Theatrhythm Final Fantasy en Europe

La saga Final Fantasy souffle cette année sa vingt-cinquième bougie. Pour fêter dignement l'événement, Square-Enix a sorti en février dernier Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (prononcez Theater Rhythm), au Japon du moins. Ce jeu de rythme sur 3DS propose près de soixante-dix musiques cultes tirés des treize principaux épisodes de la saga sur lesquelles il faut tapoter dans le tempo sur son écran.

Ce jeu, qui verse dans le fan-service complet et l'assume totalement, aura la chance de sortir en occident. Square-Enix vient en effet d'annoncer que le titre sortira aux Etats-Unis et en Europe cet été. L'éditeur a pour l'occasion mis en ligne un nouveau site officiel pour le jeu, pour l'instant vide, une page Facebook ainsi que quelques screenshots localisés du jeu. La date de sortie précise de Theatrhythm Final Fantasy devrait être dévoilée prochainement.

· Forum Theatrhythm Final Fantasy

Risen 2 Nouvelles images et DLC de précommande

Prévu pour la fin du mois d'avril prochain, Risen 2 : Dark Waters aura la lourde tâche de faire oublier le raz de marée Skyrim et la sortie sur console de The Witcher 2, qui aura lieu une dizaine de jours avant. Le RPG des allemands de Piranha Bytes a toutefois de beaux arguments pour lui, comme en témoigne ces nouvelles images paradisiaques issues du jeu.


Deep Silver, l'éditeur de Risen 2, précise également que les précommandes ont débuté concernant la version console. Si vous vous décidez à craquer dès maintenant, vous disposerez dès le premier jour et gratuitement d'un DLC, Treasure Isle (l'île aux trésors en bon français), une nouvelle quête comprenant une nouvelle île et permettant de faire le lien scénaristique entre le premier et le second épisode de la série et de débloquer un item légendaire (trouvable uniquement dans le DLC) qui augmentera les statistiques du joueur de façon permanente.

· Forum Risen 2 : Dark Waters

Crytek Le free to play et rien d'autre

C'est lors d'une interview accordée au site Videogamer.com que Cevat Yerli, président de Crytek, a annoncé la ligne de conduite de son entreprise.

Le développeur, à qui l'on doit un moteur de jeu fort agréable à l’œil, ainsi que quelques jeux plutôt honnêtes (Crysis), à en effet annoncé sa volonté de se consacrer uniquement au développement de jeu free to play dans un avenir proche. Cette annonce, qui ne remet nullement en cause les projets déjà engagés auprès d'éditeurs (comme Ryse avec Microsoft, qui se fait encore relativement rare), s'inscrit dans la droite lignée des projets actuels de Crytek, et notamment Warface, son FPS gratuit encore en développement.

Yerli explique cette volonté par plusieurs éléments. En premier lieu, le fait que pour Crytek, l'avenir se situe dans le jeu gratuit et en ligne. Yerli ajoute d'ailleurs qu'il souhaite que son entreprise se situe à la pointe de cette avancée, et qu'il ne lésinera pas sur les moyens. A ce titre, il assure que les jeux free to play à venir ne seront pas des jeux au rabais, et que les budgets de développements accrocheront ceux des meilleurs triple A.

Son second argument concerne la politique générale actuelle qui consiste à "traire les consommateurs jusqu'à la mort", en leur refourguant force DLC et packs premiums, avec dans le collimateur des éditeurs comme EA ou Activision. Reste à voir si le développeur aura les reins assez solides pour supporter de tels coûts de production et dans quelles proportions les contenus supplémentaires payants (armes, boost de caractéristiques et autres avantages du genre) impacteront l'expérience de jeu.

· Forum Warface

TD2 - La soluce de The Darkness 2 sur Tom's Games

Au lieu de craquer pour les habituels Modern Warfare 3 ou Battlefield 3, vos goûts en matière de FPS vous ont porté vers le très bourrin The Darkness 2. Un jeu aux qualités indéniables comme en témoigne notre test fraîchement débarqué. Vous n'avez toutefois pas attendu pour mettre la main sur la suite des aventures de Jackie Estacado.

Afin de ne rien louper de la campagne solo et de rafler toutes les reliques disséminées sur votre chemin, nous avons le plaisir de vous offrir notre solution complète pour The Darkness 2. De votre tragique dîner aux chandelles jusqu'au dénouement de votre folle histoire, notre guide ne vous lâchera pas d'une semelle, pour peu que vous lui rendiez visite à cette adresse.

· Consulter la soluce complète de The Darkness 2
· Forum The Darkness 2

2012-12-21-252

3DMark for Windows 8 to Benchmark Everything: Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, Desktops

The new benchmark is the first to support multiple iterations of DirectX - 9 and 11. This decision was made in order to support the variety of devices, which as we all know will range from high-end smartphones and tablets to ultrabooks, notebooks and desktop PCs. Given the diversity of the platforms, we had our doubts in complexity of the test scenes. However, Oliver Baltuch, President of Futuremark Corporation quickly addressed our doubts.

3DMark for Windows 8 will enable apples-to-apples comparison between ARM and X86 powered devices. Its going to be quite interesting to compare contemporary ARM products such as Nvidia Tegra or Qualcomm Snapdragon versus AMD Fusion and Intel Atom/Core processors.

3DMark will continue to feature "Entry", "Performance" and "Extreme" levels of detail, albeit the difference in detail will be larger, as previous "Entry" mode was simply too complicated for Intels embedded graphics. One of potential scenarios in 3DMark for Windows 8 would be that a tablet user sees all of the test scenes, while a graphics processor in lets say Intels earlier Core i3/i5 processors (Arrandale/Clarkdale) fails to do so.

Naturally, the reverse role applies as well, with AMD Fusion processors rendering what for instance, Qualcomm Snapdragon, NVIDIA Tegra or TI OMAP4 cannot.

The benchmark is scheduled to debut alongside Microsoft Windows 8 operating system, probably sometime during 2012.

2012-12-21-307

8600GTS Gaming Performance

Let's take a look at how the upcoming 8600GTS performs in current games, 3 gamestested.

PlatformTest Setup

CPU IntelCore 2 Duo E4300 Overclocked @ 9 x 266MHz = 2.4GHz

Motherboard

ASUSP5N-E SLI 650i SLI

Memory

2x 1GB GSkill F2-8000PHU2-2GBHZ DDR II set to run @ CL4-4-4-12, DDR2 800MHz,2T

GraphicsCard

8600GTS 745/1145

7900GT 450/660

HardDisk Drive

Seagate80GB Barracuda SATA Hard Disk Drive

PSU

SilverStoneZeus ST56ZF

OperatingSystem

WindowsXP Pro

I tested the 8600GTS at 745/1145MHz against one of theclosest card in price point, the 7900GT. The equivalent on ATi's side would beX1950 Pro but unfortunately no card at the moment so not tested with that yet. 

Drivers used is Forceware 101.02, support for all cards modded by Guru3D. Image Quality settingsused default settings in Control Panel, with maximum in-game quality settingsselected. No Anti-Aliasing applied, and 16xAF used when stated at the lastbenchmark.

“bad lieutenant port of call new orleans” floods the screen with manic, visceral intensity

I know what you’re thinking. You’re outraged. Disgusted. Maybe even mortified if you’re especially sensitive, at the very least perplexed if you’re not. What kind of a human being would incorporate a play on words about the tragic flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the title of his post? I mean, that’s just beyond tasteless, right?

Yes, it is. And yes, you should be royally pissed at me right now. That’s intentional. You see, I want you to stop reading this review. I want you to shut your computer off. Hell, if you’re not winning the lottery or getting it on with the woman (or man, as the case may be) of your dreams right now, I think you need to stop what you’re doing. You need to stop what you’re doing, get in your car, on the train, on the bus, on your feet, whatever — and get down to the theater and see “Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans.” It’s just that good. Whatever else you’ve got going on can wait. In fact, I’ll even helpfully stop the review right here so you can get back to it after you return.

Long pause.

Followed by another long pause.

And another.

Then a final, really long one.

Okay, back? Good, welcome back.? Great stuff, wasn’t it? Now let’s continue, shall we?

I’m a lot like you, dear reader. When I first heard that independent film legend Werner Herzog was working on a “reimagining” of Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant,” my first reaction was “why?” I mean, it’s not like it’s a movie that necessarily has “remake” or “sequel” written all over it. Like most of Ferrara’s stuff, it’s a pretty singular work that doesn’t exactly scream out for a fresh set of eyes to reinterpret it. And Harvey Keitel’s performance — I mean, shit, how are you gonna top that? Hell, how are you gonna even come close to equaling it? Why try? What’s the point?

Well, there wouldn’t be any point. And Herzog knows that. And to his credit, he doesn’t even try to go that route. This new “Bad Lieutenant” only tangentially relates to the first in that it explores the same theme of a monumentally crooked and sleazy cop trying to crack a big case in the midst of a tremendous, and entirely self-inflicted, downward spiral in his life.? Apart from that, the two have nothing to do with each other. Gone are the obsessive visual and thematic references to Catholic iconography and catechism. The setting has been transposed from New York to a just post-Katrina New Orleans (well, technically the first scene takes place as the flood waters are rising, then we jump ahead six months,? into the city’s? “rebuilding” — and Dear Lord do I use that term loosely — period). Hell, even the main character has a different name, different set of life circumstances, different everything. In truth, the only reason I think Herzog stuck with the title is because otherwise audiences would have come out of the theater saying “you know, that one kinda reminded me of? ‘Bad Lieutenant’” — so by invoking the original so plainly he’s able to, at the very least ironically if not downright perversely, have this film taken as a more stand-alone work than if he had just called it something. File that under “go figure.” (And file this under “go figure,” as well — and probably of interest to absolute obsessives (who? me?) only (and it shouldn’t even be to us) — the title of this film in all the posters and other advertising is listed as “Bad Lieuteanant : Port of Call New Orleans,” while the opening credits read “The Bad Lieutenant Port Of Call : New Orleans.”)

The next thin your reviewer found a bit suspect in the pre-production stages, after wondering just why Herzog was even making this thing at all, was the casting of Nicolas Cage in the lead. Cage is a bit of an enigma, isn’t he? I mean, here’s a guy capable of delivering mind-blowingly good, once-in-a-generation performances in films like “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Lord of War” and “The Weatherman,” yet also of absolutely mailing it in, so to speak, in drivel like “Next” or the atrocious remake of “The Wicker Man.” In between the two poles we have his numerous stints as, either literally or essentially, a second-rate Elvis impersonator.

Needless to say, the end result on display here proves my worried were entirely groundless, as the best always are. Cage is in absolute top form here, giving arguably the very best performance of his entire career. He’s wiry, main, and absolutely seething with, to quote my own headline, visceral intensity. He doesn’t sweat whether or not he’s sometimes so frightfully over the top that his performance reaches caricature-like levels — hell no, instead of tiptoeing up to that metaphorical line in the sand, he rubs and smears it out with his shoe and stomps all over the spot where it used to be just for good measure. He’s absolutely fucking gone as? drugged-up, degenerate gambler (and, oh yes, cop) Terence McDonagh, and he doesn’t look back. Keep up with him if you can.

And herein lies another crucial difference between the two “Bad Lieutenant”s. In Ferrara’s version, Keitel is just completely foul. He’s not what you’d call charismatic or engaging in the least (not that I’m saying this is a bad thing, it’s exactly the type of performance that was absolutely required in the “first” film). He’s already lost. The central thematic question in the “original”, therefore, is whether or not a guy who’s absolutely beyond all hope of redemption can still find it, if not earn it, by bringing to justice the scumbags who brutally gang-rape a nun. And frankly, whether or not he even should since she’s already forgiven them herself. It’s taking place on an entirely different psychological playing field than Herzog’s film, because in this there is still some, God help me for thinking this but it’s true, likable insanity in Cage’s character. He’s got dangerous, maybe even death wish-style reckless charisma oozing out of him on a goddamn cellular level. In that respect, one could argue that this new “Bad Lieutenant” is somewhat more accessible than Ferrara’s version, because McDonagh still has enough (barely) on the ball to pull himself out of his living nightmare if he really wants to. But damn, with lines like ” I thought it was coke but it turned out to be heroin and I gotta be at work in an hour,” and “Shoot him again! His soul is still dancing!” you gotta wonder if he isn’t enjoying his ride to hell waaaayyyy too fucking much to stop the ride.

And that’s the brilliance (and I loathe the unearned overuse of that word way more than you can possibly imagine) of Cage’s performance here in a nutshell : he’s a coiled snake that you know will strike at any moment, and you can’t decide whether you’re dreading that or looking forward to it. Then you realize you’re doing both.

The nominal plot of the film itself concerns Cage’s investigation of a brutal execution-style murder of a family of Senegalese immigrants, but as with Ferrara’s earlier effort, Herzog here concentrates far more on the backdrop this story plays out in front of (or, more accurately given the focus here, behind) — that of McDonagh’s exhilarating and dreadful descent into madness. Our guy Terry does everything a bad cop oughtta do : shakes down suspects for cash and drugs, gets in gambling debt up his eyeballs, rips shit off from the police property room, smokes crack, snorts coke, drinks booze, skips out of town, runs a thoroughly crooked investigation, helps the bad guys, screws around on his girlfriend (who’s a hooker herself, played by Cindy Craw—err, Eva Mendes), and worse. And while he doesn’t consistently engage in the type of outright abusively soulless depravity that Keitel did in the “original,” he pulls off one stunt so hopelessly fucked-up-beyond-all-reason that even old Harvey would probably blush.

The decision to set the story in the ravaged post-Katrina Big Easy really pays dividends, as well. Not only is it thematically appropriate on a pretentious “film scholar” asshole level (rising metaphorical flood threatens to swallow main character ), but the overall atmosphere of a decimated Third World-style “law enforcement” operation (although from what I understand the New Orleans cops weren’t exactly famous for honesty and integrity pre-flood, either) gives ample narrative “breathing space”? (did I just badmouth pretentious “film scholar” assholes a minute ago? I should have read ahead to the point where I sounded just like one — except I hadn’t written it yet. But I digress — as regular readers of this blog, if any such creatures exist,? know I so often do) to the idea of a situation where a guy like McDonagh could actually get away with some of this shit. On a purely aesthetic level, I’ve gotta congratulate Herzog, as well, for his decision to shoot this movie on an apparently cheaper grade of film stock than normal. It gives the whole flick an added level of immediacy and realism that a slicker overall appearance just couldn’t maintain. It’s a grimy story about a grimy guy shot in a way that looks grimy. Well played, Werner.

The rest of the cast holds up pretty well, too. While I’m sure nobody was dying to see a reunion of the principal players in “Ghost Rider,” Mendes does a nice turn as McDonagh’s high-priced hooker/junkie girlfriend, Frankie, Cage’s fellow Elvis-worshiper Val Kilmer is solid as his almost-as-crooked-as-he-is onetime parner, now subordinate, Stevie, the always-underappreciated Vondie Curtis-Hall turns in a seasoned pro’s performance as McDonagh’s commanding officer, rapper Xzibit is seriously bad-ass awesome as crime boss “Big Fate,” the (again always) underappreciated Brad Dourif turns in another dead-on perfect (because he always is) portrayal, in this case as McDonagh’s understandably impatient small-time bookie Ned, solid vet Tom Bower puts in? a solid vet turn as Terance’s ex-cop, ex-alcoholic father, Pat, and the (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) always underapp—forget it, I won’t even go there, I’ll just say Jennifer Coolidge has deserved a best supporting actress Oscar a couple of times now (and no, I’m not talking about her turn as Stifler’s Mom, although she sure is a million miles away from MILF territory in this movie — truth be told, I was thinking specifically of her roles in the various Christopher Guest-helmed ensemble/improv comedies, particularly “Best In Show”) and she’s an absolute scene-stealer here as Pat’s still-alcoholic second wife, Genevieve.

So what we’ve got here, folks, is essentially the ultimate “bad cop” movie, and quite likely the best film of the year, period. It’s certainly going to take one hell of an effort to top it. Even Herzog’s usual, and frankly in other films sometimes jarring, asides into purely interpretative realms of surrealism (just what are the giant iguanas about? Each viewer will probably have a different explanation) work here since by the time he goes there, he’s already established such a forceful groove (do those two words seem incompatible together? I assure you they’re not) that you’re just willing to go with his frantically rushing flow.

And that’s it. I’m all out of praise to lavish on this movie. It grabs you from the word go and never lets up. It’s absolutely exhiliratingly debauched and I loved the hell out of it. All I can do at this point is tell you one more time? to rush right out and see it. But there’s no need for that because you already have. Right?

“pieces” — two great taglines, one bloody mess-terpiece

The obscure 1982 Spanish-lensed slasher “Pieces” (titled “Mil Gritos Tiene La Noche” in its home country) is blessed with two tag lines so good that no film deserves them both — “You Don’t Have To Go To Texas For A Chainsaw Massacre!” and “It’s Exactly What You Think It Is!” And even though both statements are (how’s this for a rarity?) absolutely true, the fact is that it’s still tough to live up to a pair of slogans that frigging cool. “Pieces” gives it a good effort, though, and sometimes succeeds even in spite of itself.

“Pieces,” you see,? is a movie absolutely unconcerned with doing anything else apart from delivering the goods — the goods in this case being, of course, gut-churningly bloody mutilation and dismemberment in enormous quantity, with plenty of gratuitous nudity thrown into the mix to keep the audience in their seats even when no one is getting killed. In pursuit of that (some would say noble, I suppose) goal, director Juan Piquer Simon (“Cthulhu Mansion” and the MST3K favorite “Pod People,” among others) is willing to sacrifice anything and everything along the way—plot coherence, acting professionalism, basic safety standards, even any shred of dignity itself (upon finding out that one of his actresses got really petrified at the idea of a chainsaw in close pr0ximity to her—understandable enough—Simon had his chainsaw-wielding killer corner her, run the thing right up next to her, and filmed her? her literally pissing her pants with fear)? are all obstacles in the way of? giving the audience exactly what they’re paying for.

In a way, one can’t blame Simon and the other folks behind the scenes of “Pieces.” 1982 was, after all, the height of the slasher phenomenon, and to stand out amongst all the Michael- and Jason-inspired clones out there, you really had to up the ante, and “Pieces” sure does that. Even today the level of gore on display here is pretty damn shocking. The flick’s openly-noticeable lack of concern for anything apart from grotesque murder, though, almost undermines the sheer bloody-mindedness of their efforts, though—almost.

Our story begins in the early 1940s, when a young boy is assembling a jigsaw puzzle of a naked girl in his bedroom. He’s caught by his mother, though, who throws an absolute fit, demands he get rid of the thing immediately, accuses him of being exactly like his deadbeat, no-good father, and says she’ll be back in a minute to ransack through all his stuff and get rid of any other “filth” she finds. Upon her return, though, the boy decides he doesn’t like that idea so much and chops her to bits with an axe. When a neighbor lady arrives for a visit, the boy hides in the closet, and soon said neighbor and the police are calling on the phone (a touchtone in 1942?) and then barging in by force, whereupon they quickly find our precocious lad’s handiwork and, in short order, the boy himself, who tells them a man burst in and chopped his mother to bits while he hid himself away. They buy his story with no questions asked and arrange to turn him over to the care of some relatives.

Fast-forward 40 years and we’re at an unnamed college campus purportedly in the Boston (actually Madrid) area, where a young lady on a skateboard is completely unaware of the fact that a couple of movers up the block are hauling a large wall-sized mirror into their truck. She can’t stop her downhill momentum until it’s too late, though, and crashes into the glass, screaming and sending broken shards flying in every direction. Yes, folks, our killer is back in action! What’s that, you say? This has more the look or a totally random and tragic accident than any sort of premeditated killing? Well, that’s the kind of movie “Pieces” is— one where complete and utter happenstance is supposed to be taken as a part of a dastardly masterplan. It’s called “suspension of disbelief” and you, my friend, are just thinking too hard.

Soon we learn that our mystery murderer is, in fact, trying to complete his jigsaw puzzle from 40 years ago, only this time with real human body parts rather than cardboard segments. Who among the cast we are introduced to is our mystery maniac, though? The mild-mannered Dean of the college? Professor Brown, a homosexual anatomy teacher? Kendall (Ian Sera), the dorkiest ladies’ man you ever saw whose dates have a habit of winding up at the business end of the killer’s chainsaw? Willard the groundskeeper (portrayed by the great Paul Smith), a guy who loves to polish his sawblade and gives everyone the “evil eye” quite literally all of the time?

Does it really matter? Of course not, because “Pieces” never even makes the slightest effort to get us to give a damn about this purported little “mystery.” Instead, it’s doling out blood, boobs, and viscera by the bucketful. We’ve? got naked coeds sawed up at the side of swimming pools, cut in half inside elevators, sliced to—well—pieces on waterbeds, shred up in broad goddamn daylight in the middle of the park—anywhere you can kill somebody, our guy does it, and with a hell of a lot of gusto. He doesn’t care about making noise (why should he? This is evidently a college where the sound of a running chainsaw doesn’t attract much attention of any sort) or leaving a mess. He just wants to complete his puzzle by any and every means at hand.

The blood and guts are all of the “just picked this shit up at the slaughterhouse” variety, and like all abattoir-purchased gore they’re quite effective precisely because of their obvious cheapness. Fifty bucks at the butcher shop gets you a lot bigger—and better—selection of gory entrails than thousands paid to the best make-up and effects men has always been your host’s humble opinion. So kudos to Simon and the “Pieces” production team for not sparing in this department and giving us all the putrescence we can handle and then some.

While the gore is extremely well-realized, though, the same cannot be said of the investigation into the killings that becomes central to the movie’s “plot.” Our crack team of police professionals includes grizzled veteran Lt. Bracken (Christopher George of “City Of The Living Dead” and “The Exterminator,” among a million other B-movie credits), undercover agent/tennis pro Mary Riggs (George’s real-life wife, Lynda Day—who knew the cops had secret operatives working the women’s pro tennis tour?), and—the aforementioned super-poor-man’s Casanova Kendall, who Bracken instinctively trusts for no apparent reason to the point where he asks him to put his life on the line on numerous occasions and to “watch over” Mary while she’s working her undercover assignment on campus, and to whom he grants access to highly confidential police files and records without so much as a second thought. I know we hear a lot about police budget cuts and manpower shortages, but please!

Oh, wait, there I go, thinking again—and if there’s one thing you simply can’t afford to do if you want to “enjoy” this movie, it’s think.

Along the not-so-twisting-and-turning path of “mystery” that “Pieces” takes us on, we do get some truly great scenes, even if they’re all pretty unintentional. Lines like “the most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a? waterbed at the same time,” for instance, should be enshrined in movie history right up there with “here’s looking at you, kid.” And the English-language dubbing is so comically inept that the film can be watched a second (or tenth, or whatever) time through just for the entertainment value inherent in that alone. The plot holes are massive enough to drive an 18-wheeler through unscratched. A scene where the school’s “kung fu professor” (yes, you read that right) attacks Mary for no reason whatsoever and blames it on “bad chop suey” making him black out and lose his mind is more awesome than just about anything else ever filmed. Paul Smith is out of this world as the leering, psychotic-appearing Willard. ? And like I’ve mentioned a million times already, the cheap gore is both plentiful and plenty sickening.

Our final verdict here, then, is that this is, indeed, exactly what you think it is. Certainly no more — clearly? nothing apart from producing the most extreme gorefest possible on pretty much no budget mattered one iota to Simon and company—but no less, either. “Pieces” is hardly a unique, original, or even particularly professional entry into the slasher oeuvre, but it sets itself one goal and one goal only and tears into it like a hungry dog with a raw steak — and you sort of can’t help but admire watching that play out in front of you.

And as for the ending—well, I’m not going to say a damn thing. I’m just not. You really have to? see it for yourself. About six times. And you still won’t understand what the fuck they were thinking. But hey—no less an authority than Eli Roth says it’s the greatest ending in movie history, so what do I know?

After being available for years only in a low-rent, direct-transfer-from-VHS, bare-bones DVD from Diamond, “Pieces” was released in a colossally cool two-disc set from Grindhouse Releasing late last year. In addition to a top-notch high-res digitally remastered anamorphic transfer, the set also boasts tons of lengthy, in-depth interviews with Paul Smith and Juan Piquer Simon, an original Spanish soundtrack? option with original score (the English-version score being composed entirely of library tracks), a massive set of productions stills and advertising poster art from around the world, a whole bunch of? hidden “easter eggs,” and, in lieu of a commentary track (whoch would, I admit, have been nice), we get a pretty cool soundtrack option Grindhouse labels “The Vine Theater Experience,” which is a live recording of a screening of the film at the Vine theater in Hollywood a few years back, and it’s a lot of fun to give it at least one listen and check out all the (5.1-mixed) audience reactions to what they’re seeing on the screen. And,? as a final added plus, there’s a great liner notes essay by legendary horror journalist Chas Balun. All in all, an extremely worthwhile addition to your exploitation DVD library.

indie sidebar “black swan”

I’m just gonna come right out and say it — am I the only person who was just a little bit disappointed with this flick?

I know, I know — after Natalie Portman walking off with the best actress award at the Golden Globes last night this hardly puts me in the “popular opinion” camp. And I don’t want to slag her performance off in the least. She’s really solid as a hyper-competetive ballerina losing herself into the darker side of her starring role in “Swan Lake” and trying to hold onto her sanity as she explores a side to her nature she’s always kept under control. When she truly lets herself go and become the titular black swan, the resulting transformation from calm, cool, and collected to ferociously alluring is downright incredible . And so was everyone else in it, to be honest. Mila Kunis is terrific as her possiblly-looking-to-usurp-her “friend.” Vincent cassel is by turns understandably creepy and flat-out creepy as her boss at the ballet. Winona Ryder — who I didn’t even know was in the film — is great as the mentally-and-physically broken former lead dancer of the troupe. And Barbara Hershey turns in possibly the stongest performance in the entire film as Portman’s neurotic mother.

In addition, director Darren Aronofsky is back in top form here. After losing himself underneath heaping mountains of auteurism in The Fountain and then reigning in his strong visual and stylistic instincts a bit too much with The Wrestler, he really seems to have found his voice again here and turns in his best directorial effort since Requiem for a Dream. Aronofsky has a very real talent for bringing out the best in all his performers — always has — and that’s never been on display more grandly than it is here.

So why did I leave the theater feeling? a bit flat about the whole thing? Good question.

Maybe it’s just that my expectations had been pumped up so high — in fact, I’m sure that’s a big part of it, and it’s not fair in the least to judge Black Swan based on all the incredible buzz that’s been swirling around it. Hey, they can’t help it if people loved the movie and have been saying so at top volume. But mostly, I think, what left me feeling a little bit lukewarm to the proceedings was the fact that this type of story has been done before and, frankly, better.

Both Roman Polanski’s criminally-underrated The Tenant and, more recently, David Lynch’s Inland Empire dealt with similar subject matter — sure, in The Tenant the title character was “turning into” his dead predecessor in the apartment, aided and abetted (perhaps) by the other residents of the building, but the idea of losing oneself in another persona was the same. And with Inland Empire the parallels are even more striking, as Laura Dern and Justin Theroux literally find themselves becoming the characters they’re portraying in a film production.

So I guess my main “beef,” if you will, with Black Swan is that this isn’t particularly new thematic territory to be mining, and it’s following in the footsteps of some better — if less universally-lauded — work that concerned itself with largely the same type of thing.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression here — I definitely think this is a film most folks will enjoy the heck out of and that everyone should see. the striking performances alone are more than worth it. But if I could offer just one piece of advice, it would be this — temper your expectations a bit. There’s plenty to enjoy here, but there’s nothing actually new going on.