Movie Review: Feast

A well-written plot sets Feast apart from the other gross horror-borers.

Director: John Gulager
MPAA Rating: Not Rated (Director’s Cut from original R)
What I Expected: A horror film that promises what all horror films promise.
What I Got: A horror film that’s surprisingly well written.
Appeals To: Horror movie fans and anyone who appreciates a good laugh and plot twists.

I admit that horror films are the one area where I am truly biased. I give horror films a bad rap, but that’s because most horror films insult me - they put me in some far out premise that some lamely designed mythical beast or serial killer with some quirky and campy gimmick is going to kill me if I act like a moron teenager. A horror film is supposed to scare me, and most of them don’t. Feast didn’t scare me, but I still credit it for its viscerally unique story.

Movie Review: Serenity

This movie has wonderfully surprising moments.

Director: Joss Whedon (Firefly)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (sequences of intense violence and action, and some sexual references)
What I Expected: An interesting sci-fi film with a quirky cast.
What I Got: An interesting and well-written sci-fi film with a quirky cast and excellent action sequences.
Appeals To: Firefly fans, sci-fi afficionados, action fans.

If you haven’t seen the trailer to Serenity, you’d be doing yourself a favor not to. It unfortunately compacts a number of scenes which are supposed to be surprises into a thirty second clip, and it still doesn’t do justice to what this movie has in store for you. Just take it from me when I say this movie brings you a number of charming surprises while delivering an intriguing plot and exciting action sequences.

Movie Review: Iron Man

Hands down the best Marvel movie out there.

Director: Jon Favreau (Zathura, Elf)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content)
What I Expected: A typical, mediocre-at-best, predictable Marvel movie.
What I Got: A Marvel movie that felt like the first candid attempt at proper cinema.
Appeals To: Iron Man fans, action movie fans, Robert Downey Jr. fans, and anyone who wants to watch a fun blockbuster movie.

We’ve all done it. We watched the quality of the X-Men films degrade, then we watched the quality of Spider-Man films degrade. We watched other Marvel legends such as Daredevil, The Incredible Hulk, Electra, and Ghost Rider grace the silver screen only to leave the theater - or your couch - knowing you’ll never have those two hours of your life back but wishing you can at least forget the movie ever existed. The better ones were based on the more popular franchises, and in hindsight were popcorn flicks. They were enjoyable while they were hot, but you probably only cared enough to watch the DVD once. When I saw the Iron Man previews, I smirked to see them, but I went into the theater with the same skepticism I hold for Marvel films as I do for most blockbusters.

Then here comes a knight in shining red-and-gold armor with a missile launcher in his cuirass to blow that premonition to soldering, smoky shards.

Impressions: Grand Theft Auto IV (X360)

DISCLAIMER: This is more of a rant than it is a review, but since this has aspects of both, I shall categorize it as both. Also, this is an impression, not a full review since I only started playing.

We’ve all heard of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and its infamous Hot Coffee scandal. It’s that controversy that brought Jack Thompson to public attention. The controversy, caused by lazy programmers. ended up making Rockstar execs wipe egg off their face: surely, you can’t add “third party content” to a Playstation 2.It was the only reason I bought San Andreas: they were taking it off the market and it’s now a collector’s item. And the game sucks. I’m not sorry if you disagree. I shouldn’t have to spend five hours doing pointless tasks that feel inane and eventually self-indulgent. It was also the reason I was skeptical to buy Grand Theft Auto IV. With the high ratings given by all - not just many of - the reviewers, I decided this would be one of those games I’d break my rule of “clearly this will be a greatest hit and therefore $20 in the future” and hop on the band wagon early.

Boy, am I glad I was wrong.

Retrograde Review: Kirby Super Star

The Super Nintendo is easily my favorite video game system; I still have it hooked to my HDTV and I still play games on it. While it didn’t have the power to push lifelike polygons and games over 30 hours to today’s standards, it has the soul that hasn’t been in games for a while since the outbreak of CD technology. While there are numerous games on the Super Nintendo that will always be remembered and spoken about, one touching classic does not often pass the lips of the casual gamer who was alive in the early 90’s: Kirby Super Star. While Kirby Super Star isn’t anywhere close to being the paradigm classic of the Super Nintendo, it certainly stands out as a memorable game, and possibly one of the best Kirby games you could play for any system.

A Performance Crysis: Blasted to Oblivion

Anybody who knows me has probably heard me at least once slam Crysis for being able to kill myself on a freezer door with a supposedly defense-enhanced nanosuit of the future. That describes the limit of what I can play of Crysis as anything remotely close to a shoot-out - in a FPS game, mind you - is reduced to a flip-book when Crysis is set to its “High” settings. Performance gripes aside, whatever still frames that are in Crysis are a sight to behold, even at one setting below its’ maximum “Ultra High.” However, thanks to recent experiences with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I come to ask myself: do I really need that powerful of a machine to play a beautiful looking game? There are work-arounds, but at what cost?

Welcome to CxM! (Inaugural Post)

Welcome to Civitas Ex Machina! (That’s Latin for “city from machine.”) I’m a tech professional by weekday, a gamer by weeknight, and a curious urbanite by weekend. I have eclectic tastes, a penchant for learning about my passions, and an itchy keyboard finger.

And you can read all about it here, on the blog dedicated to movies, games, and food, with some geek/entertainment excursions on the side. Essentially, this is a geek’s approach to real life, hoping to bridge the gap between the bohemian and the techie.