Xbox One Reveal (My Thoughts)

The Microsoft Xbox One announcement landed with a resounding “huh?” from many folks in my social sphere. It seemed like confusion ran rampant after the announcement and console reveal. Was it going to be always-on? Did every SKU come with a Kinect sensor? Why are they talking about ESPN? Used games?  Is that dog in the Call of Duty: Ghosts reveal trailer going to die? Spoilers: most likely (did you hear how many times they used the words “feeling”? That dog is a goner).  Will it even play games? Why didn’t they talk more about games? You know what’s great? Games…

Xbox One with the new Xbox controller and Kinect sensor.

Even though the press conference started off with a mention of games, it quickly devolved in to television, Kinect gestures, publisher partnerships, and Steven Spielberg. The Spielberg Halo TV show reveal was a bit weird. Halo was a flagship of the original Xbox and arguably helped that console launch somewhat successfully. The Xbox 360 had Halo 3 to help propel sales after that console launched. And the Xbox One will have…a TV show produced by 343 Industries and Steven Spielberg. Weird. Even though Halo 4 launched last year, I’m a little bit bummed out that the new shiny Xbox won’t launch with Master Chief helping it along. A TV show can be announced at any time and get decent press, and although you’ll likely gain access to it directly through Xbox Live regardless of your cable subscription (at least that’s the only thing that would make sense to me), the TV  show announcement felt out of place.

Even though the launch felt a bit disjointed, I think it was the right move for the Xbox team to make. As Microsoft mentioned over and over again, E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) is right around the corner. Traditionally E3 is where the games companies and publishers come to play. What Microsoft did here was get the boring bits out of the way. Why do that when debuting the new hotness? I’m pretty sure if the Xbox team came out on stage at E3 and started talking about fantasy football and NFL/ESPN partnerships, the whole place would erupt in a steady stream of boos. 

This was a calculated risk. Show the system (something that Sony has yet to do with the Playstation 4); talk about the specifications a little bit; show a demonstration of the new Kinect and how it works with the dashboard and UI; and then give a taste of what the next generation games can do. Then, in two weeks get on stage at E3, breeze through the lingering questions that folks had after the original reveal, and then smother them with games.

I expect to see quite a few games and release titles announced at E3 for both the PS4 and the Xbox One (I like calling it the Xbone) and I can’t wait to see what some of the biggest game developers have been working on for the last year or so. Remedy showed off a smidge of Quantum Break, which looked pretty damn interesting, and gorgeous. I’m hoping that Bethesda announces a new edition to the Fallout series as well. The E3 conference should be all about games, I’m glad the boring stuff got out of the way early.

Hemlock Grove - Oh Bother.

I like this type of subject matter. Creepy things happening in a small town. Supernatural creatures mingling with ordinary people who have no idea about supernatural elements. Weird scientific experiments. All these things make me happy, and made me really curious about Netflix's new original series, Hemlock Grove.

(NSFW - Red Band Hemlock Grove Trailer)

Unfortunately, Hemlock Grove doesn't deliver, and for some really weird and seemingly "no-brainer" reasons. Specifically, the writing, directing, and acting. "Wait a minute," you're thinking, "that's pretty much everything that makes up a movie or TV show!". You're right, which makes it so hard to watch.

Lets start with the acting. You think with folks like Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott, and well those are about the only folks I knew from the show, the acting would at least be decent. This might be a directing or editing fluke, but all of the dialogue seems rushed.  The worst offender is Bill Skarsgard. This is Alexander Skarsgard's brother. Alexander is best known as Erik Northman in True Blood. I know they are both from Sweden, and English is not their first language, but Bill is truly painful to watch in the show. Ever seen he had I found myself cringing, wishing for it to be over. The rest of the actors, probably more seasoned seem to be phoning it in. Famke Janssen's main goal in each scene is to look seductive. That's it. For someone who's been around for a while, you'd expect her to do a bit of acting. Nope. The best acting comes from folks that are (spoilers) about to die. And even that doesn't happen horribly often.

The directing choices are equally odd. The cuts to scenic views of the town feel like they are just there to stretch the clock out. Flashing back to previous conversation to help the viewer remember all of the horrid dialogue from before is also an often used tactic. All that does is make me feel stupid. If you need to keep reminding me of what happened earlier in the show, fix your writing.

Speaking of writing, it's very lazy. Characters are written just to exist. One of the sub-plots is Famke Janssen's character Olivia having a drug problem. The drug is one that you use a eyedropper for and administer it in to your eyes. Why is this important? It isn't. And it's never explained throughout the show. You just see her taking it, and then getting a euphoric look on her face. That's it. It's a shame too, because it's almost like there are way too many writers, writing too many parts and plots, and it doesn't come together at all. Some writing shows signs of brilliance, but it's surrounded by disjointed, clumsy plot points. I think the show is a casualty of "writing by committee", which sounds great, because you get a lot of input, but without anyone really overseeing how everything ties together, it makes the show fairly hard to follow.

What is the plot? Well in the town of Hemlock Grove, a pair of gypsies move in. They are immediately despised by everyone, including the Godfrey's, who are the town's rich folks and own a scientific lab (Godfrey Institute) on the outskirts of town. There's a murder most foul, and a rumor spreads that it was done by one of the gypsies, Peter Rumancek, and that he was a werewolf. He befriends one of the Godrey's, Roman, and they make a weird pact based on a dream both of them had to find the werewolf and kill him. Shelley, Roman's sister, is a "Frankenstein's Monster" type character, who can't talk, but has a weird relationship with her uncle, Gordon, who is sleeping with her mother, Olivia. None of this really matters though and serves as plot filler. The town and murders are investigated by some weird church organization who want to stop the killings and destroy werewolves, and the Godfrey Institute is doing weird experiments on people, about something called Ouroboros. Does that play in to the core story? You guessed it! Nope. Are they setting themselves up for season 2? Yup. Is that a good writing choice? Nope.

The season revolves around Peter and Roman teaming up to find and capture the killer werewolf. That's the plot in a nutshell. I wish it was that simple in the show. It would have been a lot more entertaining. Instead it's a convoluted mess. Sad day for me.

If I were to give it a rating I'd say 2/5? It shows flashes of brilliance, but the acting, writing, and directing choices make it a chore to watch. If there's a season 2 I'll give it a chance to see if they've learned anything, but if the producers remain the same, I fear the show is doomed to fail.

Iron Man 3 - Now With More Tony!

The third installment in the Iron Man series contains a whole hell of a lot of Iron Men. However, you get to see way more of Tony Stark in this one, and that's a good thing. The Robert Downey Jr. factor is what made the original Iron Man such a hit, and in my opinion, he added the much needed levity to The Avengers. Having a lot more Robert in the movie is great, though, I've heard some people complaining. Those people are entitled to their own wrong opinions!

Iron Man 3 - Poster

Anyway, I saw Iron Man 3 twice in theaters, in 3D and in regular D. With this particular movie the 3D didn't add anything, just gave a bit more depth, so if you're worried about the shekels in your pocket, go ahead and skip the 3D costlier version, you'll still get lots of awesome explosions.

The plot here is pretty standard for an Iron Man flick, someone is really pissed at Tony Stark. In this case it's The Mandarin, played interestingly by Ben Kingsley. When I first saw the trailer for Iron Man 3 and heard him say, "You'll never see me coming...", I thought the delivery of that line meant that this villain would be like Heath Ledger's Joker, however Ben Kinglsey comes off a bit more like Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, which is great. So, The Mandarin doesn't like Tony Stark and goes after him. That's pretty much the plot in a nutshell, but a few fun twists make the story play out really well. One of the twists is that following the events of The Avengers, Tony is suffering from a bit of PTSD. This makes the snarky Tony feel a bit more human, which is a welcome change from the ever wise-cracking Tony that we're used to.

Fret not, there are still plenty of wisecracks. Don Cheadle plays Colonel Rhodes, the guy in War Machine suite, except this time around War Machine has been re-branded by the United States government to give him a more "fluffy" name, Iron Patriot. Gags like that are plentiful, and Jon Favreau along with Gwenyth Paltrow provide some fun side-commentary as well.

One of the biggest surprises of this film was the writing. A lot of the little sub-plots and scenes get little throw-away lines of dialog to explain them, and I didn't even notice them until my second viewing. It's the little things that matter in big-budget movies like this, and writing one line of dialog that helps guide folks from one scene to another is something that I greatly appreciate.

4.5/5 from me. If you like the first two Iron Man movies, you'll like this one. I enjoyed it a bit more than two, but a bit less than The Avengers (which I think is one of the most well put together super hero flicks ever concocted). Go see it with some popcorn and a soda, and stay until after the credits, there's a fun little Easter egg.