Dragonball Z Double Feature: The History of Trunks/Bardock The Father of Goku Review

For the last 2 or 3 years Funimation has been remastering the Dragonball Z series and releasing it in nice affordable season box sets. In addition to the television series, Funimation has also been releasing the feature films based on the series in fancy double feature releases. The History of Trunks/Bardock The Father of Goku was the 4th release in the double feature set.

What separates these 2 titles from the rest of the DBZ movies is that they actually aren't movies, their television specials. The irony in this is that "The History Of Trunks" and "Bardock: The Father Of Goku" is far better than any of the theatrical films and may be one of the best parts of the Dragonball Z series period.

While the series and theatrical films generally favored action over a deep storyline. These specials do the opposite, offering intriguing stories and placing the action on the backburner. Both specials act as extensions of certain storylines from the series. The History of Trunks tells a story of a bleak alternate timeline where a bulk of the main characters have been killed by evil androids and shows why Trunks decides to go back in time to try and prevent this from happening (setting up the 3 major arc of the series). Bardock: The Father Of Goku is more less a prequel to the events of the dragonball series and details Bardock's attempt to expose the evil warlord Frezia for the villain he really is.

Both specials caught me guard with how well written they were; mainly because ,as stated before, DBZ isn't that great in the story department. I loved the dark tone of the titles and really wished they would have put this much attention into the regular show. I have to admit that preferred Bardock over Trunks, mostly because I felt it made me connect with characters more.Bardock's general lack of interest in his child, until he realizes their world is going to be destroyed, was interesting and believable. It's easy to take something for granted, but faced with the threat of losing that something, attitudes can change quickly.

I can't recommend this set highly enough to fans of Dragonball Z or people who are curious about the series. Neither special ends with happy ending as the overall stories are carried over and concluded in the show, but even then these two tales offer a unique take on the DBZ world.

Madea Goes To Jail (Review)

Before seeing this film I'd never seen a movie or play in the Tyler Perry canon. For the last few years, I've just ignored the series, passing it off as a group of over hyped mediocre dramas and comedies. The only knowledge of the series I'd acquired through the years is that one of the recurring elements of the films is Tyler Perry in drag as a fat old cantankerous woman (The titular Madea).

If I had to pick one word to describe "Madea Goes To Jail" it would be schizophrenic. The movie swings wildly from a fairly well done comedy to a slow plodding drama. This is the result of 2 storylines that barely connect to one another. The comedic story naturally deals with Madea's run in with the law while the dramatic storyline deals with Joshua, a district attorney, trying to help his college friend turned prostitute, Candace, make a better life for herself.

The title of the film is unbelievably inaccurate. First the movie is far more concerned about Joshua's drama than Madea's latest misadventure. Second, Madea doesn't actually go to jail until the third act with roughly 25 minutes left in the film.

The Madea story is pretty damn funny, Madea steals every scene she appears in with abrasive one-liners and a mild sarcastic wit. The highlights being her anger management sessions with Dr. Phil and her encounter with a prissy white girl in a K-mart parking lot. The schizophrenic nature of the film shines when the more prominent district attorney/prostitute story takes over. The best example of this is when Joshua tearfully explains why he is trying so hard to help Candace. This is the big emotional moment of the film and right when it abouts to hit home...we cut to Madea doing something funny.

The dramatic saga of Joshua and Candace is just dull and predictable. When Joshua's fiancée Linda mildly over reacts to him helping Candace, we instantly realize that she will be the film's villain and that before the movie's over she and Joshua will break up when he finds out how evil and manipulative she is. This leads to the one thing that pisses me off so much about this part of the movie: Joshua and Candace get together in the end despite neither showing any real interest in one another. Joshua leaves Linda at the alter after finding out what she's been doing and immediately rushes to the prison Candace has been sent to (same one as Madea, providing the only real overlap of the 2 plots) and tells her he loves her. I don't understand American cinema's obsession with shoehorning a romance into every movie regardless of its genre, and this movie doesn't help. I would have respected the movie more if Joshua and Candace had just remained friends.

I've already talked about the movie more than I actually intended to. Bottom line, the movie would have been better if it had focused more on what they advertised the thing as: a comedy staring an old feisty black woman going to jail. This movie was ok and harmless enough to ensure that will be more Tyler Perry movies, but it doesn't make me want to see anything else with the Tyler Perry name.

Miss March

I already mentioned that I was a huge fan of the New York comedy group "The Whitest Kids U Know", so it was a no-brainier that I was going to see the new movie "Miss March". The film was written by and stars 2 of the group's members, Trevor Moore and Zach Cregger. It was fairly interesting to see if their flair for comedy would translate to a feature length production and it does...for the most part.

The basic plot finds Eugene Pratt (Zach Cregger) waking from a coma to find that his high school girlfriend has become a playboy playmate. Eugene and his brain-dead best friend Tucker Cleigh (Trevor Moore) than go on a "crazy" road trip to the playboy mansion to reunite with his true love.

I found the movie to be moderately amusing, though a couple notches below the standards set by Moore and Cregger's previous endeavours. The humor is lowbrow at it lowest (one of the character's stage name is Horse Dick.mpeg) and there really isn't anything wrong with that as long as its done well. The movie's not laugh-out loud funny but I did get a good number of solid laughs: Eugene's sex ed presentation, the stripper getting flung out the tour bus window, and Tucker's chat with Hugh Hefner were a few of my favorites moments. The rest of the humor varies from very funny to groan worthy.

The film has an odd hatred of firefighter provoked by Eugene and Tucker constantly being chased by groups of them led by Tucker's enraged girlfriend. Their encounters act as recurring joke that fails to entertain outside of the first meeting. The same can be said about a recurring poop joke brought on by Eugene's atrophy from his coma. It was funny the first time, but a tad tiring by the fourth time it appeared.

Miss March is a solid attempt at a feature film by Moore and Cregger. It won't make a top 10 best comedies list, but it's still a pretty good diversion. The movie is perhaps best enjoyed by fans of The Whitest Kids U Know and gross out films.

It's Hard To Be A Nintendo Fan

So a couple of weeks ago Nintendo released a list of about 120 games that will be released on the Wii and DS over the next few months...and it it completely pathetic. out of the 120 games on this list, I found 3 of actual interest: The Conduit, GTA Chinatown Wars, and the re-release of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (Which I missed on the Gamecube). It is worth noting that 2 games that I want, Mad World and Sonic & The Black Knight, weren't on the list possibly because at the time this list was unveiled, the 2 games were about a week from launch.

So if you count those 2 games, then the total number of Nintendo games I want has been bumped up to 5. The remaining 115 games are complete and utter garbage, even from a casual gaming perspective their list is just pure crap. The Wii and Ds started off really strong, producing top quality games for both the casual and hardcore crowds. However, since early 2008, both consoles have produce nothing but garbage for both casual and hardcore. Sure every one in while we get something great like Mario Galaxy or No More Heroes, but their just way too far apart.

Nintendo also seems to be getting incredibly lazy as well. This week marked the launch of the Wii Play Control series, a group of GameCube games revamped to take advantage of the Wii's motion-sensitive controls. Now I know I said I was getting New Play Control Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and some people think that some old Gamecube games are a perfect fit for the Wii controls, but I just think this completely ridiculous and that more time needs to put into new original ideas.

I love Nintendo, but it getting harder to support them when all they do is half ass everything. I understand the casual angle is making them embarrassingly large amounts of cash, but at the very least they could start putting some effort into even those games. But of course they know as long as give us a new Mario and Zelda game every couple of years, we'll stick around.

Money, Money...Money!

Hoorah! My tax return finally came to me today. I got $360 which put my "for fun" account up to $400 on the dot. I really needed this money. I had $1000 saved up as "for fun"when I quit my job back in October and I was suppose to find another job by now, but of course that hasn't come to pass yet.

Before the tax return came, I was down to last $60. I have a couple thousand in my savings, but I've been trying to resist the urge to use it. I'm not gonna buy too much with this money though, just Pokemon Platinum, Venture Bros Season 3 dvd and a much needed haircut. All this really means to me is that I need to buckle down and try harder to find another job.

I've Got Pokemon Fever

It's back and in full force. I hate to say it but I decided to pick up Pokemon Platinum when it releases on the 22nd of this month and I'm pretty excited. I don't know how it happened but I suddenly got an urge to catch and battle some pokemon. I haven't had this urge since since Pokemon Diamond was released 2 years ago and before that I hadn't played a pokemon game in 5 years.

Pokemon Platinum is the basically the special edition of Pokemon Diamond with some new pokemon and brand new locations to explore and course some little tweaks here and there in the gameplay to make it work. From what I've heard and seen one of the new locations is the distortion world. It has floor-like sections floating at angles from each other. On top of that odd things like surfing down a waterfall going up is possible. This is also the place where Giratina, the game's big legendary pokemon, will be in its Origin Forme (I have no idea what that is...)

To pass the time I've been playing Pokemon Fire Red and I'm about half done with it. I'm actually glad to be getting through with this game as one of about 30 uncompleted games that I need to get to work on. If I feel the need I may post a review on Pokemon Platinum in the future.

What A Waste

I hate it when I don't do anything of actual interest over my weekends. It feels like I accomplished nothing and didn't have fun. There are several things that I do over the weekend and it usually depends on what weekend it is in the month to determine what's done. One of the dullest things that can come up is visiting my relatives in Tennessee.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family; but I seriously don't have anything in common with any of them. So when my parents decided to go up there for the day on Saturday and maybe go to the mall in Nashville, it goes without saying that I was more interested in the mall than anything else. But we would never get to go to the mall and spent the whole day talking to relatives. I got so bored I wound of taking a nap....which I almost never do.

The only thing my parents did on Sunday was do yard work. I was unable to get a hold of one of my friends so I spent the day holed up in my room. I did manage to do most of the prep work for my third exams I have on Tuesday. The good news is that after I takes these exams I'm off on spring break for 2 weeks...yay!

Oh well, maybe I can do something more interesting next weekend.

Songs I Like - Vol 1: "Spaceman" (The Killers)

This is the music video for "Spaceman", the recent video from my favorite band The Killers. I had been trying to catch this on VH1 in the mornings but I never lucked out like I did with their "Human" Video. I was able to just go to VH1 and it would be playing. I had no interest in sitting through tons of garbage videos just to see this so I broke down and just watched it online. This is the video I saw at the mall on Saturday after Jordan stood me up and it cheered me up. This just might be their oddest video, but at least they make their videos different.

Spaceman lyrics:

Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed
And then they took my blood type
It left a strange impression in my head.
You know that I was hoping,
That I could leave this star-crossed world behind
But when they cut me open,
I guess I changed my mind.

And you know I might
Have just flown too far from the floor this time
Cause they're calling me by my name
And the zipping white light beams
Disregards the bombs and satellites

That was the turning point
That was one lonely night

The song maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down
Its all in your mind"

Well now I'm back at home, and
I'm looking forward to this life I live
You know its gonna haunt me
So hesitation to this life I give.
You think you might cross over,
You're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
You better look it over,
Before you make that leap

And you know I'm fine,
But I hear those voices at night sometimes-
They justify my claim,
And the public don't dwell my transmission
Cause it wasn't televised

But, it was the turning point,
Oh what a lonely night

The song maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down
Its all in your mind"

The song maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad;
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down
Its all in your mind"

My global position systems are vocally addressed
They say the Nile used to run from East to West,
They say the Nile used to run...
From East to West.

And you know I'm fine
But I hear those voices at night
Sometimes...

The song maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down
Its all in your mind"
The song maker says, "It ain't so bad"
The dream maker's gonna make you mad;
The spaceman says, "Everybody look down
Its all in your mind"

It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind

Snow, Snow, I Love It So

It snowed last night and actually stuck. When I got up and looked outside, the backyard was winter wonderland! Alabama has really crappy weather and we only get snow to stick about once every 2 years...even then it will stay for about 4 hours. Alas as I am typing this the snow has already melted and gone away. At least I while it was here I got to go out in it. the snow wasn't high enough to make snowballs or anything but it was just great to be around. My dog Porkchop really seemed to enjoy it though as he was alot more active outside than he had been all week. The snow started melting by the time I went out there and by the time I went back in, it was already half gone. I've lived out in Madison, Alabama for 10 years and I think we've only had one real long snow day and I think that was the year after we moved here from Huntsville, Alabama in 1998. I really wish we would get another, but knowing the south that will probably never happen.