision who as we know refuse to put their name to a game unless it is a bag of steaming piss. The game was released in Europe on the 21st of August on the major formats – Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC, and uses a heavily modified version of the id Tech 4 engine which powered the once remarkable Doom3 and Quake 4. Interesting this will be one of the last games to utilise the engine which makes me feel sort of guilty for shit raking, but not enough to actually be nice.

The game is as you would imagine a FPS (First Person Shooter) and I’m sure in this day and age I don’t have to explain the term, but if you genuinely don’t know it is basically a ghetto version of a point and click game. The genre was popularised in the early nineties due to my all time favourite video game Wolfenstein 3D, which along with Half Life and Doom is one of the few games that I’ve given consistently high marks to; because how can I downgrade a game when the main antagonist is a power armoured Hitler. With this in mind I eagerly awaited the arrival of the comely Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2001. But it was revealed to be heinous and yet had managed to dupe everyone else into thinking it was a decent game. It felt like my father had been murdered right in front of me by my supposed best friend. Eight long hate filled years later I discovered Wolfenstein - the current addition in the series, and ignoring my cynicism I borrowed it off an acquaintance only to be punched in the pancreas for being so fucking stupid.

My angry stance spouts from the fact it has attempted to assimilate itself into the same mould as Halo and Half Life, i.e. a scripted shooter and is worse off for it because now it’s slower than the offspring of the degenerative swamp mutant and the hillbilly family dunce. Remember in 3D were you went round a town looking for work like some fucking migrant worker? Or when you stopped fight for a nice chinwag with the locals? Of course not because developers weren’t that idiotic back then. Imagine if you will, half way through Halo you were forced to work at McDonalds…mind you it would be less drudgerous. The developers wanted to follow the same pseudo horror tone as Return, rather than the anarchist Rambo fest of all Id’s games before they contacted a terminal case of stupidity. The thing is you can’t expect to create tension when the protagonist is the FPS equivalent of Ray Mears. And besides the only game capable of traumatising me would be Duke Nukem Forever if only for it actually being released.

Personally I feel Wolfenstein has been gallivanting with that dick Far Cry 2. They’re both FPS games set in warzones where you are ‘free’ to obtain objectives from the local factions who are distributing orders like they’re sodding herpes. Though at least in Wolfenstein travelling from A to B feels more like moving from the A to B sections in a music store as opposed to the travelling over the M6 on a bicycle with flats feel that Far Cry emulates. Both have utterly contrived weapon upgrading systems for the gamers who have an unreasonable gun fetish. Modifying the stats and capabilities probably won’t make an Earth shattering amount of difference since the majority of available weapons are authentically WW2 i.e. about as useful as arming a budgerigar with a Kalashnikov. The conventional firearms are rendered mute once you get weapons such as the Tesla cannon and particle beam because they will disintegrate the inglorious basterds, and anyone using a MP40 or a Karabiner 98k instead of one of these beauties through choice and preference should obviously be wearing a straight jacked. Finally lest we forget the gameplay for both consists entirely of murder and mindless destruction, so just an average night in Manchester in other words.

I said previously that you are free to collect objectives from the two factions; this is only partly true as the open world is more of an illusion. Sure you can explore to some degree and search secrets but other than that you game pretty much requires you to go where it wants. Think of it like this it is an open world in the same sense that 3D actually was 3D. And I don’t see why they even bothered to emulate an open world because players would have hardly sat there and gone “oooo a sandbox FPS how refreshingly original!” The game allows you to search for gold and tomes of power – to upgrade your equipment and veil powers respectively. You can also search for intelligence though I doubt you’ll find any in this game – sorry that had to be said. Intelligence actually provides some background for the story as well as unlocking the upgrades for the weapons.

Naturally the game’s story is supernatural but unlike 3D seems to take it seriously. Excuse me guys but we all know that despite dabbling in the occult the most abnormal element in the Nazi party was Hitler’s moustache. Unfortunately the game has left me wishing the Nazis had unleashed demonic hoards to eradicate western civilisation so that I wouldn't have had to play this dross. The game seems to have gone all Hollywood with nice fancy cut scenes and scripted events to get the story across – whilst the most sophisticated 3D ever got was the deathcam and that was perfectly fine. Though the recession must have obviously hit developers hard as they use cutscenes sparingly and opt instead to pad the story out using telegraph messages or via the aforementioned intelligence that's scattered throughout the game.

You reprise the role of B.J Blazkowicz the type of man who makes you wonder why nations need entire armies, who is sent to Isenstadt in Germany to investigate a mysterious energy source called Black Sun and prevent these rascally Nazis from utilizing it. B.J finds a mystical amulet called the Thule Medallion which allows him to exploit the black sun energy giving him arbitrary powers such as shield penetration, a protective shield and obviously bullet time making an appearance to abide by that unwritten law. Veil sight is the only one that serves a real purpose as it allows you to see beyond the veil of the material world to show which objects don’t actually exist meaning you can walk through a wall that had previously appeared solid. It also displays enemies’ vulnerabilities however we shall take a leaf out of the Germen’s book and not mention it. You can upgrade your powers on the black market but why exactly would you want to in a FPS? Unfortunately the game insists you use the force and has handily covered the environments in black sun recharge points – for a clear picture of just how many try to imagine pre-ripper Whitechapel and substitute prostitutes for recharge points.

"By God I'll make this neighbourhood respectable again..."

Veil sight isn’t just another visual display, when you actually use it you are transported to the Veil dimension; a barrier between our dimension and the "Black Sun" dimension. It is when you are in this veil that you get the benefits from veil sight, but you’ll also encounter beings known as Geist which are the single most annoying things in the entire game. They simply float dozily around being as docile as the average shopper during the January sales, and for the most part they will ignore you unless you ‘accidently’ annihilate one of their number or if they decide to live up to the German stereotype of being miserable dicks.

Wolfenstein manages some things competently – such as the graphics which quite frankly look like the whore’s drawers, which in case you were wondering is a good thing. You will be dragged through a variety of clichéd war time environments but take the time to stop and appreciate the surroundings if it is possible to go ten seconds without killing; though excluding the sewer level if only because that has now been used more times than any actual sewerage system on the planet. The characters are visually adequate (which is more than you can say for their personas), and the guns are well designed which will appeal to the gun nuts. The other thing the game does exceedingly well is the combat which should go without saying – there is no point in having a literary professor who is iliterate. It is very much like the classic Medal of Honour games in that respect, just with the intensity ramped up to 11. Objects that can be used as cover degrade during combat, grenades create debris and the gore has been ramped up past Saw levels, giving a sense of war is hell or in this case at least entertaining.

Unfortunately we won’t be ending on a positive note as I still need to discuss the multiplayer mode which they tacked on presumably to disguise the fact the single player campaign is shorter than 3D – I’m be flippant here but most modern games are over before you can plonk your fat arse on a chair. Why should the inclusion of multiplayer always make up for the short comings of the campaign? Not that this measly offering could appease even the most humble of multiplayer gods. I didn’t like the Return mod Enemy Territory so having less modes, player slots and forgetting to invite the party animal Mr Fun isn’t going to quite cut the metaphorical mustard. Plus there are only three classes which is a disgrace considering two of those are medic and engineer. The saying more is less isn’t a recommendation it is an oxymoron.

All in all Wolfenstein isn’t a bad game much rather it’s run of the mill. The only reason it would stand out is because of the lineage of the series, and the fact it is one of few WW2 shooters with a unique premise although that think tank is steadily stagnating. Competent, entertaining but you’ll forget about it as soon as you’re done. In lieu of a recommendation for the reader I will conclude by referring it to a concentration camp; so that it can concentrate on how to be a better game you judgemental people.

2 Extremists 1 Rant

2009-10-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

So the big news story of last week – Nick Griffin appearing on Question Time, the BBC’s flagship political show. The whole affair had a somewhat ironic undertone; anti-BNP protestors against the BNP’s fascist view imposing methods decided to impose their own views, the media disgusted at the BBC giving Nick Griffin a platform to put across his views expressed their outrage by ensuring the event had maximum exposure. Personally I’m glad that he was allowed on not least because it adheres to the whole point of a democracy but because it reinforced our perceptions of him – that he is an misinformed disgusting bigot with the same charisma levels as a rabid dog. And in the end it changed nothing we didn’t wake up the next morning only to discover we were now living in an ultra-right wing fascist regime, no more so than we are now.

Griffin throughout last week expressed smugness levels that only Simon Cowell could challenge, since he reckoned that this was the BBC’s gift to the BNP but I disagree. He was humiliated on a national scale – even if his party gains a few thousand more members the fact that his policies and his beliefs were rigorously exposed and jeered far outweighs this. The audience verbally ripped him a new one and his fellow panellists (not including that moron Jack Straw) ran rings around him. A little advice Mr Griffin when someone has video evidence of you making outrageous statements such as denying the holocaust unless you’re Shaggy it won’t work if you just deny it – instead claim it was your sinister twin brother, or that you have social faux pas disorder. Mind you it doesn’t matter what he says as he couldn’t be anymore hated even if he released a single with Crazy Frog which was about John Barrowman.

Some have said Griffin handled the situation well enough considering and to a certain extent this is true; he handled it like any racist being thrown into a crowd of ravenous non-racists. He simply kept nervously laughing and grinning like Muttly suffering from dementia. Throughout he exuded unholy amounts of sweat, was nervous and had a tendency to exacerbate any points he was making, it ironically seemed as though he was being questioned by the Gestapo. One thing I will begrudgingly say in his defence is that the other politicians from the three major parties (that’s Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats in case you’re thick or American) were constantly trying to use the ire against Nick Griffin to extenuate the mistakes made by their parties. Maybe if they had spent the time working on solutions to the multitude of issues plaguing the nation instead of extorting the tax payer and trying to find a scape goat for when it inevitably goes tits up we might not have found ourselves in this situation. But expecting a politician to be candid is like expecting Jason Voorhees not to appear in another ten sequels.

His own worst enemy is himself, his sordid racist past constantly came back to haunt him such as when the panel began asking him about his KKK leader friend, and to try and save face Griffin responded that his friend was always a non-violent KKK member. And for most of the show he had to sweepingly contradict himself with every statement because he couldn’t afford to admit to the claims he previously made even when the evidence slapped him in the face. As well as this there were times when his racist ideology seeped through the pores of his ‘respectable’ disguise, he would begin making an arguably valid point about immigration then he tangents expectorating statements about indigenous people and skin pigmentation. I was honestly half expecting him to unveil a new BNP policy on global warming which attributes it down to ethnics destroying the polar icecaps because they’re white. And he wonders why the audience inundated the room with bitterness.

I’ve always found it funny that the advocates of the idea of a master race are always psychically and intellectually inferior themselves. If there is really a race of Norse supermen I very much doubt they would include Nick griffin after all he is more Skeletor and we all know how he and He-man got on.

Now he has the audacity to claim the show was staged to be a lynch mob, though who really cares. Asking us to feel sorry for this vile man is like saying that would should sympathise with Josef Fritzl because he hasn’t received a father’s day card in the last two decades. But I think this shows that he doesn’t have a hope of getting into power because even Hitler had wide spread support, whereas Griffin is as popular as the rape scene from the Deliverance.

Elsewhere in extremist land Islamic fanatic Anjem Choudary has released on the Islam4UK website a series of badly photoshoped images of London to show how the capital would look under his rule. He apparently felt a responsibility which if you ask me is presumptuous to say the least, though he has displayed a distinct level of initiative that most city planners lack. And maybe when he is done he can give my house the makeover that it so desperately needs. The images show that changes would include the removal of Lord Nelson from his column and the transformation of Buckingham palace into a giant mosque.

Typically newspapers such as The Star went with its usually scaremongering rather than say that it is all deluded fantasy like playing Guitar Hero and imaging you’re not a loser. While all fanatics such as Choudary and Griffin can easily be pushed aside they can be damaging. For example monumental prats like Choudary tarnish the entire British Muslim community which helps fuel the BNP’s odious opinions. So Mr Choudary please go sit in the fucking corner while the adults speak.