Sure, Kristen Stewart gives very strange and awkward interviews. So what? Just means she's not great at being a publicity whore. To me, that makes her more of a real person. Which of us, in real life, would be thrilled to give an interview to some stranger? It's tedious and boring. I'm sure we'd all rather be off smoking pot on a porch somewhere.

Look at Christian Bale, that dude doesn't give good interviews either. But he's a damn fine actor. I dunno... those two not being amazing in publicity just makes them more normal human beings in my eyes.

Maybe it's because of my background in BattleTech, but I never understood why the Space Marines are considered the Emperor's finest and greatest weapon in the Imperium's arsenal. They're like, slightly bigger and bulkier then normal humans and you only get a million of em. Who cares about guys in power armor with slightly more powerful-than-usual guns when you have access to giant 100 foot tall castles on legs?

I have to say, I've never been able to understand why you have to buy DLC with Microsoft points. Wouldn't it be easier to just buy DLC with money charged to one's credit card, instead of buying Microsoft points with your credit card, then buying DLC with those Microsoft points. Why not get rid of the middle man? Either option requires a credit card. I just don't understand the point of Microsoft points. Am I the only one here? Is there some reason for Microsoft points to exist? Now, if you could buy DLC with achievement points, that would be awesome and make a lot of sense. But buying Microsoft points with a credit card and then using that to buy DLC doesn't make any sense. I don't know who thought that made a great deal of sense. It is senseless to me.

Does anyone else think John Woo ripped off Die Hard when he made Hard Boiled? I was watching it tonight and the whole hospital under siege really felt like Nakatomi Plaza. Die Hard was made in 88 and Hard Boiled came out in 92, so it seems likely. Of course, John McClane only killed a dozen terrorists whereas Tequila and that undercover dude waste about 260 guys, but the whole premise seemed very similar. Police gathering outside getting blown up... SWAT being generally incompetent and ineffective against the terrorists... the villain with a plan to somehow blow up the entire building... the main hero leaping out of a window to safety by hanging onto some sort of rope... am I the only one who sees this?

And one last thing... that actor who plays the undercover dude is really really typecast, cause he goes on and plays the exact same character in Infernal Affairs. Right down to getting shot at the end.

Anyone remember Stephen King's It miniseries? Apparently they're gonna try and make it a theatrical film over at Warner Bros.

Ya know, maybe it's cause I was just a kid when I watched it but the 1990 TV miniseries was pretty amazing. It's this strong sort of nostalgia and dread warped together in the form of a clown. Just one of those childhood memories you can never shake, sometimes remembering bits and pieces at random moments through life. And I always had a crush on Emily Perkins who played Beverly Marsh. It feels weird to admit that now that I'm all grown up, but hey... just the truth. Thank god they didn't follow the book that literally and have all the boys plow her train-style down in the sewer. See, that probably would've scarred me for life, even if it wasn't set to "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen.

I'll definitely go see this if they make it, but the most important question is who's going to play Pennywise. Unfortunately Heath Ledger's dead so that's one obvious choice gone. But ya know, anyone stepping into Pennywise's big clown shoes is gonna have just as hard a time as the next Joker, because Tim Curry was fucking brilliant. The butler from Clue, Pennywise, Rocky Horror Picture Show... this man is an institution I tells ya. True, Ledger claimed the Joker from Nicholson but I find it hard to imagine that lightning will strike twice and Curry's Pennywise will probably not be topped.

Thought it was... ok. Definitely not a huge crowd pleaser like The Dark Knight. No real thrills or shocking payoffs. But this is coming from a guy who's read the book about 15 or 20 times, so maybe a newcomer to the story would beg to differ. But uh... just flat in a lot of areas where the book didn't translate well to the screen. What worked on the page was brought to the screen by Zach Snyder as best as anyone could've mustered, but it wasn't really brought to life in a meaningful, emotional way. The violence was fine for the few fight scenes where it was actually present, but that just made them stand out as peculiar, when 90% of the movie is about... talking. Sometimes talking with bad aged makeup.

That rape scene hit me hard. Geez. I knew it was coming, I'd read it plenty of times on the page, but the way it was filmed was just... awful, and you could feel the audience dying inside. Though that was one thing I was surprised about, the audience. I dunno if it was because I went to an 11:50 pm showing or what, but nobody at my screening laughed aloud at Dr. Manhattan's blue dong like so many other reviews have been describing. They were just... pretty much silent throughout. The biggest reaction was when Rorschach spilled the oil on the convict and yelled "I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me." Of course they would, it was a great line.

Yea, that Dr. Manhattan... I gotta say, he ended up falling short of my expectations. Not Crudup's voice, that was fine. But the entire CGI entity just... did not look right to me. Maybe it IS the uncanny valley, but I just thought he looked unreal, inhuman, and somewhat of a failure as a visual effect. Perhaps part of that was because he had no pupils. I just checked and he doesn't have any in the graphic novel either, but... perhaps in this case it would've been better to diverge from the source material.

Like I said before... Snyder did as good a job as anyone could've in bringing this book to the movie screen. And yet... I did miss all the material that was cut out. The stuff with the two Bernies, the Psychiatrist's marital problems, Hollis getting pumpkin'd... there was a feeling of loss throughout watching the film. So I dunno how any person who hasn't read the book will react to the movie.

The ending change? Yea, fine. It works logically. About as well as the original ending I suppose. Though the visceral impact of seeing six full pages of dead corpses in New York was completely missing here. Sorry dude, but showing us a giant blue CGI explosion just doesn't carry the same impact. We needed to feel those millions of dead. I did like the Rorschach pattern in the snow though, that was something new and worked pretty well.

Oh yea, one last thing... good god Zach, what were you thinking with that Hallelujah sex scene? Dude, I like porn and I like superheroes, but that scene... I could not have rolled my eyes any further. It was cringeworthy. And no, it was not as bad as the sex scene in 300, because I was perfectly fine with that sex scene. It was short, perfunctory, and did not have an incredibly odd soundtrack. In this case, less would've been more. The scene in the book was only 2 panels, that was about right. Mostly it was the song though... that Hallelujah song will never be the same to me again.

But I did really like the intro credits with Bob Dylan.

Again, thought it was ok. But no, not the greatest comic book movie ever. It's a mostly faithful retelling of the book in 2 and a half hours that, in my opinion, will completely fly over the heads of the mainstream audience. Let's say 7.8 out of 10, and I'm being generous.

Ya know, this game looked really cool after seeing some previews for it. Then I read giantbomb.com's review of it and they only gave it a 3 out of 5. So that meant ok, but not good or great. Sorta dimmed my enthusiasm a bit. It was like, yea this game might not be some perfect sphere of nirvana like Half-Life 2 or anything, but it's an innovative new game concept that really tried to breathe new life into the FPS genre, so why not give it the benefit of the doubt? Who else would think to take EA's bags of money and make a first person parkour game that almost totally avoids combat? That is the creation of either some madness, or some genius.

So it came out and I started playing it. And frankly, I dunno why giantbomb gave it a 3/5. This game is fucking fun. The sense of speed and adenaline from running over rooftops while sliding under pipes and walljumping from scaffolding is just amazing. That's what this game excels at, making you feel like an amazing athlete, some sort of freak Olympian who gets their kicks from stealing stuff and running away. The parkour is easily accomplished with the controls and viewing it from first person makes it much more immersive then a traditional third person camera would have.

The entire game has a nice sorta Ipod-ish aesthetic. It seems that in the city of the future, everything is clean and white, with some splashes of other colors. If you've ever watched the turd of a film called "Ultraviolet", then you'll recognize its look here. Very sterilized and cold... even the plants in the city are painted white for some reason heh. I suppose it's a new take on the futuristic city aesthetic though, compared to a lot of stuff in scifi games that're just ripped off from Blade Runner and Aliens.

So while I'm enjoying the game a lot, there are a few caveats. First off, I started playing the game last night. At the end of the session, I had completed the first four levels. There are nine levels in all. Yes, this game is not built for longevity. It is short. And no multiplayer, so all that's left is doing speed runs in the completed levels to try to top your last time. Obviously a factor if you're gonna go and buy this game for 60 bucks or whatever.

The combat's also lacking, since this isn't a game where you're meant to run and gun. You can use guns, but you have to first disarm a cop. Then, you'll only be able to shoot until the magazine runs out, you can't reload. So shooting it out isn't really encouraged. Also, your character Faith can only take a few shots, so you'll definitely need to run behind cover and wait for opportune moments to strike. If you do work at it, you can shoot it out with a SWAT team though. Just isolate one guy, disarm him, run to another guy, shoot him, grab his gun, and repeat, while trying not to catch too much lead. It's not ideal, and it's certainly much harder then just running for any exit, but it's doable. The hand to hand combat works for the weak police, they'll drop after 2 or 3 punches. But the SWAT guys in armor will just push you away, so hand to hand doesn't work on them. All in all, if you're looking for some sorta Matrix-style martial arts combat to match the game's parkour gameplay, you won't find it here.

Oh, and yea... the game cutscenes do resemble the Esurance cartoon commercials. But honestly... I always liked those commercials. Erin Esurance was hot. So that's not really a complaint for me.

Has anybody tried this? Doesn't it seem like it'd be cheaper and safer then snorting cocaine? Cause if you do cocaine, you're running all sorts of risks. Drug addiction, overdosing... not to mention having to deal with seedy dealers who might or might not be dangerous. Plus, you're contributing money to drug violence, whether the Mexican cartels or the Colombian guys. Ya know, those guys who're gunning people down and cutting off their heads and rolling them into news stations. That shit just isn't cool.

So with pixie sticks, you're forgoing all of that. It's not dangerous, right? I mean, it's just sugar, so snorting it can't be that bad for you. Worst thing is you might get diabetes. But not an overdose that would kill you outright. And nobody gets hurt in the production of the sugar. Also, it's uncut. Just pure sugar. There aren't any weird substances used to dilute it that might be hazardous to your health.

And ya know, if you get tired of snorting the pixie sticks, you can just eat it like normal. I mean, I love pixie sticks, they're still tasty when you're an adult. Only complaint I have with them is that they can get to be just a little too sweet if you suck it down hard. Like, I'd prefer that sour sort of sugar they use to coat on sour belts and stuff. Cause I've always just preferred sourness to sweetness. When you have too much sour candy, your tongue just gets kinda numb and maybe hurts a bit. Whereas if you have too much sweetness, it just gets overpowering and almost makes you want to puke. So I'd take the sour over the sweet.

Only thing I don't know is if you'll eventually get a hole in your nose from snorting pixie sticks. That might be a bit of a downside I suppose. Oh yea, and you might not actually get a high from snorting it. Kinda different from snorting cocaine. But ya know, for casual guys like me... it doesn't sound bad.