Are you familiar with the movie “Pineapple Express”? It’s a 2008′s comedy by David Gordon Green about two stoners that witness a murder (in short). And it’s fun as hell. The movie stars Seth Rogen, James Franco and Danny McBride. Oh, you don’t know the last one? Well, he is the disgusting “fat” guy nobody likes. And he has a funny part in this movie as the neverdying sidekick. So, why am I talking about “Pineapple Express” when the title says “Your Highness”?
It’s the follow-up movie by David Gordon Green, starring James Franco, Natalie Portman, and Danny McBride. But this time, McBride also wrot the script (note: He didn’t in “Pineapple Express”). Keep that in mind please.
The story is about two royal brothers in a medievil fantasy-kingdom. Franco plays Fabious, the kindgom’s hero and heir to the throne. McBride plays his younger brother Thaddeus, a lazy stupid fuck who does nothing but banging chicks. So one day, Fabious’ fiancè gets kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Leezar, who also wants to bang her in order to rule the world (this plot sounds both familiar AND stupid) To bring her back, Fabious and Thaddeus team up and go on a quest. On their journes they meet Natalie Portman. A pre-pregnancy Natalie Portman…
But they don’t seem to get along well. But Fabious is kidnapped, so Thaddeus has to team up with Nat, kills a minotaur and cuts his dick off as trophy. Then he rescues his brother, who saves the kingdom/ world/ fiancè/ whogivesashit.
In the end, he and Nat take off to hunt down an evil witch in order to free Nat from her chestaty belt…
…
As you may read by my summary, this movie is awful, and I mean really really awful. None of the actors acts really good (and keep in mind: we have got an academy award winner, an adademy award nominee, and Zooey Deschanel in the cast)
The script is bad, and the dialogue is disgusting: Every second joke is about cox, dicks, gays and pedophiles. That IS the movie.
McBride is a disgusting person, who would take any possibility to harress a beautyful woman. As is hisrole, our main hero. Normally, a main hero does undergo a personal journey, which alters him in the end. But nothing happes to Thaddeus, he is still the same at the end.
My advice: stay away from it as far asyou can. This movie is nit wotrth the time spending it
This week the trailer for the long awaited fourth Spider-man movie came out. And it looks amazing!
Ok, I just realised the ridiculousness of my words, for “amazing” is already in the movie’s title. But that was not my intend. I really like this trailer, and makes mecurious about that movie (ok, I was curious before bt…you know what I mean )
But actually, I don’t want to talk about the trailer, but about the movie itself. You see, many people are confused by the storyline of “Spider-man 4″, for it seems to take place in the beginning of Spider-man.
I just want to clarify: These people have no clue what they are talking about: The Amazing Spider-man ist not Spider-man 4, it is a REBOOT! (I’m currently working on an article about that topic, but it will take time to be published). In short: It has absolutely nothing to do with the previous trilogy!!! It’s a new Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield),that gets bitten by the gene-manipulated spider (it actually does sound better if I would say “radioactive”, but I wanted to be correct) and becomes a new vigilante with new love interest (Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy) and fights new evil (Rhys Ifans as Dr Kurt Conners alias Lizard). Which brings us to the following question:
Why did they make a reboot when the last movie was successful and was only a few years old?
Excellent Question. You may have heard about the difficulties director Sam Raimi has had with Fox during the production of the trilogy. Just when Spider-man 4 was about to begin shooting, the situation “escalated” and Raimi left the project. So did McGuire and Dunst So they did a quick rewrite and got another director to direct (Marc Web). Yeah, Fox is the Devil!!
But surly they could just have made a sequel without Raimi, Dunst and Maguire, that still belonged to that franchise. That’s true, they could have. But you miss one thing: nitpicky fanboys!
You see, some Spider-Man fans were not satisfied with Raimi’s trilogy: They didn’t like Maguire as Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst as MJ, or Spider-man’s organic webshooters. And guess what: All those things are gone in the new movie!
Another aspect is the rumor that they would connect Spider-man with the Avengers-movie coming out this year. We will see.
As long as I can remember, Castlevania has always been one of my favourite game franchises of all time. You play as a whip-whielding memberof the Belmont family, who goes out to hunt the evil creatures of the night, and kill their leader, Dracula- the prince of darkness.
That’s the short version. Well, the franchise has had a long history, for Draculas has been slayed since 1986. So I decided to make a personal top 5 list of my favourite games. But because there are so many games, someof them share the same space in my list.
#5: Symphony of the night (PSX)/ Circle of the Moon (GBA) and Simon’s Quest (NES)
I’m not that big of a fan of the re-orientation of the Castlevania games in 1997, though i know it saved the franchised (as CV64 and Legends were big fails). The games became more RPG-like, and had a huge castle to discover. The actual first game in this way was in fact the second Castlevania – Simon’s Quest, which was also one of the most unpopular games in the franchise. Just check out the AVGN’s very first video-review
Well, in 1997, the returned to this gameplay, and improved it. Symphonie of the night became one of the most popular games, and for many players it was the best game in the series. But for me it’s overrated. Sure it had nice graphics, and a great gameplay, but it was too bright, and I wasn’t that overwhelmed. I also had the PSX-version, which was cut and many levels were left off. I also disliked the end-credits song, which didn’t suit any Castlevania-title at all.
But as time went by, I apprieciated the gameplay, and realised, what had been created, has been perfected in the Circle of the moon, the first CV for the gameboy advance. Though the graphics were slighly inferior to SotN, the gameplay andplot felt much more adequate. I really enjoyed to play this game.
What I also didn’t like about Sot
#4. Castlevania I (NES) and Belmont’s revenge (GB)
You can’t make a list of CV-games and don’t mention the first Castlevania-game (which actually wasn’t the first, but that’s another story). Castlevania I is a sidescrolling action-adventure, in which you kill famous horrorcreatures. It can’t get any more awesome I think. You play as Simon Belmont, and the year is 1691. Only equipped with your whip and courage you set out to do noone has ever done before (at least noone who is not from the family). The game is pretty straight foreward, you can walk, jump, whip and use subweapons. The only thing you can’t do is swimming, but in a castle you probably never would need -oh watch out!
Well, the game is pretty hard, it’s only six levels long, but the last three are hard as hell. And when you beat all the levels, you face off against Dracula, one of the hardest video game bosses aof all time
don’t get fooled by the video, he is pretty tough. But despite its difficulty, the game is great. great soundtrack, gameplay and monsters. And…it’s beatable.
The second game on this list is “Castlevania II- Belmont’s revenge” for the gameboy. You play as Simon’s ancestor, Christopher Belmont. 15 years after his win over Dracula, the prince of darkness returns and kidnapps Christopher’s son, Soreiyu Belmont. Christopher once again goes out to finish the job he thought had finished 15 years ago.
The game is much better than its predecessor, “The Adventure”, which is one of the most difficult and most hated CV-games of all times.”The Adventure” had a very tough gameplay, one hit and you would lose one of two importand whip upgrades, Christopher moves VERY slowly and jumps had to be extremely precise.
Now, the game designers apparently have learned their lessons: Christopher is still slow, but at least more agile than he was before. You don’t lose your upgrades unless you die, and you have subweapons! You also could chose which level you would do first, like in Mega Man
#3: Castlevania – Rondo of Blood (PC-Engine)
Rondo of Blood was only available in Japan for a long time. Western gamers only could play a much weaker and shorter version called “Vampire’s Kiss”.
You play as Richter Belmont, Simon’s grand grand son. Dracula got revived by humans and kidnapped Richter’s girlfrined Annette and her sister Maria, as well as other village girls. Richter has to rescue every single one of them. after you saved Maria, she is a playable character, and much more agile and fun than Richter. Richter can do a double jump, and his subweapons have a secret super attack.
There are also alternate routes, so there is a lot to explore.
#2: Castlevania III-Dracula’s Curse (NES) and Castlevania- Lords of Shadow
Castlevania III was the first CV-game I ever played and the second I ever beated. It is damn hard, but boy, is it a fantastic game. The graphics look beautyfully gloomy, the soundtrack is wonderful, and it is a huge game!
You play as Trevor Belmont, Simon’s ancestor in 1476, the first Belmont to ever defeat Dracula. Like Simon, you wield the “Vampire Killer”-whip and have git the same subweapons. But Trevor has special powers, which enables him to turn into one of three other “spirits”: Sypha Belnades, the vampire-hunter that got turned into stone by the terrible Cyclops (and not Meduse, though she also appears in this game), Grant DaNasty, the pirate captain that got turned into a monster to obey Dracula, and Alucard, Dracula’s son. Each one of them have specific powers and abilities, and have to be saved first, before they accompy you
Unfortunately, due to the restricted capabilities of the Nintendo Entertainment System back then, only one of them could accompy you at a time. So you had to make your choice…
You also had the possibility to choose, which way you wanted to go to Dracula’s castle.
Then we have Lords of Shadow: It is a reboot of the franchise by the American studio “Mercurysteam”, co-produced by Hideo Kojima, and is the first successful attempt to bring the franchise into the third dimension.
It’s the year 1047, and the world is about to end: An unknown demonic force has cut the Earth from Heavon, and hordes of werewolves and vampires and other demonic creatures are roaming the lands. You play Gabriel Belmont (Robert Carlyle), knight of the Brotherhood of Light. Armed with your Combat Cross, a tuneable iron-whip, you set out to safe the Earth by killing the Lords of Shadow, 3 powerful demons that rule the hordes and bring piece to humankind.
The game is linear, but you can always go back to places you’ve already visited and lear new attacks/ powers. Gabriel has the ability to use light (heal) and dark (to attack) magic, which becomes a major feature in the game.
There are a lot of famous actors to give the characters their voice, like Robert Carlyle, Patrick “Captain Picard” Steward, Natasha McElhone, and Jason Isaacs. As it is a reboot, it’s not connected to the previous CV-games, though there are a lot of characters from those games that appear here.
a major problem in the game is the fixed camera, that doesn’t move a bit, and often hinders you in the game.
But for me, that doesn’t bother me too much, and I really enjoyed playing the game.
#1: Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
This game is just perfect. The graphics are great and take advantage of the possibilities of the SNES, the sondtrack is awesome and will be kept in your mind forever once you heard it. and the gameplay is just perfect.You can whip in 8 direction (!), unlike the previous installments, in which you could ony whip in two direction. You can also wave your whip in front of you and hit smaller targets with it. On certain spots you can use the whip on hooks to swing over gaps.
Once again you take control over Simon Belmont as this game is rather a remake of the first Castlevania -though you could also argue that it could be a sequel to the middle-ending of Simon’s Quest. Yeah, the opening doesn’t really clarify that…
The games returned to the linear style, but it doesn’t really matter because the game has a lot to show and bears also many secrets. Each level has its own style and music, and the last two levels use main themes from the NES trilogy.
There are also some nice features such as a rotating room, a room with curling background to give the impression of a 3D-effect, floating chandeliers and falling steps.
In the end, after you have defeated Dracula, there’s a nice recap of the whole game, Simon’s remembering all the great things he – YOU – had done.
Because all of this, Super Castlevania 4 is my all time most favourite Castlevania-game
“Drive” is a slow-paced but action-loaded thriller by Nicolas Winding-Refn. Every single minute of this movie is full of thrill and suspense, even though it doesn’t seem so at first sight.
Drive (2011) - copyright: http://www.meinkino.ch
Driver (Ryan Gosling) is stuntdriver and mechanic by day and heist-driver by night. He doesn’t talk much, only when neccessary. His only friend is his boss Shannon (Bryan “Hal Wilkerson” Cranston), and he is just living his life. Then he falls in love with his married neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan), and all starts getting complicated, as big problems in form of mobsters crash into driver’s life…
Honestly, I don’t want to go too deeply into the plot so I can’t spoil anything. “Drive” is a movie that you should have seen at least once in your life. Everything is beyond great. The cinematography, the lighting, the pace, the acting. Slow and calm scenes take turns with adrenaline-picked action scenes from one moment to the other and back (keyword: elevator scene!) and it just leaves you breathless. “Drive” is also an extraordinary brutal film, and has a lot of scenes in it, that will turn your stomache upside down. On the other hand, some of the “death”-scenes are shot in a rather artistic way thsat doesn’t show too much, like when you just see two people’s shadows fighting, and not the people themselves.
The movie’s shot in a wideangle, and each scene seems to have a new perspective, telling much by showing little.
One thing that mustn’t be neglected is the acting: Ryan Gosling is brilliant! Since “Lars and the Real Girl” it should be clear that he is one of the most promissing young actors in filmbiz. Since then he has grown in so many ways. His performance in “Drive” is simply outstanding, always staying solid and calm, but exactly this calmness is it that gives him power. The movie, which may be great on its own, is carried by Gosling’s performance.
I also have to mention the other actors, which also do a great job in my opinion, giving their characters personality and their own touch. Each character acts like a real human being and noone seems like being a cardboard figure. But you shouldn’t forget that this movie is about driver, and not about the other characters. So the camera lies with him and his emotions more ofthen than with others’, like when he tells a previous client, who approaches him with a paying job offer, to “fuck off”.
“Drive” was totally neglected by this year’s oscar-nominations. Gosling neither got nominated for best actor, nor did the movie itself get nominated for best picture. It’s abslolutely not reasonable behavior by the Academy, and it’s a pity that such a wonderful and great movie such as “Drive” does not get nominated, but a movie like “Extremely loud and incredibly close” (the 10th year anniversary movie of 9/11) does…
Tody I met up with a female friend of mine. She was about to produce a short movie of mine in March, but on Sunday she messaged me, asking if we could meet today to discuss our project. So we met. And guess what she told me: She wouldn’t be able to produce the movie, because she would have too much else going on right now. I said ok, it wouldn’t be that much of a deal, and was totally cool with it, though it’s a pity she wouldn’t have time to participate.
But I really appreciated the way she told me: She had told me face to face, and not via phone-call, e-mail or sms. That’s fair, and honest, and though she won’t have time for approximately the next freaking year to produce any of my movies, I know one day it would happen.
But I think I am digressing. Point is: she told me in a personal talk that she wouldn’t be WORKING with me.
Which brings me to the actual story I wanted to talk about: I just received a similar message by another girl I know. But I can guarantee you, this was not about WORKING. Rather I was turned down. Not that that it would be something new for me, no. But while I had got the mitten for a business relationship in a personal talk, this one I received via sms.
So, that was the part I wanted to talk about,
but I could go on. I have known this girl for two and a half months, was attracted to her from the first moment I saw her. and we really went along pretty well. The few times we’ve met since we went out for a drink or to club (at 1 a.m. AND the night before I had an examen and had to give in some papers, yeah, what I wouldn’t have done to see her again), but she now wrote all she would want is “friendship”.
I guess some of you, dear readers, are familiar with that phrase/ word, when it’s used in a situation like above. What would you suggest this means? You can’t be with her but you still can be friends.
Pardon me, but I refuse to believe that. I believe that not even she believes in it.
It’s not about friendship. It’s about getting rebuffed in a way nobody (that means: she) could feel bad about – in theory. You see, she doesn’t want to be together with you, why would she then befriend you? The one adjective she would describe you is “nice“. Being nice is the lamest and worse description you could get. Being nice means that you won’t get laid. Being nice also means, she can’t spot anything bad about you (which doesn’t mean she could spot anything interesting/ good about you either), but she wouldn’t want to be with you. Because she can’t tell you to “Fuck off“, for there wouldn’t be a reason for that, she says she would want to be friends.
But what does that really mean? Friendship is not just anything anyone could have. Like a relationship, you have to work on a friendship as hard (or, according to some people, even harder). If someone you have only known for a brief time yet tells you that, I wonder why this person would want a friendship instead of a being-togetherness? (I used that neologism istead of “relationship”, because I think relationship is something that grows out of being together. Also, i like neologisms)
This person doesn’t. His/her (ok, let’s face it, there’s no guy who wouldn’t have never thought about sleeping with a female friend, so, I should just stay with “her“) lips may say “friendship”, but in their mind you are already forgotten.
So, next time the person you want to be together with tells you that, just think about what she/ he could mean by that, and maybe remind this person what it would mean to be “just friends”.
I don’t expect you to know me. One thing I can guaruntee, that I have a thing for …special movies. That kind of movies you don’t get, you know, because they have quite a strange premiss.
I just watched a few shortmovies by a director I know, and they ARE STRANGE, really really strange. Even for me it was too much. There was even a movie I loathed and I can’t tell why. Just imagine me sitting in front of a PC (well, it’s a laptop) , uttering this:
So I’m sitting there, not knowing what to think (seriously, I even made a feedback for the first movie, which was not that strange, but had just some awful stuff in it like bad editing or acting). And then, with the last movie I realised: It’s all a psycho-joke. It doesn’t have to make sense! And then I was relaxed.
And I don’t know why I’m telling you this, maybe I just wanted to share my realisation that movies can in fact be psycho- jokes, and David Lynch is not just a creepy ghost story you tell your kids as bedtime-stories.
I’ll end this post with an Austrian psycho-joke I like very much. It’s in German:
Einw Kuh kommt in den Laden, und verlangt 2l Milch. Da geht der Geschäftsführer runter in den Keller, zerschlägt ein Klavier, kehr zurück und sagt: “Tut mir leid, Semmeln haben wir keine mehr.” Darauf die Kuh: “Macht nix, bin eh mit dem Radl da.”
Sometimes it happens that although you know a movie is bad, it still surprises you to be worse than your expectations. We had this with Transformers III and One way trip, now we have it with the 1994 videogame-adaptation “Double Dragon“. Based on a popular fighting game franchise, where you and your pal walk as the brothers Billy (blue) and Jimmy (Red) Lee through the streets and knock out (kill?) every person you encounter, for absolutely everyone wants to kill you.
You do this in order to safe (DD1+3,4,5…)Billy’s girlfriend Marion or avenge her death (DD II), though it then turns out she hsn’t been dead at all. You get the idea…
In the midninties, Hollywood decided to screw the whole franchise by making a movie out of it. Starring Scott Wolf as Billie, Marc Dacassos as Jimmy, Alyssa Milano as Marion, and, oh, Robert Patrick as the villain. Robert. Fucking. Patrick. The man that almost killed the Terminator, and who is probably one of the greatest villains of all time. The T-1000. He is the villain in a video-game based martial arts flick. Oh there is no way this movie could possibly suck.
Or is it?
Well, first of all: The acting (not that you would look for oscar-candidates here) is really bad. It’s so bad that even the synchro-actors didn’t care (the funny thing is: I just bought the DVD, and it has no OV, just the German version O_o ). Only Patrick has got a little bit of coolness, but even that he loses at the end whe he gets his ass kicked by…himself? Yeah that’s part of the story, and I will come to that in a minute. Fact is: Patrick does not deal a single blow in the movie! Niente. Oh, he is super rich and powerful, can take over other people’s bodies and so (hm, that reminds me of Terminator II…), but he himself does not fight.
Then we have the Lees. God, they are obnoxious! Especially Billy, who is a pain in the neck. He cheats, he makes fun of other people, he is disrespectful, he is a bad loser, he is after every skirt and that causes to endanger everybody’s life… our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
Now the story: As I told above, the usual plot of DD is that the Lee brothers try to rescue their girlfriend Marion from the shadowgang, and fight everybody that stands in their way.
The typical action movie story. So how can they possibly fuck this up?G uess what: There is no kidnapped girlfriend! Marian, who is a girlfriend to neither of them, is a gang leader herself (!) and does… actually nothing in the movie, she’s just there, and at the end she kicks another chick’s butt (not as interesting as it may sound, folks). It’s not that Alyssa Milano had no experience in being kidnapped in an action movie…
Instead we get New Angeles’ (yep, after an earthquake everything went downhill) most powerful man (Patrick) in his journey to become the most powerful man…of New Angeles? If you’re scratching your head right now and ask youself what the reason behind this is, you know exactly how I’m feeling. In order to achieve his goal, he has to put together the two halfs of a magic medallion, of which he has got the one half. The other half belongs to the Lee-brothers. And that’s it.
And now the most important part: The fight scenes. I mean, in a martial arts movie, even if it’s a comedy, there should at least be decent/ good fight scenes. Am I right? Well, it looks like I’m wrong, and a movie called “Double Dragon” doesn’t need to be about fighting. Why not let the protagonists run away instead of kicking ass? They few times they actually fight… well, let’s just say a Bud Spence and Terrence Hill movie has better fight scenes than Double Dragon – the movie
While this is a sad thing for Double Dragon, this certainly makes Spencer-Hill movies even more awesome!
The Double Dragon Franchise also has some kick-ass soundtrack. So you can be sure that none of the music from the games are in the movie.
Oh, one thing I forget to tell you: The story was written by Paul Dini. Dini, would later become one of DC’s lead comicbook authors and also responsible for the Batman: Arkham Asylum games…
Finally, I give you the music trailer for the movie, which – so sad it is – seems to promiss a decent movie.
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