Sunday, December 11, 2011

Gojira / Godzilla, King of the Monsters

  • The testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean triggers the awakening of a dreadful, 400-foot-tall, fire-breathing prehistoric lizard who commences to wreak havoc on the city of Tokyo. The original Japanese version of GODZILLA, without the Americanized addition of Raymond Burr. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: NR Age: 828768455999 UPC: 82876845599
Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama made in Japan at a time when the country was still reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning more than twenty sequels and spinoffs. This first thrilling, tactile spectacle continues to be a cult phenomenon; here, we present the original,! 1954 Japanese version, along with Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, the 1956 American reworking starring Raymond Burr (Rear Window).Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama made in Japan at a time when the country was still reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning more than twenty sequels and spinoffs. This first thrilling, tactile spectacle continues to be a cult phenomenon; here, we present the original, 1954 Japanese version, along with Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, the 1956 American reworking starring Raymond Burr (Rear Window).This package contains:

* Godzilla (1954 Japanese Edition-english subtitles)
* King of the Monsters (1956 U.S. Release Edtion-english v/o dub)

Featuring: * Audio commentaries
* Original trailers
*"Making ! of the S uite" Featurette
*"Godzilla: Story Development" featurette
The first of the Godzilla movies, and the most somber and serious in tone, Gojiro was originally a 98-minute Japanese horror film, until a U.S. company bought the rights and reissued the film at 79 minutes, replacing sequences involving a Japanese reporter with new inserts of a dour, pipe-smoking Raymond Burr. Both versions appear together for the first time in this release from Sony Wonder.

Stills from Gojiro (click for larger image)

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Humpday

  • It s been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up unannounced on Ben s doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of macho one-upmanship. Late into the night at
It's been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard)
were college bad boys. Ben is living contently with a good job and a great wife, until his old buddy Andrew shows up on his doorstep late one night. Andrew, who lives as a vagabond artist, invites Ben out to a wild party. Excessive drinking
combined with the irrational need to oneup each other, leads to a mutual dare that locks them into entering an
amateur porn contest together.A bromantic comedy par excellence, Humpday push! es the concept of male bonding and male competition (so often intertwined) to its end point. Two old buddies, Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard), reunite after a few years' time. Mark is living the bourgeois life in Seattle, with a home, a wife (Alycia Delmore), and a responsible job. Andrew's just blown in from vagabonding around Mexico, and his bohemian cred is as thick as his beard. When the buds drunkenly vow to participate in a local amateur porn-movie contest with themselves as stars, the stage is set for a game of staredown: neither guy wants to be the first to blink and admit he isn't quite open-minded or free-swinging enough for the stunt. (One large roadblock: Ben needs to actually convey the information about the film project to his wife, a dilemma that leads to some of the movie's funniest scenes.) Director Lynn Shelton works in an improvisatory style, figuring out the dialogue with the actors and creating a loose, frowzy atmosphere within scenes. Th! at sense of verisimilitude helps sell the whopper of a premise! , but wh at's even more impressive is Shelton's laser-like sense of male insecurity and rivalry (also on view in her previous picture, My Effortless Brilliance). Duplass (from The Puffy Chair) and Leonard (a Blair Witch trekker) play this to the hilt, particularly in the gloriously uncomfortable climatic scene, when push, shall we say, is going to have to come to shove. Humpday was a Sundance breakout in 2009, coming out of nowhere (i.e., Seattle, Shelton's home base) and snagging a summer release. And why not? If the specific plot isn't exactly a universal experience, the movie's underlying anxieties certainly are. --Robert Horton

Alone in the Dark

  • A New Inventory System ¿ Players utilize the pockets of protagonist Edward Carnby to hold items which they can view, switch and combine without leaving the game.
  • Narrative intensity ¿ Taking its cues from blockbuster TV dramas, the story is told in a TV season style narrative structure based around episodes that deliver maximum intensity throughout and keep the player hooked.
  • A Captivating Story ¿ Centered in iconic Central Park long-time series protagonist and paranormal specialist Edward Carnby returns to delve into the frightening events occurring in the Big Apple.
  • Real World Rules ¿ In-Game movement has been designed to allow players to do almost anything that is physically possible in the real world.
  • Photographic Rendering ¿ Game developer Eden¿s Propriety ¿Twilight¿ technology creates a lavishly detailed game world with highly realistic and advanced cinema! tographic effects.
Alone in the Dark X360There?s something strange and frightening happening in the middle of New York City?s Central Park; something whispered to have been intentionally kept secret; something that players are compelled to explore in Alone in the Dark.

Known today as a safe haven for New Yorkers yearning for relief from the stresses of their chaotic metropolis, history records that Central Park was built on a useless swamp, yet as the New York City skyline hurtled towards the sky over the last 150 years, making the city the most expensive real estate in the world, the park has remained untouched. Why? Civic pride? Perhaps, but the recent strange happenings in and around the park are casting doubt on that, doubts that require investigating.



The return of! an icon ic series
Edward Carnby
Paranormal PI Edward Carnby.
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Stunningly spooky views of NYC
Stunningly spooky views of NYC.
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The odd wildlife of Central Park
The odd wildlife of Central Park.
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A whole new inventory system
A whole new inventory system.
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Enter Edward Carnby, Paranormal Investigator
Despite the title, Alone in the Dark is actually the fifth game in a series that dates back to 1992 and centers around the experiences of Edward "the reptile" Carnby. A paranormal investigator by trade, Carnby is looking for answers to the strange events and horrific creatures reported in and around the park, but gets more than he bargained for when all the mysteries and terrors of the park spill out over the course of one apocalyptic night. It?s the player?s task to avoid the new frightening dangers of the park as you search for the answers to what these supernatural occurrences mean and why they are happening.

Gameplay Based on Full Player Immersion
Packed full of action and vivid in its realism Alone in t! he Dark goes to the extreme to keep players engaged and im! mersed b y plunging them into the heart of the action in real-time at every turn and challenging them to survive using full movement control. The goal here is to allow players to do or at least feel that they can do more or less whatever is possible in real life, within the game.

Need to avoid a blast of steam or an eruption of fire that has shot up in your path? You can simply side-step it or you can handle the obstacle with a little more panache by using the environment around you, for example by swinging around it using reachable pipes or wires. In another situation you may be challenged by attacking monsters. No problem. You can take the path of least resistance, again by side-stepping them or placing an obstacle between yourself and them, but if you are feeling like taking out a little aggression you can pick up a board, chair, box, etc. and have at it. Nearly anything that you come across that would be usable in real life is usable in game and can be wielded in several diffe! rent ways.

In addition, game developer Eden Studios has done away with a few in-game conventions in favor of real life upgrades. Instead of old-fashioned health bars Alone in the Dark uses realistic body damage and physiological effects to show players how much damage has been done to Carnby by the new dangerous nightlife of Central Park. Basically this means if Carnby has been taking a licking he?s going to be a little bloody. Monsters use sensory perception of all kinds to find their victims, so players need to keep aware of Carnby?s physical state, as well as the impact he has on his surroundings. Also gone are traditional inventory systems that take players out of the game while you switch or check items in your possession, replaced by an in-game inventory system where items are carried in the folds of Carnby?s trench coat. This allows you to stay in the action the whole time. Sticking with the realism theme, the number of items that Carnby can carry is limite! d, but since ingenuity is built into the system, items can be ! combined or their uses altered, mostly with tape, so players can adjust as challenges arise.

TV Style Intensity That Keeps You Hooked
Built around a unique television style episodic narrative game structure, the storyline of Alone in the Dark is split into a number of distinct 30-40 minute episodes, doled out one at a time as you play. This new way to progress through the storyline ensures that players can enjoy the game regardless of the amount of time they have available without ever feeling lost. Each time a saved game is launched, the episode will begin with a video summary of the previous episode to quickly re-immerse the player in the story, removing the need to remember where you were or what you were doing at the end of your last play session. In addition, every episode will also close with a nail-biting, cliff-hanger ending to rattle players? nerves. And when you choose to leave the game, a video teaser of the next episode will play to leave players alw! ays wanting more.

Vivid Photographic Rendering
Even on a bad day, and this will be a bad one, Central Park and New York City are something to see. With Game developer Eden?s proprietary Twilight technology and rendering engine, players can expect to see everything from the City?s famous landmarks to the manifestations of the evil that have been festering in Central Park come to life as if you were there. This lavishly detailed game world takes advantage of highly realistic and advanced cinematographic effects including depth of field, camera focus, numerous light sources, moisture, reflections and High Dynamic Range effects.

Whether it?s the innovative game play, the unique episodic game structure, the advanced physics or the return of a ground-breaking protagonist recast in the modern era, Alone in the Dark holds something for players willing to take on the mysteries and dangers at the heart of Central Park.