The Annual it's my Brithday (yes, on Christmas Eve) here's Gunpoint Giveaway

It's that time of year again...mah Birthday yo! And for my birthday I got...LEGO Dimensions! Plus the Back to the Future, Portal, Doctor Who and Simpsons level packs! Yes, there's Back to the Future, Portal, Doctor Who, Simpsons and even Ghostbusters LEGO sets now. It's a wonderful time to be alive!

I'm giving away the game that brought me the most fun in years...Gunpoint! Giveaway Basically it's Watch Dogs for Super Nintendo (has someone already made that joke? They have to have, maybe I made it last year?). It's a 2d side scroller with an fun hacking mechanic, you can wire doors to light switches and all kinds of other cool stuff. Check out the demo, you'll dig it. Plus it's my favorite genre of stuff: Noir! What is noir you ask? Let's boil it down to the most basic. A good guy caught in a bad situation or a bad guy trying to make things right. And there's (almost) always a femme fatale...you know...I really bad girl. They were really popular in the 40's and 50's. A few classic examples you may have seen or at least heard of: Double Indemnity, The Third Man, Touch of Evil, Out of the Past, The Big Sleep, Chinatown (ok, Chinatown is from 1974 but it's set in 1937...which is earlier than the 40's...but still). Some more modern examples are Sin City (that comic book movie that looks...like a comic book) and the Sc-Fi Noir Blade Runner which I know is pretty popular 'round these parts.

Now comes the part where I bust out a little known comedy noir for everyone to enjoy: Zero Effect Starring Bill Pullman (always great), Ben Stiller (he's been great a few times), Ryan O'Neal (you may remember him playing Ryan O'Neal on the Larry Sanders Show) and Kim Dickens (before she got hot...I kinda got a thing for her...) and written and directed by Jake Kasdan. First a little bit about Jake Kasdan. He's directed and/or produced an array of movies and TV. Orange County, Freaks and Geeks, New Girl, The TV Set (which is loosely based on his failure to make a Zero Effect TV show), Walk Hard, Fresh off the Boat, Bad Teacher, Sex Tape and Weird Loners (I keep getting away from the point here, but check out the TV show Weird Loners, it's only 6 episodes and is totally awesome. It's been compared to Happy Endings, but it's less...pop culture). But he's best known as the dude who's dad is Lawrence Kasdan, writer of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, most recently Star Wars: The Force Awakens and his most famous film and the only one that any one will recognize: Silverado (what, I love me a western too! Just not as much as noir). Lawrence also wrote and directed a pretty good noir called Body Heat. But enough about the guy who made Silverado (and some other stuff). Let's talk about Zero Effect. It's a detective story with a convoluted plot, twisty plot. The twist is the portrayal of Daryl Zero (Pullman) and Steve Arlo (Stiller). They are basically a Sherlock Holmes and Watson. But not. Arlo is not the bumbling sidekick Watson is usually portrayed as, but more the Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman version of Watson. But they are also Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. For those who don't know they are a somewhat famous duo written by Rex Stout from 1934 to 1975 (!). Nero almost never leaves the house and is brilliant, Archie is his legman who does most of the work and while not as smart as Nero is still formidable. That's Zero and Arlo. I could really go on about Nero Wolfe and the incredible Nero Wolfe Mystery TV series with Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton, but I've digressed enough There's also a little bit of Fletch thrown in with fun little running gag with Pullman's made up identities. Oh, there's also a sex scene to a Nick Cave song!

Well, now that I've talked a bit about noir let's get everyone else involved. Wanna talk about your favorite noir movie? Go for it! Or favorite noir game or comic book? Go for it! Or your favorite LEGO? Go for it! Or, since it's one of my topics...wanna bash Mark Millar? Go for it!!! And if you want to help me build a PC swing by my other thread over here