Watchmen Portrait Book

I went to Barnes & Noble on Tuesday to check out the new Watchmen book and in addition to the art book, two other books came out as well. I bought two of them- the Film Companion and the Portrait Book. I just started reading the film companion and so far so good. I'll let you know more when I get through it all. The portrait book is just amazing. Still photographer Clay Enos who was responsible for taking ALL still photography on the set, which included promo shots and even imagery used in props (such as newspapers and framed photos), released a book of black and white portraits of cast, crew and a few props. No text or copy- just oversized photos. It's not so much an insight into the movie's plot or structure like the film companion is but rather just a great collection of photographs. Clay is the guy who took the iconic Minutemen photo I posted a little while back. The photos are great although I assumed there would be more photos of the main ensemble. Check out these photos I took...of the photo book.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans: Movie Review

When I first heard that they were making another Underworld movie without the leading lady, Mrs. Beckinsale, I was not so interested. After all, any sequels with different stars are usually indicators that it is destined for the straight to DVD graveyard and/or a huge disappointment. Then I found out that it was a prequel and that at least storywise it did not make sense to have her come back. When I heard that Rhona Mitra was taking the reigns, I was back on board. But all of this really means nothing in the end because the leading lady is not a lady at all. The character Lucian is the star here.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans explains the story only told through flashbacks and storytelling in the first two movies. It puts a new perspective on who are the good guys and who are the bad guys and why the war started in the first place. Viktor, the vampire leader, enslaved the Lycans (wherewolves) to be their bodyguards while the sun was shining over their empire. He forced human slaves to be bitten by Lycans to turn them and use them as slaves and bodyguards. They were treated cruely, kept in cages and forced to wear reversed spiked collars that would puncture their throats if they should ever transform into their hairy alter egos. Lucian was in love with Viktor's daughter, Sonya, and after being forced to watch her die in front of him at the order of her father who thought that the blending of the species was an abomination, revolted and started a war that would last for centuries. I enjoyed the movie because it answered a lot of questions and flushed out the characters even more. Even though I got home around 1am, I was impelled to watch the first Underworld again for the whateverth time. It was like watching a completely different movie. Things made more sense and you were rooting for what was once the "bad guy." If you liked the first two movies, you'd enjoy this one. Time to watch Underworld 2...

Defiance: Movie Review

The other night I movie hopped and saw two films back to back, Defiance starring Daniel Craig and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans starring Rhona Mitra. Two polar opposites but both quite enjoyable in their own ways.

Defiance is set during the opening hours of WWII when Germany invaded Russia. Daniel Craig and his brothers come home to discover that their family have been murdered and so retreat in to the nearby forest where they build a camp and live in hiding. Over the years, they take in persecuted Jews and build a community in the forest under his leadership. Food is scarce, the winter is harsh and their camp is discovered multiple times, forcing them to defend themselves and build a new camp elsewhere. It's not really an action film and not as heavy as say Schindler's List. I will have to say that the final "battle" scene in the film was intense. Usually WWII films don't end on a good note and the main characters are never safe from death so when a Nazi tank rolls up with infantry along it's side, you don't know how it could end. Daniel Craig's performance was his best yet. I've seen him in generic roles in Tombraider and The Invasion (which I saw for the first time last night) and starring roles in the rebooted Bond flicks (which are fantastic) but as an actor, I bet he is most proud of this one. Great acting. Great story. Pacing was a little slow but enjoyable nonetheless. I'll review Underworld soon.

Fata1ity USB Headphones Review

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I built a gaming system for my friend Chris because he fell head over heels for BF2142. So now that he's getting into PC gaming I now have (finally!) a teammate to play online with. So I bought the Fatality headphones/mic combo so we can discuss politics and gush online whilst we hoopeth thy ass. I've been playing the Battlefield series since BF1942 and it always been fun, obviously, but never as fun as teaming up with a friend. It changes the dynamics and strategy of the battlefield. You become more effective when you can just say to your team mate, "Hey! Come pick me up. I'm stranded," or awesome cliche lines like "I need backup! I'm surrounded. Watch your back, he's coming around the left side. Did you see him!? Where did he go?" Fun times for all.

On to the headphones. They're comfortable and they work--sort of. Ever since I installed the drivers and updated my X-fi sound card, which by the way the headphones are considered X-fi as well, my computer started acting like an asshole. BF froze with graphical glitches and it even locked up my entire system on a few occasions leading me to believe that something in my tower was overheating. After a lot of frustration, I nailed down the problem. Without the headphones plugged in, my X-fi soundcard enables me to set the audio quality in the game to Extreme High Quality Uber Awesome settings when running off the hardware (card). When the headphones are plugged in, the settings downgrade to medium running off software only. If you try to put the settings any higher the game and even your computer will freeze or shutdown. That seems pretty harsh for a set of headphones. The Uber setting is called "X-Fi" so why doesn't it work with "X-fi" headphones? Oh, and the mic doesn't work in game with BF's mic settings. It does work however with X-Fire, a third party app. But that is a BF/Vista problem. The only reason I'm not extremely pissed is because I can't really notice a drop in audio quality with the headphones on. In fact, I actually hear alot of sound effects I've never heard before. Audio quality is great, the mic works, and they are comfortable. Minus 1 star for pissing me off for 2 days straight though. It shouldn't require so much effort to plug in headphones.