Everyone Is A Critic

Journalism / Critic: Everyone is one but only some get paid for it.

Not everyone is going to like the same thing. Eventually you’ll find a guy who didn’t like The Dark Knight or The Avengers. Yes they are both incredible, perfect movies but there are people out there who just didn’t like it. It’s all opinion and taste. Some people like this over that. Get over it. 

That’s what journalism is, it’s all opinion based. Just because we DID NOT like it does not mean you DO NOT like it. You actually MIGHT like it. Ghost Rider, cheesy movie but I enjoy it because it’s fun. You may not like it because of the cheese factor but that’s your opinion. Not mine. You don’t like it well then, you don’t like it. I can’t change it. You can after re-viewing though.

You can’t go around saying “This is the best movie ever. Whoever says otherwise is gay”. In this industry, you gotta respect other opinions because you know what? We don’t need another gun man on the streets just cause ONE SINGLE PERSON did not like The Dark Knight Rises. It’s like dating a person. You’re not going to find another person EXACTLY like you. Maybe very similar to you but not EXACTLY in every single way like you. You just got to deal with it because we’re all here for the long run. Respect and love. Peace!

(P.S. I now write for GameFocus.ca – Check it out, bookmark it, love it)

Spider-Days: Spider-Man & The Movies

Sorry about not putting this one a lot sooner, I’ve been busy with work and I forgot the password to my laptop but that’s all in the past now… but this is being done now. Sam Raimi’s Spidey trilogy is literally the very basics to the Spider-Man mythology and world. Spider-Man 1 introduces you to Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson and Harry. It’s a great origin story told in film and still is a great film. Spider-Man 2 is the best Spider-Man movie, there is a lot of action, drama, great humour and the special effects are still good. The acting is spectacular and having Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus was a perfect casting choice. Spider-Man 3 was, wait for it…ok. It was stupid with the dance scene, yes. It was extremely stupid with the “emo” Peter Parker, yes but if you take that aside and leave Venom out of it, then let the Sandman stay in and I really enjoyed the back story they gave him, Thomas Hayden Church was great as Sandman. Having Sandman say he’s sorry about the incident with Uncle Ben to Peter was a great way to end it off AND you can see Spider-Man 1, 2 & 3 as kind of a complete trilogy. From great to meh, this is a good trilogy.

Spoilers-ish alert! Beware!

Now fast forward to 2012 and Amazing Spider-Man is out and Dark Knight Rises is a few days away now, and Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot of the franchise and it takes a look at Peter Parker, who is still in high school and stays that way through out the whole movie and there’s the back story with his parents mysteriously leaving when he was young and I just absoulety LOVED this movie. As a comic book movie, it’s great. As an origin story, I actually prefer this one over Spider-Man 1. Andrew Garfield was spectacular as Spidey. Emma Stone was fantastic as Gwen Stacy and I loved Denis Leary as Captain Stacy. I also liked the Lizard and a lot of people are saying they didn’t like how the lizard and Conners talked to himself, kinda like how William Dafoe did in the first Spidey movie but as a Spidey fan, I kinda thought to myself, Conners uses this “Oz serum” which is in Oscorp. Osborn is dying. This dual-identity thing is more of a Goblin trait BUT because it was used before the Goblin. Could Osborn or someone close to Osborn just make a few changes here and there and give it to Osborn, who is apparently DYING? But oh well, they will probably take the Christopher Nolan / Batman root and have Goblin for the sequel like Chris had the Joker for The Dark Knight.

That being said … go watch The Amazing Spider-Man because it lives up to it’s name and even though we live in a post-Avengers world now, there’s still room for super hero movies with one hero, one girl, one villian and the rest of the characters in the background.

Tweet Reviews

Alright so since I forgot the password to my laptop. Seriously I’m writing this from my iTouch and also I’ve been thinking on ideas on what to do differently as a reviewer so…I’ve come up with tweet reviews! Since forgetting the password, I’ve been using Twitter to quickly review shitty iOS games.

Now with “Tweet Reviews”, there will be movie, game, music and TV reviews all in 140 characters or less. I’m very excited to see where Tweet Reviews will go, but with me, that probably won’t be very far but you never know so anyways I hope you enjoy! 🙂

Ted – Movie Review

Comedy lovers have you got a treat to go see, unless you’ve already watched Ted.

Ted comes from Seth MacFarlane, the guy who gave us Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show. This is his directorial debut and my God is it funny as hell. The premise is simple, it’s about a boy who never had any friends, he gets a teddy bear for Christmas, he wishes for it to come real. Ted becomes real and they’ve been friends for life. 37 years later Ted smokes, drinks, parties. Mark Wahlberg is in a relationship with Mila Kunis and she wants him to be mature but he just wants both of them, ok I’m giving too much away now.

In the end, this movie is perfect because it balances out the bromance and romance and if you see this with your girlfriend or bro, then you’re going to have a good time because set aside the genre, this is basically a live action Family Guy movie. Seth MacFarlane’s type of comedy is all here, quick scene gags, over the top violence, making fun of celebrities, making fun of current events, swearing like crazy, drug usage, nudity.

Yes this is a movie NOT for the kids. I had a great time watching Ted. I say it’s like an episode of Family Guy because some of the writers and Seth wrote the story, the same style comedy is here, when a new scene is starting, we’re thrown into the scene with that classical jazzy music that Seth loves so much which I also do enjoy from time to time, a few of the voice actors from Family Guy have a role in the movie and it’s all narrated by Patrick Stewart, who has to be the next Morgan Freeman. This is very hilarious and out of the three comedies I’ve seen this year (I’ve seen 21 Jump Street, The Three Stooges and now Ted) Ted has to be in the running for number one! It is that funny.

If you love Family Guy, American Dad or Cleveland Show then you will love Ted because it’s like watching those cartoons on the big screen. I highly recommend you see this movie, as long as you’re cool with a little dirty humour.

Spider-Days: Spider-Man & Video Games

Spider-Mans been in games since way, way, WAY back in the old Atari days. Each game has it’s ups and a lot of games have had its downs.  Spidey’s been on just about every console and handheld. I’m going to be talking about the games I’ve played starting with…

Spider-Man for the PlayStation 1. 

A lot of people I know have played this game and we all agree, it has to be one of the best Spider-Man games to date. Based on the 90s cartoon, has an original story, a crap load of heroes and villains, oh and it is narrated by Stan Lee! Add in lots of unlockable costumes, fun combat and great graphics and this is a classic spidey game.

Next Spidey game up are the movie games, the game based on the first movie for PlayStation 2, I thought was a really great game because it was a little bit like a next gen (at that time) Spider-Man from the PS1 but without all the heroes and villains. Not open world (yet) but a lot of fun. Also I remember laughing my ass off when I had the Mary Jane costume, skin, whatever you want to call it fighting Goblin and during the final cutscene, seeing Mary Jane kiss Mary Jane, ah it was funny. Spider-Man 2 now has to be another classic Spidey title right up there with the PlayStation 1 game because this was Spidey’s first take at an open world. The story takes a few hours to beat and then there’s the need to upgrade everything for Spidey and then side missions. It was a damn great game. Spider-Man 3 was meh, it was nice to look at (only if you had the Xbox 360 version) but other than that, I couldn’t even beat it. This was a bad day for Spidey. Spider-Man 1 & 2 for the GBA were fun. They gave cartoon-y retro styled graphics and when people spoke, there would be speech bubbles, like in comics. It was fun little time wasters. Spider-Man 2 on the PSP was literally just levels from the first Spider-Man movie game, with Spider-Man 2 themed all around it. I was really pissed at this title but at the same time I did kind of enjoy it.

Next up has to be one of my favourite Spidey games. Ultimate Spider-Man. Based on the comic series before Peter Parker died. This game had a great story, it is true to the comics, a cartoon open world New York. You could play as Spider-Man or Venom AND it had one of the BEST final boss fights in a video game EVER. This is such a great game!

Spider-Man Web of Shadows for the PSP, was an odd title. It was a 2D side scroller with 3D characters and environments. Ok doesn’t sound too bad. You can also have random heroes and villains from the Marvel universe help you out. Ok, sounds pretty bad ass. What I didn’t like about it is that I got lost easily, didn’t know where to go or what to do and also why in God’s good name is a chicken cow thing a … character? I didn’t play much of the console version just so we get that out of the way. Oh and the DS version sucks.

Shattered Dimensions for the 360 is Beenox’s first take at the everyone’s favourite wall crawler and it took the game back to the drawing boards. There was an original story, lots of villains, no open world, lots of unlockables, Neil Patrick Harris  as Spidey, oh and there’s 3 other Spider-Men. It was a good day for Spidey fans. Except for those on the DS, Shattered Dimensions wasn’t great on the DS.

Now for Edge of Time, the story behind it was cool, Spider-Man dies so Spider-Man 2099 goes back and saves him. It’s just most of the game, you’re swinging in small areas and crawling through vents, destroying robots and pushing levers. Also the big venom doc ock creature that comes in near the end of the game…I mean really. Spider-Man 1 had that Ock / Carnage thing which was created just for the game. Talk about copy cats.

Lastly is Spider-Man: Total Mayhem for iOS, I am not sure if it’s on Android. Total Mayhem is set in the Ultimate Spider-Man universe, it has no open world but a great cast of villains and voice actors, which I really liked about the title. It was a lot of fun and I really liked how beautiful the game looked on such a small screen.

Now there’s a new iOS (& Android) Spidey game based on the new movie and it is open world. I will be checking it out as soon as I can. But til then, check out some of the titles I’ve talked about here and go save the day web heads!

Next up: Spider-Man & The Movies

Spider-Days: Spider-Man & The TV

Spidey is no stranger to the good old boob tube. He started on the tv back in the 60s with “Spider-Man” which gave the world this famous song.

I really enjoyed this series because, even though the animation is very old, I loved how entertaining the stories were. Then there was the 90s animated series and to me, this series and the Spectacular Spider-Man series are both the best animated series on the character. If you were to choose only one, go with Spectacular. With Spectacular, the action is good, the love triangle between MJ, Gwen and Peter is great and the villians are awesome. Though there is MUCH MUCH more action in the 90s, it’s just I feel like there’s plotholes galore and the very end of the series raises a few questions rather than ending it out on a clear good note. 

The one series I did not like at all, (next to Ultimate Spider-Man) like this series is pure crap. It came out AFTER the first Spider-Man movie and it was based in the movie universe following Pete, MJ & Harry living their lives after the first movie. I did like Neil Patrick Harris as Spidey, the 3D animation was cool, it’s just I thought if this were to be really based in this universe. It would have had the last episode lead up to Spider-Man 2. INSTEAD, the last episode shows Peter throwing away the spidey costume in a suitcase into the river. I thought the sequel would have been cool to see Peter go back and get it. Instead we got Peter give up being Spider-Man half way through the movie. Hell, the characters don’t even look like their respectable movie actors, Harry doesn’t look like James Franco, MJ doesn’t look like Kirsten Dunst, so on and also the stories were so boring and the villians sucked like they all sucked, even Electro and Kraven sucked, I kinda liked Kingpin only because Michael Clarke Duncan reprised the role from the DareDevil film (which I say is a pretty decent film). So anyway don’t see “The New Animated Spider-Man Series”. It’s crap. 

Even Spider-Man is pissed at how bad his new show is

Now if you’ve been reading the site lately, you already know I’m not a fan of the Ultimate Spider-Man show. Well… I’m still not a fan. I tried to go with some of its changes but I’m sorry, Spider-Man does not do visual jokes. That is Deadpool’s gig. Not Spider-Mans. Ultimate Spider-Man is only good as a comic, video game and everything else that is not a TV show. Don’t watch Ultimate Spider-Man. There’s no theme song for Ultimate Spidey either. What the hell?!?!

There are a lot of other shows like that weird Japanese 70s show, Spider-Man and Friends and a few others, I just wanted to name the ones I watched.

Next up: Spidey & Video Games

Action is Your Reward During Spider-Days

He’s amazing. He’s spectacular. He’s ultimate (only in the comics). He’s the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man!

Well someone, ANYONE, must have seen this coming. I’ve been a fan of the spider as long as I can remember. I’d always watch the 60s and 90s cartoon shows growing up but I REALLY got into Spidey before the 1st movie came out. I remember seeing Ultimate Spider-Man #1 in a comic shop. I saved up a month and a half for it and after I got the comic is when the movie came out. Spideys always been there for me. The problems Peter goes through, I feel like I’ve also gone through them as well. Not as bad as him though but to celebrate Spidey’s new movie, I’m going to be doing Spider-Days. I will be putting up reviews on my Spidey comics, a second look at Raimi’s films, I’ll be talking about a few Spidey games such as Spider-Man (PS1), Ultimate Spider-Man (PS2), Shattered Dimensions & Edge of Time and more!

I’ll be doing a Spidey’s Best Story Arcs AND as a bonus I’ll be putting up a special post on what I would do differently if I were given the opportunity to write or direct my own Spidey film, cartoon, whatever. It’d be how I vision the character. Believe me true believers, my vision of the web head is a lot better than the Ultimate Spidey tv show which hopefully you don’t watch. Speaking of watch, I’ll be talking about some of Spideys appearances on the TV.

For a while now I’ve been thinking on doing a new site, a fan site just on Spider-Man and a lot of stuff surrounding him but that would be too much work. Also I can’t think of a clever original name, Spider-Fan is already taken so this is the next best thing to that. Hopefully you swing by and stick around for a while.

See what I did there? Alright, sorry for the bad puns. Either way web heads and true believers, tis a good time. Tis a very good time.

#SpiderDays

Temple Run: BRAVE – Android Review

Temple Run is a FREE game that you can get on you iPod or Android. Temple Run: BRAVE is not a full on sequel to Temple Run but more of an expansion and costs a dollar. It’s like with Angry Birds and Angry Birds Rio, not a full on sequel but more of the same old, with some changes here and there. There isn’t much changes to the scenery.

Playing this, I felt like the scenery was changed a little bit for the game. The only real thing that changes is the character and what you’re running away from. You play as the main character from the movie and you’re running away from this huge bear which can be seen in the movie’s trailers.

What they do add to the game, is a shooting mechanic, in which you don’t need to worry about trees or jumping, you just watch both sides of the hills and when you see a target, you quickly tap it. Hit all of them and you will get a bonus. There isn’t much to the unlockables and for 99 cents, I feel this should have been in an update like have the girl as a new unlockable character or purchase her as an in app purchase.

If you’re getting bored with Temple Run then check out Temple Run: BRAVE. The shooting mechanic is pretty fun and I hope that it makes it way into Temple Run 2: More Running.

 

UPDATES: YouTube, Post / Video Blogs and Movie Ideas

Alright for what feels like the millionth time for me going back up on YouTube, doing videos. I’m back on YouTube doing videos. Here’s a link to my channel…

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMikeD1992?feature=mhee

I only kept up the videos that I was fully satisfied with, so check those out when you can, subscribe, like, tweet, dig a hole, build a spaceship, do what it is you do to get stuff from the internet out to your friends and family.

I DO NOT know if it will be a regularly thing considering I’m not that great on video but for two upcoming posts that I’m working on right now. Both will be a mix of post and video. One is a walk through / review of an app I’ve had for sometime now and the other is an opinion based on video game consoles and iOS devices. I do not want to reveal what it is but if you get the idea of what it is, congrats! That’s on its way! I’ll reveal more through my Twitter until it is ready to go, so make sure to give me a follow! @Michael_Dulson

My first post / video will be a mix of review and walk through, more so of a walk through for most of the video with a tad of review at the end. There will be a FULL written review up on here and on my music blog and I’m hoping it’ll be up this weekend and if not, I’ll make it for sometime next week or weekend. You don’t have to wait long for it though! The only thing I’m going to say about my second one is it will be a post / video and will be my own opinion on video game consoles and iOS devices.

Now as for the movie ideas I have. I have two ideas I would really like to get in motion as soon as possible. One is fully written, I just need to round up some friends to get this thing going and done asap. It is a fan film based around the Temple Run game. A movie based on a game? It must be crap! Well actually…I wrote the entire thing and it is not that bad. It is a fan film mind you, not a Hollywood blockbuster. Give it credit. The other one, I will reveal a little bit later on, more about that one once I get more free time to write it up and once I get my friends on board for it. But for now, I’m gunna try and just work on the sites and the Temple Run film. I have a feeling it won’t be a very long film, maybe 20 minutes or less tops and I could get the filming done over a weekend or a week at least, I just need people who are free.

That is all I will reveal right now. That’s it for now for the 7 of you who read my blog. Thank you for sticking with me, thank you for reading and I hope you like what you read and view from me in the upcoming future! Cheers! 🙂

Battleship – Movie Review

Let me start off saying this. I have never seen the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup. I haven’t seen them in the playoffs since 2004 and we are now in a year where a board game is a movie. Now on to the review.

Battleship is stupid but it is fun. I do give credit to the team behind the movie for trying their best at bringing a board game to the big screen. That couldn’t have been an easy job but what they brought us is a fun, mindless, action, sci-fi war movie. It was like if Top Gun and Independence Day had a baby, Battleship would be that. They do give a lot of nods and easter eggs toward the board game that the movie is based off of and I think that that was really cool. 

In Battleship, there are nods to the board game where in other movies that are based on properties don’t even give nods to the property is based on. So seeing that Battleship pays tribute the board game is cool. The special effects and seeing ships getting hit, destroyed really made the movie.The acting is stupid, Liam Neeson plays angry pissed off Liam Neeson, the story is stupid, the soundtrack is freaking awesome and the special effects are just in-freaking-credible. This is more of a DVD rental but if you do see it in theatres then see it on Tuesday (It’s cheaper on Tuesday to see movies). As long as you go in with low expectations then you will enjoy Battleship.

I could watch it again, it’s not an extremely bad movie, it is bad but it’s bad that it’s good. There are MUCH worse movies out there and Battleship is much better than those. Battleship is just mindless stupid fun. I really enjoyed Battleship most cause of the rockin’ soundtrack and the special effects and seeing the nods to the board game were cool to see on the big screen too.

If you like Transformers or any action movie with high end special effects than you will most likely enjoy Battleship. If you like movies for story, characters, and you want an emotional connection to the movie then don’t see Battleship. 

I was sad to see that the line “You Sunk My Battleship” is not in the movie though but there is a line which is kinda close to that saying which was good enough for me.