It went downhill after they took out the Hari Krishnas

Only just ran across this: today the trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV is released to the world.

Should be interesting, if you consider that this will be the true sequel to GTAIII, Vice City and San Andreas can really be best defined as Mission Packs as the overall structure of the games remained the same.

Still, GTA's influence cannot be denied in modern pop culture. In video game terms, the only game that is more influential is Zelda 64*. Speculation as to what GTAIV will be is rampant: will it be an online RPG? How far will the game push the nextgen consoles? We had an entire state in the last game, will this one be GTA: The World?

Who knows. You only have to wait 7 hours or so (at least from when this was posted) to get a glimpse. The main thing I would want is the damn missions to be improved. They all use the same basic missions in GTAIII to San Andreas with the same painful difficulty spikes. And the shooting/aiming controls still suck.

There are some things that we know for sure: that it will sell like Micheal Jackson albums in the 80s and Jack Thompson will hate it.

I may post again later after I have seen the trailer. That is assuming if the whole internet is brought to it's knees by every video game fan in the world trying to watch it at the same time.




* You look at every single 3D game after Zelda 64 and they all copied the control structure because it just worked, damnit. This game really cemented the work done by Mario64 to prove that 3D action games would work.

Film Review: Premonition

Premonition @ IMDB

Let's get one thing clear: my darling wife loves Sandra Bullock. She has a Sandra Bullock DVD collection. I can't tell you in mere words how much she likes Two Weeks Notice. So when she saw the trailer for a new Sandra Bullock film she, well, she freaked.

Now, keep that in mind. My wife loves Sandra Bullock. Not in mind that way. It needs to be kept in mind because when we left the cinema after watching this film my wife's first words were:

"That was a bag of shite."

Two things came to my mind when she said that:

1) Thank God I didn't have to be polite about the film and pretend I liked it and

2) How bad must a Sandra Bullock film be for a self confessed Sandra Bullock freak to declare it as "a waste of £5 and 2 hours of my life"?

I won't bore you with the plot details but will just highlight a few things. First of all, Sandra aims for a kind of brooding screen presence and misses by a country mile, ending up in Constapation Town. The music screams "FOREBODING! THIS IS FOREBODING! PREPARE YOURSELF! THIS IS FOREBODING!" from the start and never. Ever. Stops. Julian McMahon's eyebrows are way too straight and black. There is a ridiculous scene with a priest towards the end that looks like it's going to give a reason for the time travel shenanigans but then backs away with a "meh, weird stuff happens". As far as I was aware, the rules clearly state that if you're going to do time travel you either give it a full and frank explanation, preferably with somekind of machine (Back To The Future, The Time Machine) or not at all (Groundhog Day). The script also gets tangled up in these time travel escapades that make no sense and has a stupid twist at the end.

But the worst thing, the most annoying thing is that the film makers obviously have no faith in the audience. They think they are retards. I say this because half way through Sandra Bullock finally realises that, hey, she must be travelling in time nevermind that fact that the rest of us figured it out before the first reel ended. But when she figures it out she gets a sheet of A3 paper and writes down everything that has happened so far in GIANT RED MARKER PEN. And they chuck in some flashbacks as well, just in case people in the audience can't read.

Insulting. Rack this one next to The Lake House and forget about it.

This film doesn't even deserve an Umbrella. It gets a Wet Fish.

Film Review: 300

300 @ IMDB

So my friend Ryan called yesterday and said did I want to go on an adventure. I said, what the hey. I like adventures. So we went to the cinema to see 300. Not that much of an adventure, you may say, but he did have to drive a fair distance whereupon we got as lost as a blind polar bear in sack.

So it counts as an adventure.

The cinema was also waaay better that the rubbish cinema I have to put up with in my town, despite it being ludicrously hard to find.

As for the film? Corker. Yes, it may not be historically accurate and the treament of the Persians in the film has ruffled a few feathers but thats not really the point, the point is to see half naked Greek men stabbing other nasty men with their massive spears.

Points to anyone who spotted the subtly homo-erotic undertones in that sentence and, indeed, the film itself.

Story? Some King from Sparta goes to fight some people from Persia. Thats it really. And you know what, that's all I need. Inspired, as the poster says, from Frank Millers graphic novel those in the know will know exactly what to expect from this film. The main character, King Leonides (see, I was paying attention) falls bang square into the usual Miller archetype; the strong willed man who will Do The Right Thing no matter the cost to himself and would rather die that betray his honour.

And, boy hooty, does it look good. Filmed a la Sin City with CGI backgrounds it looks stunning. You can pick out frames from the graphic novel with the almost tableu-like shots in gorgeous slo-mo before it winds up into another piece of gloriously excessive violence.

Yes, the script can't quite back up the visuals. Yes, the sub-plot with the Queen feels tagged on and seems to go no where. But it looks so damn good you can forgive it and get swept along in the action.

Now, at the end of the review I could rate it out of 5 stars or what have you. But, as the blog is called Evil Ninja Phil there should be at least one ninja reference somewhere. So I am going to rate all the reviews based on a scale of ninja weapons, nunchuka being the best and umbrella the worst*.

300 gets a Sword. But a really good Sword like Green Destiny or something.



* Don't believe me that an Umbrella is eligable for a kung fu weapon?



You can apologise later.

Because you never know

Click here for more on "Self Defense : Techniques & Moves for Beginners"

You can thank me later. And you should all thank Ben Affleck for taking time out of his busy day and making a self defence video for all us to learn from.

Thanks again, Mr Affleck.

Luck, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

So with the recent release of the new TMNT film I've been-a-thinking. We all know of the 80s nostalgia boom which brought us a revamped He-Man and brought Transformers back into the mainstream but what of M.A.S.K?

Wait, hang on.

But what of M.A.S.K?

Not a peep. Now I liked M.A.S.K. It's concept was cool, the cars would change into jets and the cartoon wasn't bad either. But why has no one brought it back?

But the main thing is when I was looking through that site I found a price list. And on that price list I had this one and this one and this one. And this one, this one, this one, this, this which was a favourite, this, this one, I'm pretty sure this one, this one for sure, this, this, this I remember because the guy would never sit on the bike properly, this, this, and this.

In my defence, I was an only child.

Now, total those up and you'd get a tidy sum ready for some eBay lovin'. But what happened to all these toys? After a bedroom clean out they ended up being left outside in the rain until they went mouldy and were then thrown out.

*sigh*

Join us next time what I reminisce about selling all my Star Wars toys, including no less than ten vehicles, at a car boot, twenty pound for the lot. Or the time I leant my copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga to a friend at college who promptly dropped out and was never heard of again.

I make myself sick sometimes.

I wish they were playing at my house

So my outlandish run of spending continues: I purchased the debut album by LCD Soundsystem from HMV for the princley sum of five english pounds.

And? A corker. But but most of all, track 4 by the name of Movement. Now, that is a proper corker. Proof? Boy, bring me a YouTube video!



See? A corker. But I've been informed that they are just as good if not better live. Boy!



Have that.

First rude word of the blog

So it's been a week or two since the broadband arrived and I have to say, it's very nice. Chugging along with dial up for the past few weeks has been a nightmare. But my problem is this: my broadband is supplied by BT/Yahoo and my problem is with that Yahoo bit as I've never been a big fan of Yahoo. They've always seemed a bit corporate, a bit spammy, not to be encouraged. And just to make it worse, my free webspace appears to be done through GeoCities or, as I always seem to remember it being called, GeoShities.

I do prefer the whole vibe Google gives off despite all the privacy issues and so forth.

Sorry, not an interesting post but I can't post gold everytime.

I'm going to raise this in the next meeting

Why did no one tell me about this? Hmm? Why did no one mention that a seven and a half minute preview of Spider-Man 3 was on the Internet? I have e-mail, this blog has a facility for leaving comments. Why did no one think to just drop me a quick note, post a link or anything?

I am disapointed in you all.

Leaving that to one side for now, that looks good. Spidey vrs The Gnarly Green Goblin* looks amazing on a teeny video clip on my laptop. I am still concerned about the film, mainly due to the amount of new characters being thrown at this film which reminds me of the worst excesses of the Batman films. But I trust Sam Raimi and that clip has reinforced my faith.

Only a few months to go.




*Why a surfboard? Why? Didn't we leave Bill & Ted behind?

What else would two grown men do in Toys R Us?

A quick recap: my local cinema is near the big Toys R Us in our city. So, whenever I go to the cinema with my good friend Ryan we tend to end up in the there either pushing small children off the Guitar Hero demo pod or looking at the large collection of toys. Now, if I had the time and the money I would be a serious toy collector so I like doing this. I especially have my eye on the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime.

But anyway, me and Ryan are in there and we see this selection of mini transformers. We're looking through and notice that there is a mini-Devastator in the sale section.

"Hey," I say. "Look at that. A mini-Devastor." I have this gift for stating the amazingly obvious.

"Cool," says Ryan. He picks it up and looks at the back. "Look at that; all six make the big version."

"I wonder if they have all six here," I say.

"No way," says the pesimistic Ryan. "All six? In the sale section? No way." There was probably way more swearing in there but children may be reading this so I'll keep it clean.

We look anyway. We find one, two, three, four, five of the required transformers. Then we find the last one.

"I don't believe it," I say. "We found all of them! How much are they?"

"£2 each," says Ryan. "£12 for a big robot." He thinks for a moment. "You know," he says, "it would be wrong, in fact, it would be a crime for me not to purchase these."

"I totally agree," I say mainly as Ryan was paying.

So we, or rather, Ryan buys them. Naturally this was about 2 months ago and I had pretty much forgotten about them until not ten minutes ago when I received the following text message:



Nice. Very, very nice.

Me Likey Guitars

Got The Raconteurs debut album this week which I find to me a most enjoyable listen. Like the straight rock bits of The White Stripes with a melodic twist. You want evidence? Cue gratuitous YouTube video!



Now the bit you really want is Broken Boy Soldier which is about six minutes or so into the clip. This is what really got my attention about this band, awesome performance.

Nothing Says Too Far Like a Machine Gun For a Leg

I know those of you with not the fastest internet connection will probably groan when you see yet another embedded YouTube video but couldn't resist this one:



Tarantino & Rodriguez double bill? Zombies? Kurt Russel? A Machine gun for a leg?

Yes please.

World Domination = Good Times

Now this looks fun. Like a version of Risk using Google Maps. Risk is one of those games I've always wanted to play but never got round to, despite owning the Lord of The Rings version for at least two years now.

Damn, I love Risk.

When Stephen Colbert Throws His Mighty Shield

Captain America may be dead but the battle continues:

Well Colour Me Stunned

So I have broadband now. Wireless. Pretty sweet. Which means the doors of YouTube are now finally open to me. Which mainly meant watching episode of Thomas The Tank Engine with my Boy. But then he got bored and I started searching for other things when I found this:



It's a clip of an anime from the 1970s based on the Ultraman TV series. Now, I watched this show on video when I was 3 or 4. I would make my parents get this out for me every time we went into the local video library. There was only the one tape with maybe 3 episodes tops and I'd watch it over and over again. That and Mazinga Z. The shop closed when I was maybe 5. Never seen the tape anywhere since.

And do you know what? This clip is from one of the episodes on that tape. The one I clearly remember because at the end the boy cries because the little aligator he found and cared for turns into a giant monster and Ultraman has to kill him which the boy knows has to be done but he still cries and plays the song he used to play when the monster was smaller and they were together.

I have never meant this more; God Bless The Internet.