Contra 4 DS video discussion with EGM and 1Up contributors. And here are some gameplay videos: Jungle level, Ocean level, and City level. (via GameVideos.)

Superbad red band trailer. I’ve never seen this type of preview before, so it’s new to me. You know the green screen during previews? This one starts with a red screen and is meant to be shown before R-rated films. Put simply, it’s an R-rated trailer. Looks ridiculous.

A hypothetical meal for Bear Grylls from Man Vs. Wild: A little bit of fresh fish, some snake on the side, and zebra for the main course. I know you’re asking, “What will he wash that down with?” Answer: poo water. I wish it weren’t what it sounds like but it’s just what it sounds like.

My expectations for this were sort of high, so I came out slightly disappointed. I get sort of excited when a horror or comedy gets praised by critics. The preview hooked me, but it’s misleading. Not as bad as Bug’s trailer was (that preview should just be black text saying “This is the worst movie ever”), but some of the scenes I was looking forward to didn’t pan out as I expected or just weren’t in the movie at all. 1408 is based on a Stephen King novel and I worried it be a little weird. It got a little weird. I read the short story yesterday and that was mostly a waste of time. Just spend twice the time it takes to read and head to the theater. It’s probably worth it.

Now that I’ve seen all of them, I’d rank the trilogy Aliens, Alien, Alien: Resurrection, and Alien 3. I can appreciate all the things that Alien brought to the genre, but it was less entertaining than the second. Watching it in the middle of the day probably didn’t help things out. It’s a space horror but it wasn’t all that scary. Really, though, the film can’t be blamed.

This was my first time watching Alien, and I’ve already seen these things shredded by rifles, turned inside out and sent through space, drowned in molten lead, and speared by a vicious alien race that breeds them strictly to hunt them and turn boys into men. When it was in theaters, nobody had seen anything like the alien before. It probably seemed like some sort of nightmare creature. I didn’t get that feeling. I was watching a movie where I knew everything that would happen–everyone has seen the chest-burster scene and the second movie touches upon how Ash was a robot.

Other than that, the set looks good, the mood is fantastic, and the characters are memorable. It holds up well, but I wish I could have seen it 1979.

1408 from Everything’s Eventual. I’m about to read it. I enjoyed the movie, but I guess I was expecting it to be scarier.

Aliens is a classic example of a film that doesn’t follow the stereotype of a sequel being worse than the original. Alien 3 is probably one of the reasons people think most trilogies are unnecessary. It’s awful.

I watched it in 1.5 speed with subtitles, so I guess I ruined the pacing and couldn’t enjoy the cinematography, which is (according to a number of reviews) the high point of the movie. It’s directed by David Fincher, who did Fight Club and Zodiac. There’s an awful CGI alien in some scenes. Xenomorphs look great in Resurrection, but they should have stayed completely with the puppets in this one. [Update: I would like to thank the commenter named "Ass" for informing me that the special effects crew actually was able to make a puppet that just looks like bad CGI. I don't want to be stubborn, considering the circumstances involved in the making of the movie, but they were more convincing in Aliens.] Thinking back, the movie does look pretty good, but the horrible writing is distracting.

It starts immediately after the second movie, with disjointed flashes of the escape vessel and a fire that causes it to crash. Right off the bat, they kill Newt, Bishop, and the guy from the first Terminator. They just show quick shots of their bodies and a computer profile of the three of them with “Dead” printed underneath. Really? We spent two hours rooting and caring for these characters and they’re gone before the title shot. Ripley was pretty pissed when the doctor tells her, and she wasn’t the only one. Wikipedia (so it’s true) says James Cameron thought this was a slap in the face to him, the Aliens cast, and the fans. Michael Biehn demanded and received money equalling his pay from Aliens for using (and killing off) his likeness in Alien 3.

That’s really the main problem with the movie. The characters you care about the most while watching this movie aren’t in this movie. These deaths overshadow everything else. Ripley ends up on some former prison planet where 25 prisoners decided to stay to follow their new found religion. I don’t care about these guys. They’re rapists and murderers. Get a load of this: they all look the same except for the black guy.

Seriously though, they all have shaved heads and are crazy. It’s hard to care. The only one of these types of interest is the doctor. He tells Ripley why he stayed, and this really separates himself from the others. We might actually worry about what happens to him, but guess what, he dies three seconds later. I imagine it’s supposed to be shocking, like when Sam L. gets it in Deep Blue Sea. And I guess it does the trick, but the rest of the movie is sort of pointless afterwords.

They come up with a few ridiculous plans to kill the alien, always banking on the prisoners thinking clearly while being chased by an alien whose number one hobby is crushing human heads. Finally, they manage to drench it in molten lead. And it explodes. It doesn’t make sense but neither does most of the movie.

Ripley has a queen inside her. This is sort of dumb since there was only one facehugger. Anyway, the movie ends with Ripley sacrificing herself to save the future in a pit of fire. I would have been six if I watched this in theaters. But, oh wait a second, I saw that happen when I was five. I know now why you cry.

I watched the trailer in the extra features. The tagline for the movie was “On Earth, everyone can hear you scream.” Apparently there was an earlier script involving the old characters arriving on Earth. Ok, it’s the early stages of Alien 3, you’re deciding on which concept to use and you’ve got it down to two: 1) Newt returns home to live with her grandparents while Hicks and Bishop join up with the space marines to battle a rival faction from another planet that uses the Xenomorphs as biological weapons (WOW) or 2) Aliens are released in a monastery. “I feel confident in option 2.” - Some Genius from 20th Century Fox.

Kanye West makes a beat. He’s slightly arrogant but I guess you can be when you make it look so easy.

Two days ago I realized I had never actually watched any of the Alien movies, except for Resurrection and vs. Predator. Both being mockeries of the series. Dan happened to buy the Alien trilogy from Target one week. We buy cheap DVDs and they tend to sit on the shelf, waiting for one of us to have a lot of free time. Summer is here, that time is now.

It’s good. Do I like everything I watch? I guess. I’m pretty adamant about reading reviews of everything so I tend to steer clear of anything being panned by critics, unless I’m fairly certain I’ll like it (Rise of the Silver Surfer for example). Rotten Tomatoes has Aliens at 100%. High percentages are fairly common for older movies, but 100% is still a good sign.

It’s got action. The weapons are still pretty cool and the xenomorphs are still interesting. It’s got special effects. It won the Academy Award in this category over twenty years ago. Do they stand up two decades later? Of course not. Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 made it through the test of time fairly well, but that was the beginning of good CGI. Puppets and miniatures will always have that quality. It’s not horrible though, which is saying a lot. And CGI or not, the queen ripping Bishop in half is still nuts (I hadn’t watched the movie in full before yesterday, but I’ve seen parts and I remember that from when I was in elementary school. P.S. I apologize if I spoiled a twenty-year old movie.)

It’s got a good plot. Good enough at least. I cared about what was happening the whole way through (it runs well over two hours). It’s got good acting. Ripley and the John Conner lead the way. Then there’s Vasquez. Michelle Rodriguez was born to play Vasquez in a remake of Aliens. Too bad there will never be a remake of Aliens, loser. “Game over man! Game over!” “We’re in the pipe, five by five.”

Here’s a YouTube link to Bishop getting ripped in half. No blood (he’s a cyborg), but not something you’d want to watch during breakfast I imagine.

Happy Father’s Day. Hug your dad.