plus 4, King Kong figurine used in 1930s movie sold in UK - Deseret News

King Kong figurine used in 1930s movie sold in UK - Deseret News
Group sees fat as villain in popcorn at theaters - Baltimore Sun
Big Fish Games’ Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove Combines Reality ... - PR Inside
'Ninja Assassin' sports a dull blade - Southtown Star
'Ninja' movie has blades and blood, but no edge - Detroit Free Press

King Kong figurine used in 1930s movie sold in UK - Deseret News

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 11:54 AM PST

LONDON (AP) — The tiny King Kong figurine that helped launch the career of one of cinema's biggest monsters has sold for about 121,000 pounds ($200,000) at a London auction.

Auctioneer Christie's says the 22-inch (56-centimeter) skeleton was the one used in the climactic scene of the 1933 movie in which the giant ape climbs New York's Empire State Building.

Other such figurines were used elsewhere in the movie, which wowed contemporary audiences with its groundbreaking special effects.

The figurine's metal skeleton was once covered in cotton, rubber, liquid latex and rabbit's fur. But the monster's fleshy covering has since rotted away.

The figurine was sold as part of the auctioneer's popular culture sale Tuesday.

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Group sees fat as villain in popcorn at theaters - Baltimore Sun

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 12:19 AM PST

Baltimore Sun, 501 N. Calvert Street, P.O. Box 1377, Baltimore, MD 21278

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Big Fish Games’ Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove Combines Reality ... - PR Inside

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 12:05 AM PST

2009-11-25 09:05:03 -

Big Fish Games, a multi-platform developer, producer and distributor of casual games, today released the sixth episode of its award-winning Mystery Case Files® (MCF) series – Mystery Case Files®: Dire Grove : . In a first for Big Fish Games Studios and a step forward for the casual-gaming industry as a whole, MCF: Dire Grove integrates studio-quality film

clues with the hidden-object-and-puzzle adventure gameplay that is a hallmark of the brand. The result is the most immersive casual game ever released by Big Fish Games Studios.

"Everybody loves games; everybody loves movies," said Patrick Wylie, vice president of Big Fish Games Studios. "With Dire Grove, we combined the best elements of a reality thriller with the stimulating, easily accessible gameplay for which MCF is best known. This combination of film and gameplay offers existing fans a new experience while also appealing to a broader audience."

Filmed in Patagonia, Argentina, MCF: Dire Grove begins with the discovery of a video tape in an abandoned car in north England. The game includes approximately eight to 12 hours of interactive gameplay, complete with hidden objects, video clues and puzzles set within an intriguing new location – Dire Grove. Gameplay is open-ended, allowing exploration in a non-linear, classic adventure fashion.

In addition to offering a standalone version of the game, for the first time, Big Fish Games Studios is offering a Collector's Edition that gives fans early access to the full MCF: Dire Grove game, as well as extra content. With the Collector's Edition, people can enjoy additional gameplay that reveals secrets about future MCF episodes, an achievements and awards system, an integrated strategy guide, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the game.

Pricing and Availability

The Collector's Edition of MCF: Dire Grove is available now for $19.95 USD at www.bigfishgames.com : .

The standard version will be available in early December for $6.99 USD.

About Mystery Case Files

Played by more than one hundred million people, Mystery Case Files is an episodic puzzle-adventure game series with classic hidden object elements. Each game in the series features immersive worlds to explore, as well as an engaging mystery to solve.

About Big Fish Games

Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games : is a multi-platform developer, producer and distributor of casual games, including downloadable, flash, social, MMO, console and mobile games. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!®, Big Fish Games distributes more than 1.5 million games per day worldwide. With headquarters in Seattle and offices in Vancouver, Canada, and Cork, Ireland, Big Fish Games partners with 500+ game developers and develops and publishes some of the industry's leading brands, including Mystery Case Files® : , Hidden Expedition® : , Drawn™ : , Fairway Solitaire™ : , My Tribe™ : and Faunasphere™ : .
For more information, visit www.bigfishgames.com : .

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6108075&lang=en :

Big Fish GamesKate Brinks, 206-269-3666 kate.brinks@bigfishgames.com : mailto:kate.brinks@bigfishgames.com

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'Ninja Assassin' sports a dull blade - Southtown Star

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 01:59 AM PST

When considering the meager merits of the bone-snapping, blood-splattered "Ninja Assassin," it's best to remember the words of John Goodman's PC-challenged character in "The Big Lebowski:" "The man in the black pajamas, Dude. Worthy ... adversary."

The makers of "Ninja Assassin" want to make those words real and rescue the ninja from the province of turtles. They want you to revere the ninja. A frightened old man at the beginning of the movie can't even bring himself to utter the word "ninja." That's how much respect the old-timer has for "the man in the black pajamas."

"Ninja Assassin," though, has a funny way of paying its respects to the sword-wielding saboteurs. Director James McTeigue ("V for Vendetta") and his producing partners, Larry and Andy Wachowski ("The Matrix"), clearly are more interested in spraying geysers of digital blood than in establishing the ninja as a foe to be taken seriously.

There hasn't been this much limb-severing in a movie since the Black Knight's "flesh wound" in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

The death-dealers in "Ninja Assassin" belong to the Ozunu Clan, a secret society that, for the past thousand years, has supplied killers to any government that has a "hundred pounds of gold." Their artery-severing antics have come to the attention of beautiful Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris), which is bad news for her because they don't believe in advertising.

Fortunately for Mika, the clan's deadliest assassin, the brooding Raizo (Korean pop star Rain), has decided to betray his brothers after watching them butcher the love of his life. Raizo somehow finds Mika in Berlin, and the two dodge flying blades and other pointy weapons on their way to a final confrontation with the clan's raspy-voiced father figure, Ozunu (Sho Kosugi, star of countless ninja movies from the 1980s).

To work, "Ninja Assassin" needn't have equated a seriousness of purpose with self-seriousness. But it's clear from its opening round of mayhem and decapitations that McTeigue simply wants to satiate fanboys' bloodlust in the most simple-minded fashion possible. That first scene is a doozy, with fountains of arterial spray rivaling the nightly show at the Bellagio.

However, since the ninjas come out only when it's dark, most of the movie's fight scenes are low on both visibility and excitement. The murky dimness provides a nice contrast with the bright red blood spraying everywhere, but it doesn't help much in tallying the body count. The movie loses style points, too, for variety (the fights are almost exclusively shot in close-up) and for its fumbling, quick-cut editing.

As for Rain, the movie addresses the problem with an in-joke that's a little too on-the-nose to be funny. "He doesn't look like a killing machine to me," a rival says. "He looks like he belongs in a boy band." In other words, not exactly a worthy adversary.

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'Ninja' movie has blades and blood, but no edge - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 12:26 AM PST

There's a rich tradition of sword-and-splatter pictures in Japan, and it's the foundation of "Ninja Assassin," a run-of-the-mill Hollywood ninja movie with "Matrix" ties.

Here's the set-up: For a thousand years, the Nine Clans have taken in orphans from around the world and forged them into cold-blooded killing machines, lightning-quick shadow warriors who have supernatural abilities to recover from all the cuts and wounds. Meet their price -- it hasn't changed in a millennium, "100 pounds of gold" -- and they'll kill anybody you want.

Ozuno (Sho Kosugi) trains members of his clan to kill without mercy and ignore their own blood and agony because "pain breeds weakness."

Raizo (the Korean actor Rain of "Speed Racer") remembers this brutal training in flashbacks. He wears the scars of those years at the clan hideout. But he got out. Now hiding in Berlin, he tries to help those the clan has marked for death.

Naomie Harris ("Pirates of the Caribbean") is a Euro-police researcher who has learned too much about these secret societies. As she digs deeper, shadows shift and move into place to slice and dice her. Will Raizo awaken from his endless flashbacks in time to save her?

The action is dark and savage in this film from James McTeigue, an assistant director for the "Matrix" films. The brawls, beginning with an opening Yakuza (Japanese mob) slaughter in which we can't even see the killers, are graphic in the extreme -- the most realistic decapitations and dismemberments ever filmed, if that matters to you. The design of the picture is stylized -- crimson-colored washing machines in a laundry where one front-loader is a swirling foam of body parts, ornate Japanese paper walls streaked with arterial spray.

"Ninja Assassin" has some cool touches. (The death warning to the doomed is a wax-sealed envelope with black sand in it). However, it just isn't cool enough.

Rain makes a charismatic coiled spring of hero. But there's more to making sword-and-splatter work than just shiny blades and blood. It's got to have an edge. The one on "Ninja Assassin" is as dull as a butter knife.

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