With Avatar winning best director and best picture in the Golden Globes recently people are starting to speculate a second Oscar for Cameron and his tale from Pandora. Needless to say the Academy still hasn’t forgotten the last time they let Cameron on the stage, which strangely might be the only thing keeping him off this  of it this year. But really Academy Best Picture for Avatar? I can see a Best Director nod for the world and technology Cameron created for this film, but don’t get me wrong Best Picture is a bit much.  Before you start to think I am riding high and mighty on the Avatar backlash band wagon, I am still an Avatar fanboy in the worst way: I have the Toys, I have seen the film in both 3D formats available and I have an Avatar poster over my desk at work, but even though I have drank the Cameron Kool-aide I think if we give Avatar Best Picture we are taking things a bit too far and lying to ourselves.

Why you ask do I feel this way? Because I as much as I love Avatar, I do see the issues many people have with the story aspect of the film. Look, Avatar may be one of the most mind-blowing visual spectacles ever put to film but Cameron made a lot of sacrifices story-wise to make that happen, sometimes I think he made too many.  I think this really came to light for me when Fox put the uncut script up for download for free, (which was a great move by the studio if you ask me) there was quite a few things cut out of the film sex, drugs and animal leg implants; that might have alienated or just weirded out an audience member or two – that was cut out to keep Avatar as warm and cuddly and playable to the largest audience possible.  Which I think really hurt the film because it honestly has no real edge and complexity to it; and it maybe thought provoking but does so in a very politically correct and non-judgmental way. That is why it can’t win for Best Picture and why is sat at number #2 on my list.

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A few weeks ago, I finally ditched T-Mobile and bought myself an iPhone. That’s right, at last, I’m really Philadelphia techie. No longer would Tim or Alex silently judge me as I fiddled with a smartphone’s keypad. I can finally use Foursquare and iSepta. Life is good.

Now, amidst all my rampant application downloading and social media integrating, I discovered a handful of great games. A few, like Canabalt, were recommended by one Ben Gilbert. Others, were discovered through the app store. And one particular highlight, is Doodlejump.

Created by indie developer Lima Sky, the premise behind Doodlejump is simple. Hop up the platforms, grab some power ups, and try to rack up the points. The ‘jumper’ is controlled by tilting the phone side to side, and the powerups include silly items like springs, trampolines, jetpacks, and propeller hats.

The game is just a dollar (fine, 99 cents) in the Apple store, and just so so worth it. The gameplay is simple, reminiscent of playing old school NES games, only with motion controls. There’s no story, no plot, no character development… just quality, platforming fun.

Pick it up, geeks. You’ll thank me.

Doodlejump
Online Community Site: Doodlejump.com
Link to the Apple Store: Doodlejump

This weekend, Philadelphia’s chapter of the IDGA (International Game Developers Association) is hosting a Global Game Jam at our favorite Philly coworking space, Indy Hall.

Kicking off at 5pm on the 29th and running until 5pm on the 31st, indie game developers all over will bunker down and crank out games all around the world. Lots of fun, small games come out of the Global Game Jam. Just check out Indie Games’ round up from last year.

Me and the Geeks are excited to see what the IDGA develops over the course of the weekend. An iPhone game? Something on WiiWare? I guess we’ll find out come Monday.

Good luck fellahs. Please make the next Canabalt.

Global Game Jam
www.globalgamejam.org

Philadelphia IGDA
www.igda.org/philly

I know you’re all psyched for Zombieland on February 8^th but next Monday if your looking for something to do why not check out another great film at the Troc for Movie Monday, Fight Club; which they will be screening February 1^st. David Fincher truly crafted a modern classic with his story of a lonely, isolated thirty-something young professional (Edward Norton) who seeks an escape from his mundane existence with the help of a devious soap salesman (Brad Pitt; in what arguably could be one of his best roles) he meets rather serendipitously one day on a business trip. They soon find their release from the prison of reality through underground fight clubs they create. Their fight clubs and harmless pranks soon lead to an out-of-control spiral towards oblivion. This is a great film if you haven’t seen it, you really should. As always it’s 21+ and $3 gets you in and get there before 7pm and get a free beer and a bag or popcorn.

A Philadelphia area (Horsham) lawyer, recently filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for “allegedly taking money from consumers for Microsoft Points that were erroneously used during ‘incomplete and/or partial downloads of digital goods and services and refused refund of same.’” He’s also sued Google, Yahoo, and IAC Interactive… all three suits eventually dropped.

Occasional Geekadelphia contributor (and now Joystiq writer) Ben Gilbert, has the full story over on Joystiq. The class action lawsuit also has a Facebook page, with a total of 10 fans as of this posting. Check it out, and commence face-palming.

I’m curious, has anyone else had any problems with Microsoft’s download system? Weird points system aside, every time I’ve encountered an issue downloading a game, or I’ve been accidentally overcharged, Microsoft has always gone above and beyond to compensate me, often dishing out a full refund plus bonus points. Discuss.

[via Joystiq]

This Sunday, the giant Operation game that the folks at MakePhilly and Hive76 built, will finally be revealed.

The game features Ben Franklin at the patient, and is part of a new, special interactive exhibit for adults and kids. The exhibit will be unveiled at 11am, and it’s just an exciting time for everyone involved.

For more info, visit the Franklin Institute’s page on the new exhibit. Congrats to everyone involved in the project. Bravo!

Franklin Institute
www.fi.edu

My friend Linzy sent me this over Twitter, and I simply had to share it with the rest of the Geek world.

Behold, the Pac-Man bookcase. Nom-nom-noming your expensive HD television since 2010. Officially called the ‘Puckman’ bookcase, according to the website it’s made of “shining varnished wood, colored yellow to remind [you] of the famous character… Pac-man.” Awesome.

And to match the Pac-Man bookcase, you can pick up Ghost inspired lamps, which appear to come in at least five different colors.

Thanks for the link, Linzy!

Pac-Man Bookcase [via Twitter & Nerd Approved]

It was announced this week that Square Enix will be bringing the two titles that started it all to iPhone: Final Fantasy I & II.  Let’s not even bother trying to deny that these two games, while generic and clunky to today’s standards, jump started the Japanese RPG revolution back in the early ’90s.  However, this being about the eighth time Square Enix has rehashed these titles, will gamers be willing to pay out again?

Of course, they will.

In all honesty (hear me out on this one), I’ll probably buy at least FFI, but why? While I haven’t completed every last Final Fantasy title and I don’t own a chocobo plushie, I consider myself a pretty major fan of the franchise and not to mention, FFI is one of my favorites from the series. However, it’s getting a bit tiresome having to buy the same game nearly eight times, wouldn’t you agree? Maybe not, but this is exactly why we have this column: to bicker discuss! We’ll have a little bit more of that after the jump.

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I feel that too many times with new comic creators, they try too hard to emulate or hopefully match their influences. I don’t see a problem with that, but nine times out of ten, it’s futile. The best case scenario is taking those influences, and injecting them into your work and coming up with something new and exciting. Bryan Lee O’Malley did it with Scott Pilgrim, and now Lamar Abrams has done it with Remake.

Remake is a collection of stories starring Max Guy. He’s a combination of both Astro Boy and Mega Man but he’s quite different. While he is a hero and he fights the good fight, Max Guy is immature, hot tempered, and childish. He demands the world pay attention to him. Or at the very least his friends. He doesn’t sound like that great of a hero but Max Guy is pretty awesome. He also has another thing going for him. No matter how bleak the outcome may look, Max Guy always wins. Every story ends with him defeating the enemy. In the first story, Max accidentally kills a cop who he thought called him a “gay robot” when he actually said “nice robot”. It’s a complete misunderstanding due to Max believing he could read lips. How did Max know he could read lips? I guess he just thought he could. Not long after this it is revealed that the cop he killed was actually an alien planning to destroy the world. Having his plans ruined, the outed alien hops into his spaceship and flies away vowing to return.  Max is then lifted up into the air by the citizens of the city and celebrated as a hero. This is only a taste of the wackiness that happens in the rest of the book.

Lamar Abrams draws these stories in a way that many would look at and go “I could draw that”. That’s the deception of its simplicity. It’s simple but there’s a lot of care that went into it.  There’s also some amazing comedy bits that blend in perfectly with the action. In a story called “Vs The Cat Thing”, Max eats his favorite cereal called Marshmallow Kittens which is made of real marshmallow kittens. It’s adorable and disturbing watching Max chow down on marshmallow meowing cats. Not taking the advice of his roomate/best friend Cardigan, he gets terribly sick. When he throws up, his sick turns into the titular Cat Thing and they battle. In the middle of this fierce battle, there is a three panel sequence where Max and Cat Thing growl at each other trying to prove how vicious and angry they are. I never laughed as hard as I did when that happened.

Abrams can stage the action and the quiet moments (if you want to call them that) well, the pacing is quick and breezy, but he can throw these amazing random bits of comedy into the middle of a situation and it stops you in your tracks. You don’t expect certain things to happen, and they just do. Then after you finish laughing for a few minutes,  you get right back into the story not missing a beat.

As it stands, Remake is one of those amazing bits of comics gold that should be more well known. Lamar Abrams has created a very entertaining and hilarious universe and I hope he will continue to tell more adventures of Max Guy. I can’t wait. Definitely pick this book up if you can.

Lamar Abrams website

In a move that seems like a no-brainer the Twilight books are going to be translated into Manga form, mixing the two passions of preteen girls Shōjo Japanese comics and sparkly vampires into a potent money making mix. The publisher Yen Press is so sure of this juggernaut that their first print run is set at whopping 350,000 books. What does seem a little weird is some sites are referring to the book as a Manga and some as a graphic novel adaptation; it is however labeled a graphic novel on the cover of the book.  What I can tell is it appears that these books will be a drawn and released in the Japanese Manga style and format, but marketed as a graphic novels probably due to the recent collapse of the Manga market especially the OEL or original English language Manga market that happened a few years ago here in the US.

Basically what happened is during the period 2005-2008 the Manga publishers were pumping out titles both domestic and foreign by quantity not quality much like the Anime market was at the time. Then when bit-torrent hit big people stopped buying, literally overnight. Because why buy something when you can get it for free? Well some publishers either went out of business or cut their output by more than half and most retailers got stuck with a ton of back stock that they couldn’t get rid of. Not only that you probably noticed most retailers are not carrying Manga and Anime like they once use to because some were burned pretty bad by the deal – just look at Best Buys selection nowadays. Well the “Manga” hits in March is commanding a hefty price-tag of $19.99 which is a bit expensive by both Manga and Graphic Novel terms, but Amazon is pre-ordering at $10.00(get your copy here!) and the title will be a hard-back edition. I think if they really wanted to take  the Japanese Manga thing seriously the story would be nothing but hot Werewolf boy on Vampire boy action, and Bella would be reduced to being the third wheel, I bet that would probably sell better; because the only thing pre-teen girls like more than Shōjo is Yaoi!

District 13: Ultimatum is the new film written by Luc Besson, the French director and writer you might know from his work on The Professional and The Fifth Element. He is not in the captain’s chair this time, but a script by this man means we are in for a good story. The director of this film is Patrick Alessandrin whom is a director in his own right, and shares a love for the same crazy action and over the top stunts that are the trademarks of all Besson’s films.

District 13: Ultimatum is a sequel to the 2004 French cult hit District 13. But while it is a sequel it promises to be one where if you haven’t seen the original you will still be able to fully enjoy this film unencumbered. The plot goes something like this, “three years after the events of the original film, the authorities are attempting to return law and order to ravaged District 13. The death of gang overlord Taha Bemamud has left a power vacuum, and total control of the area is now being fought over by five rival territorial gang lords who want to step into Taha’s position. Damien and Leito return to District 13 on a mission to bring peace to the troubled sector before the secret services of Paris take drastic measures to solve the problem.” Funny bit of trivia the star of District 13: Ultimatum… Cyril Raffaelli is also the fight choreographer for the Tekken film I wrote about earlier this week.

The film opens February 5th and I for one can’t wait to see this. Just check out the trailer below! The French have really been putting some great stuff out lately (The Professional and The Fifth Element are two of my all time favorite films) so I am hoping not to be disappointed. We are giving away 30 passes for 2 to an advance screening of District 13: Ultimatum courtesy of The 6-Shooter Film Series and Mangnet which will be held next Thursday, January 28^th, 7:30 PM at the Ritz 5. Since the screening is next week simply drop a comment with your favorite French Film or Film that took place in France (for those of you not too big into international cinema) and I will shoot you your tickets via email.  The cut off will be Wednesday night the 27^th and once I send out all 30, Game Over. I for one will be in attendance, and I hope to see you there.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Tony’s Pizza. All opinions are 100% mine.

Last week, Tony’s Pizza sent the Geekadelphia crew a bunch of free pizza coupons in the mail. These heat-in-the-oven personal pan pizzas are pretty inexpensive in the grocery store, running only a couple of dollars, but hey, free pizza is free pizza, right?

My memories of store-bought pizza are those of Ellio’s, which is essentially Wonder Bread with sauce poured on top. Tony’s is definitely a step up, and they’ve got several different kinds to choose from. These flavorful little personal pizzas offer up a solid alternative to ordering delivery. You can make them on the spot,  and chances are, you’ll spend less.

Have you ever played Cranium? Infinitely better played in person, as opposed to the terrible Wii version. Plus there’s just something about a playing a good board game with a gang of friends that trumps playing video games. That’s right, I said it. Everyone chowed down, played board games, and had an all-around good time.

Now, Tony’s is running a special contest with us and some of our blogging breathren, in which winners will receive a $500 entertainment prize pack. What’s inside the prize pack is a bit of a mystery, but we’re sure it’s awesome.

There are two ways to enter. 1. Leave a comment on the blog or 2. Tweet out a link to this post with the hashtag #TonysPizza. Leaving a comment is probably easier. So go ahead!

The $500 prize pack contest ends on February 13th, so comment away! For contest rules, please visit the contest rules page. And keep an eye on the Geekadelphia Twitter. I’ll be giving away free coupons over the course of the week. I’ve got a lot of them, and I feel like sharing the wealth.

All proceeds from this sponsored post have been donated to the American Red Cross. For information on how you can give, especially now, visit the Red Cross’ official website.

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