Alan’s Blog of Monkey Bloginess

A note before we get started: I have software 1.2 and have not used the nook with any previous versions of the interface software. I’ve read a lot about the previous versions’ shortcomings, but I approach the nook’s software and responsiveness as a newcomer.

So last Tuesday I got my first e-Ink eReader and Android-powered device: a Barnes & Noble nook. I had been anxiously awaiting its arrival and have greatly enjoyed my initial time with it. It’s not without its quirks and shortcomings, but the experience has been overall fantastic.

I’m not a big reader. It’s not to say I don’t enjoy stories, but that I find paper books to be cumbersome and inconvenient. I’ve used every portable device I’ve ever owned to read eBooks in an attempt to find the perfect paper replacement: Sony Clie, Nintendo DS, iPod, iPhone, laptop, netbook. They all suffered from one of three issues: (1) too large and bulky to carry around, (2) too small to read, and/or (3) staring at a light source to read causes eye strain after several hours. First and foremost, none of these devices were designed with eBooks in mind. But with the rise in dedicated eReading hardware using e-Ink displays, my lifelong quest of a good paper replacement for reading has finally been realized.

Where the first part of my life can be remarkable because I can count all of the novels I’ve read (and finished) on a single set of fingers and toes, the next phase will likely be notable for the amount of literature I’ve discovered and enjoyed.

e-Ink You Say?

Have you witnessed first hand what it’s like to read on an e-Ink display? No? Do you know what it’s like reading a book while staring into a light bulb? It’s nothing like that. You’ll get an experience very reminiscent of reading ink on paper as compared to reading on a computer screen – a light source.

Though all the eReader devices use the same screen. So if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. If you haven’t had a chance to see an e-Ink display in person, then you should head to your local Barnes & Noble to see a nook in action, or check out any major electronics retailer to see Sony’s eReader displays for screen demos.

Two Screens Are The New Black

What sets the nook apart from many other eReaders on the market is its use of a secondary color touch screen to facilitate the majority of the navigation throughout the device. Nintendo started a trend with the DS for having a dual-screen device with a touch screen, and using a nook after years of owning a DS felt very natural.

The bottom, touch screen turns off after a predefined set of time to (1) save battery power and (2) to not distract you from the real reason to use this device: reading books on the e-Ink screen. The time can be adjusted in the Settings area, as can the brightness level. In the week I’ve been using it, the only complaint I have is that I wish there was a button to explicitly turn it off when done and ready to read; having to always wait for it to time-out is not ideal.

Where To Get eBooks

Barnes & Noble
Obviously, the first place you’ll want to get books with the Barnes & Noble nook is from Barnes & Noble. At least that’s what the brick & mortar store is hoping. And it’s likely true, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only place to get books to read on your nook. Barnes & Noble, in the interest of selling a consumer-friendly device at the potential cost of vendor lock-in, has been gracious enough to release a device that accepts various formats including open formats.

Barnes & Noble still has a secret ace up its sleeve for cheapo readers (like me, I don’t like to spend a lot on books. At least not at the moment): Google Books. There are 500,000 free public domain books available in the Barnes & Noble eBook store provided by Google Books. Good luck finding them, though, as I believe whenever there is a version of the book by a publisher, that is displayed because I’ve found many public domain books for $9.99 where there are free versions available in Google Books if you go through Google directly. Which brings us to…

Free Public-Domain and Creative Commons Books
Public-domain is the rule, and copyright is the exception. That’s the model creative works are suppose to exist under in the United States. There is a great deal of amazing literature that is actually free for everyone to enjoy, and there are websites dedicated to providing these works in your format of choice at no cost. In addition to these works that form the foundation of our culture, there are contemporary authors who distribute their work without copyright and make it available through these sites as well. Some great sites for getting free content viewable on the nook are:

Google Books
Project Gutenberg
Feedbooks
epubBooks

Your Local Library
Believe it or not, but your local library may end up being your best friend with the nook. For example, the Denver Public Library, where I have a membership, has eBook lending in the ePub and PDF formats, both of which are supported by the nook. DPL uses Adobe Digital Editions to manage its DRM, and the nook supports Adobe DRM on ePub and PDF formats. In exchange for some of my tax dollars, I can check out books at no additional cost when a licensing slot is available. With DPL, I can checkout up to 20 eBooks at a time for up to 21 days each. The Adobe Digital Editions program supports the nook and will recognize one that is connected and authorized with the computer. Open your checked-out eBooks in the Adobe Digital Editions program, and simply drag & drop the books onto your nook.

Make Your Own
Since the nook supports the open ePub format, which is an XML-based format, you can convert your own files into eBooks to display on the nook. The nook does not support plain text files, but converting various types of files into ePub files is fairly easy with the proper tools. Check out this tutorial. Personally I’m finding the Windows and Linux versions of Sigil to be the best ePub creation tools with the power of a lightweight WYSIWYG editor. And Sigil is free open-source software.

Connecting The nook

Connecting the nook to a Windows or Linux PC (sorry, no Mac here for testing) is easy. Connecting the nook via the provided USB cable brings up the nook’s 2GB internal memory as a USB drive with folders already set-up for audiobooks, B&N downloads, documents, music, screensavers, and wallpaper. If you install a MicroSD card, then that card will appear as a separate USB drive, so that you can transfer files to the nook or the MicroSD card.

When you add files to the nook, you’ll need to update the library afterwards. Also, the nook’s interface does not categorize content, so the folders are for your benefit only; the nook scans the internal and MicroSD drives for all content to display in your library, and drops it all in one bucket in the interface. Well two, all ePub & PDF files will be shown in the documents area of your library, and all MP3s will be playable through a single playlist in the music player.

Wallpapers and screensavers are the only folders that maintain significance. Add single images to wallpapers and the image will be available in the Settings area to change your nook’s wallpaper. Add a folder of images to the screensaver folder and the name of that folder will appear as a screensaver option in Settings.

For connecting the nook to Wifi, that was significantly easier than previous reviews have led on. Gone are the days of manually entering network IDs, it seems, because my nook automatically found my home network and identified its security type. I only needed to select the network and enter my password. Usually, the built-in free 3G connection to AT&T wireless will be more than enough to satisfy any wireless needs.

What I Want

I really enjoy using the nook, but it’s not perfect. Most of the issues I have with it are software-based and hopefully could be addressed with updates and not requiring me to get new hardware.

• TXT File Support - Not that I particularly have a super strong need for support for TXT files, it just feels particularly weird that the nook does not read TXT files, and for the TXT files I would like to put on my nook, converting them to PDF or ePub is total overkill.
• Book & Music Categories/Folders - Putting books and music in file directories on the nook does nothing for organizing the media actually on the device. This makes using audiobooks useless if you ever want to listen to music. Playlists would also be a nice feature for organizing music to play in the background while reading.
• Special Audiobook/Podcast Player - listening to audiobooks and listening to MP3s are slightly different affairs. Primarily an audiobook should remember where in the audio you left off, much like a book will remember a page number, even if you play other audio files before returning. This audiobook player would also serve well as a Podcast player.
• RSS Reader with Internet feeds - an RSS reader to pull in news from any RSS source would be a great feature of the nook and make the Daily section something worth using.
• Text-to-Speech Reader - Yes, text-to-speech readers are lousy. But something is better than nothing. Add in an ability to swap back and forth between reading and speaking, and the nook would become the ultimate road warrior tool for keeping sane on long driving trips.

Wrap Up

And so there you have it. I’ve had my nook for a week, and I’m loving it. It’s re-opened a world of reading for me because it’s much more accessible and convenient. It’s brought to fruition a long-time desire for me to have tech fill in the issues I have with printed literature.

My biggest gripe is with book publishers sabotaging eBook pricing for their own misguided desire to prop-up hardcover book sales. Most new books are $9.99, as with Amazon, but publishers are starting push on booksellers to get eBook prices set closer to $12.99-14.99 without adding any additional features when they should be able to drop the price with increased demand and sales. As a new customer (I usually spent less than $20 a year on books before getting my nook. The two books I’ve purchased so far through Barnes & Noble have been older releases and were about $5 each) who could be tempted to buy eBooks if they were priced fairly, their desire to want me to purchase hardcover versions will inevitably drive me to download public domain and creative commons licensed literature and support writers who give away their work in exchange for exposure and self-satisfaction. Or seek to read newer and copyright restricted books through the library system.

And if they continue pushing and limiting options and choices, while pushing to drive up prices past reasonable levels, there’s always the torrent sites and P2P networks.

Dungeons & Dragons Online has done something that every other MMORPG should have done years ago: gone free! As a casual gamer, I will never pay a blanket monthly fee to play a game. In particular, I would never, ever pay $50 for a game and then pay $15/month access fees on top of that. D&D Online has actually gotten me to play a MMORPG for the first time by making the game free.

Now, 100% of the game is not free, but to play, have fun, and experience the game is free. As you get to higher levels, some character races and classes require in-game points to access. There will also be in-game accessory packs and level packs available for purchase through a store, but those are all optional. The points can be purchased with real world money, or you can earn them in-game for free. So, it is possible to play the game 100% free and get the additional content. But personally, if the game is able to hold my attention that long, I’d likely be willing to shell out a couple bucks for the content. Show me that I want to pay money, and I’ll happily give it.

This is the direction media consumption is heading. Music, movies, TV, games; pretty soon basic content will be free, money will be made on add-ons that bring more value to the basic product that people will want to pay for. Of course, music has always been free, it’s been physical delivery methods that people have actually paid for.

Turbine is beginning to recognize this, and they recognize that by giving their basic game away, they’re really investing in marketing. More people play the game because the price of entry is $0, and then they tell their friends about the game, and their friends try it out because the price of entry is $0. Eventually, they’re hoping to make add-on content compelling enough to get enough people willing to pay. It’s a marketing plan that has worked for decades in the illicit drugs black market with great success.

The game itself seems pretty interesting. My major complaints come from not enough mouse interaction. I feel like I shouldn’t need to use the keyboard except in extreme cases. Such as, movement is done with the W A S D keys, where as I would prefer to right-click a place on the screen and have my character walk to it. Quick weapon switching would be nice, as would the ability to mouse click from weapon to spells instead of having use the interface to select options from icon menus, which takes precious time and concentration away from the game. In the heat of battle, this can be more than obnoxious. Perhaps with more practice transitioning between weapons and spells will become second nature, but as a beginner the interface leaves much to be desired for efficiencies.

Character customization seems impressive with enough options to create the visual type of player you want to be. Classes are fairly standard for D&D, as well. Though in both cases, not all classes and races are available to free players. Some require those points that can be earned or purchased. For me, I was able to create an elf necromancer, which is slick, though Drow elf will require money if I wish to ever go that route and recreate my last table-top character.

Adventures can be played solo or in a group, and common areas exist to interact with other players. Still in the beginning areas of the game, I haven’t seen if there’s an expansive free-roaming area. I used to play text-based RPGs in the ’90s, and I hardly ever went for any missions instead preferring to venture into the wilds and kill whatever was unfortunate enough to stumble in my way. I have yet to see that level of experience recreated here, but maybe I haven’t found it yet.

All in all for the steep price of FREE, I cannot recommend at least trying this game enough. If it’s not your cup of tea, then toss it out and move on. No loss.

See larger image Wii Sports Resort (Video Game) List Price: $49.99 USD New From: $39.95 In Stock Used From: $35.95 In Stock Released July 26, 2009.

I can’t do a review of Wii Sports Resort without doing a review for Wii Motion Plus, the Wiimote add-on that comes with and is required by Wii Resort. First, this is add-on adds sensitivity to the Wiimote, allowing for true 1:1 motion tracking. Previously, the motion sensing capabilities were limited which most developers used to simply replace button presses with a specific motion. So instead of pressing the “A button”, you move the Wiimote down.

With the example of a sword fighting game, you would move the Wiimote left, which would register as a “Move Sword Left” command, and then the sword on screen would move left. But, the sword would not move as you moved the Wiimote. Instead, it would activate a pre-programmed “Move Sword Left” game action. With the Wii Motion Plus add-on, the on-screen sword can mimic exactly the position of the Wiimote, and this is demonstrated with a sword fighting game in Wii Sports Resort that acts as both a Zombie Hunter Training Simulator when you get to the third level, as well as a teaser for a Lightsaber game.

Wii Motion Plus finally delivers the Wii’s promise of immersion gameplay with its increased sensitivity.

There are several areas of games that either group several stages of an activity or several associated events together. For example, as you play through Swordplay, more sword fighting events get unlocked ultimately leading to the Zombie Hunter Training Simulator where you take on hordes of Mii’s; whereas Air Sports includes Sky Diving as well as the plane flying simulators. Let’s take a look at what great sports are included in this set:

Swordplay
One can’t help but play through this game once and imagine in the back of your mind the gentle hum of a Lightsaber. If anything has made the allure of a Star Wars Lightsaber-based Wii game, it’s the Wii Motion Plus add-on. It’s extremely satisfying to have a true 1:1 motion translation between Wiimote and on-screen character.

Wakeboarding
Surprisingly strenuous, wakeboarding works your arms and builds endurance by the simple fact you keep your arms raised. Gravity is forcing you to work your arm muscles and after a round or two of Wakeboarding, I personally need a break.

Frisbee
Much like real frisbee, I can’t manage to throw a perfectly straight disc consistently. I’m prone to wild curves and just bad throws. I’m not sure if I should consider that a testament to the accuracy of Wii Motion Plus and Wii Sports Resorts reading my throw and translating it in-game or that not even Wii Sports Resorts is going to every make Frisbee Golf fun for me.

Archery
The first time I’ve needed to put the Wiimote in my left hand, and it feels weird. I don’t like how it forces you to have the A-button facing yourself, because when holding it up-right, all of my fingers are on the backside, requiring me to use unnatural hand positions to operate the Wiimote both as a bow and as a game controller. The nunchuck attachment is used brilliantly to pull back and launch the arrow. Consider this game the second half of Zombie Headhunter Training. I like to picture zombie heads in the bulls-eye.

Basketball
I’m not too impressed with Basketball on Wii Sports Resort. Basketball games in general on game consoles have been lackluster, and Wii Sports Resort makes it a lot more fun than usual. But with the quality of several other games included in this compilation, my Wii Sports Resort time gets filled in other areas of the set.

Table Tennis
Table Tennis, or Ping Pong as I prefer to call it, is really hard in real life if you’re playing against someone who plays regularly. It’s fast paced, the ball is small, and so are the paddles. Fortunately in Wii Sports Resorts, aiming the paddle is taken care of for you, and you focus on timing and angle of the swing; much like Tennis from the first Wii Sports. Pretty much immediately I was able to get top spin and power hit the ball.

Golf
This is an updated version of Golf from Wii Sports that utilizes the increased sensitivity from the add-on. I’m not big into golf, but in Wii Sports Resort it’s pretty darn fun. The physics and controls are responsive and feel accurate. When the ball gets sliced off the green, I know it’s because my grip was off or my swing was pulled at the end.

Bowling
This is the other repeat offering from the first version of Wii Sports and a prime example of what the Wii Motion Plus add-on offers. Bowling feels more responsive and accurate than before, leaving bad throws to fall flatly on my own shoulders. No more blaming the Wiimote for not recognizing my throw properly. At least no more accurately blaming the Wiimote; there’s still plenty of blame to go around!

Power Cruising
Having ridden an actual JetSki, Wii Sports Resort is definitely a different beast. On an actual JetSki, you work your legs clutching the craft with thighs and hold on tightly with your arms. In Power Cruising on Wii Sports Resort, it works more like arm endurance in keep your arms up, much like wake boarding. The interesting part comes in actually twisting the Wiimote for throttle, though using the nunchuck & Wiimote in separate hands makes it hard to keep them level and it ruins the feeling a bit.

Canoeing
The true joys of canoeing come from being out on the water, slowly rowing through a peaceful natural scene. This is not recreated in Wii Sports Resort, and the canoeing exercise suffers for it. While the rowing action is a great use of the Wiimote, the mini-game is just missing something that makes true canoeing a zen experience of bonding with a natural environment.

Cycling
It’s weird using the Wiimote to cycle, because it’s an action associated with the legs. I’m not particularly fond of this one. It’s great for arm endurance and exercise, but I’d rather be out on a bike. On a chilly day when cycling is uncomfortable, Cycling on Wii Sports Resort is no substitute.

Air Sports
Air Sports involves skydiving and plane flying. The plane flying tasks are a lot of fun, particularly just cruising around the island exploring. You fly the plane as if it were a paper airplane, sorta. Don’t throw the Wiimote, but guide the pitch, roll, and yaw of the plane. Eventually you can kill the engine, shoot at balloons, and get into dog fights. The Sky Diving isn’t as much fun, but that could be because I’ve actually been sky diving and nothing beats the adrenaline rush after falling from an airplane … it just doesn’t translate to a game … at all.

If you have enjoyed the pick-up-and-play aspects of Wii Sports, then Wii Sports Resort is the perfect extension for you. The Wii Motion Plus add-on attachment adds increased sensitivity that ultimately delivers on promises of true immersion by allowing a 1:1 action between the Wiimote in hand and the character’s actions on-screen. If you wait a bit longer, you can purchase a copy of Wii Sports Resort that includes 2 Wii Motion Plus add-on attachments so you don’t need to purchase a copy of the game and then an additional add-on to play against someone else, as the attachment is required for all the games (the nunchuk is only required for a couple).

See larger image Katamari Forever (Video Game) List Price: $29.99 USD New From: $20.97 In Stock Used From: $25.00 In Stock Released September 22, 2009.

First, let me start off by saying I have never played the Katamari games before. It’s not from a lack of interest, but just that I never owned a PS2 and the PS3 I got is backwards incompatible. So, before the latest Katamari offering for the PS3, the world of creating Soylent Stars from people has been off-limits to me.

While this game is pretty much a “Best Of” compilation of previous Katamari games, it’s all new to me! I find the levels quite challenging the first time through and would like there to be some sort of GPS system … or giant ominous hand to point out important places to go.

The controls of the game are easy to get the hang of, though different from many other games. The game is played with the dual analog sticks where the katamari is pushed in a tank-style method with little necessity of use of other buttons. There are additional controls for jumping to the opposite side of the katamari for a quick turn about or revving up the katamari for a dash, both using the analog sticks. A flip up on the Sixaxis controller and the katamari jumps, though I find pressing the jump button to be far easier to execute.

The best part of the game is the totally wacked out story and themes. The game consistently challenges the brain to wrap itself around the logic behind what it’s seeing, and generally it ends up a mangled mess. It is brilliant.

The replay value on the levels is very high. Besides getting cousins and presents to change playable characters and appearances, there is also just the challenge of the puzzles themselves. Katamari is primarily a puzzle game where you solve goals and find the best path through a course to get to the largest size as quickly as possible. As you roll your katamari over items and gain in size, you are able to then pick up larger and larger items. Objects that were initially obstacles later become fodder. Eventually you’ll start hearing screaming and notice you’re picking up people.

The most convincing reason I can give why you should give this game a try is that my fiance, Mercedes, enjoys not only watching me play but enjoys playing herself. Even when I’m not around; she’ll tell me of her exploits attempting some of the more challenging levels and her triumphs on some of the earlier stages. She’s shown moderate interest in some Wii games but never picked up a PS3 controller previously. Katamari has gotten her using the PS3 for more than streaming media to the television.

Zombieland opened last Friday night, and it is definitely the movie to see right now. From start to finish, it’s a smart zombie movie that brings laughs to both the scariest and the most heart-touching of moments. For a zombie movie, there was an overwhelming low number of zombies for the first 2/3 of the movie; not that there weren’t any, but one would have expected more. Though I haven’t laughed so hard and much in quite a while, that the lack of overwhelming zombie hordes was not missed. And when the zombies do finally appear in full force, you see they chose to concentrate their zombie budget instead of blowing it over the whole movie.

This is the zombie movie for zombie movie fans. There are a series of rules the narrator & main character employs to secure his survival over the forces of the until-recently-deceased. These rules are continuously references and reinforced throughout the movie, so in essence Zombieland acts in large part as a zombie primer for developing your Zombie Plans with a good rulebook. The top four rules often repeated are:

Rule #1: Cardio
Rule #2: Beware of Bathrooms
Rule #3: Seatbelts
Rule #4: Doubletap

There are more rules in the main character’s rule book, and a couple more get revealed & one added, but most of them aren’t discussed in the movie.

Woody Harrelson’s performance as “Tallahassee” is dead-on awesome as the anti-hero with a heart who hunts the undead because he has nothing left to live for but to kill zombies, and to find the last Twinkie on Earth before its expiration date. The idea that Twinkies have a 50-year lifespan is an urban legend; they in fact have fairly normal shelf lives as other cellophane wrapped pastry treats. Though all-in-all, I would like to have Mickey Knox on my side in the Zombpocalypse.

Jesse Eisenberg from Roger Doger and Adventureland plays “Columbus” and is the narrator. His performance as the awkward geek who was likely voted Most-Likely-To-Be-Zombie-Chow by his high school class was appropriately … awkward. Its his rules that are repeated throughout the movie, and ultimately keep him & his compatriots alive.

Emma Stone from “Drive” and Superbad plays “Wichita” with her younger-sister “Little Rock” (Abigail Breslin) manage to continuously con Tallahassee & Columbus, and Emma Stone does a great job jumping back and forth keeping both characters and audience guessing on when her character is being genuine and when she should be shot in the head just for being a jerkface.

Now to the true stars of Zombieland: the zombies. The zombie make-up is Grade-A gross. Though the zombies don’t shamble in the classic-Romero shimmy and they have a venomous propensity for vomiting up buckets of blood & guts, these are some of the most eye-catching zombies to grace the screen since the Dawn of the Dead remake. The clown zombie is definitely a colorful cornucopia that will surely leave you cringing in its creepiness.

The zombie deaths are quality, as well. There are a good amount of ever increasingly sized guns throughout the movie, but its Tallahassee’s ingenuity and love-of-the-game mentality behind killing zombies that really makes the zombie efforts worthwhile. It’s one thing to have a beautiful zombie, but then to have it killed in amazingly grotesque and brutal ways is the true pay-off; and Zombieland delivers.

The main characters attempt to find refuge from the zombies in what they hear is one of the last zombie-free places left. Of course, zombie-free does not mean zombie-safe, and the movie comes to a thrilling conclusion which delivers enough zombie mayhem to make any zombie aficionado sigh with affection.

And Bill Murray. I love you, Bill Murray. You’re awesome!

So, if you haven’t gotten out to see Zombieland, don’t wait, go now. It’s worth the price of a theater ticket and benefits from the large format screen. Seeing with a group of zombie fans will only increase your enjoyment because it’s a movie for the Zed-Heads.

There’s a really interesting mocumentary available on Hulu concerning the re-legalization of marijuana that is both highly informative and side-splitting funny: Totally Baked. I hadn’t previously left a review on Hulu, but with the amount of people not understanding the style of film, I felt the need to give my take. It’s not your classic documentary or mocumentary or comedy, but takes elements from several styles of film and threads them together. It’s a very entertaining and humorous film, and I felt it needed an adequate explanation for those who don’t understand film.

This is a genre crossing film that starts with a central story thread and then uses stand-up routines from the 4:20 Hour Stand-Up (on Hulu) and combines it with documentary elements, mocumentary elements, skits, and parodies to present information for the re-legalization of marijuana. It’s a bit scattered in presentation and highly satirical in the lineage of Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon, but does so with the intention of teaching facts about marijuana and attempting to dispel government propaganda myths. Every bit of information presented in this film I have heard previously from more reputable sources than I have heard information presented by the government and other interest groups, and it’s all presented in a highly entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny way. I was in tears at the end with some of the skits, particularly the Martha Stewart/How Much Does It Take To Overdose skit. I’m going to immediately purchase this on DVD after I hit submit for this review.

Totally Baked

If you liked my review, go to the reviews page for Totally Baked on Hulu and let people know it was helpful. I’m thinking of getting more into reviews on Hulu, and may post those here as well with links to the video like I did here. Are people interested?

Also, I tried to go get the DVD immediately after writing that review … but failed in finding an in-store copy.

I’ve worked tirelessly to watch as many zombie movies as I can, and let me tell you that unless you have a strong masochistic side … Don’t Try This At Home! There are definitely gems of the genre, but a majority of the zombie movies really should only be viewed in purely academic terms, as trying to find any level of enjoyment in them is an exercise in futility. And here I am, here to help you sift through the muck to find out what’s worth watching.

But you don’t have to take my word for it:

10. Night of the Living Dead
How can any zombie movie list of the best zombie movies not include this one. It’s the quintessential movie that spawned a genre. Before George Romero’s telling of the story of undead ghouls, zombie stories were closer to the voodoo zombies. Romero redefined what a zombie was, and in the process created a creature that has slowly shambled its way into the hearts and nightmares of people around the world. This classic isolation tale of a small farm town being overrun by the undead serves as the prototype for dozens of zombie movies to come.

Trailer
Full Movie (Public Domain)

9. Dead-Alive
My first thought after hearing Peter Jackson was directing the Lord of the Rings trilogy was: “who gave the guy who did Dead-Alive the budget for LotR?!?” Don’t get me wrong, I love Dead-Alive. But seriously. What the hell did Peter Jackson do in between those two films for such a leap? The Frighteners?!? I digress, Dead-Alive is an off-beat zombie horror-comedy that doesn’t take the zombies seriously as much as it tries to make them as disgusting and grotesque as possible. It won’t scare you, but it may make you nauseous. And somehow it works, particularly when the main character gets creative with a lawnmower.

Trailer

8. Fido
This is the zombie movie with a heart; the classic American boy-and-his-zombie tale. The movie almost plays out like a Shaun of the Dead 2 where Fido picks up where the ending credit scenes of Shaun left off. Suburban gated communities now include electrified fences and guard towers, and for the housewife of the future there are pacified zombies to take care of the tedious chores. Billy Connolly as Fido gets my vote for Zombie I’d Feel The Worst For Shooting In The Head … followed very closely by Bub from Day of the Dead.

Trailer

7. Bio Zombie
Hong Kong zombie films rarely make a dent stateside, but Bio Zombie should be the exception on everyone’s list. It’s a zombie comedy with just enough of a budget to keep the zombies from appearing to be comedic. In an homage to Dawn of the Dead, the movie takes place in a shopping mall, beginning in a VCD shop with a couple of slackers with an updated Fast Times at Ridgemont High attitude.

Trailer

6. Flight of the Living Dead
Ok, when Snakes on a Plane came out, everybody wanted to put some horror on a transportation and rake in the money: like Snakes on a Train and Flight of the Living Dead. While Flight has the more clever title between the two, its true greatness comes from the fact that it’s actually a fairly good zombie movie, as long as your disbelief gets sucked out of the plane with the first round of passengers to properly get suspended at 30,000 ft.

Trailer

5. Versus
Coming out of Japan is one of the more … interesting zombie movies. It mixes elements of a yakuza movie with a zombie movie with a supernatural martial arts swordplay movie. If all of that sounds like a bit much … it is … but it some how works. Yakuza gangsters have been dropping off their dead bodies into the forest, but they didn’t actually refer to their National Parks map, because the forest is Resurrection Forest. Good move guys. Really.

Trailer

4. Resident Evil
Movies based off of video games rarely turn out well, and most people will probably argue that this is no different. But I disagree. Not only because it has Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez kickin’ zombie butt, but … well, there are other reasons, but they just don’t seem nearly as important as Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez kickin’ zombie butt.

Trailer

3. Shaun of the Dead
Quite possibly one of the best zombie movies ever made, its strength and brilliance comes from treating the zombies as a true horror element while the main characters are entirely comedic. It’s a sweet & sour blend that works amazingly well. This movie evolved from the opening scene of Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and Nick Frost’s earlier collaboration on “Spaced”.

Watch clip from Series 1 Episode 3 of “Spaced” on YouTube (no embedding, boo!)
Trailer

2. Return of the Living Dead
This is the film that would forever associate zombies with the unending chants for braiiiiiiins. Next to Romero’s Dead series, Return of the Living Dead is one of the most influence and self-referential zombies series ever created. The best scene in the movie is when a zombie gets on a police radio and requests them to “send more cops”, as the cops are being immediately eaten by the waiting zombie horde.

Trailer

1. Dawn of the Dead
While both versions are definitely worth seeing, this entry is intended for the 1978 original. Romero’s masterpiece combining Tom Savini’s at-the-time great zombie effects with his own highly social critical script creates one of the ultimate zombie tales. In its 2004 update, much of the commercialization of society commentary is tossed out while keeping to the shopping mall location. And while the remake attempted to update the zombies to the 21^st century by making them track stars, Romero influenced the genre he created with Dawn by creating a new prototype that has been arguably more influential than Night. Who can deny of thinking of a shopping mall as their first place of refuge in an all out zombie assault?

Trailer

And of course everyone has their own personal favorite, and there are more than 10 zombie movies worth seeing. Feel free to chime in with your opinions in the comments section on what zombie movies you feel are worth seeing. Maybe I haven’t seen it yet, and that would be a shame.

This Friday, Stargate fans get their new fix with a new series as Stargate Universe premieres on Syfy with a two hour “movie”, and then will probably follow Syfy’s wacky season time-share splitting -- sharing Friday with Eureka in some twisted custody agreement where SGU gets Fall & Spring and Eureka gets Winter & Summer. It’s the first new Stargate story since the end of Season 5 of Atlantis; since Stargate: Extinction (the movie that will wrap up the Atlantis story arc) missed its original June ‘09 release.

Teaser Trailer from the 2009 San Diego Comic Con

As you can see, Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, Full Monty, 28 Weeks Later) is going to be the leadership for this rag-tag group of interstellar castaways. Lou Diamond Phillips is also part of the cast, but I have a hunch his character won’t necessarily be in the series too long. The creators have said that several characters die in the first couple of episodes, and I have a gut feeling Mr. Phillips will be in that group; where he opted for a short commitment that would help boost the series initial numbers while giving Robert Carlyle time to develop his character to carry the show moving forward. We’ll see, any of the Regulators are always fun to have around in a project, so if Chavez ends up flying around the Universe for more than 5 episodes then rock on!

The series is said to be darker with heavier drama, so anyone expecting another SG-1 & Atlantis-style Stargate will probably feel little disappointed. The series is taking a new direction in tone. Personally, I’m looking forward to the new grittiness, and the series taking a different look at the Universe through the crew stuck aboard the aging Ancient ship Destiny. The themes of isolation, despair, and helplessness are definitely more appropriate for a darker Stargate, and it feels like a natural progression from the baby steps made going from SG-1 to Atlantis. It may put a lot of fans of the series off.

I’ve already noticed comparisons between this new series and “Star Trek Voyager” being made; while I think this is going to be a very different show than Voyager if only in visual style, I actually felt Voyager had a lot to offer viewers. I feel that SGU is going to be far more different from SG1 & Atlantis than Voyager was from previous Star Trek offerings. If anything, with a leading actor, loss of adequate lighting, and a humbling of an established franchise cast, I see SGU having more in common with Enterprise, only I hope Stargate Universe is met with higher acclaim and sticks around for more than four seasons.

Behind The Scenes of Stargate Universe

The series creators have said there will be aliens (sweet), but there won’t be a single antagonist species as the Goa’uld or Ori in SG-1 and Wraith in Atlantis. Destiny will stop at alien worlds to seed Stargates, so the crew will have opportunities to get off the ship and explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Again, Stargate Universe premieres this Friday (October 2^nd) on Syfy with a two-hour movie at 9:00/8:00c and a repeat airing at 11:00/10:00c. For people in the Mountain Time Zone, Syfy doesn’t time shift, so the first showing is at 7:00pm and the repeat at 9:00pm. Available in HD. Syfy will also be re-airing the movie throughout the weekend and following week, check your listings.

Personally, I’m recording this on the DVR, going to see Zombieland in the theaters, and then coming home to some new Stargate action. Friday night should be fantabulous!

Coming out this Friday to movie theaters is Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson in a zombie comedy with a budget. If it says anything for this movie, my fiancé who doesn’t like horror movies is going to see this with me on opening night. The trailers give it a Shaun of the Dead feel where the comedy comes from the human characters and the zombies are played as horror elements. Then they end up in an amusement park. Weee!

And it’s Woody Harrelson, c’mon! How can you not love Woody Harrelson?! If zombie hunting bad-ass Woody isn’t enough … zombie clown? Would a zombie clown be reason to go see it? Because this movie has one of those. If you didn’t have coulrophobia before, then you probably don’t want to click to see this page.

Zombieland Trailer

October 2^nd … Zombieland … record “Stargate Universe” & go see Zombieland. Get your tickets now!

See larger image The State: The Complete Series (DVD) Directed by: Michael Patrick Jann, David Wain, Mark Gentile, Michael Dimich Starring: Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black, Robert Ben Garant, Todd Holoubek, Michael Patrick Jann Rating: NR (Not Rated) List Price: $79.99 USD New From: $40.38 In Stock Used From: $31.00 In Stock Released July 14, 2009.

If you jump in the Way Back Machine and come with me to the ’90s, when flannel roamed free and teenage angst was a multi-billion dollar industry, there was a cable channel that helped define a generation. With a host of off-beat programming designed for Generation X, MTV produced one of the greatest skit comedy shows with a troupe of young comedians known as The State.

The show was irreverent, hip, and most of all: hilarious. The stable of return characters included such greats like Doug -- the rebel in desperate need of a cause, Barry & Lavon -- the disco swingers with an unhealthy lust for puddin’, and Louie -- who proves that dipping your balls into people’s food really isn’t that funny until it pisses Jesus off. And the one-off skits were frequently completely original and contained both heavy satire and lots of meta humor. Self-referential & self-deprecating, the show quite literally put up the 4th wall for a sketch; it was brilliance. If you never saw this show, you may still recognize cast members in some more recent Comedy Central shows like Reno 911!, Stella, or the movie Wet Hot American Summer.

MTV’s The State -- Bacon

It was the DVD set that almost never was. The State completed their end of the DVD a while ago, but then MTV sat on the project. It looked as if at the 11^th hour, the project was killed. So close, yet so far. And in the end, due to over-restrictive draconian copyright laws, much of the music that defined the time period that the show was made had to be removed, else millions of dollars in licensing fees would have had to been paid. Replacement music was created which does adequate an adequate job, and the skits are still just as funny; but the show has lost some of its connection to the time period it was satirizing and the window into the 90s culture it could have offered through music is closed.

But the whole series is released on DVD finally! So whatever concessions had to be made … fine, because now MTV’s The State is finally legally available in a high quality format for home viewing for the first time. And with some great bonus features. For one: commentaries!, I love commentaries! There are also unaired sketches from the first three seasons, outtakes, as well as special appearances and promos.

So all-in-all, I rate this is a Must Own. I was in a Best Buy and happened to randomly see it, because I hadn’t heard it that it had actually received a release date. Needless to say, I purchased it on the spot without reservation or hesitation. A no-brainer. I recommend the same for everyone else.

DVD Promo

The State are: Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black, Robert Ben Garant, Todd Holoubek, Michael Patrick Jann, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Thomas Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter, and David Wain. All Grade-A Good Beans!