Traffic Update: Gridlock in Algonquin...

So, I spent $40 on Episodes from Liberty City a couple of weeks ago, and I've hardly played it. Don't get me wrong; it's a great game. The expansions are worthy updates to GTA IV. I've just been too busy to play the game.

Great way to watch your money, Steve. Brilliant.

So what have I been doing instead of playing video games lately? Watching TV in the afternoon and shouting romantic advice at the characters, mostly.

"You don't need him, honey! YOU DON'T NEED HIM!"

Try it. It's cathartic when you're having girl/guy problems. Those people on the tube understand what you're going through.

"She's just a skank anyway! A SKANK!"

ValkyrieSDF1

Be Afraid, Summer Box Office. Be Very Afraid.

There's going to be a lot of 3D movies trying to earn your money at the local multiplex this summer, but you'll have some other choices, too. One of them consists of a ton of '80's, '90's, and ought's action stars teaming up to kick your butt.

The Expendables stars, in varying degrees of involvement-- and I am not making this up-- Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, and Jason Statham. You might want to read that list again.

I also found out that the lovely Charisma Carpenter, of Buffy and Angel fame, is in the movie. Hey Charisma, glad to see you're getting work. Do you have the kids this weeend, or do I?



This really doesn't seem like a fair fight, all of these guys against one little box office.

Mom and Dad, I Have Something to Tell You...

No, not what you think. But I did watch the second Twilight film, New Moon, last night.

Um, there were girls there. Real ones. So that makes it okay. I saw it with a group of friends, and some of them were girls. But I still refuse to see these movies in theaters, no matter how much I want to be a movie critic. The only thing that could drag to a theater to see one of these in public is a smokin' girlfriend, but Jessica Alba and I are broken up right now.

So anyway, I was thinking about... holy crap! Did you see Taylor Lautner as Jacob in this thing? Look at him! He's like 12 but has the body of a Greek god. No wonder tween girls love these movies.

By the way, it was hard for me to watch you in that movie last night, Ashley. Come back to me. I miss you.

ValkyrieSDF1

Movie Review: Kick-Ass

Tarantino-vile and largely entertaining, Matthew Vaughn's (Layer Cake) Kick-Ass is a funny and action-packed super hero spoof. The film is fundamentally an action comedy, with offensive language and blood splattered about the hilarious and jaw-droping gags. In the midst of the ridiculousness mangled bodies lies a super hero movie that suddenly looks very outdated.

In the film, teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) loves comic books and hates society's apathy towards crime. He decides to become a super hero, Kick-Ass, roaming the streets of New York City and fighting muggers and the like. He is almost killed in fights more than once, and his acute lack of super-powers forebodes a short career. However, he has help soon as the well-trained Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) and her partner, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), start taking out gangsters in a serious way. They have a vendetta against mobster Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), whose son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), becomes Red Mist, another super hero, to befriend Kick-Ass. Most of this drama unfolds over the internet, through things like Youtube. All the while, Dave is trying to deal with being a loser of a teenager, trying to spend time with his friends and win the heart of Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), a girl who believes he is gay.

Kick-Ass fails as the commentary on super heroes, and the possibility of real-life super heroes, that it sometimes believes itself to be. Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009), based on a juggernaut of a graphic novel, already covered that territory: people dress up as heroes because the costumes are a sexual fetish, people fight crime because they're driven maniacs, someone with real super powers makes costumed heroes irrelevant, costumed heroes die when shot. Watchmen analyzed the phenomenon within the context of an alternate-reality United States, one rife with political turmoil; Kick-Ass simply wants us to watch our characters kill and be killed. And the film fails in the same way that many felt Watchmen did: the real people who try to be heroes do, in fact, pull off superhuman feats, therefore equalizing their story with the average comic book instead of keeping it about comic books. Hit-Girl is 11 years old, but she defeats a cemetery's worth of grown men while jumping around like a foul-mouthed, purple-haired Yoda.

Thankfully, Vaughn stays away from the obnoxious filmmaking so prevalent in today's action films. This wasn't made by Tony Scott. When a strobe light effect is created, it isn't because the editing is so fast that the viewer can't tell what's happening, it is because there is actually a strobe light being used for tactical advantage by a character. The movie, which is based on a comic series by Mark Millar, is relatively derivative, from the tight spandex to the use of iconic music from other films, including Danny Boyle's Sunshine (2007) and 28 Days Later (2002) and Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965). And, in the spirit of anime, Hit-Girl drops the f-bomb, killing grown men while wearing a skirt. Yes, she is sexualized at one point in the film.

So I liked the film, but it isn't for the faint of heart.

By the way, there are some mainstream critics that have written, "Kick-Ass kicks ass!" and crap like that. They get paid for this stuff! Really??!! I mean, really? Where'd they get that one?

Finally...

I promise not to end this post with the words, "You know what? Forget it." To both of you who read this once a month, I apologize about ending that way twice in a row.

I just get so unsure of myself, like, "Am I getting through to the people? Will President Obama and the corporate executives who analyze my awesome blog be satisfied that I am always right?" And then I get all self conscious about whether or not anyone cares about my steamy affairs with world famous supermodels, and I back off right at the end of my post.

Anyway, as of today, I, and all other Playstation 3 owners, can finally play this...




Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City is a bundle of GTA IV expansion packs: The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. These have been available for a while for XBox 360 owners, but they are now available for the PS3 for $4o bucks in stores or for $20 each on the Playstation Network. Yes, they still take place in the majestic but crazy world of Liberty City, and they involve characters from the original game.

The reason the expansion packs were available for the XBox for so long is that Microsoft paid money for the exclusivity, which just ran out. Microsoft owns everything, including your car and my laptop, which they said they want back. Nice blogging with you folks.

We are going to the top, cousin.

Somebody Do Something!!!!

I actually like Milla Jovovich, but, like a lot of smart people, I've felt a little sorry for her for a few years. She seems to star in one horrible movie after another, and her track record is worse after age 25 than before.

To top it off, she went and married Paul W.S. Anderson, a horrible man who directed Mortal Kombat, AVP: Alien vs Predator, and now this...



Yeah. I hate to tell you, folks, but 3D isn't going to help this franchise.

The point of this post is that we all need to help Milla and destroy Paul. But Paul can only be stopped when his movies stop making money-- which isn't going to happen-- and Milla is a skinny, gorgeous, rich supermodel, so I don't feel sorry for her after all.

You know what? Forget it.

ValkyrieSDF1

Megan Fox has no Power Over Anyone, Ever

Megan Fox made her name with both of Michael Bay's Transformers movies, and in 2009's Jennifer's Body. If you've seen her, then you remember her.

I doubt she's got all of her stuff together, like as a person, but I can't really judge her for that because my psychiatrist says my incessant hiccuping is a result of my scarred childhood and fear of overweight toddlers.

In any case, she's doomed to a life of obscurity from now on. I don't think there is any way she'll ever even be able to get what she wants out of life...

You know what? Forget it.

Transformers 3 is due next year, boys.

Dang

Not to change the subject, but you need to know that I love hockey.

When the sport is played at a high level, there is a power and a beauty to it that is a sight to behold, as ten men speed around racefully in a choreographed, 20 mph dance. It's a gladiator-style chess game, and the National Hockey League features easily the most aesthetically appealing and viscerally impressive product in North American sports.



Milan Lucic of the Boston Bruins hit Mike Van Ryn right through the glass on October 23, 2008. Lucic is a 21-year-old, human battering ram from Vancouver, and Van Ryn is a human pancake.

I just wish the NHL knew how to market itself better.

Even if you don't like hockey, you can appreciate things like this...

Who wouldn't?

News Flash: There's a Genocide Going on in Burma

Sylvester Stallone is one of the few good guys in Hollywood, a town controlled by narcissistic, empty-headed, selfish, rich fools.

His film, Rambo, is the fourth movie in the franchise and was released to horrible reviews in January of 2008. The close-minded, left wing idiots we call movie critics in this country hated it.

What they failed to grasp through their puffs of marijuana smoke was that Stallone took a stand simply by making the film. He showed Western audiences what is happening in Burma, and that's genocide.

Burma is an Asian country bordering Thailand on the northwest. The dictatorship there is using military might to wipe out whomever they don't like, including the Karen people, who are largely poor, Christian farmers.

Since you've probably never heard about this unless you've seen Rambo, Stallone already accomplished something that our ridiculous media won't. He also made the point that the only way to stop evil forces like the Burmese military regime is through violence. I highly recommend the movie on Blu-ray.

Since we, unfortunately, can't really send Rambo over there to slaughter all the bad guys, check out http://www.uscampaignforburma.org/.

Live for nothing, or die for something.

My Imaginary Girlfriend is Hotter than Your Imaginary Girlfriend

Ahhh, let's see. Which torrid love affair with a famous starlet do I tell you about first? There are so many to choose from...

Oh, yes. I'm currently in love with Ashley Greene, the lovely young lady from the Twilight films and those risque Sobe commercials.

Ashley and I have been talking a lot about whether or not things can work out between us. She told me she loved me, but we're both in demand so much that it's hard to find time to love each other. I mean, she's a rising movie star that has to make a new vampire movie every three weeks, and my employer in Binghamton, NY demands that I show up Monday through Friday from 6 to 3. It's hard to be a big deal.

Ashley, baby, I still think about you. I've got a lot of love to give, but I can't wait forever.

ValkyrieSDF1