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GAME BO / ADVANCE TONY HAWK’S PRO SKATER 2 (Activision £34.99) .0...
From the very first moment YOU turn on the GBA. Tony Hawk '3 Pro Skater 2 completely and utterly takes the breath away. That an almost exact copy of the immense PlayStation title could fit on a machine the size of your palm is startling enough. But to discover that it plays just as well. is just as addictive. and takes just as long to master. takes some believing. The huge career mode keeps you playing and playing, the search for that eluswe videotape or last bell to ring dragging you back time and again. The tricks are all in place and the blood splattering after a fall still draws the air through gritted teeth. Sure. the constant use of the GBA shoulder buttons c0uld cripple you before the end of the year but what's the use of your hands next to the genius of Tony Hawk '3 Pro Skater 2’? (Iain Davidson)
ALSO RELEASED
OPERATION FLASHPOINT (PC Codemasters £29.99) Infantry. Tanks and Apaches. oh my!
DS-9 DOMINION WARS (PC Pan £29.99) Become a Wormhole plugger. COMMANDOS 2 (PC Eidos £29.99) Creep. creep, creep. stab. CRAZY TAXI 2 (DC Sega $29.99) Do you have the Knowledge? UEFA CHALLENGE (P82 Infogrames £39.99) Just in time for the close season.
102 THE LIST 5-19 Jul 2001.
Internet
internet@list.co.uk
JOHN LENNON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROJECT www.triumphpc.com/ jothennon
One of the first in a line pf “Persona-Bots: software engines deSigned for human interaction, the goal being to blur the distinction between human consciousness and artifiCial intelligence. Communicate Via an onscreen console and have a (weird) conversation. It's not bad either, managing to be faithful to the man's acerbic wit and deliberate obtuseness. But it ain't going to write any new tunes.
MEN WHO LOOK LIKE KENNY ROGERS www.menwholooklike kennyrogers.com
This is what the web really excels at. In the old days nobody would ever consider compiling a list of pictures of people who look like Kenny Rogers. But in these enlightened times someone has. and here it is. It may not serve any purpose. but it's entertaining viewing and it really is amazing to see how many men look like Kenny Rogers or who try to and look nothing like him. It's also a great resource for people who want to look like Kenny Rogers. We need more of these sites; a shiny penny to the first person to compile a list of Gyles Brandreth look-alikes.
WINE PAGES
www.wine-pages.com
This is one of the world's most popular and best on-line wine sites - and it's from Glasgow. Tom Cannavan has supplied enough information to keep y0u reading for hours. with extensive tasting notes. reviews. vintage charts and the like. If it were in print it would cost a fortune. Don't be put off as it's very approachable to the amateur drinker as well
and is only as highbrow as yOU want it to be. A whple section on Cheapies saves yOu having to Shop arOund and take chances. A errId-CIass site.
THE FOUND MAGAZINE www.foundmagazine .com
This is a kind of 'online digital Bagpuss'. a collection of lost items submitted by those who found them. They claim to put on show just about anything, from lost love letters to phone bills and napkin poetry. Highlights include 'screwdriver’ on the corner of Erie & Fairbanks. Chicago. and a genuine demo tape featuring such classics as ‘Wave Yo' Booty in the Air' and ‘Yo' Ass is So Fine (heartfelt remix). Somethings. I'm sure. pepple lose deliberately.
ROAD TO SPRINGFIELD www.roadtospringfield .com
Until the end of July this site is trying to determine who the best supponing character in The Simpsons. Every day there is a head-to- head contest between two characters and you are invited to vote for one of them. At time of writing Lionel Hutz. attorney at law. has just beaten Mayor Quimby no doubt using underhand sleaze tactics. The number one seed is Mr Burns so only time will tell. So far it looks like Claiming more voters than our last General Election.
COLEMANBALLS www.colemanballs.f2s .com
SATlPE BAMBOOZLED (15) 135 mins eee
Spike Lee films his dissertation paper on ‘The HistOry Of Black Entertainment And How It Has Been Marketed By The Media'. Harvard- educated TV scriptwriter DelacrOix (Damon Wayans) tries to get himself fired by creating the Millennium Minstrel Show complete with ‘coons', picaninnies and tap dancers. It's Supposed to be a big 'fuck you' to his patronising boss (Michael Rappapon). but it becomes a huge hit. It's The Producers meets Network shot on a DV camera as a dOCumentary. but Lee moves so fast with his
Video] DVD
video@list.co.uk examples of its kind. (Warner VHS rental: DVD
ideas he never lets his audience settie. Funny. anr‘Oying and perplexing. this is a satirical maelstrom in Uncle Tom's teaCup. (Entertainment VHS rental; DVD rental and retail) (Paul Dale)
HORROR BLESS THE CHILD (15) 110 mins e
Kim Bassinger's respectable career nurse Maggie is visited after a IOng absence by her homeless junkie Sister. who swiftly disappears leaVing her to bring up the apparently autistic child. By the time baby Cody's SIX. there's a crowd of satanic cult followers abducting and killing children born on the day of her birth. Inevitany their leader (Rufus Sewell) claims Cody for some fell purpose to do with the devil. The knee—jerk phobias about the jobless and homeless which lie beneath the text are obvious and boring, while the film borrows endlessly and unimaginatively from better. and less immediately political
rental and retail) (Alan Smitheei
DRAMA CASTAWAY (12) 143 mins eee
Chuck Noian (Tom Hanks) is a FedEx delivery man who takes On a job just before Christmas. promising his fiancee Kelly (Helen Hunt) that he'll be back in time for the holidays. But when his cargo plane crashes into the sea. Chuck becomes a castaway on a deserted iSIand. A la Robinson Crusoe. he survives bad weather. ill health and food Shonages before making his bid for freedom. This is a one man show for Hanks. so if you don't like him this film is a total no no. Otherwise it's a surprisingly enjoyable film with a few survival surprises up its raggedy old sleeve. (Universal VHS and DVD rental) (Jane Hamilton)
DRAMA
SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR
(15) 99 mins eeee
Forget the millennium boom, this millennium gloom. The stock
Thank God for David Coleman. Very little else needs to be said. as this admirable collection of verbal bloopers proves. While not all attributed to the great man, he has indisputably left his mark here. For instance: “Moses Kiptanui. the nineteen-year-old Kenyan. who turned twenty a few weeks ago'. And Sam Torrance once allegedly said after around of golf, ‘If you'd offered me a 69 at the start this morning I'd have been all over you.‘ No more need be said. (Steve Blair)
GANGSTER DRAMA SEXY BEAST (18) 84 mins .00.
While Snatch and Lock, Stock. . . lampooned the gangster world, Sexy Beast embraces the underworld but resists glamorislng it. Lauded in the past for his music promos for Radlohead and adverts for Guinness,
real gangster drama
Jonathan Glazer’s film directing debut shows he’s no slouch when It comes to applying his small screen skills to cinema. Ray Winstone plays Gary Dove, a geezer who’s quit a life of crime In London to move to southern Spain with his gorgeous wife DeeDee (Amanda Redman). Life is peachy (as emphasised by the first song on the soundtrack: The Stranglers’ ‘Peaches') until Gary’s former partner in crime, Don Logan (Ben Kingsley). shows up on behalf of big boss Teddy Bass (played by of all people Ian ‘LoveJoy' McShane) to terrorlse him Into one
last job.
Sexy Beast’s strength lies In Louis Mellls and David Sclnto's script. full of choice Harold PInter-esque dialogue, and an extremely good ensemble cast. The two leads thrive on their role reversals, and Kingsley Is exceptional as the unhinged thug. His spectacularly over-the-top cursing. fitting a dozen four letter expietives into single sentences, is at once shocking. frightening and very funny. Glazer’s pop promo/advert past Is put to good use - this Is a sumptuoust photographed and smartly edited film - though the wordy script (which was originally Intended as a stage play) gives the film dramatic clout. Words here are fired like bullets between
characters.
Next up for Glazer is an adaptation of Michel Faber’s bizarre horror novel Under The Skin. Should be Interesting. (Mark Robertson) I Available on VHS rental and DVD retail from FilmFour/VC/ from Mon 76 Jul.