Live-Action Ninja Turtles Return for 2011

In geeky movie news this month that makes me feel like a fifth-grader again, TMNT co-creater Peter Laird con­firmed in Vari­ety rumors of another live-action Tur­tles movie planned for 2011.  The announce­ment comes on the heels of TMNT’s 25th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion.  Other than mak­ing me feel old, I’m also damn excited.  Because in Hol­ly­wood, every­thing I loved grow­ing up in the 1980s is sud­denly cool again.  The new Tur­tles film will be pro­duced by Scott Med­nick of Leg­endary Pic­tures, who is cur­rently pro­duc­ing the soon to be released Where The Wild Things Are, another live-action fan­tasy film (which hap­pens to be based on yet another com­pletely awe­some thing from my child­hood).  And if these screen­shots are any indi­ca­tion of what’s in store for the next TMNT, then color me green with excitement.

After the orig­i­nal live-action movie, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles films went from bad to worse, though 2007’s ani­mated TMNT was OK.  Then again, I’m of the opin­ion that the first Tur­tles movie is one of the great­est if under­rated comic book movies of all time—but I may be a lit­tle biased.  I was obsessed with all things Ninja Tur­tles as a kid.  Like really obsessed.  If it had a TMNT logo on it, I owned it.  I could quote the movies word for word (prob­a­bly still can).

My wish­list for the new live-action Tur­tles movie:

• Darker, grit­tier, edgier Tur­tles truer to the orig­i­nal Mirage comic books.
• Curse words.  Most TMNT fans have grown up, and so should the movies.
• Sex (if only to sat­isfy my mor­bid curiosity). 
• Real­stic CGI that doesn’t look like CGI.
• Back to basics origins/roots sto­ry­line. (Think Bat­man Begins.)
• April O’Neil, and any­one other than Paige Turco to play her.
• Blood, weapons, and graphic violence.
• Moar Raphael.*

Things I could live without:

• Shell-tastic tur­tle puns.
• Any char­ac­ter who exists solely in the Archie comics series.
• No Venus.
• Ran­dom kid-who-meets-the-Turtles char­ac­ter (a’la Keno in Turltes II, and later Yoshi in Tur­tles III).
• Any sto­ry­line involv­ing time travel.
• A Turtles-themed rap song.
• A PG rating.
• Cow­abunga.

The sucky part about all this?  Wait­ing two years.

*Raphael is still the coolest tur­tle, and if you don’t agree with me, I’m not shar­ing my Ninja Tur­tles fruit snacks with you.

Totally Emo Movie Heroes

There’s been a dis­turb­ing trend in Hol­ly­wood over the last cou­ple of years: inva­sion of the emos.  Aparently we girls like our movie heroes hot, angry, and whiny.  For what­ever rea­son, the hot male lead + pent-up angst for­mula seems to be work­ing, because emo sells.  All of the spec­i­mens listed here can typ­i­cally be found star­ing soul-searchingly out from the pages of Tiger­beat, or star­ring unwill­ingly in the steamy chap­ters of Mary Sue fanfics writ­ten by obsessed teenage girls.

Edward Cullen

‘Twi­light’ 2008

Most emo line:
“I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore.”

Favorite emo acces­sory:
A well-tailored cus­tom peacoat.

Rec­og­niz­able by his brood­ing stares, per­fectly disheveled hair and stalker ten­den­cies, Edward Cullen is a prod­uct of the roman­tic fan­tasies of 30-something author Stephanie Meyer, who would like you to believe he’s a dan­ger­ous vam­pire despite not drink­ing human blood and hav­ing no fangs.  Edg­ing out Buffy’s Angel in “the vam­pire who wants to be good” mar­ket, Edward Cullen is a vampy hero who spends the major­ity of his time obnox­iously tor­tur­ing him­self over his human love inter­est, the per­pet­ual damsel-in-distress Bella Swan.  Super­fi­cially played by Robert Pat­tin­son, who never read the books and never misses an oppor­tu­nity to make fun of his own sculpted-browed character.

Harry Pot­ter

‘Harry Pot­ter and the Pris­oner of Azk­a­ban’ 2004

Most emo line:
“HE WAS THEIR FRIEND!!!”

Favorite emo acces­sory:
An invis­i­bil­ity cloak, to hide his spon­ta­neous fits of crying.

There is per­haps no hero more emo than boy-wizard Harry Pot­ter, who, among other things, strug­gles with school, girls, dead par­ents, abu­sive rel­a­tives, and an evil dark wiz­ard who con­stantly tries to mur­der him.  In a way, his emo-ness is prob­a­bly the most jus­ti­fied.  Some of Harry’s favorite activ­i­ties include mouthing off to teach­ers and Slytherins, alien­at­ing his two best friends, star­ing long­ingly at pretty Hog­warts girls, and wal­low­ing in the “nobody under­stands me” vari­ety of self-pity.  Played by Daniel Rad­cliffe, whose act­ing (thank­fully) seems to be get­ting bet­ter with each movie.

Anakin Sky­walker

‘Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith’ 2005

Most emo line:
“Nooooooooooooooooooo!”

Favorite emo acces­sory:
A lightsaber, for mur­der­ing Jedi children.

Bet­ter known as Darth Vader, Anakin Sky­walker is the tragic anti­hero of the Star Wars uni­verse.  Played by a young and vir­ile Hay­den Chris­tensen, Darth Vader’s youth is a far cry away from the crusty old white man unmasked in the orginal Episode VI.  Unfor­tu­nately Christensen’s act­ing kinda sucks, so his ver­bal tran­si­tion to the dark side is often ripe with unin­ten­tional humor.  Anakin’s favorite hob­bies: dis­agree­ing with the Jedi Coun­cil, chillin’ with Darth Sid­i­ous, brood­ing over visions of Padme dying (then later help­ing the process along by chok­ing her—with his MIND), and whin­ing because he wasn’t bestowed the title of Jedi Mas­ter.  Now that I think about it, most evil over­lords act pretty emo, don’t they? I urge you to rec­og­nize the warn­ing signs.

The Phan­tom of the Opera

‘The Phan­tom of the Opera’ 2004

Most emo line:
“The world showed no com­pas­sion to me!”

Favorite emo acces­sory:
A mask that hides half of his hideous face.

Despite being 50% bru­tally hot and hav­ing a tremen­dous singing voice, the Phan­tom, an eter­nal pes­simist, refuses to rec­og­nize his inner beauty and instead uses his defor­mity as his jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for mur­der­ing, steal­ing, and of course, stalk­ing the beau­ti­ful Chris­tine Daae.  But it’s not actor Ger­ard Butler’s fault.  Gas­ton Leroux’s iconic Phan­tom of the Opera, once a ruth­less and fear­some char­ac­ter, has been emas­cu­lated into the whin­ing, cry­ing, opera-singing emo kid most peo­ple are famil­iar with today, thanks to Broad­way leg­end Andrew Lloyd Weber.  

Spider-Man

‘Spider-Man 3′ 2007

Most emo line:
“I don’t need your help!“

Favorite emo acces­sory:
His emo flip hair­cut. 

As if Peter Parker wasn’t emo enough—you know, cry­ing about his dead Uncle Ben and pin­ing over Mary Jane—in Spider-Man 3, Toby Macguire gets what can only best be described as an extreme emo makeover, ruin­ing an oth­er­wise decent third install­ment of the block­buster Mar­vel franchise.

Futher­more, WTF is this?

 

Who knew zombies could be so adorable?

Plants vs. Zom­bies is a new game by Pop­Cap that will be released on May 5th.  You can sign up on the Pop­Cap web­siteto play the game before the pub­lic release, plus get a 10% dis­count for the Mac or PC ver­sion.  Will the game be as awe­some as the music video?  Cute zom­bies and singing flowers—I don’t see how it could go wrong.

The Greatest Movie Quotes Have Six Words

I’m not sure what tear in the space-time con­tin­uum enabled me to notice, but the great­est movie quotes have only six words.  Don’t ask me why!  What I do know is that it was fun to go through all my DVDs to dig up these awe­some screen­shots for you.

“May the force be with you.”

What can be said about this quote that hasn’t been said already? Every time Han Solo utters these epic words to Luke Sky­walker before going on his mis­sion to destroy the Death Star, every Star Wars fan­boy gets a lit­tle wood.  Admit it.

“No time for love, Dr. Jones!”

Mon­key brains, a dude that rips people’s hearts out of their bare chests, kamikaze rope bridge maneu­vers, Har­ri­son Ford when he was still hot—this movie had it all.  And it also had the great­est side­kick ever, Short Round, played by Jonathan Ke Quan, before he went on to yet another stereo­typ­i­cal Asian role involv­ing booby­traps: Data from The Goonies.

Speak­ing of which…

“Man…you smell like Phys Ed!”

Baby Ruths bring even the unlike­li­est of friends together.  Who knew annoy­ing fat kids and smelly deformed mutants could be BFFs?

“Eng­lish, moth­er­fucker, do you speak it?!”

Samuel L. Jack­son doesn’t like it when you say “what,” espe­cially mul­ti­ple times.  But he loves dar­ing you to say it again.

“I have to return some videotapes.”

That’s Patrick Bateman-speak for mur­der­ing yup­pies and hook­ers with an axe.

“I don’t appre­ci­ate your ruse, Ma’am.”

Ruse (rooz) [Mid­dle Eng­lish]: A cun­ning attempt to trick Ran­dall Graves, RST Video’s under­achiev­ing Employee of the Year.  There’s noth­ing more exhil­a­rat­ing than point­ing out the short­com­ings of oth­ers, is there?

“You remind me of the babe!”

“What babe?” you ask.  Why, the babe with the power, of course.  The power of voodoo—well you know the rest.

And last but not least…

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

The most pro­found six words ever com­mit­ted to film.

Bonus 5-word hon­or­able men­tion:

“Never rub another man’s rhubarb.”

Oprah’s Caps Lock Key is Working

The Big O is finally on Twit­ter.  Brace your­self for an influx of soc­cer moms, pseudo-psychiatrists, and a gen­eral increase in the community’s estro­gen lev­els.  Oprah reached over 75,000 fol­low­ers in a sin­gle day, before she ever sent her first tweet.

And how fit­ting that Oprah’s first tweet was in ALL CAPS, the oft-favored style of moms, emo kids, celebu­tards, and other newbs that don’t know how to inter­net.  It’s kind of cute, really.  Like a kit­ten lost in a paper bag.  Of course, Oprah has enough money to just hire peo­ple to Twit­ter for her.

For all the warm and fuzzy life-affirming, book club­bing, puppy-hugging good­ness that’s sure to come, fol­low @Oprah.

Nothing ventured…

Sur­prise is a rare feel­ing for me to get from most games nowa­days, but The Lost Crown is a rare breed of game—the kind that draws you in slowly, peel­ing away each rich layer of story, slow and method­i­cal.  You are Nigel Dan­vers, trea­sure hunter and para­nor­mal inves­ti­ga­tor, sent to seek your fortune—the ancient Anglo-Saxon crown—like many before you.  Atmos­pheric and steeped in mys­tery, the quaint Eng­lish sea­side town of Sax­ton and the sur­round­ing coun­try­side awaits your adventure…

Although “a ghost-hunting adven­ture” is indeed an appro­pri­ate sub­ti­tle for this game, I believe it’s also the thing that orig­i­nally turned me off, and the rea­son why I have not played this game until now.  I finally decided to give it a go after see­ing it so highly rec­om­mended here and here.  I remem­ber a few years back, see­ing The Lost Crown on the store shelves, and quickly dis­miss­ing it as some kind of cliche hor­ror title with vague, sim­plis­tic goals of cap­tur­ing proof of the after­life.  And while it’s true that you will spend a good por­tion of your play­time doing exactly that, The Lost Crown offers much, much more.

For starters, the game fea­tures a large cast of extremely well-developed characters—both liv­ing and dead—all with dis­tinct per­son­al­i­ties, back­grounds, & (often tragic) his­to­ries.  The quirky towns­peo­ple of Sax­ton are gen­er­ally a sim­ple and kind­hearted folk, but the small town’s more sin­is­ter res­i­dents (and past res­i­dents) are the kind you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, or say, in an ancient grave­yard in the mid­dle of the night! Every sin­gle line of dia­log in this game is superbly voice acted.  The sound­track is richly lay­ered with Celtic music, ghostly voices, nature sounds, and a cacoph­ony of eerie effects.  It never felt repet­i­tive or unin­ter­est­ing, and each loca­tion seemed to have its own audi­tory iden­tity.  The starkly-contrasted black and white visu­als are also highly effec­tive in cre­at­ing the over­all mood.  Every scene fea­tures one small burst of color—such as the bright red of the phone booth, or the pale pink hues of the flowers—similar to those old hand-dyed pho­tographs.  But whether its min­i­mal­ist approach to graph­ics was a bold styl­is­tic choice, or a result of bud­getary restraints, The Lost Crown’s unique style oozes charm.

And I haven’t even men­tioned how good the story is yet!  Sax­ton can best be described as a mys­tery wrapped in an enigma.  As its super­sti­tious res­i­dents might say, “Not all is as it seems.”  Your adven­ture into the spirit world will uncover many grisly, ter­ri­ble secrets, but it will also help some of the poor souls who are still lost and wan­der­ing.  The Lost Crown is equal parts scary and sen­ti­men­tal, and this, I feel, is one of its strong points.  There are plenty of scares, but plenty of ten­der moments too.  The game is also sur­pris­ingly long, but I say that to its credit.  There are far too many adven­ture games out there that are big on gim­micks and short on game­play (cough, Still Life, cough).  The Lost Crown takes its time to tell its many related sto­ries, and wraps them all up in an ele­gant pack­age.  The game also boasts a good vari­ety of cre­ative puz­zles, and although chal­leng­ing, not once did I ever feel frus­trated by them.

The Lost Crown is not flaw­less, how­ever.  There were a few (minor) annoyances:

• Inabil­ity to skip through dia­log quickly
• Too wide of a range on click­able “hot spots”, which can be cause for confusion
• Nigel walks very slooooooooooowly…
• Cum­ber­some inven­tory; you will walk around car­ry­ing 20+ things at any given time

But these things are all for­giv­able, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing the small size of the devel­op­ment team, led by the insanely tal­ented game designer, Jonathan Boakes.  I loved this game so much that, before even fin­ish­ing it, I felt com­pelled to buy the Lim­ited “Pins & Nee­dles” Edi­tion of Dark Fall, Jonathan’s pre­vi­ous series of games.  Each edi­tion is hand num­bered & signed by the designer himself—I can’t wait to get my mits on this one!  And as for The Lost Crown, well…I will never judge another game by its cover again!