Machete Review

Four years ago, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino released their Grindhouse double feature (Planet Terror and Death Proof, respectively). In between the two films were fake trailers: Werewolf Women of the S.S. from Rob Zombie, Don't from Edgar Wright, Thanksgiving from Eli Roth, and arguably the best of the bunch, Machete from Rodriguez. Well, four years later, the trailer isn't so fake after all, as Rodriguez has turned Machete into a full feature, with parts of the original trailer in tact. Should this outlandish concept of a film have stayed as a fake trailer? Or was this expansion worth it after all?

Machete is at heart an exploitation film, and if you get that going into it then you're going to have a blast. The film opens when our titular anti-hero and federale (Danny Trejo) answers a distress call and creates a bloody mess with his favorite blade, before getting set up and having his family murdered before his eyes by a drug-lord named Torrez (Steven Seagal, who is the most unconvincing Latino I have ever seen). Three years later, he's working as a day laborer when he is picked up for an assassination mission by a Senator's aide (Jeff Fahey, a.k.a. Frank Lapidus!!) who is unaware of Machete's past; leading to double crossing to an epic scale.

If you've ever seen an exploitation film, whether it be blaxploitation, mexploitation, whatever, it should be noted that you should never actually take the film seriously. Sure, there might be an underlying political message, that's not unusual, but as long as you know it's ridiculous it's great. It's interesting how a lot of elements from the original fake trailer are still in tact with the full feature. Some parts are obviously re-shot because of actor changes, but overall the film still feels like what the fake trailer promised four years ago, so it's a pretty cool transition.

I was a little worried that because Danny Trejo has always just played bit parts in various films that he wouldn't be able to pull off a leading role, but for the most part he was great. He's very silent in the classic western type, but when he has something to say he's awesome; and when he's slashing away and using intestines as rope he's even more awesome! As for the rest, Robert De Niro and Cheech Maron were pretty funny, Steven Seagal and Don Johnson just look fat and awkward, and Linsday Lohan was in it far more than I expected. As the leading ladies, Jessica Alba and Michele Rodriguez, both played their characters fairly well, although I could never take either of them seriously; and Alba's "We didn't cross the border, the border cross us!" speech was just awful on so many levels... at least they both looked good?

Overall, Machete is a pretty awesome film and will have you laughing quite a bit if over-the-top ridiculous violence is your thing. Some parts are a little slow and boring, basically the non-Machete parts, but that's also what makes his scenes all the more better. I'm surprised the transfer from fake trailer to feature film worked out so well, and I wish Rodriguez had more fun, adult-oriented films like this; it's still amazes me that the same guy who made Sin City, Planet Terror and Machete, can go and make 3 Spy Kids films and crap like Shorts. Regardless, when he's good, he's good and you should totally go see this film.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Viewing Suggestion: See this in theaters with your friends, then go watch Black Dynamite right after. And keep away from The Expendables; get that CGI blood crap out of here...

Metroid: Other M Review

I would like to start of by saying that I had high hopes for Metroid: Other M. It's been far to long since we've had a good Metroid title, and Other M's mix between 2D, 3D, and first person shooter seemed like it had a lot of potential. On that note, I would like to say that I was not disappointed by Other M, but at the same time the game did not meet my expectations.

Other M begins with the ending scene from Super Metroid, which admittedly is pretty damn cool. Seeing one of the greatest endings in video game history come to life in full-on 3D immediately gets you hyped to play this game. Unfortunately, immediately following this cut-scene is a tutorial on the games controls, which is where the problems begin. At this point you will have realized that the game is controlled by a single Wiimote. At first this was fine, everything was going swimmingly. Then first person mode is introduced. I immediately began to see problems, the biggest one being that fact that without a nunchuck it is impossible for you to move your character while in first person mode, and lets not forget that the only time you can use missiles is while in first person mode, meaning that the game literally forces you to use it when fighting a boss, or simply a strong enemy.

Notice how above I said "a boss or a strong enemy", well this is where my next problem with the game comes in. Usually you are simply fighting bats, or small rodents, that are easily killed with a shot or two from your cannon, but occasionally you will come across a stronger enemy, almost like a mini boss, which I could not stand. Nine times out of ten I found myself dying on these mini bosses more so than I did on the actual bosses. The biggest problem with the mini bosses was the fact there was always a specific way you needed to kill them, otherwise they would simply stay alive forever. Sometimes you would need to jump on there head, other times you would need to shoot them in a weak spot, perhaps you would need to go first person and fire a missile at them, or maybe you needed to do all three of these in a specific order before the mini boss would finally go down. It may not sound that difficult, but you need to keep in mind that these bosses would deal and overly powerful amount of damage (usually 40-60 points of damage), and they constantly stuck you in a 2-3 hit combo that you simply could not escape, and 90% of the time the doors to the room would lock until you had beaten this monster.

Which leads me to my next, and final, complaint about Other M. When I think Metroid I think of a few very simple things:

1) Exploring a deserted and unknown planet somewhere in the depths of the galaxy that contains...

2) Gigantic bosses that are guarding a wonder prize that is an...

3) Awesome power-up, sometimes old, and sometimes new.

Sadly, Other M disappointed me in all three of these areas. Throughout the course of the game you are taking orders from captain Adam Malkovich, he tells you exactly where to go, and exactly what weapons or power-ups you can use. With that I would like to thank everyone who ever complained about how "Samus always loses her powers at the beginning of every game", now I can only assume it is because of those people that Team Ninja decided they should switch it up. So, all you complainers, you got your wish. Samus starts with all of her powers from Super Metroid, but she decides not to use them until Adam tells her she can. This means that you will do exactly what Adam tells you to do, go exactly where Adam tells you to go, eventually fight a boss in these areas, and... receive absolutely nothing after defeating the boss. Now, I will admit that usually Adam gives you a new power-up while you are fighting a boss, but it doesn't have nearly the same effect as the classic Metroid style. The entire game I felt like I was accomplishing nothing, and that defeating the random bosses was completely pointless.

I realize that up until now I have basically done nothing but complained about what was wrong with Other M, but now that I have gotten all of that rotten stuff out of the way, I can focus on the things that I truly enjoyed about the game. The first thing that I would like to focus on would be the story.

I truly did enjoy the story of Other M, it was really what kept me going. Throughout the game you will find out a bit about Samus' past, why she quit the Galactic Federation to become a bounty hunter, and my personal favorite: How Ridley continues to re-appear in every game. That's right, as far as the story goes, Team Ninja definitely did their homework, and it certainly shows.

Another thing that I enjoyed was the battle system. I know that this is odd for me to say, considering that I was complaining about it earlier, but earlier was me complaining more about how over powered the mini bosses seemed to be. In the end the only problem I really have about the battle system is the fact that you can't move once you have entered first person mode. Other than that I liked how they went about handling the battle system, I enjoyed the way they allow you to dodge oncoming attacks, I enjoyed how fast paced the game was, but the thing I enjoyed most of all was jamming my cannon into a monster's skull, throat, or gut and firing a charge beam. It truly is a good feeling, especially if it's against a mini boss that has killed you 5 times.

Continuing with the three ideal things that each Metroid game should have, Other M was rather disappointing when it came to exploring and power-ups; though it did have a good amount of gigantic bosses that you needed to face. And on top of that, there were also a few recognizable faces among the bosses. Ridley being one of them, of course, but there was also an appearance of another Queen Metroid, just like the one you fought in Metroid II. Another familiar face is Nightmare, the gravity controlling monster that was first seen in Metroid Fusion (which takes place after this game).

All-in-all I think that the biggest problem with Metroid: Other M is simply the fact that it is a Metroid game. If it was a game that had no connection to the Metroid series whatsoever, like a new project from Nintendo and Team Ninja, I think I would have enjoyed it more, but the game truly just didn't have a Metroid feel to it. Still, if you're a die-hard Metroid fan like myself, and want to collect all the games, then you will not regret buying it. If not, then Other M is definitely worth a rent; you'll probably end up liking the game much more than I did because you won't be judging it against the other Metroid games.

Overall Score: 7.6/10

This Week in Futurama - 9/2/10

I may have just posted last week's review yesterday, but the season finale of Futurama's first regular season back since its cancellation is here, and it's time to write this review on time.

Episode 12 - "The Mutants Are Revolting"

Not only was this the first season finale for Futurama since their cancellation, but it's also the series 100th episode! And because of this, the crew must make their 100th delivery, which isn't as impressive... Anyways, the person they deliver to invites the crew to a fancy dinner to honor her late husband, and Fry accidentally outs that Leela is a mutant and gets her deported to the sewers... and eventually the crew gets tossed down there as well for knowingly housing a mutant.

Where as last week's episode was heavy on the jokes and gags and less on the story, this episode is almost the opposite, with most of the episode focusing on the Fry and Leela story (with some self-aware nods to how obnoxious mentioning the relationship has been) and less so on gag after gag. That's not to say this is a humorless episode, as there is still plenty of laughs, but they're less a abundant that last week, but in the end it works for the better. Sure the 100th episode could've been better, but this still wasn't that bad.

Overall Score: 8/10

I may or may not do a season recap next week. For shows like Lost, Fringe and Doctor Who, which have season long story arcs with cliffhangers and such, it makes sense to recall everything that's happened to get an idea of where the series goes from there. But with Futurama, it's a comedy, and for the most part, each episode is completely separated from the rest, therefoe there really isn't that much to piece together and think about. So if there's no new TWi Futurama post next week, check back in November, when the holiday themed episode airs!

This Week in Futurama - 8/26/10

...or more like Last Week in Futurama since I some how forgot about this for an entire week whilst writing three long reviews and getting ready to move back into New York City this weekend, so, here goes:

Episode 11 - "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences"

This episode is kind of weird, because instead following one of the more 'important' characters from the Planet Express crew, the episode follows Lrrr, leader of the planet Omicron Persei 8, who has been kicked out of his home by his wife Ndnd and flees to Earth where he lands at ... Comic-Con, where he soon thinks to crash at Planet Express, whose crew went to the 'con to help Fry's comic book future.

Story-wise, the episode isn't exactly all there and is kind of moronic, but writing-wise the episode is pretty hilarious. There's tons of science-fiction and comic book references thanks to the whole Comic-Con setting, and it's great fun to kind of look around and try and spot all the subtle and well... extremely obvious references. There's a very self aware moment with Matt Groening and David X. Cohen are showing off their latest series that takes place in the year 4,000: Futurella, and it gets canceled in the midst of their panel, where Bender soon asks about a 2nd Simpsons Movie and gets shot. There's a whole convoluted plan using Orson Wells to get Lrrr and Ndnd back together and all and all the episode was definitely one of the funnier ones of the season, even if the story wasn't exactly all there.

Overall Score: 8/10

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Continuing on my "Week of Catching Up" here's the first of two album reviews for the week, Arcade Fire's third and latest album, The Suburbs, which released earlier this month without me realizing until a few days later. Regardless, the albums here, it's been here the whole month, so how's it holding up after all this time? Read on to find out, you may actually like this review!

In short, really well actually. With the first two Arcade Fire albums (I came into the band's music kind of late) I really liked them at first, and would listen to both together a lot, but after a while of listening to other things, I found them hard to get back into. When I got The Suburbs, I was really into it and already charted up play counts that surpass both of the band's first two albums combined, and I think that says a lot. Since then, however, I've spent a lot of this month listening to Anamanaguchi and Talking Heads, and didn't get back into this album until I decided to finally review it today, and it's still holding up just fine.

What's more interesting about the play-count feat though, is that this album is an hour long, as opposed to the just over 45 minute lengths of both 2004's Funeral and 2007's Neon Bible; that means I've done more listening of this hour-long album in the past month than I have of the previous 90 minutes in the past year. Instead of my usual album rundown, I'm just going to post a few highlights in track order, so, some tracks may be skipped.

The titular track and album opener, "The Suburbs," starts out this concept album perfectly, giving you a sense of a dramatic suburban tour, really setting the mood for the rest of the album, and is now one of my favorite tracks from the band. "Ready To Start" continues with this vibe, while "Modern Man" feels like something of Funeral. Passing on a few tracks, I found "City With No Children" to sound like a Bruce Springsteen song, except you know, appealing... And then you have a rock heavy track like "Month of May" which sounds like something the White Stripes would come up with if they had more than just Jack and Meg, not that that's bad or anything.

Unlike a lot of albums I've listened to, I found that The Suburbs didn't die out near the end of the album. If anything, it dies down mid-way after "Month of May" and then quickly brings itself together in the wonderful "We Used To Wait" after two slower tracks. But my favorite track comes after "Sprawl I," you guessed it, "Sprawl II," which sounds like a mix of "Haiti" off of Funeral and "Heart of Glass" by Blondie; actually, it sounds a lot like Blondie, and for whatever reason hearing new 80's style synth-pop sounds really appealing in the context of this album, and for that I love it, and it's the longest track too, which is a plus when it sounds this good.

What I love about this album, is that it really works as an album. What I find with a lot of records nowadays is that there's never a universal thing that holds them together; you have a few great tracks, and then some boring throwaway material. But with The Suburbs, I find that I really prefer listening to it as a whole on loop, as opposed to being shuffled with the rest of the Arcade Fire tracks. And by having the track rundown that fades in the middle, as opposed to starting strong and dying out at the end, makes it that much more appealing to listen to as a whole because you're not just going through waiting for the good parts, as the album supports itself from beginning to end. If you've never listened to Arcade Fire before, nows a great time to start.

Overall Score: 9.7/10

Now, here's the thing, I agree that like most things, everyone has there own tastes and not one single thing can be considered perfect. And when it comes to music there's definitely a lot more debate in that department. But, in this one instance, I'm going finally award the first VFH Seal of Approval to an album because it's just that good, and just that much better from the band's previous albums. (And this is almost still the month the album was released in...) Now, what happens when they release another album that's "better"? You ask? Well, judging by the three year gaps between each album, I guess I'll have to worry about that then, and who knows if we'll still be online by that time. For now, I'll enjoy this wonderful record.

Note: The album actually has eight different cover art variations, the one pictured is just the one I happen to have.

The Expendables Review

If Inception was the most anticipated smartest film of the summer, then The Expendables was surely the dumbest most anticipated film of the summer; and was another film I saw the day after release but didn't review till now, thus continuing my "Week of Catching Up". Don't expect much...

There really isn't anything to say about this film's story or what it's about, because if you're like me and pretty much everyone else that went to see this movie, you're going into this expecting to see the greatest action movie cast of all time. You've got Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture (he puts an entire gym on your door, princess.), Mickey Rourke, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Eric Roberts, and cameos from Bruce Willis and the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first film role in like... ever. With a group like that, you can't help but at least see what the hell happens when you get them together. If only Steven Seagal, Jean Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris were in this, then it would've been perfect.

But if you do care about story, in this case what's wrong with you? But seriously, The Expendables are a group of hitmen? mercenaries? bounty hunters? bikers? pirates? To be honest, I was never really sure, but you're supposed to assume they're the good guys. And they go to some fictional dictatorship island and try and overthrow the corrupt government led by Eric Roberts (as The Master, derpderp). Basically though, the story was really second to none, and it was really about the characters and the action.

About that action... for a big budget action movie that was supposed to be an homage to the over the top action films of the 80s and 90s, there was a heck of a lot of CG'd blood and effects, and it really detracted from the feeling the movie was aiming for. For instance, the opening scene has the gang using laser sights on a group of Somali pirates, and you can clearly see that the lasers are a cheap After Effects effect, as they're opaque and much thicker than a laser should be; and that's right before a dude gets separated from his lower half, which looked to be done with traditional effects (plus CGI blood of course). It was just really disappointing because you'd think if they're going to go all out on an action movie at least use fake blood; computer blood just looks stupid and costs more.

Speaking of costs though: the cast. It's more than possible that the film's entire budget was spent on the cast, but that still won't excuse CGI blood. Despite the ensemble cast advertising, the film is really about Stallone and Statham's characters, with Jet Li getting a much lower third seat (short jokes). Crews and Couture's character are basically nonexistent for a bulk of the film, and Dolph Lundgren gets more screen-time than I expected.

The weirder part of the film was definitely Mickey Rourke's character, which looks like he filmed his parts during Iron Man 2's off time. What was weird was that in this incredibly over the top action film that had no brains whatsoever, Rourke does actual acting as the team's 'wise man' of sorts, and actually has a nearly 5 minute monologue about some girl killing herself. And, touching as it may be, it's an incredibly out of place scene for this movie and it's just like, "C'mon Mickey, what're you doing actually acting here? Blow some shit up like the other guys!". Then there's the Willis and Schwarzenegger scene, which if you saw the commercials for the film, that's all there is to see of the two of them; it was an amusing scene, but was spoiled very early on in promotions. So, as to why Willis even gets last billing is beyond me, but I had the same issue with Michael Caine in Inception.

Of course, I went into this film not expecting much substance in terms of acting or storytelling, so there wasn't anything to really be disappointed about there. But I was really turned off by the use of CGI blood, because it just makes the entire experience feel extremely cheap. It was great that all of the actors each got their moment in the spotlight, some more so than others, but I was a bit bothered that they never really felt like a team as the promotional materials would suggest. Watch this one with a group for an enjoyable time, but just don't expect in terms of substance (Mickey Rourke's moment aside).

Overall Score: 6.8/10

Inception Review

BRRRRRRRRRRMMMM!!! This is the first and biggest part in my "Week of Catching Up"; a movie review that should've been written more than a month ago, and perhaps the biggest film of the entire summer. I actually saw Inception the day after it came out, just to put in perspective as to how long this has been delayed; and because of that my memory on the film may be a little flaky.

Inception was the first film directed by Christopher Nolan since The Dark Knight, so to say the least, expectations were high for this completely original work. And considering this was pretty much the only big movie this summer that wasn't a shoddy adaptation (not that Scott Pilgrim was shoddy; it didn't release when this came out, but it's still an adaptation no less) or so-so sequel, Inception was a pretty pivotal film. Personally, I tried not to hype it up, like The Dark Knight, I refrained from watching any trailers or clips so that I could get a true experience without any notion as to what I would be in for.

Being that this review is nearly two months late, I'm not going to sit here and write out a full synopsis of the story, because at this point you've probably seen it already, and if you haven't; shame on you. Basically, Leonardo DiCaprio and his crack team of dream wizards must enter the dreams inside dreams in order to plant an idea in the mind of the son of a rival corporation of the man who hired them; you know, basics. But seriously, I kind of remember the general story, but as I said, details are flaky.

Cast-wise everyone's pretty good, DiCaprio, Levitt, and Hardy all have their quirks that make them likeable. Ken Watanabe was good as well, but I found that I couldn't understand him most of the time except for a few words here and there, and I generally have no problem understanding thick accents. I really enjoyed Marion Cotillard's performance, as she was a really convincing threat to Cobb's mental stability, and made his character all that much more interesting. Only cast complaint I have is that Michael Caine got last billing, because he honestly didn't even need to be in the film; his character has no significance and only has like... two lines.

The most interesting part of this film was the special effects, as Nolan has be known to shy away from CG in his films. So while there is a significant number of moments in the film that couldn't be done without computer graphics, it's the parts without it that are stunning. The most spectacular one being where Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a fight in a zero-gravity hallway, and then must continue to group up all his unconscious acquaintances while still in zero-g. Of course being two months later, I've since found out how they actually pulled it off, but watching it the first time, without any idea what to expect, it was quite the magical moment.

Lastly, the score, this is by far Hans Zimmer's best score yet, and the addition of The Smith's Johnny Marr on many of the tracks just makes it all the more cooler. Plus, it's got plenty of BRRRRRRMMMMMM to keep your heart and brain going.

Overall Inception was a pretty fantastic film, and I would've seen it a second time had my schedule not been so filled up. Especially in a summer that's been filled with okay sequels, crappy adaptations, or just generally uninteresting or poorly made films, it was great to see something that really stood out above all the rest and wasn't afraid to actually make its audience think. To be honest, having seen most of Nolan's other works, I'd say this is his best and most ambitious work yet, and I even liked it more than The Dark Knight. And being that I gave that film a 10/10...

Overall Score: 10/10

If I have one complaint, it's that these people all had incredibly uninteresting dreams. Seriously, where my laser wielding pandas riding on T-Rex-back on Mars?! This is a dream after all, get creative!

Oh, and no Seal of Approval, because... I don't know, the review's late, and I think I give it out to casually nowadays. 10/10 is still good though, that's all that matters. But if you disagree, tell me, and I'll give it the Seal.

A Week of Catching Up

First things first: sorry. Sorry that I've had an incredibly busy schedule this summer with my part time job and my job as an artist. Come June I honestly had no free time to play games let alone write reviews for games, and any free time I had was either spent reading or watching movies, once again, not exactly having the time to write about them. But as my last week of summer vacation arrives, I've taken a week off of work to get some things done, including back tracking on reviews for games, movies, albums, television, and maybe even a book or two. It's a lot that I have to do, but if I dont get them done now, they'll never get done.

Now that's my excuse, I can't speak for the other 5 writers...