Eddie on "DUKE NUKEM FOREVER"

I rented DUKE NUKEM FOREVER. Most games I just rent from blockbuster, 20 bucks a month and you can keep it as long as you want. This way you won’t be disappointed when the game is horrible, and your happy that you didn’t drop 60 bucks on it.

Now Duke Nukem originally came out a PC game in 1991, and had a few versions have been released over the years. Duke iconic shooter of the 90’s was for his vulgar language, crude humor, and use of woman like objects, which in the early stages of console video games was refreshing and pretty funny.

This particular version of Duke Nukem has been in development hell since 1997, and was finally released for the XBOX 360 and PS3 consoles.

So herein lies the problems.

This game should have been released 6 years ago than it would have been awesome. What you get here is running around, and sometimes battling monsters/aliens in a way that is, well, boring.

There is the tongue and cheek humor like drinking beer, getting oral sex by girls in schoolgirl outfits, or watching yourself take a piss., but the jokes wear really thin quickly, and what you end up with is a clunky game, literally.  I think they are pushing to much for the nostalgia of the older games, but guess what it’s 2011. They could have used everything about the character, but the mechanics of the game is what needed and overhaul. The loading screens take way to long for this game, and that is something that I'm sure annoys everyone.

Graphics are well done but that doesn’t help really, sorry.

You can’t upgrade anything, and it is not as action-packed as it should have been. Shit they could have taken advantage of everything from Modern Warfare or a Fallout game, and it would have been an improvement.

So all in all DUKE NUKEM FOREVER returns to his classic style and it feels really old and I was kind of embarrassed by it. Even a kid that tries to sneak in this 17+ game will be sorely disappointed.

In regard to the Blockbuster rentals, I returned it the next morning and got something far more superior, but I will review that later. But if you want to check it out, for your own shits and giggles, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Let's just say I preferred the N64 version better .

Eddie on "Super 8"

Last night I went and saw JJ Abrams monster mash Super 8 last night with friends. And I am not going to sit here and give you spoilers or story details about this film, just my opinions of it.

I have been really excited about seeing this movie since hearing about it last year

This film has been an Internet buzz with people trying to figure out what the monster looks like. To their credit they’ve kept the monster under wraps, with great success.

You probably know the premise but I’ll tell it anyway for some of the people who live under a rock.

A group of friends making a Super 8 zombie movie, in the summer of 1979, witness a massive train crash, and then find out the crash might have not been an accident at all. After strange and unexplained things start happening the kids begin to investigate what is going on their town.

It’s a coming of age movie, a monster movie, an adventure, and a comedy, not in a slapstick comedy, but kids are kids., and works it’s best when they are just hanging out.

The first 15 minutes of the kids making their little movie is funny and sweet, it reminded me of when my friends and me used to make super 8 movies in the seventies. Well as they are shooting a scene, an epic train crash happens, literally, right in front of them. I must admit that the crash is pretty amazing piece of filmmaking, even if it is CGI. The train is one of those long cross-country trains, so cars and parts are flying around everywhere. You can actually feel the kids in peril as they run for their lives, when the shit hits the fan.

The casting of the friends is spot on, the kids get to act like kids, which is good. As a matter of fact everyone in this film is perfect.

The directing is great, the cinematography is great, the sound design, the wardrobe, the look and feel of the period is perfect, it feels like 1979. Even those lens flares made me nostalgic for that era.

A lot of people are comparing this to Goonies, but that is just a generalization. Any movie where a bunch of kids are doing anything adventurous will be compared to that.

But this is a monster movie, it is the central catalyst for what happens, and JJ Abrams keeps the suspense going throughout. A shadow here and reflection there, you never get to see the creature as a whole until about 90 minutes in.

But there is a problem, while the film was enjoyable, the last 10 or so minutes killed it for me. They try to make you feel sympathy for the monster and this may have worked, if the monster did not eat innocent people, hung up in it’s lair like sausage. If this monster is much more intelligent than humans and telepathic, means it would also have known the difference between good guys and bad guys. Now people who have seen this movie may argue with me on this. But lets be honest do good/bad people taste differently, I don’t think so. I am surprised that Spielberg let this issue slip through, I guess he was happy that Abrams was pretty much making an homage to him.

Close Encounters conspiracy - Check, ET coming of age - Check, JAWS don't show monster till end - Check

And when it comes down to it, the monster looked like something out of a “Gears of War” video game.

Also one small nit-pick Ideal Toy Company began exporting the Rubik’s cube, in 1980 from a Hungarian manufacturer so don’t have someone in 1979 say “Hey, that looks like a Rubik’s Cube”. Also I don’t think that Hunchback of Notre Dame model box is a period one at that.

What began as an awesome movie, and continued to do so throughout, just pussy-ed out at the last minute. So as a how friend Tim just mentioned, I feel the same way, I didn't hate it but I didn't love either.

To watch the actual zombie movie “The Case” the kids were making during the credits almost rectified it. But while that little film was awesome, it was just to late. (The kids actors in the film wrote and directed the film within a film on their own)

All the critics out there love this film, even the LA Weekly and the NY Post loved it. But I think they were mostly in love with the nostalgia the film invokes.

Last note if JJAbrams comes up with a story and directs that's fine, just let someone else write the story, where was Bob and Alex??

Eddie on "I SAW THE DEVIL"

The other day I watched a wicked and ultra violent thriller called “I Saw The Devil”, and it was awesome.

When Secret Agent Soo-Hyeon’s (Byung-hun Lee of The Good, the Bad, the Weird) pregnant fiancé is murdered by Serial Killer  Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi of Oldboy), he decides to do anything to exact revenge, even if it means becoming a monster himself.

The agent’s use of a clever tracking device allows him to listen to the serial killer. Each time capturing him to exact some sort of violent revenge, only to then release him and do it again, each time more vicious then the last.

The film is directed by Jee-woon Kim, who also made some of my favorite films, which include A Tale of Two Sisters, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, and A Bittersweet Life. These films, I think, are  still available on Netflix streaming, and are also highly recommended by me.

This film is a vicious game of cat and mouse, and is not recommended for the squeamish, I was even shocked at some of the ultra graphic violence that happens and I love horror movies. I think it was the lack of remorse of the serial killer character that was more appalling.

Asian cinema constantly impresses me more and more; they have something that American cinema do not, which is originality. If producers decide to remake this it will be watered down and bland, just like when Will Smith wants to remake “Oldboy”.

This director takes you to the edge and then jumps off happily, all the way to the end. I didn’t even realize this brisk roller coaster of a film was 2 ½ hours long, it moved the quickly. From the first 5 minutes until the very end I was transfixed,

While the acts of depraved violence do occur I don’t think of this film as some sort of exploitation film. The film is more of a suspenseful thriller, where violence like this occurs.

The cinematography is beautifully shot and the story is intense and devious, with plenty of twists. The acting is amazing also; you are quickly drawn in to both worlds of the main characters, and are easily able to feel their pain and rage. There is enough stuff packed into this film to make several.

I’ll use a few key words to make sure you understand how violent this film is just as a warning, you know what screw it I’m not telling you anything. You need to watch for yourself and you can comment and tell me what you thought of it.

So for me I highly recommend it, and it is now streaming on Netflix, so you don’t have to get off your couch to go out and rent it. I DARE YOU.

Enjoy the trailer:

Eddie on SyFy's "Haunted Collector"

So I watched this new show on SyFy called “Haunted Collector”, and all I can say is what a sham.

OK here is the simple premise.

John Zaffis, a paranormal expert, travels to people’s houses at their request to do a paranormal investigation and find an object that may be the cause of the activity. It's basically “Friday the 13th – The Series” made into a reality show.

First here is a little info about John Zaffis. He comes from a short lineage of paranormal experts. The kicker is he is the nephew of none other than Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Warrens are most well known for “The Amityville Horror” investigation and best-selling novel and movie of the 1970’s.

Well it turns out that that book was pure NON-FICTION.

The Warrens would go to someone’s’ house and say that the house was haunted or possessed, make up a scary story, and then they would retain the book, movie, and media rights. That’s how they made money.

Then there’s the book “In A Dark Place”, which became the movie “A Haunting In Connecticut”. I actually pitched this book, for a possible film in the 90’s. But there was one problem Ed Warren wanted a lot of money for his story, so that ended that. Someone else made the movie in 2009, but only after Ed had died, because lets face it, Lorraine needed the money.

Here is a quick quote by Ray Garton, the author

I wrote IN A DARK PLACE: THE STORY OF A TRUE HAUNTING, in which a family had lived in a house that used to be a mortuary (allegedly...I never saw the inside of the house myself), which was, according to the Warrens, infested with demons. But the family involved, which was going through some serious problems like alcoholism and drug addiction, could *not* keep their story straight, and I became very frustrated; it's hard writing a non-fiction book when all the people involved are telling you different stories. So I went to Ed Warren and told him my problem. He told me not to worry, that the family was "crazy". I was shocked. He said, "All the people who come to us are crazy. You think *sane* people would come to us?" He knew I'd written a lot of horror novels prior to that, so he told me to just make the story up using whatever details I could incorporate into the book, and make it scary. Because I couldn't afford the attorney fees it would take to get out of the contract, I had to go through with the book, but I didn't like it. Since then, other writers who have worked with the Warrens have told me the EXACT SAME STORY, but they've done so quietly because they don't want to
make any waves with publishers.

So they are old school snake oil salesmen, they tell you what you want to here and then you pay them for it.

Now back to my views on “Haunted Collector”. Just like I wrote above about the Warrens this is pretty much the same thing. You call and say my place is haunted, and they will come over and do an investigation and tell you some object is possessed and then they take it from you, problem solved right?

In the premiere episode the team finds a gun under a house in a box. This gun looks like someone made mud pies and wrapped the gun in it. Also all the chambers of the gun are literally packed with dirt, yet the box has loose dirt in it. This is what you see when they first open the box, it’s like the mud is only attracted to the gun.

So they take the gun with them.

Then there’s the old, yet very clean, haunted typewriter on the desk against the wall. The K2/EMF detectors are going wild when the go near this, so it must be possessed. There is a pretty cool antique stove they focus on at first, you can almost see John Zaffis drooling over it, like Pavlov’s dog. But obviously he can’t take that item.

So they take the typewriter with them.

I would have liked to see them go back and do an investigation after an object has been removed. This way they can prove that they were right, but that’s to easy, because they would just tell you they were. So I just think that John Zaffis is an antiques thief, building a big collection for his museum. Ed Warren also had an Occult Museum, so again you can see another pattern.

While I do believe that there are things out there we can’t explain. But also feel that this show is complete bullshit. I’m not even sure whether or not the items they collect are planted or not.

So give it a shot if you want, just remember what I said above and you’ll see what I am talking about. I might watch it again, just to watch a bunch really stupid people who think they are experts, make consistent mistakes.

But mark my words regarding the museum, “If he builds it, they will come”. Wait he already did, dammit !!!! Why isn't his house/museum haunted?? If you have a house full of haunted items wouldn't it be a major hot spot for Gozor

Here is a brief tour of the "Museum of the Paranormal".