I realize that I haven't really written much lately, having not put anything up in a few weeks and probably nothing resembling a full-blown review or article in a month or longer. I'm sorry, my motivation for writing (or doing much of anything, really) has hit a new low so that's why I've been away. But at least some people are still reading this (hopefully) because somehow I've just now reached over 1,000 hits total. Thanks guys! As a present, here's a new Random Movie Roundup with a new batch of movies! Yeah, I know it's a shitty present, so just pretend I'm your grandma and shut up and pretend you like it, OK?
Ninja and Dragons - Honestly, I don't remember anything about this movie. I remember watching it but couldn't tell you what it was about other than it had people kicking. That should tell you something. I don't remember it being bad...but I just don't remember anything about it at all so it probably doesn't have anything to help it stand out from every other kung-fu movie out there. C
Ninja In The Dragon's Den - However, this movie I DO remember and my god was it great! I'm actually kinda surprised to see this relegated to some cheap-ass DVD set and not be celebrated as a martial arts classic. Basically, you have Hiroyuki "Harry" Sanada, protege of the legendary Sonny Chiba, representing the dastardly ninja while Conan Lee (who looks so much like Jackie Chan that if Jackie were more popular in the '70s and '80s and died like Bruce Lee did, then Conan would be the first in line for the following Chan-sploitation films) playing the cocky hero, only to have the two put their differences aside and team up against a larger enemy in the end. Storywise, it's your average kung-fu movie. But the fight scenes are solid and top-notch and the comedy is hilarious, not too corny or cringe-inducing. Seriously, between this and Ninja The Final Duel (reviewed in the previous Random Movie Roundup), the Ninja: Legendary Assassins 4-movie set I got at Best Buy for $7 was well worth it. A-
To Catch A Ninja - I almost want to give this movie two grades, one for each half of the movie. The first half was so boring that I fell asleep and almost didn't want to watch the movie at all. There was little to no fighting, the plot (involving a "ninja" and his girlfriend staging heists and stealing money from her own father) was confusing and there were too many awkward sex scenes. At one point, there were two love scenes back to back and between the crappy film quality and the whole "Asians looking alike" racism-thing, I honestly thought it was just one scene filmed at different times of the day. But then the movie got better by going all out. The plot didn't get any less confusing and the sex scenes any less awkward. The fighting increased a little bit but still wasn't that good (except for the epic battle at the end). What happened was the movie went all out with wackiness. For starters, ROLLER SKATING NINJAS!
In fact, much of the action would involve chase scenes instead of kung-fu fighting. In one chase scene, one of the cars somehow flipped over and landed upside-down on top of the other one! And in another scene, the bad guys run over one of the protagonists (a kung-fu insurance agent lady, I shit you not) in a phonebooth, obliterating it and surely killing her. But in the next scene, we get a POV shot from inside the car and the lady pops her head out from over the hood, having hung on to the grill of the car like she totally didn't get ran over or anything. Anyway, if you do watch this, skip the first half of the movie altogether. I'll give this movie an average score of C+, between the boring as hell first half and the crazy as hell second half.
South Bronx Heroes - Going back to my "Urban Action Cinema" DVD set (Read: Blaxploitation), here we have an odd find from 1985, a time where Blaxploitation had long since died. The only reason this movie is even in this set is because it has Mario Van Peebles in it before he started doing high-quality movies like Sniper. It's actually about a couple of white kids who run away from their foster parents who beat them and used other foster kids for child porn. No shit. Hell, the opening scene of the movie has a little kid having fun drawing with crayons and then his foster dad tells him to get on the bed and take his shirt off so some chick can make out with him while they film it. WTF? And since when did they have chicks making out with little boys in child porn? If that's how it really works, I think I grew up the wrong way. Anyway, the kids run away and live on their own until they meet up with Mario Van Peebles when they try to use his shower because they're stinky and homeless. They then concoct a plan to put the foster dad behind bars. The end. Yeah, they may have done that but they aren't really heroes. In fact, all the characters are kinda annoying, though that's due to the kids having thick Brooklyn accents and Mario's "cool and hip" dialogue being written by an obvious white guy. At one point, Mario gets mad at the foster dad while he calls to make a deal because "You're making me miss Star Trek, man!" But we do get to see a flashback where Mario's grandfather teaches him how to be a man by pointing a gun at a mugger's dick. Better yet, we see the brother tell his little sister to "Climb a fence, faggot!", which is totally an acceptable insult to use on a 10 year old girl. So it's not all bad. It's just not that good. I give it a C-, which would've been worse if not for "Climb a fence, faggot!" Never gets old, I tell ya.
Black Brigade - It's your typical story of Racist Southern Army General being forced to command a brigade of black soldiers and learns the error of his ways through battle...despite the soldiers reinforcing most of his beliefs until the last 5 minutes of the movie. It's not that bad of a movie and is better than the average Blaxploitation movie on the sole basis that it's also a War movie. But it's good to see guys like Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor in roles before they got huge. And not only that, the movie was written and produced by Aaron Spelling. Yes, the guy who brought you Beverly Hills 90210 made a Blaxploitation War movie. No shit. C+
Mongol - I've been wanting to see this movie for a long time now and finally got to when I recently found it on Netflix a few days ago. After seeing Tadanobu Asano in such films as Ichi The Killer and Electric Dragon 80,000 Volts, I freaked out when I heard he was going to be playing Genghis freakin' Khan in a movie. But as I started up the movie, reality soon hit as I was in for a historical epic that's just over two hours long and I was already pretty tired. So yeah, no scenes of Genghis Khan cutting off his own tongue or wailing on a guitar. But Mongol was still pretty damned good and managed to keep me awake through storytelling and not violence and bloodshed (Who knew?). Definitely worth a watch if you're into that sort of thing. A-
Run Fatboy Run - As a fan of Simon Pegg, I was glad to see that he could succeed on his own without being backed up by the likes of Nick Frost and Edgar Wright (though I still need to see Spaced). But also I checked out Run Fatboy Run since it was written by comedian and alum of The State, Michael Ian Black. So I was quite surprised to see that it follows the standard romantic comedy formula (thankfully with more emphasis on comedy than romance). That doesn't mean it isn't entertaining as the performances made the film so enjoyable. But when you see Michael Ian Black, words like "basic" and "formulaic" don't exactly come to mind. Then again, Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant did write Herbie Fully Loaded, Balls of Fury, Taxi, The Pacifier and BOTH of the Night At The Museum movies, so I guess you gotta do what you gotta do to pay the bills, even in Hollywood. B+
So there you have it, the most recent rash of movies I watched. I do kinda enjoy this brief format for whenever I've seen a bunch of random movies in the span of a few weeks but I don't know if I'll get to do this again any time soon as I have no more movies to watch (unless I scour Netflix some more). The only movie I have left to watch is Ghost Rider, which will be reviewed, I promise. And until The Expendables comes out in a couple weeks, I don't really imagine myself going to see anything else in the theaters.
In the meantime, I've been trying to get back into my crazy backlog of games. I decided to start with The Warriors for PS2, which almost plays like a Best Of Rockstar compilation game. It's kinda like a simplified, arcade-y version of Grand Theft Auto with elements of Manhunt thrown in for good measure. But I'm not sure if I like it yet. The controls feel a little "floaty" and maneuvering takes some getting used to. I remember one section where I had to jump across some roofs that took me about 5 minutes to finally make the jump. Plus it's hard to do stuff like steal car radios for money when there are cops everywhere. When they see you, they'll try to beat you up and arrest your buddies, so you have to beat them up, but if another cop sees you do that, then they'll beat you up too. It can be a mess and I'm only in the first few sections of the game. But what I do like is that they managed to get most, if not all, of the cast of the original movie to do their voices to make everything as authentic as possible. In fact, the intro for the game is exactly like the intro to the movie, complete with an old school Paramount Pictures logo at the beginning. Even the background music is appropriate and comes complete with the radio DJ from the movie keeping tabs on all the gangs. But still, I'm not sure if I want to keep trying or try something else, like Scarface.
Also, I decided to stop by GameStop for a little bit to poke around and actually came out of there with some decent swag. I snagged the Sonic Mega Collection for PS2, and Warioland 4 and Gunstar Super Heroes for the Game Boy Advance all for about $10 total. I really wanted to get some more use out of the Game Boy Micro I bought a few years ago as I only have 4 games for it: Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Yoshi's Island, Warioware Twisted and Fire Pro Wrestling 4. I've pretty much beaten the first three games and dust off Fire Pro for the occasional match but that gets boring after a while. So far, I've been playing Warioland 4 the most as it brings back a lot of memories of the first Wario Land, which was probably my favorite game on the old-school Game Boy when I was younger. It plays slightly differently and there's some fun gimmicks with the gameplay like reaching a switch at the end that causes the exit to the level to pop back up at the beginning and you have to reach it before the timer hits zero or else you lose. It sounds annoying but when you actually play it, it works. As for Gunstar Super Heroes, I've only played a little bit of it but it looks like a fun random timewaster, which is what I want. Seeing as I only had about 5 games for the Sega Genesis, I missed out on playing the original Gunstar Heroes, which many claim as one of the greatest games on the system.
I got the Sonic Mega Collection for a measly $5 thanks to GameStop's most recent sale, which has a lot of games I want. So much so in fact that I'm seriously thinking about trading in New Super Mario Bros. Wii for $25 credit, which is impressive considering Crackdown 2 which just came out is the same, while Mario has been out for a while now. I kinda feel bad about doing it but I haven't touched Mario for months now. But I figure I should take advantage of the credit now while I still can, and maybe pick up the game again later when I can get it for cheap...which probably won't be for a while considering Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess STILL sells for about $40 despite being almost as old as the Wii itself! Due to the sale, DJ Hero is only $50, turntable peripheral and all. I was super psyched about this game before but I don't think I'm gonna get it anymore. I've listened to the soundtrack and that's really all I need. I definitely don't need another fake instrument taking up room. But it'll definitely be interesting to see what they'll come up with for DJ Hero 2 later this year. What I'm really thinking about getting is Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition, which includes ALL of the Downloadable Content, for just $40. The thing about this is that I don't technically own an XBox 360 myself. My roommates do and while they'll let me play it, I don't wanna hold the thing hostage. Also, I'm not sure if their hard drive is big enough to hold all the DLC. But I'll found out. I'm sure I'll find something. Worse comes to worse, I'll just get some Wii points...which I might do anyway.
Other than games, I'm starting to get back into books a little bit too. I've been itching for something to read, even if it's just a new magazine whenever I need to sit on the toilet. Don't look at me like you've never done it. Reading while taking a deuce is one of life's simplest pleasures. Anyway, I bought a couple books lately which just made me want to get more. First, I got a self-help book (yeah, I know) recommended to me by a friend. I don't know if I'll finish it since it's freakin' huge but also I have trouble reading things that aren't interesting. And no offense but self-help books aren't exactly compelling reads. It's not like you're going to turn to the next chapter in anticipation, saying aloud "I wonder what will happen next?" To me, there's nothing more arduous and time-wasting than reading an uninteresting book. So that's why I also bought "A Lion's Tale" by Chris Jericho. Jericho has been, and probably will always be, one of my favorite pro wrestlers so it's nice to read about his life and career, especially with a long-awaited DVD set coming out soon that I definitely plan on getting. I'm only a few chapters in but I already found out that Jericho took guitar lessons from the guy that ended up becoming one of the Crash Test Dummies, known best for their one-hit wonder "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm..." The more you know...
As for music, there's nothing new on that front. I did find out that Nachmystium released "Black Meddle Pt. II" so I'm thinking about picking that up if I have any spare cash...and if I anyone around here carries it. Also, even though I found this out a little while ago, I forgot to report that Dimmu Borgir has announced "Abrahadabra" as the title to their next album, due to come out in October. I don't know about you (especially since you probably don't listen to Dimmu) but I'm kinda disappointed. The band did mention that the title does have some sort of symbolic meaning, translated to "I will create as I speak" via the writings of Alestair Crowley, but to me it sounds kinda hocus-pocus and hokey. Also, it breaks their streak of awesome-sounding three-word album titles (other than their second album "Stormblast"). Let's go down the list: For All Tid, Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, Spiritual Black Dimensions, Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, Death Cult Armageddon, In Sorte Diaboli. See? Compared to all those, "Abrahadabra" sounds kinda "Eh" to me. But yeah, I definitely need some new music. Ov Hell's album was good but I kinda wore that one out rather quick as I had nothing else new to listen to.
Well, that's about all that's happening in the world of Sarcasmatron. Really, it's not a whole lot, I guess I just have a knack for rambling and over-explaining the mundane to make it sound fun. Anyway, I do hope to have some actual articles up in the coming weeks, unless my motivation levels continue to drop. You guys take care and have a fun!
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