NBC’s rotten Olympics coverage.

Hearts of Iron II is a grand strategy game from Paradox Interactive. It lets you play the leader of any of the Allied or Axis powers in World War II and decide the politics, the kind of army, and the way the war is fought for that power. Games can take days to complete – if you are into WW2 history and have a week or two you want to see vanish, this is your ticket.

Playing Russia is an interesting challenge. You don’t have the advanced research capacity of the Western powers, your army is out-of-date at the start of hostilities, and you don’t have the industrial base of the US. You do have lots and lots of manpower and plenty of space to fall back. So here is a nice technique to not only win as Russia in the Grand Campaign (1936-1947, Hard/Aggressive dificulty level), but also to have some pretty exciting game play.

Why Valentine’s Day Sucks … and why it shouldn’t.

The annual rite known as “Valentine’s Day” should be a happy one. Married couples should be able to step out of their dual-income, mortgage-paying blight and do something romantic and/or kinky on that day. People in relationships should be able to spend the day doing something to celebrate and strengthen their union … or at least try something new together. And for the mass of the populace who are alone, it should be an occasion to roll the dice once more and try to find “someone.”

But, thanks to the gaping maw of the beast called “marketing” Valentine’s Day is none of those things. It is a guilt-ridden, ego-shattering continuation of the depressing shit-tide that comes during the Christmas buying blitz. You just barely start paying off your VISA and MasterCard from Christmas and there, once again on the TV and newspapers, you’re being told to buy jewelry, cars, clothes, vacations,…

Wow. Once again Hollywood’s marketing campaign is completely misleading. The promotions for this movie played up some of the snappy lines so it looked more like a comedy-drama. Cage has done a few such movies lately, so I guess the studio was playing to that perception.

Well that perception is eliminated at the end of the credits. With a bullet, as they say. Literally. This is not a comedy. But it’s not dead-serious like The Constant Gardener either. That is to say the subject matter is serious, but the characters have a warmth and depth that makes it watchable. And the wit they display is the kind of wit you’d expect from a salesman.

“The Constant Gardener” was another movie I really wanted to like. Nothing like a good conspiracy flick. Especialy these days with the way Big Business and Our Government are acting more like one combined entity. The good news is that the actual content – the story itself – is well done and believable. The acting is good. The writing is good. But …

The actual cinematography is all over the place. Flash-backs, flash-forwards, documentary-style footage, weird lighting, lots of British-style mumbling. Maybe this style works well for a European audience, or maybe I’m too used to Hollywood-style movies, but I found it just too distracting.