Monthly Archive for July, 2007

Comic Con 2007

Published on July 30, 2007 in Comics, Movies, Stuff and Video Games. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

This year’s Comic Con was a vast improvement over last year’s. All four days sold out, so I was dreading the crowds, but it wasn’t nearly as packed as it was last year on Friday or Saturday, which were a nightmare.

Comic Con 2007 Acquisitions 1

Some of my acquisitions from the Con.

I actually didn’t buy any comics at the show this year, since I buy them so regularly now. Instead, I scoured the floor for Nintendo-related merchandise, and found a bunch of neat little figurines and such. Last year there were barely any, so I was very pleased. Oddly enough, Nintendo itself didn’t have a booth at all this year, besides the Pokemon TCG booth.

Read about movie previews and more after the jump.

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Harry Potter 7 Mania

Published on July 21, 2007 in Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , .

So, I’m re-reading the whole Harry Potter series, but out of curiosity, I opened a PDF for book 7 that I downloaded via BitTorrent other day. I had expected it to be a PDF copy somehow leaked from the publisher, an OCRed scan of the book, or the entire text transcribed by a crazy fan group.

It wasn’t any of those things. The PDF was actually just a series of photos someone had taken of the book, spread by spread. For some reason I found this hilarious.

Here is a SPOILER FREE sample (I even blurred the text):

potter 7 photo sample

Click the image to see it full size as it appears in the PDF.

As it is, the pages were already hard to read, since the resolution of the images was too low to begin with, but on top of this, some of the photos are blurry.

There’s an oddly pornographic feeling about the whole thing. Anyone else get that sense?

Super Stardust HD and PS3 Downloadables

Published on July 15, 2007 in Video Games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .
Super Stardust HD screen

I’m currently addicted to Super Stardust HD, a game I downloaded from Sony’s PS3 Online Store. It plays like Asteroids on crack, crossed with Geometry Wars. I’ve been playing the game obsessively, trying to raise my score on the online boards. The screenshot I have here doesn’t do it justice at all. The game is full of action, intensity, stress, and explosions — it’s everything a shooter should be. The co-op mode leaves a bit to be desired, but I’m glad the option at least exists.

So far, after Calling All Cars and this game, Sony is establishing a trend of excellence in it’s downloadables. It looks like this will continue with Echochrome, a downloadable PS3 puzzle game presented at E3 this year.

Let’s hope Echochrome is as awesome as it looks.

Watch the Echochrome trailer in HD

Ratatouille (Bird, 2007)

Published on July 13, 2007 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Pixar’s latest, Ratatouille, directed by Brad Bird, does not disappoint. It doesn’t quite reach the bar of excellence set by Bird’s previous film, The Incredibles, but it’s still great. Pixar again proves that one can make fantastic animated films that break generational audience barriers without pop culture references and fart jokes.  Needless to say, the animation is first rate.

Live Free or Die Hard (Wiseman, 2007)

Published on July 6, 2007 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .
Die Hard 4 poster

“I’m too old for this shit.”

I’m going to call this movie “Die Hard 4” because the actual title is just stupid.

Anyways, Die Hard 4 is a decent action flick, but doesn’t really feel that much like a Die Hard movie. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is because I haven’t watched the previous three in a few years, but something just felt off. For one, the whole “analogue man in a digital world” thing didn’t really work for me. That’s not what Die Hard is about.

The Mac guy (Justin Long) didn’t make for a particularly memorable sidekick, and Kevin Smith’s appearance is barely worth noting. Bruce Willis was good enough, but didn’t quite feel like the iconic John McClane.

I didn’t like how the car chases were shot and I didn’t like how some of the action was cut. Actually, I didn’t like how most of the movie was shot. I’d have to watch it again to confirm this, but thinking back, it feels like way too much was done in close-up. Some of the dialogue heavy scenes had the shit cut out of them and had a lot of really obvious ADR (dialogue dubbing). I’m curious whose fault that was.

I’m willing to bet it was Len Wiseman’s fault. I hated Underworld, and I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that Wiseman was a good choice to make this movie. He just doesn’t compare to John McTiernan. Die Hard 3 is still the best in the series, closely followed by the first.

All my bitching aside, Die Hard 4 was fun to watch overall. Some of the photography and cutting took me out of the movie, which is very bad, but I was still entertained.

I realize I’ve skipped over a few movies I’ve seen recently (Ratatouille, Fantastic Four 2, and Transformers), but I felt inspired to whine about Die Hard 4.  I’ll get to those others soon, I promise.