Monthly Archives: January 2012

GAMING

Button Mashing: MW3 DLC, Hitman Absolution, ME3 Characters & More

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This is Button Mashing, Grizzly Bomb’s video game news headquarters. Previews, interviews, rumors and all the latest stories relating to the biggest games, all in one place.

I’m The Wozz, and here are the most important things you need to know for the week of January 16th, 2012:

Modern Warfare 3’s First DLC Hits Jan. 24 on Elite – (Side Mission)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Elite subscribers are about to get their first downloadable pack, featuring new maps and multiplayer content. The first bundle is slated to kick off what Activision and Infinity Ward call a “Modern Warfare 3 Content Season for Call of Duty Elite,” which essentially consists of 9 months of periodic DLC.

The process will dole out all of the game’s future bonus content as it is finished and ready to go, as opposed to lumping several of them together in less frequent, individual packets, as promised to all paid Elite subscribers.

This initial release will include two maps, Liberation (a take on NYC’s Central Park) and Piazza (an Italian villa), which will be playable in competitive multiplayer, as well as Spec Ops Survival mode.

On top of that, Infinity Ward’s creative strategist, Robert Bowling, mentioned that future packs will include more varied offerings, like new game types and Spec Ops missions, and even the possibility of new weapons:

“It is something that we’ve looked at,” Bowling said. “All of that stuff is on the table for us when we’re looking at what sort of content drops we want to do throughout the season.” Bowling added that there’s “a bunch of other stuff we want to experiment with” for future Modern Warfare 3 content drops.“

Along with the two above maps, premium Elite members will get access to three more between now and March. Later all of that content will be bundled together and released for the rest of the Xbox Live community. As of now there is no word on a release date for non-Elite PS3 or PC players.

A Full List of Mass Effect 3’s Cast of Characters – (IGN)

Mass Effect is hands-down the most character-driven video game franchise out there, if not for its stellar writing and RPG interactions, it’s because of its unprecedented ability to bring some of your old friends and enemies, complete with your full relationship history, into each subsequent chapter (providing you haven’t killed them all, of course).

This means that fans will be dying to know who is going to make a return in Commander Shepard’s final mission. Well, IGN has compiled a list of confirmed characters you’ll reunite with in your battle against the Reapers:

Ambassador Donnel Udina
Ashley Williams**
Captain David Anderson
Captain Kirrahe**
Conrad Verner*
EDI:Garrus*
Grunt*
Jacob Taylor*
Jack*
Joker (Jeff Moreau):
Kaidan Alenko**
Kelly Chambers*
Legion*
Liara T’Soni
Miranda Lawson*:
Continue reading Button Mashing: MW3 DLC, Hitman Absolution, ME3 Characters & More →

Movie Trailers

Will Ferrell’s Casa de mi Padre – What’s Spanish for ‘Badass?’

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Will Ferrell’s Casa de mi Padre is coming out in mid-March, and I have to say; it looks awesome.  In the film, Will Ferrell plays Armando Alvarez, who works on his family’s ranch.  According to the summary on IMDb, he and his brothers “find themselves in a war with Mexico’s most feared drug lord.”  There will be gun-slinging.  Cowboys.  Penelope Cruz look-alikes.  Ron Effing Swanson.  But the best part?

Will Ferrell plays the entire role speaking in Spanish.

The movie poster boasts that it’s the “funniest movie you’ll ever read.”

I know I’m not alone in the world thinking that Will Ferrell is a comic genius.  His timing is impeccable, his delivery flawless, and his ability to push the envelope is inspiring.  I love that he can buck the trend of something normal funny, and can take on a project like this that is so bizarre.  This off-beat humor that not everyone gets is so up my alley.

Here is the trailer for those interested in watching:

Will Ferrell is due for a non-stinker.  Let’s hope this is it.  I have high hopes for this one.

Casa de mi Padre also stars Genesis Rodriguez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Nick Offerman, and Efren Ramirez.

You lied, Ron. You do speak Spanish.
MOVIES

Grizzly Dailies – Neighborhood Watch, Looper, and Bullet to the Head

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Welcome to Grizzly Dailies! A new feature where we will cover a bunch of movie news in the manner we love. Jam packing a ton of links and info in one post so you don’t have to waste your valuable time (and ours) by combing through a ton of articles!

And if you are unaware of the term ‘Dailies‘ don’t expect this feature every day. It’s a film term and not a promise. Just wanted to get that out there.

Continue reading Grizzly Dailies – Neighborhood Watch, Looper, and Bullet to the Head →

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

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The world of espionage, spies, secrets, and traitors isn’t necessarily what the James Bond movies make it out to be, quite the contrary actually. The car chases, gunfights, sexy sidekicks, and dry martinis aren’t the job. Instead, the world of a spy consists of endless amounts of research, chain smoking, and a lot of talking. The conversations, though, can be as heated, if not even more so, than your run-in-the-mill gun battle.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which is based on the novel of the same name by John Le Carre, follows retired agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman), who must come back to work to find a Soviet spy that is hidden in MI6, nicknamed the Circus. The man in charge, Control (John Hurt), is convinced that a mole is hidden within the Circus after he does some intensive research and studying with information that he’s been given from a reliable source.

The possibilities, according to Control, are “Tinker” who is Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), “Tailor” who is Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), “Soldier” who is Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), “Poor Man” who is Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), and “Beggar Man” who is Smiley himself. The beginning of the film reveals that there’s a Hungarian general who knows the identity of the mole. Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) is sent to retrieve the information, but the mission goes bad, alerting the Soviets of MI6’s suspicion.


This leads Smiley to be forced into retirement by Control, who soon after passes away. Smiley is then brought back and given some very valuable information by a man named Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), a rogue agent who travels around the world searching for information that may benefit the MI6 during the Cold War. Smiley listens to his story, and considering the failed Hungarian mission, as well as a successful Soviet operation named Operation Witchcraft, he pursues it further, enlisting the help of fellow agent and apprentice, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch).

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a beautiful, intense, and sometimes extremely confusing spy film that trades in the usual action for something much more effective; edge-of-your-seat dialogue. The constant interaction between the characters keep things more than exciting, and the sometimes puzzling narrative is both saved and clarified by the use of conversation that literally had my heart racing. Gary Oldman’s flawless performance as George Smiley is a cinematic revelation. His calm and collected manner is sometimes eerie considering the situation, and the one time that he does raise his voice, it’s almost enough to frighten the viewer, especially considering the context.

Tom Hardy and Colin Firth are also absolutely amazing as spies who know things that everyone else wants to, but Mark Strong is surprisingly strong in his rather short but extremely necessary role. Personally, I’m a huge fan of his. I think he’s able to adapt to his environment extremely well, with enough diversity to successfully play both a bad guy and a good guy, sometimes in the same movie. It’s Tom Hardy though, that has probably the most screen time in the entire film besides Oldman, which is surprising considering how little he is shown in the trailer, and how far down he is in the opening credits. I’m not here to complain though, after his performances in Inception, Warrior and RockNRolla, he’s most definitely solidified himself a spot in being one of the best young actors in Hollywood today.

The direction by Tomas Alfredson is gorgeously mundane, and I mean that in the absolute best way possible. He recreates the 70s film style so well here that I felt as if I was doing a double feature with Marathon Man. You might recognize his name as being the director of the equally as fantastic vampire love story, Let The Right One In. Alfredson seems to have a knack for creating films with little action that are almost as exciting as a Transformers movie.

The film also plays as a retrospective, taking snippets of certain scenes and placing them in other scenes, which then leads them to go back to that original scene, but instead it moves forward a little bit. This allows the film to literally be a puzzle, with pieces being filled in left and right until the finale where everything is in place and the universal “aha!” moment is reached. Instead of me trying to explain it, think of it as an episode of How I Met Your Mother, how they flip back and forth between the present and other important times that relate to the story being told. You all know what I’m talking about, let’s just move on.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is brutally violent when it needs to be, dryly funny at times, but it’s also a fantastically plotted film that requires quite a bit of attention from the viewer. I’ll be honest, this and Warrior were the only two films of the year where I didn’t look at my watch once to see how much time there was left. For a two hour film consisting mostly of dialogue, that’s pretty damn good if you ask me.

5/5 Grizzly’s

MOVIES

In Case You Missed It Review: Super

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In 2010, we were introduced to one of the best films of the year, Kick-Ass, as well as the future of female actors, Chloe Grace Moretz. Playing Hit Girl, the infamously foul-mouthed pre-teen assassin, Moretz nailed the role perfectly and that will forever go down as my favorite performance of that year.

2011 gave us the flip side of what seemed to be the same story. Whereas Kick-Ass celebrated its unrealistic nature and extreme cheesiness, James Gunn’s new film Super revels in realism. Starring Rainn Wilson, the film follows a loyal husband named Frank D’Arbo, a fry-cook at a local diner. When his wife, Sarah (Liv Tyler), falls for a manipulative drug dealer named Jacques (Kevin Bacon), it’s up to Frank to save her from Jacques, but more importantly from herself.

To do this, he becomes a “superhero”, under the name The Crimson Bolt. He spends his first few nights hanging around dumpsters waiting for crime to come to him, with no luck. Inspired by a Christian TV star known as The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion), Frank searches for meaning in life, as well as what he can do to help the innocent people of his city.

One day, while at a movie theater, a man cuts in line to much disapproval from the rest of the people behind him. Frank, in a misguided act of heroism, changes into his Crimson Bolt costume in his car, grabs a large wrench, and bludgeons the man on the head, causing his skull to split open. This well-meaning but ultimately daft and vigilante behavior lands Frank a spot on the local news, which labels him a dangerous vigilante.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the only way that Frank has any chance of getting Sarah back from Jacques is to accept an offer by a local comic book chick named Libby (Ellen Page) to be his sidekick. A borderline psychotic young girl, Libby, whose superhero name is Boltie, begins hatching a plan with The Crimson Bolt, who has now adopted the catchphrase “Shut up, Crime!”, to get Sarah back once and for all.

Super, which is Slither writer/director James Gunn’s new film, is a darkly hilarious and brutally violent film about the chemically imbalanced vigilante in all of us. Rainn Wilson plays a distressed husband pushed to the point of violence perfectly, and his onscreen chemistry with Ellen Page is comedy gold. Previously sharing the screen with her for a scene in 2007’s Juno, it’s good to see them both starring in a movie together because from that one scene in Juno, I knew they would do well together if they co-starred with each other in a dark comedy. These are the things I daydream about don’t judge me.

Kevin Bacon is great as usual, playing a good villain with a particularly toothy smile. His sometimes dim-witted cronies make for some pretty great laughs, especially when they come into contact with Frank in the explosive climax. James Gunn’s directing is perfect for a film like this, previously displaying his action/comedy chops in his first feature film, Slither.

Super is probably not everyone’s idea of a good time. Some will find it dull, some will find it too brutal or realistic for a comedy film. Some will even find it to be completely unfunny with its dark punch lines and physical comedy. I’ll give you a taste of what you’ll be seeing; Super contains the funniest rape scene out of any movie I’ve ever seen. Take that as you will, but it’s true.

4/5 Bears

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: The Artist

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The silent era is one of the most important and one of the most sacred eras in film history. It marked the beginning of the motion picture, as well as the beginning of the future. No one had ever seen anything like a movie before, and, as bold of a statement as this may be, nobody ever will.

The late 20s marked the beginning of what was then known as the “talkie”. For years, people had been watching movies with no sound, backed only by live instrumentation to set the tone for every scene. People craved more, though. They figured that if people could talk in real life, why couldn’t they talk in the movies? The transition from silent to talkie left many actors jobless, with few able to maintain their status as a top silent actor or filmmaker, with Charlie Chaplin being one of the most recognizable names.

In The Artist, one of the world’s most famous silent actors, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), is facing a similar ultimatum. Either he retires as an actor, forgotten like the rest of silent film, or he adapts to his ever changing environment, embracing the talkie as the rest of the world has. Valentin also has a chance encounter with Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a young and beautiful dancer who decides to follow her dream of being an actress when a photo of her and Valentin is found on the cover of Variety.

Meanwhile, studio executive Al Zimmer (John Goodman), pushes the technological advancement on Valentin, which does nothing but push him away. Valentin swears that he’ll keep silent film alive, making films of his own that bomb quite drastically as Miller’s status as a leading woman rises quickly, going from extra to star in a mere two years. The two begin something of an unspoken romance that is constantly interrupted by the outside world. Eventually, Valentin finds himself poor and alone, save for his extremely loyal butler, Clifton (James Cromwell). With both talkies and Peppy Miller at the top of the entertainment industry, Valentin is lost, looking for a reason to live as happily as he once did.

The Artist has been named the best film of the year by many a critic, and is almost a shoe-in for best picture at the Oscars this year. The hype for this film, produced by The Weinstein Company, has been some of the biggest of the year, causing viewers to rush to the theater, fueled by the film’s numerous awards, as well as its 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So, does it live up to the expectations of being the best movie of the year?

Well, in short, no. In fact, it doesn’t really even earn a place in my top 20 and possibly even 50 of the year, but it does do something that I can’t quite put my finger on. It had a certain effect on me that I can’t quite vocalize. It wasn’t nostalgic, and it wasn’t authentic, so that can’t be it, but if not that then what?

For one, in aiming to resemble the silent films of the 1920s, it does a relatively decent job, but is also missing quite a bit. Screened in 14:2 ratio instead of the 16:4 that we’re used to was quite pleasing, as was actually making the film silent to really encompass the world that it was portraying. With all of the authenticity though, came quite a few mistakes. For one, the HD quality of the film angered me slightly, as if the filmmakers were going for clean, when in actuality, they should have taken a couple pages from the Death Proof handbook and physically scratched the film, giving it a look much more akin to a 1920s film.

Also, for a silent film, there’s a hell of a lot of talking, more than necessary for a film like this, and it kind of made me wish that they had just made the film a talkie, working harder on a select few scenes that were silent to give the movie a little more flair. The intertitles were unfortunately sparse, and considering the bloated running time, 100 minutes (about a 1/2 hour more than it should have been), intertitles would have been nice.

As I mentioned above, at 100 minutes, The Artist is also far too long, deciding to focus on mostly unnecessary and overly extended comedy sequences as opposed to creating a linear narrative that gets the viewer prepared for what was an excellent and heartbreaking third act. The last forty minutes of the film most definitely saved itself from the first 60, and I wished that the plotting in the first half had been as tight and focused as the second.

The Artist is advertised as a romance film, but for being marketed as such, the romance between the two leads seems to be second to the film’s themes of the future of silent actors and their movies, which is disappointing considering that I was hoping to see a beautiful, silent romance, similar to the one that viewers saw in 1931’s City Lights.

Personally, I spend the time that I’m not watching or reviewing movies researching film history, and as a huge fan of the silent era, the whole film’s plot becomes almost irrelevant once viewers learn that silent films were still being made well into the thirties, a well-known one being 1936’s Modern Times. Valentin is supposed to represent a star as big as Chaplin, so why could Charlie still make silent films successfully, and Valentin couldn’t? Seems odd considering the star status that he seems to hold.

In theory, I probably should have loved this movie. The acting is great, with Jean Dujardin giving one of the best performances of the year. The directing by French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius, who also wrote the scenario and intertitles, is fantastic, making reflection a metaphor for self-reflection through the sly turn of his camera. So what is it about The Artist that I don’t love? Well, besides its somewhat long first and second act, as a fan of the silent era, the film comes off as a love letter to cinema that got the address wrong. Its heart is in the right place, and its intentions are good, but the boring story never allowed things to take off like they should have, leaving the viewer at a standstill for almost 80 minutes, then gunning it for the last 20. Silent films are deliberate and artful, and require pacing that I found to be lacking here. Then again, if a silent film could win best picture in the the 1920s and the 2010s, that’d be pretty astounding.

3/5 Grizzly’s