“Halo Infinite” Review

Halo Infinite: Directed by Paul Crocker, Joseph Staten. With Steve Downes, Jen Taylor, Nicolas Roye, Bruce Thomas. When all hope is lost and humanity’s fate hangs in the balance, Master Chief is ready to confront the most ruthless foe he’s ever faced.

Released back in 2021 in the tail end of the global pandemic that at current count has killed over 2 million people, I had no idea that loading this game up to try getting through the campaign would bring back some of true horrors of that time: Republicans in power. I originally bought this, (as a steelbook!), but was so turned off by the story and features that it went back into my “to be played” pile and sat there over the years, constantly being pre-empted by dozens of other games. There’s a lot of not like here, from the obscenely long load times, the first level being absolutely nothing like the rest of the game, the unfulfilled promise of repairing the halo, the missing story beats, the game constantly telling us about the cool shit and not showing the cool shit, to the instability of the game (and the xbox system itself) causing infrequently but still frustrating crashes.

The story does sorta wrap up the “Cortana goes rogue” storyline in an egregiously offensive offscreen situation that’s shown in goofy flashbacks that make little to no sense, and I found myself directly comparing the first few games in which the final moments were on the run from an exploding environment, but this time around it was a cut scene in which you got to watch your character get himself out of trouble instead of experiencing it yourself.

It’s not all bad though, I found myself really appreciating the right bumper button abilities that all felt familiar with the addition of the new grabble hook, which I have to personally suspend some disbelief that this 800 pound hulking cyborg in a suit of armor is just zipping around on a 100 meter cable that’s able to attach to pretty much anything. The environments are damn nice and the verticality of most of the areas is at times breathtaking.

I’m not sure if the franchise can be saved at this point, and I mean that from the story side of things. I’ve never been a strong Halo multiplayer participant, but my understanding is that the game is failing on that side of things as much as it is narratively.

I do want to re-iterate a point that I made a long while ago, and I’m calling it the “Selvidge Rule of Science Fiction”: Left running long enough, all science fiction stories will use time travel.

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Learn to drive

Zoom Zoom…

MC

Selena for Elle Magazine – November 2024

Ava Gardner and Cyd Charisse catching some rays at MGM studios in the 1940s

Little Robot

When a little girl finds an adorable robot in the woods, she presses a button and accidentally activates him for the first time. Now, she finally has a friend.

I read this whilst hanging out with some family of the appropriate age for stories aimed at 8-10 year olds and I found that I appreciated the art and story of this adorablely short story of a girl that doesn’t go to school and escapes from her trailer park home to roam the woods all day long, but falls in with a robot, leading to some brief but interesting adventures, one of which includes a dead squirrel.

Fun for the whole family!

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Eclipse

Rob Gonsalves

Katja Herbers

meirl

Rowan Kenrith

Wrong Order – Gator Days

Dafne Keen

Nap

Cable Lacing

Bang and Olufsen Beocord 8000 Cassette player (1980) [1080 x 579]

This is Daisy. She celebrated her quinceañera with a cake almost as adorable as she is.

Ferrari

Yvonne de Carlo (Lily Munster) in Salome, where she danced, 1945

Emilia Clarke

Bikini

Jet ski

Sydney Sweeney

16 year old Debbie Reynolds(without makeup or plastic surgery) at Warner Bros,1948

Steamrunner Class

Zazie is the total package from head to toe

Bedouin woman with her child. Saudi Arabia, 1948

The U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) meets a Starfleet armada led by the U.S.S. Theseus (NX-1987) at Starbase 212 in 2270 in Star Trek: Year Five #13 published in 2020

The A team

meirl

Parker McKenna Posey

Fallout T-60 Power Armor

EnterprisE in a bottle (in progress)

Alexandra Daddario

“The Garfield Movie” Review

The Garfield Movie: Directed by Mark Dindal. With Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames. After Garfield’s unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, ragged alley cat Vic, he and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered lives to join Vic on a risky heist.

A family fun film filled with furry friends that will forever endear themselves in your heart.

And more superstar voice acting than you can shake a stick at! I’m only kidding a little bit, there’s way too many famous faces in this animated movie, but they all do a pretty ok job at it, so I can’t complain much.

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Catharine Daddario

National Historical & Archaeological Museum, (1978), Osh, Kyrgyz SSR

eva green…

“Agatha All Along” Review

Agatha All Along: Created by Jac Schaeffer. With Kathryn Hahn, Joe Locke, Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn. A spell-bound Agatha Harkness regains freedom thanks to a teen’s help. Intrigued by his plea, she embarks on the Witches’ Road trials to reclaim her powers and discover the teen’s motivations.

I finished this back when it originally aired and set aside the review for a few weeks to try to sort my feelings, and I think I’ve come down to the fact that I just didn’t like how they (didn’t) end it with an ending that was more of a non-ending vague start to another show that’s going to be just as mediocre as this mini series was. I actually liked the performances of everyone involved and episode to episode was fine, but the sum of the parts just tasted bland and lacked the flavor that I was looking for.

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meirl

Welcome to my evil lair!!

Debbie Harry

“Breathe” Review

Breathe: Directed by Stefon Bristol. With Jennifer Hudson, Milla Jovovich, Quvenzhané Wallis, Sam Worthington. An East Flatbush mother and daughter, barely surviving in an oxygen-less world, must band together to protect each other when intruders arrive claiming to know their missing father.

Not as good as it could have been, but not as bad as I feared from the trailers. There’s some uneven performances by everyone involved, but they get the story to where it needs to be and it’s great to see a post-apocalyptic story that doesn’t end with even more dead people. Well I mean, some people die but not absolutely everyone.

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Not the End of the World

Free yourself manual

“Transformers One” Review

Transformers One: Directed by Josh Cooley. With Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key. The untold origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, better known as sworn enemies, but who once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever.

I had absolutely zero hope that this was going to be good, who’s been asking for a remake of the prequel origin stories that we’ve already been over a thousand times in nearly a dozen films, and hundreds of comics and tv episodes? It turned out to be an exceptionally great story with some pretty amazing visuals, but I’ll be happy when they stop doing origin stories and move the story forward a little bit.

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Stephanie Beatriz

Quick character portrait

Doggo

Kevin Smith Is Getting Closer and Closer to Dogma 2

Now that Kevin Smith finally has the rights to ‘Dogma’ back from the Weinsteins, expect a sequel. And expect ‘more than a cameo’ from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.