Kah-thoo-loo

It should come as no surprise that I appreciate H.P. Lovecraft insofar as I've actually wanted to name a kitten Hastur, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is probably my personal favorite original Xbox game, and I enjoy the description of the midway boss fight of Dead Space (which I disliked immensely) being described as "being caught in a tumble dryer with a Shogoth" (-Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw c/o Zero Punctuation). So a number of years ago, I remember seeing a YouTube video which involved an oddly sexy looking Tori Spelling and the subject matter being turned into a feature film. While on one of my outings to the local Newbury Comics I found it on DVD, and despite being again hesitant to possibly buy drivel I found a way to watch it.

Cthulhu (2007) is loosely based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, which theoretically was based on my hometown of Gloucester, MA. The film was moved from New England to the Pacific Northwest, and instead of Innsmouth the town is called Rivermouth. The similarities between story and movie are a bit lost on me, as I have only read it once a pretty long time ago, but movies never hold true to the books accurately enough to please everyone. There were a lot of differences, to be sure, but I'm not sure if it effected my final opinion of the movie.

The main character is gay--something I'm sure they added to get some controversy or something. The main character's father is the leader of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, which is not necessarily the case in the story. There is a whole subplot of Tori Spelling trying to get this gay guy to knock her up to fulfill some rite of Dagon for the church or something. The biggest thing that irked me is that the Deep Ones weren't so much fish-frog men as the dead ancestors coming back from the sea. There were more differences, but, again, I don't think it impacted my opinion of it too greatly.

Directed and written by Dan Gildark with the help of Grant Cogswell, this seems to be their first effort in writing and directing or doing anything film related. For what it's worth, the directing was actually really good. There were dull moments, of course, but the movie as a whole was really well directed--to the point that I can't really say anything to critical about it as a whole. The writing was also pretty decent, despite some of the really bad actors who just did not know how to deliver lines they got to fill the smaller roles.

The main character is Russel Marsh as played by Jason Cottle who has a pretty uninspiring resume. Russel Marsh is called by his sister Dannie (Cara Buono) to tell him that his mother died and he has to go to the funeral. Dennis Kleinsmith who plays the father is like an American Patrick Stuart, which I enjoyed and definitely worked for the role of Priest of Dagon. Scott Green as Mike did a pretty good job, playing the straight love interest. Tori Spelling, as previously mentioned, plays a seductress who actually does a really good job despite that most days I think her face resembles a foot. Some of the actors though, like the estate lawyer and Dannie's husband were god awful and didn't belong on screen delivering even their very few lines.

Willy Greer did the music for Cthulhu, which was his first time composing for a film. The music worked really well with the film, as did the soundtrack of typical rock songs. The cinematography done by Sean Kirby added a lot of tension to the film as well, making it fit with Greer's compositions in an almost Sublime-esque way, without the killing the entire premise of the film a near hour before the ending.

The end of the film did feel a little weak for me, but at the same time it came off strong. I wasn't expecting anything worth savoring from this film, especially with first-timers taking some really important jobs and roles. Tori Spelling had the most full resume of anyone in the entire crew, and she was on 90210 because daddy wanted her to have a career. The movie honestly surprised me, and I'm glad I watched it. However, if you're looking for an accurate representation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, you should probably just play Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

I think the S stands for Something-kind-of-related-but-not-really

When I was in Boston the other day, I went into the two Newbury Comic stores in the area, because I like the chain as a whole, mostly. Mostly for their selection of DVDs, as it is still the only place I've seen carry Doctor Who, but for music and comics as well. While perusing the DVDs, I came across something I wasn't expecting. A straight-to-DVD release that I was aware was in the works, but hadn't known it had actually come out. What's odd is my roommate had mentioned the movie the night before, so I found it odd that I had found it. I didn't buy it, hell no. But I did find a way of viewing it nonetheless.

S. Darko (2009) is the "sequel" to the 2001 film Donnie Darko. The first film was a huge success among the high school crowd that I was a part of, and I was admittedly a fan of it. In recent years, I've found watching it to be a chore and explaining it even moreso of one. I was the first of my friends to decipher the incredible backwards-ness of the film, so I figured the sequel of S. Darko wouldn't leave me with a headache. For shame, having such high expectations.

Richard Kelly, the writer/director of the first film, had literally nothing to do with this bastardized sequel in which Chris Fisher directs with Nathan Atkins' screenplay through Samantha Darko, Donnie's little sister and her desire to get the hell out of Virginia. She has met with some hippie chick in a car that doesn't work and they're trecking it cross-country.

It's obvious that both Nathan Atkins and Chris Fisher have seen and enjoyed Donnie Darko, but they understood it about as much as everyone else on the planet who can't figure out time travel (I am not among those people, apparently). There are so many continuity issues it hurts. Why does Samantha have the Philosophy of Time Travel book? When Donnie Darko ended, it went back to the beginning, before the teacher had given him the book. The teacher and Donnie were having a really animated discussion about time travel, due to Frank's probing in his sleep-walking state. The teacher was also very hesitant about giving Donnie that book, so it's not as if he would just hand it over to his little sister with no initiation from manipulated dead to ask someone about time travel. Nor would Donnie have drawn Frank's face on the inside of it, because he wouldn't have hallucinated about him. The new version of The Last Unicorn that Samantha wrote in the first film was a nice touch, but I'm willing to bet that was a complete accident. Not to mention that it was featured in a 20-minute segment of the film that could have been removed entirely and the only difference in the movie would have been 20-minutes shorter and would have made a tiny bit more sense.

If you completely ignore the fact that Donnie Darko's name is right below the title of the movie and associate it with him, I still can't really see any good qualities of this movie. The directing was mediocre at best, with some good stolen shots and angles from the first movie. The writing was decent, but nothing too inspiring. The acting was, again, decent, but nothing special. The soundtrack, which was one of the first film's highlights, was nothing in comparison. Michael Andrews' music for Donnie Darko was creepy and hypnotising. Ed Harcourt's work on S. Darko, which he stupidly admits he tried to base partly on Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream soundtrack missed the mark entirely, losing the surreal feelings and just adding stupid sounds over things--including the ever-popular suspense of strings that happens whenever someone is about to creep across something spectacularly predictable. The 1990's music a la the 1980s music from the first flops even harder where the 80s rock from Donnie Darko was such a good part of the film.

There are some elements of the film that were really added just to make people interested and confused that had no plot points, no resolution, and should have been left out entirely. There is one character who develops a rash from a meteorite for no reason. You see a tesseracte, and the guy starts freaking about it like it's all a part of his plan. Tesseractes were featured greatly in books and movie about time travel, but this has NOTHING to do with the original plot of the movie which they were obviously trying to borrow from so stringently.

Richard Kelly said straight out that he hadn't read the script, had no part of the sequel, and never would. Good on you, sir. Atkins and Fisher should be ashamed. Although, I'm not entirely sure you shouldn't be for producing a film about Tucker Max.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

The Two Possible Ends of the World

I spent the day in Boston with my girlfriend yesterday. Apart from being goddamn exhausted from the train-switches from Revere to Harvard, walking around Harvard, walking to Newbury Street, walking to Downtown Crossing, going back to Harvard for dinner, and then making the subway trek back to Revere before driving my ass back to Salem, it was an entirely fantastical afternoon/evening. The evening, as mentioned, ended with dinner at a place that presumably stole their name from one of my favorite Robert Frost poems.

Fire and Ice is an "improvisational grill." This terminology worried me. Food should not be improv'd, unless you're lost in the woods or are really intoxicated and it's still only really acceptable if you're lost in the woods. But I was hungry, tired, and willing to try something new. A lot of my friends go there, but they tend to mention how it's a great place to go and drink yourself stupid, so I was never aware of the oddity of its serving practices.

The way things are done is you get a bowl and go through this buffet line. There are vegetables, meats, and all the fixin's for what you could want with it--and its all raw. The meat ranges from top sirloin to shark, pulled pork to bacon. There's cilantro, baby corn, carrots, potatoes, and salad pieces. Then, after strolling through the raw buffet, you pick your sauce, which is anything from spicy bourbon and barbecue and teriyaki to sweet and sour, thai, honey mustard. You get a little container of the sauce you want, or mix them if you're interested, and bring them to the giant grill top in the center of the restaurant. They cook all the food together, then add the sauce at the appropriate time, and then give it back to you and you eat it.

Now, there are flaws with the system, that since it is a buffet, all sorts of people are walking through the line of meats and picking some up, putting some back, and the idea of that sounds kind of gross. But the place itself was really atmospheric the food was really, really good. The red potato, top sirloin, pulled pork, and baby corn with a bit of bourbon sauce mixed with BBQ was near enough to the highlight of the entire day. And it's all-you-can-eat, so you can go up and fill another bowl of ingredients before paying the monstrous bill and leaving.

Ah, yes, the bill. This whole adventure costs $16.95 per person, plus the cost of a drink if you want one. I had gotten a Fire & Ice Tea, having wanted to drink from those Long Island lemons, and to be honest, it wasn't a very good Long Island Iced Tea. If I ever go back (which I would love to do, because the food really was awesome), I would do so on the college nights where for college students with a valid ID, the price is only $11.95. The full price meal, as good and interesting as the whole thing is, barely feels worth the near $20 price, because despite being all-you-can-eat, the bowls don't hold a lot of food, and it's all relatively filling food so you won't be going up more than two--maybe three times--if you're super hungry.

These places are popping up everywhere, it seems. The first one is in Cambridge (where I went), then some in Rhode Island, New York, Alabama, another one in Boston, California, and another one is on its way to Cali. If you find yourself near one and have a ton of money, I would seriously suggest taking the chance.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Tandem Fighting Reviews

I know I haven't updated a lot over the past month or two. I haven't had my chance to view/play/read/experience the things I've wanted to write about, so to make up for the lack of updates, I'm gonna review two games for you here.

So, while I was waiting for the inevitably awesome UFC 2009: Undisputed to come out, I needed to fill some of that custom-fighter-gaming need. As I work in a video game store, I had a lot to choose from. Being as I, in a former life, was very interested in wrestling and the games had entertained me as recently as two years ago, I decided to try out the new WWE game.

WWE Legends of Wrestlemania (2009) is the latest installment in the WWE franchise as made by THQ, which is funny, because it plays like the very first THQ wrestling game. The only buttons that do anything are the face buttons. The triggers, bumpers, and dual analog sticks do literally nothing special, as if I was playing this on the PlayStationOne again. Despite the antiquated control, the game was actually really fun. The importing of the roster of WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009 (including the Create-A-Superstar) adds a lot to the game in the way of entertainment and gameplay to the story-absent game. The Relive, Rewrite, and Redefine matches were all really fun, as are the Legend Killer gauntlets. I didn't have the game long enough to play online, but I'm sure the constant quick-time events with potentially laggy connections would suck pretty hard. Oh, yeah. All the finishers, irish whips and chain moves are done via quick time events. They get super old, but work relatively well. The game has literally no replay value as far as I could tell, but thats just the way it is, I guess.

So, that game was super fast. I got all the Xbox 360 achievements for it in a day without even trying. Then all I had to do was wait for the UFC game to come out, which finally did and I played literally for a week straight.

UFC 2009 Undisputed (2009) was first written about here when I played the SICK demo. Since then, I would just play the demo when I got bored, waiting for the chance to play the full game. So, the game was released at midnight at my store so when I got home from work, I played until about 6am. I created a character and brought him straight through career, making an undefeated muay thai knee-throwing jui jitsu submitting middleweight. Sick. Then, I made a knockout-artist kickboxer/wrestler heavyweight with thirty-three wins and only one loss. After the career, I brought him online and knocked out sixteen people, then went to my middleweight and submitted seventeen people, only losing six times along the way. Assholes still find a way to drop out when they're losing, mostly by signing out of their profile or just turning off their Xbox when they're about to get tapped, which generally ruins the fun for everyone, but they're not super frequent from what I've noticed.

The aforementioned career mode is pretty fun, starting with creating the fighter you want to proceed in a relatively in depth create mode--one of those ones that takes forever to get good at, but easy enough for anyone to mess around with--then playing roughly thirty-five fights before being forced to retire. In between each fight, you have a certain number of weeks to spar, train, and attend special events. Then the fight occurs, followed by you winning or losing any number of ways and repeat. Training raises your strength, speed, and cardio and sparring gives you points to add to any of your lets say several stats which include all forms and positions of striking offense and defense, plus grappling, takedown, and submission offenses and defenses. You meet the top ranked fighters along the way, fight them, and move up the ladder until you get the championship of whatever weight-class you're in and then defend the belt until the end.

Which brings me to one of my gripes about the game. Weight classes. I was looking forward to beating the hell out of Brock Lesnar as BJ Penn, because I figured it would be funny and Lesnar deserves to get beat by someone 100 lbs less than him, but there are no catchweight fights. You can online fight in one given weight class at a time. Some of the fighters are in two weight classes, but that's not really the same. It's a little problem, but something they should fix as you can play in cross-weight-class fights in things like Fight Night.

They have a classic fights mode, which I honestly haven't played yet, but the basic premise is the same as the Relive matches in WWE Legends of Wrestlemania and you have to exactly recreate the outcome of the matches, which I can imagine will get a bit frustrating as I have on several occassions accidentally knocked someone out or been knocked out when I was going for a submission or decision--especially when you have to win by one particular submission, like a rear-naked choke in the Griffin vs Rua fight that you can only do from one position that doesn't usually yield an actual win, even with huge ranks in submission offense. But whatever, I'm sure those matches will be fun to play eventually.

In the long run, I enjoy both games, but have only kept UFC and intend to keep it and continue playing it until I grow so bored of it that I can never watch another UFC match or until the next one come out, making it my sports game to buy every year like a stupid ass lemming. In other words, I'll be keeping the game.

In an unrelated review, I have the best girlfriend ever. She gave me Earthbound for the SNES. I'm going to play and review it eventually, depending how long it takes me. Sweet deal.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Fixed Steel

It's that time again, where I need to write about Fallout 3 again. New downloadable content, exclusive to the Xbox 360, and I am so happy I didn't get it for the PS3 despite the better graphics. So here it was, Broken Steel, the DLC that came after the at-first-glitchy Pitt, which was glitchy itself, but it was Microsoft's fault--screw them. So the game came out proper, and here's the review, then.

Fallout 3 no longer has that ending where once you beat the game it's over, kaput, and done with. Now you wake you "Two Weeks Later" and start three more quests. Only three. Three quests hardly seems like enough to take out what was left of the Enclave, but it did add a lot to the game, including seeing Liberty Prime do his thing again, breaking into the Presidential Metro beneath the White House, going to an Air Force Base, and raising the level cap to thirty.

The higher level cap is damn good, considering how easy it was to get to twenty but there is a problem, at least for me. I have done all the quests. All the main quests, side quests, DLC quests. So, at the beginnings of level twenty-seven the only thing I have to do to raise my level to thirty is wander around, collect the few things I can turn in for XP and kill things. And, as said in my other Fallout 3 review, I like achievements so the fact I can't get the last three because I can't raise my level without painful HOURS of walking around aimlessly in the Wasteland and shooting everything that moves in the face is aggravating to me.

But that's a minor problem. I could easily start a new game and get there, or just let my roommate do it. The new finale to the game is pretty awesome, and leaves you with a really good karma ending depending on what you do. More DLC has not been announced, but it has been speculated so here's looking forward to that.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Funny as in Hysterical as in Uncontrolable and Crazy

There was a movie trailer a while back that, at least to me, looked pretty cool. It was about two white-clad maybe-brothers who bust into a family's house and torture them. This sounds really cool to me, as I like movies of this kind. Of course, I don't go see many movies in theaters so I forgot about it, and then last week when I was at the mall with my friends who randomly brought up this trailer, I got kind of obsessed with finding out what the hell it was called. Everyone thought I was talking about The Strangers. It wasn't, obviously. Finally, my friend Josh reminded me that Tim Roth was in it. With the help of IMDB, it was easy to find after that.

Funny Games (2008) is apparently a near shot-for-shot remake of an Austrian movie from 1997. Hell if I knew, I just thought the trailer was cool enough to blow $20 on the DVD. My new roommates had moved in that same day, so we grabbed some drinks and sat down to watch what has garnered some very good and very bad reviews. Now, we had all been familiar with the title through previews and thought that it looked like a dark comedy. When the box hailed it as a "The most terrifying movie I've ever seen!" (Peter Eisenman, ICON) we were a little confused. But whatever, we all like horror movies, and we were even flipping through the movie channels and watching the abortion that was Saw IV for a while, so we obviously can handle gore. We didn't get anything we expected.

Written and directed by Michael Haneke who also wrote and directed the original is the person to thank for this movie. It opens with a fantastically directed cut-to-cut sequence of a family playing a pretentious game of "Name That Classical Music Piece" right before your ears and eyes are raped by Naked City's Bonehead and the title and opening credits are blasted across the happy family's faces in blaring red letters. This is where the tension starts.

Not long after the family gets to their vacation home, two similar looking polite guys in sterile white shirts, gloves, and golf shorts start acting very oddly. And this is the part where I love what happens: the tension builds until someone takes a golf club to the kneecap--but you don't actually see the golf club making contact. Nor do you see any of the brutality throughout the whole movie (save for one spoiler-ific moment, so I'm not writing it, but it's balls-tight). As my new roommate Nick said, it's like the best porn you've ever seen that has absolutely no nudity.

There really isn't too much I can say about the movie without giving everything away, other than the fact that the gore is kept to an absolute minimum, the directing is fantastic, the writing can't be beat, and even the character who keeps addressing the audience adds to the tension. And my god--the tension! The tension is so uncomfortable to sit through it's near unbearable. It is terrifying to sit through, and yes--I would say that it kills a little piece of you to sit through it all. But it is amazing and you owe it to yourself if you're a fan of horror whatsoever.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor