The New Phantom Movie Sucks

The Phantom (2010)

To sum up this movie, it's a symphony of stupid. From almost the opening scene to the end, the movie just scoffs at intelligence. There are going to be some spoilers ahead, so if you care about the integrity of a SyFy movie, you might want to stop reading.

Lets get the good things out of the way before I begin to just insult every single thing about this movie that they made for SyFy. The acting isn't that bad, and for the most part, the camera work is good.

Now comes the shit that just destroys every positive thing there could be about this movie.

-A very poor car chase. Nothing positive about this, because it just flashes between a woman and her kid, named Kit, being chased by some dudes in another vehicle. Then the bad guys start shooting at them with automatic weapons and manage to hit nobody, but then the mom drives the car into a river. At which time, the bad guys use a cell phone to declare that they are dead.to whoever their boss is.

-An evil Cable company. Seriously. An evil cable company that has mind control technology. FUCK. YOU.


-Parkour. This is the worst thing to hit movies. It looks silly, and it's fucking stupid. I can understand people who like to DO it, but if you enjoy watching it, you're a moron and I hope you get sterilized before your mouth breathing mongoloid children join the world's population.

-Oh I'm sorry, they aren't an evil cable company, they're an evil Hindu terrorist group consisting of some Indian dude, and a bunch of white people who seem like they think that he is going to rape them.

-So when the police arrest you for misdemeanors (and going as far as arresting you for crimes without any evidence or indication of the crime even happening), they enter your DNA into a computer system. I know that this is bullshit, because I got arrested for an actual crime and they didn't check my DNA. BECAUSE THAT ISN'T LEGAL.

-But it gets worse. Not only did they check his DNA illegaly, but apparently people just sit around monitoring DNA checks and then compare them to the DNA of a guy that has been dead for 20 years to see if they're related. This wasn't even the Evil Cable Company doing this retarded shit, this was the Good Guy secret organization.

-Ah, but the bad guys know the same information and sent ASSASSINS!!!!!! OH SHIT, THESE ASSASSINS KNOW PARKOUR. THIS SHIT JUST GOT EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEME.

-Again, Parkour is fucking stupid. Just fucking stupid.

-OH. A suit that gets signals from your brain (without being connected to your brain in any way) that becomes invincible when you think about it. It also gives super strength through the magic power of imaginary science.

-Ah the old I rechamber my .45s to shoot bigger bullets even though I never use guns to kill trick.

-Oh! Now I understand. The bad guys want to keep the Middle East unstable because they are EEEEEVIIIIIIL.

-MORE PARKOUR.

And that was The Phantom.

TheDenizen's TV Movie of the Century

Howdy, ninja gang...I'm back from my vision quest in the desert.

I've been caught in the swirling undertow of the time sink that is Read Dead Redemption for the last several weeks (too soon to declare GOTY?), but I've finally finished that up and gotten back into the swing of watching the crappiest movies I can find. I've got a backlog of shit to watch that would stagger a proctologist, so I soldier on.

One of the unexpected joys of mining the depths of lesser known world cinema is the occasional unearthing of an absolute gem. I recently watched the 1984 British made-for-TV nuclear holocaust film Threads, and not only was it the best film I've seen in ages, it gets my nod as the best TV movie I've ever encountered. I thought it would be a bit of a laugh, but I was dead wrong.

There are a couple of types of post-holocaust film: the predominant Mad Max action type, with outlaws and raiders racing around the wasteland and blowing each other up over resources, and the rarer scaremongering type which try to frighten people with dramatizations of how horrible the aftermath of nuclear war would truly be. Probably the best known American example of the latter is "The Day After", another TV movie from the same Cold War era as Threads. However, The Day After was full of melodrama and Hollywood heroics, and painted a cheesily unrealistic picture. The blunt realism of Threads is shocking in comparison.

Threads focuses on two working class families in Sheffield, England, which is the country's fourth largest city and one of the main centers of industry. The film slowly builds up the characters of Ruth and Jimmy, a young couple expecting a child, as well as their parents and siblings. In the beginning, there are news reports of tensions in the Middle East that everyone ignores. But as Jimmy and Ruth find an apartment and begin building their lives together, the tensions suddenly escalate into a very real threat of war between America and the USSR.

As panic gradually builds, people begin hoarding food and building bomb shelters according to government issued instructions. Contingency plans are put into motion, but suddenly 200 megatons falls on England and fucks up everything. Millions are killed in the initial blasts, and the survivors quickly discover that their shelters are woefully inadequate. Weakened by radiation sickness, hunger and disease, many millions more don't survive the first weeks. The film then continues on to tell the story of some of the few people remaining in England over the course of the next 13 years, struggling to cope with the reality of a world where everything left is irradiated.

The brilliance of Threads is twofold. One, it is disturbingly realistic looking. The filmmakers employed the expert knowledge of many scientists and nuclear theorists in writing the script, and filmed in a documentary style. The direction is flat, there is a monotone voiceover filling in necessary details, and almost no music to speak of. It feels real. Two, it doesn't flinch away from the horrific truth of the effects of nuclear explosions and fallout at all. Burning corpses, dead children, desperate and violent looters, radiation burns and projectile vomiting, completely ineffective government measures, mutations, it's all here. The only thing that Threads shies away from is cannibalism, which is never mentioned...although we do see survivors reduced to eating rats and raw animal carcasses.

Even without the cannibalism, Threads is relentlessly bleak and joyless, grisly horror piled upon horror, and the ending ruthlessly snatches away the one tiny shred of hope that exists. Threads aired on British TV in an era when most people only had 4 TV channels...millions of people saw this and it must've scared the bejesus out of Thatcher's England. It scared the bejesus out of me. And I loved it.

I do enjoy a good downer movie, and Threads is the granddaddy downer. It forces you to recognize the futility of trying to think or plan what you would do in the same situation. There's nothing you could do and there's nothing the survivors can do except keep going. Everyone should see this, especially horror buffs...it really is frightening. Powerful and affecting, seek Threads out and watch it.

Until next time...

Things are looking up for Mad Magazine

Mad Magazine switched to a quarterly format last year, which immediately started rumors that the magazine was on its last legs. They canceled Mad Classics and Mad Kids on top of all of this, so they were significantly cutting back, and four times a year just wasn't enough for Mad fans.

Well, some good news just hit. Mad is now going to be BIMONTHLY, giving everybody two more issues a year. While this is a sign of good fortune coming Mad's way, that's not even the huge news.

Mad Magazine is getting its own animated series on the Cartoon Network.

More details on the deal are going to be published in the next issue of Mad which hits stands August 15th.

I would LIKE to make a movie as well...

I am jealous of my fellow Kidnappers having such ready access to willing co-stars and camera-people...and pro-style movie cameras (I have a cheap non-HD vid-cam and a point-and-shoot non-HD with rounded anamorphic lens, neither of which are conducive to good even-amateur on-the-spot movies).

Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who inspires rousing loyalty from my friends and acquaintances, so I'm SOL.
:(

(I DO have some experience, having had camera-work experience thanks to my Freshman year--my only year, by the way--at Allegheny College, and having done more than a little of the principal photography, as well as having a nice little bit part, in the DEE fan film "Final Fantasy v. Kaiju Big Battel"...which is officially endorsed by KBB's own Dr. Cube!)

Anyone here in the New York City area need a dependable cameraperson/writer/actor? I'm available...

I Also Made a Movie...

(Tagline) "Tonight there is going to be a murder" says Dr. Marlowe in the opening scene of Christyanity Studios debut picture. This sets a precedent for what is to come; bone-chilling horror, mind-blowing terror, and heart breaking tragedy. Only one man can stop the madness, and his name is Gumshoe.

(Plot) Dr. Marlowe and his cronies take to the streets of Clearfield in the name of murder; Detective Gumshoe takes to the streets in the name of justice. Which side will prevail in this classic tale of good versus evil? Why don't you roll the dice and find out...this one is a crap shoot.


It was called "Of Dice and Men". We filmed it over a year ago, and while it's pretty shitty there are a lot of scenes I'm very proud of like the head smash and the rape.

In case you are wondering I'm "Dr. Marlowe" or aka the dude in the black hate and 2 sizes too small coat. All of the music was done on a Casio from 1988..the ending credits song is by my band "Beforehead" which is just fantastic work. It was filmed on my buddy's cousin's handheld camera.

This is a monster at 40 minutes with 4 10 minute parts.

HOPE YOU ENJOY

So, I Made A Movie And Stuff.

Machinery Making Modern Music (in association with a group a couple of my friends made, GIHAGI Studios, and the MV94 News team) made a movie. A freaking movie, dude. Well, a short film...that honestly isn't awesome as I'd hoped, but still. Freaking wewt.

It's called "Espuniage: Aldo Giovanni vs Chuck and Taylor". We were assigned to do a video about some new security measures that the school instituted. Pretty lame pitch, honestly, but nonetheless, we got to work. What came out was a hilariously bad 1940s crime drama mixed with an 80s B cop movie, with 2000s stupidity and sensibilities. It's supposed to be a campy spy vs spy kinda deal, and was mainly inspired by the Homestar Runner cartoon Dangeresque. I wrote, directed, and edited this, with rewrites and other type things coming from my class colleagues. Even though they helped, this was pretty much my baby, and I think the people in my group would probably concur with that. It was also made on a shoestring budget on 3 different cameras, all of which weren't that awesome. If we had filmed the whole thing on one of the cameras, it wouldve been in widescreen but, alas, quality is not our friend. Also, I had to edit part of it in Windows Movie Maker, which honestly makes me gag. Oh well, I have new editing software now, rock.

Here it is...




Let me know what you think. Comments, critiques, etc. are very welcome.

- FishHook

Trash and Treasure: Gaming on a Budget RETURNS! Featuring Brutal Legend!

Hello, kidnappers and kidnapees, and welcome to the return of Trash and Treasure: Gaming on a Budget! I am your long-time absentee host, FishHook. I truly do apologize for the lack of writing for this column, but I honestly stopped buying games for awhile, or at least games that would fit into this budget gamer category. Also, I've been doing some rad stuff for preparation for college and getting something of a "production company" together called Machinery Making Modern Music Productions (or 4M for short), which will be the banner I will post any of my future projects under. I had a blogpost about that earlier though, so I won't waste time talking about it here. I'll just get right into the rating scale explanation!

I use a simple scale that will take into account not only the quality of the game with the standard measures of Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, and Replay Value, but also the fifth value of Affordability, how well the game stacks up at its current price point. The final rating of a game is not an average of these individual ratings, but a subjective rating that falls within one of three categories. The categories are as follows...

Pawn Shop Paraphernalia (The Low End)
- These are games that are either simply horrendous games that aren't worth any amount of currency no matter what or games that are hideously overpriced for their value. As the budget gamer, these are titles to avoid.

Decent Value Deal (Middle Of The Road)
- These are either merely OK games at a great value or great games at a value that may not be affordable to the budget gamer. These are games that the budget gamer should consider, but they aren't completely must-buy titles.

Tremendous Gaming Treasure (The High End)
- These are great games at great values. Tons of fun to be had at a low price point, these are the budget gamer's Nirvana and should be picked up at any cost. Even the gamer with a ton of expendable income should look into these high-class titles.

Now then, let’s move things along to our next review, Double Fine Productions’ latest work, the action RTS Brutal Legend!

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The boys at Double Fine Productions have created another underappreciated work of gaming art. After 2006’s phenomenal Psychonauts (which, if you’re wondering, is totally a Tremendous Gaming Treasure), Tim Schafer’s company began work on something very near and dear to Schafer’s heart: metal! The end result is a very unique action/RTS game that will give you neck cramps from the amount of headbanging you’ll be doing.

In Brutal Legend, you play as Eddie Riggs, rock and roll roadie caught in the wrong generation of pop rock. After some idiocy from the band that leads to the set falling on Eddie and trailing blood on supposedly magical belt buckle, the set comes to life, rips the band apart, and sends Eddie into a world made of heavy metal album cover motifs: car parts growing from the ground like flowers, grandiose pillars of amps, and guitars that fire lightning and literally melt faces. In this mystic world, the roadie is a commander of battle, the organizer of combat. Eddie finds his calling with Stonehenge, a rebellious human group fighting against devilish creatures and glam-head humans that sold out to the dark overlords. In fighting for the Stonehenge resistance, you’ll guide Riggs through a twisting story based in (of all things) love, loyalty, and vengeance. The story, while not seemingly as good as some of Schafer’s other works, is still very funny and engrossing and the characters really come to life.

Speaking of engrossing, Brutal Legend’s free roaming world is an absolute wonder to play around in. Animals freely roam through the country-side (and by animals, I mean boars with chrome wheels and flaming tailpipes and hedgehogs with steel quills), majestic mountains with rock gods carved into the face, garages that go straight into the depths of hell, and headbangers moshing around abandoned sets, just waiting for the next show. The world is beautifully crafted. It may not be the most technically wondrous as far as graphics goes, but it’s one of the best when it comes to style and feel. The characters are creative and ooze metal motifs and enemies really feel like enemies of metal, and when you actually take control of Eddie, you’ll quickly find death is indeed their reward.

The gameplay is very different from what people expected from Brutal Legend…and I’m failing to see why that’s a bad thing. People just expected God of War with a guitar and the game was actually bashed in reviews for having RTS elements. I just don’t understand it. The ‘Stage Battles’ as they’re called are an absolute blast to play. Setting up your stage, assaulting fan geysers with merchandise to take control of them to gather more troops for your metal crusade, they’re all done incredibly intuitively through the in-game mechanics. You never feel like you’re never in control of your legions, as the complexities of RTS gameplay have been simplified to 4 main controls: hold position, defend, attack, and follow the leader. It works well despite its simplicity. The only problem, in my opinion, with the game is what you get to do in between the Stage Battles. While these battles of the bands are extremely fulfilling, you don’t get much in the side-missions. Race the same guy in your bad-ass street rod; defend a position with a mounted machine gun; blow some shit up, wash, rinse, repeat. Don’t get me wrong, the action sections are fun, it’s hard to feel unfulfilled when you’re slicing Poision-style glam rockers in half with an ax while powersliding into dozens of unruly minions and blowing them up with the sheer force of your rock, but it’s simply repetitive. Another problem with the gameplay is the difficulty. It’s nearly non-existent throughout most of the game, but as soon as you get to the last couple of Stage Battles, it gets unbelievably hard. That gap in difficulty is off-putting, and led me to some very frustrating moments where I wanted to smash my 360 controller like a Les Paul.

The thing that kept me from doing so was the incredible sound design. The soundtrack is a perfect set piece to the game, with legendary riffs and powerful drums creating the perfect atmosphere. Music is integral to every mission, with the metal setting the mood for every single one of your exploits. The music is also an awesome distraction: if you get frustrated with those last few Stage Battles like I did, just hop in the Druid Plow and listen to "The Mob Rules" while smashing into everything in your path for a little while. I guarantee it will keep you playing. The voice acting is top-notch as well. Stars like Jack Black, Lita Ford, Rob Halford and Lemmy Kilmeister lend surprising depth to their characters. Topping the charts in voice acting is Ozzy Osbourne's depiction of the demonic master of the Metal Forge where you buy upgrades; the Prince of Darkness never fails to force a smile upon your face. And while enemies and allies have repetitive voice samples (you'll hear Headbangers say "We're on patrol!" more times than you'd ever want to hear), nothing every feels annoying or takes you out of the universe the game creates.

In terms of replayability, Brutal Legend offers one major victory: online Stage Battles! These are incredibly fun and keep the good times rolling for quite awhile in this game. There's little incentive to play through the single player mode again though, all you really get is a harder difficulty level. And, of course, it is an Xbox 360 game, so you will get some replayability if you are an achievements whore. Other than that though, the game struggles to recapture your attention if you aren't Live-enabled.

So how does this package come presented to the budget gamer? Despite a much heavier advertising campaign than Double Fine's last work, the backing of Electronic Arts, and a superstar voice acting crew, Brutal Legend still didn't sell that well. While this is disappointing for the industry, it's great news for the budget gamer, as you can pick up the game for a mere $20 new, and around the $17 range used. That is an incredible deal for the amount of enjoyment you'll get out of this game.

So, where does it fall in the ratings scale? If you've been reading, it's pretty obvious that I view this as a Tremendous Gaming Treasure. The game simply exudes charisma and charm from the second the opening video with Jack Black walking into a record store and finding the mysterious Brutal Legend record that leads you into the main menu. It's simply a creative masterpiece, and while the side-missions can be repetitve, the difficulty is out of whack and the lack of replayability if you're not an online gamer is concerning, it's all worth it to come to this mystical world of rock and roll.

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That'll do it for me this time. Tune in next time for more of the trash and treasure from the bottom of the bargain bin barrel!

- FishHook