Showing posts with label job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job. Show all posts

Walking Dead Board Game: The Perfect Summer Excuse to Stay Inside


All of our favorite nerd pursuits combined into one product.

Just when I thought I was going to die of nerve explosion while waiting for the next season of AMC's The Walking Deadcomic-to-tv adaptation, Z-Man Games and author Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment announced a joint venture to bring the very first Walking Dead board game to retail this summer.

We don't have very many details about gameplay beyond the general idea: beating up zombies, trying to live, collecting supplies, and so forth--pretty standard fare that with this license is going to be pretty awesome.


Robert Kirkman heartily endorses it, and he ain't no shmuck: "I've always loved board games, but never knew they could be this cool! We've done test plays of The Walking Dead board game at the office, and the game play scenarios ring true to what Rick and the other survivors face in the comic book. I couldn't be more impressed with Z-Man Games."



The game will be for 1-6 players, which means you can even play the board game based on the zombie comic book all by your lonesome, officially becoming the saddest image in the entire world. Though if this game plays out anything like Z-Man's amazing storytelling game Tales of the Arabian Nights, everything will be just fine.

The Awesome Gross Chick From Bridesmaids Announces Two Projects


The Bridesmaids scene-stealer is doubling-down with two new comedies.


When I first reviewed Bridesmaids I was so swept up with Kristen Wiig's performance (the best film comedienne since Madeline Kahn) that there were few column inches left to talk about the other performances.

As I exited the SXSW premiere, however, I recall saying to friends that "if it were a just world, Melissa McCarthy would be starring in films of her own."

Well, there's nothing like a movie overshooting its estimates (it made $25 million at the box office this weekend) and receiving near-universal praise to make miracles happen.

Deadline reports that McCarthy is teaming with Bridesmaids co-writer Annie Mumolo on a quest movie to steal the Stanley Cup for her dying husband. The husband will be played by McCarthy's actual husband, Ben Falcone, who plays the object of McCarthy's affection in the soon-to-be-if-not-already airplane scene in Bridesmaids.

What disgusting things are in store for this noble vessel?
Entertainment Weekly is also reporting that Bridesmaids director Paul Feig is setting up a project for McCarthy to star in.  Nothing is yet known, except for the quote pulled in The Film Stage's article, "“If an actress like Melissa becomes a huge star? THAT is a world I want to live in.”
McCarthy uglied herself a bit for the role in Bridesmaids, but no matter how you slice it she has "unconventional Hollywood looks."  To that end, we must all do what we can to support Ms. McCarthy and her career.  Because she's really effing funny and we need more of that.

World of Cheap Thrills


What's scarier than a haunted house?  TWO HAUNTED HOUSES!


Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson and their three young children have just moved into a big, old home.  He's a teacher and she doesn't work, so immediately I assumed there was some deal with the devil to make the down payment, but this was just my mind playing tricks.  The young baby does nothing but cry and one night the eldest sees something, makes a spooky face, then goes to sleep and NEVER WAKES UP.

He's not in a coma, he's just. . .in limbo.  Rather than making the cover of the New England Journal of Medicine with this indescribable condition, they just send the kid home.  And then the craziness starts.
I can't lie, the first few scares got my heart rate up.  There are demonic sounds on the baby monitor and, even though I was thinking "here comes the scary part, here comes the scary part" when something finally jumped out, I yelped like a frightened puppy.
I can't recall seeing a movie that relied as heavily on loud, dissonant piano notes on the sound track as much as Insidious.  Director James Wan (the first Saw movie and follow-up garbage he'd rather you not remember) either doesn't trust us or doesn't have the chops to allow creative framing or tense perspective shots to deliver the scares.  Either way, I found I did most of my crying-out not because anything truly frightening was happening on screen, but because something REALLY LOUD JUST CRASHED IN MY EAR.
I certainly wasn't involved in the plot in any way, which is a shame, because I think a comotose, house-bound child is fertile soil from which a genuine horror film can grow.  After Byrne sees enough weird visions she gets the family to relocate.  The scares keep coming in house two, making us all wonder what the hell kind of realtor they're using.
There's a twist, of course, and a too-late attempt at humor in the form of some goofy ghost hunters.  Once the "truth" is revealed, however, only the audience members willing to suspend their disbelief to the point they could wrap it around the circumference of Jupiter will keep from checking out.
So this is what's in store for you in Insidious: a real moronic supernatural horror film that exploitatively uses startling tactics to get in four or five decent jump scares.  If you are a high school kid on a date, go see Insidious.  If not, go take a run or finish that Dostoyevsky novel you keep putting off.

The Selection of the Article.


Kudos for the elegant wooden sculptures by Japanese artist Yoshimasa Tsuchiya.

 
Currently exposed to Megumi Ogita Gallery in Tokyo, around the show "Private Myth". More pictures of these creations on her portfolio and in the selection of the article.