”Shoe vs. Bush ” : No one  seems to be better at dodging shoes than George Bush, and no one would make a more unique costume than such as this one. The idea here is pretty simple: Ex President George Bush seems to have the uncanny ability to be able to dodge shoes, and because of this, has gotten millions of views of him exhibiting quick reflexes on the Internets. Say what you want about our Ex prez. In my book, anybody with spider sense can’t be all bad.

How to do it: Get yourself a Bush mask of some sort (they sell these pretty cheap at places), a suit, and then a shoe of some sort. You’re going to want to either glue the shoe on to the mask somehow, or figure out some other way for it to remain on your head. Either way, just try and look confused all the time and you shouldn’t have too much trouble staying in character.

“This costume is a hoax.”: A couple weeks ago, the entire country was mesmerized for an hour or so by a floating, metallic looking balloon that was carrying a six year old boy nearly 5,000 feet above the ground. Sometime later, the balloon touched down, but the boy was not inside. Later that day, it was revealed that the little boy was hiding in a box inside his attic. Turns out there was no balloon boy at all, and the whole thing was just a big hoax.

And now here comes the part that involves the greatest (or fakest rather) costume ever conceived. Based on the sheer hype that this story received, almost everybody will recognize you if you dress up as Balloon Boy.

How to do it: The costume itself is pretty simple. You actually have two choices here. One, would require you to purchase an ungodly amount of aluminum foil, then wrap yourself in it, until it looks like a circle/ balloon. Then you just kind of float/ dance around the Halloween party/ event that you are attending. The second way to do it is even easier. Just find a large box of some sort, and find a make shift way to strap it around your body (try rope, or duct tape). Then when people ask what you are supposed to be (even though they should already know), just reply like so: “Daddy told me to dress like this for our show.” Hopefully they will get it then, and not think that you are some kind of crazed hobo.

“Dead Celebs”: This Halloween year, the streets are sure to be filled with thousands of people dressing up as Michael Jackson, most of them pretending to impersonate him, when the truth is most of these people didn’t even like Michael Jackson before he died. So in order to combat this mainstream wave of costume ideas, why not take a different spin on this design? 2009 has been a terrible year to be a celebrity. Everyone from Michael Jackson, to Farrah Fawcett, to Patrick Swayze have all kicked the bucket this year. So what better way to show your respect for these people than to dress up as them. And better yet, why not add a bit more to this, by going as the “undead” version of said celebs. Who wouldn’t want to see a Zombie Swayze busting a move out on the dance floor?

How to do it: Just Google a picture of your favorite dead celebrity, pick out their wardrobe (it’s pretty easy to find this stuff at Goodwill), and then apply some grayish makeup to make you look 6 feet under. Also consider adding a grayish wig, some blood/ gash marks along the skin, and even a severed limb or two for dramatic effect.

“BILLY MAYS HERE WITH MY ALL NEW AWESOME COSTUME 2000!”: Now I know most of you are thinking this should belong with the dead celebs category, but I think this costume is so special and unique it deserves its own entry. Just a few months ago one of America’s greatest salesmen of all time passed away. I am of course talking about the late Billy Mays. So what better way to honor the great pitch man, than to dress up as him?

How to do it: First, you will need to get yourself a blue buttoned up dress shirt, along with some khaki pants. Then you are going to want to find some kind of fake beard. You can either make one yourself (it shouldn’t be too hard), or you can just buy one from a costume store. Next, you are going to want to buy some of Billy’s products to carry around as props. A container of Oxi Clean, and a spray bottle of KABOOM will work just fine. If you’re really brave, you could always try lugging around an AWESOME AUGER, but I don’t suggest doing this. To play the part of Billy Mays, just simply walk around your party/ event and talk in a really loud/ obnoxious voice. Asking random people if they have ever tried any of your products before could also be a real hoot. Finally (and let me just add this is the most important aspect to pulling off a successful Billy Mays), if anything is spilled, dumped, etc. be sure to instantly begin cleaning up the stain with one of your chosen cleaning products while simultaneously making statements such as, “LOOK AT THE AMAZING CLEANING POWER OF OXI CLEAN. AND JUST LIKE THAT, KAABOOM TAKES THE STAIN RIGHT OUT. KAAAABOOOM!!!” Just remember to be as loud and obnoxious as possible when doing this, and you should be fine.

“This is the best costume of all time. OF ALL TIME.”: It seems as if everyone has something to say about Kanye West’s latest ignoramus stunt, including President Obama. This costume idea is perfect for those who like to crash their friend’s parties, and just kind of show up for stuff. It’s also great if you happen to be one of those people who love to hear themselves talk.

How to do it: First off, you need to figure out a way to paint your face black (if you’re white that is, if you’re already black then just skip this step), either brown face paint (which doesn’t work great, I’ve tried it), or a dark colored mascara should do the trick. After that you are going to want to buy some black sunglasses/ shutter shades (you can buy these cheap online), a black shirt, and light blue jeans. To top it off, you may also want to buy a hand microphone to complete the outfit. Now all you need to do is to walk around the Halloween party/ event that you are attending, and randomly interrupt people who are talking. Example: “I’m real happy for you and your party, and I’mma let you finish havin’ it, but Mike had one of the best Halloween parties of all time! OF ALL TIME!” Eventually after doing this enough, people will really start to get sick of you, and may possibly even yell/ threaten you. At this point you should just shrug your shoulders, thus fully completing the Kanye West costume.

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Terrible Tuesday it is and be it nearly 6am in the morning I just finished watching the newest episode of the critically acclaimed “Dexter” which airs on Showtime and is already in its fourth season. First let me get this out of the way before I even explain what this show means to me personally. The acting in this movie is solid, but the main characters acting is great, let me repeat, Michael C. Hall (Dexter) is the first actor that has ever taken me on a journey that almost makes me care more about his life circumstances than my own, or better yet, when watching this show I become Dexter Morgan.On top of having superb actors, “Dexter” has a storyline to kill for. Dexter Morgan is your everyday serial killer except he kills with a code in mind instilled at an early age from his father. Simply put, the code is a boundary that tells Dexter to make sure that he only kills the guilty, the murderers who have yet to be caught or put away.  If you may have somehow knew already that Dexter is in fact a killing bounty hunter, well this show deals with much more than just that, it deals with Dexter as he often questions his fathers code, childhood, job, friends, family, his own victims, and even his own secret. In fact, much of the commentary you hear happens to be his thoughts as a moment is happening. “Dexter” finds a way to balance dark comedy and seriousness it seems at all times, and hardly ever skips a beat in each episode where at the end you will find yourself yearning to know what is going to happen now, or asking “how does he get out of this one?”

Dexter calls himself “The Dark Passenger” because his need to kill is actually his inner self that he’s not sure sure he can stop. The psychological aspect of this show between right and wrong, good and evil, habits, urges, and even family life actually easily relates to ones own life. If Dexter could stop his need to kill, he would…Dexter wonders why he is so different than everyone else…Deb, Dexter’s sister has deep emotional problems she fights…these issues actually relate to us on an emotional level because we can understand them, well except for the need to kill but you know what I mean.

“Dexter certainly isn’t a show for the weak of heart, or anyone that has trouble dismissing multiple ”F bombs” thrown out by Deb at all times but it is a show that has the ability to make the audience feel personally involved as they follow Dexter Morgans life and begin to feel empathy towards him and agree with his code. Luckily for anyone that hasn’t seen Dexter, there are three (awesome) seasons out on DVD where you can non-stop watch Dexter without having to wait week by week to see what happens next, unless you get to season 4 of course.

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If anyone reads this, my counterpart Admin1 has alerted me that at Best Buy this Sunday through Halloween there is a freaking buy 2 ($60 or less), get a 3rd game free. Thats right, if anyone reading this has the courage to splunker down $120 (plus tax) they can receive another game of $60 worth for FREE…this seems like a pretty decent deal and one that should come around more often given we’re in a recession and all, though spending this type of dough on games won’t necessarily bring us back, it will save you 60 bucks. Ok, now you know if you didn’t know, logging on to Cynical Critics has some redeeming value after all! If I hear anything else this incredible or something about this changes I will update for sure!

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So apparently the movie “Paranormal Activity” got re-released to theaters this weekend. And apparently it’s a pretty big deal. Heh. I would never have guessed it after checking it out on Friday. That’s not to say that it’s a horrible movie by any means, I just found it to be rather bad. Anyway, if you’re considering checking it out then I suggest sticking around. But let’s get on with it, shall we?

Well, there it is. In case you haven’t been paying attention to the latest movie buzz, allow me to give you a bit of a back story on Paranormal. First off, it should be noted that this is one of the highest rated horror movies in recent times, (so right off the bat, you know I’m going against actual critics here). The movie was originally intended to be limited release only, but because of a supposed huge backing from fans via the Internet, the movie ended up going to theaters everywhere this past weekend. The movie itself has been incredibly hyped, almost on the level of The Blair Witch Project. With trailers touting the phrase, “DON’T SEE IT ALONE” and “SO SCARY YOU MIGHT NOT MAKE IT THROUGH IT”, and my personal favorite “HOLY CRAP, I JUST WENT AND SAW THIS MOVIE, AND I ENDED UP PEEING MY PANTS DURING IT. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE. NO SERIOUSLY, IT REALLY IS THAT SCARY.” Okay, so maybe I made that last one up, but you get the point. Needless to say I went in with pretty high hopes.

What I got instead, was a rather ambitious attempt at trying something new, but ultimately turned into nothing more than an hour and a half, hyped up bore fest. I’m going to try to describe what I mean by saying the movie was “boring”, but the thing is, what’s boring to one person may be exciting to another, so bare with me. Let me start off by examining the more concrete aspects of the movie. Paranormal Activity uses the ever popular “hand-cam” to tell its story. As a result, the cinematography is a bit on the weak side, however, I understand the director’s purpose here. The hand cam is an obvious attempt at trying to make the movie come across as being real (in fact the whole movie is presented this way, there even is a missing credits list at the end of the movie to make it seem more like a documentary), and for the most part it works. This is probably one of the better usages of the hand cam in a movie that I have seen. Paranormal Activity doesn’t suffer from the nauseating “shaky” camera effect that plagued Cloverfield, and overall the hand cam works quite positively for Paranormal.

Now, I know the acting in this movie is supposed to represent “real life”, or people not acting, but I would be a dumb review guy if I didn’t say something about it. Honestly though, the acting in this movie bordered on “acceptable” to “Spanish soap opera channel”.  I can’t really say how I would react to some of the situations that the main characters are forced into, but their reactions at times just seemed a bit unreal. Maybe I’m being a bit too critical here, but it just seemed like a lot of the acting in the movie came down to yelling. Perhaps this is an appropriate response to the situation the characters are facing, it just sort of gets obnoxious at one point. Eh. Maybe the real problem here is the dialogue. Once again, the dialogue can only be described  as a product of trying to make the movie seem as real as possible. A lot of it however, really seems to border on being monotonous and flat out pointless at times. But once again, I understand the motive here; most real life people don’t exactly have the most interesting conversations on an everyday basis, but some of the dialogue in this movie could have easily been edited out, and no one would have been the wiser.

I guess it’s time to discuss my main issue with Paranormal Activity, and that of course would be the scare factor. Going into a movie that pretty much only boasts about being scary left me expecting to be, well, scared. And to tell you the truth, towards the beginning I was quite intrigued by the movie. It started out at a decent enough pace, not too fast, not too slow, and did a really good job of building the tension. However, by about 45 minutes or so in, I was starting to feel bored and anxious. I was actually beginning to notice a trend.

**Minor spoiler warning** The movie itself really only seemed to try to scare you during the night scenes. In fact almost the entire movie can be broken into two segments. The first being the day scenes AKA, the drawn out talking scenes, and the second being the night scenes, or “scary scenes”. Unfortunately, a lot of the movie’s scaring power comes from what I can only really described as “cheap scares”. What I mean by that is the movie gets you to try and focus on a specific thing or character for a moment, and then tries to surprise/ scare you with a loud noise of some sort. The movie tries to make use of this tactic close to a dozen times or so. It finally got to the point where I was just expecting a loud boom or bang, or a door to slightly creak open. These scare tactics really started to just feel repetitive after awhile, and made the movie lose a lot of its edge (at least for me). Paranormal Activity also tries to make use of some psychological scares, but I feel that these were weak at best. Just knowing that the movie was only going to try and scare me at night, made me begin to predict when something was going to happen, and I ended up predicting right about 75% of the time. **End spoilers**

The movie is also quite weak in the plot/ character development department. I won’t divulge any details, but let’s just say both main characters are quite flat. In fact, by the end of the movie I really didn’t care too much for either of them. And because I wasn’t too focused on what happened to the characters, I wasn’t scared/ surprised when something happened to them. As for the plot, let’s just say it’s one of the most simple plots for a movie that I have ever seen. In fact, let me see how few words I can actually describe it in: “A couple try to deal with a demonic spirit that has come over them.” That’s it. That’s literally the premise of the entire movie. And I described it in what? Fourteen words? Seriously? That’s just sort of sad.

In the end, Paranormal Activity’s level of “scariness” will most likely differ from person to person. But the fact still remains that it suffers from some obvious flaws. Pointless dialogue, sub-average acting, scares that get repetitive, and characters I couldn’t give two craps about, really hurt the effectiveness of what Paranormal actually does right.

See it, Rent, or “F-it”: F-it. Honestly, I felt kind of ripped off after I had left the theater. Take my advice and save yourself some money; don’t buy into the hype, or you will more than likely be disappointed.

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Time for a quick review of the new(ish) gore filled fest Zombieland. Zombieland is a movie that is well, about zombies. It tells the story of one of the last remaining survivors named Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), who happens to be a bit of a loser and all around wimp. Columbus eventually runs into Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) who is Columbus’ complete opposite. Both heroes then eventually run into two female characters (Wichita and Little Rock, played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin), and the four set on a quest to find the last remaining area that is free of zombies.

At the very beginning of the movie, the viewer is immediately thrown into the action, and from that point on things just keep on accelerating. A usual gripe I have with zombie movies (horror movies in general actually), is that they never really seem to be very fast paced. On the contrary however, Zombieland grabs you by the seam of the pants, and doesn’t let go until the credits roll (in case you didn’t know, that’s a good thing). The characters in Zombieland are surprisingly quite lovable, and I for one loved the interaction between Columbus and Tallahassee. Eisenberg and Harrelson have almost a perfect chemistry with one another, and their characters are such opposites that they really go together perfectly. Not to mention Harrelson is flawless in his part. Honestly, I think he was born to play the part of Tallahassee. Everything from his one liners, to his mannerisms, and just general “B.A.ness” make him a cult character that won’t be soon forgotten.

The humor in Zombieland is pretty constant throughout, and I found myself  LOLing throughout almost the entire film. One scene in particular had me practically crying. The dialogue in Zombieland is quite literally spot on, and all of the actors do a consistent job of speaking their lines with the right amount of emphasis and tone. Also, one quick note, if you haven’t seen Zombieland yet, and you are trying to find out more about the movie, let me warn you: Be careful of the reviews you read. There is a “special guest” actor in the movie, and if you know who it is before you go, it will certainly ruin it for you. The guest actor was without a doubt the best part in the movie, and made it totally worth the price of admission. And let me just add that the action sequences are also very well done in this movie, as are the blood and gore effects.

Zombieland does however suffer from one minor flaw, a flaw that I think most zombie movies have in common. That flaw would of course be plot. Zombieland doesn’t exactly have much in the plot department, but the truth is that it really doesn’t have much of a negative affect on the movie because of it. The film isn’t suppose to win any Academy Awards, it’s just suppose to be a fun, entertaining movie, which happens to be exactly what Zombieland is.

See it, Rent it, or “F-it”:  See it. Zombieland is a movie going experience you probably shouldn’t miss. And although the movie itself may not offer some complex story, nor a mind blowing plot twist, but it does however deliver in being a hilarious, fun, gore filled romp that is sure to entertain regardless of who is watching.

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Hello loyal readers. Boy, have we got a treat for you today. For the first time, both critics are combining forces to bring you both a Review and a Preview in one blog! The sheer awesomeness can hardly be contained in one post. But without any further delay, let’s get on with it. I present before you, a review of Halo 3: ODST, and a preview of Modern Warfare 2. Enjoy!

Halo 3 ODST is a newly released expansion to the Halo series. ODST differs from its predecessors in the sense that players no longer control the Master Chief, but instead takes on the role of an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper). The game itself, although primarily featured for its single player campaign, also contains an additional multiplayer mode entitled Firefight. And lastly, every copy of ODST comes with an additional disk which includes every Halo 3 multiplayer map ever created. So let’s dig a bit deeper and see how ODST stacks up against its older and bigger brothers.

ODST’s single player campaign is for the most part, a nice gaming experience. The cinematic cut scenes are well thought out, and really aid in stressing the game’s main theme of humanity. The cut scenes themselves are very noir like, and are reminiscent of old detective style movies. In campaign mode players switch between the game’s main protagonist (aptly name The Rookie), and that of The Rookie’s other ODST team members. The game unfolds in a Tarantino like fashion, and uses flashbacks to tell the game’s story. As The Rookie, players will scour the city of New Mombasa in search of your lost squad members. As The Rookie, players are primarily outnumbered, and because of this, the game tries to encourage players to use stealth tactics as opposed to going Rambo. I use the word try very loosely here… but more on that later when I get to gameplay.

Once a player reaches a certain area, the game switches to that of one of the other ODST members, giving valuable back story on that specific character’s events following his or her’s drop. The gameplay generally takes a switch here from stealthy, tactful gameplay, to a more run and gun style of play. Most of the combat takes place with other AI controlled teammates, and the levels for the most part (especially later on in the game), are quite enjoyable. Actually, I think it’s safe to say that the levels when you aren’t playing as The Rookie are some of the best in the game. With that being said, the game does a very nice job switching between the more emotional charged scenes as The Rookie, to more tense and action packed scenes as the other ODST members. As mentioned earlier, the cut scenes really seem to fuel the emotion felt when controlling The Rookie. Although The Rookie never actually speaks, players can still see and experience the despair and hopelessness that the character feels. But he isn’t the only character here worth caring about, the rest of the ODST team are all fairly lively and interesting themselves.

Quite possibly one of the other things that makes ODST’s campaign mode successful is the music score. The Halo series has always been known for its music, but ODST quite possibly takes the cake. The music has been perfectly balanced, thus allowing for a slow boil during tense action scenes, to jazzy interludes that reinforce the noir feeling. The music is without a doubt one of the strongest points of ODST, and without it, I don’t think the campaign would be as strong as it is.

Moving on, I’d like to discuss the gameplay of campaign mode for a bit. In ODST, to reinforce the fact that humans aren’t “immortal” creatures like Master Chief, Bungie has brought back health packs. ODSTs do have a small shield, but once their shield is depleted, they become hurt and players must then find a health pack or face being killed. As far as I am concerned, I am quite pleased that Bungie brought back health packs. It really seems to fit when playing as an ODST. Another addition to gameplay is the inclusion of two new weapons, a silenced SMG, as well as a silenced pistol. Both of these weapons have scopes on them, and both are quite powerful. However, to balance these guns out, Bungie put slight kick back on both guns when you zoom in, which makes them even in terms of usage. I’d love to see these weapons incorporated into Halo 3’s multiplayer, but I doubt that will ever happen.

One serious gripe I had about ODST’s gameplay was the supposed “stealth” element that was put into the game. Honestly, the stealth element is weak at best. Most enemies can still spot you when you are crouched in the dark, and even while hiding behind something. And as far as players supposedly not being able to go Rambo through the game, the truth is quite the opposite. Playing on Heroic mode, I had little trouble in dealing with enemies in the game. Rushing them almost always ended up in me walking away from the fight. That reminds me, another problem I had with ODST’s campaign is the enemies. The Halo universe doesn’t exactly have a wide cast of enemies, and ODST is even worse than previous games. If my memory serves me right, there are really only a total of about 4 or 5 different enemies that get quite boring to fight after about an hour in. Pathetic.

As far as campaign length is concerned, I personally got about 5 ½ – 6 hours of game time playing through on Heroic. Now to some people maybe that’s enough, but to me personally, another hour or two would have been a lot better.

Next I will briefly examine the multiplayer modes. First let me just say that co-op in this game sucks for the most part. It destroys whatever tension or emotion that’s built up by playing through the campaign alone, and on top of that, it really just feels tagged on. Firefight on the other hand, is much more enjoyable. I won’t discuss the mechanics of how Firefight works, but overall the mode has a nice feel to it, and seems to fit fairly well in the Halo universe. I did have some gripes with it however. The first of those gripes being the difficulty curve. The first level is almost absurdly easy, but by time you get to second level (not the second wave mind you) or so, it seems you are fighting with everything you have just to stay alive. I understand that the game has a varying difficulty, and that it can be changed manually, but I just happened to like the way Gears of War 2’s Hoarde mode is set up. Firefight seems almost impossible without a full party, even on normal mode. And the fact that Bungie disabled match making for Firefight may make it very difficult for some to constantly have a full party. On top of that, they also failed to include four player split screen. All in all, Firefight is a cool new addition, I just personally feel it needs some work.

In closing, Halo 3 ODST has a very well done campaign mode that makes for one heck of a gaming experience that almost all gamers should try to not miss out on. However, the short length of the single player campaign, repetitive enemies, the terrible co-op mode, and impaired (albeit decent) Firefight mode make for a game that may not justify the 60 dollar price tag. My suggestion is to wait until it gets a price drop. ‘Till then, ODST is at least worth a rental so one can experience the single player campaign.

7/10

———————————————————————————————————————————————————– 11.10.09, this is the date when the most anticipated game of the year will be released, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Not only is this game going to be huge, it IS going to break records in terms of overall entertainment sales. GameStop has already speculated that based on the amount of preorders for the game, it “has a chance to be the largest title of all time”. Ok enough of the build up as this is just a preview anyhow, we want to know what’s going to be the difference between Infinity Wards Modern Warfare 2 from its predecessor Modern Warfare. From what has been seen so far the answer seems to be that much hasn’t been changed. The controls and gameplay remain technically the same, and while nothing has been completely overhauled there are still some new aspects that will make the game a little different. Many of the old perks remain but there are new ones, for instance the painkiller perk gives extra health (think super juggernaut) immediately after they respawn from being killed that lasts for 10 seconds. If someone kills you four times in a row, the copycat perk allows you to steal their class, yes steal it. The commando perk allows you to melee further, while the scavenger perk allows you to refill ammo and pick up grenades when crossing over dead bodies. Of course there are more new perks than this but an interesting perk idea is that one can attain pro-perks, which are basically perks with more power (not all perks have this, thankfully). The weapons remain nearly the same with a few new ones but the big difference to be seen is there is now sticky grenades, throwing knives, and homing red shells…ok, I made that one up. Another interesting tidbit which I thought was weird is that one can now apply silencers on their shotguns, just seems a bit odd, kind of like real war eh? Now onto the kill streak system which has been revamped as you now can choose for the most part which kill streaks you want to use, before actual gameplay (barracks) of course. Also, there is a bevy of new kill streaks including the predator missile where you open up a laptop in the game and basically guide a missile onto your target. Another is the AC-130 where you are basically tearing down havoc, machine gun style while looking down on the entire level, if anyone has this on the other team, hide. The campaign looks ridiculous so far (watch the trailer), and the game looks slightly graphically enhanced and if what I’ve seen is right, there is a video displaying the White House, which is being attacked and it looks like it is definitely a playable level…awesome. Another good thing is that co-op campaign exists, unlike its predecessor. There still is not a ton of information on the campaign mode but Call of Duty 4’s single player had some really special moments and expect this to be the same case here. Wrapping things up, Infinity Wards decision to not drastically change the gameplay, insert minor new ideas, guns, and perks with a brand new campaign and multiplayer levels could give them the edge on the shooter generation not just in 2009 but for years to come.

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