Extreme? Perhaps a tad. But so are Molyneux’s claims about what Fable III achieves in comparison to what the end result was. Contrary to what he’d have you believe, Fable III is not the be-all, end-all in RPG morality-sims — as if that were a genre to begin with, but hey, we have KotOR 1 and 2, don’t we? In fact, it’s a travesty of lost opportunities, redundancies, and tedium. Part of me would like to imagine an awkward silence in a bar as the graphics team and gameplay team warily eye each other, someone very quietly reaching towards a bottle of beer to slam against a nearby stool. Point being: this game is too pretty for what it is.

Fable III is gorgeous in comparison to Fable II, and Theresa knows the load times are a lot better, but the actually gameplay is some of the most repetitive gameplay to have existed. And I say this as someone who happily played one-fourth of a Pokemon game last year and liked it. Battles are easily won — shoot, shoot, shoot, spell, spell, hit — with the same enemies to defeat over and over again. No, seriously, I’d like another wolf, balverine — are you fucking kidding me, LionHead? — and tiny little hobbe with steampunk jetpacks to shoot at, please. The last 1,200 simply weren’t enough. As for the relationships, well, the sex is certainly more entertaining but getting laid and even just becoming friends seems to take forever with everyone and their mother asking for you to deliver, fetch, or find something for them. As this point, I’m the fucking queen and some asshole maid in the castle is asking me to deliver a letter for her if I’m to get into her pants. Honestly? First edict should have been to found some sort of national postal service. Fuuuuck meeee.

If you can get past all of that, which is um, 80 percent of the game, you are treated to interesting little sidequest diversions every so often. The problem is that Fable III seems to be a game in love with its own writing. Tired of what that tertiary character, who isn’t even important, has to say? Well, fuck you, he has two more minutes of lines. Nowhere is this more apparent than the meta D&D/RPG mocking sidequest in which magicians criticize the decision to make you talk to every NPC within their game within the game — and yet you still are stuck talking to cardboard cutouts for uncomfortably long durations. It’s not that the writing is bad — it’s actually quite good, quite sharp, and very well-acted — but I didn’t buy Fable III to listen to a book on tape or watch a movie; I bought it so that I could pretend to be a badass warrior magician woman — even though I admittedly am one in real life.

Good stuff? Well, the weapons that grow and mutate to reflect how you play and live your Fable-III life are quite awesome, though I think it’s rather mean that my sword now has a “venemous glow” because of two STDs that I picked up from my wife. Also, and slightly off-topic, why did my white child from my white husband and white character suddenly become black when he became a toddler? I still love him, but my Theresa, it makes a person ask questions when she returns home from a war and her child is an entirely different race. And even more off-topic, why do my two adopted children now hate me after I put them in an awesome house with the best manny ever? Whatever. Back to the orphanage.

It seems that I’ve somehow wondered from the point in this half-assed, impromptu review, and that’s exactly how you’ll feel about the plot — ZING! While Fable II was rich with lore, Fable III is rich with the grocery lists of what it takes to be a king/queen and hero. In between repairing each and every one of your properties so that your renters won’t withhold payments, and completing your 20th fetch quests to win the love of a random NPC, you’ll begin to wonder what Fable III did to the “R” in the “RPG.”

It shot it in the face behind the Sandgoose and buried it deep in a dig spot.

“You’re not the leaders of the Others anymore; I am. Now take me to Jacob.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Oh, all right. He lives in that foot over there.”

- “Lost” Recapped by Extended Italian Family

In late January, I embarked upon a five-week mission that would take me through six long (and painful, in the case of the third) seasons of LOST.

If only someone had pointed me in the direction of “‘Lost‘ Recapped by Extended Italian Family,” instead. Sure, the short, five-minute long YouTube video leaves out some vital pieces of the LOST mythos — like that time Mr. Eko was awesome and only I realized it — but it otherwise paints an accurate portrait of the Island and its inhabitants.

Plus they use Heinz ketchup to fake their time-flash-induced nosebleeds. You have to admire that kind of resourcefulness (and tomato-goodness).

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1D-cuc8OTI]

As if this needs a caption.

In the grand tradition of 21st-century websites taking plain pictures and photoshopping them into mind-numbing awesomess (e.g. Nic Cage as Everyone), along comes Lazer Tits, a site devoted to to making lazers shoot out of breasts and sometimes into onlookers’ eyes.

With very few exceptions, the majority of the pics are blissfully topless (and nippleless) — but all of them are amazing. So rejoice, for 2010 is the year of the lazer and it is good.

Suprisingly enough, this is NOT a picture of Lady GaGa.

Terrible title aside, this post will be of interest to any woman currently waging an inner war about whether or not to do away with her ladybits’ bits — because now you can have your furpie and eat it too!

Wait, I’m sorry. That’s an equally terrible pun and I blame my recent exposure to Amelie on that one.

At any rate, someone — who is undoubtedly making more money than I am right now — has ingeniously decided to put pubic hair on clothing and sell it. Well, not real pubic hair but the illusion of pubic hair. Now, you can sport a full bush even with your skirt on! And for the gender-bending ladies out there there’s even an option of a shirt with chest hair.

As for ladies who already sport a bush, there’s no reason why they can’t also purchase and sport two. After all, a bird in one hand is like a bird with two bushes.

And now my puns are invading my proverbs. Apologies.

For more hairy items (and no puns), head here.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m5TuxdkfkE]

It’s kids this cool that make me consider passing my genetic information on to a new generation.

(As first seen on the ever-so-macabre blog, The Ecstatic Truth.)

More like "Booby Trap"! AmIright, guys? AmIright? ...Nevermind.

I’m not sure what world we live in where the pizza guy is an authority figure but it must not be the one where I can send him back with his tail between his legs if he takes longer than 30 minutes. (Or if he works for Domino’s and I decide the pizza is terrible, which it probably still is.)

Of course, the only thing better than raising an eyebrow at all this is catching when the little kid being propositioned to star in a film says, “Uh-huh!” prompting the narrator to warn, “Only professional agencies hire kids for TV work — I oughta know.”

So don’t trust Random Dude on Playground #1 but trust Random Narrator of “Stranger Danger Countdown”? That sounds about right.

In conclusion, friends, avoid at all costs “helping, bribing, being famous, having fun, getting a job, being a playmate, emergency, affection, authority, hero, and threats.”

‘Cause if you don’t… “I’ll kill your dog.”

*As seen on The Ecstatic Truth.

In case you’re unfamiliar, the NYC condom is part of a health initiative that began in 2007, a.k.a a year when I certainly wasn’t getting laid — senior year of college, you understand. Distributed freely — as in “no charge” as in “grab a handful of these bitches and stuff them in your friend’s shirt before he can argue” — the NYC condom can be found in many health offices and various bars around the five boroughs. And with the official slogan of “Get Some,” you can tell that the health department is not messing around, although they certainly want you to.

Before their latest redesign, NYC condoms were more cute than sexy. With letters in circles of colors to evoke the feel of Manhattan’s favorite form of mass transit, the subway — well, at least it’s my favorite form of mass transit as I don’t believe in the bus — there was almost a preschool sensibility to the look. But this new package? No bones about it, the power symbol is ripe for puns, visual metaphors, and it evokes the feel of the Red-Light District.

As for the 2007 and 2008 versions, you can see them below. Yes, they’re mine. No, you can’t have them. While the 2008 version on the right is still widely available, to the point that a girlfriend of mine and I stuffed a friend’s pockets with them so that he would look like a sex fiend this weekend, the 2007 is extremely difficult to find and took knowing someone who knew someone who knew someone who has had sex with everyone, to get.

Now that I am allowed to say something about Percy Jackson, I’m not sure how to convey my thoughts on the film… OK, how’s this? It’s like G.I. Joe for the Harry Potter crowd. Kids will love it and adults will see the cracks in the facade BUT it’s so outlandish and over-the-top at times that you can’t help but laugh. Also there’s a horny satyr and an acid trip of sorts.

Percy Jackson also includes a musical montage courtesy of NYUer Gaga.

And in case you can’t tell, I loved Percy Jackson. Chris Columbus movies made my childhood and this is like a cracked-out orgy of them all.

Toss in a parody of Lady GaGa’s “Pokerface” and some of the worst video editing in the world, and you have yourself Westboro Baptist Church’s latest no-hit wonder “God Hates Lady GaGa”… proving once again that you don’t need talent to make music, just a bottle of crazy-pills and the right beat.

From the press release:

“Art” and “fashion” are the euphemisms, the guise under which proud whore Lady Gaga teaches rebellion against God (incidentally, her claim to the title of “lady” is sound only if she tacks on “of the night,” thereby alluding to another euphemism of what she is.) As much as she’d like to pretend otherwise, there’s nothing new or different about this particular hussy’s pretentious prancing. Does the simple slut truly think that she can change God’s standards by seducing a generation of rebels into joining her in fist-raised, stiff-necked, hard-hearted rebellion against Him? Get real!

Yes, the folks at Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), who lovingly brought you the “God hates fags” sign, have now expanded their repotoire with help from Megan Phelps-Roper, the daughter of WBC founder Fred Phelps, who sings one of the most hateful ditties in the history of the YouTube universe.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veNQwzW8ays]

Sample lyrics (and atrocious singing)?

God promises, promises/ Your destruction so mah-velous!/ You ain’t got, you ain’t got, no you ain’t go no pokerface/ You show yourself to everybody/ You just got, you just got, yeah you just got your whorish face.

And the WBCers wonder why they never get invited to karaoke night.

Source: http://www.muckmakers.com/ (via ONTD)

This won’t be a full-bodied review as it’s late, I’m tired, and I’ve only just seen a movie that people stopped caring about months ago. But in case Where the Wild Things Are does end up making the Oscar rounds — at which point the buzz around it will build again — here’s my take on said film.

To put it bluntly, the only way Where the Wild Things Are would have earned my eternal and unwavering love and adoration is if it had been a three-and-a-half-minute music video. All of the necessary elements are there — music by Karen O that alternates between haunting and rousing, and cinematography that evokes more emotion in a single shot than any one line of dialogue in the film — so it seems almost daft that instead of choosing a medium that would have made the most of these strengths, even a 10-minute short, director Spike Jonze took on the task of turning Where the Wild Things Are into a full-length feature that weighs in at 100 minutes long.

Not pictured: Where the Wild Things Aren't

The problem is not only in the way Jonze chooses to tell the story, but the story he chooses to tell in the first place. There are many who love the film and praise it for taking a look at a boy at the cusp of adolescence who struggles with his inevitable entry into the adult word — unless, of course, he were to die by getting hit by car before then, which is a distinct possibility considering how often he crosses the street without looking and his penchant for hanging out with large, hungry monsters — but that’s exactly where the story falls apart.

From the get-go Jonze pulls no punches in showing the audience that his boy character Max is a tantamount to a wild animal; he dresses in a wolf costume, chases and tackles the family dog, breaks into tears when his sister’s friends destroy his snow fort by jumping on top of him, and not only takes out his vengeance by destroying his sister’s room but by biting his mother when he doesn’t want to listen to her. In the meantime, we’re shown that Max’s father once gave him the world (a toy globe with an inscription declaring it his) and his mother is now dating a man who is not his father.

The implicit purpose of these scant background details is to provide Max with a reason for his anger (e.g. his father is gone/dead/living in another movie with Karen O, and Max doesn’t know how to deal with his rage) but it’s never contextualized in any meaningful way for the audience. Jonze fails to make his character sympathetic from the onset, refusing to anchor him down with reasons for his behavior. Max is angry because he’s angry, and you should sympathize with him because you were or are like him, Jonze seems to say to the audience. The missing-father factor is just a paper-thin excuse for Max’s anger and affects the plot as much as if you had given Max a dead dog as his motivator.

So Mad Max, a child whose largest grievances of the day are that someone broke his igloo and his sister didn’t defend him, runs away from home and jumps on a boat that takes him on sailing montage to Where the Wild Things Are, with only Karen O as his companion.

When the montage is over — and don’t worry, there will be another when he sails back and don’t complain that that’s a spoiler because you knew the kid was going home since it’s a children’s movie and you read the book — Max has landed, well, where the wild things are. It’s dark, there are trees, and a monster named Carol (James Gandolfini) is throwing the kind of violent fit that one usually sees right before daddy hits mommy and says he’s real sorry. But that’s OK, because you see, Carol just doesn’t know how to communicate — same as Max and, oh, goodness it’s a metaphor! Yes, the place where the feral creatures live is just a manifestation of all the mixed-up feelings Max is having and I would gladly have the same crazy visions if they were accompanied by Karen O’s music — can you tell yet that that is very nearly the only thing I liked about this movie?

Fun facts Max shares with his new friends: The sun is going to die.

Moving right along… Carol is upset because K.W., who will become the de facto mother figure to Max, is hanging with the cool kids, a.k.a. two owls named Bob and Terry who don’t give a hoot what you think. But that’s not the only reason why Carol’s upset as it seems he and his wild friends have a problem combatting sadness and loneliness to the point that they blatantly state such facts. So naturally they hire Max to be their king and chase away the doldrums of everyday life with his joie de vivre and leet howling skills aplenty. The only trouble is that Max is still the emotionally dysfunctional child we met in the first act so of course everything has to go wrong in order for him to learn his ultimate lesson: biting your mother isn’t cool.

Not so surprisingly, when confronted with large creatures that threaten to bite his head off, Max becomes less combative and often timid when giving directions. Though he declares himself a king with the power to make heads explode, he seldom gives orders and when he does they’re but meek suggestions for fear of riling up Carol and his friends — specifically Judith, who is referred to as “a downer” by the others, but who is really just a bit of a mean bitch who likes to threaten to eat Max. And then of course there’s Alexander, the meek goat who represents how Max feels around others; unheard and uncared for.

All of these facts are effectively conveyed in the meeting sequence between the wild things and Max, and yet for the next hour or so Jonze continues to hammer these details into your head in overdrawn sequences that don’t so much effectively use silence as they do dwell and die in it. Petty squabbles between the wild things take place, Max alternates between being a great king and a sham, and a master fort is painstakingly created by the creatures under the direction of Max — though to be fair, he’s only helping Carol bring his old dream of creating a dreamland for his friends to fruition. Then it happens. Carol finds out that Max isn’t really a king and in a fit of rage rips off the arm of his best friend Douglas.

Best friend. Douglas. Arm. GONE.

Carol (Gandolfini) and Max check out the real Jersey Shore.

In Carol’s defense though, he did also think that the sun was dead at the time. Carol then turns and threatens to eat Max who runs and seeks refuge in the non-digesting stomach of K.W. who happily hides him from his angry-monster-metaphor self. The two discuss Carol’s problem, which K.W. — who should be nominated for the Understatement of the Year Award — explains away as him just being mad and unable to communicate since no one understands him.

You hear that kids? Daddy hit mommy (or vice versa if that suits you) because she just didn’t understand he was angry about that last beer being gone.

Of course, Jonze isn’t specifically drawing a comparison between domestic violence and Carol/Max’s actions but the message that someone who is violently acting out is only a misunderstood loner who needs a hug, is still a piss-poor one to convey to anyone in the audience. If you don’t believe me, ask Douglas, a.k.a. the bird-like monster who now uses a stick for a right arm.

A. Stick. Right Arm.

At this point in the film, I was fairly horrified and my eyes had threatened to roll out of my skull at least twice. Yes, there were plenty of cute moments sprinkled about the film that made me laugh or endeared me to one or more of the characters (K.W. bringing home the two owls to meet her wild friends and the first wild rompus, are moments that spring to mind), and the dialogue, when it was there, was biting, top-notch, and did a perfect job of conveying characters’ personalities in a way that still left plenty to the imagination.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to -- Oh, I get it! It's another metaphor!

Jonze is also clearly a smart filmmaker who (for the most part) knows first-hand that showing is a better way of telling a story than having your characters’ explicitly state everything that needs to be conveyed, hence the heavy reliance upon visuals that do do an excellent job of fulfilling their purpose. And yet, all of these things that worked would have worked better in a shorter format. As a feature film, the scenes were given to running too long for their purposes, and the characters (physical manifestations of Max’s personality though they were) were inexcusably one-note to the point of boredom.

All in all, I found Where the Wild Things Are tedious to get through and the mixed messages disturbing and irritating. From my enjoyment of a few of the scenes, I can understand why some people love it, but as a whole the film failed to deliver for me. That’s all right though, because I’ll continue to like the scenes that I did despite not caring for the entire production. It’s not like I’m angry enough to rip someone’s arm off or something.

What, too soon?

On second thought, I'm lying. I only hate this film because I'm jealous of Max's bitchin' wolf suit. Keep on keepin' on, Max.