Sorry to make the announcement, but the show will be on hiatus for the next couple of weeks. Sorry about any inconvenience. Hopefully after a couple of weeks we can resume the regular schedule. Thanks for you patience.

This week’s episode will be delayed until further notice. Joe and I are working on improvements for the show and we need some time to iron out some things. Thanks for your patience, and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! If there’s anything you think could change or be added, please let us know. Email pnbfans(at)gmail(dot)com or just add a comment to this message. Thanks!

I would like to take this opportunity to vent my frustration and anger over the very popular Iron Man. But let me first clarify before you go crying to your mommas. While the movie was very awesome, its video game counterpart was not. I own a PS2 and while most everyone else owns the 360 or Wii, I prefer the game selection and controller of the PS2. This is not to say that I don’t like the other gaming systems, but rather I don’t have the money to buy one so I just use somebody else’s when I get the chance. Back to the game. Iron Man is quite possibly one of the worst experiences I have had on the PS2. You play the title character on his mission to make the world right. However, don’t expect to relive the movie through the game. The missions (at least the ones that I had the patience to play) don’t have anything to do with the movie. And the missions that you do play are very linear, meaning your path to victory is very obvious and easy. There are no tricks or hidden places to discover. No puzzles to solve or difficult baddies to beat. You don’t fly. You hover. It takes one shot to destroy a bad guy and you are virtually invincible. Your weapons are upgradeable – but the game chooses those for you. You have quite possibly one of the coolest superheroes who should translate well to a video game, but somewhere along the line the creators in all their wisdom dropped the ball. This game is everything that God of War is not: disappointing, to sum it up. I played about 3 levels of this game and finally slammed the controller down in frustration. “Thank God I only rented this game,” I told myself. The truth is, while Robert Downey Jr. is having fun being multidimensional, exciting and kick-ass, you get to be dull, invincible in a bad way, and totally not worth the money spent on this stupid game. Take my advice when I say this: stay as far away from Iron Man as you possibly can. If someone you know tells you that this game is cool, you have my permission to punch them in the kidneys. You might also need to take them to see the Iron Man on screen to remind them what a real superhero looks like.

Episode 42 of Pressed & Bound is online! In this week’s episode we review:

Books:

• The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story (Deluxe Edition)

Movies:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Widescreen Edition)

Right click and download the forty-second episode here:

• MP4 280mb
• iPod 97mb
• MP3 24mb

Comments or questions? Email us at: pnbfans(at)gmail(dot)com

Just a heads up:

As I was working on the show tonight to get it all put out and taken care of, Final Cut decided to crash and then corrupt the project files for the show. It was a good two hours or so wasted, and now I’m going to have to start from scratch. This means the show most likely won’t go up until this weekend sometime when I get another chunk of time to mess with it. Sorry about any inconvenience. Direct all anger to Apple.

It’s been a long time since I last posted and I assure you I haven’t forgotten the promises I made to you, my fabulous readers. Last time I checked in with you, I was about a week away from getting married. Guess what? I got married! Now I have time to do everything I’ve ever wanted to do right? Wrong. I’ve been just as busy as I’ve ever been and I haven’t found time for relaxation other than playing video games before I go to bed at night. My wife left for job-related training about a week and a half after we got married and she won’t be back for another week. Talk about unusual. You’re a bachelor your whole life, you get married, and then you go back to the bachelor-type life while your wife’s away for a bettter part of two weeks right after you get hitched. Strange. It still hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m married. Oh well. The older married guys that I know just laugh and tell me that it will sink in soon. We’ll see. Anyway, back to what you came for. I told you all that I would write some reviews about two films in particular: Lions for Lambs and Lars and the Real Girl. A couple of weeks ago, Joe did a reveiw of Lars and I must say he did a fantastic job. I’ll add on to that review now. The film stars Ryan Gosling as an introverted adult (Lars Lindstrom) in his late-twenties whose lifestyle is underwhelming at best. His brother, Gus, and pregnant sister-in-law, Karin, are always trying their best to add more spice to his life, mostly by inviting him to dinner. Lars almost always refuses until Karin tackles him and tells him she won’t let him up until he agrees to come to dinner. After dinner, it is very evident to the audience that Lars really doesn’t want anything other than to be alone. One day at work, a co-worker of Lars is on the internet looking at a site for ordering anatomically-correct sex dolls. At the time, Lars doesn’t seem to show much interest but a later scene shows a big box has arrived for Lars. Karin sees the box delivered and asks Lars what the contents hold. Lars says that the box holds luggage for a girl he met on the internet. She is apparently coming to see him and needed to send some things ahead of time. Of course, this news delights Gus and Karin as they believe their brother is finally branching out. What follows though is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey might say, and how Lars new emotional complex allows him to see the doll as a real woman. I highly recommend you watch this film. Seeing Lars and his family interact with an inanimant object is both fun and compelling. The family obviously has problems with this situation but both the family and the town help Lars through this time in this life where he is obviously reaching out for help. You may need tissues for the ending as it drew tears for both Joe and me. This film gets 4 out of 5 stars, driven mainly by it’s orginiality and outstanding acting.  

Next on the list is Lions for Lambs. This very intriguing film was directed as well as acted by Robert Redford. It is a story about two soldiers, Arian Finch and Ernest Rodriguez, whose life’s work is told by Redford’s character (Prof. Stephen Malley) to an underachieving student to inspire him to do better. The soldiers were actually former students of Malley’s and the dangerous mission they attempt is recounted by Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) to a reporter (played by Meryl Streep.) If you have ever seen and enjoyed a film like Crash or Babel where people’s stories and lives intersect in interesting ways, then this is a movie for you. The film is set in the present and the stories surround the war in Afghanistan. The Republican senator is trying to rhetorize the situation and make it seem like the tide of the war is about to change in favor of the United States. The word games he plays with the reporter get you thinking about how we perceive war and the cost of it. Redford’s character likewise tries to explain to his student what the soldiers tried to do in school, and what they wanted to accomplish when they got back from war. Whether they actually do get back is revealed in the film, but I won’t spoil that for you here. It’s a political and intellectual film that may leave you angry and/or sad depending on what part of the political spectrum you may lie. Rent this on DVD if you can find it. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars for it’s wonderful storytelling script and directing, and I must say that depsite how little I have come to respect Tom Cruise, he does a good job in this film as the up-and-coming senator-type.

Well that’s it for today. I’m not sure what I’ll have for you next time, but I have been watching a lot of movies lately so I’ll be sure to have something for you. Maybe it will be something you don’t want to watch. Like anything with Paul Reiser. He sucks!