Wednesday 6 December 2023

XBOX

Yeah I want to talk a bit about the XBOX. Not the Xbox 360, not the Xbox One , but the original XBOX. I recently got mine out of the basement crawlspace and set it up on my old 55 inch projection screen to see if it worked and to try out some old games.

I started it up and it came to life as if it were the first day I got it. I have the original Duke controllers as well and while lots of people preferred the re-designed S controllers , I loved the giant Duke controllers. The first time I felt it rumble I was amazed.

Anyway, the system started up perfectly and it read every game with no trouble at all. I was in heaving playing some of my old favourites like Gunvalkyrie and BloodWake. I even played Outlaw Tennis and some Halo 2 for good measure.  It was glorious. There are some great games from previous generations.

I only had to buy one XBOX. I never had to send it in for fixing and I never had any weird rings of death. The system worked and that was that. My Xbox 360 on the other hand had to be returned 3 times until I got one that "worked" My first one got the red rings of death, my second one was scratching all my games , my third one had a dvd tray that refused to open and my 4rth finally worked.

It still works today , except that in order for it to read games, it needs to be lying flat. It wont read games if standing up but it will still read dvd movies. I also had the HD DVD drive and my first one died on me. I replaced it and that one still works fortunately as I still have some good movies on HD DVD.

I remember the day I got the system. I don't remember details like the exact date and time, but I remember a friend of mine said she would buy me a ps2. I had no idea why but she said she would. Her brother had one and all our other friends had a Ps2. I couldn't refuse that so we went off to a mall and into an EB games store. They were all out of PS2 systems so she bought an XBOX and I was like "What is an Xbox?" But I took it home and hooked it up. It was awesome. To this day I'm glad that the store was out of PS2 systems.

 Lady Ballers (Daily Wire +)


I havent done a review on here in a couple years, but I decided to start up again as I'm making a new website and want to do reviews of movies and games and maybe other things, so I will start up again.

Lady Ballers is a comedy by the people at Daily Wire + and if this movie came out in the mid 90s or even the early to mid 2000s , there wouldnt be much "controversy" over this movie at all. I think we see a headline saying something along the lines of "controversial new film... " or "...faces online backlash.." and we think its a widespread issue, when really its not. The backlash might come from a tiny amount of people on twitter who are mad at the premise of something , or it might be called controversial because of the same reason, a small handful of people were upset while the vast majority of people either dont care, or like the product. 

Lady Ballers does what comedy used to do. Hold up a mirror to current society and make fun of the more ridiculous parts of our lives. This movie doesnt have Hollywood actors in it. All actors would no doubt stay away from this because they arent allowed to take part in a movie with this subject matter. Which is supposed to be praised and never criticized in Hollywood. So , the actors are all comedians who most have never heard of before. Some might point at this as a downside to this film, but I dont see it that way.

I cant stand seeing the same "It" actors in the same movies over and over again. And actress gets popular and all of a sudden shes in EVERY movie. This happened with Anna Taylor Joy, who I really like, but I dont want her in every movie. I have always wanted certain movies to use unknown actors in roles so that we dont see the actor but we just see the character. For example, I love Tom Cruise, but in every movie, hes tom Cruise, In Mission Impossible hes Tom, in Maverick , hes Tom. I'd like to see a movie where I dont know the actors well and I can see them as the character they are trying to play.

That said, Jeremy Boreing did a great job as the coach. He was fun to watch and delivered some great lines and moments. The rest of the team all had their own personalities and quirks and were all fun to watch on screen. Jeremy's on screen daughter was very good, and even the ex wife was a good character even in her small role. One who stole all the scenes she was in was Billie Rae Brant who played the Journalist trying to use the Lady Ballers for a story. She was great and I loved how she and Jeremy played off each other. 

After seeing the hilarious trailer, I was worried that all the funny bits were shown in the trailer. Luckily I was wrong and the movie was funny all the way through and  was paced well and I never felt bored. Some jokes didnt land , but other throwaway lines were very funny. There was a reference to space lasers i found very funny. 

The movie is about men who peaked in high school discovering that they could regain their glory days and be winners again if they pretend that they are women and compete against women in sports because if they compete with men they would be going up against younger and much more athletic men and wouldnt stand a chance, but against women, they would win it all. 

So they sign up and get the old team together. I think its great that it showed people giving them dirty looks at first, but then quickly accepting these men are "real women" and cheering them on while they absolutely massacre the women they go against . 

Some of the characters see how they are affecting the women they are beating and feel bad about it and start to question the morals of pretending to be women to win. There are some good messages in the film and when the end was approaching I was wondering how they would end the movie in a satisfying way. Well the ending caught me by surprise and was absolutely perfect. They nailed the ending, something many movies fail to do. Like Old Dads which started of good, but ended on a pathetic whimper.

This was solid, funny and full of heart. I really hope this is a return of comedy. The cameos in the movie were also great. Daily Wire is putting out some good content lately and I look forward to their new animated series called Mr Bircham.