You Again (2010— 105 mins) J-L Curtis, K. Bell, S. Weaver, B. White

Marni (Bell) is an ugly duckling who was picked on ruthlessly by the school populars in high school. Now she is a beautiful highly successful exec. who is happy to come home and show off her success at her brother’s wedding weekend. Little does she know that her brothers fiance’ is the queen bee of the high school torment AKA her arch nemesis from childhood (how the heck she doesn’t know this after all the time she dated her brother whom she is supposedly SUPER CLOSE is beyond me but hey suspension of disbelief). It’s now Mani’s self given job to expose the witch to her brother as the evil woman she is. Adding a nice sub-plot to all of this is that the witch Johanna’s (O. Yustman) aunt Ramona (Weaver) was a high school nemesis of Marni’s mother (Curtis).  The twist to that aspect is that Marni’s mother was the popular one and Ramona was the understudy. A decent twist to the whole thing but still not TOO crazy or over compelling to get in the way of the main story. It’s almost like a comedic side kick to the plot.

The movie is a cute family movie in veins of things like you would see on ABC Family on a Sat night. It was a good change of pace for the Red Box night where we generally are in more heavier dramas, Indy’s, or story Rom-Coms. A welcome change where you can say it is as advertised. Not breaking any new ground and never extremely gaffaw inducing but good enough. All the actors do a decent job but never anyone standing out. I would say it’s all above avg with a good cameo nod to Kristen Chenoweth as the party planner extreme, she tends to steal the show when she is there. It’s a shame that Betty White was just meh here as it becomes overly obvious that she is here for a couple of quips but never gets to the Betty we all want in here.

Verdict—> A good family friendly comedy a slight tick under the comedy level of Meet the Fockers. You will laugh and enjoy it but it won’t make a terribly huge imact. I think most people will like it

Animal Kingdom (2010–113 mins) J. Frecheville, G. Pierce, Jacki Weaver

This Australian indy has been getting a ton of attention for its subtle ruggedness, it’s writing, and most importantly the brilliant performance by Jacki Weaver (more on her as I explain the story a bit). There had been many who have said that this movie should have been nominated for an Oscar this year. While I thought it was a good darkhorse/unknown type movie to the mainstream, and it was a good watch, I am not sure I would put it up there with Inception and True Grit as one of the top movies of the year. It is however, a good watch and one I recommend to true fans of film and of the “gangster” genre.

Josh Cody has sucky luck in life. He has an addict for a mom, and she’s now dead. He does what he thinks is right and calls his somewhat estranged grandmother Janine (Weaver) to take him in. However, there is a good reason his mother has kept him away form the rest of the family. They are abunch of gangsters, thieves and drug dealers. Janine is the matriarch who oversees the family in more of a hands off supervisor way, letting her sons manage the business. What Josh has now is a support system that does look after him and does love him as their own, but still a surrounding system he wants basically no part of if he can avoid it.

Some of the family naturally is under constant investigation and it escalates to a head in a fashion that the family and Josh’s life will never be the same. It’s a movie that starts off REAL slow, but you just have to try and take it all in and get past it. If you can you are rewarded with a smart tale of, love, revenge nd betrayal that will keep you thinking well after you stop watching the movie. It’s got a lot of subtle charm to it and a few WTF no way! moments as well. One of the best take home charm of the movie is the role of the matriarch Janine by Weaver as stated above. This academy award nominated role (for best supporting actress) isn’t entirely out there in your face at first. But as it all goes on you see a mother who has an unnatural love of her sons and still manages to manipulates them all to her will as well. This might sound evil enough but Weaver manages to embody this part in such a way that she thoroughly deserved the nomination.

Spoilery spoiler type view on the title. I like when directors use a good thought provoking title that is somewhat explained in the movie and also keeps you thinking. In the middle at one point Detective Leckie (Pearce) in trying to get Josh to turn on his family explains how they are all just remnicant of animals in the animal kingdom. He explains how Josh might seem safe, his family won’t always be able to protect him from the animals. By the end we see the previously timid and vulnurable kid turn into  the alpha lion of the family. The survival of the fittest and “Animal Kindom” has come full circle. At first I was slightly disenchanted with the ending, not fully mind you, but slightly. But as I thought deeper about it I felt that as he was hugging his grandmother and her reluctance/ scardness of hugging back shows he has seized his control of the situation and come of age. He has freed himself of his worst threat in his uncle, and the only uncle left is the most timid and useless of the group. He’s still screwed in life b/c he’s got a useless family and the woman he loves is dead, but at least he has asserted some

Verdict—> As I said above it’s more of a genre movie and indy that fans of those types of movies will like but the mainstream movie goer might not like. IF you are more of a blockbuster only or  rom-com type then it’s not for you. However, for those others who will like it just stick with it past the first 15 to 20 mins so you can enjoy it. It’s got depth and some real life that you will like. Def worth the 1$ for film lovers.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010—133 mins) S. Labeouf, M. Douglas, J. Brolin, C. Mulligan

Jake (LaBeouf) is an up and coming stock market/investing/wall street genius. This genius just happens to be engaded to the one and only Gordon Gekko’s daughter. As the enconomy goes into the toilet and the market has it’s tank, Jake’s mentor is ambushed by a takeover and driven to suicide. In wanting to get revenge and as a lesser aside have his future wife have her relationship with her father mended, he reaches out to good old Gordo to help him in his endeavor. If you are someone who wants to see this movie, you probably already have seen the first movie and you full well know trusting Gordon Gekko is not a smart endeavor.

The movie gives you what you expect. A lot of high talking about economics, everyone screwing everyone in business, and with it being an Oliver Stone movie it’s entirely too damn long. He has a way of telling a story over 2 and a half hours which could have been told in just a tick under two. It drags at parts and goes around the world to bring us to 3 inevitable conclusions we were waiting for. It’s not entirely bad but just long. All the actors do their schtick well, with Brolin being the only one who leaft something to be desired in his portrayal of a back stabbing billionaire. One thing Stone does with this movie is he wraps it all up nicely (when he finally does) and doesn’t leave us wanting more. It’s the end of the franchise and it’s a decent end and we don’t need or want to see a part 3.

Verdict—> If you are either a fan of the first movie or politcal/economic/intelectual thrillers you will enjoy this. Or if you are just a O. Stone junky too. The rest of us, this will leave us ready for sleep. It’s a bit too long. IF you don’t fit into those categories you can prob skip it, b/c it will come off a bit boring and draggy at times. Again, I kinda fit into those categories and thought it was a decent movie even if I prob won’t watch it again. But not a great date night movie, and not a good double feature b/c you will be watching movies till the sun

Dinner For Schmucks (2010—114mins) P. Rudd, S. Carell

Tim (Rudd) is just trying to be successfull at life. He’s got a job he wants to move up in, and a girlfriend he would like to marry. He’s a smart guy but like most main characters in these comedies he’s destined to go thru hell to get it. Tim has an oportunity to get a promotion, but it hinges on him going to a dinner with his boss and other higher executives. The catch is this is a dinner in which you have to bring a special person. One who is a complete schleb in life so they can all make fun of them. The schmuck he then bumps into is Barry(Carell), a socially inept idiot who’s first love is taxidermy with mice.  It’s not a big movie secret that Tim at first hates Barry and the schmuck dinner is perfect, but as they have some hijinks and get to know each other we all realize the real schmucks are the guys hosting the dinner. No real movie watching secrets here, but the key to the movie is how we get there.

The movie breaks down into two main parts. The part where Tim and Barry meet and all the Three’s Company tomfoolery and miss direction happens, and the half where the dinner actually happens. I have mixed feelings about the movie with these parts. First, the movie is damn funny. Carell is a great moron, and Rudd is, as always, a perfect straight guy. However, as funny as it is the first act/half of it is a bit too long. From when we get the going to the dinner and after is just the right length. It’s a slapstick comedy with a heartfelt type message. It’s just too long at 114mins. As usual tho I can’t pick one or two scenes I would cut out but that’s not my job. My job is to tell you it’s a good movie and a good rental. Zack Galifinakis is genius as his usual odd ball self and is great at it. Also with a small but great part is Jeff Dunham as, what else, a Ventrilloquist who is married to his art. He’s funny as hell and not too over the top about it all, not needing to be more of a part of it then he is, which I like about the part.

Verdict—> A good comedy which overstays it’s welcome around the midway point, but you don’t notice it b/c by the time you get tired of the first act the second act starts. It’s also funny enough to carry your attention span for the rest of the movie. It’s a top rental b/c it’s funny and well worth the rental.

Let me first say that before I bash something I saw on the AIE forums, I am 100% a huge fan of Frogpants and Scott Johnson and that crew. The Instance is my favorite podcast and ScoJo is a legend if not a celebrity in the podcasting universe. I have always been interested in being a part of their community, but since I played WoW for around a year or so before I started to listen to them I was established on my server already (and despise PVP servers) so I never did join their guild.

Since I have decided to start playing RIFT at launch I figured this might be a decent time to see if they are going to have a server they will play on. I looked at PCGamer yesterday to see if any of those guys are going to have a guild and thus I figured I would look into AIE as well. I saw some threads on their forums at extralife and dove further into checking it out. What I found utterly disgusted me. Here is the quote from their forum as an official AIE stance.

(As discussed by the officers in the Townhall meeting, there is no official AIE presence in RIFT. The plan is to have the game launch and give it at least 5-6 months to see if it has legs. Rift will have to earn an AIE presence by being a successful game that AIE players enjoy. For the time being, this thread will be a place for us to play Rift and be able to find each other on a common server.)

I have bolded the part that sums it up the best. EARN your presence? Are you fucking kidding me guys? EARN!!! Give me a break. Go diflate your heads a bit. It’s obvious your guild has a strong interest in playing the game and wants to be a part of it. Where is the harm at letting one of the 20 or so people who have already said they will play have the guild leader title for RIFT and let them use the name. It can only build more of a community. NOPE, now your “officers” have discussed it as elitest A-holes who are entirely too full of themselves and made a rediculous statement such as this. Get over yourselves. It’s already annoying that we have to listen to how they want blizz to make special rules for guilds b/c they are so large. You are huge, we get it. But in no means are you gaming royalty. Your members want to be together in another game, so let them.

Me? I will continue to look for a guild either from a community I want to try out such as my exiting WoW guilds, or just see what strikes me when in game. I tell you what I won’t do tho… I won’t go near a server where the people from AIE are taking hold. This could very well just be poor wording on someone’s part or pretentious officers making a dumb statement, either way I want no part of them in RIFT or WoW at all after seeing this.

Note to AIE leadership, dial it down a bit people, take your head out of the clouds and spread the GOOD word of AIE, instead of being elistest

So a ton of the searches I see coming up the last month or so one sticks out. “Is RIFT any good?” I see it come across my spider constantly. I came home from work last Thursday, saw that RIFT was open beta for the next few days and I wanted to see for myself… is RIFT any good….

Well before I get into what it’s about and what I liked and did not like, I will say this, YES it IS that good, I only hope it can CONTINUE to be that good for more then 3-5 months.

OK when I played what did I notice? Well the obvious first thing that sticks out is the rifts and invasions themselves. Take the public quests(PQs) from Warhammer and make them a bit more random occurring and also at a higher occurrence, that’s where you start. You reallly cannot miss them on the mini-map b/c they are brighter colored then the rest of it and if you mouse over it, it will tell you what type of elemental rift it is and what level. When you get within a certain range of the rift you can join a public group which will make it easier to heal and coordinate as well as make you eligible for rewards at end (you might be eligible if you aren’t in the group but just always group it makes it a ton easier). Also when they are completed the rewards are per person, based on how well you did in the rift. So don’t worry about any ninjas taking all your hard work. Sure there are still drops off of the mobs and they can be rolled on, and they don’t quite have who can need what done right yet, but the main rewards are personal (which I like a ton). The rewards that I saw were primarily some currency “planarite”, some occasional things that drop random items like crating mats, and then the usual random items. It takes a ton of planarite to get any of the rarer items but eh that’s ok we don’t want to get everything THAT easy do we? The rifts themselves are actually real fun and you find a ton of help from other players b/c once some major ones spawn you get everyone in a certain radius hauling ass over to the rift to close it up and get the rewards. The same is fairly easily said about the “invasions”. Every now and then,you get some random invasions and also some scripted ones. The scripted ones are pretty cool as well and you get some yelling in the air by a big bad and then also get messages broadcast throughout out the land to everyone. They are pretty tough and a bunch of elites scatter the land so while some minor rifts couldbe done solo, these elite invasions certainly cannot. Find a group and take them on and when its all over you get some rewards as well. The non scripted type of invasions are bands of npcs from the other factions which come running in from and to a location. You could prolly take them on a bit easier with a couple man crew. Again, these all show up nicely on the map when you pull it up so keep an eye on that, it offers a great break from regular questing and is fun.

What I liked about rifts—> I just couldn’t stop doing them, the large groups working together, the feeling of completion, the rewards. They all felt great. It’s a little better then when I tried WAR in beta and did the PQ’s. The problem with them was you didn’t always get loot. Sometimes you had to do them a few times and still get a lucky roll from a chest to get something. Here, everyone gets SOMETHING, and as gamers we just want loot, plain and simple.

What scares me about rifts—> Again I bring up WAR. One of the things that killed WAR (I know it’s not the only thing but to me, it was a huge reason I didn’t play past beta), is that once people leveled past the first dozen or so levels the PQ’s were EMPTY. You simply cannot finish PQ’s with no public to help. It’s entirely possible this can happen in RIFT. What happens in 1 month when everyone is 20+ and not in the lower level zones. What happens when no one is around to help you with a same level rift as you are? Well you won’t be able to complete it, you will die trying, and then the rift would end up over flowing and attacking the towns and such with invasions until the breaking point when the server decides the home area will rise up and defeat the rift. Boy I am hoping I am wrong. I hope that there are some fail safes in place to ensure these areas won’t suck in 5 months. Rifts are a great gimmick and they are 1/2 of the reason I am hooked. The second reason….

THE SOULS (Class system)

There are 4 main classes (Warrior,Mage,Cleric, and Rogue) which break up into 9 sub-classes each. Thats basically 36 specs!  In comparison, WoW has 10 classes which all have 3 spec’s each for a total of 30. However, your character at any one time will be able to choose 3 sub-class of your main class. You then can also have 4 slots for different spec’s makeups of these. So the possibilities are limitless. I found that just about every single class has one spec for pure damage and one class which can heal. Sure most of the healer specs are for survivability as solo or in conjunction with a main healer, but it seemed to me from playing and looking over them all that any of them could be spec’d to a main healer at any time at certain levels. What I found is I couldn’t get enough of playing around with these specs and souls. I must have made about 6 atls just to try out a multitude of specs and souls. I will say every single one of them had fun parts and I only tried out roughly 15% (at most) of the souls available.

Warrior

I will outline the Warrior class first since I got the least time with them. I figured I wouldn’t be playing all too much in the beta in groups so although I usually LOVE to be a tank in groups, I wouldn’t be doing any dungeons this weekend so I will leave most of that until launch. I ended up trying out Void Knight (specializing in killing magic using foes) and something else (see I told you I didn’t play it long, so I don’t even remember what I paired it with). It was ok but the survivability wasn’t great at lower levels, which I am fully aware would change with the right combo, but I ended up having so much fun with other classes I never got back to mess with the warrior again. A lot of people were talking about how fun the Paladin was, and people seemed to be shredding monsters as warriors so I am sure I will try it out at some point.

Mage

Mage was the one I played the 2nd least but I did end up having a blast once I respec’d. I started off with Warlock and Necromancer and then grabbed Chloromancer next and made it my 3rd soul. Initially it was ok, I had a pet and like WoW afliction warlocks I was DoTing my way to kills. However the Skeleton pet doesn’t keep aggro amazingly well and I ended up pulling aggro constantly. He did some good damage tho, but the addition of chloromancer def helped with the self healing and survivability. BUT, the kicker came when I decided to respec into Chloromancer being my MAIN of the 3 specs and I threw more points into it then the other 2. I figured this would be more of a healer heavy build to try and see what it would be like to have a primary healing role as a mage. Well it seemed that not only did I have the means to heal myself and others, but I also did some decent damage along the way and kill things as well. Sure, this might diminish a ton as I got higher but that feeling of killing paired with healing is a ton of fun. And since I solo 75% or more of the time any self healing on the go is a huge plus to me. This will also make it to my must play list once it launches.

Rogue

I normally don’t end up playing rogus much in MMO’s. They are slower moving in stealth, and those type people generally are the types who prefer PVP. But I wanted to try out every class in this beta so I did. Holy crap was it fun. The setup is rogue basic from every game (and WoW too). You use energy to make your special attacks and then each main attack builds up combo points which you drain all the combo points with a big “finisher”. The finisher as always can range from just plain big damage, to damage + DoT damage, to damage + adding dodge % to yuo for some time, and the list goes on. The spec’s I used were nightblade, bladedancer, and riftstalker. I found the nightblade fiery spike (throwing a flaming dagger at an enemy to do damage and get points) to be amazingly fun and possibly OP in rifts b/c of the high rate of fire and this helps with your contribution in rifts and thus better rewards. Just spam it at all of the monsters all over the battlefield and you will be doing damage everywhere. I figured I would just go straight DPS on this trial toon, and it ended up being a great damage dealer and a ton of fun. I did this b/c in every MMO the 1st thing most people go for are the ranger or Marksman types for the pets and the killing from afar. I did this like so many others in WoW with my main being a NE Hunter so I wanted to branch out some and I wasn’t disappointed. I even did one battleground PVP on him. While I am not sure I made a huge difference, being in the lower 1/3 of the levels in the BG but we ende dup rolling over the other faction easy which made for good amount of their version of honor points and a couple of quests done too, so hey it was all good! The fact that damage was good travel was also good and speed of play was great will make it for me to play at launch an easy choice. I enjoyed it equal to as much as the last class I tried….

Cleric

Most of the time when you see cleric you just thing of healing and that’s it. Here clerics can be healers dps and also tanks. This will undoubtedly be the most versatile of all the classes in RIFT and likely the one I start first. One of the funnest classes I ever played was something on the destruction side of Warhammer. I think it was one of the dark elven ones where when you did damage this charged up your “mana” and then you could use that to heal others in battle (obviously the warrior priest in WAR is prolly the same way). It was a ton of fun to be dealing a TON of damage and at the same time throwing heals to save someone else in the party as well. This was the most fun I had in an MMO class, and I have constantly been trying to replicate this feeling to no avail until I stumbled upon the Justicar in RIFT. From asking around this seemed like the best choice for what I wanted to do. I liked the damage output and once I got 6 points into the soul I unlocked a spell which was an AOE heal which came out from me to up to 10 nearby party members. Making that spell a great thing for using in rifts. I could get into the main fray and then throw out heals without targeting anyone. It doesn’t get much better then that! I only hope that skill levels some more and does better heals and then it opens up a ton of options like either main or off tank or just dps. I paired it with the shamen soul and it made for some more fun. Really I didn’t do much with the other souls I used b/c I just kept pumping points into justicar to see how high I could get in that tree in the short beta time and see how much fun it would be.

This was the character I used to do the most rifts with and I ended up getting a HUGE amount of rewards from the rifts. Like I said earlier the rifts when you are piling up the rewards and having people to seal them with you are just addicting and make you so excited when you see another one pop up.

Final initial thoughts

I really fell in love with this game. I got the collectors edition and plan on playing for at least 3 months for the cheaper monthly fee and I figure that by the end of it I will either love it more or be burned out. I figured that the parts of rift that I loved the most were the ones that could be damaged the most if I waited until a few months after launch (mainly worrying about lower level zones being empty and the rift experience potentially sucking) so I figured might as well get in when a TON of people would be online and go from there. So after the initial period I will either like or not like grouping or the dungeons (which I can’t wait to try out since I only maxed at around level 15 I never got into a dungeon at all) or be burnt out on it all. Other games turned me off in similar times (LotRO 3 months and I said everything it did WoW did better, Aion 1 month and I realized the grind-fest it was and quit) but I am hopeful I can come to love this game in 3 months and continue to play.  At the very least I love it now, (and I don’t think it’s only because it’s new and shiny) and definitely recommend it to anyone who loves MMO’s and/or WoW clones. Sure it’s a clone but hey if you love WoW , and I DO!, then take that as a good thing and try it out!

More info after the launch!

There isn't as much to say about the game itself as there was about the other days and things going on, mainly because unless you were there the game is typically pretty boring. I love hockey more then many other people out there and I even don't care much about these games most years. It's b/c the game has no hitting, plenty of cherry picking, no slap shots, and for the home team an air of "get any Hurricane a goal so the arena goes crazy". We ended up seeing a bunch of odd man rushes which were nice, a couple of bone head give-aways in the defensive zone (I'm looking at you Chara five times!) and only one Hurricane goal on a real sweet Staal breakaway. 

All in all the guys really seemed to have a good time on the ice, showing in the many smiles the guys had with their teammates and opposition alike. Guys like Martin St. Louis not only had a smile but he also took a bunch of photos of his own throughout the weekend. To leave the weekend with a great feeling you don't have to look much further then the 2 guys (one from each team) who had smiles on their faces the most, Jeff Skinner and Matt Duchene. 3 weeks later I still cannot believe I got to see it live and as close as I did, and can only dream that the city and franchise has earned the right to host it sooner then later. I threw a slideshow together of some good pictures from the AS Game, it's my first attempt at slideshows so I hope it comes out ok. If there is any player you want to have a picture of feel free to email me and I will forward a pic or two from the weekend I pretty much got everyone at one time or another. (1500 pictures taken will do that!) Enjoy!

%%wppa%%

%%slide=1%%

I am not sure how I managed to miss the tweets that Felicia Day was going to be on Jimmy Fallon this week, but luckily they have it online like all interview shows should!

Not only is Felicia an amazing spokes-chick for the geek world but she brought with her the premier teaser for the upcoming web series Dragon Age:Redemption. So not only do we have to look forward to season 5 of the Guild coming soon, but we get a 2nd and most certainly KILLER web show starring the Queen of the Geek world. Great  job on Fallon, Felicia and we all cannot wait for these two shows to get released. And of course she looked beautiful you don’t have to ask… (One of the few women the GJ can geek out about and Mrs. GJ doesn’t give me crap for it hehe).  I will post these shows as they get started this summer so that you guys can partake in the awesomeness!

Oh and shameless plug for the Guild since they rock and deserve some cash from us all. Season 4 will be on sale next week so go pick it up!

So we finally get to the end of the magical NHL All Star weekend. And this day would be a great end to a weekend of a lifetime for a hockey fan. I am going to break this up into two posts, since to me, there was two big things on Sunday. First was the game as we all know. Second was the unveiling of what I feel will be a great addition to the comic book world and the exposure of the NHL universe to hopefully a new generation of hockey fans… The Guardian 30 Project. This first part of my coverage for Sunday will only cover the unveiling of the Guardian Project.

The big unveil didn’t occur until the 2nd intermission, and there was a decent amount of people still in their seats for it as well. They dropped the sheet down from the bottom of the jumbo tron like they did for the introductions on Sat and Sunda of the all stars. This basically served as a backdrop for some of the projection for the presentation. First Stan Lee came on the Jumbo Tron and said welcome to the unveiling and then a few of the Guardians were showed via the projector. I won’t talk about what happened during it all, because I have posted the video of it below. But first, some thoughts.

My first reaction to the whole thing was that the on screen animation of the presentation was simply AMAZING. Sure it was only a small snippit of animation for each character, but the mixing them into the real world scenery of Raleigh and the RBC center area looked awesome. I was however a bit turned off by the whole presentation for in arena that was not on the screen. That was tho until I got home and saw the video of it. The video (as you will see below) shows what they did with the projection onto the “sheet” that hung from the jumbo tron. It enabled the viewers to see everything we saw in the arena as a 3d hologram, and oh my God does it look cool. I am real excited to see what is instore for us next. The potential is limitless. If you haven’t yet head on over to the official Guardian Project websiteand pick up the graphic novel. It’s got a story for each of the guardians and shows you just how hard they have worked on getting the personalities and stories set up for each guardian.

The future of the Guardian Project is bright as I see it and I am going to try and do regular posts covering the Project as information and reveals come available. If the video/animation is any indication of the quality of the project then we can rest assured that it will be top notch and enjoyable to comic fans, kids, and hockey fans out there.

And now for a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT…..

The GeekJock has conducted an interview with a member of the heart of the Guardian Project and used my own mind melding powers to get some juicy information…. I won’t say who my subject was as of yet… but stay tuned I know you won’t be disappointed!! I almost cannot hold back my excitement to share the great info either…

But for now enjoy the video of the reveal from All Star weekend and enjoy the killer animation!