I am a failed filmmaker; it is true.  I went to college with the goal of graduating with at least 15 film projects lined up to start what would be just a completely awesome career.  Spoiler Alert- I settled for shooting weddings a couple of years and ended up getting out of the game altogether around 2008.  That was not before I had been a part of at least a few decent projects, but it was not the career I had hoped for. After a few months of doing nothing creative at all, Adam and I decided to start this site.  I would be lying if I didn’t say that the experience of creating the Media Breach fueled my artistic side.  Go ahead, ask Adam how often I would be up on a school night pining over the silliest shit to make this website work the way we wanted.  It made me realize I wasn’t ready to give up on making something entertaining.

June of this year rolls around and the wife and I have this huge flooring project done to our house.  To pay for a good portion of it, I had decided to sell the two semi-professional video cameras we had purchased for shooting weddings a few years back.  They were each still worth %60 of what I had paid for them originally (absolutely unheard of in the gadget world these days) and had been gathering dust.  And of course I couldn’t live without some kind of “nice” camera.  The agreement I made with the wife was that I would sell them both and purchase a DSLR Camera that can shoot video, leaving a healthy profit to pay towards our floors.

Here’s where things get interesting, along with nerdy and technical.  After selling both cameras, along with a Canon DSLR I wouldn’t need, I had somewhere in the neighborhood of $4500 total.  In my younger days, I would have said, “fuck it” and bought the biggest, baddest DSLR that shoots video.  I drew my eyes over to the Canon 5D Mark II.  Running a smooth $2500, I would have plenty of cash left over and I could have bragging rights like a mofo.  Then I started looking and learned that a number of cameras existed with similar video capabilities that cost substantially less than the 5D.  If you’re unfamiliar with how high-end electronics work, you’ll typically pay a premium to get just a little bit more performance out of your gear.  Having learned this over the years, I decided that I didn’t need to win every pissing/specifications contest.  I settled on the Canon 7D.  Yes, there are even cheaper cameras out there but it was a huge step for me to not just blow all my cash on lenses and a 5D.  It made more sense, and maybe it was the adult in me, to acquire a camera that was great for the money and would perform well for my needs.

Little did I know this would set the tone for the first project we would shoot on this new camera system.

Some people say they have the best ideas in the shower.  For me, it’s while I’m laying in bed and cannot sleep.  I had already envisioned a bunch of shots in my head for a test shoot of sorts and spent a couple brainstorming sessions trying to string them together.  I had around two/thirds of a film when I found myself unable to sleep one evening.  I do not remember the exact spark that started the idea, but it caught and I had my first beginning, middle, and end narrative idea in a while.  The best part about the whole thing was that this wasn’t an idea that would challenge me as a filmmaker as much as it would just be a great path back into film making.  I will be the first to admit- the ideas behind One Last Job are as simple as possible.  Some may call it settling for the cheaper camera but I would prefer  calling it “great for the money” or “well for my needs.”

With that I began fleshing out the idea just a bit- a mysterious character, armed with a gun, drives into a rather suburban area and begins to follow a woman around.  I will admit that my first intention, and this may shock those that have seen the film already, was to have the armed individual be played by a female.  The wife even had a friend interested in the role but alas, we could not sync our schedule with her.  I had mentioned the idea to my buddy Jesse and he expressed interest in doing anything for the project.  Not that I find him to be feminine in any way, we decided to have him play the role for the sake of getting it made.  Again, some might feel like I was settling on my creative ideas but I was more excited at the prospect of shooting this film rather than waiting for someone to become available.  Damn it, I was excited to be jumping back in the game, even if it was just a test shoot.

Then there was the trouble of audio.  The one drawback from these DSLRs is that the microphone has no monitoring system and, therefore, cannot be adjusted in anyway.  I wasn’t too concerned because, in my goal of making this film completely simple, there was to be no dialog.  But I knew there would be atmospheric sound effects to capture as well as several car sounds so I started researching options.  A lot of folks were all about the Zoom recorders and I was very close to ordering one of the H2 models.  After reading that the internal microphones on the H2 were spectacular but the mic inputs were less than stellar, I decided to go with the Tascam DR-07.  I have a boom mic as well as two wireless lavaliers I would like to continue using and felt this was the better route.  More on this later but Spoiler Alert, the jury is still out on the DR-07.

So we had our first day of shooting.  I think it’s safe to say that it was something just short of a disaster.  The first shots we did were of Jesse driving around in my Honda Fit.  I had laid the backseats down and set up a tripod to just get some angles from inside the cabin.  Two things I didn’t count on-

• It was hotter than Hades.
• I would get motion sickness staring into the LCD and trying to keep the camera steady.

I know you’ll think it silly of me crying about this but I get wore out real quick like.  We shot what amounted to a quick two minutes of editable footage (much of which ended up getting reshot on the second day).  Nevertheless we did get a few great shots, including a completely unreproducible shadow reveal of our firearm prop.  But I also learned that using a portable audio recorder is not as easy as pressing record and stepping away.  None of the audio we captured was usable as   the input level was turned down too low.  I have since learned that cranking up the headphone volume for monitoring the audio on the DR-07 deceives the operator into thinking they are capturing appropriate levels.  Once the files were on my computer, they had to be cranked to 11 and even then were tinny at best.

I took what footage we had and put it together for something of a sizzle reel.  I showed it to a few friends and co-workers, prefacing that this was not finished nor was the audio final and got relatively positive feedback.  One viewer began asking me questions about what would happen and demanded to know the final body count.  I was a bit shocked but it cemented that even on a shitty day of filming, we were on the right track.

Taking all of the feedback and experiences from that day, the second round of shooting went much smoother.  The night before the production, I took a few moments and drew up crude storyboards of the final 15 or so shots.  We had nothing but a list of shots while shooting the first day and truth be told, we rarely looked at the storyboards while shooting the final night.  But the process of planning the shots allowed me to give clearer direction to Jesse and the wife (playing the poor damsel in distress) and we breezed through everything.  It didn’t all come out as well as I had hoped but I was shocked by how well our night shots came out under the lights of a parking lot. In the past I dreaded all manner of dark lit shots but the 7D just plowed through it with ease.  I had a nerd boner the whole 15 minutes we shot at that location.

This is a good place to stop before getting into the post-production section.  If you hate this, go ahead and tell me below.  I’m not going to stop writing the second post but figured I would open myself up to feedback.  As I said in the opening, if you are looking to use some of this gear and want some further advice, feel free to ask away.

To be continued…

Breachcast Special Edition: Summer 2010 Wrap-Up

On an bonus episode of The Breachcast, we present a post screen Q/A session with director Daniel Stamm and Producer Eli Roth for The Last Exorcism.

Breachcast Special Edition: Q/A The Last Exorcism:

To paraphrase, Stephen King just doesn’t work on the big screen. He just doesn’t. You can argue Shawshank, Green Mile and Misery all you want, but we all know that’s not what people think when they think “Stephen King.” We think of a monster clown eating children and a drunk schoolteacher haunted into trying to kill his family. Even a cowboy from some alternate dimension trying to shoot a 50 foot tall mechanical bear. See what I mean? So these next few reviews will be of small(ish) screen adaptations of the work of Stephen King that, while probably not that great, are definitely among my favorites.

But then…

The elusive Richard Bachman

…enters Mick Garris. I have a love/hate/reallyhate relationship with Mick Garris. And it’s really all my fault. I’m a huge Stephen King fan (just like everyone else), and his novels are crazy fun to read. But Mr. Michael Alan Garris can’t help but to try to make them into horrible horrible made for t.v. miniseries. And even though he continues to fail with incredible fanfare, I can’t help but believe Stephen King sits back in his beautiful home with his beautiful wife and loves it all. Lil Stevie was born in 1950 under the sign of the Tiger. And when he was 11, he went with his older brother to see Vincent Price in the Roger Corman classic, The Pit and the Pendulum. This stinker of a movie was written by the amazingly, great horror novelist Richard Matheson based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name. And in his 2000 memoir On Writing, King blames The Pit and the Pendulum for creating in him the desire to write. He quickly made his own “novelization” of the movie and sold it at school for a few cents per copy. Of course, it got him in trouble, but the damage was done. And considering the fact that this pretty bad b-grade movie (Trust me. It’s awful. I’d review here in the Sleeper Cell, but considering that I’m also a huge fan of Richard Matheson (mainly his novels I Am Legend, Hell House and What Dreams May Come) and the great Vinny Price, I just wouldn’t be able to bring myself to say anything negative about either of them), it’s not surprising at all that King would also love b-grade movies slapped together based on his own stories. And honestly, I see where he’s coming from. But, as I am not a mega rich author with a billion copies of my books being read by the Queen of England or the Pope, I can say that Mick Garris’ adaptations of Stephen King’s great novels like The Stand or Sleepwalkers or The Shining are just plain bad. But then there’s Desperation.

And even though I love Desperation, there’s no confusing this movie with Shawshank or Green Mile or Misery. And it’s not that Mick Garris is a bad director. He just isn’t a director (as I understand the word). He sets up a set, puts actors in it with a script, points cameras at them and films whatever happens. The Stand is pretty epically bad. Even though I have a soft spot for it, there’s no way you can turn that amazing novel about the end of the world (and its subsequent beginning) into anything vaguely resembling a decent movie. Even if you make it 6 hours long and actually get King to write the script. I also have a soft spot for Garris’ early work on Critters 2: The Main Course, but that don’t make it a good movie. But screw all this setup nonsense.

Desperation is cool. It’s definitely b-movie – it’s a made for t.v. miniseries for the love of god. But with actors like the ultimate badass Viper (Tom Skerritt), Steven Weber (of “Wings”), and E.T.’s Henry Thomas, how could you not get something entertaining? And really, Garris’ talents for telling his cameramen to turn on their cameras is all you need. It’s a few actors running around an abandoned town playing pretend that some hideous evil entity from beyond time itself is stalking them by taking over the bodies of people who they may have once trusted. And Skerritt and company all have skeletons a-plenty in their closets for the evil demon Tak to exploit.

The sweet Lillian NOT responsible for any ruination

And even Annabeth Gish (co-star of SLC Punk who is not related (by blood) to the silent film stars Lillian and Dorothy Gish – more exactly, Annabeth’s (born Anne Elizabeth Gish) grandmother is named Lillian Gish, but this Lillian never acted. Annabeth is related to the silent film stars distantly … and by marriage) who damn near single-handedly derailed the greatest television series of all time: bumbumbumbummmmmm! THE X-FILES, with her psychic-when-it’s-convenient Monica Reyes (which has me wondering … based on Daphne’s sporadic mysticism in the “Frasier” sitcom and Raven’s intermittent visions in Disney’s “That’s So Raven,” why the hell don’t psychic t.v. characters pan out? I’m not calling into question “The Ghost Whisperer,” since everyone knows what keeps that show on the air. Jamie Kennedy and Jay Mohr. Obviously) couldn’t ruin this sweet sweet example of made-for-t.v. goodness.

the secrets of spooky success

So enter our hero (for a few minutes at least) in good ol’ Henry “I-saw-what-they-saw” Thomas. And sure, E.T. is one of the greatest movies of all time, and sure, The Blue Heelers were a pretty cool band back in the 90s, but he doesn’t exactly lend star power these days. All in all, consider me a Henry Thomas fan. Anyway, he gets pulled over in the Nevada desert with his girlfriend riding shotgun (the lovely Annabeth) by the sunbaked, perpetual badass, Ron Perlman – as the local law enforcer, Collie Entragian. And I swear to god, King chooses the coolest, north-iest last names ever. And dammit if ol’ Collie ain’t possessed by a friggin’ demon. Collie, possessed by Tak, takes his two new-found prisoners to the wee little town of Desperation. BUMBUMBUMBUMMMMMMMM! See, Tak is a demon – am I going too fast? And he was unearthed a long time ago by some Chinese slave laborers, and he wrecked some damn good shop on whitey running the mines. But he got sealed up, see? (<– That’s supposed to be in like prohibition-era gangster voice. And for no reason. It just makes my wife laugh when I do that voice). And now, of course, industrial mining has set the bastard loose again. Not sure if this is spoilery or not… eh. Not like you’re rushing out this instant to check it. But it was just on television again a few days ago. Sci-fi channel (sorry, SYFY. …whatever) I think? But Tak isn’t quite corporeal just yet. He needs human bodies to get along. But we’re just so damn weak! So one by one, it’s using the small band of humans left alive in the sleepy berg to live while it finds a way to live on its own. Oh No!

Prelude? ...or Nocturne?

But again, remember, this isn’t great, it’s just fun. And has some cute chick wearing Neil Gaiman’s Sandman on a t-shirt. Bonus! But it is fun, and really, has me wondering what other Stephen King movies are on the horizon…
See, Stephen King has one of the greatest traditions in the movie world – you can make a movie based on any one of his stories, he doesn’t care, but, you have to send him 1 dollar (American if you please), and a copy of the film. And as you could probably guess, he’s a favorite muse of college film students. And as a matter of fact, two of his short stories, “The Man Who Loved Flowers” (from Night Shift) and “Cain Rose Up” (from Skeleton Crew) have both recently been adapted into short films. As for his novels, From a Buick 8 (about an pan-dimensional car-monster) and Bag of Bones (a traditional scary as hell ghost story) are both being turned into t.v. miniseries. “Bag of Bones” is being directed by (you guessed it!) Mick Garris. And then of course the lengthy novel The Talisman, written with Peter Straub, is also being turned into a miniseries (like I said, King likes ‘em corny) … eventually. Imdb tells me to wait for 2012. And I can do that. Not like I’m not waiting for others right? So Get In Line Now! Because for those of you who are like me and cannot plan too far ahead, be sure to note that the new Kevin James comedy The Zookeeper is only 345 days away!

sweeeeeeeeeet!

]]> http://mediabreach.com/2010/08/26/trailer-the-walking-dead/feed/ 1 http://mediabreach.com/2010/08/25/breachcast-52/ http://mediabreach.com/2010/08/25/breachcast-52/#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:00:54 +0000 Breachcast Fairy http://mediabreach.com/?p=3580 This week we discuss X-Men: First Class, Piranha 2 3D, female characters other than Black Widow are in The Avengers, Piranha 3D, The Last Exorcism, Mad Men, and our Box Office Results.

Breachcast 52

The Loved Ones Teaser Trailer

]]> http://mediabreach.com/2010/08/24/teaser-the-loved-ones/feed/ 2 http://mediabreach.com/2010/08/24/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world-the-game-ps3/ http://mediabreach.com/2010/08/24/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world-the-game-ps3/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:00:50 +0000 James http://mediabreach.com/?p=3563 [...]]]>

This is always a welcome sight on PS3's background. Always.

Scott Pilgrim. You aren’t a nerd if you haven’t heard anything at all about Scott Pilgrim recently. Rarely in nerd life does such a thing like this happen. In fact, the last time I can remember an IP taking off somewhat like Scott Pilgrim has, was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise media deluge, though this is on a much smaller scale. Specifically, a comic turned cartoon turned movie turned sweet ass arcade games (yeah, I know the movie came out after the game, shut up). But oh, the TMNT arcade games; how great was it to be a child of the 80’s, cramped at an arcade cabinet with 3 other players going through quarters, level after level, through that game? Or through X-Men: The Arcade Game?  Or River City Ransom at home?  The beat ‘em up genre is one of the greats but can Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game even begin to compare to its button mashing forerunners?

TITLE SCREEN

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game – from here on, SPVTWTG – is a little different than its beat ‘em brethren; it’s a game that came into existence under three different creative forces that all have video games themselves as their key inspiration for their own work.  If the word “meta” springs to mind, you aren’t alone.  Gaming as whole has become so mainstream that as it has aged the past 30 years, self-referential works are finally starting become a sort of norm.  In this game’s instance, the creative forces chosen – Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic, Paul Robertson’s art direction, Anamanaguchi’s soundtrack – are all so highly talented within their own respective creative media formats, it’s easy to understand why so many nerds collectively wet themselves when this game was announced.

LEVEL 1: Somewhere in Toronto…

We don’t need to get too into the story of the Scott Pilgrim series, here.  Suffice to say, if you haven’t read it, shame on you.  Do you want to borrow it?  If you live in nearby, give me a call.  Don’t know where “nearby” is?  Then you don’t live nearby.

Drenched in the best.

Key to this game’s world is the comic series by Bryan Lee O’ Malley.  The Scott Pilgrim series, while drenched in video game references, isn’t about video games but simply references them for humor and as a means for our hero, Scott, to work out his problems, namely, the 7 evil ex’s that darken the doorstep of Ramona Flower’s love life and his own demons.  The game follows the comics as opposed to the movie but does a spectacular job of providing Scott Pilgrim fans with all the brilliant in jokes and storyline plot points that we’ve come love all without cramming it down newbies’ or series haters throats, allowing them to enjoy the gameplay without distraction.  There’s never any dialogue and word boxes are only filled with simple emoticons allowing all story elements to play out in game or through small cut scenes that’ll eat up 10 seconds of your time.

LEVEL 2: A MECHA FETUS draws near!

Word boxes or dialogue would’ve sucked ass anyway as they would’ve mucked up the visuals of Paul Robertson and some of his cohorts in depravity from the MECHA FETUS VISUBLOG (So NSFW, it’s NSFL sometimes).

It has to be said that I think nobody else could’ve pulled off the visuals of this game or do justice to the IP like Paul Roberston.  The man understands what makes sprites beautiful, fluid, and still relevant to video games and – as douchey as this is going to sound – art.  If you haven’t seen any of his movies, a quick search of his name on youtube will yield mind warping magnificence of such short films as Kings of Power 4 Billion % and Pirate Baby’s Battle Cabana Street Fight.  Ah screw it, here’s part 1 of Kings of Power:

Now imagine if you will, a time before SPVTWTG was announced and just wishing that guy would get to make a game.  His understanding of pixel art needed to be applied to a game and this one delivers a fully realized and ideal look for Scott Pilgrim with just enough of Robertson’s own influence injected into O’ Malley’s characters.  Non-player characters like Hollie and Lisa Miller hang around in the background gyrating, boobs-a-bouncin’ in a Robertson-eque pervy, but not too pervy, way.  Level 3’s boss, Todd Ingram goes Tetsuo from Akira with one of his attacks – a visual favorite of Robertson’s – and it doesn’t feel out of place at all even though Todd doesn’t do it in the comics or the movie. And I won’t touch on the perfectly welcome visual viscera added to the last boss.

Graphically speaking, SPVTWTG exudes loads of character, so much so that I wouldn’t mind the Scott Pilgrim story simply told with Robertson’s art direction entirely.  Of course, playing through works just as well too especially when you add…

LEVEL 3: Anamanaguchi levels up.

It’s okay if you hadn’t heard of Anamanaguchi.  The chiptune genre is the new poster child for niche musical tastes.  If you like video game music,  you owe it to yourself to track some of it down and 8-bit peoples is a good place to start.  By the definition of the genre, Anamanaguchi aren’t strict chiptune artists as they employ the use of guitars, bass and drums, in addition to using NES and Gameboy soundboards to produce their signature chiptune sound but the end result winds up being something akin to an NES game soundtrack on the sweetest steroid super meth crack imaginable.

I’m mostly familiar with their first album, Power Supply ($6 on iTunes, free with that link), and if SPVTWTG is any indication, they’re only getting better.  Much like Robertson’s visuals begged to be played, Anamanaguchi’s tracks demanded to be pumped through the speakers of every new level you beat in any game they could be put in.  A band that exists to celebrate video game music was the perfect accompaniment to this production.  All the arrangements feel like close relatives with their same tonal quality but are appropriately different when needed.  Level 1’s poppy, affable tune introduces you the comically fun mayhem you’re about to delve into.  Level 4 delivers a classic oriental sound to reflect the fact your jump over ninjas and hibachis for the better part of it and level 3’s music gets more dramatic, more epically urgent like the stakes in its comic volume counterpart that’s so kick ass, you need to hear it:

Here’s a fact: if you wash your dishes to that song, you’ll get them done faster because you’ll break all of them…and then hipsters attack you. The soundtrack is currently available on iTunes as well.

LEVEL 4: Game On…despite itself, sometimes…

Of course, our previous levels don’t amount to 8 bit shit without gameplay and here’s where the kinks in the code make their appearance.  Firstly, know that the game ultimately plays great.  If you’re judging that by the way that Scott, Ramona, Kim and Stephen Stills (all of your playable characters…maybe) handle, they’re brilliant.  They have a limited move pool when you first start off but as they level up, you gradually gain access to new, more powerful and useful attacks.  There is a slight issue with the Scott and Stills’ walking speed but it isn’t anything slower than something like Streets of Rage 2. What I think people are feeling is the extreme difference between walking and the dash you can accomplish by double tapping the control pad or hard tapping the analog stick; Ramona and Kim move about a bit quicker when strolling.  And when you have your full move list, everything you can do is pretty staggering.

Not only do you wind up with a variety of punching and kicking (hammering, if you’re Ramona) moves, you’ve got your special attack that drains your guts meter and the ability to call an assist in Knives Chau, Scott’s highschooler girlfriend which also taps the guts meter. She winds up being pretty useful early on with her help varying depending on which character you pick, e.g. Scott gets a kiss blown toward him as in volume 1’s iconic scene displaying the world “love” that deals damage to all enemies on screen while Kim gets…um…Kim essentially trades guts points for health points in a sexy way. Tragically, if you haven’t read the books, you don’t know how awesome he is but you can unlock Knives’ dad, Mr. Chau as an assist character as well which I have yet to do.

But leading into the gripes portion, when your character of choice reaches level 4, I believe, they gain access to a much needed ability to counterattack by hitting the block button at just the right moment.  Seriously, especially early on, that should’ve been a default ability or at least the first thing you get leveling up which brings up something I’ve heard echoed around the internet: this game is unbalanced.

SPVTWTG starts off pretty challenging, even on the easiest setting and it feels good.  I died often and I deserved every single death; but by the time you get to Lucas Lee in level 2, you need to be able to counter attack with some kind of consistency.  I think I only managed to make it to level 4 with luck and the fact that the game saves your leveling progress after you die.  After I got to level 4 and I was having a good, challenging time with it, I made the mistake of buying an item called “The Bionic Arm” in Wallace Wells’ secret shop that’s hidden level 1 and effectively became what I call “God Pilgrim”.  I took out Roxy Richter, level 4’s boss, in about 3 minutes and that’s only because I was fucking around and not getting down to it.  Level 5’s Katayanagi Twins?  They punched me into a wall and when my limp yet mighty body bounced off said wall and hit them, THEY DIED.  I beat twin bosses when my fuck up hit them back.  In retrospect, I don’t think I would’ve have bought the bionic arm had I known what it was going to do to me.  But that’s another gripe, you don’t know what items do to you until after you buy them.  I guess that could be construed as good thing, though; you could say you can customize your level of difficulty whenever you want in game, with that one item.  Thankfully, the game stepped up the challenge a bit afterward so I didn’t feel like a total taint after I beat it with Scott.

Also, I suspect this game would have been a blast had I had somebody to play with but you know this whole thing called being an adult?  You’ve got shit you’ve got to do and a lot of the time, you just don’t have time to go over to a friend’s house to play video games any more.  That’s right you little fuckers; as an adult, it’s true that you get some amount of disposable income for games only to wind up playing with yourself…in multiple ways.  Digression aside, I love local multiplayer, I would have loved to review this aspect of the game, I waited this long on my review to try and get some multiplayer in so that I could review it.  It just wasn’t able to come together so I’ve decided to use my forced unfamiliarity with this mode as fuel for my main gripe about it: Online multiplayer needs to be a standard.  Especially with simple shit like this, there’s no excuse for not including drop in and play, online multiplayer anymore.

Seriously, I would've of loved for this to happen for me.

I’ve also heard rumblings about severe glitches putting a damper on folk’s enjoyment with what otherwise would be a sublime gaming experience.  I’ve only had one such instance thus far and that was when I cleared an area of its ninja infestation right before my fight with Roxy Richter and the screen refused to scroll over.  Kind of a bummer as I had to restart the game but I wasn’t looking forward to getting my ass kicked at that particular moment anyway.  Oh, and quite annoyingly often, the menus are horrendously slow and unresponsive.

But fuck all that noise.  Y’know what?  There’s just too much good let it bog this game down.

LEVEL 5: The Final Boss(ness) of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game

Not content with just making a well controlled beat ‘em up, developers Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Chengdu continued the meta-ness of this whole package with sweet little tidbits like extra play modes, sound checks and various other in game effects like turning the money enemies drop into woodland creatures all with…wait for it…cheat codes!  In a most welcome throwback to the days of old, get your ass to gamefaqs and marvel at the nice chunk codes that need to be entered at the title screen to achieve all sorts of cool shit.  Want to start the game with Scott Pilgrim’s sword, The Power of Love?  There’s a code for that.  Feel like fighting through waves of zombies instead of going through the levels?  DUR DUR DURRR.  …I wasn’t making fun you; enter Down, Up, Right, Down, Up, Right, Down, Up, Right, Right, Right at the title screen to unlock zombie attack mode.

The fact is, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game is the ultimate fan service.  Most definitely, it’s the ultimate fan service for fans of the graphic novels; hands down, this is for you guys.  But also, it’s fan service for people who just love the shit out of video games.  I’m not talking about people who like to just play games here and there, though as a good game, they’ll like this beat ‘em up too but more importantly, this is a game for people who truly love video games and the culture they helped establish.  It’s a celebration of everything that modern gaming owes its existence to and it manages to feel just as relevant any other modern game around.

I made this last paragraph so I’d stop waxing this game’s pole.  It’s on PlayStation Network as of this writing for $10 and will soon be available on Xbox Live Arcade August 25th.  All that’s left to say is that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game is epically approved and epically recommended.

Or you'll get de-veganized.

And you don’t need to know anything going into this movie. One look at the poster should tell you all you need to know. Break it down piece by piece. You’re getting a stone-cold French fox named Mallory (Olivia Bonamy); there will be much blood; there will be creepy eyes, beaucoup Satanic references, French bad words and badass guns. So, honestly, what the hell are you waiting to hear? If you haven’t added this to the queue yet, it better be because you’re watching it already through it’s IMDb page.

Besides, I’m not going to be able to convince you in the next few paragraphs.

But just for the sake of trying, let me say just three more words: Anti-paranormal. Commando. Unit.

And we’ve seen these movies before. There’s Drew Maxwell’s cheesy but decent Guardians (2006) and John Carpenter’s horrible Ghosts of Mars (2001) and really, even Predator and Godzilla pit a pseudo-military force against seemingly unbeatable monsters. But, like with everything else, it’s fun to see what the French do with it. No only that, but in those other movies, the victim of the monster-brutality didn’t have so heavy a potential impact on the people of those fictional whens and wheres. Oh, I’m sorry. Did I forget to mention it?
THE POPE HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED!!

A Short History of the Papacy:

Pope of the stars!

According to Catholic teachings, the first pope was none other than St. Peter himself (to those like me who are constantly bothered that ancient middle-easterners seem to have strangely British names, it’s important to note that Saint Peter, who in English is referred to as “Simon Peter” is actually called something closer to Seman Kefa (sort of pronounced SEE-mahn KHEF-fa) and was in fact born in Bethsaida – where very few people who are born are actually named Pete). While the heathenistic Protestants deny that Jesus (more closely named Yehosua and pronounced Ye-HO-shoo-uh) actually appointed Petey to a recognized position like “pope,” but as they are not Catholic, they are obviously wrong. When the pope (currently Benedict XVI – though I still consider him Ratzinger) is not protecting disgusting, hell-bound child-molesters, it’s his duty to tell Christians what they should believe, and due to the proclamation of Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870, he can’t be wrong! It should be noted that it was Pope Pius IX who presided over this First Vatican Council, where he also had the dogma of the Immaculate Conception affirmed (stating that Mary (whose Hebrew name is much closer to Miriam), mother of Yehosua, was conceived of her human parents without original sin and lived a sinless life. Soooo, I’m guessing he was an optimist. In more recent events, Pope Ratzingdict XVI, in an unforeseen show of progressive attitude, has appointed Earth’s first alien minister to be stationed in the United States.

Mal and the gang

Of course, Mallory isn’t fighting evil simply because it’s her calling. Like all great crusaders, she had a run in with evil – she married a demon. Damn demons. And her team is equally outlandish. Vena Cava (Jeffrey Ribier, who was actually in an episode of the “Highlander” tv series) is a damn near 6 foot tall, turquoise-haired, transsexual, explosives expert. Talking Tina (Thylda Bares) is a mute, telepathic, mind-controlling 10-year-old with an affinity for Duck Tails comics. And Inspector Durand (Thierry Perkins-Lyautey) is part man, part machine, all cop (minus the part about being half machine). And I’m hesitant to even call this a B-movie, even though it obviously is totally a b-movie. But honestly, when I think “B-MOVIE,” I imagine a movie with a small budget and no stars that’s trying to do something more akin to a big budget movie with big stars. When horror movies have over-the-top make-up and our hero’s hands make swishing noises like a Power Ranger when they punch vampires while actually in Hell, I tend to think of them as straight up comedies where people happen to get their insides removed. Then, add on top of all that, the scene where the six foot tall transsexual breaks out her purple, high-heeled, platform-shoe machine guns, and it becomes something else entirely.

The good stuff all begins from the very first second of movie with a pretty unique chase sequence between a bride and her newly acquired demon husband. And the first action scene is Mallory and the gang liberating (sort of) a few virgin nuns chosen to be the mothers of a new litter of ghoulish, demonly offspring in a church – complete with lines of dialogue like, “I’ve been so edgy since our two sisters’ unexplained disappearance!” I’m normally against movies with cheap scares (like a demon suddenly appearing in a dark doorway and screaming with loud violins chiming in just in case you didn’t notice), but I’ve been known to make exceptions … for just about everything. And this movie is just too damn fun to get caught up in silly pet peeves.

A Very Short History of Mad Movies:

Mad Movies and the L.A. Connection

It’s not really fair to say that “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ got their inspiration for their tv show directly from “Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection,” but it is fair to say that “Mad Movies” blazed the trail Joel, Crow and Tom Servo walked. Of course, to go back even further, British comedian Bob Monkhouse developed a tv show in 1965 called “Mad Movies,” where he introduced clips of silent films to instruct his viewing audience in the different comedic techniques used in film history. It was more instructional than comedic, but any time you get to watch Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton clips, you’re going to laugh. In any case, the L.A. Connection was a comedy troupe (in Los Angeles!) whose television show was a spoof. They’d show classic movie scenes with their own dialogue dubbed in. Genius. And of course, MST3K’s contribution sprouted from there. The point? This kind of movie is built for this kind of thing.

If you didn’t like Undead or Jack Brooks, odds are good you won’t like this either. Personally, I can’t get enough of comedies that take themselves totally seriously while also making complete fools of themselves. Take if from me, this movie is RIDICULOUS. It’s a blast to watch and if you’re having friends over for margaritas, it should be near the top of you list of entertainment choices.

Hell. Yeah.