I am Petitioning Stoner Vids.

Before I go on this potentially VERY LONG RANT...  I just want to say WOO, new blog.  I think it fits Dis a lot better than the old layout, considering...  Well, the old layout reminded me of church and all things perfect and holy and...  Giles-y.  Let's not go there, but I'm glad I changed the layout.  Aren't you?

So yes.  Stoner vids.

I'm sure many of you enjoy a good laugh once in a while.  Sometimes, it's at the expense of Wile E. Coyote.  Sometimes, it's because that one classmate you hate just hit himself in the face with his pen.  And sometimes...  Well, sometimes you've just got to have a great big guffaw in the general public's direction.

I don't know, but I think 'Your Highness' just kind of spat in King Arthur's face.  For fun.  I don't take kindly to that.

I'm not sure what I expected when I walked into this movie.  I knew the type of audience it would draw and I was apprehensive at best (Because...  Does anybody here actually picture me as willingly walking into this type of movie?)  But for some reason, the bastards at Cinemark decided not to show 'Arthur' this week.   Hence, we decided we'd settle for this...  Erm...  [Insert nicer term than 'Abomination' here.]

Those of you reading this are probably aware that your tastes in humor and my tastes in humor greatly differ (If not, then kudos.)  We can thusly infer that while you would probably be sitting through this movie either giggling your arse off or shaking your head in amusement, I would either be stewing silently beside you or dropping my jaw in awe of the debacle that has managed to sweep the nation's movie theaters, however briefly that may be.

Thankfully, the critics agree with me.  Rotten Tomatoes (Bless them) gave this film a 25% on its ratings.  I'm choosing to blatantly ignore the 50% of users who did like it, because, well, most of the population tends to need to wear dunce caps on a daily basis in the first place.  Roger Ebert, whom everyone should know lest I chop off your necessary bits and feed them to the general populace for sheer stupidity, said:

"Your Highness" is a juvenile excrescence that feels like the work of 11-year-old boys in love with dungeons, dragons, warrior women, pot, boobs and four-letter words. One of the heroes even wears the penis of a minotaur on a string around his neck. I hate it when that happens.

 And...  Well, he's right.  Though I did somehow manage to find the idea of wearing a minotaur's penis around my neck morbidly amusing, the film was just...  Bad.  The humor was bad.  The lewd visuals and less-than-charming script were bad.  The actors, some of whom I adore (Natalie Portman: HOW COULD YOU?) were bad.  Even the fight scenes were bad.  Bad.  Bad.  Just...  Bad.

But wait, just how bad is it?  Let's see what good ol' Ebert has to say about Portman's performance:

Natalie Portman is the Xena clone, a fierce warrior, laid on for anime fans who seem to regard such characters as masturbatory fantasies. She too has no personality, although she has more dialogue, all of it expressing cliches of steely determination.

Oh shit, that's pretty fucking bad.  Not to mention, those poor boys who would regard her character as material for 'masturbatory fantasy' would probably find themselves dickless within three seconds if her character (Isabel, if you really must know) ever found out.  I love Ebert for pretty much blatantly saying "GO OUT AND GET LAID FOR REALS INSTEAD OF WATCHING SHITTY MOVIES."

I could be wrong.  Maybe I'm being too hard.  Maybe I should watch it again just to make double, triple sure I'm not going to be buying this movie for Christmas?

...Or maybe I just need to smoke AN ENTIRE FIELD OF CANNABIS to properly enjoy it?

Nevertheless, I had fun.  There was a mechanical bird named Simon and a squire named Courtney that funnily enough reminded me of a girl from Giles that would fit nicely in this setting.  So I guess this film wasn't all bad.

Portal... 2?

I am a novelist.  By definition, this means I write novels.  In colloquial terms, this means I write.  I use my imagination to create things an ordinary, stagnant human being can't (And believe me, there are a lot of ordinary, stagnant people.  How many of you are couch potatoes?)  Allow me to use this extraordinary mind of mine to break down the essence of Portal 2 for you:

This long-awaited sequel is, in essence, Portal.

Okay, I admit: I was looking forward to solving a couple more puzzles after I cracked my wrists and watched GlaDOS extinguish a candle on a cake (For those of you who don't like spoilers, suck it.)  They were fun.  Not challenging, not easy.  Average.  Just like your everyday gamer's intelligence.  I thusly expected an average story and got one, then rode easily on my boyfriend's fanboyish excitement for Portal 2, which, funny enough, was coming out the next day.

When I started, I played Co-Op, and that gave me high hopes for the rest of the game.  We (That is, my boyfriend and I) spent somewhere close to three hours horsing around with Atlas and P-Body, managing to have fun despite the fact that it was...  Oh, four or five in the morning.  I do consider the Co-Op version of  the game a huge success, and I look forward to actually completing the campaign, should I have the time.

The single-player mode, to my discovery, was a huge disappointment.  Let me show you what I mean:

Look familiar?  It really shouldn't.

Portal 2 is a downright copy of its predecessor, right down to the...  Well, I can't tell you that, since most of my readers haven't even finished the game yet.  Suffice to say there are very little surprises here, and the ones that exist...  Leave much to be desired.  Essentially, you are paying $40-$60 for a total remake with one or two new characters, the same soundtrack, and larger (But unfortunately, not more complicated) puzzles.  Don't get me wrong, you will giggle, and the characters are still charming, but the OMFG-COOL plot and the OH-SHIT game mechanics have died and passed on to the Aperture Science Facilities in the sky.  I hope you like reruns, because that's what I paid for.

By the way, in case any of you are wondering what I think a REAL sequel is like, it should be something like:

Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (He's on a beach.  Eggman is in space.  ZOMG DIFFERENT SETTINGS ARE WIN.)

Or...

In case you're wondering, YES, Phantom Hourglass IS a sequel to Wind Waker.

In short, meloves, VIDEO GAMES CAN HAVE AMAZING SEQUELS.  You just have to root out the ones that don't.  Or, continue playing until you become a mindless drone -- something I'm sure many people are doing with Mortal Kombat right now.  Portal and its successor are all good and fun, but in the future, Valve, please attempt to give me something new to do instead of sit and shoot holes at things.

(On a side note, the game theme song isn't as good as Portal's original "Still Alive', either.)