I guess its been both a fairly laid-back, yet somewhat eventful past couple of days…
- Thursday night was shitty movie night with MK, Robin, and Matt Singer. First was some burritos at St. Marks, then we went right across the street to Kim’s Videos to find out feature for the night. After an exhaustive search through their massive collection (it easily the biggest assortment of insanely bizarre and stupidly bad films one will ever find), we decided upon, and rather easily with, For Your Height Only, a 007 knock-off from the Philippines starring a midget. We also picked up Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler (also known as Last Orgy of the Third Reich according to the internet) since it looked like it could be fun (at least to me).
First up was For Your Height Only, which again stars a midget, as Weng Weng, Agent 00. Its just like any James Bond flick, meaning there’s plenty of action, though for the most part its just Weng Weng punching people in the crotch, sliding around on linoleum floors to get in some cheap shot (most to the back… guess honors a bit different in the Philippines), and getting tossed around when pulling out the kung-fu (here’s a short clip that should give you a good idea of the action). Plus when he does actual spy-work, he runs around bent over, as not to be seen, but considering he’s three feet… you know. Also like Bond, he loves the ladies, and the ladies love him. Given that Weng Weng acts throughout the entire film like an abducted 7 year old that’s on ludes, it was hardly surprising that his interaction with women was also awkward, but it was surprising that despite his tiny stature that he has one thing that’s as big as any normal sized man. His nipples. Plus, like Bond, he has his toys, like a jetpack (a teeny-tiny one, of course) and assorted bad men with goofy names, including The Big Guy, who’s a huge fat guy dressed all in red, and Weng Weng’s archenemies, Mr. Giant who (surprise!) is also a midget, though a slightly taller one.
Next was Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler which started out with a ten minute sequence of shots featuring rolling hills from inside a car, which made everyone afraid that it was going to be Manos the Hands of Fate II. Later we transported back in time to an all female concentration camp where a bunch of naked Hilter Youth are given a room full of Jewish girls (all of which has blonde hair curiously enough) to ravage and then turns into a huge orgy. I would imagine that the filmmakers went to some small Austrian village, one that’s poor and had tons of able-bodied young women to make this movie, and in the process scared everyone for life. Anyway, and needless to say, this ended up bumming everyone out, so we turned it off after thirty minutes (which I guess was a good move, since I’ve since discovered that A. the whole movie is three hours plus and B. its apparently not very good). To save the evening, we decided to watch Challenge of the Tiger, which was the second film on the double feature disc that For Your Height Only was on. And you’d think that any kung-fu shlock would have an impossible time following up on a king-fu/spy midget epic. But as it would turn out…
Challenge of the Tiger stars Bruce Le, not Lee but Le, one of the many “no one’s gonna notice that its not the same guy and the different spelled last name… all Orientals looks alike, and they all know karate anyways” actors that popped up in Hong Kong cinema in the early 80′s, and Richard Harrison as the token cool white ass-kicking ladies man in Hong Kong. All that really needs to be said is that in the first ten or so minutes, we catch Richard at his palatial estate where he has a whole gaggle of white women playing tennis totally topless. But it gets better! Though I can’t explain why, due to mind-dumbing amounts of fight scenes; the very best one featured a a slide in the foreground which we all watched with bated breathe, waiting for some poor shmuck to slide down to his death. Plus you had the same five generic henchmen getting shot over and over again, and film’s femme fatale looked like a sickly cancer patient (you can always tell a film’s budget by how “hot” the hot chick is supposed to be). Basically, it was awesome.
- And on Saturday MK & I case X-Men 3. I went in expecting pure shit, mostly due to all the warning signs, as pointed out by the movie night crew, and my own general feelings with Bryan Singer not being involved, and I left pleasantly surprised. It was actually pretty decent! Not X-Men 2 good, but on par with the first flick to a certain degree. It’s far from perfect, such as how one of the coolest parts (which I’m not going to spoil, even though everyone I personally know saw it already; even though I hate seeing films on opening weekends, I simply had to for this one, since I knew everyone would be talking about it) simply sheds light on a major flaw the series has had since the first movie. But at the very least, there were some genuine surprises, and once again, it was neat seeing characters pop-up here and there, even if there’s not much fanfare. The film definitely could have used more Multiple Man. And Vinny Jones as well (naturally). Once again, the film could have been totall shit, much like the previous two flicks, if not for some of the actors. Though I still say Iman should have been Storm and not Halle Berry since day one, especially after this movie.
- Afterwards we met with Robin whom I accidentally punched in the face. I’ll skip the explanation and simply state that I felt pretty bad. Anyway, we had dinner at Dojo’s and went out to Brooklyn for Liz Baillie‘s book release/Joe Flood‘s birthday/chilie party. The chili, which was hyped up by Robin beforehand, more than lived up to it, and equally delicious was the ice cream cake. Most folks there were comic books geeks of the super hero variety, so perhaps it was no surprise than that virtually everyone there either has or is currently working at Forbidden Planet, including Liz’s husband Zane. Everyone once in a while I’ll get in these kicks that makes me want to get back into super hero comics, and naturally, given the crowd and after seeing X3 earlier in the day, my interest was again piqued. I have always been a Marvel guy, but I’ve always paid attention to the DC Universe and has been thinking of using the latest summer event (Infinity Crisis) to finally make the plunge. But always in the end, I loose interest, though this time I have to attribute it to Zane’s thoughts on the whole thing: “Dude, Superboy punches a hole through the galaxy. Lame.”
- As for earlier in the day, MK finally got the chance to look through all my photo albums, which are mostly pics taken during college and a few years afterwards. She couldn’t stop laughing at all the pics of all my various friends and their previous wacky hairstyles (mostly ponytails), nor all the ones of me and my fluctuating weight. Anyone who’s known me for a while is well aware of my obsession with my weight, which is admittedly sorta gay (though perhaps not as much as my fussiness in regards to my hair), and my burning desire to get at thin as possible. But MK, like a few other women I’ve known for a while, also thought I looked pretty stupid (and unhealthy) when at my skinniest. I guess that stereotype that girls don’t mind a little belly is not bullshit after-all.
MK also thoroughly enjoyed seeing pictures of all the girls I obsessed over in college. And boy, there sure were a lot.
- Earlier in the week Millennium seasons 2 & 3 arrived so on Friday night I showed her both the Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense episode, as well as the one with the four demons having coffee and donuts and shooting the shit one as well. And yesterday, before getting back to work, I watched the two part closer to the second season, to see if it was indeed as good as I remember, and it certainly was (though I had totally forgotten about the Patty Smith “music video” part).
- Also got to finally play the pair of Gamefly games that’s been collecting dust all week. First was Shox, a little known game that came out in either 2002 or 2003 from EA. I’d always been curious about it back when the game was readily available at Game Express for $20 and I always sorta regretted not picking it up after the store closed its doors. Basically, its an arcade rally racer that’s fun to play, and quite a few things going for it that unfortunately gets undermined by just a few, but rather glaring negatives. On the plus side, the graphics are pretty top-notch, especially for a PS2 title back then, and the music is decent, especially for an EA game. The overall atmosphere is quite nice; every-thing’s energetic and fast-paced, almost like the nucleus of something that is later seen in the EA Burnout games. The game is set up like any other racing game: you have three laps to beat out five other cars for first place. You win money based on performance which is used towards buying new cars (you can also loose money for slamming up your car, but its never something ridiculous, just a few dollars here and there). Once interesting element is the ability to place bets on a car; win a race and you get the car, but loose and you also forfeit a good chunk of your money. Another nice small touch are “Shox Zones”; there are three sections of road in each track that once entered starts a timer and then you have a small amount of time to reach the end. Do it in the best time possible gets you a gold, fare okay you get silver, or average gets bronze. This mini race within a race is nice touch and really adds to the tension.
But controls are where things start to fall apart; the game uses either the right analogue stick for gas and break/reversal, which I’m never too fond off in any racing game, but its far better than using the face buttons since their pressure sensitive. Nothing feels worse than wondering why you’re not going fast enough till you realize that you have to press down on the X button really hard, till your right arm is about to fall off. As I said, it almost feels like Burnout, in the sense that Shox almost feels like a test bed for ideas later down the road, and one is the use of dramatic angles when pulling off a dramatic jump. At first its really nice to see and hear everything slow down as your car gets some crazy air-time… that is till you land, because 50% of the time your car wobbles out of control, sometimes turning onto its side or roof, and all of a sudden, you go from first to last. Another annoying thing is the sometimes inconsistent and often always rubber-band A.I. The first heat is six races, and you need get an average of first place to advance. I got first place in the fourth and fifth race my first time, but after literally twelve attempts, I still can’t get anything above fifth place in the second race, all because of the last big hill that guarantees a wipeout each and every-time. Also, Shox is the very first rally racer, hell any racer, in which you don’t get a map of the track.
Put some more time in Blood Will Tell and finally hit a wall, mainly the ultra-shitty camera. At one point I couldn’t use the map on the upper right hand corner of the screen due to the color of the environment of a particular level. Lame. And the combo portion of the combat, which has an almost DDR feel is something I just can’t get used to (and since its pretty much useless, there’s real no incentive to work at it). Plus, it makes no sense that certain enemies take about seven sword slashes to kill as the bionic samurai and just one or two scrawny punches from the kid (still can’t figure out if its a boy or girl) to take down. Still the story is awesome… I have to check if the manga is available anywhere.
- Didn’t get too much web surfing in over the weekend (I just things its sorta dumb surfing gaming message boards when the weather’s so nice outside), though I did come across some interesting tidbits…
… Apparently, gay guys love Link.
… So Sega at one point had a remote control-like interface for their Dreamcast. Note: yes, I’m well aware that everyone has come up with something similar at one point.
… Thanks to ShaperMC, I’ve come to discover that Schadenfreude Interactive, the makers of Accordion Hero, apparently has a whole slew of games. Their Grand Theft Automan simply looks hot.
… A quick glance through the NeoGAF turned up these two interesting topics: here someone asks about a rhythm-based stock market game that Konami game was developing a whiles back, and Sony it would seem is taking their “Sony Style” notion a bit too far.
… Here’s an interview with one of the mind’s behind the Bob Ross game coming out for the Wii.
… Do you have a Power Glove and are you sick and tired of trying to play NES games with it? Well have you tried hacking it?
… I can’t wait to try out Dot Fighters:
- As for tonight, another GNG (Gamer’s Nite Groove) is taking place and I’ll be checking it out. I used to go to them all the time, but to an ever increasing schedule, I’ve had to miss the last couple. Truth be told, I really shouldn’t be going out tonight, plus its in Willamsburg, a slice of Brooklyn I’m not entirely fond of. But tonight’s is billed as the Tetsuya Mizuguchi Game Special, so I sorta have to be there.
