Zombie Column: Fast and Furious 6

We’ve planned to go to see this movie ever since Steve got overly excited upon seeing the trailer. Now, I hate to throw Steve under the bus, but he was as giddy as a schoolboy on a snow day (and not any other analogy, understand?). Rich couldn’t make it because he ran a marathon that started at 7 the next day and needed sleep, so we took Clement with us.

Trailers for the week were The Lone Ranger, which is growing on me. Even if they put all the action bits in the trailer, it would be impossible not to have impressive set pieces all around those bits of action. People are thinking it will bomb (and it might) but I’m betting I’ll enjoy it. Mind you, I also enjoy plenty of crap movies, so it might be best for the rest of you to reserve judgement. Other trailers were for White House Down (I’m all in on this), R.I.P.D. (Jeff Bridges has waaaay too much fun, and that might hurt it a bit), and Rush (a character piece masquerading as a racing/action flick).

As for the movie itself … it’s all kinds of ridiculous, and everyone one of those kinds is AWESOME! This movie has all the awesome. All. Of. It. From now on, every movie described as awesome will be compared to this movie. “It was a good movie. 86% as awesome as Fast and Furious 6.” Or “That was great! 105% as awesome as Fast and Furious 6” (although don’t believe for a minute there is anything more awesome than FF6).

Particularly the last 10 seconds. Right at the end of the movie, there’s a warning that all the stunts were done by trained drivers, and please don’t recreate them at home (not that that’ll stop people from doing it for Youtube purposes, but at least they can’t sue the Fast and Furious franchise for their own stupidity), and then there’s a scene that sets up the villain for the next movie. And frankly, I have not been this excited about any movie related business in about … well, in about three months, actually, since that was when they announced J.J. Abrams would be doing the next Star Wars. Do you know how lucky we are as movie fans? Tremendously lucky. Also, awesome.

Now, I could talk about how the past movie and this one were about reuniting everyone who had been in a FF movie and introducing new ones (Hi, The Rock), but to do that, they need to kill off some characters or they’ll have too many to focus on. Nominally, the movies are about Dom (Vin Deisel) and Brian (Paul Walker), with the others around them. Actually, I should have said the movies are about cars, because they totally are. Then they are about Dom and Brian, and then about the banter between the minor characters (let it be noted that Tyrese Gibson is willing to have shots taken at him in the dialogue. He’s a stand up guy) while Dom and Brian talk about meaningful stuff. Then it’s back to cars. But mostly, this movie is about the awesome. It’s an awesome theatre movie.

Xbox One

I wanted to jot down a couple quick thoughts about the Xbox One reveal and press conference today, because apparently that’s what this blog has descended into. Ha, just kidding. I’ll be melting my brain with Fast & Furious 6 this weekend, unless something unexpected happens.

First, I think I know why it’s called the Xbox One, even though it’s the third generation of Microsoft’s gaming system. It’s not called the Durango (isn’t that an SUV?), the Infinity (that would've been cool) or the 720 (I know that it’s 360 x 2, but that’s just two circles. Wheee). I think it’s called the One because it’s a homonym with Won. “You buying a Playstation or an Xbox?” “Well, the Xbox won, so an Xbox one.”

Now, let’s get into the specs, and find out why I probably won’t buy one (hint: it rhymes with “Shmomputer.”) It has an eight-core CPU (twice as much as my computer), 8 gigs of RAM (as much as my computer, but I have 4 slots with 4 gigs of RAM sticks each. I don’t know why it only registers as 8 gigs. Any technowizards out there that can help? Also, that doesn’t count the 2 gigs of DDR5 I have for my graphics card), and a 500 gB harddrive (waaaay less than my computer). Finally, it’ll have a blu-ray drive. How much did that stick in their craw to have to license Sony technology? Oh yeah, and my computer has one too.

Of course, what Microsoft is trying to do is turn the Xbox into a multimedia machine. Which my computer can do as well. They’ve touted the ability to get TV, which anyone can get on their computer for a $100 video capture card. Hell, I bought an external doohickey that plugs into my USB port (USB 3, just like the Xbox One) and has a cable connection on the other side. It cost $60, and now I get TV. With some software, anyone can have DVR capabilities (I have Windows Media Centre from a previous computer). Also, they bragged about instantly switching between TV, game, and the internet. We’ve had that on computers ever since ALT+TAB came about. Seriously, anyone that’s had a boss is intimately familiar with that.

Mind you, they’re big on voice and action commands too, which is something my computer cannot do (yet). It’s why I have a mouse, which is much more accurate than most gestures. The voice thing is cool though.

While games played less of an emphasis in the announcement, they did state they had 15 games coming within a year, eight of them being original franchises. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Steam. Cheap games, good games, almost any games you want. World of Warcraft? Not on steam, but downloadable. Blizzard has an online store. Gamefly for more games. GOG for old games. Origin for EA games, because they saw Steam and said “We can do that worse.”

So yeah, anything you can do, my computer can do better. Well, I guess they do have Halo going for them.

Zombie Column: Star Trek: Into Darkness

It seems my movie-going habits have changed from well-scheduled summer months to sudden invites an hour ahead of time. Not that I mind, because a sudden invite to see Star Trek: Into Darkness is just the thing to perk my week up. It’s like a sudden invite out to a great restaurant when you were just planning on microwaving something at home. And the cook at that great restaurant was J.J. Abrams. Who in this analogy is a fantastic cook (okay, maybe my analogies need a little work).

So yes, I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness last night, and it was awesome. In fact, it was so awesome I can’t even remember the trailers beforehand, because they were all overshadowed by the awesomeness thereafter. I can remember World War Z, which has great trailer music that I can’t seem to find anywhere. I think I recognize one part of it by Audiomachine, but I could be wrong, and then they use other songs that are just as awesome and just as unknown. Also, I pay way too much attention to music in trailers. Besides that, they showed the scene where people fly out of a hole in a plane. PLANE HOLES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. Especially at that altitude. This is one thing that movies consistently get wrong. Give plane makers a little credit here, people. Anyway, I suppose I should actually get started before I get completely sidetracked.

The movie itself opens (after some title screens) with Kirk and McCoy running through that red forest that you’ve seen in the trailer. And yes, it’s just as funny as the trailers, so that’s good. What’s not good is why Kirk’s doing that in the first place (SIDETRACK ALERT). Why would the captain of a ship go on an away mission? I know that it’s a time-honoured Star Trek tradition, but my gosh – it makes no sense. You don’t risk the most important people on trivial matters. In fact, you do your best not to risk them at all. Not that that’s a bad idea. Can you imagine how few wars there would be if heads of state had to go to the front lines every time they declared war? They’d learn how to settle things over a beer and a game of Mortal Kombat.

In Star Wars (and just for the record, I’m not a fan of comparing Trek and Wars), you don’t see General Dodonna up there piloting an X-wing against the Death Star – he lets the pilots do that. Not that it would have mattered. The Death Star was seconds away from obliterating the whole planet anyway. Later, they let a general lead a mission, but it was Han Solo, and I’m guessing it was a placating gesture before he went and killed himself on a suicide mission to take down the Death Star II’s shields from the forest moon of Endor. Lando was given a general-ship, but I think that was based on piloting merit, or the need to have him be the one to give orders to the rest of the star fighters. The one in actual command was Admiral Ackbar, sitting safely in the Home One (flagship of that particular alliance fleet), only the fully operational Death Star laser forced him to engage the enemy directly. So yeah, Star Wars does this better.

So … back to the movie. Kirk gets in trouble, because he’s Kirk. Before he can really be punished at all (because again, he’s Kirk), Benedict Cumberbatch shows up to be evil. Has there ever been a more perfectly British name than Benedict Cumberbatch? Quick, someone give him a title so he can be Lord Benedict Cumberbatch. He needs to name his kid Thornwood just to keep the theme going. Anyway, he shows up to be evil, and then the movie adds some twists, with callbacks to previous movies and TV shows, only with a little twist. Like having a different character in the callback. In the new version, Spock and Uhura are dating, but it was Kirk and Uhura in the original who kissed (TANGENT ALERT!). In fact, theirs was the first interracial kiss aired on TV. They did one take where the kiss was spectacular, but the producers were nervous about showing it, so they asked for more takes. William Shatner kept intentionally messing up so they’d have to use the good take, because William Shatner is cool that way, and totally aware that hotness knows no racial boundaries. Now it’s just taken for granted that someone as smokin’ as Zoe Saldana can get whoever she wants, be it white, black, purple, green, or alien.

So … back to the movie … again. It was awesome (as if you couldn’t have gotten that from the first paragraph, or the trailer, or the fact that it’s Star Trek and directed by J. J. Abrams), so it’s definitely a theatre movie. Good action, good lines, good comedy, good acting, good music. And to think, this is the guy who only likes Star Trek. Imagine what he’ll do with Star Wars.