Kick-Ass

I went with some friends to see Kick-Ass last week, and we left with wide grins upon our faces. I assume the “I saw Kick-Ass, it was kick ass!” joke has been done to death by now...so I'll have to find another way to describe my enjoyment of the movie. It’s a little hard to call superhero stories original nowadays, as the “what if superheroes were real?” thing has been done at least twice before within the past two years. Watchmen was just dudes in costumes in a gritty world that also happened to have a diabolical mastermind and a naked blue god involved, while Hancock seemed to be aiming for this vibe until it threw in the superheroine and it became more like some silly magic/fantasy thing going on. Of course, they’re both depressingly serious, so Kick-Ass instead focuses on the light-hearted and bare basics of superheroes: Cheap costumes, crazy characters, and kicking ass. My friends and I have discussed the whole serious-superheroes-versus-silly-superheroes thing before and I guess I can’t deny that I’m a bit more about the silly side of it.

So, yeah, some kid decides to become a superhero by wearing a scuba suit and wielding sticks, and happens to spawn a wave of imitators who, although substantially more badass than him, end up getting him into trouble via proxy, with all manner of gangster dealings going on. There’s some mandatory drama, mostly some mild angst over the hero revealing his identity to his lover, and the dangerous activities Big Daddy and Hit-Girl get up to, particularly when one of the characters dies, but for the most part the movie merely revels in silliness, outrageously brutal violence, and a rather immature love of swearing. I mean, I'm largely immune to and partake in immature swearing, but this one throws cunts and fucks around enough that makes it looks like it’s trying to impress someone. I feel my skills at describing just how joyous this movie was is beyond my writing capabilities. There are people shot in the face with reckless abandon, there is a moustached man doing an Adam West impersonation, and a jetpack is involved. It’s pretty freakin’ glorious, personally.

Batman: The Killing Joke

The Killing Joke is one of the more notable Batman/Joker stories out there. It was produced during the 80s transitional period for Batman where the series changed into something more serious and interesting than the campy 60s TV show and is still a major influence on the franchise today. The story manages to do a lot despite its fairly short length. The story acts as a character study of the relationship between Batman and laughing one, while delivering a solid possible origin story for the latter (though making it clear that this is only one of many possible reasons why The Joker is one of the most deranged characters ever), and forever changes the character of Barbara Gordon. While I'm well versed in Batman's various movies and animated series, this my first exposure to the comic books and I must say I was a bit thrown off by it's dark nature. It's shocking how Alan Moore can craft such a disturbing tale without really going beyond what's acceptable in a comic that kids might be allowed to read, as the psychological torture Joker places his enemies in is probably the most brutal act I've ever seen him commit. As my first exposure to Batman in his original comic form, I probably could have found something better, but it does the job well and makes great work of the psychological aspects that make me love this series.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

It took me a while to get around to playing this despite all the critical praise its received since release. The only thing I knew (and liked) about the game going into to was that its production had ties to excellent DC Animated Universe with Paul Dini writing the story and Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin reprising their roles as Batman, the Joker, and Harley Quinn respectively from The Animated Series. While nothing special, the story does set the mood nicely. Batman defeats the Joker and sees him off to Arkham Island and to the famous Arkham Asylum itself, going so far as to actually help escort the Joker into the intensive treatment center in the facility. However, Joker breaks free, overrides all of Arkham's security systems and essentially takes control of the entire facility. Knowing that Joker has more sinister intentions on his mind other than taking over Arkham, Batman ventures into the madhouse to set things right all the span of one crazy night. There's a definite Bioshock vibe to the game in terms of tone and world layout. There's attempts to frighten you with scripted sequences and environment details, audio tapes scattered around and tablets that fill in the story along with a creepy villain calling the shots behind the scenes.

The actually gameplay is very fitting of Batman. Sometimes you have direct encounters with the enemies but other times you use stealth tactics to take out the enemies without being seen. For the direct encounters you usually face thugs with baseball bats, cattle prods, knifes or their bare hands for weapons. When you fight these thugs you try to build up a combo. Every time you finish of a whole pack of thugs you always get an awesome moment where batman slowly K.Os the last enemy in slow motion. For the stealth encounters Batman uses his special array of gadgets to slowly knock out his enemies 1 by 1. Some of the weapons/gadgets include sonic, remote control, triple, double and regular batarangs, bat claws, explosive gel and a grapple gun. You use these weapons in a variety of ways to defeat your foes. Another cool way to defeat the foes is to attack them silently from behind. It really succeeds in making you feel like Batman and not just from the superhero aspects but from the detective aspect as well. It could've been fleshed out a little more, but checking out crime scenes for evidence and following trails with your "Bat-applications" is pretty cool.

The detective part is also where the game's collect-a-ton comes in. The Riddler has left a ton of things around the island for you to track down and riddles to solve and its a hell of a lot of fun to do. A lot of the riddles require more advanced equipment than you have when you first see them to get them, adding a metroid-equse layer to gameplay. The only real downside to game is the boss battles. Most of them feature really strong henchmen charging you. They're all beaten in the same manner and most of them employ that age old cheap-ass tactic of sending waves of regular enemies at you for no reason other than to get in the way. Other than that the game is handled extremely well. Arkham Asylum looks absolutely gorgeous, with art direction that easily rivals the best out there. The facilities and buildings of Arkham Island are expertly designed, ranging from high tech areas to gothic structures. Character models are highly detailed and I like how Batman becomes more and more beat-up as the game progresses and it shows on his suit and cape. The experience I had with the game was one of better I've had from the current generation of games and I only wish I would have played it sooner.

Invader Zim

Its been a while since I sat down and watched this show. I forgot how much I loved it. Jhonen Vasquez is well known for his graphic novels that have an...interesting sense of humor and style. They're not exactly kid friendly so I have no idea what the hell Nickelodeon was thinking when they got Jhonen to produce an animated series for them. But, it kinda worked out because we got an edgy, dark, and really unique series. Invader Zim is about Zim, who is sent on a fake mission to conquer Earth by his leaders because he completely screwed up their first attempt at universal domination. On Earth Zim and his faithful SIR-unit robot sidekick Gir study the human population (who are largely stupid and disgusting) and they come up with stupid ideas to enslave or destroy said population. Zim's schemes are often thwarted by the plans own flaws or by Zim's arch-nemesis Dib, a school kid whose freakishly obsessed with paranormal research. The two often come at odd and usually hilarity ensues.

Its hard to really find something to say about invader Zim that hasn't already been said. The most intriguing thing about the show is how its sense of humor is so unique and clearly of the shows own creation. Most of the humor tends to come from the odd use of a variety of animals (notably piggies and mooses) as well a wonderful disregard for human life. Jhonen Vasquez's whacked-out style works perfectly for the an animated series. His style has more appeal for adults than children, with its dark and sometimes morbid tones and sometimes shocking violence. There's also reference upon reference to science fiction stories and movies along with plenty of jokes that'll fly over the heads of the younger viewers. All these factors seem to have been too much for the figureheads at Nickelodeon too handle as they pulled the plug on the show in its second season.

The characters all have these quarks that would only work with them. Zim has a tendency to go on long rants about his plans and his delusions of grandeur always make him a delight to listen to, thanks in part to Richard Horvitz impeccable voice work. His sidekick GIR may be the only character that can get away with just saying random crap all day. He's adorable and he's one of those characters who's fun to watch do anything, having that right level of idiocy that makes him funny as opposed to annoying. Dib can fall into the annoying category from time to time but his insane attempts to get everyone to see that Zim is an alien are a treat. You really have to feel bad for the poor kid that just wants to help the human race, who in return, think of him as a freak. Its a shame that Nick couldn't handle the show, because it was really starting to get intriguing towards the end, with story arcs popping up here and there along with a greater importance on continuity (and an episode where Zim eats waffles). The show's cancellation was a tragic lost (especially with the pure junk that Nick put it in its place), but at least for a while we got to watch one of the best animated shows in the last decade.

The Boondocks - Season 2 (Review)

I actually liked this second season of The Boondocks a lot better than I remember I did. The season aired on television almost two years ago and I recall not being as impressed with these episodes. I think that may have had something to do with the shift in tone. Whereas most of the first season focused on Huey and had some social satire hidden amongst it storylines. Most of the second season focuses on Grandad or Riley and the wacky misadventures they can get into and its more enjoyable than I gave them credit for. Most of these episodes are as hilarious as the first season's better efforts, but I think could've used a little more Huey in some places.

The dvd actually features two episodes that didn't air on television, one of which called the "Hunger Strike" just happens to be the only Huey-centric episode of the season. It attempts to capture the essence of what made his earlier outings so memorable, but ultimately feels weighed down by the BET caricatures (Though it wouldn't hurt to see more of them in the future). The other banned episode " The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show" actually might be one of my favorites for this season along with "Stinkmeaner Strikes Back", which continues an battle from season one while pushing things into a somewhat cleaver parody of The Exorcist. In any case, the second season is just as strong as the first even with the focus change. This is all thanks in part to the entertaining characters, a dynamic visual style and strong voice acting, which all form one of Adult Swims more enjoyable series

The Boondocks - Season 1 (Review)

The Boondocks is quite a different Adult Swim show. For one thing, the production values are through the roof, the beautiful animation effectively emulating an anime, unlike most shows on the programming block that characterized by cheap animation. Second, the show runs for a full half hour, whereas most Adult Swim shows runs about 15 minutes. Based on Aaron McGruder's comic strip, the series follows the Freemans, a black family from Chicago that recently moved to the predominately white suburbs of Woodcrest. The Family consist of Huey and Riley, two brothers that couldn't be any more different in their ideas and opinions (Huey is a black revolutionist, while Riley follows the ways of modern gangsters), and their Granddad ,Robert Freeman watches over them with old-fashioned discipline, while also trying to become a ladies man.

The main focus of the series is offering sharp parodies and commentary on African American culture, pop-culture, and political actions. This first season occasionally stumbles with this a bit here and there, often I found it as though they were trying a bit too hard, but even then I still found the show to be incredibly hilarious. I believe it's comparable to South Park in its ability to mix serious commentary with smart and dirty jokes. The great example of this is "The Trial of Robert Kelly", which despite being extremely dated by the time it aired, was a brilliant take on the way race and celebrity work in the justice system. There's tons of humor and some mean spirited jokes aimed at R. Kelly and the way his fans blindly defend him, but it all culminates in wonderful speech by Huey arguing that, while many black men have been charged with crimes they're innocent of, R. Kelly isn't one of them. Another highlight would have to be "Return of the King", a what-if story that finds Martin Luther King, instead of being killed, put in a coma until 2000. When He opposes the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, he's labeled an "Al Qaeda Lover" and "commie bastard" by everyone. From there King tries to start his own left-wing political party with the help of Huey. The episode is full of just plain funny moments and although this episode raised a lot of controversy over Dr King's use of the n-word (which is the show's most frequently used word by the way), I found it to be true to life and respectful to King's legacy.

The cast of characters are all surprisingly deep and well defined. Huey, with his self-righteous and smart-ass attitude, can be a little annoying at times but he's still pretty likeable. Riley is oftentimes pretty damn hilarious as he's a bit too over-influenced by hip-hop culture and episodes that focus on him are funnier, but a tad weaker structurally, than the Huey-centered outings. Grandad is a delight and gets some great moments like his fight with an old blind man and his fling with prostitute (although he didn't know she was a prostitute, despite many obvious signs). The most interesting supporting character would have to be Uncle Ruckus, a self hating black man whose every other line is some sort of slam against the black community. He's offensively funny and his character never becomes too uncomfortable outside of the season finale. I think I've said enough about this show now, that's kinda what happens with things I really like. I think the show offers more than simple shock value and shouldn't be ignored... as long you have a tolerance for excessive use of the n-word.

Turtles Forever (Review)

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they've been celebrating the occasion by releasing special action figures, re-releasing movies, and updating classic Ninja Turtles video games. The celebration concluded about a week ago with premiere of a special animated movie that I had been looking forward to since it was announced. Turtles Forever has the 1987 cartoon cast ending up in the dimension of the 2003 cartoon show. When the 87 Shredder figures out that if are a different set of Turtles, then there probably is a different Shredder, it results in the revival and return of Ch'rell, the Utrom Shredder. Ch'rell is more insane then ever and he takes over and modifies the Technodrome from the 1987 cartoon with Utrom tech and upgrades it to pretty much the equivalent of the Death Star. Both the 87 and 2003 Turtles end up in a fight to save themselves as well as all other dimensions, while learning to put up with one another.

Overall, as a Ninja Turtles fan, the movie is really satisfying. It was a real treat to see the 1987 characters in new detailed animation that still remained true to their original character designs.
The main theme in the film seems to be to show off just how different in tone the two series really are. The 87 series was light-hearted ,and like most 80s cartoons, corny as hell, while the recent series is dark, serious and closer in tone to the original comic book. If I had to chose one over the other, I'd have to say that I prefer that recent series to the older one which is good because the story seems to be more focused on them and giving their series a proper conclusion and their version of the Shredder takes the lead as the main antagonist. If anything, this movie goes out of its way to show just how insane the Shredder of the 2003 series is. He truly is the most heartless and dangerous Shredder ever created and he steals the show.

The only major downside to the film is that here the 1987 series is treated almost as a parody of itself. The movie overplays their stupid and comedic sides from the original show rather then their more serious sides. There is some great humor in the 2003 cast's reactions to the 87 cast's horrible puns and childish attitudes, but at times it really felt like the movie was just one step away from saying "Can you believe anybody ever watched this show?" I have only seen a handful of episodes of the 87 series (as opposed to the 2003 series where I've seen almost every episode) and while I can agree that it can be pretty groan worthy and "kid-friendly", I don't think it ever was or became as juvenile and looney tunes-esque as this movie makes it out to be. Despite this, the movie wasn't perfect but it was still pretty awesome. It had a lot of fan service for the comic fans, the 87 fans, and the 2003 fans. Nickelodeon's acquiring of the Ninja Turtles license has turned this movie into a send-off for an era of the TMNT franchise and as such, it doesn't disappoint.

My Weekend at AWA 2009

This past weekend I unexpectedly went off with a large group of friends to Amine Weekend Atlanta (AWA) in... well Atlanta. AWA is some kind of 3 day anime, video game, pop culture convention that one of my friends go to every year and this year I was invited to go with him and his friends at the cost of 70 bucks. So I figured "what the hell", I've never been to anything like this before and it's been years since I've been on anything even remotely resembling a vacation. What followed may as well have been the most fun I've have all year.

("Part of my motley crew")

There were 12 of us on this trip, a few I've met before (most of them only a week ago) and we plowed into 2 vans and spent about 5 hours on the road heading to Atlanta. The hotel we spent our weekend at was ritzy, but cheap, charging five dollars for some stupid bottle of water and fifteen bucks a night for an internet connection. While in our conjoining rooms, I slowly but surely started bonding with these people. We all had similar interest and attitudes and just had a blast screwing around with each other. The day before leaving I bought the new Mario & Luigi game with intention of playing it when there was dull down-time between events, but I barely touched the thing as I was spending all my time laughing and messing around with my new friends in the room and during the convention itself. ("Various Kingdom Hearts Characters" )
("Angry Video Game Nerd Vs. Nostalgia Critic" )

The main attraction to this convention is seeing a bunch of people cos-play as bunch of different characters. Over the course of the weekend I saw a lot people dressed as my favorite characters: Mario Bros, Zelda, Pokemon, The Joker, and even The Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic. The thing I learned from all of this is that cos-play is less about people actually wanting to be these characters and more about people just wanting to show off some cool stuff that they made. One of the only things my friends complained about that I noticed more towards the end of the convention is that the cos-players showed an over reliance on certain franchises. Well over 80% of the people dressed up as characters from Bleach, Naurto, or Kingdom Hearts. It would have been nice if there had been more variety of franchise representation.

(It's Over 9000!!!!)

(The Comedian(Justin) and Rorschach)
(The Mario Sisters)

There was quite a full list of events planned at this convention from watching various anime to pokemon trivia contest to cos-play 101, but I didn't attend most of them. Usually the lines to these things were too long for me to tolerate, so I usually spent most of time with one of my friends in the dealer's room where you can buy rare Japanese merchandise. There were action figures, DVDs, video games, dolls, and swords. I managed to walk out there with a Dragonball Z and Sonic the Hedgehog figure, a Kirby doll, and a couple of Mario Galaxy cards. The downside was that everything was overpriced, a side effect of most of the items being imported I suppose.

(Rikki Simons: the voice of GIR)

(Set phasers to stunning)

The place I spent a huge chunk of time at towards the end of the convention was the artist room where people can go and view and buy fan art. Nathan and I spent too much time and money here, but all of the drawings were just too good to pass up. The coolest thing we managed to do in this room was meet Rosearik Rikki Simons who did the voice of GIR from Invader Zim. We got pictures with him and he autographed some pictures and it was just too cool for words. I really wished I had job so I could buy some more stuff. (I think I just rediscovered my love of Pokemon)
(A yeti eating chris's head, a flamer, and Nathan)

Come Sunday afternoon it was time for us to depart this wonderful locale and head back to our dull reality. Overall I had a blast and have come to find the friends I roomed with as people I can't wait to see again. Nathan and I made plans to go another convention in November, but I seriously doubt that would actually come to be. I'll definitely go back to AWA next year if these people go as well.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 1987 Series - Season 1 (Review)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They're the world's most fearsome fighting team, they're heroes in a half-shell and they're green. Master Splinter taught them to be ninja teens, Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines. Raphael is cool but crude and Michaelangelo is a party dude. When the evil Shredder attacks, these turtle boys don't cut him no slack! Those reordered lyrics from the theme song pretty much explains the premise the show. The TMNT was one of the most successful franchises of the 80s and 90s and of course, the most remembered of the Ninja Turtles' adventures came in the form of their 80s animated series which ran for 10 seasons and over 200 episodes between them.

The first season, which spans 5 episodes, was actually created as a self-contained mini series with the series proper being produced after this run proved to be really popular. The season details the turtles meeting news reporter April O'Neal and the turtles' first encounter with their arch nemesis Shredder. After Shredder's foot soldiers and goons are defeated he creates two mutants called Bebop and Rocksteady, and along with the exiled warlord Krang, Shredder tries to open a portal to Dimension X so Krang's army can conquer Earth. The thing that surprised me about these episodes is how how well they've held up over the past 20 years. Most 80s cartoons are horrifically dated and usually only loved now for the nostalgia factor. Ninja Turtles definitely falls victim to this problem (most of Michelangelo's dialogue to be specific), but not enough as to completely deter from any enjoyment of the show. The show's chock full of corny one-liners and memorable characters and features a surprisingly well done mixture of action and comedy that most other 80s cartoons were fairly inept at preforming. While the parts of the show that are dated are cringe-worthy, the rest manages to show-off why the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of the most popular cartoons ever and for people like me, it's a a fun and entertaining trip back to childhood.

Spiderman 3 (Review)

I like Spiderman for pretty much for the same reasons everyone else likes him: He's very easy to relate to and he makes mistakes. I enjoyed the first two Spiderman movies. They were fun, exciting, well-written movies that served as grade A examples of how superhero movies can be done. The third film is almost as good but it misses its mark by being a little too...busy. Part of the problem comes from the film featuring three antagonists instead of just one or two. The Sandman is pretty cool or at least the special effects used for him are cool. I never really found him to be a memorable foe in the comics and I must be one of the few people who wasn't bothered by the film making him Uncle Ben's killer. He was just a normal criminal when he killed Ben so it's not like Peter still couldn't have done anything stop him. Harry Osborn taking up the mantle of Green Goblin is fun even though it happens a bit too soon in the series for my tastes. At least it gives actor James Franco more to do this time. Finally the big fish in this villain buffet is Venom, who was pretty much guaranteed to appear when it was revealed that the symbiote would be play a role in the plot. I would have preferred that they held off on Venom for the inevitable sequel as he's just too cool and popular to share the spotlight with another baddie.

The other thing that makes the storyline here overstuffed is the continued and completely unneeded romantic drama between Peter and Mary Jane. Spiderman 2 pretty much had the two where they needed to be as they were together and M.J. knew Peter was Spiderman. In other continuities Mary Jane and Peter get together and M.J. acts as strong supporter for Peter and his problems. They had a strong relationship and pretty much only had minor typical rough patches. It's confusing to me why they felt this movie needed more drama when there's already so much stuff going on.

Even though the movie packs in a bit too much, it's still executed extremely well. Peter wearing the symbiote suit fuels some of the humor as we see him become a huge twat and the situation only becomes irritating during the kinda funny but completely retarded dance sequence. The fight scenes are wonderfully choreographed, one of my favorites being the Sandman fight in the sewer/train track tunnel. The final battle is the highlight as brings together all aspects of the story and wraps them up in a satisfying way. I enjoyed Spiderman 3, not as much as the other two but I believe it does a great job of concluding the over-arching storyline. There's a fourth movie coming, but I'm not really looking forward to it as superhero series don't really do so well after three movies... oh well at least these first three films were good.