Un trailer pour Company of Heroes 2 Forgotten Sacrifice

THQ et Relic Entertainment ont dévoilé le premier trailer de Company of Heroes 2 : Forgotten Sacrifice. Alors que les troupes américaines libéraient Paris de l'occupation nazie en 1944, on oublie parfois que le front de l'Est se défendait aussi corps et âmes contre l'invasion allemande. Company of Heroes 2 rend hommage aux soldats et aux civils soviétiques qui se sont sacrifiés pour leur patrie. Plus qu'un trailer, Forgotten Sacrifice établit ici un véritable travail de commémoration.

Company of Heroes 2 : Forgotten Sacrifice est toujours prévu pour 2013.




· Forum Company of Heroes 2

Borderlands 2 daté en vidéo

Considéré comme l'un des jeux les plus attendus de 2012, Borderlands 2 a été jusqu'à aujourd'hui particulièrement avare en informations sur son compte. Dont l'information qui nous intéressait le plus : la date de sortie.

Ça, c'était avant, puisque Gearbox Software nous promet de sortir le second opus de son FPS/RPG pour le 21 septembre (le 18 sur le sol américain) sur PC, PS3 et Xbox 360. Pour ne rien gâcher au plaisir de savoir quand placer nos prochains jours de congés, 2K Games nous fait parvenir une vidéo résumant les quelques informations disponibles sur fond de dubstep.




On y retrouve les quatre nouveaux personnages en action. A savoir Salvador le bourrin spécialiste des flingues, Maya la nouvelle Siren, Axton l'ingénieur et Zero le manieur de sabres. Borderlands 2 sera comme son aîné jouable à quatre dans son mode coopération (en ligne ou en local avec écran splitté). Enfin, on apprend qu'un certain Handsome Jack se posera comme le nouveau grand méchant.

· Voir et télécharger le nouveau trailer de Borderlands 2 (285 Mo)
· Forum Borderlands 2

TCHK - Sleeping Dogs en vidéo

Bien qu'il soit du genre discret dans sa communication, Sleeping Dogs se rappelle régulièrement à notre bon souvenir.

Ce nouvel épisode de True Crime, qui change de nom et de continent, nous propulse au cœur d'une organisation criminelle en tant que flic infiltré. Un job à risque dans lequel notre flic de choc doit gagner la confiance des criminels pour graver les échelons de l'organisation Sun On Yee pour en atteindre la tête et l'abattre. Comme en atteste cette nouvelle vidéo, tous les moyens sont bons pour se frayer un chemin vers son objectif, que ce soit à mains nues ou flingues en avant.

Sleeping Dogs devrait être disponible en fin d'année sur PS3, PC et Xbox 360.



· Voir la vidéo de Sleeping Dogs
· Forum Sleeping Dogs

Grim Dawn réapparaît en vidéo

Agrandir l'imageVous vous souvenez de Grim Dawn ? Mais si, on vous en parlait pas plus tard qu'il y a un an. Une année durant laquelle l'Action-RPG de Crate Entertainment (créé par les papas de Titan Quest) n'a pas daigné nous lâcher la moindre information. Figurez-vous que le bougre revient sur le devant de la scène avec une vidéo de gameplay pour le moins appétissante.



Si vous avez pris le temps de jeter un oeil à cette démonstration de force, vous aurez compris que Grim Dawn n'est pas un petit joueur dans le monde du hack and slash. Certains pourront même dire qu'il se place comme le plus sérieux concurrent de Diablo 3. Mais à l'instar de Torchlight 2 et de Path of Exile, il ne devrait pas sortir avant encore de longs mois. On apprend en revanche que Grim Dawn sera jouable sans connexion internet. Reste à savoir si le jeu suivra les traces de Titan Quest en se plaçant comme un bon substitut en attendant Diablo 4, ou s'il arrivera à se hisser à la hauteur du monstre made in Blizzard. La réponse dans un futur très lointain, Grim Dawn n'étant qu'en phase de pré-alpha.

· Voir et télécharger la vidéo de Grim Dawn
· Forum Grim Dawn

2012-12-21-102

[Rumour] Cheapest Sandy Bridge priced at $78

The entry level Sandy Bridge will end up priced at $78, a full $9 lowerthan the cheapest Clarkdale, Pentium G6950. Despite the emergence ofIntel Core CPUs, the Pentium brand name has proved to be surprisingly resilient,thanks to the high demand for budget CPUs in the developing economies,and the entry level Sandy Bridge CPUs are expected to be brandedPentium.

Intel is continuing to release Wolfdale based Pentium CPUs, with E5700 set for October 2010. Concurrently, Clarkdale based Pentium G6950 continues to be available at the higher end of the budget market.

Much like the Pentium G6950, the budget Sandy Bridge is expected to have similar trade-offs. It is likely to be a crippled version of dual-core Sandy Bridge. Thus, lack of Turbo, lack of HyperThreading, slower clock speeds for both CPU and GPU are expected compared to the Core i3 2000 branded dual-core Sandy Bridge CPUs.

While Intel is continuing to push the now ancient Wolfdale instead of Clarkdale in the entry level (Pentium) market, we hope a range of Sandy Bridge based Pentium CPUs will catch on.

Reference: Fudzilla

2012-12-21-138

[Rumour] Next-gen ATI dual-GPU flagship in 2010

AMD's optimal die / dual GPU strategy has proved to be successful overthe last three generations, and there is no indication to suggest thatthis strategy will change for AMD's upcoming next-generation SouthernIslands GPUs. Fudzilla reports that AMD have a dual-GPU successor to theHD 5970 prepared, and it will release in 2010.

As is customary, the single GPU performance products are expected to be released first, followed by dual-GPU and derivative products. Rumours heavily suggest an October/November 2010 release for the first Southern Islands products, which means the enthusiast dual-GPU model will follow shortly after.

Southern Islands is not expected to bring dramatic improvements. This will be no surprise, considering the only reason S. Islands is being released is TSMC's cancellation of 32nm, and the move of Northern Islands to 28nm. Thus, Southern Islands is expected to be an intermediate generation - a bridge between Evergreen / HD 5000 and the 28nm Northern Islands. S. Islands will be fabricated at the same 40nm TSMC process as the HD 5000 / Geforce 400 products.

However, considering AMD still has a leadership in the performance/price/die size over Nvidia's latest GF10x products, perhaps a dramatic improvement is not essential.

While Nvidia's still working on finishing up the Geforce 400 series, their plans to combat ATI's Southern Islands is unknown. It is unlikely to be further price cuts, as Nvidia is already utilizing this strategy against aging and overpriced HD 5000 series products. 28nm is still a long way away, so Nvidia will have to either respond with new chips at 40nm, or hold out till late 2011 for 28nm.

Reference: Fudzilla

2012-12-21-338

A US$18.99 Bargain! 2400MHz CL10 achievable on 4GB Kingston ValueRams (Hynix CFRs)

Kingston ValueRams (KVRs) are the de facto choice of most system integrators and budget DIY enthusiasts, offering bargain basement prices for the various memory types, speeds and capacities, without the fancy heatsink or Intel XMP support found on the expensive memory kits. Although its overclocking potential has mostly been unspectacular due to theuse of bottom-barrel components to keep the cost low, famous overclocking-friendly memory chipsets such as Micron D9 and Elpida BBSE have slipped into some production batches in the past, much to the delight of bargain hunters like yours truly.

The unassuming US$18.99 (NewEgg) / SGD$33 (PC Themes)memory module (KVR16N11/4) we have here today has a blue PCB equipped on both sides with Hynix CFR chips which are very popular with todays overclockers thanks to its ability to scale its clock frequency with increased voltages, while keeping relatively tight subtimings. By default, it is rated at the JEDEC compliant 1600MHz 11-11-11-28 @ 1.5v which is already good enough not to be a noticeable bottleneck on both Intel and AMD architectures.

During our quick test run on a Ivy Bridge 3770K/Maximus V Formula setup, we pumped 1.75V on the VDIMMs and could comfortably run a pair of these at 2400MHz on relatively loose CL10 timings, which is in the domain of memory kits costing twice or more. Well try to tune somemore when we have time (quite busy this week with a CPU and GPU launch). Word of caution though - As with any overclocking, your mileage may vary!

All in all, its pretty good but not quite in the same league as the equally priced Samsung 4GB Green 1.35v that weve featured in our Maximus V Gene Review. Still, unlike the Samsungs, the Hynix based Kingstons will boot on almost all Z77 motherboards...

corman after dark “streets”

Hard as it is to believe now, there was actually a time —say, for its first season or two — when Married — With Children was considered cutting-edge, maybe even semi-dangerous stuff. Critics said it “pushed the envelope,” that it was “irreverent,” that it “took risks,” etc. Frankly, even though I was only about 15 or 16 when the show first came out, I knew all that talk was bullshit and that it was formulaic, idiotic, lowest-common-denominator garbage that had one?clever gimmick in its favor?— it pretended to be “self-aware,” therefore it was okay for?the show’s writers?to openly admit? how stupid it was. The self-appointed guardians of public taste? figured out this shtick pretty quickly, and even though it sputtered along for something like another fucking decade, it ceased to be considered “daring,” “provocative” stuff relatively early its run.

But hey, ya know what? Even though I was never impressed with the show’s self-consciously lowbrow “humor,” I still watched it back in the day anyway, and you can probably guess why. Yup, I was a horny young kid and Christina Applegate was on it — more often than not wearing something pretty form-fitting. That was enough for me, and for?quite a few other?randy young fellas of?approximately my own age (and plenty of older guys as well), to tune in every week. What we didn’t know, however (and truth be told didn’t care about) was the fact that the?fetching young Ms. Applegate was also a pretty damn fine actress.

Honestly, yer honor, I ain’t lyin’. For proof, look no further than her first cinematic starring vehicle, 1990′s Roger Corman production Streets. If you haven’t seen the film, forget what you’re probably thinking — yes, it’s low-budget, and yes, it still has some solid, old-fashioned exploitation elements going for it (primary among them being its inclusion of a psychotic police officer — they were pretty big at the time in the wake of Maniac Cop), but this is another rare example (the other being Penelope Spheeris’ Suburbia) of Corman realizing that he could hire a young female director (in this case Katt Shea Ruben, who would go on to helm the first Poison Ivy film, among other accomplishments) to tell a gritty, even realistic tale about a disenfranchised segment of the youth population?and he wouldn’t need to spend?any more money on?it?than he would on, say, yet another Alien knock-off. The results are surpsingly impressive indeed.

Streets tells the story of Dawn (Applegate), a 16-year-old homeless, illiterate, heroin-addicted (well, she says she’s not hooked, but she shoots the shit into her hand, which is something I’ve always been told only the hardest of hard-core junkies do) prostitute who plies her trade in and around the Venice Beach, California area (for a movie called Streets it’s worth pointing out that most of this flick takes place on the beach, but hey, I guess the title Beaches was already taken) and crashes in a storm drain-type thing she shares with other runaways, addicts, and general teenage societal cast-offs at night. One evening she makes the mistake of crossing paths with a bully in blue named Lumley (Eb Lottimer), who has his own unique method of cleaning the streets of those who would dare try their hand (well, okay, maybe it’s not their?hand they’re working — although in Dawn’s case it is, more on that in a moment) at the world’s oldest profession — he rapes them and then kills them with a homemade, high-power, double-barrel gun with? a really thick fucking silencer.? Hey, give him points for inventiveness in his method of dispatch, at least, even if the idea of a cop killing “ladies of the evening” in his spare time isn’t exactly all that original.

In any case, Dawn manages to escape from Lumley’s clutches with the help of a passer-by of roughly her own age named Sy (David Mendenhall), who befriends our young heroine and takes it upon himself to keep a watchful eye on her since that crazy cop who tried to kill her got away and might be back. Over the course of the day, they get to know each other, she shows him the ins and outs of her life, and hey, maybe they even kinda-sorta fall in love a little bit. He learns her mother was a hooker, as well, who one day just up and left her own kid, that she’s never gone to school and consequently can’t read, that she’s “successfully” kicked her heroin habit about a half-dozen times, that she only gives blow-jobs and hand-jobs to her customers but doesn’t have intercourse with them —

Whoa. Hold on. Wait just a minute right there. We now interrupt this review for a good-old-fashioned rant from your host. What, pray tell, does it? say about our society’s attitudes toward? sex that we can have in this? movie a protagonist who has no home or family, no education, is hooked on drugs, and who works as an underage hooker (and props to Ruben and Applegate for choosing to make Dawn a strong, multi-faceted character and not some one-dimensional waif for whom we’re supposed to have nothing but either pity or contempt — they really do pull out all the stops in terms of portraying her as an actual, real, living, breathing, thinking?person) — but the suggestion that she might actually be, you know, fucking is somehow considered a bridge too far? You wanna shoot smack into your hand? Fine. Can’t read? That’s cool with us. Jerk guys off and/or suck their cocks for a living? Hey, it’s your life, kiddo — but for heaven’s sake, whatever you do, keep your virginity intact or, ya know, you’ll be a real whore,? and evidently that’s the point at which our sympathy as an audience (hell, maybe even as a society) runs out. Okay, rant over. We now resume our regularly-scheduled review.As the film progresses, we learn that Lumley is, indeed, on the hunt for our lovely young damsel in distress, since he’s been offing hookers in the area?left and?right and it just wouldn’t do to have her around to ID him given that being a serial killer in your off-hours is, I’m told, a pretty good way to get yourself kicked off the police force (unless you’re that Dexter guy).?As he goes about his chase, Lumley engages in a couple instances of genuinely shocking violence (he kills one of Dawn’s friends by ramming the double-barrel of his homemade “piece” up the guy’s ass and firing away, for instance), and Lottimer’s performance really does a damn fine job of communicating that this is a guy with literally oceans of barely-contained rage seething under his forced-calm exterior, but even though?director Ruben?does?terrifically when it comes to?ratcheting up the tension throughout, and the “cat-and-mouse” struggle between pursuer and pursued is in no way given short shrift, it’s quite clear that her?real passion lies in documenting the hard-scrabble lifestyle of these “throwaway” kids? and that the ultimate goal of her film is to honestly and accurately convey the struggles of their daily existences (heck, she even shows them eating roadkill and does so without a hint of condescension or freak-show finger-pointing). It’s just that today those struggles? happen to include eluding an unhinged officer of the law with a giant zip-gun and one hell of a mean streak.

My earlier quibble about its unrealistic-at-best, offensive-at-worst sexual puritanism aside, Streets, which is now available for you all to see on DVD from Shout! Factory as part of its “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” series (it’s double-billed with Angel In Red, and while there are no extras to speak of apart from the theatrical trailer, the widescreen remastered picture and stereo sound are damn-near pristine — just be forewarned that a lot of this flick takes place around sunset hours and it’s filmed on location so much of it has an orange-ish hue to it) is, in my own humble opinion, a mostly-unheralded classic. It uses its genre and exploitation trappings to tell a very human-scale story about a compelling protagonist and the world she inhabits, features superb acting, especially from Applegate, and even tugs at the heart-strings a bit without ever being?Lifetime-movie-of-the-week- syrupy about it. This is a film that both respects its characters and its audience and gives us a sometimes-harrowing, always- realistic look inside a world that, fortunately, most of us have never had to experience first-hand.

Oh, and since you were wondering anyway — no, Christina Applegate doesn’t get naked in it. But she comes pretty darn?close.

Pervs.

tfg does the summer blockbusters “x-men first class”

Hey, Marvel, what’s next? Because frankly, I’m not entirely sure what we’ve got here. Is director Matthew (Kick-Ass) Vaughn’s X-Men:First Class a reboot? A standard-issue prequel? A sidebar item before we get back to the main story? It’s never made entirely clear, and frankly between this and last year’s X-Men Origins:Wolverine, it’s hard to say exactly where this license-to-print-money cinematic franchise is going. Which is not to say that it’s a bad flick in and of itself. It’s pretty decent, and in fact starts off almost looking like it’s going to be a serious shot in the arm for the property in general. But by the time it’s over, even though what we’ve witnessed is by any standard a pretty solid superhero flick (that starts to fizzle a bit the longer it goes on, but a lot of them to do that so we won’t hold that against it too terribly much), we’re no more clear about just what the next X chapter is going to be than we were when it started.

Because frankly there’s not much point in a sequel to this one. The story of a young Professor x (James McAvoy, who’s usually a pretty solid actor but here seems to be more or less mailing it in ) and Magneto (portrayed by Michael Fassbender, who delivers a sterling performance and has by far the best material to work with here as a Holocaust surviving-mutant who’s hunting down the Nazi monsters responsible for the murder of his mother, either directly or indirectly — and who, at certain angles, bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Ian McKellen, so kudos for a terrific casting job here, fellas) and how they assembled and trained the first mutant superhero team in preparation for a conflict with a seriously evil (and apparently immortal) son-of-a-bitch named Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon, in a terrific scenery-chewing turn), who’s manipulating the Cuban missile crisis in order to bring about World War 3 and the destruction of mankind/takeover of Earth by mutantkind, and how Xavier and Magneto came to go their separate ways at the close of said ordeal, is pretty much an open-and-shut story. And enjoyable, mostly entertaining one, to be sure, but not really an open-ended one.

There are some surprises along the way, and some diversion from established comic-book continuity that will certainly enrage some fans and thrill others, but on the whole you never get the sense that you’re watching the rebirth of a legend here or something. It’s just backstory filler. Good backstory filler, competent backstory filler, at times even enthralling backstory filler (especially the opening concentration camp scenes), but backstory filler nonetheless.

Which isn’t to say that anyone apart from McAvoy seems to be just going through the motions. Vaughn has adopted a swingin’ ’60s visual sensibility, particularly in the “time marches on —” montage-style scenes, that? works quite well , is terribly theme-appropriate, and also, frankly, exhudes a type of playful fun. Jennifer Lawrence of Winter’s Bone fame tunrs in a terrific performance as the young Raven/Mystique, who in equal turns pines longingly after Xavier but sees more worth in Magneto’s vision for the mutant’s future. January Jones, despite having a name that instantly marks her for being drawn and quartered on mere principle alone, is coolly confident as the sexy Emma Frost (although she looks a lot better from a distance and, sorry to dwell on the physical, just sort of looks weird in some of Vaughn’s lingering close-up shots). Rose Byrne is supremely competent, if unspectacular, as CIA liason/potential Xavier love-interest Moira MacTaggart. Oliver Platt does his — well, Oliver Platt — as — errrmmm — Oliver Platt (his G-Man character doesn’t have a credited name). And the story is certainly clever even if it does lose some momentum early on and never really gets it back.

But the whole thing’s also a bit schizophrenic. It starts off looking like it’s headed for Christopher Nolan-style superhero realism and ends with ridculous code names for the characters and an agonizingly-drawn-out, way-too-OTT scene of Xavier getting shot that might pack more dramatic wallop if we actually thought he might die, but seems just plain self-indulgent since we know that he doesn’t and this is how he ends up in his magic wheelchair.

On the whole, then, X-Men:First Class would be a lot more effective if it knew what it was, and what part in the overall ouevre of the series it was supposed to be filling. As it is, it feels like nothing so much an an enjoyable, generally-well-executed diversion, that does the best it can given its rather not-completely-thought-through remit. Where it all goes from here is anybody’s guess, and while you’ll more than likely be pretty entertained by this movie(I certainly was), you won’t come away from it with any answers about where the X-Men concept is headed in the future, and that’s something that the powers that be at Marvel and 20th Century Fox need to start figuring out fast before they kill their golden goose not so much through incompetence as sheer aimlessness. What’s next, indeed.

bill o’reilly and sarah palin dish on “bruno”

Transcript from this evening’s Bill O’Reilly television program — note that? our transcriptionists have fixed Governor’s Palin’s “folksy colloquialisms” in an attempt to actually make this discussion look something like standard-variety English.

O’Reilly : Hey folks, Bill O’Reilly here with a very special guest to discuss a big problem facing our country today. That problem is “Bruno.” This is filth. This is degeneracy. This is a rotten, fagg—err, maggott-infested apple spoiling everything else it touches. With me is another recent TFG guest, the great governor of the state of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Welcome, governor. Nice to see you again.

Palin: Thanks so much, Bill, it’s such a pleasure to be here, talking with you, as opposed to dealin’ with the mainstream media that really—well, they just have a way of slantin’ things, you know?

O’Reilly : Boy, do I ever. You’re preaching to the choir here, Governor! (laughs)

Palin : It’s just like, ever since I started my fight, you know? My fight for traditional American—

O’Reilly : Traditional American values.

Palin : Exactly, Bill. Exactly. It’s like I can’t get a word in edgewise without—

O’Reilly : The far-left loons jumping in and either cutting you off or hopelessly distorting your message.

Palin : Right, Bill. That’s it exactly. All I’m trying to do is —

O’Reilly : Get your message out there on your own terms without interruption or obfuscation.

Palin : And it’s so wonderful that there are some of you out there, Bill, who still understand that and still —

O’Reilly : At least believe in letting you finish your sentences and say what you have to say in your own words. Which brings me to this evening’s talking point : “Bruno.” Now this guy, this Baron Cohen guy, first off he’s not American. Yet here he is, on our screens, exposing the youth of this country to his FILTH, his DEGENERACY, his ASSAULT ON OUR VALUES that we hold so dear.

Palin : And I just have to say, Bill, that you know —

O’Reilly : Oh, I know. I know exactly where you’re going because I absolutely agree with it. This is pure, unfiltered SLEAZE. This is what’s wrong—everything that’s wrong— with our media, our society, this whole secularized, Godless, tasteless—

Palin : Well, all of it, really, Bill. This portrayal of trying to make this degenerate que—homosexual look somehow funny and cute and sympathetic and clever at the expense of ordinary, decent, God-fearing Americans. It’s just so—

O’Reilly : Wrong. Go ahead and say it. I sure will. It’s WRONG, Mr. Baron Cohen, do you hear me? What you’re doing here is SICK and IMMORAL and WRONG. Here’s the—have we got the image?

O’Reilly : There it is. There it is. Tells you everything you need to know, doesn’t it?

Palin : Right, Bill. It’s all right there, just kind of like—flaunting its degeneracy, you know? Darin’ you to be offended.

O’Reilly : And I guess he’s supposed to be this Austrian, this gay Austrian, this flamboyantly—not that there’s anything wrong with that in and of itself, mind you—

Palin : Gosh, no. Just because I tried to ban a book at our local library to help gay teens with their self-esteem and prevent things like gay tenn suicide, that doesn’t mean that I have anything against—

O’Reilly : Of course not. But the far-left loons will take that as some kind of proof that you’ve got this problem with fagg—-with homosexuals, you know? And they’ll seize on that, and distort it, and take it all out of context.

Palin : Exactly. While I may not support same-sex marriage—

O’Reilly : No real American does—

Palin : Or civil unions or domestic partnerships or equal employment or housing opportunities for these que—for the gays and the lesbians—

O’Reilly : That doesn’t mean you have anything against them.

Palin : Oh, gosh, good heavens, no. I mean, I may not approve of that lifestyle choice, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think these people shouldn’t be allowed to, like, continue living. Somewhere else. Far way from us normal people. Because, you know, the AIDS—

O’Reilly : Exactly. And where is that in “Bruno”? Where is any mention of AIDS?? That his degenerate behavior runs a high risk of—-

Palin : Exactly. It’s about us, protecting Americans, keeping our children safe.

O’Reilly : And here “Bruno” is, making it all look like fun and games and no mention of what this is doing to our families or to the health of his own kind of people.

Palin : And that’s it exactly, Bill.

O’Reilly : By opposing this, by speaking out, by saying enough is enough, we’re actually doing more for these flaming fagg—these homosexuals than their own kind are doing for them. Because this stuff, this “Bruno” stuff—it’s a death sentence. This reckless flamboyance — it’s a death sentence, sure as I’m sitting here. If you’re out there watching this, and you’re que—you’re gay, or you’re lesbian, following the example of this “Bruno” nutcase, this Baron Cohen lunatic—this will get you killed.

Palin : And if the mainstream media would only—

O’Reilly : Let you get your message out, without interrupting you or twisting your words to suit their ends—

Palin : That’s right, Bill. That’s so right. And the way he makes ordinary Americans, hard-working, God-fearing, hete—normal people—the way he makes them llok like these sort of crazed redneck zombies is—

O’Reilly : Really, it’s not fair. It’s a stacked deck. It’s not honest. This movie is not an honest documentary. It’s almost like it’s a comedy or something, like he thinks it’s funny. This is why he’s first in line if I’m in charge to go to the ove—to go someplace where he can be separated from normal folks and think quietly for a good long time about what he’s done.

Palin : So right, Bill, so true, so—

O’Reilly : American. Because this what this is all about, this culture war, this war for the soul of this country, it’s about America. And securing our future. And keeping this safe for white, stra—for, good, honest, ordinary, hard-working folks. To hell with the dancing queen here and whatever he wants, this is still my country. Still our country. And I’ll be damned if I’ll see it go down to a bunch of qu—degenerates. Deviates. Sexual predators who would do harm to our children.

Palin : And that’s what this fight is, and I’m trying my best, doing what I can, to stand up to this, to say “no,” to get this filth off our screens and out of our theaters. And it’s not about censorship, it’s not about saying that he can’t make this kind of movie—

O’Reilly : Just that it shouldn’t be distributed or screened or put out there in any way. If he wants to make it — FINE. If he wants to try to destroy this country —FINE. But there needs to be boycott of anyone, of any theater, that would show this FILTH. This GARBAGE.

Palin : And if only the mainstream media would —

O’Reilly : Just shut up and let you talk, they’d see that what you’re saying is what I’m saying and that this has nothing to do with censorship or banning anything or any of that stuff the far-left loons want to accuse us of. It’s about PROTECTING our CHILDREN and our SOCIETY from GARBAGE. Governor, I’ll let you have the last word.

Palin : Well, I’m just wondering I didn’t see this movie and I never will and we’re trying to get it kicked out of the theater in Wasilla even as we speak. So I’m just wondering if you actually, you know—

O’Reilly : If I saw it? No. God no. Of course not. I don’t need to see it to know what I’m talking about. I don’t need to have any understanding at all of what I’m talking about to be an expert on it—on this or any other subject.

Palin : I’ve always felt the same way, Bill. And that’s why the mainstream media —

O’Reilly : Is always cutting you off and selectively taking what you say completely out of context to make you look uninformed or ignorant.

Palin : Exactly. It’s not my fault I look, you know, maybe a little unprepared or uninformed—it’s theirs.

“killer nerd” toby radloff deserves to live and you don’t

Hey, Troma, where’s my kickbacks?

I mean, seriously — this is my third review of a Troma DVD in less than a month. Considering that this blog gets, according to the WordPress stats count, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 views per day, that kind of free pub has to be worth at least a freebie DVD or some other? swag, doesn’t it?

Doesn’t it?

Okay, I didn’t think so, but you can’t blame a guy for trying.

So let’s talk about “Killer Nerd.” Like the other Troma DVD releases I’ve covered recently, namely “Pigs” and “Story of a Junkie,” this isn’t actually a product of the Troma “studio.” It was shot in 1991 by Ohio filmmakers Mark Steven Bosko and Wayne A. Harold on video for the princely sum of about five or six hundred bucks and picked up by Troma for VHS and, later, DVD release. The movie’s main selling point — hell, it’s only selling point — is that it stars Toby Radloff of “American Splendor” fame. Toby is a friend and co-worker of AS’s Harvey Pekar, and essentially serves as his sidekick in the AS film (Toby both appears as himself and is portrayed by Judah Friedlander — if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about). And folks, Toby’s the real deal.

Thick glasses taped in the middle? Check.

Bow tie? Check.

Bizarre speech patterns? Check.

Pocket protector full of pens? Check.

Yes, friends, Toby’s a nerd and darn proud of it. His self-appointed moniker is that of the “genuine nerd” (co-director Harold has even made a documentary about Toby that bears this title). There’s no slack in his act. It’s not a con or a put-on. He’s as legit as it gets.

And damnit, in “Killer Nerd” he’s mad. Toby portrays hapless loser Harold Kunkle, and? he’s got the hots for a girl at work named Jenny (Lori Scarlett), but while she’s friendly enough toward him on a superficial level, she’s really got the hots for another officemate, a slick yuppie douchebag named Jeff (Richard Zaynor) who delights in tormenting poor Harold.

Our guy Harold eventually learns firsthand that the two of them are sleeping together, so he goes out to drown his sorrows at a local Cleveland-area watering hole ,whereupon he gets lured by a couple of ladies into a trap where some punk dudes who harassed him earlier at the bus stop rob him and beat him up.

That’s when Toby — excuse me, Harold — finally snaps and decides to get violent revenge on the society that has treated him like an outcast.

I don’t mean to give away too much of the plot here, but — oh, what the hell, I do, it’s not like it really matters anyway, the title gives it all away from the get-go. Toby/Harold goes back and gets payment for his humiliation in blood from the girls who set him up, the punks who beat him up, the woman who rejected his clumsy advances, and the smooth-talking slickster she’s fucking. He even kills his mom (while dressed in a diaper — an image you’ll never be able to get out of your mind) for good measure. Nobody that’s ever said or done anything mean to him is safe.

The kills are actually pretty creative for the most part, so I won’t give away any of the details )apart from the aforementioned diaper bit).? The ultra-cheap blood and gore effects are good, cheesy fun. The movie looks every bit as cheap as it is, and that’s satisfying for fans of trashy shit like myself.

The real joy of “Killer Nerd,” though, is just watching Toby essentially play himself. There’s no real “acting” required. He just has to read his lines and go through the motions while being who he is. Filmmaking doesn’t get any mor naturalistic than this, folks.

Even the script essentially follows what you’d expect Toby to do in real life (up to the point where he becomes a mass-murdering maniac, of course). When he tries to get a date with Jenny, he invites her out to a church picnic he’s taking his mother to. He likes going to comic shows. He displays no social skills or any concern about what the fuck anyone else thinks of him. He talks the exact same way he does in real life. In short, Harold is Toby and Toby is Harold.

“Killer Nerd” is like watching the nerd Elvis or nerd Michael Jordan in his prime — at the top of his game and in full possession of all his nerdly powers. He is who he is, couldn’t be anything else if he tried, and isn’t interested in trying anyway. Take him as he is or get the fuck out of his way.

Or, you know, get killed. The choice is yours.

Oh, and it’s got one of the greatest lines in movie history — “Roses are red, violets are placid, you screwed me over — have a face full of acid!”

Whoops, I said I wouldn’t give away any of the details of Toby/Harold’s kill-spree. Oh well.

Anyway, let’s be honest — you go into a flick like this because you know exactly what you’re in for, not because you want a story full of plot twists and dramatic surprises.

Followed a year later by a sequel, “Bride of Killer Nerd,” where Harold finally meets the girl of his dreams, an equally-picked-on and equally-revenge-minded high school girl, which might actually be the “better” (and yes, I use that term very loosely) of the two films, both are available one one swell double-feature DVD package from Troma. In addition to the films, you get commentary from Toby and Wayne A. Harold, an exclusive interview with Toby s he “really” is (again, no real difference), a tour around Akron, Ohio with Toby and Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman, and the usual Troma stuff like Kaufman intros to the films and a Kaufman-directed music video, this one for a band called Purple Pam.

In a world full of posers, fakes, phonies, and pretenders, Toby Radloff is the genuine article. He’s probably been picked on and shunned and ridiculed and made fun of his whole life. And in “Killer Nerd” he gets to play out the type of revenge fantasies he’s probably entertained in private for years. For everyone to see.

I don’t know if that makes this film a form of? accidental therapy or what, but I suppose we ought to hope so. Because there are a lot of Toby Radloffs out there, who are probably one good shove or insult away from snapping and giving the slick, smooth-talking assholes of this world what they feel they deserve.

So hell yes, laugh all you want to at “Killer Nerd.” That’s what the movie is for. But depending on how you’ve treated the nerds in your life, it might be nervous laughter.

“Killer Nerd” — harmless ultra-cheesy straight-to-video schlock or advanced psychotherapy on a budget for a tormented outcast?

I leave it for you to decide. But it probably wouldn’t be the worst thing if every picked-on, eccentric, socially inept weirdo could have the kind of outlet that Toby Radloff has here.