More Than Meets the E.Y.E.S.

Transformers: THE MOVIE! Not the cartoon movie with the giant Galactus robot and Optimus dying--only to be brought back--and songs by Scorpions and Weird Al*. This is the new movie produced by Steven Spielberg (yay!) and directed by . . . MICHAEL BAY?!! WHAT THE FLYIN' @#$%!!!

Sorry. Geek panic.

Seriously, it's not that bad. I just saw the teaser trailer (click the title to see it) and it wasn't half bad looking. It's far too little to give an impression of what the movie might be like but it suggests that they're going to ditch a lot of the stuff from the cartoon for a more adult feel which I am all for. I like the idea of bringing back kids stuff from the 80s for today's kids but making something that will appeal to the people who grew up with it, but if they just make another kiddie movie and don't go after adults by being adult then it will fail.

Ideally, however, they would forget the kids altogether and do a Transformers movie made just for adults. No, I wouldn't want them swearing or killing people or having sex. That would be messed up, especially the robot sex. (eww...) But I would like something more serious but with a tounge-in-cheek-because-this-is-awful-silly humor. And I'd like some hard science fiction in it as well. Not lengthy exposition but something to explain how robots turn into cars that no one can tell aren't normal cars. There is so much fodder in this concept for someone with talent.

Oh. And don't forget about character development. And PLOT! That's important too. You gotta have plot.

And maybe they can throw us a bone and work in something about how all of these oil gussling vehicles are destroying the environment and our way of life (and how we can't fuel them anymore.) The energon crisis is so close to our current oil crisis that this is the one possible element of the movie that they cannot risk to ignore lest they be too stupid to think about anything other than thar robot cars are neat-o.

*How 80s is that?

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Anime

I found this purely on a lark by typing in "Mario Anime" into the YouTube search bar. Surprise!

This is part of a 60 minute mini-movie made back in 1986. It's 20th anniversary is on the 20th of July but, for some reason, the movie is such a rarity that copies of the laserdisc fetch up to $180 dollars on Japanese eBay. And, of course, Nintendo never bothered to let us Americans take a look. Why they did that (and saddled us with the inferior Super Mario Super Show) is beyond me. Not that I didn't like Lou Albaino but that cartoon just doesn't work after nearly 20 years.

I'm going to try and find a torrent for the whole movie but I doubt it's available. However, I'm sure that someone will upload the whole thing onto the net and that some brave team of fan translators will make a fan sub.

Or maybe Nintendo will step ahead and give us a legal re-release so that they can make some money.

Banlieue 13 (District B13)

Banlieue 13
Director: Pierre Morel
Screenwriter: Luc Besson and Bibi Naceri
Starring:

• Cyril Raffaelli as Damien
• David Belle as Leïto
• Bibi Naceri as Taha
  
• Tony D'Amario as K2 (Pronounced Kuh-Doo)
• Dany Verissimo as Lola

When did the French become the masters of action movies? While Asia discovered horror movies and Hollywood discovered it could put its head up its ass, France became a center for all things kick ass. Luc Besson is specifically responsible. You probably remember his movie The Fifth Element which looks like he had a baby with Moebius, but this film, Banlieue Treize, translated into English as District B13 eschews almost all of the sci-fi wonderment for martial arts fighting madness and look at the exciting new extreme sport called parkour.

There's a story, not that it really matters in these types of films, but in this case even the story is something of a gem, albeit not as shiny as the fighting. The year is 2010 and Paris has decided to pull an East Germany on the nasty neighborhoods and has sealed off a neighborhood called (wait for it) Banlieue 13 from the rest of the city. Leïto (parkour co-creator David Belle) is something of a noble hoodlum who protects a building in this nasty place from drug lord Taha (Multi-named, multi-talented Narceri) and his comic henchman K2 (Tony D'Amario who, tragically, passed away in June 2005 of a heart attack.) Leïto has stolen drugs from Taha and has to quickly destroy the goods before

The opening scene is pure excitement. For the uninitiated, this provides an excellent first glimpse at parkour. As I said, Belle co-founded the sport* and shows it to excellent result. In parkour, participants perform dazzling urban acrobatics by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, slipping themselves through narrow passages in seconds, and all sorts of daring-do that usually requires trick photography and blue screens. In the scene, Belle combines his parkour magic with some basic martial arts to create one of the most exciting action sequences in years. While it suffers from the malady of hyper-cutting and too many fancy filming tricks, the sequence remains solid. It's obviously Belle doing the work and he does it terrifically. He even lets some other parkour practicioners have some screen time as thugs who chase after him and match many of his death defying stunts.

After this scene things get interesting. To get even with Leïto, Taha sends K2 to kidnap his Leïto's sister, Lola (Dany Verissimo) at the supermarket. Leïto, however, knows Taha so well that he comes to his sister's rescue based on the assumption that Taha would do such a thing. Pretty clever, huh? Leïto and Lola capture Taha and, one car chase later, bring him to the police station but only to have the police let Taha go free with Lola as his new sex slave and they then imprison Leïto who gets his revenge very quickly in a style that is best described as <très révolutionnaire. This is a key clue to the direction of the film.

Six months pass and we meet Damien (Cyril Raffaelli who looks exactly like a college pal of mine) who is an undercover cop. While he doesn't do the parkour thing per se, he does do the ass-kicking-karate-style thing somewhat well. With gun, fist, and feet he lays waste to a room full of goons providing an interesting counterpoint to the less violent Leïto.

Damien eventually gets contracted by the higher ups in the government to diffuse a nuclear bomb that has been detonated to go off in B13 and a plan is concocted to get Damien teamed up with cop hating Leïto. You can figure out the rest from there but there are still major twists and turns which I won't tell you about. Shakespeare or Hitchcock its not but it's just nice to have them in there rather than the same pimped-out story skeleton.

Rafaelli and Belle are competent actors and great stunt fighters. I'd like to see them in an American film someday although they'd most likely not be allowed to talk as neither has the edge the Jean Reno has. At least not yet. Give them some time and they might be ready for English roles.

Tony D'Amario has almost too much screen time as K2 as it's clear that Luc Besson thinks D'Amario is great. This makes it sadder to know that he's no longer with us as he really was funny and even likeable in a role that is usually designed to inspire hatred.

Going back to the story, it's notable that, while we're just now becoming aware of French youth unrest and crime in Parisian suburbs, Besson and crew were well aware of the trouble brewing. While dystopian futures are a movie staple all around the world, Besson has his film set only four years ahead but seems to purposely have skipped the small advances in fashion or technology that will happen. For all intents and purposes, this film is set in today's Paris but only with walls and soldiers. Perhaps the walls we see are the walls that the Parisian youths felt when they rioted last fall.

But, for all its implied messages, the movie is mainly about fighting. Other highlights include some crazy flips and spins by both stars, a really big fat guy, and a final fight that I can't describe without spoiling. The reason and resolution for it are no surprise but its something you'd never see in an American action movie, especially not as the final fight. And while it's not completely groundbreaking it is, like all the rest of the movie, awesome.

This is an action movie where you get sit back, munch on your popcorn, and cheer on the bad guys without worrying too much about the rotting state of cinema. In fact, if you leave your brain on, you might have a little intellectual fun too.

*Belle is often listed as the sole creator of Parkour but others beg to differ. Check around the Internet to learn more about the controversy.

How Do You Score?

Yes, I am finally caving in! There's a TEST on this blog now!

Let me back up for a bit and say that it's not the type of test that tells you which color you are or which Inuyasha character you should marry. Instead it's a test that indicates your likelihood of having an autistic disorder.

As someone who knows people who deal with Asperger's Syndrome, something many people refer to as high-functioning or mild austism, as well as someone who knows many people who display austistic symptoms but haven't been diagnosed, this is a subject of interest to me.

There's a theory that Aspergers and other similar conditions are "geek syndromes" because their symptoms include intense focus on a limited range of subjects (or just one subject) and limited, underdeveloped social skills.

Sound like anyone you know?

The link to the test is the title itself. I won't tell you what it means now but my score is 18. You might want to read the article that goes with the test. You'll find the link at the bottom of the test page.

The Renaissance of B? (And a Monkey)

SO it's too early to tell but I seem to be hitting a groove with my comic project lately. My secret? I write what I want when I want and I'm finding I want to write a lot. A lot of it is out of order and right now I'm focusing on dialogue and skipping the action stuff but I feel like I'm making headway. I AM making headway since before I was doing nothing. So I'm not just having a good writing day but a good writing week. Things are looking up.

And a quickie note: I just saw Peter Jackson's King Kong remake today. Ugh, what a stinker! I respect that Jackson was going for serious artistry with this but that movie was far too long, far too slow, and Adrian Brody's character had no business in that movie. Most of that movie had no business in that movie! It was too much! Stinker! Ugh!

Here's a surprise bonus video: Renai Revolution by Morning Musume.

Introducing The Bleedin Bleedins

It's very rare that I can talk about something I've discovered ahead of everyone else. Often times I seem to be the last one to know but, in this case, I'm ahead of the pack.

The Bleedin Bleedins are a new band out of Boston. They don't have a major label backing them so right now they're just a local thing. Thank God for the Internet because they're on the verge of becoming a global thing.

I heard them just now on Pandora in my specialized station for Franz Ferdinand--you know who they are, right? No, not the archduke--so that has got to be the biggest endorsement for them right there. This band is definitely on Franz's level as far as their talent goes but they may actually be more palatable for the general American music public since, well, they're American.

Anyhow, they have a full album available from ITunes but you can listen to their music for free on their website. Just click the title above to go there and then select 'MP3 Player' from the tiny menu line. 'Tonight' is the song I first heard and it sold me on them right away. Here's to the next big thing.

Jem - They

JEH-EMMMM is truly outrageous! Trulytrulytruly outrageous! Woah-oh-oh JEM!

Oops. Wrong Jem.

I didn't hear enough of this song when it came out last year and haven't heard anything from the artist since. Seriously, I do wonder if sharing her name with a cartoon character hurt her, but fans of good music will know this girl is not outrageous. She's just a good singer with some exotic hip-hop sound and honest lyrics--in other words she's not bragging about being a stupid spoiled whore like nearly every other woman standing in front of a microphone these days.



Aw, what the hell. Let's have cartoon Jem show up anyway!



Man, I miss the 80s.

Blog News, Writing News

I made a rather stupid decision when starting this blog that has been corrected, at least partially: Now, EVERYONE who reads this can comment. Please note that I'll delete anything that looks like it was written by someone who didn't pass first grade English (foreigners are excluded . . . for now . . .)

As for my previous writing rant--good job if you got through that beast--I've decided that I'll avoid any fiction writing until I feel the need. Yes, that's already my strategy but let me explain. I think I've been putting too much pressure on myself to create good output so now I'm going to wait until I feel like writing something and I'll do it then. There are some other factors I'm trying to work on and develop but it may take some time. I also need to invest in an ergonomic keyboard and a new chair because my CTS is killing me! But I like video games and net surfing too much to stop. That's a bad thing.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is the silent epidemic of my generation.

Step One: Get Over Myself

Many times before I've complained of the symptoms of writer's block but that, I believe, is not my disease. In fact, I'm not sick at all. Not in that way, at least. A writer's block occurs when a writer can't write. I'm not sure which bothers me more: that I might be holding back because I'm scared to write what is really in my heart or that I don't know what it really is in my heart that I want to write or that I'm just lazy.

Let me let you in on a secret: All of my stories, the novels and comics and movies and whatnot in my head, are all the same. To clarify, they all have the same features:

A.) I come across similar characters all the time like the jovial tough guy or the kind-hearted girl with power or the ambiguous villain who thinks he's saving the world.

B.) I have an obsession with the concept of a false reality and characters finding out that their world isn't real or wondering if their world is real. I blame the Matrix for that.

C.) The revelation of the villain. While I like the idea of villains redeeming themselves in fiction I often find myself turning heroic characters into villains to the surprise of almost everyone. Not only that, but becoming godlike. It's like the Gnostic concept of God in the Old Testament, an evil or cruel God who created the world only to be defeated by the New Testament God and Jesus.

D.) Speaking of Jesus, I love putting godlike powers into human bodies. Turning everyone important into gods or, at least, superhumans is appealing to me.

E.) I'm obsessed with transformations. Some of you know I'm a huge werewolf fan and that I like the Hulk, anything that unleashes inner rage in a nasty phsyical form with muscles, claws, and fangs. But I like all sorts of transformations from the grand to the mundane, both external and internal. I love the idea of characters transforming their lives and viewpoints, or transforming how we see them through revelation.

F.) I have a love/hate relationship with death. On the one hand, I don't want to kill any characters off. I actually tend to start disliking a story when they kill of a character that I like (meanwhile letting the whiny protagonist and his characterless girlfriend live.) On the otherhand I always imagine grand death scenes and grander scenes of grief. Character X's girlfriend dies so he kills villain Y without thinking thus breaking his moral code. Character A saw her father die and she's so distraught that she tries to kill herself and only Character B can save her from this fate so that they can make out at an inopportune time.

To be honest I'm overexaggerating but when it comes to my stories nearly all of these features will come into play in one way or the other. That bugs the hell out of me. I am well aware that every artist has his themes he obsesses over. Hitchcock had an obsession with false accusation, even moreso than murder. Spielberg, much to a friends dismay, is obsessed with the image of a door of light and a silhouette of something stading in the doorway. I probably shouldn't worry too much but I do.

I feel like there's something I'm missing in all of this. Something that I can't seem to find within myself or within my past. A valve that will pour all of these ideas into one bowl so that they'll mix into a proper story.

But even if I find that valve, will everything I make be the same? Will it just be a matter of adding some extra flavor to the same old thing? Will I spend my writing career pouring out new Cokes? Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke Classic, Coca-cola with Lemon, Coca-cola with vanilla? Coca-colla with vanilla with black cherry?

And then there's the matter of getting an acutal writing career started. I worry too much and too early. I tire or bore easily and I am always in seach of "flow." Without the pressure of a deadline and a grade a la college creative writing that "flow" has retired to Florida. It isn't really there anymore.

Every night, like tonight, I go to bed thinking "Damn, I wasted another day." Not a single thing written or, if something has been written, then its no good.

I have no clear plan for getting my skills to where they need to be but I do know the first step. It's called "Get over myself." Just doing it, I believe, isn't going to work. I either can't or, more likely, don't want to force it. So what do I do? What am I missing? What am I holding back?

L'Arc~En~Ciel - Spirit Dreams Inside

When the high point of your day is breakfast you can tell things aren't going so great. So, to make up for that, I'm going to change the high point of my day to rocking out to the greatest band on the planet that our anglophonocentric mainstream culture has yet to recognize: L'arc~en~ciel. The name is French. The band is Japanese. The song is from that Final Fantasy movie that had nothing to do with Final Fantasy but none of that matters. L'arc is IT. Enjoy.

NOTE: I've chosen to post a live version of the song even though it differs very little from what you would hear in the video. It lets you see the band, of course, but it also lets you hear the big pop from the crowd when they appear. Awesome.

The Blue Night - Downtown Lights

I had never heard of this band or this song until I signed up to use Pandora, a free personalized radio site. It's pretty accurate since it mostly ignores genre and focuses on "musical DNA" or the unique elements that construct a song or styles of songs. This song kept popping up and I kept liking it so now I give it to you.

And it's 80s. You gotta love the 80s.

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy (and other stuff)

This is my new anthem.

Speaking of music, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO LAZLO?!! He was my favorite DJ, he actually played something other than the Beastie Boys/Sublime mix that has taken over the radio (96.5 Buzz in Kansas City) and now he's gone? I guess I'll be listening to more NPR.

One other thing: I'm on a sleep schedule that says that I'm supposed to be in bed by 11pm and I'm still up. The schedule hasn't been working anyway but this isn't making things near better.

Beauty and the Beast Pt. 1

I'm burnt out doing comic book stuff so this is a return to prose and an experiment. If you like it then leave a message because I've gotten like one freakin' comment since I started this thing. Geez. -B

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST according to 'B'

A peddler was making his was home from a long trip through the northern lands of his country and was only a day away from home. He had taken the path he normally would have taken all the way to the point at which I've begun telling this tale and here is where it becomes a tale indeed for only a day away from his home the peddler decided to take a shortcut.

"The forest is spacious and has little danger." He thought to himself. "If I go west through here I shall surely be home before sundown."

And so he went through the forest, a forest he had known since he was a child and that his family had known longer than he could conceive of. It was a dark place and strange but that was what the peddler liked about it. The mysteries of his homeland were a comfort to him for he always knew he could stumble upon something strange.

But he never considered that he would stumble upon something so strange as...

"A palace?" he cried. Even the two little donkeys who pulled his cart stopped and balked before the grand ruin. The peddler searched his memories and when they failed he took out his map which he never looked at until that moment and it too failed. "How could there be a palace here?" and he said this aloud but got no answer.

The peddler thought about going home, running home really, but as he looked at the palace his eyes grew large. Gold? Silver? Jewels? More likely than not there were no such things inside but the peddler was no rich man and to find such things would be a great boon. "At the very least I can get a present for Beauty." he said and with that he shook the reins of his donkeys and they dragged his cart forward, ignorant of what lurked inside.

Look forward to part two...

Little Miss Sunshine

This one looks like a winner. It comes out on July 26th.

Mjæv & Pipert

Funny, I never meant for this to become a video blog but, well, it is what it is!

This is a cartoon from Norway, a spoof on Tom and Jerry with one little difference that you might not notice.

La Salle de Bain

This is the craziest song ever made. Of course it helps that its Japanese in origin. And sung in . . . English? The artist is Shiina (She-E-na) Ringo (Like the Beatle) and I've included two versions of the song. The first is the original video which is . . . um . . . just watch it. The second is Shiina with her new band, Tokyo Jihen, at a live concert. It's almost a song in its own right and less crazy but perhaps more dramatic.

X-Men: The Last Stand - Review (At Last!)

Do not let the fact that I want to see this again in the theater convince you that this is a five-star-A-plus-must-see film. I don't know exactly why I want to see it again but part of it is due to the craptacular conditions of my first viewing where I was so close to the screen that I could see that it was torn in one corner, part of it is that I want to take my sister to see it, and part of it is that the movie was, believe it or not, not that bad. In fact, when it came to the big action sequence at the end it was down right terrific.

There is no need to go into heavy details with the story. If you haven't seen the first two X-Men films or haven't read the comic books or seen the TV cartoons then you need not bother. This is an unfortunate fact of this number three entry in the successful X-Men film franchise: It is inaccessible to the non-X-fan. The script does little to reestablish the world or story for non-fans or even some casual afficionados. Instead the movie starts out with flashbacks to Jean Grey meeting Xavier and Magneto as well as the introduction of Angel who, as I'll later explain, could have been completely removed with not a single problem in the film.

The introduction to the film also introduces us to a new stylist in the X-Men film world, Brett Ratner who takes the reins from Bryan Singer who opted to direct Superman instead. Ratner is not Singer. He does not try to be Singer. If he did try to be Singer maybe the movie would have been better. Ratner is not at all a bad director but it is clear that the dark and grim world of the first films has been replaced by something that can only be described as 'The Usual' with Ratner as the Suspect. The film is faster and shorter compared to X2 which was long and almost leisurely paced. Visually their world is more colorful and less sterile which is almost welcome. Worst of all is the fact that the film drops or forgets that mutants are feared and hated. The only protesters in the film are mutants and mutant supporters. When mutants and normal humans interacting all of the animosity is on the mutant side. Humans, apparently, have become hunky dory with the idea that there are people out there who can kill them with a random thought. More than all of the above there is also a loss of poetry in this film. I can't explain it but you'll know when you see it that something that gave the first films a strong artistic push has been left out.

With that artistic push gone it seems that they tried to fill the remaining void with new characters and this doesn't really work. The actors who filled these roles were probably better than they needed to be but I'm not complaining. Most notable for me is Vinnie Jones playing my favorite X-Men character, Juggernaut. He has only a few more lines in the film than Ray Park (whatever happened to him?) did in X-Men 1, but he does them superbly. Yes, he made Juggernaut a Brit and I accept that. British Juggernaut rules. And while its pretty obvious that his best line in the movie was inspired by a notorious web-meme that line got a huge pop from the midnight crowd I saw the film with and I'm sure most of them weren't thinking about the cartoon when he said that. Yup, he's the Juggernaut, bitch.

Being a bad guy, however, Juggernaut gets taken down by none other than Kitty Pride. While the character earns her place by having cameos in both of the previous films she doesn't get taken to the next level. Instead she has one heart to heart scene with Iceman and a decent chase sequence at the end. It should be said that as big a cheer as Juggernaut got when he uttered his once again infamous line, an even bigger cheer came when Kitty Pride took him down.

The biggest new character, however, is Beast as played by Kelsey Grammer. The choice wasn't inspired but was obvious and definitely a good move. The film doesn't know what to do with Beast. It definitely wants him in the story but doesn't do much with him other than let him speak. In a way this works as it establishes him first as an extreme example of a mutant, second as one of the smartest and most powerful mutants in the world (which has nothing to do with his mutant abilities), and third as someone who can kick a lot of ass. Beast doesn't fight until the third act. It is almost jarring to see this philosopher and strategist suddenly roar onto the battlefield and lay the smack down on fifty other mutants. Again, this is something that you wouldn't expect if you haven't seen anything else X-Men. But this doesn't make Beast less appealing and Grammer definitely has fun with the character.

But this also leads me to the character that had no place in the movie at all. Angel, whose mutation is obvious, serves no purpose in the film other than to shock the viewer in the opening scenes--not that this works on fans since we already know what he's doing when we first see him. The only other times he appears is to escape his father who tries to use the mutant "cure" on him only so that he can return in the end of the movie to save his father from falling to his death. These scenes could have been cut completely with no harm to the film. Angel's actor, Ben Foster, is okay but he doesn't do well enough with what he has to make his character stand out. Most everyone else owns their character enough to solidify them on the screen. Even Multiple-Man (Eric Dean) who only has an extended cameo has his character moments that make you think "gee, why didn't they use him more?" Angel has none.

I've gone over and over about the bad parts of the film so lets get to the good. This is definitely an action movie and Ratner hits his stride here. While the pacing is still hyper it isn't blazing fast like Batman Begins which destroyed its action in unreadable and rushed scenes. This film is just fast enough and contains great Wolverine one-on-one fights. One is him against Juggernaut but his better scene is against a version of Marrow, a mutant similar to Wolverine in having weird bones but Marrow creates big bone spears that he throws. Even though the winner is obvious due to the hero being the hero, not to mention his virtual invincibility, it was still an exciting fight. The end fights are also good with lots of things going on and zippy one liners although there were a few that garnered cringes instead of grins.

Also, Halle Berry has stuck it out for a long time to get some real screen time as Storm and it has paid off. She's in charge and powerful, getting to use all of her powers at full force. While I'm still sad that she went from African Goddess to African-American with superpowers she still makes a big impression. And she's not wearing a stupid (but hot) leather outfit.

So the movie isn't perfect. But it has its moments. It has its surprises. It has Juggernaut, bitch. So it works. But I do hope that the producers realize that this one didn't come out as well as the last two. Even though Bryan may have kept some elements down, some of what he did was for good reason. The movies will really work once everyone realizes that, for all of the fun of seeing umpteen million crazy superpowers going off at once, the real power of X-Men is about seeing human beings who are very different struggling against those who fear and hate them as well as those who among them who fear and hate back. And a little artsy-fartsiness won't be such a buzzkill either.