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Weekly Movie Post–January 3, 2012
Weekly Movie Podcast – January 3rd, 2012 <16 mins – 11.1MB>
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The box office saw a nice bump from the previous week despite there being no new movies (in wide release) released in theatres this past weekend. Plenty of discussion on this week’s podcast about the state of the movie industry, some movie recommendations and reviews, and a recap of what’s your options are in theatres and on DVD this coming week.
Continue reading for the top five charts from last week’s box office (all data coming from www.the-numbers.com). There’s also a list of all the movies coming out this weekend in theatres and the movies that were released for the home video market this week (with trailers where available).
Salt (Movie Review)
Movie Review Sometimes action movies can get away with having little substance and tons of style. If lots of things blow up and there’s violence to be had, depending on how it’s delivered, that’s all that might be necessary for an action movie. That would be fine for Salt but Phillip Noyce tried to make this movie into a serious film. It’s doesn’t work that well as a movie you have to think is somewhat believable. If you could sit back and think this was mindless fun then it would be one thing, but it tries to be a Tom Clancy novel; it just doesn’t work.
Salt
2010
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber
Directed by: Phillip Noyce
Weekly Video Game Post–January 3, 2012
Weekly Video Game Podcast – January 2, 2012 <69 mins (47.5 MB)>
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- Jamie Gore and John Teodoro
- The Top 10 Games of 2011 Podcast
- Sorry, Just Dance 3 did not make the list
- Continue reading for sales figures from the week of December 24th and other stuff (all sales figures come from www.vgchartz.com)
The Descendants (Movie Review)
Movie Review
The Descendants
2011
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges
Directed by: Alexander Payne
George Clooney has the distinguishable quality of being able to make even bad film watchable. There are few actors who can pull this off (Julia Roberts comes to mind). The Descendants (directed by Alexander Payne) has a good story but some weak pacing and some awkward moments that prevent it from becoming a classic. However, Clooney and the rest of the cast take what would have otherwise been a better-than-mediocre movie and make it something that becomes necessary watching.
Adventure Island (Video Game Review)
Video Game Review
Adventure Island
Nintendo Entertainment System
1988
Developed by: Escape/Hudson Soft
Published by: Hudson Soft
Despite Super Mario Bros. creating a renaissance for games after the Video Game Crash of 1983, it made it almost impossible for good platformers to get their moment in the sun. Why play anything else when there’s Super Mario Bros. available. While Hudson’s Adventure Island isn’t anywhere as good as Mario’s first platformer, it still provides as decent experience in the genre. It does have a few problems such as its difficulty level, the weird continue system, and it’s uninspiring level design. Still, the quest of Master Higgins still provides from some decent platforming entertainment that is good for those who like this type of game to give a try.
The Top 10 Games of 2011
It’s the New Year so it’s time again to look at last year. 2011 was a good year for games. It wasn’t a particularly outstanding year but it did provide enough solid gaming to keep us entertained. What’s interesting about this list is that there is only one new IP throughout; the rest are all sequels (or prequels). Maybe the big reason why this hasn’t been a stellar year is because innovation is stifled by game companies sheltering themselves with familiar names to stay on the safe side. Even then, some franchises like Elder Scrolls offered up experiences that weren’t just about HD graphics but gave us games so large in scope that they seemed unimaginable five years ago. While the industry still waits for the next big thing, there were still plenty of great games (and a few instant classics) worth playing. If you haven’t played the following games in 2011, there’s nothing like starting the New Year right with these ten titles.
Special Edition Video Game Podcast–December 29, 2011
Weekly Video Game Podcast – December 29, 2011 <56 mins (38.4 MB)>
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- Jamie Gore and John Teodoro
- We finish off our end of year discussion about the console manufacturers with a fireside chat about Microsoft (chat may not actually include fire)
- We both laugh at the fact that my 20-year-old Super Nintendo still works great but John is on his FIFTH Xbox 360
- If Kinect could order pizza, I would buy three
Weekly Movie Post–December 27, 2011
Weekly Movie Podcast – December 27th, 2011 <16 mins – 11.2MB>
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No, this is not a dream. This is a podcast on this site that has actually gone up on time. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. There has been several podcasts (and a newsletter) to be published on the site over the last week and it should get busier on the site once we get into the new year. This podcast was slightly longer than I expected because I went into quite a bit of detail over the numbers from last weekend and try to explain why they were so poor considering that the holiday weekend traditionally is very busy for the theatres.
Continue reading for the top five charts from last week’s box office (all data coming from www.the-numbers.com). There’s also a list of all the movies coming out this weekend in theatres and the movies that were released for the home video market this week (with trailers where available).
Weekly Video Game Newsletter–Issue 6
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The latest edition of the Weekly Video Game Newsletter is finally up.
In this Issue:
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Video Game Sales Recap for December 17th, 2011
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Year in Review: Q1 Recap
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Review of Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony for 2011
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Adventure Island (NES) Review
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Centipede (Arcade) Review
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Decimation X (Xbox Live Indie Game) Review
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Donkey Kong Country (SNES) Review
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Space Invaders (Arcade) Review
From now on, game reviews will appear in the newsletters first and then eventually be published on the website. Reviews will start appearing on the site again starting on New Year’s Day.
The next issue will be published on Saturday, December 31st, 2011. In that issue, this site’s games of the year list will be published. That list will appear on the site on Sunday, January 1st, 2012 (as per tradition).
PLEASE NOTE: There was an error with the review score for Donkey Kong Country. As much as I love the game, I cannot give the game the full five-star treatment for some of the issues associated with the game (the biggest one being that trying to complete the game 102% is next to impossible unless you get help from an outside source or have hours to kill to test every pit and make blind leap-of-faith jumps). The score should have been four stars. I’m sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused. Don’t worry though, there is a five-star video game review coming up soon. Because of linking issues, I will not be making a change in the newsletter during the short term but when I eventually make a page on the site just for the newsletters, I’ll change the review score in the newsletter when I archive the newsletter there.
