It was a big year for the rest of the world. It was discovered that Bill Clinton will kick your ass if you try to sideswipe him in an interview. The democrats are coming back in the 4th quarter. Saddam Hussein was tried, sentenced, and executed, all in 9.6 seconds. North Korea went "what, what was that? I can't hear you lalala" and fired some bombs into the ocean. Iran gave a bunch of people dirty looks. Mel Gibson and Michael Richards are already old jokes. DevinartArt is now the number one source for amputee Scooby-Doo lesbian porn. Episodes of Reboot became available on YouTube. And the world keeps on spinning.
As is traditional around this time, we should all take a moment, look back, and reflect on the good and the bad of the past year in search of ways to improve this year. Or, if you're in a hurry, let me do it for you!
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First off, the entire cast is terrific. Steve Carell does a wonderful job as expected, but best of the lot for me is Greg Kinnear playing the father Richard, inventor of a self-help system who can't get his business off the ground. Trying to detail their performances would take too long, so you'll have to trust me on this.
Second, it's the perfect blend of drama and real life comedy. And I'm not saying they take turns, they're the same thing. Plus, anything that takes a giant stab at beauty pagents is alright in my book. Just watch it already.
"Oh purple mountains.... maaaaajjasty!"
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Darren Aronofsky is my favorite "Made Less Then Four Movies" director. Pi and Requiem for a Dream are both great, but Aronofsky really stepped it up his latest work, three intertwined stories of fighting against inevitable loss. It also gives me hope that Hugh Jackman has more in him besides X-Men sequels. Little Miss Sunshine is already out in DVD, so get that now. You should have enough money saved for The Fountain by the time if comes out. They just might make you forget about Ultraviolet.
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So, you take a popular book series detailing a theoretical scenario in which the classic biblical armageddon actaully happens. It becomes a franchise after it's adapted for some movies starring Kirk Cameron, the only person to notice that Leonardo DiCaprio was living in the janitor's closet. You decide it's time to take it another step furthur: you want to make a video game. Religious video games haven't had a great track record, and there is sure to be people against it, but if you take what people consider "the goods" from the franchise, keep it true for the long-time readers, and manage to find an enjoyable way to play that as a video game, then you might just come out a winner.
What you don't want to do is make a Warcraft wannabe that required ten times more computer power then you would need for Half-Life 2, make the main goal killing non-Christians, and have it infect your computer with spyware.
However, as bad as that sounds, it means we're one step closer to a video game adaption of the film "Judgement", and killing non-Christians becomes so much more fun when you're doing it as Mr. T.
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I will give the game and it's forerunner credit for including some good music. However, if you want to listen to the songs available without annoying error noises, you have to dislocate your thumb and pointer finger to press the goddamn red button. I've lost more friends to Guitar Hero then any other video game, and I just don't get it. Why is it more satisfying to pretend to play the guiter then to actually learn how to play one? And why does my cousin think it'd be more fun for me to watch him play then for us to go out and actually do something?
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PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
And it's not just the fact that it's the president that's the bad guy, it's Gregory Itzin. I thought it was funny when he first showed up, since the only thing I knew about him before was that he played the earring-wearing mayor of Eerie, Indiana. I didn't expect him to pull off the insecure and evil man on television.
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I missed Jack Nicholson. The man can act, everyone's known that since the 70s, but lately he's only worked in annoying comedy films and poor-ass attempts to capture Bill Murray's "lost old man" charm. So, I was happy to hear that he was going to be in Martin Scorsese's The Departed in his first bad guy role since playing the Joker in 1989. And, thank god, he does a great job as Frank Costello, leader of the Irish Mafia, outwitting the police at every turn while slowly breaking down from his own pleasures. The film is only slightly above average, but if you wan't proof that Jack can still play bad, here it is.
RUNNER UP
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10,000 Days is a) a bit taller then the average CD case, b)is made of some cardboard crap, and c) included giant novelty glasses or something pasted to the front, making the CD cases top heavy and often times falling foward, off the shelves and and onto the floor where some unexpecting mom can run over it with her broken-down shopping cart (Target doesn't have a single unbroken shopping cart). I don't like picking up your CDs, I don't like adusting the shelves every time I stock one of your CDs, and I can't emphasize how dumb it is to expect people to pay the jacked-up price for crappy novelty glasses. And the glasses make it so I can only stock four CDs at a time instead of six. Hey, Tool, "Revolver" didn't need crappy novelty glasses. Take a hint.
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I'm not the world's biggest fan of Tenacious D. I'm not a Jack Black fan and Kyle Gass just gets on my nerves. They do some good guitar work, but their lyrics either make no sense or are about sex and are only sorta-kinda-funny-maybe if you watch the music video. So I never bothered going to their movie. However, stocking their soundtrack is unavoidable, and trying to wedge these book-thick special editions into Target's tiny little shelves only makes me dislike them a little bit more.
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When a horror movie sucks, like almost all of them this year, you can still enjoy it in a point-and-laugh kind of way. Same with most dramas that don't have to do with disabilities. But when a comedy fails, there is nothing more painful. Well, ok, there's one thing more painful. Alyson Hannigan in a fat suit.
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I like Dane Cook. I know there's a lot of people who either want him to father their children or want to see his head on a spike. Obviously, when you got him cast in his first starring role, you want to cater to the former. When the best thing you got going for your movie is your leading man, you might want to avoid ignoring all the things people like about him and watch him walk around comatose while occasionally commenting on the size of Jessica Simpson's ears.
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To give you an idea, we've had about four shipments of Nintendo Wiis. Shipments range from 15 to 30 systems, and every copy sold out within the first fifteen minutes. Compare to the other big video game release, the Playstation 3. Shipments range from one to six systems. The first two shipments sold out. All the systems from shipment three are still unsold, gathering dust. I guess this is where I'd make a joke about giant enemy crabs, but I'm too good for that.
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Explain this to me. Is there something about this movie I don't know about. I know it's supposed to be Jet Li's last martial arts movie, in the same sense that Princess Mononoke was Hayao Miyazaki's last movie, but otherwise what's so special about it? We put up sixty copies on the day it came out on DVD. Sold out in an hour, and people asked me for the rest of the week when more copies were coming in. I've searched the internet, but I can't find any reason why. WHY?
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For those unfamiliar, Okami is an adventure game taking place in Old Fantasy Japan, where you play a goddess in wolf form trying to stop an unearthed demon. Graphics-wise, it's the best use of cel-shading in any game, beating out Wind Waker by an inch. Gameplay is solid, the controls are easy and the challange level is just right. And, of course, what everyone is talking about, the ability to paint on the screen using a brush for different effect. Painting a line out to a river creates a fishing line. A circle up in the sky changes the position of the sun. Filling in on empty grown make plants sprout. The best part is fooling around with the different effects and discovering hidden things, ranging from buried powerups to the activities of the people you're sworn to protect.
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The other purchase this year was the latest in the Final Fantasy series, and by far the best one since VI. What interests me is that the things people usually complain about in this game are the things I love. The combat system is great, a modified version of the standard time-based system with the addition of the gambit system, which can either be used to babysit your other characters or can be used to form terrific, long-winded battle strategies. People say names are too hard to remember and the storyline is too complicated. I think it shows signs that Square Enix doesn't look down to their players, and I appriciate that. Plus, come on, moogles.
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Steve Irwin never needed to be a celebrity. That was never his goal. Becoming a popular TV personality was a byproduct of doing what he loved to do: doing all he can to preserve wildlife. He grew up wrangling and transporting crocs with his father, and went on to run the family zoo, where he taught the importance of preservation. Then he got on TV, but never once changed his goal. He used to TV show to show how wonderful our natural world is and why we have to protect it from ourselves. Sure, "crikey" become a catchphrase so he said it a lot, but otherwise he never changed who he was when he got in front of the cameras.
He put his shooting schedule on hold to assist in the rescue a lost diver. He spent his birthday sitting with beached whales, trying despretaly to comfort them in their last hours. He wept in front of the camera when he learned one of the crocs in his zoo, which he considered a friend, has passed away. He spent the truck loads of money he made not on himself but on buying tracks of land to keep them safe from construction. He loved his wife and children.
In all these years, his death is the only celebrity death that shocked me, that made me take deep pause.
I'm really gonna miss you, Steve.
So, maybe now I can finally close the book that 2006 and look forward to 2007. I'll be starting college again. Maybe I'll finally get that movie made. I plan to do a lot more web updates. I might even save the world.
What? You want to know more about 2006? Well, then AREN'T YOU IN LUCKY LITTLE COWBOY, cause this article just happens to be 1/3rd of the "BEST AND WORST OF 2006 ROUNDTABLE!" or whatever we're calling it. I suggest giving these guys a read: