Game Of Thrones Blu Ray Review: Easily A Must Own.

FINALLY. All of you non HBO subscribers out there who are sick of hearing about how awesome Game of Thrones is, without the ability to watch it, it is the dawn of a new era. An era where Game of Thrones Season one is out on DVD and all is right with the world. If you haven't seen the show yet, you may want to hold your horses now, as spoilers in this review are fairly inevitable - but heed these very important words: go buy or rent this blu-ray immediately and watch every episode. Don't walk, run. Don't drive, speed. Don't glide, fly. Don't take a mule, take a horse. I don't even KNOW WHAT I'm SAYING, just go WATCH IT.

For those of you who watched season one and are on the fence about picking up this Blu-Ray set? Well you can keep on reading and then your fate shall reveal itself. After the jump.

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Super 8 Blu Ray Review

Crossposted on and commissioned by Film.com

Movie

Oh Super 8, when I think what you might have been … although I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this movie and appreciated the sentiment behind it, ultimately I don’t believe the film accomplished what director JJ Abrams and executive producer Steven Spielberg set out to do. Consequently, it’s a bit of a failure. As much as I love the cast of kids and their moments together, none of the emotional payoffs with the adult characters are earned, and in the third act, when all begins to reveal itself, logic goes straight out the window. Super 8 is a pale imitation of the movies it was inspired by, filled with unmet potential. The idea initially came from Spielberg and Abrams talking about making a movie about kids making movies — *that* part of Super 8 works. Combining it with Abrams other idea of a train crashing while transporting something from Area 51 is where the film falls flat on its face. Super 8 feels like two movies thrown together because it is. Yes, E.T. was developed this way as well, but the difference is, in E.T. it worked. In Super 8, the marriage is clunky and undermines an otherwise lovely story. I’d definitely say the film is worth seeing, in case it speaks more to you than it did to me, and especially because of this impressive group of preteens, all of whom I hope go on to long and fulfilled careers; I just personally found it to be a mild disappointment.

Extras
Audio Commentary with JJ Abrams, Bryan Burk, and Larry Fong
Analysis of certain moments, instances of where Spielberg was more or less of a tangible influence, anecdotes, memories, the usual. This is where you can actually hear about cinematographer Larry Fong shooting in anamorphic, the sound effects, which sequences were shot on a sound stage versus on location, motivations behind the actors (as far as Abrams knew them to be), how they worked around puberty, and more. Plus, Fong does one of his famous magic tricks during the commentary, and the gang collectively composes emails to Steven Spielberg. Even though we can’t see either, it’s still fun to know they’re going on. One of my favorite fun facts is that because they got the actors for such little time, anytime you see a reverse shot of one of the kids, it’s a stand-in. Overall, the commentary is thorough and engaging and well worth the listen if you have the urge to learn more about the film.

The Dream Behind Super 8 (1080p, 16:28)
Shot stylistically, almost as if this were a short documentary rather than a standard featurette, this piece takes a look at where the idea for Super 8 came from, and features extensive footage of Abrams on set interacting with his cast and crew. We learn the history of JJ Abrams and frequent collaborators Burk, Fong, and Matt Reeves, and see clips of their childhood Super 8 films. Also elaborated on is the relationship between Abrams and Spielberg over the past 20 years and how they came up with the idea for Super 8 together. My favorite bits are a shot of Abrams’ face while Elle Fanning nails the emotional scene wherein Alice talks about her dad, and his speech to the crew upon wrapping, where he offers “Let me know when I can do anything for you because you’ve done so much for me.” I know secondhand at least what a good guy Abrams is, and it’s neat to see him living up to that reputation on set.

FAVORITE FEATURE ALERT
The Search for New Faces (1080p, 17:46)
A look at the six leads of Super 8, from the audition process to wrap, featuring audition tapes of and interviews with the collection of young actors, thoughts from the casting directors, and footage of the kids engaged in behind-the-scenes antics, Abrams directing them, and best of all, the final day of shooting where an emotional Elle Fanning says goodbye and thanks to the crew for all their hard work. Watching the actors hug Abrams, knowing their journey together had come to an end, actually brought tears to my eyes. Favorite moments include learning that Abrams called each kid personally to offer them the part, a funny on-set moment where lead Joel Courtney doesn’t know how to use a rotary phone and Abrams teaches him, and when the cast reminisces about Riley Griffith’s contagious laugh. Since the kids are easily the best part of the movie, this featurette is my favorite, no question.

More after the jump

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Kinect Disneyland Adventures: A Magically Addictive Exercise In Wasted Potential

Crossposted on Gaming Blend

Because apparently, there's no such thing as muscle fatigue, someone decided to create the very first open world game for Kinect. Fittingly, since the last time I was at Disneyland I lost the ability to feel my feet, this game is Kinect: Disneyland Adventures.

The premise - you're at Disneyland! And that's about it. During your day at Disneyland, you can experience up to 20 attractions, talk to over 40 characters, go on over 100 different "adventures" assigned to you by the various characters in 8 different lands, take photos of landmarks, hidden mickeys and characters, and interact with just about every item in the park. Completing every adventure, earning every pin for doing well on attractions, getting every autograph, and casting a spell on all 2000+ magical items will take you well over 50 hours. Is it worth the time and money? Let's take a closer look.

After creating your child avatar, which, much to my chagrin, is only allowed to have brown eyes, the game begins. The first thirty minutes to an hour of Disneyland Adventures is dedicated to teaching you how to control the game and understand the essential structure of gameplay through interactions with the main six Disney characters: Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto, and Goofy.

So how do you function in an open world kinect game? Move your left or right arm forward to move, hold your arm out all the way to the side to turn, wave to interact with characters and attractions (the quicker and more childlike the wave, the better), and once you master opening your item inventory, which involves holding your right hand up at a 45 degree angle until the menu opens, then selecting the item you need (I promise, it's nowhere near as easy as it sounds), you use your left hand exclusively to walk and your right to control various items. Wave it to cast a spell with your magic wand, hold your hand over a target with your blaster to shoot, hold your arm straight out to take a picture, and so on. As the game progresses, items in your inventory will include those, along with a fishing rod for catching random fish (I still haven't found one), baton for conducting musical groups across the park including the singing statues at the Haunted Mansion and any jazz band hanging around New Orleans Square and more. This beginning section also clues you in on the gameplay structure of meeting characters, receiving tasks, accomplishing these tasks, then reporting back to the character.

Once you learn the basics, you can go off and do whatever you want. This virtual map of Disneyland is an exact recreation of the Anaheim park, to a frightening degree. The attention to detail is astounding. I kept having moments of "I bought a corn dog at that stand!" "I sat on that rock for 20 minutes when I was exhausted!" "I threw a coin at that waterfall!" and so on. One of my favorite things about the park has always been how the trash cans are themed to each land, and the same holds true here. You could lose hours and hours just taking in the accuracy of everything around you. And that's *before* you're gifted a magic want by Cinderella. Once you have the wand, count on spending triple the time wandering around the park. You'll be able cast a spell on anything you see that sparkles. And there are A LOT of things that sparkle in Disneyland, you guys.

Each of the 8 lands has over 30 sets of magical items, and each set has 3 to 35 magical items within. So, aiming low, let's say that's an average of 10 items per set, that would mean a minimum of 300 items per land which means there are 2400 MAGICAL ITEMS TO CAST SPELLS ON IN THIS GAME. NOT including the 8 or so landmarks to take photos of in each land, the 30 something hidden mickeys to find in each land, the couple of blaster mini-games in each land land and so on. For a completionist who has major OCD when it comes to video games, the constant messages that I've completed "2 of 20" or "8 or 36" over and over and over, almost drove me out of my mind and kept interrupting me as I made my way to talk to characters or play attractions. This makes it great for irresponsible parents who need to keep their kids occupied for long periods of time and horrible for OCD ridden game reviewers. In that way that you need to open every drawer in Bioshock, you will need to cast a spell on every single godforsaken magical item in Kinect: Disneyland Adventures.


If you forget about using the items in your inventory to earn both in-game and out-of-game achievements, Disneyland Adventures boils down to meeting characters and going on attractions.

Meeting characters is simple, you wave to begin an interaction, then say autograph for an autograph (they will tell you to put your hands out to get one - don't do it, go with the stellar voice command system, save yourself the headache), bow to dance, high five to high five, hug yourself to hug, and put your arm out to take a picture. Although it should be noted that you can only get an autograph and picture if you have earned enough money through picking up coins in the park and completing attractions to go to a store and buy autograph books and photo albums. You heard right - the game encourages you to buy things from the stores at Disneyland! Sure, it's all part of the proper Disneyland experience, I suppose, but I haven't purchased anything but water from Disneyland for as long as I've understood that Disney eats money, and that's been longer than you might think. Better yet, you can only buy photo albums for each land in a store in each land, and you can't unlock the store until you go on an attraction. So it's impossible to just go from character to character, collecting everything you need. You MUST make money, go to the store, and play the attraction mini-games. You also need to have the brain capacity to understand this. I'm looking at you, tiny children. Who are clearly reading this right now.

The characters also give you a series of "adventures' which reminded me of the missions in Fable 3, where in order to make a friend or gain a lover, you had to waste time running around grabbing items and delivering messages. It felt pointless in Fable 3 and feels pointless here. And yet I COULDN'T STOP. To become a Lost Boy for Peter Pan, you have to play through Peter Pan's Flight, then gather his shadows around Fantasyland, then buy and wear a Lost Boy costume. Stich sends you to find him five hamburgers, and then to find a picture he lost of Lilo. Cinderella has you find sewing items, and then gives you the general mission of finding spools of thread around the park. Aladdin needs you to impress the genie with your magic. Some character named Duffy Bear I've never heard of before needs you to find stuffed Duffy Bears, but because he doesn't speak, you don't know that until you accidentally stumble upon 1 of 10 Duffy Bears. These go on and on and on. 


More after the jump. Yes, there is more.
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Blu Ray Review: Griff The Invisible

 

The Movie
An instant favorite of mine in the everyday superhero sub-genre, Griff The Invisible is the story of a mild mannered, oft-bullied office worker who leads a secret life as a vigilante superhero. His existence is thrown through a loop when he meets his brother's not-girlfriend Melody, a loner scientist with fantastical interests & aspirations of her own, including figuring out how to walk through walls. The connection between the two presents itself after Melody reveals her multiverse theories to a stumped Tim and fascinated Griff during an unexpected visit. The romance that unfolds is sweetly off-beat and combats any predilection towards the twee with a unique sense of humor, strong chemistry and genuine portrayals of of these innocently unhinged people. We root for their impossible dreams to come true and most importantly, root for them to pursue these dreams together.

With a seamless blending of fantasy and reality, clever knack for storytelling, pitch-perfect casting and soundtrack, and unique take on what is now a somewhat tired subgenre, Leon Ford shines in his directorial debut. The Blu-Ray, giving 16mm the 1080p treatment, looks fantastic, maintaining the gritty nature of the 16mm film without sacrificing clarity. If you’re a fan of Kwanten’s work as Jason Stackhouse on True Blood, this is an easy recommendation, but I believe this indie romance has an appeal that reaches far beyond the fan base of its lead. Maeve Dermody almost steals the show and it’s baffling that this unearthly beauty with such a precise and honest talent hasn’t yet been discovered on this side of the world. Patrick Brammall, as Griff’s obnoxious but caring brother who displays slightly more socially acceptance oddities in his personality, shows a great handle of comedic timing, obvious especially after watching the extras and hearing his contribution to the commentary.

For any of us with secret fantasies, whether they are walking through walls, saving the day or something even closer to the plane of reality we are familiar with, Griff The Invisible is meant for us. It’s a love letter to our potential and finding someone to reach it with, no matter how difficult life becomes or how much the outside world may fight against us.

Special Features

Commentary with writer/director Leon Ford, producer Nicole O’Donohue, and actor Patrick Brammall
This is where the meat of the Blu-Ray really lies if you want to learn about the shoot. We learn where the idea came from, how Kwanten got involved, insights into the music choices, including Lenka and Lykke Li, shooting locations, set dressing, which scenes were used to audition the actors, actor Toby Schmitz’s hair, how certain effects were achieved, and more. One of my favorite bis of information, since the special features left me craving a look at the technical aspects and design of the shoot, was learning about “Hero Mode”, the shorthand for all departments noting the moments when Griff becomes the superhero version of himself, with blue and yellow lights, wide, comic book-like camera lens, Ryan in the suit, and more. Brammall keeps the commentary light and littered with jokes between the anecdotes, and technical dissection.



Featurette (4:08)
Begins with the trailer then jumping to a standard featurette, featuring Kwanten talking about his connection to Griff (with an endearing confession), the leads on acting together, info on the suit and how the story was formed, and more. Short but sweet.

Anatomy of a Scene  Opening Sequence (3:16),  All-In-One Shot (2:16), Anyhoo (2:00)
Dissection of three different scenes, from storyboard to final cut, with some behind the scenes footage thrown in, including the director figuring out how to tackle one scene on location and a couple shots from the rehearsal process. Opening Sequence is very much about the action, a complicated sequence. All In One is particularly super cool, cause I wondered about they shot it myself while watching (so much simpler than I assumed it would be!). I won’t get into details so as not to spoil the moment, but you’ll see when you get there. Anyhoo is more about the actors and moments, showing on set footage, and Ford watching the monitor, and an ADR session with Patrick Brammall.

Appear Calm: Diary of a First Time Director Pre-Production (1:25), The Shoot (3:11), and Post Production (2:42)
A short self-made piece documenting Ford's first time making a feature film. Divided into three sections, pre-production, the shoot and post, it's mostly comprised of his thoughts, recorded with a webcam, paired with behind the scenes footage. Pre-Production is about a minute long, just a quick bit about beginning the rehearsal and read through process. The Shoot picks up after the first day, where we see a genuine reaction from Ford, impressed with the work of the actors across the board, and picks up again the Sunday before the final week. In Post Production, we see shots of the editing room and gain insight into the tedious process. We see him deal with needing to cut the film down, screening to producers, then holding screenings, finishing the final sound mix, getting picture lock, figuring out how to compromise and his journey to utter exhaustion.

While this feature doesn’t go particularly in depth or anything, but it’s still nice to hear tidbits about the shoot and hear from the man behind it all. Things get blurry the further you get from them, so it’s nice to have interviews filmed with only himself in the room, done *at* the time. I like some authenticity in my Blu-Ray extras.

Rain Stops Play (1:16)
During a pause in shooting while it was raining, Brammall and Ford jump into a improvised comedy bit that is genuinely hilarious. Or maybe it’s just cause Brammall's accent reminds me of New Zealander Rhys Darby that I think he's so funny, but this featurette was enough to make me research whether Brammall is well known comedian or anything, so well done Patrick Brammall!

Patrick’s Set Tour (1:24)

Patrick Brammall takes us on a brief but humorous tour of the set.

Deleted Scenes (7:36)
Here we see another clip showing Tim’s mild idiocy (and complete lack of connection to Melody), more of Griff’s scheming, Melody being awkward, many elongated scenes, including one in the office, one of Melody with her parents, and one of Griff with her parents and a sweet scene between Griff and Melody, getting to know each other, which was perhaps the only one that I wondered about being cut.

Music Video: Don’t Give Yourself Away by the Shadow Bureau
Oddly, one of my least favorite songs of all the music used in the film, which is overall incredibly strong, but it gets to be the official music video for some reason. The lyrics have a relevant and nice message, so I guess I see it, but of all he songs I was dying to hear in their entirety, this one was at the bottom of the list.

Overall, the features are fun, but I would have liked a lot more behind the scenes info, especially on the acting process and design elements. The film is so stylistic and specific, I would have loved to learn more about the way it was shot and put together. Commentary is definitely the place to go to for even a taste of this information, but sadly won't illuminate anything as far as acting is concerned, as the two leads do not participate.

Film: B+
Extras: B
Buy, Rent or Skip? Buy. It's a wonderful little movie that I can't help but think could use our support. I'm giving two copies, so if you're interested in winning the film, just head here and enter the contest. See full post

Abduction. Where to Even Begin.

If you know me, which some of you do, you know it is extremely rare that I dislike a movie. I can recognize its flaws and still enjoy it, still defend it, as I have done with many films and will continue to do, I'm sure, for a long time to come. But this week I saw a movie that is simply so incompetent, amateurish, laughable and a slew of other disparaging words, that nothing can redeem it. That film is called Abduction.

I originally sought out seeing this film to write something on Taylor Lautner's rise as an action star and whether or not he succeeded in his first big outing. I was never planning on seeing the film otherwise, based on the trailer it seemed to me like a potentially awesome film that would be ruined by Lautner's lack of an acting ability. But what I ended up seeing was so beyond atrocious, I couldn't just sit idly by and ignore it.

Where do I even begin. From the opening line of "Yeah baby" to my pages and pages of notes reading phrases like "How would he know that?" and "That makes no sense." and "Why would you do that??!!?!", this film is, frankly, a colossal failure. Five minutes into it, you know you're in for 106 minutes of lame dialogue and underdeveloped characters. 10 minutes into the film and Lautner has already spent a good amount of time with his shirt off. 15 minutes into the film, the best scene has already happened in which Jason Isaacs' Kevin trains Lautner's Nathan by essentially beating the crap out of him. It was a glimmer of hope that was quickly dashed away.

It's difficult to get into just how awful this movie is without revealing some key plot points, but trust me when I say that logic did not play a role in the script, filmmaking, or acting. There is no connective tissue between anything that happens. It feels like it was written by a thirteen year old who LOVES action movies but has no clue how to write one. So he tries and shows it to his mom and his mom says "Aw, this is great honey!" and so that thirteen year old calls Taylor Lautner's dad (Dan Lautner, a producer on Abduction) and is like "my mom said this script is great so you should make it." and so he did. No, this isn't the story of how the film got made, but it might as well be.

First, the plot. The story here, sure, makes enough sense as like, a log line. As one sentence. A sentence I can't say because it's all spoilers. But when it got fleshed out, everything went wrong. None of the reveals pack a punch or make much sense, and the biggest reveal of all is completely underwhelming and makes you feel like you've been along for this "ride" if one could even call it that, for no actual reason. It feels unresolved, emotionless and so absurd, I have to wonder if it was intentional as a secret way to undermine the action film as an institution and subvert Lautner's potential as an action star, because I see no other explanation for how something so comically illogical got greenlit.

The dialogue and exchanges between characters are even worse. So often it seemed like a character was saying something completely unprompted by what the other character just said to him. Like everyone was in his or her own movie making up their own "action movie" lines.

One of my favorite moments was when some very "important" exposition is thrown Nathan's way. And the next scene is Nathan explaining EXACTLY what we just heard, almost verbatim, to Lily Collins' Karen. Why. Why would you do that. Why would you have two scenes with the exact same exposition one right after the other. THIS IS CALLED POOR SCREENWRITING. There is also a moment where we see Nathan and Karen run into the woods. Then follows what we will call Scene W. After Scene W, a bunch of characters are talking about how Nathan and Karen are in the woods. So please tell me why Scene W is necessary. Scene W features Nathan and Karen in the woods. Karen says "hang on I have to catch my breath." So they stop running for about thirty seconds. She does not catch her breath. And then they keep running. That was a scene. A whole scene. It was foreshadowing nothing, it was following up on nothing, it was just pointless. And I laughed out loud.

Moments like these happen pretty consistently for the entirety of the film. It was a never-ending barrage of things that didn't make sense, whether small and subtly incompetent or glaringly over the top examples of idiocy, it was incessant.

And poor Lily Collins. She was just so damn boring. She and Lautner had no chemistry (although their wannabe porn stars make out scene tries *really* hard to make you think they do) and nothing about her jumped out at me at all. I know people like her, so I have to assume it's the movie's fault, not her own. I don't believe Tarsem Singh would cast his Snow White with an actress who was this bland.

So what does work? Jason Isaacs is the best part of the movie. Easily. Unfortunately, the potential with his character is wasted. When the film ended, my movie going buddy and I discussed what changes could have made the film actually work, and we both thought it would involve Isaacs in a larger role. I kinda wish they made the movie we discussed instead of the one they did. It might have actually been interesting or had some modicum of dynamic.

Also, and how is this for bizarre. I saw this movie intending for Lautner to be the worst part of an otherwise awesome action movie. But no. The movie around him was terrible, and although he was pretty terrible for the most part as well, I gotta say that when he is fighting, I dig it. The kid has some serious martial arts skills and the only times I enjoyed myself watching this film were during his all too few (Seriously) action scenes. I would have been thrilled to see a third less nonsense attempting to be a movie and a third more pure action, stretching his boundaries as a fighter and pushing him more in that direction. Lautner is not a leading man. But he is a damn good martial artist.

It physically hurts me to talk about this movie so I'm going to stop now. If you want to, you know, drink and go see a stupid movie and yell at the screen everytime something doesn't make sense, this may be your preferred weekend viewing. If you like things that are good and value your time, STAY AWAY. Looking forward to chatting personally with any of you that have seen this movie so we can go over every single moment that laughed in the face of logic and then kicked logic in the balls. See full post