2 Guys, 1 Blog

[NPD]

Fellas, here is my blog with a buddy of mine that we have started doing. He made his own site, however, with the prospects of the new LoP having a few spots available to make the main page, we decided we'd love to have you guys read what we think about several things...

- Movies
- Sports
- Games

We are also in the process of making a podcast, which we will also post here once it is completed.

Many of you may or may not know, my real first name is Nick, and my friend's name is Nate. We watch a bunch of movies and play games, giving observations which we'd like to share with all of you.

So, without further ado, here are some of our reviews and thoughts on the world of movies, sports, and games... welcome to...

2 Guys 1 Blog

Youth in Revolt Double Review



Nate's Take

I feel for Michael Cera. I really do. He finally gets a long deserved starring (and co-starring!) role and the rest of the cast lets him down hard. With a group like Zach Galifianakis, Steve Buscemi, Fred Willard, and Justin Long, you would think Cera could kick back for a couple of scenes and let someone else elicit a laugh or two. Not so. Cera is forced to carry the entire movie and it's a testament to his comedic timing that the best scenes in the movie are when he is opposite... himself! In the end Youth in Revolt is a pretty funny movie that could have been hysterical if only Michael Cera had received some help in the laugh department.

Grade: B-


Nick's Take

Evan from Superbad, I mean, Nick Twisp from Youth in Revolt, makes this movie hilarious. By the way, it's definitely not a bad thing at all that he basically is the same character from his first hit movie. The rest of the cast was good I thought, unlike Nate, as Fred Willard honestly steals this movie away from Michael Cera for a quick few minutes. Portia Doubleday may have broke out into the mainstream with her role as Cera's eye of affection, she was pretty good. And I just remembered where I saw the Vijay character from, who was Cera's friend in the movie, Paul Blart: Mall Cop! What's happening Peanut Butter and Blart!? Overall, this movie is a refreshing getaway from ANOTHER vampire movie, squeakuels, and marathons featuring blue aliens (still haven't seen it yet!) and Sherlock Holmes.

Grade: B+


Movies That I Hated... Jennifer's Body



By: Nick

What exactly was this?

First of all, let me address the Megan Fox issue, she is not that amazingly awesome at all, which probably is the reason most people ended up watching this horror (literally, horror on a screen for your eyes to bear through). She is fine acting, people usually bash her big time in that department, but from the movies I've seen from her, her acting isn't that bad.

The problem with the movie though, was how bad everything, I mean, everything was. Here is the people who were thinking about making the movie's conversation...

Producer #1: What do you think about a movie, where this demonic cheerleader goes around and kills for blood?

Producer #2: Hmm... it needs something else. Any idea for casting?

Producer #1: Megan Fox?

Producer #2: Hot diggity, Megan Fox!? We could make the movie about a pigman running around the neighborhood looking for the Declaration of Independence and I'd say yes.

Amanda Seyfried was the best friend in this movie and I don't like her at all in this movie. And the first twenty minutes, I literally didn't even know what I was watching, was it a spoof, was it a serious film? I get the appeal of it being a funny horror, I suppose, but it just didn't come off well at all. Then I saw one of the most laughable scenes in existence when Jennifer (Megan Fox) has her transformation. Good grief was this scene bad.

Then, I'm searching on IMDB to see other people's opinions on the movie, and look what I see someone posted...

"Allegorically, that scene might be seen as Needy betraying Jennifer, analogous to Judas betraying Christ with a kiss."

This was alluding to the kissing scene between the two females. Come on! LOL.

Jennifer's Body was a ploy to make money off of a movie where they got someone who does have a HUGE following due to her looks and decided they'd make ANOTHER vampire type of movie, they could make money like Twilight. I hated this movie.


Games You Played Six Months Ago - Brutal Legend

Gamefly's inability to send me new releases forces me to play games not as they come out, but rather after everyone else in North America has finished them. Here I will talk about them.



By: Nate

Brutal Legend

OK. When you add two good things together you get a great thing, right? Peanut butter and chocolate. Milk and cookies. Beer and Pizza. All great in their own right but when combined... oh baby. So tell me how combining heavy metal, funnyman Jack Black, and video games could possibly go awry?

At its outset Brutal Legend seems to be a typical hack and slash adventure game. Each following mission introduces a new mechanic that gradually changes the whole dynamic of the game, until finally you're left with an underdeveloped real-time-strategy game. Many times I found myself enjoying beating the crap out of emo kids with my axe and guitar combos just to be taken out the action and forced to micromanage an army of headbangers.

Visually, the game leaves much to be desired. You find yourself exploring the same wasteland with the same "metal" animals over and over again between missions. The environments vary a bit during the actual missions, but it's hard to notice when you are busy grinding through the same boring goals each time. The sound is the strong point of the game, with some funny lines from Jack Black, and a great metal soundtrack.

One of the best moments of the game puts you in a badass hotrod trying to escape the clutches of a huge demon while Dragonforce blares in the background. It's a damn shame the rest of the game can't even touch the awe and wonderment I felt during that five minute segment. Double Fine Productions deserves a fair bit of credit for coming up with some good ideas, but also a slap on the wrist for failing miserably in the execution. Brutal Legend tries to be too many different games at once and unfortunately none of them are very much fun.

Grade: C-

(Played Xbox 360 version for around 12 hours.)


Games You Played Six Months Ago - Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Gamefly's inability to send me new releases forces me to play games not as they come out, but rather after everyone else in North America has finished them. Here I will talk about them.



By: Nate

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

This is actually two games rolled into one but I could only suffer through the first, Escape From Butcher Bay. Escape From Butcher Bay, is a next-gen remake of an Xbox game. A frustrating Xbox game. A very frustrating Xbox game. I would almost recommend playing this game with a tether from hand to controller, a la Nintendo Wii, because you will undoubtedly want to throw the controller at your television.

Ok, so basically Escape From Butcher Bay is a first-person shooter. But not really because you don't use guns. You're in prison, so you use shivs! Really, really weak shivs. When you fight the prisoners of Butcher Bay, it turns into a boring game of waiting for your enemy to attack, blocking, and then stabbing them in the gut. And these guys have strong guts.

But wait it gets worse! The next portion of the game is stealth. Stealth is fun when done right. It forces you to plan ahead and plot your course. You get to use strategy, which is rare in an FPS. Too bad it doesn't work. Basically you sneak around for five minutes avoiding detection only to have a dude with superhuman vision discover you from a mile away. Oh, and they have guns and you can't take bullets like prisoners can take shivs. Reload checkpoint! This seriously happened to me at least 20 times throughout the course of the game. There were points where I just couldn't understand what I was doing wrong.

After about three more hours of trying to avoid the gaze of guards wearing invisible x-ray goggles, I decided that having this disc in my 360 was hazardous to my mental health.

Grade: C

(Played the Xbox 360 version on Normal Difficulty for about five infuriating hours.)


2010 Early NFL Mock Draft



By: Nick

The actual NFL Draft Order has yet to even be fully set in stone with coin flips and playoff games still to decide where teams will be choosing their future in April's draft, but who doesn't love a mock draft? I've done research on what players are out there and what teams will be needing and here is my very early version of how April will play out.

1. St. Louis Rams - Ndamukong Suh, DT, Nebraska

2. Detroit Lions - Gerald McCoy, DT, Oklahoma

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Eric Berry, S, Tennessee

4. Washington Redskins - Jimmy Clausen, QB, Notre Dame

5. Kansas City Chiefs - Russell Okung, OT, Oklahoma State

6. Seattle Seahawks - Derrick Morgan, DE, Georgia Tech

7. Cleveland Browns - Joe Haden, CB, Florida

8. Oakland Raiders - Anthony Davis, OT, Rutgers

9. Buffalo Bills - Tim Tebow, QB, Florida

10. Jacksonville Jaguars - Sam Bradford, QB, Oklahoma

11. Denver Broncos - Earl Thomas, S, Texas

12. Miami Dolphins - Aaron Hernandez, TE, Florida

13. San Francisco 49ers - Trent Williams, OT, Oklahoma

14. Seattle Seahawks - Bruce Campbell, OT, Maryland

15. New York Giants - Carlos Dunlap, DE, Florida

16. Tennessee Titans - Navorro Bowman, LB, Penn State

17. San Francisco 49ers - Brian Price, DT, UCLA

18. Pittsburgh Steelers - Rolando McClain, LB, Alabama

19. Atlanta Falcons - Dez Bryant, WR, Oklahoma State

20. Houston Texans - C.J. Spiller, RB, Clemson

21. Cincinnati Bengals - Jermaine Gresham, TE, Oklahoma

22. New England Patriots - Sergio Kindle, LB, Texas

23. Green Bay Packers - Bryan Bulaga, OT, Iowa

24. Philadelphia Eagles - Taylor Mays, S, USC

25. Baltimore Ravens - Golden Tate, WR, Notre Dame

26. Arizona Cardinals - Jason Pierre-Paul, DE, South Florida

27. Dallas Cowboys - Brandon Spikes, LB, Florida

28. San Diego Chargers - Greg Hardy, DE, Mississippi

29. New York Jets - Vladimir Ducasse, G, UMass-Amherst

30. New Orleans Saints - Dan Williams, DT, Tennessee

31. Indianapolis Colts - Patrick Robinson, CB, Florida State

32. Minnesota Vikings - Donovan Warren, CB, Michigan

- I have been tossing back and forth between having Suh or Clausen as the top pick overall. I firmly believe that Clausen is the best QB in this year's draft class, and that is truly an area of need for the worst team in the league. However, knowing Steve Spagnuolo, a top level defensive minded coach, would love to improve that side of the ball, and Suh is without a doubt the most dominant player to be taken. He almost single handedly took Texas out of that National Championship game with that amazing performance against the Longhorns.

- I keep hearing that Dr. James Andrews may have a huge input to whether or not the Redskins draft Sam Bradford. Yet, I won't pull that trigger here considering I like Clausen as the best QB anyway. Also, doesn't Clausen somewhat remind you of Jay Cutler, who Mike Shanahan previously drafted in Denver?

- Tim Tebow, dun-dun-dun! I really do hope that the Jacksonville Jaguars take Tim Tebow. Yet, I'm starting to think he may not even be available when the time comes, which in my truest feelings, I think the guys who make the decision will be extremely happy that their not pressured into that situation if Tebow is on the board. I get it, Tebow is being touted as a player who doesn't fit the NFL, I disagree with that. He may have that Byron Leftwich syndrome where he brings the ball too low to the ground, but it's coachable, and the Gators didn't require Tebow to really need to fix that or take many snaps from under center. Here is why I think the Bills draft him... they just hired a "non-sexy" pick in Chan Gailey as their new head coach... he went to the University of Florida... Ryan Fitzpatrick was a serviceable QB for this year, but he is not the long-term answer. They have two very solid running backs in Marshawn Lynch and Fred Jackson. The weather in Buffalo is a cold and place where many teams won't really wish to play in and Buffalo has been a running team lately. Tebow could manage that team extremely well I think, hand the ball off to the two RBs, then call plays EVERY NOW AND THEN for Tebow to run the ball. Of course, don't run him 20 times a game like he did in college, but I truly feel he can be VERY effective at the NFL level and I think he fits perfectly in Buffalo.

- Speaking of Tebow, it sure does look like I have a lot of Gators going in the first round, doesn't it? I am a Gator fan, true. I'm also a Penn State fan, but I digress, I'll wait for the Big Ten hate to go away... immediately, after this year's bowl season. But this is not homerism at all. Joe Haden, could go even higher than 7. Carlos Dunlap, once believed to be top 3, screwed up, but I don't think it hurts him too much draft stock wise. Tebow, as I already discussed. Aaron Hernandez, a guy where many people have bashed me for having him here. I feel like Mel Kiper has helped my case here by putting Hernandez in the first round at number 21 to the Bengals, but I think he goes higher than that. The Dolphins could use a playmaking tight end and there are rumblings out there that they are targeting a tight end, just not sure what round. Bill Parcells has only drafted one WR in his entire career (Terry Glenn), that's why I don't see Dez Bryant heading to Miami. That is four players. I have a fifth going and that's Brandon Spikes. He may not go in the first round, but I think he's shown what he can do at the college level for four years, and he could have left last season to be a mid-first rounder, so I say he's taken as well.

- OK, I get it, five Florida players... but four Oklahoma players!?!? Didn't they underachieve badly this year? Yes, but due to overrated Sam Bradford's injury. He'll go though for sure. Gerald McCoy will most likely be the top Sooner taken. Then you have Trent Williams and Jermaine Gresham. Four true top talents for the NFL, it's just that two of those guys were out and the offense didn't do anything compared to what they could have done if injuries didn't happen.

This is just an extremely early look at how April could play out, of course trades will happen, stocks will rise and fall, but for now, this is what I see happening.


And that would be it for right now, as I said earlier, we are in the process of doing a podcast, something that I think would be very cool to produce and would love for you all to listen to it. We'd talk about movies, sports, games, and whatever observations out there that we may think is entertaining to listen to. Thanks a lot fellas for reading this.

[Mentoch the Mindtaker]

I liked this blog quite a bit, but I thought it was kinda all over the place, and could've used some more focus. It really would've helped if you'd left the mock draft out of this edition, as the video games and movies seemed to kind of link themselves together, but the mock seemed out of place.

I like most of your mock draft, except I see very little chance that the Hawks will take a defensive player with their first pick (unless its Joe Haden). I think if Bradford is on the board they'll snag him and have him apprentice behind Hasselbeck for a year. This is assuming his physicals check out.

[romans_3:23]

Good read.

Really liked the video game part - loved the title for that section.

I'm noticing a trend with these LOP blogs. They are much, much longer than other blogs. IMO, breaking this up into three separate blog posts would be fine. In actuality it would make it more "bloggy" if that makes any sense.

Read you later

EDIT

I forgot to talk about the pick you have my Steelers drafting - I'd be surprised if they picked a LB in the first round. I'd figure they'd look for either a safety (they're probably losing Ryan Clark in free agency) or an O lineman.

James Farrior is showing his age a bit, but I don't know about a first round LB.

[NPD]

Thanks for the read Mentoch, yeah I agree, it is all kinda jumbled together, but I figured I'd just show all the material we had written in the past week or two. The mock did seem a bit out of place, I felt too, but decided to post everything we had.

I feel that Pete Carroll wouldn't take a QB for some reason with his first pick in his new era, Hasselbeck isn't too old I don't believe, and while yes, possible they do draft a QB, I even thought about it as well, I'd think they go with another option.

Romans, man... your a Steelers fan!? Ha, all this time I thought you were an Eagles fan like myself. Shame on you bro. Shame shame.

Joking aside, the Steelers do run a 3-4 defense and if a player like McClain falls to that pick, I could see the Steelers taking him as one of the best players available. Especially considering it was probably their defense why they didn't make the playoffs this year, their offense played very well throughout the season. I considered putting C.J. Spiller at 18 to Pittsburgh, isn't Fast Willie gone in free agency this year?

Speaking of Spiller, let me address why I have him going to Houston at 20. Steve Slaton, aka Steve Fumbler Slaton, lost his grip on the starting job, got it back, then got hurt. Arian Foster played very well the last two games of the year after being a non-factor after fumbling in his first NFL start in Week 15, and he was a rookie this season. They also have Ryan Moats and Chris Brown. However, with the rotating of musical chairs in the backfield, a guy like C.J. Spiller would do for them what I thought Reggie Bush would have done for them a few years back when they opted for Mario Williams instead. With their potent offense the way it is now with Schaub, Andre, Owen Daniels, Kevin Walter, adding Spiller would put another dynamic player on that side of the ball. I'd be excited watching that unfold. I truly thought Reggie Bush to the newly formed Texans would have been awesome, he'd have been given every opportunity to touch the ball as they were just finding their identity really. Yet, Mario was a great pick it turned out to be. Bush's career could have been much different and he could have been a superstar with more touches in the NFL.

I love the title of the video game section too, laughed when I heard it from him and it's true, Gamefly is so slow with sending the games!

And yeah, during the next posting, we'd break them up into smaller "blogs", just posted everything that we had done at this point.

Thanks again fellas for the read and input.

[romans_3:23]

Originally Posted by NPD

Romans, man... your a Steelers fan!? Ha, all this time I thought you were an Eagles fan like myself. Shame on you bro. Shame shame.

Ha. I grew up in western PA and then moved out near Philly coming up on 8 years ago. The Steelers are still my team, but I have no problem with the Eagles. I root for them against everybody except Pittsburgh.

I see you have the Eagles taking Mays. They definitely need some new blood at safety and they probably need some depth on their O and D lines.

What do you think will happen with McNabb? I think he's gone even though Reid said that he'll be back next year.

Maybe you can devote a blog to McNabb scenarios.

[NPD]

Yeah, the safeties were a bit of a weak point for the Birds this year, Mays dropping on boards would have me happy as hell if they took him.

McNabb is definitely staying, he's still the man, Kolb isn't somebody I'd want leading the Eagles. Vick, I hope he stays for one more year, but I would think another team would like to give him a chance at a starting gig, so unsure if that would happen, but if he wants back for one more year, please, sign me up as a fan for approval.

The only way that blog for McNabb scenarios happens is if it's all about the Eagles, ha, I couldn't even write that man! I read something on ESPN the day after the Eagles lost in the first round, McNabb to Cleveland!? Bah. Not happening.

And knowing that you root for the Eagles second, that's good with me bro.

[DA I VAN]

Glad Im not the only one who got screwed over by gamefly. Taylor Mays to the EAGLES Ba Dass, if only it would actually happen. Good overall stuff but I think split over three or four blogs it would have been way better.

[Mentoch the Mindtaker]

What is Gamefly?

[NPD]

A video game rental subscription where they send you games through the mail. Nate has it and its insane how slow and how the availability completely screws people over. For example, Bayonetta previously came out a few weeks ago, he could put that as his number one request... six months later is a realistic date he will receive it, lol. As said before, the podcast is in the works, and I'm thinking about adding a three round mock fantasy football draft for 2010 before we post the podcast, anybody interested in looking at that?

[XanMan]

I don't really like the way this was formatted, but I expect that'll change as you post current stuff, rather than running it all together. So it seems like you pair up on movie reviews, he does the videogames, and you do the sports. Correct?

[Son of Repoman]

Way to put the Saints losing the NFC game. I should ban you for that.

Aside from that, I liked where the blog was going but I didn't love it. It reminded me of Big Dog's Barber Shop.

There is a pretty good piece of real estate in my neck of the woods that used to be a very tiny bank that failed in the 80s. Big Dog bought it and turned it into a barber shop. It was a bit big, so he rented 1/4 of the building out as a tattoo parlor. He still had space, so he turned it into a barbershop & hair salon. The parking lot was pretty sizeable, so he allowed a dude with a roach coach to see BBQ in the lot. On Sunday, he let one of his hookups sell area rugs in the space the BBQ would take the other days.

Now Big Dog's other barbershop made money hand over fist and stayed packed. But this one was deserted and he closed and sold the building 4 months after the grand opening. The person who bought it now cleaned it up and it is now a small events rental hall for weddings and is booked solid through Summer of 2010.

The point of my banter is you have to find one source of material and stick with it. The strongest suit in your hand and run with it. In my opinion its the "Games you played 6 months ago." Its intriguing because you don't see that with games. You either see a preview, a hot off the shelf review, or a retro review once the game is old and dusty. You never see a review of a game once it hits the 20-30 dollar range, which is where a lot of people pick up games from Gamestop. Some games get left in the dust 6 months after they debuted because the technology moves so fast, so is it worth putting it in my queue?

Read ya next time!

[NPD]

Thanks for the comments to everybody, this is really helping us into the right direction into which way we want to truly make this blog to be.

Da I Van - I'd be happy to see Mays slip to the Eagles. And about Gamefly, it's laughable how their availability statuses are.

XanMan - Absolutely, we will have this formatted to where it would be more flowing with a certain topic or two. Again, this was just all that we had done over at his site already and with the chances of making the main page here at LoP, I told him about LoP and we thought it would be fun to have all you guys read/listen to what we think. It's very fun this process is, especially the podcast production, which is under way and hopefully it turns out entertaining, either way, fun to do.

SoR - Your the man, I loved the comparing in your comment and the both of us agree with what your saying. In fact, on his website he already moved the sports section of it to a different link, having the meat and potatoes of it being about the movies and games. Over here, we may focus entirely on movies and games as well, maybe a few sports posts every now and then, especially considering the fact that SoL has a sports one, Treisk, Coolio, Mentoch... I'd be adding some sports thoughts here and there, but I'm thinking the direction is headed toward movies and games.

Nate is going to be the one who does the "Games You Played Six Months Ago" ones, I'll be doing the "Movies That I Hated..." ones, good chance we'll see a movie once a week that comes out in theatres given that there's something useful in seeing, we'll double review that and/or talk about it in the podcast. We usually watch a DVD that is just coming out to the new release wall as well once a week, so that's the projected plan as of right now.

The podcast will begin recording probably tonight, as we already began with preparing everything to get it ready. I've heard that there is somebody on the main page who does a wrestling podcast, haven't seen or heard it yet, but that is the only one I believe who has a podcast on there. So, here's to something different on LoP and I think it will be entertaining for you all. I've been here at LoP for a LONG time now and it'll be awesome to display our work here.

We just downloaded a bunch of games from the Playstation Network, we'll be giving them a try. I own a PS3, Wii, and the Droid, Nate owns basically everything current, PS3, XBOX360, Wii, PSP, iPhone... looking to get a Nintendo DS and play some damn Scribblenauts, game looks amazing. But, thanks again to all for reading/commenting, we'll be putting some more stuff out soon.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Repo gave me a serious LOL with the Saints comment.

[Electrifying Uno]

You love those mock drafts dont you NPD.

The Niners seriously have to address the O-Line, D-Line and DB.
The Browns need a right tackle, TE, CB, all heck they need everything expect a runnig back all of a sudden with Harrison showing them something.

The Big 10 hate absolutely amuses me. Shonn Greene, Mendenhall, Holmes, and Dallas Clark all out of the big ten. We wont even mention Brees and Tom Brady.

The Big Ten took some hits when Ohio State lost some BCS games but so didn't Oklahoma and yet they skate?
The Big Ten was in a down cycle for a bit there but from 1981-1989 how many SEC teams won the title? Zero. It all goes in cycles.

The Big Ten has multiple disadvantages like...
-Ending their season to early. They're done by Thanksgiving while other conferences stay sharp.
-The Bowl games are in domes or warm weather places, but we seen what happens when that cold artic front dipped deep into Florida, we seen the conditions neutralize teams that like to use speed. Wisconsin beat Miami, Penn State beat LSU, Iowa beat GT, UCLA lost, etc.
-The out of conference games are too early. Rather than Ohio State play USC in September play them in November when its colder and the wind or weather is worse and Big Ten can play smach mouth football like what happens in the NFL. Mark Sanchez went on the record and said he never played in weather colder than 40 until he got to the Jets and you seen the effect on him.