You knew it was going to happen. Apparently Activision does not want you to know it is going to happen but hey, we are going to take the news and run with it. Gamespot is reporting via GameBlog, a French gaming site, that Black Ops 2 definitely does exist. Apparently they stumbled upon some screen shots from the Amazon France site that showed it was ready for preorder before the site decided to shut the page down. Obviously, those sneaky French gaming bastards screen shot the evidence to tell the rest of the world. Of course, they also ended up getting a warning from the French division of Activision demanding the news would be pulled. GameBlog refused and then Activision has decided to blackball them from media events and pull their advertising. Over a game they are probably going to announce soon. Hell, it’s Amazon France’s fault anyways. They just wanted to get their preorder money’s worth before the Euro collapses.
I will say that I mildly dislike the single player on World at War and Black Ops, but the multiplayer experience is definitely better on these games. Why? Nazi Zombies. So yeah, this will be bought for the multiplayer because it still remains the game that most of us writers play and swear at each other constantly. Anyways, this is a boring post so below is my favorite kills/kill streaks. Also, Dr. Kronner loves getting a hatchet to the face in Sticks & Stones.
The 54th Annual Grammy Awards were on Sunday and as usual, it is always the weirdest collection of people you can put into one arena. Ranging from country stars, to rappers wearing what they obviously woke up in from the parties the night before, Super Bowl champions delivering the worst line readings from the teleprompter, and why not – CBS stars to further the ratings of the ‘Can’t Be Sober’ to watch network (seriously, I don’t need another CSI, Two and a Half Men, NCIS person shoved down my throat if their shows are predictable, unfunny, and worst, unoriginal, but that’s an argument for another day).
The big stories of the awards were obviously Adele completely sweeping through her six nominations with six wins, including being the youngest person to win Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year during the same year. She was definitely the story that night performing “Rolling in the Deep” in her first public performance since her vocal cord surgery that threatened her rising career. And damn. She brought the house and obviously no one was stopping her that night. Not even snot.
Kayne West also took home four awards including Best Rap Album for “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (which is epic in my opinion) and even won for his collaboration with Jay-Z on their Watch the Throne song ‘Otis’. The Foo Fighters also dominated their categories and took home four awards including Best Rock Album. Also the best speech that was not self-serving, just telling artists to just hone their craft, make mistakes, and just play. Making ‘Wasting Light’ in Dave Grohl’s garage definitely showed that you don’t need a high tech studio and tools to make a great album, just the desire to rock out.
There were a couple of polarizing moments in the Grammys such as the return of Chris Brown. Because only in America can you beat a woman (before the same awards show three years ago), break windows on Good Morning America, have your delusional teenage fanbase defend your actions (don’t EVEN get me started on that), and then win a Grammy and dance your way to America’s hearts once again…
Although that son of a bitch can dance, I will give him that.
Nicki Minaj is crazy. Looking at the very 90s controversial Madonna-esque performance (or would be a rip off of Lady Gaga’s rip off of Madonna, I can’t keep track these days) of her new song performing as her alter-ego ‘Roman Holiday’, she definitely went for shock value and being a water cooler topic. I thought it was meh, but only because Nicki Minaj is everywhere.
And that’s not a good thing considering some of her rap lyrics come off as borderline lazy and stupid. Again, I digress. Katy Perry debuted her new song about Russell Brand that will surely be dominating iTunes very soon, Taylor Swift did her best impression of the Taylor Swift surprised face at the end of her ‘Mean’ performance, Bruce Springsteen can still dominate a live performance, and the Beach Boys performed on their 50th anniversary with Maroon 5 and Foster the People.
Obviously the performances of the night in my opinion, belonged to Adele, Coldplay & Rihanna (just because I’m a Coldplay slappy), and Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of Whitney Houston’s rendition of the Dolly Parton song (it’s like Inception up in here) ‘I Will Always Love You’. She owned that performance. Absolutely amazing. Granted I wanted to hear ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ but probably felt inappropriate at the time. Also Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt killing the Etta James tribute with the song ‘Sunday Kind of Love’. It is really cool to see these award shows and watch artists collaborate together because it truly is about the music. It encompasses what Dave Grohl says, of just going out and just playing to your hearts desire. There’s no lines in genres, sometimes good music is truly good music no matter what type of sound comes out, you just have to enjoy the moment. On that note, enjoy the performances below and be glad because the Grammys were long (three and a half hours, oy) and this is easier to just embed these videos so you can get the cliff notes version of what I just broke down for you.
Today around 8:30 am Eastern time, the 2012 Academy Award Nominations were announced by the lovely Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique Jr.) and some old guy I did not want to research his name or title on.
With that, talking to the good Dr. Kronner, I think on my end, it basically ended in a few shrugs. He was bit more incensed because his beloved Fast Five[LIES!] was not nominated because the Academy does not recognize ‘general public movies’. The list is typical with the favorites (The Artist, The Descendants) while a few pleasant surprises entered in (seriously, go watch A Better Life and Demián Bichir’s performance) and then a few what-whats?! (see: 9/11 movie I refuse to mention).
Martin Scorcese’s Hugo leads the way with 11 noms, followed by the movie no one wants the see that everyone should see – The Artist with 10 nominations. I am sure there will be a post on what we all thing got snubbed (where the crap is Drive?), and who does not belong (according to the good Doctor, Bridesmaids doesn’t deserve to be part of the party, so debate away) so I will not go into major detail about those. All I know is there is a reason for the comments section below so have it…
With that, I have your nominees for the 2012 Oscars on February 26th via EW because I like copy & paste:
Those three words could pretty much define this pilot episode. There has been a lot of build up for American Horror Story whether through our site or the other entertainment sites. Whether it be from the co-creators of Glee, Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy, that it has awesome Friday Night Lights star Connie Britton in it, or that the pilot was supposed to be one of the most creepy and well made in recent years. So with October in full swing, it is time to see how this series will stack up and live up to the height. After viewing the pilot, so far so good. Obviously do not proceed if you do not want spoilers. I will not give away too much but still, this is a review after all.
The pilot begins with a flashback to 1978 as we look to see a girl with down syndrome standing in front a house staring at it as two red-headed jackass twins come in with evil intentions of redecorating the interior with baseball bats. Naturally, the girl tells them they are going to die in there but details. Let’s just say that the boys get their comeuppance. Let us also note that the tone of this is pitch perfect. The way the sound and music plays into setting scenes and how the camera almost stalks its way towards the people really has this creepy vibe that adds to the atmosphere. You never feel comfortable viewing this but that’s what makes this pilot as a whole great. You are always on edge because this is not a cookie cutter pilot. There is no predictability and it definitely will suck you in.
Moving on, we advance to the present time where Connie Britton is treated at a doctor’s office months after a traumatic miscarriage only to come home to find her husband Dylan McDermott “burying his sorrows” into some other girl. Afterwards, we see the somewhat jaded couple take themselves and their daughter to Los Angeles in search of a new life.
We see the troubles still remain in all them as the episode moves on. Daughter does not fit in and is a cutter, husband is still pretty selfish oblivious to everyone else’s thoughts and ideas, and the wife is still broken.
Oh by the way, that house in ’78? That’s their new home. That creepy girl? Yeah, she just told Coach’s wife (I still have to get used to not calling her that) that she’s going to die. Also, Jessica Lange is a bitch.
Speaking of great actresses, what a great cast. You have Jessica Lange coming in giving off the right kind of kooky neighbor with a bit of unforgiving bitch slapped on for good measure. The supporting characters are great as well and the family shines as they each convey their demons with enough subtlety to where it does not feel overdramatic yet enough to show that the horror is truly what they are going through internally and obviously externally.
Throw in a creepy maid, burn victims, school bullies and one messed up kid patient and I think this will be a good show to watch. I do question how long this will all last because let’s face it, most horror movies over 90 minutes tend to wear out its welcome. FX is the perfect network for this show however because they are able to push the boundaries further than what the traditional networks can do. The writing is sharp and the pacing, while a big off-kilter, works brilliantly.
I am curious where they take this and with that, I will go 4 grizzlies out of 5. I saw way too much of McDermott’s ass to give it a perfect score.
This is pretty self-explanatory. One of the biggest pastimes for us writers is to get online during the late hours of the night and embarrass ourselves with horrible teamwork and spite for each other (shooting George Romero in Call of the Dead just to piss each other off). We’ve been doing this for almost 3 years now, and looks like we are strapping in for one more time. According to Gamespot, and the Call of Duty website, it has been announced that the latest and last map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops is ‘Rezurrection’ and it will be 5 zombie-infested maps. And yes, we’re going to the moon for this one.
Looks like we just cannot let you go Coach Taylor.
Several outlets, including IGN, EW.com, and E! Online are reporting that Peter Berg, director of the first Friday Night Lights movie and Executive Producer of the awesome just ended series is moving forward with a movie. While promoting his new series Prime Suspect, Berg says in regards to the FNL flick to E!Online, “We’re writing a script. We’ve been meeting with Jason Katims, the last couple of weeks. We have a real good script idea. We want to do it. We’re very serious about doing it and we intend to do it.” Jason Katims in case you forgot, was the showrunner of Friday Night Lights during it’s five season run on the peacock. More quotes? Okay, here Katims elaborating to EW.com, “It is something that we had talked about for a couple of years, almost in a half-kidding way. And then a few months ago, (exec producter) Brian Grazer and Pete called me saying they really wanted to do this. We had some meetings and we came up with a direction that we really loved. The trick was to figure out a way to both honor the series and not move away from that, but still find something that would be a satisfying movie in and of itself. It’s still very early — I’m just beginning to plot out the story for the script — but it’s something that we’re all excited about.”
I will say that I mildly dislike the single player on World at War and Black Ops, but the multiplayer experience is definitely better on these games. Why? Nazi Zombies. So yeah, this will be bought for the multiplayer because it still remains the game that most of us writers play and swear at each other constantly. Anyways, this is a boring post so below is my favorite kills/kill streaks. Also, Dr. Kronner loves getting a hatchet to the face in Sticks & Stones.
Grizzly Bomb 