“What do the cruellest criminals do when they are all together?” This looks like the beginning of a joke, but still isn´t… Perhaps if I say “Simon West’s Con Air”, you will guess what the joke is. Wow! What a horrible film (in my opinion)! More than a blockbuster it seems a “blockbastard”! -Sorry for the pun.

Ok. Let’s start again. I am not going to talk about the ridiculous script, the non-existent sense of measure, the extremely confuse action scenes, or the inappropriate performances. I think that something better could Read the rest of this article »

A gang of highly professional thieves is committing a series of robberies… An assassin performs his very own nightly tour de force… Two anti-vice detectives pursue the typical delinquent. While looking forward to seeing on screen Miami Vice´s cinematographic version, both “Heat” and “Collateral” offer us a characteristic mark of Michael Mann´s work as a director, which is not in the detective stories but in his way of portraying the city. In fact, these two movies Read the rest of this article »

Mentocola, in its stable form, is one of the rarest substances on Earth, since this mix tends to explode unless you handle it very carefully. This video shows how to make it. The explosive reaction, on the other hand, has become quite popular lately…

disclaimer: Making&drinking mentocola may be risky, be aware of that.

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thedavincicode/

(…) a secret that threatens to overturn 2000 years of accepted dogma

I wonder if “The Da Vinci Code”, the movie, will ever have a life outside of “The Da Vinci Code”, the book, just as much as I wondered before if “The Da Vinci Code”, the book, would ever have had a life outside of its title. In my opinion, both the book´s title and its cover design were the true reasons for its success, more than the plot, which albeit interesting was nothing new sub sole (for instance, check Peter Berling´s “The Children of the Grail“). In this way I would say that I Read the rest of this article »

Who is Paul Greengrass? He is the director of two films as different as excellent: the brutally real “Bloody Sunday” and the more popular “The Bourne Supremacy”. Our target today will be the second title I’ve mentioned, perhaps the best action film (in my opinion) since “Die Hard”.

Action movies usually have a bad press, due to the dreadful quality (it´s true) of some of these products. Many of them attempt on the audience’s intelligence: We are fed up of watching bad guys killing lots of people with great precision, only to become true idiots when it´s about killing the hero. “The Bourne Supremacy” fortunately respects our capacity of thinking.

When Greengrass was hired to take up again the character of CIA agent Jason Bourne, after the great reception obtained by “The Bourne Identity”, he found himself with some questions to Read the rest of this article »

http://www.arcadeflyers.net/

a repository for arcade related promotional flyers that are used by the arcade industry to promote the sales of their games.

The product of a fusion between two already big flyer collections, the Arcade Flyer Archive is, since 1999, an evergrowing showcase of arcade flyers and a paradise for the video game enthusiast.

In wandering through the many images available (usually there are several flyers for a single videogame,) you will find amazing artworks covering the entire story of arcades from 1971 to almost yesterday (the database is constantly updated). From an aesthetical point of view this is enough to Read the rest of this article »

I hate fighting games. My first contact with them was the Street Fighter 2 coin-op, and already then I thought it was a ridiculous game. That´s strange, because I could finish the first Double Dragon without blinking, but there was no chemistry. It was a game without power-ups, where in order to get the control dynamics you had to Read the rest of this article »

Today we are going to finish this two-chapter series about Spaghetti Western. We will review the “punch” of this genre by means of some titles that shape it.

Let´s begin with my favourite film in the genre: Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” (obvious choice). Leone had already shot the “Dollars trilogy” (the previous three films), although this is the movie in which he reaches the greatest refinement and technical perfection. Without leaving the peculiar characteristics of these kind of films, Leone obtains his most personal movie, tinged with a slower narrative tempo than previous ones. Read the rest of this article »

What is a “vile genre”? I’ve heard this term from some cinema reviewers in recent days, referred to those kinds of movies which “pervert” the traditional rules of a classic genre (for example, the Spaguetti-western is a filmic perversion of classic American western movies). The “vile genre” is characterized by the rupture of the usual canons in direction, production design, etc., emphasizing a more direct treatment of the situations and roles. In other words, these are movies which don´t need a second interpretation to be understood.

Some imaginative filmmakers (Tarantino, Raimi, among others) have an excellent knowledge of this kind of cinema, often called “B” or “Z” series. Just take a look at “Kill Bill” and you’ll Read the rest of this article »

http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/40930/

My favourite superhero is Spiderman. I love robots. I make compositions out of weird sounds. If I had the chance (and knew the language), I would move to Japan without hesitation. I was born in 1978.

With these facts in mind, I´m sure that you will understand why I almost cried with joy when I discovered the video linked above.

Arigatou gozaimasu, Mari Kanasawa!

http://www.radicauk.com/product/05%20-%2075039.htm

Play with one or stick two or more cubes together to build an interactive world(…) As you stack, they’ll interact and visit one another’s cubes.

http://www.takara-usa.com/toys/cubee/index.php

(…) if you interconnect additional Cubees, the one on top of the singing pyramid will belt out the lead while the others “sing” back-up.

Even though the possibilities of interaction between electronic toys has been already explored for a while (like in the most recent versions of the Tamagotchi or the Digimon), it looks as though there’s a new generation of toys on the horizon which are characterized by their ability to interact with each other regardless of the active presence of the user.

These toys generally come shaped as cubes which provide special connectors on several of their sides. Each cube is entertaining by itself, but in order for the interactions to happen, the user should Read the rest of this article »

http://www.doommovie.com/

The researchers at this Red Planet station have unwittingly opened a door, and all hell has broken loose. A legion of nightmarish creatures of unknown origin lurks in every corner and stalks the countless rooms and tunnels of the facility, killing what few people remain.

Traditionally a bad thing, Doom has been a reason for expectation and happiness to almost every person that has played computer games since… (since too long, I´m getting old!). “Wolfenstein” was the beginning, but the Doom series was a hit that made the 1st-person shooter genre one of the most popular between gamers, and its last installment was no exception, with luscious graphics, chilling sounds and, among everything, an unparalleled atmosphere that literally took you to hell.

Showing these credentials, and after a myriad of copies sold, it just seemed natural that someone wanted to make a movie based on the game. In fact, Doom, the movie is reasonably close to the game, though it´s not quite it… Read the rest of this article »

http://www2.warnerbros.com/batmanbegins/index.html

In the wake of his parents’ murder, disillusioned industrial heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) travels the world seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.

“Disillusioned industrial heir…” I guess there could be many better ways to describe Bruce Wayne, but actually disillusionment is a good word (maybe mild) to describe the feeling of watching so much underutilised talent, not only among the cast, but the composers too: I was very surprised to know that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard were both behind the soundtrack, because I found it very correct, but (with all my respects) just that; I would dare to say that it was Read the rest of this article »