review

Chris Knight's avatar

For the vastest part I have moved on past video games.  These days if I play any game at all it’s going to be something like a rewarding round of Go against a human opponent, or the miniatures game Warhammer 40,000 (either of which provides for keen exercise of the tactical mind).  You know, something physical with tactile sensation.  A few months ago I reviewed Gears Tactics, but then again Gears of War for me isn’t so much a game franchise as it is an epic tale (along with the BioShock games and Halo).  And that came when we ALL needed something to keep from going totally bonkers from COVID sequestration from society…

But about that same time came word of Star Wars: Squadrons.  Electronic Arts’ foray into what seemed like the first truly dedicated Star Wars flight sim since perhaps X-Wing: Alliance all the way back in ...

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Maybe I should disclaimer this by admitting that before going to see the movie, that I bought a Kilowog action figure just so I could have a Green Lantern power ring to wear while watching this flick. Well, that and to also have an action figure of Kilowog to pose on my desk, ‘cuz he’s my favorite member of the Green Lantern Corps.

But I don’t think that would be enough to subjectively color my perception of this movie when I say that I for one enjoyed the heck out of Green Lantern: the live-action adaptation of one of the most classic and revered superheroes in the DC Comics stable, which opens today. But I would also have to admit that this movie is far from perfect, or what it should be at a minimum.

Green Lantern is mis-focused far too much for the film that it should be: ...

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No doubt I’m going to draw flack for suggesting this, but it needs to be said. Yesterday afternoon I bought Grand Theft Auto IV.

And having played it for a few hours, as a follower of Jesus Christ I would like to recommend that my mature brethren in the Christian faith (both spiritually and those who are not teenagers anymore, parse that as you will) play Grand Theft Auto IV as well. And not to gleefully look for reasons to condemn the game either.

Why?

Because I think that a lot of people who play Grand Theft Auto IV are going to end up condemning their own sense of self-righteousness instead. And I can’t say that it would be a bad thing at all if they did.

Grand Theft Auto IV, whether by design or not, might be the closest thing there’s been to an actual “Giant’s Drink”. In ...

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They changed the ending.

And for that, I cannot forgive.

For the first two-thirds of the film, I Am Legend with Will Smith is pretty faithful to the spirit of Richard Matheson’s original novel. I think that Akiva Goldsman (and whatever made it into this final draft from Mark Protosevich’s original script) was hitting on the right cylinders so far as portraying Neville’s loneliness and despair went. The scenes of Smith in the video store, where he’s talking to the mannequins and trying hard not to gaze upon the adult DVD section, seemed especially inspired by the book.

And when we see Neville going to the dock every day at noon, waiting in vain for anybody who might have heard his signal: even though that was never something we saw in the book, it was a nice touch. It’s something that I could see Matheson’s Neville doing.

I don’t even ...

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Something I’ve been saying for awhile: the next revolution in film-making won’t be in Hollywood. It’ll be coming from out of the hinterlands. There is something really wonderful happening across the world, my friends: a new breed of filmmaker, and I’m seeing them as young as 12 all the way up to their 50s and 60s. People armed with the new technology of cheap digital filmmaking who are doing incredible things around their hometowns and down in their basements… which are more often than not rigged-up with makeshift greenscreens. Regular people, no longer content to watch the magic on the big screen, are now telling themselves “I could do that, I can do that. Maybe I will do that!”

Marco van Bergen is one of those people. A mid-teen filmmaker in the Netherlands, van Bergen just finished his new movie Zero Hour. This past week I was honored to ...

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Over the weekend I got to catch The Simpsons Movie. It came out at the end of July and people who know me best had assumed that I would see this on opening day but I wound up waiting about three weeks. At one point I thought I’d just wait to see it when it came out on DVD.

I’m glad that I didn’t! The Simpsons Movie was the funniest film that I’ve seen at the theater in quite a long time. I’m going to heartily recommend watching The Simpsons Movie during its cinematic run because the show’s producers seriously play up the fact that they have a full-length motion picture to run around in (i.e. Bart writing on the blackboard “I will not illegally download this movie” on the classic opening chalkboard shot). The movie tends to “slow down” somewhat during the final third of the movie, but ...

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This is one write-up that I’ve been wanting the opportunity to do for quite awhile now. The very first time that I heard about Mildred Council AKA “Mama Dip” and her restaurant, it was when I spotted her cookbook Mama Dip’s Cookbook eight years ago. Something about this woman’s beaming smile on the book’s cover screamed out to me that one way or another, I had to try her cooking sometime. And then I happened to notice that UNC-TV, the statewide PBS network, had her live in the studio every so often to demonstrate real southern-style cooking. I’m telling you here and now: I felt dire hunger pangs just from watching this lady make biscuits.

Well yesterday evening after Lisa and I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in IMAX at Exploris in Raleigh, we made a stop in Chapel Hill. And at long last, I ...

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Yesterday, Lisa and I had a fun lil’ trip to Raleigh, where we went to the IMAX Theater at the Exploris Museum to catch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in IMAX. This was the second time that we’d seen the movie and the third time that I’ve seen a feature film in IMAX: click here for my report from seeing Superman Returns at the same theater a year ago.

The first time that I saw the movie of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I said that I had liked it but that I hadn’t been completely satisfied with the movie. At the time I was right in the middle of the book, trying to finish re-reading the entire series before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out. This is still the densest novel in the entire series and there’s no way ...

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300 easily ties along with Transformers as my favorite movie so far of 2007. I’ve seen it twice now (click here for my thoughts when I first caught it) and it’s sort of taking hold with me just as The Matrix did some years ago. So I’ve been looking forward to the release of 300 on DVD this week. It also came out on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray but since I’m still waiting to see which way the market tilts before investing in a player for either of those formats, I’m still using standard DVD. Besides, we’ve got a nifty lil’ “upscaling” DVD player that does a great job outputting regular DVD to our high-def set, and we’re probably going to be more than happy with that for awhile to come. As I’ve said before, when it comes to new technology I’m very much like the Amish: I ...

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(NOTE: This review does not contain spoilers. Feel free to read without risk of having something revealed to you that you don’t want to know about yet if you haven’t read the Harry Potter books … even though you should read them at some point 🙂

The best magic is when the trick is done right in front of you, in plain sight where you can see everything, and still your mouth hangs open in utter amazement at trying to figure out “how did they do that?”.

For the past seven years, ever since I first bought and read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I’ve watched J.K. Rowling spin and weave her wonderful tale. She has made me look forward to each succeeding book with a wide-eyed wonder about what was going to happen next, where was this going. Always with the barest hint of mis-direction or ...

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