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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Vlog #1 The Lion In winter

So, you just witnessed me, in a bathrobe, yelling about how cool I am for one minute and thirty three seconds. you will undoubtably want to know more than what I was able to sputter out through movie maker, so here's the link to where you buy tickets!

http://www.ccpops.org/tickets.html

Show dates:

12/2/11 7:00 pm at Concord Carlisle High School
12/3/11 7:00 pm
12/9/11 7:00 pm
12/10/11 7:00 pm
12/11/11 2:00 pm

Sunday, November 13, 2011

the fretless bass reviews: Skyrim


I did something with Skyrim I have never done with a game before, I went to the midnight release, and then spent the next 24 hours playing it.

Skyrim is incredible, if you played Oblivion, then you know how good Bethesda is at making fantasy RPG's, and I'm happy to say that Skyrim improved on Oblivion in many ways.

In Oblivion, the combat system worked perfectly, If asked, I would have told Bethesda to change nothing, but they did, and it's awesome. In Skyrim, you can duel wield weapons and spells. This comes in handy when you're fighting off three undead Nords in a dungeon, steel sword in one hand, fire spell in the other. You can also do cool combinations like two spells, or duel swords. Throughout my time playing, I experimented with several different combinations. When you wield duel swords, you occasionally get what I call "cutscene kills," which are essentially one hit K.O.'s except really messy. A sword and a spell lets you capitalize on balencing your stamina and magika, when one runs out, you can switch to the other. When you wield a bow and arrow, that takes two hands, which stinks for me because that's my preferred weapon.

The other major difference I noticed was that there was no class system. At first, I was opposed to this change because without having a distinct class to be, the individualism that I value from playing RPG's is lost. However, I was swayed from this opinion when I realized that this let the player enhance any skill they wanted instead of being stuck in one class they may realize they don't like. For instance, in oblivion, I was a bard, this meant that I was predominantly a stealth fighter, and specialized in hand to hand combat and bows. But what if while on a quest, I discovered the sword of amazing penmanship? Well then because I wasn't skilled with a blade, I'd be stuck wielding the bow of two bit poems instead of writing review masterpieces.

Also, in Oblivion, whenever you talked to someone, it would zoom in on their face, and they'd creepily stare at you for the ten minutes you spent seducing them into telling you where they hid the teddy grams? They took that out, now you get a wide view of their body, and you can look around during conversation. The thing about speaking that they changed that I didn't like was getting rid of the conversation wheel. Every now and then in Oblivion, you would encounter a situation in which you had to get someone to tell you personal information, only you're an elf, and everyone in the game is racist, so they don't exactly draw you a map to the sword of amazing penmanship. So you would have to enter into a fun mini-game, where you tell jokes, threaten, coerce, and make small talk with the person until they trusted you enough to leave you alone in their house so you could steal all their sentimental heirlooms.

Instead, Skyrim takes a conversation lesson from Dragon Age, and just gives you options with (threaten), or (persuade) next to them, and you better hope you're character's skill level is high enough, because there's no playable way to control whether they take nicely to that, or introduce you to the business end of a very large axe.

Now for the plot, You're dragon-born, and you need to kill some dragons to save the world. That's really it, the story plot isn't what makes The Elder Scrolls good, it's the freedom. The freedom to rob a palace dry and then sell it back to the court blacksmith, the freedom to chose any side in any confrontation, and the freedom to be a freaking awesome game.

So at the end of the review, Skyrim is the coolest game of the year, and if you don't play it, you're missing out on the adventure of a lifetime.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

the fretless bass reviews:Contagion


Alright, this certainly took a while, it's been a few days since I saw contagion, and several since most people who are interested in it will have, so this review might not be timely, but people like to either have a semi-professional agree with them, or have something to argue, so here goes nothing.

Contagion was good, it was like a zombie movie without zombies (which ironically, would have improved it a ton). It followed the outbreak of a deadly flu-like virus worldwide through the eyes of several different people. The closest the movie came to a main character was the dad who's wife was patient zero and who also turned out to be immune. He had to spend the rest of the movie defending his daughter, so all of the societal breakdown was told through his point of view. There was also the high-ranking doctor in the CDC to explain the virology behind it all, and the journalist, to give the perspective of the genius capitalist, making millions off of deaths.

The plot is really simple, disease enters public, and society almost collapses. The aspect in which the movie shines is suspense. You see, the nature of the virus is that you contract it by touching something a sick person touched. So throughout the movie, the camera would pan in on doorknobs and peanut jars, it's a mysophobic's ultimate nightmare.

There are many parts of the movie where the CDC's overreaction to swine-flu is brought up, which leads me to believe that this movie is essentially saying "THIS IS WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED!"

The other good point the movie makes is that fear is the most contagious disease. And that's true, there is no force on Earth that moves faster than sheer terror.

At the end of the day, Contagion is terrifying. Not in the same way that most other horror or thrillers are terrifying, but in a totally unique way that makes all other horror movies look like Care Bears. Contagion could happen, and this one, single, all-encompassing truth will rock you to the very core, and keep you up at night wondering about God. It is entirely possible that a disease could be introduced to the population that would wipe out one out of every twelve people on Earth. So don't see contagion if you don't like The Walking Dead (so essentially, if you don't like Contagion, you can't appreciate good suspense films, and should probably culture yourself).

Monday, October 3, 2011

the fretless bass reviews: All you need is love Quannapowitt playhouse


I had an awesome weekend. Three plays in as many days. The most important of which I feel is the original play that I saw in a room that was more suited for storage than theater (That's how you can tell it's indy.... indy? ). Anyway All You Need is Love is an original play written by the director, a Mr. James. J. Girgenti, and Composed, or in this case, rearranged by Mr. Mario Cruz. It is the story of the life of the director, focusing on his relationship with his mother, which as any man will tell you, is a pretty freakin' important relationship.

The play is told through Beatles songs that have been rearranged to suit the mood of the number. Now normally, when I hear a musical has been constructed by pre-written music, my first reaction is to start making hurtful jokes about the songs for my review. Because that usually doesn't work very well. When you have to base a plot around pre-existing songs that often have little or no relationship in content, it tends to get pretty haywire and out of control. AYNiL is an exception, a glorious, angelic exception that has re-defined the style for me.

You see, AYNiL was good, not just kinda good, like the infrequent SNL, but really good, as in I would buy you a ticket if I had the funds.

First of all, it's impressive, they rearranged almost every song they used to fit moods perfectly in ways I never would have done. "I Want to Hold Your Hand," for instance, it's a happy song, about a guy who is excited to be in love. In the play, they slowed it down and made it about a man comforting his dying mother.

Second, it was really entertaining, it was fun to watch, and probably fun to be in. One of my favorite parts of the show was "When I'm Sixty Four." That was just the young main character playing with his friends while the parents interjected lines like, "Play nice!"

Finally, it made me cry. I'm not ashamed of it, take any man that had a good relationship with his mother and stick 'em in that room for the last ten minutes, and you'll have an ocean in his lap before long. Not in a very long time have my emotions been so thoroughly manipulated.

You may notice that the picture in the upper left hand corner is not of the subject matter as it usually is, but of Anne Hathaway in a tuxedo, that's because this play is not heavily publicized, and may well not run again in a very long time, so see it, Google "Quannapowitt Playhouse" before 10/16 or you'll miss out on the play of a lifetime.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Let's start the platinum age!


There's no denying it, Thor was a good movie.

Now that my opinion is out of the way, I'm going to tell you why, and relate it to all superhero movies. I can guarantee you that you didn't think I would think of this.

Because I didn't, I'm basing this review off of something that a guy named Moviebob said, except he related Thor to Transformers, but I said, "Why not relate Thor to its genre?" So that's what you're getting. I also encourage you to check out Moviebob's "The Big Picture" on The Escapist.

Thor was campy, maybe not Adam West/Batman-campy, but it was certainly more lighthearted than any movie Wolverine has been in. Thor wasn't trying to be gritty and real, it was just about some super-powered dudes having a punch-out in New Mexico, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Recently, there's been some kind of idea going around the super hero genre that movies need to have some level of what most would call "grit." Not real grit, otherwise they would need to sell toothpaste at my local AMC, but grit as in the hero can't go five minutes without saying "shit," or having a shot of Dack Janiels.

Thor was something else entirely, it was just a bunch of super-powered dudes, having a punch out in New Mexico. This is what the comics industry got started on, when the Silver Age started booming, all comics were just like the Thor movie was, except all the super-powered dudes were having thier punch-outs in New York. But then the 90's came and went (thank God), and now the children of the Silver Age are my Dad. Now that comics are more or less on their feet again, I believe that the writers of the comics and movies think they still need to play to the same audience, and thus, the comics have grown up with the readers. (See above image.) I don't think this is right.

Instead of making every superhero movie a chronicle of the human struggle, or about a middle aged man battling alcoholism, or having comics be overly violent and gory, they should be targeted towards the youth of today.

Marketing to a new generation would get said generation into comics, and perhaps even start another great age, all they need to do is relaunch all the series like DC just did, and make the comics less about Wolverine's lovers, and more about a bunch of super-powered dudes having a punch-out in New Mexico.

I'm not saying gritty realism is bad, I just think that there needs to be a balance, and right now, the scales are tipped. Thor exposed us to what we've been missing, and I say we run into that light full force.

So to sum up, Thor was awesome because it showed us what super heroes once were and hopefully will be again.

Friday, September 2, 2011

The Fretless Bass Reviews: Game of Thrones season one


Game of Thrones is fabulous, not for a long time has TV seen a fantasy show so vivid, real, and most of all, believable.

Fantasy is a popular genre, as a result, a lot of people write it, so it's hard to be better than everyone else when all anyone's really doing is ripping off The Lord of The Rings anyway. So George RR Martin decides that he's going to rip off Lord of The Rings like thousands of other writers of fantasy worlds, but he does it better. What he does is he tells each chapter through the eyes of one of a few characters, and as a result, they become real people, real believable people.

The TV show is good for the same reason the books are, there's nothing special or interesting about the world Martin has created, nothing at all, it's not nearly as interesting as Middle Earth, or Dune, but the characters are fiercely developed and I feel like I know most of them personally.

The show follows the Family Stark of Winterfell, wardens of the north and keepers of the great wall that protects the seven kingdoms from the snow zombies beyond. When the old "hand" of the king dies under mysterious circumstances, Eddard Stark is called upon to replace him. Thus the family is thrown into the middle of a massive conspiracy, and they must fight to protect each other, and the king's peace. There's also a couple of scenes that would be classified by a bible group as porn, so don't watch it with your mum like I did.

The show is much more complicated then that, but if I went into detail, then this article would be so long your goldfish attention span would short-circuit.

To close off, Game of Thrones impressed me, both the book and the TV series, and I believe with all my heart that everyone should read and watch, also the theme rules, here it is.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

The Fretless Bass Reviews: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Real fans just call it Rise. As you can see by the poster on the left, This is the planet of the apes, Earth, and in a way, it always has been. Planet of the Apes has had five movies, a reboot, a live action TV series, a cartoon series, several comic book series, some novels, and now we have Rise. If I do say so myself, it is a worthy addition to a series that has defined sci-fi over the last forty years.

Rise depicts an alternate beginning to the rise of the apes and downfall of the humans. If you go on the first five movies, then the human society fell after an ape slave uprising. This movie comes at the rise and fall of the two species differently.

In a nutshell, the plot follows a scientist who is developing the cure to Alzheimer's disease, and tests his virus on a chimp he names Caesar. This chimp starts a revolution and enhances every ape in San Francisco and brings them to the redwood forrest. However, in their haste to make enough money to buy a fleet of private yachts, the corporate executives fail to realize that when humans are exposed to the virus, they die.

This is different from the fall of the humans as depicted in the original movies, in those, humanity wiped itself out via World War III, this movie would replace the latter with a deadly plague that makes humans die and apes as smart as humans.

This movie is not a remake, if anything, it's one big memorial to a series as ground-breaking as Planet of the Apes. The sheer amount of quotes and references to the original is staggering. They gave the big one to Tom Felton, (guess what it was in the comments, you get it right, you're a true fan) who appears to have been type cast, because many of his lines could have come right out of the mouth of his more famous persona. They also paid homage to the big man himself, Charlton Heston, by having clips from some of his other movies like, "The Agony and the Ecstasy."

The plot of the movie is very well laid out. Caesar lives with the humans for a while, then in a primate home and sees humanity's capacity for good and evil. He uses his smarts to break out and show the law enforcement what for, and has a cathartic moment with his human father figure. At the very end of the movie, we see a pilot who was infected with the virus that made Caesar smart deliver the disease to Great Britain, where it spreads to the rest of the world. At the end of the film, the camera is circling a globe that is not longer controlled by humanity, at the end of this film, all you can see is the Planet of the Apes.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

The Fretless Bass Reviews: The best of Foreigner

I've always been interested in Foreigner, but only just recently have I maned up and bought a five dollar best of album, and my mind got blown.

Hands down Cold as Ice and Jukebox Hero are the two best songs. I admire the band's ability to fuse rhythmic piano parts with hard rock guitar lines. unlike bands like Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones, who base their songs off of one guitar or bass riff, Foreigner bases their songs off of a piano riff, and it's good to hear the keyboard getting it's due awesome in a world currently dominated by bass beats.

The band is obviously influenced by blues music, as heard very plainly in "Women." If I had to guess, I would say the Doors also impacted the band's sound, because like the doors, they often use a quickly repeating guitar line during the refrain.

Foreigner also makes good use of the rhythm guitar, see "Hot Blooded." Two guitars has never hurt a band.

All this banter is just making the article longer so I feel like I've looked into the origins of the band deeper than I have, Essentially, if you don't know what Foreigner is, you should buy an album right away, because they rock.


Thursday, July 28, 2011

Why Planet of the apes is horrifying and excellent.


So I'm excited for Rise, if you're a true Planet of the Apes fan, that's all you call it, Rise. This movie will fall in the continuity of the other five movies and depict the initial beginning of the super intelligent apes.

A friend of my father's said that Planet of the Apes was popular when he was a kid because it was one of the only sci-fi things they had, but I beg to differ. Planet of the Apes was and is popular because it horrifies and intrigues due to cultural establishments.

To understand why Planet of the Apes is popular, we need to go back to the late 1400's. Why are the late 1400's important to Planet of the Apes? I'm getting to it. The grinding stone and the printing press were both invented in that period, and that's important because then serfs didn't have to work as hard, because the grinding stone did their work for them, so many of them ran away and eventually became the middle class. With the printing press, they could formulate and spread their ideas. In other words, a group of people was created that had nothing better to do than learn about and criticize the world around them. This is what the layman calls the Renaissance.

During the Renaissance, four values arose among western civilization, the most important one was humanism. Humanism, put simply is the belief that humans are the cat's pajama's and the bee's knees and anything that says otherwise gets made into coats and furniture.

Whether you know it or not, humanism and the other Renaissance values still have an astronomical effect on modern culture, so people still think that nothing can beat them. A perfect example of humanism in culture is Independence Day.

So when Planet of the Apes came out, suddenly people were exposed to humans being turned in to slaves and pets, and apes, a species we thought we had mastered, dominate them. People, thinking this was impossible, were intrigued by the concept, went to the movie, then were horrified by the startling possibility.

So there you have it, we have Guttenburg and Martin Luther to thank for Planet of the Apes.

Monday, July 25, 2011

The Fretless Bass Reviews: Captain America: The First Avenger


Let's start this review by saying this is my 50th post on my blog! (party horn noise) This is exciting, but there's really no way to make the review more exciting except mentioning that in the beginning.

Captain America is the last Marvel installment before the Avengers movie in 2012 (appocageddon can wait until after that and the Dark Knight Rises.) Needless to say, it had to be darn good to build up psych. It pulled it off fabulously.

The story is set in the final years of World War Two, Democracy was on the way up, Hitler had a fire under his ass, and more Americans were enlisting than ever; except Steve Rogers, who's five feet tall, and has breathing issues. A German-American doctor gives him a chance to enlist and makes him the first test subject of the super soldier serum, which grants him peak physical and mental ability.

As far as story goes, it's above par for the super hero course. After his injection of the serum, you would think they would send Cap right to Adolph Hitler's front door to roundhouse kick his face with the power of democracy. Instead, they make him a show-boy that sells war bonds, until he disobeys orders so that he might free P.O.W's. The best thing I have to say for this movie is that it pulls off a full blown musical number in the war bond selling scene. That's right, a superhero movie had a musical number.

The real gem in the movie is all the easter eggs they throw in to appease the fans like me and my dad. It would be too difficult to name them all, but if you read Cap's wiki before watching, it would make watching more entertaining.

The other interesting thing they did was how they handled Buckey. In the comics, he was Cap's pre-teen sidekick, but that wouldn't fly in the gritty realism of spandex/leather clad World War Two, so they made him Rogers' best friend who was, until the experiment, always tougher and stronger than Steve. Throughout the movie, an envious dynamic develops between the characters, which I'm sure will come back to haunt Cap when Buckey returns as Winter Soldier (LOOK IT UP!).

I would like to take this time to talk about how the movie is in 3D. You will recall from previous posts that I think 3D is unnecessary to make movies good, and Captain America proves it. This movie would have been unaffected by being in 2D, I stopped noticing the 3D after a while, and it added nothing to the experience. Maybe 3D draws in a specific crowd, but if I were marketing movies, that's the crowd I would want to keep as far away from my movies as possible, mostly because of the smell and noise because that crowd is made up of ten year old children, and Avatar fans.

At the end of the day, (literally, I'm writing this at 9:40) Captain America is worth seeing, and worth buying on DVD, and that's just about the highest praise you can give a movie.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

the fretless bass reviews:Assassin's creed

I just got Assassin's creed, so I'm a little behind, but I want to get my opinion out there.

Assassin's creed is an overall good game. It has excellent mechanics that are fun to execute (pun intended). If it has any slip anywhere it's that it's as repetitive as a power rangers show. Sneak into the city, climb up some churches, interrogate people by punching or pick-pocketing them, plan your attack, kill target, run for you life. This is the step by step plan you will follow for every mission.

I'm not saying the repetitiveness is bad, it's still fun, it's just that the game hardly throws you a curve ball. So what if your character is a master assassin, if every mission went perfectly, (and they do) it would get boring.

Combat is not the game's strong suit. Thankfully, you can almost always avoid it. you get four weapons, but I found myself only using the assassin blade, and only the sword when I absolutely needed to fight. Most of the combat time is spent waiting for your enemy to attack so you can counter and insta-kill him. This gets old fast, so I tried to run from every fight, and you can. It's good to see a game give you options on how you want to handle things.

However, when you do choose to run away, it's fairly easy to lose guards, you have the ability to turn invisible whenever you sit on a bench, or jump in a pile of hay.

this review was rushed, so I'm sorry if it was terrible, at the end of the day, you should by Assassin's creed because it has fabulous mechanics, and you will sincerely enjoy stabbing beggars.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

the fretless bass reviews:Thor

I want to start this review by saying that i just got a score of 420 on snake.

Now to Thor. For those deprived individuals among you who don't know, Thor is the bad*** Norse god of thunder, Thursday is named after him. In the 60's, Stan Lee decided to give him his own comic book, which was a good idea, because it turns out that gods make awesome super heros.

The movie is set up my explaining that the Norse gods are not deities as we think of them, rather, they are immortal, highly developed aliens that ancient peoples worshiped as gods. Thor decides to get into a punch up with a bunch of Ice giants agains Oden's specific orders, and he gets banished to Midgard, or Earth. There, the get taken in by some lovably comic scientists and attempts to get his Hammer of power back. Meanwhile in Asgard, Loki, has set everything up, and it's a ploy to start, and end a war between the frost giants to get his father's attention, couldn't he have just gotten into a fight at school? anyway, he goes to lengths to ensure Thor never returns to Asgard.

What I liked about Thor was the accessibility. You by no means had to know anything about the comic book history to understand every part of the movie. they did throw in some clever allusions to the comic series though, the ones that only the hard core fans like myself and a handful of others would get, and that just heightened the experience for us, without taking away from the layman's.

Some reviews I've read say that it "Re-invents" the super hero genre, but I would argue otherwise. I would say Thor has just wised up and done the thing i've always wanted to see super hero movies do, make the movie a sci-fy action move, about a super hero, not a super hero movie with sci-fi and action between the comic references. Thor has successfully built a big, beautiful rainbow bridge across the gap between sci-fi lovers, action lovers, and comic book nerd, and for that, I give Thor an 8/10.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

I just feel like writing

today, I'm going to see Thor

I like dogs, and cats more

I went to a pre-dance party, and the hosts had dogs, I got my all black suit covered in hair.

I've learned how to fold a pocket square

I don't think Bin Laden being dead is going to change much.

I think anyone who likes pink is dumb

that is all.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Four problems that I can solve with toys.


#1 Teenage pregnacy.
The problem is that girls are shown from a young age that parenthood is awesomesauce and the younger they raise a kid, the better by products like this. So my idea is to make a baby doll that spews vomit and turds whenever you touch it and also make the kid play with it 24 seven, also, add in a cry factor that deprives your child of sleep! It will make your little girl stay un-pregnent until her hormones overpower her devastated psychological state.


#2 Murder

The problem is that kids see murdering in video games with no consequence, so the answer is to just make a game that makes murdering people un-fun by putting you in jail for ten minutes whenever you look at anyone funny. This will make the entire experience of being able to kill anyone you want incredibly un-fun, but that game already exists, so just buy your son Oblivion.

#3 Teenage insecurity in girls

The problem is that everything young girls play with makes them believe that they NEED to be pretty in order to be wanted, and that getting a man trumps your family, culture, heritage, and untainted criminal record. (Disney princess movies, i'm serious, these are the values our beloved classics are teaching.)
This one is simple, make your daughter play with transformers.

#4 Young girls dressing like tramps and young boys dressing like jerks

A&F and other fashion stores are constantly feeding our girls that in order to get anywhere in life, you need to be under 100 LBS. and be looser than knot tied by a drunk four year old. They tell our boys that they need to drink, abuse women, and act like jersey shore. Unfortunately, there is really no way to prevent this, because these ads are everywhere. My suggestion, keep you kid locked up in the basement until they turn 18, it's for their own good.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

the fretlessbass reviews: You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

I used to go to this middle school; I graduated from it last year. So this year I decided to go to that school's musical, because I am a vet of the program, and I have some pretty BAMF eighth grade friends in the play.

This year, it was You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. I don't generally like this kind of musical, because it doesn't really have a plot. It's more of a series of vignettes from the comic strip.

So I don't like the play, but everyone in it was awesome, especially the lead, and my good friend, Johnny Kilcoyne.

Now I'm about to assault the play, but I want you all to know, I enjoyed myself at that play, I just really don't like the writing.

My first and foremost complaint, every character in that play is a jerk in the upper echelons of nasty. Half the play is spent with multiple children telling Charlie Brown that he is a terrible person right to his face. Therefore, I think the play is a commentary on bullies, but this play isn't about bullies, if that were so, then Mr. Brown would be the only non-bully in his community, therefore, I think it's something in the water they drink, but Chaz is too busy being an emo to drink anything put pain and his own tears.

This has been a hastily written review, by Micholas.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

the fretlessbass reviews: Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch is everything it looks like, babes with machine guns in a surprisingly deep and confusing movie.

I love Zack Snyder; Watchmen is my fourth favorite movie of all time, so I was extremely excited for Sucker Punch.

The movie follows the story of a girl whose parents die, and her step-father tries to rape/kill her and her sister; in self-defense, she accidentally shoots her sister, and gets sent to a mental asylum by her evil step-father. She then actually goes insane and imagines the asylum as a burlesque strip club where the girls are forced to dance for important men. Whenever she dances, she hallucinates about a totally epic fight scene, and apparently that looks sexy to everyone else. She then has to orchestrate an escape from the club/asylum before she gets lobotomized.

However, the movie failed to live up to my standards for Mister Snyder. My first grievance is that the movie has absolutely nothing to do with Sucker Punches, I would have called it, "Babes with guns, what else do you want?." Maybe Zack just needs to stay with R rated movies, Sucker puke is PG-13, so it had all the usual themes Snyder deals with, (Rape, lots of it, sexuality, freedom, insanity) just toned down to the point where it didn't get across. Some people would say the movie is sexist, and it probably is, but i'm pretty sure it was meant to be empowering; it wasn't.

I did like the fight scenes in Super Punch, they are visually stunning, and totally awesome. There's nothing else to say, they're really well done.

Overall, if you like cool fight scenes and kind of being confused, then see Sucker Punch, it's Inception meets Shutter Island, meets Sin City.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Something that will change your life

This video has changed my life forever, and it should change yours too, if you don't see what these people have to say about the human condition, you're missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime. Open your heart to these people, they can make you whole, as they did with me.

This is the link.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

the fretlessbass reviews: The rest of Homefront


I just finished Homefront. My last review was a "First impressions." All I need to say is that before, the game was a 5/10, but near the end it gets to a 9/10.

Games getting good near the end isn't usually a point in their favor, but Homefront's single player campaign is pitifully short.

Near the middle of the game, there's a forced vehicle section, it's not good, but it also isn't as aggravating and inflaming as most shooter vehicle sections.

The absolute best, most adrenaline-activating, pulse-pounding, brain-blowing moment for me was when your character falls off the Golden Gate Bridge and lands on the strapping underneath. All the other characters assume you are dead, so you must fight your way under the bridge to a ladder that will bring you to a turret that you need to destroy for your team to move up. There was no part this cool in ModFare, and I still get excited just thinking about it.

So if you can stand about one hour of mediocrity, then you'll love Homefront about one hour in when it gets fantastically excellent.

I desperately hope for a sequel, because the game leaves enough room for an entire series at the end, if they can just do the bridge scene again for two more games, then I'll be happy.

WOLVERINES!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

the fretlessbass reviews: Home Front

Let me start by saying this, when I bought this game, the guy at the counter saw my Walking Dead shirt, and suggested that I should read the comic series Fable, because it takes classic fables, and makes them "bloody and gory." This is not why I read the Walking Dead, nor is it why I do anything I do. Anyone who thinks gamers are addicted to seeing entrails get spewed all over the screen are mostly wrong, there are some gamers who delight in simulating human dismemberment, but they should seek therapy. The truth is, most people play violent games because those games also happen to have excellent story-telling, or interesting gameplay mechanics.

Which brings me effortlessly to Homefront. I pre-ordered it when a really nice gamestop employee told me it was going to combine everything that worked in Modern Warfare and Battlefield. But the best way I can describe it is completely influenced by ModFare, with only vehicles coming from battlefield. The controls are all the same as ModFare, the kinematics are the same as ModFare, it even does the same thing where your melee attack is a knife materializing from nowhere even though you're holding a seventy pound rocket launcher.

Not to say the game isn't good, to sum up the entire thing in one sentence; Red Dawn meets Call of Duty. If you have seen the movie and played said game, then you know that Homefront is worth checking out.

The story goes that in 2027, North Korea invades the United States. Most war games make the enemy some faceless PMC or a terrorist organization, but this game blatantly points a finger at Kim Jong-un, the son of the current dictator of North Korea. America loses the war, because the economy had taken a massive hit before the invasive, and the Korean occupation of America begins. You play as a pilot who was being taken to a labor camp, when the local resistance breaks him out, you then join a multicultural cast of characters in trying to get to San Francisco where what's left of the U.S. army is rallying.

The game goes to great lengths to get you angry, you see some disturbing imagery of soldiers doing horrible things to de-humanize the local population, and several times throughout the game you come upon a child's former bedroom or treehouse with drawings in it that all go something like "I love mommy and daddy, and being not in a labor camp and starving and being American and cute." It's like the game is trying to get you angry at communists, but the support characters do enough of that for you.

Like I said, gameplay is exactly like ModFare, but that's ok, because ModFare was a fantastic game, it's ok to copy something that worked in moderation.

Graphics take a bit of a hit, you know how in ModFare, you would sometimes stop and look at your gun, or the rock, and just say "Wow, I just got shot forty times for hesitating, but it was worth it because the graphics look like angels from heaven came down and rendered the environment themselves?" Well in Homefront, the graphics are good enough so you don't notice, but bad enough so you don't care.

Multiplayer is pretty cool, the matches are 32 person rounds and the maps are enormous, too enormous, I spent half of my multiplayer time running around looking for enemies and getting shot by snipers. In ModFare, you could always find the enemy, in Homefront, you need to do some looking.

If you've noticed that I'm compairing this game to ModFare a lot, you're right. I do it because to me, Homefront seems like an extension pack for ModFare chronicling a civilian's journey during the part where Russia invades America. So the game is un-original, that doesn't make it not good, all Boston songs sound the same, but you listen to them anyway. So I recommend Homefront to everyone who's ever played Modern Warefare, or been paranoid of communists and needs to take out some steam on North Korea's face.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

why action movies rarely win oscars.

We've all been there, I'm talking to the fanboy, the fanboy who's favorite franchise was made into a movie this year, the fanboy, who will be disappointed when the Oscars come around and his movie only comes up for something dumb like best makeup or lighting. The Academy rarely chooses action movies for the awards everyone cares about like best actor/actress or best picture, and that's because of the basic form of movies.

Movies are a visual story, they're moving picture books, and so the Academy likes movies that tell stories. It's true, most action movies have a plot, but did you see Prince of Persia for the plot, no, you saw it so you could get excited by seeing a guy with hippy hair parkour for two and a half hours. Action movies aren't focused around the plot, they're focused around stunts and adrenaline, whereas movies that tell a story can have the ability to change everyone who sees it because they didn't spend all the writing budget on parkour training.

Even when action movies do have good stories, like Spider-Man and Inception, it's either too confusing to have a plot that allows for such hyperbolized fight scenes, or suffers from being tethered to the source material. Not to say there aren't good action movies, one of my favorite movies of all time, Watchmen, is an action movie, but that is an exception from both the confusing story and source material rules.

So that's it, the Academy likes stories, and action movies aren't as much about the story, so enjoy them for what they are, not always masterpieces, but excitement generators, that are fueled by adrenaline and exist to get you pumped for the sequel next summer.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

the fretlessbass reviews: Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: fate of two worlds

First, I have a little cousin. His name is Timmy. I like Timmy, he understands my video game banter. He plays lots of video games. Once, we were talking and he said the word "verse" as in "will you verse me in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3?" No Tim, I will not, because that is not only not a word, but it also wouldn't be a verb. Two often people see the symbol "vs." and just say "verse" that is wrong, it is an abbreviation for the word versus.

Now to the game. My fist teen rated game was Capcom: fighting evolution. I liked it a lot, it held my attention, was it a good game? meh. Marvel Vs. (versus) Capcom 3 is very similar. In that I mean that you need to keep the controls page open on your lap for the first two weeks playing. It would be easier to control a nuclear generator while drunk than get Captain America to do "Hyper stars and stripes."

I don't really like fighting games, but MVC3 is about as good as they're going to get. Once you get into it, you can do the controls, but it's only fun with friends, and once you do that you're "that guy" That guy that in wanting to unlock all the characters for his friends has become unstoppable and un-fun to play with. Also, the plot is unveiled by unlocking video clips, I don't know about the rest of you, but when I play video games, I like to contribute to a story, that's what sets them apart from normal TV. Games like MVC3 are like guessing to "Who wants to be a millionaire?" You're technically playing, but no one gives a rat's ass and you could make more money by selling cars that instead of staring when you turned the key, punched you in the face.

My grievances with the characters, Who the F@#$ are half of these guys? The problem with games like these are the designers are fanboys of the origional, so most of the Capcom characters that haven't had a game in thirty years are playable characters that you will never play as. Also, I think all the female Capcom characters are S and M prostitutes in their spare time, because there is about a square inch of clothing among them. Who is Ryu? who is the cat lady with unrealistically jiggly breasts? Why should anyone care? The Marvel characters are why normal people buy this game, not the washed-up fighters turned prostitutes.

MVC3 is fun though, I like to play it with my brother, and if you get really good with one character, you can watch your fighting style change over time. I reccomend it to anyone who can rub a controller on their dog. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to make sure someone isn't ogling the cat-lady while my game is paused.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

the fretlessbass reviews: Frequency

This review is not time sensitive, because Frequency was released in 1999. So it's not recent, but I liked it a lot, and I have nothing better to do in an E-block study.

Frequency is a classic tale of good verses evil, father and son, and time travel..... kind of.

The story is about a young man in 1999 Queens who discovers that his radio can allow him to communicate with his dead father from 1969. The guy saves his father by telling him about the fire that killed him, but then they changed the future. Father and son must unite to save their wife/mother from a serial killer!

My one grievance with the movie is that it's really hard to keep track of what timeline is real, because in the movie, once you change something in the past, it immediately affects the future. The main characters are constantly changing the past, so I was never really sure what actually happened at any given time.

Next note, Frequency is a really intelligent movie, there are clock analogies throughout, one is where the kid in 1969 is riding a bike in a circle around his father. There are more, you should look for them yourself.

Also, they do some really interesting detective work. While the dad actively tries to stop the killer in the past, the son (he's a cop) uses his father's knowledge of the past to help catch the killer in 1999. For instance, they know that the killer has touched the dad's wallet, so the son has his dad put the wallet in a plastic bag, and hide it in a place where it won't be touched for thirty years. The son then goes to the place his dad specified, and finds the wallet to get a fingerprint from it.

Frequency is a good action, and time movie, just to clarify now, there isn't actually any time travel, just time-communication. If you like the movies Terminator and Field of Dreams, the you'll love Frequency. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to tell my past self to remember where he put the keys.....

Sunday, February 13, 2011

5 Reasons Why Charlton Heston is the greatest thing ever and if you disagree with me, you're wrong.

5. He was in The Ten Commandments.
4. He was in Omega Man.
3. He was in Planet of the Apes.
2. All the roles above are entirely different characters which proves how good he is at acting.
1. The way he talks.

Friday, February 11, 2011

the Fretless Bass Reviews: First impressions of Just Cause 2

In most games, when someone says, "I'm going to skyjack a jet airplane, tie three guards to it, and fly it into a super poor village" people would ask, "Why?" But in Just Cause 2, the answer would be, "Why not?"

That just about sums up what Just Cause 2 is going for. It's a water-cooler game in every sense of the word. You can tell this because when I first told my friend about it, my phraseology was something went this. "So I needed to unlock a new mission, so I stuck a whole bunch of plastic explosives to a sports car and drove it into an explosives compound. The explosion killed me, but I kept all the rewards!"

The story follows a CIA agent named Rico Rodriguez. He is sent into a small southeast Asian island country to locate his mentor who may have gone rouge. Instead of just following leads on his whereabouts, Rico decides it would be best to destabilize the country by blowing up as many military depot's as possible.

Just Cause 2 is an open world game, but saying that Just Cause 2 is an open world game is like saying that Stalin went a bit too far. There are literally 400 virtual square miles of world for you to destroy. Now, most open worlds feature non-linear gameplay in which you generally need to do something a certain amount of times. This is sometimes the case in Just Cause, but the world is so huge that some of the missions can take on a linear feel. One problem that comes up in many open world games is that it releases you into a world in possibilities to steal cars and crash them into soup kitchens, and then punishes you for it, some games that are guilty of this are Grand Theft Auto, and Oblivion. This is not the case in Just Cause 2, as the game actually rewards you for blowing stuff up. To unlock story missions, you need to do stronghold missions, to get them, you need to do side missions, to do them, you need to cause chaos. Causing chaos is easier than you may think, because someone went all around the island and dropped explosive cans of oil everywhere.

The interesting gameplay mechanics the game offers are that of transportation. Rico has the ability to pull unlimited parachutes out of........ I don't know where he pulls the parachutes out of. He has no pockets! Where does he get the parachutes from? Either way, the parachute is really handy because landing anything besides a helicopter is incredibly difficult, and base jumping is really fun.

You also have a "grapple hook" that lets you grab onto anything within range. Using it to zip around is a good way to get places, but you can also use it to attach two things together. This includes people. One of the most satisfying things I have done in Just Cause 2 is grapple a guard to a car, then drive the car off of a cliff, or into a gas station, or off of a building.

The only thing I don't like about the game so far is the accents. There's one character whose accent is so terrible that every time I hear it, all I want to do is throw my shoe at the TV.

At the end of the day, Just Cause 2 is really fun because I can re-create historical disasters.

Friday, February 4, 2011

The Fretless Bass Reviews: Robert Plant and the Band of Joy

Last week, I had the privilege and the honor of seeing the Band of Joy in concert at Foxwoods. You should also know that I love Led Zeppelin; rarely a day goes by without me getting the Led out.
Down to business. The Band of Joy album came out in september of 2010, and the thing is fantastic. Plant has successfully fused rock and folk in perfect harmony. My favorite song on the album is "Cindy I'll Marry You Someday" and "Angel Dance." These songs are both upbeat, and are heavily folky. Cindy is an arrangement of a classic folk song, and Angel dance is a Los Lobos cover.
The concert was great. The opener was fantastic, the drummer had an electric washboard solo, which is all I need to say to communicate the awesomeness.
The true talent of the Band of Joy is their ability to change their songs so much. They played "Nobody's Fault but Mine," and it was fantastic, and they didn't even use the classic riff once. Also, when they did Cindy, it was a much harder rock song than on the album.
One more thing, Robert Plant is a funny man. He made jokes between every song. Before one song, he joked that it was a brand new single, it wasn't, but Plant made it more funny than I just did.
This has been a short review, but that's because I have nothing bad to say about Robert Plant and the Band of Joy. The only unhappy part was when we had to hitchhike home because Dad lost the car in the casino. So if you'll excuse me, I need to go snort some Cheerios.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Things you need to stop doing of Facebook.

I've been doing facebook for a while now, and some things people do there are so annoying to me, that I've decided to write this. These complaints are in no particular order, but all of them should be taken seriously, because If you do this on facebook, I hate you.

1. Quit posting "I'm bored," or any variation on that, when you post something to facebook, it's supposed to make everyone's day better or worse. Telling everyone you know that you are pathetically unentertained while using a computer helps no one, least of all, you. If you do post those two demon words, make it interesting, like, "I'm bored, IN SPACE!"

2. Stop posting on statuses and photos someone added more than a week or two ago. Nothing ruins my internet binge more than clicking on a notification be be dragged to a horrible joke you posted on a status I don't even remember.

3. Stop sending me farmville/mafia wars messages. Messages are supposed to help me, not make me want to tear out your soul. Also, if you play farmville or mafia wars, it might be in your favor to keep it to yourself....... you enormous nerd.

4. Don't post purposely vague things just to make the rest of us ask what it is. Because deep down, you're only doing it to make yourself feel important for two more minutes, instead of hopelessly defeated and depressed. Facebook isn't the best way to solve that issue. Get a therapist.

5. Posting those statuses that say "Please post this to support (insert minority/deadly disease patients here) 90% of people won't do this, are you going to do the right thing?" Here's the problem with that, If I don't post it, I feel like a jerk, If I do, then I make other people feel like jerks when they don't post it. It creates a lose-lose situation for everyone. And really, how is a status on facebook going to help anyone? The only exception to this rule is if it's a joke, like instead of supporting cancer patients, it's supporting the families of people who died in the Hogwarts attack, in which case, it's the coolest thing ever.

So there you have it, my list of personal peeves for facebook, now I will warn you that I WILL come down hard on you if you do any of these on my wall. You have been warned.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Science and Religion

The other day, during my obscenely long midterm lunch block, I mentioned to an acquaintance of mine that I was deeply religious. But am I? I go to church every Sunday, I sing in the choir, I serve on the altar. But I still swear, I make sex jokes, I'm mean to people I don't like, and I sit less than a phonebook away from my girlfriend.
The truth is, when put in perspective, looking throughout time, I'm about as unreligious as you can get. However, by today's standards, I am off the scale of religiousness. Most people know little or nothing about God, many other Catholics I know only go to church on Christmas, and that isn't even right, if you only go once a year, you should go on Easter. In my religious Ed class, most of the kids are there against their will because the parents are still desperately holding onto the last scrap of moral fiber the kid has. Church attendance is also way down in the past twenty years, the number of priests is steadily declining, and the world is becoming more and more secular everyday. People are losing interest in religion and faith. There are still some religious people out there, but a portion of them seem to me like they are only doing it to stand out among the crowd. When people do this, they are usually real open, too open, about their religion. When I know someone who does that, I take their religion, and tack "super" onto the front. I know one super-protestant, who posts about prayer, a very private thing, on Facebook, and one super-jew, who glares at you if you mention Hitler in any way. To paraphrase the bible, "Don't pray in public, you're only doing it for attention." These people may be religious for the wrong reasons, but at least they act with the ethic, but overall, interest in faith is dying.
Why is this happening? A mere two hundred years ago, you would be a social outcast if you didn't spend literally all day in church on Sunday. Entire wars were fought over religion, and still are, but only in parts of the world where science is not as prevalent, is this a coincidence? Absolutely not. Science is the source of all these problems, and I'm not saying we go back to the Stone Age. The root of the problem is people are misinterpreting science for what it really is. Hundreds of years ago, people used religion to explain science. Lightning was a pissed-off Zeus, the world is here because God created it in seven days. Sciences like the Big Bang Theory convince some people that there is no God, But I have thought otherwise. The big bang theory states that before the universe was created, all the matter existed in a singularity, which was infinitely small, hot, and dense. This singularity then exploded and created the universe, static on your TV is leftover energy from the explosion. The only unanswered question of this theory is what trigged the explosion? Well I can only assume that you would need a giant source of power. But nothing besides the singularity existed, so how could that power be generated? My answer: God.
People who say that science disproves the existence of God have it all wrong. A long time ago, people used God to explain science, now, we must use science to explain God.

Monday, January 17, 2011

the Fretless Bass reviews: The Green Hornet.

Movies are made to make you pumped up after you see them, so you tell all your friends, "IT WAS AWESOME!!!!" So when you are a reviewer, you need to wait a little bit and think hard about the movie before you make conclusions. This was especially the case with The Green Hornet (flawless transition), which is as action-filled, and adrenalin-charged as any movie. I came out of that movie loving it, but after some thought I came to the conclusion that The Green Hornet is a "meh" movie disguised as a really good one.

First off I will continue my vendetta against 3D, in which The Green Hornet was filmed. I don't think it was even made for 3D, the lack of 3D moments tells me that they just made it into 3D in the editing room. Truth be told, 3D didn't ruin The Green Hornet, it would have been just as mediocre without the influence of Avatar. What really grinds my gears is how the production team obviously thought it would help the movie. 3D isn't for every movie. Avatar and 3D worked well together because Avatar had really good visuals, but 3D isn't what made that movie (Let me clarify right now, I thought Avatar looked fantastic, and I saw it without 3D, it did stand up on its own without it. What I hated about Avatar was its predictability and the plot). So the production team thought 3D would help The Green Hornet, but the truth is, 3D didn't affect the experience for me at all.

Detail time. The Green Hornet was entertaining, but will I remember it in a year, no. Why? My biggest issue was that there was this whole deal where both main characters liked their secretary, and were jealous of each other over her, and they resolved it, but I didn't get any closure on the issue. The movie didn't even give the resolution its own scene, just at some point it said, "Ok, that's over, now back to the gun violence." Which is another thing, for heroes, the protagonists seemed to have no problem pumping their enemies full of lead. This would be ok if the movie were a morality play. "Is fighting crime worth hurting so many people?" or, "Can violence to stop violence be justified?" But no, the movie shows these men brutally killing people, and portraying them as totally moral heroes.

I also didn't like the predictability of the movie. I'm not going to tell you about the plot points I predicted because I don't want to spoil it for you. I predicted how the movie would go from the third or fourth scene.

Lastly, Seth Rogen was a perfect choice for the main character; the movie may have fallen short, but Seth was fantastic. Sadly, Mr. Rogen's performance did nothing to make the sting of this hornet enter my soul. Perhaps if the movie had more of a message, or if I believed the heroes were doing good for the right reasons, I may not have just crucified it the way I did, but nay, this hornet has no sting.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

the Fretless Bass reviews: The Cape pilot on NBC

Today, I'm snowed in, so I'm writing about something I saw yesterday. It was The Cape, a show about a man who was unjustly framed for a horrible crime and must don a new identity to protect his family and get his life back. So it's pretty much every super hero movie or show ever made.
I kid The Cape, I actually liked it a lot, but I'm a fanboy, and as a reviewer, it is my duty to look at this in perspective, objectively, without bias.
The show was entertaining, but was it really good? Luckily, I'm here to answer that question for you, so you don't need to think as much. (Orwellian?) The pilot's job is to draw the audience in with high action, focus, and conflict, so its job is to be the best episode in the entire run of the series. If every episode of The Cape is as good as the pilot, then this show is the next 24 for me until The Walking Dead staggers back onto my TV next fall. But TV shows rarely replicate the quality found in the pilot. The Cape makes the mistake of giving the protagonist one ultimate goal, in this case; it's to prove his innocence by taking down a private military contract army that runs the city. This is going to get old fast. Luke Cage made that mistake as well in his first issue, but the geniuses at Marvel were smart enough to leave Luke's problems open ended enough to keep the series interesting after the death of this antagonist. This is not the case with The Cape, should the main villain fall, there's no more juice left in the tank, and The Cape dies. Like I said, the same bad guy in every episode is going to get old. They also introduced one villain that has scales on his face, and a whole organization of super-killers, but they all work for the ultimate villain as well, so it's kind of a fail on that scale.
At the end of the day, or this review, or whatever you and your cult may call it, the pilot of The Cape was good, but the show has nothing to really set it apart from any other super drama on TV or the big screen. If guys wearing capes and cool hoods excites you as much as it excites me, then you'll probably like the pilot of The Cape, as for the rest of the series, I predict it will fall into the problem Power Rangers had where you could recite what was going to happen in every episode before it even happened. So don't get your hopes up. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go put a towel over my head and pretend I'm Batman.