Bill Cosby: Himself (1983)

I'll just start off by saying I love Bill Cosby. I think he's one of the greatest comedians that ever lived. Despite what was said about him later in his life (the infidelity, his acting like a blow hard about certain subjects, etc.), I still think he's one of the greats. Despite what he does or what happens to him, no one will ever be able to take his amazing comedy career away from him. I think The Cosby Show is one of America's best sitcoms. This comedy special, made the year before he began making his famous sitcom, is a great showcase of his talent. In my late teens, I really began to appreciate The Cosby Show but I didn't see this all the way through until I was almost twenty-one. When I finally sat down and watched it, I was laughing like crazy. Along with Eddie Murphy's comedy specials Raw and Delirious, this has to be one of the best stand-up films ever.

There are many reasons why this film (and Cosby's comedy overall) works. First of all, even though this was filmed in the early 80's, none of the stuff Cosby talks about are dated. Instead of discussing issues of the time, he talks about timeless topics like dealing with dentists, raising children, and so forth. Because of that, people who weren't even alive when this was made, one of which I am, can laugh at it. Second, it's relatable. Each segment of this has something the average person can identify with. I identify the most with the section about dentists because I have a dentist who means well but he often gets on my nerves and puts me through most of the crap Cosby talks about here. (He wants to talk to you when he's got his tools jammed in your mouth and actually has the gall to get irritated when you won't answer.) Anybody who's had to raise kids can understand the stuff Cosby describes about children seeming to be brain-damaged and the stuff they put you through. And don't even pretend like you haven't done some of the stuff he talks about happening between you and an annoying child.

I also like how Cosby is very observant about certain things that most people would probably overlook and he discusses them. As I said before, the stuff you have to put with at the dentist is a good example but I think the best is the very first section where he ponders how somebody can be having a good time when they're either taking drugs that make them act nuts or getting so drunk that they make themselves sick. I love the part where he's acting like he's drunk and leaning against a toilet, moaning in agony. He sums it up at the beginning by saying he has people who work for him and even though he works them hard during the week, it's the weekend when they almost kill themselves and they come back to work on Monday feeling worse than they did at the end of Friday. And, although he only talks about it briefly, he understands if it's a young person who has never experienced it before but adults constantly do it even though they know what's coming. In the same section, I like Cosby's descriptions of the various walks of different types of drunken people: winos, gin and vodka drinkers, your typical beer drinkers, etc. It's funny stuff.

And that leads to another thing about Cosby. Even though he sits down through a good chunk of the film, he uses his body language to get his points across. His facial expressions are the best. His facial examples of a person who's stoned and is now paranoid, the differences between the faces of mothers and fathers, the look on a child's face, they're all funny as crap. I already talked about the funny walks he uses to illustrate the various ways different drunks move. Besides that, he moves legs and arms all over the place; standing in his chair at one to get across how his wife literally stood up when she was in labor, showing how his baby daughter reacted when he did baby talk to her, imitating his wife wielding a yardstick to whip their naughty children. He uses every part of his body. He's also real adept at making various sounds. The guy from those Police Academy movies may be the best at it but Cosby is a close runner-up. He gets so into it at some points during this film that he nearly sticks the entire microphone in his mouth (it's a miracle he didn't get shocked!). His imitations of people (nobody famous, just the people in his stories) are also really well done. Even the background in this film helps to illustrate some things. It's constantly changing colors from deep blue to red to orange. At one point when he's describing when the first real labor pains hit his wife, he makes a loud sound and the background suddenly turns bright orange, as if whoever is doing that did it to help Cosby emphasize what he's talking about. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before or since.
 
As many have noted, Bill Cosby is not only a great comedian but also a great story-teller. And that's what most of his comedy acts are: him sitting down and telling funny anecdotes (although, whether they're real or true are anyone's guess). I've heard that when he first started doing stand-up, it was unique and I think I understand why. When you watch his stuff, you don't feel like you're watching a comedian but more like you're visiting your funny uncle or grandpa and asking, "Tell me a funny story," and he does it. This is just me but I think that, coupled with his relatable and timeless subjects of discussion, is what enables you to become closer to Cosby than most other comedians.

Which leads me to my next point: this is a pretty family friendly comedy special. Cosby does swear here and there (the strongest thing he said was "asshole") but for the most part, it's his usual clean, family fun style. Honestly, the part about drugs and childbirth would probably go over most kids' heads so I don't there would be any harm in having children watch this with you. Also, this (along with a good portion of Cosby's comedy) never once touches on race. If you've watched a lot of The Cosby Show, you'll notice that show hardly ever makes any mention of race. Anybody (black, white, Asian, etc.) can watch this and identify with what's being said. Cosby has been criticized for this in the past but hey, if the guy doesn't care about making an issue of it, why force him to? I think it's a smart move because it even further ensures a broad audience.

I don't have many complaints about this special. If I was going to come up with some, the main one would be that I kind of wish Cosby didn't stand the vast majority of it talking about the trials and tribulations of parenthood. Don't get me wrong, just about everything he talks about is out of the park funny (I have a little niece who acts "brain-damaged" like some of the kids he describes) but I wish he would have broadened the scope a little bit. I would have liked to hear him comment on other typical stuff like an annoying experience at a restaurant, trouble at the grocery store, irritating people you run into on the road, stuff like that. That's not a knock against the special as just some things I personally wish Cosby would have included in this but whatever. One real criticism I do have is that some parts of the act don't feel that well structured. At some points, Cosby is about to tell one story but he goes off on a tangent about something and it takes him a little while to get back to that. Then again, the guy's brain seems to be going at breakneck speed here so it's probably just that. Also, it seemed like he was running out of things to say at the end and was just trying to fill up time. His final stuff about his parents' relationship with his children and their relationship with him when he was a kid seemed disjointed and didn't feel as uniform as everything that came before. But this is just nitpicking.

I have to admit that certain parts of this movie that make me cringe in retrospect are the instances when Cosby mentions his only son Ennis, who was murdered in 1997. At one point, Cosby says that he doesn't think his son is going to live much longer because his sisters are conspiring to kill him. It's a joke, of course, but you can't help but wince a bit at that nowadays. Also, Cosby describes how his son often left his fly open and says something along the lines that it can make one seem unintelligent. Again, that may have been just a joke, but if I'm not mistaken, Ennis was diagnosed with dyslexia at one point. I wonder if Cosby ever watched this back and kind of wished he hadn't made that comment. Now, I am in no way saying that Cosby did this to insult his son. I know he really loved his son and was devastated when he was killed. I don't think he's been the same since and that's why you don't see Cosby much nowadays because it may have killed some life in him. Still, it is sad to see of that stuff today, knowing what would happen years later.

This ended up being me raving about Bill Cosby himself instead of about, well... Bill Cosby, Himself. It's kind of hard for me to talk about just one of a comedian's acts without talking about them as a performer as a whole. But, in any case, I stick with what I said at the beginning about this being an awesome special and just a great example of Bill Cosby's humor, warm-hearted feelings, and talent. It's too bad he's getting up there in age and probably doesn't have many more performances like this left in him. But we'll always have his legacy to remember. If you're a Bill Cosby fan and haven't seen this, I would highly advise checking it out. It's just sheer comedy brilliance from top to bottom.

Weird Travels (2003-2006)

This one is even more obscure than History's Mysteries. This documentary show was produced for the Travel Channel from 2003 to 2006. Its main focus was mysterious locations and the bizarre events and creatures there. Of course, this led them to having episodes featuring the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, the Mothman, the Jersey Devil, the Nazca Lines, Stonehenge and others. Like all shows of this nature, it was narrated by a guy with a creepy voice. This host, Don Wildman, actually appeared onscreen in the first episode but I don't think he ever did again. Supposedly, other Travel Channel specials like Haunted Hotels and Bigfootville were part of this show but I don't remember seeing the logo for the show at the beginning of them. (I will give Bigfootville its own review at some point.) The opening sequence of the show was really interesting and full of mystery. It showed a bunch of places like an open field, the inside of a mysterious house, or a road with one lone sign on its edge. The picture was in sepia tone to give it an even strange feeling. It really worked in getting you interested.

The first episode I saw was the very first episode, called Investigations of the Unexplained, which had segments devoted to the ghosts of the Myrtles plantation, supposed werewolf sightings, demonic possession, and Bigfoot reports in Oregon. Nothing real special about it but I'm always drawn to shows like this due to my interest in the subject matter. As with History's Mysteries, I tried to see every episode of this show that interested me. And as I've done before, I will now discuss my favorite episodes.

Lake Monsters: This one featured a look at the Loch Ness monster (of course) and Champ, the monster of Lake Champlain. It gave abbreviated but well researched histories of both creatures as well as speculation as to what they might be. You can tell this show is fairly low budget because they couldn't show the actual surgeon's photo of the Loch Ness monster and had to resort to a really bad recreation of it. When it came to Champ, they had an interview with Sandra Mansi, the woman who took the most famous photograph of that monster. She seems a whole lot more sincere in this show than she would in later ones (that's a story for another time). And, of course, the ever loyal Adrian Shine is on hand to give his two cents about Nessie for the millionth time. Not the best show done on the subject but still worth watching for newcomers.

Bigfoot: Yeah, you knew this one was coming. Odd that there's no episode of this series devoted solely to the yeti but whatever. This one takes a look at various Bigfoot encounters in different parts of America throughout the centuries. It discusses Bluff Creek, which is the most famous area of Bigfoot sightings, and briefly mentions the Patterson film but doesn't dwell upon it. (It only shows one really bad frame from the film.) It discusses a particularly ferocious Bigfoot called the Fawk monster in Arkansas, the Skunk Ape of the Florida Everglades, and finally settles on an organization in Texas devoted to finding Bigfoot. The last quarter of the episode follows those people on one of their expeditions into the Texas wilderness to track Bigfoot. This episode creeps me out because they use a supposed Bigfoot howl that I've heard in other shows and it makes chills run up my spine. They also get a response from an unknown animal in the woods when they do call-blasting. They also have a false alarm when it appears that a Bigfoot messed around with their van but it's later revealed to have been just some curious onlookers. Not a bad episode. In fact, I think it may be my favorite of this series.

Creepy Creatures: Sort of an extension of the two episodes I've mentioned before. This one takes a big look at cryptozoology, and after briefly mentioning Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, it mainly focuses on the Jersey Devil and the Mothman. The Mothman has always been one I've been interested in because descriptions of the creature are unlike that of any other supposed monster and it apparently was quite aggressive. This episode discusses what the Mothman could have been, with theories ranging from a mutated bird to a government experiment or even an alien. They even interview one of the original witnesses of the creature, which I don't think ever did one before. She clearly doesn't like talking about it and is still frightened to this day. While it does kind of retread other subjects that have been covered in past episodes, I still enjoy this one.

Those are the ones I usually watch whenever I can catch them. I know that list is nowhere near as big as the one for History's Mysteries but to be honest, the Travel Channel's specials usually aren't that interesting or as well made those of the History Channel or Biography. There are a few other specials besides this series that I will eventually review but not a lot. I'm not sure if Weird Travels still airs on the Travel Channel. I'm sure it does but it's not one of those shows that has a regular time slot. Still, if you can catch it, I'd recommend checking it out. Even if you've heard the stories presented many times before, the episodes are still a good time killer.

History's Mysteries (1994-2006)

Besides movies and video games, one of my biggest interests is mysteries and unexplained phenomena. My main interests of the sort are the paranormal and cryptozoology. I guess being a fan of the horror genre just sort of naturally leads into the fascination of the unknown. Because of this, I've always enjoyed shows like Is it Real?, MonsterQuest, and, of course, Unsolved Mysteries. One show that I feel gets overlooked in this genre is History's Mysteries, a show that was produced in a seemingly sporadic nature from 1994 to 2006 on the History Channel. While the show no longer produces new episodes (though, with 154 episodes, I think they covered pretty much every mystery known to man), it still airs reruns, mainly on History International, to this day. Some episodes are apparently not shown anymore for some reason, which annoys me a little bit, but the ones that do air are very well made and informative.

The show's format is that of a documentary. Each episode is an hour long and is narrated by the typical guy with a cool guy voice while experts on the subject give their opinions and insight into it. The show takes an objective stance on whatever is being discussed and lets the viewer make up his or her mind after listening to all the evidence, which I always like. I feel that every show like this should do so. That's just my personal preference, though. For example, while I do like the National Geographic Channel's Is it Real?, many episodes of that show feel like they were made for the purpose of debunking the subject. But that's beside the point. One aspect of the show that is absent from reruns nowadays were introductions and interstitial segments featuring a man other than the narrator. I don't know why they were removed. But, again, this is just nitpicking.

The first episode I ever came across was the episode about the Loch Ness monster. I can't pinpoint when I saw it for the first time but I know it was sometime either when I was in middle school or early high school. After that, I tried to catch as many episodes of this show that I could. This is a show that I don't think had a set time-slot and just seemed to pop up whenever but was always enjoyable when you came across it. It didn't deal just with the paranormal and cryptozoology. It dealt with a myriad of subjects like the death of Marilyn Monroe, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, the Shroud of Turin, Noah's Ark, the possible relationship between the occult and the Third Reich, the lost colony of Roanoke, and dozens more. While I didn't watch every single episode because not every subject interested me, they were always intriguing and well researched.

I will now list off some of my favorite episodes. Most of these will be about the paranormal but they all match the quality standard set by the show which, as I say, was good.

The Abominable Snowman: Of the three biggest mysteries of cryptozoology (the other two being Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster), the abominable snowman or yeti was always the one I was the least interested in. However, my interest went up quite a bit when I finally sat down to watch this episode. It goes through the Sherpa legends about the creature to its image in pop culture and western expeditions to study it. One of the most interesting stories told is that of an expedition that stole pieces of a purported mummified yeti hand from a monastery and when those pieces were analyzed, the results were supposedly in favor of it being from an unknown animal. Also, the man who took the finger bones wired human finger bones into the bone and this would eventually lead to the yeti being "debunked" when another expedition examined that hand. It ends with an interesting video called the Snow Walker, which shows a strange figure walking on a snow-covered hill. That video has since been revealed to be a hoax but what's interesting is that in the episode, Jeff Meldrum, a primatologist who often appears in shows about the yeti or Bigfoot, actually believes in the video. (Meldrum has fallen for so many hoaxes that his expertise is quite questionable)

Monsters of the Sea: Really should be called Monsters of the Deep because this mainly focuses on lake monsters with some sea monsters thrown in. It starts interestingly enough with a bizarre bubbling noise purported to be made by a Swedish lake monster. It discusses Champ (the Lake Champlain monster), Ogopogo of Lake Okanagan, legends of the giant squid and giant octopus, sea serpents, Cadborosaurus, and ends with the most famous lake monster of all, the Loch Ness monster. The segment on Caborosaurus, a strange creature said to inhabit Cadboro Bay in British Columbia, is very intriguing because a carcass of one of the creatures was apparently cut out of the stomach of a whale in the 1930's. There's even a photograph to boot. I also find the discussion of a giant sea serpent that was apparently seen on Halloween interesting because they debate whether it was a real animal or a prank. There's one guy on this episode that always annoys me. It's the curator of this museum who really looks down on the subject. One really stupid thing he said during the Loch Ness monster segment was that if there was a monster, thousands of people over decades would report something instead of random glimpses of a lump, of an out-of-focus photograph, etc. That gets me because thousands of people over decades have reported seeing it and the descriptions have not always been humps and some of the photos are intriguing. That statement was so stupid. I couldn't believe that asshole.

The Hunt for Jack the Ripper: Really intriguing murder mystery episode. It tells the story of the legendary serial killer's reign of terror in London, the various victims (with really gruesome photographs of the butchered bodies), and how the killing suddenly ceased for no reason at all. I found it interesting how the killer was named after a letter that was probably just a hoax and how the classic image of the killer as a man dressed in black with a cape is no doubt wrong and he would have looked more like a sailor. A bunch of suspects are discussed and why or why not each one of them could have been the killer. Also, there was another series of murders after the ones in London that may or may not have been the worker of the same murderer. The episode ultimately leaves you with a sincere feeling of mystery, with the reenactments portraying the classic fog-covered London streets and the killer stalking in the shadows.

Alaska's Bermuda Triangle: This episode talks about bizarre disappearances in Alaska. The most prominent story is of the disappearance of two important men of Congress and how their deaths were probably the fault of an arrogant pilot. There are also discussions of ancient legends of shape-shifting evil spirits who could be responsible for the disappearances. One image that always interests me is this old, vintage footage of Eskimo kayaking in the frozen water around these glaciers and when he gets to a certain point, he simply disappears into thin air. It's just such a bizarre, eerie image to me.

The Loch Ness Monster: Like I said, this was the first one I ever saw and it immediately caught my attention because this mystery has always intrigued me. It does a great job of telling the monster's history, from the ancient legend of St. Columba subduing it to modern sightings and investigations. It, of course, talks about the infamous surgeon's photo and how that picture, supposedly, was revealed in 1994 to be a hoax orchestrated by a big-game hunter who was originally hired to find the monster but fired when he resorted to trickery. (I said supposedly because that photo's real story is often debated despite the supposed reveal.) It talks about the interesting film that Tim Dinsdale shot of a strange object crossing the loch and about the underwater photographs of Robert Rhines, which were the famous flipper, body, and "gargoyle head" pictures. Those were purportedly debunked to be either the result of re-touching or just being pictures of debris on the bottom of the lake. Adrian Shine is present, as he is in just about every documentary on the Loch Ness monster (he must get sick of being asked about it so much), and they discuss Operation Deepscan, the stunt he headed to sweep the loch from top to bottom with sonar. He admits that he knows many are probably pissed off at him to this day for proving that the monster may not exist. It ends with a great message: the legend of the Loch Ness monster should probably stay intact because the mystery is always more interesting than the solution.

Bigfoot and Other Monsters: I've always been annoyed that the show never did a whole episode on Bigfoot and only did this one that lumped it in with other mysteries like Mokele-Mbembe, dragons, and the Chupacabra. Of course, they talk about the Patterson film and how the Native Americans have had legends of the Sasquatch for centuries. The mystery of Mokele-Mbembe, an apparent dinosaur that lives near a remote African lake in the Congo area, is very interesting and Richard Greenwell, a cryptozoologist, talks about just missing an enormous creature that swam up the river from him and was big enough to cause small waves. Not one of their best episodes but interesting nonetheless.

Amityville: The Haunting: First of a two-part episode about the case of the Amityville Horror. This part discusses the murders of the Defeo family by young Ronald Defeo Jr., and the subsequent claims by George and Kathy Lutz that the house was haunted. Both George and Kathy are dead now and seeing Kathy in this episode is sad because she's on a respirator and seems absolutely shattered. It's interesting to their descriptions of the haunting: the evil spirit that took the form of a pig to their daughter, the strange green slime that tended to appear, the infestation of flies in the middle of the winter, and the final horrific night that caused them to flee from the house. Despite claims that the story is all a hoax, the interviews with the two of them seem sincere and they both, especially Kathy, look afraid. Makes you wonder.

Amityville: Horror or Hoax?: This second part of the Amityville episode discusses the investigations of the house, the book and movie that were based on the story, and the allegations that this story was concocted by the Lutzes for money. This episode got me because it was the first time I saw that freaky photograph taken during one investigation of what appears to be a ghostly child peering out from a dark bedroom doorway. Whether or not the story is true, that photograph is scary as hell! Now, Ed and Lorraine Warren, the two purported psychics who investigated the house, don't feel that credible. I always have a hard time believing psychics but these two feel more like showmen than psychics to me. There's all the controversy about who lied to who, how there are discrepancies between the book and what really happened supposedly, and how strange things kept happening to a lot of people involved with the case. Whether it's real or not, the ending is eerie. George Lutz says, "I wish it were a hoax. It's not." And the last shot is a long zoom into those freaky, eye-like windows of the house. It's really scary.

There are other episodes of History's Mysteries that I like such as the one about the legends of werewolves and the true story of Frankenstein but those episodes are the ones that stick out to me. While you can still catch the show on History International, some of the episodes (like The Loch Ness Monster) aren't shown anymore for some reason and the episodes are sometimes re-packaged into other programs (the episodes about the Amityville Horror were refurbished into an episode of Notorious on Biography Channel or something). But, you can't argue with good documentaries and this show is one of the best examples. So, if you like mysteries, I definitely recommend checking this show out if you have History International.

Stuff I Grew Up With/Video Game Corner: Jurassic Park (1993)

Since I loved the movie so much, it was only natural that I soon found myself playing the video game (at least, this particular game, since there were many, many others, with varying types of gameplay, made for other systems like the original NES and the Sega Genesis). This item was released only a few months after the movie and I played it as soon as I saw it on the shelf at my local video rental store. Although it was far from the greatest gaming experience I'd ever had (which wasn't saying much since I was only six then), I still liked it enough that I eventually asked for and got it as a present from my mom the following Easter. However, this ended up being one of the games that I owned as a kid that I never beat... a fact that remains the same to this very day. When I originally wrote this review, I attempted to complete the game in order to make the review more solid but I simply couldn't and I've since sold my copy and don't ever plan to try to complete this game. I'll get to why I was unable to beat the game presently but, as for my initial summation, the best way I can describe it is as a nice-looking, fairly fun game that, unfortunately, has some serious flaws that really damage its replay value and, as a consequence, stop it from being more fondly remembered than it is.

You play as Dr. Alan Grant, who has either been left behind on Isla Nublar by everyone else or was just dropped off there and left to fend for himself (I think the instruction booklet did explain things but I lost it years ago, so I can't confirm). Whatever the situation, you're stuck in Jurassic Park and you have to accomplish a series of objectives in order to escape, which consist of tasks such as turning on the generator, rebooting the park's computer system, keeping Velociraptors from getting into the visitor's center, and so on. Another main goal besides trying to find a way to escape is to collect 18 raptor eggs that are scattered across the island in order to keep it from being overrun. Your enemies, of course, are various dinosaurs and other creatures that often come out of nowhere and attack. I think it goes without saying that different dinosaurs cause different degrees of damage but, fortunately, you're given five lives and two continues after you run out of said lives (although, something other than the difficulty of the enemies is more likely to cause you to fail). The game switches between two different perspectives: an overhead style outside, and a first person one which has a 3-D look to it whenever you enter a building. That aspect made it fairly distinctive back in the day and those first-person mode is still quite impressive and even a little nerve-wracking now.

As I said, dinosaurs and other creatures are the main hazards. There are large, poisonous flies that buzz around you in certain spots but you can kill them easily with any of your weapons because they always pause for a brief second after buzzing forward. Compies, which are these little, yellow dinosaurs, are little pests that tend to swarm you and bite continuously. They're annoying but very weak and you can take out an entire herd with your cattle prod. Galliminus don't actually attack you but if you get close, they'll stampede. They're not that much harder to kill than the Compies, though. Pachycephalosaurs, or head-butters, are one of the most annoying enemies because once they zero in on you, they won't stop chasing and trying to ram you until you cross somewhere they can't follow, and they take a couple of shots to kill, even with a shotgun, with their quick movements making it hard to get a fix on them, especially if you run into a big herd of them (these dinosaurs and the Compies didn't appear in a movie until the sequel, The Lost World, but thanks to this game, I already knew of them going into that movie). Dilophosaurs, of course, spit globs of poison at you that not only hurt you but also mess up your controls for a few seconds, which can result in you dying if other dinosaurs show up. As they were in the movie, Velociraptors are the absolute worst because they're everywhere, they're very quick and severely damage you, and they take three shots to kill with a normal shotgun, so it's best to use a stronger weapon on them if you happen to have one. There are vertical alleys of jungle where, once you enter, a Triceratops will start chasing you and you must take cover. If you get squashed, you'll lose a life no matter how much health you have left. The T-Rex only shows up a couple of times and when you run into him, you're screwed unless you run like crazy. As a cool as he was in the movie, it's best to avoid him at all costs because none of your weapons hurt him, although the animation of him eating you is fun to watch, so you might want to offer yourself up to him at least once just so you can see it. Besides the dinosaurs, you have to be careful of other hazards like electric fences and grates on the ground (you can see your bones like in a cartoon if you get electrocuted by one and if one kills you, you actually explode!), tangles of vines on the ground that hurt you for some reason (I guess they're poisonous), and walking into water means instant death.

You have a fair amount of different weapons at your disposal here, with your default one being a cattle prod that comes in handing when dealing with weak enemies like Compies and those big, venomous flies (you also have to use it to operate the switches to doors in the fences and other obstacles). Gas grenades can knock dinosaurs out but I hardly ever used them because they always got back up after a few seconds and the same goes for the tranquilizer gun, although it apparently can slow down the T-Rex (I never tried it because, like I said, it's best to avoid him as much as possible). The shotgun can take down Pachycephalosaurs and Dilophosaurs with two bullets but, like I said, it takes three for the raptors so it's best to shoot them with something stronger. Said stronger weapons are rockets and bolas that are by far the best weapons in the entire game because they can kill just about anything in one hit, with the bolas taking down everything in their path until they hit a wall. You also have to make use of nerve gas to destroy a raptor nest in a moment of the game that I never made it to. In addition to the weapons, there are helpful items such as health kits, food, which also replinishes your health, 1-ups (they're very rare, though), ID cards that you have to collect to open various rooms in the buildings, and batteries for your night vision goggles, which are essential when you come across dark rooms in the buildings.

Although the terrain in the rocky areas and the twists and turns in the dense jungle can be difficult to navigate through, the outside is pretty in my opinion; inside, however, the game gets rather tricky and aggravating. For one, the controls become very stiff and it sometimes feels like you're caught on something even when there's nothing there. You often run into Velociraptors and Dilophosaurs inside and while the latter will just stand there and won't spit at you until you get too close, raptors tend to pace back and forth and when you hit them with a bullet, they charge at you. Your cattle-prod's range is very limited in this perspective, although you'd only use it as a last resort considering the enemies you run into in these areas. Oh, and remember those night vision goggles? Like I said up above, you must have them in order to go into a dark room because if you don't, you'll get torn apart by raptors inside and start back outside the building to try again. Even more annoying is that, when you find a battery for the goggles inside a building, they will only work in that particular building; when you go into another building, you have to find another battery in there before you can go into its dark rooms. You often have to deal with computer interfaces in these levels in order to turn on power generators and the like and if you don't know what to punch in, you will be absolutely lost when you're faced with these screens. Worst of all, walking around inside is disorienting, to say the least, and it's very easy to get lost because, not only are there are a lot of doors in any given building, they often have elevators that lead to more floors that you also have to search every nook and cranny of. You have to keep a mental checklist of all the different floors you've been to, otherwise you will get turned completely around. Any dinosaurs that you've killed can act as markers to let you know where you've been, as is the case outside, but only so many rooms have them, so you can't solely depend on them. They may look cool for the time but that novelty of these indoor levels wear off pretty quickly when you get turned around and start pulling your hair out (I do smile at the cheesy elevator music that you hear while actually riding them, though).

Going back to the outside area, as simple as they are when compared to navigating the inside of the buildings, you run into one of the game's most annoying features here. There are communication posts scattered throughout the park that allow you to communicate with other characters from the film and they tell you what you must do, which is helpful (the clarity of the voices when the characters either, "Grant," or "Alan," is quite surprising), but there will also be many other times where you'll just be walking around, nowhere one of these posts, when a tip suddenly comes up. This can get irritating very quickly because, first of all, these dialogue boxes take up about half the screen and while they are see-through and only last a few seconds, it's still annoying to have to put up with them as much as you do. Second, the same tip often shows up again and again, which isn't at all helpful after you've read six times. And, third, some of the info is just plain wrong. Tim tells you not to shoot the Galliminus because they'll stampede but they'll do that anyway even if you just get close to them, and you learn very quickly not to listen to anything Dennis Nedry tells you. If you've seen the movie, you know that he's a lying, scheming asshole, and he's no different in the game. He'll tell you stuff that are just blatant lies, such as that raptors won't attack unless you shoot them or to touch a fence to get a free life, in order to trip you up (of course, only a very gullible, naive person would fall for any of those tricks). And just to add insult to injury, sometimes a dialogue box from him comes up that just says, SUCKER! Dick.

All of these minor gripes aside, the game does have a number of good qualities. The graphics are very well designed, especially the dinosaurs, and they're nice and colorful. The music and sound effects are also very well done (at the start of the game, there's a voice that says, "Welcome to Jurassic Park," that also sounds unusually clear for a game on the Super NES), with this being one of the first games to be recorded in Dolby Stereo. Different areas of the park have different music themes and they all sound very cool, although they're rather hard to describe, like the main one that you hear when you first start the game that begins with some drum-like beats before going into a rhythmic sound with a hint of menace to it, and another piece that has a distinctively solemn-type of sound to it. The music that plays inside the buildings is the most memorable because of downright creepy it is. It's a very menacing little theme that starts quietly and only grows louder and more threatening as you proceed, all the while making you feel very tense. I was surprised at how, even today, that music made me feel uneasy about what I was doing, with the layout of the levels, the first-person perspective, and the controls making me all the more nervous. In fact, the game even starts out with very threatening music that builds to a very loud pitch as the screen pushes into a map of Isla Nublar with the Jurassic Park logo in the center of it. The various snarls, roars, and hisses of the dinosaurs sound good and convincing enough, although the raptors' snarling can get really annoying and you often hear them in the buildings even when they're not in the same room with you, which can make you rather jumpy. When you run into the T-Rex, his roar is very startling and often, you're too shocked by it to move and you end up getting eaten. The T-Rex in this game did scare me when I was little and, as I said, he still has the power to make me jump when he suddenly shows up.

At this point, you're probably thinking, "This sounds like a pretty good, if flawed, little game." Well, it would be, if it weren't for one big problem that is completely inexcusable: there's no save feature. That's right, you have to complete this game in one sitting, and it's a pretty long game with a lot of backtracking at that. I, for one, cannot sit in a chair for two to three hours doing nothing but mashing buttons. I get tired after a while and want to go do something else but if I want to beat the game, I have to press on. Whoever decided to not put in a save feature must have thought that gamers have no lives whatsoever, and the game's age is not an excuse because games did have save options back then. As I said at the beginning, I tried to beat the game in order to make this review more complete but I eventually got bored and frustrated and just gave up. I made it to the part where you have to kill all of the raptors inside this ship and I managed to kill all but one that was probably hiding in some obscure room that I couldn't find unless I wandered around for hours and at that point, I finally just said the hell with it and turned the game off. I've heard that the ending to the game is pitiful (as they tended to be back then) anyway, which only fueled my decision not to waste my time trying to beat this in one sitting.

So, yeah, Jurassic Park for the Super NES, while maybe not a classic, had the potential to be a good game for the system but the developers had to completely botch that with an unreasonable method of beating it. While I did have fun playing it when I was a kid, I decided not to pursue trying to beat it since I wouldn't have really accomplished anything anyway and I've since sold the game. Besides, there are tons of Jurassic Park games for various consoles, so it's not like this one is special. Before the sequel to the movie came out, there was another Super NES game called Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues, which I remember enjoying more than this because of its varied levels and types of gameplay. That's a game that I hope to find one day in order to play it again. Anyway, to sum up this particular game: fun for the most part and I'll always have good childhood memories of playing it but the absence of a save feature is inexcusable.

Movies That Suck: Hatchet (2007)

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American Psycho (2000)

This is a bizarre film for me to review. It was a movie that I often heard about in the early 2000's. One of my friends saw it and he seemed to enjoy it. I didn't see it for the first time until just last year. It was an interesting turning point for me because I had just bought a Blu-Ray player and the Blu-Ray for this film was the first one I ever watched. Naturally, I was quite amazed by what a difference it was between the two formats. But we're not here to talk about Blu-Ray. I knew what American Psycho was about: a Wall Street yuppie who snaps and begins killing. I also knew it served as a dark satire of 1980's culture and economics. I have nothing against a horror or thriller being smart as long as it's entertaining as well. For me, this film was kind of entertaining but in the end, it left me rather underwhelmed.

The best thing about this film undeniably is Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, the psychotic title character. Say what you will about Bale: about his ridiculous Batman voice, his tendency to be a little high strung on film sets (Get off my set and stop looking at the lights!), etc. Sure, he may have some faults but he's definitely a dedicated actor who will put himself through hell to achieve the best results and he now has an Oscar to show for it. And his performance as Bateman is no exception. From the start of the film, Bateman narrates to us about himself and his peers and he is such an egotistical asshole that it's amazing. He describes his diet and exercise routine, how he feels about the people around him, how he thinks everybody else is lower than him... bottom line, he's a douche. At one point, he has a three-some with two women and while he has sex with them, he admires himself in the mirror and even makes them look into a video camera that's filming everything. What a selfish prick!

Bateman also narrates to us about his less than stellar mental state. He comments that he's cold, detached, and feels no emotions except for greed and disgust. He also comments that he's had nightly bloodlusts for a long time but they're beginning to happen during the day now. He says he thinks his mask of sanity is about to slip... and we're about to see it. Before we actually see him kill somebody, it's made clear that he has issues when he erupts towards people, threatening to kill one woman in a nightclub but she doesn't hear it because of the loud music. The first murder on-screen (as I said, it's obvious he's killed before) is of a homeless man who Bateman takes absolutely no pity on and brutally stabs to death. Immediately afterward, he cruelly kills the man's dog. He kills a colleague named Paul Allen apparently for the superficial reason that his business card looked better than his (or possibly because Allen, not knowing who Bateman is and mistaking him for someone else, unknowingly calls him a dork right to his face). Right before he kills Allen, he talks about his love of Huey Lewis and the News, actually playing it's Hip to be Square right while he does so and even moonwalking right before! Clearly, music has something to do with setting Bateman off.

One interesting thing about the film is that while it appears that Bateman is a serial killer, the ending of the film suggests that everything that has transpired may all be in his head. When he meets with his lawyer at the end of the film after leaving a message confessing about his killings (many more than we've seen, I might add), his lawyer keeps calling him Davis, not Bateman, and refers to Bateman as if that's someone else entirely. Maybe he really is Davis and Bateman is a different personality that his crazed mind has created for himself. Also, Bateman's lawyer said that he recently had lunch with Paul Allen, whom Bateman supposedly killed. Maybe all those murders were just fantasies, along with his outbursts at people. Maybe he's been living in a fantasy world. And when he sits down with his friends at the table and they're still referring to him as Bateman, he's momentary break with his fantasy has been closed up again. His last narration suggests that it's all been a confession about what he feels, that he now wants to inflict pain on others. Maybe now he will actually start killing people. I'll give American Psycho this: it does pull off this proposed case of multiple identity much better than High Tension and doesn't botch it like that film did.

Since the film's entire focus is on Bateman and therefore, Christian Bale is in every single scene, none of the other characters are that important but the actors do their job well enough. My favorite secondary character was Willem Dafoe as Det. Donald Kimball, the man investigating the disappearances of Bateman's victims. Dafoe is so good in everything that even his ever so small presence in this film is memorable. (Although, since it's unclear by the end if Bateman actually killed anyone, Kimball could be a fabrication of his mind.) The other actors, Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Bill Sage, Reese Witherspoon, etc., all play their small parts acceptably. Just how smug the other yuppies are is also entertaining to watch. They're just such assholes that you want to hit them.

You're probably wondering at this point why I said that I don't care much for American Psycho when I've been praising it for the most part. The whole thing comes down to the satire that the film is trying to project. While I do think the satire of Reaganomics and the lifestyle in New York in the 80's is done well, I just can't help but not be that entertained by it. There are movies like Robocop and Wall Street that are satire of the time period that were actually made at that time and therefore, did a much better job of illustrating it as well as being entertaining. I didn't find American Psycho to be that entertaining but, in the end, it probably wasn't meant to be entertaining but to be unpleasant. I guess it's just a matter of personal taste and the film just isn't my cup of tea.

That's my less than stellar review of American Psycho. You could probably tell from reading this that I don't know that much about the film and only seeing it twice probably isn't enough to warrant a proper critique. Still, I wanted to give my two cents about it from what I feel. I know there are others out there much smarter than me that could get something out of this movie and I applaud them. It just left me cold, personally. But as I said, that could be the point.