Tag Archives: Humour

Hot Fuzz

Hot Fuzz

Last night I got to see Hot Fuzz, the latest from Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, et al. I haven’t seen this one hyped up nearly as much as Shaun of the Dead was, but as a Spaced devotee I was always going to see it.

First of all I’ll get the bad out of the way. I didn’t like Hot Fuzz as much as Shaun and certainly not as much as [sound of angels singing] Spaced. Secondly, a couple of good laughs aside, I didn’t think the first half hour was particularly brilliant. That’s it. The rest of it’s really good.

Once the main plot gets going and we have the wonderful rapport between Pegg and Frost, things are dandy. Like Shaun, it’s packed full of references to look out for, and of course Edgar Wright’s direction is as fundamental to the humour as the two stars and what’s almost a who’s who of British comedians and their previous collaborators. There’s an unhealthy obsession with Bad Boys 2 and Point Break which is milked for all the humour it’s worth (a surprisingly large amount), not to mention the ubiquitous Cornetto’s. It’s got all the hallmarks of the people who made it, but considering how stylish their oeuvre has been thus far, I’m more than happy with that.

What ultimately won be over, though, was two things. Both are possible spoilers so you might want to save them until you’ve seen the film for yourself. Number one: flying kick to a granny’s face; number two: that the whole thing is basically about militant Daily Mail readers. That gets a thumbs up from me.

Life Imitating Spam

I’m getting a huge influx of spam comments that are thankfully getting stopped by my impenetrable defences. This is one of a series that I keep getting:

Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I haven?t been up to much these days. I just don?t have much to say right now. I can?t be bothered with anything, but whatever.

The spammer has apparently got the same case of ennui as me, brought on by the lack of any real gaming news, even with CES and Macworld going on. Still, I’ve got my order in for a Halo 3 beta key with the free copy of Crackdown, so there’s always that to look forward to.

Chikan Chuui

So Tomonobu Itagaki, producer of the Dead or Alive series, is facing a sexual harassment lawsuit after he went out with a woman from Tecmo and “groped her and forcibly kissed her”, amongst other things.

The general reaction when people hear this is that they’re not surprised, mainly since the DOA games don’t do a lot to advance the feminist cause, to say the least. I’d probably agree. The men in it aren’t exactly bright and well-attired, but then again they don’t have a game about dressing them up in swimwear and making them jump around.

It’s not the fact that the lawsuit happened that surprised me at all. What surprises me is that there are actually women working at Team Ninja. Surely that has to be a joke?

Jagshemash!

Borat

Forget De Niro and Pacino, because Sacha Baron Cohen may just be the best actor in the world. It’s one thing to be a great actor, immersing yourself completely in the character, when surrounded by other actors and working from a script. It’s quite another to do so with Joe Public, improvising your lines and keeping up the pretence while actually managing to keep a straight face.

Besides having possibly the best title in the world – Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan – Cohen’s latest (I’ll just call it Borat for the sake of my typing fingers) is one of the funniest films of the last few years. When Empire say that it’ll prove as timeless as Airplane! and This is Spinal Tap, I really can’t argue.

The format isn’t much different to the TV show and indeed some of the “interviews” could have been lifted from it, but this essentially adds a plot and goes further than the budget and taste constraints of television can allow. The fact that the credits name the provider of “Mr. Baron Cohen’s feces” (sic) goes some way in explaining it, as does the fact that Borat has the police called on him and is tackled by security guards on several occasions. Not always while clothed. You’ll know what part I’m talking about when you see it. It’s the part where the whole audience is crying with laughter. Continue reading Jagshemash!

Better Than Wipeout

So in addition to your standard accessories you can now get Xbox 360-branded ecstasy. Presumably 20g of the stuff costs as much as 200g of its third party rivals and only comes with 13g usable.

Of course MDMA with logos on them are nothing new and I can remember thinking how cool the Simpsons ones were in drug education, but could it be that despite their denials this is a deliberate marketing ploy by Microsoft? The use of PlayStation demo pods in nightclubs is often cited as a reason for the cool image that Sony rode to the front of this industry (games, not narcotics) and you have to suspect that this stuff is way more fun than Wipeout.

This is also a lot less likely to get you beaten up for being a nerd than spending your time in a nightclub playing a PSX. See? All part of their plan.