Cool

From June 22 to September 29, 2013, the Mosaïcultures Internationales Montréal 2013 – Land of Hope (MIM2013) will be on display at the Montreal Botanical Garden. The 2013 edition presents more than 50 creations from some 20 countries. The theme of the exposition, Land of Hope, aims to amaze visitors while raising their awareness of the importance of preserving the richness of life on Earth. The organizers have integrated sustainable development practices at every level and is the largest event ever to have received green certification from the City of Montreal.

One of the problems console developers have had with the boom in tablet gaming is that they all look at tablets, with the wealth of possibilities a touchscreen offers for innovative control schemes, and decide “We should try and make this a controller!” It never works. And Deus Ex: The Fall is a superb example of that, alas. The game itself is great in almost every respect. It’s a bit like the PS2 predecessor Deus Ex: Human Revolution never had: It’s got sidequests, multiple weapons, plenty of augments, a beefy-for-mobile running time of six to seven hours, and branching story options that give it replay value. It’s not as rich and complex as the game it’s based on, but it’s richer and more complex than most mobile games, or console games for that matter, bother with. It is also a fairly linear game compared to its console counterpart, but it’s a game you’ll play twice for seven bucks. 

EVO 2013, the world’s highest profile fighting game tournament (and celebration of fighting games in general) went down this weekend, and during the event Capcom revealed that there’s yet another new version of Street Fighter IV on the way. Because, come on, of course they did! Ultra Street Fighter IV will feature a range of gameplay tweaks, a number of new arenas, and most importantly, five “new” fighters. So far Hugo, Poison, Elena and Rolento have been announced (giving this latest version of Street Fighter IV a very Street Fighter III-ish flavor). The good news? This latest iteration of SFIV will be available as a $15 DLC pack for those who already own Super Street Fighter IV. Exceptionally generous by Capcom’s standards! Hit the jump for a trailer…

Bust out your pouch vests and your gigantic pulse weapons: Fox is bringing X-Force to the big screen. The question is, though, which version of X-Force? For those unfamiliar, X-Force is essentially the X-Men's black ops unit. Whatever situations the X-Men can't touch, or might require a show of force the team is unwilling to make, X-Force deals with. At least in theory; this being Marvel that concept is a bit more fluid than one might think. Here's what we know about the movie; according to Rob Liefeld, this has been in the works since March:

We don’t know much about Mad Max, the video game based off of the film series from Avalanche, except that you’ll have a car and a huge open post-apocalyptic world to drive it in. Now they’ve rolled out some in-engine footage that gives us more of an idea, and it looks like a cross between Twisted Metal and The Last Of Us. Of course, we knew brutality was going to be a key part of the proceedings. But it looks like Avalanche is going to have you breaking necks and snapping wrists when you’re not smashing cars to pieces:

But in a good way, not a bad that-tall-guy-with-the-glasses-is-saving-a-mental-picture-of-Beyoncé’s-ass way. During a concert on Friday, Bey invited the audience to sing along with her to “Irreplaceable,” but she noticed someone who was having none of the follow-the-bouncing-butt fun: he was too busy filming the show. And I quote, in a wise tone not unlike the YYYs’, “See, you can’t even sing because you’re too busy taping. I’m right in your face, baby. You gotta seize this moment baby! Put that damn camera down!” Good on you, Beyoncé, for throwing down the gauntlet (even if it’s for shady reasons) — now do something about the backpackers.

The news here should be “yay for new Weeknd”; instead, it’s “yay for new Weeknd…except for the part where he sampled a song without another artist’s permission.” After Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. the Weeknd, revealed another sensual, bruised track from his sophomore album, Kiss Land, Portishead guitarist Geoff Barrow tweeted: When someone asks to sample you and you refuse they should have the respect as a fellow artist to not use it. This is unfortunate if true, though I understand Tesfaye’s temptation; every song should sample Portishead’s ice-cold trip-hop, with consent, of course. Still, I guess the rumors are true: Tesfaye thinks Loverboy is singing about him when they say, “Everybody’s working for the weekend.”

On the heels of our X-Force discussion came a valuable and intelligent idea: Just erasing the concept of certain comic book movies from existence. This is an idea we can get behind, not least because, let's face it, there are some painful, painful comic book movies out there. And they kinda need to go. So, as a humble method of discussion, we present these five, with reasons why. We'll include YouTube clips for those who might have forgotten, and we'll limit it to movies that saw wide theatrical release. And we'll suggest some replacements.

Like a lot of geeks who came up during the 90s, I was briefly pretty into Japanese giant monsters (known as kaiju in their homeland). The (ultimately disappointing) Hollywood version of Godzilla was on the way, so all the classic Toho giant monster movies were re-issued on video and available at Blockbuster, and I watched every one of them I could get my hands on. Yes, they were cheesy as hell for the most part, but there was also something undeniably appealing about them. So, needless to say, I was intrigued by the prospect of Pacific Rim — a tribute to classic kaiju movies from the guy who totally nailed Blade and Hellboy? I’m there! Unfortunately, while Pacific Rim is by no means a terrible film, it wasn’t much of a kaiju movie. Certainly not the labor-of-love tribute to giant rubber monsters I was hoping it would be. How did Pacific Rim miss the mark? Well (SPOILERS AHEAD!)…

GOB Bluth's internal/external loneliness as soundtrack'd by Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" to parody the closing scene to "The Graduate" is one of the many, many Season 4 Arrested Development gems out there that deserve further appreciation, and now that we've gone beyond the binge on both GOB-centric episodes (here and here) I can finally highlight some of the internet's finest GOB-inspired parodies of the parody, mostly involving other iconic television characters who also know the darkness all too well. But first, to help us get reacquainted, here are all the instances of the gag from Season 4 in one convenient mashup. Thanks internet!