Entry 49: "Gears of War Colon Movie Film for Theaters"

Yo!

..........Next week, I'm setting an alarm..............

So it's come to this. The already insanely blurred line between movies and video games just got crossed. Gears of War, the #1 Xbox 360 game ever, which I realize doesn't really say much considering that console is less than eighteen months old, but you get my point on how popular it is, has been licensed and green-lit to be made into a full theatrical movie last week... By New Line Cinema. That's right, the guys that gave us such fantastic box-office hits as Son of the Mask, Dumb and Dumberer, and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, is now going to bring us the first ever movie-that-is-actually-a-game-that-plays-like-it-should-be-a-movie-but-is-now-being-made-into-a-movie-by-
a-bunch-of-guys-who-aren't-exactly-known-for-cranking-out-extremely-successful-movies-generally-but-darned-if-
they're-not-gonna-try-to-do-it-anyway-in-making-this-movie-slash-game-into-the-real-thing movie. I love using run-on jokes like that.

New Line, however, isn't without its successes, though. After all, they did give us some pretty interesting film franchises, what with A Nightmare on Elm Street, Austin Powers, Blade, Evil Dead, Final Destination, Friday, Harold & Kumar, Lord of the Rings, Rush Hour, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (live-action) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and all. Assuming whoever New Line gets to put this thing together does the right thing with this project, we could really have some serious line-crossing on our hands here. The original Gears game was basically designed to be as cinematic as possible, thanks to their shaky, intense lighting and camera style, the trademark "CNN-ish" follow behind running camera angle, and with the right 360 setup, lifelike 720p High Definition visuals. Actually making this interactive movie into a real movie only seems like the next logical step in the overall franchise on paper, but I do believe that there needs to be a distinct line still present. Yes, it's more and more impossible to keep that border as time goes on, and technology advances and evolves, but do we really want to wind up in a world where we as gamers, moviegoers and just inhabitants of planet Earth, literally can't distinguish real from rendered?

As games get more and more photo-realistic, and we get more and more game-like movies like Doom and Crank, we may actually wind up with a PlayStation 9-style super-system sooner than Sony... and the world, thinks. Which may not entirely be a good thing. And now, this week's Bottom Line: Did anybody ever really think someday Williams Street would green-light an Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie?!?!?!?!? I know, real flawless topic transition, right? With this week's entry title and all, I had to at least mention this thing. Series is freakin' funny, movie looks good (but I venture to guess mainly to those fans who agree that the show's freakin' funny. Otherwise, don't spend the money, 'cause you might not get it.) If you haven't heard of this thing, check out some episodes on AS Fix, and catch the movie itself on Cartoon Network almost two weeks before any of the 800 theaters get it, on April Fool's Day, no less. No joke. CN is premiering a theatrical movie half a month before the actual theaters get it. Set your TiVo for this Sunday, 10pm. 'Cause I don't think this kind of stunt will happen again anytime soon. At least until The Brak Movie is released........... In your dreams. Ha! Bet you thought I heard about something, huh? Seriously, the real Bottom Line is, they better do this justice.... 850,000 gamers can't be wrong! This is easily one of the best shooter games ever... New Line had better not accidentally run this franchise into the ground.....

.....But that's just me.

See ya next week.

-D.

Entry 48: "The Princess and I"

Yo!

Once upon a time (March 8th), in the far off (from me) land of Burbank, California.... A new animation legend was born. I am of course referring to the Walt Disney Company's recent announcement of The Frog Princess, starring the fourth-ever non-Caucasian Disney Princess (I think it's fourth... Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan... Yeah.), but this time, the leading lady in center stage of this show is....... Drumroll, please.......

....African-American.

.....Oh by the way, this Frog Prince retelling happens in New Orleans. VERY pre-Katrina New Orleans. 1920s New Orleans.

Meet Maddy:



Well, better late than never, huh, Iger?

So this is apparently big animation news this week, for obvious reasons: Disney setting a fairy tale in New Orleans? Unheard of! No, seriously, this Maddy character, and thus Frog Princess, is generating lots of buzz on how Disney (or more specifically, Ron Clements & John Musker, the movie's writers/directors) will handle this character as a whole. There's a lot of ground work laid for cartoon characters who get to carry the title "Disney Princess" previously (even honorary inductees. For example, some consider Kiara from Lion King 2 technically a DP. She's just not as widely recognized as one mainly because of her movie being direct-to-video, and also what with not being human and all), but this is a chance for Disney to start fresh with a different approach for a different kind of Princess character. This is the 21st century, after all...

Remember, Disney hasn't done one 2D theatrical feature since Home on the Range in '04 which was actually meant to be their last-ever 2D feature at the time (way to exit on a bad note... film cost $110 million, grossed less than $104 million), but thanks to all the switching chairs and restructuring happening lately at Disney (Bob Iger exorcising all traces of Eisner from the company... Making Roy Disney an executive consultant... Buying Pixar... Resurrecting Roger Rabbit... Currently negotiating for Star Wars and Indiana Jones attractions at Disney Parks...), this is the perfect opportunity for Disney to reinvent the wheel, but in a good way... And break their own Shrek-parodied stereotypes in the process.

All we know for certain is Frog Princess comes out in 2009, Randy Newman is supervising all music, Clements and Musker did also direct Aladdin and Little Mermaid, both of which were, to most, two of the best Disney films ever to come out of the nineties (Well, Mermaid was actually '89, but hit video in mid-1990... Close enough) and both also had series spinoffs and at least one video sequel, so at least these guys know how to launch a franchise. Also Maddy's voice role is understandably extremely sought-after, mainly by Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, and the other singer from Dreamgirls whose name nobody really remembers at first anyway.

Bottom Line: Don't mess this up, Clements and Musker. Please don't mess this up. If this tanks somehow... If this big "Maddy" movie fails somehow, the only way for Disney animation to continue is by going with the original plan of pretending Home on the Range never happened, devoting everything in Feature Animation to CG, and planning out Chicken Little 2. Not that CL2 is necessarily a bad thing, but the idea of letting the classic hand-drawn style die like that because this last attempt at bringing back the old style couldn't pull in Pirates 2 money... It'll be a sad day in Burbank when the old ways are laid to rest unceremoniously like that.

...But that's just me.

Mark your calendars, people... 2009.......

-D.

P.S. Check out the Xbox Gamercard on the upper-right menu there! Cracked 3,000 Gamerscore last night, finally! Never thought I'd say this, but thank you, movie-game adaptations! Too bad they can't all be GoldenEye, though.

Entry 47: "A Tale of Two Singers"

Yo!

Well, last week I talked about the first ever High Definition South Park episode. But I couldn't provide a review, since it wouldn't be available until the next day. Now that I've seen the future of animation, I have but one thing to say:




..............................What a waste.

Maybe it's because I don't have a Hi-Def TV to take full advantage of these visuals, so what happened was my 360 down-converted it to regular NTSC video, but really I could've gone without the not-so-epic or mindblowing experience of witnessing Butters getting a shuriken star in the eye, in full widescreen. Like I said last week, there's virtually no difference probably with or without a Hi-Def set because the technology's not meant to make a difference for animation. Funny episode, don't get me wrong. I just still think that the act of upgrading this episode was wrong and doesn't do justice to the original content. Period.

....But that's a rant I've already used, so moving on......

'Tis a far, far better thing that I link to now, than I've ever linked before (take that, Charles Dickens!). Seriously. I saw this video on VH1 several days ago, and I must say, this has to be the steamiest music video I've ever seen make it onto basic cable TV. Or at least in the top three to do so. My hats off to the people who thought of this musical team-up and making a video, because a one-shot deal at, say, the Grammys (Latin or "Original Recipe"), might not have turned out as interesting as the full-blown 3:27 MTV treatment. I'm talking about Beautiful Liar by Beyoncé Knowles and Shakira. For those who haven't seen this, I'll do a full video embed. Save you readers a click.

Observe:





Holy.

Crap.

Overlooking the fact that I'm not really the biggest Beyoncé or Shakira fan personally (I haven't seen Dreamgirls and "Hips Don't Lie," for a while, was moments away from being the most annoying song title gag joke/catchphrase, at least until "Bringing Sexy Back" came along five months later)... I will say if you don't like this video in any way, and you're a heterosexual male, your girlfriend/wife must really have you on a short leash. I do feel sorry for you, man. But seriously, it's kinda hard not to like this video. It's only the single coolest musical cross-genre teamup since Jackson met McCartney (and took the latter's music, only to lose it twenty years later, but that's another news story).

So yet again, I'm at a loss of words to talk about this topic further, so let's fast-forward to the Bottom Line: Please... Please... PLEASE don't let this turn out to be the first and last time this particular pairing makes a video. I expect to see more videos with these two soon and-- More than that, I want a full Beyonce-Shakira album produced and chock full of nothing but B-S. .....Um..... You know what I mean.

...But that's just me.

See you next week.

-D.

Entry 46: "Dr. Strangedownload, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Xbox Marketplace"

Yo!

Hah! I was waiting for an opportunity to parody that movie somehow! So the big story this week seems to be the fact that tomorrow, Xbox Live Marketplace will release the first ever HD South Park episode, in the form of season eight's Good Times with Weapons episode....

Wait for it.......

Still waiting....

FOR FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, you read that right. South Park, the most laughably low-definition, construction paper styled, ten year old legendary animated series, is now in High Definition. Just let that marinate in your mind for a second:

A noticeably third dimension-less CARTOON show, in High Definition.

Okay, the first thing I feel I need to say about this is, why the crap are there "High Definition" cartoons at all? Last time I checked, High Definition was made for really good looking explosions in the movies, and for helping the audience notice imperfections in the actors' makeup jobs that your mom's $250 Wal-Mart television wouldn't be able to show you that well. See, on top of this, in a press release last month, Cartoon Network has confirmed that by the end of the year, they will also begin showing their programs in HD which, while I'm all for [adult swim] in High Definition (Family Guy reruns and new Aqua Teens in HD. Sold.), frankly doesn't need High Definition that much. Seriously, do we really need to see the particles and stuff in the frame on cel-animated shows, or stray, barely noticeable outline imperfections on the more and more common CG shows? Why are these big media networks tossing money down the drain like this to be able to bring their viewers the best cartoon picture quality possible? Last time I checked, when the cartoon's production is finished, it's already in the best quality possible because it doesn't need to be that lifelike. They're just cartoons. Period.

Plus, if this starts to become more and more common in the industry, making new cartoons Hi-Def, can you imagine what would happen to the current library of cartoon shows being aired now in Low-Def, needing to be upconverted? Can you imagine Disney re-re-re-rereleasing all their cartoons and movies, from Cinderella to Cars, but redone in HD? Sure, Cars and most of the Pixar films can get away with that, 'cause... Well, let's face it. Not being able to support HD with those films would be the height of ridiculousness. But the 2D films? Peter Pan is coming out yet again on DVD this week, and now they're gonna have reason to milk all those cash cow films for more money by selling them to consumers yet again!

Coming January 2009!

Deluxe HD-DVD Special Edition Steamboat Willie!!!

Get it before it's sealed in our crazy vault for 36 months and then repackaged and sold at the same exact price again!

.....Or something to that effect, but you get the point.

...Or rather, the Bottom Line. Cartoons in High Definition? I'll admit, it sounds like a fairly cool idea on paper... I mean, I'm gonna download this episode tomorrow morning just out of curiosity and, let's face it, Xbox Marketplace isn't exactly known for having a lot of free content. But realistically, how much further can they push those graphics anyway? Again, HD was NOT meant for animation!!!! I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that these companies are so disconnected with reality that they think that even more remastering and repackaging will make the same years-old material that much cooler and must have! That can't be the case, and I really hope that this thing doesn't become successful, because that'll just enable them to keep pushing the envelope. What limitations won't they ignore and plow through to further manipulate the original art? I don't even own a High-Def TV, and I wish I did, just to be able to see how XBM's version handles the Let's Fighting Love sequence in 720p.

...But that's just me.

See ya next Monday.

-D.

P.S. (10:00PM) By the way, as always, comments are always welcome... What do you readers think about the state of High-Definition cartoons?