Jennifer Lynch probably hates being called out as David Lynch’s daughter. And really, it’s not very fair to her, since she’s pretty much doing straight up horror thrillers. Her best movie is Surveillance, a violent and energetic mind trip with a cast that’s clearly having fun. I particularly like how Bill Pullman seems to be in the stage of his career when he couldn’t care less whether people take him seriously. But then Jennifer Lynch made a horrible snake woman movie in India called Hisss (sic, by the way). Hisss’ only claim to fame is that it keeps the Spider-Man reboot from being the most embarrassing movie Irrfan Khan has ever made.
Lynch’s latest movie is an occasionally interesting but mostly just gross movie in which Vincent D’Onofrio plays a serial killer who keeps the child of one of his victims to raise as his own. To be a serial killer himself, natch. Maybe you haven’t seen Dexter. But to Chained’s credit, it’s not sexying up the serial killing. D’Onofrio is slow, loathsome, cruel, and — gasp! — out of shape. As Chained develops the relationship between D’Onofrio and a strikingly odd-looking actor named Eamon Farren, it has a few weirdly effective moments. But these eventually fall away, someone gets stabbed, and any goodwill Chained might have earned is squandered in a disgusting and unnecessary finale.
There’s a German movie from last year called Michael about similar subject matter. But it’s even grosser in that it doesn’t have any opinion on what the psychopath its doing. It’s neither sympathetic nor judgmental, which is an odd way to tell a story about a pedophile who holds a child captive. I could appreciate the craft of actor Michael Fuith’s disconcerting performance (check him out in the excellent German zombie movie Rammbock for a Michael Fuith palate cleanser), but I couldn’t get past how dispassionately the movie Michael portrayed a reprehensible person’s reprehensible deeds. At least Chained knows it’s gross.
Chained is available on DVD.
Playing team deathmatch in Black Ops II on the night of its release, I rack up one kill and 27 deaths in one of my games. So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Apparently, the kind of person playing online after a midnight release is considerably more, uh, committed to the gameplay. Or maybe my assault rifle of choice, the Type 25, just sucks.
Then I try the ironically named hardcore mode, which relies less on watching the minimap, since it doesn’t have a minimap. It furthermore relies less on the damage ratings of weapons, since all you have to do is basically brush someone with a slow velocity bullet to kill him. In my first game in hardcore mode, I get ten kills to eight deaths.
But by far the most reliable way to earn points has been farming UAVs. As soon as I hear the UAV announcement, I switch to the SMAW I carry on my back. One guided missile for an easy 75 points! And the best thing about UAVs is that they don’t shoot back.
The latest fall from grace for military personnel who collaborate with videogames is David Petraeus, who just resigned as director of the CIA and appears in Black Ops 2. The two incidents aren’t related. That we know of. In Black Ops 2’s 2025 storyline, he doesn’t look a day older than 60! Furthermore, his political career has recovered nicely from that whole mess about having an affair with his biographer, because he appears as the Secretary of Defense under a President named Bosworth. A female President. Kate? As anyone from California or Minnesota could tell you, anything is possible.
UPDATE: So President Bosworth is supposed to be Hillary Clinton, as is obvious from the voice actress and character model. But unlike Petraeus, she isn’t called out by name in Black Ops 2. Whatever Activision hoped to avoid by picking and choosing among real-world political figures — did anyone care that Kissinger and McFarlane were playable characters in the original Black Ops’ zombie mode? — is now all the more notable for the fortuitous timing of Petraeus’ resignation.
Just when you thought it was safe to dismiss James Bond movies… We’re so thrilled with Skyfall that we go on for an hour and seven minutes before getting to this week’s 3×3, at which point we add a shot or scene to the ends of movies.
Next week: Lincoln
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I’m technically not supposed to say this until midnight tonight, but I really like the latest installment in a certain long-running series of games, hence this week’s wallet threat.
Rift gets an add-on called Storm Legion that consists of a new continent, player housing, a new type of rift, and new skill trees for each class. I dropped into the game last week and was surprised at how spoiled I am by the visuals in Guild Wars 2. I didn’t remember Rift looking so, well, rudimentary. But it sure did run smoothly! And the character system is as effective as ever if you like to mix-and-match skills to come up with your own play styles.
The Sims 3 gets seasons. I was tempted to take a cheap shot and say that EA is selling each season separately, but I liked what they did with the Supernatural add-on. And I really appreciate when seasons figure prominently into games. Assassin’s Creed III and Bully, for instance.
Also new this week is Paper Mario for the Nintendo 3DS, which might be the most ironic game ever made.
If you’re not hip to Dominant Species, the superlative boardgame from GMT, you probably can’t tell what you’re looking at in that screenshot of the iPad version. Allow me to explain.
Carnivorous spiders have taken over the world, thriving in its oceans. They started out feeding on grubs, but as the impending ice age forced them out of their jungles and forests into the oceans inhabited by insects and amphibians, they adapted to eating meat. The spiders were so competitive they forced other species into lesser biomes. Even the mammals that were higher on the food chain and better suited to this world’s teeming oceans were forced into the desert. No one could compete with the ruthlessly effective meat-eating sea spiders!
Darwin will never explain this because his ancestors have been eaten. Game over, indeed.
After the jump, how did I get so many points? Continue reading →
I can’t get enough of this silly thing. And boy is Need for Speed: Most Wanted a silly thing. But as I play, I notice things that Criterion and Electronic Arts didn’t have to do. Cool things. Things that ultimately make a difference for me. Need for Speed: Most Wanted didn’t have to be this good.
But, after the jump, it is Continue reading →
This week we talk about the aftermath of Hurricane Halo and the detritus left behind. We also talk about the fate of THQ and their stock, what’s inside Peter Molyneux’s Curiosity, whether Need for Speed: Most Wanted is better than Forza: Horizon, the part of Assassin’s Creed 3 that you’re missing, and just what the heck Sound Shapes is. Because, pictured.
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Apparently, there was some sort of midnight launch event for Halo 4 back in June that afforded Halo fans (pictured) the opportunity to take pictures five months before the game even came out. Some of them revealed an inclination to pretend to shoot their moms.
Seriously, though, these are pretty darn adorable, or at least awkwardly endearing in that “brother, I can dig it” way. As the saying goes, the golden age of sci-fi — and Halo! — is twelve.
The latest Guilded is basically my to-do list now that I’ve hit the level cap. Read it at Gamespy.
As part of their Halo 4 launch week coverage, 1up asked me to write an article on the history of the Halo series. Has it really been ten years? It feels like longer.
Click here for five things Bungie did right, and five things Bungie did wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PHh7JtKFr_0#t=100s
After two seasons of about 25% classic zombie apocalypse and 75% episodic soap operatics, I went into the third season of The Walking Dead with a half-hearted “might as well” attitude. I might have even sighed tiredly. But after last night’s episode, the fourth in the new season, I couldn’t be happier with how the series is turning out.
I thought there would be no room for the uniquely dire demands of a zombie apocalypse on television. Time and again, AMC has proved me wrong with their willingness to resort to over-the-top gore, to kill off significant cast members, and to give the end of the world its due in a way that Falling Skies and Revolution never will. It’s the difference between networks with a “B” and a “C” in their names, and everyone else.
Futhermore, a TV show has the luxury to trace character arcs more precisely, more languidly, with more detail than a 90-minute movie. But too often these character arcs take a back seat to the episodic tendency to reset to zero, or the sanctity of the cast, or the focus grouping of the demographic, or TV’s tendency towards telegenics over talent, or whatever unholy forces so often make a series forgettable and safe.
Consider how rarely TV shows know what to do with growing children. For a variety of reasons, it’s a tricky proposition to cast a child in an ongoing series, particularly a successful one. Poor RJ Mitte in Breaking Bad has faded sullenly into back bedrooms. I cringe at the out-of-his-depth child actor who plays Manny on Modern Family. And who knows whatever happened to Walt on Lost. Kids grow up. Maybe they aren’t good actors. Maybe the storyline doesn’t have room to involve them. Maybe the show is busy catering to the adults.
But last night, one of Walking Dead’s most dramatic twists wasn’t what happened during the plot. That was staggering, to be sure, and another sign that AMC has the ruthlessness needed for a zombie apocalypse. But to me, the most dramatic twist was how Walking Dead doubled down on its confidence in apple-cheeked Chandler Riggs, the child actor who plays Carl Grimes. Zombie apocalypses have the dire tradition of never playing it safe with children, living or undead, starting in the basement of the house in Night of the Living Dead and now going all the way to the boiler room of the prison in Walking Dead.
This time, there are no people in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I don’t just mean the absence of pedestrians on the generic city’s sidewalks and in its parks. There is no mute doofus protagonist. There are no trash talking rivals. There is no pandering appeal to car culture with sexy chicks’ midriffs and gruff mechanics and a fast talking sidekick. DJ Atomica doesn’t explain the modes to you. This is a game about cars and only cars, racing wildly and recklessly around a huge generic city brimming with reckless nonsense to do. It has focus, purpose, intent. It has the clarity that any good arcade racer needs, even (especially?) if it’s going to play out in an open world.
Feel the need for Need for Speed, after the jump Continue reading →
This week, the men with the tin throats discuss The Man with the Iron Fists. Then, at the 42-minute mark, we discuss our favorite letter writing in movies.
Next week: Skyfall
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