Awesomely Bad: Mulva/Filthy McNasty Double Feature

Oh dear sweet lord, I know we haven't had many reasons to talk to each other, but right now I have to ask a huge favor. Please kill writer/actor/director/producer/cinematographer/shit peddler Chris Seaver, the man responsible for the series of Mulva, Fithy McNasty, and various other cinematic abortions. Very rare is the movie that actually causes me physical pain and discomfort, but the Mulva/Filthy McNasty double feature really made me consider snorting lines of Comet and doing shots of Clorox. That honestly seemed like a better time. The non-existent budget and exclusive use of someones dads camcorder really don't play into the pain and suffering that come under the guise of this seeming tribute to the Troma film spirit. Let's take a look at each one.
First up is Mulva: Zombie Ass Kicker. The flick starts out with this obnoxious chocolate addicted girl, Mulva, with a slurry lisp that is not only annoying but hard to understand. Mulva, the girl named after a punch-line from a Seinfeld episode, suddenly realizes that today is Halloween, which is both her favorite day of the year, because of the candy, and the source of her darkest moment, which is when two jackasses that show up later in the movie stole her Halloween candy years before. At some point, for no reason, with no background at all, zombies show up. Mulva and her friend Cassie are rescued from a zombie attack and from Mulva's candy-stealing nemesis by a black-faced Bill Cosby/Don King mash-up, played by my new hero/actor/director Chris Seaver.

Even taking into consideration the fact that Mulva is just a low-budget horror spoof and there shouldn't really be high expectations, I am still in awe of how unbelievably bad it is. It's unfunny to the point of just being awkward and uncomfortable to watch whenever an obvious joke, pun, or slapstick moment not only fails but fails catastrophically. What few flatly delivered jokes there are have been done verbatim in better movies by better actors, which considering how bad both the movie and the actors are isn't really saying much. While there were two amusing cameos from Troma Studios head hauncho Lloyd and a bad original song by NY's world famous Naked Cowboy, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about Mulva except for the fact that it somehow manages to be better and less repulsive than it's double-feature compatriot, Filthy McNasty.

Which brings us to the second act of this painful duet, Filthy McNasty. Where Mulva was just a failing and flailing horror-comedy, Filthy McNasty is just an obscene Carrie ripoff that aspires to be a foul-mouthed horror porno, if only they could have afforded actors willing to have sex on screen. The movie starts with geeky and tragically unpopular friends Julie and Liz commiserating over how tragically unpopular they really are. The obvious solution to their social woes is a Faustian deal with an obviously undersexed demon that turns them from nearly invisible geeks to super-popular sexy vixens. The price for fame and fuckability become too high when horny and murderous demon decides to kill off all the popular kids at a party that Julie and Liz attend after their new found social ascension.

It's when the party starts that things really take a steep, steep dive down into the murky depths of shittyness. The group of party goers end up engaging in dialogue that would usually be reserved for cheap porn and one-night-stands. The greatest offender, and sadly the only person who actually ends up showing any nudity, is the slightly obese Vivian(played by Ali Kat) who plays the role of the groups blow up doll and fuck buddy. Ironically, or appropriately, after Filthy McNasty (which is her first movie) Ali Kat appears exclusively in porn thereafter.

Final Verdict: Whether taken separately or combined as a budget buy double feature as was my case, neither film warrants any serious attention. I suppose that it is possible given enough friends and a steady and potent supply of beer or drugs, that these could be an enjoyable experience. As is, both of these movies are absolute shit - nasty creamed corn baby shit. The only things worse than these two movies are the fact that each one has at least one sequel (Filthy McNasty has 2) and Grand Shit-Meister Chris Seaver has somewhere around 14 films to his dirty, dirty name. I give this double doucheer a 1/5 and recommend you keep well out of sight of it unless you plan on getting so shit faced you already have a reservation with the stomach pump in the ER.

PS - If you ever find yourself looking at the cover of this movie and think to yourself "Oh, well it's got a hot chick with a big gun, how can it be that bad?" Well it can be that bad because the girl on the cover is a dirty, lying whore! She's not even in the movies and there aren't any goddamn guns in sight.

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Breaking News: Twitter Hates Grammar

We interrupt your regularly scheduled internet for this late Breaking News. Sources close to Twitter have confirmed that use of proper grammar, spelling, and moderation with smileys is widely considered to be one of the top weaknesses of aspiring Twitter Whores. Embedded reporters in the Twitter scene have noted increasing aggression towards those who try to use proper English and have even been forced to become pseudo-twitspeakers for fear of their lives.

One user, who had initially been approached to be an example of the degradation of the use of proper English revealed that she abhorred the downfall of propriety and consented to an interview.

@ih8english it's been lyk a livin hell

@ih8english strunk n white wuld weep

@deadjournalist so why do it? why perpetuate the "atrocity"?

@ih8english i'm a blogger and i get all my traffic from twitter. if i became a grammar nazi i'd lose credibility

@deadjournalist you don't feel like you've sold out?

@ih8english of course I've sold out. but there's no money as an english lit major. teaching pays dick!

This undercover English major and lover of fine literature went on to talk about the stigma of being a proper grammatical writer, being called such names as "tweet twat", "grammar slammer", and "stupid poo poo head". Our source also talked about having to enter Twitter Protection and opening yet another pseudonym as a result of this interview. More news as it develops.
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Awesomely Bad: Microwave Massacre

You know a horror movie is going to be pure quality when the star is the guy who voiced Frosty the Snowman in all those classic kid's cartoons. That's right, legendary "King of Deadpan" Jackie Vernon plays lead role in what the director self-appointed as the "Worst Horror Movie Ever Made." With bonifides like that, Microwave Massacre had a lot to live up to. Could this tale of an Average Joe turned cannibalistic serial killer really be that bad?

The quick answer is; No. The sordid tale of Don, a milquetoast construction worker with a nagging wife with culinary retardation, who snaps and begins killing and eating his savory victims - starting with his wife - is not the worst horror movie ever made. It is a very poorly made movie with deplorable acting, oddly paced scenes, and frighteningly bad effects but it also happens to be a pretty funny movie that also earns some points for it's gratuitous boob shots.

For a movie that's supposed to be about a guy who kills and eats his wife, I did find it rather surprising that it took nearly half an hour (of a movie only 76 minutes long) of his wife's ridiculous nagging before he killed her, and slightly over 30 minutes before he ate her. The only reason he ate her then was because he had nothing better to eat - makes sense to me. Except for an odd boob shot that I couldn't tell if it was a low-impact workout/rape scene or just a really casual sex scene, absolutely nothing happens for that 30 minutes. The nagging is pretty uninspired, and if the man married and stayed with someone that stupid and useless, he kind of deserves a life of slow, passive torture.

Once his wife is dead, and his rather subdued lust for lady-meat is activated, our boring, bumbling, and slightly pudgy hero blindly stumbles his way into a rather active sex life with whores, sluts, and immigrants who obviously don't have pickup lines in their country. At first his attempts at getting it on don't work, but once his sex life and food cravings merge to be one in the same, Don becomes a junkie for both. Considering the now atrocious fashion of the early 80's, the women are still pretty attractive, especially since the movie looks like it was made on a 12 year old's allowance. Where his wife failed in the art of culinary delights, Don masters the ancient skill of slow broiling broads in his nice, new Massive Electric microwave (an enormous, oven-sized beast that actually gets it's own credit at the end of the movie). Don even begins sharing his food creations with his construction co-workers, who find that they love this strangely unique meat and also find that they seem to like Don a lot more now that he has "separated" with his wife.

All good things must come to an end though, and in the last 2 or 3 minutes of the movie, when it seems there's no logical ending in sight, Don suffers a fatal heart attack. At some point in the muddled story of sex and babe-BBQ, Don had a minor heart attack and ends up with a pace maker. At the very end, after his friends randomly find Don dead and a selection of body parts in the microwave, a group of movers clearing out the house discover some faulty wiring in the microwave that was a "ticking time bomb for someone with a pace maker."

There are some truly funny moments in the movie that come from the lines delivered or the gimmicks displayed. While hatcheting up his latest victim in his kitchen (with a hatchet that he checked it's sharpness by splitting a hair) Don suddenly realizes how famished he is and blurts out, directly to the camera, "I'm so hungry I could eat a whore." He also has several short run-in's with his sultry and promiscuous neighbor, who's name is Dee-Dee-Dee because her mom stuttered and couldn't get her real name right, where she's doing such odd things as gardening with a small vibrator (which also gets a "provided by" line in the credits).

Final Verdict: Had Microwave Madness had someone other than Jackie Vernon who was capable of delivering a good line, especially his wife, the movie would have been a lot funnier as there seemed to be humorous potential in the script that never got realized. A little more and higher quality gore, especially blood that didn't look like strawberry syrup, would have been appreciated, but the completely unrealistic severed head of his wife was perfect. Especially considering it fooled his wife's sister during a unannounced visit, at least until it fell out of the bed and Don was forced to keep his in-law tied up in his closet for the remainder of the movie, gagged by a increasingly molding piece of baguette. With just a little more effort, the movie could've shined, but as is I give it a 3.5/5.
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BSG Finale Live Blog (of a pre-recorded episode)

I decided to try my hand at this craze of live-blogging significant events. So I chose the series finale of Battle Star Galactica. The only problem is that I was at work during the finale and didn't get to see it. So now I'm going to live-blog a finale that happened 2 days ago. Please note that the time stamps of my blogging will coincide with the time in the show, but I am skipping commercials, so my times won't correspond with those of someone who watched it on network TV. (it was 2 hours long on TV, it's only 1:35 without commercials...yeah, we all got jypped 30 minutes of awesome). Here goes:

0:00.27 - Sweet, recaps...I love recaps. I get to see all the stuff I've already seen. I like Frisky Dingo's recaps, most of them either never happened or happened completely different than what the recap is showing.

0:00.58 - Oooh, it's the present day now...but it's all flashbacks. So it's not REALLY present day.

0:02.10 - Caprica looks like LA in Bladerunner, but strippers are the same in any universe.

0:07.50 - Mommie Darko is gonna get some "Hot For Teacher" action. Nice.

0:08.47 - Aww, poor Adama can't hold his liquor. Mmm...vomit.

0:10.02 - Is Gaius gonna be a big ole pussy and let everyone go off and kill themselves?

0:14.40 - Isn't that nice. Adama gave command of the fleet to some guy I only remember for being Gaeta's gay lover.

0:18.09 - I knew Gaius wouldn't let me down. He can't go out as a big wet wimpy gash of a man. And damn that's a lot of toasters.

0:19.30 - Museum Force Go!
0:20.40 - Bathtub Boy? Go!

0:25.00 - Poor Galactica, it's all busted now. :(

0:26.00 - At least they spray painted the good toasters so they'd know the difference when they turn against them.

0:28.47 - So is he sucking the gravy out of her, or harvesting ADAM?

0:31.25 - Very nice! They each have their very own Harvey inside them.

0:33.44 - Boomer down! Boomer down! You knew they had to kill her...

0:43.10 - Well it's nice for this scene that we've seen on and off for the last few seasons to finally make some sense.

0:51.44 - What happens in Bathtub Boy's water, stays in Bathtub Boy's water.

0:55.30 - Wonder what Jimi Hendrix (or Bob Dylan)would think about being the key to saving mankind?

1:01.13 - So we're at the 1-hour mark and I'm afraid the next 30 minutes are gonna be kinda preachy.

1:05.22 - "...he'll guide the entire fleet directly into the sun." Soo..no testing the waters, make sure it's all cool before you blow up the only way off the rock, huh?

1:21.55 - Uhh..ok. So...see ya later Starbuck. Have fun storming the castle.

1:26.50 - Well that's depressing.

1:35.00 - All part of God's plan, huh? And...credits.

And thus the end of a great, albeit, short era of sci-fi ends. Hell, even Sci-fi is ending, considering they plan on changing their name to Syfy (yeah, that'll lose that geek stigma). It's kinda sad, I felt the same way after Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, and Farscape ended as well. Sure, there is the prequel series, Caprica, and even talks of a movie by Glen Larson which would actually be based on the original series, but for all intents and purposes, the throne is now empty and there aren't any suitors for the king of sci-fi.

There were some things about the finale that I felt were a bit odd or a bit off. One odd thing was that the special effects seemed to be a bit lower quality in this episode than in any of the previous ones I can remember. I wonder if it was the budget versus the running time. Throughout the series there has been the allusion to God's plan made by the Caprica 6 in Gaius' head, and to a slightly lesser degree by the other Cylons, like Cavil, but stating that Caprica 6 and Gaius' delusions were actually angels was a bit odd, and then the epilogue with the two angels walking through modern day New York talking again about God's plan was kind of cheesy.

For the most part, however, things were tied up nicely. There was the poignant ending of Laura and Adama, the divvying up of all the survivors to save humanity, and even a cute little family scene with Helo and Athena. There were two big questions I was left with by the end that weren't answered. The obvious one was what the hell was Starbuck? A ghost, an angel herself, the second coming of Jesus, the product of a ship-wide hallucination because of an overactive meth lab? That one is likely to never be answered. The other one, which seems less obvious to me, is how exactly was Hera the savior of humanity. It has ended up as BSG's "Save the cheerleader", which never really panned out in Heroes, at least not to my satisfaction. If it was because she lead Cavil to CIC, which lead to a cease fire, which lead the destruction of the colony that housed the remaining threatening Cylons, then yeah, I suppose. That's a bit tangential and kinda pushing it for me. All in all, I was glad the show was able to go out on a high note, unlike so many other initially great shows, and get a true ending that didn't seem rushed or forced. So say we all.
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Weekly Reamer : 3/20/09

Yep, it's that time again. Time to get reamed. If you ignore the fact that the stock market has been on the rise for the last two weeks (well, it kinda stumbled today), it's been a pretty depressing week. So it's yet another week where it seems like a bad idea to stay informed. You have to listen to report after report trying to shock people with revelations that the sub-prime market spurred on this It's-Not-Just-Good-It's-Great Recession. Even though just about everyone has known for...umm...a year? I mean they've only been pushing that at us from the beginning. But hey...SURPRISE! Meanwhile the all powerful Postal Service, with the omnipotence to tell us we WILL have a stamp with surf legend Duke Kahanamoku, isn't faring so well as it forces 3,000 to live like beach bums and will offer another 150,000 their own tiny not so golden parachute early retirement package. Hell, even hair isn't doing so hot. That's right..our hair is suffering. Or at least the people that butcher our hair. But hey, the new Camaro was unveiled, and that's gonna save the auto industry, right? I mean the V6 starts at only $22,995, the V8 $30,995 - yeah, not at that price.

However, the real winner (if you want to call it that) this week has no doubt been AIG. It's the little engine that never should, the belle of the bailout ball, and not just the whipping boy but the beat the unholy shit out of boy of all that's wrong with the economy today. And while things continue to spiral in the rest of the world, Americans can sleep safer, albeit broker and homlessier, knowing that the government is gonna kick and beat that dead horse until it's even deader.

Reamer Value: 12 Reamers. Yup..just 12. Cause they obviously don't give a shit and aren't the only ones being supreme cunts.

Rapid Review - Resident Evil 5

Let's say you were being chased by zombies. Now let's say that you have a gun. And for the hell of it, let's say that you're part of a special task force and have a long history of dealing with zombies. Now that you've put yourself in this scenario tell me, if all the above was true would you stop, take aim, fire a shot, and then slowly turn around to continue running? Of course you would because you're not a stupid fuck with a hard-wired death wish. Unfortunately, Chris Redfield is. And unfortunately in Resident Evil 5, you are Chris Redfield. And that right there is pretty much the only real problem with Resident Evil 5. Otherwise it's a good, sometimes gorgeous, looking game with a passable if a bit expected story and a fair bit of fun action and a great opportunity for some superb co-op experiences. Take out the ridiculously placed quick time events (something I loathe in general) and you'd have a fantastically fun game. Resident Evil 5 gets an 8/10, but it potential for better. For specifics, hit the jump and read on.

Resident Evil 5 (RE5) follows Chris Redfield which, aside from Code Veronica and the Umbrella Chronicles, is the first time we've really seen him since the original Resident Evil where him and now deceased partner Jill Valentine battled Albert Wesker after the outbreak of the original T-Virus (the strain of virus that first started turning people into mindless flesh connoisseurs). The story starts with Chris showing up in Africa to investigate a major weapons deal going down. Since Raccoon City has fallen and STARS is no more (the Umbrella Corporation has also since fallen), he has joined with the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), and is met in Africa by fellow BSAA agent Sheva Alomar. Sheva plays your constant companion throughout the game, but is not directly playable. Not too surprisingly, the weapons deal goes sour and suddenly Chris finds himself in yet another zombie infested land with a new super virus on the loose.

The gameplay is pretty simple, or at least it should be, but Capcom has intentionally handicapped you (presumably in an effort to raise tension) by forcing your to completely stop anytime you aim your weapon. It seems with each iteration of Resident Evil, it slowly becomes closer and closer to being a straight up run-an-gun game, and the fact that you completely stop is the only thing that keeps RE5 from giving in completely. The typical throng of zombies coming after populate the world, though there is quite a variety in their looks and in the types of zombies. Not just your average brain-dead flesh followers, these zombies wield various weapons that get deadlier and more explosive as the game goes on and even attempt, though rarely succeed, in using strategic tactics. At the beginning of the game I was frantic and paranoid every time I saw a zombie and ran for high ground, but once you find your first shotgun you slowly begin to get more and more confident an less and less tense.

The weapons in RE5 are a lot more varied than in previous releases, not only offering more classes of guns, but different options within each class. Not all rifles, shotguns, and pistols are created equal. Add in the upgradable aspects, which improve damage, clip capacity, reload time and more, and you can wield massive damage in small packages. The upgrade system uses money, which you find throughout the levels and get in exchange for selling artifacts you also find, to pay for each upgrade, which gets more expensive the higher you go. The only problem is that I often invested a lot of money in a weapon I found early in the game only to later find another weapon whose base stats are better than the original weapons base stats, but don't compare to what you souped-up weapon has. The dilemma is that you have to decide if the max potential for the new weapon is worth abandoning all that money you invested in the one you have now. Often I found that I stayed with what I had and knew was a sure thing.

As I mentioned earlier, you have a new partner, Sheva, in RE5 that stays with you throughout the game. Sheva is better than most AI partners, but it's much better and much more fun to have a human in the role. The good thing is that RE5 makes it really easy to have a real partner, even if you're sad, lonely, and have no friends. When you start a game you have the option of playing a private game in which no one can join, a friends-only game where only those on your friends lists can join, or a completely open and public game where anyone came come and go throughout the game and serve as your wing man or woman. Even when you're solo, the AI Sheva does a pretty good job of drawing fire or helping in the fire fights and automatically gets out of your way when she's in your line-of-fire (Hey, Ubisoft! You taking note? I'm sick of that shit in your Tom Clancy games.). The only real drawback to the AI partner is that you end up having to do a lot of round-about resource management on her behalf. You have to make sure she's armed and well stocked with ammo. On the plus side, you can also use her as a limited pack mule to tote the stuff you don't want and she acts as a great medic, relieving you of having to shuffle through the inventory system mid-battle to heal yourself.

Visually the game can be very stunning, but it seems that you often find yourself in environments where that isn't taken advantage of as often as it should be. The locations are varied, ranging from the slummy African city to the swamped marshlands, to some pseudo-Mayan underground ruins. There are a few vehicle scenarios that aren't too involved, but also don't feel stapled on after-the-fact and seem relevant to the story. Not nearly as welcome are the ridiculous Quick Time Events that are spread throughout some of the games many in-game cut scenes. The problem with the QTE's is that you have no idea they're coming up, and sometimes the game doesn't seem to recognize that you've done what was asked of you, even though you were quick on the draw and mashed the right buttons. The surprise factor of the events are the most maddening because you will go through 4 or 5 cut scenes without anything, and then suddenly one is sprung on you leaving you fumbling for the controller or randomly mashing buttons. Cut scenes are not the time for a quick piss or to grab a drink.

Final Verdict: While the stop and go action of the game may seem counter productive, it ends up working out once you get used to it, and it seems that Capcom was very conscious of what this choice would mean to the way you play the game. In the end, Resident Evil 5 is fun, relatively low on the fear factor, but makes for some occasional tense fire fights and a story that's worth paying attention to. The opportunity and predominance of co-op in the game is welcome and loved as I'm not big on the competitive side of multiplayer but a huge fan of getting the chance to have a friend join in on the core campaign. Overall Resident Evil 5 gets an 8/10 for good fun and good action.

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Awesomely Bad: Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

I was out of town so I missed my usual Monday release, but fear not, I have another bad movie for you this week. First off, I have to admit that I was torn as to whether or not I could justify reviewing this movie after stating last week that Cannibal: The Musical wasn't eligible because it was intentionally bad. After much soul searching I decided to tell myself to fuck off and review whatever I felt like. So...fuck you...me. Now let me introduce Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. This is a real gem of a movie. It's a low budget comedy horror in the same vein as Evil Dead II. Much like Evil Dead II, the makers of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter seemed to take the idea that since they couldn't afford a realistic gore movie that they would spoof their own intentions by way of a comedy.

The story is pretty simple; lesbians all over Ottawa are being abducted and killed by a quickly growing population of day walking vampires. Two young Catholic priests become aware of the situation, but because the victims are lesbians the church won't officially get involved. This is clearly a job for a higher power, so the priests go down to the beach and recruit Jesus Christ. That's right, Jesus is back and he's hanging out at the beach. But he's not slacking on his second coming, he's busy kicking ass - vampire ass. Jesus, with his powerful kung-fu, is aided by Mary Magnum, a member of a secret organization that has had their eye on the Ottawa vampire situation.

The movie is a combination of slapstick comedy action and a cleverly written script with some good, genuine, intentional laughs. The low-budget production value seems to justify and even endear you to the poorly choreographed and executed fight scenes that pit Jesus against an army of Atheists that feel his presence on Earth is an affront to their beliefs, a bar full of rockabilly loving vampires, and a super-vamp duo that serve as the movies main antagonists. There is a guest appearance by an overweight El Santo impersonator, the Mexican Luchodor wrestler who starred in a ton of his own cheesy horror movies, who is brought in to help Jesus fight the growing hordes and assists in a the showdown junkyard fight at the end. The fights, while incredibly simplistic, embrace their cheesiness and actor Phil Caracas, who plays Jesus, seems to have a natural flair for slapstick expressions and actions. While the fights don't push the martial arts to their limits, or even to actually being martial arts, the gimmicks are great. Jesus and crew take out vampires with drumsticks, toothpicks, and even a pair of crutches.

The movie was released in 2001 but the shooting style makes it look like a much older film. Whether this was intentional and part of the paltry $100k budget was used in post-production to get this effect, or if this was just because of the equipment at hand I can't say but it lends to the genuinely campy aspect of the intentionally campy production. The cast seems to be primarily acting school dropouts, but Phil Caracas plays of Jesus rather convincingly, even when he gets a modern-day make over, trading in his iconic robe and long hair for street clothes, a buzz cut, and some medium-gauge piercings, he pulls it off rather convincingly for a satirical attempt at Jesus.

Final Verdict: Although Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter is intentional campy and cheesy, it really seems that with the budget and available actors it was destined to be so one way or another. Wisely the cast and crew decided to embrace it instead of fight it and end making a film that suffers as a result. What ends up on screen is a rather likable and entirely laughable action horror comedy.
4/5 - it's not a top 10, but it's in the permanent library now.



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Weekly Reamer: 3/13/09

This weeks Weekly Reamer was a pretty easy choice. Of course there was the usual unfortunate pet (which have become a Reamer staple), Bernard Madoff got sent to jail with out bail, and a Mexican drug lord made the Forbes' billionaire list. Nothin, however, has been quite as entertaining as the epic reaming that CNBC's Jim Cramer has been getting at the hands of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.

It all seemed to really start firing up when Stewart went on his tirade about CNBC when Rick Santelli canceled, and has since escalated with barbs and zingers being aimed at Cramer in particular ever since. It all finally came to a head on Thursday's episode when Cramer appeared on The Daily Show and...kinda whimpered and did a lot of what I think was supposed to be perceived as apologies. In all likelihood this one-on-one interview had more to do with the big hit (24%) in ratings that Cramer has suffered in the process of this feud, and less to do with a feeling of guilt or honest admission that he's a horrible adviser and a great shill for a network that could conceivably be accused of causing the financial crisis to begin with. While ultimately it's just two talking heads doing their job on each other, it's both entertaining and serves to call out the media to quit fucking around. It won't work, but it's a nice try anyways.

Reamer Value: 100,000 Reamers.
(It's probably only worth a couple hundred, but because it entertained me so much, I spent the reamers out of my own pocket to get it up to a cool, even 100k)

Rapid Review: World of Goo

Since I spent the weekend playing World of Goo, I figured I could at least share my thoughts on the game. It's not exactly a new game, but being that it's more indie than your average game, and the fact that the developer estimates that only 1 in 5 copies are legitimate, it could probably use all the help it can get.

In short, World of Goo is a casual puzzle game built on top of a physics simulator. You take various balls of goo and build structures to reach the goal of each level. The goal is almost always to build towards a pipe and suck up as many goo balls as possible, trying to meet the particular minimum for that level. The game has a pretty easy difficulty slope, and by the time you reach the truly, brutally difficult levels you're well versed in the limitations of each type of goo, of which there are several. Graphically simple, but artistically fun and quirky, the game will run on just about any modern PC but provides the same amount of enjoyment and wow as a high-end game like Crysis. Getting minor knocks for occasionally quirky control issues, such as difficulty selecting already built pieces amongst a mass of swarming goo balls, World of Good gets a solid, fun-filled 9/10. For more details, hit the jump and read on.

It's surprising to play a casual puzzler like World of Goo and get treated to an actual story. While the story is irreverent, and ultimately has little bearing on the game play itself, it's nice to at least try to tie the levels and worlds, or islands, together. The world of World of Goo is divided into five chapters, four individual islands and a story epilogue, each with it's own unique artistic style and focus, as well as a sandbox mode for building whatever strikes your fancy. Most of the first island is a non-tutorial introduction to the mechanics of the game. You start with the most basic elements; black goo and simple building puzzles. The standard black goo is capable of nothing more than creating simple parts of structure that can be built on to gain height. It's not the strongest of the goo's, but it gets the job done. As you progress through the game you are introduced to other types of goo, like matchstick goo who are explosive and turn into matches that can act as fuses. There are also ivy goo which is stronger than your regular goo and can be removed and reattached at will, balloon goo which attach to objects and will lift them up or help support unwieldy goo towers, and a few others.

Puzzles in the game range from simple tasks like build a tower high enough to reach the goal pipe or span a gap, to things as difficult as creating a chain of single strand drool-like goo in a wind storm all while avoiding a deadly windmill that will destroy your creation. The puzzles tend to build on things you learned or used in the previous level, but the developers seemed to have a keen sense of knowing when enough was enough. Just when a certain gimmick or puzzle style starts to wear out its welcome, a new type of goo or a totally unique challenge is introduced. While there were only a few levels that seemed excessively difficult, two of which bordered on anger inducing, even the simple levels are fun because of the simple interface and the ingenuity of the puzzles despite the simplicity of the solution.

Mechanics aside, the game is a real treat for the eyes and ears. Although a simply styled 2-d game, the graphic art style of the backgrounds and objects in each level go beyond that of most casual games. While they aren't watercolor masterpieces like in Braid, they are pleasant and never get boring. The music is done very well too, with frantic themes during some of the more precarious puzzles and odd but soothing music box styled songs in the calm and easy going levels. Each level has music befitting it's aesthetic and tone. The little goo balls have their own personality too, letting out cute little "yipee's" and "uh oh's" that are reminiscent of the Worms series of games. All this wraps up an absolute joy of a game in a fun and entertaining package.

The only down sides to World of Goo were relatively minor, but could be very frustrating on occasion. When playing a level that had a large amount of goo, which tend to swarm all over the structure you're creating, it could be very difficult at times to grab exactly what you were aiming for. This was usually only an issue when you were dealing with goo's that could placed and removed, which could result in you yanking out a structurally vital goo when you were really trying to grab a loose goo to add on to your creation. The only other gripe was the sometimes laborious camera panning. As some levels necessitated, you would often have to build very large towers of which you could only see small sections of. There is no zoom feature, so you could be working on the top of your tower, being totally unaware that your base was in the process of imploding. A combination of the two problems would arise on occasion where you had to select a specific goo and put it in a specific location, but between the quirky selection and the fact that you didn't always know where everything was it could cause catastrophic failure and a little bit of swearing.

Final Verdict: Goo is tons of fun. Although it was a $5 purchase at the time I got it, it is well worth the $20 asking price. There are nearly 50 levels of gooey fun, the sandbox mode for when you get that building itch, and some replay value for those who like strive for perfection as each level had an "OCD" goal that far exceeded the levels minimum goal. It's a great looking game that I've had a hard time putting down even since beating it. World of Goo gets an easy 9/10.

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Awesomely Bad: Dragon Wars

Many apologies for the lateness of this installment of Awesomely Bad, but between indecision with which movie to review and the complete time-suck that World of Goo, which was on sale on Steam for $5 over the weekend, it just never happened. I actually had to watch two different movies to get one that even met my very low standards for a bad movie. First I watched Cannibal: The Music, which was Matt Stone and Trey Parker's (of South Park fame) first film. It quickly became obvious that it wasn't going to work because it was intentionally bad, and that seemed like cheating. Not to go in without back up, I fired up my alternate choice, Dragon Wars (or D-War as the trendy titles want me to call it)and felt more at home. D-War, however, isn't quite your average bad movie, I'm not even sure it's really all that bad. But not being one to give up, I present my Awesomely Bad review of Dragon Wars.

First off lets get a few things out of the way. After snitching on Cannibal for cheating at the bad movie game, I feel a bit hypocritical trying to pull of calling Dragon Wars a bad movie. It just doesn't fit all your typical criteria. First off, it had a staggering, for b-movies, budget of $32 Million (some further reading insinuates that the budget actually went as high as $70-ish Million). That budget actually bought them some pretty impressive special effects and high quality cameras. What it did not buy them was a very good story or quality acting, so I'm going to consider it a high-end bad movie. On with the show.

Dragon Wars starts out with a prophecy. Yep, Hollywood still has a few prophecies that need movies. This prophecy is an old Korean legend about good and bad dragons, called Imoogi, and a source of power, the Yuh-Yi-Joo, instilled in a girl every 500 years. When the girl turns 20, the Yuh-Yi-Joo gets turned on and to retain the balance of good and evil, the girl along with the power she possesses must be sacrificed to the good Imuooi. Not happy with simply controlling the bad Imoogi, super bad-guy Buraki wants to possess the Yuh-Yi-Joo himself and unleash a 500 year reign of terror over the earth...or at least Korea. But Buraki doesn't just have the bad Imoogi on his side, he also has the Atrox Army - a group of fire breathing little dragons, a bunch Lord of the Rings Uruk-hai looking guys on little raptors, and these big walking sea cow looking things that have dual rocket launchers on their back. Why these big ugly bastards have steam punk looking rocket launchers in ancient Korea, I have no idea. With the bad Imoogi and his Atrox Army, which the name is never explained, Buraki takes over the village hiding the Yuh-Yi-Joo and almost captures her until she commit suicide. Why did she commit suicide instead of commit suicide and give her glowy goodness to the good Imoogi? Because she fell in love with her guardian and that makes it tragic, that's why!

Now flash forward 500 years to modern Los Angeles and we see vaguely Asian news reporter Ethan Kendrick who stumbles across the scene of a small disaster and just happens to see a giant dragon scale, which fires off a flashback in which he's a little kid in a import/antique/pawn-shop of some sort where a white guy surrounded by tons of old Korean shit fakes a heart attack to get Ethan's dad to leave his kid with him so he can tell Ethan that he's chosen to protect the Yuh-Yi-Joo. Ethan's dad, being a good samaritan and obviously not concerned about pedophiles or his son in general, happily obliges. Old guy that should be Korean but is actually American actor Robert Forster conveys the ancient legacy to young Ethan, gives him this gnarly and obnoxiously large pendant that has no obvious function at this point, and tells the kid too young to understand anything more important than Saturday morning cartoons that he has a great destiny.

Any now we're back in the present where for no obvious reason, 20-something report Ethan Kendrick goes on a quest to find out who the Yuh-Yi-Joo armed with only three facts that not-Korean white guy from his flashback gave him: her name will be Sarah, she will be 19, and she has a birthmark that looks like a intricate dragon tattoo. To aid him in his search, token black guy Bruce (played by Craig Robinson from Pineapple Express and Zack and Miri Make a Porno) does all the leg work and does the news reporter equivalent of Googling and searches through his super awesome database of everyone in LA named Sarah. Throw in some convenient plot twists and he's able to narrow it down to THE Sarah that he KNOWS he has to save. At some point we also meet Sarah, but she is busy having a minor breakdown because she gets a bad feeling and blah-blah-blah she somehow knows she's got some destiny awaiting her. Oh yeah, and to prove the history is an endless cycle Ethan and Sarah fall in love..wait for it...wait for it...for no reason whatsoever.

Now I know all of that was rather boring and you may be wondering why I'm going into detail about the story, but I'm actually doing you a favor. Now you don't even have to watch the first 40 minutes of the movie. That's right, just fast forward it to where the bad dragon starts tearing shit up, because that's the only good part of the movie. For the next hour, Ethan and Sarah will run away from the bad Imoogi which seems to be able to outrun speeding traffic and Apache helicopters, but can't seem to catch up with two 20-something kids running through the street. While the bad Imoogi is ripping shit up, Buraki has summoned his Atrox Army in the middle of LA and they tear shit up too. The special effects are actually quite impressive. They're not quite Lord of the Rings quality, but they're better than most triple-A summer blockbusters. Through out the whole movie the bad Imoogi proves that it's a severe bad ass, all the while the good Imoogi is a big fucking pacifist pussy. You only see it during the opening where we get the goods on the legend, where it doesn't do a god damn thing to save all the villagers getting wiped out by the Atrox Army, and then it shows up at the very end, as with most things in the movie - for no obvious reason, to have the ultimate showdown with the bad Imoogi.

Final Verdict: For a Korean movie, there are a lot of relatively recognizable American actors. None of them are A-list leading guys and gals, but throughout the movie you will see lots of people that you won't know their name or what movie they're from, but you know you've seen them before. The special effects are actually quite good and help make the movie watchable,as does the decent cinematography, but the pointlessly convoluted back story that leads into the almost laughably bad paced chase that makes up the bulk of the movie bring it way down. What you get in the end is a well made bad movie that gets pulled down by the unbelievability of the story and the reactions of the main characters. There aren't any cheesy, over-the-top effects or ridiculous one-liners. This one is actually hard to rate. If I were a serious critic it would get a low-to-middling score, but I'm looking for bad movies and it just barely qualifies as one. I give it a 2.5/5 - it just half-asses it on any scale you look at.


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Weekly Reamer : 3/6/09

It's time again for the Reamer of the Week. It's been a pretty funny week. Funny if you don't watch the news and don't read the news paper and don't listen to new radio. Just stay away from the news, then it's funny. Ok, so some of the news is funny too. Like Jon Stewart bashing CNBC and Rick Santelli for being generally ignorant fuckheads. Or how about the woman who called 911 three times when she was told that McDonald's was out of McNuggets. But at least she's now embarrassed about her little hissy fit. And lets round out the fun in the news with a report of a man caught putting his cat in a bong (come on, you know you blew smoke in your pets face when you were in highschool). But none of those are the Reamer of the week. This week, keeping it on a light note, the Weekly Reamer is the new movie Watchmen.

When I saw the first trailer for Watchmen my eyes widened and made a Scooby-Doo noise. I had never read the graphic novel, I hadn't read 300 or Sin City when they came out either - I'm a bad geek, I know. I didn't know the detail and complexity of the story, but the trailer grabbed me by the balls because of it's beautiful visuals. After that I read the book, saw all the motion comics once they came out, and was salivating as I waited for the lights to dim and my brain to explode in the movies sheer awesomeness. By the time I left, all I felt was sleepy and not in the lobotomized-because-the-movie-blew-my-brains way. I was sleepy in that I-just-watched-the-extended-edition-of-Fellowship-of-the-Ring-and-just-want-to-see-the-real world-again kind of way. The movie is almost 3 hours long, is really pretty, but just doesn't do a damn thing I thought was worth seeing. Thus, it has earned a Metacritic score of 56/100 (at the time this was published), a Yahoo Score of C- (it's actually a B now, but I'm going to act like it hasn't changed for my own purposes). Oh yeah, and you have to watch Dr. Manhattan's penis a lot. It's big, it's blue, it's hard to ignore. If you really want to waste three hours, no money, and have a better time then try reading through the 300-some-odd reviews for Watchmen on Yahoo. Most peoples complaints with the movie have more to do with not understanding the premise and the big blue cock than the fact that it's a boring fucking movie that doesn't do a damn thing for 3 hours.

Reamer Value: Low 15.50 Reamers (The cost of ticket and a drink)
Big Blue Cock Value: High (but not hard)

Whedon, Thou Hath Sinned

I'm going to say it. Dollhouse sucks. Three episodes in and I feel nothing for it but disappointment. I've supported Whedon in his previous endeavors, having enjoyed to some extent Buffy and Angel, been a great fan of Firefly and Serenity, and chuckled heartily at Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. But Dollhouse does nothing. The premise didn't impress me much before it aired, and having seen it since has done nothing to improve upon that feeling. I do understand that it's a new show and it takes time to flesh out the characters and plot, but after three episodes I should have some idea of where the show is heading. Instead we're given three completely independent missions with nothing tying them together save for Echo's involvement and the fact that she retains some memories and sensibilities from each persona she is imprinted with. Echo's handler, Boyd, has an unexplainable loyalty to Echo and her well being, which seems to go beyond just a paycheck. While I was glad to see Tahmoh Penikett (BSG's "Helo") get a post Battlestar gig, his character is uninteresting and his investigation into the "mythical" Dollhouse has yet to be more than just a time wasting side story, as has the escape of and mass murder by Dollhouse's Alpha, who is obviously still alive but this doesn't seem to bother anyone too much. There were claims by Whedon before the first episode ever aired that the idea he intially went to propose resembles next to nothing of what he ended up getting green lit, but to that I have to say shame on him. He's dealt with FOX before, and should know better than to trust them with anything but intellectual murder. Considering their blatant mismanagement of Firefly, from time-slot shifting, to using the shows weakest episode as a pilot instead of the actual pilot episode, to giving it next to no promotion he should be well aware of the fact that him and FOX are not on the same wavelength. The bad thing is, I will probably keep watching Dollhouse up until they inevitably cancel it, which I have no doubt they will, in the slim hope that something amazing eventually happens.

Rapid Review: FEAR 2 - Project Origin

When you make a sequel, that initially wasn't really a sequel but then officially became a sequel, to an action game with a predominantly psychological thriller story line, you would think that it would continue telling the psychologically thrilling story that so abruptly ended in the first game. I wasn't consulted when they were making FEAR 2, and instead they decided to start just moments before the large nuclear explosion at the end of FEAR, but essentially retell the same story over again. They do go into more depth about the origins of Alma and the full purpose of the various projects related to her, but it's essentially the same story. The game is well made, with tons of details within the levels, but the action is pretty average with an uninspired weapons list and retarded enemy AI (I got shot, lets duck, now lets stand up again), and once you realize what a complete cheat the Slow-Mo ability (which was nowhere near as god mode-ish in the original)it gets absurdly easy. If I could rate the game on the details,though not necessarily graphical power, of the levels alone it would be an 8, but because you have to put up with the blah story, mundane action, and a bullshit ending it's only a 6. If you want more details, hit the jump and read on.


The original FEAR was a lot of fun. It was creepy, moody, violent, frantic, and at times just plain scary. FEAR 2 tries to be all those things, but it tries so hard and in exactly the same ways as the first that it ends up failing at most of those. The creepy or scary moments become so predictable and uninteresting that they do nothing but become a bit of a nuisance. Add to this the fact that it seemed like so many of the supposedly creepy moments happened when I wasn't looking where the game thought I was. Either that or they decided to add the creepy noise and effects even when absolutely nothing was happening. To make things more predictable, when there was something supernatural happening you never encountered any real enemies and vice-versa. This ended up making the game feel a lot safer and a lot less urgent.

The action in FEAR 2 is a lot safer as well. Initially I thought the game was going to end up getting rather difficult because of the fact that the game doesn't really allow for very good use of over. Despite the fact that there are lots of items to hide behind, and even actions that can be performed on them (topple drink machines, slide carts, flip over tables) they relatively useless because of the lack of a adequate ducking system, no leaning options, and enemies that seem to be able to shoot your pinkie off at 300 yards. However, once you realize that the Slow-Mo is much more powerful and long lasting than it was in the previous game, which combined with a grenade with the shotgun,it turns you into a room-clearing killing machine.

FEAR 2 doesn't really push the envelop as far as raw graphical power goes, however someone in the art department really earned their pay with all the little details that go into the games levels. Two areas of the game you will become very familiar with are a large hospital and an elementary school. Being that I work in a hospital I got the exact same clinically pure, but mostly depressing feeling roaming the halls and exam rooms of the game. The elementary school is where the details really shine. While on the surface the school is exactly what a school should look like, it's the drawings, play toys, decals, and even slide projectors with a creepy and out-of-sync voice over. The devastated streets, the aftermath of the explosion from the first game, are well done if not the most impressive graphically. There seems to be little in the game, visually at least, that isn't there intentionally and in great detail. If something seems a little flimsy or poorly done, it's probably something that you will later find out is that way for a reason.

Final Verdict: There's nothing blatantly horrible about FEAR 2 but it also doesn't do anything substantially well either. It looks good but not great, the action is entertaining but not always a whole lot of fun, and while the game has great atmosphere and mood it is in no way scary or even creepy. If this was all that FEAR 2 did wrong I would give it a 7. But then it goes too far and gives you such a bullshit lame ending, which I go into detail below if you're interested (spoilers), it gets drop kicked to a 6/10. It's mostly enjoyable, until the end, but not ground breaking.

WARNING - MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!



OK, so you've put up with the rather boring action, some sparsely used and incredibly simple quick-time-events, the rehashed FEAR 1 story and you get to the final showdown. You track Alma's psyche, cause her body is dead but she left her psychic imprint, down to an abandoned nuclear reactor where there is a psychic amplifier that is supposed to allow you to fight on the same power level as Alma and then the mean, power hungry Armacham lady, who has been manipulating you from the get go, comes and ruins it all by sending you up against Alma without the aid of the amplifier. Not to defeat her, but to absorb her so that you, and thus Alma, can be controlled. But then there's a kink, there's a goofball teammate that has been susceptible to Alma's influence from the get go and went AWOL to go find his true undead love and be her whipping boy. This goofball shows up in the psychic battle ground where you end up shooting him through several different, short dreamscapes. And then you suddenly get out of the amplifier chamber that wasn't activated, but it was activated, but wasn't working, but maybe it was and you see Alma in front of you and you have suddenly impregnated her. Yes...you psychically impregnated someone that does not psychically exist because she was really raping you while you were virtually fighting Private Goofball. That's when the credits roll. That's the fucking ending. This ending made the game lose a whole point on my grading scale because it makes no goddamn sense and pretty much means you just wasted all that time to metaphorically get kicked in the balls. Fuck you very much Monolith.

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Awesomely Bad: Merc Force

I've seen a lot of bad movies. Not necessarily the awesomely bad kind, but just bad ones in general. For a long time my "Worst Movie Ever" had been taken up by Manos: The Hands of Fate. Manos was one of those really bad psychological horror movies from the 60's that neither made you think, nor got you scared of anything more than a sequel. It's a movie of so little merit that the only reasonable way for the modern movie goer to get a hold of Manos was as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie. Yes, Manos was the absolute worst movie I had ever seen...until I saw Merc Force.

Supposedly Merc Force has a story. Supposedly it is an epic sci-fi adventure about a rag tag crew of space mercenaries who try to get one over on the man, even though I have no idea who that man is supposed to be, and hijack a..umm..something, before other people try to steal the..stuff...really I have no idea how to describe it, because the people making the movie didn't seem to have a clue. What Merc Force boils down to is a student film or YouTube drama gone horribly, horribly wrong. It is shot on the worst yard sale cameras one could find, with what could only be friends and neighbors as both the cast and crew. Despite being made in 2003 (but not release until 2005), the movie's special effects look like something from the early 90's with what looks like hand done matte work (not using a green/blue screen, but actually masked off by hand in post). The are, for no real reason, a bunch of little floating robots and levitating tanks that look more like a 10 year old got a hold of some of daddies graphics software. Even the soundtrack sounds like they got a garage band, though honestly not a bad one, to record some completely unrelated songs.

I initially found Merc Force on Netflix, and found it interesting reading through the reviews as it seems that presumably the director and another member of the crew actually tried to defend and rebuke the film by stating it was their first movie and they only had a budget that was somewhere between $4000 and $10,000 (IMDB claims $3k). The budget would actually excuse a lot of Merc Force's problems. The bad effects, camera work, and even the riotously bad acting could be excused if the story at least made sense. Even a first time script writer should have been able to come up with something more cohesive and logical than what ended up on the screen. Considering the movie was written, directed, produced, and edited by the same man, James Panetta, there's really no excuses for the horribly written, shot, and cut piece of shit that goes by the name Merc Force.

Final Verdict: It's shit. Simply put, the movie is shit. But, considering it is bad enough for me to consider it the worst movie I've ever seen, and the fact that I'll probably never forget this movie, I can't say I regret watching it. It did more to confuse than entertain, and it made me shake my head more than laugh. It's one of those movies that I'm tempted to buy and keep in my collection just so I can force it on some unsuspecting friend, maybe former friend after the movie, and watch their brains reel in horror.

1/5 - Absolute and total shit.

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