Of all the portable Castlevania games for GBA and DS, I never got around to this one for some reason. The game seemed to disappear from store shelves and then got expensive, and eventually I forgot about it until its sequel, Dawn of Sorrow, was released. If this was a simple comparison of Aria to Dawn, it would be a short review. Basically, everything that Aria does, Dawn does a lot better. However, that’s not exactly fair to Aria of Sorrow. It isn’t chopped liver here. It’s actually a really solid and fun game, and arguably the best one on the GBA. (more…)

Being a casual fan of the comics a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the original Hellboy was a good movie, skillfully directed by Guillermo Del Toro and having inspired casting with Ron Perlman as the lead. I was also pleasantly surprised to see 2 animated features come out with the same voice talents as the movie, and then a full fledged live action sequel that is in movie theaters now. Between the Hellboys, Del Toro directed the critically acclaimed Pan’s Labyrinth and produced the similarly acclaimed The Orphanage, and has seen his star rise among many circles after landing the directorial duties for The Hobbit. Before that, though, we get Hellboy II, which is a really good film that has come out during a summer of great and epic blockbusters. While The Dark Knight and Iron Man and Indiana Jones get most of the spotlight, this movie is a fantastic comic book movie and great summer movie. It’s also easy enough to recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen the original or read the comics, because while the relationships in the movie are inherited from the first movie, this is largely a standalone product, and tells its own intriguing story.

The general plot of the movie is that long ago, humans and mythical creatures battled each other. The creatures created an army of 4900 unstoppable Golden soldiers, which would guarantee them victory. However, seeing the atrocities they caused without remorse, the King of the mythical creatures, Balor, decides to seal away the army and break the crown that would control them into 3 pieces, and give on piece to the humans. However, his son, Prince Nuada, does not agree to the truce and in current times, finally decides to act and bring the Golden Army back after seeing the humans abuse and destroy their world, while slowly destroying the forests and other places where the elves and trolls lived.

What this basically adds up to is Hellboy interacting with lots of crazy creatures, fighting for possession of the pieces of the crown, and some some romance between Princess Nuala and Abe Sapien, Hellboy’s best friend. The battles in the movie are excellent, with a real fantastical comic book type battle with a giant bean creature that turns everything into living plant matter. It’s a fun fight because the creature is so dangerous, and yet he’s also doing beautiful things and turning the city into an urban jungle. As Hellboy fights to destroy it, Nuada tests him, asking Hellboy to destroy the creature, the last of its kind, because that is what humans do. There’s also a great battle in a seedy troll market with a monstrous creature called Mr. Wink, who is physically Hellboy’s equal or better, but Hellboy eventually puts him through a grinder. Nuada himself has a half dozen great fight scenes, where he shows off his martial arts training, and all of it is convincing and impressive, not forced and full of quick cuts away to hide the lack of actual skill.

So the movie has some great fight scenes. But it also has a definite beauty to the cinematography, especially in the Elven world. The colors are deep, dreamlike, and rich. And in scenes like the Prince’s confrontation of the King and the discovery of the Lair of the Golden Army, it is downright breathtaking in scope, depth, and location. You can definitely tell that Del Toro’s time working on Pan’s Labyrinth influenced many things here as well.

Additionally, hats off to the creature designers, because they made some very unique and fun creatures. It almost reminded me of Jim Henson inspired creature shop stuff from the 80’s, since very little of it was CG, and most of it relied on extensive makeup and costumes. I can definitely appreciate that in today’s modern movies, where most any special effect is added in post production.

And while describing the movie may make it seem a little disjointed between the fantasy realm and the real world, it’s a nice contrast, and sort of shows why the entire conflict in the movie began in the first place. The fantasy realm is almost a dream world, while the real world is filmed much more realistically and the personalities are much more human (even if the faces aren’t). Hellboy is a bit of a blue collar man-demon, a guy who enjoys his job but hates to play by the rules, while his girlfriend Liz can’t seem to adjust to his overly self-centered lifestyle. Meanwhile, sea creature Abe is a central character in this one, as he finds someone in Nuala who is a kindred spirit, but yet he knows it pretty much is never meant to be. Also, their new boss, Krauss, is a crazy German spirit gas smoke thing that inhabits some 1940’s-ish diver suit. It’s a fun bunch of characters, and you get to know the supporting cast a lot better in this movie. A lot of their interaction is lighthearted and a little tongue in cheek, like the drunken musical sing-a-long scene where Hellboy and Abe get ripped in their government compound or when Hellboy stubbornly refuses let Liz have any space for herself in his room. But it all seems genuine and most importantly, it made me laugh more often than not. A lot of the scenes in the government compound where Hellboy resides had a Men In Black quality to it, which is definitely a good thing. They all kinda take the crazy shit in stride, and it makes for some great sight gags and amusing one liners.

This movie really did surprise me, as it was much better than the original, which I really liked to start with, and it managed to balance telling a fantasy story with continuing Hellboy’s story from the first movie and adding in a lot of artistic touches. And they did all this without making it seems like a mishmash of genres and being completely unfocused. Overall, most any other summer, I’d be saying this is probably the best movie I saw this summer. Well, it had some stiff competition this summer, but don’t pass this one up if you enjoy comic book movies, Hellboy, or Guillermo Del Toro. It really is a great movie that’s gotten lost under the bigger blockbusters.

While browsing the bargain PSP stuff at a local Gamestop, I came upon the UMD Video for “The Silent Hill Experience.” Seeing it’s price had been cut down a few times from the numerous stickers on the front, I figured for $3.99, I couldn’t feel horribly ripped off. Well, I don’t, but the content was a lot worse than I thought it would be.

The back of the box boasts a bevy of stuff, but so little of it is worth anything to fans of the series. There’s 20 music tracks selected from the first 4 games, but they are stuck in a terrible interface that won’t even allow you to play them all or create a setlist of them. There’s rare videos from the series that were produced at one point or another, but in this day and age, any of the videos on here can be found on Youtube in seconds. To add to the thrown together feel, they didn’t format the videos correctly, and as such, some of them appear with black bars and warped, as if they didn’t realize that the PSP is a widescreen handheld. The videos are nearly unwatchable like this. There’s interviews with series creator/composer Akira Yamaoka and movie director Christopher Gans, but both are rather dull, uninteresting interviews that I’m sure can be found elsewhere for free as well. It’s the kind of videos you would get in a electronic press kit or as a shitty extra on the Silent Hill movie DVD that you would never bother watching more than once. There also some pictures of CG from the games. I seriously couldn’t believe that was a feature. So worthless.

In addition, you have to navigate a terrible menu that takes forever to load and is unnecessarily cumbersome to find things. It really wasn’t a great idea even in concept, to have it like you are in first person view navigating the elementary school, and the time to takes to get from one “room” to another feels like they added it to make it seem like there was more content here.

The real meat of the UMD is supposed to be the digital comics they have included here based on the miniseries “Silent Hill: Dying Inside” and a brand new, exclusive-to-this-collection comic, “The Hunger”. I’ll admit, the idea here is rather great, and I’ve always enjoyed when comics are digitized online, because it really adds to the experience of reading a comic. And while the comics are nicely set to music from the series (you can see now why “Selected Tracks” from the series were included as a feature; to add just a bit more fluff using content that’s already there anyway to an otherwise barren collection) and animate well, the stories just aren’t that great.

The Hunger is poorly written and the art varies from passable to sloppy. In addition to the dialogue not being that great, the story seems so far away from the plots of the games (and even the general themes and direction of them). In general, while it is exclusive content, it’s not worth picking it up to read it. Dying Inside has a bit more to it, but I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it either. The first 2 issues are fairly interesting and seem to at least take in some of the spirit of the series, regarding characters with clouded pasts, feelings of isolation, and representations of inner demons as monsters in the world of Silent Hill. Sure the dialogue is again awful, but at least it is better than The Hunger.

But abruptly, the story takes a complete 180 for the last 3 issues and revolves around a bunch of idiotic goth punks getting gored in Silent Hill. The kids aren’t likable, their motives aren’t believable (make money off of the monsters in Silent Hill? Uh alright), and the characterization is sparse. The art also changes completely, and not for the better. In most action or gory scenes, you can’t even tell what’s happening. It’s just some random colors and cryptic dialog and you figure out what’s going on. It feels like 1 mediocre story and 1 crummy story mashed together and then given the smallest of connections. Then there’s stuff about the main character being a witch or something, and banging two of the other goth dudes, who I think are supposed to be brothers? And the demon girl in the town is her sister? I don’t know, the shit didn’t make any sense, and it was a real struggle to finish this. Not to play armchair comic creator, but I could have made a better Silent Hill comic than these two messes.

So that’s about it. A bunch of promo material you can get for free, and 2 bad comic stories. It kept me busy for an hour or two, so I wasn’t totally ripped off, but I’ll be damned if I’m ever booting it up again. I pity anyone who paid 20 bucks for this.

Since I saw this movie on Friday, I’ve been trying to think of a way to review this and sound like I’m a calm, collected reviewer and be fairly objective about this movie’s pros and cons. But every time I think about the movie it comes out as as a rambling mess of “oh my god”s and “so fucking awesome”s. So I’ll just run with that. Oh my god, this movie is so fucking awesome. (more…)

I feel like this review is a few weeks too late to change anyone’s mind about seeing it, as they either already have, or are never going to. But in spite of that, I’ll press on. The Incredible Hulk is Marvel’s latest superhero movie, which is actually a reboot of the Hulk movie series in general. It’s a concept that’s fairly common in comics, that when a comic isn’t selling well or they’ve simply written themselves into a corner, they end the series and relaunch is awhile later with a brand new #1 issue and a completely new creative team giving the book a much different feel. While, it doesn’t happen too often in movies, Batman Begins and Casino Royale (and the Bond series in general) are good examples of taking the general idea of movies that came before it, but changing in favor of luring in some more viewers. For The Incredible Hulk, all the original cast from the 2003 movie is gone. Now we have Ed Norton as Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, and William Hurt as General Thunderbolt Ross. I’m not sure I’m 100% in love with the casting changes, as I thought Eric Bana was a perfect Bruce Banner, Jennifer Connelly was a great selection for Betty Ross, and you can’t beat Sam Elliot in any role, but I can understand that they wanted to go in a different direction. While I rather enjoyed the first movie, many people did not, and niggling little things about it ruined it for them (questionable director choice, Nick Nolte’s theatrics, bizarre ending). Well this movie fixes some of the big issues: namely, a hell of a lot better CG, more evenhanded acting and directing, no gimmicky “comic book panel” transitions, and better action scenes.

So this movie takes the general idea of the first movie’s conclusion (Banner is in hiding outside, government wants to get him back) and starts over. I think the best part about this new movie is that it is a good Hulk movie. What I mean is that this movie really feels like it takes the spirit of the television series and gives you a good “on the run” movie featuring the Hulk, whereas the 2003 movie really was a good Bruce Banner movie that was hampered by some Hulk scenes that took the reality out of it (and some of the CG hasn’t aged that great). But like I said, this movie really has some fantastic Hulk battles such as the one in the college park and the conclusion battle with Abomination. Additionally, the action is tight even in non-Hulk scenes, with a tense action scene early where Banner is running through the streets of Brazil trying to escape operative sent to capture him. The ending, which I think was a bit too much CG, was nonetheless an amazing action sequence that had me thinking “damn, this is what a Hulk movie should be like.” It was a rough, ragged fight between two monsters that shows that the Hulk can really be a brutal, unstoppable beast.

The weakest part of the movie, I felt, was the actual human interaction scenes outside of the big action pieces. It’s not that any of these actors did a bad job. Tim Roth, for one, was a fantastic villain here that wasn’t horribly stereotyped or obnoxiously overacting. Instead he just comes off as a man who wants to be powerful and strong and realizes that he is never going to be as good as he was when he was younger. Add that to a vendetta he wants to settle with the Hulk for beating the shit out of him a few times, and you have an excellent villain. Norton does a serviceable job as Banner, a man who is trying to contain his inner demons and get rid of them forever, but finds that this is impossible. The problem with Ed is that Eric Bana just did such a great job in the previous movie, that it feels like Banner in this movie isn’t much of a tragic figure. His only real issue is “Need to get rid of Hulk, miss Betty”, whereas in the previous movie they delved into Banner’s family issues and own personal demons. Liv Tyler is a pretty bland Betty Ross. I mean, nothing about her performance was terribly special. She worked in the role, that was about all I could say. Thunderbolt Ross is pretty much the same character as the last movie, a man who wants the Hulk at all costs, though his morality is a lot more in question in this one, as he knowingly makes Tim Roth’s Blonsky character into a monster throughout the movie. Additionally, his change of heart at the end of the movie to help Banner seemed poorly cut and hard to believe, like there was a full scene cut out somewhere. Because one moment, he’s finally got Banner and they are taking him away, and the next minute, he’s letting him go to fight Abomination.

So while I would call this a better Hulk movie, I do lament that this movie just doesn’t seem to have as much of a ‘heart’ as the first one. Good action movie, no doubt. Very entertaining. But that’s all it is. It doesn’t give you a lot more than that, and, for all the little issues with 2003’s Hulk, it definitely gave you a lot more than just the Hulk at times. Still, I would recommend catching this movie. I enjoy both Hulk movies, and this one is a worthy successor/reboot. It’s a lot of fun, and there’s a great ending cameo that fan’s of Marvel movies will love.

Philadelphia is allegedly the sweatsuit capital of the world. I don’t know how they calculate that statistic, but it fits the town’s reputation comfortably aside from… ya know, all the killing and stuff. I live about as far north as you can get, just past murder-town. Since New York City is sort of the default city by most standards, I would have to say that its a hell of a lot better than Philadelphia. But Philadelphia rules Baltimore. Well, maybe not. Philadelphia rules Newark. And all of New Jersey for that matter. New Jersey really sucks. A lot.

Anyone who has been to Brooklyn would agree that Philadelphia compares in many ways. For one, its about the size of Brooklyn as far as the metro area. Also, as opposed to New York City as a whole, where you have separation of high class and low class areas in large neighborhoods, i.e. Manhattan vs. South Bronx, Philadelphia is one big gray area of mediocrity. It instead has varying flavors throughout. There is the “Manhattan-esque” center city, which covers about a 10 block radius, including the old timey historic sections. There are the bohemian areas, including the ever gentrifying Northern Liberties, and of course South Street (however has become more like a skeezy boardwalk with headshops). Of course there are the bad neighborhoods, such as any neighborhood surrounding the main universities which hold within the opportunity for thousands of naive young suburban white people, including Temple in north Philly, Drexel and University of Pennsylvania both located in West Philly.

If I could sum up the city in one word, it would be waffle fries and sewage. I like waffle fries, and if I wanted to be pretentious and live on twice the cost of living for little more benefit, I’d live in New York and eat flan all day on Wall Street or Williamsburg with the rest of my elitist NYC pals while I cash checks from my parents. Philadelphia may be a little rougher, and a little more working class, but thats what gives the city its charm.

Due to my girlfriend’s determination and good luck on its first day of release, we have a copy of Wii Fit in the living room right now. As common sense as that sounds for someone to have the game in order to review it, finding this game has been near impossible since it was released. Nintendo certainly has an easy money maker here, as I have even heard old ladies at work talking about this game and how they are going to use it to “shape up”. Combining the Wii, a console that has bridged generations with its casual gaming and ease of use, and preying on people’s insecurity about their weight (large segment of the market) is a dangerous combo. But the question is: does this help you get fit? (more…)