Halo: ODST is a great game. Short, sweet, efficiently does what it sets out to do: tell a great story in the Halo universe while introducing new characters, new enemies and new twists on the ones we’ve known before. Rather than play as a superhuman, ODST is all about Marines in super suits that allow them a greater chance at survival than regularly armored soldiers, but I still found myself dying a few times because I got too close to a Brute Chieftain’s warhammer.

I always wondered what became of the African city of New Mombasa after the Prophet of Regret warped away is his giant spaceship, destroying a big section of the city. Now I know…and it sucks for New Mombasa. ODST’s story is great (and sometimes funny), the characters are compelling, the music is very Halo and sometimes quite touching. Level design and general flow of the game is smooth with a non-linear flashback setup that tells the story of a single Marine searching for his squad in the aftermath of an epic battle where the good guys lost. I haven’t gotten into the new multiplayer mode Firefight yet, but my favorite bit is Nathan Fillion as Sargent Buck because it’s nice to know the captain of Serenity is still getting work.

ODST is nothing completely revolutionary in terms of first person shooter games, but it is a fun, quick and worthy addition to the Halo universe.

The two hour season premiere of House aired last night on FOX but I just finished watching it on tape and it’s simply a perfect episode. This season will be amazing.

I just got back from a special screening of District 9. It is, in a word, awesome.

Go see it.

The pacing, structure, story, character development, direction, acting, is all top notch. I could probably sum it up like this: take Alien Nation, Schindler’s List and The Fly, mix up all the best parts together and you have District 9. I enjoy science fiction quite a bit and this is pure sci-fi. It’s all about exploring the human condition through an “alien” point of view. In this case: racism, apartheid, segregation. And of course, humanity in all forms. District 9 is at both times exciting and moving, carefully balancing an epic (but personal) action-thriller with carefully structured drama. A lot of love and attention went into District 9, and it absolutely shows.

The documentary of the film serves to create background and context within an interesting bookend to the epic story that the traditional movie tells. The ending is beautiful and appropriate. Several members of the audience applauded over the end credits. Weta’s effects are awesome to the point that you don’t care that it’s CGI, much like their work on Gollum from The Lord of The Rings. The work done by Weta in District 9 looks effortless.

To the Transformers crowd: it starts slow but packs a punch as it roars toward the end.

I loved every minute of the movie. Nothing felt ridiculous or ham-handed. Nothing superfluous. Just carefully paced, epic storytelling that moves you emotionally. District 9 feels real, and it touches you in the same way Children of Men does. You see the horror capable in man, and the humanity capable in beasts. It was hard for me to find a human character in the film to root for until very near the end. Selfishness and greed rule the day in District 9.

The people sitting next to me in the theater were shaking their heads, disgusted at the humans. There was a moment in the story where it looked like things were going to work out and suddenly, it all comes crashing down, and a woman sitting next to me was visibly upset. And as the movie picks up speed toward the end, it knocked me off my feet. There were cheers coming from the audience.

Hopefully District 9 will do well financially and will open the doors for producer Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp to finally realize their swan song: Halo.

G.I. Joe? G.I. Blow.

I give it a D+. Snake Eyes saves it from being an F and the boobies give it the extra credit. The only casting I agree with is Ray Park and Dennis Quaid. I pretty much didn’t like anything else. The effects work swayed from good to bad to often. The ending was stupid; it practically dares the writers to come up with a sequel. I could taste Star Wars references everywhere: from the Death Star’s floor plans to the Battle of Endor, the duel of the fates and even the canyon chase in the asteroid belt. The villains weren’t scary. The love stories were lame and forced. Pros: Marlon Wayans was surprisingly not unfunny, though, and The PIT was cool for about three seconds. The Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow flashbacks started off alright, but wound up being lame.

Basically, G.I. Joe tries too hard to be cool. It hurts to watch sometimes, like a virgin nerd trying to score. But, it IS watchable…in a completely sucky way. It’s good that I got to see it for free (a radio station gave away tickets), but I still feel like I want my money back.

But, I hear it’s better than Transformers.

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen movie review by El Guapo at Latino Review. My sentiments will probably be expressed there as I will more than likely hate the movie, too. But really, since I don’t care, I’ll probably feel more like Ron in his review and just…not feel anything, but still come out with a jarring headache and “WTF?” written all over my face. I plan to see it this weekend.

So I’ve gotten really tired of stumbling through the different websites to look at my favorite web comics on my iPhone when some of those sites don’t translate well to the little device (cough, Cyanide and Happiness, cough). So I look through the App Store and try to find something simple, cheap and effective and I found it with a little program called Kapow! by Ross Cooper.

Kapow! is sweet, it’s cheap and it works really well.

And because Mar over at Monkey Punchers and me are buddies (read: we have lunch together) it was great that Ross will add a comic into Kapow! real quick if you just email him the address and RSS feed. So, as a photographer, I submitted What The Duck, too. Ross wrote me back the next day, told me they were in the program, I bought it…smooth sailing. Thanks for the great program, Ross. It’s simple and only does one thing, but it does it well.

At the iTunes App Store: Buy it or, try it for free.

There is an online petition to stop Uwe Boll from ever, ever making another movie…ever.

Boll is the guy responsible for Postal, Blood Rayne, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Alone in the Dark and if they all sound like video games, that’s because those are all based on them. He recently tried to buy the rights to World of Warcraft and Blizzard virtually laughed him out of their office.

I signed the petition (I’m number 318715) and I hear if it hits a million he would consider quitting. I doubt that will happen, but whatever. As long as companies are greedy enough for his money and people keep watching his movies, he’ll probably keep making them.

While I’m on the subject, we REALLY need to stop Paul W.S. Anderson, too. He’s the guy responsible for Resident Evil, Aliens vs. Predator, Mortal Kombat, Death Race and the upcoming Spy Hunter. But, then, Anderson’s movies are merely bad…not abominably unwatchable as Uwe’s are.

Well, I saw Indiana Jones on Memorial Day and it was terrific, big, stupid fun! I would imagine fans of the series would get much more out of it than anyone else, including people who just watched the first three movies to catch up. I am a fan. I even dressed as Indy for Halloween two years ago. I remember lines of dialogue, pacing and delivery. I remember music cues, edits and stage blocking. The new Star Wars movies tried to be history. This? This IS history. Indiana Jones…all the way. Go see it!

Update: Still, I tend to agree with South Park’s review of Indy IV more and more as I continue to experience “hindsight”.

I’m watching the Cohen brothers movie No Country For Old Men again and I can’t help but get a little teary-eyed at Tommy Lee Jones’ character…again. I have this very real fear of growing old and useless. I’d like, in the end, for my life to have meant something. Maybe even something positive. Here I am and I’m looking at younger people thinking that I’m not even 30 and I feel old sometimes. How the nineties feels so far away. How some of my favorite movies from my time are considered “old”. How I can refer to less than a decade ago as “my time”. And how “less than a decade ago” still sounds like a long time. Hell, 24 hours is usually plenty of time to get things done, so I suppose 10 years has to be even more plenty. It has to be a good thing.

“It’s the tide. It’s not the one thing. “

Quick Review
Synopsis: Red-headed step child of a family of cops decides to aid in the take down of a drug ring

Pros: Great cast. Violent stuff is pretty decent. Eva Mendes masturbates in the first two minutes.

Cons: Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiinnnnnnnnnnng!!!!!!!

Overall: This movie blows. It has a great cast but the script sucks and the director can’t direct. He even says on the (scripted) commentary that he had zero interest in the action scenes (namely a car chase which had great potential to stand along side the car scene from Children of Men), and his inability to craft anything mildly interesting after the first half hour is mind boggling. Look at the cast and be amazed at how not even they can save this garbage.

Long Review
Well, I got a chance to watch We Own The Night and I must say; other than the names of the main cast members, there isn’t a whole lot to like about the movie. It really, really drags for one thing. Now I’m all about the realistic depiction of police paperwork and procedure, but great movies like Heat, Se7en, Bullitt, The French Connection and American Gangster do that and they weren’t boring at all…and that’s if Night showed any of that stuff to potentially make it boring…which it didn’t.

The problem with Night is that it doesn’t know what it is. “Am I a taught police thriller? Maybe I’m a gripping family drama coupled with a tragic love story? No, no: I’m a badass action flick with a jaded anti-hero with nothing to lose! No, wait…”

A complex movie like Heat is able to pull off all these elements into one cohesive whole because it knows that, at its core, its just a cops and robbers story. Being helmed by Michael Mann doesn’t hurt, either. The movie NARC nearly suffered from the same schizophrenia that Night does, except it’s director, Joe Carnahan, was able to control what it was under the surface until it slowly revealed it’s true genre: mystery. What NARC did suffer from was too much imagination and not enough self control, so it tended to try to be bigger than it really needed to be, but that fallacy didn’t show half as much as it did in We Own The Night. (NARC, incidentally, was Carnahan’s second feature movie. Night is director James Gray’s third.)

Where NARC pretended to be The French Connection when it was actually an episode of Columbo (but more badass and with Ray Fuckin’ Liotta), Night thinks that it’s Heat but it’s actually just a big dumb action movie without any action in it. Night devolves into brainless, unbelievable action B-movie so gradually after the first 20 minutes it’s hard to notice it until after the credits roll, when you’re sitting there with your mouth open and a big electric question mark floating over your head as you wonder where it all went wrong.

Sure, the short car chase in the rain was cool in a video game kind of way, and yeah the drug bust scene had a few moments of authenticity to it, but c’mon, man. The dialogue is so flat and ho-hum that I was AMAZED that the actors were able to make the movie at least half-way watchable. I got so bored after the first half I just hit fast forward on the DVD because I already knew what was going to happen. [spoiler]“Guy gets disillusioned with his life while his girlfriend gets disillusioned with him and she leaves him and then he joins the good guys and becomes a super cop and saves the day all by himself.” Cue slow-mo of hero exiting flaming remains of the final showdown’s blasted exterior as the circle of fellow police officers revel in his badassery and display of machismo as the at-one-point fatherly villain hangs his head in proverbial shame. Crescendo with the music…and fade to black.[/spoiler]

The only other high point I can think of is the opening scene where Joaquin Phoenix joins girlfriend Eva Mendes in rubbing herself off when they are interrupted by some topless shit going down in the crooked bar he manages. It’s all down hill from there. Neither Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg nor the incomparable Robert Duvall could save this movie. Looking at his past work, I imagine this is director James Gray’s solution to save his crappy writing and lack of direction: hire great actors to make his lack of talent not show so much. But, Gray, even if your movie looks good (especially in the trailers) with the stellar cast and all that, when your movie is THIS boring, a special guest appearance by Jesus himself couldn’t make it watchable after the first hour. And that’s because a charismatic cat like Jesus could read the phone book and make it interesting. Seen ‘im do it.

So, We Own The Night just isn’t very good. And comparing it to the likes of The Departed (which was merely okay now that I looked at it again) just seems foolish and insulting to the likes of Scorsese. Not that he cares. Scorsese’s good and he knows it. And just because Marky Mark is in both movies doesn’t make your movie a successor, not even a spiritual one. So stay away from this flick, Night, but rent it at least for the few seconds of Eva Mendes’ opening scene. That part’s barely worth a rental, I suppose. But as far as a comparable movie to compare this one to, I’d have to scratch out any of the great cop movies I mentioned above and go with Eye See You, the dreadful Stallone movie from a few years back. Don’t remember it either? That’s okay, the same will be said of We Own The Night in a few more weeks.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars