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5 Comedies We Still Keep Quoting

The early 2000s was a great time for comedy films. Maybe this was because I was in college at the time and it was our joie de vie during pre-parties. Or maybe just because they are that damn funny. I think both are correct.

Every now and then it’s fun to look back on the films that defined who we were at a certain place and time. While these weren’t summer blockbusters or big budget films, they definitely made us laugh all the time.

What do these five comedies have in common? We can’t stop quoting from them in our thirties and they released over a decade ago. The soundtracks were great. The characters had traits that were unbelievably real. And maybe most importantly, there grew in our souls a want to be them. Except for Luke from Out Cold, “He was up in it! Lovin’ it strong!” Continue reading “5 Comedies We Still Keep Quoting”

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Black Keys Turn Blue Album Releases This Week

We’re all kinds of excited for the new Black Keys release. Brothers was nothing short of brilliant, and El Camino was an album for nearly every occasion. Turn Blue is shaping up to be every bit as good.

Planning a massive stateside tour early this fall, the Black Keys will be visiting cities such as Louisville on September 1o, Phily on September 20, and SQ’s stomping grounds of  Chicago on September 27 at the UC. That tour date will turn the West Loop into one long party weekend.  Continue reading “Black Keys Turn Blue Album Releases This Week”

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Deliver Us From Evil Movie Trailer

Eric Bana is a much better actor than most people believe. He starred in Munich, a film which snowballed into one of the greatest films of 2005. As Nero, he helped jump start a whole new era of Star Trek fans. And my personal favorite, Hector, from Troy. While that film left a little to be desired at times, he played his character every bit as good as Sean Bean portrayed Odysseus. Maybe even a little better. And now, Bana is Ralph Sarchie, a police officer working to uncover what appears to be an unholy spirit tormenting his town.

Deliver Us From Evil‘s trailer leaves a little to be desired at the end, but Bana appears to be taking on the persona of a younger Liam Neeson here. Intelligent, charismatic, and with a soft touch. And he’s married to Olivia Munn in this film, so he has that working for him Continue reading “Deliver Us From Evil Movie Trailer”

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Transformers: Age of Extinction Trailer

Optimus Prime is back. This time, he’s teaming up with Mark Wahlberg instead of Shia LaBeouf, so he has that working for him. Now that we reflect, Shia wasn’t a terrible fit, it’s just they made him look less…manish…with his parents getting in the way.

The story begins with Mark Wahlberg discovering a Transformer (although he doesn’t know it at first). Then some government agency comes in and tells him to fork it over. Queue basic plot structure from there with Optimus Prime going postal on a foreign species, and you have Age of Extinction. As far as our other trailer previews go, this one is in the middle, but not in the happy Jimmy Eat World sense.

It’s not that we’re not excited; we are. It’s just that we were hoping for more of a dark element. More of an actual loss taking place. Christian Bale, as Batman, lost Rachel. Not only did we not see that coming (honestly), we were quite surprised to know that Nolan would kill off a main character. We don’t get that feeling in this installment.

Continue reading “Transformers: Age of Extinction Trailer”

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We Want a New Soulblazer

Ah junior high. And bad graphics. And short swords that were supposed to be longer but weren’t. We’re not talking Lagoon here (although that game isn’t far off – the sword in that game was shorter than a toothpick and about as strong). We’re talking about Soulblazer. Time for some retro lovin’.

Soulblazer, for SNES, was the kind of game you’d play when you told your parents you’d be home in 15 minutes. 30 minutes later, you start questioning what was worse, giving up Soulblazer at your friend’s house, or just taking a larger punishment. Normally, the punishment prevailed.

However, now that we’re older (31, but who’s counting?), we want a remake! A no-joke, fully revamped map, fun but devilishly easy combat system, and more runes to collect. And that ball of light that surrounded us? We want him to. He can always come. He brings the party. Continue reading “We Want a New Soulblazer”

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Edge of Tomorrow Trailer

Tom Cruise is racking up quite a sci fi portfolio: Oblivion, Minority Report, Vanilla Sky…Top Gun. What’s that? Top Gun isn’t sci fi? You saw how he looked shirtless. Out of this world…

One month from today, Edge of Tomorrow hits theaters. While I’m not sure if I’m sold on Emily Blunt as an action star (thinking of The Five Year Engagement and day-old donuts), she at least doesn’t smile all that much in the trailer, and that builds a sense of actual suspense. Like our other 2014 movie trailers – we’re hoping for the best and expecting for the worst. Or pretty close to it. Continue reading “Edge of Tomorrow Trailer”

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Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

Alright, confession time. I haven’t had this big of a guilty pleasure since I downloaded Miley Cirus’ The Climb back in 2009 (Which I played over Ventrillo during WoW raid bosses to aggravate the hell out of our main healer). At leas that’s what I keep telling myself…

But Borderlands? Keep it coming! This franchise is fun, addicting, and I don’t feel guilty when I walk away from it for a month. I loved Skyrim; I will always love Skyrim. But take a a couple weeks off and I had no clue what I was doing, or who I was supposed to sacrifice someone to, or what skill I was building.

Set to debut sometime in late 2014, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel takes place before the storyline of the original in the series, and focuses mainly on Handsome Jack and his own personal bag of problems.  Continue reading “Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!”

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X-Men: Days of Future Past

What can make X-Men better? Time Travel. What makes Time Travel better? Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy’s awkward bromantic relationship. It’s okay, we forgive them. Because this summer, we get the next installment of Marvel’s X-Men legacy.

This installment finds previous stars uniting with current favorites. We have Hugh Jackman (from Scrubs infamy) with James McAvoy, Halle Berry with Jennifer Lawrence, and Michael Fassbender with, well, who are we kidding. He’s good enough alone. Continue reading “X-Men: Days of Future Past”

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SQ Favorite: Breath of Fire 3

Some games are better than others. Some games are a lot better than others. Then some games put other games to shame. Breath of Fire 3 put every Breath of Fire release after to shame. They should have stopped at the pinnacle.

For example, you can turn into a dragon. All it takes is some magic points. Now, you have to find “Dragon Genes” and mix and splice them together, and that was a fun process, but all you had to do was click some buttons and voila: dragon.

But nooooo, not for the later games. BoF 4 was ok, but by the fifth installment, the game designers thought, “Hey, let’s make a game about a boy who learns he’s a dragon, but he comes closer and closer to killing himself every time he shifts into dragon form.” Seriously, every time he turns into a dragon his “dragon counter” increases. Not to mention every ten minutes or so of game time he goes up a bit too. *Sigh*.

Continue reading “SQ Favorite: Breath of Fire 3”

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Finally!)

We’ve been waiting for this for awhile. You see, back years ago, when Tobey Maguire was rocking the mask and slinging webs, Spiderman was ruined for us. The films were okay. Well, the first two were – the third really just seemed to…not be good.

Fast forward a few years. I’m sitting on my family-recycled couch drinking a good beer (those go together wonderfully, btw), and I noticed the newer Spiderman on HBO. Alright, prepare for to be disappointed. But then, out of the blue, I liked it.

No, no. I loved it. Andrew Garfield brought a grit that Maguire never  showed (or maybe had). The film was darker, less real, and more fun. And not junior high at the movies fun – like actual suspension and plot.  Continue reading “The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Finally!)”

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Godzilla: Fingers Crossed

The good news: Bryan Cranston and Ken Watanabe. No P Diddy.

The bad news: We’ve been let down before.

What we expect: two hours of action packed destruction that leads with some familial separation and lack of suitable one-liners. Good guys win. It could turn out that Godzilla is the good guy.

What we hope: Bryan Cranston verbally eviscerates foolish humans for their lack of foresight and problem solving abilities. Ken Watanabe a la Inception plays minds games with the audience and/or fellow characters and in doing so provides an aura of mystique and transcendence. Continue reading “Godzilla: Fingers Crossed”

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Warlords of Draenor: The Upcoming World of Warcraft XPac

Sometime in the fall 0f 2014, World of Warcraft players and aficionados get to explore new territories, rewrite history, and smack the hell out of each other all over again.

Warlords of Draenor sees players revisiting the Dark Portal and heading into what used to be called Outland. Or as I think the less lore-ridden people noticed it: space. Okay, Nagrand looked like Super Mario Bros. level 1-3 on steroids, Netherstorm was clearly the moon. Don’t agree? Leave it in the comments so I know who you are.

This xpac features new content with a pre-order bonus of a free level 90 character boost. Not sure if it’s worth the pre-order, but if you’re going to play it, might as well take the free stuff along the way. Continue reading “Warlords of Draenor: The Upcoming World of Warcraft XPac”