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REVIEW: Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin (Nintendo Switch)
When the guardian species known as Rathalos begin disappearing, the world is turned upside down, with monsters running rampant and strange lights appearing around the world. It is up to the grandchild of a legendary rider to investigate the mystery and save the world. In a world where turn-based combat systems are almost as rare as Activision games not named Call of Duty, my attention always draws to a title when they use a turn-based combat system. Enter Monster Hunter Stories 2, Wings of Ruin, the second installment in the Monster Hunter spinoff franchise. Here, the player controls a Rider, who instead of hunting monsters keeps them as companions. These…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘THE PROGRAM’
Place at the Table The Program is a highly embellished glimpse at the perils of big time collegiate football. The prioritization of wins over the actual molding of young minds is at its center, but so is football’s innate ability to form lasting bonds. The men who take the field put their bodies on the line for each other. It’s a brotherhood. It nails both of those aspects. The shadiness of the folks in charge is omnipresent; and the central cast of characters is relatable. Their foibles, as cliché as they may be, are distinctly human. You’ve got the young upstart running back Darnell Jefferson (Omar Epps), whose education entering college…
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FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 7×18- “Heart of the Matter, Part 2”
The Flash (7×18)- “Heart of the Matter, Part 2″ Written by: Eric Wallace & Kelly Wheeler Directed by: Marcus Stokes So let’s start off with an explanation. Today is the sixth of September, this episode aired on July twentieth so the obvious question is: “Jason, where have you been?” I’ll tell you where I’ve been! I have not had a day off from work since July eighteenth. And these haven’t been half days either, I’ve worked nine to twelve hours a day, every day for over a month and a half but still I am truly sorry for the delay. So this episode picks up with Bart unconscious and…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘LAST MAN STANDING’
No, Not the Tim Allen Show Last Man Standing is the American reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), though it wasn’t the first reinterpretation. The Spaghetti Western A Fist Full of Dollars (1964) had tread this ground before—a man with no name caught up in the exacerbating violence of warring gangs. Unlike the Italian-produced film, Last Man Standing was given Kurosawa’s blessing. Unfortunately, it can’t replicate either of its predecessors results. Directed by Walter Hill, it’s a movie that struggles mightily to present a coherent story. Sure, it revolves around Irish and Italian mobsters vying for bootlegging dominance in a remote Texas town, but what happens around that is often nonsensical. That is no fault of the…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘HUDSON HAWK’
Scat Burglar Hudson Hawk is as bold a movie as an A-list star could possibly choose to make. And that’s a compliment. Bruce Willis, most famous for playing gruff cop John McClane, stars as cat burglar Eddie Hawkins—the titular Hudson Hawk. He’s tasked with stealing artifacts crafted by Leonardo da Vinci that are capable of turning lead into gold. On the surface, that sounds like a fairly standard action-centric plot. What it actually entails is anything but. Hudson Hawk boasts a deluge of slapstick tomfoolery; dynamic duets between Willis and Danny Aielo, who plays his partner Tommy Five-Tone; a secret com device crafted out of a crucifix; and a gaggle of candy-themed thugs—one…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘COP OUT’
Bruce is Too Old for This S**t Cop Out is a humorless retread of the buddy cop trope. Directed by Kevin Smith, though not written by him, it lacks the key ingredient to this tried and true formula—charismatic leads. Bruce Willis, as Jimmy, sleepwalks through the entire film. Tracy Morgan, as his partner Paul, tries dutifully to carry his lifeless husk across the finish line. But, alas, he cannot. No amount of improv or overacting can inject life into the flat script. More than likely, Willis’ on-set tantrums and open disdain for Smith’s direction played a role in Cop Out‘s failures. He just didn’t commit to the material, which forced Morgan to…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘THE SUICIDE SQUAD’
Passion Fruit Starfish James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which is a pseudo-sequel to 2016’s film, is an unapologetic, Troma-inspired, super heroic gore fest. And it is glorious! This is Gunn’s superhero magnum opus. He dives deep into DC’s bag of obscure characters to assemble a ragtag group of expendable heathens. Make no mistake, many of these oddballs are here to die. And they do so in a series of grotesque ways. This is a hard R, folks. Unlike Birds of Prey or Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which could’ve curbed their foul language to earn a PG-13, The Suicide Squadbasks in the magnificence of its unfettered violence. Bullets are sprayed, a man is murdered with his…
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REVIEW: Pokemon Unite – An Easy to Learn MOBA
When Pokemon Unite was revealed back in 2020, the fandom went on a rampage. Fast-forward nearly two years later, and the pocket monsters have their own version of League of Legends. The gameplay is exceptionally simplistic. Each match contains a fight between two teams of five players, using different fighters. There is an option of either playing randomly or having enough friends to form a squad. During these 10 minutes battles, each team needs to fight wild Pokemon and gather points to throw in the opposing team’s goalposts. While it is a requirement for every playable character, for characters like Venusaur, Gengar, or Greninja, those players start as the first…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD’
A Good Day to Davai Die Hard is arguably the greatest action movie ever made. A Good Day to Die Hard, on the other hand, is a soulless husk that’s related to the prior entries in name only. Certainly, the character of John McClane, Bruce Willis, became progressively more absurd with each sequel. He’d gone from isolated cop, surviving on instinct and guile, to literally a super human battling a fighter jet on a highway. In A Good Day to Die Hard, that trend continues. Worse, though, there’s just no story or a compelling villain to balance it out. The plot of this movie makes no sense—not even a semblance of it. It’s so…
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REVIEW: Mario Golf Super Rush
After close to 20 years, we’ve finally been given another Mario Golf title on a Nintendo console: Mario Golf: Super Rush. During the reveal trailer, they introduced several modes such as a campaign, like the fan favorites on Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance, on top of two new methods of play called Speed Golf and Battle Golf. In comparison to previous versions, Super Rush‘s way of incorporating a story mode is rather disappointing. Unlike its predecessor, there are no original characters. The closest thing to a newly introduced character is the Mii that players can choose for their savefile. In this story mode, the player gets access to different challenges…
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