The Blogboard Jungle

     I wrote something about remakes a little while ago and how I can get conflicted about seeing the new versions of films at times.  It got me thinking every time I saw a movie based off of a novel when I was kid I always heard someone say, "The book is better." I used to think they were trying to be brainy or overly critical because they beat me to a story that is going to be popular some how.  Then I read a book or two that became movies and found myself saying;"The book is better".  Is it always better though?      The reason I am writing this, is because a movie is going to come out  soon based on Max Brook's World War Z .  I read his earlier book, The Zombie Survival Guide and I thought it was funny, original (at the time), and the reports at the end of it were pretty good short stories.  They were good enough that the format was used for the basis of his next book, the soon to be film World War Z ....

       I read over the weekend that my least favorite network is making a pilot for a TV series based on the Scream films, I can't think of any film to TV stories that were very successful in the past so I'm wondering how that's a good move?  I know it can work the other way around, I think The X Files did it in the 90's and I know people liked what was done with Serenity since Fire Fly had a following.  Even old school TV shows get made into decent films like Mission Impossible, that did well enough to earn a few sequels after the original one.           I watched the pilot for Zombieland : The Series last weekend, if you haven't read by now its reviews are mixed at best.  I didn't like it, it seemed rushed, cheap and the casting of Tallahassee the character Woody Harrelson played in the film was very disappointing in the series.  I read when the film was released that it was intentionally ...

    I just watched my first pay per view on Xbox Live and not only was it cheaper but, it was also interactive and  that's something my cable provider isn't willing to tack on to my bill when adding up the cost of the event. The UFC app has been around for a a while but I never really used it since a lot of the content in the beginning was just old fights I had already seen.  Ordering this PPV (Pay per view), on the fly turned out to be one of the most pleasant experiences ordering a live event I have ever had. I had a lot of bad experiences dealing with one of the cable giants I would rather not mention since I want to talk about good things here.      The presentation from the UFC app menu is cool, the upper left part of the screen is where all the promotional video and live stream plays but leaves you access to other parts of the app that let you interact with the event.   It was $44.99 which is about 15 dollars cheaper than my...

     This if for the uninformed parents out there that buy games for their kids, then blame them for acting out all kinds of foolishness. I read an article on NJ.com that said "Last Friday, Christie outlined a plan to ban retailers from selling the video game — or others like it rated "mature" or "adults only" — to minors without a parent’s permission." Christie is the Governor of NJ and the video game in the article was Call of Duty- Black Ops and it has the following logo on it:   From ESRB.org         I work with a former GameStop employee and he informed me that not only are they not allowed to sell "M" rated games to people under the age of 17, but if a parent comes in to to buy one they have to make sure they are aware of the content in the game they are purchasing.  I'll use one of his experiences as an example; a parent walked up to him with a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ...

The content is available early for VIP season pass people on 4/23, everyone else gets access on 4/30.  Fans of the "Free for All" mode (which I am not) also get a new mode called Master at Arms , its pretty much "Free for All", but you win by using one of every upgraded weapon awarded to you from what I understand.  I probably won't mess with that one much but here the list of maps from Major Nelson's web site: - Terminal: The speed and ferocity of the Locust invasion took Halvo Bay completely by surprise. Residents scrambled to evacuate by every means possible, and COG forces were called in to maintain order as martial law was enforced. However, the Locust showed no mercy, and gave no quarter; they swept through train terminals like this one to take advantage of the close quarters and sheer number of defenseless humans trapped within its walls. Sometimes, COG forces could hold the line long enough for a final evacuation, but too many lost their lives in ...

     If you're a child of the 80's and remember a little film called War Games then when you read the text in the image above, you read it in that creepy electronic voice from the film.  War Games was released in 1983 and starred Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy and an actor I think was in every movie at that time, Dabney Coleman.  It's probably the first movie I remember that glorified nerdy hacker teens doing stuff that they probably should not be doing.  The movie always sat well with me even if it wasn't too exciting for an eight year old kid, I never thought it would have gained a following or "cult" status after I saw it.  Little did I know, somebody made a game out of it....  See Dabney Coleman!!!     Developed by +Be-Rad Entertainment  , War Games:WOPR is a puzzle game based on the premise of the film and uses RPG elements to battle characters in the game from the film while following the same story line....

    I have been into movies for a long time and I have a collection well over the hundreds that I actually have tried to lower the clutter of in recent years. One thing that seems to repeat itself from time to time is remakes. I may be wrong but the most re-made movie I am aware of is The Island of Dr. Moraeu , which has been made 3 times to my knowledge. It seems the horror genre is most affected by this and its starting to infect the action genre too and you have three categories of people that respond different ways to remakes of films. They are the die hards of the original, the uninformed fanboy that isn't aware of an original, and the open minded movie guy. I think depending on the film people can vary from degrees of remake reactions and will practice all three responses. The recent Evil Dead re-make is what made me want to write about this since I absolutely love the original. I keep wanting to see this film but have yet been able to make tim...