Last July, the Sci-Fi channel followed suit with every single other major niche channel. These channels with specialized programming for special interests began playing significantly broader things. Among the many changes; TLC began doing several reality shows, the Weather Channel started showing movies, and the Sci-Fi channel decided to move away from Sci-Fi and rebrand itself as the Syfy channel. Fortunately, it seems that the Syfy channel has worked really well with this change.

To help bring in the rebranding, Syfy started up a new brand new show – Warehouse 13. The show follows secret service agents Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) and Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) as they are drug out of their jobs protecting the president and moved to the middle of nowhere South Dakota.

There they learn they now work for what could be called “America’s attic.” They are now under the command of the strange and mysterious Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder) who can seemingly appear and disappear at will and the venerable Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek).

The titular warehouse 13 is a character in its own right. A storage unit of epic proportions, all of the “artifacts” collected by Lattimer and Bering are “snagged, tagged, and bagged,” and placed permanently on shelves. The artifacts that they collect are different objects that seem to have special scientific properties. Essentially, it’s a fancy way of saying they have magical abilities. Some objects can make the user invisible, some will kill people with sound waves, and some create such negative energy in the person that they kill themselves.



This is all presented very scientifically, especially at the beginning of the show. As the episodes go on, the science takes a back seat to the story, which is absolutely fine. It actually works really well, because the show only asks you to suspend your disbelief a little bit at the beginning. By the last episode of the season, they don’t really bother explaining the increasingly unbelievable things for the sake of story. The process is gradual and not really noticed. The story kept coming first and that’s a great thing, because the story gets really deep and interesting.

The format of the show closely resembles Buffy the Vampire Slayer in function. There is your Rupert Giles – wise, researching, and leading – character, Artie. You’ve got your field agent characters who search for the “baddie of the week” – in this case objects rather than demons. This isn’t a bad thing for the show. Jane Espenson spent many years with Buffy and it shows. This show carries with it the same concentration on character and story that Buffy did.

McClintock plays Lattimer goofy, yet dependable and kind. He’s very lovable, even from the start. Kelly’s Bering is definitely the foil to Lattimer. She’s a no non-sense get things done type. This initially clashes with Lattimer but eventually gels into a great symbiotic relationship. I’m sure they will pursue some romantic side, if only played for sexual tension. Either way, the chemistry between the two is enjoyable to watch and engaging enough to have kept me coming back episode after episode.



My favorite character is Saul Rubinek’s Artie Nielsen. His personality is a mix of Lattimer and Bering. His character became surprisingly deep and definitely the most well developed throughout the series. He’s been with the warehouse for at least 40 years and carries with him lots of demons and sadness from the past. Of course he won’t divulge any of this unless absolutely necessary or forced. That’s one way the show has been able to continually pump out new and excited things each episode.

A couple other characters I haven’t mentioned yet are the mysterious Leena (Genelle Williams) who owns the bed and breakfast that Lattimer and Bering stay at. She has a knack for reading people’s auras and helping out the gang. Allison Scagliotti plays wiz-kid Claudia Donovan, who has some demons of her own. The scenes with Claudia and Artie are the best of the series. There’s a wonderful father-daughter dynamic between the two that is usually stressed with anger on both sides. It makes for some great comedic as well as tender moments.

The acting all around is fantastic. Rarely does a show on the Syfy channel employ actors of such caliber. I don’t recall a single instance where I cringed from a spot of bad acting or over the top drama. The tension is believable and palpable. The writing and dialogue are witty and snappy, and the focus of the show is pin-point.

Now, being the Syfy channel, one must think about the graphics and where they stand on the corny meter. On a scale from laughable to pretty good, Warehouse 13 ranks right up there with the best of them. Obviously not movie graphics, the effects are still of considerably higher caliber than nearly everything else on the channel. Sure there is sometimes the odd green screen effect or goofy light burst, but as a whole the show looks very good.

I’m very excited for season 2 of this show. The first season surprised me very much. For the first time, I’ll actually be setting my DVR to record the Syfy channel! If you get the chance, check it out!

http://www.hulu.com/warehouse-13

My geek senses are tingling. This movie looks hilariously awesome. It was recently screened at a film festival in Austin, Texas and was the run away hit. I'm totally excited for this movie.

I loved the first Assassin’s Creed game. Many were not fans of its admittedly repetitive game play or its sometimes boring segments. For some reason, I fell in love with the parkour aspect and fully enjoyed even the benign aspects to the game. Well, haters rejoice, for this game removes everything you hated about the first, adds a lot of fun new things, but also adds in a few new problems.

The story picks up right were the first game ending (nice cliffhanger by the way). The story is briefly explained at the beginning to help those new to the series. However, you would still be benefited from having experienced the first game. So, if you haven’t, I’d recommend renting it.

Desmond, using a machine called the Animus, must use his “genetic memories” to view back in time to his assassin ancestors to glean important information related to saving the world. Sound convoluted? It actually is pretty good sci-fi, even though 90% of the game takes place in renaissance Italy.

Desmond takes control of his ancestor Ezio de Auditore this time around. This time around, the color palette is greatly expanded. Since we are no longer in drab ancient middle east, we get to see how much better the visuals are with color. While not the greatest looking game out there, the wide sweeping vistas from the viewpoints can still leave you breathless, albeit not as much as in the first game. Besides that, the animations are generally well done (not counting the awkward facial animations).

The kills are really excellent, with some very brutal kills. If Ezio picks up a pole or spear to fight with and you manage to land an instant kill, Ezio will hit the guard in the stomach knocking him to his knees at which point Ezio will stab the spear straight down his spine. What you’re left with is a dead guard with half a spear coming out of his spine. It’s pretty awesome.

The game play is much tighter and focused than the first game. While this game is still a sandbox game, essentially letting you do whatever you want, the game constantly shows you were your next storyline point is, alleviating a lot of the stress of the first game. This would allow you to simply blast through the campaign, if you so choose. There are your typical fetch side quests, races, and assassination side quests.

All in all, the game play aspect is pretty good. Except for the glitches. And oh boy are there a lot of them. Assassin’s Creed 2 is the single most glitchy game I have ever played. Guards will infinitely respawn in areas, causing the game to run slowly and crash if you stick around too long. The game’s clocks seem on an infinite time loop. (I played for at least 20 hours and the game’s clock says I’ve played for 16 minutes.)

However, these glitches typically don’t have a terrible effect on game play, which is why I didn’t mind them too much. Actually, I thought several of them were quite funny. I didn’t have a problem synching any of the trophies, but I have heard several others have. Here are a couple of videos I took with my phone (sorry for the quality) that illustrate a glitch.






The score is pretty fantastic and memorable. I haven’t purchased the entire soundtrack but there are some highlights that I bought.

So: you should at least give this game a rent. It’s definitely a lot of fun, despite its many issues. If you loved the first game, this one tops it in every conceivable way. The platforming is decent without being revolutionary and the storyline will punch you in the face. Go play it!

If you've played the first Mass Effect, you know how amazing it was and are probably really looking forward to the new one. I know I sure am. So, to wet your appetites, I thought I'd post this. I didn't upload it, but it's in 720p hi-def and is 182 megs. Hah. But, its on YouTube so it loads quickly. Don't watch it in this small embed, click full-screen for massive awesomeness.

I posted this review the night I saw the movie. At the time, this site didn't exist, so I posted it to facebook. What follows is a copy/paste of my original review of the movie - and my (BY FAR) worst of 2009. I apologize if the writing is somewhat lacking. I was ranting, for the most part.

First, some background.

I consider myself a movie fan more so than a film fan. Here's how I see it. I've got friends who are fans of film. The movie needs to have some Oscar-worthy aspect to it, or its not worth seeing. Movies like Wolverine, Transformers, and the Star Wars prequels are beneath them. If it's not artistic in some way, it's terrible. Then there are the people like me; movie fans. I love all movies. We love "terrible" big-budget movies that have no plot, terribly written dialogue, and are generally only there to provide us with some escapism. However, we also like the Oscar films, films that were made specifically as art. No movie is beneath us; we can appreciate all. Generally, I really like all movies.

I have at least liked every single movie I've ever seen. With three exceptions. I hate three movies with my entire being. One is The Seeker. I hate it because not only is it terrible shot, edited, scored, acted, set; it also is the single worst adaptation I have ever ever seen. I love the Dark is Rising series and to see it reduced to this drivel was truly sad. I don't mind changes in adaptations. I thought the Harry Potter movies were pretty good adaptations considering how large the books are. But this. Ugh. They invented a twin brother for the main character that he didn't know he had until the end of the movie. Ridiculous. The second movie I hate is Rent. I love musicals, but I couldn't stand Rent. I took it back to blockbuster about half-way through. The third movie I hate is Public Enemies.

I'll start with what's good in this movie. Bale and Depp do a perfectly passable job in their roles. In fact, the entire cast does. No one really wowed me in terms of acting ability, but everyone held their accents for the most part (Considering Bale is Welsh, holding the Southern was pretty good), and I believed some of the motivations. The violence is this movie is fairly heavy. Not that there's a whole lot of it, mostly gun fights. But, they are accurate gun fights. When someone is shot in the chest, they don't instantly die like every other movie. But along with that accuracy comes seeing chests with large gaping meat-holes with pretty copious amounts of blood. Now, I don't mind that. I can appreciate the authenticity. So that was good.

Now, let's talk about what was bad. Every. Single. Thing. Else. I don't really know where to being, so I'll pretty much just rant. This movie felt like an amateur movie shot with a webcam, recorded audio in a living room or on set, quickly editing on Windows Movie Maker and uploaded to Youtube. This movie was shot with High-Def cameras! I can't understand how the quality of the film is so so bad. Most shots never used a steady-cam and as such are constantly in a swaying motion. (Kind of like in Blair Witch or Cloverfield, only they MEANT to do it). When the camera pans, even slowly, EVERYTHING in the shot because ridiculously blurry. Things only look sharp if the camera is NOT moving, which is rare.

The picture quality of the film itself is so inconsistent that it literally grated against my nerves to watch. The opening shot of a penitentiary in 1933 looked great. High quality film. The next shot of a car pulling up looked like one of those History Channel historical recreations, or when America's Most Wanted does a recreation. This continued through out the film and reached its pinnacle of badness in a shoot out in the woods at a inn. I felt like I was watching a crappy television recreation of what might have been a cool event. After about 1/3 of the way through the movie, the film quality remains consistently bad. I didn't pay to watch TV. I paid for a movie.

Michael Mann's direction style in this movie was really hard to watch. He likes his extreme facial closeups, preferring 15 second long shots of a single facial expression. There's one scene in which Depp is in a jail cell and Bale walks in for the first face to face confrontation. Near the end of the scene, there is a shot over Depp's right shoulder (extreme closeup on Depp's hair line, which takes up roughly 1/3 of the screen) with Bale seen on the other side of the bars. Bale walks to his right placing his character squarely behind Depp's blurred scalp for the rest of the dialogue! I'm serious! For at least 30 seconds of the conversation, the only thing on screen is the backside of Depp's head; and it's blurry. Really Michael Mann? Really?

Onto audio. I suppose the score was passable, but certainly not memorable. The recorded dialogue was ABHORRENT. I do not understand how this passed as a final product. In a single dialogue scene between two characters, with camera changes as each character talks to the other, one characters voice was obviously recorded in post at a studio. It was clean, proper volumes, understandable. The seconds voice seemed to be the on-set audio. There's background white noise, it is significantly quieter and much harder to understand. This inconsistency spans the entire movie and gave me a head ache. Annoyingly terrible.

Now for the story. I have no idea why the public liked Dillinger. I know they did, but why? I was presented with absolutely NO reason in this film to like him as a Robin Hood character. Or really even to like him at all. The story arch was like this: Bale's character is after Depp. Somewhere along the line Baby Face Nelson shows up. That's about all I know. Dani and I were both confused several times in the plot, as I watched scenes having absolutely NO idea where we were or why. I've never had that in a movie before. I was shocked. You will not understand the smaller parts of the plot. Either the dialogue is too quiet or the accents too thick to understand.

This movie honestly feels like those production reels of unfinished scenes you see on DVD special features. I don't know how this got passed of as a final product. The ONLY thing I can figure is that it was an intentional choice. I can't figure out why, but that HAS to be it.

I hate this movie. Hate it hate it hate it. It is a 2.5 hour waste of your time. Do not go see it. The worst part of this? It's getting decent reviews AND on imdb.com forums for it, people are calling for a best picture nomination. WHAT?! If you've seen it, feel free to reply. I'd like to see your thoughts, either for the movie, or against it.

For the first time in my life I had truly regretted paying to see a movie in a theater. Thanks Michael Mann.

-Kris