Monday, January 27, 2014

Attack on Titan




I might be a little late to the party posting about this since I'm sure many fans of anime are probably already aware of this show. However its not the people who are already watching anime that I want to recommend this to. This show is great for fans of all stripes, being an amalgamation of fast paced action, fantasy, and even a little horror.

 Attack on Titan is one of the few animated series that I find palatable, and I have tried many of these shows, I nearly always watch one or two episodes and then never turn it on again. With Attack on Titan I watched the entire first season in less than a week, all 25 episodes.


 The basic premise of the show is this: In an alternate universe/the distant future all of humanity lives within a massive walled country, outside the walls are sexless, near invulnerable and seemingly supernatural beings known as titans. Seemingly the titan's only purpose or imperative is to eat humans at every opportunity. After the outer wall is breached and the titans destroy his home town Eren Yeager his adopted sister Mikasa and their friend Armin find themselves refugees, and humanity at war with a near insurmountable enemy.




 I can't really explain any more without giving away massive spoilers so here are a few reasons I dig this show and why it standouts from a near endless field of mediocre anime offerings.

  • Great Characters: The Characters are fleshed out pretty well over the course of the season, the show creates a real sense of high stakes and tension, characters seem to be in real lethal danger often, and I cared what happened to them.
  • Avoiding anime girl tropes: This show has strong female characters, which is common in anime, however these characters stand out because they don't wear outfits that expose 80% of their flesh, or school girl uniforms, there is nothing I am more sick of than the anime cliche of a super hot, super powerful teenage girl wearing next to nothing.
  • Imaginative story: The story is crazy, but its not next-level anime crazy. It never gets so nutty I lost my suspension of disbelief. I don't need a flowchart to track the plot, and it doesn't  throw too much stuff at you too quickly like many shows in the genre. 
  • The Animation: The animation is gorgeous and  they rarely rely on money saving animation measure like still frames, or repeated frames. There are a couple instances but not many. 
  • No Rapey stuff: to fans of anime this needs no explanation. To someone who doesn't watch anime this needs some explaining; often times there are disturbing sexual overtones in many anime, if not overt depictions of sexual assault and rape, don't ask me why this is, its just how it is. This show has none of that.
  • The Action: This show has plenty of it, the soldiers who fight the titans use a pneumatic belt with grappling hooks to fly around like spiderman all the while trying not to get eaten while they maneuver in to hit the titans' single weak spot, it makes for some great action scenes.
  • The Antagonists: The titans referenced in the show's title are creepy and weird, they act like giant bipedal sharks, eating everyone who is too slow to get away and they are nearly unstoppable. For most of the show the desperation facing humanity is palpable. There is enough mystery about them to keep you guessing and to enable the writing to deliver some real surprises.

The show does have a couple of downsides, some of the episodes can be heavy in exposition and drag a little bit, and there are also some really corny speeches delivered by the protagonists, but these are easily overlooked. The first (and only) season is available on Netflix streaming and I highly recommend it.

Friday, December 20, 2013

The Desolation of Smaug





I saw the Desolation of Smaug last night with the wife, we had seen the prior hobbit movie last year in a second-run theater and thoroughly enjoyed it. Needless to say if you enjoyed the first movie or the lord of the rings this movie is a must-see.
I don't agree with the often espoused view that splitting "The Hobbit" into 3 films is just Peter Jackson trying to cash-in on the series as this fim is packed full of things happening and easily fills its running time without feeling dragged out. I was a little disappointed they dropped the goofy songs I remember from the book out of the film when a couple had made it into the final cut of the first film but I can see how the tone of the book and the tone of the film are different. While the book version may be a childrens story and a fairy-tale, this is definitely geared for adults, complete with decapitations and some very intense if bloodless violence.
As far as continuity goes the movie stays close to the story of the book (as well as drawing from the footnotes in LOTR as well as "The Quest for Erebor" from "Unfinished Tales") but with some embellishments, for example Legolas plays a major role which I don't remember from the source material. I could have done without the elvish side-story to tell the truth but it didn't ruin the film and I'm sure Orlando Bloom fans will be excited to see him reprise his role from LOTR.
The barrel-riding escape from the Silvan elves was given the action-movie treatment as well and ends up being so much fun to watch, it ended up being my favorite scene in the film. Finally the interactions between the dragon with Bilbo and co. are drawn out and greatly embellished this works out well because the dragon is really the biggest highlight of this film.



Smaug the Dragon looks frightening in the film and the voice acting by Benedict Cumberbatch is great, while Peter Jackson and his co-writers haven't re-invented the wheel at all in their depiction of the dragon it is still be best dragon I have ever seen depicted in film. It has a menace and really feels like the epic obstacle it is meant to be.
Another thing that Peter Jackson and co. got right was Bilbo and his character development, and Martin Freeman plays him perfectly. Not to say any of the acting is bad, everyone turns in a solid performance. Overall I would say the standout performances were Martin Freeman as Bilbo, Cumberbatch as Smaug, Ken Stott as Balin, and Luke Evans as Bard and his ancestor Girion.
As far as the technical aspects go, the film is beautiful and the 3D is implemented flawlessly even after its very long run time my eyes were not bothering me at all which is more than I can say for most films shown in 3D. There are however some cheap 3D gimmicks thrown in which I didn't appreciate. Overall I give the movie an 8/10 and encourage anyone looking for a fun fantasy movie and visual spectacle to go check it out. 

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Ender's Game

I was recently able to go out to the movies and see something relatively new, being a huge fan of Orson Scott Card's sci-fi classic Ender's Game of course I knew which movie I had to see.




Where do I start with Ender's Game? It's beautifully shot for one. The art direction and prop guys who worked on this movie should really be proud because they brought much of the book's technology to life convincingly despite the fact the book was written in 1985 and the author had no idea what LCD screens, Ipad's or cellphones would do to the technological landscape. The tech in the movie looks like something that could have naturally progressed from where we are now in 2013 and that is quite an accomplishment. The room where Ender' training takes place is beautiful, I never pictured it as having transparent walls when I was reading the book but the idea sure makes for some beautiful scenery. The acting is solid and the casting was great as well. The main antagonists of the film the Formics are really cool looking to top it all off.



Its not all roses however, despite all the good things about this movie it just was not gripping. While the plot stays mostly the same, important dialogue and character development from the book were cut with impunity. In the book we find out how empathetic and great Ender is through all of his interpersonal relationships with the members of his "Army" in battle school, a training camp for child military recruits in the future war against the alien race known as the Formics. Ender proves he is the next brilliant commander on par with a Ghengis Khan or Napoleon by commanding his fellow recruits in mock space battles in zero gravity. The vast majority of the book details his exploits at the battle school and how he gains the trust of his subordinates  through dozens if not hundreds of these battles, the movie shows us 2 of them. The book also makes clear the extreme psychological duress that the commanders of the battle school place Ender under, trying to break his spirit and see if he will ever fail or if he is indeed the best hope for the human race. In the film this is hinted at in some ham fisted exposition instead of shown, and the story suffers for it, instead of seeing a brilliant child transform into an empathetic and yet somehow ruthless leader, we instead see Ender breeze along through the story with only a couple hiccups along the way. On top of cutting out Ender's own character growth many of his squadmates are completely cut from the movie leaving just 4 major ones and a score of unnamed extras. Of the 4  supporting characters in Ender's army that the filmmakers bothered to give names to only 3 have only a handful of meaningful exchanges with Ender and as a result the emotional connection in the viewer never really hits home. I was also a little frustrated with how the film excised some of the hard science fiction, for example the details of faster than light travel and relativity play a major role in the book, but this is just glossed over and unaddressed in the film and it creates some plot holes towards the end as a result.

This movie is a good but not great film, but as a retelling of one of the best science fiction books in print it completely fails, I suggest you rent it when it comes out on video but there is no reason to pay 9.50 to see it on the big screen, in the mean time go to the library and read it instead.



Thursday, September 6, 2012

I just watched the movie "Goon" which was released last year and is currently streaming on netflix, Sean William Scott plays the main character, a bouncer who impresses a farm league hockey coach with his ass kicking abilities.  He is then recruited to play hockey for the purpose of acting as an enforcer, a player who's primary purpose is to beat up opposing team members. This film is a hard R with alot of bad language and sexual content and some pretty brutal violence despite the fact that nobody dies.

I really enjoyed this movie, Sean William Scott does a good job portraying a really nice and likeable guy who just happens to be good at beating the tar out of people. The dialogue is simple and sometimes wooden but the fights are really entertaining and the acting is above average most of the time.  I thought the score was put together quite nicely as well. I gave it a 5/5 on netflix however its really more of a 4.5 still a great movie if you like hockey movies, or if you like raunchy comedies.





Goon has a 6.9 at IMDB and an impressive 83% at rotten tomatoes. 


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Top Ten Horrifying Movie Monsters

In celebration of Halloween I have decided to rank what I think are the top 10 horrifying movie monsters.  These are all ranked purely by my own gut reaction but I am going to try to justify these as best as I can.


10. Zombies



Zombies come in at number ten on the list, now if I was a super snooty movie critic I would start talking about how zombies are all just a commentary on our consumer society and blah blah blah. That is not why the zombie is scary, the zombie is scary because zombies are your family, your friends your coworkers.  In the event of a zombie attack it is a practical guarantee that at least one person you know will be bitten, and then you are going to be confronted by their shambling rotten corpse; and that is terrifying. You know what else is terrifying? Being eaten alive. Zombies have that going for them too, there is nothing more cringe-inducing than the obligatory shot of some poor schmuck getting ripped limb from limb by a mob of corpses in just about every zombie movie. The worst thing about it is that even though a living human is physically superior to a zombie, the sheer numbers of zombies eventually crowd in until you are surrounded by a crowd of stinking moaning dead people. Zombies make it onto the list at number 10 because they are our loved ones turned against us, and because being attacked by zombies is like a slow but inevitable death in quicksand. It can be postponed but never avoided.  

 

9. Hannibal Lector

Hannibal Lector makes it onto the list at number 9 for good reasons the first one is, just look at this crazy bastard:

 

 The mask certainly doesn't make him any less pants-crappingly horrible but its what is behind those intense and creepy eyes that really makes him nightmare fuel.  Hannibal is way smarter than you or me, in fact he is the Einstein of eating people's internal organs. He is also only slightly less skilled at cutting people's faces off than number five on this list. In most horror movies people die because they are mind-numbingly stupid. How many times have you said "Don't go into the creepy abandoned warehouse!" or "Turn the Goddamn lights on before you go into the basement!" But with Hannibal it doesn't matter what type of precautions you take, you could be locked into a concrete box Criss Angel style and if he wanted to kill you, you would be a dead man walking. Adding his cannibalism to his massive evil intellect definitely makes Mr. Lecter a guy I for one would not want to sit down and have a beer with.

Yes, Criss. He is on the roof. Baste yourself in a nice pineapple glaze and maybe it will be quick.


8. Michael Myers 
Trick or Treat


Michael Myers is like a giant serial-killing mime, and that makes me want to pee in my pants.  He usually murders the ever-loving crap out of his relatives and whoever he damn-well pleases on Halloween, which works out pretty well for him because that is the only time you can run around with a sharp implement in a spray painted William Shatner mask (seriously) and not get arrested. What makes Michael so terrifying is the fact that he is "truly evil" in the eyes of his psychiatrist. Dr. Loomis in Halloween says this "there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong"  he is completely catatonic when not murdering the hell out of everyone. He is pretty much a murder machine that only has 2 settings: Off and KILL. Another terrifying thing about him is that Michael is a normal human being despite his insanity, and yet he is able to fend off bullet wounds, and take a rusty coat hanger to his eyeball without skipping a beat, these factors as well as a creepy ass William Shatner mask combine to make him a horrifying monster and a mainstay in the nightmares of thousands. 

7. The Greys

These next guys are creepy on a whole different level. Probably because the movie these guys show up in that  scares me the most claims to be based on a true story. Greys are the terms for those little grey aliens with the big black eyes, If their creepy appearance doesn't weird you out enough already 1 out of 5 people believe these guys or something similar are real according to a Reuters poll.

Oh god.
As if their creepy appearance wasn't enough to make you want to hide under a blanket, these things go around acting like we are their lab rats, abducting us, probing people god knows where, and mutilating the bejezzus out of our cattle for their own unfathomable reasons. The fact that these things are smarter and more technologically advanced, and so foreign to humans makes them really ominous and scary. Add to that the fact that its up in the air whether they are actually real or not and I am about to build a anti-butt-probing bunker in my backyard.


6. The Thing

The Thing is another nasty bastard from outer space, the horrible thing about him is that it can make itself look like anyone, even your dog.  Once it has you alone or if you start to suspect it of being inside your buddy or inside Fido the fun begins. Your friend or your dog turns into a terrible parody of whatever it used to be, growing tentacles, new mouths, and God only knows what else before it rips you into tiny little giblets. Not only is this thing just straight up horrible and deadly, it also has the ability to sleep in suspended animation beneath the antarctic ice for 10,000 years or so, and it can even build a flying saucer out of scrap machinery.

You can never un-see this


5. Leatherface

Number five is a sick sick hillbilly based of real life sicko Ed-Gein. Mr. Gein was a necrophilliac, grave robber, murderer, and a pretty snappy dresser. (If you like tailored human skin garments). Tobe Hooper decided to cut out the whole necrophillia angle and add in a chainsaw, and a nightmare for the ages was born.

The tie makes it even creepier
Leatherface is truely grotesque, the guy wears a cheap suit probably taken off a corpse, a tie, a butcher's apron, and a mask made out of people's faces. Yes that's correct his mask is: Made. Out. Of. Peoples. Faces. Add onto that already grisly picture the fact that he likes to go to town on people with a chainsaw, probably the least humane way you could kill someone, and you have the rocket-grade nightmare fuel. Honestly if I had to choose between boiling oil and Leatherface as my cause of death I would choose the boiling oil, at least I wouldn't die with vocal cords raw from screaming in sheer gibbering madness. 

A compelling argument for staying in shape


 
4. Hungry Ghosts

Hungry ghosts are spirits out of asian folklore, and they will scare the shit out of you.  You may be wondering where an obscure asian folktale was featured in film and what was so scary about it? 

Remember Her?

This is why I sleep with the blanket over my face

And this is why I need to change my pants everytime there is static on the tv.


Yeah,  Ju-On, Ringu, and their American counterparts The Grudge and The Ring are examples of hungry ghosts.  These aren't the kind of ghosts that any rotor rooter guys can go looking for on the Sci-Fi channel, these mofos are seriously nasty.  The hungry ghost isn't necessarily incorporeal like our traditional western spirits, they can and will come back from beyond the veil and rip your face off for no other reason than they are pissed off ghosts. Of course they can still materialize and dematerialize at will, walk through walls and make spooky noises like our lame ass European ghosts. But that is all just the warm up for when they murder the hell out of whoever so much as looks at them cross-eyed. The hungry ghosts in Ju-On and the Grudge get bonus creep points for the horrible noises they make. 

3. Xenomorphs

You may be asking yourself, "What the hell is a Xenomorph?" The Xenomorph is the name given to the alien species immortalized in the penultimate sci-fi horror film "Alien." I am honestly not sure where they got the name xenomorphs from in the first place, it may not be mentioned in any of the films. I know for a fact however it is referred to in the comic books and videogames that have spawned off of this behemoth of an entertainment franchise.  What makes these things so horrible is the fact that they are multifaceted killing machines. Their entire life cycle requires death upon horrific death to make it possible. To be born these little beasts need to burst out of a living being's chest, they spend the rest of their lives just killing everything that comes near them, and when they finally die, their acid blood will go on to probably kill again, or at least burn so bad you would wish you were dead.  Add to their terrible reproductive habits their absolutely terrifying appearance with multiple jaws, shiny teeth, and inexhaustible slime covering their black carapaces, really just the fact that they look like a demon specifically fashioned out of devil penises by Satan himself; and you have one scary sonofabitch. I had never even seen Alien but just from seeing a picture of one of the aliens when I was a kid gave me some serious cold-sweat nightmares.  
http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Xenomorph




2. Slenderman
To me Slenderman is the scariest thing out there, however due to his obscurity I decided to give him the number 2 spot. Slenderman is the horrible driving force behind the Marble Hornets webseries on youtube. I refuse to watch Marble Hornets if It is dark and I am alone, it is that face-meltingly terrifying. The Slender Man or Slenderman is a creepy monster who preys on children or sometimes adults, really there is nothing that can put into words how scary this guy is you just need to go watch Marble Hornets on Youtube and then be scarred for life.

Too scared to make smart ass comment

1. The Devil

Ouija board at your own risk.


Really what can I say about number 1 on the list? He is evil personified. Most people believe he is real, I know I do, and if that dosent scare the crap right out of you, you sir (or madam) have balls of steel. The devil really has it all as far as evil is concerned: Absolute hatred for mankind? Check. Horrifying supernatural power? Check. The ability to bring out the worst in people? Check. Machiavellian schemes? Check.  Really this guy is the total package as far as nightmare machines go, he spawns antichrists all over the damn place, possess little girls for no reason, and is generally just a huge dick, the only way to thwart him is to just hope  that you are really really lucky and God has plans for you. Otherwise you might as well just kiss your ass goodbye right then and there. 

For the low price of your soul you too can have a bitchin beard.




Friday, March 4, 2011

Review of Marvel Versus Capcom 3 for PS3

I have been a fan of the Marvel vs. Capcom series since I played the first game in middle school so I was really excited for the release of the 3rd installment. I was definitely not disappointed, the game is fast paced and really delivers on the action however there are a few points that could have been improved on.  The game only has a few drawbacks which I will quickly highlight.

One of the drawbacks is that Capcom had promised a "deep" story, of course as with nearly every fighting game the story is next to non-existent.  A few villains from the marvel and Capcom decide that they want to rule the world or something and so they enlist the help of Galactus, that's it.  While this doesn't particularly detract from the game I still found it an annoyance that Capcom had the balls to say it would have a "deep" story and proceed to flesh it out about as well as the SNES' Street Fighter II. Another problem is the online match finder takes a few tries to find a match and each time it fails to find one you are sent back to the menu which is a minor annoyance.  Another thing that should have been addressed is the online lobbies, you wait in a virtual line to play against someone, and while you are waiting you are just stuck staring at the menu screen rather than being able to watch the match.  Again this is only a minor annoyance. 

Other than these few minor drawbacks I have to say this game is pretty much amazing. The graphics look great and while I miss the hand drawn sprites from the first MVC the cell shaded look that this one is sporting is amazing.

 The cell shaded look of MVC 3




  The online play is completely seamless, out of around 100 matches I can only remember experiencing lag in 3 matches, and even then it was not enough to even annoy me.  The game play is extremely well tuned, the characters are well balanced for the most part and while it is simple enough for a neophyte to pick up and play, it also has enough depth to challenge the hard core fighter fan with advanced combinations, air combos, cancels, and some tricky button inputs.  The final boss Galactus is a great choice, and whats more that dude is hard enough to kill that you feel a serious sense of satisfaction when you finally do it.  The gameplay itself is so addicting that I continue to find myself saying, "one more match" until my fingers are sore.

Overall this game is amazing and I plan to play the crap out of it, the online matches are what really makes the game shine and I recommend it to anyone who may be a fan of fighting games and who has the patience to play a game with a moderately steep learning curve.

While I listed some of the drawbacks to the game earlier I have one more complaint but I have saved it for the end because this, unlike my other complaints is a mainly subjective complaint.  I am a little bit disappointed in the roster that was included in this game.  While some of the old favorites return, others have not and some of the new additions I find to be a little perplexing.  Why take out Megaman and add Zero in?  How about removing Tron Bonne and adding Zero instead?  I'm sure that someone has played a game with Tron Bonne in it and thought it was great but honestly I couldn't give a crap about playing a character that has stupid lego-looking robots hitting people with squishy carnival hammers. Also why does Darkstalkers get 3 characters in the game? Has anyone outside of Japan given a crap about Darkstalkers since the mid-ninties? Why not cut it down to 2 characters or just 1 and drop a character from Onimusha into the mix? Some of the Marvel characters are a little baffling to me as well, MVC2 had Gambit in it and he was awesome. He is one of the biggest fan favorites among people my age because of his appearance in the X-men cartoon show and was pretty damn fun to play in the second game so why take him out? Why take out Gambit and add in M.O.D.O.K. of all characters? And where is Venom at? he was amazing in both of the original games unfortunately he is conspicuously absent.  Taskmaster and Superskrull are two other characters that I think were bad moves, If you want some villains add in some timeless and iconic villains that may be a little more accessible to people. I think Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, or Red Skull would have made better villains, even Silver Surfer could have been added in as one since the developers decided to add Galactus into the game.  Anyway that is my very subjective rant about some of the problems with the roster in this game, it is still a great game however and should definitely be played.

Monday, January 31, 2011

The Green Hornet.

I saw the Green Hornet in 3d the other day, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised given the amount of disparaging comments I had read about it online and in print.  I think that some of the movie's critics may not really 'get' the movie and what it was trying to do, this dawned on me when we returned to my friends' house after the movie and his dad asked us if it was "as good as Iron Man." I had to tell him that it was really impossible to make that comparison.  The Green Hornet has more in common with a mid 90's buddy cop comedy  than a traditional superhero movie.  The movie does have some good action scenes but even these are interspersed with jokes. The main thing to keep in mind about the film is not to take it too seriously because the filmmakers, writers and actors themselves sure as hell don't. 

 So while I thought the film was pretty funny and overall entertaining and worth a watch, I do have to say that Christoff Waltz's performance was absolute garbage even in a movie that obviously didn't set the bar for acting very high. Another thing that turned me off was the 3d effects, they were completely unnecessary and I didn't think they really did anything for the movie. 

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Robert A. Heinlein taking a huge dump on sci-fi



The other day I read a book called "Lullaby" in which (among other interesting developments) a rich lady uses her fortune to buy a publishing company so she can destroy all copies of a book containing a poem that when read to someone kills them.  If such a book existed and I had a choice to either destroy all copies of it and save countless lives, or all copies of the relatively harmless  Robert A Heinlein's Number of the Beast; well I would probably have to flip a coin.

Honestly when I picked up this book I was expecting something really special, all the Heinlein books I had read so far had been really good.  More specifically I had read the mind bending Stranger in a Strange Land, the exceptionally well written, creative and fleshed out The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and the short but sweet slightly fascist sci-fi action classic Starship Troopers.  All of these books are science fiction classics and I cannot recommend them enough. 
However I think I would rather recommend a battery acid colonic than recommend reading Number of the Beast, it is such a piece of worthless tripe that it nearly destroyed all the respect that I had accumulated for Heinlein. What is so wrong with this book? You may ask.  I'm about to tell you what, but there is so much to hate that I am really having a hard time finding a starting point.


I guess I should start at the beginning.  At first the writing style seemed fast paced and pulpy but it was interesting, however that interest runs out when you realize that despite the tone of the novel starting out quick the thing is 500+ pages long and the plot does not in any way keep up with the pace set by the writing style.  Of course some plot points go by quickly, within the first two pages 2 of the main characters Zebadiah (ugh) and Deety decide to get married, of course this is absurd and completely unbelievable because they are complete strangers and have just met.  I was willing to suspend my disbelief for a bit, thinking that this being Heinlein sexual mores in his sci-fi worlds are generally a little bit wonky.  This didn't turn out to be the case, it really turns out that he just decided that he needed to have a married couple as the protagonists so why not just have two complete strangers meet and decide to tie the knot within the first 2 pages of the book.  Of course the whirl wind romance in the first 2 pages of the book could have probably been spaced out and made a little bit more believable if Heinlein had removed the 50% of the book that is made up by the characters doing math out loud, and programming their ships' computer.   

So complete absurdity and unbelievability aside he goes on to introduce us to the other 2 main characters, Deety's father Dr. Jake Burroughs, who is annoyingly referred to as "Pop" through most of the book, and Debutant and all-around rich bitch Hilda. Who also inexplicably decide to get married right after the first couple chapters, however at least they have some back story to kind of support this.

Now I have gotten to the meat and potatoes of what is completely wrong with this stinking turd of a book.  Some complete incredulously unbelievable plot stuff aside the plot is at least interesting: Dr. Burroughs has created a crazy space/time machine that can take you into any one of six to the sixth to the sixth power number of parallel universes, aliens want to destroy the technology, the four protagonists spend the majority of the book running from said aliens and exploring.  This would be bearable and perhaps even enjoyable to read if Heinlein had not made all four of his main characters into "Mary Sues"

According to the "Mary Sue" wikipedia page:

A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader. Perhaps the single underlying feature of all characters described as "Mary Sues" is that they are too ostentatious for the audience's taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly. The author may seem to push how exceptional and wonderful the "Mary Sue" character is on his or her audience, sometimes leading the audience to dislike or even resent the character fairly quickly; such a character could be described as an "author's pet".
Although the traits of a "Mary Sue" are not necessarily gender-specific, the term itself is used exclusively for females. The term must be modified to refer to male characters; they are often dubbed "Gary Stu", "Larry Stu", "Marty Stu", or similar names. While the label "Mary Sue" itself originates from a parody of this type of character, most characters labeled "Mary Sues" by readers are not intended by authors as such.

While the above definition is generally applied to fanfiction, I think it best describes the characters in this book.  They are all geniuses, Zeb and the Dr. Burroughs both are fencing masters and incredibly wealthy while being math geniuses, Deety is a martial arts master and incredibly wealthy, a math genius and of course super hot to boot.  While Hilda is a little bit less of a genius but still a genius, a little bit less wealthy than the rest of them but still sickeningly wealthy and super hot to boot. Pretty much all 4 characters are near-perfect copies of each other, and all 4 characters talk in the same way and have the same political ideologies which perfectly coincide with Heinlein's idealistic libertarian viewpoints (WHAT A SHOCK). Ugh, its pissing me off even writing about it.  The only likable character in the book is 'Gay Deceiver' the space ship, and the only reason it is believable is because it is a computer guided rocket-car thing that is supposed to be two dimensional and have no personality.

The dialogue from each of the characters is usually spent spouting out random math equations used for their flight calculations and needless techno jargon. However when they are interacting with each other it usually wavers from sickeningly sweet lovey-dovey bullshit, to righteous indignation. Also there are speeches featuring ridiculous empty headed machismo from the males, overly feminine empty headed prattle from both females, and the occasional reference to the Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels.

That brings me to another problem, 3 of the main characters are named in Homage to E.R.B. and his Barsoom Novels, The characters literally spend page upon page talking about how great said novels are. After the first few times I had to read about how totally freaking awesome John Carter of Mars and all his crazy-ass adventures are I decided Heinlein would have been better off just writing a fanfic. Either that or just go give the guy a literal reach-around as opposed to a literary one.

Ugh I am going to just wrap this up with a few man bullet points because I could literally type on how much I hated this piece of shit all day.

  1. The characters spend page upon page reciting math equations out loud, maybe to make it seem more like "hard" science fiction.
  2. The characters spend page upon page programming the computer on board Gay Deciever, maybe to make it seem more like "hard" science fiction
  3. The story is either moving at a lighting quick pace or a hideously slow crawl bogged down in the above mentioned math recitation and computer programming 
  4. THE DIALOGUE MAKES ME WANT TO PUKE
  5. Libertarian fantasy bullshit: For example a multi-page explanation on how Deety and "Pop" cheat the government out of their taxes and then somehow secretly insert money into programs that are socially responsible like fire departments etc. Or stupid story about how Zeb got a doctorate just to make a statement on how doctorates are completely worthless compared to being just naturally awesome
  6. Poorly crafted story elements. i.e. their spaceship is small but somehow they can fit enough supplies into it to last them months just by really trying hard at packing. Also any random item that they need whatsoever just happens to be packed in some back crate in the ship and not mentioned until they need it. 

Now do yourself a favor, if you see a copy of this book, immediately go buy a copy of The Forever War and read it instead. Do not under any circumstances touch this radioactive piece of syphilitic monkey crap.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Inception

I just got back from seeing Christopher Nolan's Inception.  I have to say that this movie blew my mind right out of the back of my skull. I'm sure that I could write a movie that involved bending a city block in half, gunfights, car chases, running gunfights on skis, and a zero gravity fistfight, however there is no way that I could possibly make it such an excellent and compelling story line.  The cast does an incredible job in the film as well, and Leonardo DiCaprio has a sharp eye for scripts to get in on this right on the tail of Shutter Island. I loved literally everything about this movie from the music, the storyline, the acting and the direction. While this movie is kind of a sci-fi psychological thriller, it has loads of solid action scenes and is incredibly intense. I wholeheartedly recommend this film to everyone.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Samurai Saturday

For those of you who enjoy stories about the samurai and feudal Japan I may have a couple suggestions. 

Last night I watched the film "Goyokin" knowing little to no background on it.  The film was very good; it takes place towards the end of the samurai era long after the battle of Sekigahara and establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate and centers on Magobei Wakizaka. Magobei is a ronin who left the service of his lord after the chief retainer who also happens to be his brother in law perpetrated a massacre to cover up the theft of gold from a sunken ship.  The massacre is attributed to being the work of evil crow spirits and Magobei  agrees to keep silent about it if the chief retainer never repeats his actions.  After 3 years of wandering and on the brink of selling his sword and renouncing the Way of the Samurai, he is attacked by former comrades leading him to believe that the chief retainer plans to go back on his word and commit a similar atrocity.  The director of the film is Hideo Gosha, who according to wikipedia is nearly as influential in the "chambara" or "sword-fighting" film genre as Kurosawa, and watching this film I can definitely see why.  Of course this isn't exactly "Yojimbo" or "The Seven Samurai"  but in terms of storytelling this film blows pulp samurai films out of the water, while still having enough action to hold the interest of people who may be fans of stylistic elements of "exploitation" samurai films.



 My second suggestion to fans of samurai lore is the book Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, this is a very famous book however if you are only familiar with it by reputation or if you enjoyed the book "Shogun" I would highly recommend that you pick this book up.  The book is a fictionalized account of a decade in the life of Miyamoto Musashi, and while it has action and combat it is more about character developent. The book follows Musashi from his humble beginnings as a young tough wounded in the battle of Sekigahara, he eventually becomes an outlaw, begins to try to seek the true "Way" and eventually masters himself and finds peace. Yoshikawa is a master storyteller he creates a large cast of characters who are all interconnected. He also tends to neglect one character or the other for a couple hundred pages, and just as you are starting to think "hey what happened to so-and-so?" whatever character you are wondering about makes a seamless reappearance.  Be forewarned however this book is obscenely long it usually takes me 1 to 2 nights to finish a book, this one took me close to 10.  The copy that I rented had enormous pages and was still over 800 pages in length, I can only imagine a paperback copy having over 1000.  In all I found the book to be deeply satisfying if a little lengthy and I highly recommend it to fans of "Shogun" or even Dumas' "The 3 Musketeers."