As you all know, recent years have seen a large number of Japanese horror films being remade for American consumption. From Gore Verbinski's adaptation of The Ring to adaptations by the original director like The Grudge, we have seen a lot of these in recent years. Personally, Cinerati has been very pleased with most of the adaptations (and with the originals as well), but now it looks like America will be getting a "first run" of a Japanese horror story.
According to ICV2, we will soon be seeing an American adaptation of the Manga Parasyte, directed by Takashi Shimizu of The Grudge. The manga was released in the United States during the late 90's, but it seems has not yet been adapted to film. So maybe this will lead to a Japanese movie based on an American movie based on a Japanese Manga. Or better yet, an American movie based on a Japanese Movie based on an American movie based on a Japanese manga. The spiral is endless.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Continuing the Good Movie News! Fraggle Rock to Move to the Big Screen!
According to Movies Online one of my favorite television shows is soon to be a major motion picture. That's right, Fraggle Rock is jumping from the Silver Screen to Celluloid. It appears that the motion picture will have the Fraggles leave the Rock and come to "outer space," or as we call it "the real world." The basic narrative looks like a typical fish out of water story, but it sounds like it might be a lot of fun. Given that one of the permanent trends in Hollywood, and it is an old rather than new one, is to have a remake (Holiday Inn vs. White Christmas for those who think remakes are new) old stories, it is nice to see a "remake" of something I deeply desire to see.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Dungeons and Dragons Movie...
Welp, I saw this on Wizards' site, and here's the place for the skinny.
Hey, that promo pic looks sweet, anyway.
DND!!!!!!!
The Sci Fi channel will be premiering Dungeons & Dragons II: Wrath of the Dragon God, Saturday October 8. From scifi.com: "Five heroes undertake a quest to prevent the rise of a dragon god and an evil sorcerer -- who intend to subjugate the world under their reign of fire and shadow."
Hey, that promo pic looks sweet, anyway.
DND!!!!!!!
Monday, September 19, 2005
For I am the Pirate King!
Written by W. S. Gilbert
Composed by Arthur Sullivan
Composed by Arthur Sullivan
KING
Oh, better far to live and die
Under the brave black flag I fly,
Than play a sanctimonious part,
With a pirate head and a pirate heart.
Away to the cheating world go you,
Where pirates all are well-to-do;
But I’ll be true to the song I sing,
And live and die a Pirate King.
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
Under the brave black flag I fly,
Than play a sanctimonious part,
With a pirate head and a pirate heart.
Away to the cheating world go you,
Where pirates all are well-to-do;
But I’ll be true to the song I sing,
And live and die a Pirate King.
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
CHORUS
You are!
Hurrah for our Pirate King!
You are!
Hurrah for our Pirate King!
KING
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
CHORUS
It is!
Hurrah for our Pirate King!
KING AND CHORUS
Hurrah for the/our Pirate King!
KING
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
CHORUS
It is!
Hurrah for our Pirate King!
KING AND CHORUS
Hurrah for the/our Pirate King!
KING
When I sally forth to seek my prey
I help myself in a royal way.
I sink a few more ships, it’s true,
Than a well-bred monarch ought to do;
But many a king on a first-class throne,
If he wants to call his crown his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More dirty work than ever I do,
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
I help myself in a royal way.
I sink a few more ships, it’s true,
Than a well-bred monarch ought to do;
But many a king on a first-class throne,
If he wants to call his crown his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More dirty work than ever I do,
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
CHORUS
You are!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
You are!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
KING
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
To be a Pirate King.
CHORUS
It is!
Hurrah for our Pirate King!
Hurrah for our Pirate King!
KING AND CHORUS
Hurrah for the/our Pirate King!
Another Remake that Didn't Need to Be Made, but I Will See Anyway.
According to Contact Music the classic horror film The Omen is being remade. This time starring Liev Schreiber (He's dreamy!)and Julia Stiles as the happy parents of the Devil's child.
The original starred Hollywood heavy Gregory Peck and was directed by Richard Donner back when he could still direct (Superman, Ladyhawke, Lethal Weapon, The Omen...a list anyone would be proud of). Sadly, Donner appears to have lost the ability to direct anything appealing. Case in point? Timeline. Little had I known that 14th Century European cities looked like cheap sets. I thought they looked more like this (that the "Middle Ages" weren't primative was a point of the novel):
Anyway...the new movie will be directed by John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines and the Flight of the Phoenix remake), so this version might become an action packed extravaganza. Well...based on Behind Enemy Lines at least.
The original starred Hollywood heavy Gregory Peck and was directed by Richard Donner back when he could still direct (Superman, Ladyhawke, Lethal Weapon, The Omen...a list anyone would be proud of). Sadly, Donner appears to have lost the ability to direct anything appealing. Case in point? Timeline. Little had I known that 14th Century European cities looked like cheap sets. I thought they looked more like this (that the "Middle Ages" weren't primative was a point of the novel):
Anyway...the new movie will be directed by John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines and the Flight of the Phoenix remake), so this version might become an action packed extravaganza. Well...based on Behind Enemy Lines at least.
Swords and Skulls --- A Boardgame Review in Honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day
As was mentioned in a previous post, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It is only fitting that on such an auspicious day we here at Cinerati should do a review of material related to pirates and piracy. One could easily do a positive review of Pirates for the PC/Xbox, but if you don't own the game you are no true pirate fan! It is a must have.
No...we here at Cinerati want to guide you into places you may not have looked before to be entertained, while at the same time not being so obscure as to be overly arcane and alienate the novice gamer. With that in mind, we would like to present the following review of the Sword and Skull boardgame published by Hasbro under their Avalon Hill label.
Sword and Skull is a simple "Track Game" for two to five players with an entertaining premise:
The nefarious Pirate King has stolen Her Majesty's Ship, the Sea Hammer, pride of the Royal Navy. Furious, the Queen has offered a great reward to the person who can retrieve it. As one of the advisors to the Queen, you have chosen an officer of the Royal Navy to pursue the Pirate King. Of course, it might take a thief to catch a thief, so you've also conscripted a vicioius pirate from the Queen's dungeons.
Now they are preparing to enter the dreaded Lair of the Pirate King. Will one of them be the first to recover the Sea Hammer? Or will one of your rivals receive the Queen's reward instead?
Each player in the game is in control of two "Avatars," one Pirate and one Loyal Captain, who must find a way to bring the Sea Hammer back to the Queen. There are two ways to achieve this goal. The player can either raise enough gold to bribe the Pirate King to return the ship, or the player can defeat the Pirate King in combat forcing him to return the ship. The goals may be simple, but the accomplishing of them is not for it is good to be the Pirate King. Player's start out with little money and even less skill at arms. So each player must work their way around the track encountering various fortunes/dangers until they have sufficient lucre or puissance to attain the goal.
The "track" element of the game requires the players to move around the track in a clockwise fashion and encounter the "space." This element of the game is like a combination of Monopoly and Games Workshop's famous questing game Talisman. Sword and Skull at the same time lacks the complexity of either the games it borrows from, and adds innovation to each. It is an interesting paradox, but one that is true. As the players work around the board (pictured below), they encounter various "space" types. The two most common are "settlements" and "caves."
At settlement squares the player can recruit crew to assist in the defeat of the Pirate king. These crew members are an absolute necessity and come in three types. "Money grinders," which are similar to property in Monopoly, provide the player with gold each time another player lands on a settlement matching the color of the money grinder and everytime the player passes the fort (think Go in Monopoly. What separates money grinders from property is that only the color of space matters and not the specific name of the individual square. Some settlements have three or four squares and if you have a money grinder for the settlement you are paid by the player landing their. Naturally, multiple players may have grinders at the same settlements. The second type of character is the "buffer" who adds combat skill to either your Navy Captain or your Pirate Captain (this is distinguished by a symbol on the card). Finally, there are crew who are both money grinders and buffers. Recruiting the right crew can lead to rapid victory, but it can also irritate other players.
At caves players encounter various "monsters." These range from the simple Crocodile to Pirate Skeletons. This type of encounter is nothing surprising to your average "quest game" fan, but they have added an innovation. The difficulty of defeating each challange is based on the size of your crew, your total crew. So if your Pirate Captain has to battle a Siren and you have 6 crew members you will have a tough challenge. This is especially true if all 6 of your crew are money grinders or Navy Captain buffers. So it helps to have a balanced crew. Defeating challenges gets you items and gold, items usually help you in combat and gold helps the bribe victory.
The games that I have played were fast and furious. The rules were clear enough that any inter-player bickering was due to cards which allow one player to "steal" items from another player (note: while this adds variety to games it can add "meanness"). The end game was close and all players had a chance to win during the last stages of the game. The game is simple and combines elements from board game classics. Of the two possible victory outcomes, the most rewarding seems to be combatting the Pirate King. This is true even though the more innovative of the two is to win by bribery. At the beginning of the game everyone knows how tough the Pirate King is, but no one knows how much it will take to bribe him until the end of the game.
Click on Photo of Game Box for PDF copy of the rules from the Hasbro site.
No...we here at Cinerati want to guide you into places you may not have looked before to be entertained, while at the same time not being so obscure as to be overly arcane and alienate the novice gamer. With that in mind, we would like to present the following review of the Sword and Skull boardgame published by Hasbro under their Avalon Hill label.
Sword and Skull is a simple "Track Game" for two to five players with an entertaining premise:
The nefarious Pirate King has stolen Her Majesty's Ship, the Sea Hammer, pride of the Royal Navy. Furious, the Queen has offered a great reward to the person who can retrieve it. As one of the advisors to the Queen, you have chosen an officer of the Royal Navy to pursue the Pirate King. Of course, it might take a thief to catch a thief, so you've also conscripted a vicioius pirate from the Queen's dungeons.
Now they are preparing to enter the dreaded Lair of the Pirate King. Will one of them be the first to recover the Sea Hammer? Or will one of your rivals receive the Queen's reward instead?
Each player in the game is in control of two "Avatars," one Pirate and one Loyal Captain, who must find a way to bring the Sea Hammer back to the Queen. There are two ways to achieve this goal. The player can either raise enough gold to bribe the Pirate King to return the ship, or the player can defeat the Pirate King in combat forcing him to return the ship. The goals may be simple, but the accomplishing of them is not for it is good to be the Pirate King. Player's start out with little money and even less skill at arms. So each player must work their way around the track encountering various fortunes/dangers until they have sufficient lucre or puissance to attain the goal.
The "track" element of the game requires the players to move around the track in a clockwise fashion and encounter the "space." This element of the game is like a combination of Monopoly and Games Workshop's famous questing game Talisman. Sword and Skull at the same time lacks the complexity of either the games it borrows from, and adds innovation to each. It is an interesting paradox, but one that is true. As the players work around the board (pictured below), they encounter various "space" types. The two most common are "settlements" and "caves."
At settlement squares the player can recruit crew to assist in the defeat of the Pirate king. These crew members are an absolute necessity and come in three types. "Money grinders," which are similar to property in Monopoly, provide the player with gold each time another player lands on a settlement matching the color of the money grinder and everytime the player passes the fort (think Go in Monopoly. What separates money grinders from property is that only the color of space matters and not the specific name of the individual square. Some settlements have three or four squares and if you have a money grinder for the settlement you are paid by the player landing their. Naturally, multiple players may have grinders at the same settlements. The second type of character is the "buffer" who adds combat skill to either your Navy Captain or your Pirate Captain (this is distinguished by a symbol on the card). Finally, there are crew who are both money grinders and buffers. Recruiting the right crew can lead to rapid victory, but it can also irritate other players.
At caves players encounter various "monsters." These range from the simple Crocodile to Pirate Skeletons. This type of encounter is nothing surprising to your average "quest game" fan, but they have added an innovation. The difficulty of defeating each challange is based on the size of your crew, your total crew. So if your Pirate Captain has to battle a Siren and you have 6 crew members you will have a tough challenge. This is especially true if all 6 of your crew are money grinders or Navy Captain buffers. So it helps to have a balanced crew. Defeating challenges gets you items and gold, items usually help you in combat and gold helps the bribe victory.
The games that I have played were fast and furious. The rules were clear enough that any inter-player bickering was due to cards which allow one player to "steal" items from another player (note: while this adds variety to games it can add "meanness"). The end game was close and all players had a chance to win during the last stages of the game. The game is simple and combines elements from board game classics. Of the two possible victory outcomes, the most rewarding seems to be combatting the Pirate King. This is true even though the more innovative of the two is to win by bribery. At the beginning of the game everyone knows how tough the Pirate King is, but no one knows how much it will take to bribe him until the end of the game.
Click on Photo of Game Box for PDF copy of the rules from the Hasbro site.
Blow the Man Down!
We'll be havin' no mutineeeers over this! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So fer you scurvy dogs who sayz that Ninjas are keener than wotz Pirates is...remember ye these three things.
- Thar be no good Ninja movies. Ninja III the Domination?! Yar, ha, ha! Thar be many good Pirate movies, even recent ones like Pirates of the Carribbean! 'Tis true thar be bad pirate movies, and I enjoys me me Ninja films as much as the next mate, but I wouldn't say a one of them war good!
- Thar be no International Talk Like a Ninja day and if thar war, no one would be talkin'.
- Dead Men Tell No Tales!
Now staaart taaalking like a Pirate or walk tha plank!
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