The Miracle and the Sleeper

I was wondering when Linkara would get around to these...

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:05:22 GMT

Two-page spread (No, not that kind!)

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:58:01 GMT

Today, I was reading volume 5 of Grimm Fairy Tales. The beginning of The Little Mermaid features a two-page spread of a ship crashing against some rocks during a thunderstorm at night. At first glance, I was like "Okay, I get what's happening" and was ready to turn the page.

But then I had a thought. A two-page spread obviously takes a lot of time, care and effort to draw. Maybe glancing and turning the page like that would be doing a disservice to the artist. Maybe I owed it to Claudio Sepulveda to take the time to look at and absorb every detail to honor all the effort.

Anybody else ever feel this way?

Gaming consoles I've owned

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:32:55 GMT

There was a discussion at a forun I occasionally visit on which gaming systems you've owned, past and present. I took a trip down memory lane and came up with these:

PC
Mac Plus
Atari 2600
Colecovision
NES
Super NES
Sega Master System
Sega Genesis
Sega CD
Sega Saturn
Sega Dreamcast
Playstation
Playstation 2
Playstation 3
Gamecube
Xbox
Xbox 360
PSP

Maybe I should write an entry on the various memories I have on each console. That might be fun!

Things I learned from watching "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:18:27 GMT

You can put a small robot on an airplane by stuffing it in a suitcace and metal detectors and x-ray machines will never detect it.

There's huge airplane graveyard and desert in the back of the Smithsonian.

Every female college student looks like a Maxim cover girl.

College dorm room are pretty big and come with complimentary Mountain Dew vending machines.

College students can afford hi-tech computer technology.

The U.S. government can cover up giant robots beating each other up and causing collateral damage in major cities, even in foreign countries and in an era of cell phone cameras, the internet and 24 hour news networks.

You can make a movie that doesn't have one moment of silence in it.

Eating a pot brownie makes you act drunk and hyperactive.

In an action movie, it's not necessary to be able to see what's going on during the action scenes.

If two giant robots was to have a private discussion, the best place to do it is on top of a skyscraper in New York City.

Flights from the East Coast to the West Coast take about 30 minutes.

Robots have souls and share the same Heaven as humans.

All major landmarks in Egypt are conveniently located within walking distance.

If you get constantly shot at and nearly blown up in the desert, the guys will all be dirty and have cuts and bruises. Hot women, on the other hand, will still look like they just stepped off a photo shoot.

A movie can have many subplots, but no main plot.

It's possible to make an action movie that has more failed comedy that a Friedberg/Seltzer movie.

Joey vs. Danny

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:32:33 GMT

Do you think Joe Quesada and Dan DiDio got together one day and made a bet to see who could do a more efficient job of running their respective companies into the ground?

Left 4 Paranormal

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:27:57 GMT

I experienced one minor consequence of watching Paranormal Activity. While I was trying to sleep, I kept jumping at any small noise I heard around the house. Didn't make for a good night's sleep.

I played the Left 4 Dead 2 demo last night. I also played it right before going to work. It was longer than I expected. The demo allows people to play two stages of one campaign. I think the demo for the first game only had one stage to play. Of the new infected, the Spitter and the Charger are the most badass. The Spitter spits out green bile that harm the survivors. They also leave a pool of green goo when you shoot them. The Charger just plows into like a linebacker from Hell. Then it grabs the nearest survivor and keeps pummeling him on the ground until he's dead. Most of the returning special infected have been given a slight makeover. While playing this morning, I got a closeup of the new Smoker and he's much uglier than he was in the first game. The Witch also walks around now. I guess she got sick of sitting around, crying and decicded to be more proactive. We also have zombies in riot gear that you can only kill by shooting them in the back or hitting them.

I tried almost all the firearms and all the melee weapons. The melee weapons are hit or miss, no pun intended. The police baton is kinda slow. I was eager to use the guitar to do a Pete Townshend impression with the zombies, but it doesn't seem to be too accurate and you miss the zombies about half the time. The machete was neat to use, especially since killing the zombies with it causes blood to splash on the screen. The pan is kinda neat too.

Last night, I played as Coach (The big black guy) and this morning, I played as Nick (The guy in the Miami Vice suit). How do the new characters stack up? I haven't quite warmed up to them as much as the original cast. Maybe I need to play more. Or maybe their personalities come out more when you play a full campaign. They didn't seem quite as talkative and their dialogue wasn't quite as funny and snarky. Maybe it's a demo thing and this will be smoothed out in the actual game.

Paranormal Activity

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:58:52 GMT

I saw Paranormal Activity today. Go see it! Don't read spoilers. In fact, don't read anything about it. It's best if you go in cold.

Unfortunately, the experience was tarnished somewhat by the idiots in the theater who kept talking and making bad jokes very loudly.

Belated Halloween surprise!

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:40:57 GMT

I finished my third day on the new job today. Five hours of data entry isn't quite my ideal job, but I'm grateful to finally have a steady paycheck again. At the end of my shift, my boss had a bunch of Halloween candy and invited me to help myself to as much of it as I wanted! I hadn't had any Halloween candy this year and eagerly snapped up anything that looked good. I felt like a kid on Halloween again.

"Grabbin' pills!"

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:33:04 GMT

Keeping things at Bay

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:39:59 GMT

Okay, it's been a week since I've watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and while I'm still licking some wounds, I've overall recovered from the experience.

Since this movie made approximately five hundred zillion dollars at the box office, naturally, a Transformers 3 has been greenlighted. And Michael Bay is gonna be directing again, whether we like it or not. The question is, will anybody heed the criticism that the second movie received or will they adopt an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. The cynic in me figures that since is was a massive blockbuster, they'll go with the latter. The second movie pretty much took everything wrong with the first movie and cranked all the knobs up to twelve. The thought of trying to outdo the second movie makes me shudder.

So I guess we can look forward to more useless human characters, more pointless subplots and no main plot and lots more attempted comic relief that's unfunny at best and offensive at worse. Oh, and plenty of badly shot, incomprehensible action scenes as well.

This song has been going through my head all week...

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:40:21 GMT

And now, you shall all suffer with me!

Terror T.R.A.X.-Track of the Vampire: Riffed by Spoony

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:10:05 GMT

One of those things that makes you glad the days of 90's CD-ROM "interactive movie" games are over. Made all the more bearable by Spoony.

Trick 'r Trort!

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:02:13 GMT

I watched two movies to help get me in a Halloween mood: Drag Me To Hell and Trick 'r Treat. I started with the Unrated Director's Cut of Drag Me To Hell was really good! Nice to see Sam Raimi hasn't necessarily abandoned his horror roots. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the right movie to watch while eating dinner. Trick 'r Treat had its moments but wasn't essential viewing. Both were much better than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I read Batman: Streets of Gotham #5. It's bad enough that they put Huntress back in the Jim Lee outfit, but so they really have to undo all of her post-Hush character development as well?

When bad movies happen

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:47:54 GMT

Okay, it's been two days since I watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and I've had plenty of time to recover from the pain and trauma. I'm still pretty mad, though.

Why am I mad? Two reasons. First, how could they spend $200 million to make such a bloated, overlong, annoying, sensory-overloading, 100% entertainment free pile of shit? It's obvious that no love or care was put into this movie. Didn't anybody involved in the production step in at one point and say, "Uh, this isn't really working. Maybe we should clean it up?"

But what really infuriates me is that it made as much money as The Dark Knight did last year. For some inexplicable reason, people flocked to this movie in droves. How could bad word of mouth have possibly not killed it? Did nobody tell their friends, "Don't see it. It sucks!" This sends a message to Hollywood, "This is what we like. Please make more movies like this." How could a movie that nobody seemed to like make so much?

Now, I'm getting worked up again. Fuck you, Michael Bay and fuck you, movie going public.

Anime News Editorial: Is This Legal?

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:29:36 GMT

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:25:14 GMT

Last night, I watched the Blu-Ray for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Before I start this review, let me stress that I'm not one of those obnoxious film snobs who only likes black and white movies that are three hours of people sitting in a room, talking to each other in Scandinavian. I approach each movie judging it on the basis of what it is and what it's trying to accomplish. And I believe it takes just as much skill, talent and craftsmanship to create a good piece of entertainment as it does to makes something "artsy."

That said, Transformers 2 completely and totally blows.

When reviewing a movie, I try to avoid giving spoilers. In this case, that'll be really easy to do for one simple reason: There's no story. Sure, there's a threadbare plot. Sam Witwicky discovers something called the All-Spark, which fills his head with symbols that lead to something called the Matrix (Never use the name of a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie) which can revive dead robots. The Decepticons was to use this to revive and ancient Decepticon called the Fallen, who can only be killed by a Prime Autobot for reasons the script never goes into. Nevertheless, this movie is really about nothing. The plot is so incomprehensible and so hard to follow. It's like they filmed a bunch of scenes, edited them together at random and decided to release the result in theaters. So much happens during this movie and yet, nothing happens in this movie. I've never seen anything like it.

The cast pretty much consists of paper-thin personality-free caricatures that the movie attempts to pass of as characters. This applies to both the human and robot characters. The only character in the movie that I actually cared about was Optimus Prime, who spends the middle 80% of the movie dead.

Do you like comic relief that's neither comic, nor relief? This movie has that in spades. We have Sam's parents, for starters. Take every embarrassing thing your parents have done in front of you, turn the knobs up to twelve and you get the idea. Their characters are completely pointless. We have Sam's conspiracy theorist roommate, who eventually goes along for the ride. He spends half the movie doing a bunch of annoying and unfunny gags and the other half screaming and yelling variations of, "We're all gonna die!" His character is also completely pointless. We have a Decepticon who talks like Joe Pesci and a midget security guard in Egypt used in a completely pointless scene and a sleazy CIA agent who acts like something out of the Bush era. We also get a gag where we get to see Devastator's testicles, despite the fact that none of the individual Constructicons had wrecking balls.

The most obnoxious and offensive ones, however, are the Autobot Twins, who talk like something out of Wayans Brothers movie. Their obnoxiousness level ranks somewhere between Jar Jar Binks and Mr. Freeze's ice puns in Batman & Robin. There's one point in the movie where one of the Twins looked like he got killed by a Decpeticon (I didn't catch their names and I guarantee you won't either). I actually cheered and rooted for the Decpeticon to take out the other Twin. Turns out the Twin ended up surviving and I groaned in disappointment.

The robots don't look good at all. They just look like huge piles of scrap metal randomly welded together. Ever take a bunch of differently-shaped magnets and put them all together to form a sculpture? That's what the robots look like. They're so shapeless and look so similar that it's impossible to tell who's who. This is especially problematic during the big battle scene in the overlong third act. We see a bunch of robots fighting each other and we can't tell who they are. Even in scenes where we just have two Transformers on the screen, I had trouble identifying them. We can't tell who's an Autobot and who's a Decepticon. Despite being an avid collector of the toys and fan of the 80's cartoon when I was a kid, I couldn't tell anyone apart.

The action scenes are probably the most poorly filmed I've ever seen. There's tons of shaky cam (One of my lest favorite filmmaking trends of the past decade), lots of quick cuts lasting no more than five second (As Crow T. Robot said while watching Castle of Fu Manchu, cutting it faster doesn't make it any more exciting) and way too many closeup shots. This, combined with the similar-looking robots, makes it impossible to tell what's going on.

There's way too many plotholes and lapses in logic. Jetfire (An old Transformer who needs a cane to walk for some reason), teleports the humans to Egypt. It's never explained just how he does this or whether other Transformers have the ability to teleport. We learn early in the movie that the U.S. government covers up all Transformers-related activity. Yes the same government that can't cover up extramarital affairs or people breaking into a hotel is able to cover up giant robots beating the snot out of each other in major, heavily populated cities. How do they do that in an era of cell phone cameras, digital camcorders, the internet and 24 hour news networks? You'd think at the very least, a video would pop up on YouTube. We also get a female Decepticon who can transform into a human. If Transformers can turn into humans and they transform to disguise themselves on Earth, wouldn't that be much more convenient than transforming into a motorcycle or a helicopter? And then there's Robot Heaven. Apparently robots go to heaven when they die? That's when I officially threw my hands up in the air and gave up trying to follow any of this movie's logic.

Product placement? We got plenty of that here! Mountain Dew, GM cars, LG cell phones...And that's just scratching the surface. We also see in Sam's dorm room a poster for Michael Bay's Bad Boys II. Geez, Bert I. Gordon wasn't that shameless.

The U.S. military gets an sizable segment in the "Than You" list in the credits. Makes sense, considering nearly every branch of the military is represented in this movie. After naming a ton of military personal, Bay thanks "All the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces." Despite this, the military in this movie is probably the most inept since the military seem in the 1998 U.S. version of Godzilla. They could've sent Gomer Pyle (Either the sitcom character or the Full Metal Jacket character. Take your pick) and he would've done a better job. Even they Keystone Cops would've been more effective.

We also get a loving closeup of John Tutturo's butt-floss underwear. This was painful enough to watch on my 33 inch LDC screen. I don't even want to fathom what it must've been like watching it on an IMAX screen. Obviously, this movie hates its audience and wants to punish them, though I can't figure out why.

On top of that, the movie runs way too long. It goes on for two and a half hours! That's quite an accomplishment for a movie where nothing happens. There was a point where I thought the movie was reaching the end. Then I checked the running time and found I had another 45 minutes to go! That's one of Michael Bay's many, many, many flaws. He just doesn't know end to end his movies.

Is there anything good about this film? Actually, yes. Megan Fox's character has often been described as little more than eye candy. At first, I agreed. However, she displays a special power and ability that the movie never delved into. Something that I thought was a very bold and artistic move on Michael Bay's part. In the Egypt segment of the movie, the humans run around the desert, getting shot at, blown up and covered in debris. By the end of the film they're all dirty, their clothes are torn and they're all got cuts and bruises. All except for Megan Fox. Despite going through the same ordeal as all the other humans, her clothes are clean and intact and her hair and makeup are perfect. And while we never see this power in action, it's suggested at vertain points during the movie. At one point, we see visible dirt stains on her white pants. The next scene she's in, her pants are clean! Wow! Hopefully, the third movie will go into this power of hers in more depth.

Michael Bay has never been a particularly good director. However, with this movie, he's officially devolved into Uwe Boll with a huge budget and an A-list cast. Bay's been called the king of junk food action movies. I'd agree with that. However, this movie isn't the type of junk food that's actually fun to consume. This is the type of junk food that makes you nauseous afterwards and has you throwing up in the parking lot. This movie was nothing but an overlong, obnoxious, irritating, sensory-overloading waste of time. I could've spend two and a half hours banging my head against a wall and it would've had the same effect as this movie. I've experienced toothaches that had more entertainment value.

Die Hard the Huntress

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:22:38 GMT

I've been reading Batman: Streets of Gotham, mainly for the Manhunter second feature. After reading the last two issues, something confused me. Maybe I've missed something, but I have to wonder: What is Huntress doing back in the Jim Lee outfit?

Sonata Arctica @ Webster Theater, Hartford, CT (October 12, 2003)

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:26:47 GMT

This was Sonata Arctica's first headlining show in the U.S., having spent the past month opening for Dragonforce. The band seemed happy to play a full set this time. As Tony Kakko said, "This is where the real fun begins." The band sounded great. Tony, as usual, was great at interacting with the crowd.

Setlist:
Everything Fades To Gray (Instrumental)
Paid In Full
Black Sheep
Caleb
The Last Amazing Grays
Fullmoon
Replica
As If the World Wasn't Ending
Flag In the Ground
White Pearl, Black Oceans
Last Drop Falls
Juliet
The Cage

Encore:
In the Black and White
Don't Say A Word

Job'd!

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:43:22 GMT

I'm gonna be starting a new job a week from Monday! Let's hope it goes better than the last one.

It's a small world

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:19:06 GMT

Something cool I just found out about Zombieland.

An editor of that movie is the husband of someone I knew in high school. And the director is a friend of hers!

How about that!

Who has a Halloween album?!?

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:54:06 GMT

Okay, this was something I was gonna bring up last year. However, the layoff drama at my job kinda overshadowed it and it was soon forgotten. Well, I was recently reminded of it, so I figured I'd write about it now. Better one year late than never.

I was browsing through iTunes and discovered, to my horror, an album called Kidz Bop Halloween. That's right, the Kidz Bop series actually has a Halloween album! My first reaction was that if the album included "Welcome To My Nightmare," there was gonna be hell to pay. Thankfully, that Alice Cooper classic went unscathed. So what songs on this album are performed by a chorus of toddlers with all the tone and performance quality of a grade school assembly performance?

1) Ghostbusters
2) Monster Mash
3) The Addams Family
4) Witch Doctor
5) A Nightmare On My Street
6) Thriller
7) Werewolves of London
8) Purple People Eater
9) Scooby Doo
10) Haunted House
11) Time Warp
12 This Is Halloween
13) Somebody's Watching Me
14) Little Show of Horrors
15) Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead
16) Who Let the Ghosts Out

"Werewolves of London?" Somewhere, Warren Zevon is really pissed off. And "Time Warp?" Am I the only one who finds it a little inappropriate for tykes to be singing a song from Rocky Horror? But the real facepalm moment was "Who Let the Ghosts Out," a Halloween'd version of a musical travesty like "Who Let the Dogs Out."

Again, a Kidz Bop Halloween album. Alice Cooper and King Diamond couldn't record something that scary.

Zombieland

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:36:53 GMT

I saw Zombieland today. Really fun movie! I barely read anything about it before going to see it, which turned out to be a good thing. I don't think it would've had the impact on my if I did. I'm afraid to tell too much about it because I'd rather not spoil it for you guys. Suffice to say, it's a zombie movie that's pretty funny.

During the previews before the movie, they showed a trailer for The Boondock Saints II. I wonder if this movie will produce an Overnight II documentary that turns out to be way more watchable than the actual movie?

Bless you!

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:11:13 GMT

Somebody needs to get a sense of humor

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:51:17 GMT

Specifically, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

Off the clock

shadoestar2071@yahoo.com — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:45:58 GMT

I had a headache the other night, which kept me awake. I eventually took a Tylenol and got some sleep. The down side of this is that my sleep schedule is totally thrown off. Now, I have to try to get it back on schedule, which is gonna be a long process.