Hi everyone. Welcome to Addicted to Media's This Week's Addiction. This week, all I had on my mind, and my 360, was Battlefield: 1943. The game which is available for xbla, psn, and pc costs about 15 dollars. And from my experiences, is worth every penny. Even though it's not as in-depth or as customizable as other shooters there's still plenty here to keep you invested until the next COD comes out.

There are only four maps, one which is an all airplane map, and sometimes match making just plain sucks, but the ability to join up with squads that my friends are in makes me smile. The vehicular combat is pretty fun for the most part. I haven't really got the hang of flying yet, but I think there's a reason the designers made flying so difficult. Oh, and I especially like launching the air raids.



The ground vehicles roll pretty smooth; it's pretty awesome jumping in a movie jeep grabbing the mini gun and mowing down enemies. But what I really enjoy are the quiet parts. I love defending a base and, even though there's no activity around me, hiding in an vacant building waiting for someone to try and take the base.

The game rewards the player heavily for playing smart. If you come out guns blazin' you probably won't get too many points between re-spawns. And you need your points to level up, although leveling up doesn't really do anything as far as I can tell. My best strategy is to pick a place, post up, and if it gets a little to hot to hold the fort, skip to the next one. Firefights rarely pay off, I prefer to lay low. Maybe that's just my style.


When you can get a good match, this game is worth every penny. When you can't it's still fun to putz around world wreaking your own havock. For me this game is a budget conscious alternative to COD. I can still get my fix of combat without killing my wallet. And although it can be a time-sink, I can pick up a match here or there, and I don't have to devote a huge amount of time to learning it. So, go get it. I'm hooked.

If you haven't had the chance to catch Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues you can check it out on her website for free. Paley has been a strong advocate of free distribution. On her site she offers it in 3 resolutions, two of which are "broadcast" quality. Her use of 2 dimensional computer graphics is nothing short of splendid. Bright, vivid and humorous Sita dazzles.

Sita is a Hindu goddess, the leading lady of India’s epic the Ramayana and a dutiful wife who follows her husband Rama on a 14 year exile to a forest, only to be kidnapped by an evil king from Sri Lanka. Despite remaining faithful to her husband, Sita is put through many tests. Nina (the filmmaker Nina Paley herself) is an artist who finds parallels in Sita’s life when her husband – in India on a work project - decides to break up their marriage and dump her via email. Three hilarious Indonesian shadow puppets with Indian accents – linking the popularity of the Ramayana from India all the way to the Far East - narrate both the ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the epic.

In her first feature length film, Paley juxtaposes multiple narrative and visual styles to create a highly entertaining yet moving vision of the Ramayana. Musical numbers choreographed to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw feature a cast of hundreds: flying monkeys, evil monsters, gods, goddesses, warriors, sages, and winged eyeballs. A tale of truth, justice and a woman’s cry for equal treatment. Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

Watch it here.

Taxidermia initially premiered in the states at the Portland Film Festival way back in February of 08. It's now slated for an official U.S. release date of August 14. Taxidermia contains three generational stories, about a grandfather, a father, and a son, linked together by recurring motifs. The dim grandfather, an orderly during World War Two, lives in his bizarre fantasies; he desires love. The huge father seeks success as a top athlete — a speed eater — in the post-war pro-Soviet era. The grandson, a meek, small-boned taxidermist, yearns for something greater: immortality. He wants to create the most perfect work of art of all time by stuffing his own torso. Historical facts and surrealism become intertwined as magical realism, like in the works of Gabriel García Marquez or the Hungarian writer Lajos Parti Nagy; the script is based on two of the latter’s stories. Palfi added the third story, that of the grandson the taxidermist.

(Don’t worry, reader, no spoilers in this one.)

Coraline is a great picture that hits all the right chords with this viewer. It’s tender, funny, and even a little creepy at times. Everything about it is quality entertainment: good story, good characters, great performances, a fantastic soundtrack (None of that radio Disney crap), and really, really exquisite character designs. Everybody looks totally unique. And hilarious, too.

My favorite looking character, personally, is Mr. Bobinsky.

And when you’re watching this film, you have to sit in awe of the quality stop motion and the work that must of went into it. Stop motion has a unique and beautiful aesthetic of its own that you don’t see too much anymore in our modern 3D animation saturated films. We’re lucky to have directors like Henry Selick who are still driven to pursue this obscure kind of filmmaking. Keep up the good work, Henry!

Bottom line: I really liked this movie, and suspect it will be mentioned later this year as one of my favorite films of 2009. It’s certainly one of the more novel, entertaining, and surprisingly mature children’s films, outside of the Pixar ones, I’ve seen in recent years. No fart jokes whatsoever. If you haven’t watched it yet, do yourself a favor a check it out right after you’re done reading my review. Seriously. Do it.

Now I bought the blu-ray version of Coraline, and it looks exquisite! The 2D version I mean. The overall subdued color palette is accurate to what I remember seeing in the theater, and the same goes for the picture’s sharpness, as well. You’ll marvel at all the little details you can make out in their clothes and in the background sets. WOWZA! It looks as good, if not better than the other fairly recent HD release stop motion picture, Corpse Bride, and totally annihilates the picture quality of Nightmare Before Christmas (directed by Mr. Selick, too). I thought the picture on the Nightmare blu-ray was a little underwhelming, myself. Granted, though, that is a much older film.

Buying this blu-ray also gave me the opportunity, for the first time, to experience a 3D picture at home. This is the version I watched first, and I have some mixed feelings about this “3D presentation”: on the plus side, the picture was much more 3Dimensional than I had anticipated. I was genuinely surprised at how well the illusionary effect was rendered on this disc, almost as good as the 3D picture I experienced at the moviehouse in February of this year. However, I was a little disappointed that throughout the entire movie it looked like a semi-transparent sheet of pink and green was covering the picture. This multicolor sheen is due to the fact that the 3D glasses that come with it, 4 pairs to be specific, have a red violet lens on the right side and a green one on the left side. Unavoidable, I guess, but still a little distracting. At least the 3D didn’t cost extra, but, if pressed, I definitely prefer the 2D version.

As far as special features go, this disc delivers again. There’s a very nice 35-minute “making of” feature, a short look into the casting and the recording of the vocal performances, and extended and deleted scenes. That’s about it. Adequate.

The first trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland reached the internet this week. As far as I can tell it looks 1 part Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and 1 part Big Fish with a dash of Pirates. Burton morbidity has always remained juvenile and that seems to be the case here. It's weird but safe. I promised myself I wouldn't watch too much of this, but here it goes...




See it Here.
Via:cinematical

Remember when everyone thought Billy Bob was going to play Freddy a re-imagining of the Nightmare on Elmstreet property. Well that's a distant memory. Jackie Earle Haley has officially stepped into the role and Trailer Park has the pic to prove it. From the image we can't tell an awful lot except that Haley is barely distinguishable from Englund who originally played Krueger. Of course it's an extremely early photo, but it looks like everything is headed in the right direction. Although the photo is brimming with gritty realism à la The Dark Knight. We'll see.

Listen Here.
Or subscribe to us on iTunes.
TOPICS
#1
XBOX LIVE PRIMETIME CHANNEL: "Scheduled Social Events"
-1vs100 (impressions)
-future titles? (MS met with producers of American Idol and Survivor)
-Will this be free? (Hidden season pass, MS will not clarify. Maybe just for SILVER members, or just for the actually LIVE games)

#2

MIDTERM REPORT
-how is 2009 shaping up?
-What games released so far are GOTY material?

ADAMS PICKS
-flower (PS3)
-Street Fighter 4 (PS3 and 360)
-Noby Noby Boy (PS3)
-Madworld (Wii)
-Punch Out! (Wii)
-Afrika (PS3)
-Resident Evil 5 (NOPE)

-QUICK EVO DISCUSSION
Match discussed

Apparently John Lasseter was trying his hand at C.G. way back in 1983. It was then that he did some test for a movie adaptation based on the famous Maurice Sendak book Where The Wild Things Are. Luckily for us, of that footage still exist. Of course the project and Lasseter were eventually canned due to enormous budget. But I think this is pretty dang amazing for 1983. Thanks to Elisabeth Rappe of Cinematical for the heads up.




For some reason the player doesn't work that well. Press the Space Bar to start it.

One of gaming's best kept secrets is the Atlus-developed Trauma Center series for the Nintendo DS and Wii. The perfect blend of surgical-themed arcade action, left-field sci-fi plot twists, and daytime soaps quality story and characters set the franchise apart from the droves of ho-hum titles littering the Big N's software aisles.

Atlus looks to trump past Trauma Center titles with a medical breakthrough.

Gametrailers.com has a behind the scenes look at Trauma Team, the latest entry in the Trauma Center saga.

The positive buzz surrounding next week's XBOX Live Arcade release of 'Splosion Man got me thinking "hey, what about that other exploding-guy 2.5D platformer that was announced around the same time?".

After a bit of net-detective work I found it. Explodemon is the name, and not much is known about this other explosive action-platformer other than it's being developed by curve studios and that it's "a loving parody of badly translated (Japanese) action games and everything that they embody"

Explodemon is scheduled for release on Playstation Network (PS3), PC, and WiiWare (Wii) sometime this year.

Here is footage from what I'm guessing is the PS3 or PC build.



Will the mock-Mega Man motif be enough to set this apart from 'Spolsion Man? Hopefully we'll find out sooner rather than later.

We're really rollin' now. And with our recent inclusion to iTunes we have all the more reason to record lots of podcasts. This week the gang and I discuss the controversial new film Bruno as well as a spoiler free discussion of the new Harry Potter and some sentiments on M.Night Shyamalan. Hopefully we'll be doing this more often.




Listen on iTunes.

Before the fifteen-minute mark in Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen treats us to a slapstick sex montage evolving the movie’s main protagonist and his gay lover. You’d be shocked if it wasn't so ridiculous and cartoon-like in nature. Bruno spins and contorts his lover around like something out of Cirque du Soleil. Various gags evolving phallic gadgetry ensue: Neither character seems to particularly enjoy the carnal activities. No, the filmmaker's goal was not to create a fair portrayal of homosexual intimacy, but rather a cruel joke at the expense of the matter. This kind of makes you wonder, in 2009, how does a movie billed as a summer blockbuster comedy contain such unadulterated trash?

Perhaps western popular culture has hit a new low. Undoubtedly jaded by the Bush Years, Filmmakers like Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles prey on what they consider the destroyers of modern civilization. The vain, the stupid, the predominantly American. You know, the same people they burned down in their 2007 smash hit Borat.

The formula from their last quarter-of-a-billion-dollar outing is employed here with Bruno. I’ll let you in on Cohen’s secret for box office success. Create a despicably offensive stereotype of a character based on a kind of person that you despise (in Cohen’s case, a anti-Semitic Eastern European in Borat, and narcissistic Aryan male model in Bruno). Use said character, which within it’s own right, is offensive, to prod at real life people who you yourself, find offensive (in Cohen’s case, dimwitted Americans from California and Alabama, with the occasional Middle eastern Muslim thrown into the mix).

The people behind Bruno’s 10-million plus marketing campaign would have you believe that this movie is nothing more than a naughty shuck-fest aimed to take your mind off the ugly realities outside of the Cineplex. If only. Bruno is nothing more than a collection of ugly realities, lead by a disgusting ringleader who dances around the flames with a crooked smile.

In Bruno, Cohen cements himself as the clown prince of leftist elite prejudice, and if you find yourself laughing at his brand of ugly, cynical humor you’re either in his company or at the butt of the sick and twisted joke that is his mainstream Hollywood success.

Some of you might not know this, but FOX's tv show The Simpsons has been on the air and watched by millions for almost 20 years now. More specifically, the first episode was aired on Dec. 17th 1989. Wow! FOX is celebrating this anniversary with a new tv special to be aired next year. I'm not sure about any of the particulars on what this documentary will cover, maybe the shows history, or its cultural impact, or both. Whatever it is I'm sure I'll be fascinated.
The director of said special will be Mr. Morgan Spurlock, director and star of the hit documentary Supersize Me. Lets hope he's a fan of the series so he can make sure to do an exceptionally good job. You can check out The Simpsons 2oth Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice, on January 14th 2010.
I'm excited!

Wow! It's been a long time guys but we're back. In this episode Shane and I discuss the future of Internet Television and the bargain bin Blu ray player. Please excuse any audio issues; I recorded my half in a space ship.













Listen here.

Or listen on iTunes.

This is a blog after all. It's been a slow news week. No celebrities passed so there's no reason for huge retrospectives or top ten lists. So, what to do? You guessed it, more random thoughts from yours truly.

The Promise of the Internet.
I remember watching a quirky not-very-funny PBS special about HDTV. It was called Digital TV: A Cringley Crash Course and it was released late last century (1998). It was a awkward little documentary with a host who bounced around the screen touting the amazing possibilities of digital TV. While digital television is indeed amazing, it never quite reached the realization that Cringley, among others, predicted. For example, during the show he visits every one's favorite chef Julia Childs (she couldn't possibly care less about HDTV mind you) to discuss the interactive possibilities of DTV as well as prepare a delicious salad. The idea is that while your watching a cooking show, there would be an option to click a button and an onscreen menu would display the recipe; A baseball game, stats. etc.
But this never really happened. I'm sure there's some technical reason this feature never developed. But the fact that I've never seen or heard of anything remotely like this ever being implemented is pretty amazing. Were we just day dreaming? Anyway, I've emailed Cringley to see if he could shed a light on the subject.
Speaking of stealing bandwidth (and T.V.s for that matter.) The issue of DTV multi channel bandwidth image degradation was just brought to my attention. Previously over the air broadcast were the best way to get high quality broadcast because of the minimal amount of compression. Now, because of the DTV transition, many networks have split there broadcasts into two or three channels which basically stretches the bandwidth reducing overall picture quality. Satellite might be the best option in this situation

Bravia with Netflix Sony finally landed Netflix, though not on their prized media box game console. Instead new Bravia's will be able to stream flicks
directly from Netflix. It would work similar to the Xbox service, that is, you would queue it on your computer and watch it on your TV. I've watched Netflix from my computer on my TV before and my only complaint is the picture quality. It's at best sub DVD and at worst choppy VCD. Though, it's really dependent on your connection. It's really to bad that the PS3 didn't get any love. But net incorporation is a smart move on Sony's part. Here's to the future.

Sub 100 Blu-ray Player: Finally, the news last week was that Wal-Mart planned on "rolling back" the price of their cheapest BRD player to 98$. Which could possibly increase adoption. But I'm curious to see how this affects Sony's "hold your ground" price point. These race to the bottom just officially started. But with average consumers as well as enthusiasts still baffled over profile types, I don't think sales will soar immediately.


And finally, I've played about 200 rounds of SF4 this week and as a monument to that absurdity I thought i post a video of some character swaps from the PC version. Enjoy.