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.....
Thursday, February 17, 2011
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.
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.
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.
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.
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