Landon

Men in Black 3 was OK. Some neat ideas (Andy Warhol is a MiB) that got tossed together by a shitty time travel plot.

All the posts I've written about Polar Bear Cafe: http://mecha-guignol.com/?cat=1106

Oh god no. No. No. No. The last thing we need is more generic-looking camo-wearing soldiers in any form of media. If you want that shit, stick to playing all of the Call of Modern Gears of Warfare games. The movie outright admits that Cap is an "outdated" sort of character, and that's totally intention. He doesn't represent the modern take on the soldier, and trying to shoehorn his character into that mold would be missing the point. It'd make as much sense as having Thor suddenly running around in fatigues.

I love three Tim Burton movies: Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Ed Wood, and Mars Attacks. If I were to do a Favorite Movie list, Pee Wee and Ed Wood would be on it. Bettlejuice, Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, and the Batman movies are varying degrees of decent, but I have no real love for any of them. I don't really count Sweeny Todd since that's a straight adaptation of a musical, but I liked it. Nightmare Before Christmas (which I love) isn't really his movie, so that doesn't count either. Everything else has been pretty bad. Not sure which one I hate most though: Planet of the Apes or Big Fish.

The Dark Shadows movie is better than most of Tim Burton's recent stuff, but that isn't saying much.

Where the *vulgarity* was Luna during the final "battle" from the season finale? She just popped up after everything was over and was all "Did I miss anything?" Pretty sure that attack by the changelings was a set-up. Expose Celestia as an ineffective leader, which forces Twilight to up her game and show herself to be a more effective leader in times of crisis. Celestia's hold on the throne crumbles. As Celestia's hand-picked student, Twilight ascends to the throne, but Luna becomes the puppet master of the new regime as she's become "friends" with Twilight over time. Luna uses this position to launch a horrific dictatorship, molding the world into her dark image. Friendship is totalitarian.

Pretty much. Origin stories are terrible, especially in movie form.

Movies shouldn't be about INTRODUCING characters. You don't make a movie so that the plot of another upcoming movie can feel safe and familiar. That's basically what all of these Avengers-related movies have been, including Avengers itself. "Hey kids, watch this movie so that this movie feels like you've already seen it, and then this other movie will set up this other movie so that you don't have to wonder why characters are doing things that should be obvious by paying attention." Throw me into the mix. Make me get to know the characters as they DO THINGS other than get to know each other. I don't need to know how soandso and soandso got to be friends if I see them being friends and arguing with one another DURING the story. Give me conflict that matters, not conflict that sets up a future conflict we won't see for another 3 years. If something like the original Star Wars movies were made today, we'd get some lengthy bullshit movie that explains everything about the Jedi before we got to meet Yoda or Obi Wan. Then we'd get a movie that goes to desperate lengths to explain how Han and Chewbacca became friends. Then we'd get another movie detailing Princess Leia's life in the Alderran court and the Senate that led up to her being on the ship at the beginning of Star Wars. Basically, the original movies would be like the prequels, avoiding all the stuff that REALLY needs to be seen (like the Clone Wars) and emphasizing all of the "how this happened" nonsense that doesn't really need to be seen. So yeah, the Avengers lead-up movies (and a good chunk of The Avengers itself) are exactly like the Star Wars prequels. All exposition and rationalization of things that don't need explaining.

First Class has style in its favor, and movies being a visual medium, style matters a lot. Avengers looked like every other super hero movie out there while First Class had its 60s aesthetic going for it. First Class was more like an oldschool Bond flick, making it stand out against the me-too vibe of almost every other super hero movie. First Class had the Xavier/Magneto conflict, which is far more personal than any of the conflict in Avengers. The Thor/Loki bit was almost inconsequential in Avengers. By having a personal conflict at its center, First Class had more at stake that I found interesting. Hellfire Club >>>>>>>>> Generic Alien Zombie Skeletons In almost every other way, the two movies were fairly equal, but it's stuff like this that makes First Class a bit more fun for me.

http://mecha-guignol.com/2012/05/05/the-avengers/ Extended version of the rant I posted above.

Avengers was pretty decent. They made Cap's leadership role work and made his gung-ho patriotic earnestness seem genuine. Iron Man was Robert Downey Jr. Yeah. That says it all. And his scene with Loki was good stuff. Hulk was pretty awesome. Easily the best use of him in a movie to date. Thor... had a good line or two? That's about it. Black Widow was every Joss Whedon female character ever. Meh. Hawkeye may as well have not been in the movie. At least his arrow thingie was cool. Nick Fury was underwhelming, but he had to be there I guess. Sam L was phoning it in. Agent Coulson was pretty cool and the stuff that happened to him was quite appropriate. Loki's scheme was nonsensical, but that nonsense makes sense for him. He felt like a child acting out who just wanted his big bro to hug him, even if it meant subjugating humanity to get his attention. He, Hulk, and Cap were the best things about the movie. The alien things were typical CGI cannon fodder, but I dug the space wormsnake transport ship things. The dialogue was pretty decent and avoided the Whedonisms I was fearing for the most part. Easily the best-written of the series (Iron Man/Hulk/Thor/Cap/Avengers). The beginning was a bit slow-going as they gathered the team. The individual scenes worked, but it didn't quite work as a narrative whole. Things finally picked up during the scene where Loki screws around in Germany. When the action was all shooty-shooty, it was pretty clear. The way they zipped around the battleground and showed things was shot well. The hand to hand fighting could have benefited from the camera being pulled back a bit so we could see what's happening. But Baysplosions it was not. The action made sense and was comprehensible. The cast needed one other non-Widow female character. She was alright I guess, but they could have used someone who fit into the Wasp roll of the original Avengers. Or Scarlet Witch. Someone on the brainy side of things. We need SUPERVILLAINS. All of these movies have one name-brand villain and waves of fodder. Cap had Red Skull and Hydra goons. Thor had Loki and frost giant goons (And Destroyer, but eh). The Iron Man movies were all about generic cannon fodder enemies. Hulk sucked and doesn't get a vote. Avengers had a rehash of Loki with some alien robot skeleton things from that Ultimates universe that no one really gives a damn about. The fight needs to be on a more personal level. The X-Men movies did a good job of that since we have These Mutants vs Those Mutants. It was a clash of personalities rather than a clash of bodies. When Loki is going at it with one of the heroes, whether it's verbally or physically, it carried a lot more weight than the endless hordes of video game enemies. That final battle was very well made, but I don't give a *vulgarity* about defeating an army. I want to defeat SUPERVILLAINS in a SUPERHERO movie. It was fine in Cap. It isn't fine in a non-war movie. The mid-credits reveal thing was cool. It'll be interesting to see what they do with that, Hopefully it'll be an recurring element in the upcoming Marvel movies like Iron Man 3 and whatnot. All that said, it's a shame that it's taken us SIX movies just to get to the point that we have a team that can DO STUFF. Really. Other than the Captain America movie, I haven't really enjoyed any of these Pre-Avengers movies as stand-alone movies. They've felt like extended trailers teasing of what's to come. They've had individual elements that worked well (mostly character interaction stuff), but as actual MOVIES they've haven't worked. It's like I paid money to see two hour commercials for the movie I finally saw yesterday, and half of THAT movie was build-up to what really mattered. Now we're finally at the point where the characters can breathe and do their thing and we have to wait until, what, 2015 to see a movie that can have its own stand-alone narrative? That's fine when you're churning out a movie in a series with greater regularity, but in the number of movies it took, say, Harry Potter to tell the majority of it's story, the Avengers' story is JUST BEGINNING. That's great marketing but lousy storytelling. That sort of "development" can work in comics since you wait maybe a month or so between issues, on in a TV series where you get a new episode ever week or so, but it doesn't work in movies. But it IS a solid movie. If I have to compare I'd say First Class is still the best Marvel movie, but Avengers is up there.

Psyduck Jigglypuff Delete all others.

DOUBLE FIRED

I lost. You're all fired.

SUPERBUMP I'm totally losing, dudes. Go check it out and vote. Or else.

http://aniblogtourney.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/round-1-matches-49-52/ My blog, Mecha Guignol, is in a tournament where anime blogs are pitted against each other. If y'all like my blog, check it out and vote and stuff.

Cabin in the Woods is all kinds of awesome.

The Hunger Games is what you get when someone wants to remake a foreign movie yet hated said foreign movie. Said foreign movie being Battle Royale. It's the exact same plot (government controls the public by having its youth participate in a yearly battle to the death for the amusement of the elite/adults), except all of the wit, action, and satire is stripped from it and replaced with every young adult novel cliche ever created. It was shit.

Calling it now: The "Twilight comes from the future" episode is gonna be a complete misunderstanding. Despite looking like Snake Plissken in the preview, Future Twilight isn't coming from a post-apocalyptic future. Whatever happens in the future, it's some goofy, embarrassing thing that makes her LOOK like she's some tough freedom fighter from a nasty future. Fans everywhere will claim they were trolled when, in fact, they were just slow on the uptake and didn't see it coming.

Saw the new Ghost Rider last weekend. A good deal better than the first one. Nic Cage gets to do his crazy shtick and the actual Ghost Rider scenes are a good deal more fun than the original. There's also a cool bit at the end where all of the world's leaders, political and otherwise, are revealed to be Satan worshipers. And Ghost Rider kills them all with one whip of his fire chain. There's some heady political commentary right there. Heeheehee

A Bleach movie could only improve upon the anime/manga. Forcing the writers to deal with 2 hours instead of years and years worth of repetitive chapters and episodes should at least make it come close to being watchable.

There we go.

Saw Chronicle and Safe House. Chronicle was pretty cool. More Akira than super hero. Safe House was pretty mediocre. Rented Abduction. Couldn't make it through the first 15 minutes or so. Never bothered with the Twilight movies, so I never realized how much of a dead zone that werewolf kid was. He was painful to watch.

Very few anime series last longer than 13 episodes. Those that last longer than that usually have multiple 12-13 episode seasons spaced about several years. Shows like Bleach and One Piece are far from the norm in the current anime market. So if you're actually watching anime and not just Shounen Jump adaptations, long series aren't an issue.

If we're counting Wrestlemania as a sporting event, then I'm gonna claim that the Oscars are a bigger sporting event than the Super Bowl.