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(Originally published by Chud.com)

I don’t know why you’re reading this review. Either you’re the sort of person who is inclined to see Bride Wars, in which case I don’t imagine much could stop you. Or you’re not, in which case you’re probably more interested in knowing whether or not The Unborn is crappy enough to earn ten bucks and half a flask of Jack. Or perhaps you thought this was something else, and your eye just skipped over the poster there to the right, like it would if you found a Polaroid of your naked aunt in dad’s sock drawer.

Anyway, I saw this thing. I’m going to write a few hundred words about it, and for a minute we can all pretend not to live in a reality where this movie couldn’t be more critically bulletproof if it was sitting behind the Pope shield. If only this was as easy as writing “the dog dies – 4 out of 10” and moving on. Read the rest of this entry →

For the Onion AV Club’s list of the best games of 2008, each of the writers nominated a couple games, which were then ranked Pazz & Jop style. Each writer came up with text for the game(s) they nominated that made the list. Mine were Left 4 Dead (which owned the top spot) and World of Goo. The piece as a whole is credited to Scott Jones (because he’s like that) and I’ve just excerpted my own bits here.

The entire lineup is at the AV Club.

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(Originally published by Paste)

The grand idea behind Valkyrie, director Bryan Singer’s first non-superhero feature since 1998’s Apt Pupil, is “Nazis weren’t all bad.” Paul Verhoeven successfully mined similar ground in Black Book, and with two of Valkyrie’s actors, Carice van Houten and Waldemar Kobus, but there’s still plenty of material to explore. With the added resonance of catching Tom Cruise partway through a career resurgence (courtesy of Tropic Thunder) all Singer needed was a taut script to keep the gears moving in time. Read the rest of this entry →

(Originally published by Chud.com)

I’ll say this for The Spirit: there aren’t many films in which a comic book creator’s full personality, from writing to composition to pacing, is translated to the big screen. Too bad the personality in question is that of writer/director Frank Miller and not original character creator (and godfather of the graphic novel) Will Eisner. Read the rest of this entry →

(Originally published at the Onion AV Club)

In the family of fighting games, Mortal Kombat is the middle child who tortures cats in his spare time, but can also dazzle with fits of charisma. The series loves gruesome combat, but pines for the mainstream adulation. When games were less bloody, that was an easy balance to strike. Gouts of gore plus catchphrases (”Finish him!”) and the allure of shocking hidden fatalities added up to massive sales and popularity. Now that those elements are commonplace, how to recapture the attention of old?

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(Originally published by Chud.com)

This isn’t exactly a normal review. After I slumped out of my screening of Nobel Son I started to write a piece describing how the experience had deflated the goofy elation I felt after seeing Punisher a couple hours earlier. The idea wasn’t to write a review, but in part to structure the piece around a new(ish) red band trailer that was sitting in my inbox, and to discuss the obvious gaming of the film’s score on the IMDB*. The idea was to write that article, not a review. I realized that would be disingenuous rubbish, as my true intent was to single out Nobel Son as total crap to be avoided at most (if not all) costs. So it’s a review, after all. Read the rest of this entry →

(Originally published by Chud.com)

Quick: name the director with the best comic timing of 2008. A lot of obvious names come to mind, and when I’m off the blood simple high that currently clouds my judgment I’m sure I’ll be able to settle down and agree that it is Ben Stiller or David Gordon Green, maybe David Wain or Jody Hill or someone else I’m completely glossing over. But right now, my answer is Lexi Alexander.

I don’t mean that in any condescending, elitist way. I’m not laughing at Alexander by any means. After seeing Punisher: War Zone an hour ago (I’m not giving this sucker any room to fade) I fully believe that I was meant to have a great time watching Ray Stevenson butcher most of New York’s criminal population as the comic book vigilante Frank Castle. Read the rest of this entry →

(Originally published by Paste)

The country’s tourism board may have sunk a tidy sum into the picture, but Australia, the return of Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrman, is less a commercial for travel than a plea for tolerance. Alongside the gorgeous landscapes and simmering love story between Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman is the story of prejudice against half-caste Aboriginal children and, by extension, all of the continent’s original residents. But while Luhrman’s intent is admirable, he seems to realize that the only way to tell a tale of social consciousness is to wrap it in a fantasy. Read the rest of this entry →

(Originally published by the Onion AV Club)

In 2006, Gears Of War came off like an incredibly polished proof of concept. Instead of having gamers charge in and kill everything, it wanted them to hunker behind fallen columns and overturned cars… then kill everything. Though Gears was slower and bulkier than most twitchy action games, the action was oddly visceral. Somehow, having to pump a hundred bullets into an enemy rather than ten was an appealing change of pace.

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(Originally posted at Paste)

Purists complained when Daniel Craig was cast as 007 (A blonde Bond?!?), but the semi-reboot Casino Royale proved them wrong. Craig’s take on Bond turned out to be lean and vicious. He’s a far cry from any other version of the character, but no less magnetic. Apply Trainspotting’s assessment of Sean Connery’s Bond years: He’s a muscular actor. Too bad the muscles are most of what Craig has to leverage in his second turn, Quantum of Solace. Read the rest of this entry →