Yes, I'm back. At least for the foreseeable future.
And now for the annual "Why I Haven't Written Anything In Forever" spiel.
This is something I enjoy doing. I've
been doing this since I was a senior in High-school, and I have no intentions of
slowing down going into my senior year of college. That's because I enjoy it. And I'd
like to keep it that way. That's why I take breaks sometimes. Honestly, I'd like to think I never left. I haven't even taken a break this time, I've just been writing shit and not
posting it. On my other blog, I wrote an inappropriately funny piece about Drake Bell's charges, but I wound up axing it. It definitely would not have aged well if I had actually published it. This was before the whole situation was cut and dry, so the whole
joke was that I didn't get what the charge meant.
I think we ALL know EXACTLYwhat it means now...
Hell, the whole reason I started another blog was because I'd written a bunch of posts only to scrap them because the subject matter wasn't appropriate. I used to just publish anything but y'know reasons...
"Yeah, if you could just keep talking about music and stuff, that would be great."
But fuck all that.
The point here is that I'm back, right now, writing stuff. And I can say that with confidence, because like a good content creator, I've actually finished a good bit of stuff that just needs to be published. I'm finally finishing that All That Remains Review Series that burnt me out last year. I've just had to take a drastically different approach, so I don't die of boredom while writing.So stay tuned.
Or don't. I think at this point we've firmly established that I don't really care...
Goddamn, this was a good show. I enjoyed every single episode waaay more than I enjoyed WandaVision as a whole. Boy. Where do I start? Do I go episode by episode? Do I talk the characters? Do I just rant and rave?
Why not all three?
Firstly, this show was pure fanservice for a guy like me. The fact that we saw Madripoor, onscreen, in the MCU had me rolling in my seat. Also the John Wick-vibes in that Madripoor episode were superb. I loved the scene where all of the bounty hunters get a text message that the club-owner is dead and then everything turns into a nonstop shoot-em-up. All of the hinting at future things to come were amazing. Hell, the simple fact that we got Madripoor seems like a scruffy, eye-patched present from the show runners.
If you know what I'm talking about...
The action scenes were on-point. You always had a sense of where
everyone was. You had a feel of the environment and the stakes. Turning
off this show and watching Mortal Kombat had me really appreciating the
coherency of each fight. Perfect blocking and choreography all around.
Especially the fight between Sam, Bucky and John Walker.
And speaking of John Walker. I fucking loved every single scene he was in. Every single one. I went back and read the comics where John goes from the
Super-Patriot to Captain America, to U.S. Agent and goddamn they ripped
him straight from the page and put him on the screen. The bit where John frequently asks himself what Captain America would do, and somehow decides to do the exact opposite of what Cap would do is ripped straight from the comics.
You get a sense of just how unhinged he is, and how much insane will-power he has bottled up inside. And every time he introduced himself as "Captain America" I couldn't help but crack up. You don't get a sense that he's bad guy so much as he's a top-notch soldier conflicted about what's actually right and wrong. If Captain America were created in the 1980s this would be what he represented. And that's such a perfect characterization of U.S. Agent. I loved Zemo for exactly the same reason. They took the heartbroken antagonist from Civil War and transformed him into the cynical, affluent, supervillain from the comics. You never knew what the hell Zemo was up to, and he was one of the best things about this show. Zemo always maintaining leverage, and scheming behind the scenes is the heart of that character.
The Dora Milaje were insanely cool. That fight with John where they pinned his shield to a table was hilarious. And watching Ayo deprogram Bucky was genuinely heart-warming. I really didn't understand them just taking Zemo back to the Raft instead of punishing him.
Falcon's Captain America suit is ripped straight from the comics. And I loved all the hinting that Torres would eventually become the Falcon like he does in the comics.
On the negative side, I didn't really like the way the side-characters were portrayed. The frequent attempts to paint the Flag-Smashers in a sympathetic light felt a bit forced. And the sad music that played when Karli died really felt out of place. Do her motivations make sense? Yes. Does she feel like an accurate representation of what would happen if the Blip happened in real-life? Yes. Yet, she's violent, misguided, and kills innocent people. A lot like a lot of terrorist group leaders in real life. She feels way more like an Isis expy than anyone to feel sorry for. You don't change laws by blowing people up, and robbing things. And if she hadn't killed people to get her way, maybe I'd feel more sympathetic. But a murderer is a murderer. And she wasn't killing in self-defense. I just can't feel sympathy for terrorists, no matter how attractive they are.
Sam's sister and most of the boat scenes were just annoying. I get that the point was to humanize Falcon, but there had to be a less contrived to do it. GSP will never be able to portray a menacing villain. I don't care how much he scowls, speaks angry French, and shoots at people, all I see is GSP in a bodysuit trying and failing to be intimidating. The fact that I've seen him beat the hell out of other trained fighters
and I'm not shit-scared of him should give you an idea of how
not-intimidating he is. In a company chock-full of happy-go-lucky foreigners, GSP was always the most happy-go-lucky of them all.
He's too adorable to be scary.
I didn't like The Truth: Red, White and Black at all. And if you've read it yourself, you know why they removed it from canon.
It was the shitty, surrealistic art...
But I get that Marvel is setting up the Young Avengers in the MCU, and how else would we get Elijah Bradley without introducing his grandfather?
Most of the plot-points in the show were predictable. It didn't really affect the story much, but I often found myself accurately guessing what was going to happen next. Maybe there was just ample foreshadowing. Maybe I've ruined my enjoyment by having read too many comics. I think we all saw Sharon being the Power Broker from the moment she was introduced. I knew that John Walker would go crazy and paint his suit black from the moment he showed up on screen. I knew Lamar was going to somehow get killed as soon as he was introduced. However, I never would've thought John would react the way he did to it. That shot where John is standing in the middle of a city, twitching, with blood all over the shield was beautiful. Probably one of my favorite moments from this show. Julie Louis-Dreyfus is always fun to watch and she seems like she's getting more attractive as she ages.
Sometimes, it felt like the show was trying to beat you over the head with the message that black people have it hard. It's true and it's a good message, but the MCU has never tried to impart any heavy-handed social commentary, before. And I gotta admit, I don't really like it. Captain America comics have been chock-full of social commentary for decades but none of his movies have been this explicitly drenched in subtext. The most we got was Winter Soldier hinting to always question authority.
I feel like I'm making it seem like I didn't enjoy the show, which I assure you I did. The show leaves a lot of loose ends, and I can't wait to see how they're all tied together. I hope that Wyatt Russel's U.S. Agent comes back in a large capacity (and given that Russel's first audition ever was for Captain America, I think he will). Sharon Carter is the Power Broker and she's infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. Zemo seems like he's planning something, and all of the earlier MCU villains that didn't die have been explicitly stated as being in the Raft, also. (Fingers crossed for Abomination to come back.) And all of the Young Avengers are officially in the MCU. I like that they avoided revealing what happened to Steve.
It would've been awesome to see Garry Shandling's Senator Stern as part of the group of senators that got held hostage, but alas that couldn't happen. And honestly the fact that I'm thinking about characters that aren't even mentioned on-screen is a testament to how expansive the MCU feels nowadays. And the best thing I can say about this show is that it expanded the already massive MCU even further. This series felt way more impactful than WandaVision, and it changed a lot more for the MCU going forward than that show did.
I just found out that my favorite comedian, Erik Myers, passed away.
I don't need to go into the nitty-gritty but he lost his fight with addiction and wound up not making the trip back down.
When I tell you that this was one of the funniest motherfuckers in the world, I mean it. Back when I worked at the zoo, I would listen to Erik all day. On those sleepless nights when I was withdrawing from some unknown substance that I'd put into my body, I listened exclusively to Erik. I distinctively remember staring up at the ceiling in my dark room, listening to Erik. And the motherfucker was so funny, I didn't even care if I didn't get to sleep those nights.
He's got some funny ass bits. I admit to repeating his bit about Uber to anyone that's talked to me more than 3 times. I'm listening to his Laugh Factory Special as I type this and he's still hilarious. But it hurts to know that he was struggling with some really bad demons. And that he'll never see the success that he was so goddamn deserving of.
I LOVED this. I didn't think I would have the attention span to sit through four hours of movie, but I was very wrong. This
movie was so good, I forgive Warner Brothers for Justice League.
Watching the original cut of Justice League was the worst film-going experience I've had to date. I
left the theater in the middle of the movie to get food. That's how
monumentally boring it was. That movie was so bad, I vividly remember leaving the theater after it was over. When the movie was over and the five of us watching walked out, we were all looking at the floor confused. And one
guy looked at me in the face, and said with confusion in his voice, and
an uneaten bag of popcorn in his hand ,"That was bad." And me and the
four other people all said "Yes, it was." Everyone was very disappointed and confused. I
wish I was exaggerating. Five random people bonded, albeit for seconds,
over a bad movie. That's how mind-boggingly bad that movie was. I
enjoyed the overpriced theater hotdog I ate during the movie, more than
watching the movie. I was so mad when I got home, I unironically wanted
my money back. Like no joke, I didn't even feel like I had watched a
movie. And every opportunity I've had to watch Justice League again,
I've turned down. And I've watched Suicide Squad three times. I've watched
Birds of Prey, twice.
I
always thought about how much of a monumental failure it was, to put
the world's first superhero team on the big-screen, and make a bad
movie. Everyone know the Justice League. Even my 50-year old Dad who
hasn't watched TV or read anything but a Bible in thirty years, watched
the Super-Friends when he was a kid. My grandparents read Superman and
Batman comics as children. How the hell do you make a bad movie with
iconic characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash?
The odds HAVE to be against you. You have to actively be trying to make
that movie bad. That's the difference between Justice League and the other bad DCEU movies. The other ones are just shitty superhero movies. Justice League is a catastrophic failure of American Cinema.
The
Synder Cut erases all of that. Everything that was wrong with Justice
League is fixed. The terrible CGI? Fixed. The lack of character
motivations? Fixed. The horrendously bad dialogue and out of place
humor? Mostly fixed. This is still a Zack Snyder film...
Zack "Batman Could Get Raped In My Movies" Snyder
This
movie works as a follow up to Batman v. Superman. And now, it is a true Justice League movie, instead of six
losers screwing around until Superman shows up.
And so I don't completely sound like a fanboy, there were some cons. The
aspect ratio was weird as hell. Don't get me wrong, the movie looked beautiful but if you watch this movie on your phone, you can't make it full-screen. And this being a Zack Snyder movie, everything is either grey, black, or dark blue. And I mean EVERYTHING. Some scenes were so goddamn dark I couldn't see anything.
And
that Knightmare scene was god-awful, for one reason...
I
love Jared Leto. He's one of the most talented actors working, today and he's an amazing singer and frontman.
Hell, he could probably write a better review of this movie than I
could, too. Jared Leto is insanely good at damn near everything he does. But he is dog-shit as the Joker. He's awkward. His weird laugh
sounds forced. None of his dialogue sounds like anything the Joker as
he's presented in any other medium would say. (Hell, half of his lines don't sound like anything,anyone would say.) And he's visibly way
younger than Batman. I'm fully aware that Jared Leto is probably going to jump off a building if we don't give him a Joker movie, but did he really need to be in THIS movie?
Also,
I couldn't help but notice that Jared Leto filmed his scenes separately
from everyone else. Whenever both Batman and the Joker were both
supposed to be on screen at the same time, instead of having them stand together, you'd
just see the arms, or the back of an obvious double. I don't normally
notice stuff like that, but Snyder didn't do a good job editing that scene.
I maintain that the only good that ever came out of having Jared Leto as the Joker is Purple Lamborghini...
Also, maybe
it's just been awhile since I've seen Man of Steel, but General
Swanwick being Martian Manhunter was really jarring. I know it was the
plan from the start, but narratively it seems like it comes out of
nowhere.
"Are you effing stupid?" - Martian Manhunter, benevolent protector of the Earth.
I just can't see the hot-headed angry General from Man of Steel being the cool, calm, and collected alien with an Oreo food-fetish.
Also wouldn't that mean he sat by and didn't do shit while Earth was being invaded by aliens? Threetimes? While being a massively superpowered alien, himself? He watched aliens ram a spaceship through a metropolitan city killing thousands, and he let his own soldiers kamikaze into them, instead of stopping them. Which he was fully capable of doing. Discharge this guy from the military and deport him back to Mars.
Either way, The Snyder Cut was probably the best thing I've seen all year. Let's see if Falcon and the Winter Soldier can top it...
As a whole, this was an okay show. There were a lot of moments that referenced the stories I grew up on like Avengers: Disassembled and House of M. And as a never-ending cycle of on-the-nose easter-eggs, it was enjoyable. The story was a bit of a closed circle and inconsequential.
Wanda is more powerful. There's probably another Vision running around out there. Photon is in the MCU. We got to see people coming back after the Snap. We got to see Wanda and Pietro's childhood. The MCU is basically at the starting point of Avengers: Disassembled, and if they go through with that arc, all but one of the Young Avengers are here now, too. This was a good world-building exercise.
Let's start with the pros -
It was awesome to see Evan Peters as Quicksilver in the MCU, even if he was just a random guy. (Which I'm not totally buying. I don't believe the man who tried to get Hugh Jackman's Wolverine onto the set of the first Spider-Man would just hint at the Multiverse as a throwaway gag.)
I like the way that they established that it probably wasn't the mind stone that gave Wanda her powers. I like that Darcy was utilized properly. She always felt out of place in the Thor movies, since they tried to use her as comic relief. She would say stuff that messed up the tone of the scene and it was usually more annoying than funny.
But using her here felt way more sensible. She's written as being aware of how annoying she is, and that makes her snarkiness and terrible sense of humor more bearable. I don't think anyone has ever cared about Monica Rambeau. She's been an Avenger since the 70's, and has never done anything significant. And Captain Marvel was the weakest MCU movie, literally no one is hyped that there's going to be a sequel.
Hayward is a terrible character. Hayward's nonsensical lack of motivation really hearkens back to the early MCU days of poorly-written villains, like Abomination and Yellow Jacket. And when we've had villains like Thanos, Baron Zemo, and Ego, these kinds of cartoonishly bad antagonists just pull you out of the story. And this is made even worse by the fact that we've had far more time than usual to develop Hayward's character. I don't see the guy we met in Episode 4, shooting at some children, super-powered or not. Especially not after we see him acting somewhat empathetic in Episode 8.
The fact that this is the same Universe, makes Hayward look even worse...
I'm not forgetting Agatha Harness, she just also didn't really do much, either. I can at least say that Hayward and SWORD were scared after Thanos, and wanted to use Vision as a defense mechanism. Agatha Harkness is just evil. But why? We've seen witches in the MCU before, and they weren't evil. This isn't a comic book. People can't just be evil for no reason...
Also, the "Agnes is Agatha" twist was very obvious and that song was goddamn annoying.
But goddamn, Kathryn Hahn is stunning...
A lot of times, I actually found myself saying "This show isn't really for the fans." It was like the exact opposite of Endgame or Guardians of the Galaxy, which are just nonstop fanservice. This was just a linear predictable tale, with a few easter eggs thrown in to keep the nerds happy. The only thing this show did that caught me off guard was having Evan Peters as Quicksilver. The rest of it was very predictable. Including Vision still being dead, Wanda not getting to actually keep her kids, and the name "Scarlet Witch" being bestowed upon Wanda. I could see it all coming from a mile away...
Plus they didn't even have the balls to kill the kids off the original way...
When I first started this blog, it was a way for me to archive the daily journal entries that I'd write. (Because they were hilarious.) Anyone that has read this blog within the past two years, or looked at the sidebar knows that purpose did not last for long. But when I was writing those old posts I was a dogmatic, ritualistic kid who was obsessed with processes (You'll see that if you read even one of those old posts.) And I wound up making posting on this blog a daily commitment.
And I was posting about nothing important. Nothing that was important to anyone but me. And in the place I am now, some of that shit is a bit personal and embarrassing. I write about music, and sometimes politics. You don't need to be able to click through the sidebar and see an eighteen-year old me ranting about how much he hates school. And quite frankly, I don't want that stuff on the internet, even if some weirdo wants to read it.
I'm going to be taking down the more embarrassing and awkward posts. This place didn't take off until I started reviewing music anyway, so if you're the weirdo who was reading those posts at 2 AM, I'm sorry, bro, but no more of that shit.
Lately, I've had a lot more free time (Yes, the song reviews are coming back, shut up.) So I've been entertaining my inner child and playing a few LEGO games. And I know I don't usually write about videogames but I've been consistently seeing mean-spirited, fucked up shit in this one game; Lego DC Supervillains.
Like in one mission you have to help this henchman do acrobatics so he can bust out of jail. And after five minutes of walking tightropes, jumping off platformer and fighting cops you've bonded with this dude. And then this shit happens. (Watch it with the audio turned off. It makes it way more fucked up.)
Yeah, that guy gets killed and the game doesn't even acknowledge it. Usually when you beat someone up in this game they lie on the ground with cartoon stars circling around their head. The game tries to emphasize that they aren't dead, and you're not a murderer. I jumped down there and didn't see anything. That guy just blew up and died. Fuck him, I guess.
Before that, there's another guy dressed up like Evel Knievel who's going to motorcycle ramp into the prison. As you fix up his bike you find out it's because he's trying to break out his friend. And so you fix up the bike and the guy chickens out. So you ride the cycle over the ramp yourself. Take a look at what happens.
What the fuck? That guy would have died! Imagine this happening on a kids tv show. The villain smashes into a tree and dies while trying to jailbreak his friend. What the fuck is wrong with this game?
And I wouldn't be writing this post if inappropriately morbid shit like this didn't happen constantly in this game.
You can probably already tell with most of these things it's the implications that are messed up. A dumb kid wouldn't notice any of this. Which in my book makes it all the more messed up. Because someone wrote this stuff into a kid's game.
And now for the main attraction. All throughout the game you see posters for a movie called 'It Came From Krypton." It's clearly a parody of 50's science fiction movies except with Doomsday as the monster.
It's plastered everywhere and the NPC's even talk about it. It's a Joe Biden would say ,"A big fucking deal."
During one mission you have to hack into a locker and you need a six-digit code to open it. If you look to your right you happen to see this poster -
It's an 'It Came From Krypton' movie poster with a release date under it that opens up the locker.
But wait did you see that date? It says '28-01-86'. (January 28, 1986 for my fellow non-Europeans.)
That date on its own doesn't really stand out. But try asking Google Now (or whatever personal assistant you have.) what happened on January 28, 1986.
What the fuck???
Are we sure these guys should be making kids' games?
Edit: I am now aware that the date clearly says 29-01-86. Which was the day after
the Challenger explosion. (Which has some weird implications in itself.
Is this game trying to say Doomsday was responsible for the Challenger
explosion?) I am indeed tempted to say that this is just a coincidence,
but given all the weird shit I showed you above, and the fact that no one passes up a chance to make these kind of references; nah. Also, there's the fact that this game is clearly not set in the fucking 80's.
That specific date was selected for a reason. I just don't know why.
Hell, maybe the designer's favorite character debuted on that day. Who
knows? Am I overthinking this throwaway side-quest in a videogame for ten-year-old kids? Yes. Am I onto something? Probably...
