New blog name, new direction, same old crap from your old pal Scott M. This blog will be about what it means to be a man, and sometimes specifically to be me, which might not be exactly the same thing. Since I didn’t update the old blog for months, it seems like a good time to try something new. Design changes and new posts coming soon, in the meantime you can consult the following video as a litmus test for whether or not you want to keep it bookmarked. 
Enjoy.
Archive for category Sweet
My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Jan 22
I do love cheesy horror movies. Some of the best horror pictures of the last few decades have been made by directors and screenwriters who are innovative while retaining a sense of humour; John Carpenter, Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, for example. I also hate most of the rash of horror remakes that have appeared in the last few years, which have replaced the humour and low-budget charm of their ancestors with bad CG and WB network refugees.
So I was not very optimistic about My Bloody Valentine 3D; I didn’t have any particular attachment to the 1981 original, a Canadian production that included Carl Marotte and Cynthia Dale. Like the original version of Prom Night, it was an above average effort. Indeed, the main reasons I wanted to see this remake were because it was in 3D, and to see one of the movies starring a brother from Supernatural (the other, a new Friday the 13th remake, will be released soon).
I was very pleasantly surprised. Jensen Ackles plays the same no-nonsense guy that he always does, supported by WB alumni like Kerr Smith and Jamie King; but the cast is rounded out by the great character actors Tom Atkins and Kevin Tighe. The story is pretty much what you would expect, retaining much of the original but with more action and of course, optimization for 3D.
The real star here is the new 3D process, which is very impressive. The theatre provided us with plastic sunglasses rather than cardboard frames with blue and red filters. The sunglasses presumably have special polarizing properties. Unlike the old process, you can wear the new glasses for the entire movie without getting a headache, and I did not notice any obvious “edging” between one object and another on screen. The film did not overuse the 3D in very obnoxious ways, apart from the predictable pickaxe-coming-at-you sort of shots; most of the time it simply feels like the audience is in the room with the actors.
This process is being touted as a way to drive audiences back into theatres. With the right movies, it might well work. As for My Bloody Valentine, if you like to laugh while cringing at gore, this is the movie for you.
Little Big Planet
Jan 5
I am not very far into the single-player campaign, but I am far enough to say that Little Big Planet is one of the most amazing, brilliant, humourous and charming games I have ever seen- with guidance from the bemused voice of Stephen Fry, no less.
The player assumes the identity of Sackboy, a kind of customizable voodoo doll. With a few gestures of the controller, your Sackboy can grin, cringe, cry, gesture wildly and otherwise display an impressive range of emotions. As you progress through one amusingly designed level after another, each often resembling some kind of middle school diorama, your Sackboy collects a wide variety of stickers, costume pieces, and tools that allow you to create and customize your own levels, which can be shared with others over the PS network.
I’m looking forward to spending many more hours in Little Big Planet. If you have it too, my PSN username is sho_cois, look me up sometime.
Game: Art Style Cubello
Oct 13
On a whim, I downloaded a WiiWare game today called Art Style Cubello. It’s kind of like a combination of 3D Tetris and Intelligent Qube. The player places coloured blocks on a rotating 3D structure in such a way that if 4 of the same colour are assembled together, they disappear and the remaining blocks consolidate together. Pretty cool little game for 6 bucks.
