Another Survival Horror Conquest

After working away at it for three months (and six hours, 50 minutes, and 33 seconds of accumulated playing time), I finally beat Resident Evil 3. The complete and total nuclear annihilation of a city overrun with zombies and genetically engineered monsters has never looked so glorious.

There's a feature in the game where, at certain moments, you'll be presented with two options. These two options represent two different courses of action that can be taken in the particular situation, and the choice you make can effect certain cutscenes and other moments in the game. It's kinda like those Choose Your Own Adventure books. The final choice of the game presents you with two options: stomp the crap out of the wounded boss monster with a .44 Magnum, or leave it to die a slow and painful death (until the city gets nuked, that is). Guess which one I chose. Yeah, I could have shown a little mercy and left it there, but where's the satisfaction in that? This thing followed me all over town trying to rearrange my face in a violent fashion, so you'd better believe that it's going to get some major comeuppance.

That's one more conquest I can add to my survival horror résumé. Now I just need to acquire Code Veronica, and I'll show that game who's boss too.

Hey, Look, Post Titles

You know what can be really draining? I spent a good three or four hours last night adding titles to all of my posts throughout forty-one months of archives. I probably didn't have to, I probably didn't even really need to, but I figured, "Eh, what the heck." And boy, was it tough thinking of titles for all 320+ posts. But what can I say, I'm dedicated to my craft. Even if I had to repeat and recycle a few, I got 'em all done. I'm just trying it out for now, to see how I like it. It might take me some getting used to, but if I decide to keep the titles around permanently, I'll have to get used to it.

Meanwhile, I've been chipping away at the three reviews I said I was doing some time back. I finished up the first one last week, and the second one is coming along quite nicely, thank you for asking. It might be a while before I get all three posted, though. I've been putting so much effort into the writing that I've decided to slow down a little before I totally burn myself out. I don't want to be all work and no play while writing them. That's a big reason why I started Sutton At The Movies: to not only inform you, the reader, of my own personal opinions towards a particular movie, but to enjoy myself while doing it. My best reviews (in terms of writing, not rating) have always been the ones that I had fun writing, because the words seemed to come much easier.

They might not get posted for another few weeks, but those three reviews will be coming sooner or later. Like I said earlier, I'm dedicated to my craft.

32 Days And Counting

Here I was working on a perfectly good post when El Hámster Magnífico had to go and take another break, causing me to lose the post. You're totally going to get replaced one day, Hammy.

Moving on, I mainly wanted to post one more followup on those Backlash tickets. I'm sure you guys are starting to get tired of hearing about it, so I'll make it quick. The tickets arrived via UPS around 3:00 this afternoon, and now the countdown to April 30th has officially begun. I'll update you in about a month after the show.

I had a few other things I was planning on talking about, but I totally forgot what they were after the crash. Way to go, Hammy, you lazy jerk. If I remember what those things are, I'll post again. Out.

One More Follow-Up

After making a few phone calls and putting the powers that be on the hunt, I discovered that the closest Ticketmaster retailer no longer existed, despite still being listed on Ticketmaster's website. Despite the wild goose chase, the story does have a happy ending. I did what I probably should have done in the first place and placed my order online, and my tickets should arrive via UPS in about two days or so. The seats are in the sixth row of Section 20, and if you're interested, you can see how the seats line up with the rest of the arena by checking out this seating chart, or you can check out what my view of the action will be by clicking here.

And oddly enough, the seats are only one section over from where I sat at the very first WWE event I ever went to, all the way back the summer of 1998. In Section 21 at my first house show to Section 20 at my first televised show... It's the circle of life, folks.

A Follow-Up To Prior News

If you're a regular follower of the blog, you might remember a post I made around three or four weeks ago concering a pay-per-view event that WWE would be running here in Kentucky next month. As a follow-up to that, I wanted to mention that there's a definite possibility that I'll be attending. The tickets went on sale yesterday, and after a discussion with the powers that be around here, I might just get to go. The seats aren't going to be ringside ones (since I don't have $175 to throw around), and I doubt they'll even be the second best seats (since I don't have $75 to throw around). I'm hoping that I'll at least be able to get tickets somewhere within in the $50 range, which would land me in the green seats on this seating chart. And even if I end up with seats that aren't all that great, it's my belief that crappy seats are better than no seats.

Keep in mind that I'll have to talk to my regular running buddies before anything is finalized, and I don't want to say I'm going until I'm holding the tickets in my hand. But there's definitely a chance, and I'm totally hoping that I'll be able to make it. And if I don't, I could always buy the pay-per-view broadcast. I'd rather be there in person, but I'll take what I can get.

The Simpsons: Live In Living Color

In order to break up the monotony of my complaining, I found a fun little news report that you Simpsons fans are going to enjoy. According to Yahoo! News, Sunday's episode of The Simpsons is going to feature the live-action depiction of the show's opening that I posted a couple of weeks ago. And that's pretty rockin'.

MySpace Hates Me

You've all heard of that social networking site MySpace, right? I really hate it sometimes. Most of you know that my computer is Stone Age technology, and I often joke that it's operated by a hamster in a little wheel (a hamster that I've since named "El Hámster Magnífico"). And good ol' El Hámster Magnífico decided he was going to take a cigarette break when I tried to open up more than one MySpace profile at a time. I know El Hámster Magnífico can't help being slow (since that happens in old age), but I hear the quagmire that is MySpace is super-slow even for people with state-of-the-art computers. Come on, MySpace. I don't really need to see fifty million profiles with a zillion little icons, three music videos, a cute little cursor icon, and a song. It doesn't help those of us who aren't technologically privileged. So in short: Keep it simple, you goshdarn you-know-whaties!

Man, three angry rants in a row. I need to think of something happy to talk about for a change.

Larry The Cable Guy Is Not Funny

I ranted about my dislike for edited-for-TV movies on Saturday, but there's something that's been bugging me a lot more lately: Larry the Cable Guy.

I've seen the commercial for his new movie, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, a zillion times over the last week or so, and it looks to be a case of the only funny jokes in the movie getting stuck into the commercial. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't really judge it. But if it's anything like Larry's stand-up act, then it'll be a sure-fire Razzie nominee. And if he's a "cable guy," why is he the health inspector? He already has a job. I guess they didn't want to associate it with that Jim Carrey movie The Cable Guy, I don't know.

For those of you who've had the good fortune to never hear of this loser, Larry the Cable Guy is the stage name of Dan Whitney, a member of the "Blue Collar Comedy" troupe. His gimmick is that he's a stereotypical redneck turned up to eleven, to the point that many of his jokes could come across as being racist and homophobic. The rest of his act involves either fart jokes or jokes about non-existent members of his family. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with southern humor. I'm actually a fan Larry's three Blue Collar colleagues, Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Jeff Foxworthy. But what seperates Larry from the other three is the fact that I just don't think he's very funny. Very rarely does he get any real laughs from me personally, as most of the time the only laughing I do is at how lame the majority of his jokes are.

If you like Larry, more power to you. Like everything, your mileage may vary. But I'll stick to the other Blue Collars, Dane Cook, and the late great Mitch Hedberg, thank you very much.

This Post Has Been Edited For Television

So I was watching part of Freddy vs. Jason on the Sci-Fi Channel tonight, even though I've seen it quite a few times and I bought the DVD the day it came out. But that's beside the point. Anyway, I was watching Freddy vs. Jason, and I'm really starting to hate movies edited for television. It's so obvious, and it takes me right out of the movie. And it hurts the performances somewhat, too. I'll admit that the performances in Freddy vs. Jason were less than Oscar worthy, but still. Give a guy a break. Is it so wrong to want unedited violence and profanity on prime time TV? Daytime soap operas say pretty much everything but the seven dirty words, but a slasher movie in prime time can't? I'm calling shenanigans on this crap.

I guess the moral of the story is that I should either suck it up and get over it, or quit watching movies that have been edited for television. One of the two.

Resident Evil: The Cast

Okay, I've finished up that little side-project. After a conversation with Libby the other day, and remembering a thread with a similar topic posted some time ago at a message board I hang out at on occasion, I decided to put together a list of actors that I would choose to play in movie versions of the Resident Evil games. None of that non-canon Milla Jovovich stuff, but movies that are more faithful to their source material. I did the six main chapters of the storyline, and left out any characters that are too minor to deserve any real attention. Some unknown actor can play those guys. But enough jibber-jabber, let's get to the lists.

Resident Evil Zero:

• Leelee Sobieski as "Rebecca Chambers"
• Mark Wahlberg as "Billy Coen"
• James Marsters as "young James Marcus"
  
• Robert Englund as "old James Marcus"
• Kiefer Sutherland as "William Birkin"
• Christian Bale as "Albert Wesker"
• Danny Trejo as "Enrico Marini"

Resident Evil:

• Kate Beckinsale as "Jill Valentine"
• Ben Affleck as "Chris Redfield"
• Kane Hodder as "Barry Burton"
• Leelee Sobieski as "Rebecca Chambers"
• Christian Bale as "Albert Wesker"
• Danny Trejo as "Enrico Marini"
• Steve Zahn as "Brad Vickers"

Resident Evil 2:

• Paul Walker as "Leon S. Kennedy"
• Gina Philips as "Claire Redfield"
• Kelly Hu as "Ada Wong"
• Dakota Fanning as "Sherry Birkin"
• Kiefer Sutherland as "William Birkin"
• Clea DuVall as "Annette Birkin"
• M.C. Gainey as "Brian Irons"
• Steve Buscemi as "Ben Bertolucci"

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis:

• Kate Beckinsale as "Jill Valentine"
• Antonio Banderas as "Carlos Oliviera"
• Henry Rollins as "Mikhail Victor"
• Brian Cox as "Nicholai Ginovaef"
• Steve Zahn as "Brad Vickers"

Resident Evil: Code Veronica:

• Gina Philips as "Claire Redfield"
• Ben Affleck as "Chris Redfield"
• Christian Bale as "Albert Wesker"
• Bridgette Wilson-Sampras as "Alexia Ashford"
• Jude Law as "Alfred Ashford"
• Leonardo DiCaprio as "Steve Burnside"
• George Lopez as "Rodrigo Juan Raval"

Resident Evil 4:

• Paul Walker as "Leon S. Kennedy"
• Elisha Cuthbert as "Ashley Graham"
• Kelly Hu as "Ada Wong"
• Galen Garing as "Luis Sera"
• Chris Sarandon as "Osmund Saddler"
  
• Michael J. Anderson as "Ramon Salazar"
• Glen "Kane" Jacobs as "Bitores Mendez"
• Brock Lesnar as "Jack Krauser"
• Christian Bale as "Albert Wesker"

So that's that. Any comments, complaints, questions, and the like can be sent to the usual places. So now that that's out of the way, I have plenty of room to work on my next projects: those reviews I mentioned on Friday. I'm aiming to keep the names of those reviews a surprise until I get them posted, so start the guessing games now. Or don't start the guessing games, what do I care.

More Hills, More Eyes

In addition to the three reviews I mentioned last week, I've got another little side-project I'm putting some effort into. Some of you already know what it is (I'm looking at you, Libby), but I'm keeping it under wraps for the most part until I can get everything in order. You may or may not find the project a little lame or silly, and it probably is, but I'm having fun putting it together. And if it's not fun, we here at The Matt Sutton Experience don't have much use for it. There's some tiny little details that I need to work out, but I'm almost done. But those tiny little details are gonna bug me to death until I get them taken care of, I just know it. I don't know when I'll get them figured out, so there's no set target date for the project. So don't let the suspense kill you, okay?

And if you were wondering how my viewing of the original Hills Have Eyes fared, I'll gladly tell you. It's not bad at all, to be honest. Yeah, it's rough around the edges and the acting isn't all that great, but that's what makes low-budget horror movies from the '70s so charming. It's totally worth your time if you like movies from that era, so I give it a most definite recommendation. I'll probably do a review of it sometime within the next few months, whenever the DVD of the remake comes out. Just so I can do them both at the same time, you know?

That's all the news that's fit to print for now. So until next time, faithful readers, excelsior.

The Hills Still Have Blogs

Caught another showing of The Hills Have Eyes, and I stand by my mini-review from the other day. It's just as scary the second time around as it was the first time. So if you've been thinking of seeing it, I recommend doing so. I also picked up the DVD of the original Hills Have Eyes after the movie, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Like I said earlier, I've seen bits and pieces of it in the past, but haven't seen it from start to finish all the way through before. I've heard good things though, so I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably end up watching it later tonight, after I wrap up an episode or two of Angel that I was planning on watching sometime today. But whether I get to it tonight or some other time, I'm definitely going to watch it sooner or later, for sure.

The Hills Have Blogs

Man, today was a long day. When all the varying things I did today are combined with the silliness of the day, it actually reminded me of my college days. This afternoon, I went with my buddy Mo to pick up some concert tickets for him and someone he knows (the tickets are to see country singer Miranda Lambert, for those of you who care), then caught the second half of Kentucky's come-from-behind win against Alabama in the SEC tournament. Wrapping up the day, myself, Mo, and some people he works with stopped by the Wendy's in Bardstown before catching the 10:00 showing of The Hills Have Eyes. I just got home fifteen minutes ago, so it was a long night too.

For those of you wondering how I felt about The Hills Have Eyes, I'll tell you. The movie is very violent, very demented, and very insane. I've only seen bits and pieces of Wes Craven's original 1977 version of The Hills Have Eyes, but this remake is unrelentingly vicious. If all the violence I saw made it into the R-rated theatrical version, I'm sure that the unrated version that will no doubt be released on DVD is even more brutal. There's two rapes (or something very bizarre that looks a lot like it, anyway), violence involving guns, an axe, a baseball bat, and fire, violence committed by and against animals, and the horrifically disfigured cannibalistic villains threating to eat a baby. Yeah, this movie is totally classy. The movie is nothing short of unsettling and borderline disturbing, and it's sporting a mean streak all the way down to its black core. So in short, those of you with weak constitutions or an aversion to depravity in horror cinema, you might want to skip it.

However, the movie is also convincingly acted, and the effects by KNB EFX are outstanding. It's also brilliantly directed by French auteur Alexandre Aja, who previously directed High Tension and makes his American feature film debut with this movie. If any compliment can be given to The Hills Have Eyes, it's that Aja is a masterful director, and if the movie is a hit, it could open the door for him to become - and this is a pretty big statement - the next Wes Craven. While he utilizes a somewhat annoying, quickly edited "shaky cam" format of filmmaking in one key scene, everything else is well done. And because it is both well made and outright freaky, I'll give The Hills Have Eyes three and a half stars, pushing towards four.

Random Musings

Okay, so I've been meaning to post, but I just can't think of anything to talk about. But I want to post, and by God, I'm gonna think of something wacky!

I was going through my DVD collection recently, and there are so many I haven't watched in the longest time. There's a handful I haven't watched since I bought them, believe it or not. I should get around to dusting them off sometime. I mean, they're not doing me any real good sitting there, are they?

You know what sucks about being a night owl? There's hardly anything good on TV at 4:00 in the morning. Maybe that's where delving into my DVD collection will come in handy.

Am I the only one who's seen that Juicy Fruit commercial with the giant ant? I hate bugs as it is, and that commercial doesn't help me out at all.

I've been trying to get into Degrassi: The Next Generation lately, but I'm finding it rather hard to follow along. It doesn't help that I'm jumping in when the show is already into its fourth or fifth season. But what else bothers me is that most of the episodes I've seen lately seem to be reruns. There's been a few episodes that I've seen more than once (or twice). Really, there's only so many times I can see the bipolar kid trash a hotel room and beat up his dad, the skinny blonde girl get gonnorhea because of her newfound promiscuity, or the Hispanic girl doing her own version of Girls Gone Wild before I start to lose interest.

Going back to my fear of bugs for a moment, I've been playing some Resident Evil 3 lately, and there's a section I just can't bring myself to make it through. Why? There's at least two or three giant man-sized spiders hanging from the walls of this one room, and I absolutely loathe spiders. Even the video game kind, I hate. Ugh, why must Resident Evil torture me so? I thought we were friends, Capcom. What happened to us?

And continuing on the topic of survival horror games, do you know what movie would make a good survival horror game? 28 Days Later. I know the movie is three years old, but age didn't stop anyone from making games based on Scarface or The Godfather. If they did it in the style of a Resident Evil game, it could be the coolest game ever. And it just struck me that a Shaun of the Dead game would be really cool too. They could make it like a Grand Theft Auto game, where you run around the streets of London bashing zombies with a cricket bat, or throwing vinyl records at them like Frisbees. Though knowing my luck, they'd make 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead games for only the PlayStation and X-Box and I'd have to miss out, because I'm the only person on Earth that owns Nintendo consoles and nothing else.

For those of you interested (and those of you still following along after all of my babbling), I have two or three new movies I plan on reviewing if everything turns out okay. And by "okay," I mean "if Netflix sends them to me on schedule." I don't want to name the movies I plan on writing yet, but I'll be working on a theme. And with luck, they'll be up sometime early next month. Looking over my DVD collection, I see a few movies that I'd like to review, but I just have to find the motivation. But they're not gonna review themselves, are they?

And that's all I've got for now. I'll probably have something else to say later, I'm not sure. Sutton out.

This is awesome.

Oscar Winners

Best Picture: Crash
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney, Syriana
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Best Director: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Best Animated Feature Film: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Best Music (score): Gustavo Santaolalla, Brokeback Mountain
Best Music (song): "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" from Hustle & Flow
Best Screenplay (adapted): Brokeback Mountain, written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Best Screenplay (original): Crash, written by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco

So those are all the Oscar winners that matter. King Kong did win three awards for sound design and visual effects, but who cares about all of that technical stuff? And what was supposed to be the year of the gay cowboy turned out to be just a bunch of hype.

But there's your winners, like 'em or not.

Razzie Winners

Worst Picture: Dirty Love
Worst Actor: Rob Schneider, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Worst Actress: Jenny McCarthy, Dirty Love
Worst Supporting Actor: Hayden Christensen, Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Worst Supporting Actress: Paris Hilton, House of Wax
Worst Director: John Mallory Asher, Dirty Love
Worst Screenplay: Dirty Love, written by Jenny McCarthy
Worst On-Screen Couple: Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman, Bewitched
Worst Remake or Sequel: Son of the Mask
Most Tiresome Tabloid Target: Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Oprah Winfrey's couch, the Eiffel Tower, and "Tom's baby"

The Oscar winners will be up tomorrow or thereabouts. Something like that.

Wrestling? Maybe.

Can you spare a dime for a fellow American who's down on his luck?

I did a little nosing around the Interweb the last few days, and discovered that WWE is running a pay-per-view event at Rupp Arena in Lexington on April 30th. I couldn't find any ticket prices posted anywhere, but I'm going to assume that the good seats will be closer to $50 or $60. Maybe I'll be able to come across that kind of scratch by the time they go on sale (at least, I hope so). If not, I can always try to scrounge up the money for the TV broadcast. Because I just can't say no to pro wrestling at Rupp Arena.

I added several new taglines to the top of the blog. See if you can guess which ones are new!

Speaking of additions, there's a couple of new movies to your right, on the "Blatant Movie Shilling" list. Because if there is one thing I do well, it's talk about movies.

Other than all that, there hasn't really been all that much going on lately. Life moves pretty slowly around here, unfortunately. But I've never let that stop me before, have I? Of course not. I might be back later, depending on if I can think of anything worth saying. If not, eh, I'll probably still be back later. I run this show, I can do what I please with it.