People Make Me Sick

Look at the video first and then read what people left behind. Disgusting!

They ought to be banned for saying such things. Banned from living, that is. We're always wondering why the world is in such a mess and that's the biggest clue: ignorance.

Oh, Sweet Jesus...

...you have some crazy people who love you.

Armor of God PJs
: Why?

Passion (and a bonus!) - Utada Hikaru

Hikaru is her first name. Utada is her last name and the sole moniker she goes by in the States. Hikaru is one of a small group of Japanese pop stars who had the good fortune to spend their formative years in the United States but this hasn't yet translated to strong U.S. sales. Nor has it translated to strong English language music as you can see here.

The song is in Japanese and is lovely, as is the video, but the English version (which, oddly enough, was written first and titled "Sanctuary") is clunky in its lyrics although it is brilliant compared to her first U.S. release, "Easy Breezy" which made her most hardcore American fans weep and everyone else laugh in her face. That's worth a post in and of itself.

And, you know what? As much as I love her, you have to hear Easy Breezy. It's hilarious...and still not half as bad as some of the music coming from the post-Mickey Mouse Club era of Disney Teen Moppets (TM Disney.) Utada is young and talented. Here's hoping she finds a way to break into the American market without caving to bland pop or becoming tethered to the anime fandom.

Not that we'd mind having her...

Media Day

Today was one of those rare days when my life didn't belong to someone else. I took care of business by going to see Little Miss Sunshine, one of the best family films that the people who ought to see it will never see because it's deservedly R rated and actually has a brain. I actually laughed so hard at the end of that movie that I started crying. There were a few points where I think people will genuinely cry because...you'll have to see it yourself.

However, due to a time mix up, I went to the theater too early so I went almost all the way back home and wound up at the library where I picked up a reserved copy of The Man Who Heard Voices, the semi-biography of M. Night Shyamalan's process of filming Lady in the Water. People say the book will either make Night look like a scorned genius or a crazy. I'm leaning towards Night being a guy who wanted to make a movie he really cared about without stupid suits getting in the way but who didn't realize that those suits he rejected were actually right. More importantly I wandered upon a graphic novel called Valerian: The New Future Trilogy. I don't know what it's about yet but it's French, it's sci-fi, and it was one of the inspirations for The Fifth Element (and supposedly parts Star Wars.) The book is part of a long running series of Valerian "graphic albums" by Jean-Clause Mézières and Pierre Christin. With what I'm working on now and with my need to learn more about comics outside of the U.S. and the superhero world I'm looking forward to seeing how the French handle their comics. So far it seems very cinematic. I can see some complaining (whining) about decompression with this but I just see opportunities to slow down and enjoy some pretty pictures.

Mika Nakashima - Legend

A beautiful song sung by a beautiful woman. Mika is one of the few who go beyond simple Japanese pop and creates music worthy of the title 'Idol.'

But what's up with her doll? Look closely...

Under the Influence of Giants - Mama's Room

The 2ist century has been defined musically by the return of the 20th century. Innovation hasn't been about creating new types of music but discovering old genres and styles, often ones that really aren't that old. Usually, this is just more sad rehashing but sometimes it works just right.

Case in point: Under the Influence of Giants. Their real name should be Junior Bee-Gees but whereas the original Bee-Gees were disco light, UTIOG is disco heavy. Disco beats in general have been coming back for a few years but UTIOG combines the beats and sounds of the 70s with a harder edge. UTIOG is what would have happened had those early punk pioneers wandered into Studio 54 and liked what they heard.

It's Been A Long Time

[I] Should not have left you
Without a dope beat to step to...

-Timbaland


It has been a long time. I haven't even updated the subtitle for the blog! That's bad.

You can add "Lady in the Water" to the list of to-be-reviewed films (Good, but perhaps only for the Shayamalan faithful like myself.)

Also, if you have Animal Crossing for the DS please leave a comment and we can swap friend codes.

Here's a video by defunct Japanese band Psycho le Cemu (or "Ce Lemu" as I always want to say it.)

It's called Roman Hikou and, besides being more bizarre than usual for visual kei videos, it also inspired a character in one of my comics projects.

Which reminds me that I'm working on something with a friend involving Flash Gordon style sci-fi so look for updates on that.

Clerks II Pre-review

Sometime soon I'll be reviewing Clerks II. My early word: Kev did it again!

Also there'll be word on A Scanner Darkly, also a good piece of celluloid.

TMNT Return

The ninja turtles never went away. I just grew away from the other versions that came after my beloved first series of cartoon turtles. The original comic book was, much as people will berate me for this, too grim for me. I like my happy pizza eaters over Raphael as Wolver-turtle.

I'm not sure what to think about this new movie but the trailer looks pretty damn awesome. I'd be saying that even if I'd never heard of the turtles before.Poor Michaelangelo!

Read more at www.apple.com/trailers/...

Everything is Role Playing

I was in Borders Bookstore today just to have something to do when a copy of Werewolf: The Forsaken caught my eye. Like I've said before, I'm a werewolf nut so I had to look at it. Most of the story concepts aren't for me. All the pseudo-spiritual hoo hah and the fancy tribes all seem to get in the way of the monsters and mayhem but it's still interesting to look at. RPG books are fun in that they're guidebooks into other worlds and how they work that don't have a set hero or a storyline to follow other than everthing that has happened. And reading Werewolf got me thinking not so much about werewolves or fantasy worlds but about how much I want to get into role playing again.

I've never been a big role playing guy. I never played D&D until college and that was only a few times. I was in one campaign for a different system but it didn't last too long although I have a funny story or two about it.

To be honest, as fun as making characters is and as much as I like it when my guy is up to play, pen and paper roleplaying can be awfully boring. But at the same time it can be more engrossing than video game RPGs that are played alone or with Internet strangers. Pen and paper RPGs let you play with, if not your friends, flesh and blood people and without the restrictions of a strict computer program and a weak CPU.

I think I ought to look around and see if I can find some people to game with. I already know a few people who might be available or who know some people who might be available. Maybe sometime I can even be Dungeon Master again although I'll have to cool it on dungeons that feel like Donkey Kong levels and slapping the players around.

Really, I just miss having people to hang out with all the time like I did in college. That's probably why I want to try role playing again, even if it gets a little boring.

Guardians of Luna

Werewolves are my favorite. They're the best monsters ever. Imagine being able to live a normal life for all but 12 nights of the year when you get to let that angry, snarling monster you keep trapped inside out to terrorize the chickens. Werewolves rock.

And when they get to be the good guys? That's the rock getting its roll.

Guardians of Luna is a new animated adventure show from one of the minds behind Batman: The Animated Series and, my all-time favorite cartoon, Gargoyles. Honestly, it sounds dangerously similar to White Wolf games but it balances that with robots. Werewolves AND robots? All right!

The show hasn't been picked up by anyone yet so it probably won't make it on our screens this fall or it might go into syndication hell but it sounds like it will actually make it to TV and I can't wait. Check the link in the title for a preview. I'm hoping someone leaks the video to YouTube.

And Now I See the Lite

Earlier this week I finally got my hands on a gorgeous Nintendo DS Lite, a brilliant white gaming device that doesn't even need games to feel sexy. Seriously, the thing is so stylish that it is sexy. Give an average looking girl a Lite to hold and she will suddenly develop larger breasts, wider hips, a lean and mean waistline, and the longest and smoothest legs ever made.

Okay, that last part was weird but stay with me here.

I'd been debating getting one for a while. Earlier this year I was planning on getting a Playstation 2, something I still plan on doing before the end of the year if not the end of Summer. Even then I already knew that I wanted a DS because of the quirky game titles that Nintendo has been releasing and because it would be the system that would host a long awaited game, New Super Mario Bros. Aside from being Mario's return to classic sidescrolling (and away from his frustrating 3D career) NSMB looked to be the perfect compliment to the DS Lite. Of course it helps that they made their American debuts only weeks apart from one another. Either way I now own both and I'm very happy with them.

Sometime this week I plan on getting a new game, preferably one that I can play over the internet. The DS Lite is wi-fi equipped so I don't need to buy anything other than a game. Will it be Animal Crossing: Wild World? Mario Kart DS? Tetris DS? Metroid Prime: Hunters?

Failure

Let me issue a warning: This is going to be another bit of rambling whining from me. I need to get this out so don't feel pressured to actually read this. Do, however, try to comment more. It sucks to put a blog out and get so few comments. One word responses are fine but I don't have a counter so I'd like to know that people are actually reading this.

So what am I complaining about? A lot of things.

Being an "anonymous" blogger is pretty troublesome. There are all sorts of things I want to talk about that I can't to preserve this wonderful mask that is "B." Either that or I can't find a way to talk about these things. I'm lazy so I don't want to take the time to do such things either.

Lately I also find myself increasingly unhappy with my own life. Again, a lot of this involves stuff that I don't even want to bring up out of fear that the wrong people with the right info will read this and respond accordingly. It is almost purely paranoid but its what works for me.

How can I sum this up? I know what I want out of life and I can't wait to get it, but I'm slow to do the work involved and sometimes I'm too lazy to do the work involved. A certain person especially tells me that I need to plan ahead and focus on the future to which I agree but when someone is harping on you it doesn't matter how much of it is true because that person needs to shut their yap and go find someone else to annoy.

There's nothing worse than wanting something and not knowing how to get it or even being afraid to get it. There's nothing worse than wanting to say something but being afraid to say it or being embarrassed to say it. If only we could be free of these limitations like time and reality and society. There are so many damned wall around us and they're made of various types of glass. They let us see what they want but they can't be raised or lowered. The walls have to be broken and the glass pieces that will be made are sure to be very sharp.

It's my fear of failure that does it. More than anything else I am afraid of messing up. I'm almost clinically kakorrhaphiophobic (say that three times fast.) And I'm afraid of embarassment too. That ties in well.

More and more reality is closing in on me. I'm beginning to give up on my real aspirations to settle and be like everyone else. EVERYONE ELSE IS MISERABLE. I feel badly now but I don't want to be like them. At least seeing that justifies my fears somewhat. But they say its worse to try and then fail then to never try at all and that sounds true.

But I also have this terrible conservative streak in me that is constantly telling me to be like everybody else. I suppose its an after-effect of being picked on and unpopular in school. I can't believe that its almost been a decade since high school and I still worry about fitting in. I'm a geek by nature. I don't want to fit in. But my instincts, which I cannot trust right now, keep telling me that someone will beat me up if I do what I want. That won't happen but I keep feeling like it's unsafe to do what I do or what I want to do. What if people don't like it? What if people don't want it? What if people ignore it?

What if I fail? What do I do?

My suffering is so petty but why does it feel so desperately strong?

Christopher Volkman's Renaissance

Looking like a smash up between The Matrix, Sin City, A Scanner Darkly, and Blade Runner, Christoper Volkman's Renaissance promises to be the new darling of fans of high brow, high concept films. Click the title to watch the English trailer. It's GORGEOUS.

Dead or Alive - Teaser Trailer

Yes, it's a video game movie. Yes, it looks like crap.

Yes, I can't wait. This looks so wonderfully bad that it has to be good. (And it's probably this way on purpose too. No one is going to take this seriously.)

Sports Nerds are Normal. Sci-fi Nerds are Weird.

Peter David, premier comic book writer and blogger, set off a hot discussion on his blog about the animosity displayed towards my--and most likely your--strong and proud geek community. He says: "where the hell does the media get off being snotty about fans who are dressed as Klingons when you can go to any Yankees game and see 1800 guys wearing jerseys that say "Jeter" on the back[?]"

I don't know. I'm weirded out by Klingons too but they're kinda fun. And it's always great when someone dresses up as their favorite character and actually pulls it off. But how many fat-asses wear Jeter's jersey? No one can wear that jersey and do it justice other than Derek himself. But somehow its okay to wear sports jerseys, the costumes of pro-sports, out in public but its weird to wear a Star Trek or Superman T-shirt--although sometimes the Supes T's are en vogue.

Many people see the love of science fiction and fantasy and all the related facets as childishness overgrown, symptoms of adults who haven't let go of or who haven't moved on from adolescence. This, for good and ill, is true. But can't you say the same for the grown man who still fantasizes about being a baseball star with his sports jerseys and fantasy football and steady accumulation of facts? And what about the man who has achieved that dream? For all his skill and talent, isn't it true that he is getting paid millions of dollars to play a game?

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.