John Rhys-Davies has had a long storied career in the movie and tv industry. Best known for roles ranging from Vasco Rodrigues in Shogun, Professor Maximillian Arturo in Sliders, Sallah in Indiana Jones, and Gimli in Lord of the Rings, Rhys-Davies was at Fan Expo 2012 for an hilarious Q&A filled with stories from Rhys-Davies’ life. His answers to questions were wonderfully long and winding, often times filled with funny, fascinating, and charming personal stories about his experiences before coming back to the question itself.
He had plenty of words for aspiring young actors about their careers, advising them that luck is even more important than talent and skill as an actor. He recalled the most talented classmate of his at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art who is still working full time as a working actor simply because he has been unable to have his big break. Rhys-Davies had just as much words for the Writer’s Guild, complaining of a culture that focused less on talented writers and more on personal gain and cronyism. He also candidly told the audience that they could save themselves the tuition to film school and simply watch the behind the scenes footage for Lord of the Rings and learn everything they would need from film school.
Rhys-Davies spoke a lot of about Lord of the Rings, admitting that he did not expect the film to succeed. He nearly turned down the role until his agent and his son insisted that it was extremely important for his career to take on the role of Gimli. Rhys-Davies spoke of the troubles with the glue used to attach the prosthetics to his face and his greater struggles on creating the correct voice for Treebeard. John Rhys-Davies said that he enjoyed New Zealand but preferred the southern portions of the country. He shared his particular dislike of Auckland, complaining about the traffic in Auckland and in Toronto, Canada.
He also talked at length about his work with Harrison Ford and the Indiana Jones films. Rhys-Davies recalled the Tunisian Fire Brigades failed attempt to put out a prop to ensure it could be reused for several takes. He complimented Ford’s growth as an actor.
Overall, John Rhys-Davies provided a spectacular Q&A session.
Check out the audio below for the full hour long panel with John Rhys-Davies.
Capsule Computers had a chance to sit down with Nathan Grubbs, writer and star of the film Brawler and have a chat about Brawler, his role as older brother Charlie Fontaine, Grubb’s martial arts background, and the preparation required for the role.
Brawler is a film based on a true story about two brothers participating in mafia run illegal fighting matches on the river boats of New Orleans in the 1950s. The film recasts the story in a modern day with a mixed martial arts twist. Brawler will be released to DVD, BluRay and Video on Demand on September 18th, 2012 in Canada. Check out the trailer for Brawler and our interview with Nathan Grubbs below.
While Playstation All Stars Battle Royale will be coming on a delayed release date in the week of November 20, over in Japan, the game has just been officially announced for a release. The original plan was for Japan to receive the game later, but, with the delay, Japan will be the first country to receive the Sony brawler with a release on November 8, some two weeks before the West.
Playstation All Stars Battle Royale will pit a plethora of Playstation characters (and third party characters) in a four player brawl for supremacy. Characters such as Nathan Drake, Jax and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Cole MacGrath, Sweet Tooth and Sly Cooper just to name a few. The game will make an appearance at the EB Games Expo on October 5-7, so expect a preview from Capsule Computers. The game will see a release on the Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita. It is part of the new Cross Buy initiative announced at Gamescom.
With the release of A Certain Magical Index (also known as To Aru Majutsu no Index in Japanese) in North America a little over two months away, FUNimation chose today to reveal the English dub cast for all of the main characters in the series and then some.
The full cast list can be seen below and below that a trailer can be seen showing off the English dub for the first time. Those who are anticipating the series will be able to pick it up on DVD when it is released on October 30th.
If you are eager to learn more about the next game in the Dead Island franchise, Dead Island: Riptide, then you will have to wait at least another week as Deep Silver has revealed that they will be showin goff “exclusive demonstrations” of Dead Island: Riptide and also showing off a number of features of the game to those who are attending PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington.
While very little is currently known about Dead Island: Riptide, such as it’s relevance to the original game and who will be appearing in it. Stay tuned next week for more information as it is revealed… or you could always attend PAX Prime but good luck with that as tickets have been sold out for quite some time.
While Konami hasn’t nailed down a release date for New Little King’s Story in North America, European gamers now have a date for the game’s release. Konami in Europe revealed that the game will be released in their region next month on September 27th for €39.99, which may hint at a similar release day in North America.
For those who don’t know, in New Little King’s Story players will play as King Corobo as he tries to reclaim his kingdom from “The Nightmare” and on the way he will visit seven different kingdoms where he will lead their Royal Guard to try and battle against the dark forces. Since the game is on the Vita, the title will feature touch controls and various online feature such as co-op play and leaderboards.
Well… damn that is a lot of money… a California court has found after only three days of deliberation, that Samsung infringed on six of the seven Apple patents that were brought forward in the case. Thanks to this, Apple has been awarded $1.05 billion dollars in damages which is an absolutely huge amount of money.
In most of the infringement cases, the jury found that Samsung willfully violated the patents and that nearly every recent Samsung product was violating at least one Apple patent. Future repercussions are currently unknown but this is a major blow to Samsung and obviously a huge victory for Apple.
Square Enix has always had some of the most expensive iPhone apps out their with most of their Final Fantasy ports on the iOS handheld costing $9.99, a very high price compared to nearly every other game on the iOS store. Well, it seems that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Dimensions will run you the cost of a decent Nintendo 3DS title if you decide to buy the whole thing.
Those who wish to buy the whole app at once will have to pay around $29 which is a small discount compared to their separate cost of $34 according to Japanator‘s calculations. While it is certainly up to the publisher to set their prices, this is a very steep fee to charge on a device known for its cheap apps that even contains cheap and lengthy RPGs.
Freezing Studio:A.C.G.T Publisher: Madman/FUNimation Format:Blu-ray/DVD Release Date:August 28, 2012 US – November 28, 2012 – AU Price:$59.99 – Available Here
Overview: Usually whenever one thinks about an anime that is action packed with characters battling against one another often or against other foes they begin to think about the shōnen genre as it tends to be the most popular amongst younger anime viewers. However there is also another type of action-based anime that focuses around an entirely different cast of fighters, a female based cast.
Over the last few years many anime have been released which blend high amounts of action, an attractively drawn female cast and plenty of fan service. This usually happens during battles where clothes are ripped and breasts are exposed. The most recent series of this type to make its way to North America is Freezing from FUNimation. While fan service is great, is there a decent storyline hidden beneath all of the cleavage and panty shots?
Story: Sometime in the future, Earth has come under attack by creatures from another dimension called Nova. These creatures are completely unstoppable by normal means and the only way that humans have been able to fight them off is through the powers of young women who possess a special acceptance to genetic modifications allowing them to be implanted with Stigmata. These Stigmata provide them with inhuman levels of strength, the ability to summon a weapon at will and high levels of durability.
Each of these Pandora must find and choose a male partner to become their Limiter, who can create a special “Freezing” field that not only slows down the enemy but also counteracts the Nova’s own freezing field, allowing the Pandoras to fight on equal terms with these unstoppable creatures. The only thing is, when a Pandora and Limiter work together, their emotions and minds are shared with one another, creating a very personal connection between two bound people.
The story of Freezing follows a young man named Aoi Kazuya whose sister died during a battle against the last Nova to set foot on Earth. Upon joining a special academy for Pandoras and Limiters, he finds himself drawn to one of the most mysterious and powerful Pandoras in the entire school, Satellizer el Bridget… also known as “The Untouchable Queen” thanks to her cold attitude and outrage whenever someone even tries to touch her.
After a severe misunderstanding, Kazuya slowly begins to work his way through the thick shell Satellizer has built around her heart, though along the way they must overcome fellow classmates and seniors who find Satellizer’s arrogance and power a threat to the standard school structure.
Through their struggles Kazuya wishes to become Satellizer’s Limiter as he not only feels close to her, but he is also the only one whose touch doesn’t disgust Satellizer. Can these two work through their emotions and deal with their fellow classmates while the threat of the Nova hangs over everyone’s heads?
One of the biggest draws for Freezing’s storyline is the fact that the cold ice-queen that is Satellizer presents a perfect opportunity for character development. While viewers are first shown a character incapable of feelings and by all appearances a heartless killing machine, as her shell begins to crack, her emotions are available for everyone to see. With the assistance of her own dark backstory driving her forward, she stands up again and again no matter what the obstacle is.
Outside of Satellizer, the rest of the cast is well rounded and viewers are quickly introduced to a love rival who isn’t shy about trying to have Kazuya become her Limiter. This only helps expose her emotions further, but does lead to your standard misunderstandings which grow to be tiresome in a series like Freezing where there are heavy bouts of action where characters can literally have an arm torn off of their body.
The only issue with the storyline is that perhaps too much time is spent trying to work on the main two characters as far as character development goes, since most of the other members of the cast see very little development and even then the true storyline only starts moving forward very late into the series, which may leave many viewers wanting more.
Visuals: Those anticipating plenty of combat won’t be disappointed with the visual quality found during every battle in Freezing as each character not only has a unique weapon with almost no doubles, but plenty of flashy finishing attacks as well. These combat scenes are well animated with plenty of bright colors and powerful attacks that really drawn in the viewer.
Of course along those same lines, there are also breasts and fan service absolutely everywhere. While the characters themselves are designed well with a lot of attention to detail and their proportions, their clothing happens to be torn during every single fight, usually around the chest area. To put it simply, if there is a female character given even minor attention during an episode, their breasts will likely be exposed at least once. So if you happen to be a fan of exposed breasts, panty shots and plenty of fan service in your anime, such as myself, then Freezing is certainly the show for you.
Interestingly enough however, there are only a few sequences where this is played off purely for fan service while the rest of the nudity usually only occurs in the heat of combat, usually accompanied by blood as Freezing features plenty of deep bloody wounds alongside clothing tears. It is also worth noting that, thanks to the Stigmata system, the female characters can even regenerate their clothing so it can be torn up a few times in a single fight.
Audio: As one would expect, Freezing features both the English and Japanese voice work and both are of relatively impressive quality. It seems a bit strange however that most of the English members of the male cast however seem to have deeper voices that don’t seem to fit the appearance of the characters. On the other hand, Caitlin’s portrayal of Satellizer and Jamie’s handling of the strange speaking Rana are very impressive, with the two stealing the show anytime they happen to speak.
As for series’ soundtrack, the background music is usually suitable enough to provide a good atmosphere for battles and serious scenes, though it is largely unnoticeable compared to the action happening on screen at any given time. The opening theme for Freezing happens to be “Color” by MARiA while the closing theme is “Kimi wo Mamoritai” by Aika Kobayashi. Both of these songs are enjoyable to listen to but feature the same type of tone, making it a bit disappointing that the two songs weren’t varied more.
Extras: Freezing comes with a number of special features alongside your standard inclusions of a clean opening and ending song, commercials, promos and trailers. These bonuses include Episode commentaries for Episode 6 and 11 and six short OVA episodes which take the fan service to an entirely new level.
Episode 6’s commentary features Josh Gelle who plays our male lead Kazuya Aoi and Jamie Marchi the voice of Rana Linchen. These two answer various questions from the other members of the cast which provides a few small laughs and they also reveal they have no issues with the shows high nudity content. Episode 11 features the other two members of the female cast including our female lead Satellizer’s voice actress Caitlin Glass and Luci Christian who voices Ganessa. These two spend most of the commentary joking around with each other and how they felt working on a “booby” show.
As for the OVA episodes, these are very short in length, usually only lasting a maximum of three minutes total. However if the viewer hasn’t seen enough of the female characters’ breasts then this will help satisfy their nudity quota as each of these feature the busty characters in a number of provocative situations, turning the fan service up to eleven.
Overall: While many people can simply look at a show like Freezing and instantly pass it up because they don’t like fan service, they would still be missing out on a rather enjoyable storyline focused on a who has built a wall between her heart and everyone around her with high levels of action in every episode. Of course the fan service is very strong in this one so those who don’t appreciate lots of bare breasts in their anime may want to steer clear. For fan service fans however, this show is busting through its top with quality that shouldn’t be missed.
POPCAP announced just the other week that Plants vs Zombies 2 will be released early next year. But what was not reported at around the same time as this big major announcement was a round of massive layoffs within the company and a rumour that two of their gaming studios, located in Dublin and Shanghai have been shut down or dramatically reduced in size. Also a total of approx 50 employees were layed off from the Seattle headquarters in the US.
A blog post by POPCAP founder John Vechey which confirms this plus much more can be read here.
But this morning we informed our employees about a reorganization in our studios that will include a “Reduction In Force” in our North American operation – mostly in our headquarters here in Seattle – and an “exploratory consultation” to evaluate the future of our PopCap office in Dublin, Ireland.
Electronic Arts bought and acquired POPCAP a while back and have full control of all major decisions that happen to the developer. So the question that’s on everyone’s mind; is EA to blame for this and could we slowly see an end to POPCAP in the near future (maybe after Plants vs Zombies 2 is released)
Let us know what you think about this in the comments section below.
