Category: Uncategorized

Revenge of Stan Bush

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Singer-songwriter Stan Bush has, for the better part of the last decade, been experiencing one of the most improbable late-career rebirths in recent rock history. A quintessential stylist of 80s “power ballad” metal, he was mostly known for composing moderately-noteworthy tracks that wound up used in B-movies like “Bloodsport” and (more recently) on “Sailor Moon.”

All that changed with the overdue re-release in the U.S. of the original “Transformers” movie, reaquainting fans with the “You’ve Got The Touch” and “Dare” – two tracks he recorded for the movie which have gone on to become ironic cult-classics in their own right. Since then, Bush’s “second win” career has primarily involved performing said songs at Transformers conventions and composing NEW songs also related to the aforementioned intergalatic robot war. At least two such songs were offered (by Bush) to the producers of the Michael Bay Transformers movies… and rejected, presumably as part of Bay etc’s resistance to all things that are awesome.

In any case, Bush is evidently planning to ride this train as far as it’ll take him. The video game “Transformers: Battle For Cybertron” – handily described as a giant bucket of interactive 80s Transformers fan-service – is out this week, and KOTAKU already has a video up of the game’s ending credits. Playing over said credits? Yet ANOTHER new Stan Bush song about Transformers. Give it a look: http://kotaku.com/5570343/transformers-credits-are-a-joy-for-old+timers

In other news, “Transformers 3” is still on a track to suck about a year from now.

green daze

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(Hat-tip to Chud: http://chud.com/articles/articles/24159/1/GREEN-HORNET-LOOKS-LIKE-AN-ACTION-MOVIE/Page1.html)

Since about 1989, you could count on one thing above all else in “new” superhero movies: The first trailer would try as hard as it could to stress how similar this “new” movie was to a Batman movie: Tragedy. Angst. Darkness. Resolve. Pounding Danny Elfman score. Hero-says-his-own-name. BAM! Title. Coming Soon.

With that in mind, this (otherwise pretty rote) first trailer for Michel Gondry’s “Green Hornet” movie – with Seth Rogen as the titular hero – perhaps marks the beginning of a new era: Batman? Batman WHO? “The Green Hornet” wants you to know that he’s more like – and I mean A LOT more like… Iron Man.

Here’s my principal “nerd” question about this franchise: The two characters being “owned” by different companies would make direct reference impossible, but will they be making any allusion to Britt Reid (aka Green Hornet) being the Lone Ranger’s great-great (great?) grand-nephew? Yeah, that’s actually true. Go look it up.

The Phantom

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I’m sitting here torturing myself via Syfy’s two-movie-length modernized “reboot” of “The Phantom,” which is about as terrible as one would expect. It also (so far) features possibly the worst example of hero-costume “realism” I’ve ever seen. They’ve basically got him wearing somebody’s idea of a “movement friendly” bomb-disposal suit – which looks about as bad as you’d imagine.

Why doesn’t this work in Vegas?

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Generally speaking, I’m bad with predictions. Except this time I wasn’t.

See, back in April when I did “Game OverThinker” episode 34, “Waggle War,” I made a mostly-kidding joke about how funny it’d be if – because the “OMG-it’s-a-sidescroller!” trailer for the new Metroid had just come out – when the E3 show came around Sony and Microsoft’s big motion-control unveilings got undercut by a bunch of 2D retro Nintendo games. At the time, it was the most unlikely prospect I could think of. Here’s the episode, the revelant bit come in at 7:40…

http://v.giantrealm.com/saf/272828ab50091da6eb1ae85133def12ae9a44eb4
http://screwattack.com/videos/Episode-34-Waggle-War

So… fast-forward to this year’s E3 show, and what happened? Well, Sony and MS hacked everyone off with shows mostly devoted to their new motion controllers and pimping ESPN partnerships (Microsoft) and 3D TVs (Sony.) Nintendo’s show, on the other hand? Well… 2D sidescroller revamps for Metroid, Kirby and Donkey Kong Country; plus the next Zelda going with an ultra-colorful retro art scheme and along with what look to be ports of EVERY noteworthy franchise they’ve got (and then some) for the talk-of-show 3DS… it’s “flagship” game is the return of KID ICARUS. So, basically, E3 2010 was “won” by a game lineup from about 1998.

Why can’t I ever do this when there’s money on the line?

I’ll see you at SGC!

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Nice to finally be able to make this “officially public.” I’ll be in Texas the weekend of July 4th for the ScrewAttack Gaming Convention (in my capacity as The Game OverThinker), and I hope to see some fans and well-wishers there, too 😉

More details of this will likely follow. Details on the Convention itself can be found HERE: http://sgconvention.com/

Plastic

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To help us all through monday, here’s a slideshow of Megan Fox performing softcore sex-acts on a mannequin of herself for Interview Magazine. Really.

(EMBED CHANGED TO LINK BECAUSE IT MIGHT LOOK NSFW AT A DISTANCE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiPTa1wod_0&feature=player_embedded#at=11

Now… I know “mannequin parts” are kind of a schlocky mock-surrealist photography staple, but there aren’t really too many ways to interpret the “point” of this that don’t add up to some sort of either ironic or dark commentary on Fox’s onscreen persona and/or her “relationship” with the same, right? This is either “this woman IS a mannequin” or “this woman is used as a mannequin.”

So the operative question would be… is she a REALLY good sport, or does she not “get it?”