Wow, Netflix sure has a way of bringing unique, thought provoking stories to the small screen. So many shows have come out recently that have blown me away. First, Daredevil was epic, then Grace and Frankie was better than expected and now Sense8 has done it again…for the most part. The thought-child of the Wachowski’s and J. Michael Straczynski, Sense8 is a sci-fi drama that tells the tale of 8 people who can all sense and communicate with one another from across the world. Continue reading
I thought I’d mix things up this week by telling you guys what songs I seemingly can’t stop listening to. Also, I decided to try out publishing Top 5 Tuesday at a later hour.
5. Stolen Dance – Milky Chance
I love the tone of this song. The lyrics and performance come off careless yet caring, whatever the hell that means. It was probably my favorite song a few months ago, but some older favorites and new songs came along and knocked it off it’s top spot.
4. Take Me to Church – Hozier
This song is quite good and the sound is just filled with emotion, and maybe some mumbling, but I love mumbling. This isn’t a review, but I’d say it is near perfect. I typically only listen to this song when it’s on the radio and since I only occasionally listen to the radio, it hasn’t been enough to be overplayed for me.
3. Left Hand Free – Alt-J
I got the CD for Christmas and found this to be the best song on the album. If you’re wondering why I still use CD’s, it’s because I have a car stereo that only has a CD player and a radio, so yeah… Anyways, the song is upbeat and just great. I think Breezeblocks might still be my favorite song from them, but I turn this one up anytime it plays.
2. Aneurysm – Nirvana
Nirvana is my favorite band and this is my favorite song from them. Back when I used to play drums, Nirvana and Dave Grohl were the music gods that I worshiped, It’s such a heavy song and probably has my favorite Cobain vocals. Can’t help but love it.
1. Gooey – Glass Animals
This song is amazing. The lyrics make little sense, but the sound is wondrous and I can’t get enough of this song. I don’t recommend watching the music video as it is one of the strangest I’ve seen, but if you’re brave, watch it. The beat and tone of this song is just so good. I guess I listen to hipster radio or something because most people I know haven’t heard of this song and a few of my other favorites. I feel like this song should be heard by more people.
So this will be a much shorter Thoughtful Thursday as I’ve got a lot on my plate this week. With the return of classes, I’ve found myself busier than ever before. I procrastinated in getting books and a parking pass, both of which I still haven’t gotten, and I’m just feeling a bit disenfranchised. I’m not sure why, but I’m not feeling that all in this semester. It might be that haven’t really had a break since the Summer of 2013 and I’m no where near the degree that I want. Also, last semester was one of extreme highs and lows. Working on film sets was amazing and being around my friends all day when I was going through some tough times made the hardships a bit easier.
This semester I’m not surrounded by that same support group that I, maybe selfishly, leaned on. I’ve had some films fall through and I don’t see many coming up in the next few months. I’m taking classes that I don’t necessarily want, but I have to take and I just hope that they’re interesting enough to get through. It feels like last semester was only a week ago and I just need a break. I’m trying with all my might to keep up Top 5 Tuesdays and Thoughtful Thursdays up as well as one or two reviews. Oddly enough, even though reviews and all the other articles posted on here are hard work and take up time, it’s sort of relaxing to sit down and write about my passions. This isn’t as cheerful as previous Thoughful Thursdays, but it’s what was on my mind and I hope you guys liked it.
That being said, one of the things that took my mind off the stress of college starting up again was watching and reviewing Reverb, a review and short you should definitely check out.
Reverb, a film directed Samantha Paradise, follows the story of a young woman, Helia, getting over a seemingly harsh break-up. If that makes this sound like a touching drama, then you’d be mistaken. This is a thriller/horror in every sense of the term as Helia’s ex, nicknamed Cupcake, can’t seem to leave things be, stalking her in her own house.
Many of the shots in the film are beautifully done, the sunrise shots and the nighttime shots are some of the highlights. They really used the dynamic lighting to their advantage. The contrast from light and darkness works out very well in these scenes. That being said, many of the daytime shots could have been better. The kitchen shots and some of the living room shots have flat lighting, which leaves the shot toneless, making it harder for the actor’s emotion to fully come through in a typical shot. It’s not the biggest flaw that could happen, but it might be the most glaring in this 15 minute short.
The acting in this film is quite good, it has some flaws with delivery, but it is very good considering the majority of it is just Amy Frear. Frear lets the film rest squarely on her shoulders and does so quite well. The only other performance is from Brian Dunn, who has decent chemistry with Frear. The run-time is perfect, but the chemistry between the two could have used more time to blossom. It’s a common dilemma, let the movie run over what it should and build better relationships between characters or keep it short to the benefit of the film as a whole. The latter option did work out great here, but it could have been great to see some more interaction. Ugh, dilemma, dilemma.
The set design and costumes were great. The majority of the short has Frear in a tank top, frilly shorts and bunny slippers. It’s not laugh out loud funny, but funny in the sense that there’s a lot of chaos going on around her. The house looks like it is lived in by a young woman, which builds the realism for the film.
The short isn’t filled with unnecessary jump scares but uses sounds and music to build the tension, which is makes it scarier since the brain starts making up what possibly will happen next. The story is semi-predictable, but well done in the fifteen minute time frame. From beginning to end the short is quite good and it doesn’t dip in the 15 or so minutes. One of the biggest strengths of the film is that it feels like a snippet of Helia’s life. She clearly had done things before and the possibilities of the future are endless. This is a self contained story but the characters have a history.
Consensus:Â When watching short films there is never a guarantee if the 10 or so minutes is going to be good, but from the first couple of shots it is clear that Reverb is a step ahead of the run of the mill short horror film, and that’s what helps make this film succeed. It not a slam dunk, but a polished, well done film worth watching.
Hey everyone, today marks the start up of college once again. I’ve sort of been falling behind in preparation for classes, but I will not fall behind on Top 5 Tuesdays. So here is the list of my favorite movies from when I was a child, note that these are not necessarily child friendly movies.
5. Batman Forever
I’ve always loved superhero movies, and while Batman Forever still holds a special spot in my heart, it’s not a good movie. It’s great compared to Batman & Robin, but still no where near the Keaton Batman. I personally like that Batman more than Forever, but this is me trying to think in my childhood mindset. I loved the zany Riddler and the more comedic Two-face, but they didn’t age too well.
4. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Easily one of the best Jim Carrey performances. He’s funny, quotable and did I say funny? This isn’t one of my favorites anymore, but I still love it more than most modern comedy films. The sequel doesn’t hold a candle, but Ace Ventura is definitely a must see film for comedy lovers. Laces Out!
3. The Matrix
It’s hard to believe that I quite young when this movie came out. It was a revolutionary film that blew my small mind as a child. I pretty much watched it once a week on VHS when I was a child. It was probably the best movie from my childhood, but oddly it wasn’t my favorite.
2. Mystery Men
I loved superhero films growing up (I still do, but who doesn’t). Mystery Men is sort of a superhero film, but it is crazy and hilarious. Ben Stiller, Paul Ruebens and William H. Macy made my younger self laugh like a never before. I watched the movie pretty much every day and could quote the movie like an expert. It had flashy effects for the time, flashier than what I had seen at least. It had everything my little brain could ever want.
1. The Mask
Jim Carrey, man, he gets me every time. I loved this movie just a slight bit more than Mystery Men and I literally watched this movie daily as a kid. Now looking back, there were a lot of jokes that went straight over my head, but that just makes rewatching it now even more fun. Who would have thought my favorite childhood movie had condom jokes.
Now this is a topic that has been argued for years. The argument ranges from which avenue is easiest for filmmaking all the way to which one looks more aesthetically pleasing. Now, while filmmaking is the field that I wish to enter, I’m not an expert on either of them. So all of my personal opinions are just that. Take from this what you can and be sure to leave a comment with your own opinions. I’d love to discuss differences and similarities in terms of film.
In terms of ease of use, it’s really hard to decide. Film can be much harder since it takes much longer to see the shot or the finished product, at least with my experience. If you need to get the film developed and you can’t find a person or place to do it for you, you might have to wait a while until you can figure that out though that should be figured out in pre-production, but sometimes things fall through. This might be the biggest reason why many flock to digital, since it’s instantaneous gratification. You can see the product once you stop recording. You can see if the boom dipped on Take 2 and reshoot until it’s perfect. Since they’re mostly saved to SD cards, running out of space means you can manually delete clips on camera or just use another SD card. Then, once you’re done, give the SD card to your editor and have them upload it to one of the millions of editing software out there. You can also, depending on the digital camera, film at some pretty crazy frame rates that make purchasing a low priced DSLR the smart choice.
In terms of look, nothing honestly beats the traditional look that film gives. Sure, digital is as crisp as a winter breeze, but the graininess of film is perfection. It’s obvious that film is the better of the two in this aspect since many digital filmmakers try to get that grainy, authentic look. It doesn’t usually work out since digital cameras and editing software can replicate the unpredictability of the look of film. I have heard horrible stories from professors and older filmmaking friends where their film or someone elses film burned on the projector. Which brings me to the next aspect.
Since digital film is saved on SD cards and then on computers, there are thousands of way to recover a film if something happens to one of the copies, unless you lose the SD card prior to uploading it to the computer. If you haven’t duplicated your film once it’s finished being cut, and something happens to it, you’re set back quite a ways. It’s a horror story either way, but it can be harder to happen with digital.
Price and finding a film camera for filmmaking can be difficult to pin down, but it’s no doubt harder to find and more expensive than digital cameras. A good DSLR can be purchased at most big box stores, websites and through friends. I personally have never seen a film camera at a big box store and the only cameras that I know of are quite expensive.
When it comes down to it, a film camera is quite a wonderful thing. It’s biggest issue is that in a world gone digital, it’s hard for a filmmaker to start out with it. In a perfect world, traditional filmmaking, you know with film, would last till the end of time. But the ease for digital filmmaking, especially for the beginning filmmaker can’t be denied. So don’t mistake me for a traditional film hater, I love the medium as a whole and film is the back bone of cinema, but everything evolves and filmmaking is no different.
When this movie came out, it looked quite promising. Denzel Washington and action seem to go hand in hand, which is strange since Washington is nothing like the run of the mill action star. The man has been nominated for six Academy Awards with a wide range of performances and he is convincing in each and every one. Now, I knew getting into this that it wouldn’t be an Oscar worthy film, but it sounded promising. So to sum things up, I was quite excited when this came in the mail the other day.
The film starts slowly, showing Washington and his relationships with his co-worker and a young girl prostitute. These part set Washington apart from the average action star as he’s able to convince the viewer that he truly cares for the people around him, which makes his jump to action seem reasonable. Once the movie’s violence starts, it never really stops. The action sequences are well done, the shots are beautifully done and the tone is definitely strong in this.
The most surprising thing is that a movie dealing with prostitution and many other sex crimes has no nudity. It helps that the main characters friend is an underage girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) and all the other prostitutes are very limited in screen time. It just feels like every R-rated action movie nowadays has gratuitous nudity, so it was welcome that this one did not when they could have found 100 opportunities to do so.
At a glance, this is a near perfect action movie. It has creative deaths, a strong tone and Denzel Washington in front of the camera. It’s biggest issue is that when the action picks up, the substance of the characters drops in quality. Washington is still great, but not as great. The bad guys start feeling like caricatures and while the beginning did a great job establishing the lead, the supporting cast didn’t get enough time to establish themselves. The question of if and when they’ll be put in danger doesn’t matter so much because they’re not that important to the viewer.
Despite that issue, the film is still incredibly fun and action packed. It’s hard to deny that Denzel Washington is an incredibly talented actor and is able to submerge in a wide range of roles. This is definitely one of the best action movies in recent memory and worth a watch if action is your forte.
5. Furious 7
I’ve always been a fan of the Fast and Furious franchise, and after the sixth, this one looked so promising. Then tragedy struck with the passing of Paul Walker. With Walker being such an integral part of the franchise, it looked as if the franchise might be done. With the help of his brothers, however, they were able to finish the film with only a few changes. It doesn’t change the horrible occurrence, but it may have given the series a chance to live on, and with that, Walker can live on too.
4. Mission Impossible 5
This is a film which has surprisingly ridden under the radar in a blockbuster packed 2015. It stars many returning cast members, including Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner. It’s going to have action, a whole lot of action and I can’t wait. If it’s anything like Mission Impossible 4, it will be one of my favorite movies of the year.
3. Chappie
From the director of District 9, Chappie looks to be more like it than Blompkamp’s previous movie Elysium. While I didn’t hate Elysium, Chappie looks like it could be a more interesting and well made movie. Sharlto Copely really blew me away in District 9 and could do it once again as the robot known as Chappie. What made District 9 so great was that it had very comedic moments and felt natural despite the use of aliens. It also had action, which Elysium also had heaps of. What Elysium didn’t have was comedic prowess and a feeling that what you were watching was natural. For Chappie to truly succeed, it will need to feel more like District 9, but not just be a rehashing, which it doesn’t look like that will be the case.
2. Avengers: Age of Ultron
There is nothing I can say about this movie that hasn’t been said. It looks amazing and Marvel’s track record as of late has been flawless. Guardians of the Galaxy was a home run and so was Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It might not be able to post the box office numbers of the first Avengers movie, but I doubt it will disappoint in any way. I can’t wait to see Iron Man punch some robot faces and for the Hulk to do what he does best.
1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
It’s sad that there are people nowadays that were born in a time following the prequels release. The prequels ruined a franchise that had so much going for it. Even if you like the prequels, they became a laughing stock of a great film series. They villainized George Lucas and made it look as if future films would never happen. But now, in 2015, we finally get a sequel that looks quite deserving. The original trilogy is a near-perfect classic, so it will be tough to build a film that lives up, but JJ Abrams took Star Trek to new heights, so it’s possible.
So as most people know, the Golden Globes were last night. It was a pretty entertaining night, with great hosts, interesting nominees and it also gets me excited for the Academy Awards. So here are a few quick thoughts about last night.
*I thought Tina and Amy were hilarious, with a lot great mix of jokes. Some didn’t really hit, but the ones that did hit hard. I’m looking forward to see who hosts next year, but Tina and Amy will be a tough act to follow.
*I was so happy with Michael Keaton and Eddie Redmayne winning their respective awards. I actually haven’t seen either of their movies, but from small clips and critics reviews, it sounds like they deserve it.
*It was pretty obvious that Julianne Moore would win, as everyone predicted it, but it was nice to see her win. This might make her the only candidate for Best Actress at the Oscars.
*Television was a bit weird as quite a few shows I hadn’t seen won and most were shows I didn’t expect to win.
*I was rooting for House of Cards to win Best Drama, but expected it to lose. I was surprised that it lost to The Affair. I am glad the Kevin Spacey won, though.
*I was also surprised Transparent won. I haven’t seen the show since it’s on Amazon, but I had expected something like Orange is the New Black to win. I’m not a fan of Orange is the New Black, it seems most people are so it seemed like a no-brainer.
*Gina Rodriquez surprised me as I haven’t seen that show and had heard she deserved to win but it wasn’t likely that she would.
*In my opinion Fargo should have swept, especially with Allison Tolman’s performance as well as Colin Hanks. It was all around my favorite show when it came out and with recent casting news for season 2, I’m even more excited.
So that just about wraps up all my thoughts on the Golden Globes. While some of the snubs bummed me out, a lot of the wins were pleasantly surprising.
Hey guys, with my previous Thoughtful Thursday, I got to thinking. I really should periodically let you know what’s going on with how things are going on here. I might talk about new commenters to the website, a comment that I particularly like, articles or reviews that gained a lot of audience interaction and stuff like that. I only plan on doing this once a month or so and I don’t plan on talking too heavily on views, since they don’t necessarily reflect participation. So without further ado, here is the first post regarding the state of the site.
First things first, I should mention the reviews as a whole. Reviews have always and will always be the biggest part of The Bishop Review, I mean review is in the name, so it has to be, right? Anyways, I’ve been trying to come out with 3-4 reviews per week and have the majority of them be in depth and fully reflective of how I felt about the film. I have occasionally released a shorter review, either because it’s a re-review or a review of a film that I couldn’t find much to write about. Either way, I try to keep all my reviews as accurate as my readers would expect of me, which is hopefully very accurate. In terms of numbers, they’ve been good for reviews, but like I said, I’m more invested in participation, which has been hit and miss. Some articles are always going to get a bigger response than others, but in a perfect world all my reviews would have 100 comments. I wouldn’t say to expect any big changes coming to the reviews in the near future.
Now with Top 5 Tuesday’s, those have a pretty equal view to participation ration. A lot of people like the lists, read the lists and comment about them. Everyone loves lists, including me, and they’re a lot of fun. For the near future, I anticipate continuing the Top 5 lists. I like keeping it different from week to week and I’m thinking about dropping clues on The Bishop Review’s twitter. I want to keep these lists fun and I want you guys to have fun reading them, so that’s my main goal for Top 5 Tuesdays.
Now I’ll end this little update talking about Thoughtful Thursdays. Thoughtful Thursdays haven’t yet gained much traction in views, which for a while made me nervous. The views aren’t very high and at first glance, the response was hard to gauge. Then, in the past few days, the latest Thoughtful Thursday gained a lot of readers and from their response, it seemed good. Also, the third TT had been linked to by people on Twitter and it looks as if people liked it. I think the first three, while being great posts, were brought down by their poor titles. They were only called Thoughtful Thursday # and nobody wants to read something called that, right? So from now on I will be actually titling it and putting (TT#) at the end of the title. Also, there has been a healthy string of more positive oriented Thoughtful Thursday, but that won’t always be the case. There’s a TT in the pipeline that is more somber. I’m not sure when it will be up as I haven’t finished it and I’m not sure if I want to post it right away, or even at all. If TT continues with this upward trend in participation, there is no doubt that it will keep it’s weekly slot. If it doesn’t look like a lot of people are enjoying it, I might put a hiatus on the posts and try to find something more fun for all the readers.
Later State of the Site posts might look different than this, but for now I’m happy and I hope you enjoyed seeing more of the technical side of my thinking and how I try to run this website. My biggest hope is that you enjoy what you read here, and now is the best time to speak up about what you like and don’t like with the site at the moment.
Frank, starring Michael Fassbender, is one of those movies from last year that I wanted to see immediately after hearing about it. Sadly, I had to wait until Netflix came along and put it on their streaming website, which is one of the many reasons I love Netflix. Now, as I started to watch the movie, I realized that other than knowing the film was about an eccentric musician who always wears a fake head, I knew nothing about the film. Despite not knowing anything, the film had built incredibly high expectations in my eyes and it was going to be tough to top them. So did it?
Now, first things first, the film follows Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), an aspiring musician who can’t seem to write any music. He gets an opportunity to fill in for a band’s keyboardist after the previous guy goes crazy and soon finds himself in the middle of no where trying to record the band’s album with them. Fassbender plays Frank, the dude in the fake head and Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Clara, who is more or less the antagonist of the film’s main character Jon. Many troubles arise, changing how Jon sees the world and the people around him, that’s me trying my hardest not to spoil anything.
The movie is incredibly fun at times and incredibly depressing at others. It’s a great mix and ends in a fairly unpredictable way, not super crazy, but good nonetheless. I loved the performances, especially by Gleeson and Fassbender. Gyllenhaal was also very good and helped to add another dynamic to the film. I felt like in the beginning that her role could have been cast by any actress, but towards the end it made sense why she was cast. There were other actors in smaller roles and they too did a great job.
Some people might not like how the film’s main character uses twitter and YouTube, but I didn’t seem to mind it. It added to the realism since pretty much everyone I know uses twitter and/or YouTube. It didn’t feel excessive in my opinion and also stayed true to how people really act when they’re on social media. Â The film has minor nudity, with a man’s buttocks seen briefly and if you look hard enough you might be able to see a breast through murky water. The main reason the film is rated R is that there are quite a few F-bombs.
I honestly can’t find anything to hate about this film, it was great on all fronts and lived up greatly to my expectations. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I might have been one of my favorite films of 2014.
I know, I know, it seems like once a week I’m thanking you, the reader. But you have to believe me, you all deserve to be thanked. From the readers who have been subscribed since 2010, to the fresh faces that joined in 2012, to the new readers each and everyday, and all the ones in between. You all deserve to see me bellow from the mountain tops THANK YOU!
Now that we’re in a new year and people are making resolutions, I want to tell you mine. In previous years I’ve said things like post one review a day, or get more viewers, but I’m too old to worry about that kind of stuff. Now you might be saying, Austin, you’re not old at all. You’re right, but still the sentiment remains. I don’t care how many views I get, those are just numbers that don’t mean anything. Those numbers represent people, and the people matter, but those people are more than numbers. The people are so friggen much more important than those silly numbers. Every time that I think of the numbers, I’m forgetting about the people. So no resolution about bumping up my numbers because that just turns you guys all into a numbers game.
Posting a day is silly for me. Some days no post is required. When I give myself that requirement, my content gets worse and I get stressed. When I get stressed, I quit writing. When I quit writing, I quit checking TBR and when that happens, I turn my back on the readers and abandon ship for months, or even years. So no resolution about posting every day.
Now, with that out of the way, I can tell you my resolution for this year. My goal is to not sweat the little things. If I don’t check the website for a day, oh well, I can’t stress about it. Because, like I mentioned, stress leads to long breaks in posting. While I’m not going to force myself to post every day, I’m going to try to be posting very regularly, possibly daily. If there is not a review or article on any given day, don’t fret, there will be one tomorrow.
I can’t believe that this website is nearly 5 years old. I’ve grown so much since then. Five years ago, I was still in high school, still unsure of what I wanted to do in life and I was self-conscious about everything about me. I’ve grown so much in five years, and I’m so happy that many of you have been here to see me grow. I look and see a lot of people that I consider friends in the comment section and it makes me happy that five years ago I had some silly notion that starting a review website would benefit the world in some way. So once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
This film has been reviewed by the best of them, so I’ll try to keep mine short. The film has a pretty generic story, involving the turtles coming past their issues with one another, working alongside April O’Neil and company to fight a common foe that changed all their lives. It’s a tale of revenge, but mostly of tale of sub par CGI. The story is pretty generic, but Summer blockbusters are known for light storylines and heavy action.
While the film does have a heaping helping of action, it often times is just a blur of CGI. Compared to the older Ninja Turtles movies, the fighting is arguably better. It’s not a great sight, but better than dudes fighting in turtles costumes. The acting isn’t fantastic either, it’s not terrible, but it felt like people just acting for a pay check. The turtle voices and personalities weren’t terrible, but Johnny Knoxville seems a little old to be voicing a teenage turtle. I love Knoxville, but they probably could have done some better casting.
Like I said, I’ll keep this review short. It wasn’t as bad as some people have said, but it has nothing amazing to set it apart from all the other CGI filled movies.
OK, I should preface this by saying that I don’t own a PS3 or PS4 so no PS exclusives will be on this list. Know that I have nothing against Sony, it’s just that I haven’t played any of those games. Now with that said, I should also mention that I’ve grown sick of the typical FPS, so don’t expect that on my list. So, let’s start the countdown.
5. Prison Architect
While this game hasn’t gotten past Alpha, and has been in Alpha for a long time, I’d still include it in this list because it is friggen fun. There are quite a few bugs, but the bones of the game are quite good. I’ve had a lot of fun playing it and I was lucky enough to get it at a good price. The game is bound to get better once it is fully completed.
4. Destiny
Destiny is very much a typical fps, but the range of futuristic weapons and powers makes it differ greatly than the usual bunch. There were quite a few problems with the game, it constantly losing connection to servers being one of them. Another issue is the game’s weak story that goes out with a whisper and the rich backstory that is barely mentioned in game. Despite all those cons, there’s just something inherently fun about the game. Jumping really high, shooting the enemy’s and having Peter Dinklage talk to you are possibly all good reasons for that being the case, I’m not 100% sure. All I know is that it was fun to play and has a solid amount of replay value.
3. NBA 2k15
Despite the server issues with this game, as well as Destiny, NBA 2k15 proved quite plainly that it was the best sports game of this year. Updated graphics, a rich story to the MyPlayer mode and an occasionally entertaining MyPark mode make this version better than the previous and better than its competitor. I’ve heard the FIFA game was also really good, but I haven’t had the chance to play it in many years, so I have no idea what to expect when I do play it.
2. Sunset Overdrive
This might have been the biggest surprise of the year. I had little expectations when it came to this game, but with the over the top violence and unique sense of humor, Sunset Overdrive captivated me with its story and characters, making me laugh harder than any game in recent memory. It had the perfect release date and makes me so happy that I purchased it on its release. This is a must play for Xbox One owners, especially fans of the zombie franchise, though it’s not really a straight up zombie game.
1. Dragon Age: Inquisition
Hands down the best game that I’ve played all year. A rich story line kept me playing for 90+ hours. Interesting characters made me crave more and more interactions, which the game provided. Funny at times, sad at others. This game was so damn good I can’t even finish sentences right. Despite my first impressions of Dragon Age II being positive, the game had little replay value and second and third playthroughs made me realize it was a weak game. The same can’t be said for Inquisition as parts of the game are better after playing through once before. Playing as a different race or gender makes the game feel new and one of a kind. I can’t wait for DLC because I know that I will eat up another chunk of my days playing it. Bioware really impressed me with this one.
Wow. What a movie. I’ve never seen a Lars von Trier film before and I’m not sure if this was the best or worst movie to start with. Nymphomaniac has pretty much a story in a story, where a woman tells a man who found her beaten and bloody in the streets about her life story, mostly involving sex. The stories range from innocent self exploration all the way too her engaging in sexual acts with different men in a short period of time. She has other tales to tell, involving her loving father and shrewish mother, but the majority of the film follows sex.
The cast in the film is pretty phenomenal, with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shia LaBeouf, Stacy Martin and Stellan Skarsgard having the strongest roles. The biggest surprise, performance wise was Christian Slater’s role as the lead character’s father. I’ve only ever been impressed by Slater in True Romance, but he offered up an amazing role that was complex. Gainsbourg and Martin play the same character, Joe, and spend most of the film in differing stages of undress. Their performances were both great, but Martin probably shined a little brighter since most of the stories involved Joe at Martin’s age. Shia LaBeouf was good, he was played a character with quite a bit of depth, but was mostly a jerk the whole way through. Skarsgard was also phenomenal and his defense of Gainsborg’s actions through the course of the film is at times comical. Despite his age, he seems to act with a boyish wonder to his eyes, it’s truly captivating.
The subject matter should probably be discussed, yes, there is a lot of nudity in this film, especially the uncut version. There are graphic shots of genitals, breasts, most sex acts and a whole lot of moaning. The film is not a porno, it’s nudity is closely tied with the story and it’s not shown as some sort of gratification. The subject matter is far too intense, despite its occasionally casual and comedic tone. It deals with death, pain and an absence of love. This being the director’s cut, it is filled with potentially more sex scenes, more nudity and more story. I’m not quite sure since I haven’t seen the theatrical cut yet. It’s quite a long watch, but at the end of the film I felt like it was worth it.
Overall, I can’t recommend this to everyone, but it was a great enough watch in my opinion.
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