Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer Reaction

According to the game play counter located in the Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 3 (2011) Multiplayer Barracks, I have played the game for roughly twelve hours...despite devoting sixteen hours of my life to the title thus far.  Here are my gut reactions to the Playstation 3 version of the multiplayer play and my favorite kits and maps.  

Hugo (2011)

Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011), based off of Brian Selznick's children's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), is a memorable oddity in the filmmaker's always watchable filmography.  A PG rated film that does not feature an once of bloodshed or a single curse word, Hugo lacks the most superficial of Scorsese identifiers.  Delving deeper into the production, it is also the first film that Scorsese has shot digitally and in 3D.  In other words, it's a change of direction that looks unlike anything the filmmaker has produced before.  Considering Scorsese's age and the longevity of his career, one of the accomplishments of Hugo is that it showcases the talents of a filmmaker willing to take risks...while also chronicling the career of a filmmaker who took risks and lost.  

365 Days of Comics

I "got into" comics in 1989, shortly after the release of Tim Burton's Batman (see above photo of me dressed up as the Joker).  My selection process was unrefined.  Growing up in Port Washington, Wisconsin, there were not a lot of comic book stores around.  I'd normally track down trade paperback reprints of Batman and Superman comics at the local Wal-Mart.  Looking at my childhood collection, I seem to have been drawn to titles based off of my favorite film and television properties (including comics based off of Seaquest DSV, Terminator, and Robocop).  Yet, I stopped reading around the time DC comics published the death of Superman (1992) and began the reign of the Supermen, getting drawn into baseball cards and, for a brief time, Pogs. 

The Best Media of 2011 (Version .7)

A few months back, when I launched The Cinema Doctor, I provided a list of my favorite media offerings of the year (thus far).  Here's my first revision as we enter into the home stretch!  

Batman: Arkham City (2011)

Batman day continues here with a short review of Batman:  Arkham City (2011).  I'd review some of the New 52 titles I'm reading, most notably Batman and Detective Comics, both of which I really like, but it's so early in their runs that I'm not sure what to say about them aside from great writing on both, better art by Tony Daniel on Detective.  In any case, I thought Arkham City was a major step beyond its predecessor, Arkham Asylum (2009).  Find out why after the jump.  

Batman: Year One (2011)

I love Batman.  I love Batman so much that when I finished the first draft to my dissertation - focused on the remediation of style in comics and film - I got a Batman tattoo.  When I was a kid, Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and The Animated Series (1992-1995) got me into comics.  When I was a teenager and moved away from comics, the Batman titles were the only ones I still kept tabs on...and then I eventually stopped reading them (there were not a lot of comic book stores in Port Washington, Wisconsin).  When I got back into comics in college, after some heckling from my friends Neal and Will, I started back up with Batman.  I read Batman:  The Long Halloween (1996-1997) and Arkham Asylum:  A Serious House on Serious Earth (1989) before I was handed a copy of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Batman:  Year One (1987).  

Saboteur (1942)

I was drawn to watch and re-watch some Alfred Hitchcock movies after covering The White Shadow (1923) a few weeks back.  I decided, after polling some of my Cinema and Media Studies folks, to give Saboteur (1942) a spin.  In many ways, it embodies the formula of the classic Hitchcock thriller:  a man is wrongly accused of a horrible crime and must clear his name with the help of a beautiful woman (see also North by Northwest, The 39 Steps, The Wrong Man) and add in a cross-country chase (again, see North by Northwest, another film that reaches its climax atop a national landmark).  Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) is a blue collar worker at an airplane plant during World War II.  One day, Barry meets a strange co-worker by the name of "Fry" (Norman Lloyd) and, shortly after, a fire breakouts at the plant, killing Barry's best friend and leaving Barry the prime suspect.