This Week In Entertainment (5/26/08)

My Pick of the Week is the second volume of Sony's recent release of the Three Stooges shorts in order. This covers their shorts from 1937-1939 and should have about 24 shorts. I'd have to say that the best one is Violent is the Word for Curly, which includes the alphabet song in it.


Also out on DVD is volume two of the most recent string of He-Man cartoons. Again I ask, was this edition out long enough to justify breaking it into two volumes?

Another set of the later Honeymooner episodes. I don't know if they're any good but they should be worth it for completists.

This dvd has Churchill giving some speeches, and I bet he was drunk while giving them. That's what makes him so awesome.

In theaters is a 2 and a half hour (!) film. It's Sex and the City: The Movie, and did I mention that it's freaken long? I've never seen an episode, but isn't it too early? And did you know that EW devoted a whole magazing to the series? Seriously.


On the Nintendo DS is Super Dodgeball Brawler. I guess someone thought it would do better if it had "brawl" in the title. Anyway, I loved the original NES game but haven't picked up the GBA version.

On the Virtual Console is City Connection, an odd cross between Pac-Man and Driver. I wanted this game badly as a kid but it's more of an arcade game than anything. 500 Wii poins, probably.

On the Wii is the latest Death Jr. game. I remember when the PSP game was being hyped big time. Now, I can't recall a Death Jr game with a good review. Too bad, a game where you star as the grim reaper is a good idea.

This Week In Entertainment (5/20/08)

My Pick of the Week is the third season of The Muppet Show. That reminds me that I still have to sit down and watch season 2.



Also coming out this week in theaters in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I'm lowering my expectations for this but I love the first and third movie so I'm hoping that it doesn't suck.

For the Wii, we finally see the release of Wii Fit. I may pick that up, but I don't have the time to stand on a board every day. Plus, I don't know if I could feel comfortable picking it up at a store.


Back to DVDs, we have the release of the second National Treasures movie. The first one was ok but this movie didn't last long in theaters. I don't remember it.

Season 5 of Penn and Teller's BS is out. I'm sure I wouldn't like every episode of this show but I do like an occasional episode posted online. This season had an episode about Walmart and argued for it, which is refreshing given the Walmart hate. I just wish I remembered that it was a Showtime show, because one scene during the episode could have gotten me in deep trouble at work.


This dvd set combines Richie Rich and Scooby Doo. May I take the moment to poin out that there are more episodes of Scooby Doo than there are of The Simpsons?

MST3k fans will remember that Bobo and Brain Guy once had an argument about two of these movies. Too bad the third movie isn't Dunstan Checks In.

This is not, REPEAT, THIS IS NOT the same Film Crew that made the four episodes of a lost attempt to be the successor to MST3k. And that movie sounds dirty.

Short Circuit is being released on DVD. Just in time for Pixar's soon to be released robot movie.

Please don't get me this. This DVD set is like looking at a person with half their body taken over by cancer.

For a moment I thought this useless set was that movie about a guy who was a huge fan of the Stooges. I've never seen that movie.


On the Wii Ware we have Dr. Mario Online RX. I've never been a big fan of Dr. Mario, but at least it's online and involves the Miis. 1000 Wii Poins is pushing it, though.

Sorry about the lack of updates

My heart hasn't been into it lately. There probably won't be many more updates this month. Maybe I'll think of something for June to make up for it.

This Week In Entertainment (5/13/08)

My Pick of the Week is a double dipping dvd set. This is suppose to be special editions of the Indiana Jones movies. I never really watched the dvds from the first set so I have no idea how special these editions are. Still, as a fan of the first and third movie, I'm picking this set just for the heck of it.

Also out on DVD is an animated movie about Pez. Wait, what?

Four for Texas is a Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin movie with a cameo by the Three Stooges. Moe thought that westerns were sadistic, so it's funny that the Stooges appeared in so many spoofs of them.

He's on a mission...from God!

That's...one way of looking at it.


In theaters this week is the second Narnia movie. I didn't see the first movie but I have read the book. Maybe I should rent the first movie.



On the DS is the latest port of Myst. Sure, why not? I have played the game before but I never got far.

We Ski is interesting in that it's a balance board game released a week before the Wii Balance Board is released. (It can also use the remote.) It's also interesting in that they couldn't call it Wii Ski. I guess Nintendo has dibs.


New for the Wii this week is the WiiWare. WiiWare allows you to download new games the same way you download Virtual Console games. They are basically games that are too small to justify a 50 dollar pricetag. A couple look interesting.

The first one is a trivia show called TV Show King. Four players compete by picking answers to trivia questions. There's a wheel to spin at some poin. Looks like a fun party game, even though video game trivia shows tend to have replay problems due to a limited amount of questions. 1000 Wii Poins.

The second one is Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King. This game got my attention because I thought it was the next Crystal Chronicles game, but it really seems to be a game about building a kingdom and keeping it. I guess Square-Enix was worried that no one would buy a game called "Cute Big-Headed Characters version of The Sims." At this poin, is there any reason for Square-Enix not to put "Final Fantasy" or "Dragon Quest" on any game they release? This game introduces a Pay and Play option, which allows you to buy stuff for your kingdom. Ca-ching! A whopping 1500 Wii Poins.

This Week In Entertainment (5/5/08)

Today's Pick of the Week is MST3k: The Movie. I saw this movie after I had stopped watching the series for a few years, and it was responsible for pulling me back into the series during the Sci Fi era. This movie is short but very funny. I already have the movie on DVD but it's worth it just to see Trace's hand during one of the host segments.

Also out on DVD is a look at kids Saturday morning shows from the fifties. Should be interesting.


Did I mention this last week? Anyway, I find it amusing that "The Next Generation" and "The Beginning" are both in the title. Just call it "Encounter at Farpoin" and everybody will know what you mean.

At first I thought this was a collection of classic shorts. Oh well. Probably not something I would be interested in.

I was a fan of He-Man as a kid. I think this may have been the origin story of She-Ra. Or maybe it was a theatrical movie. Most likely one of those things.


Teddy Ruxpin was big one year. I can't remember when, or even why because it was just a bear with a casette player, but it was the Tickle Me Elmo of some year.


Question: Which one is the hottie?


Is there a conspiracy to make me so embarrassed by the video game culture that I'll quit games? I'm just curious.


Out in theaters is Speed Racer, a movie that I may see even though I could care less. It's made by the same guys who made The Matrix and the Matrix Revolutions, so who knows how good it'll be?

With a movie title so lame, it has to be good! .... Right?

Wii are not Zealots

I have a Wii. It's not a perfect system, but I like it. I love video game, but I stay away from most video game-related media. Why? Because most of it sucks. Let me give an example.

Today I went to the only video game blog I visit regularly. There was a link to the latest conspiracy theory about why the Wii was selling better than the XBox 360 or the PS3. Basically, Nintendo is accused of causing console shortages. This leads to more hype or whatever, and thus leads to more sales. Of course, the entry offers no proof, but it does involve Nintendo fan baiting, which seems to be the new pasttime of non-Nintendo video game writers. The entry ends with this quote:

The fact of the matter is that the Wii is a virus being spread purposefully by Nintendo. The media has duped the public into believing the console is something more than it is, and non-gamers are eating it up. By withholding consoles from the public, Nintendo is getting fat and rich of a manufactured lie. Waving a Wiimote around might be fun for a short while, but I refuse to be one of the duped masses that spreads the virus any further, thank you very much.

This isn't the first time I've seen thinking like this. Ben Heckendorn bashed the Nintendo with the same conspiracy theory. He even had a rant about how "Core" gamers rescued the video game industry and how Nintendo was going to sink it by appealing to "casual" gamers. There's a problem with this kind of thinking. It's pure zealotry.

For example, look at the 2008 election. The Republicans aren't putting out Mr. CONSERVATIVE, who swears to shrink the government into the size of a peanut while giving expanding the military 5000 fold while promising to punch illegals and terrorists in the face. The Democrats aren't putting up Mr. PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL, who promises to expand the government to take care of everything while putting Europe in charge of us while granting marriage rights to anything.

McCain got the nomination despite the wrath of conservative bloggers, freerepublic and Limbaugh. Obama and Clinton are starting to go on EEEEEVIL FOX NEWS much to the wrath of moveon and DailyKos and other liberal websites and blogs.

Why?

BECAUSE NONE OF THOSE BLOGS, WEBSITES, OR MEDIA GUYS ARE IMPORTANT AS THEY THINK THEY ARE!!!!

You can't win an election without appealing to independants. You can't win a console war by appealing only to hardcore gamers. The XBox was a hardcore console and it barely out did the GameCube. The PS2 had both hardcore games and casual games.

So-called core gamers are not the center of the game industry. They are mistaking passion with being in the center. So-called "fanboys" (and I really hate the word) look at big games selling in the millions and mistakingly think that they are what's most important to the industry. They are not.

Zealots who argue that the Wii is underpowered and lacks enough hardcore games are missing the bigger picture. Microsoft and Sony both assumed that high definition was the next big thing, and hedge their bets on that. They assumed that everybody was going to buy a new HD TV just to play their consoles. Guess what. That new controller thing was far more attractive.

During the second console war, the Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 all did the same thing. They had better graphics and controllers with keypads. They all made the "right" decisions. However, while hardcore fans went with these systems, casuals stuck to the VCS, and the industry collapsed. None of those three systems did anything "wrong", yet they all mistakenly thought keypads were the future. The industry collapsed because no one had incentive to jump to the next generation. It wasn't until Nintendo introduced its controller that people realized that they needed to jump from the Atari VCS age.

You can't just up the graphics every five years. The graphics from the NES are a huge jump from the VCS, but those jumps get smaller as time goes on. Sure, the HD graphics look good, but it's not as big a deal as it was 10, 20 years ago.

This stuff just drives video game media guys crazy because they want games to be a certain way, but the industry can't always crank those games out. Not every game can be a Grand Theft Auto. Sometimes your going to get a Tetris that'll blow audiences away and it's going to be much simpler than a game that took a year to create. Shenmue had the highest budget ever and media adoration, but it didn't save the Dreamcast.

Will the Wii win the generation? Who knows. Again, it's not a perfect system. I wish Nintendo would approve it's online system, and I want more games that really took advantage of the controller, instead of just making you wiggle it at just the right time. But it's not winning because of shortages. It's winning because Sony and Microsoft made the "right" choices, and the wrong assumptions.

(Heck, Sony apparently assumed that people would love the PS3 so much that it could poinlessly include Blu-Ray to boost its numbers in another war. So Sony's ego made them put out a system that was ridiculously expensive and feature stuff that would intimidate the public. And Sony media guys are wondering why it's being outsold by the Wii? Guess what! The PS2 didn't make DVDs successful. DVDs already won the format war by the time the PS2 rolled around. The PS2 was a just a inexpensive no-brainer. The PS3 may not look as stupid as it would have if Blu-Ray lost, but it's still a console that says "format war first, maybe games later.")

SALAD IS MURDER!!!

An ethics panel in Switzerland is arguing that arbitrary killing of plants is wrong.

The winner in this weird creation of Plants Rights? FAT PEOPLE! Finally, an excuse to avoid eating salads! Pass me some more chicken nuggets!

Weird.

I can't think of anything to get this month off to a good start, so take a look at this picture that blew my mind. It's from a website that allows you to create your own Phoenix Wright-style objection.