Producer Paul's Ramblings

Watched this on DVD last night. This is the Russell Crowe movie where he plays a grizzled old newspaper reporter. At the beginning three people are killed, a purse snatcher, a man delivering a pizza on a bicycle, and a woman who takes suicide by subway car. 

The “subway suicide” turns out to be the lead researcher on a Congressional investigation against security company Haliburton…I mean, Pointcorp. She’s also having an affair with the Congressman (Ben Affleck) who is spearheading the investigation. So does that mean she didn’t commit suicide? Is she somehow connected with the other two killings from the beginning?  Come on, we’ve all seen this kind of movie before.

And that’s the major problem.  This movie has a whole been there feeling. We’ve seen this before, and better, in movies like Three Days of the Condor or All The President’s Men. It was well acted, with some especially nice moments between Crowe and Helen Mirren, who plays the editor of The Washington Globe. Affleck did a nice job (but I don’t have a problem with his acting like many do). I found Rachel McAdams a bit weak as the up and coming report–excuse me, blogger, who slowly gets sucked into the investigation and learns the value of the printed (as opposed to electronic) word.

Which leads me to the one thing that was different about this movie, and something I wish they would have explored more in-depth. That is the dawning of the electronic era, which may (some say will) eventually lead to the demise of newspapers in printed form.  Crowe represented old school and McAdams was the new school.  There was some tension between them, but more would have been nice, and would have made the movie that much more interesting.

Overall, this isn’t a bad movie. It’s like a comfortable pair of old shoes.  You like them because their comfortable and familiar, not because they’re sporty and flashy.

6/10

We all know that McDonald’s is bad for us, but every now and then you just have to have that Filet-O-Fish and a large fry.  It’s satisfying on a primal level, even though you worry about your cholesterol the whole time you’re eating it.

Roland Emmerich films are much the same way.  Sometimes you just want to check your brain at the door and indulge your inner lover of crappy cinema. 2012 delivers that junk in spades.

It follows the same formula as all of Emmerich’s disaster films.  We’re introduced to a variety of “characters” that we’re supposed to care about, although we rarely do.  This is interspersed with slow building scenes of the disaster to come.  Then, somewhere in the 30-40 minute mark, the shit hits the fan and all bets are off.  Then we’re treated to ever larger spectacle mixed with scenes of ersatz emotion, fake tears, and sentimental hogwash.

Is it complete crap?  Yes.  Did I enjoy it?  For the most part.

The movie starts in 2009 when a geologist (Chiwetel Eljofor) discovers something is happening to the Earth’s crust. Something to do with neutrinos causing physical changes. Doesn’t really matter. There hasn’t been a physical science yet the Emmerich can’t mangle to his own purposes. Anyway, the scientist’s discovery and subsequent reporting sets into motion a chain of events that had the world’s governments working together to find a way out of the coming apocalypse.

John Cusack plays a failed sci-fi writer who is trying to reconcile with his family, and there’s nothing like the end of the world to facilitate such things. And Woody Harrelson has an extended cameo as a wilderness nutjob who turns out to not be quite so nutty.

But all that is just side attractions for the main show: The destruction of the world in mass quantities. And here the film delivers. In fact, in some ways, it over delivers. I actually got a little worn out watching John and family just narrowly escape any number of situations, defying all laws of physics while doing so.  (As I mentioned, Emmerich and science don’t always see eye-to-eye).

That was probably my biggest problem with the movie is that it was just too much.  I love cinematic overkill as much as the next CGI freak, but this was overkill overkill.  One less escape, one less crisis, one less subplot would have been nice. (And would have knocked the movie down by 20 or so minutes)

The bottom line is, if you want to see some heady disaster porn and go in knowing that paper-thin characters are going to do impossible things wrapped around a plot with more holes than Swiss cheese, then you should have a grand time.  If you demand logic, consistency, and, God forbid, realism, then you best look elsewhere.

And by all means, see it on the big screen, so you get the full effect of the fun that is there.

Rating: 7/10 for eye candy, 3/10 for everything else.

Sunshine Cleaning is the story of sisters Rose and Norah (Amy Adams and Emily Blunt).  Rose is a financially strapped single mother of Oscar (Jason Spevack) a boy who, I get the feeling based on his behavior, was borderline autistic.  Norah is finally strapped because she has no sense of responsibility. She has had to move back in with her father (Alan Arkin).  When Oscar causes problems at school, the principal suggests he be put on medication.  Rose refuses and takes him out of school.  To try and raise the money to put him in private school, she take the suggestion of a cop (Steve Zahn) whom she’s having an affair with and starts a business as a “post-mortem cleanup service.”  That is, they go into the aftermath of crime scenes and clean up the mess.

The rest of the movie follows them as they learn the job, through some humorous trial and error, and have the usual ups and downs of starting a new business. We also learn a backstory on the girls that has affected their whole life.

This was a wonderful movie.  I went in expecting a raucous comedy based on the trailer, but what I got was a thoughtful, emotional drama with bits of reality-based comedy dribbled throughout.  The girl’s emotional conflict and relationship was very believable, as was the conflict between Rose and her cop “boyfriend,” who is married. The acting is top-notch through the entire cast and the direction is spot on. It’s quite the emotional journey and I found myself a little choked up at time.  I can see why this was a Sundance favorite.  There is some gore in the movie, but it is not a gory movie, if that makes sense.  Everything is after the fact, so mainly it’s just blood.

If I have one complaint about the film it’s that, after the inevitable act two setback, things resolve just a tad too quickly and the ending is more cut and dried than I would have liked.  Some ambiguity would have been nice and would have fit more with the tone of the film.  But, that certainly doesn’t stop me from highly recommending this film to anyone who enjoys a well-written well acted drama.

8/10

So I watched this on DVD last night and was so thankful I didn’t waste money or time at the theater to see it.  It just really wasn’t a very good movie, unfortunately.  I found the story weak, uncertain if it wanted to be an adventure film, a comedy, or a touching film about learning your place in the world.  Pixar can pull off that sort of combination.  Dreamworks, not so much.  There were a few funny lines, but overall it was much too over the top in the gags they tried to pull.  I supposed kids or stoned people might enjoy it, but it just didn’t do a whole lot for me.

3/10

And so we came to the final day of our gaming extraganza.  I again woke up early after being up late, so it was really beginning to feel like being at an actual con.  While many went to the beach for another round of wave crashing, I stay at the house, ate some cereal, and began reading the rules for one of the games that was going to hit the table, Twilight Imperium.

Once folks came back from the beach, the gaming commenced.

Winner’s Circle – This is a horse racing game, where you place bet based on the horse’s stats, shown on a card.  The horses run based on the roll of a die, and each person moves a horse of their choice for the round, based on the die roll and their betting strategy.  I enjoy this game and will always play it.  It requires a little strategy and a fair amount of luck, but it’s a great little half-hour time killer.  I came in last on this particular run.

Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation – This is a two-player game, a lot like the old Stratego , with hidden pieces each with a number value. Higher number wins, but the pieces have special abilities that will sometimes mitigate the numbers. You also have a hand of cards you can use to change the circumstances. This is one I own and I enjoy playing it.  It’s quick, easy to learn, but with a reasonable amount of strategy, and it’s Lord of the Rings themed.  What more can you ask.  I lost, by the way, but it was a close game, down to almost the last piece.

Wasabi – This game plays two-five people. You take the role of a sushi chef and must collect ingredients and placed that on the board.  If you play all the ingredients on one of your recipe cards, you score points.  If you play them in the proper order, you get “style” points.  We played a two-player game, me playing against Josh, the sushi master.  Not to be confused with Randal, who is the sushi eating master.  Needless to say, I lost badly, but I enjoy this game and would play it anytime it hits the table.  I would certainly like to try it with more than two people sometime.

Twilight Imperium – This was the monster (as in large) game for the weekend.  A six player game of trying to take over the galaxy, it pull in lots of mechanics, from territory control to player voting to player turn selection based on your objectives for the turn.  I liked the sheer size of the game and the amount of things you could do.  I like games that try to cram a lot into their play.  I’m not sure I liked the game itself, but that may have been due to the circumstances.  This is a game that requires some attention and focus, and in a house of twenty people, many of them kids, attention and focus are not usually applicable. So I will reserve judgement on this game until I can play it again, but I would play it again.

Lifeboats - This is a negotiation game.  People are on board boats heading for shore, but every turn they spring a leak, and voting is done among the players to determine who goes overboard if the leak has to take out a person, and voting also determines which boat moves ahead for the turn.  I didn’t like this game, and not just because I had no one get to shore.  It all seemed a little too random to me. Mall of Horrors is a similar game, but it has some other mechanics that even things out a bit. This one just didn’t work for me, and went on way longer than a game like this needs to.

Gift Trap - This game was played based on the insistent requests of one of the Con’s younger members.  It’s a party style game where a variety of gifts are dealt on to a grid. You then give these gifts out to people (and they to you) and you put out hidden point markers on the gifts, detailing which gifts you would like from most to least. The gifts are revealed and scoring ensues. This was an okay game, and could be fun at a party, especially with people you know fairly well who don’t usually play games (or at least don’t play heavy duty games).  But playing it once is enough for me and I won’t cry if I never play it again.

Kung Fu Fighting – By this time it was about one in the morning. Not wanting the fun to end, a few of us pulled out one last game to end the night. This is a simple player elimination game where you use cinematic kung fu moves to beat up and damage the other players. The more cards (and style) you can play, the better.  But beware being blocked. This is a fun, not to be taken at all seriously game and a perfect way to wrap up the weekend. It can tend to drag, depending on how much people can block, but overall it’s just a good check your brain at the door and open up some whoopass type game.

And so, with that, Beachcon was over.  The next day, cars were packed and people headed home.  All I can say in wrap up is that I’m looking forward to next year.  Who knows, maybe I’ll even win a game next time.

So, woke up at 7:30 on day two to the sound of shouting kids and, even more odd, a voice constantly going “Shhh.” That was the one that really dug into my brain.  I thought I was waking up in a steam room.

Breakfast was silver dollar pancakes which were really tasty. This was followed by the whole troop of about 20 people heading to the beach to play “Slam Your Body Against the Waves” and “Let the Ocean Bitch Slap You”  After about two hours of that fun (and yes, the water was fine once you were in for about two minutes) we headed back.  I walked back without shoes and played the wonderful “Step on Several Cockleburrs” game.  That was my favorite.

Dinner was steaks, chicken and shrimp, grilled by the wonderful Kirk Lugar, along with many delicious side dishes made by the ladies of the house (most notably the talented Stephanie Street, assisted by the others)

But of course the main thing was games.  And here are the games that were played.

Revolution – I just bought this game at Dragoncon because someone recommended it to me.  They made a good call.  This turned out to be a fun, light-hearted game of cube placement and bidding, with an interested bid mechanic.  I would easily play it again. I came in second place.

It’s Alive – This was a cute game about building a Frankenstein monster by buying and bidding for body parts (what a great theme, huh?)  It was fun, but I don’t know that I would play it that often.  Maybe as a filler before something heftier.  I came in last. (And no, that’s not why I wouldn’t play it again.)

Kingsburg -  This was far and away my favorite of the whole weekend.  A great mixture of luck and strategy, this game seemed to cover it all, with interesting mechanics for gathering resources and a neat timing mechanism, with some variables in it to mix things up (we played with the expansion.)  I would gladly play this game several more times to explore the options.  I game in second with 45 points, and the winner had 58

World At War (Eisenbach Gap) – This was a straight out two-player wargame taking place in a fictional world war three scenario where the Russians have invaded Germany.  Well, if I was commanding the Russians, it would have been a short war.  I got my butt handed to me thoroughly by Josh.  Despite that, I would play again. We sort of rushed into it and some of the rules I hadn’t quite grasped, but I would try again with a little more understanding.

Constructionary – Someone pulled this out as a lark, I think. It was basically Pictionary with Lego construction blocks. I think I would take a pass on this one. It was kind of fun from a social, party aspect, but it lasted way too long for what it was. I’ll pass, thanks.

Dicetown – This is the second time I’ve played this game, and I enjoyed it just as much this time.  It’s a poker game with dice and some additional rules for gaining points and a fun Western theme.  This is one of those game I might even be able to get my non-gaming folks interested in playing, and I may buy a copy and try that sometime.  I came in second place.

Chaos in the Old World – Second time playing this.  You play one of the Chaos gods from the world of Warhammer and try to come on top of the other three gods.  This is a great game with lots of theme, a lot of strategic options, and several ways to win (although I think one of them is more prevalent than the others).  Another game I would play anytime it comes on the table. Josh won.

And  with that is was time for bed and dreaming of the next, and final, day of Beachcon.  I will have the report on that soon.

First, let me say that Beachcon is not really a con, it’s just the name I gave to the three-day gaming extravaganza I attended at Ocean Isle Beach this past weekend.  Also attending were five couple who, for various legal reasons, will be identified at The  Streets, The Lloyds, The Lugars, The Calhouns, and The Harmons.  (These are their real names, and none of them are innocent, so there’s no reason to protect them).  All of them also had various numbers of offspring along with them, so the house was loud and lively the whole weekend.

I arrived Friday evening around 5:00 PM, raring to go.  Dinner for the evening was sandwiches of whatever meat you desired, along with all the appropriate condiments.  Once food was consumed (including some homemade oatmeal cookies provided by my SO) the gaming commenced.  Here are the games that commenced, along with the result pertinent to me, and my thoughts about the game. Click on the title and it will take you to more information about the game, in case you’re interested.

Ingenious  - This was an interesting and enjoyable game, sort of a tile-layings/dominoes sort of thing where you match shapes and score according the number of shapes matched and the positioning of said shapes.  I liked it and would play it again pretty quickly. I forgot to note where I came in on the score, but I can tell you I lost.  (We’ll go ahead and get this out of the way right now, I didn’t win any game the whole weekend.  So don’t be looking for the list of what I won.)

Ad Astra  – This is a space exploration game, where you gain points by finding planets and building things on them.  It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s the basic idea.  I enjoyed this game also and look forward to playing it again, soon.  I actually came in second on this one (out of four players)

Shadow Hunters  – A horror themed game where you take the role of character that is either for the forces of Good (Hunter), Evil (Shadow) or a neutral.  Using various cards, you try to find who are your ememies and then take them out (as least, that was the mission I had to do to win. The other cards may be different.) You lose when you take too many wounds.  I was the second person to go, which put me in 7th place.  This is the kind of game I enjoy because of the theme, so it’s another one I would play again.

Scotland Yard – This is a five players against one kind of game.  One player is Mister X and the other players are Scotland Yard Detectives.  Mister X has hidden movement, except for occasionally popping up, and the other players use logic and deduction to find them. Or, in the case of this particular session, dumb luck. Randal, the person playing Mister X, was just in the wrong place, and a detective stumbled on to him in turn 2, so that was a short game.  And since I was on the detective’s team, I guess I technically won the game.  But I don’t really count it. I own this game and have since it came out, so I obviously enjoy this one and will play it whenever it comes out.

Hey That’s My Fish – This is a tile removal game. You start with two penguins on an ice flow made of hex tiles. When you move, you pick up the tile, which has one, two, or three fish on it.  Once all the tiles are gone or no one can move, you total up your fish. I came in second place on this one.  It’s an okay, quick game (takes like 15 minutes) but nothing real special.  I’d play it if it hit the table, but if there was another game, I’d probably jump over to it.

Chaos Marauders – This is the reprint of the Games Workshop 1987 game in the Warhammer world. You must complete three battle lines of Orcs before your opponents, using cards that you draw.  You also earn points for various “treasure” cards you find. This is another one that I owned for a long time (the 1987 version, that is) but eventually sold on ebay because I never really got to play it any more.  It’s a quick, lighthearted game that is fun if you’re in the right mood.  I’ll play it if everyone wants before getting into something a little heftier (or as a way to finish a late night.

So, we wrapped up Friday night around 2:00 AM.  Then it was time for bed.  But, glutton that I am, I read the rules for Timbuktu before I went to sleep.  (We never got around to playing it, but I’ll know for next time.)

Stay tuned for the report on Day 2, coming soon.

I went into this movie with pretty high expectations, since every reviewer in the world seemed to love it and a bunch of my friends told me how great it was.

So did it meet my expectations?  Yes and no.  There were parts of it I really liked, such as the opening 20 minutes and the ending sequence, which takes place in a theme park.  The middle of the movie?  A little slow.

But it’s only a 90 minute movie, so the slow parts aren’t that long, and they are spiced up with an unexpected cameo that is a great deal of fun.

The high points:  Woody Harrelson returning to comedy as a badass zombie hunter.  He is certainly the best thing about the movie and is obviously having a great time.  The aforementioned opening scenes (including the inspired opening credits).  And Jesse’s Eisenberg’s “rules” for surviving a zombie apocalypse are amusing and enjoyable. The zombie kills are also very inventive and appropriately gruesome.

The low points:  Jesse Eisenberg.  He is a fine actor, but he reminds me too much of Michael Cera.  He’s kind of Michael Cera Light, so that was a bit distracting.  Also, I think Abagail Breslin was the wrong actress to play the young hoodlum style girl.  She’s still too much Little Miss Sunshine and not enough Hard Candy.

That’s about it.  A fun movie, an enjoyable movie, but not a great movie. 7/10.

I can see why this movie didn’t do well at theaters.  It wasn’t marketed very well.  The commercials tried to make it look like another Superbad or any other number of rauchy teen comedies, and it wasn’t.  Instead, it was a sweet coming of age story set in 1987.  It concerns a young man (Jesse Eisenberg) just out of college who plans to go to Europe for the summer, until a financial setback makes it impossible for his parents to afford to send him.  He has to find a job, and the only thing he can get is working at the local amusement park, Adventureland.  From there it’s a story of the trials and tribulations of working at the park.  He falls for a girl, who is already in a relationship with a married older man.   Things come to a head and all is resolved in the end.

Yes, it’s a fairly predictable story, but the pleasure comes in the journey.  All the acting is well done and understated, with humor coming naturally from the situations and not created by either overly pithy dialogue or gross antics.  The year is represented well by a great musical soundtrack.  (Although they do play Rock Me Amadeus way too much, but even one of the characters makes a comment about it)  The fashions are there, but not in our face like many movies about the 80′s make them.  All in all, this is an enjoyable little film.  Not great, but thre are worse ways to waste a couple of hours.  6/10

Finally got a chance to get out and see this movie.  Quentin Tarantino movies can be a lot like healthcare debate: very divisive.  People either tend to love them or hate them.  Never has he made an apathetic movie.

Until now.

Basterds starts out with a scene that is both very good and also an indication of the trouble ahead.  We are introduced to Hans Landa, an SS officer known as the Jew Hunter, as he ferrets out Jews hiding in a dairy farmer’s house.  The scene, while tense, is also way too long.  And therein lies the major problem with the film.  Quentin needed a better editor (or needed to allow the editor to do his job)  There are some good moments, and the action scenes, what few there are, are nicely done. But too many of the scenes just go on way past the point of when they need to be over.  This is always been an issue with Tarantino’s film, but you can usually overlook it because of the clever dialogue and excess attitude (even Death Proof, which many people disliked, still had snappy dialogue).  But Basterds doesn’t really have that going for it.  Or maybe the attitude is there, but it’s hidden because 70% of the film is subtitled.

Another problem is the Basterds themselves.  We don’t get to see enough of them, because we’re off on subplots about a theater owner and a German soldier, and a British plot to kill the Nazi High Command during a movie screening. (Although Mike Myers is pretty hilarious in his cameo).  I would have rather followed the Basterds on their exploits.  We don’t really get to know much about them and why they’re so good.  There was the promise of a rousing action film in the trailers.  That movie went missing somewhere.

On the plus side, the acting was well-rounded.  Even Brad Pitt, who some have accused of overacting in this film, hit just the right note for me.  I think Quentin probably told him to push it a little bit.  After all, when you change history the way this movie does, what’s a little extra embellishment on the Tennessee accent?

Another plus is that I do have the say the plot, once it settled down in the last third of the movie, took off in an unexpected direction and didn’t end at all the way I thought it would, so it did surprise me, which counts for a lot now days.

So, all in all, not QT’s best, but certainly not his worst.  It’s just another movie, and that’s a shame, because we’ve come to expect more from everybody’s favorite geek director.

6/10