TCP

Twin Peaks: The Return (massive spoilers)

Death Note Ok so, obviously the original Death Note anime has problems. Mainly in it's portrayal of women and the fact that it goes way, way, way too long. So it shouldn't be THAT hard to make a film based off the anime/manga. Unfortunately the filmmakers failed to understand their source material. The best part of Death Note was the game played between L and Light/Kira. The start of the film makes some effort to show that Light's smart but that doesn't really come into play. He's never one step ahead, except arguably at the end. Ryuk kind of sucked and it's clear they couldn't pay Willem Dafoe that much cause you barely hear him. I was prepared to tell you guys it's better than the anime and the original Ghostbusters film but I can't. It's just a shit film.

Dat feeling when two of your fav songwriters do an album together.

First, Best Buy fucked me over with some "verified by Visa" form right before you hit "complete". The form of course wouldn't load and Best Buy was sold out by that point. Then EB Games website timed out on check out, those fucks. Then Target US shipped to Canada but they timed out too. Finally I just walked into my EB Games, it was empty, and I preordered one no problem.

Sucker Punch Naughty Dog Japan Studio The holy trinity of studios.

Assassin's Creed II (PS4) Yeah, I bought the Ezio collection. I haven't been gaming much in the past 12 months. Well, I played three Pokemon games for the second half of 2016 and lots of Breath of the Wild in 2017, but not much else. I thought maybe the best way to kickstart me back into some console games would be something I've played before for nostalgia's sake. So I played and beat AC2. I know you're all wondering "TCP, does it hold up?". The answer is "no, not really". It's kind of ridiculously janky. It might not seem like Ass Creed has improved much over the last few games, but it has, at least in how it controls and looks. AC2's buildings look fine but character's look a little weird and the entire game has this ugly brown filter on it. There was a few times you could see outside from inside your villa (one of the few buildings you can actually enter) and from the inside the sky looks nice and blue, once you step out the ugly brown filter comes in. Definitely a sign of the times. Also, especially after previous Ass Creed games, not to mention BotW, climbing/parkour is absolute trash in this game. Did I mention how ridiculously bad the voice acting is? I don't remember that bugging me much in 2009 but in 2017 it's hard to get past. All that said, Ezio is charming AF (much more so than Arno or Jacob Frey) and, maybe it's the nostalgia, but the game is still a blast. Plus easy trophies. Onto Brotherhood now, in the first few sequences and it's already a major step up. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) Yeah I beat BotW for the second time, this time on Switch. I usually hate when people say something new is their "all time favourite" but this game might be my all time favourite.

Get Out All I'll say is...... fucking white people. Seriously though, it's really good, go in knowing as little as possible.

Yeah Davos wouldn't have made that comment about Jon checking Dany out if they weren't going that route. This season's so fast paced there's no time for things that aren't ultra-relevant. If Thrones = HIMYM then who is "Aunt Robin"? Sansa?! Ew.

Personally I think Cersei is going to go "burn them all" at the end of the season when she realizes she's going to lose. Course I figured Jaimie would have to kill her, Mad King style, but that doesn't appear likely now.... Also I'm curious how the general audience will react to Jon and Dany inevitably hooking up. Clearly they're going that direction with the scene of them in a cave and Davos' comment, plus that will solve Dany's need for Jon to bend the knee if they get hitched. However, now we know they're related, obviously for book readers that's probably not a big problem since we know cousin lovin' isn't frowned upon in Westeros (Ned's parents were cousins, Tywin's wife was his cousin, etc) so aunt/nephew lovin' is probably along the same line. But the TV show, probably wisely, has chosen to ignore incest outside of Jamie/Cersei.

Seeing all these characters either reuniting or uniting for the first time is great, everything's coming together and while it's not done as tactfully as GRRM will do it in the books, it's still nice to see Jon and Dany meet, Jamie and Dany in the same battle, Arya and Sansa and Bran back together, Theon and Jon, etc etc. I do feel like this season could be a full 10 episodes, if for nothing else, just to let things breath. Clearly the showrunners have given up on geography and the time it takes to travel to places, otherwise Jon has been at Dragonstone for half a year now. But I've accepted that. The show runners have also done a shit job displaying Dany as anything close to a good leader like all the characters act like she is. I've accepted that too. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that a Dothraki vs Jamie's army battle with a dragon and Bronn on a giant dragon crossbow is anything short of awesome. Dan: what's making you think Dany might end up like her dad?

The Dark Tower Here's a tip! When Hollywood adapts one of your favourite book series into a film and you hear it's bad, go in with VERY low expectations and then the film will kind of ...be ok?!. Yeah, it was OK. First, Elba and McConaughey were excellent casting choices. They were so on point I really feel like at one point this movie was on track to be great. There were great action scenes that yes, were cheesy Hollywood versions of what King wrote, but as far as cheesy Hollywood action scenes go, they worked and really gave the audience insight into Roland's capabilities. Similarly to what I mentioned in the Crap topic with Assassin's Creed, this is a film that has studio exec interference written all over it. It's clear that the studio executives got nervous about the Mid-World stuff so they cut it down. Which would explain the short running time. In their defence, Roland being a fish out of water in NYC was actually some of the best scenes in the film but I don't think a non-book reading audience really got a sense of what Mid-World is. Plus a guy from another world not understanding Earth isn't exactly new territory but as far as I'm aware a post-apocalyptic fantasy western world is not something we've seen in film before. With a book series that's so much about world building it's strange that they cut out almost all the world building. Then there was the choices in what they adapted. We went in knowing this would NOT be a straight adaption but still, I feel like they took more elements from the 7th book than the early books. Most of the film's content seemed only loosely based off anything in particular from the books and there was virtually no scenes that came close to being a 1:1 adaption. Ideally, this should have been an HBO / AMC / whatever TV series. Or if they insisted on doing a film series, this should have been a Fellowship of the Ring style film, epic and grand with an ending that leaves you dying to find out what happens next. Instead we got a 90 minute film from a huge 7+ book series that sort of just stands alone without really accomplishing anything the books do. And because it's so underwhelming we're probably not getting a sequel (not to mention the fact that I saw it on it's first Saturday and the theatre was maybe 1/5th full soo...). Great. Thanks Sony.

Assassin's Creed Man, it's not like it's completely awful it's just boooring. It's a film with no personality or passion. I got zero sense as to who his ancestor was or even who Fassbender's modern day character was. You know, Ezio did a lot of the same things as Spanish Assassins Guy but he at least had some charisma. Movie probably could have used some more references to the games to, at least some nods here and there, that would have at least made something fun in the film. Small spoiler for what's really an easter egg: It just felt like to me a movie that studio execs dumbed down because they were nervous audiences wouldn't understand what was going on. Did they learn nothing from Mad Max Fury Road?!

I was not playing any video games when I was 18. I was too busy having WILD SEX with various women. Though I think at some point when I was 18 I played a rom of the Minish Cap. I think it's the last truly great portable Zelda game.. unless you count BOTW.

I just played Dean LIKE A FIDDLE!

This poll will be up as long as the "where should AC3 take place" poll was up.

WAS THAT MY GIRL POLLY?!?!

I think Doctor Strange appeared on the Spider-Man 90s cartoon. I don't think Iron Man did though. I also had a Doctor Strange action figure which I think was based off the Spidey cartoon. The bulk of my adolescent Marvel knowledge comes from the Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons.

FWIW: As a kid I was much more familiar with Doctor Strange than I was with Iron Man.

Lockjaw is cute AF. 12/10 would scratch.

Yeah clearly so they could sell some more copies of the soundtrack.

I just found him distracting. Where as Sigur Ros' appearance a few years ago felt natural and great, Ed Sheeran just stuck out the whole time.