Transformers 2 is the story of a severely disturbed young man who retreats into a vivid fantasy life to avoid the trauma of living with two severely mentally handicapped parents. Director Michael Bay presents Sam Witwicky as a great study of a character who has too much responsibility and wishes to escape it all. Clearly Sam is the rock that tethers his deranged parents to reality, and when he gets ready to leave for college, their whole world comes crumbling down. Bay cleverly represents this by having Sam’s childhood home get destroyed by his imaginary robot pals. Bay cuts between scenes of confusing, and poorly thought out fantasy, and heartbreaking family drama, to further play up how much the burden of his mentally retarded parents has affected his life. In one scene of pure cinematic genius Bay reveals how deep Sam has retreated into his rich interior world, by having an enormously attractive woman embrace, and kiss him after his house is destroyed. The brilliant camera work in this scene is what really conveys this retreat, by having the camera repeatedly circle around Sam and his fantasy ideal of a woman, bay begins to create a sickeningly dizzy display of emotion. Many spectators at my screening were beginning to get sick of all the camera rotation around this scene, and I smiled at how Bay got such a visceral, and real reaction from the audience with only his camera work. He is clearly an auteur to be revered.
Like any young man Sam envisions himself as the center of his fantasy world. In Sam’s fantasies he is the Christ like protagonist of some absurd struggle between warring robots. This reflects Sam’s real world responsibility as caretaker of his very very stupid parents. Intercut with heartbreaking scenes of his mother humiliating herself when Sam goes to college, are scenes of Sam rejecting his role as savior of the robots. Clearly this is all a metaphor for Sam rejecting stewardship of his childlike parents. Only when Sam’s fantasy world threatens to implode on itself in a sheer clusterfuck of amazing ridiculousity does he realize that cannot reject his duty of caring for his severely challenged parents.
Bay throws in several hints that Sam may be suffering some mental hangups himself with the portrayal of two grossly offensive illiterate stereotype robots, that seem to poke fun at how White people view Black culture, just by being so inherently thoughtless and offensive. Unfortunately the spectators at my screening seemed to think that these gross stereotypes were funny when they clearly, clearly were annoying and racist. Perhaps Bay can fix this in the just announced 5 hour long director’s cut.
Overall Transformers 2 is an excellent look at the life of a pathetic young man, and his burdensome mentally handicapped parents.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Review of Ex Machina and Jack of Fables
So I decided to do something different this week and talk about two comic books. Particularly I will be talking about two comic books that I bought at the store. These two comics are Jack Of Fables #35 and Ex Machina #43.
A long time ago I used to buy a whole bunch of weekly comics, mostly Marvel superhero stuff, but I kind of fell out of reading those lately (they have jacked up the price to 3.99 per issue, and they are all interconnected so reading just one is hard), and now I just stick with the Fables series of books and Ex Machina. I think explaining what both of those books are about in one sentence or so will probably make them sound lame, and won’t do the stories justice so I will just skip that part and talk about the specific comics I got.
Jack Of Fables #35
(Note this is part 8 of a continuing story) This issue begins with two hilarious two-page spreads introducing all the characters involved for those unfortunate enough to pick up this issue without reading the first 7 parts of the story. Pretty much everything is hilarious about the first four pages from the character descriptions to the art work. My favorite are the descriptions of the Genre Characters mystery’s description is left blank, SciFi’s is a bunch of technobabble, and Fantasy’s is a bunch of mythical type stuff so convoluted that the author gives up midway through. Also this book has a two page spread of a little girl brutally murdering like 8 people with her bare hands. Yeah you read that right.
This comic book was awesome! Makes me excited to see how this whole thing will be wrapped up in the next installment.
Ex Machina #43
Hopefully with Lost on hiatus Mr. Big Shot Hollywood writer Vaughan will find some time to finish the last seven issues of this awesome comic in a timely manner. Because hell he has gained a name for himself by writing some of the best cliffhangers ever, and the one for the issue before this was brutal. From the first issue of this series we were told that the year 2005 was a disaster for Mayor Hundred, and this storyarc finally begins to reveal just what happened in “goddamned 2005”. So far the mayor’s political career could easily be killed by any of three threats introduced in this storyline, the mysterious box he kept locked away in a safe house, the resurgence of his old archenemy Jack Pherson, or the fact that he has resumed his role as vigilante(!). This is the first storyline to put the main focus on the Superheroics, in all the proceeding chapters the superpowers-related storylines always came second to the political action, and this shuffling up of the series is pretty intriguing. Also I was waiting forever to see more stuff about Pherson who I think is the most interesting part about the whole Ex Machina series. This book deserves full marks by beginning in the most awesome way possible, with the Great Machine facing up to the Zombified mistakes of his past. Yeah you read that right.
Both Jack of Fables #35 and Ex Machina #43 are highly recommended by me, but both of these books continue previous storylines so be sure to catch up before you read either of them.
A long time ago I used to buy a whole bunch of weekly comics, mostly Marvel superhero stuff, but I kind of fell out of reading those lately (they have jacked up the price to 3.99 per issue, and they are all interconnected so reading just one is hard), and now I just stick with the Fables series of books and Ex Machina. I think explaining what both of those books are about in one sentence or so will probably make them sound lame, and won’t do the stories justice so I will just skip that part and talk about the specific comics I got.
Jack Of Fables #35
(Note this is part 8 of a continuing story) This issue begins with two hilarious two-page spreads introducing all the characters involved for those unfortunate enough to pick up this issue without reading the first 7 parts of the story. Pretty much everything is hilarious about the first four pages from the character descriptions to the art work. My favorite are the descriptions of the Genre Characters mystery’s description is left blank, SciFi’s is a bunch of technobabble, and Fantasy’s is a bunch of mythical type stuff so convoluted that the author gives up midway through. Also this book has a two page spread of a little girl brutally murdering like 8 people with her bare hands. Yeah you read that right.This comic book was awesome! Makes me excited to see how this whole thing will be wrapped up in the next installment.
Ex Machina #43
Hopefully with Lost on hiatus Mr. Big Shot Hollywood writer Vaughan will find some time to finish the last seven issues of this awesome comic in a timely manner. Because hell he has gained a name for himself by writing some of the best cliffhangers ever, and the one for the issue before this was brutal. From the first issue of this series we were told that the year 2005 was a disaster for Mayor Hundred, and this storyarc finally begins to reveal just what happened in “goddamned 2005”. So far the mayor’s political career could easily be killed by any of three threats introduced in this storyline, the mysterious box he kept locked away in a safe house, the resurgence of his old archenemy Jack Pherson, or the fact that he has resumed his role as vigilante(!). This is the first storyline to put the main focus on the Superheroics, in all the proceeding chapters the superpowers-related storylines always came second to the political action, and this shuffling up of the series is pretty intriguing. Also I was waiting forever to see more stuff about Pherson who I think is the most interesting part about the whole Ex Machina series. This book deserves full marks by beginning in the most awesome way possible, with the Great Machine facing up to the Zombified mistakes of his past. Yeah you read that right.
Both Jack of Fables #35 and Ex Machina #43 are highly recommended by me, but both of these books continue previous storylines so be sure to catch up before you read either of them.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Fact V. Fiction
Ok let’s play a game. In this game I will describe a person to you and you will think of this person’s name in your head once you figure out the clues.
Clue 1 This person is a woman
Clue 2: This person is the governor of the largest state (geographically speaking) in the United States
Clue 3: This person has a daughter who got teen-pregnant.
Clue 4: This person likes to shoot at moose from a helicopter
Clue 5: This person does not understand jokes.
Ok I’m pretty sure most of you know who I am talking about by now, and since I don’t want to contribute to the continued publicity this woman seeks I won’t say her real name. Instead I’ll call this person Sally. Now recently David Letterman made a joke about Sally’s daughter that Sally seems to have misinterpreted. You see Sally is a firm supporter of the Bible specifically the part about going forth and multiplying, and Sally has several children including at least two daughters. David Letterman made a joke saying in a roundabout way that Alex Rodriguez had impregnated Sally’s 18 year old daughter (let’s call her Sally Jr.) at a recent baseball game. Apparently though Sally Jr. didn’t attend this baseball game, and in a shocking twist Sally Jr. Jr. went to the baseball game with Sally Sr. SALLY JR. JR. IS FOURTEEN!!!
This prompted Sally and her husband Todd to react in horror. Now anybody who knows Sally knows that she loves to parade around her kids in front of the “Mainstream media”, and the one kid that she has paraded around the most is Sally Jr. who as I have mentioned before got teen pregnant. Sally Jr. posed for the cover of a magazine and is about as close to being a household name as any promiscuous daughter of a politician can be. Naturally everyone who heard letterman’s joke assumed he was referencing Sally Jr. Not Sally though, because she doesn’t understand how jokes are made. A joke consists of many things, but most late night talk show hosts like David Letterman construct jokes by referencing two topical events and juxtaposing them in a humorous fashion. In this case the two topical events in question were Alex Rodriguez being promiscuous and Sally Jr. getting teen pregnant. Not exactly a great joke, but hey talk show hosts have to literally make hundreds of jokes a week; they can’t all be good.
Sally won’t shut up about this whole thing and is constantly talking about how letterman wants her fourteen year old to get raped. I mean you would think a mother would not want to talk about her underaged child getting hypothetically raped, but Sally and her Husband Todd are more than happy to shatter that thought, as long as they get national attention. Probably they will continue to humiliate Sally Jr. Jr. for as long as they can by continuing to imply that letterman’s joke was directed at Sally Jr. Jr. as long as somebody will report on it, in-spite of the fact that Letterman says that Sally Jr. is the target.
But Sally won't rest with just a joke that implies Sally Jr. Jr. is the target of the joke, so she had her publicist make a joke that explicitly names Sally Jr. Jr. as the target of a joke. From Sally's publicist
Hey even Letterman is getting a piece of that pie, because the day after Sally started complaining about this event his show beat his rival the Tonight Show ( now with Conan O’Brien) for the first time in 8 months. Sally’s providing him with numerous hours of free advertising on many news segments, he probably couldn’t be happier with the free publicity. No the only loser in this Feud is Conan O’Brien. So please watch the tonight show with Conan O’Brien I beg of you!
Clue 1 This person is a woman
Clue 2: This person is the governor of the largest state (geographically speaking) in the United States
Clue 3: This person has a daughter who got teen-pregnant.
Clue 4: This person likes to shoot at moose from a helicopter
Clue 5: This person does not understand jokes.
Ok I’m pretty sure most of you know who I am talking about by now, and since I don’t want to contribute to the continued publicity this woman seeks I won’t say her real name. Instead I’ll call this person Sally. Now recently David Letterman made a joke about Sally’s daughter that Sally seems to have misinterpreted. You see Sally is a firm supporter of the Bible specifically the part about going forth and multiplying, and Sally has several children including at least two daughters. David Letterman made a joke saying in a roundabout way that Alex Rodriguez had impregnated Sally’s 18 year old daughter (let’s call her Sally Jr.) at a recent baseball game. Apparently though Sally Jr. didn’t attend this baseball game, and in a shocking twist Sally Jr. Jr. went to the baseball game with Sally Sr. SALLY JR. JR. IS FOURTEEN!!!
This prompted Sally and her husband Todd to react in horror. Now anybody who knows Sally knows that she loves to parade around her kids in front of the “Mainstream media”, and the one kid that she has paraded around the most is Sally Jr. who as I have mentioned before got teen pregnant. Sally Jr. posed for the cover of a magazine and is about as close to being a household name as any promiscuous daughter of a politician can be. Naturally everyone who heard letterman’s joke assumed he was referencing Sally Jr. Not Sally though, because she doesn’t understand how jokes are made. A joke consists of many things, but most late night talk show hosts like David Letterman construct jokes by referencing two topical events and juxtaposing them in a humorous fashion. In this case the two topical events in question were Alex Rodriguez being promiscuous and Sally Jr. getting teen pregnant. Not exactly a great joke, but hey talk show hosts have to literally make hundreds of jokes a week; they can’t all be good.
Sally won’t shut up about this whole thing and is constantly talking about how letterman wants her fourteen year old to get raped. I mean you would think a mother would not want to talk about her underaged child getting hypothetically raped, but Sally and her Husband Todd are more than happy to shatter that thought, as long as they get national attention. Probably they will continue to humiliate Sally Jr. Jr. for as long as they can by continuing to imply that letterman’s joke was directed at Sally Jr. Jr. as long as somebody will report on it, in-spite of the fact that Letterman says that Sally Jr. is the target.
But Sally won't rest with just a joke that implies Sally Jr. Jr. is the target of the joke, so she had her publicist make a joke that explicitly names Sally Jr. Jr. as the target of a joke. From Sally's publicist
The (Sallys) have no intention of providing a rating’s boost for David Letterman by appearing on his show. Plus, it would be wise to keep (Sally Jr. Jr.) away from David Letterman.
Now Sally says that her joke isn't about David Letterman wanting to rape her fourteen year old. However, according to Sally's logic it doesn't matter what the originator of the joke intended, as long as you take the worst possible interpretation of the joke and yell it as loudly as you can.Hey even Letterman is getting a piece of that pie, because the day after Sally started complaining about this event his show beat his rival the Tonight Show ( now with Conan O’Brien) for the first time in 8 months. Sally’s providing him with numerous hours of free advertising on many news segments, he probably couldn’t be happier with the free publicity. No the only loser in this Feud is Conan O’Brien. So please watch the tonight show with Conan O’Brien I beg of you!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
FIRST!!!!
Alright I think it’s finally time to get this show on the road and review some comics. I was originally going to review New X-Men many moons ago, but I got sidetracked, and things went down a different road, and here it is two columns (one of which was specifically titled “New X-Men reviewed” I might add) later and I still haven’t reviewed it. I consulted a few psychiatrists about this and they seem to think that it’s my subconscious telling me I must not review New X-Men! And wouldn’t you know it once I stopped thinking about reviewing New X-Men my chest pains stopped, my youthful energy has returned, and I don’t want to spend all day in bed. Point is I was depressed for that week when I decided to review New X-Men dear readers, and I place the blame squarely on you—Shit, those psychiatrists told me to stop antagonizing people—
New topic, I see we had a foreigner from the land of ice pay a visit to this blog, probably looking for that New X-Men review that I never did… arg depression returning must do something else… Ah yes I will review something (no I don’t want to fall into that rut again) I will make a list (no lists are written by nerds for people with ADD), pitch another TV show (ok sounds good, it requires mild creativity, and I’ve only done it once before.). Does everyone remember my first pitch for a revamp of the smurfs? Good because this will be nothing like that.
Alright first off when pitching a TV show you must come up with a genre. Hmm I seem to like Sci-Fi a lot, ok I’ll go with that. Now after you have the genre of tv show picked out the next step is to figure out how to get hawt young people to be on the show. Ok the scientist has a hot daughter, who totally has relationship problems and goes through boyfriends faster than a dog with an erection in a cat shop… (Does that simile make sense, discuss in our spiffy comment section). Ok now I decide the theme of the series… Enough of this outline crap here's a brief summary of the series...
Joe Samson is the worst cop on the police force. Every murder case he has ever handled has ended with the killer escaping the blind sword of justice, until one day an oddly specific dream gives him the clue he needed to solve a case. Fortunately for Joe strange dreams and hallucinations continue to help him solve cases. However, when Joe discovers that the “divine intervention” has been taking a serious toll on his physical and mental health he must decide whether or not he should find a way to get rid of his abilities. Joe faces a tough decision: keep the fame, and adulation of his peers, along with helping to keep the streets safe or throw it all away and return to life as a failure. That’s a good two or three storyarcs right there. Probably enough content to last the show until it gets canceled---Dammit, I was told by the psychiatrists to think positive thoughts…
New topic, I see we had a foreigner from the land of ice pay a visit to this blog, probably looking for that New X-Men review that I never did… arg depression returning must do something else… Ah yes I will review something (no I don’t want to fall into that rut again) I will make a list (no lists are written by nerds for people with ADD), pitch another TV show (ok sounds good, it requires mild creativity, and I’ve only done it once before.). Does everyone remember my first pitch for a revamp of the smurfs? Good because this will be nothing like that.
Alright first off when pitching a TV show you must come up with a genre. Hmm I seem to like Sci-Fi a lot, ok I’ll go with that. Now after you have the genre of tv show picked out the next step is to figure out how to get hawt young people to be on the show. Ok the scientist has a hot daughter, who totally has relationship problems and goes through boyfriends faster than a dog with an erection in a cat shop… (Does that simile make sense, discuss in our spiffy comment section). Ok now I decide the theme of the series… Enough of this outline crap here's a brief summary of the series...
Joe Samson is the worst cop on the police force. Every murder case he has ever handled has ended with the killer escaping the blind sword of justice, until one day an oddly specific dream gives him the clue he needed to solve a case. Fortunately for Joe strange dreams and hallucinations continue to help him solve cases. However, when Joe discovers that the “divine intervention” has been taking a serious toll on his physical and mental health he must decide whether or not he should find a way to get rid of his abilities. Joe faces a tough decision: keep the fame, and adulation of his peers, along with helping to keep the streets safe or throw it all away and return to life as a failure. That’s a good two or three storyarcs right there. Probably enough content to last the show until it gets canceled---Dammit, I was told by the psychiatrists to think positive thoughts…
Monday, May 25, 2009
NEW ECKS MEN REVIEWED?!?!
Ok so last column kind of got sidetracked and went to a weird place. Honestly I was trying to write about Grant Morrison’s brilliant run on New X-Men, but once I actually got started talking about Grant Morrison, I started rambling about crap. I mean the guy’s life story is an oscar winning biopic in the making, I swear it. I did a little bit of research about him a while ago, and there is some interesting, and paranoid shit out there, you readers should seriously look for it. Also to complete the night of grand conspiracy theories and paranoia, Look up the Montauk Chair, The Blue moon conspiracy, and Morphic Resonance. Actually just read the first paragraph on this website, the last sentence is probably one of the funniest things ever written on the internet. That Montauk wikipedia article is pretty funny too especially the part where it warns about how the article does not site any of its sources.
Crap! See this is what happens when I talk about Grant Morrison, I start rambling about conspiracy theories. WHY CAN’T I JUST REVIEW NEW X-MEN LIKE I WANTED? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.
Ok I think I’ll just settle down by talking about a movie that deals with conspiracy theories, the horrors of aging, and the sadness of being forgotten by the world. Yeah that’s right I’m going to review “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”! Wait, I didn’t see that crappy movie. I mean Benjamin Button is like 5 and a half hours long, and no one has been able to watch the whole thing through due to how boring it is. Why would I subject myself to that? For the good of my readers who want to know about the movie? Hah that’s funny, maybe if somebody started paying me to write shit then I would review godawful pieces of shite like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. No I’m going to review something that interests me, something like say X-Me—Bubba Ho-tep. Man what a great movie Bubba Ho-Tep was. I mean it had it all conspiracy theories, comments on the horrors of aging and the sadness of being forgotten by the world (Strange I feel like I’m repeating myself here), also it stars an aging Elvis Aaron Presley who teams up with a black guy who thinks he is JFK to fight a mummy. Yeah I know must of you loyal readers who have made it this far into the review probably were already sold based on that sentence alone so I should probably stop here with the review. But TWIST I won’t. I freaking promised to review something in this post, and dammit I am gonna review. Screw the ramifications! So basically Bubba Ho-Tep begins in a most depressing fashion depicting a bedridden Elvis Presley (Played by the amazing Bruce Campbell) trapped in the most horrible old folks home ever. Much time is spent showing how a place like that can just destroy a person, and Elvis is just a big sack of do nothing sadness. It’s a little hard to watch, especially when you think that the movie is supposed to be about Elvis and Black JFK fighting a mummy, but I digress. You see this is a movie about redemption and in order to get anyone to give a flying eff about a hero’s redemption you must first show the depths to which the hero has fallen. The first half of Bubba Ho-Tep concerns itself with that goal, and does a splendid job. Naturally once the plot reaches the turning point the rest of the movie is almost twice as enjoyable because of what came before. Overall I highly recommend this movie, for it’s humor, conspiracy theories, and surprisingly emotionally involving characters. This may be a B-movie, but it’s got more soul than any number of Hollywood blockbusters with 100 times it’s budget. (Crap I’ve been watching too much “How I met your Mother” I mean that show’s hilarious but if you watch it too long you start to think in lame metaphors (by Thor’s hammer that show is filled with lame metaphors, but it is so freaking hilarious that I love it) and even lamer analogies. So please forgive the terrible last sentence (although I would bet it is worthy of the DVD cover all it needs is a few more exclamation points.))
Rabbit-Man out!!
Crap! See this is what happens when I talk about Grant Morrison, I start rambling about conspiracy theories. WHY CAN’T I JUST REVIEW NEW X-MEN LIKE I WANTED? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.
Ok I think I’ll just settle down by talking about a movie that deals with conspiracy theories, the horrors of aging, and the sadness of being forgotten by the world. Yeah that’s right I’m going to review “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”! Wait, I didn’t see that crappy movie. I mean Benjamin Button is like 5 and a half hours long, and no one has been able to watch the whole thing through due to how boring it is. Why would I subject myself to that? For the good of my readers who want to know about the movie? Hah that’s funny, maybe if somebody started paying me to write shit then I would review godawful pieces of shite like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. No I’m going to review something that interests me, something like say X-Me—Bubba Ho-tep. Man what a great movie Bubba Ho-Tep was. I mean it had it all conspiracy theories, comments on the horrors of aging and the sadness of being forgotten by the world (Strange I feel like I’m repeating myself here), also it stars an aging Elvis Aaron Presley who teams up with a black guy who thinks he is JFK to fight a mummy. Yeah I know must of you loyal readers who have made it this far into the review probably were already sold based on that sentence alone so I should probably stop here with the review. But TWIST I won’t. I freaking promised to review something in this post, and dammit I am gonna review. Screw the ramifications! So basically Bubba Ho-Tep begins in a most depressing fashion depicting a bedridden Elvis Presley (Played by the amazing Bruce Campbell) trapped in the most horrible old folks home ever. Much time is spent showing how a place like that can just destroy a person, and Elvis is just a big sack of do nothing sadness. It’s a little hard to watch, especially when you think that the movie is supposed to be about Elvis and Black JFK fighting a mummy, but I digress. You see this is a movie about redemption and in order to get anyone to give a flying eff about a hero’s redemption you must first show the depths to which the hero has fallen. The first half of Bubba Ho-Tep concerns itself with that goal, and does a splendid job. Naturally once the plot reaches the turning point the rest of the movie is almost twice as enjoyable because of what came before. Overall I highly recommend this movie, for it’s humor, conspiracy theories, and surprisingly emotionally involving characters. This may be a B-movie, but it’s got more soul than any number of Hollywood blockbusters with 100 times it’s budget. (Crap I’ve been watching too much “How I met your Mother” I mean that show’s hilarious but if you watch it too long you start to think in lame metaphors (by Thor’s hammer that show is filled with lame metaphors, but it is so freaking hilarious that I love it) and even lamer analogies. So please forgive the terrible last sentence (although I would bet it is worthy of the DVD cover all it needs is a few more exclamation points.))
Rabbit-Man out!!
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Best he is at what he does, and what he does is... so terribly pretty!!
Let me walk you through the last few minutes of your life. First you set your computer to internet, after a few minutes of checking your favorite sites you somehow came across this blog, a blog that has been a barren wasteland for the past year. Just as you are about to leave you notice something. Here are your exact thoughts: “What is this? A new post on the fifth column/element of surprise blog! Is it Christmas already? No wait Christmas alone can’t be special enough for something like this, maybe it’s my birthday too! Awesome I get presents now!!!”
Well let me tell you something: it ain’t Christmas, and it certainly isn’t your birthday. (Unless if it is Christmas, and your birthday, but there’s like a 1 in 48,000,000 chance of that happening, so the odds are in my favor puny humans. MOO HOO HA HA!!!) Point is neither you nor Jesus was born today, and instead today is special, because I am bringing the fifth column back into style (just like I did with laser tag). To begin the festivities I am going to write about X-men comics, specifically Grant Morrison’s recent take on the x-men. Surely you’ve seen me allude to it before, I think I titled one of my blogs with the name of a story-arc from his new x-men run, and I’ve been dying to encapsulate my thoughts on what he did over the 50 issues of new x-men that he wrote. But I ain’t going to review fifty comics in one post, that would be insane… “right?”
“Yes Rabbit-man that would be insane”
“Thanks Rabbit-man that would be very insane of me to do!”
“Yeah I know I already said that stop repeating yourself”
“Good show you always were quick to catch on to the metatextual jokes weren’t you”
“Yes now shut up, and start writing”
First and foremost I think I should present a brief history of the man who wrote these comics Grant Morrison: aka King Mob, aka The God of Comics. Basically from what I can tell Morrison pretty much lived the life of a straight edge until he reached his thirties at which point he decided to do every drug he could get his hands on. Also he was abducted by aliens in Katmandu. Yeah you read that right, the dude either was or thinks he was abducted by freaking aliens. He also lived as a transvestite for a little while, and basically came up with the idea for the matrix movies at least three years before the first matrix premiered. God forbid, If his life was ever translated into a biopic movie, it would probably win all the Oscars in the world. Needless to say he is either crazy, or everybody but him is insane, and if there is one thing that’s true about writers it’s that the crazier they are the better their work. I mean look at Kafka, or even Emily Dickinson, the both of them obviously had some debilitating self doubt issues, and how about Hunter S. Thompson, or Shakespeare. Ok I don’t know if Shakespeare was crazy, but could a sane person make up as many words as him? I don’t think so. Dude made up like half the freaking English language. He was probably plotting to take over the world too, all he would have to do is get everyone to talk with his words, and then he could control their thoughts. Straight out of 1984 I tells ya. Thank god he died of (quick break to check wikipedia) unknown causes… UNKNOWN CAUSES!?!? What the fuck, the dude invented half the freaking language, and we don’t know how he died. What have historians been doing? JEEZ!
Ok this column ran long, and I didn’t get to reviewing x-men, but don’t worry I’m gonna do it soon. Think of this as the precursor, and next post will be full of x-meny goodness, and wolverine too. Yeah Wolverine. (Actually BOO Wolverine, his movie sucked ass. I mean they screwed up deadpool big time. I guess I can rant about that some other time though.)
NEXT GRANT MORRISON’S WORK ON NEW X-MEN: REVIEWED!?
Well let me tell you something: it ain’t Christmas, and it certainly isn’t your birthday. (Unless if it is Christmas, and your birthday, but there’s like a 1 in 48,000,000 chance of that happening, so the odds are in my favor puny humans. MOO HOO HA HA!!!) Point is neither you nor Jesus was born today, and instead today is special, because I am bringing the fifth column back into style (just like I did with laser tag). To begin the festivities I am going to write about X-men comics, specifically Grant Morrison’s recent take on the x-men. Surely you’ve seen me allude to it before, I think I titled one of my blogs with the name of a story-arc from his new x-men run, and I’ve been dying to encapsulate my thoughts on what he did over the 50 issues of new x-men that he wrote. But I ain’t going to review fifty comics in one post, that would be insane… “right?”
“Yes Rabbit-man that would be insane”
“Thanks Rabbit-man that would be very insane of me to do!”
“Yeah I know I already said that stop repeating yourself”
“Good show you always were quick to catch on to the metatextual jokes weren’t you”
“Yes now shut up, and start writing”
First and foremost I think I should present a brief history of the man who wrote these comics Grant Morrison: aka King Mob, aka The God of Comics. Basically from what I can tell Morrison pretty much lived the life of a straight edge until he reached his thirties at which point he decided to do every drug he could get his hands on. Also he was abducted by aliens in Katmandu. Yeah you read that right, the dude either was or thinks he was abducted by freaking aliens. He also lived as a transvestite for a little while, and basically came up with the idea for the matrix movies at least three years before the first matrix premiered. God forbid, If his life was ever translated into a biopic movie, it would probably win all the Oscars in the world. Needless to say he is either crazy, or everybody but him is insane, and if there is one thing that’s true about writers it’s that the crazier they are the better their work. I mean look at Kafka, or even Emily Dickinson, the both of them obviously had some debilitating self doubt issues, and how about Hunter S. Thompson, or Shakespeare. Ok I don’t know if Shakespeare was crazy, but could a sane person make up as many words as him? I don’t think so. Dude made up like half the freaking English language. He was probably plotting to take over the world too, all he would have to do is get everyone to talk with his words, and then he could control their thoughts. Straight out of 1984 I tells ya. Thank god he died of (quick break to check wikipedia) unknown causes… UNKNOWN CAUSES!?!? What the fuck, the dude invented half the freaking language, and we don’t know how he died. What have historians been doing? JEEZ!
Ok this column ran long, and I didn’t get to reviewing x-men, but don’t worry I’m gonna do it soon. Think of this as the precursor, and next post will be full of x-meny goodness, and wolverine too. Yeah Wolverine. (Actually BOO Wolverine, his movie sucked ass. I mean they screwed up deadpool big time. I guess I can rant about that some other time though.)
NEXT GRANT MORRISON’S WORK ON NEW X-MEN: REVIEWED!?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Rabbit-man Returns, Forever... And Robin!!!
I totally set that picture of the venture brothers as my desktop wallpaper for a long time a few years ago. Kudos to whoever put that up.
Also since I guess I should write a post: To accompany that comment, and maybe multiply the nerdiness of this post I present:
Also since I guess I should write a post: To accompany that comment, and maybe multiply the nerdiness of this post I present:
WHY THE THIRD MATRIX MOVIE SUCKED
A report by Rabbit-man:
I think the main problem with the third Matrix movie can be tied down to the mistakes made with the character of Agent Smith. Keanu Reeves is told that Smith is the anti-christ, and either Smith or Keanu will decide the fate of the world. Naturally this revelation should hold some tension, except for the fact that Keanu Reeves beat the crap out of Agent Smith multiple times, once at the end of the first movie, and twice in the second movie. Hell Reeves beat the shit out of at least one hundred Agent Smiths with a freaking tether ball poll. Obviously Keanu is going to win right? Naturally any viewer will think this when the aforementioned revelation is told, so it is the job of the movie makers to prove Smith is a threat. Except this is never really done in the film. Sure Smith somehow managed to get a human body off camera, and was supposed to pose a threat to Keanu in the real world. However when Smith finally had a chance to kill Keanu (he was pointing a gun at Keanu's head) he gave a fucking Johnny Quest speech explaining a bunch of useless crap, and gave Keanu enough time to kick the gun away and beat the shit out of him. Naturally nobody thinks Smith is a threat by this point, but somehow for some unexplained reason he is bothering the machines or something. Thus the entire film rests on Keanu telling the machines that he will beat the crap out of Agent Smith again if they leave the humans alone. This is all well and good, but it's never explained why Agent Smith is a problem for the machines. As far as the viewer knows Smith is only a program that exists in the Matrix, but the guy who looks like Colonel Sanders said at the end of the second movie that he was going to kill all humans and destroy the matrix in 24 hours or something. So since the machines are going to destroy the matrix they will destroy Smith right? Where is the problem? Why do the Machines need Keanu's help? (Sure there are tons of plot holes in the Matrix movies, but that one is the most obvious right?)
A supplementary problem to this movie is that the Wachowski Brothers forgot to include scenes from the Matrix in the film. Instead an awful lot of time is wasted depicting the humans defending Zion in the "real world" from the machines. These scenes were basically written by the CGI programmers, and were boring as hell, since they were just a bunch of shots of the humans shooting millions of bullets at millions of machines, with no real indication of progress being made for either side. Also, nobody freaking cares about Zion. NOBODY. People want to watch a Matrix film to see cool shit like the free way chase scene from the second movie, and guess what all the cool shit takes place in the Matrix. Therefore the Matrix films should be largely set in the Matrix right? I wanted to see everyone fight the albino twins in a rematch, or how about showing Keanu confront Col. Sanders again. Instead we get a lame ass fight pitting Trinity, Fake Jet Li and Morpheus, against a bunch of loosers who can walk on the ceiling. WHAT?! Sure the ending fight was also in the Matrix, but that was basically Superman fighting a clone of himself (Bizarro?!?). Not exactly what people want to see in a Matrix movie.
Also here are some bullet points I didn't get to
1. What the fuck did Neo do to help mankind?
2. What was the point of Will Smith's wife setting off the EMP? How is she not an idiot for doing that?
3. Killing Trinity a second time... Bad Idea?!
4. Needs more debating over what the concept of "choice" is before fight scenes and or a guy who cuts the bullshit philosophy talk by saying "IMMA PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE NOW!"
5. Train guy was awesome. The only guy in the Matrix who didn't have a business suit/leather fetish. Should have fought Neo more or something.
So there you go. I wrote an article so I could comment on the Venture Bros. Picture that adorns this blog now. Hooray.
A report by Rabbit-man:
I think the main problem with the third Matrix movie can be tied down to the mistakes made with the character of Agent Smith. Keanu Reeves is told that Smith is the anti-christ, and either Smith or Keanu will decide the fate of the world. Naturally this revelation should hold some tension, except for the fact that Keanu Reeves beat the crap out of Agent Smith multiple times, once at the end of the first movie, and twice in the second movie. Hell Reeves beat the shit out of at least one hundred Agent Smiths with a freaking tether ball poll. Obviously Keanu is going to win right? Naturally any viewer will think this when the aforementioned revelation is told, so it is the job of the movie makers to prove Smith is a threat. Except this is never really done in the film. Sure Smith somehow managed to get a human body off camera, and was supposed to pose a threat to Keanu in the real world. However when Smith finally had a chance to kill Keanu (he was pointing a gun at Keanu's head) he gave a fucking Johnny Quest speech explaining a bunch of useless crap, and gave Keanu enough time to kick the gun away and beat the shit out of him. Naturally nobody thinks Smith is a threat by this point, but somehow for some unexplained reason he is bothering the machines or something. Thus the entire film rests on Keanu telling the machines that he will beat the crap out of Agent Smith again if they leave the humans alone. This is all well and good, but it's never explained why Agent Smith is a problem for the machines. As far as the viewer knows Smith is only a program that exists in the Matrix, but the guy who looks like Colonel Sanders said at the end of the second movie that he was going to kill all humans and destroy the matrix in 24 hours or something. So since the machines are going to destroy the matrix they will destroy Smith right? Where is the problem? Why do the Machines need Keanu's help? (Sure there are tons of plot holes in the Matrix movies, but that one is the most obvious right?)
A supplementary problem to this movie is that the Wachowski Brothers forgot to include scenes from the Matrix in the film. Instead an awful lot of time is wasted depicting the humans defending Zion in the "real world" from the machines. These scenes were basically written by the CGI programmers, and were boring as hell, since they were just a bunch of shots of the humans shooting millions of bullets at millions of machines, with no real indication of progress being made for either side. Also, nobody freaking cares about Zion. NOBODY. People want to watch a Matrix film to see cool shit like the free way chase scene from the second movie, and guess what all the cool shit takes place in the Matrix. Therefore the Matrix films should be largely set in the Matrix right? I wanted to see everyone fight the albino twins in a rematch, or how about showing Keanu confront Col. Sanders again. Instead we get a lame ass fight pitting Trinity, Fake Jet Li and Morpheus, against a bunch of loosers who can walk on the ceiling. WHAT?! Sure the ending fight was also in the Matrix, but that was basically Superman fighting a clone of himself (Bizarro?!?). Not exactly what people want to see in a Matrix movie.
Also here are some bullet points I didn't get to
1. What the fuck did Neo do to help mankind?
2. What was the point of Will Smith's wife setting off the EMP? How is she not an idiot for doing that?
3. Killing Trinity a second time... Bad Idea?!
4. Needs more debating over what the concept of "choice" is before fight scenes and or a guy who cuts the bullshit philosophy talk by saying "IMMA PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE NOW!"
5. Train guy was awesome. The only guy in the Matrix who didn't have a business suit/leather fetish. Should have fought Neo more or something.
So there you go. I wrote an article so I could comment on the Venture Bros. Picture that adorns this blog now. Hooray.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Rabbit-man Returns
Ok readers I know it has been a long time since anyone has posted anything on this blog and I would like to take the time to explain to you why. You see the Element of Surprise freighter where I and my fellow bloggers live play and work, was blown up by mutant terrorist babies. It was awful and not many of us made it out from there with our sanity in tact. It took me a while to hunt down those terrorists, but now that I have single handedly found and exterminated all of them, I am happy to tell you that I am back and ready to post on this blog again (and all the other contributors can come out of hiding). Yeay!
And it’s a good thing I came back too, because we are in some dire shit right now. I emphasize the dire here things aren’t going well at all. I’m talking of course about TV ratings, and how some of my favorite shows are being slowly throttled to death by the indifferent Nielsen-box-equipped minority of people that decide the television ratings. Good shows like Pushing Daisies, Chuck, and that terminator show are all getting shitty ratings, and may end up being canceled. But who is to blame for this catastrophe of epic proportions? Is it the small bus riding Nielsen box people? NO!!! It is the Network executives, and here is why.
To understand how TV works you must know one thing: people don’t like to change the channel on their TV. You can advertise a show all you want, but if you don’t forcibly grab those slobbering Nielsen box using idiots and place them in front of the TV when a good show is on they won’t watch it. Now here comes the question how do you force people to watch TV? The answer is you can’t, but you can be creative, and trick those pigeon brained Nielsen families into watching a good show like pushing daisies. All you need to is put a more successful (better watched) show in the time slot ahead of it. It is that simple. Advertising when a show is on doesn’t work because people are too stupid to remember when a new show is on, but people will remember when shows like American Idol, Grey’s Anatomy, and Celebrity Reality show concept 13 are on. So you just put a show on after that.
There is a historical precedent for this shit. For example let’s consider the TV show House MD, when House first premiered it’s ratings were absolute shit nobody watched that show. Fortunately FOX in an uncharacteristically shrewd scheduling move put House on after American Idol. You know what happened? People watched House because they were too stupid to change the channel after American Idol, and House became a hit!!! Fast forward to a few weeks ago, Fringe premiered on FOX and got shitty ratings, then a week later Fox moved Fringe to the time slot after House, and guess what happened Fringe became a hit. It is literally that simple, all the advertising in the world isn’t worth a shit, when you can just put one show on after a successful show and have it leech of it’s predecessor’s ratings. SO ABC LISTEN UP, AND PUT PUSHING DAISIES ON AFTER GREY’S ANATOMY, FANS OF GREY’S WILL SURELY LIKE PUSHING DAISIES, AND WILL MIGRATE OVER TO THE FAR SUPERIOR SHOW. That is all
And it’s a good thing I came back too, because we are in some dire shit right now. I emphasize the dire here things aren’t going well at all. I’m talking of course about TV ratings, and how some of my favorite shows are being slowly throttled to death by the indifferent Nielsen-box-equipped minority of people that decide the television ratings. Good shows like Pushing Daisies, Chuck, and that terminator show are all getting shitty ratings, and may end up being canceled. But who is to blame for this catastrophe of epic proportions? Is it the small bus riding Nielsen box people? NO!!! It is the Network executives, and here is why.
To understand how TV works you must know one thing: people don’t like to change the channel on their TV. You can advertise a show all you want, but if you don’t forcibly grab those slobbering Nielsen box using idiots and place them in front of the TV when a good show is on they won’t watch it. Now here comes the question how do you force people to watch TV? The answer is you can’t, but you can be creative, and trick those pigeon brained Nielsen families into watching a good show like pushing daisies. All you need to is put a more successful (better watched) show in the time slot ahead of it. It is that simple. Advertising when a show is on doesn’t work because people are too stupid to remember when a new show is on, but people will remember when shows like American Idol, Grey’s Anatomy, and Celebrity Reality show concept 13 are on. So you just put a show on after that.
There is a historical precedent for this shit. For example let’s consider the TV show House MD, when House first premiered it’s ratings were absolute shit nobody watched that show. Fortunately FOX in an uncharacteristically shrewd scheduling move put House on after American Idol. You know what happened? People watched House because they were too stupid to change the channel after American Idol, and House became a hit!!! Fast forward to a few weeks ago, Fringe premiered on FOX and got shitty ratings, then a week later Fox moved Fringe to the time slot after House, and guess what happened Fringe became a hit. It is literally that simple, all the advertising in the world isn’t worth a shit, when you can just put one show on after a successful show and have it leech of it’s predecessor’s ratings. SO ABC LISTEN UP, AND PUT PUSHING DAISIES ON AFTER GREY’S ANATOMY, FANS OF GREY’S WILL SURELY LIKE PUSHING DAISIES, AND WILL MIGRATE OVER TO THE FAR SUPERIOR SHOW. That is all
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