Transformers The Ride: Changing The Face Of Theme Park Attractions As We Know It

This past Memorial Day weekend, droves of Los Angeles residents and tourists made the trip to Universal Studios Hollywood to experience the brand new attraction, Transformers: The Ride-3D. I was on the scene for the grand opening of the 100 million dollar spectacular and have returned with a detailed report on how me and a rag tag group of Autobots, Universal employees and fellow members of the press saved the world. Or rode a ride that pretended we saved the world. Shhh. Let me have my fantasy.

The event itself boasted free samples of a deliberately mysterious fizzy orange drink called "Energon", a red carpet filled with Ron Meyer, Steven Spielberg, Judd Apatow and, for no discernible reason, 10 minor actors from Glee, an impressive stunt show featuring the Optimus Prime truck, soldiers falling off of buildings, fireworks, actor Glen Morshower, and red, white and blue streamers exploding down upon us, and a large breakfast spread which boasted donuts being fried live. When I described the experience to a friend, comedian Kyle Ray, he noted,

Frying donuts outside of an amusement park ride based on a blockbuster movie that was based on a television cartoon, that was made to sell toys, this might be the most American thing I have ever seen.

Truer words were never spoken, Mr Ray. But we're not here to discuss how Universal celebrated the opening of their monumental new ride - we're here to review the ride itself, and tell you if it lives up to hype. After the jump, of course!

Stunt show FTW!

The ride has been described as a "technologically advanced motion based, flight simulator mega attraction," which is pretty damn accurate. You sit in a twelve person car with a bar against your torso and glide along 2000 feet of track, stopping in 14 different rooms along the way, each with its own screen and scene along the way. Some of the screens even reach 60 feet, and thanks to the incredible 3D paired with perfectly correlated motion simulation, it's easily the most immersive attraction experience I've had yet. From room to room there are bits of set dressing and practical effects to help make the whole thing feel just a tad more complete. Each room is also equipped to mimic the environment suggested by the scene at hand. When we're inside a building, there's no air or ambient noise. When we are outside, it becomes a little colder, the sounds of the city surrounding us. When we are on a roof, our hair flies around wildly as the cold wind blasts against us. No corner is cut, no stone left unturned when it comes to making us truly feel a part of this world.

The motion simulation in particular is unparalleled. The car reacts precisely to every action. Whether it be slicing, grabbing, pulling, dropping, reversing or more, no two movements feel the same. The ride truly excels in moments of speeding along the streets, falling from buildings, or being carried through the air as if flying, hitting buildings along the way. Don't be surprised if you find your stomach drop for a few beats here and there, or brace yourself for impact when you're about to smash to the ground.

Although the story is rather generic, with the Autobots recruiting park guests to help retrieve the All-Spark, which has been stolen by the Decepticons, it doesn't hinder the experience, although certainly if these sorts of advancements were to be applied to a truly great property, the whole shebang would be taken up a notch. But if you love Transformers and missions involving that pesky All Spark, then you'll love this even more than I did, especially because Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprise their vocal roles as Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively, and Glen Morshower returns as General Morshower, briefing you along the way. The Transformer you specifically ride with is EVAC, who hasn't appeared in the movies, though you will encounter pretty much all of the Transformers you've met before, whether in the ride itself, or in the multitudes of expositional videos playing as you wait in line.

The Mysterious Energon

Speaking of the line, if you're one of those folks who appreciates a good themed waiting area with plenty to keep you distracted, you'll be incredibly pleased with the work done here. There are about 5 or 6 large rooms leading to the final stretch, each one acting as a different part of NEST and providing another slice of the story. The videos themselves run about 5 minutes long and have a few interstitials that ring in at about 40 seconds each. So let's say your room experience stays fresh for 7 minutes, 7 minutes multiplied by 5 rooms is 35 - the exact number of minutes the line wait clocked in at after the ride officially opened Thursday afternoon. But fear not! Even when the line jumps to over an hour, as it expects to for the summer and especially this Memorial Day weekend, the videos have plenty to look at a second time through and each room also has posters, information to soak in everywhere, and items on display, not to mention every control panel in every room is filled with buttons and switches you can actually play with without causing any harm, so you can get your role play on to kill some time, no problem.

And yes, Transformers: The Ride-3D passes the headache test! I rode the attraction three times in a row and never got a headache, which to me signals that the overall movement is smooth enough to mean if you're sensitive to such things, you should be fine. Cause guys, I get a bit of a headache on the Simpsons Ride too, and felt nothing physically upsetting during Transformers. WIN! The only real downsides to the ride at all were a. it's about the Transformers and I hate the Transformers films and b. 3D glasses and water effects don't really mix. But that may have just been a #frontrowproblem.

Overall, the ride is absolutely a success, but in my mind more so for what it means the future holds. This attraction is so seamless, so immersive, and so true to the material (Michael Bay consulted, obviously), that it only makes me wish such measures had been taken with better source material. I can't WAIT to see this tech applied to a property I truly love, of which there are many, by the way. As long as it's not Battleship or you know, The King's Speech (and something tells me I don't have to worry about that one), I will be a happy camper. Although I should probably take this moment to remind you that a Wizarding World of Harry Potter is opening in Los Angeles in 2015 as part of Universal Studios, so I have a feeling our Hogwarts ride is gonna be even more remarkable than the Orlando installment. If this tech is applied in any sort of way....holy crap BE HERE NOW.

For a complete gallery of photos from the opening day event, head here and if you want to try the ride out sooner than later without much of a line, be sure to head over on a weekday before schools officially let out in a couple weeks.

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Happy Towel Day!

Happy Towel Day everyone! I've written towel so many times in the past ten minutes, it doesn't make sense anymore. Also, someone find the towel pictured above and get it for me? Once I had to decide to get a jersey that said Vonnegut/5 or Adams/42. Because I had read 7 Vonnegut books at the time and more recently, and only 5 Adams books, and the year before, I went with Vonnegut. I regret the decision to this day. If you haven't read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you are not a hoopy frood, I SAID IT, IT'S OUT THERE, DEAL WITH IT.

And now some words from Douglas Adams,

 "A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

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Is Community The American Answer to Spaced (And Can It Continue To Be Without Dan Harmon?)

Cross-posted on Film.com

I was listening to NPR last week while sippin on a Jamba Juice, as you do when you're so LA sometimes you should be slapped, and heard Joel McHale come on to The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell. During this conversation, McHale noted about Community, the show on which he stars,

"There's a certain level of pop culture knowledge that I think people have. Some don't and [certain references] would be totally lost on them…but there's a certain level of understanding of pop culture ...much like something like Mystery Science Theater, where there is [sic] 100 jokes thrown at you, you may only get 70% of them, but don't worry, there's another one coming that you are going to get if you didn't get that last one."

This quote got me thinking about another television show that followed a similar pattern, one of my top five shows of all time, Spaced. It was this Twitter account that said to me at one point, "hey, remember that failed American remake of Spaced? Well, I actually think the American answer to the show already exists - it's Community." I didn't let it sink in at the time, but after hearing this interview, combined with seeing the completion of Community's incredible third season and hearing the announcement that Sony has declined to renew their contract with creator Dan Harmon, it all sort of hit me and I thought now would be the time to explore the theory.

For those of you unfamiliar with Spaced, it's a half hour single cam comedy created and written by Simon Pegg & Jessica Hynes nee Stevenson, directed by Edgar Wright. It aired on Britain's Channel 4 in 1999 and 2001. The premise, like Community's, is standard sitcom fodder. Where Community sees a disbarred lawyer forced to enter into community college, where we encounter a wacky group of people he soon forms close friendships with, Spaced begins with Tim and Daisy, two strangers who pretend to be a couple in order to move into a North London apartment they were separately vying for, where they encounter a wacky group of residents, and each other's wacky friends, who they soon forge close friendships with. What neither logline hints at are that both shows were created by giant nerds with a vast understanding of genre and pop culture who apply that knowledge boldly and uniquely, challenging the notion of a sitcom, pushing the homage envelope, and bonding with its audiences in a way rarely seen before or since. 

In the way that Community has had a claymation episode, an 8 bit video game episode, a Ken Burns episode, an alternate reality episode, a "Cuckoo's Nest" trope episode, two paintball episodes that played with the archetypes of war video games and westerns, a My Dinner with Andre episode masked as a Pulp Fiction episode, and more, Spaced paved the way with perhaps not whole themed episodes (although series two episode Mettle while not using the Cuckoo's Nest trope, is in fact one giant homage to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest), but elongated homage sequences littered with references in between. The show was so known for its handle on genre and love of and ability to play with American film, that the DVD even has an "homage-o-meter" that lets you know whenever something is being referenced. As Joel McHale said about Community, your average pop culture fan would understand 70% of the jokes, but if there was ever one that went over your head, fear not, because something you *will* understand is right around the corner. Spaced's relationship to pre-existing pop culture was unprecedented and was what helped make it so special and new. So it makes perfect sense that a show like Community that takes that idea to the next level, could be seen as its American counterpart. Oh, and Spaced too had an episode where paintball played a major role, it just happened to take place on an actual paintball course.

From Spaced's paintball episode

But it isn't just the shows strong exploration of pop culture that bridges the gap. Both shows manage to be completely goofy, surreal, and at times absurdist, while still creating characters you love and feel connected to. With a show like Happy Endings or 30 Rock, their absurdity makes us laugh a million times an episode, but aside from Liz Lemon, I'm not sure I feel a personal connection to any character on either show, because they mostly exist on another plane of reality. No character on Happy Endings feels real, so we are incapable of relating to them or caring about them. Which isn't to say I don't enjoy the crap out of the show, but it can't rise to a level of greatness without that element. With both Spaced and Community, as crazy as things get, and as not-actually-the-straight-man as our lead characters become, we still care about what happens to them. We root for Abed and Troy's friendship the way we root for Daisy and Tim to get together and root for Jeff to become a good person the way we root for Marsha to be happy. 

Both shows also come from the mind of, I'm saying it, geniuses. The trio of Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Jessica Hynes is a strong one, and although Hynes hasn't been involved in the films I'm about to name, without Spaced, there would be no Shaun of the Dead, no Hot Fuzz, no Scott Pilgrim. I suspect Harmon may have a similar trajectory, going on to create even more wonderful things, cementing his legacy in this world. It just sucks that he won't get to see Community's journey through to the end. What if Pegg, Hynes or Wright had been taken off of Spaced creatively, but the show continued on? It wouldn't make sense. What made the show so unique was the blending of those minds, aesthetics and sensibilities. Similarly, it is Dan Harmon's creative genius and risk taking that makes Community so special. The fans' chant of #sixseasonsandmovie seems to sad and futile when we envision that future without Harmon. 

Spaced ended after two series, 14 episodes total, and although it never truly felt over, as we never got to see Tim and Daisy admit they loved each other (though we do see in a documentary about the show that they end up together with a daughter whom Tim wanted to name Luke),  better it ended when it did than continue on with a different creative team, not that that was ever a potential scenario, but hopefully you see my point - Spaced may have had a short run, but it was also a perfect run. I can't help but feel a great sense of dread and confusion imagining Community continuing without its true voice. The show's wonderful season three finale, Introduction to Finality, tied up enough to serve as a series finale, but left enough open to continue. Unfortunately, as it moves on, it will be without its master and creator. Guys, remember The West Wing when Aaron Sorkin left, or did we all collectively block out that dark time in our lives? I think all of us #sixseasonsandamovie believers would have gladly taken three or four seasons done by Harmon's rules than any of the show betraying what it is, has been and stands for.

So what do you think? Have you seen Spaced and can you see the parallel? Does imagining a Spaced without Simon Pegg's POV start to put into perspective what Community without Dan Harmon might mean? Sound off!

Oh, and watch this clip from Spaced right now

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So Bad, It Wasn't Bad Enough: A Battleship Rant

Cross-posted on Film.com

When I decided to see Battleship this past weekend, it was for two very specific reasons. First, I heard great things about the visual effects and the sound, and if it's gonna get any sort of Oscar nod, better I see it in theaters than on a screener later in the year. Second, I had assumed from the Wondercon footage and various interviews where director Peter Berg said he wanted to make his version of a giant big budget action film that is super fun and doesn't take itself too seriously, I thought, fuck yes, I love that shit.

Because I do love that shit! I hate the Transformers films because they take themselves *just* too seriously, and yet make no sense, but loved GI Joe because I thought it was utterly ridiculous in all of the best ways. You can read more in depth about my feelings on those two in Why GI Joe > Transformers 2: A Love Story. So you can imagine, after writing a piece like that, and then hearing how there is a Battleship: A Love Letter article going around, that I thought I would love the crap out of Battleship, right?

Wrong. So very very wrong.

(There be spoilers ahead)

See here's the thing. I can forgive a lot. I can forgive horrible, never ending winking at the camera acting, Taylor Kitsch, I can. I can forgive a hollow love story and a woman prancing around wearing nothing with no purpose, sure, maybe, sometimes I can forgive that, though yes it's a stretch. Can I forgive a lead character who goes through a hero's journey without actually learning anything, who misinterprets Sun Tzu and accidentally mimics a children's game his way to victory? Hey, why not. I can even forgive vacant characters, flat jokes and failed attempts at relating to the audience. I AM A VERY FORGIVING PERSON. But you know what I can't forgive, action movie?

I can't forgive you being boring as all hell for the first hour and a half of your two hour long masturbatory effects jam.

I elaborate after the jump



While the absurdity of the first scene in which Taylor Kitsch's Alex Hopper wins over Brooklyn Decker's Sam with a daring chicken burrito mission is stupid and cute enough to sort of work in a bad 90s action movie kind of way (oh and the Perd Hapley cameo FTW!),  the movie then jumps ahead some random amount of time and proceeds to make me tired for ninety minutes straight. It was just...dull! A bunch of soulless moving parts. Wasn't this supposed to be silly?, I thought to myself a third of the way through. WHY AM I SO BORED? I thought to myself a half hour later. I may have been expecting bad, but I was not expecting unwatchable. A movie this boring cannot get away with ignoring logic completely. Like how everyone keeps telling Hopper he is wasting his talents and potential when all we see him do is be an asshole. What are his talents? Someone? Anyone? I COULD FORGIVE THIS IF YOU WERE ENTERTAINING. Things started to look up a little anytime the film cleverly mimicked the mechanics of the game on which it was based, but those moments were few and far between.

Luckily, the final half hour of Battleship finally becomes such a shit fest that I started to enjoy myself. For example, at one point, in preparation for an undisclosed plan, Mick the paraplegic badass says to Sam, "How are your driving skills?" and Brooklyn Decker's slow motion nod is simultaneously infuriating and brilliant. "How are your driving skills?" What kind of question is that? And what kind of answer is a slow motion nod?? Do you have a history of competitive off road driving, Sam? Were you once a race care driver? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?! Is this some sort of famous line from the game or something? You know, the game where all you do is sink other people's battleships? I think I just answered my own question.

In this last half hour, we also see the crew start up an old battleship that has been turned into a museum and somehow it is completely loaded and ready to go with fuel, ammo and missiles. Because live missiles on a museum-boat where kids frolic every day is a GREAT idea and makes perfect sense. Here, we also see a bunch of real life veterans take center stage, commanding the battleship, which is a part I genuinely enjoyed, though I am also a bit disgruntled at the slight manipulation of "You can't hate this part cause WE CAST REAL VETS." The end of the movie also marks the moment where we end up *not* getting a pay off at all after the film took great pains to make sure we inferred that the aliens don't hurt organic beings unless the beings become aggressive. I mean, okay, I guess you showed us and didn't tell us, so bully for you, but....what was the point? Why was that a part of the movie? It had nothing to do with destroying them, that had to do with the sun and by playing Battleship. Don't tell me you're saving the pay off for the sequel. I won't see it. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME SEE IT.

The end was getting so nonsensical and ridiculous in all the ways I was hoping for all along, that I kind of thought when Sam's foot got stuck in the car that she would end up with a metal foot like Mick's metal legs, but the movie decided not to go there. Whatever. Stupid movie.

I can see I may be sending mixed signals here, so let me try to clear it up. I wanted this movie to be bad. I wanted to yell at its stupidity and have a blast doing it. But rather than fill that GI Joe so bad it's awesome void, it went the Transformers route, too boring to be entertaining, not silly enough overall to excuse its utter lack of logic. I didn't think it would be possible for me to be disappointed by Battleship of all things, a movie we all knew would suck, but lo and behold, I totally just wasted $15.

Although you know what may have not helped the situation? Earlier in the same day, I saw the wonderful foreign action thriller, Headhunters. Taut, fast-paced, unpredictable, twisty, turny, at times ludicrous, filled with unexpected heart and emotion and incredibly smart, Headhunters is absolutely wonderful and a look into what action movies *can* be. Both this and The Raid: Redemption are takes on high adrenaline thrill rides that accomplish everything they set out to do, while being impeccably acted and directed, and in the case of Headhunters, with a balls out aces script to boot. So it probably didn't help matters much to walk into Battleship after seeing such an intelligent movie only a few hours earlier that gave me all of the adrenaline rush Battleship wishes it had. Not to mention, Headhunters has its absurd moments as well, but manages to comment on them in a way that makes you laugh without causing you to exit the story, check out, or care about anyone any less.

I think what I'm trying to say is, fuck trying to see a movie so bad it's good so you can laugh and make fun of it, because Battleship can't even accomplish that properly. Rent GI Joe and buy a six pack if that experience is so important to you. But what I really think you should do is go pay for an actual good  movie and catch Headhunters before it leaves theaters.

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Snow White and The Huntsman Funtime Giveaway!

Another contest?? Hooray!! This time, we're celebrating the release of Snow White & The Hunstman aka the movie I wanted to hate, but then I saw the first trailer and was like, oh crap, I really want to see this now. I've also seen extended footage at both Wondercon and CinemaCon and loved it, plus Charlize Theron's appearances at both have cemented my shift from disliking her to loving her, which began with one of my favorite performances of the year in Young Adult. She's just so apologetically sassy! So if you too are looking forward to this movie, then this contest is for you. Hooray free stuff!!!!!

Two winners will receive the following:

SWATH T-Shirt

SWATH Nail Polish

SWATH Necklace

SWATH Cell Phone Mirror

SWATH Sling Bag

SWATH Lip Gloss

To enter, just follow the directions in the handy dandy rafflecopter below! The winner will be chosen randomly on Monday, June 4th.

Please keep in mind that this giveaway is US only, but if you are international and you have a buddy who lives in the states who is down to enter for you, then ship the package off to you if you win, that is a-okay!!

Happy contest entering, guys! :)

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

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SEE THIS MOVIE! Extraterrestrial Available on VOD and Theatrically 6/15!!!

So I don't normally post just straight up news or announcements, but I will make an exception for Nacho Vigalondo's follow up to Timecrimes, Extraterrestrial. I saw the film at AFI Fest and absolutely loved it. Out of the 26 films I saw, it landed at #4. My capsule review is below, though in general I would say don't read anything, just trust me and go. But if you don't believe me, then you can read paragraph #2 and if you REALLY REALLY don't believe me, read both. I just hate to think of anything being spoiled for a movie so good, although ultimately it's fairly spoiler proof as the film is less about what happens and more about how it happens.

4. Extraterrestrial (dir. Nacho Vigalondo)“Something urgent is not the same as something important. That’s my lesson.” This part of director Nacho Vigalondo’s introduction to his new film, Extraterrestrial, stuck with me throughout the whole genre-bending screwball comedy. The film opens with Julio and Julia, awkwardly dancing around each other the morning after a drunken romp. Normal post-one-night-stand protocol is thrown out the window when the twosome notices that all communication lines are down and, more alarming still, a giant alien spacecraft is hovering outside the window. In any other film, made in any other country, by any other director, Julia and Julio would then embark on an adventure of epic proportions, falling in love as their adrenaline from massacring aliens brings them closer together. But this is Nacho Vigalondo, making a character-driven story “filled with bullsh*t” (his words), not a soulless big-budget sci-fi extravaganza. So instead, Julia and Julio use the conventions of alien invasion stories to weave an elaborate web of lies to cover up their brief affair when a nosy neighbor, Angel, and her alpha male boyfriend with a penchant for heroism, Carlos, check in on her. The series of lies becomes more and more elaborate as Angel discovers their secret, and Carlos experiences an entire film of his own off camera, seeking out alien insurgents and fighting to take back the city. Or so he thinks. 

Extraterrestrial shows a masterful knowledge of every genre in play. No one could tell a story quite this humorously, this cleverly, without having a vast working knowledge of science fiction, romance, and classic screwball comedies, yet nothing about the film feels too well tread or unoriginal. Even with a straightforward narrative, a huge departure from Vigalondo’s first feature, Timecrimes, the film keeps us guessing as we marvel at the absurd length these two people will go to, and to what end? With the world seemingly ending outside, how much does it matter if your boyfriend catches you cheating? It may have been more important to come up with a plan of survival, but the comically urgent human drama at hand took priority. Leads Julián Villagrán and the jaw droppingly gorgeous Michelle Jenner have incredible chemistry, which grounds the outrageous nature of the story. 

Favorite Scene: A character makes a “confession” that is at once ridiculous and necessary, perhaps not to the physical survival of the human race, but certainly to the mental survival of the people involved in this comedy of errors.

The film will be available nationwide via VOD on June 15th and also opens June 15th in New York, Austin and Seattle and June 22nd in Los Angeles. 

Moar info!

**OFFICIAL ENTRY: TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2011****OFFICIAL ENTRY: FANTASTIC FEST 2011** 

Synopsis:
From Focus Features, the premiere global brand in original and daring cinema, comes FOCUS WORLD. Charged with finding the most exciting voices in international and independent film, Focus World is proud to present EXTRATERRESTRIAL, the sexy and hilarious new sci-fi comedy from director Nacho Vigalondo (TIMECRIMES). 

When Julio wakes up in a strange apartment after a night of partying, he’s pleasantly surprised to discover it belongs to a beautiful one-night-stand he can’t remember - Julia. What’s already an awkward situation is made even more so when they discover a giant flying saucer hovering above the city, which is now deserted. Now Julio must contend with a jealous ex-boyfriend, an eccentric neighbor – and very possibly the end of the world! 

Extraterrestrial will be available nationwide on video-on-demand as well as other outlets in Focus World’s digital distribution network.  The film will also be available to filmgoers across the country through Tugg (more info below) with initial theatrical releases in select cities including Brooklyn, NY (at reRun’s Gastropub Theater) and Seattle, WA (at the Uptown Theatre) on June 15^th; North Hollywood, CA (at Laemmle’s Noho 7), on June 22^nd; and in Texas (at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations) in June.

Watch the trailer here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/extraterrestrial/

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Kinect Star Wars: A Mildly Fun Missed Opportunity

Cross-posted on and commissioned by Gaming Blend

When I attended E3 last year, I got to try out the newly announced Star Wars Kinect. It was practically a dream come true for me, getting to kinda sorta really have the force, and it made my Top Five Movie Related Video Games list. Sure some things were wonky, but I GOT TO USE THE FORCE, so I saw a lot of promise. Cut to less than a year later and the finished game hitting stores, fully fleshed out, and the question arises, well wait, IS getting to the use force enough to justify the existence of this game? I'm not so sure.

In Kinect Star Wars, C3PO and R2D2 are your guides of sorts, showing you around the Jedi Archives, categorizing files and other boring organizational things. In the main campaign, you learn about the Clone Wars by jumping in and seeing what it was like to be a padawan during that time (between Episodes one and two), under the tuteledge of a raven haired badass jedi master named Mavra Zane  who has never been mentioned before in the history of Star Wars anything, but is voiced perfectly by Jennifer Hale, so that's a plus?

The campaign seems endless, which can be a little annoying when your move catalog is so limited and cannot be expanded upon. Right hand wields your lightsaber, and most of the time you are doing nothing but swinging your right wrist in a sideways figure eight to block blaster fire, which doesn't feel great the day after when you have to do things like USE YOUR RIGHT HAND. Your left hand controls the force, but don't even try to use the force *while* blocking blaster guns, cause the Kinect will get sad and stop recognizing you altogether. This is silly because it makes no sense, logically. OF COURSE I would block blaster fire whilst using the force, why can't I do both, why?! Oh, limitations of Kinect, my patience, it is waning. You can also jump to jump over enemies, step forward to dash forward for both movement and part of attacking droids, and kick to, well, kick. At the end of every major battle, you go into duel mode, which I still don't understand how to win, despite the fact that I obviously did come out on top every time. Occasionally you drove around in a speeder, which was unwieldy and not fun at all, or engaged in space battle, which was a little bit more tolerable.

While the moves themselves can be fun in doses, spending hours upon hours jumping and slashing without much variety to speak of is incredibly dull and exhausting all at once, two modifiers I try to avoid in my life at all costs. It becomes a lot more enjoyable if you spread the game out over time, especially if you can involve a Star Wars loving friend as well, although having two people confuses the Kinect horribly and both the force and my lightsaber worked just slightly less when someone else got involved. Luckily, the game goes a lot faster with another person, as the number of enemies doesn't seem to increase from one player to two players, so the somewhat faulty motion capture is less bothersome overall.

But fun in doses can really only get you so far when your universe sucks. Sorry. But this game would be a thousand times better if it SIMPLY TOOK PLACE DURING THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY or at least with original trilogy characters. I'm glad I got to see Chewbacca, but I don't understand why I'm fighting alongside some random invented character instead of Luke Skywalker. Have the prequels and Clone Wars TV show really made the original trilogy *that* irrelevant to Kinect owning/video game buying geeks?

The rest of the review after the jump


But that's the rub. This game, this Kinect Star Wars game, this game that lets me use the force, this game was not made for me. This game was not made for those of us who grew up on the originals or grew up on the reissues. This game was made for children. Current children who know more about Clonetroopers than Stormtroopers and identify more with Anakin Skywalker than his son. If there was any doubt, two of the games you can access other than the main campaign are podracing, which sucks, and DANCING, clearly meant to give the sisters of the little boys who insisted on the game, something to do, and justify the parents making the purchase. I can't truly think of any other reason why the dance section would be included in this game. Even C3PO is like "Error, error, I don't know why this is here, oh weird, oh well, let's dance and have fun!" It makes no sense. Songs are changed to sort of be about Star Wars (Genie in a Bottle becomes Princess in a Battle), dance moves adopt Star Wars themed names (I'm particularly fond of the "double-blaster" and the "there is no try"), settings range from Jabba's headquarters to Coruscant, and the people who dance as range from Slave Leia to Lando to Han Solo to Boba Fett. No one should ever see Han Solo dancing. Han Solo dancing makes ZERO sense. It makes NONE OF THE SENSE. It's practically a deliberate affront to true Star Wars fans, so much so that it honestly makes me wonder if Lucasfilm henchmen are sitting in a dark room somewhere cackling, wondering how next to best piss us off. Furthering this suspicion, the only way to get to the Death Star is to get 75 stars (to put this into perspective, the hardest level before the Death Star only needs 30 stars to unlock), which is A LOT OF WATCHING HAN SOLO AND BOBA FETT DANCE, which I am simply not okay with. How many hours do you expect me to dedicate to dancing the same 25 moves over and over just for the pleasure of potentially watching Darth Vader dance? I don't *want* to see Darth Vader dance, I want you to put my favorite characters in any game *other* than dancing, you mean spirited game developers! AUGH. The worst part of it all? The dancing is really fun. Cause it's basically just Dance Central. Ugh. But not 75 stars worth of fun.

The podracing can be done campaign style, with something vaguely resembling a storyline about helping that gross flying thing named Watto from Phantom Menace get back in the podracing business, or as quickplay. Because the movement is so damn unruly, the game gives you the option of having assisted steering, which I highly recommend if you want to actually experience a modicum of enjoyment. The six courses are pretty simple. After getting 5th place the first time I played, I never got lower than 1st place on any course any time I played. But boy did that get tiresome fast. I say no to games that make me keep my arms stretched out in front of me for elongated periods of time. Blah.

The best way to have fun with Kinect Star Wars without hating yourself or cursing George Lucas is to play the Rancor Rampage game. Here, you are a Rancor and all you do is stomp around and knock shit down. It's great! Step on people, throw them, destroy buildings, and the list goes on. It's a use for the Kinect I actually haven't seen yet and I had a blast. The game gives you continuous challenges, like "Munch a droid" or "throw a civilian or droid 77 meters" or "destroy a building," so you fulfill the challenges while destroying things and building up your rage meeter, and when you hit certain point levels, you open up new locations, multipliers and more. I actually *wanted* to play this to completion, unlike every other part of this game.

The fourth mini game, Duel of the Fates, is a longer version of the worst part of the main campaign. Here you pick someone to duel against (a couple types of guards, Count Doku, Darth Vader, etc) and then you just duel. Which means block right, block left, win the clash, attach the enemy, over and over and over and over again. I REFUSE.

Overall, the game is utterly infuriating and mildly fun. If you have kids who love the new trilogy and the Clone Wars universe and have no attachment to the original films, a. I feel really sorry for your whole family but b. This is probably a good buy, at least on sale. For fans of the original who despise new Star Wars anything, like me, stay away. The Rancor Rampage is enough fun to maybe warrant spending 15-20 bucks, maybe, or to boot up the game at a friends house, but for the most part, this game is just yet another reminder that George Lucas had to go and ruin everything, tarnishing something that was once so perfect, so permanently.

Oh but hey, when you walk away from the game cause it's making you upset, C3PO and R2D2 then spend forever actively searching for you asking questions like "Commander, where did you?" and shouting "Hello?!" and staring out at you, tapping on the screen and such. That's at least worth a couple bucks.

Players: 2
Platform(s): Xbox 360
Developer: Terminal Reality
Publisher: LucasArts
ESRB: Teen
Rating: 

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On The Scene: Starship Troopers 15th Anniversary Screening

Cross-posted on Film.com

Last night, tons of die hard Starship Troopers fans descended upon the Arclight Hollywood to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of the Paul Verhoeven cult classic film, adapted from the Heinlein novel. Beware, spoilers abound! Although if you haven't seen the movie by now, that is very silly and should be remedied immediately.

Right outside of the theater, various props and costumes were on display, that in retrospect, I probably should have taken a look at again *after* re-watching the movie, as I had kind of forgotten the significance of any of it, this being the first time I revisited the film since I was 11 years old.

This seemed to be a popular theme of the night. I kept hearing audience members talking about their Troopers circumstances and the majority either hadn't seen the film since it came out, or watched it fairly regularly, and anyone who could, brought someone who had never seen the film, correctly figuring that this would be the best forum to introduce them to the now classic.

Read on for how the film holds up, audience reaction, and what I learned during the Q&A! After the jump we go!



The crowd was extremely enthusiastic (and extremely tardy due to the president visiting Clooney in the valley, the whole shebang started a half hour late, but it's LA, such things are to be expected even when the president isn't in town), so much so that after the trailer was shown for Starship Troopers Invasion, the fourth in the series, and the lights went down as the glorious 35mm reel of the original was getting set to begin, audience members took turns yelling out quotes from the film. Even Casper Van Dien himself took part in this, eliciting giggles all around, especially from the first timers who had no idea what was going on. Naturally, because this is a cool Los Angeles movie related event, Edgar Wright was in attendance, along with Anna Kendrick, and one can only assume they fell into the same category as the rest of us, the long time fan educating the newbie. Although wouldn't it be kind of awesome if Kendrick was the one obsessed with Troopers, showing Wright for the first time? Let's go with that. I approve.

The crowd also included a bunch of Phil Tippett's original fx team, a handful of crew members, and actors Blake Lindsley, Jake Busey, Patrick Muldoon and Casper Van Dien, most of which were recruited to attend by Van Dien himself. Although there were tons of VIPs and press there, there was no reserved seating section. I thought the lack of pretension and air of, hey, we're all just here to celebrate, was awesome, and started the night off on a great note, as we all kind of felt like we were in this together.

I'm not familiar at all with the Starship Troopers sequels, but apparently there is one dude left at Sony who really loves the franchise and is helping them make this fourth installment. The trailer was simple enough, a guy suiting up for war, but I'm not really sure I understood it out of context. To keep up to date with the film, follow @startroopmovie.

On to the film itself. As I tweeted last night, Starship Troopers is the very definition of awesome and I totally see why I loved it so much as a kid. The film starts off with these characters graduating high school with all sorts of romantic entanglements, surrounded by impressive world building that only gets better when they graduate and head off to their various training centers. The special effects are unbelievable and STILL HOLD UP. 15 years later, there is not a single shot that struck me as outdated.  It's no surprise Phil Tippett got an Oscar nomination for his work on the film that year. The violence and sex take no prisoners and no part of the movie feels bad for any of it. I can't remember any recent science fiction film that is so open with sexuality and so unapologetic for its brutal, bloody and graphic body count. While parts of the movie are incredibly cheesy and we hated Denise Richards' Carmen as much as we always did (yes, even at 11 I identified with the badass chick, not the ingenue), something about the movie owning its cheese, yet winking at it at the same time makes the experience so unique and endearing, it becomes all too clear why this film has the cult status it does. And guys, NPH in a floor length duster because he is like, the head of the military science division??!!! AND CLANCY BROWN BEING THE BEST??! It's genius!! Obviously my favorite character remains Dizzy, the badass friend of Johnny Rico who steals his heart in the end because she is so much better in every way than stupid Carmen.

But the best way to explain the vibe of the audience in reaction to the film? I present to you, the ten moments in Starship Troopers the audience applauded after:

1. "The only good bug is a dead bug"
2. "Kill em all!"
3. The first major action sequence which is a continuation of what we see bits of in the opening scene
4. Ed Neumeier's cameo
5. Michael Ironside returns, now with robotic hand!
6. Rico stabs a hole in a fire-breathing bug and throws a grenade in. The result is messy and fantastic.
7. "They sucked his brains out!"
8.  The flying bug falls out of the sky and onto the loopy general, smashing him
9. The escape from the base, but before Dizzy dies
10. Neil Patrick Harris feels the emotions of the brain bug - "It's afraid!"

After the film, the most long winded person in the history of man kind who I'm sure is a nice guy but really shouldn't be moderating these things, Paul Sammon, brought up a slew of special guests for the Q&A, including co-producer/screenwriter Ed Neumeier, co-producer/creature effects supervisor Phil Tippett, Patrick Muldoon (Zander), Blake Lindsley (Katrina), Zoe Poledouris, daughter of composer Basil Poledouris, whose band performs at the high school dance in the film,  Jake Busey (Ace), and Casper Van Dien (Johnny Rico). The hour Q&A was fantastic when any of the panel was speaking, but unfortunately way too much of it was spent with the moderator speaking. Still, it was fun and informative and below are 11 things I learned.

1. Casper Van Dien went to military school, was a huge fan of the novel, and loved old Harryhausen films. They brought him in initially because he had the perfect look, but Van Dien out to be even more than the complete package and quickly got the part.
2. "I went kicking and screaming into the digital age" - SFX maestro Phil Tippett
3. Each of the bugs' functions reflected an iconic role in the cannon of WWII, and in the way that the first film is a WWII movie, the second mirrors the Korean War and the third Vietnam
4. There was a horrible storm during boot camp one night, and Denise Richards' tent was all but destroyed, so she stayed in the tent with Busey and Van Dien. Although Busey had a girlfriend (who he is still with today and they are expecting a baby soon!) so he kind of ignored the situation, Van Dien was very single and coming off a divorce, so he and Richards shared a sleeping bag, and although Busey was cut off before he could finish the story, the heavy implication is that the two hooked up. Van Dien put the kibosh on the rest of the story and the implication, exclaiming, "She was dating Patrick then...She had hypothermia...I didn't touch her!" Patrick insisted this happened before they started dating, because he was cast during boot camp. Whatever the actual story is, it was hilarious to watch them reminisce and I always loves me some gossipy on set stories :). The whole exchange was super friendly and lively and showed off the camaraderie these guys all seem to still have
5. Zoe Poledouris' band got to play in the film because her father Basil who composed the film, often had her demo playing. Verhoeven heard it one day and thought it sounded the right kind of futuristic and suggested her band appear in the film
6. Busey was the best shot, and the worst shot was one of the girls, who accidentally unloaded a magazine of blanks into Tippett's face, but we didn't get to hear the whole story
7. There were more blanks shot on this set than on any film that came before
8. Busey loves the timelessness of practical effects and spoke rather eloquently about how it connects audiences more to a film than CGI laden blockbusters of today where merely by knowing the effects are computer generated, we are unconsciously separated way more from what we are watching
9. Busey took six months of violin lessons using one owned by Verhoeven's wife (worth $250,000!) before the shoot in order to play the three songs he rocks in the movie
10. The actors were so timid about getting naked in the group shower scene, that Busey said to Verhoeven, who was giving them shit, "oh yeah if it's so easy, why don't you do it?" So both Verhoeven and DP Jost Vacano dropped trou, Verhoeven commenting, "See? What's the problem?" Slowly everyone else followed suit, but Busey had gone to a local sex shop and purchased 16 inch extenders for himself and Van Dien, so when they took their clothes off, it sent the room into hysterics.
11. The design of the brain bug was based on Cthulhu

After the Q&A, everyone stuck around signing autographs and taking pictures. There were no egos in the room, and Casper Van Dien especially was so warm hearted and kind. I showed him photos of us together from when I was a kid and he graciously recreated one of them with me. He is so active on social networking, it's fantastic, he loves staying in touch with his fans and kept encouraging everyone to post their photos with him to Twitter or tag him on Facebook. Plus he took the time to have a full conversation with each and every person that came up to him, asking questions, staying engaged. This sort of thing is bizarrely rare in the industry and it was nice to see.

All in all, it was a long, but great night, and reminded me why Starship Troopers meant so much to me in the first place.

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Should Joss Whedon Direct Avengers 2?

Cross-posted on and commissioned by Film.com

After breaking the all time record for highest opening weekend numbers with 207 million and holding steady at 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, The Avengers is officially a giant effing success. As haters everywhere find themselves stunned that Joss "wait, the guy who created Buffy?" Whedon pulled off such a universally acclaimed take on these beloved characters, it starts to make you wonder. Will Disney give Whedon another shot, since he did so well the first time around, or will they move on, too nervous about the chance they took the first time to try again? What should they do? Does Whedon even want a round two?

First off, it should be noted that I am a major MAJOR Whedon fan. I've watched all of his shows when all of his shows originally aired, I love The Cabin in the Woods, I love Serenity, I love Dr. Horrible, I know I'll love Much Ado About Nothing, and the list goes on. When I met Whedon at Comic-Con a couple years back (well, met as an adult, I encountered him rather often at conventions as a teen,) my fandom overtook my body and forced me to blurt out "BUFFY CHANGED MY LIFE" before telling him my name. Good one, Muse. So I never doubted that Whedon could handle the multi-character action extravaganza that would be The Avengers.

He has been juggling ensemble casts and action scene after action scene for the past fifteen years! This ability is not one easily honed, but comes so naturally to Whedon, it can't help but make you consider  that he made a deal with The Master Angelus The Mayor Adam Glory Trio First Evil the devil somewhere along the way. What he does with the Avengers is masterful. Each character has his moment to shine, his fight to win, his relationships to explore. No one gets the shaft and everyone has the ability to walk away a fan favorite.

On top of that, the fight scenes were made for the excited child in all of us who used to bang Iron Man & Thor action figures together, even though it didn't really make sense, the dialogue is smart, quippy and feels natural coming from each characters' mouths, and Whedon even turns his own Whedonverse tropes on their head by gettin a little meta, but for the sake of spoilers, I won't elaborate on that. For now. While the film may be slow to start, it ends exceptionally, the first Marvel film to boast such a claim, as most of them end following the same old same old formula to mostly unexciting results. In The Avengers, instead of pretending the question is "Will the heroes win?" when we all know they will, the question becomes "How will the heroes win?" and watching the answer unfold and these characters finally become a team is pure unbridled fan joy. Oh, and the film is currently sitting on over 650 million worldwide. So yeah, I think it's safe to say Whedon succeeded.

Furthermore, I would argue that the film has succeeded primarily *because* of Whedon. He jumped in there and rewrote the script, he used his talent at writing and directing women better than most anyone ever to make Pepper Potts the most likable yet and give Scarlet Johansson close to the best role and performance of her career, and he finally put the Hulk we've all been waiting for on the screen. The only difference between this Marvel film and the rest? Joss Whedon. So when this one is clearly the best yet, the reason seems rather obvious.

How the actors felt working with Whedon has become a major topic at any and all press events. Scarlet Johansson during CBS' profile of the director last  week even said that when she got the script and read how Joss crafted Black Widow so powerfully she said to herself, "Thank you, Joss" and at the press conference held last month, Chris Hemsworth talked about how hilarious Whedon is and how though he doubted certain comedic moments would play, he ended up being blown away by how well they worked on screen (specifically, "He's adopted.") Whedon knows these characters inside and out and it shows. Robert Downey Jr elaborated, noting how Whedon established the perfect tone for the film and  "...did a good job of finding everyone's frequency."

So why wouldn't Disney have him back to direct? Well there's always the old fear that lighting doesn't strike twice. Maybe Disney feels great about this gamble paying off, but wants to use the good will the film will drum up to a. pick a "bigger" director (although technically, no one is bigger than the Whedon right now) or b. go in the opposite direction and pick someone even riskier, with more of a distinct directorial style. Perhaps Whedon himself would want to go out on a high note, rather than pull a Favreau, who followed up the acclaimed Iron Man with the disappointing Iron Man 2. Of course it's possible to pull a Nolan as well, and take on both Avengers 2 and Avengers 3, but Nolan has had time to breathe and step away between each of his Batman films. Would Whedon be afforded that luxury?

When I really think about it, much more so than the directing, it is the writing and the overarching choices of the series that make The Avengers work. Whedon makes some fun directorial choices and the action is all extremely solid, but I find myself only really panicking if someone suggests Whedon stepping away from the writing desk. So here is my proposal.

Acknowledge the fact that Whedon is pretty much *the* reason the film works so well and give him reign over the rest of the Avengers films as writer and producer, and if he so choose, director. Let him guide the story and the direction, perhaps even becoming a instrumental force in selecting his predecessor, should Avengers 2 not be his to helm. After all, Joss discovered some of the best writers working today on Buffy and Angel, and I trust his knowledge of the Avengers and where they need to go and what they require inside and out, and truly believe he would know whose vision would work best in presenting them next.

So at the end of the day, as long as Whedon is heavily involved in the rest of the Avengersseries, I'll be a happy gal. But no matter what happens, thanks to the quality of The Avengers and its inevitable success, I say already Whedon has won, Marvel has won and fandom has won. It's a good week to be a geek.

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PEN World Voices Festival 2012: New Technology & Conventional Literature Strike a Balance

I had the total lit-nerdy thrill to attend some exciting events during the 8th annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. PEN American Center is the American chapter of International PEN, which is a literary and human rights organization that fights for the freedom of expression of writers all over the world. This year, PEN American Center's festival celebrated the ways in which literary expression expands across multiple artistic and technological mediums. The festival took place in various New York venues, from April 30th through May 6th, and included such authors as Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan, Tony Kushner, Marjane Satrapi, Brian Selznick, and Salman Rushdie (who served as the Festival Chair).

From Margaret Atwood arguing for the internet as a useful literary tool, to Jennifer Egan discussing how Power Point worked conceptually and structurally in her novel, the festival events I attended proved that literature is evolving with (and not being destroyed by) new technology. The festival also showcased writers like Marjane Satrapi and Brian Selznick who are breaking literary conventions with their genre-challenging and medium-crossing narratives.

Highlights from my experience at the festival, after the jump.

Margaret Atwood © George Whiteside

Thursday night, I kicked off the festival by attending a discussion with author Margaret Atwood and editor Amy Grace Loyd, at the New School, about how the internet is changing literature. While Atwood discussed her concern over how limited privacy and security are online, she also championed the web as a place for artistic and political communication and assembly. Furthermore, she argued that technological advancements in communication—like the internet—can coexist with conventional storytelling and even influence literature in plot and style. Proving Atwood’s point, Jennifer Egan discussed her use of Power Point in A Visit from the Goon Squad, also at the New School, on Friday. Egan initially found Power Point formally appealing but was able to make it function within her novel contextually. Using the “cold” aspect of Power Point in a section of her book where she felt the narrative to be sentimental, allowed her to strike a tonal balance. Both Egan and Atwood were as engaging and entertaining in person as their printed words. Atwood especially entertained with her playful dry, frank humor and her witty dynamic with Loyd. I was proud to raise my hand when Atwood asked her twitter followers to put up their hands!

Jennifer Egan © Pieter M. van Hattem

Another (but totally different) sense of pride came over me during the Marjane Satrapi event at the MoMA, also on Thursday night. As an Iranian-American, I love how Satrapi expresses her own cultural hybridity and embeds Iranian history in her art. I was ecstatic to see her speak before screening her new film Chicken with Plums (which I will review in full, in a near future post). Satrapi, in discussion with graphic artist and editor Francois Mouly, talked about her visual and literary work. She argued that the graphic novel was not a genre but its own unique medium where images can both replace and work with words to create “a really specific language.”

© Sony Pictures Classics

Brian Selznick is also an artist creating stylistically unique narratives with books like The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo was my favorite film last year and listening to Selznick on Saturday at the New School, in discussion with fellow writer David Levithan, was a beautiful way to wrap up my first PEN festival. Although he had been writing children’s literature up until it, he stated that he didn’t set out to create a children’s book with The Invention of Hugo Cabret. What began as a novella and a fascination with George Melies grew into a novel where illustrations work as “purely visually narrative work.” Influenced by both silent films and the late Maurice Sendak‘s wild rumpus pages in Where the Wild Things Are, Selznick wanted visuals (illustrated pages) to guide the plot forward, without having text constantly move the story along for readers. Although Selznick was weary of a film adaptation, he was pleased that John Logan’s script retained the importance of books. Selznick believes the film adaptation “inverted” his novel, which “celebrates movies but is about the importance of books” by “making a movie that celebrates books…but ultimately…(is) a movie about the importance of movies.” This thematic inversion was logical to him since it reflects the medium shift from book to film.

© Scholastic Inc.

Overall, the festival presented a hopeful stance about the future of literature, in the face of new technology. The discussions and events proved that literature was evolving with, and transitioning into, new mediums while still being able to retain the attention of readers with extended narratives within the more conventional medium of books.

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