Category: Reviews

Reviews of Music, Movies and More…

28 Weeks Later

Reviews

Just got back from seeing 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later.

It was excellent. Similar to 28 Days Later, in 28 Weeks, the infected and the infection provide the setting, but the overall story is more about the people than it is the monsters. While this isn’t really a zombie movie, it follows along with alot of the same stylistic elements.

In 28 Days, you saw Jim wake up 28 days after a plague of “rage” has engulfed England. He quickly has a few close calls and hooks up with another person, and then two more, and they eventually head to a place that promises a cure. And here is where the “real story” of 28 Days began. Some soldiers were holed up at a mansion and in a moderately twisted way were planning to survive and repopulate the world.

28 Weeks involves none of the characters from the original. Here, we are introduced to a few survivors at the height of the plague, then transported 28 weeks forward to where US troops have reoccupied parts of London, the infected have supposedly starved to death, and reconstruction efforts are beginning. British travelers from abroad are being allowed to return, and in the current batch are two kids, children of a man who managed to survive on the ground in England. Like the original, the movie takes a little turn and takes the focus away from the infection and shows you the world… people living in the safe zone, the guards who protect it. The kids decide to jump the fence and retrieve some possessions from their old house, and as you can guess this is where the trouble begins.

If you were to say that 28 Days Later was like the movie Alien, then 28 Weeks Later is Aliens. It was exciting and scary, like the original, but with more muscle and firepower. If you liked 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later should be right up your alley. I definitely recommend it.

Dead Rising

Reviews

This week’s Zombie Wednesday is going to stray, just a little, from my thoughts on the Zombie MMO I would design, and take a look at one of the best Zombie games I’ve seen in a long while: Dead Rising. Taking a look at this game shows alot of the play style elements that I want in my own game, minus the shady organization giving you missions. If it can be picked up, it is a weapon or it is food.

One of the things that I love most about it is the variety of zombies. Some almost run toward you, some shamble, some barely even notice you at all until you get right on top of them, some grab at you slow, some lunge quick once you are in range, and more, and any combination of those. It shows that much can be done without breaking the traditional zombie standards.

Personally, this is the first time I’ve encountered the “Save progress but Start over” type of game. As you level and learn new tricks, you can save your game and keep going, and if you die you have the option of loading that save and losing everything you’ve done since then, or saving your character progress and starting back at the beginning. This method results in some odd happenings sometimes. My brother, for example, was playing and got to a point where the main character is kidnapped and all his possessions, including clothes, are taken. The result: when he started the game from the beginning, all the opening cut scenes featured our hero wearing only his boxer shorts.

All in all, the game is great. The only thing it lacks is multi-player, but rumors abound that it might be coming in the Platinum Edition of the game or as downloadable content. If you love zombies, the game is worth it, even at twice the price.

The Departed

Reviews

I’m late, I know. But I finally got around to seeing this movie. It is good.

The story is about two guys both from “the neighborhood” in Boston. Both of them have just graduated the police academy. One has been practically raised by the local organized crime leader, and he’s joined the police in an attempt to get a man on the inside. The other is a kid who’s father was an honest man, and he’s been trying to get out of the neighborhood all his life, but he’s been recruited to go undercover into the local organized crime and be their man on the inside.

The narrative flips back and forth in the lives of these two men over the course of more than a year as one works his way into the ranks of the police and the other works his way into the ranks of the criminals. In a “Six Degrees” sort of way, they are very close without ever really meeting.

Scorsese put together a top notch cast to tell the tale, and every actor does their job well. It deserved the awards that it won.

The end left me feeling… well.. its hard to say without spoiling it. I’ll just leave it at that it was satisfying on some levels but unsatisfying on others. It is definitely worth the time to watch.

Storm Front

Reviews

The Sci-Fi Channel series The Dresden Files piqued my interest, so I picked up the first couple of books in the series by Jim Butcher and read Storm Front, the first one.

I love the TV show. Its fun, sometimes funny, with a bit of magic and darkness. The book is about the same, though as always with works taken from page to screen (big or small), it is only “about” the same. There are differences, but not so much so that it hurts either.

If you don’t know what The Dresden Files is, its about a man named Harry Dresden and he is a wizard. This isn’t your Harry Potter type wizardry, it is definitely not aimed at kids. Dresden lives in a world where magic exists, but its sort of a secret. Not the magic itself, but the White Council that presides over it all and tries to keep people from using the darker magics. Harry comes from a powerful line of wizards, all of whom are dead. From the show we know that Harry’s dad was killed by his uncle, and that Harry ultimately killed his uncle (in self defence). None of that is in this first book, not clearly anyway. There are hints that his family line might not be the cleanest around, and there is a judgement for murder against him currently held in check. Harry even narrates that he killed a man with black magic and that is why he is reluctant to tread in those waters again.

As it stands, Harry consults for the police as a “psychic” on weird cases as well as doing his own brand of private eye work. The book almost drips with old noir style storytelling, and in part that is what makes it so good. There is evil in the world, and if good is going to win its only going to do so by the skin of its teeth and by the barest of threads, and never emerge unscathed.

With the first book down, I’m really looking forward to the rest of the series, so I whole-heartedly recommend Storm Front. Of course, I don’t like to read series books back to back, so number two of The Dresden Files will have to wait until I’m done with the new Hellboy book.

Reign Over Me

Reviews

I saw Reign Over Me yesterday. A very powerful film about love and loss and life. I’m not going to spend alot of time reviewing it, I only want to say that Don Cheadle continues to be an excellent actor and Adam Sandler proves again that he isn’t just a comedy guy. Mike Binder, who’s work I have loved since Crossing the Bridge and Indian Summer, has written and directed a wonderful film full of joy and heartbreak. Maybe they’ll remember him by the time the Oscars roll around next year.

It is not a happy joy joy film, so know that going in, but I highly recommend seeing this movie.

Hot Fuzz

Reviews

My super secret special contact (my brother’s wife) came through once again with free passes to see a movie screening. This time, from the guys who brought you Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz.

What Shaun did for zombies, Hot Fuzz does for buddy cop films.

Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) is an overachieving London cop. In fact, he makes everyone else look bad, so they ship him off to a small village far away from London. Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) is a local cop with no real ambition, but has a love of action films and a father who is the head cop in town. The locals are pretty lax on the letter of the law, but Nick refuses to change his attitude. And that’s when the murders begin… of course, everyone else in town seems to buy them as accidents, but not Nick and Danny.

All in all, seriously funny. I was laughing through nearly the entire film, while at the same time being thrilled with chases and gunfights and explosions and an unravelling mystery. Edgar Wright directs a top notch film, he and Simon can really write great comedy, and all the actors pull it off in style. If you liked Shaun of the Dead, you’ll like Hot Fuzz too.

As a bonus for the night at the movies, Simon, Nick and Edgar were all in attendance and did a wonderful Q&A afterwards. Fantastic!

Hell to Pay

Reviews

Just finished up the latest in the Nightside series of books by Simon Green entitled Hell to Pay. Like the rest of the series, the story is about private investigator John Taylor who has a gift for finding things. In this tale, John is hired by Jeremiah Griffin, a man whose immortality is rumored to come from a deal with the devil, to find his missing granddaughter Melissa.

Of course, no tale in the Nightside is ever that simple… and yet, this book, so far, I’d call the weakest in the series. It is, for lack of a better term, a circle. One of those stories that ends where it begins, you meet the kidnapper within the first couple of chapters (to me it was painfully obvious who it was), and after taking a tour around the other suspects our hero returns to save the day in the nick of time.

It wasn’t a bad book… if you enjoy the Nightside books, this certainly keeps in line with the rest in its introduction of well-known places that everyone but you, the reader, has heard of, and characters half of which are interesting and the other half are forgettable. The mystery here is really no mystery at all, Green practically hits you over the head with most of the clues you need right at the beginning. But still, an enjoyable read… and despite it being on my “Currently Reading” box for so long, it really only took maybe a day to read if I’d done so in one sitting (doing it five minutes at a time can drag out any book). Pick it up to complete the set, but if you are looking for an introduction to the Nightside, start with the first book, not this one.

Zodiac

Reviews

Thanks to the usual hookup, the wife and I went out to see a sneak preview of Zodiac last night. If you are unfamiliar with the subject, the movie is about the famous Zodiac serial killer of the late 1960’s. Read more about him here.

As for the movie, its a David Fincher film, so given how much I have loved his other movies (Panic Room, Fight Club, The Game, Se7en… even Alien³), I had high expectations for this film. However, it is a telling of factual events with a little fiction thrown in to round out the edges, so I tried to go in with an open mind.

The movie is good. The direction and cinematography are great. The actors each play their roles extremely well, and they portray the frantic and frustration of the case to perfection. And that leads to the downside of this film… in truth, the Zodiac killed was never caught, never brought to justice, so if you are looking for satisfaction and closure, the story of the Zodiac is not where you want to look. This is a story about reporters and police officers desperately trying to figure out a series of crimes and to catch a killer who taunts them with letters where every pieces of evidence leads somewhere but proves nothing. At one point there is a scene of one of the characters frantically sifting through the half dozen or more boxes of files pertaining to just one of the killings illustrating the sheer volume of the mountain of interviews, clues, evidence and suspects.

It is a slow film, almost like watching a documentary with re-enactments, but it is interesting to see people’s lives come together and fall apart all around this case. It is not a great film, its not something I would watch a dozen times, but I enjoyed it, and certainly didn’t think it was a waste of my time. If the Zodiac interests you, go see it. If not… wait to rent it.

You Suck: A Love Story

Reviews

I just finished reading Christopher Moore’s latest book, You Suck: A Love Story, which is a sequel to a previous book of his called Bloodsucking Fiends.

As expected its full of moderately crazy characters who do all sorts of funny and weird things, not the least of which here is being a vampire. I’m not going to go into alot of detail, but like all of Moore’s books, its a fun read, and in my opinion worth the money and the time.

Music and Lyrics

Reviews

Continuing our Valentine’s Day tradition, the wife and I made our way down to the local megaplex and saw a film. Previous outings have included Under the Tuscan Sun and Finding Neverland. This year was Music and Lyrics.

Music and Lyrics stars Hugh Grant as Alex Fletcher a former 80’s pop star who has done nothing of importance since. As a fan of the 80’s I immediately recognized his character as Andrew Ridgeley of WHAM! Of course, in the film the bad is called POP!, but its close enough. Alex writes music, but he’s no good at lyrics, and he’s been asked by a new pop sensation, Cora (think a mix of Shakira and Britney), to write a new song for the two of them to perform. Luckily, Alex finds Drew Barrymore as Sophie Fisher, who is taking over for a friend watering Alex’s plants, and she happens to be a natural lyricist.

Sparks fly, comedy ensues and love blooms. To be honest, its formulaic and there isn’t much in the way of surprises… but that doesn’t mean its not a good movie. Its hilarious, its romantics, heart warming and funny. It is a fantastic date flick, and if you love the cheese of 80’s music its just that much better.

Yeah… I recommend this movie. Go see it with someone special.