Okay, not gonna be using this Blog anymore, I don't think. Just using it to see if other Blog Stuff is working right. Pie. Pie. Pie.

Single Paragraph Film Reviews

Hey, I ain't dead. Yeah, I have bareluy typed a post all year, but, when if I had regular visitors, maybe I'd have some motivation.

Just to make up for some time, here's my opinion on some films. Not that I'm going to be moving at the same speed as before, but I'll hopefully at least try for one update a month if I can find the time. And become less lazy.

Green Hornet.


This film is good. Both main characters are fun, but Kato steals the show like he did back in the 60's TV show. The film doesn't do much in terms of originality, but it takes what it has and uses them excellently. It's also damn funny.

Paul.


Edgar Wright is my new favourite director, having given us Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgirm, and now this. Out of the 'Pegg-Frost' trilogy, this is probably the weakest, but since Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead were damn brilliant, this is a very good film. Paul is a hilarious character, voiced by the awesomtastic Seth Rogen, and the simplistic storyline is used brilliantly. Also, the moments of geekiness such as the comicon scenes made me feel like this film was made specifically to impress me. And it worked.

Sucker Punch.


This film upsets me. For the first hour, it is an okay film with INSANELY good action sequences that literally have you laughing over how ridiculously good of a time your having. And then, BAM, it's like the director realised that he wanted to make a different sort of film and made us sit through this insanely depressing climax. Apparently this was his intention, but no, as a consumer, I reject your metaphors and hidden meanings and demand a proper ending!

Seeing how this film goes into some pretty powerful mindscrew territory, it is safe to say that you're free to believe whatever you want. Nobody actually dies and relationships aren't as close as they might seem. But when you make a film that has the main theme of 'A bunch of women kicking ass in insane sequences' you have an ending that mmakes you want to get up and punch the screen into dust.

Unlike most critics, I say this is a good film, but it has one of the most bullshit endings in history. This was on my top favourite films ever list for a while before I saw the ending.

Thor.


I was very worried about Thor. It looked like it was going to be rather campy, and the early moments in the film didn't help. However, I was delighted to find that the film is actually pretty good, taking the opposite train as my usual perception of bad films. They usually start out promising and go down hill with stupid, but this one found a good level and stuck to it, though its far from perfect. I only ever felt the badass action I felt in Iron Man 1 at the beginning, the rest of the action seemed to have less impact. But otherwise, a good film.

Scott Pilgrim.


Yep, still fucking badass.

Villain Spotlight: Biggy Man.

What is the Biggy Man's story? Why is he wandering the woods behind West Mansion? Why does he have chainsaws for hands? How did he get that bag on his head? Whatever the answer, Biggy Man won't tell you. And you won't care. You'll be too busy being sliced into neat, bite sized pieces. Hope you brought a second shotgun...

But then again, some time later...

How did this angry brute end up in the Meat Factory? Is he the guy in charge? Was it him watching you in that room? Was he haunting you telepathically? The Biggy Man is a mysterious foe, and a mighty one to boot, but mysterious teleportation and chainsaw hands aren't enough to keep some from their loved ones...

Biggy Man is the most popular enemy from the Splatterhouse franchise.

Comics WTF

Oh hai thar everyone! I bet you thought I was dead, but no, I have just lacked motivation., However, my latest visit to the Comic Store has brought upon some good ol' Nerd Rage.


You may remember my talk about Youngblood and how it was recently revived into a fun, if somewhat slow paced series full of likeable characters and good artwork. Unfortunately this revival only lasted nine issues for whatever reason. Sad, considering it was almost at the climax of the current storyline. I recently bought the ninth issue.

What. The. Hell?!

I am now officially happy the series got canned. If it was still going now, I'd have no reason to be buying it.
In Issue 8 we learn that our current Big Bad, a former alien superhero, had returned to Earth and shit is going to go down. It also featured a backup story, obviously intended to be ongoing or in multiple parts, featuring Barack Obama organising the newest incarnation of Youngblood, made up of Shaft, Vogue, Badrock, Diehard, Photon, Big Brother and Vogdue, and written and drawn by the man himself, Rob Liefeld. Issue nine is devoted entirely to this setup! And it wasn't even good in its own right!

You can't do that! They even try to say this fits into what we were doing before, but it dosn't. The team had a completely different roster, they were on the run from the law, hell was about to break loose, they had their own TV show, Badrock was a crumbling mess in hospital and they were currently replaced by an entirely new team of Youngblood!

So, how do they explain the massive change? Why, they breifly, in passing, explain that Badrock's condition was due to that being his mutated version of puberty. Then what the f*ck happened to Doc Rocket? The TV show? Why hasn't Giger and the alien guy attacked? Where the hell did 'Cybernet' come from? Liefeld, I don't actually mind your art, but this is just pathetic! You took this fun, new and awesome Youngblood and turned into...classic Youngblood.

Oh, but we ain't done here folks. Because we still have a back up story! It is also about Barack Obama working with a superhero. I have no idea who, nor do I care.
The series is technically not cancelled, but rather no issues have been made since 09'. Well I don't give a damn! The fun and slap happy Youngblood is as dead as Batman's parents.

Next on the agenda is Shep-Hulks Issue 4.

I was more than happy to pick up the latest issue of She-Hulks, which I have explained my enjoyment of in previous posts. I was quite infuirated today to learn, out of nowhere that it is actually a Four Issue Mini-Series!

The comic is clearly designed to be an ongoing title! If it were a Limited Series, it'd be titled 'She-Hulks: Man Hunt,' instead of that being the title of the storyline! And I actually made a point to check and this is the first mention of limited series on any of the issues! Seriously, this is the first time on any of them that features the phrase 'Limited Series' on the cover or any indication that there is supposed to only be four issues!

What? Were they halfway through writing the fifth issue when Quesada realised how fun the series was and decided he needed to do something? I am seriously pissed about this, I was looking forward to seeing the She-Hulks each month and now I'm obviously going to have other Hulk series. I do not wish to buy these serie as they do not interest me; what interests me is Jen Walters and Lyra kicking ass with occassional appearances by The Hulk and making The Wizard seem awesome.

Fortunately, that seems to be it. I did consider telling you of my frustration on there being WAAAAY too many X-Men books out at the moment and giving the ultimate example of comics alienating new audiences, but I didn't actually end up buying any of them, so it's somewhat irrelevant.

Awesome Covers: She-Hulks #2

She-Hulk and She-Hulk battling super powered apes? Why haven't you bought this yet!?

But seriously, this cover is great, depicting both She-Hulks locked in combat with Red Ghost's 'Super Apes' as he watches on menacingly. That concept alone sounds more like it belongs in the Silver Age. And I LOVE IT! This is my favorite kind of cover, one that evokes exactly what people expect in a comic.

As for the story inside? I am loving this series. The artwork is fantastic, the characters are fun and despite basically calling him out as a lame villain, they actually make The Wizard seem pretty damn awesome; he actually manages to blackmail THE HULK!

By what I've seen, we can expect more Awesome Covers from the Hulk Girls.

...Oh, you probably want to know why there is two of them.

Well, one is Jeniffer Walters, cousin of the Incredible Hulk who is also a lawyer. The younger one with red hair is Lyra, a girl from the future who was grown with Hulk DNA. They fight crime.

Haiku Review: Tron Legacy.

Men live in computers.
SFX are great!
Tron dosn't effect plot.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game.

An 8-Bit Epic of Epic Epicness.


It's no secret that I think Scott Pilgrim is awesome. I haven't read the comics and don't really plan to. I saw the movie first and thought it was the most epic thing I had ever seen. If I read the comics, I'm going to get all whiny about how they did it wrong.

However we also have this game that was released alongside the film. The game however is moreso based on the comics, which I do actually know a fair bit about. And let me tell you, this game is BAD!

ASS!

I want an arcade machine of this thing! It adapts the source material in what is probably the only way to do it justice.

You can choose to play as Scott, Ramona, Kim or Stephen, each with unique attacks and special attacks. You can also summon Knives to come in and give you a hand, or play as her, but shes a seperafe download. The game is a retro arcade brawler, having you march down the street pulverising thugs into dust with your fists and throwing stuff at them, and I have really begun envying the people of teh early nineties because this was a NORMAL game back then. It is adictive as all hell.

The game is split up into about seven parts (I haven't technically finished it). In each part you fight against enemies and head down the area until you meet the current Evil Ex and beat the life out of them. It gets a little odd around 5 and 6, who are brothers who work close togethor. In the fifth level you fight a series of robots built by them, and with Gideon you fight multiple forms of him.

Perhaps a slightly cooler thing about the game is when you recognise background characters. Even though I haven't read the comics, I smiled the instant I noticed Julie, Wallace, Other Scott and Stacey. Amazing considering I hardly knew what their Manga-style forms looked like.

So basically, its a great game that you should get. And yes I know I'm late on the bandwagon, but I needed to write SOMETHING to prove I'm not dead.

Power Rangers Survey 31: Favorite Weapon.

Yes, that's right, I'm going with the extra one. I'd like to go with Tommy's dagger flute, which is always going to be classic. But in all honesty, I've gotta say my eye has recently been caught by one of the newest weapons in the series, which I like to call the WHOABIGSWORD!


My second choice would be Zach and Adam's Power Axe.

It's an Axe that transforms into a gun! That is like...a hundred other weapons in this series. But what do all these weapons have in common aside from that function? They are all AWESOME!

Power Rangers Survey 30: Favorite Finale.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, we are finally here. Finally I have completed this goddamn survey and can do something else with my time. BTW, I don't think Postively Dreadful part 2 is coming out, sorry (Seriously, I am sorry, I just can't seem to complete it).

And the climatic ending to this thirty part epic is...Countdown to Destruction...which I already talked about last time...awkward. How about instead I talk about why I like the movie?



A lot of fans like to pretend the movie never happened because it wasn't very good and full of cliches. But by the standards of at least early power rangers, it was excellent! Most people also believe that it takes place in an alternate dimension, and I can easily see why, but I can't really watch it and think that. Yeah, the bad guys have a pig and are missing Squatt and Baboo, and obviously the film ends with complete contradiction to the actual series canon, as well as multiple other contradictions such as Zordon actually being inside the tube.

But you know what? I find it really hard to care, because it's fun. In fact the only true complaint that I can think of is that the film didn't have Jason, Trini and Zach, and that is almost completely unavoidable. Oh, and the zord fights were a little choppy, but I still thought they were fun.

Also, Ivan Ooze is actually pretty funny if your into that with your super villains.

Power Rangers Survey 29: Favorite Story Arc/Episode.

An excellent question actually. How about I tell you my favorite epiodeS? Well, that I can remember. Keep in mind these are ones that I have seen, and despite being a big fan, I haven't actually seen that many over the whole series. I may also not know the right names.

Day of the Dumpster: The original, the episode that started it all. Not exactly the classic I remembered as a kid, but by god it's still a ton of fun. It's got all the essentials, namely fighting, Bulk and Skull and Zords. All of these can be found in almost every episode. This is why I lvoed Migty Morphin.

White Light: The first appearance of the White Ranger. To be honest I saw this on the Best of Power Rangers DVD, but I still enjoyed it regardless of continuity. Of course it isn't perfect, for one, the Zord fight is incredibly lackluster, what with the monster of the week, Nimrod the Scarlet Sentinel and his sidekicks AC and DC looking completely non threatening and being poorly edited in to look like the Rangers are fighting it. And even though the majority of my love for the series is based around status quo, I have to say the image of Tommy descending in the suit is incredibly badass.

Countdown to Destruction: Even a Status Quo Nazi like myself cannot help but find this episode awesome. We should have had more of Bulk and Skull fighting.

Powewr Rangers Survey 28: Favorite Under a Spell.

I actually feel a little guilty. On the one hand I am kind of neglecting updating this thing, but on the other, I said I was trying to move away from Mighty Morphin' for these answers. Well I'm sorry, but I grew up with Mighty Morphin' so the majority of my answers are gonna come from there. As such, I nominate the immortal Green with Evil Saga, one of the most famous and popular PR stories of all time and the introduction for Tommy Oliver. Yeah, his personality was kind of bland, but for a show like this, that means very little. In the early years, anyway.

This was the first time we saw the Rangers really get their asses kicked, so you knew this was big from the start. I'm not quite sure if there were any hypnotised character eps before this one, but if not, this is the father of the whole PR trope.

Power Rangers Survey 27: Favorite Morpher.

I can honestly say I have never really cared for the Morphers, so I'm gonna go with Mighty Morphin'.

Mental Covers 13: The Split.

It's a sad and strange day when not even the same person can get along with each other any more. Even stranger when the person gets up and leaves while remaining in the building.

Back in the early days of development, Mental was actually two minds trapped in one body. While originally they would alternate on who was controlling the body, I eventually gave the sane personality the boot by having him mentally killed off via origin story. After rebooting it AGAIN, I decided to drop that idea altogethor.

You will notice that this is quite possibly where the quality in the covers begins to dramatically slip. There are still many covers to go, mind you.

Power Rangers Survey 26: Favorite Morph Call/Sequence.

One of the few I remember apart from the MM was the Lightspeed Rescue morph. Most people have complained that the LR suits look terrible and you know what? I disagree completely. Yeah, they look a little weird, but I think it works for them pretty well. But even moreso complained about is the Morph sequence, inwhich the Rangers are smothered by giant shields of goo which cover them in their suits.

Yes, it's weird, but it's a bit different to the oh so many flashing lights and the suits appearing on them. I have no problem with that, mind you.

Power Rangers Survey 25: Favorire Uniforms.

Of course I'm going to instantly think back to the Mighty Morphing suits. Even without the fact that they were the first, they just have a sort of simplicity to them which states "We came first, bitches!"


However, if I had to choose something that wasn't out of nostalgia, I'm going to choose the Wild Force uniforms. Keep in mind that this is off the top of my head and chances are that there is probably another uniform I like a little more. And ironically, because they remind me a little of the Mighty Morphing days.

But the real reason? The shark suit. I love this suit and think it is awesome. Maybe it's because Sharks are cool, but this suit just sort of speaks to me. It heavily reminds me of Shark-Man, a comic series by Image.
In my opinion, it was actually pretty good, being based in what I think was the future where most of the world was covered in water, meaning that our titular hero was not stuck with the same reputation as Aquaman.
However, it used an extremely Uncanny Valley artstyle, in no way helped by the often disturbing images, and only seemed to last three issues. Don't ask me why, in fact by what I understand the series had at least one year between issue one and two. Strange.

Anyway, Sharks are cool.

Power Rangers Survey 24: Favorite Zord.

Nothing will ever beat the classic Mighty Morphing Megazord. Maybe it's nostalgia, but this was one of few to actually do anything for me. For some reason, the multitude of following Zords seemed more like 'generic giant robots' and hardly interested me. Maybe this is because there were too many that didn't actually look like it was made from giant robot animals.

BTW, I saw an ep of Jungle Fury featuring a giant yellow Penguin Zord. Upon explaining my confusion for such a strange idea, random_fan gave an interesting rebuttle. Let me make this clear to you all, giant yellow penguin robots on skateboards are cool, but are in now way comparable to giant robot tyrannosaurus rex's emerging triumphantly from a volcano. This is science fact.

Power Rangers Survey 23: Favorite Non-Earth Location.

Sorry for the wait, I've been busy and lazy.


The Moon. The Moon houses one of the most iconic moments of the series, namely, Rita emerging from her Dumpster alongside her gang of miscreant space monsters. As we all know, this scene was infamously shot in broad daylight so that it did as little as possible to resemble the moon, especially considering that later on in the series, nay, later on in the EPISODE, we see the moon surrounded by the pitch black darkness.

But of course we can't forget that the moon also housed Lord Zed's palace, and the Machine Empire's place. I'm sure there's more, but I can't remember.

Power Rangers Survey 22: Favorite Earth Location.

Why none other than that glorious quarry where all those monster fights take place in so many seasons. Forget Angel Grove, the Command Centre, or The Moon, Power Rangers defining location is this Quarry. With all the monster fights, it can honestly be claimed to have brought any Ranger fan more happiness than any other.

Power Rangers Survey 21: Favorite HQ

I'm going with the Command Centre. Obviously because of nostalgia and all the usual stuff, but also because technically, it's two different HQs in one! Well, starting from Zeo anyway. It also has the honor of giving children nightmares after being destroyed twice by the villains, the second time being permenantly.

Power Rangers Survey 20: Favorite Teamup.

Forever Red. Even with a hundred restrictions placed upon it by Disney and a few plotholes, FR still manages to be complete and utter proof that Power Rangers is badass. In one of the least popular seasons, no less. In fact, I find it ironic that Forever Red is so disliked and has two of the best team ups. Weird, eh?