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THE CONJURING REVIEW - Frater K

This summer, The Conjuring was released to an eager audience and made roughly 32.5 million on it's debut, overtaking The Purge (an excellent film) and it's record in opening weekend and first week profits for an R rated horror flick. It received generally favorable reviews among professional critics, but where this film exploded (not unlike John Dies at the End) was in small communities of horror buffs. As a generally neglected genre, the fans are always happy when a movie comes along that isn't just plain trash, either direct to DVD or in the box office.

I'll be blunt: I did not like the film, though it does have merits, and my problems with the film are (largely) more due to the state of the horror as a film medium rather than specific technical issues about the film itself. While I'm going explore the flaws, I'd like to start with what I liked about -

Make no mistake. The Conjuring is a very well executed movie in terms of production values. Film has always been a spectacle, and in the age of films like Prometheus or Avatar, it's become even more important to deliver visually appealing stories. This is can only be enhanced by a great cast, which the movie certainly has: Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Ed and Lorraine Warren are brilliant, and the sincerity and nuance their performance, especially as the sub plot of Ed's deep concern for Lorraine due to her being possessed once before, and Lorraine's strength in the face of these supernatural forces can lead easily lead to suspension of disbelief through the deeply human aspect alone. Sadly, though, I couldn't look at Roy Livingston without giggling about Office Space, despite him being just as solid as the rest. This, however, is undermined by two things in the film itself, the directing (which IS good, in spots) and the script. I like the steps James Wan has taken. He seems to be growing. His use of long pan shots, though, seem to be trying to establish a feel that a psychological horror film or deeply symbolic piece may have...in what's essentially a spook story. It just doesn't seem to fit, and for someone who has seen something like Tarkovski's Stalker, it can detract from the atmosphere and pacing. There are also some problems with the script. To save space for my main point, I'll only touch on the most obvious one: Ed and Lorraine explicitly warn the Parron family that fleeing may not help the situation as the spirit has been bound to them...then very shortly after leave them put up in a hotel, alone, with no non-family members to watch over them, an event which directly leads to the climax of the movie. It's worth noting that poor scriptwriting and direction combined to make me think the opening was some sort of elaborate hoax rather than a serious plot point. It seemed like parody. If it were only for what's been mentioned so far, I'd probably have a better opinion of the movie, but to be honest...it's more of the same. It's a Happy Meal with screaming children and backwards Latin.  It delivers all the scheduled jump scares not a second too soon or late. It gives a certain sector of horror fans the sort of fare they've come to expect from a broad distribution film in their genre. Don't get me wrong, I love a good haunting (Book of Blood was great), but let's all face facts: We've seen this movie before. More than once. It's no surprise that the movie had been holed up in production hell for 14 years. It was highly polished, but the story seemed compromised at multiple levels. A little poking around indicates that early visions of the film may have focused more on the lives of Ed and Lorraine, which could have led to a much less familiar scenario.

And it's telling that it took a studio so long to pick up the project. The climate in mass release horror is to shy away from the “big ideas”, for the most part, and to package the same thing in different ways. Direct to home rarely if ever has anything as good as The Conjuring. Any horror fan will acknowledge this. It's a shame that American audiences aren't more brave. Something like Beyond the Black Rainbow has gone largely ignored, despite being just as slick (despite being a rather difficult movie). There's not much more to say without rambling further about the development and state of horror today, so I'll conclude that if you're looking for a well executed film in general, The Conjuring rises to the challenge. If you're looking for stomach churning horror that imparts a sense of terror, anxiety, and disgust, check out the recent Jug-Face instead. You'll be glad you did.

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THE LEGENDS OF HIDDEN RAY MAN - By Ryoku

   I'll be up front and say that there are only two Rayman games that I've played for any length of time, “Rayman” and “Rayman Origins”, I've tried the 3D titles and never got into them much, although the third game had well executed cut-scenes.

However, the first game was an interesting platformer with fairly good graphics for the PS1 era and a very good soundtrack, at the same time I could not avoid comparing it with both “Dynamite Headdy” and “Plok!” which were both released a few years prior to Rayman, and both featured characters with detachable body parts with vibrant backgrounds and in most cases a good ton of weirdness, Dynamite Headdy probably being the strangest and easily the most imaginative.

Once we entered into the era of the Wii, French publisher Ubisoft seemingly forgot about Rayman as they continued to make games based on the “Rabbids”, which may as well be prototype “Minions” from Despicable Me, or any other generic sugar-powered mute things.

Thankfully, not all was lost as Rayman leaped back into the gaming industry with “Rayman: Origins”, a well illustrated and simple well-paced 2D platformer with odd but charming level design and a proper multiplayer mode, in that you could play it with your friends in person.

A year later Ubisoft announced that they were making “Rayman: Legends” for the Wii, overtime we would see that this was essentially Rayman: Origins but dialed up with even better level design and a better soundtrack, so naturally the game will sell well and be a hit even as a Wii U exclusive right?

Not according to Ubisoft, who to the dismay of many decided that “Legends” should be crossplatform, this much was fine, but much to the frustration to Rayman Legends developers Ubisoft decided to sit on the Wii U version for months so that it could be released with the PC and other platform counter-parts.

And then Ubisoft sat on it some more, waiting and waiting, but for what? The game itself is finished, the critics have spoken their praise, our Australian friends are playing the game as I type this, but what about us?

Well if they're going to delay the games release for no apparent reason, I'm going to delay my purchase for no apparent reason.

  -Ryoku Kero

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Saints Row IV - Andrew

Saints Row IV 2/10 "Good enough to waste time until something better comes along".

The game takes place in a Simulated Earth crafted on board a space ship after your character (The President of the good old USA) has been captured by aliens who have Invaded the real world. The use of a Matrix like simulation theory allows for the new addition of Super Powers. Once these powers are earned your character will  dart around like a crazed hulk at gradually accelerated speeds jumping/running up buildings and gliding through the air like a Flying Squirrel and gain the ability to shoot Ice and Fire from his hands. Whilst this is mildly entertaining I feel the growing lack of realism in this series makes for a lacklustre gaming experience.

Saints Row IV offers a vast array of affordable clothing and also allows players to modify their characters physical appearance at plastic surgery stores which are dotted around on the map. However, appearance has no impact on your characters ability or the way he/she will play. Fatties can run and tiny characters have the same strength as muscular characters because it is after all a simulation.

I find myself disinterested and unmotivated to play a game set in a simulated world where nothing is real. The target audience for this game in my opinion are Chavs and meme spouting teens, if you do not fall into this category and are looking for a serious open world game then I suggest you spend your hard earned money on Fallout New Vegas or Sleeping Dogs or even GTA5. The only defence I have heard for a game like this is that it is satirical and comedic and should not be taken seriously, in other words Saints Row IV is a joke. The games use of memes and satire does not amuse me.

The choices you make have no consequences. Screenshots of these options and video snipets in trailers can be seen and appear to create the illusion of an RPG which will wet the appetite of most avid gamers. This game is not an RPG.

 I was excited to hear Kendrick Lamar's “Swimming Pools” play whilst listening to KRhyme 95.4 on one of the in game stations which can be heard whilst driving a vehicle. The Mixtape feature allows players to create their own station by adding songs from the playlist at the game menu this can be played whilst on foot. Quantity is lacking and the soundtrack does not make up for it with quality.

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WET REVIEW - CJ

WET(work) – a euphemism for a job where you actually get your hands wet with blood.(Origins in KGB)

Ladies and gentleman, sit right down and enjoy the movie. Or the game. For it is a game we talk about this time. One that makes my hypothetical pussycat purr. WET is the name of the game and Rubi Malone, your mercenary with both swords as katanas( so stolen from kill bill). Rubi Malone is a random merc living in what seems to be a random scrapyard, with a salvaged airplane here and containers there. Addicted to whiskey and always in search for monkey toys and business.

The game begins with a deal between two gangsters, one of which happens to have messed up his vocal chords and the other is called Simmons but is asian, I do not see the Kiss reference there. Now obviously, it being a deal between mobsters, one of them is gonna rip the other off and kill them all. Vocal-chord-guy gets shot and Rubi jumps in. You learn the basic controls, get to kill some folks. And then you start running, shooting, jumping and slashing away at everything that is in your way. Rubi obviously eventually, after creating havoc on the roads and probably having murdered a couple hundred men, catches up with Simmons and takes the package from him. This being the prologue. The actual storyline is about a simple misunderstanding and a bunch of charades by some druglord. And everyone dies. Except for the father. The father never dies. Not even due to a bad heart.

The action is repetitive and so is the gameplay. However the style, the awful dialogue and characters and soundtrack make it up for everything. The game can be divided into quick-time events, arenas, car chases and parts where Rubi just goes batshit insane and the goal of those is to just to rackup as much as kills within seconds as possible. In between parts of the games and scenes, there are these commercials and ads from the cinemae from 60s and 70s, which is pretty cool. With cool rhyming slogans and food that has eyes and wants to be eaten. Just your typical third person shooter platform action stuff. The reason I bought and played this game? The music. It's all about the music. Because who doesn't like a bunch of bands singing about zombies and murder and other bollocks. Oh and asian satirical gangsta rap. 

Overall? Buy it if you like B-movies and average storylines with some lovely dark humour and wants to kill some time. Tarantinoesque, wikipedia says. I'd call it more Rodriguezy. Worth a 5.5.

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Star Trek - Into Darkness - Drunken Review - Dean West

So I'm a little late to the party but I got round to watching Star Trek: Into Darkness. I couldn't make out much other than BANG BANG, PEW PEW and KAPOW. Lots of bright noises to keep me entertained and the blossoming relationship between Captain Kirk and Spock kept me interested. I'm not sure if they were falling in love but the way they spoke to one another kind of convinced me. Every conversation went something like this: Spock 'Captain I don't think you should....' Kirk, 'SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH YOU POINTY EARED TWAT, I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.' This is how I talk to my loved ones every day even down to mocking their pointy fucking ears. That's right, I live with Elves. What do you have to say about that. Things got really interesting towards the second half when we find out the Admiral of the Star Fleet brought Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) from three-hundred years in the past to fuck shit up. And so he did, punching and kicking the shit out of Klingons and talking in his smarmy, monotonous voice all along. Meanwhile we get to see a sneaky peek of a half-naked Alice Eve which is probably the Director, J.J Abrams' way of taunting all of the Trekie fans because they will never see a woman like that in their lives. The film eventually wraps itself up with a massive Spaceship fight POW, BANG, KEPOW, and Spock and Kirk have a little bromance moment after Kirk almost dies. But he doesn't die, of course, because Paramount Pictures want more money so we know the hero won't die in the sequel when they can squeeze a possible trilogy out. So, Kirk survives his death and reunites with Spock. They then get married and run away to live on one of Jupiter's Moons and have hundreds of little ugly, pointy eared bastard children. THE END.

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Shit absinthe. A review by d00mba

I am drinking a shit absinthe called Absente which came in a box of all things with a poorly crafted absinthe spoon. On the box, in big red letters that Mickey Mouse would have pissed into a volcano, are the words, "WITH WORMWOOD". No. Shit. It's absinthe. Are you suggesting to the public that we should have seen this product in an infomercial? Wouldn't, "AS SEEN ON TV," be more direct? The actual bottle is nice and the label is for the most part but they've cheapened it by adding these faux visa stickers to the bottom half. This bottle will not take me to the Czech Republic, nor France. It will remind me that I like black licorice. Fuck off. The louche is pretty but the flavor isn't complex. I'm drinking it with only a little water right now, no sugar, and it's sweeter than I want or expect it to be. 40 bucks. Fuck it. Next time I'm buying something closer to 100.

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Percy the Small Engine and Friends' Season 11 Premiere - By Eli Wallis

Percy the Small Engine and Friends’ eleventh hour kicks off with a congregation of worried looking trains listening to a discordant electro-beat until the head of the railway arrives to do his Dagon impression. The intrigue begins! The clones have little to report, but there’s quickly a tense scene of Lorry prepping himself for Thomas’ loving. Maybe we’ll get the details should HBO pick PTSEAF up, but this is YouTube, and we dissolve from Tom’s approach to the sticky aftermath. Slipping further down his descent to psychosexual Dis, Tom looks up the clones again; still covered in Lorry's lovejuice. The encounter is a testament to the power of silence, the eyes doing the heavy dramatic lifting. Better yet, following a quick check in with the narrator is the most languorous and yet compelling sequence in recent railway-drama memory: Edward confronting (the now dried) Tom, extolling his anguish while the clones look on with a measure of their own guilt. The direction here is mercilessly tight; we can feel the steam coming from Eddy’s blastpipe. I won’t do them the injustice of paraphrasing here, but Tom’s eventual concluding statement is gutwrenching; of course, this is PTSEAF, and after the high-note the scene goes on, the clones indulging their menservants— distraught Tom leaving early, perhaps a first look up the circles’ he’s traversed— and releasing more than one load and quietly discussing plans for Tom before the sequence (and episode) comes to an end. If the rest of the tracks are at this level, it’s going to be one hell of a train ride.  

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Neutral Milk Hotel Review - by Wednesday

Neutral Milk Hotel's most famous album is 'The Aeroplane Over The Sea' and this album is all about the singer Jeff's deep set love for Anne Frank, this love came into play after he read the book The Diary of Anne Frank, After reading this book Jeff said that he 'Flipped out'. That book is what helped him make his best album. In this album there is a song called Holland, 1945 where he sings about the only girl he ever loved (Anne Frank), and in the song Oh Comely he sings about her death.They are both really beautiful songs. Neutral Milk Hotel broke up in 1999 after Jeff had a complete mental collapse, but the bright side is that last month (April 29, 2013) the band has gotten back together and is doing a tour. In summary I think that Neutral Milk Hotel is an amazing band and that you should give them a listen.

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Films you should NEVER see before you die!

Iron Man 3 -

They have had 3 attempts (not including The Avengers) to deliver a crisp and wrinkle-free experience and yet Iron Man still ain't delivering those freshly-pressed goods. It takes all of two hours for Mr 'look into my Downey eyes' Jr, after finding himself on the business end of many a knuckle sandwich, to finally realise that, like all good clean-up jobs, there is no substitute for good ol' Paltry Gwynow and her anorexic ass to swoop in and save the day. Serves them right for hiring a man to do a woman's job!

This film is gimmick-laden, smart-alecky, in-your-face foolishness and quite possibly may contain 40% horsemeat (from the 80's)

To avoid at any cost, unless of course you have recently acquired a hunky new toyboy and absolutely need to get laid.

Good luck with that!

Steven H Christ

'Sitting in the dark so you don't have to'

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Bioshock Infinite Review

Bioshock Infinite is another game in the critically acclaimed series of video games, which are a form of entertainment enjoyed by those disinterested and unsatisfied by their immediate surroundings. The games narrative places you in the shoes of the lovable but rogue-ish Bookie Dewller whose escapades begin as a result of his gambling debts, which a mysterious benefactor (known by fans as the 'G-man') has promised to wipe clean if he is to bring them a girl locked in the castle of a flying city ruled by a tyrannical wizard. If any of this strikes you as familiar, you may have played the classic Mario Brother and Legacy of Zelda, from which Bioshock Infinites story is derived from.

The first Bioshock game, and sometimes its lesser respected sequel, are lauded for having a rich atmosphere, amazingly realized world and intriguing story spun to keep you crawling along its twists and turns.

Fans of all that crap will be pleased that everything in those departments of the new Bioshock  lives up to and at many points outright exceed the original. With a creative pulse the game comes alive and ejaculates its digital magic out of your television or whatever and splatters it upon your face, at which point you will embrace and lovingly absorb every last droplet of Ken Levines seamen.

But lets not forget that at the end of the day, this is a game, and the strongest element comprising it is interaction, and the most substantial form of interaction undertaken here is the act of creatively killing various people. And in this regard even though it comes very close Infinite does not eclipse the gameplay of Bioshock 2. The most disappointing aspect  is your arsenal, which feels streamlined into boringness and limits you to the horrible new industry standard of carrying two weapons at a time.

Apart from a few stand-out weapons, the majority of them are dull and interchangeably similar. More so the weapon upgrades, which are mainly incremental damage boosts without visual representations that gave the original games weapons an iconic appearance. I morn the loss of the interchangeable ammunition and the electric buckshot from Bioshock.

The Vigors, formally known as plasmids, are all great but many of them have similar functions as those in Bioshock, and I was honestly expecting some crazier shit this time around. Some of them are also in poor taste, such as one vigor that can be charged up to turn human flesh into fried chicken, causing the inflictee to be cannibalized by Columbia's local negro populace.

Overall there is a lot less emphasis on setting up traps and more on running and gunning, and the large areas accomidate this. A pleasant emergence from the claustrophobic walls of rapture, these can be traversed speedily with skylines, which are like little rollercoaster rides you can jump off and kill people from. This is pretty awesome.

The games conclusion will leave you with a lot of questions to speculate. If you're anything like me, one of those questions will likely be: Now we're done with all this Colonel Sanders bullshit can we finally get a proper new System Shock game? 4/5

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Oz the Great and Powerful Review

LETTER GRADE: B

SPOILER FREE VERDICT: Oz the Great and Powerful might have a few script issues and some shoddy CG, but that doesn't make Oz a bad movie-going experience.

NOTE: I will be abbreviating the name of the movie to “Oz” for the sake of easy writing—deal with it.

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Lost at Sea - The Jon Ronson Mysteries

If you've seen the film The Men Who Stare at Goats, then you're probably aware of Jon Ronson's work as a journalist. The character that Ewan McGreggor plays in that film is a rather flattering portrayal of Ronson, as anyone who's seen his documentaries on YouTube can testify. Ronson is something like the Louis Theroux of weird journalism, who focuses particularly on the strange, conspiracy, and the fringe. He has written some great books, including The Psychopath Test which exposes business managers and other authority figures by using the model medical professionals use to diagnose unemphatic psychopaths, showing how similar their traits are.

Lost at Sea is sort of like a retirement project for Ronson. After visibly ageing from his experiences and becoming somewhat reserved in his recent work, he has just released a book to make some cash from all the smaller stories he never been published. That being said, this book actually provides a very good read. Some of these minor stories have great depth and really show just how good Ronson really is at both writing and journalism. If you haven't read his other books, then start with those; however, this is a great book for Ronson fans. 8/10

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GLOOM - BOARDGAME

You've got to be pretty bored to want to play a board game, what with all the multimedia around these days. Well, being stuck in a country town for a week or so, that's exactly what I was. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be in a household that had a healthy stock of bored games (even if they were too lame to even have the Internet).

If you're ever in a desperate situation and playing a bored game is the only thing to save you from pulling your own eyes out, then I recommend Gloom. It has at least 25 minutes worth of comedic value.

Basically, you pick a family. There's four Gothic families of eccentric misfits (sort of like the Addams family). The aim of the game is to lay a series of misfortunes on your own character until their life becomes more and more depressing. Once you've got their morale to an all time low, you kill them. There's something really satisfying about killing your own family, especially when the winner of the game is whoever's family died the most depressed. Just like in real life.

4 out of 5 lemons.

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Cloud Atlas and Life of Pi

Cloud Atlas is truly an amazing film. I found the story to be one of good, evil and the personality types that arise from either good or evil, without giving away too much. I found that good doesn't always lead to a positive outcome when surrounded by evil. The plot shows how these personality types are a constant throughout human history and will remain constant into the future.

I thought that Life of Pi told the same story, but, for me, Life of Pi was more enjoyable.

I think that it's a shame so many people are not ready for Cloud Atlas. I find that you have to be in a mature stage of life with a certain amount of understanding before you can "get it".

Having said all this, I would not fancy watching Cloud Atlas a 2nd time... mainly because it is so damn long. In all honesty, I did find the movie to be unnecessarily drawn out. I would have preferred a movie with 2 main characters, Robert Frobisher and Rufus Sixsmith, and the rest of the cast to be people who the characters meet.

I was shocked to hear Cloud Atlas didn't win a single Oscar when the likes of Argo took home Oscars. Perhaps Hollywood is simply not ready.

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Crysis 3

It is the year 2040-something. You are Prophet, the mind of a black man, trapped in the body of a white man trapped in an advanced Nanosuit. Those aliens are fucking shit up again, and those assholes from the second game who like to communicate really loudly on the battlefield have enclosed all of what used to be New York into some kind of dome.. for some reason.

Whatever. So obviously the games' story is not terribly coherent at this point, which doesn't stop it from assaulting the player every now and then. Remember Psycho, the british guy from the touching moment in the original game when he choked that gook? Well, he's back again without a nanosuit and is a central focus of the story as he constantly reminds you to check your nanosuit privileges. Sadly however, for enthusiasts of animal cruelty, the throwable turtles from the original game do not make an appearance.

The first thing you're going to notice is the overly generous helping of motion blur. They must spend a lot of development time in the Crytek offices self pleasuring because they've somehow managed to incorporate vaseline into the graphics engine itself. Once it is disabled however, you will be treated to some of the highest fidelity environments in gaming right now, which strike a nice balance between the gigantic open island of Crysis and the more linear maps of the second game, which many people regarded as a step back for the series.

Gameplay isn't such a radical improvement from the previous games as it is a series of small refinements and additions that build on the original. It gives you a variety of gameplay styles, not as much as a quasi-role play gaming like Deus Ex offers but enough to separate itself from modern shooting galleries like CoD. Guerrilla warfare is the overarching theme of Crysis 3 and it gives you a lot of tools to accomplish the deaths of humans and squid aliens alike- every gun has customization options, suit abilities like air stomps are unlock-able and perks can be switched out depending on the situation. There are also hack-able sentry turrets and land mine fields now. One of the biggest new features is the compound bow which emphasizes stealth tactics, allowing you to hunt and kill without breaking cloak. It's a satisfyingly fun weapon to use especially when combined with its alternative ammunition (explosive and electric tipped arrows) although it does trivialize many encounters.

Which brings me to my main complaint with the game- it's pretty easy. The AI is offensively clownish to the point where at times I felt like I was opening fire on a class of special needs children, only to quickly take cover or uncloak to regenerate nanosuit energy and wait for the next shortbus to be dropped off for the slaughter.

Not as groundbreaking as the first game but an improvement over the second, and still the best Predator simulator on the market. 3/5

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Batman Inc #8 ®IP - A review by Ousmory, Warning SPOILERS

Even if you may not be familiar with comics you probably have an idea of who Batman and Robin are. The Dynamic Duo, patrolling the streets of Gotham City with a watchful eye. However what non-comic readers might not know is that Batman has gone through quite a lot of Robins. Four(technically five counting Stephanie Brown) to be exact, and in the newest issue of Batman Inc released this week the life of one of them came to an end.

In an issue that had big significance I was still left wanting more story development at the end. Don't get me wrong, I love Grant Morrison, the man could eat alphabet soup and shit a masterpiece. However, this latest issue only had one plot development, Damian Wayne dying. The whole issue felt like filler up until this point(excluding a touching last conversation between Dick Grayson and Damian). When a major character dies, I want to be able to remember that whole issue, not that panel where he croaked. I felt the death was rushed and if it weren't for all the rumors floating around it would have been totally out of nowhere. It was still a good comic issue but if you compare it to the run of Batman Inc as a whole I would say it was a slightly less than average issue.

Seeya later Space Cowboys

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Type o Negative. 'Everyone I love is dead' Review by Tafgh

It being Tunes Day and me having just woken up, I'd like to share with you the sound that I woke up to: http://youtu.be/ICCZU-GeX4I

It's Type O Negative's "Everyone I love is dead" and there's somethimg about its sound that I really like, be it the breathy backvocals, the eery sound, the nice guitarplay, the somewhat morbid(not sure if that's the right word) lyrics. Something about it makes me smile while imagining walking amongst skeletons, and seeing the girl I love at the end of the hallway, being dead and having become a bit like "Corpse bride". A sentient undead being, more or less, she smiles at me and I smile back and then I just join her on the bench and we start kissing. Aye, making out with undeads in my head. Oh, just to put extra detail in the image I created: add some trees (willows, oaks, birches, maple) and the sort and let them fill the length of the distance behind the skeletons, the floor is covered with the leaves of the trees(like in half-late fall.) The sky is blue and the temperature feels to be about 13C or 55.4F.  Aye, that's the image this song gives me. So yeah, imagine and enjoy it as well, I say.