Have you ever seen a movie so bad that it’s amazing? Nick Kroll (The
League & Kroll Show) joins Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason
Mantzoukas for another live taping of their award winning podcast, "How Did This Get Made?" at LARGO on February 13th.
They will be discussing "FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY: The American Idol Movie."
Make sure you watch the movie before you come to the taping, and stick
around for the exclusive premiere of BURNING LOVE Season 2.
Seats will be assigned beginning at 6:30pm, Doors open for drinks at 7pm, Showtime 8:30pm.
You have plenty of time to sign up and prepare for your wizard cruise, which won't be until Thanksgiving of this year. The First Annual Whimsic Alley Wizard Cruise on Princess Cruise Line's The Golden
Princess is departing Los Angeles, November 27,
2013. The full details of how to join the fun and costs can be found here
Just the thought of more than 500 wizards on a cruise ship is a funny.
In seems Natalie and I are too busy this week to do the podcast going over the animation for the Annie's, but we will be covering the award show Saturday. What are the Annie Awards? Well, if you've been following the site for the few years you would know they're animation awards. This is an award show for the field of cartoon makers for television, film and even video games. Since we won't be doing a podcast I'll be going over some of the nominees that gain my interests or maybe shoot some factoids or opinions on who was chosen. First off, unlike the last few years the Annie's will have four hosts: movie reviewer Leonard Maltin, voice actors Rob
Paulsen (Yakko, Animaniacs) & Maurice Lamarche (Brain, Pinky and the Brain) and Robot Chicken's Seth Green. Taking place Saturday, February 2 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Categories and nominees
BestAnimated Video Game
Borderlands 2 – Gearbox Software
Family Guy – Back to the Multiverse – Heavy Iron Studios
Journey – Sony Computer Entertainment America
Skullgirls – Lab Zero Games/Reverge Labs
Wow, it should be between Skullgirls and Journey. There were so many more nominees last year, it's kind of sad so few are in it this year. Family Guy has no right to be on this list other than being based on a cartoon. The reviews of this game have been so negative and just the way it looks compared to the others. Journey is simple beautiful, while Skullgirls strange animations and designs set it apart than a dog shooting a gun at cripples, which does haven in Family Guy. I do like sick humore, but that does compensate for the same old third person gameplay.
I will give that Borderlands 2 has it's own set style and created it's own story universe, but I can't say I could pick it apart from all the other titles happening in a post-apocalyptic world in video games.
Best Animated Feature
I hope Wreck-It Ralph wins, it's my favorite of the nominees of 2012. A meta fun look at video games for a bad guy. I would hope Disney would make Sugar Rush a real game series, but with the layoffs there having in Disney Games I doubt it. There are some fairly bad films such as The Pirates! Band of Misfits up for this. It was such a poorly paced and thin story. The titles in Europe show the lack of story "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!". Sad, because Ardman animation has done such great titles in the past.
Best Animated Short Subject
Paperman from Pixar should win. I don't know how Bill Plympton's Couch Gag can even be considered or any couch gag counts as a separate piece of animation from The Simpsons. Bill Plympton is a great animator, but not for this.
Best Animated Television Commercial
None? That's a bit sad, were there no new animated commercials?
Best Animated Television Production For Children
Adventure Time's Princess Cookie should win. This was such a different episode of Adventure Time as it became a story of a police stand off and Jake having Stockholm syndrome for a crazy cookie who is male, but wished to become Princess. I doubt, think it'll win just because Adventure Time has been nominated multiple times in different categories, but has never one once at the Annies
Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in a Live Action Production
Well, there was the Avengers and then...uhh Battleship
Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding in an Animated Television or other Broadcast Venue Production
I'd like it if anyone from Adventure Time won, but Goliad was a much stronger episode. Teenage Mutant Turtles is surprisingly well done for CGI.
Outstanding Achievement, Voice Acting in an Animated Television or other Broadcast Venue Production
James Patrick Stuart as Private ‘Penguins of Madagascar: High Moltage’ – Nickelodeon Animation Studios
Kristen Schaal as Mabel Pines ‘Gravity Falls: Tourist Trapped’ – Disney TV Animation
Patrick Stuart is coming to the show, so I think he's winning just for that reason. Kristen Schaal is my top pick for perfect annoying sister vibe in Gravity Falls
Outstanding Achievement, Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production
Adam Sandler as Dracula ‘Hotel Transylvania’ – Sony Pictures Animation
Alan Tudyk as King Candy ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ – Walt Disney Animation Studios
I just hope Adam Sandler doesn't win, really just a veteran voice actor should have voiced Dracula, but he funded the thing. Alan Tudyk did a great job and shows he can play quite different roles, did you know he was the voice of Sonny the robot in I, Robot?
NeverDead is a great concept for a game. When an immortal hero takes enough damage he'll lose a leg or a limb or even his head, but he can still roll a round and collect himself like a Katamari ball of a hacked up murder victim. He can even regenerate those limbs over time. Yet, the fun concept of the game is in no way the poorly executed pile of poo that's now only $11 after a year since it release. Now I know this review is out of date from it's release, but I'd rather no one pick this up for cheap, because of how bad this game is.
It started off fun enough for me, but by the second level the monotony of killing the same enemies, poor story, you're saving a pop star, which is a very Japanese plot device that happens hundreds of times in animes just gets to you. Incredibly unfair boss fights with poor programming causing bosses to knock you apart gets you angry as you have to keep pulling yourself together, while at the same time other little demons can eat you and it takes even longer to reassemble.
I found myself not knowing where to go or what to do constantly as the game will never repeat itself on your objective or tell you what to do more than once. It can be very hard when you have to rip off your head, then regenerate your body to reach another area, which sounds like a fun game mechanic until you realize you don't know where your suppose to go. The worst level was the subway, at one point subway cars kept coming back and forth in a small enclosed area requiring me to dodge them, but not causing and damage for my enemies. This has happened many other games, but I've never had to deal with having an AI with me, which can't tell which side to move to. If my dumb blonde, poorly written sex object of a partner gets hit and dies, it's game over. Funny enough, the new Devil May Cry had a subway section and it took the smarter course of you being able to throw your enemies into the passing subway cars to take damage. You could still get hurt, but you could simply dodge the car. Then there's the odd unlocking of abilities which should just be fully unlocked over time. Instead you suffer from not being allowed to unlock or keep that many fun abilities like when you're on fire, shooting fire bullets. Once again the new Devil May Cry did an excellent job with abilities to unlock in comparison and being only a year apart is quite sad. Pacing was also unkind as levels just kept going and should have been separated into shorter pieces. Each level must be an hour or something ridiculous for the run and gun action game. I'm not going to get into how stupid the dialogue was, but saying f*ck or having head quips when you become decapitated get old. Problems that should have been fixed at the testing stage make the game seemed rushed towards the end. It's simply not worth the time to even check out. Konami Looking at Konami's recent release catalog you see the same old titles and for fairly cheap. The Silent Hill series has been disliked by critics and fans over the latest releases. Recent HD re-releases have been questioned for poor frame rate and running slower than they did on their original systems.
The future looks oddly optimistic with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Mirror Fate for 3DS and Metal Gear Rising "REVENGEANCE", stupid title. However, the demo for Revengeance was horrible, a big step back for Platinum Games, but fans may give it a try. Castlevania might be well received on 3DS with so little titles to choose from.
I have no idea how Konami is staying afloat with such mediocre series. They can release as many games from Metal Gear as they want, many are planned, but it isn't going to do much, but just make the same titles and if the only new ones they offer are as annoying as NeverDead I think they may end up like THQ.
Dim Mak Studios 6356 Hollywood Blvd Hollywood, CA 90028
Check out some animation and see it get it voted on, great event before the Annie Awards.
"Loopdeloop are going global! We will be having our first star spangled super special screening in our new home of Hollywood on Thursday January 31st 2013.
The screening will feature a star studded cast of celebrity judges: ... - Weird Al Yankovic
"For the third year in a row, Pacific Asia Museum invites the community to a pan-Asian celebration of Lunar New Year, a holiday celebrated by many cultures across Asia and the Pacific Islands.
We are proud to host the Jiangsu Cultural Week delegation of artists and performers from Jiangsu Province, China, for this event. This delegation will also be at the museum on Thursday, January 31 and Friday, February 1 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. with a performance by Xiao Hong Hua at 11 a.m. More information is on our Events Guide"
Printed Matter presents the first annual LA Art Book Fair, from February 1-3, at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. An opening will be held on the evening of Thursday, January 31.
Free and open to the public, the LA Art Book Fair is a unique event for artists’ books, art catalogs, monographs, periodicals, and zines presented by 220 international presses, booksellers, antiquarians, artists, and independent publishers from twenty-one countries.
I finally get the cast choice of Adam Sandler as Dracula for Hotel Transylvania, he paid for it. Adam was executive producer and with that power got his friends into all the voice actor roles. So you have a extremely well animated feature by Genndy Tartakovsky with terrible voice-acting and mediocre story. Kids we'll like it, but it's nowhere as deep as some of the older Pixar films.
Who doesn't love a ball? Possibly people whose legs have been cut off. In celebrating Edward Gorey why not dress up and have a night out surrounded by people who are also dressed up and hopefully have both legs to dance with.
Here I'd just like to say anyone without legs is still very welcome, but if you have legs, but are in the vehicles for the overly weight I'd recommend classing it up for a bit for the ball, maybe decorating it.
There looks to be some fascinating stage shows and musical acts while you may dance or just be entertained. It being LA I have no doubt that there will be some very impressive attire. If you're sick of the bar scene, why not try this for one night.
Ian Condry takes us through the anime industry with his live accounts from seating in on the meetings of major studios to thoughtful, yet sometimes odd looks at the modern anime industry.
From the cover alone you might want to pick it up as Eva unit 1 is walking across Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa, but inside is a rich look into how anime is created and who works behind it. In explaining anime beyond the cover inspiring with themes of old Japan and modern animation we have many adventures of Ian meeting with people who are in the field of anime. Ian spent time with major studios such as Gonzo and Studio 4°C explaining the create collaborative process of each. Sometimes he interviews a creator or small group. He has a fascinating look into the animation group of m&k who at first are introduced providing just simple short cartoons involving one character per episode in about a minute or less cartoon and there second cartoon series about a turn-key samurai. Both shows spawned a lot of merchandise and memorable characters that have gained many fans. What we learn is how involved the creators get and some deeper meaning to the characters involved even though their designed for children. An entire world had to be created for the latter series that had to follow m&k's vision of how we interact with everyday objects.
Larger studios are a also visited. Here Ian brings up some great differences with American
animators and Japanese animators. Japanese animators are given a much
worse deal. They don't have unions out there,
leading to horrible work hours. Ian compared a tour he had of Cartoon Network's
animation studio to a Japanese studio and how people are treated is
quite different.
A part from Chapter 5's that stood out
was how a meeting with subordinates went in an anime studio. It was mostly a chewing out session where someone above the in-between animators or lower people
working on the show just complains and yells at them. It also seems like the structure of the company needs revising. Even though animes do get finished it
seems like a much harder torture than the animators here. The torture doesn't just come from the long hours and low pay for those in lower departments, but just the way people are treated.
The book tries to put a more metaphysical take on how anime is made and consumed. The social energy thing brought up seems more like a marketing scheme, but the depth of the book is Ian teaching us about anime from his experiences. In the "Dark Energy" chapter he fully explains how anime from Japan is put up online by fans and subtitled and gorged upon by online viewers across the globe without permission by the owners. This is of course illegal, but Ian brings up points on both sides of why it's good and bad. He does point out the reasons it's brought over to the US, such as the time it takes for a series from Japan to get license in America, dubbed and then finally made available for purchase.
There's a (my eyes just looked up in the air) thoughtful way he tries to put it together through a fan made "Dark Energy" of wanting to share, it really diminishes what he was telling us through simple facts. The "Dark Energy" idea with how people subtitle anime and put it online
illegally, was his painful way of exploring the issues, but not
giving a real opinion if it's right or wrong just more back and forth even in his conclusion.
The Soul of Anime couldn't be a more apt title, because through Ian's experiences with real anime studios we learn how it's made, the work that goes into and the way it spreads through different levels of media. We also get ideas on how it should be treated as a form of media by both people making money off it and the people buying it for pleasure. There's some history lessons to learns if you ever want to know the full back story of how anime started out and changed over the years too.
Ian quotes many other books exploring anime and Japanese culture that
reminded me I'm kind of well read in the subject. At some points the quotes are so often that it makes me wish he just wrote out his
thoughts on the subject instead.
The Soul of Anime covers a wide area of all things anime, but doesn't even cover some of the best or well known series in depth. It covers the fundamentals about the entire industry. I would have wanted a more adventurous style of Ian's exploits, meeting the individuals and companies involved with more flair, but instead you have an engaging text none the less on what anime is.
Oh Mr. Trost, what have you done to the super hero genre? Right after I watched this film I watched Headshot from Thailand and FP which seemed like much better done films. From the trailer you had me Mr. Trost, the concept of four heroes beating the crap out of each other to save innocent victims from a super villain, you had me, but the actual film has little of that action. Many people will argue, well it was of very small budget. I'd argue it had nothing to do with that and sometimes writing, dialogue and story can easily save the day.
Some scenes I loved: the fight between Charge and Cutthroat and the ending fight with bad guys wearing animal costumes. Then just a few seconds, a sister being blown up, a flamethrower Uncle Sam played by a nerd actor I've seen in the background of a ton of films. That was it, the start was getting me interested, but sort of lead nowhere.
Four heroes wake up, don't know where they are, have some dead bodies around them and have lost their powers. Sounds so good so far. It turns out a super villain who doesn't have a super villain costume has trapped them and will make them play his game or innocent people will die. He's not playing fair.
Charge who was the leader of this disbanded team which has been forced back together, does carry the leader role, you have an angry ex-subordinate with Cutthroat and then the love interest...aaerarartaasthgasqgts. Why put in a love interest? Shadow or the dumbest female hero ever constantly pissed me off. She needed to be protected, didn't help a friend when they were being killed even though she easily could have done something and in general was stupid. Cutthroats's anger issues had me rooting for him and created some nice tension in the group. Wall was a wall of acting and nothing. Charge at the start was a smart leader. He used his head and grabbed a map and a backpack for supplies. He had sort of the gamer/rpg fans knowledge to come up with a plan. The rest of his team were idiots.
There were dark moments here and there. People got blown up, but I didn't connect with those people nor was any of their deaths that horrific. Being blown up is awful, but there's no impact while watching as a explosion happens off camera or doesn't show anything more than a blast. It lacks the edge you were expecting from an indie film that could do whatever nasty things it wanted.
5 Minutes is all the time you need
Trapped in a city, a small city but quite a few blocks on the map that Charge carries requires 5 minutes of walking to get anywhere. Not running as I never see the heros do this, but walking when lives are in danger. It doesn't matter where you are in this town, because 5 minutes will get you from the wood mill to the dry cleaners to the edge of town easily. Would it have been so hard to write some different times, it just made it seem silly.
What's going on with the flashbacks
In one flashback that comes out of nowhere Charge is eating a taco and it's suppose to be a touching moment on the team coming together to fight bad guys. Flashbacks are in back and white which is a fine choice and are usually there for the audience to learn something about the characters that's important. None of the flashbacks were needed and seemed out of place in the film. No real back story is gained and they all kind of remind me of drugs are bad videos I'd watch in school.
The thing with the eye
Something is wrong with Mr. Trost's right eye. I bring it up, because of the great lengths he uses in cinematography to cover up that fact in this film. I suggest making a drinking game every time Charge/Trost's eye is blocked. Be it sunglasses, someones head, being out of focus or what not take a shot. The most obvious part is his torn mask, which is backwards on the cover. The absurdity of it will get to you.
Acting wise Charge and Cutthroat do a fine job even if the dialogue in this is basically saying "Fuck" and "Jesus". Wall and Shadow never seemed to have fought crime before this day and respond like they've never been heroes before. James Remar was a terrible as the villain, simply terrible. He is not a villain you love to hate, he wore a bow tie. Bow ties are for bad guys? At some points I thought he was pre-recorded and one of the four heroes was getting revenge on the others, but no.
All Superheroes Must Die is a great concept which should have been explored more, maybe even sold to another studio. It has some moments, but nothing that screams violent or truly heroic.
The Blu-ray didn't come with any extras and for an indie movie it's a bit odd. The production company also had a different name from The FP and I don't mean Drafthouse Films, so it's once again as I say on my site odd. Can't say I like the cover art, which is important to fans. It depicts two of the heroes from the film with a backdrop that's nowhere in this film. At no point are they in the big city in full costume with a helicopter, it screams fast marketing for people to just pick it up based on the cover. Back cover you have a quote from Twitch Film, "James Remar is excellent as the villain. Simply excellent." However, the full review has the reviewer saying they're on the fence if the film is good and brings up the same points I do. That review was back in 2011, when the film was simply called VS.
Here's the top comment from that review
"Very much disappointed in this one that had so much potential but left
me cold in the end.. I think this was the weakest of all that I saw at
After Dark last week. It was the kind of film that you wanted to
succeed but there were so many flaws in the film that they were
glaringly evident.. You never find out what super-powers these 4 had
before they were stripped of them, the villain was like a really cheesy
version of Lex Luthor dropping one liners just to amuse himself.. It
was billed as Kick-Ass meets Saw, but it was no more than a PG movie
when you minus the profanity. The deranged Uncle Sam was a nice touch
though.." -Steven
The CHUD review did like the film, but still had some problems with it. "A true burn-everything-to-the-ground superhero movie"? The same reviewer has their synopsis used for the back cover.
The Blu-ray was provided by the publisher for review
Feb 13th you can see all the Die Hard Films ending with A Good Day To Die Hard. As I write this Arclight $35 is the only one out of the gate, but check AMC sites too.
In other Die Hard news for the 25th Anniversary of the first film Fox Studios will party on the 21st floor of the Fox Plaza which was Nakatomi Tower in the first film. There's also going to be an unveiling of a giant mural of John Mclaine on their Stage 8 Jan 31st. I doubt it's open to the public, but you should be seeing it on your local news.
Apparently, the first robo-garage in LA has some kinks to work out, I'd still like to stay in my car and ride it and hopefully ride it back out before needing food, water and to pee. Funny enough, I was talking about robotic garages with a friend after seeing the terrible Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol I review yesterday, a major fight takes place in one. My friend thought it was simple as a vending machine, the article above says different.
The Metro smells and can be ridden for free says L.A. Weekly. I'd still get a ticket, the fines aren't worth it.
On the Orange Line, which I take back from Chatsworth, I notice three guys riding quietly in the back. They're bound for the Warner Center mall when one of them up and asks his friend, "Where's your mustache?"
"Dude, I'm on probation," he responds. "I can't do shit."
I was also talking about this augmented reality game with the same friend. You can be playing a game where you defend and attack different points around the city using GPS and your android device. "Aliens" are coming through portals, you can help them or stop them. I hope we have cyber geek gangs roaming the streets because of this. It's only in Beta right now and not on iPhones.
"So I decide to run around with my girlfriend tonight locally and hack some portals, I'm only level 2 so not much else I can do.
We go down to the harbor area and I find a pretty weak portal, I throw EVERY XMP burst I have at it and it's left with just a couple of slivers of power, lame. So I decide to go and hack a few more portals, hope to get some more bursts.
I walk up to a portal and notice 3 people staring down at their phones, so I ask, "are you guys playing ingress?" They are, then I see another, and another, then a bunch more, all told I saw about 15-20 people, ALL RESISTANCE. I realized right then that I'd better get back to that weak portal before they do, so with 4 level 2 bursters I go back. This portal btw is in a place that's marked as no trespassing, quite a ways form the actual 'culturally relevant point' and no parking for a quite a ways..." reddit
"It was magick, yes, but it was also the future founder of Scientology jerking off with the founder of JPL, in order to indirectly spawn the Antichrist. I think we can take this incredibly deranged situation as further evidence that Los Angeles has always been a weird place."
BlasterCON is a three-day general SF/Fantasy convention, with a late-70s/80s retro attitude and an emphasis on practical effects: models, puppets, props, costumes and makeup.BlasterCON is a new event in the Los Angeles area, to be held May 10-12, 2013 at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills, CA.
GameStick has me worried as it has no noteworthy titles with it, same thing with Oyua or whatever it's called. If either consoles can be hacked and it looks like the creators want them to be, then you'll see a lot of old school titles making them worth while to buy. I dig the concept it seems perfect for on the go , but without any games what's the point?
Cartoon Network sent me quite the nice reminder of the new episode starring Fionna and Cake "Bad Little Boy", premiering Feb 18th. You'll be enjoying Donald Glover's singing as the voice of Marshal Lee and how crazy the Ice King gets in this one. I'll have reminders leading up to the episode, but it looks like plenty of new episode until it comes out.
That's the new Adventure Time DVD coming out the day after the new episode comes out.
Cake inside
Tom Herpich's "All Your Fault" Premieres today and is bound to be an odd, but fun one.
From his blog
"New episode of Adventure Time on Monday: "All Your Fault"! Like "Goliad" from last season, this is one where I came up with the premise myself, then brought it to the writers to bounce it around and plus it up. "Goliad" changed a lot in the writers room I remember, but this one was pretty much fully formed from the get go. At any rate- I co-wrote and co-boarded it with the amazing Steve Wolfhard, who I've been working with since the end of season 4. I think we've been making some really solid stuff, and it's torture waiting for it all to hit the airwaves! Hope y'all dig it."
Another rainy day in LA and a sick cameraman mean going threw of que of unwatched films, TV shows and comics.
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol Action Movies Are Now Cartoons I found myself laughing throughout this whole film and it's most action oriented moments. A sandstorm just happens to arrive at the most inoperative time for Tom Cruise. The worst part might have been the opening theme with spoilers of the entire film and the cheap way it copied a James Bond opening. It goes into the realm of forgetful and a 90's cartoon based on a movie. Hawkeye's in it too.
This British quiz show with host Stephen Fry is damn funny and entertaining with 4 seated British comedians surrounding him answering questions, but not really caring if anyone wins. QI or Quite Interesting loves being cheeky, silly and is rather good at putting down whoever shows up. Sadly, BBC America isn't showing it, but Star Trek: The Next Generation. You can find it only through YouTube and maybe some other means online, but there's no real way too see it here in the states on TV.
This was an awful graphic novel anthology. For one the title doesn't really make sense as all stories takes place in the future and don't even involve time travel. When this first came out I thought the stories would be set throughout time, not just the future and have some time travel element. Nope, it's a book that takes fairy tales and old mythology and tries to set them in the future with robots. There's no overall story linking them all so it's a random collection of tales. Every story is by a different artist and many didn't seem to be fleshed out. The other annoyance is you have some simple one page drawings from some well known artists, just one page, no story to go with them. This is one of the worst anthology books to come out in a while. I can't even recommend any of the stories as none stood out as memorable.
I put off watching this until a rainy day and with LA's sudden rain it was the perfect fit. Like any anime film based on a hit series it has nothing to do with continuity for the show. The story can be fun for anyone to pick up. Bad guys from Hell steal Ichigo's little sisters. Ichigo has to go to Hell to get them back. You have some powerful fights and some throw away bad guys and you're done. Ichigo does gets new powers "from Hell" for some fun.
After seeing all the other Bleach movies I have to say this has the best pacing. The three others suffer from slowing down or trying to shove too many soul reapers in each film.
If your craving some violent bloody action, look no further.
Take-Two says it didn't really like that Frank Darabont's new show LA Noir was spelled similar to their game LA Noire. Darabont says they threatened to sue, but Take-Two just says they weren't happy about it. Now the show will be called Lost Angels. That's uh, that's a terrible name. It sounds like a fake show kind of.
Great a new crime drama set in LA... yawn.. that premise wasn't just a bad recent movie or is going on now with the modern Southland. via Joystiq
So Mr. Darabont might have said Take-Two was suing for hype for his new show. It kind of builds hype that he's a liar and thinks he can get away stealing other people's work. Frank Darabont was also recently announced to be working on the new Godzilla, making me lose some hope of it being a good movie.
Check out some of the podcast ending shots for JB and Hart's new episodes. Be on the look out for a special video game skit that should be up next week too. Whose that in a pool of blood? Why it looks like Murder LA's James Cohen.
This was a great action fantasy movie and funny re-telling of the Hansel and Gretel folklore. Hansel and Gretel have some tricked out weapons to take on some powerful witches. One of my favorite parts is there's a nerdy fan for Gretel who has posters of her. Starring Hawkeye and the chick who died covered in oil from the previous bond movie.
Next week Natalie and I will be covering the 40th Annual Annie Awards! Yes, will be interviewing all the top animators. Before that we should have a podcast up about the nominations. If you love animation and the people behind it, watch it live right here.
This awards shows is one of the silliest to watch with comedians and voice-actors of all sorts ripping on each other and with it being live anything could happen.
So the other day Hart and I headed to Sherman Oaks Castle Park for mini-golf and arcades games. With a group of friends we walked up to the castle arcade, we were in awe of the architecture. It's nice to walk up to a castle if your a rpg fan.
So after some helpful info from our putter giver I got the lowdown on why Castle Park is on the LA City Park's web site. It is actually a city park, but what's odd is the arcade, batting cages and diner are all separately owned businesses that the city doesn't own, but made a deal with to operate near the park. It's odd to me that not one company owns the three adjacent businesses, but why the city of LA just doesn't operate them. Anyway, it doesn't affect you the customer I guess.
When you get past the big open wooden doors you enter the arcade area and are immediately greeted by a Wizard of Oz coin game? The arcade has plenty of games, but might want to theme itself more like a castle. Ticket machines are all over the place with arcade machines. It's a arcade of many different titles. As usual you have a slew of ticket giving machines, shooters, fighters, about two classic arcade units, racers and some harder to find units including a DDR machine. Yes, air hockey too.
The arcade had some fun units like Sega'sLet's Go Jungle! and Let's Go Island! arcade shooters. Let's Go Island! is just pure Japanese crazy goodness. It's not only the bad dubbing, but a plot that makes no sense and swarms of enemies you have to shoot down that make it a top nocth game to check out on your visit. After each level the games tells you how compatible you are with your fellow shooter, if playing two player, so it's sort of a love tester too. My favorite part was losing my gun and having to shoot down bug enemies with maracas and a banjo.
There's a special prize giving machine that has some very expensive presents in the center, but good luck at $5 a game. For $5 you can also try your best at the laser room which has you dodging lasers like a super spy. It's not that big a room, but it'll be big enough with lasers in it. Some hard to find machines inside include a Guitar Hero arcade machine and some strange shooters, no Time Crisis though. Sega's Sonic Air Hockey tables have some sort of design flaw. When I was battling Hart in a astounding pulse pounding game of air hockey the machine showed it's setbacks. Here's the problems with it: There's not enough air flow for the puck. The dimensions of the machine are different than usual causing for a smaller area to hit the puck. The puck can get caught around the sides of the field. Yes, I did beat Hart.
Mini-Golf
Surrounding the castle arcade are three mini golf courses. Course 1 is the lamest. Choose courses 2 or 3 for more variety and sites. It will take you about 40 minutes or more to beat a course with a large group. For two people it's much easier and quite nice for dates. There's plenty of jokes to be made along the mini-golf course at the odd designs and different structures put in. Course 1 had a fort of some sort and a gingerbread house to get your balls through. There's plenty of strange angles and odd holes to play on. Batting Cages Batting cages with balls that can go up to 80 mph are out front for anyone wanting to hit some balls.
Problems There seemed to be a smell I didn't notice at first in the arcade. Members of the group agreed. It was odd, because I saw plenty of maintenance by the staff while I was there. The ticket redemption machine being changes and a whole arcade machine being polished. The food is overpriced, it's better to eat before coming. You may not bring outside food or drinks in. There was a deal on pizza for a slice before 4pm, but the rest of the menu is overpriced snacks.
We played mini-golf as it got dark. Now there is lightning to keep playing, but many holes on course 1 had broken lights making it hard to finish certain holes. I could see some better maintenance of the courses. There's just some places that need some fixes are some new paint.
Surroundings
Now for some strange
surroundings. Castle Park is next to a fireman training center and a
army training center, so sometimes you might see some mock drills
happening while your playing. If you take course 3 you should get a good
view of what looks like a post-apocalyptic LA which is the training center nearby. To the back of the mini-gold courses is the freeway, so sometimes you can see traffic or even an
accident. A tire might of blown on the freeway the night we were playing, we could see
traffic stopping after a loud pop. Your also next to an office building of some sort.
