philmguy

Pathetically true story - I once spent an entire day watching episodes of "The Sopranos." I ingested all 13 episodes of the season five DVD back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Too bad something like this

I thought maybe I was getting too old or just worn out with video games, because I wasn't excited at all for the first glimpse at Grand Theft Auto IV trailer, which unleashed its unholy wrath on the world today.

Once a video game has ran its course through your life, it's usually in for a sad fate indeed - either sitting on your bookshelf collecting dust or schlepped off to a used game store for some measly, pennies-on-the-dollar store credit.

That I wasn't able to squeeze into my review: In the opening scene, Sandra Bullock's husband drives her around, having her cover her eyes because he's about to reveal a big surprise. Then he tells her to take a look and ta-daaaa! He's bought a house and a bow is on the front door. Bullock goes all giddy, as if this is the most romantic think ever.

Taking a look at this Spider-Man 3 trailer, it's obvious that the animators still haven't fixed the most obnoxious aspect of the series - the inability to make sequences of Spidey swinging around the city seem anything close to realistic. The low-grade, herky-jerky animation sequences might have been excusable five years ago for the first film, but in 2007, years after Gollum and Yoda have been perfected as lifelike CGI characters, this sloppy Spider-Man is inexcusable. Spidey looks way too much like a cartoon to take seriously. Oldschool special effects would have looked much better. The too-smooth Spidey moves without any sense of momentum or gravity. He flies through the air only to bottom out in uncanny valley.

Is that she's still dead. Can we move on now? She's taking headlines away from Brtiney Spears' world-class freakshow.

In his blog, Jeffrey Wells relays news from L.A. Times columnist Joel Stein that Eddie Murphy bailed out on the Oscars ceremony right after he lost out to Alan Arkin. My initial reaction was disgust, but the longer I think about it, the more sure I am that Murphy not only did the right thing, but the honest thing. If you have no class, that makes the act of showing class a flat-out lie. Murphy was angry he lost, hated everyone around him for voting for Alan Arkin instead of him, and thus no longer wanted to remain in their company. I also identify with Murphy for getting out of Dodge, because the show was so boring to watch it must have been tough for even the winners to sit through the whole thing. I know I didn't - I spent the final hour playing video games on mute while listening to the telecast from another room.

Man, last night was one of those experiences that reinforced everything I hate about the Oscars. Unfunny monologues (DeGeneres' material had more bombs than Clint Eastwood's two WW II films combined), idiotic skits (although the shadow formation dancers were pretty awesome) and so, so, so, so many long, long, long, looooong montages, including that dull-as-an-heirloom butter knife opening nominee interview sequence directed by Erroll Morris.

Nintendo announced that its Wii console outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3 in January by a disgustingly wide margin. The Wii sold 435,503 units while the Xbox 360 sold 294,000 and the PS3 brought up the rear with 244,000. It's exactly the start Nintendo needed to establish itself as a player in the new generation of console gaming, but mark my words - the lead will shrink or disappear entirely if the Wii's online system, which is set for release the second quarter of this year, can't hang with Microsoft's sterling Xbox Live program.

Sylvester Stallone announced that the fourth Rambo film will now be known as "John Rambo." This is obviously a sign of an attempt to emulate the success of "Rocky Balboa" (I still hope the movie will somehow win an Oscar Sunday even though it wasn't nominated for anything. C'mon, write-ins!) Hopefully the fourth Rambo will be as good as the first two, and Stallone can find a way to avoid getting stopped for illegal substances at Australian airports long enough to get the film made. If the film does well, I'll have hope for "Lincoln Hawk," the long-awaited follow-up to Over the Top, as well as "Gabe Walker," the highly necessary sequel to Cliffhanger.