Does. Not. Want.

"Bound": Why did it take me so long to see this?

After lingering on our Tivo for weeks (and our Netflix list for years), we finally watched Bound last night. What a great movie - smart, well-acted and incredibly sexy.

I certainly wasn't expecting it to be so beautifully and inventively shot, with surprising camera angles that make every scene genuinely exciting. It wasn't until the credits rolled that I found it was written, directed and produced by the Wachowski Brothers, who'd find fame with The Matrix three years later. Watching this in high definition on the nicely uncensored Universal HD channel was a great experience.

They brought in sex columnist Susie Bright as a consultant, and that influence definitely shows up on screen. The first half of the movie feels like high-class lesbian porn. Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon are very believable as secret lovers, with each alternating between aggression and vulnerability.

On top of all those achievements, the story is actually pretty good. It lacks the tangled skien of most noir classics, but that works in its favor by concentrating on the characters instead. They act like intelligent human beings, even when they're at the end of their rope. Watching poor Caesar's unwitting betrayal of his mafia family is alternately heart-breaking and hilarious.

If Bound has been hanging around on your "to-watch" list for a while, get off your ass and see it. You'll be glad you did.

"Get Smart": (Insert sarcastic 'smart' pun here)

Whatever you came up with, it'll be funnier than most of what you'll see on the screen.

I appear to have been watching an entirely different movie than the rest of the world, because the one I watched mostly sucked. From the abundance of tired, recycled jokes (think the makers maybe saw Naked Gun at some point?), to the annoyingly written and woodenly acted love interest, to the embarassingly on-the-nose music used in every damn scene, to the wholesale adoption of the frenetic "no shot shall last longer than 5 seconds" philosophy of modern film's worst offenders, it commits a litany of sins that I can't forgive.

There are some good points. When the timing of his jokes aren't off due to the aforementioned editing, Steve Carrell offers a solid performance. Alan Arkin steals every scene he's in. The Rock is just as ridiculously likeable as ever. There are some genuinely clever scenes at the beginning of the film. The way they worked in the history of the show was smart and, surprisingly, doesn't go overboard (though the less said about their repeated efforts to work in Max's signature catchphrase, the better).

It slowly sheds those good qualities, becoming more and more generic, until, by the end, I wondered if an entirely different team of writers had taken up the pen.I was forced to recall my "how do I get through this Time of Great Annoyance without falling asleep or walking out?" skills that I learned those many years ago in the lengthy worship services of my youth.

It's not particularly offensive, really - just another meh summer movie, focus-tested to appeal to people who either haven't seen or don't remember the infinitely funnier comedies of summers past.

Review*: Dark Sector (Xbox 360)

In the tradition of the B-movie comes Dark Sector, a B-game if there ever was one. There are plenty of, ah, "quirks" to go around, and it's unlikely to be the kind of game that gets Game of the Year consideration from professional reviewers, but most players are going to have a good time.

You star as... some guy, doing... things, for... some... purpose? Okay, I didn't pay much attention to the rather generic cutscenes. From what I gather, an alien infection struck the earth several decades ago. It turns humans into mutated zombies and worse. You're a government agent dedicated to eradicating the virus and its victims, with extreme prejudice if necessary.

Early on, you're infected and begin mutating into something rather alien. The most obvious change is your right arm, which turns into this weird lumpy husk that can produce a throwing weapon called a glaive. It acts like a boomerang, returning to your hand after each toss. It's a surprisingly effective weapon, especially in combination with a Burnout 3-ish aftertouch system that allows you to slow down time and direct the weapon around corners, through holes, and ultimately directly into whatever part of your enemy suits your fancy.

You also have more traditional guns at your disposal, including pistols, shotguns and rifles (among others). Both these and the glaive can be fired either from the hip or from a Resident Evil 4-style aiming system that ensures you can't really move and aim at the same time. It makes one wish more designers would adopt this system, as the controls work just as well as it did in that legendary game.

You'll start out battling humans, then rather less-human enemies get mixed in. The former are much more enjoyable as enemies, as gory slicing-off of limbs and bloody finishers never gets old. Eventually you'll discover ways to charge up your weapon for extra damage, effects, or greater damage radius.

The graphics are surprisingly good, showing that the artists were kept busy during this one's long, long development cycle (it was originally intended as a PS3 launch title, I believe). While the palette is often the dreary muted grey/brown one seen in games like Gears of War, there's good detail all around. Enemy animations are generally excellent.

The worst thing one can say about this game is that the bosses are horrible. Annoying as hell, with plenty of cheap one-shot deaths and you-can-shoot-me-only-in-this-one-specific-place-with-this-one-specific-weapon-only-after-doing-something-else bullshit. Did I mention that the feedback is either poor or nonexistent, so you'll just have to guess to see if you're doing the 'right' attack in the 'right' place? Wash rinse repeat several times within each fight. Ugh.

Is this fun for ANYONE? How does this kind of stupid garbage make it through the testing process? Is there a evil tester somewhere who cackles with delight after each game he sabotages by insisting that these fights will be greeted with open arms by players?

There are also some glitches here and there. The attacks occasionally don't charge correctly, and actions sometimes don't work as intended even when the correct controls are used. Enemies corpses are prone to the St. Vitus' dance that was often seen in 1st generation 360 games. The weapons upgrade system is poorly implemented, making it hard to determine what the effect of upgrading your weapons will be and which weapons are better than others.

Even with those annoyances, I really enjoyed the game. It takes a lot to get me to stick with a game even through annoying boss battles, and the lure of additional opportunities to guide my glaive through Bad Guys' heads was more than enough. The first 3/4 of the game is almost solid fun, making it well worth picking up as a rental or on the cheap.

* Okay, I didn't technically finish it, but I got to the last boss and decided that
my life wouldn't be markedly improved by banging my head against the wall for the next two hours. I think it's safe to assume that We Learn A Valuable Lesson About Life. Either tolerance for others, or killing all others who are different. 50/50 chance.

Movies addendum

• The trailer for The Love Guru is no funnier the second time you see it. If anything, it's even more irritating. No laughs whatsoever, but plenty of off-putting moments to go around. Take your pick: Adult Mike Myers head on child's body? Hitting a little person with a hockey puck, then holding him up and giving an Oscar acceptance speech before dropping him hard? The idea of a leering mustachioed freak being some sort of sex idol/teacher? It's probably only a few minutes but seems endless.

Things I learned at the movies today

• Iron Man is very good, mostly due to a never-better Robert Downey Jr.
• Twenty-five minutes of commercials and previews, shmenty-five minutes of commercials and previews.  Let's be honest here: Most of your customers would just be smoking crack in the bathroom with that time otherwise.
• Infants LOVE loud movies! By no means should you remove your child during the intense parts and, in doing so, deny others of the melodic strains of your baby's screams of terror.
• The numerous warnings to turn off your cell phone are for other people, not you Mr. Very Important Businessteen! Walking slowly to the aisle while answering your is really good enough.
• If you're bringing a very small child to a PG-13 movie, be sure to sit right in the middle of the near-empty theater near the few other patrons, so that everyone can enjoy your many, many conversations
• Shushing your kid is basically child abuse! Don't do it.
• Be sure to answer every question that your child babbles, large or small. If you  don't teach her about Iron Man, who will? Who. Will.
• Limit your loud replies to your child's incessant questions to the quiet parts of the movie - you don't know if someone else needs to know that HE'S MAKING THE IRON MAN SUIT HONEY. There may be blind patrons who desperately need your service to determine what's happening.
• If the urgency of your communications demand that they occur during one of the louder parts of the movie, be sure to raise your voice so that your child can be informed that, indeed, IRON MAN IS  FIGHTING THE BAD GUYS HONEY
• If you've enraged the other patrons for the last two hours, clear out slightly before the movie's end, abandoning all your trash if necessary. Later suckas!
• Also, never go to the movies.

We'll be following that last piece of advice from here on out.

Chibi Robo: Park Patrol review (Nintendo DS)

Summary: It's good fun for fans of the original Gamecube entry, even if it doesn't approach the heights of silly awesomeness that its predecessor scaled.

The game centers around a run-down urban park. Your job is to bring it up to snuff, mostly by planting flowers. To accomplish this, you're armed with a squirter that'll make buds grow, a boom box that turns the plain flowers into more colorful versions that spew buds everywhere, and many other tools. You'll also (eventually) get access to several vehicles, like bicycles, carts and canoes.

Much like the first title, you'll find many discarded toys lying around that can help you in your quest. After refilling their batteries and befriending them, they'll take on larger tasks in the park (tilling sandy soil so that flowers can be grown, building structures, etc.)

Your enemies are the Smoglings, led by an ex-good guy and his boss, an outright evil cloud of smog named Miasmo. Their irritating henchmen will pop up occasionally, requiring you to hunt them down before they can kill healthy flowers. They'll also periodically zap you, forcing you to look for your precious tools again.

Each day, you'll start out with a full battery charge and an alert system to tell you if you need to watch out for Smoglings. You'll spend most of your time going from patch to patch in the park, watering buds and getting flowers to dance in order to spread more buds everywhere. Every action will cause your energy meter to slowly run down, eventually forcing you to return to your charging station.

Doing this makes your Happy Point count grow, which you can use for both recharging your battery and paying for your friends to do landscaping work in the park. Over time, you'll earn rewards like additional tools and landscaping options, as well as larger batteries and more vehicles.

Overall, the game is really enjoyable. The graphics are excellent, capturing the spirit of the series nicely. They've done a good job of simplifying the console controls, incorporating some of the best stylus action that I've seen on the DS. Though some might find it tedious, every flower you grow improves both your park and Chibi Robo. Having options in a game that don't involve violence (unless you count blowing water at silly-looking minions 'violence') is a nice change of pace. Improving the lives of your toy friends also makes the player just feel good.

There are some minor criticisms that can be leveled. The story isn't as involving as the first game's story was, as it centers on the park rather than Chibi Robo and his adoptive family. It's even a bit preachy at times, depending on your tolerance for environmental hyperbole. You're told that you got more visitors each day, but you don't actually see them admiring your hard work. The area of the game, while perhaps technically larger than that of Chibi Robo, feels much smaller due to the fact that there's only a few locations, none of which are particularly interesting, all of which you can access from the start.

Unfortunately, due to an exclusive licensing deal, new copies can only be purchased at Wal-Mart in the U.S. It's well worth tracking down for fans of the first game, though, or for younger players who can't quite handle the controls of its Gamecube predecessor. Have fun!

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: The D&D 4th Edition Podcast

D&D 4th Edition (4E to the l33t) is a completely new game system for all intents and purposes. Wizards of the Coast kept the game's flavor, but changed the mechanics in a big way in order to appeal to the World of Warcraft/Age of Conan/etc. crowd that's draining the base of support for their pen-and-paper game. They encounter significant resistance from the entrenched user base, so they get some of the most well-respected gamers around (the boys from Penny Arcade and PvP's Scott Kurtz) to play the game and record a podcast about it. Smart move, right?

...and that's when they sabotage themselves. Instead of just letting everyone in on the fun, they force everyone to create an 'Insider Account' at a completely separate site, including entering personal information and agreeing to a  lengthy Terms of Service document, in order to see the content. You know, the content that's basically AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR THEIR GAME.

You read that right, they want you to jump through multiple hoops in order for them to show you why you should buy it. On the Internet. Where giving people content (that WotC didn't even create, mind) is basically free.

Fail.

Update: Even some of the static pages with general 4E information are hidden away under the Insider membership requirement. Who thought that was a good idea?

Memo to Gamefly: Stocking all your distribution centers with games would be great

Normally, I'm a big proponent of Gamefly. The ability to try out several games every month, finishing the shorter ones and quickly sending back the ones that don't work out so well, is a huge boon for the cheap gamer.

I'd thought that having the Tampa distribution center relatively close to us, just a few hundred miles away, would work out great. Netflix's even closer center gets us movie turnarounds of just 3 days or so from being sent to receiving a replacement.

In practice, things haven't improved that much from when it was all the way across the country. It still takes 3-4 business days or so just for them to receive sent games, and 2-3 more after that till I receive them.

Still, it was working out reasonably well. For the last couple of games, though, they've decided they couldn't procure them from the Tampa center and insist on using the Pittsburgh one. Argh! I'd much rather they skip down a few items on my queue than make me wait over a week and a half to receive a new game. Hell, they already *did* skip several Low-Medium availability games on my queue to get that one!

At this rate, it'll cost me about $6 per game I rent from them every month, and I'd still only be keeping them a few days. If we had a Blockbuster whose game selection didn't lean heavily on games that were crappy when they came out two years ago, it'd probably be a better deal to rent from them instead.

"Top Secret" is hilarious!*

*If you see it for the first time when you're twelve in 1984. If you're on the wrong side of 30 in 2008, not so much.

It's not a bad movie - there are a few cute gags here and there - but it's not even up to the quality of any given episode of Police Squad. The humor's less pointed and dark than other Abrams/Zucker efforts, and tends more towards absurdist silliness.

Val Kilmer, while a terrific actor, doesn't work well here. The twinkle in his eye defuses the humor, letting us know that he's in on the joke and ignoring one of the most important rules for this type of comedy: Play it straight.

I know this one has legions of fans - I beg them not to watch it again and taint their good memories.