The finale of one of cinema’s best-executed franchises in “Harry Potter” comes out next Friday and we are going to continue with our countdown with No. 5 on our list of least to most enjoyed, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A break from the first two films in the series, this entry offers all the wizardry we would expect thought perhaps not the punch we wanted.
As every grizzled space marine knows, July 7th is Bungie Day! The Halo Developer is fascinated on the number seven. Every year on July 7 they celebrate. This year, Bungie Day is extra special because it is Halo Developer’s 20th anniversary, and Halo’s 10th anniversary. Throughout the day, Halo Reach will have special events and prizes.
This year got off to a great
start with Dead Space 2 standing
out in January as an early contender for Game of the Year. Yet, the following months fizzled with
highly anticipated games like Dragon Age 2 disappointing fans, while critical
darlings like L.A. Noire stubbornly refused to appear on PC until later this
year. Fortunately the PC indie
scene coughed up a couple of great games in the first half of this year, giving
PC gamers something to tide us over until the blockbuster glut in the fall. Our PC Department of
Fergus Halliday, Ari RunaninTelle, Jonathan Gann and Charles Battersby panned
the river of mediocrity to find the Three Best Games of 2011 (so far).
December is no longer the only time an independent movie can succeed. Art-house cinema is a year-round enterprise, and in 2011, business has been booming. Here are some of the most respected indies of the year thus far, and their chances for Oscar recognition in 2012.
Our featured clip this
week, though quirkily named, will offer all that international intrigue fans of
spy thrillers crave with the adaptation of Tinker,
Tailor, Soldier, Spy led by Gary Oldman. Back in the saddle, so to speak,
Steven Spielberg returns to directing with War
Horse which should be good for absolutely everything. Rounding out the top
four freshest clips this week is the action-packed warring assassin flick Killer Elite with Jason Statham and
Clive Owen, and finally from director Renny Harlin comes 5 Days of War, an explosive but true-to-facts account about the
brief clash between Russia
and Georgia.
All we have here is five days worth of fun packed into one feature – it’s
Trailer Tracker.
After last week’s season opener introduced us to a wealth of new information as far as Bon Temps and the canon of True Blood goes, this week’s “You Smell Like Dinner”, followed suit. Continuing to fill in the gaps of Sookie’s missing year as well as fleshing out the present day story line to a thoroughly interesting point, Sunday’s True Blood just about perfectly set up the remainder of the season, leaving several avenues for it to follow (Or not, if it follows the books). The episode essentially revolved around two main themes: Sookie (as always) and the vampires. Sookie’s plot points largely center around the vampires as well, so at its core, it was a fang-packed week. Following on from last week’s unfinished plot threads, Jason remained a captive of were-panther Crystal’s family, and Eric had laid a claim to Sookie.
Jason’s story wasn’t touched upon nearly as much as I’d have liked, especially given how the episode opened, but in essence – Crystal is once again hooked on V thanks to her abusive boyfriend and they’re failing to have a child. Needing to carry on the were-panther bloodline, their plan is to turn Jason into one of them and then he and Crystal can be together in every sense of the word. By the culmination of the episode, Jason appears to have been turned, and as a result, one would imagine that another bizarre sex scene involving Jason Stackhouse is soon to appear on screen.
Liberty must be fought for every day, with every breath. Once your colony declares its independence from your oppressors, you can’t just roll over and take a nap. No, the price of freedom is constant vigilance, and since it’s Independence Day, let’s take a look at games where you can play as one of the greatest defenders of freedom in history: Captain America!
Suck it, Playstation fanboys, yet another game is hitting Xbox before PSN. Dead Block is a campy zombie killin’ game that will come out for XBLA on July 6th, a full two weeks before it reaches that other console.
You know what’s annoying? Not getting all the news for one publisher in one place outside of huge press releases on that publishers site. What I’ve done here for you, and really this is for your benefit, is take all of that information and condense it down onto one post that contains everything that IDW has going on right now. Fun right? Let’s begin.
Michael Bay has expanded his final Transformers movie, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, to
2.5 hours. Those extra minutes include the introduction of a half dozen
new human characters, twice as many unnamed Decepticons, and meandering
human drama and backstory. Although it drops many of the issues of the
previous sequel, it picks up quite a few issues of its own. So the final
result is mediocre. “Dark of the Moon” never rises to the level of
greatness you keep hoping for. It’s just good.
