CRY HAVOK!!!

So long, and thanks for all the fists!

2009-04-10T00:46:00.000-07:00

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but we're gonna have to go ahead and retire from blogging. It's time we got serious about art school, which means A) working more and saving money (I'm about to start a new job, and the schedule is 7 days straight every other week, ten hours a day, in addition to my regular job), and B) focusing on our own stories and art. It feels great to just write something and have people read it every couple days, but every word I type for this blog is a word I'm not typing for the multitude of comics, films, short stories and novels that are swirling around unrealized in my head, y'know?

Thanks to the folks who followed the site, and the fellow bloggers who linked to us. Blogging is a lot more challenging and time consuming than it appears, and the folks who can keep it up on a regular basis deserve many respeck knuckles. Also, props to Spacebooger for hosting the Friday Night Fights, which were a lot of fun.

We're gonna leave the blog up for now, and as our labors start bearing fruit we may use it as a sort of showcase or something. Our various projects will need a web presence, after all.

No, CRY HAVOK!!! is not dead, it merely sleeps, and one day all the whores and politicians will shout "Save us!"...and we'll scratch ourselves and grumble "Show us your boobs." because that's just how we roll.

Lost... In Translation pt. 10

2009-04-08T20:08:00.001-07:00

Hello, everyone. Sad news tonight over here at Cry Havok... This will be the last post on this blog. Nick's ability to write frequently has been destroyed by a doubled work schedule, and my willingness to write (which wasn't very high to start with) has decreased as I attempt to pursue other creative... pursuits.

That being said, it's not ALL bad, because we all have an absolutely awesome episode of Lost to comfort us this week. 'Dead is Dead' might very well be one of the best episodes of this season. It was Ben-centric, which tells you everything you need to know right off the bat. ALSO, Ben is getting judged by the Monster, which automatically sky-rockets this episode into Lost history.

Another thing this episode did very well was something that should be nearly impossible. Making Ben into a decent human being... kind of. He refuses to kill a baby, first off, which is something I thought Ben would relish, and he even decides not to kill Penny because she has a kid she has to take care of, even though that bitch is Widmore's daughter!!

Last but not least, he even feels regret for the death of his daughter, at the hands of the awesome mercenary Keamy.
In other news, Locke is Jesus now. He IS the fucking island.
And Caesar's dead. We barely knew ya'... In fact, we still have no fucking clue who you are. You're not really dead, are you? I mean, Ben DID shoot you in the chest at close range with a sawed-off shotgun.Well, if you're wondering what REALLY happened in this episode, the important part is this. Locke meets up with Sun and Lapidus on the main island, with Ben, and they go off into the woods to let Ben receive his judgement from Cerberus for allowing Alex to die (sans Lapidus, who returns to the secondary island to try to fix the plane.).

In the end, Ben is judged, and apparently found worthy. However, Alex (as an apparition of the smoke monster) tells him that Locke's the man now, and he needs to be a good boy or she/it will fuck him up, hard... Ben appears to listen, however as the master manipulater and liar, I don't necessarily suspect Ben will obey his commands.
The other interesting point of the show popped up when Lapidus arrived back at Hydra Island, and is warned that Alanna has taken over the island, and has the guns to back it up. As he confronts her, she asks 'what's in the shadow of the statue?', and when he tells her he doesn't know, she knocks him out...

The MOST exciting thing however, is next week will be a MILES episode (finally.).

But hey, from here on out, you guys are going to have to remember what happened on Lost by yourselves, because I'm out. Namaste.

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 7

2009-04-03T05:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight's panel 0' pugilism is from one of the more one-sided fights to ever grace the funnybook pages, as Superman completely PWNS Ven-

...wait...what?

We don't actually have this issue (we found these scans on 4thletter!, which is well worth checking out), but there's no indication that Superman has kryptonite-cancer or Venom is possessed by an Elder God or anything, which means according to this comic Spider-Man would have a pretty good shot at taking down the man of steel, which is so retarded it just gave me erectile dysfunction.

And it just gets worse from there, as this extra-special(needs) bonus page demonstrates :

We'd like to tell you that the next page is a big shot of the real (non-mulleted) Superman grabbing Venom and saying " You've ruined your last costume party, creature!" before throwing him through the sun. But it isn't. In fact, this is the end of the fight, as Venom gets teleported back to the marvel universe. So there you go.

All Access #1 is by Ron Marz and Jackson Guice, may god have mercy on their souls.

Now go over to Spacebooger's and vote on your favorite panel. We're really banking on the all-important 'Venom Lovers' demographic this week, so, y'know, feeling pretty good about that decision.

Lost... In Translation pt. 9

2009-04-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

Alrighty folks, sorry for the wait, but after two long weeks it's time for part 9 of Lost... In Translation. As Nick mentioned in his last post, the Lost bits are, indeed, going to be sleeker and sexier in the future, due mostly to my new working schedule for the summer... Because teenagers on spring break fucking need ice cream daily. I'm going to be working later on Wednesday nights, and earlier on Thursday mornings, which means less time for writing my posts... And if you're wondering why last week never even got a post... Well, I had something very important to do. Namely, wiping that smug look off of this bastard's face.
So from now on, the Lost posts are going to be brief summaries, mainly just highlighting the important things that happened, rather than everything that happened.

Also, if you're worried about last week's episode, stop it. I'm going to do TWO episodes in this post... yeah. So here we go.

He's Our You

Namaste, indeed, Sayid. As you probably know by now, having watched the episode, this was a Sayid-centric episode, and marked a return to form for Lost, re-adopting the single character flashback template from the older episodes.

This episode began strong, with a message, and a sweet scene of Sayid murdering a hen as a small child. The message obviously being that Sayid's a killer through and through, even when it's not necessarily clean or pretty... And when you see him looking through the bars of his cell at a child Ben, his intentions become pretty clear. Even witnessing the boys abuse at the hands of his father later in the episode does not seem to sway Sayid from his mission, nor do Ben's offers to actually help Sayid escape.

Through flashbacks, we learn several things about the period between Sayid's departure and his eventual return, most noteably that according to Ben, Sayid is done killing everyone who had anything to do with Nadia's death. However, once Sayid goes about his life (the relief work in Santo Domingo) Ben shows up once again, asking Sayid to kill someone. This time, he's asking Sayid to kill the man who's following them, and watching Hurley. However, Ben leaves peaceably once Sayid refuses.

The other important flashback shows us that Alanna, the girl who had Sayid 'arrested' was a bounty hunter hired by the family of someone he killed, and that she seduced him before capturing him at gunpoint, with the intention of taking him to Guam.

On the island, however, as we already know, Sayid has escaped from Alanna, but is now being held by the Dharma Initiative, and they intend to find out who he is. The bad part though is Sayid is dedicated, and will not budge, even when Sawyer offers him the chance to be part of Dharma by headbutting him really hard.
Eventually, Horace makes the decision that Sayid has to be brought out into the woods, to a very creepy fellow named Oldham, who is the guy Dharma uses to make outsider's talk, hence the name of the episode. Oldham, however, is not a torturer in Sayid's sense. He has a truth serum, which he administers to Sayid after tying him to a tree... But as it turns out, Dharma can't handle the truth. Once he starts spouting off about the future, they decide that the dosage was too high, and that Sayid's delirious... The next step is obviously to kill him. Or, at least, that's what Dharma decides to do.

However, Sayid is not an easy man to kill. Before the execution order can be carried out, Sayid tells young Ben that he has been sent to bring Ben to Alpert, and luckily that precocious little Ben has already set a van on fire and crashed it into Dharmaville to cover their escape. Sayid and li'l Ben set out into the woods to find the Hostiles, but happen to run into Jin first. Sayid knocks him out pretty quickly, and steals Jin's gun.

Then he shoots a very surprised little Ben in the chest before fleeing into the woods...

Whatever Happened Happened

...A little disappointed in this episode to be honest, guys. Maybe it's just because I'm not a woman or a parent, so I don't feel that kind of crazy parental attachment to kids that a lot of people do, but Aaron briefly disappearing in a supermarket isn't really enough to get my blood running. This one here is a Kate-centric episode, and to be honest, not a whole lot really happened in it. The big reveal is that Kate gave Aaron to Ms. Littleton, and told her that she was coming back to the island for Claire. The rest of the flashbacks reveal the promise she made to Sawyer, which was apparently finding Cassidy and Clementine and taking care of them. We also find out that Kate drops the ball on the whole 'we're keeping the island a secret!' thing A LOT, as just in this episode she tells her new girlfriend Cassidy, and Ms. Littleton.

In the current timeline, things are a tad bit more exciting. Juliet struggles to save Ben's life, as the Dharma doctor is at The Looking Glass for the next few days. As it turns out, Ben's bullet wound will apparently be fatal, and guess who refuses to help? Jack the hero, who was until rather recently my favorite character before he apparently got castrated and his balls shriveled up and fell off... I mean, I know he has to have low-points, but I thought Jack would be back to his old self by now, and this was a poor showing... tsk tsk. He even admits that he has a 'fate', and for an atheist like me, that's just depressing. I really hope Jack gets his shit back together and starts resolutely defying destiny again, or I'm gonna need a new favorite character... And it's going to be Miles. I'm telling you, the dude's underused.
Did I ever mention how much I like Miles? I mean, he's an antisocial, sarcastic asshole who can talk to ghosts, and he gets just enough play to be remembered as the guy who came to the island with Daniel and Charlotte, and proceeded to do nothing. I mean, why can't we have a Miles-centric episode instead of a boring old Kate-centric? There's no justice. At least he's still alive. More than we can say for Charlotte, I guess.

By the way, I also have a new theory that Charlotte was the little girl who supposedly drowned and came back to life in one of Mr. Eko's episodes in season two, where he was investigating this 'miracle' for the church. The girl's name was Charlotte, and she had red hair... Hrm. What do you guys think?

Anywho, after Jack refused to do surgery (like a junkie refusing heroin), Kate and Sawyer took Ben to the Hostiles, in hopes that they could save him. Turning him over to Alpert, Richard warns that he will forget the entire event, and will forever be one of them. Kate agrees, and Richard treks off into the woods, carrying the dying child...

Now back to Miles. He was, with the help of Hurley, the highlight of this episode. The writers did a really good job here, by deciding to have the two most entertaining characters have a long-lasting back and forth on time travel, and how it works. Unlike Daniel's nerdy explanations, Miles speaks english that makes sense, and Hurley counter-points with seemingly dumb, but usually correct assumptions of how time travel would work. As Miles explains it, time travel in Lost works basically like this: All time travel that will ever take place in history has already been accounted for in determining the future. i.e. because Miles and Hurley have ALREADY experienced the future, it is possible for them to die in 1977 and be fully dead, BUT Ben will survive, because since this is Ben's PAST, he will still grow up to be adult Ben, so there's no way he'll die... Hurley retorts that he's expecting to disappear like in Back To The Future, and also makes a solid point about Ben not knowing Sayid ever shot him as an adult, which does stump Miles. Luckily, Richard 'explained' this in his scene, by saying Ben would lose his memory.

The episode ends well, too, with Ben waking up in the makeshift hospital on the Hydra island, with Locke staring at him...

The next episode looks to be pretty epic too, and it's going to be Ben-Centric, so I'm obviously very excited.

Ok, so...

2009-03-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick list of things we haven't done this week because of A.) work and B.)

1. Justin's Lost post. He's gonna cover the last episode along with this week's on Thursday. It sucks because the Lost reviews are some of our most popular posts (like half of our Google Search traffic comes through them.,,the other half seems to be picture searches for 'rocknrolla buttshot'), but they take him a long time to do, I can't help with them since I'm just starting season 3, and now he's working most Wednesdays, so they're hard to keep up with. Expect them to be a bit smallerrrrruhhhhmore streamlined and compact from here on out. Also, I hope, more oiled up.

2. We didn't get around to watching two new movies that we've been looking forward to : the Spanish bloody-bandaged-Darkman-looking-time-traveling-rapist movie Timecrimes...

And Special, the superhero satire starring Michael Rapaport.

3. And we also missed our chance to participate in Final Girl's film club by writing about The Beyond, despite having like two months to get around to it, and the fact that we freaking love The Beyond. We wanted to re-watch it (since it's been a couple years), which we put off till the last minute, then our adventures in Africa began and the deadline blew right past us. Oh, well. Here's our too-little-too-late review of The Beyond : it's awesome, watch the hell out of it.

So, what did we think of Resident Evil 5? It was awesome, play the hell out of it.

Ok, well, it's a great and terribly addictive action game. The 'survival horror' aspect of the series has certainly suffered, though. There was a time when RE games were about running down dark hallways, desperately praying to a god who's abandoned you that you'll stumble across a box of handgun bullets before something you can't run by chews off one bite more than you can live without. Gamers, remember the feeling of almost sexual bliss when you'd open a new door and find a nice safe storeroom instead of a giant spider?

The older games really were about surviving a totally out of control situation, whereas RE5 (and to a lesser extent 4) are about killing waves of enemies until you get enough loot that you can upgrade your machine guns another notch. Being able to replay missions, earn money, and buy/upgrade your gear really pushes this game well over the line into shoot-em-up action, with only a couple scenes (the crocodile pond, the buildup to the lickers) actually going for the scary effect. Sure, fighting a horde of shovel-wielding psychos should be more intense than a couple of shuffling zombies in a hallway, but each and every one of those zombies were deadly. You can take out like three RE5 guys at once with only your knife and melee attacks. Remember how much fun it was taking down Re1 zombies with just your knife?

But that's just my pet peeve, the game is great for what it is. We despaired a little to learn that you'd be paired with an AI teammate throughout the story, but Sheva is actually more of a help than a hindrance, which is pretty much a first in any game we've ever played. Not only do I not have to heal her every two minutes, she heals me!? This is new. Now, Justin and I are gonna see if we can't find an extra PS3 at a decent price so we can play together online, which should be epic.

Story wise, if you're a fan of the series, you'll be glad to hear that this is the installment where that smarmy bastard Wesker finally gets what's coming to him. After two games (this one and Code : Veronica) of getting beaten like a redheaded stepchild and laughed at by that Duke Nukem looking douche, we finally get our licks in. Also, Wesker's superhuman matrix-y fighting moves in this may be impressive in real life, but they look pretty weak if you've played Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4 or the Devil May Cry games. It's nice, while watching your character get slapped around by his old boss for ten minutes, to think "Whatever, dude, Dante could flip, like, way higher and a bunch more times than you can flip". In MGS4, Ninja Cyborg Raiden had to stop this huge freighter that was crashing into shore, but his feet were sliding, so he stabbed his sword through his own foot to brace himself. Then his arms fell off and he killed like fifty dudes with the sword between his teeth. So, yeah, whatever, Wesker. Whatever.

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 6

2009-03-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday night's alright for fighting, Saturday night's alright...but Friday night, that's when the real action happens! Like so...

This is the scene from Marvel Zombies #3 where zombie Wolverine tries to cut the (still alive) Silver Surfer and instead the claws rip right out of his flesh, bringing the bones with them, and his whole forearm just kind of falls to pieces. Zombies don't feel, but this panel makes our souls hurt, so it's our Panel o' Pain! Go check out the everybody else's at Spacebooger's and vote for your fave.

Written by Robert Kirkman, art by Sean Phillips.

2009-03-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

Man, we haven't had much to say lately, largely because we're broke (so we haven't been buying many books) and this has been a really slow month for movies, both in theater and on DVD. I did watch I Love You, Man last night, which was pretty good but not as funny as I expected from a Paul Rudd and Jason Segal teamup. It was very likeable and easy to watch, but rarely laugh-out-loud funny.

I wanted to see Rec. before I saw the American remake Quarantine, but we never got it at the Flick-Pit and yeah, no money, so I finally gave in and watched the remake. And it was better than I expected! Nothing to really set it apart from all the other 'fast-zombie' movies of the last few years, but it was well done and even a little scary in parts. Worth watching.

Oh, and a while ago we watched Let The Right One In, the Swedish film about a bullied boy who befriends a little girl who happens to be a vampire. The critics all went into spasms of ecstacy when this movie came out, so our expectations were admittedly pretty high...but man, it really wasn't all that great. The few and far-between scary vampire bits were really well done, but most of the movie is a fairly by the numbers coming of age story. Don't get us wrong, there's definitely some weird bits, but nothing that's gonna shock you too much. A lot of people apparently found the movie really touching and emotional (the boy is picked on by bullies and ignored by his parents, like every other boy in every other movie of this type), but it just didn't do much for us. Reading up on the film, however, we discovered that the book it's based on goes a lot deeper into the freaky parts and sounds much more interesting, so we'll be keeping an eye out for that when we get some spending cash.

Thanks to the folks at Daily Scans, I've discovered a great horror manga by Masaaki Nakamura called Fuan no Tane, which you can read all three volumes of for free here (just scroll down and you'll see them listed). It's just a bunch of short (sometimes only two pages) stories based on Japanese ghost stories and urban legends. Some of them are funny or sad, but most are just creepy. Here's a sample...as always, click the image to see it full-size:

So, yeah, you're gonna want to check that out.

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 5

2009-03-20T02:37:00.000-07:00

Spacebooger is a big fan of pain, and tonight we're bringing pain of a whole new kind to the ring...

That's wasabi, by the way, not uh, terraboogers.

Asian cuisine is used inappropriately in Wolverine : First Class #2, written by Fred Van Lent and drawn by Andrea Di Vito.

Lost... In Translation pt.8

2009-03-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

Namaste. If you wanna know what the hell that means, please click here. Ok, now that we got our polite greetings out of the way, let's move on. Namaste was one of the cooler episodes of Lost lately. It wasn't very mystery oriented, but it was just a good solid chapter in the series, and had plenty of interesting and entertaining little scenes.

The episode began in modern day, as the Ajira 316 plane began experiencing turbulence and was preparing to crash. Jack, Hurley, and Kate disappear in the flash, as we know, but the plane does not immediately crash. Frank Lapidus, pilot extraordinaire, manages to bring it down safely (albeit roughly) on the secondary, Hydra island, on a small runway. When he wakes up, his co-pilot is dead, but Lapidus himself is more or less uninjured, though covered in blood.

As Frank goes to check on the crew, Caesar wakes up Alanna, who thinks he's 'Sarah'. He quickly reminds her, however, he is 'Caesar'. Ben shows up, (decidedly uninjured in the plane crash) being cryptic and creepy as usual and then we go back in time thirty years.

Now we pick up where the last episode left off, with Sawyer reuniting with the Oceanic 3. Jack shocks Sawyer by telling him Locke's dead, so Sawyer returns the favor with the whole 'It's 1977 LOL'. Jack tells Sawyer that Sayid and Sun were with them, and of course, Jin flips out and drives away.

Back at the barracks, Miles and Juliet are worrying about Sawyer, and where he went. They don't have to worry for long, though, because Sawyer drives up and starts collecting clothes for the others so they can fit in. Juliet runs home, and asks him what's going on, so he breaks it down for her. Juliet suggests that the recruitment sub is coming later.

Jin drives up to The Flame station, and when I saw this, I got a little excited. Mainly because last time Jin and The Flame crossed paths, it ended like this:

Jin rushes into The Flame, trying to check the recent data for signs of a plane crash. Some nerd named Radzinsky starts getting all over his shit, and making fun of him. Jin gives him just a small taste of what he gave Mikhail, and Radzinsky gets on the horn with all the other stations asking if they've seen any planes.

Back on the Hydra island, Lapidus is trying to rally the group and keep their motivation up with a big speech, a few minutes before he leaves, because Sun follows Ben into the woods. Caesar takes over the role of leader at this point, and completely disregards all of Frank's advice. As Sun is walking through the woods, suddenly Ben appears behind her and offers to take her back to 'their' island, so she can find Jin.

Back in the barracks, Juliet steals the new recruit manifest, and we also learn that Amy's baby born last episode is going to grow up to be evil.
Soon after, Sawyer picks up the Oceanic 3 and takes them to get recruited into Dharma. His plan is to try to pass them off as new recruits coming off the sub, so they head off to Dharmaville.

Meanwhile, at The Flame, Radzinsky tells Jin that there aren't any planes, but as he says it, there is a report of something else. A hostile in Dharma territory! Jin runs outside to try to find the person, comes to see it is none other than Sayid. They have just enough time to recognize each other, before Radzinsky comes rushing in, and suddenly Jin has to take Sayid hostage. Him and Radzinsky lock him up in the closet (the homosexual subtexts of someone in the closet of The Flame do not elude me.).

Meanwhile, Sawyer is telling the group that he can't stop the purge, and that Daniel is gone now. Once they arrive at the barracks, Miles shows up, finding out for the first time that the others are back, and almost blowing their cover. As the two are talking, Sawyer receives a call from Jin with the news they caught Sayid in the woods.

As Sawyer heads to meet up with Jin, Ben, Sun, and Frank are heading towards the boats so they can get to the other island. Lapidus is trying to convince Sun not to go, but Sun tells Frank that she has to trust Ben. My favorite line in the episode is when Frank tells Sun that he had an entire boat full of commandoes who's sole mission was to capture Ben, to which Ben responds by laughing, and asking 'How did that work out for everyone?' Soon after, however, Sun knocks Ben out with a paddle, and her and Lapidus elope to the island just the two of them.

Meanwhile, back at the barracks, The new 'recruits' are being processed. Jack meets Candle/Cheng, and has to answer a few tricky questions to avoid being caught, and he's rewarded for his skill and quick-thinking by being assigned the job of 'Workman'. We can only assume this foul injustice is Sawyer's doing. Kate is also in a pretty sticky situation, as her name is not on the right lists, but luckily Juliet comes to the rescue and covers for her. Is anyone else thinking Juliet and Kate should be together? They make a much better couple than either of them do with Jack or Sawyer.
At The Flame Sawyer takes Sayid into his custody, against Radzinsky's wishes (Radzinsky thinks Sayid's a spy, and wants to shoot him), but BuzzSaw just tells nerdface to beat it and takes him anyways, forcing Sayid to say he's a hostile to receive protection.

Meanwhile on the real island, and in current time, Sun and Lapidus come across the decrepit ruins of the barracks as they are now, accompanied by the sounds of Cerberus. While they are going past one of the abandoned buildings, however, a light flicks on, and a door opens. Christian emerges and invites Sun and Lapidus in. He decides to confuse the hell out of Sun, by showing her a photo from 1977, in which she sees the entire group. She comes to realize that to find Jin, she'll have to go Back... To The Future!! Or past. Whatever.

In the chronology of the characters' lives, interestingly enough, the photo is just now being taken, and as it's snapped, Sawyer and Jin arrive with their prisoner, and put him in jail.

That night, Jack seeks out Sawyer's house to ask him what's going on. However, when he knocks on the door, he's a little surprised to find Juliet answering it... Awkwaaaaaaaard. Jack comes to realize the two are a couple now as he comes in to find Sawyer reading. Jack begins to question him, mainly about Sayid, and Sawyer basically tells him that he's got it covered, and that people died under Jack's leadership, so it's time for Sawyer to take care of things. He tells Jack that he'll take care of them and Sayid. Suprisingly enough, Jack takes this pretty well, as opposed to what I expected:

It is at this point that Jack comes to realize Sawyer's the big damn hero now, and if anything he seems relieved. He leaves the house, and returns to his quarters. Sawyer steps outside, and happens to catch Kate's eye as she paces back and forth on her porch. They idly wave at each other, and that's pretty much it, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that old sparks might end up flying... Now that Sawyer has slept with BOTH of Jack's crushes before him, he's willing to commit to his true love, I guess.

The show exits with a scene of a young boy bringing the imprisoned Sayid a sandwich. As the young boy delivers the food, we discover that it is young Ben... meaning that they don't have long before The Purge.

Well, that pretty much sums up the episode. Until next time, Namaste.

2009-03-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

Check it out...Neil Gaiman on The Colbert Report...

You can tell Colbert actually knows and respects Gaiman's work, and it's cool to see the guy getting some mainstream acknowledgment. As usual, the rest of the world finally recognizes the genius that us geeks have been raving about since the late 80's.

Fantasy Casting : The Warriors Three

2009-03-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

Y'know, there's a lot of rumors and speculation swirling about when it comes to the cast of the upcoming Thor movie (update : Natalie Portman is supposedly being considered for Sif, Thor's Asgardian love interest), but so far no news on who might be playing the most important characters in the whole mythos...

The Warriors Three are a trio of Asgardian adventurers, and are awesome.

This is Fandral The Dashing...

And the thing about Fandral The Dashing is that he is so totally Cary Elwes.

This is one of those perfect, obvious casting choices (like Patrick Stewart as Professor X or Corey Haim as Shaft) that most everbody can agree upon. Heck, even Wizard : The Guide To Titties got this one right ten or so years ago.

Except, yeah, that was like ten or so years ago. Don't get me wrong, Elwes still looks pretty darn good for a man his age, but that age may be just a bit too advanced to pull off such a dashing, rogue-ish role today. So, who could fill those thigh-high green boots?

Not sure how good Gerard Butler would look as a blond, so maybe he might not be the spitting image of his comic counterpart, but go watch RocknRolla and tell me he couldn't pull it off.

Next up is Hogun The Grim, the handlebar-mustachioed tough guy of the group.

Hogun needs to exude badassery, the kind of guy who can make you soil yourself whether he's letting loose a savage battle cry as he lunges at you with his big mace, or just staring at you...

Enter Josh Brolin, who pretty much played a modern-day version of the character in No Country for Old Men, and even made George W. Bush seem kind of cool.

Finally, we have Volstagg the Voluminous, The Lion of Asgard!

Volstagg is the burly, hard drinking (maybe just a little past his prime) heart of the team. He's a family man, a legend in his own mind, and just a really big ol' fat dude who's awesome.

Throw a big orange beard on John Goodman and BOOM, Volstagg! Go watch Speed Racer and imagine 'Pops' in a good mood, and we think you'll agree.

Now...who's gonna play Beta Ray Bill?

BTW, Justin's Lost post will probably be postponed till Thursday, cause we work for a living, dammit.

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 4

2009-03-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, another Friday, another FIGHT!!! And we actually won the last round, so we're really feeling the pressure to bring it this time. But what could possibly top a hooker kicking a dude so hard in the crotch that his legs fall off?

Consider it brr-ought.

Batman embarrasses the entire Legion of Superheroes (all 274 of them) in The Brave and the Bold (current series) #5, written by Mark Waid and drawn by George Perez. Shrinking Violet up there is fine, by the way. She kinda looks like all her bones would be shattered from that hit, but it doesn't even knock her out. Batman's just that good, I suppose.

Now, go check out everyone else's panels over at Spacebooger's and vote for your favorite!

Odds and Ends

2009-03-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

So, the Thor movie seems to be coming together nicely. If you don't know, it's being directed by Kenneth Branagh, who people seem to think is a good choice. I don't know, the only thing I've seen that he directed was his version of Frankenstein where he played Frankenstein and De Niro played the monster. I remember liking it, but that was many years ago. Anyway, he also directed and starred in a Hamlet movie that's supposed to be really good, which sounds pretty promising for a Thor movie. The cast hasn't been announced yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but apparently the frontrunner for the thunder god himself is Alexander Skarsgård. I haven't seen him in anything (well, apparently he was in Zoolander, but I don't remember him from anything) , but he sure looks the part. The people on the message boards who know his work seem pretty psyched about the idea, so that bodes well. More exciting (at least for Justin) is that it's looking like Loki might be played by none other than Josh Hartnett! Hey, Lucky Number Slevin was great...I think he can pull it off, even if he does look like he just woke up through the whole movie. Now, to bring this paragraph around to a full Shakespearian circle...the movie that first gave Justin his hetero mancrush on Josh Hartnett was O, a modern retelling of Othello (in which he played Iago, a Loki-like manipulative villain, so there you go.)

We're also pretty excited about Wolverine : Origins, even though they appear to have completely altered Deadpool. Now he's some tatted up freak with a bunch of other mutants' powers (check him out shooting Cyclops' optic blasts in the trailer). The thing that upset me, though, was that his mouth looks like it's sealed up. How can you make a movie featuring the 'merc with a mouth', and take away his mouth?! But then I remembered that we've also seen a cameo of the telepath Emma Frost, so maybe he'll get that power as well? That could be cool, Deadpool ranting away in Logan's head the whole fight. Or maybe that's how they'll incorporate 'Pool's tendency to break the fourth wall, by having him talk to the audience telepathically without any of the other characters knowing? That could be epic.

Anyway, having Deadpool, young Cyclops, etc. handled well would be a nice bonus, but we're not really expecting anything but a big, dumb, action-packed popcorn movie, and that's why we're looking forward to it. No big Watchmen-esque shoes to fill here, so we can't be (too) disappointed. Heck, we've already had three X-Men movies full of Wolverine fighting people, I have faith they can give us a Wolverine movie full of the same.

In comic book news, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are going to be working on a Batman series together! I probably shouldn't be as psyched about this as I am considering that I've only read about half of Morrison's last Batman run (I was getting them for free because my store used to carry a few comics, but they would skip entire issues and quit carrying comics entirely halfway through R.I.P., so I have to scrounge up some random issues), and it was fairly uneven. BUT, with a few notable exceptions, my favorite Morrison stories have been the ones drawn by Quitely. Their styles just seem to click together for me, in the same way Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon do. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it, maybe even enough to pay $4 an issue.

Who Watches My Stupid Car Break Down

2009-03-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm this close to planting a bomb in my own car and putting both of us out of our mutual misery at the same time. Of course, the car probably wouldn't start, so the bomb wouldn't go off, and I'd just sit there crying.

So, Watchmen. Yes, we went to see it, as did every single other geek on the Internet. If you want a lot of in-depth discussion on the movie you won't have any trouble finding it, so we're gonna keep this short and sweet. In Watchmen : The Movie, Dr. Manhattan does indeed walk around in the nude quite often, and his penis is huge. This really tells you everything you need to know about the movie. Zack Snyder stayed quite true to the actual surface content of the book while completely missing the point and infusing almost every scene with a Jager bottle's worth of fratboy testosterone. Nite Owl is impotent and out of shape, until he puts on his costume and kicks the shit up out like twenty dudes with his badass kung-fu and bangs a chick so hard she gets religion. Everything's over the top, everybody's borderline-superhuman...it's like Michael Bay's Citizen Kane. It's like that fake advertisement in Last Action Hero where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Hamlet.

It's a pretty good summer action flick, and we would've loved it if it just came out of nowhere. Our friends will love it. It's just not a very good Watchmen movie. The lame costumes in Watchmen aren't dated, they're supposed to look ridiculous. Especially Nite Owl, who look downright cool and inspiring in the movie. Watchmen has always read, to me at least, as a very quiet book. There's not a lot of sound effects in it, there's very few splash pages. In my mind Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and Ozymandias all have very calm, monotonous, almost robotic voices. In contrast, the movie is a spectacle of sight and sound, full of music and action. Rorschach copies Bale's Batman voice, Ozymandias sounds like he's actually trying to be convincing instead of stating everything matter-of-factly, and even Dr. Manhattan sounds downright emotional at times. The movie's a lot more fun to watch than the book is to read, it's just not nearly as good. The book is about provoking thought and tearing down preconceptions, the movie is about kickin' ass and titties. It's possible to enjoy both... just don't go to the theater expecting the former and you won't be disappointed.

The best performance was Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. The worst was Malin Ackerman as Silk Spectre II. Matthew Goode was also pretty lame as Ozymandias, but I think he was more miscast than actually bad, whereas Ackerman is just a lousy actress. Bubastis looked fake (and blue?), but at least she was in it, so I was psyched about that. Matt Frewer as pointy-eared Moloch was sweet. Weird prosthetic-face Nixon was terrible and unnecessary.

Two things :

1. The fighting in Watchmen is more over the top and extreme than what I've seen of the new Dragonball and Street Fighter movies, which is just wrong. Maybe Zack Snyder should've directed those instead.

2. One comic book movie Snyder would be perfect for is The Authority. That could be great, since it's an adult, R-rated story that's actually is all about ultraviolent superheroes killing things in slow-motion and fucking. Don't get me wrong, I love The Authority, but subtle it is not. He just better not have Midnighter and Apollo banging chicks and high fiving each other or I'll be pissed.

One Panel o' Pain Round 3

2009-03-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

According to our Spacebooger clock...it's fightin' time! Normally we here at CRY HAVOK!!! consider the nutshot a bit passe...it's been done so many times now that it's more likely to elicit a groan than a cheer from our jaded esophogi. Every once in a great while, though, someone comes along and elevates the nutshot to an artform, and today that someone is Garth Ennis' prostitute superheroinne The Pro.

A mighty blow for feminism was struck in The Pro graphic novel by Ennis and Amanda Conner.

Well, that's all from us this week. We'll be back from our trip on Monday, so check back then for more of that sweet, sweet blogging action.

Lost... In Translation pt. 7

2009-03-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night/early Thursday morning. Is everyone ready for another Lost post? Too bad, 'cuz you're getting one. And since this episode was all about Sawyer, I will be referring to every character by nickname (with the exception of Sawyer)... Even the ones who haven't been introduced yet... so get ready to not understand what I'm talking about.

The episode starts off where we last saw Sawyer and his gang, standing at the well Mr. Clean just went down and disappeared into. As they feebly try to pull a rope out of the ground, The Sixth Sense sees a giant statue, putting their current time into perspective. My guess is that the giant statue is the original version of what is now popularly referred to as 'The Four Toed Statue.'
However, we barely even get to see the thing before cueball turns the donkey wheel and there's another flash. Er... a SUPER flash, which transports him off the island, and cures the ailments of those remaining. Everybody's nose stops bleeding, the headaches are gone, etc. etc. Well, even though that was the last time flash for the people on the island, it's far from the last time flash we get as a viewer. The story immediately jumps ahead three years.

Down in a hatch somewhere, we see a couple of unknown Dharma lackeys hanging out with some broad dancing, which will apparently piss off Lafleur... Should 'Lafleur' find out. However, the one who's actually getting action decides that it's a safe course of action and continues dancing until the two see something odd on the security cameras. Namely, their boss getting piss drunk and throwing dynamite at random shit. They consider this a very unlikely scenario, and thus decide their best course of action, is to wake Lafleur, even though this fellow is supposedly very scary. So they go get Lafleur, and we're treated to our second big surprise of the episode. Lafleur IS Sawyer.

Apparently Crouching Tiger ain't the only employee of the Dharma Initiative... All the Island folk are. Curious indeed. By official job description, Sawyer is Head of Security, and he works with The Ghost Whisperer. Together they go and pick up the drunken dorkface and bring him back to his house to recuperate, where Pregos, his significant other, tells Sawyer that they fought about her ex-husband who was killed by The Hostiles. Soon after this Belly Bump goes into labor, and we go back three years in time again.

As the gang goes back the way they came, they find the geek kid sitting alone out of his mind, with Ginger nowhere in sight. Timecop says that time will stand still now, regardless of when they are. Sawyer suggests going back to the beach, which Mr. I Talk To The Dead argues with, but no one else has a better plan, so they do it anyways. On the way, they decide it IS a pretty thin plan, but it can be revised later or... right now, as they start to hear gunfire and the sounds of a woman screaming. They run through the woods to the rescue, in time to see a lady getting a bag pulled over her head by two Hostiles. Rushing in to save the day, of course, is Sawyer.

He pulls his gun and tells the hostiles to drop theirs, but instead of doing that, they predictable try to shoot him. Calamity Jane manages to save Sawyer's ass by blowing the first one away, and Sawyer takes the other one out pretty quickly. As the gang approaches, we see that the lady they saved is Ms. Buninoven from Dharma Initiative, and that her companion, and the reciever of the previously heard gunshots, is her now dead husband. She starts screaming about how they have to bury the bodies because of some kind of truce, AND they have to take her dead husband's body back to camp. Sawyer objects at first, but she's dedicated, and he eventually folds and helps her. Asian Sensation takes the fallen Romeo and they head off for Dharmaville.

Sawyer requests that the others let him do the talking, but before he can get into the finer points of things, Dorkface almost runs right into the sonic fence. Sawyer demands that Widow Girl turn it off and go through it first. She appears to turn off the fence, and alas, passes safely through. However, once the gang of heroes tries to walk through it, they all suddenly start flipping out. The last thing we see before everyone passes out is Gloomy Girl pulling cotton balls out of her ears.

Three Years Pass: Aforementioned Gloomy Girl is now giving birth with only the help of Sawyer and a random intern who has no idea what he's doing, seeing as how her model husband is passed out drunk at their house. Sawyer's gonna need a hand with this one, so he gets Wrinkled Manly Hands herself to come out from under a car she was working on, and come to the infirmary to deliver the baby. She objects at first, of course, but Sawyer is very persuasive in this episode. She eventually caves. As Sawyer's waiting outside for news, Mr. Miyagi shows up and tells him that he still hasn't found anyone. Soon afterwards Doctor Girlfriend comes out of the hospital and informs them both that the baby is a healthy little boy.

Back to three years ago, with Sawyer waking up in New Otherton, or more specifically, in the rec. room of New Otherton. Scruffy comes in to interrogate him, and Sawyer tells him his name is Jim Lafleur, and that he was on a boat searching for another boat (The Black Rock, specifically) and that they had crash-landed. Sawyer also tells him that he's looking for the rest of his men... In return, Drunkspeed tells him 'No' and that he will be put on a submarine off the island tomorrow morning, no buts.

Sawyer rejoins the rest of his group outside, where Timebeard is watching a smaller version of Red play, and trying not to cry. Sawyer fills them in on what they have to do, but he is interrupted by the sound of alarms and people rushing around gathering guns. Sawyer and crew are ordered into one of the Dharma houses, and through the window, they can see The Highlander strutting into town. After communications break down between Guy Liner and The Mathematician, Sawyer asks to speak to Dracula, and then does so without being given permission.

Maybe He's Born With It, Maybe It's Maybelline makes a pretty strong point for the truce between The Hostiles and Dharma being broken, but Sawyer counterpoints with 'I killed your men, and I ain't no Dharma.'. Vampy tips his hat to Sawyer with a 'well played, good-sir.' type attitude, but still demands babymama's dead husband's body in payment...

Now... I have no fucking clue what Alpo wants with that body and I ain't asking. I guess a man living forever might get kind of lonely.

After Sawyer saves the day, the Dharma folks are grateful, and decide that Sawyer and co. can stay for two more weeks until the sub comes back around. While Sawyer is excited about this, JuJu says she's gonna leave. Eventually, Sawyer convinces her to do the opposite of her original plan, AGAIN. (When did he get these powers of persuasion?!) He also promises they'll only be there for two weeks, tops...

Which is WRONG 'cuz the next scene takes place three years later again! Still in Dharma Town, Sawyer is on his way home from somewhere, and pick's up a dandelion. He walks into his house and gives it to Man Hands, and tells her he loves her. (Apparently they've become a couple in the past three years... and he has to do something sweet to cover his ass for that '2 weeks' thing.)

He also visits The Drunken Math-ter (Ok, how many fucking nicknames for Horace can YOU come up with?) and tells him that he missed his kid being born, and he really needs to get his shit back together. Sawyer goes all Dr. Phil for five minutes or so, and ends with talking about how he doesn't even remember Katesplosion anymore. Of course, this statement will be tested the next morning, when he receives a phone call from Zulu telling him that the other's are back. Sawyer rushes out to a very desolate spot on the island to meet Bruce Lee and become reacquainted with Iron Jack, Freckles, and Staypuft. Really, it's just a very awkward Jawyer moment, which just reminded me of what a confusing mix of friendship, hatred, respect, and jealousy those two men have for each other.

Well, that's it for this week, folks. Next one looks to be pretty intense, as predictably, not all the reunions are so friendly. The bad news? Next week looks to be the re-run week. You guys will have to wait a little while before you can watch it... and even longer before you can read about what you just finished watching here.

So, until week after next, Namaste.

2009-03-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Man, we got nothin'.

The last week or so has been a mind numbing haze of insomnia, colds, stomach cramps and hangovers for both of us. Our schedules haven't lined up at all, I slept two hours the night before last (and for some reason I'm still awake), and Justin was so sick Saturday he couldn't even enjoy Jerry's Strip Club Birthday Adventure.

The point? We've been lax in our blogging duties, and alas, we're going out of town this weekend, so the trend will continue. We have still been reading and watching stuff, so we've got plenty of material to work with when we rejoin the human race next week. In the meantime, let me just tell you that I'm loving Batman : The Brave and the Bold way more than I'd ever have guessed I would.

The Atom : "Do you even know what kind of doctor I am?"

Aquaman : "A hero doctor!"

Friday Night Fights : O.P.P. Round 2!

2009-02-27T04:11:00.000-08:00

It's Friday Night Fight time over at Spacebooger's, so once again we're dealing out One Panel o' Pain! And who deals out pain better than the Immortal Iron Fist and his predecessor Orson Randall?

Hmm. Splash pages are legal, right? Just in case, here's a backup page with a pain-filled final panel...also, bonus butt-shot!

The action happens in The Immortal Iron Fist #6, written by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction and drawn by David Aja.

Lost... In Translation pt. 6

2009-02-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, sorry that this post is late. Last night, after watching the episode, I barely got to start writing about it before Nick and a friend of ours screech into the yard like bats out of hell, and we spend the entire night talking about the finer points of bosses in the Metal Gear Solid games, one of which I'll post here. Keep in mind when watching this video, that this is all BEFORE the fight actually begins.

We also talked about how shitty the new video game movies coming out look, and capped the evening off by watching Exitspeed, which if you don't know (how could you not?) is about a group of people on a bus getting attacked by a gang of bikers... er, rather, Nomads, and trying to defend themselves. Of course, there's not too much defending going on, because all the bikers do is funny tricks on their crotch rockets and smoke a shit ton of crystal meth, while the heroes slowly pick them off while 'holding their position'. This is one of those flicks where you almost feel bad for the villains because the heroes are just so much more equipped to deal with the situation. In this case, it's a bunch of meth-heads getting their asses kicked by an AWOL soldier, A level something or other Dark-Elf Archer, The dude from tremors who wasn't Kevin Bacon, a mexican laborer who can build a gun for shooting molotov cocktails, and a single mom who not only runs marathons for breast cancer, but also strangles bitches with barbed wire BEFORE smothering them with a plastic bag. After the initial scare of the Nomad attack, the rest of the movie is pretty much just seeing our cast of heroes 'surviving' by brutally and efficiently dispatching the drugged out psychopaths. It's a pretty fun little flick, and very well done for what it is.

Anyways, this is a Lost post, so let's talk about THAT.

The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. I really dug this episode, and it focused on John Locke, of course, who is one of my favorite characters in the show who's still alive, next to Jack and Jin. From what I've read since watching it, this episode had a lot of hype behind it, so of course, some people were very disappointed with it, but since I don't read about episodes before I watch them, I found the episode quite fulfilling, though it did seem a bit rushed. The writing in certain scenes was magnificent, with great delivery from a lot of the characters, most notably Jack, Kate, Ben, and of course, Locke. Even if this episode wasn't all it was apparently hyped up to be, watching it with fresh eyes, it's pretty much top-form for Lost. It didn't reinvent the wheel or anything, but I thought it did what it did very well.

The episode kick off by formally introducing the Hispanic character seen in the last episode, who as it turns out, is named Caesar. He is played by Said Taghmaoui, who was in Vantage Point with Matthew Fox, and will be playing 'Breaker' in the new G.I. Joe film, pictured below.

Caesar starts the episode in an as-of-yet unknown location, where we see him discover several items of interest, including an awesome sawed-off shotgun and more info about the island. A fellow survivor of 316, who's name is later revealed to be Alanna, walks in just as Caesar is putting all of the stuff into his bag. When she asks what it is, he lies, of course. No one on Lost can just be honest. She tells Caesar that they found a man in a suit, standing in the water completely still, and have taken him ashore. They run out of the building, and discover that the man in question is Locke, alive and well. They chat for a while, and Alanna reveal to John that they are the survivors of Ajira 316, and that the pilot and one woman (Lapidus and Sun, presumably.) stole one of the three longboats and headed away. This suggests that 316 actually crashed on the other island (the one with the Hydra station on it), so Frank and Sun were trying to get back to theirs. Throughout this scene, we see other survivors of 316, but no one who really stands out.

Following this, the flashback scene starts, and it takes up pretty much the rest of the whole episode. We go back to the point at which Locke turned the donkey wheel, and was transported off of the island. Like Ben, Locke wakes up in Tunisia, still with a broken leg. This time, unlike Ben, there is a camera on a post, watching him. He notices the camera, and when he calls for help, a team of armed men in a pick-up truck squeal up and take him away. He is rushed to a make-shift hospital, where the food sucks and a team of doctors try to fix his broken leg by snapping it into place. Locke sees a familiar face just before he passes out.

When Locke wakes up, Charles Widmore is in his room, watching him sleep, all creepy-like. He explains to Locke that these are his people, that it was his camera, and talks to Locke about meeting him when Widmore was only 17. He also tells Locke that he was the leader of his people for more than thirty years, until Ben tricked him into leaving. He wants to help Locke take his rightful place, by offering assistance in getting the others to come back. He claims there's a war coming, and if Locke doesn't play his part, it will be lost. Before Locke leaves, Widmore gives him a new I.D./passport, with the name Jeremy Bentham (He also makes a joke about Locke's original name. if you didn't get that, read about John Locke, or Jeremy Bentham here.) a new cellphone, and a folder with the locations of the Oceanic Six in it. He also tells Locke that he's special, yadda yadda yadda, and that Abaddon will be his escort and bodyguard. If you don't remember Abaddon, he is the tall black man who assembled Widmore's team who went to the island, including Daniel Faraday, Miles Straume, and most notably Keamy. He also told Locke to go on a walkabout right after he broke his back, and Abaddon also visited Hurley in the psych ward, claiming to be a rep. of Oceanic, and asking about the others. Abaddon, very interestingly, is a name from the bible, and could mean the devil, or a place of death. Read about Abaddon here.

A lot of the rest of the episode is just Locke visiting people, asking them to come back, and them kindly telling him to go fuck himself. Sayid is apparently doing relief work in Santo Domingo in the Dominican republic, and refuses. Kate refuses, Hurley thinks Locke's dead, then when Hurley realizes he's not, he refuses. Then flips out about Abaddon. Basically, John just gets dead-ended everywhere he goes for most of the episode.

However, in the midst of all this, a few interesting things happen. First off, Locke talks to Walt again, and the suggestion is that this might be the last time we see Walt, as Locke doesn't even ask him to come back. However, this seems very unlikely, and the fact that Abaddon excuses himself before Walt can see him kind of makes me think he might be an older version of Walt... Hmm, worth thinking about. At the end of this scene, we also see that Ben is following them, which, of course, is important later.

Locke also 'reunites' with Helen, who died of a brain aneurism in '06. Not a huge reveal, but important nonetheless. More importantly, as they are leaving the cemetery, while Locke is in the car, Abaddon is assassinated right behind him, shot dead in the middle of the street.

So much for Abaddon.

Locke leaps into the driver's seat and squeals away into mid-day Ca. traffic, and promptly gets involved in a vehicular accident, once AGAIN hospitalizing Locke. This guy gets put into the hospital a lot, but twice in one episode might be a new record. This time Locke wakes up with Jack (right now he's kind of stubbly. Not clean shaven, but not quite a beard.) glaring at him all creepy-like while he sleeps, and when Locke wakes up, he asks Jack to go back too, of course. Jack reacts rather predictably, by telling him he's a loser. That is until Locke tells Jack that dad say's 'Hi'. Jack flips out, and storms off to grow a real beard.

The strain of not being liked by Jack Shephard does what it would do to any normal man or woman, and drives Locke to kill himself. He writes a note to Jack, and proceeds to begin hanging himself with an electrical cord from the roof of a hotel. Then...

Knock Knock, Ben's there! Like an exciteable little opossum Ben bursts into the room and tries to save John. He tells him that he's been watching all of the Oceanic Six and keeping them safe and that Widmore is an evil liar. He also reveals that he was the gunslinger who took out Abaddon. Locke starts crying about being a failure, and Ben reassures him that he loves him, and they spend the rest of the night holding each other, until John tells him about the promise he made to Jin about not bringing Sun back, and about the ring. Then eerie music starts to play, and when Locke tells Ben about Eloise Hawking, Ben strangles him with the cord that he just kept John from hanging himself with. They make a nice couple. Ben goes through the motions of making Locke's death look like a suicide, instead of an attempted suicide followed by a homicide. Ben takes the ring, and seems to feel honestly sorry for John before he leaves.

Back on the island for the end of the episode, we once again see Caesar checking out Dharma documents, this one with the Hydra logo on it, pretty much proving that the 316 guys crashed on the second island. Locke gives a confusing explanation of his history with the island, and Caesar tells him that Hurley literally disappeared out of the plane. He also mentions that some people are injured, and being kept in the other room.Locke walks in, and guess who he finds among the injured?

Yeppers, it's Ben. The man who killed Locke is now lying injured in a hospital bed just waiting for his come-uppance. Hmm... this could end violently.

Well, that's the end of the episode. Aside from a few small gripes, like the fact that I really liked Abaddon and now he's dead, and the fact that since we knew Locke was alive on the island at the very beginning of the episode, it took the weight off of his death when Ben killed him, I liked this episode a lot. Of course, I've gotten used to Lost death's being more or less empty at this point, but still. It's freaking Locke. His death should have at least seemed bad. Anyways, enough complaining. See you next week.

Fantasy Casting the Youngblood Movie, part 2

2009-02-23T00:56:00.000-08:00

Read part 1 here, if you missed it.

When we told you there was a whole other story in Sir Robert Liefeld's Great American Graphic Novel Youngblood #1, featuring an entirely different team, you probably thought it was simply too good to be true. Indeed, even though I read the issue in it's entirety every single day right when I wake up and again before going to sleep, I always feel a moment of deep, aching despair when I reach the end of side 1, before I remember it's a flip book, and my life is once again reaffirmed. I think my mind protects me in this way, because subconsciously I know I'd never do anything but reread Youngblood #1 over and over if I didn't repress the memory of it's greatness long enough to go to tittybars and do blogging. But it really, really is a flip-book, and dreams do come true!

By the way, if you've been reading along with our casting (which I'm sure most of you have) but finding Sir Liefeld's story a bit challenging, it might help to know that Shaft's girlfriend Shelly and Badrock's mom are not, in fact, the exact same person.

We hope this clears things up a bit. We're not gonna cast these two lovely ladies because not even Corey Feldman could get his hair to do...whatever theirs is doing. To avoid ruining the characters, they might have to be claymation or something.

Anyway, side 2 is pure balls-to-the-wall action from start to finish. While the 'home' team is waiting all damn day for Vogue to show up, the 'away' team is jumping out of a jet to fight Saddam Hussein (Liefeld's writing is full of layers and subtext you wouldn't pick up on until you've read it many times, but trust me, 'Haddam Kussein' is a cleverly veiled reference to Saddam) and his mech army. No, seriously.

One of the many ways Youngblood is ahead of it's time is that, if you count both teams, it boasts twice as many black men as your average super team (two). Sentinel is the team's leader, even if he does get knocked out early on and act like a complete pushover when his soldiers brazenly disobey orders. Assuming Sam Jackson doesn't want to play him also, there's only one other African-American actor with the chops to pull this off...

Another way Youngblood raised the bar is the subtle homosexual undertones in the friendship between heavy hitters Combat and Cougar. As an example, observe this scene, in which they totally do it in the butt.

Combat may or may not have size changing powers. His height seems to range from about six to twenty feet tall, but Liefeld is the guy who infamously drew Captain America's shield anywhere between the size of a dinnerplate and the size of monster-truck tire. By the by, Combat's gun may also have size and shape changing powers. Anyway, we think he should be played by a twenty foot tall CGI Worf.

We aaallllmost went with Stifler's mom to play Cougar just based on the name alone, but then Justin pointed out a certain actor, and it just made sense.

One character on the away team actually displays a personality trait other than 'Xtreme', and that's Psi-Fire, who's a snotty douchebag. So he has to be played by the 'cocky blonde guy' from Not Another Teen Movie.

Riptide looks like a drag queen that just got done doing squats, but in this case we've decided to cast the part based on what was almost certainly the artist's intent rather than the finished product.

Brahma is a generic Strong Guy character who inexplicably took his name from four-headed Hindu god of creation and his ass from a Puerto Rican woman.
One quick haircut and dye, and...

And now we come to the most mysterious figure in the whole book, Photon. On the inside of the cover, Photon is listed as part of the away team, but he's nowhere to be found in that story. He is, however, briefly seen at the home team's HQ. Shaft walks past him and says "Oh, so we get the pleasure of your company tonight, Photon?", to which Photon replies "Sir?". Then everyone goes to stop that escape attempt, but Photon doesn't go with them. This may be the single most challenging and complex panel in the entire book. Is Shaft really upset that Photon apparently missed an earlier meeting, or is he joking around? Clearly, Photon is confused by Shaft's statement, but neither he nor the reader gets any sort of answer. It's left to the scholars of the future to ponder the meaning of this exchange. Meanwhile...

And that's the entire Youngblood roster. As for villains, we assume actual footage of Saddam Hussein will be used for the Hassan Kussein character. The team of criminals who the home team are sent to fight in side 1 are The Four, two of which (Starbright and Deadlock) appear so briefly and are so ridiculous(ly awesome) looking that they defy casting. As for Redheaded Brahma, a.k.a. Strongarm and his buddy Gage...

So, there you have it. We trust that the man who brought us the Rush Hour we never watched, Brett Ratner, will take our suggestions in consideration and make a Youngblood film we can all be proud of. And if you think this whole post was just our veiled attempt to get bodybuilding icons and film legends The Barbarian Brothers back onscreen again, you may just be on to something. But if you think we've been unfair in our treatment of Rob Liefeld, we just want you to remember this: Rob Liefeld gave Captain America titties.

You know, there's so much that's so glaringly wrong about this picture, I wonder how many people have even noticed that his little head-wings are completely uneven. That's just unforgivable.

Friday Night Fights : One Panel o' Pain!!!

2009-02-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

Well, the second part of our Youngblood fantasy casting is turning out to be more time consuming than we'd imagined. With such a high quality story and subtle, three-dimensional characters, we really feel the need to make sure are choices are perfect. Also, real humans don't look like this:But it's coming soon, we promise! Today, however, is Friday, and that means it's fightin' time over at Spacebooger's place, and the theme this week is One Panel of Pain. we're sure someone somewhere has thrown this particular battle into the FNF ring before, but dammit all, when I think 'pain' the first thing that comes to mind is the time Invincible's Superman-like alien savior dad, Omni-Man, turned out to really be more of a Vegeta-like evil world conquering type of alien and proceeded to beat the living hell out of him for like a week. It was a seriously brutal scene, and downright shocking in the context of the series. Anyway, here's one single panel that pretty much sums up how the fight went...

Invincible #11 by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley, for all your father/son beatdown needs.

Lost... In Translation pt. 5

2009-02-18T20:39:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, we didn't quite get all our casting for 'Youngblood' done yet, so that will be the next post, not this one, as previously promised. It's Wednesday, so it's time for another 'Lost' post, and this one is all about Jack and his bis'ness.

*ahem* moving on:

This episode really upped the quality and power of the season, in my humble opinion. It was definitely the best episode since the season premiere, and I think a large part of it is the reunion of several of the major cast members. They're finally reconnecting a little bit, instead of all doing their own personal crap. They're still not necessarily all friendly, mind you, but at least they're together. Overall, the episode was generally just more entertaining and fun than the previous ones, even though Sayid doesn't beat anyone up.

Another thing that I loved about this episode, (and, it appears the next episode) is that the show returned to it's storytelling structure of focusing on a single character and showing their story in a linear (well, mostly linear) fashion. This show followed Iron Jack, so I'm not complaining.

The first thing Jack-O does is open one eye, and send us down memory lane right from the start as he comes to in the forest, already back on the island. Of course, this is a flash forward, but as flash forwards go, it isn't bad. The first thing he does is pull a note out of his pocket which is half destroyed. The only legible words are 'I wish-'. Before we have much time to ponder over this little tidbit of information, however, Jack hears Hurley screaming for dear life across the jungle. Jack throws himself through the forest, following the cry for help. Seeing Jack act this way is almost like reuniting with an old friend, and it brings a tear to your eye.

Upon arrival, we see Hurley floating in the same river where they found the halliburton, and he's surviving by staying afloat on an inexplicable guitar case. No sooner has Jack rescued Hurley than he sees Kate, seemingly dead on a pile of rocks to the side. However, Jack manages to revive her, and we're left wondering how the fuck did they convince Kate to come back to the island... perhaps we'll find out-

46 HOURS EARLIER!

Now we pick up where the last episode left off, with Iron Jack, Sun Damage, Ben, and Desmond going into the church to meet Eloise Hawking a.k.a. Faraday's mom. She takes the group down into the basement, where she has her very own Dharma Hatch. It is apparently called 'The Lamp Post', and it's point is to find the island when and where it will be next, and determine the windows of opportunity to get there. It does this by using a giant swinging pendulum, that scratches a map of Earth as it rotates, pinpointing a location. Somehow Desmond manages to walk blindly through the center of the room several times mid hissy-fit, and never gets hit by the pendulum, which absolutely amazes me. He blows up on Eloise, blaming her for stealing four years of his life, and claims that since he has relayed his message from Faraday, he is washing his hands of the island forever before storming out.

After this episode, things are a little awkward, but Eloise continues with business, telling the other three that their window to the island will be closing soon, and that they need to get on a plane from L.A. to Guam tomorrow to make it. Ajira Airlines Flight 316. If the name Ajira is familiar to you, it's the airline who's water bottles Sawyer and Locke's group found in the old boats near their destroyed camp when they were time-jumping. If the numbers 316 sound familiar, you are thinking of what wrestler Steve Austin says right before some jacked-up nimrod (sic) gets Stone Cold Stunned.

It's from the bible. (The correlation is obvious, is it not?) The verse is:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass! -Austin 3:16

Come to think of it, that verse sounds like it could relate to Locke or Aaron or even Ben in some way. The John one. The Austin one is obviously referring to Sayid. Of course, whether the number has any significance whatsoever is questionable.

Eloise leaves her audience with a last piece of advice, and a warning. She tells them that they need to try to recreate the original plane ride as closely as possible. This means that the more people who go back, the more likely they will get the results they desire. If only Jack, Sun, and Ben go, the results could be... unpredictable. She also tells Jack she has something she needs to talk to him about in private.

Eloise brings Jack into her private office, and gives him an envelope with his name on it. It is a note he left for Jack... right before he hung himself. Hrm... That kind of answers the question of how Locke died. (More details in the next episode, named 'The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham'.) Eloise also tells Jack that Locke will act as a proxy on the plane. (A stand-in, if you don't know the term) Jack has to get something that belonged to Christian, and give it to Locke. This will increase their chances somehow, so Jack has to find something that belonged to a man over three years dead, and give it to a corpse. Sounds fun.

After the meeting, Ben treats us and Jack to a little biblical history, namely the story of Thomas the apostle. Read all about him here.

The next scene is long and elaborate, and for the most part a pointless story showing how Jack gets ahold of Christian's shoes from his grandfather in the old folk's home. From what we can tell in the scene, Jack's grandfather is A: Awesome and B: An outlaw. On a related topic, Ray is my new favorite character.

After we are introduced to that awesome old geezer, Jack goes home and finds Kate looking drugged out and laying on his bed. He rouses her, and interrogates her about Aaron, or rather, a lack thereof. She flips out as only a distraught wanna-be mother can, and tells him that she will come to the island if, and ONLY IF, he never asks her about Aaron again.

Then they totally make out.

The morning after, Jack and Kate talk about their coming up travels, and the only real point of interest here is finding out Jack put the white jogging shoes on Christian because he didn't have the time or motivation to get him some real dress shoes.

After this harrowing confession, Kate bails out and Jack receives a phone call from Ben, who has apparently been in a rather violent encounter. Seems like he was more on the receiving end of things, but it makes you wonder who could just beat up Ben and walk away from it... hmm. Ben tells Jack to go get Locke's body, because he's going to have to move it. Jack agrees and heads off to meet Jill at the butcher shop.

Jack decides to pull a Kansas City Shuffle and switch out Locke's shoes with Christian's, and just like that, he has a proxy. He also leaves the unopened suicide note in Locke's coat, then calls the corpse crazy before taking it to the airport so the plane can crash right. Jack's so awesome.

At the airport, while Jack is arguing with another airline employee about trying to bring yet another body on board a plane, we are introduced to what will probably become a new character, a young latino man with a beard. We also see Sayid coming into the airport... in handcuffs, Kate style. Hurley's there, too. When asked why, he says it's not important, he just heard that he should be there. I wasn't paying much attention in this scene because Hurley was reading Y: The Last Man, and I was thinking about how the story of Y could relate to 'Lost', and if it had any significance beyond being written by Brian K. Vaughan.

In the end, everyone from the island is on the plane, with the exception of Desmond. Ben shows up last minute, and even Frank Mothafuckin' Lupitus is flying the plane. Of course, there are a few hiccups, i.e. Hurley freaks out on Ben upon seeing him, Lupitus didn't even know that there was a plan to crash the plane, and some asshole gives Jack his suicide letter back.

Oh, and deviating a bit, Ben has my favorite quote of the season so far. Ben is reading a magazine, while Jack is just sitting there being terrified.

Jack: "How can you read?"
Ben: "My mother taught me."

After Ben busts his balls a little bit more, he tells Jack to read the damn suicide note, and then leaves him to it. Jack eventually mans the fuck up and reads it. It simply says 'Jack, I wish you had believed' No sooner than the note is read, the car starts going through it's crashing motions.

From here on out, the end of the show is a repeat of the beginning, right up until the end, after Jack manages to revive Kate. As soon as they stand up, they hear the sound of a vehicle approaching, and look up to see the old van (the one Hurley fixed up) back in it's glory days approaching. A figure jumps out and points a rifle at the group. First we see it's someone from the Dharma Initiative, but when it scans up to the person's face, we see it's:

Yeah, I don't really get it either. Although I have a new theory as to who Adam and Eve might be, seeing Jin all decked out in Dharma colors...

Well, aside from that, I have no idea why Jin is with dharma or anything, so I won't even try. Although now that he's been with Rousseau's group, and now Dharma, Jin is officially an 'Other' at this point, I think. The next episode is where we find out all the mysteries around Locke's time in L.A. Looks to be a good one.

'Til next time.

Fantasy Casting the Greatest Comic of All Time, part 1

2009-02-16T21:22:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, you are in for a treat. Tonight, we're gonna do something that, to the best of our knowledge, has never been done on the internet. Heck, it probably hasn't been done in real life in at least a decade.

Welcome to our fantasy casting of the Youngblood movie.

For the uninitiated, Youngblood is an almost universally reviled comic from the early nineties. It was created, written, and drawn by Rob Liefeld, who, interestingly enough, isn't very good at drawing, writing, or creating things. He's one of those 'Xtreme' artists who were popular at that time; one of (if not the) worst of the lot. The thing about Liefeld is that for a split second when you first see some of his art, it doesn't look that bad...

Then you stop and think : WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT DUDE ON THE RIGHT?! How's his back...why...but...AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

Most of the time, however, you just take one look...
...and despair. He got paid real, paper money for those pictures, folks. Anyway, everyone always takes jabs at the guy, but I've heard he's actually pretty nice in real life, so we're gonna take it eas-oh, wait...

The really cool thing about Liefeld though is that he's an inspiration to aspiring artists. If he can get a job in comics...

Anyway, have you heard the good news? Preach, Brett Ratner, Director of X-Men 3 and Rush Hour 3 !

“Most of the great graphic novels are gone, and ‘Youngblood’ is one of the few comicbooks left with tentpole potential,” Ratner told the trade. “It was a real personal passion project for me, and a lot of people wanted (‘Youngblood’), but the amazing thing about the guys at Reliance is the speed with which they’re able to move.”

Wow, that is one impressively huge pile of bullshit.

But we're not about crying foul on this blog, we're about CRYING HAVOK!!! , which means (clearly) that we're gonna give this flick a fair shake. Heck, we're actually pretty damned psyched about it, so psyched we've painstakingly compiled a list of the actors and actresses we believe could do this 'great graphic novel' justice. To achieve this, we actually gritted our teeth all extreme nineties style and read Youngblood #1, insofar as you can 'read' the unreadable. Now there's been many attempts to restart the series over the years (Liefeld recently released the first series in a collected edition, with the selling point that it had been completely rewritten. Seriously, he hired a writer, Joe Casey, to chop up and rearrange the old issues and change all the dialogue so people can actually read it all the way through without sustaining brain damage), but we read the real deal, the one that started it all, and that's the story we'll be casting.

Youngblood is the story of a government sanctioned strikeforce of superpowered assholes. That's the whole plot, so now you're in the know.

The leader of these assholes is Shaft (yes, really), who's power is that he shoots a bow with no strings and has impossible hair.

Wait, did we say impossible? Silly, all things are possible when you invite The Corey's into your life!

Badrock (Originally called Bedrock, until Hanna-Barbara made Liefeld change it because it's name of the town in The Flintstones) is a big grey rock guy, so a quick repaint is in order.
We haven't seen Michael Chiklis in much recently, maybe they can even get him to wear the suit. The role of Badrock, however, is primarily a voice acting gig, since (judging from the one issue we've read) he seems to be some sort of child in a monstrous body...

Vogue is the token hot chick on the team, and she's no man's slave. When the whole team gets summoned to HQ, she purposefully 'makes 'em wait' for five hours before she shows up. Luckily, everybody else is just standing around when she gets there, at which point they get sent to stop some super villains from breaking their teammates out of a prison transport van. Which means the team was called in just to hang around in costume for no apparent reason. Note that they didn't show up for duty at a set time or anything like a fireman or cop, they were all summoned suddenly and had to drop whatever they were doing to go wait at HQ for five hours until an emergency happened to c0me up.

Anyway, on account of Rob Liefeld's particular artistic sensibilities, the only way to accurately portray Vogue onscreen is to digitally graft young Madonna's head onto Dolly Parton's body.

Actually, that sounds ridiculous, but apparently they're doing something very similar with Shwarzeneggar for Terminator 4. That's the rumor, anyway.

Credit where it's due, Diehard is actually a pretty sweet codename. He's also probably the coolest looking character on the team, for what little that's worth. He speaks in english, but his inner thoughts seem to be translated from another language. We're never told what that language is. The only other thing we learn about Diehard is that he's apparently some kind of cyborg or robot. Thus...

And, then there's Chapel, who is a black man.

And that's the core team of...oops, hold your horses, true believer. You probably think that this group of generic-to-unlikeable characters are going to have some room to grow in their first issue, maybe pique the reader's interest. Hell to tha naw, man. Liefeld likes to hedge his bets by throwing as many characters at you as possible. hoping one or the other of them will remind you enough of Wolverine that you'll buy issue 2. That's why after a thirteen pages of really Bad Dudes gritting their teeth at you, you get to flip the book over and read about more Bad Dudes killing Saddam Hussein. That's right, it's political commentary in the mighty Liefeld manner, with all the subtlety and intelligence you would expect. And we're gonna cast the living shit out of it, next time on CRY HAVOK!!!

Read part 2 here!

2009-02-16T01:34:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of excitement in the air over here at the Cry Havok!!! 'offices' as we plan for the future and get excited about art again. This means that we've been lending more time than before to actually telling our own stories...but don't worry, we've still made time to cast our judgmental gazes at plenty of other people's hard work as well. Our biggest challenge with this blog has never been thinking of things to write about, but choosing between all the things we want to write about. Because of this we're going to be cutting back a bit on the longer reviews, except for when we feel like a movie or book really merits discussion, or is being overlooked and needs what little publicity we can give it. So our new motto is : less reviews you can find all over the web, more fun, creative content. I'm psyched. Now, here's a really long, serious rant about a DVD we just watched.

We just watched Bill Maher's Religulous, in which he talks to (and tears into) believers from various religious sects around the world. Let me say straight up, yes, this is a one-sided affair. One quick-witted and well-informed professional comedian blindsiding a bunch of nervous folks on camera. Is this fair? Put it this way : I've been indoctrinated to believe in Jesus and the christian god since birth.

Don't get me wrong, my parents were half-assed christians at best, I wasn't wearing hair shirts or setting witches alight or anything. But bible stories were presented as fact, and not eventually revealed as myths like Santa and the tooth fairy were. Using the lord's name in vain would get you sent to the Principal's office, and god got a shout out right there in the pledge of allegiance. I didn't have Jeebus shoved down my throat every second like some kids did, but I was never exposed to any other options, either. God was never presented as anything but real and good, you heard the movie stars and athletes thank him on tv, now stop asking questions and open your presents.

Religulous is undeniably a pro-atheist documentary, religious figures invited to share their views just so Maher can pick their every statement apart. Which is perfectly fine, because at any time, day or night I can turn on my tv and find christians freely expressing their beliefs, and allowing no opposing viewpoints whatsoever. Religulous is a lone piece of atheist propaganda in a sea of religious propaganda so thick I sometimes feel like I'm going to choke on it, and damn, it's nice to hear these points coming out of someone's mouth besides my own.

Ok, that implies that I'm the sole voice of reason in a world of religious zealots, when in fact about half of my friends are non-religious. But only Justin feels as strong about it as I do, and he's a lot more mellow than I am, so it's me who regularly gets in long, loooonnnggg heated debates with the other half. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you, I love to argue. I'll debate you until the cows come home, then I'll start some shit with 'em. But if my partner/opponent refuses to make any real points or keeps playing the 'that's your opinion' card (aka the 'Imma take my ball and go home' card), I can let it go. Problem is, religious people refuse to admit that they're arguing an opinion. They are RIGHT, praise Jeebus, and no amount of logic or reason is gonna sway them, because they have 'faith'. My lack of 'faith', of course, in no way disproves theirs, because for some reason god has seen fit to imbue them with the light of knowledge and leave me out in the cold, but I should pray to him anyway. And every. single. argument. I've had with a christian has eventually ended with them all flustered and defensive, repeating 'because I have faith' over and over. 'I just know'. The entire christian faith seems to devolve into meaningless under any kind of scrutiny, and they simply refuse to think about it.

"I have faith."

"I just know."

"God works in mysterious ways."

"Just 'cause."

If you're christian, devout or half-assed, I challenge you to watch Religulous. I've read your bible, I've attended your sermons, I've heard your stories, as an impressionable child and again as a young man. Atheism is the conclusion I've come to after years of living in an overwhelmingly christian country, in the fucking south. Christians are notorious for knee-jerk condemnations and rejection of anything that questions the divinity of their savior, and if they're so sure of their superiority, why the defensiveness? I propose that it's because their faith is built on willful ignorance and a need to fit in, and will crumble under the slightest pressure if they stop for just one second, open their minds, and THINK.

Damn, I didn't mean to go off on a long rant here. The truth is, I'm pretty tolerant of people's beliefs, I'm willing to keep my mouth shut if it'll help a person get through the day easier. But it infuriates me that I live in a society where I'd almost certainly get my ass chewed out for saying anything anti-christian in a public place, but I have to hear grown men calling each other 'fag' and referring to anything bad or undesirable as 'gay' all the damn time, and I'm overly sensitive if I say something about it. I passed a sign out front of a church near my house a hundred times last year...'homosexuality is a sin'. I heard that after several months somebody finally snuck up and rearranged the letters to read 'homosexuality is in', which is hilarious, but it was instantly taken down and I never got to see it for myself. If I were to put a sign on my own, private lawn that said 'christianity is a sham', it wouldn't last a day, and I'd be lucky if my car and house didn't get vandalized.

One really good point Religulous makes is that non-religious people make up quite a large minority in the US. There are more people in this country willing to admit that they don't believe in god than there are African-Americans. How many more on-the-fencers might be open-minded enough to call themselves atheists if they heard the arguments for and against christianity and gave it some real thought? Where's our support groups and parades? I want a special month each year where kids in school get to learn about how many other religions there are, how they are equally or more valid than christianity, how they have a choice to believe whatever feels right to them. I want an atheist in the white house.

Sound unrealistic? Sure. For the next decade or two. But we've got a black president, and that was unrealistic a decade or two ago. And by the way...

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."

- Abraham Lincoln, American president (1809-1865).

"Lighthouses are more helpful then churches."

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

-John Adams, U.S. President, Founding Father of the United States

Faith means not wanting to know what is true. - Friedrich Nietzsche

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts

What’s “God”? Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God’s the guy that ignores you. - Steve Buscemi (From the movie “The Island”)

Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. - Chapman Cohen

If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can’t we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth? - Ryan Hanson

All quotes found on these two pages.

Tomorrow: Get ready for more Shaft than you can handle.

Friday Night Fights : Love Tap edition "The Crossing of the Bones"

2009-02-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

It's time for a special Valentine's day 'Love Tap' edition of Spacebooger's Friday Night Fights!

In one corner, we have Crossbones, the Red Skull's most loyal (and dangerous) henchman. In the other, the Skull's own daughter, Synthia, once a ruthless mass-murderer, now brainwashed by S.H.I.E.L.D. into thinking she's just a normal girl. Even though the Red Skull's dead and gone, Crossbones isn't about to see his bad name dragged through the mud, so he sets about undoing the mind-whammy that the good guys did on his ex squeeze. He does this, naturally, by torturing her until she reverts back to her old self.

It's a bit of a process.

But in the end, worth every second...

Now the killing starts!

From Captain America #15 by Ed Brubaker and Mike Perkins.

Lost... In Translation pt. 4

2009-02-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

Rest in peace, sweet princess

Yes, even I have a heart, and that's why, for the remainder of this post, I'm going to pretend Charlotte Lewis was one of my favorite characters. Why? Because you're about the closest thing I got to a friend... and because she's gone... Well, at least now we get to go kill somebody. Yeah, there's a Sawyer quote for your ass.

Ok, let's get started. First off, let me start by saying that with the exception of a few moments, this has been the weakest episode of the season. Nothing particularly unexpected or awesome happened, (again, with one or two exceptions) and overall it just wasn't as exciting as usual... so i apologize if this post isn't quite as exciting as usual either.

Like last episode, this one hopped between The Island and L.A., so I'm gonna cover the island first, and then L.A.

This episode picks up where last one left off on the island, with Jin becoming acquainted (or rather, reacquainted) with a young, daughter-bearing Danielle Rousseau, and meeting her team for the first time. As they chat, it slowly dawns on our hero that he is not in the right 'when' and he tries to explain in broken english his situation, but fails. After much confused conversation the Korean man and the large group of French people reach an understanding that they should go to the radio tower to find the source of the distress call, and Jin can go from the tower to the beach. However, on the path to the tower, Rousseau's team meets up with a very familiar enemy.

As a member of the team named Nadine goes missing, they begin to hear a familiar series of noises. Jin tries to tell them that they should seriously be hauling ass, but some asshole blonde guy (presumably the leader) tells him to shut up. At this point, it's safe to assume that Cerberus (more commonly referred to as the 'smoke monster') is probably going to drag this guy through the forest to one of it's vents, where his friends will try to save him, but will instead rip off his arm in a futile 'tug-of-war'. Luckily for us, this happens exactly, and it's good. That's the last time some blonde french guy will tell Jin what to do.

UNPREDICTABLY, however, blondie begins calling for help from down in the vent, and I guess he was a good enough guy after all that all his buddies care enough about him to go after him. Even Rousseau wants to hop down into the pits of hell, until Jin tells her to get her pregnant ass to get out, right before there's a bright flash and he disappears.

He ends up only a few days later than he was, and comes upon where Rousseau's men made camp, and he reunites with them, only to find them mostly dead. He hears Danielle screaming at her boyfriend (Robert), and when he runs over to see what's happening, he discovers her pointing a gun at her baby daddy and screaming about him being sick. He claims that he's ok, and explains that Cerberus is just a security system for the temple on the island. Eventually Robert convinces Danielle that he's all good, but as soon as she puts the gun down, he tries to shoot her. She responds by blowing his ass away... so quick. Then she turns on Jin, trying to shoot him too, but he runs away. and then FLASH.

This time he ends up right in front of another gun, but the good news is, this gun belongs to Sawyer. After a merry reunion, the team explains what's happening to Jin, through Charlotte's crazy Korean translation powers. The group decides to continue towards the orchard, howevever, they're hit by another FLASH.

And ANOTHER.

After two successive flashes, the entire team is pretty much in pain, and it seems like everyone's bleeding except for Daniel and Locke. The beautiful and genius Charlotte, however, is bleeding quite a bit more than everyone else. She starts blabbering in Korean to Jin, and finally ends up translating herself. She says that Locke must NOT bring the others back to the island. The whole scene is pretty creepy, and she finishes with 'This Place Is Death!' Hence, the name of the episode.

After she's done with her awesome little episode, Locke and Sawyer (our HEROES) decide to leave her to die so they can hurry to the orchid. Then there's another flash, and we learn that Charlotte loves Geronimo Jackson, and tells our heroes that if the Orchid isn't there in the time they arrive, to look for the well. They tip their hats to the fair maiden, and with the exception of Daniel (who stays behind to be with his lady love) they head to The Orchid, and arrive just in time for it to disappear... luckily, however, the well Charlotte mentioned is nearby.

As the beautiful and daring Charlotte approaches death, she tells Daniel a story. She tells him that she grew up on the island as part of Dharma (further evidence Charlotte is Widmore's other daughter.). She was forced to leave as a youngster, and has been trying to return ever since, even though her mother tried to convince her that both the island, and the cake, were a lie. She remembers one time when a crazy guy came running out of the woods, telling her that she had to leave the island, and if she ever came back, she would die...

She realizes right before she dies, that the man was Daniel.

Then she dies.

Meanwhile, back at the well... Locke prepares to go down the rope to go turn the wheel thingie, but first Jin makes him promise not to bring back Sun. He gives Locke his ring, and tells him to give it to Sun, as proof of his death. Locke promises, and heads on down the well. Halfway throught the trip, however, there's another flash, and Locke drops the rest of the distance, and the well seals over. He hits the ground, and predictably, John suffers yet ANOTHER crippling leg injury. This time his bone's popping out, too. Ugh. Oh, and Christian's there, too.

Yep. Christian approaches Locke below the earth, and tells him that he still has to carry out his mission. He tells him that it was a mistake to let Ben move the island, and now he has to fix it. And yes, he will die. Locke is still dedicated though, and manages to stand up on a leg with a protruding bone just to go turn a wheel so he can die. The man's got dedication. The last thing we see is him turning the wheel...

And then there's the group in L.A. last we saw of these guys, everyone excluding Hurley was at the docks, and tensions were pretty high to begin with. They get even higher once Sun pulls her gat and blows ben's head off... Or well, threatens to anyways. Ben takes the spring out of her step by telling her Jin is still alive, and he can prove it.

At this point, Kate gets all pissy and motherly and runs off with Aaron, and Sayid, realizing Jack and Ben's intentions, leaves as well, and threatens the two with unpleasantness if their paths ever cross again. As they exit the stage, Ben volunteers to take Jack and Kate to the person who can get them back to the island. On the way there, he also stops and lays down the fucking law when Jack starts getting mouthy.

In the last scene of the episode, they arrive at the cathedral which we know is where Ms. Hawking hangs out. Ben gives Sun the wedding ring, and she agrees to go to the island with him. As they are about to enter, Desmond suddenly shows up. He's here to find Daniel's mom, which we had already assumed was Ms. Hawking. The merry band enters to meet the old lady, so they can be on their way back to the island. She agrees to just send the four of them back if she has to, and then boom, credits.

So there you are. As I stated before, it was a bit slower than the last few episodes, and practically pales in comparison to the season premiere, but it's really more set-up than anything. The next episode looks to be pretty intense, but who knows?

2009-02-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

We watched Oliver Stone's W. last night, and it was good but a little underwhelming. This being a political biopic (and my political knowledge being rudimentary at best), I really expected to come out of this movie with a greater understanding of what's been going on these last eight years. Strangely, though, there's really not much here that I didn't already know. Still, I find it intimidating to write about these events, not knowing for sure how accurately they were portrayed in the film, so I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet.

The performances are mostly quite good, even though Josh Brolin is significantly more handsome and well, capable looking than Dubya could ever hope to be. As Justin pointed out during a scene where the college-age Bush gets up and starts dancing on the bar with his then-girlfriend..."This looks way cooler when Josh Brolin does it than it would if the real George Bush was doing it". It's actually believable that the man portrayed by Brolin could inspire enough confidence in the public to be elected president, whereas in reality Bush's election, and re-election, simply boggles my mind.

The one annoyingly bad performance is Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice. She goes waaay over the top into Scary/Date/Epic/Disaster Movie-like parody with her portrayal, especially the voice. I actually looked up video of the real Condy speaking to make sure I wasn't being too harsh, and no, she definitely doesn't sound like a circus freak on meth. Also, Dick Cheney doesn't really sound a lot like Heath Ledger's Joker persona, but that was actually kind of an appropriate stylistic choice on Richard Dreyfuss' part.

Anyway, W. is an interesting and enjoyable take on George W. Bush's journey from drunken fratboy (and cheerleader, which I'd have liked to see onscreen) to a completely out of his depth president. Just don't expect it to blow your mind or anything.

We're most likely going to go see Push tonight, so look for our thoughts on that soon.

2009-02-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

Tokyo Gore Police.

We've been looking forward to this one for quite a while, even though we knew there was no way it could live up to the trailer. We finally got to see Machine Girl, which was made by a lot of the same people (the main makeup effects guy, Yoshihiro Nishimura, directed Gore Police), and awesome as it was, we said to each other 'Tokyo Gore Police will blow this away'.

But we didn't believe it, deep down. That trailer?

Nothing could live up to that trailer. Surely, all the good stuff was spoiled already. How could they top the woman with a crocodile for a vagina? Well, we're not gonna tell you how, but they do. God, do they. You need to see this.

Don't get us wrong...Tokyo Gore Police isn't an especially smart or thought provoking film. If you want a crazy Asian (crazsian) film that'll expand your mind, try Oldboy or Izo. But if you're in the mood to watch a man shoot grenades out of his huge elephant-trunk of a penis, well, here you go. Gore Police is Japan's answer to the entire Troma catalogue, without (most of) the lame gross-out comedy. Take all the scenes of people vomiting green stuff and fighting with dildos out of your average Troma movie, replace them with satiric commercials (Ala Starship Troopers and Robocop) for razors aimed at self-mutilating teens, then raise the bar on special effects, acting, and well, everything else, and you're halfway to the awesomeness of Tokyo Gore Police.

The story is set in a Judge Dredd-like future where the police force has been privatized and genetically enhanced mutants wreck havok. These mutants are called 'engineers', and any injury they sustain becomes a weapon...cut off a hand, a chainsaw grows out of the stump. A mysterious figure called Keyman inserts a key-shaped tumor (which he got from The Devil) into some part of a person's body, and that's how engineers are created. Then they start killing folks and tortured supercop Ruko chops them up into smaller and smaller pieces until she happens to destroy the tumor, and that's how engineers are uncreated. There are, of course, several twists and revelations throughout the course of the story, but the narrative's actually pretty clear, as far as crazsian movies go. Nobody flips out and becomes the embodiment of an emotion or starts backflipping through time or anything, which is a nice change of pace.

Yeah, we sound like this is the first crazsian movie we've seen, like schoolchildren giddy over seeing a hooker get cut in half for the first time. Trust us, the truly ridiculous amount of arterial spray, the brain-skewering weirdness of the mutants, and most of all the sheer creativity at work here sets this one well apart from it's peers. The music is well done, there's very little cgi (mostly just one character near the end), and each scene is more insane than the last. C'mon, can you say no to this smile?

Return to Oz

We also finally watched Return to Oz the other day. I special ordered this dvd over a year ago, and I've been really excited for it...well, the whole time. I have a tendency to put off watching things I'm really excited about until the 'perfect time' that never actually comes, which is why I haven't seen the movie adaptation of Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog even though I love the short story, I've owned the movie forever, and all my friends (including Justin) have seen it. Anyway.

This is one of those weird little 'children's' movies that are really quite creepy and awesome...one we happen to have missed as kids, unfortunately. Like night-vision goggles, however, Return to Oz only gets better with age. It's sort of a sequel to the original movie, but adapted more directly from the series of books than The Wizard of Oz was, giving us a much younger Dorothy and a darker Oz. The Scarecrow, Tin Man and co. don't show up until the end (and are virtually unrecognizable from the older movie versions), replaced by a whole new cast of misfits, including freakishly tall nightmare fuel Jack Pumpkinhead (who you could almost swear was being played by Doug Jones of Abe Sapien and Pan's Labyrinth fame if you didn't know better), clockwork knight Mr. Tik Tok, and crime against nature The Gump, who is a pile of furniture and a mounted moose's head brought to unholy life through black magic. The Gump kind of awkwardly flies around for a while, desperately trying to keep his cool as his 'body' literally falls apart...kind of a more passive-aggressive Eeyore, if Eeyore was a zombie headed pile of garbage. Also, Toto shows up in the 'real world', but Dorothy's animal companion this time around is a sassy chicken named Billina.

Dorothy was Fairuza Balk's first role, and she looks 25% less creepy than we're used to seeing her. Alas, she also doesn't have any boobies, so it kind of evens out. Anyway, Dorothy isn't smart enough to shut up about her adventures in Oz, so Auntie Em pawns her off on the nearest loony bin so she can get the proper care (100,000,000 volts right through the brains). With the help of a mysterious little girl, Dorothy manages to escape during the chaos of a lightning storm, but ends up clinging to a piece of debris as a wild river whisks her away. Naturally, she wakes up in Oz, but not the Oz she remembers. The emerald city is in ruins, the yellow brick road destroyed, her friends turned to stone. Not a munchkin in sight. The city is being ruled over by the scariest evil queen ever, Mombi, who has a pretty sweet hall of interchangeable heads, so that's creepy.

Mombi is served by a legion of creatures called the Wheelers, which we couldn't find any good pictures of. When you first see the Wheelers they'll freak you out. They have wheels instead of hands or feet, and their arms are freakishly elongated so they can glide around on all fours while standing almost straight up. They are wearing masks at first, but then they take them off and kind of ruin it by just having over-acting dudes underneath. Then you realize that the dudes are kind of a bizarre mix of Pee-Wee Herman and Ace Ventura, and they get creepy again.

Mombi and her rollerblading rape-squad serve a greater force, however: The Nome King, who's more awesome than creepy, in that he's a crazy old rock man who cross-dresses on the downlow. If you haven't seen this movie, you must check it out if only to see the 'secret weapon' this guy used to bring Oz to it's knees...

The new characters are pretty obviously replacements for the earlier ones (albeit with the Wizard/Nome King switching sides), which is a little odd but also cool, kind of an 'Ultimate Oz' thing. One thing that we noticed is the characters are mostly pretty happy with themselves, as opposed to the originals who were defined by the virtues and um, body parts they were missing (heart, courage, and brain). Tik Tok expresses his satisfaction at being 'lifeless' several times, and Jack is looking for a mother figure, but never seems to blame himself for not having one handy. The Gump seems like he'd just as soon go back to being dead, but he never really laments the abject horror of his situation out loud. He does claim to be a lot happier as just a head after his body falls to pieces. Actually, all of Dorothy's friends are dead or inanimate when she finds them this time around. Man, we gotta read those books. Anyway, Return to Oz wasn't quite as dark and grim as we'd imagined from the hype, but it's certainly pretty effed up for a kid's movie, and thoroughly entertaining.

We also watched Chocolate, the new Thai martial arts film from the director of Ong-Bak and The Protector. It's about a young autistic girl who learns how to fight by watching...Ong-Bak and The Protector. It's pretty good, though it lacks a lot of the energy Tony Jaa brings to the action. Worth a look if you're hurting for some spin-kicks in your life.

2009-02-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

Hey, folks, we've been watching and reading a lot of great stuff lately, while finding very little time to write about it. This is a situation we intend to rectify asap, but for now I want you to run to wherever DVDs are sold and buy Tokyo Gore Police. Trust me, this can't wait. You need to leap to your feet, knocking the computer table over (or tossing your laptop over your shoulder), and put the pedal all the way to the metal until that little plastic case is in your hands. Right. Now.

Or, y'know whenever's convenient for you. So, it seems Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are planning to remake the powerful, mindfucking Korean film Oldboy. To be fair, they are supposedly going to be adapting the original manga rather than the film, and there are apparently quite a few differences between the two. I haven't read the manga, so I can't really comment there. All I know is that the film was a haunting story about isolation, revenge, and well, incest.

Here's what I imagine the Hollywood version will be like.

fun fact : The last half of the video, where they plow an SUV through the Cuban slums for like half an hour, leaving a path of explosions and shattered dreams behind them? I actually shortened that up for the video. When you're watching the movie, you realize hey, our heroes are driving through innocent poor people's houses...and then they just keep going and going, until you simply can't believe what you're watching. No way they didn't kill at least a dozen unsuspecting citizens. All to get where? Guantanamo Bay, I shit you not. So now you know why the rest of the world hates us : Bad Boys II.

Lost... In Translation pt. 3

2009-02-04T19:45:00.001-08:00

It's Wednesday night, folks, so you all know it's time for my look at the newest episode of Lost and this one was pretty good. It was full of epic surprises, so it might even be more spoilery than the last few. Do not read this if you haven't seen the latest episode, just look at the funny alt text on the pictures than read some of our old posts. They're better the second time around anyways.

First off, this was a pretty Oceanic Six-centric episode, but it did have a pretty good amount of the islander's scenes on it. For clearness sake, I'm going to go over what happened on the island first, and then say what happened back in L.A.. As we all know, the last episode ended with Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Daniel, Charlotte, and Miles flashing through time again. This time Charlotte fell unconscious, bleeding out the face like crazy.

Well, with this episode, we pick up where we left off, as Daniel and the others try to revive Charlotte and fix her up. While Juliet is busy grilling Daniel about whether he knows what is wrong or not, Sawyer and Locke step off to the side to discuss their next course of action. Locke tells Sawyer that he thinks they should go back to The Orchid, for no reason other than 'That's where it started. Maybe that's where it will end.' His plan is to turn the funny wheel thing like Ben did, possibly moving the island again, with the hopes that it will bring the Oceanic Six back. At first Sawyer disagrees, but is ultimately convinced by the idea that he might get to see Kate again. As this decision is reached, Charlotte revives, and the gang go on their merry way to The Orchid.

The general plan they decide on is to return to the beach where their little boat thingy was. On the way there, however, they are misdirected by the light from The Swan. Yep, the same light Locke saw the night Boone died. At the same time, too of course. Locke makes them give the hatch a wide berth, leading them to the scene of Claire giving birth to Aaron way back when. Sawyer see's Kate, but ultimately chooses not to affect the past, and just watches longingly. However, soon he is torn away from the scene by another flash, and the accompanying time change.

The gang decides to continue their path to the beach, and along the way, Miles confesses to Daniel that he got a nosebleed, but didn't tell everyone so they wouldn't all flip out. Daniel admits that he has a theory about the nosebleeds and such, and explains he thinks it has something to do with long-term exposure to the island. Miles argues this by stating that the others in the group have all been here for months, while he's never been there before until a couple of week ago. Daniel asks him cryptically if he's sure about that... Hmm... so Miles has been to the island before, but forgot? Or something. I dunno.

Shortly after that, the group arrives at the beach, only to find that the tents are all in ruins, and the boat they came after is gone... However, there are two other really old looking canoe's, with bottles of water from an Indian Airline. So they did what any sensible heroes would do, and stole one of the boats, continuing with their original plan. However, they only get to row for one short scene before the other boat comes up behind them, and starts shooting at them, putting a hole in Sawyer's oar. Just as Juliet begins returning fire, there is another time flash, and suddenly the other boat is gone, and it's pouring down rain. Thus, the group decides to just go ashore at the nearest possible point and camp out.

That night, the group is hanging out by the camp when Sawyer starts pouring his heart out to Juliet about Kate, and Juliet responds by starting to bleed all over the place. Meanwhile, Charlotte stumbles across some wreckage by the beach, and the group determines that it's from a french vessel...

Rousseau's?

Ya' damn right it's Rousseau's. After this revelation, we're treated to a flashback from way back when Rousseau first came to the island, as a young pregnant chick, just like a french Claire. We see her small escape vessel being batted around by a violent storm, and her team coming across a body floating in the water. They roll it over, and we see this bad-ass motherfucker.

Yep, it's JIN!!! We all knew he wasn't really dead, but still, nice to see him alive again. Rousseau revives him once the vessel lands on the beach, and introduces herself to a VERY confused Jin.

Other than that, not much else happened with the island crew. Time is still all wonky, and I'm really starting to hope it picks one time period and sticks with it pretty soon. The really interesting stuff that happened in this episode happened in L.A., though, mainly focusing on Kate's struggle to keep Aaron out of the grasp of evil lawyer fellow.

First she leaves Aaron with Sun, planning to go talk to evil lawyer fellow, offering him the deal of agreeing to the blood samples he requests IF he will give her the name of his client. However, the evil lawyer refuses, on the grounds that she is legally required to give the blood sample. Furthermore, he states, she will lose Aaron.

Meanwhile Sun Damage is supposed to be keeping an eye on the brat, but instead she's in her room, playing with a gun that she ordered on-line, I guess. She also got a lot of photos of Ben and Jack together, which she will probably use for target practice.

Across L.A., Jack is busy fixing up Sayid after his little run-in with the tranq gang. As soon as Sayid is able, he suggests that they go to save Hurley from Ben. Jack mentions that it's not really the plan, and then gets dragged away by some other doctor calling him a loose cannon and bearded freak, etc. During their conversation, Jack receives a phone call from Hurley, who is predictably in jail, and assures Jack he did just what Sayid said before hanging up. Next thing we know, Sayid is being all bad-ass and kicking the hell out of some fake nurse who is actually one of the tranq gang.

After Sayid finishes doing what Sayid does, he questions the attacker, who tells him that the person who sent them's address is in his wallet. Sayid thanks him kindly with one of his own tranqs before checking the wallet, and showing the address to Jack, who immediately recognizes it as belonging to (dundundun) KATE!

So, in other words, weird shit is happening all around. To make matters worse, Ben has shown up by this point, and is requesting everyone's cooperation in gathering the rest of the Oceanic Six. So, while Jack calls Kate to set up a meeting, the unhappy alliance of Ben and Sayid go to work on getting Hurley sprung from the joint.

Jack meets Kate outside of the evil lawyer's law firm, and finds her spying on him, trying to figure out who his client is. They discuss, among other things, Jack's beard (or lack thereof). Before they can get to the finer points of said beard, however, Kate sees the lawyer leaving, and tails him to an apartment building where he should be meeting with his client. Jack and Kate watch as the door is opened, and we see...

Claire's mom? So, apparently Claire's mom somehow found out that Aaron belonged to Claire instead of Kate, and was fighting for custody. After the lawyer leaves, Jack (convinced he can talk sense to his half-sister's mom) approaches her, and begs her to reconsider before we get the fastest answer to a mystery EVER in Lost as Claire's mom inquires 'Who's Aaron?'

Come to find out, Miss Littleton is in town so she can sue Oceanic for her daughter's death, and just happens to have the same lawyer as (dundundun) Ben.

ANOTHER answer just as quickly.Wow, two in a freakin' row. In the next scene, Sayid and Ben meet with the lawyer, and it becomes clear he's working for good ol' Ben. The reasons Ben wants to take Aaron away from Kate are probably just to draw her out, and put her on the run again, so he has a better chance of forcing her to go back to the island. The lawyer is also working on the Hurley case, and gets him cleared of all charges. Hurley will be released in only a day or so.

So, as all of the pieces come together, the group comes to find their destiny at the harbor. Jack brings Kate there without clearly explaining the situation just before Sayid and Ben show up. There are some awkward re-introductions all around before Sun shows up, with her gun and Aaron, presumably to kill Ben. The only missing piece is Hurley at this point...

So, next episode... will the Oceanic Six finally head back to the island? Will all the bleeding people die? Will they just stay in ONE FREAKING TIME NOW PLEASE!!

Overall the episode was very good and engaging. It had plenty of shocks, and a good variety of questions and answers, both. It's obvious that this is all building up to a pretty epic situation, and I hope the pay-off is worth the suspense. Come back next week for another episode and more funny pictures.

Pride of Baghdad

2009-02-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

This has been out in hardcover for quite a while now, but I waited for the paperback because I'm cheap like that. Justin's even cheaper...he read it in Barnes & Noble months ago. He is the one that bought our complete Y : The Last Man collection, though, so maybe he can be forgiven this time. Anyway, it's old news for the comic geeks reading this, but I'm gonna put in my two cents anyway, and maybe some of our uninitiated readers will be interested enough to check it out. You never know.

Pride of Baghdad is a graphic novel written by Brian K. Vaughan of Y and Runaways fame, and beautifully illustrated by relative newcomer Niko Henrichon. It's (very) loosely based on the true story of a pride of lions that escaped from a zoo during Operation : Iraqi Freedom, and their hunt for food and safety in war-torn Baghdad. That basic premise and the ending (which is fairly inevitable, but I won't ruin it here) are pretty much where any similarities to the real events end. More than anything else, this is a Disney story with an edge (the lion cub is the spitting image of young Simba), and that's not a bad thing. Disney movies have been known to make grown men cry and leave lifelong impressions on many viewers, after all. Some of the hype may have gone overboard on this book (one quote on the back cover equates it to Watchmen, which is an exaggeration). It's not an especially subtle story, and if you go in expecting a deep examination of politics and the nature of freedom, you may be disappointed. These topics are touched on, but this isn't a meanings-within-meanings mind-blowing revelation sort of story (unless something went totally over my head, which is always possible). What it is, however, is a touching, haunting, and surprisingly action-packed dysfunctional-family-on-an-adventure story.

The characterization of the lions is the real magic of the book, although it's a bit hard to swallow sometimes. They are very anthropomorphised, to the point of turning down food multiple times for very human reasons, even though they're starving. This sometimes tests the reader's ability to suspend disbelief; the lions hesitating to eat dead humans is understandable from a storytelling point of view (if unrealistic when you consider that even housecats will often consume an owner that has died), but when they refuse to eat a mortally wounded enemy because he 'doesn't deserve a quick finish' even though they're almost falling down from hunger...it gets a bit ridiculous. I don't mean to deter you from reading the book, this is just the kind of thing you feel the need to point out when you're over analyzing something for review. My point is that it's not exactly the discovery channel...we're talking about a book where a gang of monkeys kidnap a lion cub and try to brand him as one of their own, right after a religious giraffe gets it's head blown off by a missile, after all. Once in a while, though, we're reminded that these lovable characters really are predators : "I hope there are other animals my age out there. I always wanted to kill a baby goat!" These moments are cleverly done, and more than a little creepy.

Pride of Baghdad is a relatively quick and accessible read that's a perfect introductory book for new comic readers. In fact, it's the kind of book that should really be worked into high school English classes, both as an introduction to the medium and a worthy reading experience in and of itself. Check it out.

2009-02-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

Been out socializing in the real world yesterday and today, and we're tired, so this is just a quick update to keep things fresh round these parts. Most of the blogs on our links list have been passing this meme around...not sure who to credit with starting it, but just check out the links to see more. Apparently at the end of Final Crisis Superman has to supersing a supersong into some sort of machine to defeat Darkseid. To reiterate, Superman has to defeat this guy...

with just the power of his groove. And what song he actually sings is left up to the reader's imagination. That's kind of pointless, though, since we all know only one song could bear the pure sassy power to bring down the ultimate playa :

Yeah. So, we went to see Taken tonight, which was quite good. There's not really a whole lot to say about it, since you're getting exactly what you see on the commercial. It gets right to the action, which is brutal and efficient...Liam Neeson's character in this could give Daniel Craig/Bond a run for his money when it comes to wince-inducing acts of sudden violence. There's no surprises here, except maybe the lengths that our 'hero' will go to for his daughter...the kid gloves are off, filled with broken glass, and nailed to a baseball bat in this movie. But, yeah, no real twists, no sobering 'downer' ending, just a smart and satisfying action flick, the best we've seen since Shooter. In moderation, this is not a bad thing.

Ok, more tomorrow, including the review I teased in my last post. Drive safely.

Reading is FUN!!!

2009-01-31T09:05:00.000-08:00

Quick shout out to fellow blogger SubZero, who was nice enough to exchange links with us and give us a writeup on his blog, Tales From The Kryptonian. He's a longtime comic book fan and he lives in Germany, so he has some interesting insights from that perspective. He's got a cool setup right now where the more important and popular posts are linked for the convenience of new readers, so this is the perfect time to check it out. I've been digging through the archives myself, and discovered our blogs have something in common...

Ah, the great uniter. So yeah, you're gonna want to check that out.

Well, our damn PS3 is on the fritz and I rented Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist on Blu-Ray, so we won't be able to watch that until tomorrow night when I switch it out for two rocks to bang together like a goddam animal...er, I mean a dvd. On the upside, I had a little spending money which I promptly threw on a pyre and sacrificed to the 'Books-A-Million' and 'Barnes & Noble' gods. I'm pretty excited about some of the bounties they rained down upon me...

I got two 'real' books, Misfortune by Wesley Stace and The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, both novels I haven't heard of before. Misfortune appears to be about sexual identity and weirdness in (I think) Victorian England. The Fourth Bear is part of the 'nursery crime' series, which sounds a lot like the cgi movie Hoodwinked or the first volume of Fables...a crime/mystery story in a fairy tale world. Be nice if it turns out to be as enjoyable as those were.

The thing I was most excited to find was Marvel Visionaries : Walter Simonson vol.1, which collects the first 11 issues of Simonson's character-defining run on The Mighty Thor. Justin and I may be the only comic-geeks in the entire blogosphere who haven't read this run in it's entirety, so I'm psyched to finally see what all the fuss is about. I've been spoiled by quarter bins and Essentials/Showcase collections (if you're not 'in the know', Marvel and DC sell big 20-plus issue collections of their older stuff in black and white at very low prices) , so it irked me a bit to pay $30.00 for eleven issues that were published in the 80's. From what I hear, though, this is material that a. needs to be enjoyed in big, vibrant color and b. is worth the money. I have high hopes, since this is the run that brought us not only Beta Ray Bill, but also turned Thor into a hoppity-frog.

I also got two collections of the current Captain America series, which chronicle Steve Roger's death and Bucky 'Winter Soldier' Barnes becoming Captain America in his place. I like this series quite a lot, although I do think it's just a tad overrated, maybe just because I also really liked Robert Kirkman's fun, lighthearted run before Ed Brubaker took the series in the dark, realistic direction that's proven so popular. It's easy for me to get behind a new take on a character if said character was languishing in comic book limbo or being written terribly before, but when one good creative team takes over from another I can't help missing the old even as I enjoy the new (I had the same problem with New X-Men when Kyle and Yost came on). Still, what I've read of this run's been good, and I love Crossbones (I was him for Halloween in '07!), so I'm looking forward to these.

I found a few really great deals yesterday too. The first volume of Brian Wood's Northlanders, the new Vertigo series about vikings I've heard only good things about, has a cover price of only $10 for 8 issues! Vertigo's pretty awesome about that. Some people complain about the quality of paper they use, but I say kudos to them for getting their (almost always good) books out there at such an affordable price.

That wasn't the best deal I got, though, since I found two graphic novels I've been intending to check out on sale for $3.00 each! Elk's Run makes sense because it's a library copy (a library copy of a comic book that features full-frontal nudity, which likely explains why it's not in the library anymore), but the other, Prince of Persia just came out a couple weeks ago, so it's weird that they have it marked down so low already. Maybe they got bonus copies or something, cause they've got books on the shelves that haven't sold in like a year still at full price. I don't know.

I picked up the first issue of Elk's Run way back when it first came out and thought it had potential, but it didn't grab me enough to buy monthly. Now I get to pick up the entire series along with 100 extra pages (wow!) for the price of that one issue, which is exactly why I wait for the trades these days. Anyway, it's a 'small town has a dark secret' book, and was apparently quite well received. Prince of Persia is based on the video game series, but only tangentially. I read an interview in Game Informer with the franchise's creator, Jordan Mechner, about this book (as well as the upcoming movie) and how it's not an adaptation or continuation of the games (if I remember correctly, it's technically a prequel) because he thinks each medium has it's own strengths and deserves a story tailored to them. So, instead of getting someone to redraw a bunch of random images from the in-game cinemas and calling it a story (hello, Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Solid comics), he gets an iranian journalist to write it, and a husband/wife duo with backgrounds in childrens books and animation to illustrate it (very nicely). No idea how well this is gonna work out, for the quality of the story or the sales, but at least he gets points for thinking outside the box. Looking forward to reading it.
Right after I bought the Thor book and Northlanders I got in the car, and Immigrant Song came on the radio. Truly, mine monetary sacrifice doth please thy pagan gods of rawk!

There's one other book I got, which I've already read, and it's a knockout. Full review on that later.

Ka-POW!!!

2009-01-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, folks for the first time CRY HAVOK!!! is participating in Friday Night Fights! The grand tradition that started with Bahlactus continues with Spacebooger, and now we want our cut of the action...SO HERE COMES THE PAIN!!!

Abe Sapien totally cuts a dude's head off in B.P.R.D. : Garden of Souls #5 by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, and Guy Davis. It was awesome.

Lost... In Translation pt.2

2009-01-28T19:59:00.001-08:00

Well, folks, it's Wednesday night, so as you should all know, it's time for the second installment of my weekly summary, review and insights into the new season of Lost and damn was this episode... mysterious.

The episode last week ended suspensefully, with Ben being given a time limit on getting the Oceanic Six to return to the island. No small feat, considering the only one who wants to go is our drunk doctor friend, Iron Jack. Kate wants to protect Aaron, and refuses to go back, while Sun wants to kill Ben, and Hurley turns himself in for a triple homicide just to get away. Sadly, this episode did absolutely nothing to alleviate that suspense. The Oceanic Six were not shown even once in this episode. Instead it was all about this drunk bastard

Desmond had been living comfortably off of the island for three years, aboard his boat with his wife, Penny, and his new son (whom he named Charlie. Awwwwwwww). In fact, the episode begins with Penny giving birth to the little runt. Soon after his son is born, Desmond decides to risk his whole family's life to try to get in touch with Daniel Faraday's mother, even going back to Great Britain, where Penny's dad and overall evil jerk Charles Widmore could find him. However, Dessy soon discovers that finding ol' Ms. Faraday isn't as easy as looking for the nearest 70 year old lady stumbling over her words and killing innocent little rats, brother.

While Desmond's searching, we get to see what the islanders are up to. The way we left off, Sawyer and Juliet were captured by several unknown others, until Locke rescued them, whereas the team led by Faraday made their way to the rendezvous point. I'd like to take a moment to point out that when this guy is your best choice for 'leader' it might be time to pick up a copy of The Art of War, but hey what do I know?

Anyways, As Daniel's team heads toward the aforementioned rendezvous, Charlotte states that she is feeling even worse, and despite the fact it's obvious Daniel knows what's wrong, even to her, he ain't telling. She doesn't have much time to press him for info, because a moment later, two no-namers get blowed up by landmines. Almost immediately, the unknown others burst out of the woods, taking Daniel and co. hostage. The boss of this group of others is a young girl named 'Ellie', who most likely has some sort of connection to 'Eloise'... and cryptically stating 'You just can't stay away, can you?' (paraphrased) before taking the whole group hostage.

Meanwhile, Locke's group has taken two surviving others hostage, and are leading them to the creek rendezvous place, when they start speaking to each other in Latin, at which point, Juliet starts conversing with them, also in Latin. She explains that learning Latin is 'Others 101'. By speaking to the two men, she manages to convince one of them (Helpful Hostile) to take the group to Richard Alpert, otherwise known as Count Dracula. At this point it's more or less confirmed these 'others' are the original natives of the island, or rather, 'The Hostiles'. Helpful Hostile's buddy (Hostile Hostile) disagrees with the idea of leading Locke's team to Richard, so he does... something... seemingly lethal... to his helpful brethren before running off.

At about the same time, Daniel's group is in the opposite situation, being held hostage and forcefully brought to Richard. On their way there, Miles chats with some dead American soldiers in the ground, and we learn that there is some serious motha-fuckin' radioactive poisoning happening. Eventually the group is delivered to Richard, who assumes Daniel is a U.S. soldier, and has come for his bomb. After much negotiation, Daniel finally manages to convince Richard to let him try to disarm the bomb, by claiming to be a military scientist, and confessing his love for Charlotte. Richard gives him the go-ahead, and Danny-boy goes trotting off into the jungle with Ellie, who's there to make sure he doesn't try anything funny. During this excursion, he mentions that Ellie reminds him very much of someone he used to know. He could be talking about a couple of people, but for my theory see the 'Theories' section at the bottom of the post.

Back in our time on our world, Desmond has gone to Oxford, seeking out Faraday's mother, and coming up short. There are apparently no records of any 'Faraday' ever being staffed there, so Desmond decides to explore on his own, looking in Daniel's old lab, where he finds nothing but abandoned equipment, and some creepy foreigner who tells Desmond that Daniel's records were stricken from the school 'because of what he did to that girl.', which of course, is never clearly explained to us. What we do find out, however, is that the girl's name is Theresa Spencer, and she's now a vegetable. According to her sister, Abigail, Daniel abandoned her like that, and (dundundun) Charles Widmore was taking care of her... oh, and (dundundun) he was also funding Daniel's research before that.

Meanwhile, back on the island, the other who was being held hostage by Locke's team (Hostile Hostile) returns to his camp to report to Richard, who bitches him out for possibly leading his pursuers back to the base. As the kid dismisses these charges as ridiculous, we see Locke and his posse spying on the camp. Sawyer and Juliet decide to go try to rescue Daniel, while Locke chooses the subtle approach of strutting into the camp yelling 'RICHARD!! HEY RICHARD ALPERT!! I WANNA TALK TO YOU RICHARD!! WHERE'S RICHARD?!'

At this point, Daniel and Ellie are approaching the aforementioned hydrogen bomb, which is in fact, a big ass hydrogen bomb just hanging out in the field. Daniel inspects it, (The bomb has the name 'Jughead' written on the side, thus the name of this episode.) and then runs back to Ellie, and explains that he's from the future, and that burying this hydrogen bomb is an awesome idea. (He says it needs to be sealed in lead and concrete... So the true purpose of The Swan station may very well have been just to contain this hydrogen bomb. Thus, the fail-safe Desmond pulls later, and the huge white light and all that, was actually just the H-Bomb going off.) He explains to her that he knows that the island will be fine, because he's a time traveler and since the island is fine in fifty years, that the bomb's not really a threat. Ellie doesn't even have time to be confused before Sawyer hops in and holds her up at gunpoint.

Meanwhile, back in present time, on real Earth, Desmond (in an extremely unpredictable maneuver) storms into Charles Widmore's office, and basically gives him what for, brother. He squeezes Widmore for info as to the whereabouts of Faraday's mother, and Widmore spills like a two year old with a glass of milk. He warns Desmond that she is a private lady and will not like being disturbed, as well as begging him to go back into hiding, his hatred for Desmond being replaced by his fear for Penny after Ben has promised to kill her. However, Desmond isn't good at letting things go, so he brushes off the warning, and after promising Penny to call off his search, he continues his search, further imperiling his wife and son.

The big shocking reveal of this episode comes towards the very end, as usual. As Locke and Richard are becoming reacquainted through time, Richard reprimands the young man who escaped from Locke for being so foolish. In this exchange, Richard calls the kid 'Widmore'. As in, Charles Widmore. (See why this is important in the theories section towards the bottom.)

Anyways, in the end, Locke fails to convince Richard completely of who he is, and suddenly time shifts again, this time leaving only Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Daniel, Charlotte, and Miles behind, with no more clues on where to go or how. The last thing we see is Charlotte's nose beginning to spurt blood before she collapses, and Daniel rushing to her side...

Theories:

First off, the easy one. Charles Widmore was apparently one of The Hostiles, as we now know. My guess is that he was in line to become The Leader (A long process that starts at a young age, according to Dracula) but was replaced when Richard found Ben Linus. Perhaps Widmore even had to move the island at some point in the past, same as Ben, and that's why Widmore is incapable of getting back to the island, and why he left to begin with. This would also explain Widmore's accusations that Ben stole everything from him.

The other theory I have kind of vaguely formed is that Ellie is Daniel Faraday's mother, and that she is also Ms. Hawking. It would make sense for Ms. Hawking to be Daniel's mother, considering they tend to work in a lot of the same fields, and the ages sort of match. Also, Daniel's rat is named Eloise, and it would make sense for him to name it after his mother. Ellie=Eloise Hawking. What do you guys think? This would also explain the mystery currently surrounding Daniel's mother in the Desmond storyline, and Widmore's warning.

And this isn't really a theory, but I just noticed tonight a lot of correlations (or homages) being made with Daniel Faraday/Ms. Hawking with the world famous physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking. The naming being only the first connection, other important ones include:

-Daniel was a professor at Oxford, and Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford.
-Stephen Hawkings book A Brief History of Time has been shown on Lost a couple of times, and it has a lot to do with time travel
-Almost all of Stephen Hawkings' work has been with mathematics, time-space theory, and pretty much everything else Lost is about.

I'm seeing all of this more as an homage than an actual clue or plot-point, but I just figured it was worth mentioning.

Well, that pretty much wraps up this week's Lost stuff. Overall, the episode was pretty good, although I would have liked to see some of the Oceanic Six. I like the characters on the island, but I kind of tune out when it comes to time travel stuff, so overall I'm definitely enjoying things much more on the other side of the world. I'm hoping next episode will give me my fill of single, continuous time lines, and judging by the preview, it should.

Catch you guys next week.

-Justin

Hulk vs Wolverine and Thor

2009-01-27T00:19:00.000-08:00

We finally watched this and it does not disappoint. Both of the segments are between 35 and 45 minutes, but they feel longer. We were expecting a couple of simple brawl-fests, but there's actually a lot more to them than that, including more fan pampering cameos than you could hope for. Both stories were written by Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle, the former writing team for the New X-Men comics, so we knew they were in good hands. And like their run on that book, Hulk Vs gets violent, sometimes shockingly so, especially in the Wolverine segment.

Logan is called in to hunt down The Hulk after the destruction of a small town in Canada. We think Wolverine is still working for Department H at this point, like he was in the comics, though it's possible he's just on loan from the X-Men. After a short slugfest, both Hulk and Logan are hit with tranquilizer darts by a squad of Weapon X soldiers. This cartoon plays loose and fast with the comic book mythology (Alcohol actually gets Logan drunk), so they pretty much put Logan's main villains all together as the Weapon X team whether they ever really were part of it or not. This works fine for us, since it allows Sabretooth, Omega Red, Lady Deathstrike, and DEADPOOL!!! to all guest star together. The 'Pool is less of the fourth-wall breaking manic nutcase he is in comics these days, and more of the smartass mercenary he was in his early appearances, but he does get a couple of good lines. ( Professor Thornton : "We've put a lot of time and effort into you, Logan." Deadpool : "And pointy things!")

The professor wants to brainwash The Hulk and Wolverine into weapons of war, cause that's kind of his whole 'thing', y'know. It's weird, actually, Thornton appears to the only non-combatant in the entire facility. Besides the X-Mercs and about a dozen guards for Logan to slice through, the whole place seems deserted. Maybe Logan killed all the other scientists the first time they brainwashed him into a war machine? We actually see him get a pretty good start on that in a flashback. The flashback also uses the iconic image of Logan getting pumped full of adamantium and sprouting random metal spikes all over his body, which is cool looking even if it doesn't make any sense. Hey, that should've happened to Deathstrike at the end of X2. That would've been sweet.The Hulk is more of a plot point in this segment than a full-fledged co-star. Logan of course gets free, and the next several minutes are him fighting the Weapon X guys and freeing a drugged up Bruce Banner. More clawing, then Bruce finally shakes off the groggies enough to hulk out and wrecks everybody's shit. The End.

Hulk Vs Wolverine loses points for not being named Wolverine Vs Sabretooth, Omega Red, Lady Deathstrike and DEADPOOL!!! (guest-starring The Incredible Hulk!), but it's still a hell of a lot of fun. The animation's a mixed bag...it's energetic and smooth, but some of the faces are really weird looking, and Logan's physique is just wonky. The voice work and sound were fine but nothing to write blog about (phrase: coined). It definitely earns it's PG-13 rating with some blood(which promptly disappears along with the wounds when the healing factors kick in) and a surprising amount of dismemberments, including a graphic but strangely bloodless one for the 'Pool. So watch it, but maybe not with small children. Or do watch it with them. Or let them watch it while you're out selling drugs all day and they have to fend for themselves. Shit's on your head, not ours.

Hulk vs Thor is more appropriate for the kiddies, unless you're some sort of religious zealot that rails against the existance of any belief systems besides yours (even the pretty much defunct ones), in which case you really need to chill your ass out. We cool? All right.

We're not quite as familiar with Thor lore as we are with Wolverine storytell-ine, so we're not sure if the set up for this one is comic-accurate or not. Odin, king of the gods, keeps it real all year long, but he has to stop for a nap each winter. During this time Asgard is vulnerable, so all the frost giants and trolls hurry right over to get their asses handed to them by Thor and company, year after year. This year, though, Thor's eeeevilllll step-brother Loki has a new trick up his sleeve. He magically extracts Bruce Banner from The Hulk and takes control of Ol' Jade Jaws himself, which leads to some really disturbing scenes of the Hulk smilling eeevilllyyyy and talking like a Bond villain. Holki makes unfortunately short work of this segment's awesome guest stars, The Warriors Three, who are in character but get shafted on screen time. Also, Volstagg's voice felt off.

The Hulk faceoff is more of the focus here (even if he is being remote controlled by Loki a lot of the time), and it's well done. Thor's hammer makes a metallic 'CLANG' when it hits Hulk's flesh, which sounds really painful while also demonstrating that the Hulk's tough as hell. The only letdown here was the music, which is typical cartoon fight music. I had to supply Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song with my own mouth, which I think Justin really appreciated, even if he did think it was supposed to be the Rocky theme.
This next paragraph is pretty spoilery, so skip it if you care.

In a fairly awesome plot twist, Loki gets frustrated and kills the crap out of Bruce Banner. But then his hold on The Hulk gets broken and the 'embodiment of rage' beats Thor almost to death and turns his attention to Asgard and Odin himself, which is apparently further than Loki intended to go. This leads to the two step-brothers teaming up (in the loosest sense of the term) to retrieve Banner's soul from Hel, where we guess Asgardians go after death if they're not badass enough to make it into Valhalla. In a Buffy Season 6-like twist, Banner's actually finally at peace in the afterlife, and doesn't want to come back to his Hulk-haunted life again. We won't ruin the ending for you, but considering that either A. Bruce makes the sacrifice and gets the Hulk under control, or B. Mindless Hulk kills everyone and destroys Asgard, you can probably figure it out.

Hulk vs Thor was a fun romp that could have been better with more of The Warriors Three and an epic guitar riff that busts out everytime Thor summons lightening with his hammer and the power of heavy metal.

We do love Thor, but for certified X-Manchildren like us the Wolverine segment was more exciting. Your favorite of the two films will likely be decided the same way, since both are quite entertaining and well worth a watch.

Now here's some more pics of Thor being Totally Metal!!!

When Nothing Else is Happening...

2009-01-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

Justin here, folks. Sorry I haven't been sounding off much lately, but I haven't been DOING much lately either, and since I don't have any books, movies, or games to review here, I'll just write about my weekend, which, as it turned out, was fairly exciting. As Nick mentioned in his last blog, this weekend was mine and my girlfriend's one year anniversary, and we celebrated by getting a hotel in Panama City Beach (Which is where all the douchebags go for spring break, but if you go in January, it's pretty cool.) and partaking in various activities about the town. The first thing we did was go to a cool old-school little arcade called Funland that looks like it's been around forever, and considering Mia's mom went there after her junior prom, it might have. We spent twenty dollars just playing Time Crisis and this strange little shooting game where you're both underwater and you're tasked with the mass murder of every kind of aquaic life you come across, and each level ends with you fighting some kind of mythological sea creature, such as 'Leviathan' or 'Kraken'. Aside from the boss fights, which were all pretty awesome, the game does a pretty good job of scaring the shit out of you. It's a rail game, and it makes good use of it's ability to have you spin around and be a second away from getting chomped by a shark, or getting all wrapped up in a frenzied battle with eels or tentacley beasts like the aforementioned and pictured Kraken. Funland was overall a pretty awesome experience aside from a creepy drunk/mentally handicapped janitor who crashed a child's birthday party and a register lady in the resaurant who called me 'hon' no less than fifty times in our short acquaintance and is apparently incapable of moving the two feet to the drink machine, opting instead to try to get the drink guys attention for about five minutes so I can get a refill from him instead.

The weekend's surprise awesomeness, though, happened in Pier Park, which is like a huge outdoor shopping mall. They have a place called 'Lazer Craze/Mirror Maze', which is way more awesome than it sounds. The mirror maze half of the store is basically what you'd expect, A trippy maze made out of mirrors, pictured below. But the laser craze is an all new excitement, at least to me. Basically, it's a long hallway with a mock-up laser security system, where you have to try to climb over, crawl under, or squeeze through laser beams, and hit a button on the other side in the shortest time possible. Each time you break a laser, it speeds up your time, and it's surprisingly difficult, for a tourist trap. At the beginning and the end, there are parts where not breaking a laser is virtually impossible for an adult. My end time was 143 seconds, and I hit about 3 lasers. My time was briefly at the ranking of 10th place for the whole day, but that was broken by some military guy (read: Splinter Cell) who low crawled through the whole thing right before we left, denying me my moment in the sun. The pricing for these amusements is a little steep, being about $7.50 each, or both for $13.00 per person, however, you are allowed to do each of them three times, which makes the money worth it, especially considering I've never seen or been through a laser room, and it's very fun, even though it's a little short. Overall, the Mirror Maze/Lazer Craze duo was the highlight of Pier Park, so check it out if you're in the area, or have something similar around you. Note: When we get the pictures developed, we'll have real photos of us in each of these.

Other than that, we also went shopping at Borders, where I got several of the graphic novel collections of the awesome series, Preacher. We have the whole collection in single issue form, but I strongly prefer graphic novels, and since I'm going to re-read the whole series soon, I decided to pick up the collections. If you haven't read Preacher, it's an amazing comic book series following Jesse Custer, a small town preacher (and my personal hero) who receives the power of The Genesis, which gives him the ability to make people do whatever he says, and simultaneously blows his church to shit. He then goes on a quest to find God, more or less just to make him apologize and share a few choice words. It's by far Garth Ennis's best work, and his trademark sense of humor and awesome are on full display. What really sets Preacher apart, however, is it's thematic elements, with powerful views on patriotism, love, friendship, and heroism in general. Jesse has superpowers, but he's not a superhero. He's an ex-preacher with a horrible past, girlfriend issues, bad habits, a best friend, and the kind of honor and values you only end up with if your father raised you as a cowboy. His best friend is a vampire, but he's not exactly Twilight or anything by Anne Rice. He's a drunk Irishman who lost his brother in the World War, and has never really gotten over it, and he can be a right bastard. His girlfriend is a hitwoman, but more often than not she's just a strong feminine presence trying to get Jesse to stop being such a chauvinistic John Wayne wannabe. Oh, and John Wayne's in it, too. Preacher is very hard to explain, but trust me when I say it's fucking good. So good, it's probably my favorite comic of all time, (Equal to Watchmen, The Sandman, and Hellblazer)and if that's not a glowing recommendation, I don't know what is, so if you haven't read it, do so. Stop reading this blog if you have to. And that's not even mentioning Steve Dillon's art. He defines the term 'amazing in it's simplicity'. How can a person put so much emotion in a face while drawing only about four lines?
I also bought the collection of Grant Morisson's The Filth so you can expect a review of that soon.

Aside from all that excitement, I also decided to finally buy a copy of Hard-Boiled, and I won't even bother explaining why, because that picture to the left should be all the explanation necessary.

Well, aside from that, nothing else happened, really. I bought a copy of Syberia for Nintendo DS, because I have fond memories of it on Xbox, and Mia needs something to do while I'm playing my PS3. For those who don't know, Syberia was a really cool, stylish, and weird puzzle game that pretty much slipped completely under the radar. It follows Kate Walker, a young up-and-coming lawyer from New York who has traveled to Europe to help her client purchase The Voralberg Automaton Factory. I won't talk about it too much, so as not to ruin the story, but it involves an awesome automaton companion with a british accent, woolly mammoths, and a psychotic stalker obsessed with a piano player in a hellish abandoned factory. It's definitely worth a buy if you dig puzzle/mystery games, and it's cheap. We paid $20 for a brand new copy on the DS, and the years old Xbox version is probably even cheaper now.

2009-01-25T04:04:00.000-08:00

No idea how I missed this, but I have to share it...best fake movie trailer I've ever seen, even if the movie looks like it would be really, really cheesy.

Justin's m.i.a. once again, but this time he has a good excuse: he's out celebrating his one-year anniversary. With Mia. Holy crap, that m.i.a. thing was a total accident! It's a very late X-mas miracle.

Well, I really don't have much to say tonight, and my bed time draws near. We should be getting hold of that Hulk vs Wolverine/Thor dvd tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. As requested, I'll leave you with some butt shots.

By the way...

2009-01-24T03:06:00.000-08:00

Everyone needs to watch this because it's awesome.

RocknRolla

2009-01-23T23:41:00.000-08:00

Alas, we didn't get our hands on Hulk vs Wolverine/Thor or RocknRolla tonight. We did see RocknRolla on the big screen a couple times, though, so let's talk about that.RocknRolla (as well as Revolver, which I've yet to see) marks a true return to form for director Guy Ritchie, who helmed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells and Snatch back in the day before marrying Madonna and doing very little the last several years besides a (widely reviled) vehicle for her, Swept Away. Well, he and Madonna are splitsville now, and it looks like he's got his groove back. I remember us liking Ritchie's older films a lot when we saw them, but that was years ago, so we're not gonna compare RocknRolla against them now. It fits in very well with recent clever, fast paced crime films like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Lucky Number Slevin, and In Bruges, all of which were excellent. RocknRolla stands tall in this company thanks in large part to it's colorful cast of thieves and junkies.

The plot of the film is fairly labyrinthine, especially at the beginning when many, many characters and plot points are introduced in the space of a few minutes. It all comes clear throughout the movie, however, and you won't need cliff notes to keep up with who's who by the time all the plotlines start converging for the climax. Basically there's a British mob boss named Lenny (Tom Wilkinson), a super-rich Russian crimelord named Uri, and a group of thieves called the Wild Bunch who are hired to steal the money that's being exchanged between the two gangsters, by the accountant (Thandie Newton) who's overseeing the exchange. Before the theft, Uri gives Lenny a lucky painting to hang onto as a sign of good faith, but that also gets stolen, by Lenny's stepson, rockstar/junkie/philosopher Johnny Quid. Once the deal starts going south, Uri demands the painting be returned to him. Hijinks ensue.

The film's chock full of quirky, interesting characters, but three really stand out. Mr. One Two, played by Gerard Butler, is the leader of the wild bunch, a charming rogue if ever there was one. Archie (Mark Strong, who also played Septimus in Stardust) is Lenny's right hand man, a cunning and suave sort of gangster, loyal to a fault despite clearly being more capable than his boss. The true breakout role of the film, though, is Johnny Quid (incredibly talented unknown Toby Kebbell), who's everything we listed about him above, as well as a mad genius who's faked his own death multiple times. The movie is well-written and engaging throughout, full of memorable scenes and lines. Don't expect a lot of action (though what's in there is well done), but do expect some great use of music and a bounty of style and wit. The ending promises a follow-up called The Real RocknRolla, and we can't wait. Highly recommended.

Now, there is a bit of a queer factor in the movie I want to address. This bit will contain some minor spoilers, nothing that'll ruin the movie for you.

The youngest member of the Wild Pack is Handsome Bob, who has a coming out scene with Mr. One Two that honestly, is pretty cringe-worthy. One Two fairly flips out when Bob tells him. To be fair, though, Bob does drop the bomb on him in the worst possible way, by coming on to him.

Closeted gay kids, here's a tip : your straight friends are gonna take the news that you like the same sex better than the news that you like them.

Don't let this deter you from seeing the movie, though, gay or straight. One Two may be a homophobic character to start with, but the movie itself is not. The coming out scene might be a little hard to watch for sensitive types, but as the film continues it becomes quite gay-friendly. One Two is really the butt of the joke here, as it's his overreaction and obvious awkwardness afterward that are played for laughs, not Bob's orientation. The rest of the gang knows Bob's 'secret' and accept it, and One Two's homophobia is treated as a character flaw that he works through onscreen. In fact, Bob gets a great scene later on which is hard to explain...he kind of cockteases some information out of a guy in a very cool, badass way. The point is, I feel like a few characters onscreen who are cool and badass while being gay (as opposed to despite being gay) will do more to change public perceptions about homosexuality than any number of characters who are in denial/tortured/suicidal about their orientation. Also, on a completely personal note...I can't blame Bob. I'm not generally attracted to guys who are much older than me, muscular guys, hairy guys. I've never found scottish accents particularly sexy, and 300 did nothing for me. But for some reason, I found Gerard Butler crazy attractive in this movie. Don't know why, I just wanted to bring him home to mama.

Random Thoughts...

2009-01-23T03:15:00.000-08:00

Just Nick here tonight, Justin having devoted his blogging time to adding in picture-captions for his big ol' Lost post from last night. Yeah, if you haven't noticed, little captions pop up now when you put your pointer on most of the pictures here. This is a neat gimmick I totally nicked off
Chris's Invincible Super-Blog, which is easily one of the funniest places you can visit on the web, so check it out. Anyway, I figure after the aforementioned Lost post you guys can do without a big in-depth review tonight, which is good, because I don't have one. Instead, I'm just gonna throw some random stuff that's been floating around in my head at you, see what sticks. 'K?

Lakeview Terrace was pretty good. It's cool to see Samuel L. Jackson do a movie about how racism works both ways, considering he used to be a Black Panther and all. I like Sam Jackson a lot. He's easy to make fun of, and he often makes fun of himself these days, but the man can be really convincing when he wants to be. It's a damn shame he might not be coming back as Nick Fury in the upcoming Avengers movies. Anyway, he's perfect for this film, since a pissed off, whitey-hating Samuel L. Jackson who's mean to your friends, strips in your backyard, and happens to be a freaking cop is, indeed, the ultimate neighborly nightmare. Patrick Wilson's character gets some good lines in to, and there's good chemistry between him and his wife, played by Kerry Washington. At least, there is before the tension starts tearing them apart, which is kind of the point, I suppose. Anyway, the flick is worth a rental.

This blog's been pretty darned movie-centric so far, and there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that movies are generally one big story, easy to form an opinion on and write it out. The other is that the majority of our readership right now is made up of personal friends, most of whom are just gonna zone out or stop reading entirely if we start writing about the Justice Society or something. We're trying to look ahead, however, and in addition to pimping this blog everywhere we can to drum up readership, we're going to trust in 1. our own abilities to make each post worth reading regardless of topic and 2. the intelligence and open-mindedness of you, our friends, so that we can start branching out and discussing a wider range of things.

Our posts each night largely depend on what we've read or watched and are excited about right at that moment, but a few things we're planning on covering soon include the X-Men crossover Messiah Complex, The two collections of Madman I've been able to find, Abe Sapien : The Drowning, and the Japanese novel Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. We'll also get around to reviewing some movies we watched recently but before creating this blog, like Dario Argento's Phenomenon and Guy Ritchie's Rock'nRolla (which is out next Tuesday, and brrrrROTHER, you better buy two copies...one for watching and one for having sex with. It's that good). Oh, and if all goes well we will get to watch the Hulk vs Wolverine/Thor dvd tomorrow night, which features Deadpool, which is awesome. Speaking of comic book movies, I'm really hoping the downhill slide hasn't happened already. The last couple of years have been really great for geek oriented cinema. As a matter of fact, the only really disappointing recent comic/cartoon/videogame movie I can think of off the top of my head was Spiderman 3. The new Incredible Hulk was pretty good (which is all anyone expected, I think), Hellboy 2, V For Vendetta and Speed Racer were all underrated, in my opinion. Then, of course, you had the big ones like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and 300 (which I thought was just ok, but I can't say it wasn't successful).

However, The Spirit totally flopped. G.I.Joe, Street Fighter : Legend of Chun Lee and especially Dragonball all sure seem to be shaping up into huge piles of crap. Sorry, I know most of them aren't even close to coming out yet, but man, they look awful. I know Wolverine will do well, and it looks entertaining enough ( ironically, Logan's solo movie seems to be giving as much or more of the spot light to other mutants than any of the X-Men films did).

The big one to look out for is Watchmen, of course, and I'm (very) cautiously (very, very) optimistic about it. If done right, it could really break away whatever doubts the general public still has about 'funnybooks' (it's amazing how many people scoff at comic books while counting so many of the movies listed above as favorites. Also, infuriating) and it could be the one that finally brings about an influx of new readers to the medium.

Let's face it, most people read little if at all these days. Movies like Iron Man and 300 can be great and fun, but they're also eye-candy, which always draws in the idiots. No matter how many times Joe Blow Douchebag high-fives his bro-hams because a dude's arm just totally flew across the screen, he's never going to go buy the graphic novel. He's an unrealistic demographic to shoot for. But who we can get are the semi-nerds, and that means proving not only that comics can be fun and accessible, but also intelligent. We need the kids who got turned on to reading by the Harry Potter series to feel like trying comics is a logical next step from that, instead of a step backward. We need the girls who obsess over Buffy and Lost to feel like they can pick up a comic and find that same thrill and attachment that comes from following a TV series in those pages. And the great thing is that they CAN, most of them just don't know it yet.

My concern isn't that watchmen will be really awful or painful to watch. The trailers alone are little mini visual spectacles. My concern is that it'll go the V For Vendetta route. Now, I liked V quite a bit, but there's something very weird about it...it's far from action packed, there's little in the way of comic relief, and yet it's still very, very dumbed down from the comic. Why? If you're not gonna give the general public a rip-roaring superhero popcorn movie anyway, why not give us geeks the smart, story-driven V film we wanted to see?

I don't even have a problem with the action being ratcheted up, really. I don't remember in the Watchmen book if we actually saw Nite-Owl and Silk Spectre beating on baddies inside the prison, but they were certainly there during the riot. Sure, let's watch The Comedian fight his way through some Viet Cong, let's see Rorschach rough up some informants. Just give us The Watchmen in between all that, ok? Definitely click on these pics to see them full size, btw, they're pretty cool.

Well, this was supposed to be a list of random thoughts, and it's turned into one small review and a bigass rant. A really dry, serious rant, right after I promised to keep things entertaining. Okay, okay, here's your random thoughts, get off my damn back.

*Videogames are certainly the most technologically advanced form of entertainment there is, right? Well, I keep up with several blogs, and scan the interwebs daily for info on upcoming movies, books and comics, but I just realized...I get almost ALL of my video game news from Game Informer. Yeah, one of those paper things that come in the mail. Magerines or whatever. Weird.

*The cool thing about having a brother that lives with you, is that anything he owns, you own. And the cool thing about your live-in brother getting a girlfriend is that she's always giving him awesome (and sometimes hard to find) things like Battle Royale, Final Fantasy games, and a special edition of Pulp Fiction. Keep this up, Mia, and maybe I will agree to meet your children in the future. Once.

* On the subject of video games, one of my favorite things to do is create my own characters in one. You can do this in a lot of games, but the best I've found by far is Soul Caliber 4. I strongly recommend it if you happen to be a creative type with a bounty of characters in your head just waiting to get out. If they're attempting to get out with an assortment of bladed weapons, even better, because armed close-up combat is Soul Caliber's whole thing. On youtube you can see a lot of great pre-existing characters that people have made in the game, but for me, Soul Caliber 4 will always be The Alexander Academy the game : Welcome to BattleSchool.

Well, that's about all I got in me for today, folks. Enjoy a couple more (gorgeous) paintings from Jason Shawn Alexander, artist of Abe Sapien : The Drowning, which I am very much looking forward to reading.

Lost : In Translation pt. 1

2009-01-21T20:50:00.000-08:00

This is the first post of my new weekly review, summary, and insightful look at the newest episode of Lost. It's gonna be chock-freaking full of spoilers, so if you watch the show and haven't seen the latest episode, do not read what I am about to write.
This first post is gonna be a bit of a bastard. Not only did I have the two hour season premiere to watch and analyze, I also am going to give a brief look back at the series, reviewing the biggest current mysteries left open from last season. So, let's go folks.
PART 1: Last season's mysteries and revelations and pertinent information.

The Oceanic Six, pictured to the right (minus Aaron) claim to be the only survivors left over from the plane crash. They are lying to protect those who stayed on the island from Charles Widmore, who went so far (maybe) as to plant a fake plane full of dead people at the bottom of the ocean to fool the world. The Oceanic Six, as of the end of Season four, have been off of the island for three years. What have they been doing?

Ben Linus, the (maybe? sort of?) leader of The Hostiles saved the island by turning his little cog thing in the basement, therefore changing the island's place in the time space continuum. In return, he was forcibly transported off of the island (Tunisia, to be exact.), and several months into the future, where he immediately started pounding on brown folk with an extendable baton. And believe it or not, try as I might, I can't find pictures or video of that. He was also seen entering Widmore's apartment late at night, and informing Widmore that he's going to kill his daughter, Penny... or possibly, Charlotte? (Pet theory. She's english, she's been to the island, she's kinda weird looking, etc.) Also, in a strange statement from Ben, we learn that the two men can't seem to harm each other.... Hrm.

Sayid, who has lost more lovers than any other Iraqi Torturer EVER is pictured to the right, with his last girlfriend who was killed. He makes it home alright, and manages to find the love of his life who he lost so long ago, Nadia. They get married, but it doesn't last long, because she dies in an 'accident'. Ben find out about this, and convinces Sayid it was murder, so in a very strange twist, Sayid has been working as ben's henchman for the past few years, doing all kinds of awesome shit. He was last seen killing a motherfucker while breaking a mental patient out of the Psych Ward.

Iron Jack grows an epic beard.

Last we saw of Claire she was chilling in Jacob's house with her deadbeat and literally dead dad, neglecting her parental duties. I mean, letting Christian hold Aaron is one thing, pawning him off on Kate's even worse. Kate has been raising Aaron by herself, and even though she has a kid, she has that old Kate tendency of not wearing pants, making Aaron the luckiest little kid in the whole world. One night, Kate-splosion finds Claire (or rather, a vision of Claire) in Aaron's room. Claire tells her not to bring Aaron back to the island, while totally flipping her shit. However, the worst this can all lead up to is Kate and Claire having a half-nude catfight in the rain, so I'm looking forward to the conclusion. Also, we know Kate made a promise to Sawyer before he was left behind, but we don't know what it is. It's driving Jack flippin' crazy. Hence, beard. (or was the beard 'cuz Claire's his half-sister? I can't remember.)

Charlie drownded. He was last seen doing a shit ton of heroin with G.G. Allin in rocker's heaven.

Locke's in the coffin. Wait, WTF? And he has to go back to the island with the rest of the unhappy family that is The Oceanic Six. However, let's remember that the island fixed Locke's spine. If it still needs him, he might very well be revived just by going to the island.... Not that we know WHAT he was doing off of it.

Last we saw of Michael and Jin suggests that they died in the Freighter explosion, however, considering we're getting into twisty-crazy time travel mechanics, I doubt we've seen the last of either of these guys. At least not Jin. I mean, look at him over there to the right. Does he look like a man who's going to die?

Desmond... lived happily ever after? No, wait, that can't be right.

Richard Alpert. Time Traveller or Highlander?

Hurley's back in the good old psych ward, hanging out with Charlie and Mr. Eko and all kinds of dead people. No mentions of Dave yet, but he's probably there too. The scary black dude who just might be the smoke monster Cerberus or something came to visit him, as did a teenaged Walt. (pictured right)

Sun Damage has been busy damaging shit back home in Korea. She bought majority share in her father's business, which to a businessman is the equivalent of tying them to a post and raping them to death, and she also confronted Widmore, and my guess is, later killed him. Sun Damage is not to be fucked with. Oh, and she has a daughter now.

Alex, Rousseau, and Karl are all dead. In like, five minutes real time. There's one entire bloodline down.

Libby (pictured right) is dead. We still have no fucking clue who she is.

Um... The Island's fucking gone, man.

PART 2: The Season Premiere! Yay!

Alrighty, now for the good part. The episode opens on Marvin Candle/ Dr. Cheng going through his morning routines, although for some reason it doesn't want to show us who's doing it, so we don't learn it's good old Marv until he starts filming the introductory video for The Arrow station. Almost as soon as the good doctor starts filming, there's some big crisis, and he has to run down to where some random construction dudes are drilling for time travel. Then we get our first big revelation.

Daniel Mothafucking Farraday was there.

Ok, it's not THAT huge, but now we know that, like his partner Charlotte, he has visited the island before. He's probably there to awkwardly research time travel, as per usual.

Then we're back in present day as our main hero, Iron Jack, and our previously main villain, Ben Linus, steal a corpse together... Lost is weird. Anyway, they have to steal the corpse to get back to the island, according to Ben, and Jack's so fucked up on pills he's probably not even paying attention anymore... That is, until he fuckin' shaves. Then he's back to his old self again, saving lives and breakin' hearts. Yeah. Even though Ben states that they will probably never know what became of the people who stayed on the Island, WE find out in the next scene.

Apparently, they started skipping around to different time periods, allowing this awesome sentence (to Lost fans anyways) to be a true review of the episode... Ok, here goes. Locke is walking by himself on the island, having been separated from the others, when he manages to dodge the plane carrying all the heroin and Yemi from Africa when it almost hits him. He then watches it crash into the canopy area, and when he investigates, he get's shot by Ethan, then tries to convince Ethan that he is now Ethan's leader, and Ethan almost shoots him again, but time changes, and all of a sudden Richard is digging out the freakin' bullet and throwin' compasses around willy nilly. Then he tells Locke that he has to die to get the Oceanic Six to come back. So now we know why Locke is dead. Not how, or even why he needs to die to get them back, but we have a vague understanding of how he ended up back in the real world, and in a coffin.

See, that shit wouldn't have been possible in the second season. That being said, though, I fucking loathe time travel. Reasons why later.

So what are Sawyer and Juliet and the rest of the gang up to? Well, Sawyer slaps Daniel Farraday, at which point Daniel goes into an explanation of the finer points of their time inconsistencies. At first they were in the time before their camp, and later in a time after the hatch was blown, but basically it boils down to the concept of a record skipping, in Daniel's words. Anyways, despite the fact that Daniel repeatedly states that you can't change things in the past, no matter what, and convinces Sawyer that it's useless to ask Desmond for supplies because they never met, yadda yadda, Daniel manages to turn right around, meet Desmond in the past, and talk to him, and when Desmond wakes up in our time, he suddenly remembers meeting Daniel way back when, so... Yeah, Daniel totally changed the past. THAT my friends, is why I hate time travel. It makes absolutely no sense. But this blog isn't the place for my personal opini-... nevermind. Anyways, moving on.

Charlotte gets a nosebleed and Daniel knows what's happening to her, but in typical Lost fashion, he ain't telling, but apparently it's serious shit.

Back in the real world: Sun is trying to catch a flight on Oceanic Airlines, but she's waylaid by security, and locked in one of their interrogation rooms. This proves to be the doing of Widmore, whom apparently, Sun chose to let live for a little while longer. He says that she hurt his feelings, and she tells him she wants to kill Ben.

Meanwhile, Hurley and Sayid make their way to one of Sayid's safehouses after they break out of the psych ward. Sayid has apparently had a falling out with Ben recently, and decided to take his ball and go home, because they ain't friends no more. He warns Hurley not to trust Ben, which Hurley should have already known. All that aside, Sayid discovers his safehouse has been compromised, and in punishment for some broken tape, he proceeds to kill three men, throwing one down on to some knives in a dishwasher. That is why Sayid is my favorite Iraqi torturer. The three dead guys manage to knock Sayid out with their little poison darts posthumously, and Hurley's left with an unconscious Iraqi and nowhere to go. He does what any logical thinking man would do, and brings him home to mom and dad... but not before stopping to talk with Annalucia.

Yeah, the same Annalucia who got shot. this one:

She tells him to avoid cops no matter what, and to hurry home, etc. And she parts with 'Libby says 'Hi'', which was just awesome. After that, Hurley takes Sayid to his swank pad and turns him over to a very confused mother and father.

Kate, meanwhile, is having a rough time of things too. A couple of suits from a law firm with a private contractor demand to do blood tests to determine whether she is Aaron's real mother or not. Instead of sticking around to ask questions, she grabs a gun and Aaron, and once again, she's off. She wanders aimlessly while Aaron complains, and then she gets invited over to visit Sun in L.A. Sun had some very urgent girl talk she had to get out, and I'm not sure why this scene was in there in it's entirety.

Around this time, Ben tells Jack to head back home while Ben works out some shady business in a butcher shop with what appear to be more others. It's clear Ben has ulterior motives at this point, but really, who needed to be told that? As Ben's running his sneaky little errand, Cheech drives Sayid's unconscious body to Jack, who gets him to wake up. When Jack tells Ben he has Sayid with him, Ben seems slightly unhappy. I guess it wasn't part of his plan.

Back on the island, everybody's trying really hard to make fire, and despite six months of experience living on a deserted island, they are failing at it miserably. Some random guy named Neil is bitching about there not being any fire when he gets shot in the chest by an arrow on fire. As his life seeps out of him, Neal learns what irony is, but nobody cares because they're all trying not to be on the receiving end of such fiery, flaming irony. A whole bunch of no namers get killed by the flaming arrows being rained down on the beach, but no actual characters are injured, so crisis averted, I guess? While running, Sawyer and Juliet get captured by the enemy. They're going to cut Juliet's hands off, but suddenly a whole lot of Locke starts raining down on them, and they all end up dead. That is the last we see of the island in this episode.

Back in the real world, Hurley is making a hot pocket when Ben walks into his house and offers to help and protect him. Hurley responds by throwing his one and only hot pocket at Ben, missing, and then turning himself over to the police, confessing that he killed all of the people that Sayid killed. Ben exits into the shadows.

The last scene shows an unknown figure doing math and working with computers in a very 'The Hatch' type situation. the figure then goes upstairs, revealing that the hidden lab/research center is below a church. When the mystery figure arrives at the top of the stairs, we soon realize it's the old lady whom Desmond met while he was unstuck in time, who tried to sell him a ring, and then refused to sell him a ring. She gives Ben a seventy hour time limit to make this work, or else. Ben flips out and tells her he can't do it because Hurley turned himself over to the cops. When he asks what will happen if he fails, she replies 'We're all doomed'.... and then nothing.

Whew... Ok, that was a big one. As far as beginnings go, this one looks really promising. Really, I'm just hoping they keep the time travelling stuff to a sensible minimum. I mean, I like the idea of dead characters being alive again for a little while and I want to see this guy to the right alive again just as much as the next guy, but if they do it too much, it will take the emotional weight away from the show. I mean, Jin is one of my favorite characters, and his 'death', had no emotional impact on me whatsoever. Even if he really is dead, just introducing the possibility of time travel 'saves' lessens the impact. Other than that, the show is still going strong, and despite what the writers said, I doubt we'll be seeing more answers in this season than questions. At least if the first episode is any indicator.

So... there you have it. A 'brief' summary and some personal thoughts on the season 5 premiere of Lost. If you have anything you'd like to add (stuff I missed, skimmed over, etc.) or just want to say your own opinions or theories, please feel free to leave a comment. Next week, I'll be reviewing the next episode, and you can all rest assured it will probably be much more coherent and short. Thanks for listening guys.

'Til next time
-Justin

P.S. I know the video is from season 1, but hey, I like it.

You're Barackin' my world

2009-01-20T17:30:00.000-08:00

So, predictably, we both slept through the actual inauguration today (why can't they do it at 3am, when the cool people are awake?) but we did watch it online just now. The flubbed oath was unfortunate, but the speech itself was quite good. It's weird after eight years to hear a president say multiple sentences in a row without making up or combining two words together (or just stopping and going 'uh' for a couple minutes). We don't really have a lot to analyze here, because he really didn't get into details. Really, he just summed up what he's been saying throughout his campaign, which is fine for an inauguration speech. We'll have to wait and see how he plans to implement his ideas into the day-to-day process of pulling this country back from the brink of disaster.

A lot of Obama's detractors have been saying his ego is swollen, that he believes his own hype, and there may be some truth to this, sure. Personally, we're just glad there is hype. When's the last time anyone was actually excited about the president? We live in a very, very conservative area, and you hear a lot of republican support around here, but very little George W. love. It seems like even the conservatives only voted for him out of fear of the alternative, and resistance to change. But it's true that Obama is just a man, not a messiah. He's going to make mistakes, and all us young people who got all excited about politics for the first time this election need to be ready for that. No matter how many pictures on the internet tell you Obama is Superman, he's not. He's not Captain America, either.

No.

Barack Obama is Cyclops.

Mark my words, if Michelle Obama was thought dead, but really coccooned at the bottom of a river, Barack would go find someone who looks just like her, make babies, then ditch the whole family when Michelle came back. And if she died again, he'd go to the Playboy mansion and find the bitchiest playmate there, then make her his Vice President while also givin' it to her regular. Then when she flipped out he'd shoot her, cause that's just how he rolls.

Actually, Clinton was Cyclops too.

Listen, the point is, through all of his ups and downs, when Cyclops is at work, he's At Work, and he's remained a good to great leader throughout. And that's how we see Obama.

Here's how we see the departing regime.

Just putting in my two cents.

2009-01-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

Alright guys, it's Justin here. I skipped out on my blogging duties last night, and haven't been up to much of anything today, so I'm just gonna post what I have been doing, which is making a music video for 'Battle Royale'. Don't worry, folks. We haven't forgotten that the king of awesome, Barack Obama (pictured in a black cowboy get-up below) was inaugurated today. We'll be giving you our thoughts on his speech and stuff later, when we actually watch it. For right now, I'm hoping the aforementioned picture will tide you off.

For those of you who don't know, Battle Royale is a largely unavailable movie from Japan about a reality TV show/psychological experiment in which a class of about 50 unruly (And I mean freakin' unruly) high schoolers are thrown on an island, and told that they have 72 hours to kill each other. If there's any more than one person left alive at the end of those three days, then everyone will be killed. They are delivered this news by their own teacher, who was stabbed in the ass by the class clown... Very unruly bunch. Anyways, once the game begins they are each given a bag with some food and crap like that, and one weapon. (Ranging from pot lids to GPS trackers to swords to machine guns) After that, crazy hijinks and mass teenage murders ensue. Here, Let's Watch!!

The music is the last half of Summer Overture by Mozart, 'cuz I'm classy. Well, that's all I've got for now, but like I said, we'll be covering the inauguration later, and tomorrow begins my week by week review of the new season of 'Lost', so check back later.

2009-01-19T22:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, Justin's asleep, so I, Nick, am writing this post alone. I'll mostly be the one doing the actual typing on here anyway (albeit with Justin looking over my shoulder and correcting my spelling) , so from now on it'll work like this : Instead of saying 'we' all the time like we're a big magazine staff or something, 'I' will be Nick unless otherwise noted, and of course it'll still be 'we' when referring to something both of us did or agree upon. When Justin's doing the writing (he'll be doing a weekly commentary on the new Lost season without me, for instance, since I'm just getting started on season 1) he'll let you know, and he'll use italics or a different font color. Yeah, I know this is a really boring topic, and we're gonna do our best to watch, read and play as much stuff as we can together anyway, but we're just figuring out the details here so we can make this sucker worth reading on a regular basis. At least this way we won't have to write 'Nick said this, but Justin said that' when you know damn well one of us is typing in third person.

So anyway, while Justin was scooping ice cream for obnoxious tourists tonight, I was watching The Unborn, which feels like it should be a remake but apparently isn't. There are like a dozen other movies named The Unborn, though, and this one does unabashedly crib from many, many better films, so it kinda almost is a remake of sorts. The ensemble cast includes Gary Oldman, Odette Yustman, and Odette Yustman's ass.

Yustman parades around in her panties for a total of about two minutes, but to be fair, they are a couple of pretty spectacular minutes. If I had a body as good as hers I'd let sleazy movie producers exploit it too. She's not a bad actress, either, as far as I can tell from watching her in one rather generic horror flick. She comes off as a more approachable Megan Fox. As for Gary Oldman...it's just weird seeing him in this. He plays a jewish rabbi, sans accent or really anything at all to define him as jewish, much less a rabbi. He wears a kippah cap and throws down some hebrew at the end, that's about it. But he's Gary Oldman, so that's awesome. Other than that, we have a boyfriend character who manages to always be there for and do right by his girl while also coming across as a huge, completely unlikeable douche (I think it's the hair) and the token black best friend character, who's quite attractive when she's not talking or stealing candy from the Old Folks Home. That was pretty F'ed up.

Ok, so our heroinne is being haunted by a jewish ghost that can't get into heaven called a dybbuk, but then a couple of times they say it's older than humanity and from another dimension, so maybe it's not a ghost, but some kind of Lovecraftian demon critter. I like that better so let's go with that. Son of Cthulhu wants to possess our fair-derriered young protagonist (or DOES HE?!), which he attempts to do by possessing a bunch of other people. He wants to possess Odette especially because her eyes are different colors and Nazis. Look, it all more or less makes sense in the movie, but it's kind of boring and I'm not gonna explain it here, because the bottom line is whether The Unborn is any good or not, and dammit, it's ok.

The shock scares are all very, very predictable if you've ever (ever) seen a horror flick before, but some of the imagery is pretty creepy, especially Mask-Dog (hint: there's a reason he's wearing the mask). It's definitely a PG-13 movie; there's very little in the way of gore, even though the Cthulhu Jr. racks up a pretty good bodycount toward the end. There's no nudity, but the vagina-cleavage should tide you over. There's also a glory-hole, but it's not used properly.

The storyline isn't bad, but it also isn't really good, and it can't overcome the feeling of tediousness that even short chunks of exposition evoke when you're waiting to see a girl in her panties get bitten by something. You know what movie did though? Exorcist 3. Now there was an exorcism film that was interesting even when old ladies weren't crawling on ceilings.

So there you go, my recommendation is that you go rent Exorcist 3 tonight (hell, buy it, live a little), then download the scene from Mirrors where Amy Smart tears half of her own head off from somewhere (but don't watch the rest of the movie, it's godawful), then wait to watch The Unborn on DVD. I also recommend saving the jpeg of the poster up there. It's loneliness medicine.

We're gonna check out the big inauguration tomorrow. We heard there might be a black guy there, so we're hoping for a breakdance competition. We'll let you know how that goes.

Our First Real Post

2009-01-18T04:23:00.000-08:00

Well, we've been setting this bad boy up all night, it is now 6:30 in the morning, but we wanted to toss out one post with actual content tonight(day) to set up a habit of regular posting and manly hard work. Anyway, one advantage we have in this endeavor is that I do work in a movie store (which we will call the Flick Pit to avoid any possible legal issues. It's the chain that's not Blockbuster). A lot of blogs have regular weekly comic reviews, which we will not. With the nearest comic shop an hour away and money always tight, we mostly wait for the trade paperback collections these days...and not the hardback ones, either. So the comic reviews will be of whatever we happen to read that catches our interest, and you probably won't ever know what we thought of Final Crisis unless the mayans decide not to kill us all in 2012 or whatever. Anyway, the flip side of this is that not only are we up on the current DVD releases, we're usually getting them about a week early, so you'll go to the video store on Tuesday armed with the knowledge that Repo: The Genetic Opera is totally kickass. If you're going to the theater, of course, you're just gonna have to leap blind. Enjoy watching Dane Cook learn to love a dog or something.

But golly-gee sirree, Repo sure does kick that ass in good'n proper.

Repo is a post-apocalyptic rock opera about a repoman who pulls the organs out of still squirming deadbeats who fail to pay for their transplants. Which is awesome. The focus isn't really on the slasher aspect of the story, though. The main character is Shilo, an overly sheltered teenage girl (Alexa Vega from Spy Kids, acquitting herself well) who just wants to leave her room and live her life. Her father, played by Giles himself, Anthony Stewart Head, genuinely wants to protect her from the dangers of the (admittedly twisted and dangerous) outside world, but he also wants to protect himself, and his deep, dark secret...that HE is the repoman.

Or, y'know, A repoman. But it sounds more ominous the other way. Anywho, the story also concerns the owner and big cheese of Geneco, the Evil Corporation that's doing all the transplant surgeries (and the repossessing), who is dying, and his fucked up young'ns. The kids are mad scientist Luigi (an underused Bill Moseley), booty dancing leatherface Pavi (Ogre from Skinny Puppy) and uh, Paris Hilton. But it's ok because her face falls off. Spoiler alert! So, yeah, they're all huge disappointments and Paul 'Big Cheese' Sorvino doesn't want to leave the company in their hands, so he starts trying to shape Shilo into a worthy (read : eeevviiilllll) heir. It's all very Shakespearean and gothic, then Sarah Brightman's weird eyes start shooting holograms all over the place, and there's a really cool grave robber guy who sells corpse juice as drugs, and it's all awesome, and that's pretty much all you need to know to know you need to see it TODAY.

Well, Tuesday.

Seriously, though, if you're a fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Tim Burton's musicals, you're in for a real treat. The creators apparently did this story as a stage show for a year or so before filming it, and writer/composer Terrance Zdunich plays the graverobber role like he was born to do so, and it's THE standout role in a film full of them. Alas, The Flick Pit got only ONE copy of the DVD, and none at all on Blu-ray, which is a damn shame. Hopefully Repo will find it's proper place as an instant cult classic, and a few years from now we can all get all defensive about it when we see middle-schoolers carrying 'Pavi' plushies around at the mall.

We also watched the actual slasher flick Cold Prey, which we'd heard good things about. Seemed pretty standard and by-the-numbers to us, but the killer was kind of clever and the victims weren't as gratingly annoying as they usually are in these affairs, so whatevs. If you absolutely MUST rent a slasher this week, take it over whatever roman numeral of Saw is coming out just on general principal. And yes, Repo director Darren Lynn Bousman also helmed some of the Saw movies, but we can forgive him, because as aspiring filmmakers, we'd jump all over ANY genuine hollywood movie waved in front of our faces if it meant getting the chance to do our real stuff afterward. Seriously, We'd remake Blade Runner with an all-wrestler cast right-fucking-now if they asked us. The Rock was pretty awesome in Southland Tales and we're fuckin' HUNGRY MAN.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams ... glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost ... in time, like tears ... in rain. Time ... to die....BrrROTHER!"

Introductions are in order...

2009-01-18T03:10:00.000-08:00

We're brothers from Florida, aspiring to all sorts of artistic pursuits. This blog will be a lot of random thoughts and reviews of things we're interested in, as well as (hopefully) a chronicle of our progress as we work on our own stuff. We're gonna keep the personal info short and sweet for now, just to get this sucker in full swing. Nick is 25, works at a video store, and is bisexual, so he'll be gaying the place up. Justin is 21, manages an ice cream shop (despite being an ex-con), and is so vanilla he's never even thought about having sex with anything but his long term girlfriend in the missionary position. We're really eclectic in our interests, so the topics are gonna be all over the place. Let's break it down a little so you'll know what to expect...

Things we're really interested in :

Movies and filmmaking, comics (mainstream and indie), books (new and classic), video games (kind of limited for now on that; we have a Ps3, Gamecube, and DS), Tv series, Paranormal stuff, gay issues, and funny pictures on the interwebs:Things we're interested in, but maybe not as obsessive and knowledgeable about : Manga and anime, music, animals, mythology, history, etc.

and pet peeves: : radio rock (especially Nickelback), intolerance and prosecution, people who won't watch a good movie just because it's subtitled, willful ignorance, and sometimes Keanu Reeves (for Justin, always Keanu Reeves).

So, that's more or less what we're all about. So please, bookmark us, leave us comments...FEEED USSSS!!!