Not Quite Seven Samurai but Enough
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Morbid curiosity led this Critical Shopper into deepest Chelsea to the industrially cavernous Balenciaga boutique.
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The good news is that it&#39;s not terrible but it&#39;s not that great either. The Grudge joins The Ring as part of the American trend of remaking Japanese horror flicks for an American audience.
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It isn't as though Hideki Matsui hasn't been in the middle of a baseball blood rivalry before. In Japan, the clan war between the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers has been going on for decades. It's just as lopsided (30 Central League titles for the Giants, 4 for the Tigers) and it even has its own curse.
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Tycho:  Gabe keeps coming into the Goddamn office with his Goddamn tales of high adventure, telling me about how there's tokens or some shit in Burning Crusade now, or maybe tiers, and other words I had scoured from my consciousness.  He also says there is hot new five-man content, which initially sounded like pornography.  The comic is correct - I purchased it in a moment of weakness.  As I must often approach you, the cherished reader, to apologize for this or that indiscretion, it may be more appropriate to say that I have moments of strength which are suspended in cowardice and moral decay.
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In a movie involving samurai  and a tale of betrayal and revenge, the expectation is of  clashing swords and carnage, but Yoji Yamada's "Love and Honor"  (Bushi No Ichibun) turns out to be a tender love story.
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Japan is pretty serious about robotics. If the droids are going to fit in, they probably need to learn the Japanese custom of serving tea.
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It remains safe to say that Japanese choreographers are not yet done milking the repressed-chaos theme.
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Those of you with the Rockies in four are out of the pool. It was a nice thought, I suppose. With 21 of 22 and seven straight in the postseason, why not run the table? But there had to be some sort of shelf life on karma, right? Four or five days, max, I'd say.
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Billa leaves the intelligence behind but packs in cool action and cinematography.
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Iâm suspicious of sequels. They can be rotten at their core, like reeling in a wealthy elderly spouse - not to carry on a legacy, but to carry off the money.
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Please forgive us our nonchalance about nuance. At 228Â¼, we&#39;re still a toddler nation among great civilizations. We can&#39;t help it if we can&#39;t make such a big hoo-ha about a mysterious Japanese man slapping singles in the quietest corner of our country.
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âThe Rules of Engagementâ is not a groundbreaking new series by any means, but it has some redeeming virtues.
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Lose the choreography and dial back the frivolity. Thatâs my advice for the Mets as they resume the season. The Yankees, on the other hand, could use a bit of strut.
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Word over at Penny-Arcade is that Mike and Kara are playing WoW again. My wife and I have also recently gotten re-hooked on the game. Could this mean a renewed interest in the conflict between Panda Attack and the Penny-Arcade Alliance? Considering that there are about 4 Arcadians to every 1/2 of a panda, that means [...]
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Gabe: A few eagle eyed viewers noticed that I accidentally drew a Nebulon-B frigate in today's comic. Gabe mentions the Mon Calamari and the Corellians but the Nebulon-B is actually produced by the Kuat Drive Yards.I deeply regret the mistake and I have since corrected it in the comic by replacing the original drawing with one of the Mon Calamari Cruiser "Liberty", sadly lost in the Battle of Endor . I am in no way trying to diminish the Nebulon-B frigate or the fine craftsmanship of the dedicated workers employed by KDY. Again I apologize for any inconvenience or offence my carelessness may have caused.  -Gabe out
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Tycho:  Having played collectible card games since the original printing of Magic - taking my dishwasher's tips across the street to Dragon Tails to secure boosters for the coveted Arabian Nights - seeing Gabriel take up the pastime has warmed (but not thawed) my black heart.  It's always a portion of myself I've bridled in his presence, kept hidden, suppressed may be the word.  To have him take it up so freely makes me wonder which perversion of mine he'll take up next.    When he started talking about his "Firestarter" deck, whose dancing fires were stoked by a mysterious device known as "The Holon Engine," I began to worry.  The dangers of Netdecking are fairly substantial when it comes to friendly play, a corrosive force that turns friendly pick-up games into ostentatious displays of wealth on par with rap videos.  If you're playing in a competitive venue, building on prior art and making loads of precision purchases is probably your only recourse.  But if you're just playing at lunch, let me be clear:  you are consorting with devils.    I took time over the weekend to hit the level cap in Call of Duty 4, and then just to be sure that I understood what was going on I played for several more hours.  I'm not the most skilled player you will encounter, with a roughly equal number of kills and deaths, but I prefer to think of my work in an assassinative context - the removal of key players at key moments.  Please let me have this.  In the absence of the game's deeply integrated progression scheme, Infinity Ward would merely have created one of the best shooters available today.  It would have staunch proponents, and they would be right to praise it.  Is there a substance within cream that can rise to the top of itself?  This substance has been discovered.  As a distillation of the Infantry FPS, this is right down to it.  This is brutal, unrepentant, bathtub fucking hooch.  It is tight and smooth, it is lethal.  Unrelenting in its intensity, your first rounds - indeed, your first few levels - will be spent without the succor of CoD4's rich rewards for continued play.  But you'll see them on the killcam, every time you go down:  this one has increased health, of course that would help.  This one does more damage.  This one, after he's killed, pulls his sidearm and takes a few final shots.  This one's shots retain more of their damage after they pass through a wall.        You earn these for leveling up, with the experience you gain for every kill, for every round.  You also earn experience for Challenges, which are (collectively) "awesome things that you did."  I completed X-Ray challenges last night for killing people behind walls, which dished up bonus XP - this is displayed with exultant audio and video cues at the very moment of success.  Killing while crouched, killing while prone, taking down an enemy helicopter, this is all gravy.  There are challenges specific to your weapon, as well:  for kills and headshots with that firearm, you travel down an upgrade path unique to that weapon that reveals sights, camouflage patterns, and other tools to customize your equipment.    Watching videos of multiplayer play online, you'll get the impression that it looks better than it does.  It looks fantastic, don't get me wrong, but it's not completely photorealistic.  What it does have is an extremely reliable framerate and excellent level design, so that during the experience of play these fantastic visuals are transmuted into something sublime.  Here's what I mean:  if a friend is over, and they are watching you play, they'll be able to detect flaws here and there.  Level geometry isn't especially fanciful, and blown paper or leaves look a little strange.  But for the player, movement is just right, player models are just right, and the environments are right so that moment to moment everything gels.      As I said on Friday, to bring this thing into the house of Halo is pretty ballsy - but it'll carve out its proper due.  On the Playstation 3, what force could stand against it?  I have a high opinion of Haze, but I've never played it - that's based mostly on my gut.  Call of Duty 4 will fall hard on that system, like shrieking artillery.
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A little less conversation and a little more action