The Downfall of MSN Messenger

As some of you may know I have a certain fondness for the days of my youth. They were simple times of marble seasons, hide and seek tip and other such cliches. I'm sure some of you might even remember the good old days before Facebook and other social networking sites when kids would sign in to MSN Messenger and talk about cute boys and shit instead of doing homework. I personally liked this era. Signing in to get my daily fix, to see if anyone has humorously changed their display name, to see if anyone new has added you and to hopefully chat to that highschool crush of yours. For many people I know MSN was the reason they created their email account, with many still embarrasing us to this very day. For anybody I know who grew up in that era MSN Messenger is now dead.

The death of MSN has not been swift and kind. No MSN has been dying of a horrible degenerative illness for quite some time now. This time 18 months or so ago MSN happily fullfilled my online interaction needs but now I only sign in for the convenience of checking my email. But do you want to know the moment when I knew, without a doubt in the world, that MSN was terminal? It was when I started getting new, unfamiliar people adding me. I shrugged and accepted at first, what's a fresh face here or there? I might even know them? But then I started getting more. One of them sparked up a conversation with me. It went something like this.
Oh of course, it's not a real woman interested in me. No no it's just a delightful advertising campaign designed to lure in perverts. At last I was comfortable and things were back to normal. MSN was still not being used by actual friends, woman were still not interested in me and I was still a sad, lonely blogger without any prospects of female company. Few! What a relief. So now everyday I sign in to MSN to check my email for Facebook updates (fuck that seems convoluted) and decline a few more offers for companionship by people with particularly effeminite emails (no killin_n_shit@hotmail.com's here) as well as closing the tabloid-ish Ninenews popup boasting a slideshow of celebrity kids or a breaking news article about how Lady Gaga is strange.

It's sad to see a once loved communication medium dying in such an embarrasing, demeaning way. So from me here at Infinite Possiblogities I'd just like to acknowledge the youthful joy and distant friendships MSN allowed us to maintain for so many years, even if we did have to appear offline on the odd occassion to avoid that annoying kid with the big ears who's dp was always something shit like a boggle-eyed penguin. Wait...why was I sad again?

I Am Legend (The Will Smith Marathon Comes to a Close)

Yes, I think I Am Legend is a great movie. Why did I open with this? Well I Am Legend is up there with Daria and anchovies in that I could speak to 100 people who've experienced it and I would get a 50-50 split of people who will love it and then those who loathe it. Not that I've ever had a complete understanding as to why people hate it. I went to see the movie with my brothers and then girlfriend and while my brothers and I had a blast the ol' GF came out saying "that movie was the worst." Her exact reasons for disliking it have never really become apparent to me and I have spoken to many others who offer only flimsy allusions as to what they might find objectionable about it. So what's all this fuss about? Let's dive right in.

Ok so it turns out that Will Smith is the sole survivor in a now quarrantined New York City after some dumb bitch cured cancer by making a zombie virus. The movie kind of rushes through that whole part of the story because it's quite apparent that the science behind it is about as sturdy as a cardboard box in a monsoon but to be quite frank it doesn't really matter. The point is Will Smith is alone. Really alone. At the beginning Will Smith is seen going about his regular survival routine in a flawless, well thought out way. But as the movie rolls on you begin to realise that without the company of his fellow man Will Smith is slowly succumbing to madness. There's something quite satisfying about the way the movie portrays Smith struggling to survive both the zombies and his own loneliness. It's an extremely sympathetic and moving performance. From an artsy English Extension 2 Fagboy perspective there are lots of beautifully subtle techniques you can furiously finger your bum over. I like the way that the movie slowly eases you into questioning whether Will Smith has lost almost as much of his humanity as the savage zombies.

This brings me quite nicely to yet another example of controversy that the movie stirred up. You see there are two different endings to the movie. The original one and then the newer one that they used in the theatrical release. I think there's merrit to both endings but I think I prefer the one they ended up going for. But, in true nerd fashion, amoungst the people who like it there is constant debate over which ending is the best. Many people the original ending is bolder and more edgy and feel that the newer ending was just a big, action movie, explosion copout. I don't really feel that way but whatever, I could not be fucked getting involved. So anyway, I think I Am Legend is fantastic. I guess it appeals to the part of me that likes the idea of mankind being obliterrated and then watching the lone survivor wander the empty streets trying to cling on to his humanity. I kind of worries me really, should I really be able to identify with him that well?

I Robot (The Will Smith Marathon Continues)

Whereas The Pursuit of Happyness was a somewhat irregular Will Smith role I Robot seems taylor made for him. Will Smith is a man of action, quick wittedness and charisma as we've come to expect. So anyway, the year is 2035 and robotics has come a long way. All robots are apparently manufactured by a single, multi-billion dollar corporation who are planning to put their brand spanking new unit into every home in the country. Will once again plays the role of a city cop who is apparently the only person in the world who doesn't like the idea of entrusting our lives to the care of programs and before long has made it his personal mission to prove that robots are capable of human harm.

You see, Will Smith has a tragic, flashbacky issue with robots that naturally remains supressed for the majority of the movie. Lucky for him he becomes involved with an initially-uptight-hostile-woman who eventually becomes something of a love interest and whom Smith is eventually able to confide in. Mind you the romantic interest in this movie is a little lacking but I'm fairly certain they always are in Will Smith movies. In fact pretty much every aspect of I Robot feels like it was manufactured by a Will Smith Movie Machine. If I had to sum up the movie in a breif sentence I'd say "it's like Ghost in the Shell if it was concussed and had Will Smith in it." I mean it's the same not too distant, slightly souless setting. It's the same "what makes us human" and "could robots develope a soul" cyberpunk philosophies being explored. It even has the robot/computer software teaching us about the nature of our existance situation in it. The only difference is that aesthetically everything in I Robot is so blindingly white it looks like a eutopia for Apple. Speaking of product placement did I mention the 2004 vintage Converse Hightops? Well they're in this movie and quite shamelessly referred to on more than one occassion. Mind you I actually found this entertaining and quite frankly I don't give a shit if they're plugging products in a movie. But you know I thought it might be worth a mention because bloggers love tossing themselves off over how clever they are at finding product placements.

Oh and stop me if this sounds familiar to you at all. The bad guy was one of the good guys being motivated to kill and oppress people in order to "save humanity from itself." I mean you clever script writer types could come up with something a little bit less overused than that? It's the kind of plot twist I'd expect from a Resident Evil game and even though it doesn't actually make I Robot any worse it certainly stikes me as somewhat lacking.

But all in all maybe I'm being a tad harsh. Do I like I Robot? Yeah I suppose so. It's entertaining and has a plot that makes sense and if you haven't seen Ghost in the Shell already you might think it raises some pretty interesting ideas even if they're only alluded to or breezed over. In a lot of respects it's comparable to Independence Day in that it is improved a vast amount by the fact that Will Smith is in it. Mind you Independence Day is by far a worse movie, but I stand by my comparison. As I said before this is a typical Will Smith movie and it's done pretty well. Movies like this serve as a nice reminder that cliche's can actually polish up quite nicely if you treat them right.

Cold Mountain

Hmmm...let's see...an appropriate way to open the blog...ummm...AHA! I've got it! Gratuitous sex scene!

There! If you haven't already seen Cold Mountain I pretty much summed it up in that there sentence above this one. All you need to do is imagine that the um-ing and ah-ing go for about 2 hours before the "climax" so to speak and you've experienced it. But you know what? I'll bet you want more than that so I'll cater to your needs and deliver a more rich critique.

Anyway so the year is...whatever year the American Civil War was happening...and Jude Law realises he's made a big mistake. You see instead of having sex with Nicole Kidman he decided what he really ought to do is run off to die in a pointless war. Jude decides that the best way to remedy this mistake is to desert his fellow soldiers and make a long journey home to Cold Mountain. Sounds simple enough if a bit long but then it turns out that this is actually frowned upon by the army and so Jude spends a considerable amount of time being hunted and landing every single person he meets along the way in a gargantuan arseload of trouble. Jeez Jude, she'd wanna be a demon in the sack after all this trouble.

Anyway so the movie switches between the channels and often finds itself following the life of Nicole Kidman as well. Ol' Nicky spends a good while moping about the place and being generally pathetic and helpless as her farm and her home fall into chaos. Renee Zellweger is sent up there to help snap Nicole out of her mopey My Chemical Romance phase and teach her how to be a tough independant woman that Beyonce could be proud of (please note, Beyonce is not in this movie, even if she did have one of the best videos of all time).

So anyway, the movie switches between these two plot threads as different events of increasing dramatic tension happen to both parties before finally they meet up. Renee is sort of hot and cold with the return of Jude because she's just one of those hoes before bros kinda woman but *spoiler warning* he is killed off pretty soon anyway so all tensions are resolved (look, I know that wasn't a very good spoiler warning but in all seriousness if you didn't see that coming then you have several hundred years of drama/romance tradgedies to catch up on). Lucky for everbody right before dying Jude manages to "hit that" in a sex scene that I can really only compare to the one Bioware shoehorned into Mass Effect. If a sex scene in a movie reminds me of one I saw in a game then something has definately gone wrong. But anyway, moving on. So Nicole is all sad and shit because she's been waiting around for a while and only got one ride in before her man meat died but luckily for her they breeze over her grieving and cut straight to three years later where Nicole is shown living an idealic life with Renee, all the friends that they met during the course of the movie and Nicole's daughter. Yep, that's right, they only had sex once and it just so happened to be at the perfect time for conception. But whatever, you can debate the believability of that one amoungst youselves.

So I guess that's about all I have to say. The movie wasn't really bad or anything but I doubt I'll ever feel the need to watch it again. You can tell Cold Mountain really wants to be up there with all the other great romances but it just doesn't make you care enough. I mean there's even a scene where Nicole and Renee are both reading and discussing Wuthering Heights, a much better developed romantic plot. But there's some parts they did pretty well. Having Jack White (of the White Stripes) play a part as a member of a bluegrass band was a pretty good move, even if he didn't get enough screen time. That and they had this slimey bastard of a bad guy with blonde hair and a cocky, youthful smugness about him who you just couldn't wait to see die. So that's Cold Mountain. It's long, it's forgettable but it does have some nice music for a few moments in there.

Will Smith Marathon - The Pursuit of Happyness

Now before you get all "spell check" on my arse I'd just like to acknowledge that I KNOW that happiness is not spelt with a "Y". It's deliberately misspelled in the movie title for reasons that will become clear quite quickly. Now that that's settled, welcome to the Will Smith Movie Marathon!

That's right folks, after the roaring success I had with the Jeff Goldblum reviews I just had to sink my teeth into Will Smith's hot, well toned movie career. As with my dear friend Jeff, I miss out on reviewing many films here so I've picked three that I either haven't seen or have only seen once before. Anyway so I thought I'd start with The Pursuit of Happiness because it's the one I hadn't seen before and I need to critique it before I forget about it all.

So let me set the scene. It's 1980 something and Will Smith is poor. His wife is pretty much sick of him making bad financial descisions and leaves him. Having an extremely estranged relationship with his own father Will has vowed never to leave his own kids and so it is decided that Will's son is to stay with him. The movie basically details the struggles of Will's character to provide a reasonable life for his son as he tries to stay affloat whilst he undergoes an internship at a stockbroker, competing against 19 other interns for a single position.

As far as Will Smith roles go this one is somewhat atypical. This isn't Will in his usual slick role as a wise-talkin' action hero. This is Will Smith as a very sympathetic character who is struggling to turn his life around having made some very bad descisions earlier in his life. You know something else? It works. This movie is extremely well executed considering all the pitfalls it could have fallen into. It's caring and warm without getting sentimental. Will Smith's son (played by his actual, real life son) is fragile and unaware without being overly naieve or disgustingly cutesy. With this kind of movie the potential for things to turn crap are everywhere and there's really only a very fine line where all the films elements overlap to make something this good. It could have been too gritty. It could have been too preachy. But it was none of those things. It was simply fantastic. I know that outright loving something makes my reviews extremely unentertaining but you know something? This movie is great and I don't really care what you say about me or it.

Bayonetta Review

I really was spoiled for choice on blog topics this week. I have a reasonably long list of potential things to blog about but I decided to go with Bayonetta because I think it'd be nice to review a game that was new for once. I also figured that the only reason I hadn't posted anything sooner was because I've been so engulfed in the world of Bayonetta, which kind of spoils the punchline as far as reviews go.

So yes, Bayonetta kicks arse. Not only that but it fires bullets into your arse as it kicks it. What am I on about here? Well as you may or may not have heard Bayonetta is a game in which you control a witch that looks like a cross between Catwoman and a sexy librarian who is capable of firing guns that she wears like high heels and turning her hair/clothing into giagantic monters to tear apart her enemies. Really, this is only a taste of what Bayonetta is like. The game is rediculous and over the top from the opening scenes and attempts to one up itself repeatedly until the testicle explodingly excellent climax. But when I say it's rediculous I mean so in a rather complementary way. It's not the Gears of War sort of rediculous where all the characters are unlikable badasses who probably chewed their way through their mothers birth canal and you can't help but laugh at the way they sound sexually gratified as they drive their giant, homoerotic chainsaw guns through an enemies meaty body. No Bayonetta has got rediculousness down to a fine art and seems to have a lot of fun showing itself off. It actually reminds me a lot of Weatherwoman that I reviewed ages ago back when my blog was still a primordial soup. It has that same strange, sexual, wicked style served with just a hint of Japaneseness.

Oh listen to me rambling and I haven't even talked about the gameplay yet. Bayonetta is an action game that mostly concerns itself with fighting a variety of enemies in a variety of ways using a variety of combos. That said, it really isn't necessary to master all the different moves within the game. If you're anything like me you are a bit too ham handed to pull of a wide variety of long and complex moves on the fly in the middle of battle a giant, stone, angel collosus. But the moves are all there for anyone to use in any way they see fit. Bayonetta comes accross as a hack'n'slash type of game but manages to strive off the usual boredom I find myself experiencing with those games with it's interesting and varied enemy design. It also mixes up the gameplay a bit by adding a level where you ride a bike (just as an example). Bayonetta really is a challenging game to review because it's so wild and fun that putting it into words just doesn't seem good enough. Within a single playthrough you experience so many strange things that I don't really know where to begin.

The difficulty level in the game are varied quite well. On it's easiest setting Bayonetta can be played one handed so that even your noobtastic mum can play if she feels the need. Or maybe it's just so male gamers can have a wank as they watch the nimble, leatherclad Bayonetta dance about the screen as she disembowels angels, who knows? But on the other end of the spectrum the difficulty is amped up quite heftally to ensure that you will often feel the brutal and humiliating sting of defeat as Bayonetta once again wails on your uncoordinated arse. But in between those to difficulty extremes is a nice place for average gamers like myself to start off before attempting the more challenging aspects.

But when all is said and done the fact of the matter remains that although I love Bayonetta and the way it executes everything so perfectly I have to admit that it won't be the game for everyone. Chances are there will be people who have read this and thought to themselves that this premise for a game sounds horrible no matter how well done and beautifully presented it is. I personally intend to explore every nook and cranny of this game personally completing each of it's challenges one by one and let me say that there are very, VERY few games that have compelled me to undertake such a huge task. Bayonetta comes highly recommended even if it won't be appreciated by everyone.

Pictured above: Bayonetta's approriately titled "Climax Edition"

PS. to make up for the distinct lack of humorous material amoungst this gushing review I'd just like to say "clit tickler." End Transmission.

Kicking the Dog

Happy 2010 biatches! As alluded to in my previous post today I will attempt to review Kicking the Dog. Let me open the review by simply stating that Kicking the Dog is, by far, the worst thing I have ever reviewed on Infinite Possiblogities ever. That's right, it's worse than Zoey 101, Gerald McBoingboing and even worse than that wierd novalty egg fryer from Sam's Warehouse. Yep, I've reviewed some horrible abominations of entertainment before but this trumps them all. That said you're probably going to want to know what it actually is right? Well Kicking the Dog is an "Indie Comedy" about a bunch of unlikable douchebags talking about sex. That's really it. It's like if American Pie took itself really, REALLY seriously. I actually read some public reviews on this movie and a lot of people seemed to compare it favourable to other indie comedies like The Clerks and Superbad. But they seemed to be a bit confused, because The Clerks and Superbad are both good and this movie is trash. A friend of mine said it best when he described it as a whole movie of outtakes filmed like the final project for a first year film course at TAFE. But the assness doesn't stop there, oh-ho no. The film has NO character developement at ALL. NONE! I mean there are a dozen characters in this movie and they are all essentially the same. Just a bunch of jerks with stupid hairdo's wearing tight Jay-Jay's shirts and being obnoxious. But worse than that the characters remain unchanged throughout the movie, which is odd because the movie clearly sets up dilema's and dramatic situations that, even though predictable, should end in something changing. Just as an example of this there is this guy who really likes this chick, but then his slimeball cunt of a brother steals her away, fucks her and adds her to the long list of moron's who he has somehow seduced. The younger brother catches him IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACT and doesn't even raise his voice. He quite literally just shakes his head and walks away. End of subplot. I mean...what the fuck WAS that? It was nothing and the whole movie is made up of stuff like this. It's set up like a college drama comedy but plays out like neither. Worst of all is that the movie is up itself. Throughout the whole movie I can feel every single person who made it jerking off at me. For all the failed goofball comedy and flat drama it's the films smugness that gets me. I mean take a movie like American Pie. It's goofy, over the top and concerned completely with sex and crass humour. You could never call it good, but it also isn't trying to be. Kicking the Dog tries so very hard to be a great indie comedy and it's very proud of the way it turned out even though it is utter garbage. It even had one of those video mantages of the cast just before the end credits as if to say, here's who played all your favourite characters. Maybe it was just so you wouldn't get confused as to which drama school dropout played which nameless dimwit? All it really did was give other film studios a face to attach to the names of the 12 actors that will never, ever work in film again. My friends and I groaned at this movie, writhing around on the couch begging someone to turn it off. When asked about special features I suggested that the movie should have a feature that tells the DVD player to melt the disc with the laser. I really don't know what more to say, it was simply horrible. I imagine that you probably think it couldn't possibly be as bad as I say. So to you I say this. "Go! Go rent that son of a bitch out and watch it from start to finish! Hell drag some friends into the mix if you think that their sarcasm or wit might make the experience more enjoyable. Let me tell you that I'm certain it won't. Watch Kicking the Dog, I double dare you!"