An exotic, violent and intoxicating film that immerses you in the favelas of Rio in the 1970s.

Haruki Murakami felt immediately familiar for his poignant understanding of the modern human condition and his ability to reflect upon it with humor and grace; an ability shared by some of my other favorite creators (in other media), Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki and Shigeru Miyamoto. The wild sheep chase veers between the fantastical and the mundane without batting an eye, rather while winking knowingly at the absurdity of both extremes. I relish the enjoyment yet to come from reading his other books.

I can’t seem to play this game for more than 45 minutes at a stretch without wanting to fling the controller out the window and myself shortly thereafter. I can’t decide whether I’m being lazy or there are flaws in the game design, but I plan to give one more solid session where I push past the 45 minute barrier and see if a good three hours in the clutches of the beast settles my mind one way or the other. Thanks to the magic of the web, if you don’t read this before then, perhaps I can post a real review.

Having been working two feet from an Addams Family pinball machine for the last year and a half, I finally decided to dig up the film and watch it again. Given that the sound bites were drilled into my head through hundreds of hours of play by myself and my friends, it was almost eerie to hear them fit into some larger narrative. None the less, I’m a huge fan of Raul Julia (RIP) and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the film.

That is, up until the credits rolled and the M.C. Hammer theme song kicked in, at which point I went into a sort of anti-nostalgic epileptic fit which had me jerking around on the floor, foaming at the mouth until I finally tore the power plug from the wall and saved myself from Tha Hammer’s mind twisting combination of record label provided production, idiotic lyrics and thinly veiled promotion of good Christian values.

A nice little multiplayer, turn-based, strategy game that is easy to get into and quickly begins to elicit requests for “just one more round.”

Another outstanding movie from a director whose films I’ve only recently chanced to see, Roman Polanski. Though no holocaust film could ever be characterized as uplifting, this one left me with a feeling of hope for the future of humanity, an admirable achievement in these discouraging times.

I’m a card-carrying non-fan of Lenny DiCaprio (I thank him for not detracting from the greatness of Romeo+Juliet but he didn’t add any value as far as I’m concerned). I don’t exactly get all hot and bothered about Mr. Hanks either. That said, by the end of this film, I found myself growing just a little fond of young Lenny’s winning smile and Tom’s humourless dedication. The story is a good one and the execution unfaltering.

I dream of the day that I’ll be able to have cooperative multiplayer gameplay with my friends in a game that I actually enjoy. AC2 was purdy, but the treadmill based gameplay and linear, wack-monster-centric dungeons didn’t really turn my crank. I also found it baffling that, even on my half-gig-of-memory-having machine, it would consistently start popping up “Windows is low on virtual memory” dialogs after about forty-five minutes of play.

Ranks up with Space Station Silicon Valley as one of the most peculiar game concepts I’ve ever come across. Sets the bar for best translation of a Japanese game into English with the seemingly unenedless supply of expertly translated poetry that is recited to you by your Cubivore alter-ego throughout the game. The gameplay is reasonably fun and though I wasn’t motivated to play through a second time and achieve the status of King Cubivore, I certainly enjoyed the first go ’round.