Posts tagged Scott
New on DVD: ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’
Nov 7th
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98
Equal parts imaginative and aggravating, Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s “Scott Pilgrim” graphic novel series stars Michael Cera as the dim, self-centered Canadian indie-rocker, who has to fight the seven super-powered exes of his would-be girlfriend Ramona (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Why does Scott like the mumbly, charmless Ramona? Why does Ramona like the childish, thoughtless Scott? Those questions are never satisfactorily answered by “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” (or by O’Malley’s books, frankly), but those with a high tolerance for one-dimensional young people should still enjoy this movie’s good humor and dazzling effects, which turn the ins and out of an ordinary slacker romance into a frenetic videogame. The DVD and Blu-ray come with a Wright commentary, deleted scenes, outtakes and featurettes galore.
Antichrist
Criterion, $39.95; Blu-ray, $39.95
Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist” is a boldly personal take on the horror film, tossing all of the moody Dane’s musings on faith, gender and nature into an unfettered phantasmagoria. Willem Dafoe plays a therapist who tries to help his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) heal from the accidental death of their toddler son. Von Trier initially mocks the impotence of touchy-feely self-help exercises, but then he turns on the audience, subjecting us to repellent sexual violence as the therapist descends into his wife’s nightmares. “Antichrist” is equal parts repulsive and silly, but it contains some of the most memorably frightening images since Dario Argento’s “Suspiria.” Criterion’s DVD and Blu-ray editions feature a typically mordant Von Trier commentary track, plus interviews and behind-the-scenes footage.
Charlie St. Cloud
Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98
Ben Sherwood’s bestselling novel “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud” is a sweet account of a young man struggling to move on with his life after the death of his younger brother, but what works on the page doesn’t always work on-screen —is evidenced by this movie adaptation, a glossy Zac Efron vehicle. Efron’s great in lighter roles, but here, as a man who has long conversations with his kid brother’s ghost, he can’t overcome the story’s maudlin tendencies. The featurettes on the DVD and Blu-ray focus mainly on Efron, though director Burr Steers does provide a commentary track.
Grown Ups
Columbia, $28.96; Blu-ray, $38.96
There’s an air of crowd-pleasing desperation to “Grown Ups,” an Adam Sandler comedy costarring his old “Saturday Night Live” pals Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider (plus Kevin James), all playing boyhood friends who realize they’ve lost touch with who they used to be. The movie is both broadly funny and broadly sentimental. The DVD and Blu-ray add a commentary by director Dennis Dugan, plus outtakes and bloopers.
Ramona and Beezus
20th Century Fox, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99
Beverly Cleary’s books about precocious grade-schooler Ramona Quimby have been kid favorites for decades, and while the cutesy big-screen adaptation “Ramona and Beezus” doesn’t have the originals’ scrappy charm, it’s well-cast and family-friendly. Based mostly on the book “Ramona and Her Father,” the movie stars Joey King as the young heroine, who causes all kinds of accidental trouble when she tries to help her dad weather a layoff. The special-effects-heavy fantasy sequences and romantic subplot for Ramona’s aunt (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) are unnecessary, but children who love the books should find a lot to like here too. The DVD and Blu-ray are refreshingly kid-focused, with featurettes that explain to youngsters how a movie gets made and an interview with Cleary.
And…
“The Golden Girls: 25th Anniversary Complete Collection” (Buena Vista, $149.99); “I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale” (Oscilloscope, $19.99); “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” (New Video, $29.95); “Men of a Certain Age: The Complete First Season” (Warner, $39.98); “Sherlock: Season One” (BBC Warner, $34.98; Blu-ray, $39.98).
In ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,’ audience is the winner
Aug 24th
Posted: Aug 24, 2010 at 11:17 AM [Today]
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Now playing at the Quality 16 and Rave 20
Grade: B+
The last decade or so has given us a handful of movies based on videogames (Max Payne, Resident Evil, etc), and a sizable number of movies that quite unintentionally looked like video games (300 and the “new” Star Wars trilogy immediately come to mind). But Scott Pilgrim vs. the World might be the first movie to look like a videogame on purpose, as well as use videogame logic to tell its story. The result feels quite refreshing, and like so many great ideas, it makes one wonder why no one had thought of it before.
Michael Cera, who has evolved into the nerd equivalent of America’s sweetheart (Superbad, Juno, cult-classic TV series Arrested Development), plays the title character: a 22-year old bassist in the yet-to-make-it garage rock trio Sex Bob-Omb. Sharing a squalid Toronto apartment (and bed) with his gay roommate Wallace and Wallace’s unending parade of unlikely male conquests, Scott has started dating a painfully naïve high-schooler named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), who his band mates worry will “geek out” on them. But Scott’s world changes forever when he sees Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), first in his dreams, and then at a party, where he tries to pique her interest with obscure Pac-Man trivia. With her neon-dyed hair and New York bred personality, Scott hopelessly falls for her before finding out the catch: to win Ramona as his girlfriend, he must first defeat, in battle, her seven evil ex-boyfriends.
Adapted from the popular series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim was directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, who previously made the enjoyable genre homages Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Like those first two films, Wright uses Scott Pilgrim to write a love-letter to an art form that is generally perceived as lowbrow. Even before the movie begins, cinema reality is distorted as the Universal Studios logo is pixilated into 16-bit and the iconic score is adapted to sound like it came from the Nintendo classic Metroid.
The key element in Scott Pilgrim’s visual identity is not to craft entire scenes out of CGI, but rather to layer graphics over the frame that evoke recognizable gaming conventions. For example, each time Scott Pilgrim faces off against a new nemesis, a giant “vs.” appears between the combatants and they receive life bars, just as they would in, say, Street Fighter II. Scott receives things like a “1-up,” and his vanquished enemies explode into coins. Various fight scenes pay tribute to classic games like Super Smash Brothers, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk.
But the most interesting thing about Pilgrim isn’t its visual ingenuity, but rather how it uses the inane logic of classic scrolling action games to tell its story and segue between scenes. Just as Super Mario could descend through a pipe and be in an entirely different location, Scott Pilgrim can walk through a door and end up further away than the next room. Each stage of the game that is his life comes packaged with its own “boss”—one of Ramona’s evil exes—that must be defeated before he can move on to the next level. In the best scene, Scott even harnesses an extra life to restart a level when he doesn’t like how things were progressing on the first go-around.
This may all sound ridiculous, and it is. There’s a very good possibility that anyone raised before Nintendo became an inescapable part of childhood will think this is a laughably bad movie. But with original songs by Beck, and a great supporting cast that includes Jason Schwartzman and Chris Evans as villains unreluctant to ham it up, Anna Kendrick as Scott’s gossipy sister, and “Hung” star Thomas Jane in a cameo as a member of the vegan police, Pilgrim definitely has a lot going for it. The deciding factor might be this: if you can still name some of the characters from Mortal Kombat, then chances are decent you’ll love this movie. But if you read the previous sentence and thought “kombat” is spelled wrong, Scott Pilgrim might not be for you.
Daniel Joyaux is a film critic living in Ann Arbor. You can see more of his writing at thirdmanmovies.blogspot.com
DS hits the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ UK premiere
Aug 19th
Practically the entire cast of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World jetted over to London yesterday to promote the release of Edgar Wright’s latest film – on hand were Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzman, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Ellen Wong, Brandon Routh and Chris Evans to show some love for the hugely enjoyable comic book adaptation.
Squeezing into the red carpet pen – and it was a squeeze! – we collared several of the cast for a quick chat about all things Pilgrim. What we learned: Kieran geeks out about wrestling (!), Anna is a serious movie buff and Brandon loves Warcraft. Also, Mr. Wright gave us a never-seen-heard-anywhere-else-before-world-exclusive about his Marvel movie Ant-Man (to find it: skip to the end).
Click ‘play’ below to see our Scott Pilgrim video:
> Review: ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World’
> In Pics: ‘Scott Pilgrim’ UK premiere
Will you be at Scott Pilgrim on opening day? Leave your comments in the space below!
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Aug 18th
Last week I knew nothing about Scott Pilgrim except it was a movie that was coming out (by Edgar Wright, one of my favorite directors) based on some comic book, and that there was a game being released in conjunction with the film. Since then I have read the entire comic series, finished the game, and watched the movie. I now consider myself to be an expert in all things Scott Pilgrim, and I can honestly say I have enjoyed the franchise in all three mediums. In fact, it amazes me that no one had told me to pay attention to Scott Pilgrim at any point in the last 6 years, since it revolves around video games, Smashing Pumpkins references and smarmy humor, three things that would be on my list of “likes” if I ever got my own Playgirl centerfold. But enough about me, you are here to find out more about the game, so let’s get to it.
If you haven’t already read the comic or seen the movie, don’t worry. They don’t go into a lot of plot in the game, but I’ll give you a quick rundown of the story so you can follow along. Scott Pilgrim dates an underaged girl, meets girl closer to his own age he falls in love with, leaves underage girl but finds out he needs to defeat properly aged girls seven evil ex-boyfriends, proceeds to do so with the occasional help of his former underaged ex-girlfriend and also receives dubious assistance from his band-mates and friends. That should get you up to speed.
The first thing that will come to mind when you play Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the old NES classic River City Ransom (unless you are a youngster who has never heard of anything before Grand Theft Auto 3). How could it not, being a beat-em-up with charming retro 8-bit sprites (by famed artist Paul Robertson) and a beautiful chiptune score (by also-famed group Anamanaguchi), wrapped around a game where you progress through town beating up gangs and fighting bosses, with some time for shopping on the side. There is no doubt that RCR was the template for this game (with some strong influences from Castle Crashers , but as befits the license, there are countless other references to video games tossed in throughout your journey to defeat the seven evil exes. The world map is an homage to Super Mario Brothers 3, one level design mimics Double Dragon and the thunderous KO that appears after each successful boss fight is lifted directly fromStreet Fighter Alpha 3. Many, many more are sprinkled everywhere, and the game does a good job of not only representing the movie, but also includes many touches and characters that were only found in the comics.
Nostalgia and callbacks are nice, but they don’t carry any weight if the game itself isn’t any good. Movie licensed games have a long and mostly negative track record, and there were undeniable rumors floating around that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was rushed out the door to meet the film release date. While there seems to be some proof of that, they certainly found the time to polish the gameplay. I feel safe saying, as a beat-em-up fan, that Scott Pilgrim can take it’s place as one of the rulers of the genre, thoroughly rendering the may games whose footsteps it follows in outdated. The amount of content packed into this title for $10 makes it an incredible bargain by todays standards. The game features seven levels that are of robust length, 4 playable character initially (with 2 more available to be unlocked) that can be leveled through 16 levels, and each level adds another move to your repertoire (many of which are unique to each character), as well as four stats that can be increased through purchasing items in the shops. You can play co-op with up to four players (local only, unfortunately) and there are tons of codes (all replicas of famous codes from the past when codes were still popular) that unlock all sorts of cool bonuses. For a brawler, this game is surprisingly deep.
The gameplay itself is fairly standard for the genre. You choose between Scott, his girlfriend Ramona (she of the evil exes), or one of the two Sex Bob-Omb bandmates (love that band name), Steven Stills (The Talent) and Kim Pine (she used to date Scott). They all control identically, with the four face buttons corresponding to light attack, heavy attack (these vary between characters… Ramona uses a huge hammer that appears from subspace[her purse] for her heavy attack), block and jump. The triggers control taunting and your “special move” that is a fairly weak attack that knocks back all enemies at the cost of some willpower. Taunting causes you to summon you underaged ex-girlfriend Knives Chau to show up and do something helpful (sometimes she brings coffee which makes you enter hyper mode for a brief time where you move super fast), and if you are playing co-op taunting together unleashes special co-op attacks (sort of like The Simpsons arcade game). Tapping twice in any one direction will dash, and as you level up you unlock a few simple combos.
Edgar Wright: why the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack matters as much as the movie
Aug 18th
If you’re going to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on Friday – and you should – then after the mash-up of 8-bit videogame-inspired kung-fu action and My So Called Life teenage angst, chances are you’ll have a new favourite soundtrack to cherish.
Just as Trainspotting reinvigorated Iggy Pop’s career in 1996 and Lost in Translation turned a new generation on to the sweeping majesty of My Bloody Valentine eight years later, Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Brian Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels is a movie in which as much thought has gone into the music as has been spent on the visuals.
“Music was always going to play a huge part in making the movie,” says Wright. “It’s about bands and indie rock and young people … so it was never, ever going to be an afterthought.” Of course, Wright has form at this sort of thing – remember the Queen-on-the-jukebox-meets-zombie-pool-cue death in Shaun of the Dead? Or beyond that, Wright’s past as a music video director?
Loosely speaking, Scott Pilgrim is a film about a boy in a band and his quest to get the girl. Scott’s band is called Sex Bob-omb and Beck was commissioned to write their music. They have rival bands (Crash and the Boys aka Broken Social Scene, and Clash at Demonhead aka Metric) and somewhere in the middle of all that there’s a ballad taken from The Legend of Zelda. This is performed by two members of Supergrass and was signed off by Nintendo after Wright wrote to the Japanese company describing the game’s music as “nursery rhymes to a generation”.
“I’ve played guitar since I was a kid,” says Cera, “but I’ve never had to courage to be in a band, so it was fun to pretend for a few weeks, to pretend to be Scott. I was feeling it. In places I was really feeling it.”
“There was talk of Sex Bob-omb being Black Lips, or Times New Viking,” says Wright, “but we sent the books to Beck and he understood what we were going for.”
“We stormed his tour bus to talk him into it,” adds O’Malley.
“I wouldn’t say ‘stormed’,” laughs Wright. “I remember us tapping timidly on the door of the bus.”
Scott Pilgrim’s world is shaped by creator O’Malley’s past as an indie-rock musician in Toronto (“I liked rehearsing, but I didn’t like playing – the venues were too grubby”). The heroe’s name even came from the title of a song by Plumtree, a fuzzy, all-girl band that O’Malley loved when he was at college (“they actually re-formed for one show at the premiere in Toronto last week – I think it was the first time they’d seen each other in almost a decade”). And the soundtrack’s running order was compiled before the film began production; Beachwood Sparks’ lovelorn By Your Side was plucked from a playlist O’Malley compiled at the end of the original comic books.
“There’s two discs to the soundtrack – there’s the songs, and the original score, which was put together by Nigel Godrich,” explains Wright of the Radiohead producer’s involvement. “I’m blessed to have been friends with him for more than a decade – I knew when he came on board we were going to be all right.” It’s a more ethereal listen than the principal soundtrack, and contains contributions by Dan the Automator and Cornelius – as well as melodies written by O’Malley himself.
For anyone who’s spent far too much time Xerox-ing gig flyers, playing dingy venues or breaking guitar strings in front of the girl you liked, chances are you’ll have lived these sounds as much as the film’s characters. Even if you haven’t, you’ll know you should be expecting more from anyone putting together a film score from here in.
Scott Pilgrim vs the World – Blackometer Reading = 0
Aug 18th
Scott Pilgrim vs the World – Blackometer Reading = 0 
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Before this goes a step further, this blogger, while fearful that Scott Pilgrim vs the World would have no one black / African American in it, did like the movie. Enough to give it a B-plus grade. But not having a single black person in what was called the “Epic of Epic Epicness” was totally socially irresponsible.
If you don’t know by now, Scott Pilgrim vs the World is the movie version of the 2004-borne graphic novel of six books about Scott Pilgrim, well-played by Michael Cera, who carries a torch for a girl named Ramona who has seven “evil ex-boyfriends” that he has to fight to have the hope of doing more than just making out with her.
Scott Pilgrim was one of those movies you’d like even more if you’re black at have any of the values of the characters or the people who like the movie who look like them. But it’s hard to entirely wrap yourself around a movie where not a single one of the cast is black, not even the extras.
And I had my Blackometer at the ready! It read zero.
Would a more diverse Scott Pilgrim vs the World have done better at the box office? Yes. Maybe not much better but certainly better than $4.7 million on Friday. Yes.
I wonder what Bryan Lee O’Malley, the cartoonist of Scott Pilgrim would think? As he’s half Asian and White, he should understand what I’m saying.
Still, and again, I liked the movie. Scott’s journey to improved self-esteem is one that’s easy to emphasize with. Ramona, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, reminds me of a woman, Samantha, who I know. In fact, so much so, I thought the movie was written with her as a model for Ramona.
I’m serious.
I also liked the music. There are a couple of tunes I found myself bopping my head to. I’m just plain tired of movies that “hit” the tech pop-culture crowd being so non-diverse. The perfect movie here has not been made and the story of the black tech guy hasn’t been told.
(Time out. Say, if Scott Pilgrim’s a geek, why doesn’t he know that Amazon.ca is a website? Just wondering?)
Yet.
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Posted By: Zennie62 (Email) | August 18 2010 at 02:25 AM
Why ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Didn’t Fail the Comic and Movie Geeks
Aug 17th
Why ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Didn’t Fail the Comic and Movie Geeks
As you havel heard by now, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World failed to ignite the box office. It didn’t bomb, mind you. It didn’t even under-perform seeing as its roughly $11 million opening weekend is within the range of how much money it was expected to rake in. Yet still there is this growing tide of sentiment from the film’s detractors that it was a failure. Who exactly did it fail, though?
Obviously Universal would have liked the film to have an opening weekend triple the size of the one they got, but I actually don’t think they’re the most wounded party here. Director Edgar Wright now has a movie that opened in the top 5 in the US, which is plenty of reason to celebrate. Everyone involved with the film are getting rave reviews for what they delivered, so they’re not hurting too much, either. No, it’s the geeks who took the biggest beating this past weekend. Not because Scott Pilgrim ended up being a bad film (on the contrary, it’s quite good), but because they, particularly film bloggers, blew the call. The reaction out of Comic-Con was so huge that those who had seen it became instantly so passionate about it that they assumed it would galvanize others like them to see the film.
It didn’t. And now the geek community has taken up a defensive stance that reminds me of the recent Bush administration and how those who were opposed to his Presidential policies shrugged everything off with a, “Hey, I didn’t vote for him!” attitude that implied they did everything correctly and it was everyone else who was at fault. Everyone has glazed over with this general malaise that says, “Look, don’t be stubborn. You’re going to eventually love this movie, you might as well go love it now instead of regretting discovering it later.” And I agree with that last part, that Pilgrim will have a long and happy life as an “I can’t believe I’m just now seeing this!” movie, but I don’t think the public at large are being stubborn.
I’m further reminded of Serenity, another niche geek film from by Universal. The studio did a tremendous job of building buzz around the TV-show-turned-movie by providing free screenings of it weeks ahead of time in various cities around the world. The reaction to Joss Whedon’s film was remarkably strong and it was heralded as the next great and original sci-fi movie that people would fall head over heels for. Trouble was that Universal did a poor job of selling the film beyond the walls of the geek churches already telling their congregations that they must turn out to see it lest they’ll never see an original sci-fi film come out of Hollywood again. Everyone supporting it was preaching to the choir.
As with Serenity, I don’t blame general audiences for not turning out for Scott Pilgrim. The trailers just aren’t that accessible. Michael Cera doesn’t have the broad appeal he may have immediately after, say, Superbad, and since the entire film is built around him, people were immediately disinterested. Then there’s the problem of what kind of movie it actually is. Is it a superhero movie? Are they living in the Internet? Is Scott Pilgrim crazy and dreaming all of this? These are all valid questions, each of which went unanswered in the trailer.
So I don’t blame people for not being interested. If I wasn’t a movie geek, if I didn’t know all about the creative talent behind the film, if I didn’t know how rabid of a reaction people were having, I too would take up an “I’ll wait for the DVD” attitude. The reality is that going to the movies is expensive these days. People aren’t going to blindly commit their time and money unless it’s something they want to see. And the further truth is that geeks, myself included, just aren’t the best barometers of what’s going to be instantly popular and what’s going to take some time to catch on.
So if you didn’t see Scott Pilgrim this weekend, don’t feel bad. You haven’t failed anyone. In fact, you’ve behaved as expected. And I don’t mean that to sound condescending, not in the least. You behaved rationally. You saw all the marketing to the film (How could you not? It was inescapable.) and you decided that you’d wade in instead of diving in. That’s just not how geeks behave. We do dive in. We latch onto things so quickly and so furiously that we develop blinders. We forget that not everyone has an appreciation for the weird and the wonderful the way we do. That’s the reason geeks are, well, geeks.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) Movie Review
Aug 17th
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) Movie Review BY:turbo 55 minutes ago on Movies
The Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) movie review is here and it is the most epic review of the most epic movie ever made. Well that is the kind of punch line that the poster of the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World has, which goes “An epic of epic epicness”. Well to be perfectly honest, the punch line is right. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World might just be the best teenager movie (or even adult movie) ever created.
The plot of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is that Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist for a garage band called Sex Bob-omb and because of his smooth personality and the fact that he is a pure rocker; girls are always all over him. He never has trouble getting a girlfriend but when it comes to losing them, things become a little tough for Scott.
At one instance Scott is in another town and is trying to lose one of his girlfriends who is hard to get rid of when he finds another girl who is just perfect for him. He actually likes a girl enough to ask out and maybe take the relationship further. The only catch to the situation is that he has to deal with seven of that girl’s ex partners. The fact that the word exes or ex partners is used in the movie is that not all of them are boyfriends. But in any case Scott has to literally fight all evil exes of his new girlfriend in an epic comic book action style.
scott pilgrim vs. the world bass guitarist garage band girlfriend seven exes All
‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World’ a great movie … for certain people
Aug 17th
‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World’ a great movie … for certain people Jenny Kobiela-Mondor Monday, 16 August 2010 20:19
The whole time I was watching “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” I couldn’t help but think about all the people I knew who wouldn’t like the movie.
I enjoyed it, and so did my husband and the friend we saw it with. But we were in the target demographic. We were the right people, and we got the movie. But if you’re not an 18- to 29-year-old nerd who loves video games and is very in tune with pop culture of the last, oh, 15 years, you will be lost. The people who love this movie will absolutely love it. But people who aren’t “in” will be completely lost.
The movie follows Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a 20-something living in Toronto with his gay roommate, Wallace (Kieran Culkin). He’s in a band called Sex Bob-ombs and he’s dating a high school girl, Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Then, he meets and falls for a beautiful, American Amazon.ca delivery girl, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). They want to date, but first Scott must defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes. It’s kind of a sweet story – I actually didn’t want to smack Michael Cera’s character, which is rare for me. (The guy’s a good actor, but I get tired of how weeny his characters can be!)
“Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World” is based on an indie comic book series, and it looks an awful lot like a comic book, or maybe an anime, mixed with a video game. It’s a very, very stylized movie. I absolutely loved the fight scenes, which each had its own flavor. It was an eye-popping movie!
“Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World” was imaginative, and funny, and hip. It had a very unique style, and director Edgar Wright and the movie’s writers took a lot of risks. Unfortunately, not everything worked. At times, the movie was too cutsy with its humor, and at other times it skewed a little smug with its hip video game and pop culture references. It also got a little random at times, with things stuck in just to be cutsy or hip, and sometimes it took me out of the story a little bit.
Still, it was an amusing, funny and fun movie for me, a 25-year-old nerd who likes to play video games and has a brain crammed full of pop culture knowledge. If you’re like me, “Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World” will be one of the best movies you see all year. If you’re not, well … don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Jenny’s Take: See it tonight if you’re a an 18- to 29-year-old nerd who loves video games and is very in tune with pop culture. Wait for the DVD if you’re not.
Images 
In this film publicity image released by Universal Pictures, Michael Cera is shown in a scene from “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”. (AP photo)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Review- Story about Ramona Flowers & Seven Evil
Aug 16th
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ is the movie story about Ramona Flowers & Seven Evil. It is either the most authentic coming-of-age love story that has been told about kids who grew up with 8-bit video games or a movie that will leave you screaming, “Death to hipsters!”
Directed by Edgar Wright, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a comedy film based on the comic book series Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley. The film is about Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) meeting the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Scott learns that he must defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes who are coming to kill him with the intention of win Ramona over. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is based off two different books, “vs. the World” and “& the Inifite Sadness” despite the title of the movie. The movie was planned as a film after the first issue of the comic was released. After a panel discussion at the San Diego Comic-Con International on July 22, 2010, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World premiered. In Australia and New Zealand, It was released on August 12, 2010.
In Toronto, the story begins, where Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), the bass guitarist for the band “Sex Bob-omb,” starts dating high-schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) in spite of the protests of his friends and bandmates. Later he meets a mysterious American girl named Ramona Flowers(Mary Elizabeth Winstead) , losing interest in Knives and starts dating with Ramona Flowers. Scott is attacked by Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha), the first of Ramona’s Seven Evil Exes who seek to control Ramona’s love life at that time Sex Bob-omb competes in a battle of the bands to win a record contract with the label G-Man. Matthew is defeated by Scott and learns from Ramona that, in order for them to continue dating, he must defeat each member of the League of Evil Exes.
After learning that popular actor and skateboarder Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), the second evil ex, is coming to Toronto to film a movie. Scott is forced to break up with Knives, who is devastated and tries everything she can to win him back. Lee is defeated successfully by Scott by tricking him into performing a dangerous skateboard stunt where he crashes and dissolves into coins. The third evil ex, Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh), who serves as bass guitarist for Scott’s ex-girlfriend Envy Adams’ (Brie Larson) band, “The Clash at Demonhead” is encountered by him. Scott is overpowered by Todd initially using his psychic vegan abilities, which are stripped from him by the “Vegan Police” after Scott tricks him into drinking coffee with half and half, allowing Scott to win the fight.
Scott’s relationship with Ramona begins to falter as he grows increasingly upset with her dating history following the defeat of the fourth evil ex Roxy Richter (Mae Whitman). Sex Bob-omb faces off against the fifth and six evil exes, twin Katayanagi brothers, Kyle (Shota Saito) and Ken (Keita Saito), earning Scott an extra life upon their defeat During the second round of the battle of the bands. Scott sees Ramona together with her seventh and final evil ex, Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman) During the battle. Ramona breaks up with Scott as she is unable to leave Gideon’s side due to a chip in the back of her head, and Scott leaves Sex Bob-omb as they sign on to play at Gideon’s new club, the Chaos Theatre.
Scott goes to the club and professes his love for Ramona. He gains the “Power of Love” sword and with it he uses to fight Gideon. Knives arrives to battle Ramona over Scott. When Scott tries to break up the girls’ fight, accidentally reveals that he cheated on both of them with each other before he is killed by Gideon. His extra life is used by Scott to restart his battle with Gideon, this time resolving his issues with his friends and owning up to his own faults, gaining the even stronger “Power of Self-Respect” sword and defeating Gideon alongside Knives. Ramona encourages Scott and Knives to stay together while she prepares to leave to start over free from Gideon’s control. Scott instead follows Ramona as he always wanted, and the two begin their relationship anew upon Knives’ insistence.
However Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is a buffet of genres so it is not for everyone. This movie on box office is considered as the big disappointment this weekend. Scott Pilgrim vs The World box office hopes are slim for the rest of summer. At least against the male and female fans of The Expendables and Eat Pray Love, word of mouth and huge raves from fanboys and bloggers were not enough. Perhaps this proves that fanboys and bloggers don’t have the power to make a movie like this into a hit yet. The low Scott Pilgrim vs The World box office is similar to other movies with Internet buzz this year but that may not be a surprise.
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