Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

Probably not. But too bad. You'll get one anyway.

So, earlier I was watching Aliens on AMC. Of course, Sigourney Weaver stars in the film as Ellen Ripley (one of the most badass action heroines ever). This is one of my favorite Action and Sci-Fi films of all time, so the main character's name is not exactly foreign to me. However, the entire time I was watching, I kept referring to Ripley in my mind as Scully. Yes, as in Dana Scully from the X-Files. It started bugging me because there's absolutely no connection between the two characters or even between Sigourney Weaver and Gillian Anderson that I know of. Then it started to become a bit clearer to me. The answer lied with Sigourney Weaver.

A couple of days ago AMC was showing Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2. Naturally, I watched at least bits and pieces of both and of course Sigourney Weaver is in both movies. Her character's name? Dana Barrett. AHA! The answer became very clear when I thought about watching Ghostbusters earlier this week.

For whatever odd reason, I was seeing Sigourney Weaver in Aliens and associating the face with the first name Dana which was causing my mind to go to Scully. Therefore, Ripley became Scully.

I just got back from checking out my first roller derby match. I must say, it was pretty damn cool. I had a lot of fun watching. It was just an exhibition tonight because the season doesn't start until February, but that didn't matter. Actually, I'm glad I was there because that's how I found out the season starts in February. Starting then I plan on going to most, if not all, the matches.

The match was being held at the Manslick Rollerdrome, which took me close to 45 minutes to find. Seriously. What should have been a roughly 15 minutes or less trip for me took me the better part of an hour to find. Why? Because online directions suck the world's largest, hairiest nutsack! Seriously! Mapquest and Google Maps? Yeah. You can both go fucking die in a fire and go to hell. As per usual, my iPhone totally saved the day. So go Otacon! I'm glad to know my phone lives up to its namesake. The problem getting there is that I have to eventually make my way to Manslick Rd. That's all well and good except for the road that I'm on prior to getting onto Manslick has two different turn offs at different parts for two different Manslick Roads. Seriously. There's one that goes left and then one much further down that goes to the right (this one the one I needed). I didn't expect to see two roads that are named the same. And yes, they are two different roads. The first Manslick Rd. eventually turns into St. Andrew's Church Rd. (I took this fucker all the way down until I had to turn onto something else). Anyway. I finally found somewhere I could stop, pulled out my iPhone, did a map search for the Rollerdrome address and finally figure out what I was doing wrong.

Quick note: Head Here for roller derby rules. I'll try to explain stuff as best I can, but the Wiki article does it better.

I got there about 15 minutes after the match started and at that point the first half was almost over since they were just doing two 20 minute periods for the exhibition. It was cool, though. I saw the end of the first half and quickly decided that the Cougars were going to be my team to root for over the Snowflakes. This was largely due to the fact that Slamus Aran was playing tonight for the Cougars. Any derby girl who names herself after the first major heroine in video gaming is aces in my book. Sadly, the match was pretty one sided. The Cougars were pretty much dominating the entire match, however, some of the girls who were jamming for the Snowflakes were impressive to watch skate. Quick note: Jammers are the girls on each team who score points. At one point like three members of the Cougars (including their jammer) wound up in the penalty box. The Cougars wound up winning 99 to 68, if I remember correctly.

The commentators for the match were great to listen to. I'd imagine these two guys probably do radio work or something given their voices. They were informative and entertaining and it was always fun during each jam whenever the lead jammer was established (the first of the two jammers to get through the pack) the commentators would yell into the mic, " IS YOUR LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAD JAMMER!" It's kinda goofy, but it helps get the crowd going and into the match. The more I heard it the more I found myself saying along with them in my head.

It was loads of fun and I'm anxiously awaiting the real season in February. Fun fact: this will be the fourth season for the Derby City Roller Girls. And of course, I bought a t-shirt. Because I can't do anything like this without doing so. Totally fun to watch and I recommend anyone checking their area for a local derby league and giving it a watch.

I went this afternoon to see Paranormal Activity. It started playing here this weekend. It's been out for a couple of weeks or so, slowly creeping across all over America as it builds a head of steam fueled by pretty positive press and word of mouth.

( Let's not piss this thing off. )

Uncharted 2 came out today. First thing I did after work was run over to Best Buy to get a copy. And then fate intervened and prevented me from playing for another three or so hours. However, once I started, I didn't stop for close to four hours. It's a very good sign when a game draws me in like that. Rarely can I sit for more than an hour or two at the most when gaming. I'm not too far into the game yet. I'm ended for the evening at the start of Chapter 7, which was a good spot to end, IMO.

The opening bit of the game is beautiful and ridiculously tense. Once the story really gets going, things just don't let up. At all. But this is not a bad thing.

A few small gameplay tweaks have been made that, in my opinion, improve the experience tremendously. A lot of this comes in the form of how all the climbing and monkeying about are handled. Plus there's new stuff to do with the climbing, so that's good.

The gunplay is largely the same, with one massive improvement. You no longer use the godforsaken Sixaxis to control grenade trajectory. That was one of the biggest pains in the first game. There are some new guns to play with, along with plenty of favorites from the first game. They also added a bit more to the hand-to-hand combat, which is pretty nice. Especially for me because I always enjoyed getting a little up close and personal with some of the enemies.

Propane tanks will become your best friend.

The dialogue in the game, at least so far, is wonderful. There's a lot more banter back and forth between characters and a lot of it had me laughing my ass off. Speaking of asses, my favorite line so far is Nate telling Sully what a nice ass he's got.

Did I mention how gorgeous the games looks? Yeah. The first game was pretty impressive when it came out a couple of years ago. Aside from Metal Gear Solid 4, it was probably the nicest looking title on the PS3. Yeah. Uncharted 2 makes it look like crap. The environments are more detailed, the character models are VASTLY improved, which is really saying a lot since they looked very good in the first game. But it's lots of little things, almost minute at times.

I honestly couldn't be happier with this game so far. This is the game I've been looking forward to for the fall gaming season (yep, fall is the big gaming season, much like summer for movies).

I'm sure I'll have plenty to say once I've finished the game. Thankfully, though, I'm beyond pleased so far.

Woo! I totally just created a fake Japanese PSN account so I can download Japanese game demos. Why? Simple.

Japan got a Bayonetta demo this week! The game doesn't hit America until January, which means we have to wait until at least December to play a demo for it. I'm impatient. Plus, I'm really dying to try this game out and see if all the fanservice will be worth the money when it does come out.

EDIT: Just finished playing some of the demo. I died on a rather ginormous boss that sort of kicked my ass. I have to say, though, that so far I'm really digging Bayonetta. The combat is really fast and frantic and fun. There are tons of combos to pull off and a lot of them just look really cool. Also, there was one attack where she basically hops onto a giant polearm weapon dropped by a dead enemy and starts doing a stripper pole spin of death. It's awesome. The torture attacks are pretty sweet, too. I only got to see one of them, but basically Bayonetta causes a guillotine to appear, stuffs the enemy into it and just lops its head off. Should I mention that the enemies in this are angels? Though, they are very bird-like. It's interesting.

My biggest complaint is the camera. The camera itself works fine. But the control of it is way too slow for my tastes. It can make it hard to find a good angle during a fight, which is a pretty important thing for me in a third person action game.

Oh, and I know I probably deserve to turn in my man card for saying this, but I really love the fact that every time Bayonetta lands from a jump, these little purple butterflies materialize and fly off. It's a nice touch. Sort of adds to the whole magic/witch aspect of her character.

I think I could see myself picking this one up when it hits in a few months.

Here. Have the latest trailer that was shown off at TGS:

Resident Evil 5: Alternative Edition. It looks to be a playable version of the events involving Chris and Jill leading up to the story in RE5. This could be a pretty fun side-story sort of thing. Oh, and be sure to watch the trailer until the end for THE GREATEST COMMENTARY ON THE RESIDENT EVIL FRANCHISE EVER! Seriously.

Quickie video of the new apartment taken much earlier today. There's quite a bit more here now.

I had no real desire to play DJ Hero, despite Daft Punk (one of my favorite music duos of all time) being included. And then this little trailer comes out.

Daft Punk + Queen = Me fangasming all over the place.



If this trailer is any indication as to what could come from a Daft Punk/Queen mashup album then my inner music geek could die happy. I know that will never happen, but even the prospect of one song like that just might have sold me on this game.

This video totally made my morning. Spoony as a Black Lantern = Total Win!

I won't lie. I'd damn near kill to be in Japan in December when these two movies start.

One Piece: Strongest World


Kamen Rider Decade the Movie: Decade VS All Riders

Why? Doug is reviewing a Uwe Boll film, specifically Alone in the Dark. What's better? He's doing so with the help of Spoony and Linkara! Can this get any better? No. No it can't.

So, with little else to do this evening, I found myself watching Ghost Rider on FX. I'd seen the movie before whenever it hit DVD a couple of years ago. I can largely understand why this movie was treated so poorly by critics and fans alike. It's not very good. The writing, the acting, the direction and the effects are largely all subpar. In reality, it's a pretty typical comic book flick. Very few really surpass those various complaints I just mentioned. That being said, I still sort of enjoy this movie. I count this as one of those bad movies that I find enjoyable from time to time. But what really makes it enjoyable for me is Sam Elliot. In this movie, Elliot plays the original Ghost Rider, Carter Slade. Slade was the first Ghost Rider and is Johnny Blaze's (Nick Cage) predecessor, and pseudo-mentor, in this movie.

I won't call Sam Elliot a very varied actor. He's largely only ever used to play Western-style characters, but he's very good at it. I don't know what it is about him, but any time I see him on screen I'm glued.

But I mostly made this entry so I could share my favorite Sam Elliot moment from Ghost Rider...which is probably also the best scene in the movie. Here we have both Johnny Blaze and Carter Slade riding side by side while the song "Ghost Riders in the Sky" is playing in the background. This is one of few bright spots in an otherwise very dull movie.

I just watched the first episode of the new Kamen Rider series, and I'm not terribly impressed. Honestly speaking, it looks like and feels a lot more like a sentai series to me than a Kamen Rider series. I know I'll watch this again after either NTN or TVN subs it so I can getter the finer details of the story, but I'm not sure that will help.

My biggest problem with this is what's largely been my biggest problem with sentai in recent years, and it's the amount of crap in that can be turned into a toy. Yes, I know both Kamen Rider and sentai are series that are made for kids no older than like 10 years old. Obviously, kids are going to watch the shows and want toys from them. I get that. But it's a bit annoying when my enjoyment of the show gets impeded by seeing so many things on screen that will have at least some sort of plastic counterpart. Honestly, this is the first Kamen Rider series I've had that problem with. While there have been tons of toys for most series in the Heisei-era, that thought never crossed my mind when I was watching these other shows.

And I won't lie, I'm still sort of annoyed about the shit that was pulled for the Kamen Rider Decade "finale" last week. Yeah, that's great. End the show on a cliffhanger that won't be tied up until a movie that comes out in Japanese theatres in December. Obviously, I'm pissed because I'm not Japan, which means I have to wait a few extra months for the movie to hit DVD/BD to see it. However, I really did try to keep that out of my mind while watching the first episode of Kamen Rider W.

Anyway. I'll give this one a few more episodes to try and grow on me. I'll try to give it the benefit of the doubt.

I picked up a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum for the PS3 over the weekend. I played a bit yesterday and played for a few hours tonight. Everything I thought about the game regarding the demo still stands. So far, this is an excellent game (I'm only about 12% done, apparently). The characters all feel spot on (except Gordon, but I'll get to that in a sec), which is no doubt in part to numerous actors from Batman the Animated Series reprising their roles here (Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hammil as the Joker, etc.). The writing and story are solid and it feels like a Batman story. The basic premise deals with the Joker letting Batman capture him so he can be taken to Arkham Aslyum, only so he can run amok and take over Arkham. Lots of Batman's rogues make appearances in this, and those who are missing pop up as easter eggs and what not.

One of my two biggest complaints thus far are general reuse of character models for the Arkahm guards. They don't all look alike, but you'll run into enough who do that you wonder if Arkham felt the need to employee octuplets or something. My other complaint is Commissioner Gordon. Gordon is my third favorite Batman character (behind Dick Grayson preferably as Nightwing, and Tim Drake in the role of Robin....yeah, Batman clocks in at number four behind Gordon). My problem has to do with both Gordon's character model and his voice. Gordon looks way too beefy to me. He should be a bit on the leaner side. And his voice, sadly, goes with this character model. It's very gruff and scratchy for my tastes. *shrug* Oh well. I'm still glad he's part of the game and the first few hours worth actually deal quite a bit with Gordon. Speaking of the Gordon family, Barbara is in the game, too, as Oracle supplying Batman with all the various bits of information he might need to know.

Let me run down a quick list of highlights from the earlier bits of the game (very minor spoilers):

=You enter an area in the Asylum where you get hit with Scarecrow's fear toxin. I won't lie, this section had me pretty freaked out. With the right atmosphere to play in, this can get pretty freaky. Also, it's a really great section of the game to play. My favorite so far.

=Your first real boss fight is with Bane. Yeah. The throw the big dogs at you first. This is a very fun fight and has an excellent ending. I loved it. Oh, and I'd actually recommend letting Bane kill you just once during this fight. Why? The cut scene that follows is priceless and a wonderful nod to the Knightfall story.

=Solving the Riddler's riddles. The Riddler has set up all sorts of great little puzzles and trophies and easter eggs for you to solve and find in this game. It's great! Some of the riddles take a fair amount of work to solve. I dig this aspect of the game.

=Mark Hammil back as the Joker. This man is THE Joker as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, Ledger gave a great performance in The Dark Knight, blah, blah, blah. That's all well and good. Don't care. Give me Mark Hammil any day of the week in this role. He's perfect.

I guess that's all I've really got right now. Seriously, if you have a PS3 or Xbox 360, I highly recommend getting this game. You'll be doing yourself a disservice by not doing so.

And yes, the subject line for this post is actually taken from a line in the game. Scary, no?

I'm going to have to watch this again, along with the first again, so I can write a real review. However, I will say this:

I NEED to see the third film! Like, right now. Seriously. Having to wait for that one to hit DVD/BD so I can get it fansubbed is going to be a pain in the ass (and yes, I'm more than well aware I could just read the manga).

Oh, both Kanna and Otcho are total badasses. I definitely heart them both.

I'd actually consider jailbreaking my iPhone for this mod.

I know I promised my Ponyo review would be up earlier this week. The reason I haven't posted it is because I don't really have much to say about, quite frankly. It just is what it is. For those curious, though, here's what I've had written since Monday night with an added ending to at least make it feel like something of a complete thought.

( Fishie in the sea )

First things first. One of my favorite fictional characters has died, and I'm very saddened by this. Volume 12 of Fables was released last week and I found a copy of it this past weekend. Fables is easily one of the best comics available today and probably resides somewhere in my top five favorite comic series of all time. While I know the issues that comprise volume 12 have been available for some time and this is no recent event, I am sad to say that my second favorite character in the series, Boy Blue (second only to Bigby Wolf) died in this volume. It was fun to watch him throughout the series thus far going from a major minor character to almost as much of a badass as Bigby. I still love Fables as a book, but I'm very sorry to see one of my favorites go. Despite Blue's death, volume 12 was an excellent entry into the series and the couple of story arcs contained within probably make it one of my favorites in the series (up there with volume 4).

With that out of the way, let's get to some movies. Yesterday afternoon I went to see District 9 and this afternoon I went to see Ponyo. One of these I went into spoiled by a co-worker, the other I went into virtually blind. Let's get to it!

( Alien Apartheid )

I was working on a review of Ponyo (the most recent Miyazaki flick) to include tonight as well, but I need more time to mull the movie over. Also, I'm starting to get incredibly tired and I'm not thinking too clearly write now and not terribly happy with the last paragraph or two that I wrote for it. Nothing's really coming to me right now. I'll hold it off for tomorrow when I've got more time and hopefully a bit more rest...though I should have been in bed about an hour ago at this point. Anyway. I'll try that one again tomorrow and we'll see what happens then.

I saw District 9 earlier this evening. I'll try to get some thoughts and all up tomorrow since it's already pretty late.

But while there, I saw something that has always puzzled me when going to movies. Why is it that so many guys who go to see a movie together feel the need to have a seat in between them? In all the times I've seen people do that, I've never really understood. Made me think of a conversation I had last night with beimprobable about why guys are so homophobic.

Anyway.

Okay. I had originally planned for this to be a video review. Seriously. I was going to rip off Spoony's concept of basically just sitting in front of the camera and talking for 20 or 30 minutes about whatever came to mind. I can't, however. My camera isn't working anymore. Lens won't pick up any sort of video at all. Granted, it's been a little while since I last used it for anything, but I'm a bit miffed at this. So now I'm looking into buying a new camera for that sort of thing.

Anyway. ( Knowing is half the battle! )

BTW. I highly recommend everyone check out GI Joe Resolute (link goes to YouTube page w/the whole series). It was a new, short animated series that was produced earlier this year and aired on AdultSwim.com and then Adult Swim. It's really very good and shows you what relatively comic accurate animated GI Joe can be all about.