This wasn’t exactly the golden age of comics.

Like most things, I grew out of it, still reading the occasional trade that I would borrow from a friend or I would pick up at random.  But, I always kind of felt a little jealous of those friends who knew all the backstories and had been reading them for years.

Fastforward to summer 2011 and several announcements from the big publishers and a slew of great comic book movies helped to push me over the edge and into my local comic book shop where I started my first weekly hold.

Of course that first hold was only 4 titles and it seems that with each passing week I’ve added more and more new titles.  There are just so many great stories being told right now.

If you are like me and have always wondered or wanted to get into comics, now is a great time to get started.  DC’s relaunch of there main titles (aka “The New 52″) has helped to ease people worrying about not knowing 40+ years of history and stories.  Recent Marvel events have also created several great jumping on points for there books as well.  Add to that the recent movies helping to get people a jump start on characters and backstories and you have a perfect jumping on point for new readers.

But, what if you live in an area without a local comic book store?  Well, you are in luck!  Another aspect of DC’s relaunch was putting all there titles out digitally the same day as print, Marvel is slowly following suit.  You can download them to any Android or iOS device as well as on your PC.

So there you have it, you have no more excuses!  There are so many great stories being told right now and fantastic artists and writers working today that you really are doing yourself a disservice if you are not checking them out.

As of Nov. 1st we cut the cord.  We now watch all our TV online via Netflix, Hulu and other sites.

It is a bit of a transition and you do have to adjust your way of thinking.  Of course ever since the introduction of the DVR, people’s mindsets regarding TV schedules have been changing.  This is just that, taken to the next extreme.  There is a lot less random TV watching, so I guess fewer unwanted reruns is a good thing.

I have discovered a few issues though.  The biggest problem is that there is no one set of rules regarding shows online.  Even among the same network or “family” of shows there isn’t one rule about when and where shows will be available.  It’s a bit maddening and it’s one of the biggest things that we’ve had to adjust to.  Also, with certain shows only being available through certain outlets (Clone Wars is exclusive to iTunes) it does make things a bit more complicated.

Cost is also an issue.  Of course, this is one area where things tend to be a bit more standardized.  The majority of shows are $2.99 in HD and $1.99 in SD.  At first I didn’t like the idea of buying shows, I felt like with shows I really like (Doctor Who, Clone Wars, etc.) that I would be buying it twice.  But then I realized I’ve always been paying for the shows I wanted to watch.  Just that before I was paying my cable company and now I’d be paying Amazon, Zune or iTunes for my shows, and now I can pay for just what I want, not having to pay for a ton of crap I never watch to get the few things I do want.

All in all, I have been enjoying it so far.  We have adjusted to watching our favorite shows on a slightly different schedule and we have even discovered a few new shows to enjoy.  Is this a change that everyone could enjoy?  Probably not, it does vary from person to person and depends on which shows you watch and how much you watch things live versus on demand.

I do know that I’m going to be much happier when my next cable bill arrives and that I really am only paying for what I want and it’s on my schedule.

I’ve managed the first 7 episodes and I just can’t bring myself to put the next disc in.  I have to admit defeat.  I just can’t do it anymore.

I do have to say that I don’t hate the show.  It was most definitely over-hyped.  On the whole I never saw anything in the series that really got better than a B-, and that wasn’t much.  It was just not a show for me.

The show does have it’s own identity, and it’s own unique take on the genre.  But, it’s just becoming very hard for me to find anything to really grasp onto, something to care about or find myself invested in.  There are nice moments, decent stories, but just nothing for me to grasp on to.  Most of it, I just don’t care enough about the characters or what is going on to continue on.

I do have to keep reminding myself that this show was not designed to be a mini-series or a single run show.  I think, that if it had succeeded on TV, it would’ve run for more seasons and it might have grown into something I like.  I keep comparing it to the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Go back and watch that now, and it’s virtually un-watchable.  I can only imagine someone who was new to Star Trek and was recommended to watch Next Gen and having to sit through the utter dreck of that first season.

In the end, is this a bad show? Not really.  Is it a better more interesting show than I thought it would be? Yes.  Is there enough there for me to keep going and embrace the show? Sadly, no.

All along people said “Just give me 90 minutes of robots fighting each other and I’ll be happy”.  I was one of those people.  The old saying is true, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.  What we got in #2 was a convulted mess, where countless robots paraded on screen to the point where even the most hardcore Transformers fan had no fucking clue what was going on, or who was involved.

After that abomination, I refused to pay to see Transformers 3 and the trailers that were released did not do much to pique my interest.  I’m happy to say that I stood firm and did not watch the movie until I could see it on a rental.

What we got was slightly better than #2.  But it’s better in the way that I’d rather be kicked in the shins than punched in the face.  There is certainly less wrong with this movie than there was with the previous.  Honestly, I can’t remember much of the 2nd one, including the ending, so I can’t speak to how this movie follows up on where our characters were at the end.

But, we start out with our heroic main character is a complete loser.  It took all my strength not to fast forward through these early Shia Lebouf scenes.  It’s simply pointless.  We get a dozen scenes proving that he is a loser, who is trying to ride the glory of the first 2 movies and is unable to give his life direction.  It does show how out of touch with reality this movie is when Shia’s dad wonders why 3 months out of college, from an ivy league school, he is unable to get a job.  Also, the parents are pissed at him when it’s said that the government paid his tuition as a thank you for saving the world.. twice.

I think the biggest problem with this series, is that it’s almost as if they didn’t watch the previous movies.  The entire convoluted plot, which I can’t even comprehend it all, basically depends on the fact that there were people who knew what was going on during the first 2 giant robot alien invasions and subsequent battles but decided to sit on important details until it was .. dun dun dun.. Too Late!

Also, much of what would be considered the Autobot’s code is forgotten in this movie.  The first movie sets up that they value life and freedom above all else.  But, in this film they sit by and watch as thousands are slaughtered just to prove a point.

Really and truly, there is a good movie buried in this mess of a film, and it would require much less to salvage this movie than the previous film.  Most of the first act is pointless filler, barely setting up a story.  We get pointless human characters who make no sense as to why they are in the film.  Ken Jeong, John Malkovich, and Alan Tudyk are completely wasted in this movie, contributing almost nothing to the story.  Patrick Dempsey initially proves to be useless, but actually became one of the few things I enjoyed in the movie.  His character is pointless and misguided but I could actually see him playing a similar type of character in a Bond movie.  Yes, I am being serious.  Frances McDormand plays one of those uptight bureaucrats who only appear in bad movies.

Common sense and logic have no place in a movie where characters can simply scream at each other and not sit down to talk reasonably considering they all have a very large common enemy.  Historical inaccuracies abound.  NASA fans should be pissed at this movie.  It’s downright insulting that Buzz Aldrin is in the film.

All throughout the film, as countless things blew up, characters died, things happened.. I just didn’t care.  And this I think is the greatest fault of the film.  You just don’t care.  There isn’t enough humanity in the humans for us to really care whether they live or die.  Michael Bay directs this almost as you would a porn, some thinly veiled plot to get you to the next money shot.

Transformers A-

Revenge of the Fallen D-

Dark of the Moon C-

While I am far from a hardcore audio and visual phile, I am a hardcore Star Wars fan and I have been anxiously awaiting this boxset.  Also, there are better reviews out there and tons of information on this set, so I probably wont be digging too deeply into this, just giving my overview.

The boxset itself is 9 discs, 1 disc for each of the 6 films, 1 disc with Original Trilogy specific bonus features, 1 disc with Prequel Trilogy specific bonus features and 1 last disc with documentaries.

The two most talked about parts of this set are the Original Trilogy deleted scenes and bonus features and the changes to the films.

First, we have the Original Trilogy (and Prequel Trilogy) related bonus features.  This was the selling point for me, I’ve waited years to see these things and was incredibly pleased with what was there.  The Original Trilogy deleted scenes are by far more interesting than the Prequel deleted scenes.  The Prequel scenes are a lot of animatics with some green screen footage interspersed.  These are interesting to see from a film making stand point, but they don’t hold a candle to the Original Trilogy deleted scenes.

Also on the Trilogy specific discs are 360 degree and hi-res detail views of many costumes, props, matte paintings, maquettes, etc.  For someone like me who is really into the costuming and props this was an amazing inclusion and will greatly help people working on recreating these.

Next, we have the films themselves.  Like every variation of these films that have been released over the years, there are changes and 90% of the changes are improvements and wont be noticed by most people.  Greedo still shoots first, Jabba still looks lousy in A New Hope, etc.  New to the films now are changes such as Wicket now has improved eyes and blinks, Vader says “Noooo!” in Return of the Jedi, Obi-wan has a new Krayt Dragon call, and others.  These were the most discussed changes though.

With the films, the Prequel Trilogy being newer and better prepared for the HD formats, they have never looked better, especially The Phantom Menace which had the most dated and problematic transfer to DVD.

The Original Trilogy is a bit more of a mixed bag.  We have scenes of incredible detail and richness that it’s hard to believe these are 30 year old movies, but a lot of the effects simply do not stand up to the added detail and enhancement of HD.  There are A LOT of garbage mattes, blue/green screen lines and some uneven quality.  In the same scene you will have certain angles of great quality and clarity, but the next cut will show grain and uneven coloring, possibly even lower than standard DVD definition.  A lot of this is to be expected of a 30 year old movie and I think most people will not notice, but hardcore people like me will notice.

On a positive note, a lot of the artifacting and poor transfer on the previous DVD have been corrected, although some coloration issues exist.

Regarding the changes, I’m fine with most of them.  The most controversial is the Darth Vader dialogue added in Return of the Jedi.  I actually don’t mind the added dialogue, it’s very noticeable though because the audio is a very strange mix.  The added dialogue seems much louder than all the other dialogue in the scene.  So, that really helps it to stand out and not feel like it was part of the scene.  It’s 5 seconds of audio and not enough for me to run around crying foul and claiming my childhood was raped.  The positives far outweigh the negatives here.

In the end, this is a quality set.  It’s obvious that a lot of time and care was put into assembling it.  For all fans of Star Wars, this is a must buy with more than any fan could have asked for.

So without any further ado…

—-

For the longest time I have complained about this guy you might have heard of named Joss Whedon. He is the idiot who has received countless internet and fanboy praise for his shit writing and utter lack of original ideas. I have bashed him on numerous occasions for said writing and the shit in his brains that always flows thru his hands and onto his writing medium.

“But, Paul, you have said that you never watched Buffy or Angel or Firefly. How can you complain about something you’ve never seen? You might like it, if you gave it a chance” my detractors would often say.

Now for my informed retort…

“Fuck you, Serenity sucked so bad it almost created a vacuum in my living room”

Oh my ever loving god, what a shit storm of crappiness, half-tooled homages, outright theft and utter lack of originality that movie was. To quote one of my favorite critics “I hated, hated, hated this movie” or the one I’m more famous for,although it’s a borrowed line “I hated it!”

5 minutes into this movie and I felt like I had already seen it. It’s a horrible mismash of nonsensical pseudo-psychological, pseudo-religious, and quasi-technobabble.

To end this review on a more positive note, I’ll put the good stuff at the bottom….

This movie is just plain bad. It’s ironic that I watched this movie the same day that I bought a book that puts Star Wars on trial for lack of originality and focus (if you hadn’t noticed I’m a bit of a Star Wars nut).

The dialogue is atrocious. The acting is decent, more on that towards the bottom. I’m still waiting to hear Joss Whedon’s “WITTY” fucking dialogue. All the little Whedon-ites I’ve heard from always praise his fucking way with words. I’m not seeing it.. err.. hearing it. What I saw.. err.. heard.. fuck it.. was a handful of witty quips with a shitload of bad western and sci-fi cliches thrown on top. It’s like a dogpile of shitty dialogue. We have one good line and then we throw 50 shitty wish-we-were-witty lines on top of it and bury that one little nugget under so much verbal compost.

Remember, I said upfront I’m a huge Star Wars fanboy. So, I know bad dialogue when I hear it. If a Star Wars fan is complaining about your shitty dialogue and lack of witty quips, then there is definately something wrong.

Alrighty, bad dialogue established. How about that plot? Plot? Plot? Plot? What a strange word, it’s something I don’t think Mr. Whedon has ever heard of. There is a plot in the movie, and it’s not a bad one, however unoriginal it is. I wont fault Jossy boy for an unoriginal plot, it’s true that there are only a handful of plots out there so overlaps and borrowed storylines are not uncommon. Someone said “There are only 5 plots ever written.” So, as unoriginal as the aforementioned plot is, it’s not a bad one. However, where it gets bad is that it takes nearly 80 minutes for us to find out what the fuck is going on and why I should give 2 shits about anyone in this celluloid turned digital turd.

The movie is chocked to the brim with homages, tributes and outright thefts. You could almost reconstruct the movie with scenes from Star Wars, Star Trek, Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Tombstone, The Good The Bad and the Ugly and 28 Days Later.

The movie starts out decently. I’m a big fan of the writing method where you, the audience, are dropped into a story that is already in motion and into a world that is already established. I think it’s interesting and I like it. This movie definately uses that. However the problem is when it takes over an hour to figure out what the bloody fuck is going on and who is who. I understand that this movie is an adaptation of a TV series that I have never seen. That is a weak arguement for why I would be confused. If you are making a movie, you have to make it for the general public. That’s that, end of story. You don’t make a movie for a small audience that watched the 2 episodes of your cancelled TV show. You have to make it accesible to everyone.

Therein lies the problem. This movie is not accessible to everyone. It takes almost an hour to even have the foggiest idea of what is going on and who is who.

Oh well, I could harp and harp and harp on the negatives in this movie, but I think we all get the point. Bad writing, piss poor dialogue, cliche after cliche after cliche, a sci-fi western.. how original! We don’t even want to get me started on the fight choreography. I just hope that Chuck Norris gets a royalty check. (Insert Walker Texas Ranger slowmotion fight joke and witty criticism)

Now for some good points to wrap up with. The acting in the movie is pretty good, I would love to harp on it and hit it hard, however I found the acting passable. The beginning of the movie is interesting, like I said before, I like the type of story where you are dropped in and have to piece the movie together as it progresses, but there still has to be some exposition dialogue. Continuing on with the good.. the final act was pretty enjoyable, characters lived and died and we did feel some true peril for them. However a good 30 minutes does not make up for a poor 90 minutes.

Well, I’ve rambled on enough here. I’ve hit most of the bad, and hit most of the good I saw and in the end, Serenity is what it is, take it or leave it. Me personally, I will leave it.

Captain America is the bastard love child of Indiana Jones and Iron Man, who was then adopted by The Rocketeer.  This is a very good thing.  We have the heart and patriotism that we always associate with the 1940′s World War II era, with a healthy dose of Marvel goodness.

Some might complain that this is just merely an ad for The Avengers movie coming next summer.  If this is true, then we need more ads like this.  Of course, I’m not sure how including Avengers material into the recent string of Marvel movies is a bad thing.  This is what all the fanboys (myself included) want.  If we got Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America movies with no mention of there ultimate fates coming together in The Avengers, it would be a shame.

It’s this aspect that has been lacking from comic book movies for such a long time.  In most comics from Marvel and DC, all these heroes live in the same world, a lot of the time, it’s even the same city.  They frequently show up in stories of other characters, either as small mentions or part of larger story arcs.  This is simply the latest part of Marvel creating there own unique film continuity and universe.

But, the Avengers isn’t until next year (and I didn’t see Thor yet) we are here to talk about Captain America.  Chris Evans is simply ideal casting of Steve Rogers.  He is believable as the tiny Steve in the beginning, with only a slight awkwardness in the effects, all in all it’s a solid effect and you can easily forget what the real Chris Evans looks like and get lost in the story.

On the flip side, Hugo Weaving is the slimy Nazi antithesis of Captain America.  They have both been modified into what they are in the film.  However Rogers’s heart and humility is what seperates him from Red Skull’s lust for power and loss of humanity.

Since I’m a huge Star Wars fan, I saw some of the classic Hero’s Journey in the film.  Of course director Joe Johnston has a history with that galaxy far, far away as well.  Steve Rogers is the ultimate underdog who discovers that he has the opportunity to become The Hero.  Tommy Lee Jones is his drill sergeant Obi-Wan, training him in what it takes to be a soldier.  Which of course makes Red Skull the Darth Vader of the story, and I saw a very similar homage (maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn’t, I want to think it was) to a classic scene from Empire Strikes Back, where we got a peak under the helmet of Darth Vader.

I could go on continuing to gush on the movie, scene by scene, but I’ve rambled on long enough.  Simply put, the movie is a solid hit in a summer of questionable blockbusters.

Of course, you will be humming this movie as you leave the film (after you made sure to stay after the credits) – NSFW lyrics

My wife and I are huge Harry Potter fans.  We’ve both seen all the movies, and read all the books multiple times.  So, this is something we had been waiting a very long time for.

We all enjoyed the movie a lot, even my mom who is more of a casual fan of the series.  Even though, she didn’t quite know the full story, she was able to mostly jump in and enjoy the exciting conclusion to this epic saga.

However, I have noticed a problem when I was trying to build an overall review of the film in my head.  This is just something I do with everything.  For good or for bad, I’m always looking at things with a critical eye.  The problem with this film, is it is not a complete movie.

In your standard 3 act film story structure, this film begins near the end of Act 2 and the majority of the film is Act 3.  This film is all resolution with little to no setup.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is truly a 4 and a half hour film that has been chopped.  So, talking about this film by itself is literally like talking about a film where you came in late and missed the first half.

Of course, I’ve seen the first half and greatly enjoyed it.  I can’t wait to have both films on blu-ray where I can sit down and take in the full story.  But, I feel that you can’t really review Part 2 by itself, it needs to be judged in context with Part 1.

So, this is not my review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  That review will never truly exist, because I really want to look at this as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Not Part 1 and Part 2.

The Harry Potter films are among the best adaptations of books to film out there.  In any adaptation, changes are required.  Some things that work in a novel, just don’t work on the screen.  I know people always complain about any changes, I have done plenty of this.  However, with these films, I think that the vast majority of changes have been positive and have served to make the overall story better.  Deathly Hallows is among the most faithful of the series, part of the reason why it is so long.  But, the film never seemed to drag, lose focus or get caught in the minutiae.

It’s sad to see the story come to a close, but I’m very happy with the conclusion.  I hope that others will use this series as a blueprint for adapting other novels to films.

The thought of the true longevity of the show never occurred to me until recently.  After the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, Fox reran “Lisa’s First Word”, an episode that first aired in 1992 and featured a flashback to the 1984 Olympics.  So now, here in 2011 we are watching an episode that in itself is 19 years old with a flashback going back another 8 years.  So, we have jokes that are older than most of the audience that Fox is aiming for with it’s primetime animation block.

I don’t want to come across as your typical internet fanboy whining about this and that.  I still loyally watch The Simpsons every week, enjoying it.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  A bad Simpsons episode is by far superior to a good episode of much other drivel on TV.  It’s easy for people to simply say, “Oh, it’s not as good as it used to be”  That’s not what I’m talking about here.  I think the writing is just as good as it has been, but it has taken a turn in a different direction in the last ten years.

Changes are to be expected.  For a show that has been on for nearly 500 episodes, you can’t keep just doing the same thing over and over again.  Writer’s have come and gone, trends have come and gone and come back, and numerous imitators both successful and unsuccessful have attempted to capture that same lightning in there bottles.

When you talk about cancellation, you have to ask the question: is it better to leave on your own terms when you are still on top or to go out after you have jumped the shark and lost all of the quality that made you a hit?

The next big question is, do we really want to live in a world with no new Simpsons episodes?  I’m not sure I want to…

I’ve tried on here to do movie reviews before, with mixed results.  So, when I’m stuck for ideas, what do I do?  I do what most people do when stuck, borrow an idea from someone else.  :)

One of my favorite podcasts is a show called “The Film Vault”.  One segment on that show is called “Flick-fessions” where the hosts confess what movies they have watched recently.  It’s a great bit, and I’m gonna use it here.  Maybe I’ll call it something else, I don’t know.

On Saturday, I finally sat down and watched Paranormal Activity.  This was a good suspenseful horror movie, especially for the YouTube/Twitter Generation who are used to there personal lives being recorded and broadcast.  This movie is one that should be watched at home, in the dark.  Turn off all the lights and curl up with your significant other… and then jump at every squeak in your house.

Two movies I watched are somewhat related.  They are both homages to an older genre and style of filmmaking.  Black Dynamite and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavara.  Black Dynamite I think executed a little better.  It acknowledged where it came from, relished in the silliness and the cheese of 70′s blacksplotation films, but also had a wink, a smile and tongue firmly planted in it’s cheek.  Conversely, Lost Skeleton, felt more like it was directly from that era.  It was like Ed Wood was frozen in carbonite, woke up in 2001 and resumed his old style with no regard to the current state of filmmaking.  It was one giant inside joke, one that I feel like I didn’t really get.  There is reason why these kinds of movies are only watchable on MST3K.

Last up we have Dinner for Schmucks.  This movie could almost be the bastard love child of What About Bob? and Meet the Parents.  I’ve never been a huge fan of these kinds of movies.  It really just seems that if everyone took 5 seconds to slow down and talk, all could be resolved.  The movie was funny, a bit too extreme at some points, but it ended with some heart which did help to redeem the more extreme lunacy.

Since I did steal the name for this post, I am open to new names for this type of posting.  Just let me know in the comments.