Three Hours of Kingdom Hearts III Podcasting

If for whatever reason you want to hear my voice and the voice of other people, here's what I've been up to this week. I recently bought a new (overly expensive) microphone and wanted to try it out. 2,000 words in the Kingdom Hearts III review were apparently not sufficient. Instead I talked for nearly the length of 1997's smash romantic disaster hit movie Titanic about the game across two sessions on two shows. SPOILERS ahead.

First up, on a podcast called C&C Bros hosted by a former FFWiki friend of mine, I guest starred for the first time:

Secondly, on the FFWiki itself, I hosted a discussion with some pals:

Non-audio content is also coming at some point.

Freelancin': Oscars Post-Show Rant

Well, it's just a day too late for this post to be relevant in any way, but whatever, here is the Post Show Oscar post.

My predictions were... wrong.  A lot wrong.  But that's not what I'm annoyed about.  This was not a good Oscars Show, and I do not have much good to say about.  I'm glad "Birdman" won, but otherwise, there were not many great moments to speak of.  This was a great Best Picture field, and there were many great nominees, 2014 still was a fantastic year for movies.  But goddamn was this show boring.  Really mad that Michael Keaton lost.  It really hurts when a slogging show needed a great spark like that.

For giggles, here are my (almost certainly wrong) Predictions for the 2016 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees:

1. In the Heart of the Sea, Ron Howard movie about an 18th century boat sinking

2. Joy, David O. Russell ("American Gangster", "Silver Linings Playbook") with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, AGAIN

3. The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino movie, all you need to know

4. The Revenant, Inarritu Makes Western

5. The Sea of Trees, Gus Van Sant, McConahhey, suicide forest Japan

6. Brooklyn, Sundance favorite, Irish romantic comedy starring Saoirse Ronan

7. Untitled Speilberg Spy Thriller

8. Carol, Cate Blanchette and Rooney Mara are totes lesbians yo in the 1960s

9. Steve Jobs, biopic starring Michael Fassbender

10. Queen of the Desert, Werner Hertzog, he's overdue, critics will love it.

Super Bowl XLIX Reaction

So Sunday was the Super Bowl.  The 49th Super Bowl to be exact.  It was a fun night of great football, dancing sharks, Danny Trejo with an ax, Russell Wilson blowing the game, Vin Deisel in a flying Lamborghini, Kate Upton shilling a free-to-play game made by people more evil than ISIS, and Nationwide killing children to make... some kind of a point.  Who knows?  The commercials let us down but the Seahawks vs Patriots game was fantastic.  Here are my thoughts:

Richard Sherman's look of utter defeat made my year.  Finally revenge for last Super Bowl.  Suck it, Seattle!

If perchance you have any thoughts of your own, share them below.

2014 Year in Review Part 2 - Unfinished Business and Accolades

Look, I know nobody cares about 2014 anymore. It has already faded away into myth and memory. But I didn't get a chance to talk about the year in depth, so we're doing it now.  This episode is two things 1) a quick review of six films that I never got a chance to review, and 2) my accolades for Best Performances, Best Trends, Most Entertaining Bad Movie, etc.  With a little bit of talk of the Oscar Race too.

Movies discussed in this episode, with their directors, are:

1. Foxcatcher, Bennett Miller
2. Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier
3. The Imitation Game, Morten Tyldum
4. Enemy, Denis Villeneuve
5. The Normal Heart, Ryan Murphy
6. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Midnight, Ana Lily Amirpour

Accolades after page break:

2014 Year in Review Part 1 - The Worst Movies of 2014

New Freelancin'!  Two more will be coming up over the weekend, as I begin my grand epic trilogy of 2014 Posts.  Yes, it is nearly February, yes I am late.  Whatever agony my shame of missing deadlines might be can hardly compare to the agony of the films below:

Here is the list, for those too dull to listen to the video:

10. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - Peter Jackson
9. Transcendence - Wally Pfister
8. America: the Movie - Dinesh D'souza
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Jonathan Liebesman
6. Jauja - Lisandro Alonso
5. Pompeii - Paul W. S. Anderson
4. Altus Shrugged Part III: Why is John Galt? - J. James Manera (some random dude)
3. God's Not Dead - Harold Cronk
2. Vampire Academy - Mark Waters
1. Left Behind - Some Asshole

So there. I saw a lot of really bad movies last year for your entertainment. And I have no regrets (other than Jauja, nobody ever heard of it and it still sucked). Hope you enjoy me suffering to what may be even worse films in 2015! Thanks for a great year, Space Monkeys.

2014 Accolades are coming next, followed by the big one - Best Movies of 2015.

Freelancin': Left Behind, the Worst Movie of 2014

I know I haven't even made my Worst Of list yet, but I already know what number one is going to be.  And it's "Left Behind".  In a year few of awful awful awful awful Conservative Christian films, this was by far the worst.

This might be the worst movie I've ever reviewed for this site.  Think about that.

Freelancin': A Simpsons Guy, An Hour of Tragedy

Apologies about the audio quality this time.  Nothing ever does go exactly right, does it?  It's fine at the beginning and the end, then slowly it builds during the middle.  There must be some static in my mic that I didn't notice in testing, and now it's too late.  Anyway, speaking of incredible laziness, the Simpsons x Family Guy crossover:

Even I do not know how "Family Guy" remains on television.  I don't want to know.  It's bad enough that I'm forced to talk about it once a year as it is.

Freelancin': Atlas Shrugged Trilogy

A new video thingy-ma-bob! The grand ridiculous Ayn Rand trilogy of Objectivism finally concludes.  Three terrible cheaply made movies with all the quality of a mid-90s made-for-TV movie or worse, an Asylum creature feature.  And this is supposed to be the political epic that will make Barack Obama weep.  This hilariously bad franchise, one so cheap it had to change casts every movie, makes for the longest and most ridiculous Freelancin' yet.

(Apologies for the bad audio and video quality, like the movies themselves, everything went wrong with production on this one.)

Freelancin': Enter Twelfth Doctor

Saturday night had the premiere of Doctor Who season 8, and it was the first appearance of John Frobisher/Lobus Caecilius/Peter Capaldi as Doctor Who #12.  Let us discuss this.

Freelancin': The Movies I Saw Last Friday that Weren't Lucy

It's a review of "Hercules" and "The Purge: Anarchy".  Only I had almost nothing to say about either, so let's just ramble about them in front of the microphone:

Freelancin': America the Movie

I've dusted off my old Youtube channel, now with a brand new editor and a new microphone.  So hopefully this will solve that idiotic problem of black borders around all my videos.  Here is a review of "America: Imagine a World Without Her" by Dinesh D'Souza, a right-wing pundit reinterpreting all of history to prove we are indeed the best country ever... and that Hilary is the Antichrist.  Yeah, it's a very messy movie, and I had a lot to say:

Anyway, this movie is pretty much trash.  As a historian, or at least somebody with a history degree, it is offensively bad, D'Souza completely misinterprets the craft with a lot of very weak arguments.  But you know, as long as Obama looks bad, it should be fine.

More videos to come.

Freelancin': E3 2014 Hopes

New Freelancin', this one about my journey to E3 next week and the games I'm hoping to see there.

Freelancin': Jodorowsky's Dune and Dear Mr. Watterson

New post!  Finally!  I haven't forgotten this blog after all!

This week's Freelancin' is about two documentaries from 2013, "Jodorowsky's Dune", about the greatest film never made, and "Dear Mr. Watterson", the greatest comic strip ever made.

Freelancin': Godzilla vs. BlueHighwind

Depressed over the mediocrity of the recent Gareth Edwards Godzilla film, BlueHighwind looks back at the seven greatest Godzilla films of all time.

For those too morally impure to actually listen to all forty minutes of kinda podcast, the list is:

7. Godzilla Final Wars
6. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
5. Godzilla (1998)
4. Godzilla 2000
3. Godzilla 1985
2. Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah:  Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
1. Gojira (1954)

Freelancin': Topher Grace Fan Edit of the Star Wars Prequels

New Freelancin', now starring the new BH.

Topher Grace (somehow, I'm not 100% what his connection is) inspired a new Fan Edit of the Star Wars Prequels, turning them from three horrible movies into just one extra long horrible movie. Will this finally solve all of the horrible problems within the Star Wars Prequels?  Or will it just be incredibly, slow, sad, and unwatchable, just like all the other Star Wars films made after 1983?

Freelancin': The Death of the Star Wars Expanded Universe

I'm late again by a day.  I'm thinking I'll just have to make this Wednesday series in order to give myself more of a buffer.  Anyway, this is about Disney's announcement that the Star Wars Expanded Universe has been declared non-canon.  What have we lost?  Why was it necessary?  And really, should we mourn?

Freelancin': JRPGs I Could Never Finish - Radiant Historia, The World Ends With You, and Xenogears

Sorry this is a day late, the Internet died on me last night, meaning I couldn't get the images required to make the video.  (Not that its really necessary, but I like to at least try to justify uploading this on Youtube.)

These are three JRPGs I could never finish for whatever reason.  I'm sure you'll enjoy finally seeing me talk about TWEWY, but since I hated playing that game, you might not like what you find.

CORRECTION:  "White Knight Chronicles", "Dragon Quest IX", and "Ni No Kuni" were actually Level-5 games, not Atlus.   Sorry about that.

Freelancin': Game of Thrones Season 4

I started a job last week so I couldn't quite manage to get an episode of Freelancin' made.  Anyway, here's a rambling commentary on Game of Thrones' triumphant return to HBO.

Freelancin': BioShock Infinite Burial at Sea and Kill la Kill Finale

Another week, another Freelancin'.   I talk for a half hour this time. I'm thinking it will be a formal point that the podcast-ish-ness that is Freelancin' will be out every Monday. I've never managed to keep to a schedule before, can I do it now?

Oh, also, SPOILAHZZZ.  You were warned.

Freelancin': James Rebhorn and Need for Speed

This is (possibly) a new weekly feature here.  I'm calling it Freelancin'... because I'm a Dragoon and Final Fantasy, and spears.  Look, I don't think of good names, okay?  Rather than just writing a review every damn time or doing something more complicated with a video and editing and what-not, I'll just heat up my microphone, talk about a few subjects, and throw in a quick dirty unscripted review of something in.  This week:  Need for Speed, but first the under appreciated career of the late great James Rebhorn.  Also some blog natter is thrown in there too.