So, Golden Globes 2010 are now behind, with only (if I haven’t forgot anything) Oscars to look forward, and in rather unexpectedly-expected way Avatar took it home with best picture and best director. And I’m not really sure what to think about that. I mean, I really did enjoy Avatar. It was immensely fun and spectacular, but was there really the beeest movie of last year bellow all that spectacle? With such serious contenders like Hurt Locker (oh the irony if it had won) and Inglourious Basterds? Especially with the enormous recognition Avatar has been receiving.
In other news and observations (in short) – Gervais did a great job, air of fresh breath. Thou Steve Carell seemed genuinely “confused” there for a bit. Also huge “YAY” for Mad Men. And “Meh” for Glee. And kinda “Eh” about Hangover winning over (500) Days of Summer, thou I can live with that, given the nominations. Other then that nominations in my opinion were rather adequate. I mean, best actor, for example, was a total toss-up… JGL, Clooney, Damon, Downey Jr (his speech was just what I expected), Michael Stuhlbarg and Daniel Day-Lewis… id give all of them a Globe (thou Daniel Day-Lewis already has a variety of those), they all did a fantastic job.
Now then that’s behind – road to Oscars is paved.
Oh, yes, kinda ps – what made me chuckle bit was Mickey Rourke’s slight disappointment about Bullock getting Globe for best drama performance.

So, Christmas now are behind and mostly spent lounging on a couch with family and re-watching Harry Potter and Love Actually (that’s an integral part of Christmas playlist) for bazillionth time. In other words – holidays well spent. Especially considering that 20~30 cm of snow turned into sea of water as instead of snowing it started to rain in Christmas eve, so no snowball fight or w/e.

But that’s not what I had on my mind now. Among all gifts Steam’s Holiday sale brought some nostalgia of the early noughties back with Serious Sam HD. Serious Sam probably was the first real co-op I had played back then, and what fun was it in LAN parties. Also, I have to say – they dont make games like this anymore. Bonkers, over the top blast em away shooters.

Also, as far as HD part goes – it does look rather gorgeous with it’s updated engine and all the lightning effects and high res textures, thou still shows its age with sometimes low level models and, what-to-seems-to-be-requirement sexy post processing effects these days. Still, that doesn’t change a fact.

Oh, and to those who missed the sale on Steam – Sam HD is still available at Eurogamers GetGames for a price bit bellow steams standard 19,99.
And now its just waiting for Second Encounter to come out early next year.

Years of anticipation, hype buildup, fair amount of skepticism and anywhere from 200 to 300 m $ later its finally here. Avatar. And the second coming of James Cameron. And you know what? Maybe in few months or even years ill feel different, but time waiting was well worth it. Movies like this are the tent poles of the decade. With Matrix (including it’s not so bright sequels) and Lord of the Rings trilogy at one end and Avatar at other. Its the experience that makes you love cinema, a huge celebration for why we love cinema as place of escapism, both in thematic terms and visually. It just doesn’t align in to any traditional criteria. Yes, its the same old story we all know, yes, it is predictable in many ways, BUT THAT DOESN’T MATTER. No. It’s all so well executed – from little details to huge action scenes, you just lack words to express it. Probably if you’d look up explanation of word “Awesome” its that. Feeling of awe. I know word “awesome” is overused to no end, but its that. There’s not a single shot there wouldn’t be something to gaze at it. At times I felt just like Jeff from Totally Rad Show, just getting misty eyed just from the pure visual triumph of what has been achieved. It’s more vivid than your most colorful dreams. From start to finish, when Cameron seems to bump it all to 11 with indeed mind blowing scenes both visually and action wise (see everything after destruction of Hometree) and really satisfying ending which went almost to hand to hand fight (in some way equally satisfying as Inglourious Basterds ending with Hitler’s face being tenderized with bullets, it let you feel the anger). Oh, yes, and while we are at it – Stephen Lang’s Quaritch – hes the definition of badass.

As the impression still havent settled in my head (and i dont expect them to do so for some time) ill just try to answer the big question – is this the game changer everyone’s been talking about? Well, partially. From digital film-making process it definitely is – Volume, Simulcam (or whatever you call it), new 3D cameras and whatnot. That’s just mindblowing, and I sure do hope thers tens of hours of extras whenever Bluray comes out. Also youve never seen anything like this. But from regular viewer standpoint its just better. Better CG, better 3D, better everything, but not really new.

But still the achievements are groundbreaking – uncanny valley has been crossed, you see Jake’s avatar as a real physical being, with all the subtle facial expressions and personality, just like looking at Sam Worthington with a bunch of best makeup ever, thats even makes Benjamin Button look horrible. Its not just a bunch of pixels, its actually alive, and that can be said about whole world of Pandora. It’s actually somewhere out there, 5 and something light years away. When one thought that no CGI can really visually impress him anymore after being already kinda fed up with Baysplosions, this goes extra mile to knock you off your feet. You actually forget what you are looking at somewhere 5 minutes in.

Also 3D. To be honest first I had doubts weather to see it in 3D or regular, as from the experiences I had before in big, fast action scenes things went all mushy in 3D, or in other words one got to see lots of motion blur in glorious 3D. But I belive that this and U23D are some of the best 3D experiences Ive had. So enveloping, so subtle, where nothing is being thrown at your face (*looks at Journey to the Center of the Earth*). If 3D industry needed some push, then this is it. Well, this and Pixar’s movies, that also tend to have great 3D and depth application.

All in all this is a phenomenal feat that, the way I, and lots of other people, see now, will be remembered for decades. Ambitious in so many ways, including character design, with so many opportunities to fail, but still all out solid success and triumph despite all its flaws! As Ebert said – there’s still at least one man in Hollywood that knows what to do with 300m $. Oh, and as far as monies go – thanks to amazing word of mouth movie is doing perfect – after first weekend its somewhere at 230m $ mark worldwide. And that’s a good thing, as I sure do want to see Cameron’s promised sequels, thou I have no idea what they have in store for us. Thou the possibility of Naavi going to wipe out whats left of earth sounds fun. *wink, wink*

Now off to rewatch Aliens and True Lies after then probably.

Oh, and where does this leave Avatar in my years top list? Well, nowhere. Thers a special category for this. Just like Ebert just gave Avatar “Special Jury Prize”. It stands on its own terms. Besides the beforementioned big movies of the decade.

Today’s protip on how to get rid of cold and runny nose, to be more specific – get yourself a warm bed, knock your self out with few glasses of Jack Daniels and get some 10 hours worth of sleep. Might wake with headache, but at least the nose problems will be gone, and I’ll take the former any time over Kleenex addiction.

Holy *********. I don’t know when is the last time I actually won something in a real contest. No actually I know – probably it was tickets to premiere of Toy Story almost 15 years ago when I was a puny baby *insert heavy’s reference here*. But that’s not what matters now. And, well, thou technically not entirely win, ill take the 3rd place as well – you beloved Mr. Freeman just totally unexpectedly got before-mentioned 3rd place out of ELEVEN THOUSAND SUBMISSIONS in Valves Team Fortress 2 Propaganda contest in eve of soldier/demo update. And I shit you not – that was unexpected as I didn’t even bother to click the Steam update thingy when it showed up to see the results.
As much as I loved my submission at the time I added it, in no way i thought it would make that high, and actually I have no idea how it made that far seeing that rest are genuine artworks, while mine is just quick hackjob in Gmod and PS. And that I feel bad about even now, after having seen only some submissions of other people that didn’t cut the top 3 (and I’ll probably feel even worse tomorrow when the full gallery of submissions are opened). Well, at least good thing top 3 is in that order. But now, once that is out of the way… Cue Bill Conti!

In the best Oscar traditions I’d like to say thanks to Valve for creating such immensely awesome game and great characters, Garry for creating a Gmod, without which I couldn’t have created this poster! Also thanks goes to the great community of festers place for all the warm words and actually notifying me about all this!
Also my condolences go to all the Demos around the world, and every other submission that went by unrecognized. Thou I haven’t yet been on official Steam forums I can only assume there’s a shitstorm brewing.
BUT, on the last not – SHIT YEAH!

Oh, and if anything – I haven’t yet get the mail from Valve about what it what with the special thingy. Hopefully it arrives by the time I wake up tomorrow today. Will be sure to write up on what it actually is!

Yes, it’s that time of the year. Christmas is almost here. Thou there’s still no snow here (getting steadily colder thou) its in the air, the feeling. In two days it will be 3rd Advent and 30 Rock featured awesome Christmas episode last night. Thou that’s partially thanks to Julianne Moore gueststarring.

But anyway, thats not the point. As far as I can remember every Christmas there have been a new iteration of classic Band Aid “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”, and this year is no exception. Well, other then the fact that this years is one the most kickass yet. Recorded by Fucked Up it features voices (and not only) of Yo La Tengo, GZA, Tegan & Sara (<3), Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Bob Mould and more. All the profit goes for benefit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, DTES Power of Women Group and Sisters in Spirit. So go ahead and grab your copy on itunes. That is – those that have itunes available in their countries. Rest – listen to it here.

Hah! So, second game related post in a row here. But still – I felt like saying something. Call of Duty 6th installment – Modern Warfare. Awaited so long, and finally here, though not without bumps and bruises (gimped pc version with no dedi servers, etc), but its not what I was going to write, as I havent yet got the chance to try multiplayer. What I wanted to express now is my awe of cinematic masterpiece that single player campaign is. Though short (some 6 or so hour on average) its just an amazing thrillride from start to end. And I’d say that it means something that even me, who usually finds single player campaigns boring as hell, found this amazing. Ranging from Siberian snows to Afghanistan desert to Washington, DC all in flames and including even snow mobile cache sequences. That paired with Zimmers original score it’s just epic.

Whats especially interesting that in lots of places you can see what inspired IW in making of this game. Take Gulag level with Price extraction for example – doesn’t that just strike you as a homage to Michael Bays “The Rock”? Especially the shower room. Or green smoke on top of White House to signal that your still combat capable to cancel bombardment?

Yup.

Oh, and also few wallpapers after the jump! Read more »

Well, k, not technically new as both have been put and available for quite some time, but both had missed me somehow. First being the awesome Aussie rock group Wolfmother. Though I had heard them before (their 2 best know songs that is “Joker and the Thief” and “Woman”) I never thought of paying more attention to them. But now after getting my hands on Cosmic Egg and listening through it I must say… WOW. The guitars and Andrew Stockdale’s voice..

Wolfmother – Cosmonaut

That and other nice find being smth completely different – Frankmusik’s album Complete Me. Words just fail to express how warm it makes me feel. It’s like nice fusion of smth from 80’s and today’s dance. As positive as it gets.

Frankmusik – Wonder Woman