Pokemon Black (Nintendo DS – 2011)

Pokemon Black (was) is a refreshing entry into the Pokemon’s fifth generation of games. As the player-character “Hilbert/Hilda” (depending on your sex), you embark on a quest to collect all the Pokemon you come across, while at the same time defending yourself against Team Plasma and their Pokemon “liberation” efforts.

We’ve all played Pokemon before, right? Well, I used to love playing it back when the original came out. There was just one small problem, however – I didn’t own a Gameboy. I would play it at my friend’s house when I visited and we weren’t doing anything else, but since there could be only one save file…I kept getting to the same point, over and over again every time I played the game, before I’d have to shut it off. Well….all these years later I finally decided to get a Nintendo DS I found on the cheap in a little hole-in-the-wall store here in Portland, Maine. I got Pokemon White for my girlfriend and picked up the Black version for myself.

Back when this game first came out a couple of years ago, it was the first entry into the Pokemon franchise to sport individual, game-color-specific, in-game areas; In the White version there is a wild area called White Forest, while in the Black version there is a bustling city called Black City. Add to this the first time in a Pokemon game having changing weather and seasons as well as 150+ new Pokemon – and you got yourselves a jump-start to the tried-and-true formula of the franchise….which isn’t a bad thing.

The graphics are great for a DS game and I think the series has come a long way. With new connectivity options and new playable areas for each version, as well as upgrades to the battle system like three-way battles – I think that there are countless hours of replayability options. If I could only have one game for the Nintendo DS, I wouldn’t mind just having Pokemon Black.

Now, if I could just get my girlfriend to catch up so I can trade with her! (I need to get a Zekrom!)

JOE Rating: ★★★★★

Django Unchained (2012)

Original Theatrical Release: December 25, 2012
Director: Quentin Tarantino

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave. When a German man named Dr. King Shultz (Christopher Waltz) shows up and sets him free, he does it on one condition: Django must become his deputy in the bounty-hunting biz. Django just wants to find his wife, the lovely Broomhilda Von Schaft (Kerry Washington) but she is being held as a house slave on a plantation owned by the ruthless cotton king, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Django must match wits and guns with Candie in order to come out alive, much less rescue his wife.

I’d been waiting for this movie for a long time. I kept seeing trailer after trailer and then it was finally in theaters. Right now, It’s my current favorite movie that Quentin Tarantino has ever done. (Replacing Death Proof)

There was a lot of controversy over this film. Spike Lee and Kat Williams and others said it was racist, but the problem is that 1.) They never watched the film and 2.) It was NOT racist, aside from the fact that the 1800’s were racist. Tarantino is not a history scholar, he is a filmmaker, and what he did was create a very badass historical revenge fantasy.

Django is far from being helpless and stereotypical. All the white characters in the film are evil and/or stupid and/or dirty, and they all eventually get what’s coming to them. The only white character who helps Django is Schultz, but he is European and not American. (A very good choice for the purposes of this film…brilliant). The use of the “N-Word” IS gratuitous, but is probably used less than in real life in the 1800’s. I don’t think Tarantino uses it casually, or for humor, but needed to give a sense of how low people thought you were if you were African American.

The performances were all top-notch. Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Waltz and Kerry Washington went all out. I particularly enjoyed Christopher Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio’s performances, and I sometimes don’t even like Leo. I think he’s getting better with age. The music is great also (I want the soundtrack) and the story is very intriguing.

The violence is so exaggerated that during one of the gunfight scenes, I was clapping loudly and laughing as buckets worth of blood was splashed against the walls and floors, small pistols firing with the force of mini cannons and just destroying man and construct in great shows of gunplay.

It was great. Go see it.

JOE Rating: ★★★★★

Movie Trailer For Django Unchained