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Paranormal Activity: Honey, Put the Camera Down
Paranormal Activity is something of a rarity in the horror world these days. When most films just offer up deformed inbred mutants torturing Midwestern teenagers to death and calls it good, Paranormal Activity actually tries to scare you. It plays on those fears we all have, of waking up to a strange noise in the middle of the night, and lying there, heart hammering, wondering, What the hell is in my house? It bypasses the “torture porn” approach of most modern horror films and actually sets out to create a mood and an atmosphere of fear.
And it does a pretty good job of it.
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Zombieland: I Thought the Apocalypse Would Be More Fun Than This
Let me get the nitpick out of the way up front: Zombies do not run. There. I said it. They don’t run. They shamble. They stagger. They lurch. But they do not run. They’re reanimated corpses without the brain power or muscle tone to do anything more athletic than slowly come at you with the single-minded purpose of turning you into a casserole. To be fair, the zombies in Zombieland are not reanimated dead (or at least not all of them; some of them might be; kind of fuzzy on that) but are instead infected with some form of Mad Cow Disease. So I guess it’s okay that they run. But they’re not zombies.
Okay, nitpick over. On to the movie.
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Avatar Reaction: A Sad Day to Be a Fanboy
So, by now, you’ve probably seen the teaser trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar, and maybe, like me, went and saw the fifteen or so minutes of footage at the (somewhat pretentiously named, I feel) Avatar Day screenings. Did the footage live up to all the hype that’s been coming out of earlier screenings? Is it the Second Coming of Film?
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Asteroids: The Movie
It’s official: Hollywood is out of ideas. Word is coming out now that Universal has won the rights (outbidding three other studios) to make a film adaptation of the video game Asteroids.
Yes, the one with the spaceship and the rocks made out of lines. 
Now, my question is not even “How?” but “Why?” They’ve already said they’ll have to create a plot from scratch since the original game, you know, didn’t have one, so why dump a bunch of cash on Atari’s doorstep just for the name Asteroids? Make your own asteroid-based film and just call it something else. “Maelstrom,” maybe. “The Corridor.” Hell, even “Giant Floating Rocks of Death.” I’m just saying that “spaceship shoots rocks” is not such an original idea that you had to buy the property to make the movie.
But I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised since two of Universal’s upcoming projects are big-screen adaptations of the board games “Battleship” and “Candyland.” Yes, “Candyland: The Movie.”
This is why I don’t go to movies anymore.
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Blu-ray Is Starting to Piss Me Off
I love the picture quality of Blu-ray. Love the sound, love the fact that they can cram untold extras into the massive storage capacity. It’s a movie-lover’s dream format. So why am I getting ready to chuck my Blu-ray player out a third-story window?
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Ghostbusters: The Video Game
I was a bit of a Ghostbusters fan in my younger days, so I was fairly excited for this game. Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, featuring the voice talents of the original cast, utilizing the authentic sound effects, considered to be the unofficial third film in the trilogy, this game is the closest you can get to being a Ghostbuster.
Turns out, being a Ghostbuster just isn’t all that fun.
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Sony Motion Controller: Cooler, but Still So Very Unnecessary
Recently I wrote about Microsoft’s Project Natal, the full-body motion-tracking camera that will let you flail and wave to try and play video games. Now Sony has unveiled their motion controller with a fairly impressive, yet lengthy, tech demo.
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Project Natal: My Thumbs Work Fine, Thanks
One of the big stories to come out of this year’s E3 is Microsoft’s “Our Wii Is Bigger than Yours” throwdown to Nintendo in the form of Project Natal. Stealing the idea from Sony’s EyeToy failure, Project Natal is a camera that claims to offer full-body motion-tracking, as well as facial and voice recognition. So now instead of just waving your arms around to play games, you can jump around and flail your whole body! Awesome!
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Up: Thanks for the Adventure
I was worried about this one.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Pixar. I friggin’ adore Pixar. I’ve been a fan since my teacher showed us The Adventures of André and Wally B. back in the dim dark days of ninth-grade English. I was there opening day of Toy Story, and have been there every opening day since, always entertained, always delighted. Nine films and every one I’ve enjoyed, some more than others, but never disappointed.
But I was worried about this one.
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Insert Lame “Who Watches the Watchmen” Joke Here
The film version of Watchmen does its level best to stay true to the look of the graphic novel. They expend considerable effort getting the costumes right, having the characters look like their drawn counterparts, perfectly duplicating the props, even framing some of the shots to match the panels in the book.
It’s just everything else they get wrong.
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