Ultra fast review just to get some content out (have been preoccupied with games recently with the ongoing steam sales).
The less you know and have seen about Pacific Rim before seeing it, the better.
I had hardly seen anything about it other than the first teasers that were put out, and I was blown away.
Incredibly stupid, incredibly over the top, action all the way, and right up my alley.

This is a film that needs to be seen in the cinema for sure, the sheer scale of everything in the film is incredible. Be aware that the film is pretty much EXACTLY what it says on the tin, don’t go expecting a particularly deep plot or masses of character development, this is almost like watching Rocky but replacing Stallone with a gigantic robot.
Personally, what impressed me most and was the best part of the film were the graphics, obviously with a film like this you know that the majority of it is CGI, but they deliver it so very well, the film is a beautiful example of cutting edge CGI and special effects and what is capable nowadays, like if I was to go back in time and wanted to bring back something that would showcase how far special effects have come? It’d probably be this film.

I realise it’s maybe a little late to be saying this, but go big or go home with this one, I can’t imagine it being particularly fantastic on a home screen, but in the cinema its a true spectacle.

100Yen is an hour long documentary originally funded by a kickstarter back in 2010 (I think anyway), it  takes us on a journey through the Japanese arcade landscape from the 80’s through to the current day with analysis into each of the major trends and shifts that happen. The documentary is well made and features a bunch of interviews from famous faces (assuming you know your pro gamers), everything is pretty well shot and presented with a subtle chiptune soundtrack throughout.

I really enjoyed watching in particular the segment about music games, which featured some footage of DDR freestyle (always entertaining to watch) along with being able to spot locations and arcades which I myself have been to whilst I was in Japan.

For those who haven’t visited an arcade in ages, or are unfamiliar with the arcade scene in Japan, the documentary is definitely worth a watch, and for the hardcore gamers and arcade regulars there is still enough material and interviews here to keep you interested.

The asking price on the website is a little steep for a 1 hour documentary however I’m sure there are other ways to watch it if you are so inclined.

So I watched the Phoenix Wright film earlier today, it’s running time was longer than I anticipated, coming in at around 2 hours – standard for films nowadays, yet still shocking for a film based on a video game (though, I suppose, less shocking when the subject is Phoenix Wright).

The film is a fairly faithful telling of the first game in the Ace Attorney series, fans of the game will understand what I mean when I say it covers ‘The first turnabout’, ‘Turnabout sisters’ and ‘Turnabout Goodbyes’ (Thats acts 1,2 and 4 from the first game, and omits The steel Samurai case, and the Ema Skye Case, though the steel samurai case is referenced in the film) – The latter 2 cases, Turnabout Sisters and Goodbyes, were the best 2 cases of the first game imo, and to see them retold in more or less the way I remember it unfolding brought some nice nostalgia.

I was fortunate enough to vaguely remember the cases and what happens, yet not quite be able to remember what exactly happens, which is probably the best way to enjoy the film – too much knowledge and there is no tension as you have practically seen the film already, too little knowledge and you may find yourself confused by the slightly ridiculous plotline. A benefit of the film however is that the key points have been cleaned up, and the trials do not last as long as the do in the game (duh).

Humour from the game is preserved in entertaining ways one wouldn’t expect from such a seemingly serious film, and the rest of the humour is lovingly provided by the buttz.
Music from the game is also preserved to some extent, whilst there wasn’t quite enough of it, it was nice to hear familiar tunes stir up at climatic moments of the film, an orchestral arrangement of the court theme in particular had me grinning from ear to ear.

Characters are preserved fairly well, though some were ported better than others. My gripes with the characters however are purely cosmetic, with the actors playing their parts well.
Characters I thought were being played by the wrong people were Gumshoe (too young) and Maya (too old / not adorable enough), On the flipside, I thought Phoenix, Lotta Hart, Larry Butz and the judge were all cast pretty spot on.

Verdict:
Fans will definitely get the most out of this film, though fans who remember the twisting plot too well may find themselves slightly bored. Watching the cases unravel themselves however is almost as satisfying as playing through the games again. The film is just the right length and is a great mix of courtroom drama and light comedy, and well worth a look.

I grabbed the film back in september last year when there were no subtitles available, so I can’t direct you to that, however I can tell you that the copy of the film I saw was called ‘Ace.Attorney.2012.JAP.DVDRip.x264.AC3-zdzdz’ and was okay (if a little low quality).
The subtitles are mirrored on my hosting – http://www.mengsbizarreadventure.com/uploads/Ace.Attorney.2012.JAP.DVDRip.x264.AC3-zdzdz%20-%20Copy.txt
Download the file and then change the extension to .SRT

Jiro dreams of sushi is a movie documentary about 85 year old sushi master Jiro Ono and his restaraunt, where he serves what is apparently the best sushi in the world.
The film is portioned approximately 50/50 his history/life and the food, both are amazing – though as a food buff myself the scenes where he preparing the sushi are incredible.

It at times feels like what can only be described as food porn, with slow motion slicing of fish, pressing of rice and coating the top with what I assume is magical love sauce.
This is all set to a classical soundtrack which seems to fit the film so very well.

Jiro dreams of sushi is a must see for food lovers, and according to rotten tomatoes, people in general – It is rated at 99% after 83 reviews and currently sits in the top 10 best films of 2012.

Watch the below trailer in HD, then watch the whole damn film because then you will understand how hard it is to make a sushi documentary sound interesting.

So today we have a ‘face off’ of sorts….

Tangled – By disney, a re-envision of the old tale of Rapunzel, classic disney princess/prince affair.

Megamind – By Dreamworks, the story of a troubled supervillain trying to find himself

Despicable Me – By newcomer ‘Illumination entertainment’ , another story about a supervillain, but this time trying to out supervillain another supervillain.

Films will be rated on Story, Comedy, Graphics, music and general how much i liked it (overall)

Lets begin then.

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Tangled (2010)

Tangled is without a doubt the prettiest of the 3 films, like…. seriously seriously pretty, the enviroments, character detail, lighting… things like hair and water look amazing.
That said, I thought that the humor in tangled was the worst of the 3, with comedy fairly slapstick in most cases, Granted its supposedly a childrens movie, but so are the rest of the films in this post, and so are all of the pixar films and they still manage to keep a good balance between childish slapstick humor and subtle adult jokes.
Something i didnt actually know until about 10 minutes before i watched the film is that it is a borderline musical ,now this isnt exactly a bad thing, but I guess I wasnt completely mentally prepared for it – Or i thought i was… and i wasnt. The film really reminds me of old school disney films like Beauty and the Beast, Happy endings, animal companions and the occasional sing and dance – This makes sense as the logical progression for Disney however (I hear princess and the frog was a flop)

Oh. Id also like to add that it sort of felt like the main character was based loosely on Miley Cyrus or something.

Best Bit? Without a doubt the Lantern scene which the film builds up to for the first half hour or so. Really Beautiful.

The scores:

Story : 5/10 – Fairly predictable Disney affair, I also felt the pacing was a little slow… Maybe because there wasnt actually much story to begin with

Comedy : 3/10 – As mentioned earlier, not much comedy here other than slapstick

Graphics : 10/10 – Amazing

Music : 8/10 – Its a musical, so i was kind of on edge during any song in case a housemate came in, the music is generally decent and fits the scene well, the tavern song was lol.

Overall : 7/10 – Its a good film, but I felt the lack of comedy let it down a little, However, Id say the film is actually worth watching JUST for the graphics. If you have a spare 90 minutes, grab a HD version and enjoy.

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Megamind (2010)

I saw megamind last, So its still pretty fresh in my mind.
Im not really sure what, but I felt like something was missing from the film, Something felt out of place but I cant really put my finger on what, maybe the voices? Maybe the characters were unlovable? Im not really sure..
The story starts fairly strong, and then kind of loses its way after a while before trying to find itself, of course everybody watching already kind of knows where the story is going to end up and how the story will end, The plot is actually vaguely like the episode of Dexter’s Lab where he ‘Fires’ Deedee and then spends the rest of the episode trying to hire a new sister.
As sort of mentioned, I think the characters were a little…crap… Cant really say why, the main character was kind of unlovable and dumb, which is unsurprising because apparently his voice actor is Will Ferrel, who is also unlovable and dumb.
The film is pretty funny, about 50:50 slapstick:adult, this film also I think rocks the best music, because its hard not to enjoy a film where old famous rock songs are played.
Uh….more or less sums it up i think? I didnt really expect much from Megamind and whilst it didnt really shock me with anything but kept me entertained throughout.

Best bit? I cranked my speakers for the finale when Welcome to the Jungle came on for the final battle…

The Scores:

Story: 7/10 – Could have been more original, I feel like I’ve already seen this film somewhere else with different characters somewhere.

Comedy: 7/10 – Pretty funny with lots of variety

Graphics: 9/10 – I watched the 1080p version, And it was very pretty, yet somehow upstaged by Tangled in 720p, this may have scored higher had I not seen Tangled prior

Music: 9/10 – ALL ABOARD!~

Overall: 8/10 – A good animated film, brought down by a few little smudges here and there. Definitely worth a watch.

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Despicable Me (2010)

I sort of stumbled into watching this film, taking a break from my work to stroll into the lounge where my housemates had just started watching it, my brother said it was a really good film so i dropped what i was doing and went to watch, it was a good call on my part.
In my opinion, I’d say Despicable Me is the best film of this bunch, im a bit of a sucker for cutesy films, comedies and bizarre shit, and Despicable Me seems to tick all the right boxes.
It feels like the writers and animators really tried their best to make the film hilarious, both in a bit of a slapstick way – with the little yellow minions acting similar to rabbits (from the rayman series) – and in a very clever way, the way the characters interact with each other is really good and entertaining in itself, add in some clever dialogue and the main characters voice/accent and its golden (“I SAID COOKIE ROBOTS. NOT BOOGIE. WHY ARE YOU SO OLD.”)
Another great asset the film has are that you will fall in love with most of the characters, the main, the minions,  the girls, the pirahnadog, its about the opposite to the feeling I had towards the characters in megamind.
The story is very simple but with a few twists here and there (he fly to the moon, he shrink the moon, he take the moon…) but story is arguably the weakest part of the film.

Best Bit? Its really hard to think of a best bit, I feel like the film was pretty consistently great all the way through and didnt really peak and drop like other films. So i guess i’ll just put a picture of Gru and the girls on the rollercoaster

The Scores:

Story: 6/10 – Very simple as mentioned before, and whilst its probably the film’s main weakness, it is by no means bad

Comedy: 10/10 – I laughed out loud, a lot. From the easy laughs like the failed Dart gun and failed bank presentation to the more obscure stuff.

Graphics: 8/10 – Slightly simpler graphics compared to the other two films, yet by no means bad, animation is still top notch but stuff just isnt as detailed as the others.

Music: 6/10 – It was alright, nothing too spectacular, but it all went with the film just fine. I did feel a little awkward watching the end dance though, it felt a little forced…

Overall: 10/10 – A very very enjoyable film, and one which I’d happily watch again in a few months maybe. Give it a watch for sure.

Went to see it at the cinema the other day.. Its…. a Jackass film. Im not sure what else needs to be said. It runs about an hour and a half and is pretty entertaining if you enjoy Jackass antics.
There is a LOT of pain, shit, cocks, slow-mo facepunching and shit.
Did i mention shit?

The 3d, sadly, doesn’t enhance the film much at all, the opening and ending is shot in full 3d, with exploding shit flying out of the screen and so on, but majority of the film is in pseudo 3d which was abit disappointing.

Highlights for me was the guy sitting behind the Plane engine , High-five and beehive tetherball (which i laughed so hard at i could barely breathe).
Lowlights was probably the ‘Poo cocktail supreme’ which basically involved steve-o being put in a bungee capsule filled with liquid shit. The people outside the capsule were throwing up, it was pretty horrible to watch :X
Oh, the sweat drinking and then throwing up was pretty fucking nasty to watch too.

Im not entirely sure whether i would recommend seeing it at the cinema or not, if you have friends, go see it and hope its pretty full so you at least get that atmosphere. If not, its probably fine to just wait for the DVD to come out since the 3d effect is pretty mediocre.

So… Machete is probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Duke Nukem film without a Duke Nukem film actually being made. (and lets face it, if it was announced, it wouldnt show its face for a good 20 years anyway)

Machete is basically a guy that doesnt give a fuck, the sort of guy who if sent on a mission of impossible odds and is shown into a big room of guns – will almost immediately go for a Machete. He walks around, doesnt give a fuck, chops peoples heads off and fucks bitches.
The plot is pretty laughable, but nobody is watching it for that, its just a pure hack and slash gorefest style film, and im quite okay with this.

Also, jessica alba has a semi-nude scene, lynsey lohan is topless for half the film and in the first 5 minutes of the film a woman pulls a mobile phone out of her snatch. Guns, blood and tits.

If you have a pair of balls, you should probably check the film out.