Movies: We're Back

I’ve heard a lot about 007. Good old James Bond. Last Friday I went to see it in theaters, and I have to admit—it was a big event for me. My first 007 in the theatre. I haven’t really seen much of the famous spy, but I figured it was a good place to start (especially since Lincoln wasn’t out yet). I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a rough-and-tumble action sort of guy when it comes to my preferred types of movies. Normally I’m more of a comedy man, but 007 caught my eye (and my friends insisted).

Skyfall starts with Bond on a mission to recover a hard drive with some information about spies in secret agencies encrypted onto it. Failing to recover this data, and in a horrible accident, Bond is shot while riding on a train and falls into a river (hence, a cliché reference to the name, but not the true reason for the title). Bond, a couple of months later, comes back into the scene again after MI6 is attacked by a terrorist organization, and soon finds himself embroiled in international spy warfare once again.

Seeing that I have no background on Bond except for my small memories of some classics and what I know from the parodies that Austin Powers left me with, this is a really broken Bond. I kind of remember seeing Bond as the perfect guy—this one is almost defeated, weaker… not perfect. He’s real. This lends a lot more feelings to the story, especially since the franchise is 50 years old now, and needs something to keep it going. Daniel Craig proves how smooth, and chunk he can be. However, I will say that there is a noticeable lack of gadgets, which although saddening, is much more real. I gave Bond a 8.25/10. Not the best movie I ever saw, but certainly entertaining, and a fairly nice plot for an action-y movie.

--Santa

PS: Coming up soon will be some new posts. Expect some LoL news, a bit of talking on Saxxy’s, and of course, Halo 4.

In Bravery We Trust

So, I didn't make that post for day 3 of Meet the Pyro, I'll be honest, I think everyone was too busy trying to be that lucky guy crafting that new hat, and it wasn’t me. I did make a last breath, and some other cool goodies though, which almost mate up for the huge amount of money I spent crafting. I even crafter together genuine hats. That’s how bad it got. In any case, I have decided to give up crafting… until the next major update. However, this did not stop me from unboxing, and ended up getting the Bird Man, the Ushanka and, an Infernal Orchestrinal. So, it hasn’t been too bad, but I still have to sell all of these items, and to make it all better, I found a Killer Exclusive yesterday; I guess things are starting to turn around.

But enough about TF2 for now, let’s talk about movies! I’m pretty cheap so I don’t tend to go to movies I don’t think I’ll like, but I always have one major exception for Pixar movies—I haven’t missed one in theatres since Toy Story 2. I don’t know why it is, but I love Pixar, I still hold that Up and Toy Story 3 are probably some of the best movies of all time, and this means I went to see Brave.

This isn’t to say that I was automatically thinking Brave was going to be bad, I thought Up would possibly be bad, and I had to go flail myself for thinking such things of Pixar. However, I was wary. I hold that Pixar has never made a bad movie, but Cars 2 came close. Cars 2, I feel was a Disney ploy to make more money off of the Cars franchise, since for whatever reason, Cars toys sell so well to kids. I thought that Brave was giving off the same Disney Princess vibe, and I have to say, it scared me to think Pixar may have been selling out to their evil corporate overlords.

So, going into the theater for Brave with my brother, I went to get the snacks (since he gets to refill them during the movie since I’m quite lazy) and where does he decide to sit? In between a full row of children, with just one seat left for me. I’m not a small guy, so when they see this 7’24” behemoth coming to sit down, I think I scared some of them. I got those looks from their parents that told me that they thought I was nothing, and what was this big guy doing at a little girls’ movie? But, I have no pride, and don’t care, and I hunkered down for the movie, shoving my mouth with the salty mess we refer to as popcorn.

Brave is a movie that takes place in Medieval Scotland, with the protagonist, Merida, a Scottish princess about to be married off to one of the members of the clan. She doesn’t want this, and of course, with the queen (her mother) behind all of the planning in this case, she has to come up with some way to change her mind. When she stumbles across a witch who gives her a spell to change her mom, the story kicks off in an unexpected adventure. Riveted with a beautiful landscape, wonder character animation, great voice actors and a plot that ties together fairly well, Brave is a good movie. The only thing that lets it down, like almost every other movie, is how it ends. I personally feel that Brave could have had a stronger ending, and that Pixar just… left it there. It works, but I expect more from the animation giant. They make a movie per year, they can do I bit better I feel.

Overall score: 8/10

Brave is not Pixar’s crowning achievement, but it’s still a nice piece of work. If you’re into the whole fairy tale stuff and love pretty, tom boy princesses, then this is the story for you. I think this is one I’ll pass on, it’s just not my normal piece of pie, but Pixar still makes it in a way that everyone from little girls, to their parents, to a big gamer like me can enjoy such a normally niche story.

--Santa

Movies: I'm Hungry

Since Valve and Riot refuse to make any updates for their respective games, I've had to be more creative on what to entertain you kids about, so I thought of something I did a couple months ago, when I saw Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows back when it had just come out, so I thought back, and realized I saw The Hunger Games about a week ago, so I figured, why not put up my thoughts on that?

I know that this movie has been really quite popular, just another case of how Hollywood likes to cash in on poor, defenseless movies, and turn them into juggernauts, and put enough hype onto it that everyone, including people who didn't read the book, will want to come see it. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't a good strategy; Hollywood loves to make exorbitant amounts of money on books that are somewhat popular, look at what Brad Pitt's doing to World War-Z. Horrible. A love story with zombies in it? Come on, I don't know whether or not to be more disappointed that Max Brooks would allow it to happen, or that people will go see it. I will, just for the principle of reviewing, don't judge me.

So I don't spoil the story for the 15% of you out there who haven't seen it yet, here’s a synopsis:

"Based in a post-apocalyptic United States, now known as Panem, the Hunger Games follows Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers her district (district 12 out of the total of 13. District 13 however, was destroyed, after resisting the might of the Capital) after her sister gets chosen to be a tribute, to save her. As a tribute, she must go up against 2 kids from every other district in a bloody battle to the death, nationally televised, in a sadistic way of saying "We still have lost of power over you" by the Capital."

Now, for everyone else who is a man and saw it, hit the page break for our continued, interesting discussion on characters.