We go over all the submissions for the 2017 Make Us Watch Whatever You Want Fund Drive starting at the 1:45 mark, but first we had to talk about that King Kong movie they just made. At the 1:06-mark, Kellywand makes us talk about erections in movies.
Next week: listen at the two-hour mark to find out!
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on– Oh, look, a massive update for No Man’s Sky! Look at all that new stuff: base building, creation sharing, ship collecting, class specialization, land vehicles and exocraft, races, new stuff to buy, new stuff to build, new ways to shoot at things, meaningful survival mechanics, permadeath. Permadeath! The thing that makes all games even more replayable! Even persistence for the various places you’ve discovered, such as Wlkjtulappd, and Berlkdipbiesy, and Yiplyustokpydy. As you recall, those are all planets in the Bfeudisklonklorrl system. Remember the Bfeudisklonklorrl system? Remember all its purple planets with their pink skies? Yiplyustokpydy was definitely my favorite. I guess if I’m going back, I should rename it to something like Chickworld or Tomholme or Yes Album Cover #317.
The update also includes the obligatory visual improvements, such as horizon based ambient occlusion. Whatever that is, it’s something that wasn’t in No Man’s Sky before.
Scroll through this splashy page to see what Hello Games has done to their aimless game-less space game. Because from where I’m standing, waiting on the Steam download to finish, it looks as if there might be an actual game in there now.
The titular fight in Fist Fight, a dopey Charlie Day vehicle, is a classic example of the barroom brawl as a rite of masculinity. It’s played as a redemptive act by which two men come together and earn mutual respect. It even saves all the teachers’ jobs at a beleaguered public school. Spoiler. But there’s no reason to see Fist Fight (the delightful Jillian Bell excepted).
The titular fight in Catfight is an outrageous, loudly foleyed, and drawn-out slapstick routine that would make Roddy Piper and Keith David proud. It’s dumb. Sloppy. Overblown. Director Onur Tukel shoves your face in it. It does not redeem anyone. No jobs are saved. It’s pointless. It’s not even funny, although I’m not sure it’s supposed to be.
What is funny is watching Anne Heche and Sandra Oh play their singularly unpleasant characters with a two-fisted doggedness, especially when they’re not throwing punches, taking falls, and setting up work for their stunt doubles. Both actresses come roaring out of their comfort zones, swinging wildly, and often connecting. These are two reprehensible characters, the likes of which women rarely get to play in the forefront (see also, The Bronze). Move over, bad moms, teachers, and santas. Heche and Oh have something to show you.
The real conflicts here are the conversations and social interaction. Tukel’s script is less about the catfight and more about reversals of fortune, told in the context of satire with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It doesn’t entirely work but it sure is timely. I can’t tell if the joke about trees named Bernie, Hillary, and Donald is pre-election or post-election, but I think Tukel meant for me to wince. He makes political hay with the issues of war and healthcare, the yin and yang of government: fighting and nurturing, killing and saving, masculine and feminine. But with fart jokes. Like I said, it has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
“Cute isn’t truthful,” Anne Heche sneers. Catfight is not cute.
Catfight is currently in limited release as is available for VOD on Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube.
So much loot! More loot after every mission. Loot left over after the last mission. Loot I forgot I had. Panels and panels of colorful little icons, some green, some blue, some a couple of shades of purple, and some that eye-catching orange/yellow. There are even some reds. Reds! The rarest of the rare. Epic, even! No, wait, I think orange/yellow is epic. Red is an artifact, which transcends rarity because rarities are adjectives and an artifact is a noun. Loot, loot, loot! Normally all this treasure would be a cause for celebration.
In Pixel Privateers, an otherwise really good game, it’s cause for a sigh. Continue reading →
We gush about this movie like the arterial spray from a henchman’s slashed neck!
We finally take a break at the 1:38 mark for an overview of our favorite overhead shots in movies.
Next week: Kong: Skull Island
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Once when my little sister was nervous about flying, I tried to reassure her by explaining that when planes land, they’re literally falling. Planes generate lift by moving forward, with the amount of lift proportional to their speed (I might have even used the word “Bernoulli” while explaining this; I can be a bit of a show-off). If a plane doesn’t have enough speed, it stops generating lift. That’s called stalling. So when a pilot lands an airplane, he doesn’t fire up the engines and point the nose at the runway. That’s called crashing. Instead, he reduces speed until the plane isn’t generating enough lift to stay airborne. Now the plane is falling. Ideally gradually. And ideally onto a surface amenable to airplanes, like a runway. But falling nevertheless. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Falling.
“That’s not reassuring,” she noted. Probably because falling and crashing are synonyms more than falling and landing are synonyms. Continue reading →
It’s like The Lego Movie, but with another layer of licensing! At the 57-minute mark, each of the three of us picks three three-point landings from movies.
Next week: Logan
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I have a problem with the first season of the UK sitcom Catastrophe. It sets itself up as two people making the most of a difficult situation. Presumably a catastrophic situation, hence the title. Rob has unintentionally gotten Sharon pregnant; they decide to give it a go. It superficially resembles Knocked Up, the Judd Apatow comedy in which Seth Rogen unintentionally gets Katherine Heigl pregnant and they decide to give it a go. Knocked Up is indeed a catastrophe. She’s a woman with a promising career who behaves like an adult. He’s Hollywood’s typical manchild stoner out-of-shape slob loser whose shortcomings are entirely excused because he’s funny. Obviously, Hollywood says, he’ll make a great dad. Oh, and husband. Never mind what Heigl’s character could have gone on to do with her life, pregnant or not.
But whereas Knocked Up pretends it’s not a catastrophe, Catastrophe pretends it’s not a perfect match. But Rob and Sharon are as perfect a couple as you could ever hope to see on TV.
They’re the opposite of a catastrophe. Continue reading →
We are a house divided on the John Wick sequel. At the 1:23 mark, we lock ourselves into a discussion of dungeons in movies. Yep, dungeons in movies.
Next week: Lego Batman
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I can only think of nine reasons Monopoly is terrible. But I can think of at least ten reasons Mage Knight is terrible, so it takes the prize as worst boardgame of all time.
Here are the ten reasons. Continue reading →
We ordered an intriguing story about fast food, capitalism, and betrayal. But we got this movie instead. At the 1:03 mark, we issue an executive order for Donald Trump to watch these movies.
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We are all united on our opinion of the latest movie from the director of After Earth! At the 1:27 mark, we nose our way into a discussion of smells in movies.
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I can understand why Simon Parkin, one of the rare videogame critics worth reading, seems to be feeling some anxiety about his job. A lot of people feel must feel that way, whether they’re plumbers, doctors, or social workers. But Parkin implies his anxiety is unique. So he’s written an article about writing articles about videogames:
But no matter how scintillating the text, when the real world starts to tremble, when fascism begins to rise, when the bombs start to fall, when real lives and real rights are imperilled, the job of writing about [videogames] is further undercut. Why waste our time focused on fictional quests when so much of the real world is in need of repair?
Now maybe I’ve missed it, but I don’t see anyone writing these articles about books, movies, or music.
Resident Evil 7 has a strong opening, a sagging middle, and a disappointing finale. In other words, it hews closely to the arc of most horror. But to Capcom’s credit, this Resident Evil is taking pages from books it hasn’t previously read. I’m not convinced it understands those pages, but at least it’s attempting something other than the usual roiling mass of black goo with bright orange weak points you have to shoot. For a while at least. It’ll get to that. But before it plods through its sagging middle to its disappointing finale, Resident Evil 7 is at least trying.
After the jump, found FPS isn’t a thing. Continue reading →
Boardgames can be accessible in two different ways. One of the ways can kill their longevity. The other way is a fundamental part of solid game design. Inis is a great example of the second way.
After the jump, n x 1 Continue reading →
