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I Hang Out with the Gangster Squad!

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Gangster Squad is an early 2013 movie and fictional account of the ‘Gangster Squad’ that went after Mickey Cohen in the late 40s and early 50s.  It was directed by Ruben Fleischer.  It is probably most famous for being delayed and reedited after the Aurora Colorado shooting.  It is a good action movie, but people expecting more than that will be disappointed.

The movie starts with John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) busting up a forced prostitution ring, but since it is Cohen’s (Sean Penn) turf he gets a slap on the wrist instead of a slap on the back.  Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) finds out about it and decides that he is just the man he needs to build a squad of men to start a war with Mickey.  The men he picks out are: Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) as the playboy, Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie) as the knife expert, Conwell Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) as the smart one, Max Kennard (Robert Patrick) as the old gunslinger, and Navidad Ramirez (Michael Peña) as the kid that tags along with Kennard.  So they leave their badges at home and go to war with the mob.

There is nothing more to this movie than that it is simply and war/gangster movie staring a bunch of good looking guys shooting at each other in a beautifully stylized 1950s LA.  The characters never really grow past their introduction.  The movie is simply that Mickey Cohen is bad, so we are going to bust up his operation and kill a bunch of gangsters in the process, but it does that really well.

Considering all the Oscar level talent in this movie some may have been expecting more out of this movie, like an examination of a post war violent LA, or to go deeper in to whether all the violence was worth it, but that does not happen.  Fleischer just shows us a bunch of really well choreographed gunfights, and they are stunning.

The actors all seem to be having fun in their sharp tailored suits, and shooting each other with tommy guns while playing out their war movie caricatures, and they play their parts well.  Sean Penn especially got in to Mickey Cohen as the excessively evil sociopath, and Emma Stone does her best glamorous damsel in distress as Grace Faraday.

Gangster Squad was a fun movie, but I know a lot of people didn’t like it because instead of a smart deconstruction of the gang violence of the 50s it was just a glorification and exploitation of it, but if you go in wanting a stylish action movie you will be happy because that is exactly what you get.

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I Complete the Book of Deacon Trilogy

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Not that long ago I reviewed the book The Book of Deacon by Joseph R. Lalio, and I was quite impressed, so I decided to finish the trilogy.  I am glad I did, and they wrap up the story quite nicely.

They continue to follow Myranda Celeste as she attempts to track down and help the Chosen end the great war and save the earth, and she has become a very capable wizard in the process.

In the second book of the series The Great Convergence we meet the rest of the Chosen, Lain the Malthrope (fox man) assassin, Ether the shape-shifter, Eve a sort of Mathrope, Myranda herself, and one more that I am not going to give away.  This book wanders a little, but there is plenty of action and character building, and we get to learn more about the evil Generals of the Northern Alliance that are keeping this war going.

The third book The Battle of Verril obviously brings it all together in quite an epic fashion.  Tons of action and magic all over the place, and you get to learn much more about all the characters as they continue their quest.  Do they defeat the Generals and stop the war?

Lalio has done a great job with this series, and I am glad that my indie bundle gave me all three of these books.  I will definitely be looking in to his other work.  You can find his books on Amazon or anywhere else indie books are sold.

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You Should Play Shadowrun Returns!

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Not that long ago I pointed out that the Kickstarter backed Shadowrun Returns was now available for purchase, and I am happy to say that you should indeed purchase it.  The game is a turn based tactical isometric RPG, which is a fun way of saying you get to look down on the game, take turns, and level up.

The game’s plot allows you take the role of a down and out Shadow Runner who gets a job thanks to a “kill switch” on a dead friend.  The switch phones you with a recorded message saying you will get a $100,000 life insurance policy if you can avenge his death.  Since you need the money you get yourself to Seattle to find your friend’s killer, and like all things Shadowrun it gets much more complicated.

The setting is in a near future version of Seattle, and in the near future magic has reemerged, so the world is filled with elves, dwarves, and trolls, and you can use a mixture of future weaponry and magic.

The game’s mechanics are simple.  You use your mouse to point where you want your character and party members to go and to select the skills and items you wish them to use and what or who you want to use them on.  In combat you only have so many moves you can make called “Action Points”.  For example if you have two “Action Points” you can move a long ways, move a short ways and shoot, or shoot twice, and you can do that for every member of your party.

For leveling up you get Karma points for completing tasks or doing good deeds, and you can spend those on things like being able to shoot more accurately or being able to carry more items, or if you are like me, making your robot minions much more deadly.  My biggest problem with this is that there are a lot of non-combat skills, but the game is mostly combat oriented, so they are a waste of points.

The art style is fantastic.  It is dark, but they use neon colors to brighten it up, so it is not all bland and gray.  The areas of Seattle look like a cool future version of the city, but not a utopian one.

I have a couple of other minor complaints, there is no manual save system, so you have to rely on an autosave.  It does save fairly often, but it means you cannot get up and leave whenever you want to, and the game is fairly linear, so you do not just get to go out and explore, you stay on a set path and series of events.

That being said the game is fun, and for a group of indie developers it is a job well done.  Thanks to the level design kit there are already mods being developed, for instance the old SNES Shadowrun game is already in alpha on the new engine, and a free expansion is coming out in October, so it is well worth the money.  Have fun in the shadows!

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What To Do About The Green Lantern?

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Even though the Green Lantern movie was colossal failure it did still make more than its production budget, and the comic books are still a favorite among comic book geeks thanks to its galactic scale and cool group of characters, so there is no doubt that Warner Bros will try and do something with the franchise again, and even as late as April 2013 they were talking about a sequel to the 2011 movie, so to help them out I have made a list of things they should do.

1: Write A Script That Makes Sense

This one seems like a no brainer, but they seem to have forgot it last time.  For an action movie the script needs to stay somewhat simple.  That doesn’t mean they can’t throw in a few surprises, but if they throw the kitchen sink at people like in the last movie, a few people are bound to get lost.

2: Do No Write Another Origin Story

I am so sick of super hero origin stories.  Some of them are cool like Wonder Woman’s, but overall they just get in the way of the cool stuff that comes in the second half of the movie.  We get it, they had some experience that made them use their powers/skills for good.  For the most part it doesn’t matter, and as much as I disliked the Green Lantern movie, I think they got his origin covered, we can even keep Ryan Reynolds if that lets us skip the origin story again.

3: Bring In More Green Lanterns

Hal Jordan is not the only human Green Lantern, and since he does try and kill everyone he isn’t even the best Lantern.  Bring in Guy Gardner and John Stewart to give back up to Hal, and then you can use Stewart (Idris Elba anybody?) for the Justice League movie, or heck why not bring in a female Green Lantern, the ring can choose anyone after all. As a plus with other Lantern’s on screen it will take the focus of the unfortunate Ryan Reynolds.

4: Bring In the Yellow Lanterns

With a group of Lanterns for sector 2814 you need someone to fight, and Sinestro and a group of Yellows at his back would make for a fun movie, and it would be kind of what everyone wanted out of the first movie.

5: Have Some Fun

It seemed like the people making the Green Lantern movie were painting by numbers.  Bring in a sense of adventure and fun, and let people who understand the universe interject some love.  They have made several good cartoon movies with the Green Lantern, so get those guys to help create a the new live action movie.

What are your thoughts on what they should do with a new Lantern Movie?

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Support King Boogie!

**UPDATE: It was successfully funded!
My buddy N.D. Byma is using Kickstarter to fund a book.  He is close to his target goal, but he still needs a little help, so please head on over and take look or watch the video above and see if this is something you are interested in, or if you just want to help someone accomplish a dream.  His project is in the last day or so of funding, so any help you could give him I am sure he would appreciate.