Category Archives: Entertainment

TV, Movies, etc

September 10, 2012 · 9:40 am

Sin City (film)

There are quite a few movies based on comic books, but Sin City takes it to a new level. It is a comic, but they used actors and Hollywood effects instead of paper to tell the story. Robert Rodriquez and Frank Miller co-directed this film translation of Miller’s Sin City and convert the comic into a cinematic masterpiece. This movie has it all: violence, nudity, honest cops, corrupt cops, hitmen, hitwomen, prostitutes, criminals, clergymen, and pedophiles. You probably wouldn’t want to watch it with your mom.

The movie starts with a mysterious lady (Marley Shelton) on a balcony overlooking the city skyline. She’s approached by a smooth-talking guy (Josh Hartnett), and they have a casually nuanced conversation, which ends with the guy shooting her. It turns out that he was a hitman and it’s implied that she hired him to kill herself. It was an indirect suicide. Welcome to Sin City.

The next story is about a cop on the verge of retirement trying to solve one last case. Hartigan (Bruce Willis), is pushing sixty and has a bum ticker, but he’s not gonna let a little heart problem stop him from rescuing the kidnapped Nancy Callahan. Nick Stahl plays the pedophilic perpetrator. He is a member of the powerful Roark family, and his corrupt senator father keeps the cops off his back. That doesn’t stop Hartigan from going after him and shooting his dick off. Hartigan almost dies, but Nancy lives. He reasons that it’s a fair trade.

The film jumps over to tell Marv’s tale next. Marv (Mickey Rourke) is a brute, a beast, a gladiator, and ugly as hell. A beautiful and sexy whore named Blondie (Jaime King) is in trouble and sleeps with Marv for protection. He wakes up to find her dead, and he is framed for her murder. He has to find out who killed Goldie and why. He begins following the trail and finds out that Cardinal Roark is involved. The Roark family sure gets around. Suffice to say, Marv kills a lot of people and avenges Goldie’s death.

Marv Sin City

Clive Owen headlines the next segment. He plays Dwight, a do-gooder who gets himself involved in a war between the Old Town prostitutes and the mob. Jackie Boy (Benicio del Toro) hits Brittany Murphy and makes her cry. Dwight decides he doesn’t like that and he doesn’t like Jackie Boy. So he follows him to make sure that he doesn’t hit any more girls. Jackie Boy goes to Old Town where the prostitutes are and pulls out a gun when his charms don’t get a girl into his car. The prostitutes kill Jackie Boy and then they find out that he’s a cop. The prostitutes freak out because a dead cop means that the truce between the cops and whores would end and then the mob could wage war for Old Town. Dwight has to get rid of the body before that happens. And he does.

Next we return to check in on Hartigan. It’s about eight years later and Hartigan has been stuck in jail, framed for kidnapping and raping Nancy Callahan. He finally gets out and goes to make sure that Nancy is safe. Not only is she safe, she’s Jessica Alba now, and she’s a stripper, and she’s totally in love with him. The only downside is that Roark Junior is back, and so is his dick, and now he’s yellow and smells like shit. This time Hartigan might be too old to stop him. He’s not though, and he kills that yellow bastard and saves Nancy’s life again. Then he shoots himself in the head so no more Roarks will go after Nancy. He dies, but Nancy lives. He reasons that it’s a fair trade.

Hartigan and Nancy

The last part of the movie deals with Alexis Bledel’s character getting shot by Josh Hartnett’s hitman. The movie comes full circle and you are anxious for the sequel. It should come out in 2013. That’s been way too long.

The movie is in black and white except for what they choose to show in color. Everything that is depicted in color is shown in color for a reason. Sometimes it is a siren illuminating the character, sometimes their eye color is highlighted, and it always important. Everything that is in color is significant. You just have to figure out why.

Sin City is the ultimate comic book movie. It is one of the first films that depicts truly and tastefully what a comic book translation is capable of. This isn’t a movie, it is a comic come to life.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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September 8, 2012 · 10:18 am

Manos: The Hands of Fate (bad movie)

If you have an hour and ten minutes to waste, you can watch Manos: The Hands of Fate in its entirety. But be forewarned, you really will waste an hour and ten minutes of your life watching this travesty of a film. The acting is terrible, the sound is terrible, the plot is terrible, the editing is terrible, the cinematography is terrible, the music is terrible… the whole movie is terrible. But you can’t stop watching. And scientists are still struggling to find a valid reason why.

The man responsible for the movie was a guy named Harold P. Warren, and he bet his friend that anyone could make a horror movie. The end result was this piece of shit. Harold P. Warren wrote, directed, produced and starred in this cult classic.

Michael (Harold P. Warren), Margaret, their daughter Debbie, and the family dog are on a lengthy road trip and stumble upon an isolated house inhabited by a crazy cult. They meet the housekeeper, a goat-like creeper named Torgo. Seriously, this guy is supposed to be a satyr (half-goat man from mythology), but no one seems to acknowledge his goatishness. Michael needs shelter for his family and Torgo seems reluctant, because the Master wouldn’t approve.

Nonetheless, Michael and his family leave their car and enter the creepy house. They see a portrait of the Master and his Doberman, and they are creeped out a little more. Then they hear a noise and Michael discovers that their family dog has died somehow. It becomes apparent that something is not quite right.

The family is forced to stay the night because of a combination of a broken-down car and a lack of telephones. Torgo does some things to advance the plot, like hitting on Margaret and tying Michael to a pole.

Then the mysterious Master is reanimated and he has a bunch of wives dressed in nightgowns. They have a brief discussion over what to do with the family and it culminates with the wives having an awkward fight over whether or not to kill the child. They roll around in the sand, leaving you scratching your head as to why it was included in the final cut. The only viable reason is to kill some time and pad out the running length a little bit.

The Master has his wives beat up Torgo. Then he cuts off Torgo’s hand and sets it on fire. Then the Master kills his first wife as a sacrifice to Manos, the god that his stupid cult worships.

Michael and his family have one last stand against the Master, but the Master wins. And the ending is so stupid that I won’t reveal it, because I’m just hoping that you might actually watch this garbage like I did.

This movie is bad. There is nothing good about this movie. You could not try to make a movie this horrible. It just sort of happens. This is the cinematic equivalent of using a camcorder to film a middle school play and projecting it onto the big screen. It’s beyond amateur. All the sound was recorded in post-production. And you can tell.

There are two contenders for the worst movie of all time. This movie and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Just let that sink in. This is the worst color movie of all time. That’s not opinion. That is fact. Watch it. Just don’t get mad at me later.

Critically Rated at 4/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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September 7, 2012 · 10:36 am

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes

If you say that you like comics and you’ve never read The Sandman, then you don’t know even what comics are capable of. In this first volume of the acclaimed series, writer Neil Gaiman introduces you The Sandman, who is also known as Dream, Morpheus, or a dozen other pseudonyms. Dream is what he sounds like, he is the master of the Dreamworld, he controls dreams, he is Dream. Not a bad gig right? Neil Gaiman blends history, myth, religion, magic, and creates one of the best works of literature of all time. Yeah, it’s that fucking good.

Preludes & Nocturnes collects the first eight issues of the series. It begins in 1916 when Roderick Burgess tries to capture Death and winds up capturing her brother Dream instead. Dream is held captive for more than seventy years. Burgess dies and his son Alex takes over holding Dream hostage. Dream is able to escape, and traps Alex in a perpetual nightmare as punishment.

Dream returns to the Dreamworld and Cain and Abel restore his health. As Dream inspects his kingdom, he finds it in shambles. That’s what happens when you neglect your kingdom for a few decades. Dream embarks on a quest for his totems of power: a bag of sand, his helm, and his ruby, which he lost while imprisoned.

Dream decides to track down his sand pouch first. He gets a little help from John Constantine. One of Constantine’s ex-girlfriends has it and eventually Dream is reunited with his magic dream sand.

Next up is the helm, and Dream finds out that a demon has it. He goes to Hell to pay Lucifer a visit and reclaim it. He has a battle of wits with the demon that currently lays claim to it. Dream is victorious and leaves Hell with Lucifer and the demons grudging against him.

The last item he seeks is his ruby, and that is the hardest one to obtain. Dream put a lot of his power into it, so much that whoever is in possession of it is more powerful than him. And a creepy little guy named John Dee has it now. You might recognize John Dee as the DC villain Doctor Destiny.

John Dee wreaks some havoc toying with the Dreamworld and disrupting the order of things. John Dee and Dream have a dual and Dream is losing when John Dee destroys the Ruby and its power is returned to Dream, making him more powerful than he’s been in centuries.

Preludes & Nocturnes wraps up by introducing Death, Dream’s punky, gothic, and attractive sister. They have a weird little family dynamic. You can tell they are siblings by the way they converse and bicker with each other. They have an interesting conversation as Dream feeds pigeons and as Death goes around collecting recently deceased souls.

Preludes & Nocturnes does a great job of establishing Dream/Morpheus as the brooding and powerful main character. You begin to understand who he is and what he is capable of. And you learn that he has a lot of flaws for a semi-deity. There are introductions to a lot of characters that have key roles in the series later on. They plant the seeds for story arcs that only become apparent as you read on.

Neil Gaiman is gearing up to take you on a great ride. He’s preparing your mind for a world where anything can happen, and by the end of this volume you are ready to embrace the world of The Sandman.

Critically Rated at 16/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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September 5, 2012 · 9:59 am

Bonus Features

Movies are cool, and sometimes you like a movie enough to buy it on Blu-ray or DVD. When you get a Blu-ray or DVD, you expect more than just the movie. We demand bonus features. If you like a movie, you are going to watch it more than once. Sometimes you get bored of watching the movie over and over again. So you might want to turn on the director/actor’s commentary and watch the movie with the filmmakers telling you how they made it. The best movies have a second disc of only bonus features. Now you can see all the behind the scenes stuff. You can see how they developed the story, the concept art, how they designed the practical and special effects, and about music and sound effects, basically everything that goes into making a major motion picture.

I like movies because they tell stories. I like bonus features because they tell the stories behind making the story. There’s something Zen about that.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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September 4, 2012 · 10:52 am

Avatar

Avatar is your standard story of a white guy who finds a new race of people with their own distinct culture and lifestyle, and he gets accepted into the group and becomes the most awesome one. You’ve seen it in Dances With Wolves, you’ve seen it in The Last Samurai, and now you can see it again in Avatar. The twist in Avatar is that the new race of people are giant 10-foot tall sparkly blue aliens.

Some directors make movies. James Cameron makes blockbusters. He ruled the ‘90s with Terminator 2, True Lies, and Titanic. And then he disappeared for a long time and casual moviegoers forgot about him. Then in 2009, he reappeared with a little flick called Avatar. It broke all kinds of box office records and ultimately made over $2,782,275,172 worldwide. In layman’s terms, that’s a fuckton of money.

It’s 2154 and humans have used up all of the Earth’s resources, so we started going to the stars and using up their resources. That’s how the humans ended up on Pandora, a jungle moon orbiting a gas planet. Pandora is the only known place where the valuable unobtanium mineral can be found. There are only a few setbacks to mining unobatanium: Pandora’s atmosphere is poisonous to humans and the Na’vi, a species of 10-foot-tall sparkly blue cat-like hominids that resent the humans for invading their home.

A greedy corporation has established the Avatar Program to create human/Na’vi hybrids to explore Pandora and set up relations with the Na’vi. Growing an Avatar is a huge investment, each Avatar is genetically matched to its driver and each driver does through years of training. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic marine with a dead twin brother. Jake’s brother was a driver in the Avatar program, and Jake is asked to take his place so they don’t waste the Avatar.

Jake jumps at the chance of a lifetime (not really, because he’s in a wheelchair), and he joins the Avatar Program and heads to Pandora. He meets the head of the program, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), fellow driver Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) and a few other characters.

On his first assignment, the crazy Pandora creatures cause Jake to become separated from Grace and Spellman. He’s alone in a dangerous jungle and almost dies a few times before getting rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). Neytiri gets a sign to take Jake back to her clan. Her mom is the spiritual leader of the tribe and they decide to initiate Jake Sully into their society.

Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) asks Jake to gain the Na’vi’s trust and find out about Hometree, which stands on a large supply of unobtanium. Jake agrees to help him out. He spends his days as an Avatar, learning about the Na’vi, appreciating nature, exploring his Avatar abilities, and falling in love with Neytiri. He spends his nights recording a video log for Grace and supplying intelligence to Quaritch.

Jake begins to feel conflicted the more time he spends running around the jungle. He’s changed. He’s not the same person and he starts to turn his back on his society. He’s gone native and he’s not coming back.

I’m assuming you’ve seen the movie, so I’m not going to go into all the details, but the Na’vi get attacked, Hometree gets destroyed, they blame Jake, he has to get their trust back, and when he does they have a climatic battle to save the Tree of Souls (the Na’vi have a lot of magic trees). The good guys win and the bad guys go home and Jake goes to live in his Avatar body full time.

This movie has a cliché plot, but you can’t stop watching. There are lots of plot holes (like the sudden emergence of all the other Na’vi tribes), but everything flows and fluidity is key to keeping entertained.

Avatar is unintentionally racist. All the main human characters are white. Most of the Na’vi actors are either black or Native-American, as if James Cameron couldn’t decide which race he wanted to suppress more. All the Pandora animals are slaves too. You just take your ponytail-tentacle thing and make a connection with him and he does everything you want.

James Cameron created an amazing world. Pandora is beautiful, you want to live there. There are pretty plants and majestic trees. Flora is cool, but it’s all about the fauna. The Avatar animals are awesome. There are flying animals and stampeding ones and tree-swinging ones.

This is the highest grossing film of all time. That doesn’t mean it’s the best. It just means that a lot of people saw it, liked it, and saw it again. It was a breakout hit in a time when people are supposed to be illegally downloading movies. It meant that if you made a movie worth seeing, people would gladly pay for the experience. It showed that 3D could be more than a gimmick if you do it right. It makes it more immersive, it makes it more magical. Avatar is entertainment. You can’t deny that.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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September 3, 2012 · 9:32 am

Blank Check (film)

What would you do with a million dollars? Spend the shit out of it, of course. When eleven-year-old Preston Waters (Brian Bonsall) gets a blank check from a shady criminal, he uses the power of technology to write himself a check for a million dollars. Somehow he gets it cashed, and Preston finds out that more money means problems.

Preston is eleven years old and acts a lot older. He knows that he’s being screwed over financially because he is a kid. His two older brothers have a fake business that requires them to take over his room. His dad supports the older brothers because they are trying to make a buck. Preston hates his life and his financial situation and has a wish list for a better life.

Preston’s biggest wish is not for money, but for the death of his two brothers. He openly states to his parents that he wants his brothers to die, and it is later reinforced when you see his typed Birthday Wish List. The number one wish is for his brothers to be taken out. Number two is for a house. We know his priorities off the bat, and he’s obviously evil and sadistic.

One day Preston is riding his bike around a bank and a criminal named Carl Quigley backs into him. The bad guy doesn’t want any extra attention, especially from the police, so he writes Preston a blank check to pay for the damage. Preston takes advantage of the opportunity to commit a little bank fraud and writes out a check for a million dollars. When Preston cashes in the check, the stupid bank manager believes that he’s working for Quigley and gives him a million dollars in dirty money.

Preston now has more money than he can dream of and he goes crazy spending it. He invents a phantom boss named Mr. Macintosh and pretends to be working for him. He buys a mansion, a go-kart track, a faithful chauffeur named Henry, a waterslide, and a bunch of other toys.

He starts to fall for Shay Stanley, who he thinks works at the bank but is actually a federal agent. She is out to capture the mysterious Macintosh for fraud, and thinks that Preston is the way to find him.

Preston has to deal with the pressure of spending a million dollars and has a few bumbling bad guys after his loot and he’s also trying to get some loving from an older woman.

This is not your standard Disney movie and it’s evident within the first five minutes. There’s a hardened criminal who escapes from jail. The dad makes a sex joke about how a computer will teach you everything except how to make love to a woman. The hero of the story is mercilessly mocked and bullied by his older brothers. Preston tells his parents that he wants his brothers to die. He also reinforces that fact by writing it down for his birthday wish list. His number one wish is for his brothers to die. Number two is getting his own house. Throughout the movie, Preston is continually adding to his list and accomplishes most of his goals; the only one that remains is killing his brothers. At least we know what to expect for the sequel.

On the surface, this seems like a movie preaching against being selfish and having too much money. But when you pay attention you realize that money makes things better. The movie tries to make a point that Preston has all this money and toys and no one to have fun with. But then you remember that when he was poor, he didn’t have any friends and was picked on. His friends bashed him. His brothers would tease him and physically beat on him. At least when he had money, he also got a little respect.

This movie is more relevant today than it was when it came out. It’s definitely dated and a lot of the things that he buys are laughable. But if you were a kid and got a million dollars you would spend it in stupid ways too. Especially in the ‘90s.

Critically Rated at 11/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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September 3, 2012 · 9:22 am

Sloshball

Sloshball is like baseball or kickball but with a beer in your hand. You play offense with a beer, you play defense with a beer, and second base should be a keg. On paper the object of the game is simple: you want to score more runs than the other team before you run out of innings. But the real object of the game is to get drunk and have a good time. You have a good time sacrificing your beer to catch a foul ball. You have a great time by pegging a base runner and smashing his beer cup into his face. You have an awesome time laughing and cheering and celebrating great plays. Sloshball is fun sport, best reserved for birthdays and special events. It’s not recommended for kids.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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September 2, 2012 · 9:47 am

A Song That Takes You Back

Sometimes you turn on the radio and you hear a song that you haven’t heard in years. And the memories start flooding back. A good song can take you places. You remember the first time you heard it, you remember blasting it and passionately singing off-key with your friends, you remember 8th grade dances and high school anthems, you remember summer nights and road trips, you remember the one who got away.

One of the most amazing things about music is that it’s a time machine. It brings you back to a time when you were happy and free and young. A song that takes you back is a gift, a treasure, and a treat.

Critically Rated at 17/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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August 29, 2012 · 9:03 am

Gymkata (terrible, terrible film)

Gymkata is one of those movies that is so bad that you can’t stop watching it. You know right away that it sucks. And it just gets worse and worse until it reaches its sucky ending. At first you’re glad that it’s over. Then you get mad at yourself for wasting 90 minutes of your life. So you decide to recommend it to a friend so you can ruin their life too. I guess that’s what I’m doing with this article right now.

Olympic gymnast Jonathan Cabot (played by real life Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas) gets recruited by the Special Intelligence Agency for a special mission. The SIA wants Cabot to go to the fictional country of Parmistan to compete in the Game. The Game is a race through an obstacle course in which the contestants must compete against each other and the Parmistanian warriors. Whoever wins gets a wish granted by the Parmistan government. The SIA wants Cabot to win and ask to build a satellite monitoring station for the US. They also tell him that his missing father is really an SIA agent who disappeared trying to accomplish the same mission.

Cabot decides use his gymnast skills and join Team America. Then they have the obligatory training sequences and he also meets the beautiful Princess Rubali of Parmistan. He starts learning how to fight and combines the deadly art of Karate with the graceful homoeroticsm of men’s gymnastics to create his own style: Gymkata. He uses his Gymkata skills to get some smooches from the Princess.

Cabot goes to Parmistan to play the Game, and there’s a lot of fight scenes along the way. Bad fight scenes that show off his Gymkata skills. He flips around and makes sure that his toes are pointed when he kicks people.

In the midst of all the random fights, there’s some stupid subplot about a guy named Zamir who wants to take over Parmistan and marry the Princess. She doesn’t want to do that because her dad is the King, and she loves Cabot for some reason. Zamir runs the Game and that’s not good for Cabot.

The Game begins and eventually Cabot is the only player left. Just as he’s about to get killed by the creepy villagers he gets saved by a Parmistani warrior who turns about to be Cabot’s dad. The reunion is short-lived because Papa Cabot gets shot by an arrow.

Cabot and Zamir have their final showdown. Zamir is defeated. Cabot is the winner and gets himself a Princess girlfriend. And the SIA gets their wish and the film assures us that “In 1985 The First Early Warning Earth Station Was Built In Parmistan For The U.S. Star Wars Defense Program.” Seriously, that’s how the movie ends. It was propaganda the whole time, just a commercial for Reagan’s crazy dream to stop missiles with lasers fired from space stations.

This movie is terrible. The plot is terrible. The acting is terrible. Kurt Thomas looks like a young Jack Bauer with a mullet. But Kiefer Sutherland knows how to act and no one in Gymkata does. Kurt Thomas relies on gymnastics and exaggerated sound effects to knock down bad guys. At one point he fights dozens of angry villagers on a pommel horse. I’m still trying to figure out why the Parmistanis would have a pommel horse in their town square.

This movie sucks. Don’t take my word for it. Watch it for yourself. It’s terrible, but you might like it. It’s so bad it’s good. It’s like Showgirls but with no nudity and worse acting. This might not be the worst movie of all time, but it’s a candidate.

Critically Rated at 4/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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August 28, 2012 · 10:24 am

Steroids in Sports

As long as there have been games and sports there has been cheating. Cheating and competition go hand in hand. Anyone who has ever played Monopoly wants to be the banker. Why? To steal money when no one is looking and buy yourself choice properties. So when a professional athlete takes steroids to perform better, it’s understandable. They just want to win. And if they want to sacrifice their balls to do so, I think that’s pretty fair.

An athlete getting caught juicing is like seeing a mouse. When you see one, you can be sure that there’s a lot more. Not every player is taking roids. It’s not as rampant as the Bonds-Canseco-McGwire era. But there are still a lot of juicers; they are just smarter about not getting caught. Except Melky Cabrera. But pitchers are using steroids too. It’s still a level playing field.

Sports are entertainment. There’s drama and elation and characters and storylines to follow. You love your team, but if they don’t go to the championship it won’t ruin your life. You know what’s entertaining? 500 foot home runs. Big tackles. The Expendables 2. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger take steroids and everyone pats them on the back.

My official opinion on steroids is: WHO THE FUCK CARES? People cheat. It sucks. Get over it. Anything is ok as long as you don’t get caught.

Critically Rated at 11/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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August 26, 2012 · 9:29 am

The Amalgam Age of Comics: The DC Comics Collection (comic, obviously)

In the mid ‘90s, Marvel and DC brought their characters together for DC vs. Marvel, in which Marvel and DC characters fought each other to save their universe. One of the highlights of that story is when the two universes merge together to create entirely new character with DC and Marvel traits. The characters were cool enough to create new comics centered around them. The Amalgam Age of Comics: The DC Comics Collection contains six different #1 issues starring the Marvel/DC hybrid characters.

Amazon #1 stars Princess Ororo of Themyscira, also known as Wonder Woman. She’s a mutant with the power to control weather and she was adapted and raised as an Amazon. She deals with learning about her adoptive past, and with the wrath of Poseidon, the god of the sea.

Assassins #1 is about the crime-fighting duo of Dare and Catsai as they take on the evil New Gotham mayor, Enigma Fisk. Slade Murdock is blind and fights crime using the moniker Dare. She’s like a female Daredevil with a revealing costume. She teams up with Catsai (real name: Elektra Kyle), the crime fighting dominatrix to bring down Enigma Fisk, better known the criminal underworld as the Big Question. Imagine the Kingpin and the Riddler in a blender, and this strong and intelligent criminal mastermind is the result.

Doctor Strangefate #1 centers on Doctor Strangefate, a hybrid of Professor X and Dr. Strange. He’s your typical sorcerer/telepathic mutant. He sends a few of his minions to find the Access. If this story seems familiar, it’s because this issue was also included in the DC vs. Marvel comic.

JLX #1 is about a team of mutant superheroes called the Justice League X-Men. There’s a bunch of characters and I could tell you their names, powers, and affiliations but I’m feeling lazy right now, so I’ll just sum it up by saying there’s the JLX and they have a reluctant battle with another team of superheroes and then they go to Atlantis and have another battle with a team of super villains. There are a lot of characters and it’s fun to see which Marvel and DC characters they are composites of.

Legends of the Dark Claw #1 is about Logan Wayne, who calls himself Dark Claw when he’s fighting crime with his spunky sidekick Sparrow. His main nemesis is the Hyena, a former friend who used to be called Creed H. Quinn. Dark Claw is Batman and Wolverine combined, and the Hyena is the Joker and Sabretooth combined. This is one of the highlights of the collection.

Super-Soldier #1 is about a soldier who volunteers himself to be injected with alien cells found in a crashed rocket ship, becoming Super-Soldier. There’s a nice blend of Captain America and Superman mythology. It works because both those characters represent the best of the United States.

This collection of DC and Marvel mash-ups is worth exploring. The art is solid, distinctive, and beautiful. The panel layout adds momentum and movement. It’s fun figuring out which character traits and attributes belong to whom. Some of the character combinations are a little weird, but the majority of them are acceptable.

The Amalgam Age characters should be the next comic book movie franchise. Dark Claw on the big screen? Yes, please.

Critically Rated at 12/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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August 24, 2012 · 6:58 am

South Park

Matt Stone and Trey Parker are the creative minds behind Team America: World Police, Orgazmo, The Book of Mormon (the Broadway smash, not the foundation of the religion), and South Park. South Park is one of the best cartoon shows ever. It is funny on every level. It is crude, controversial, satirical, and always hilarious. The show follows Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman, four friends growing up in South Park, Colorado.

Stan Marsh is the everyman. He is the most normal of the friends, and he’s usually the voice of reason. Kyle Broflovski is also relatively normal, but he’s Jewish and Cartman won’t let him forget it. Kenny McCormick is the unlucky one of the group. Not only is he poor, he has an unfortunate habit of dying (especially in the first few seasons). Eric Cartman is the fat asshole of the group. He is racist, manipulative, a brat, and a terrible person in general… He’s also the fan favorite and a majority of the best episodes revolve around him.

There are a lot of great supporting characters, way to many to list them all. So I will just mention Butters, Jimmy, Timmy, Token, Towelie, Chef, and Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo. And Kyle’s mom’s a bitch.

There have been 230 episodes over 16 seasons. That’s pretty fucking impressive. The show was a hit from the start, but it took a few seasons for the show to find its groove. The early seasons are kind of hard to watch now. The show gradually became more bold and distinctive. Scott Tenorman Must Die is the episode when South Park truly became South Park. That’s also the point where you learned that Cartman is capable of anything and you don’t want to be on his bad side.

The animation style looks intentionally shitty. The characters look like paper cut-outs (the pilot actually was filmed with paper), but it is all computer animated so they can churn out episodes in 6 days. An episode of the Simpsons can take 6 months to produce in comparison. The result is that South Park can be topical. And they have fun with that. They will mention sports scores and spoof news events just because they can. It’s pretty amazing to think that they are creative enough to write a script, animate it, record and add the dialog, add sound effects and music, do rewrites, and edit it within a week’s time. And then everyone will be quoting it around the water cooler that next day.

Trey Parker is a genius. And Matt Stone is lucky that he knows Trey Parker. And we are all lucky that Trey Parker gave us South Park and the South Park movie. When South Park first came out, my cable provider didn’t carry Comedy Central. I had never seen an episode of South Park before I saw Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. My head practically exploded.

South Park is a great TV show. It challenges everything and everyone. You can’t get too offended though. It’s South Park. That’s what they do. You never know that to expect with each new episode of South Park. They don’t even know what to expect. It’s guerrilla art.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed By Brendan H. Young.

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August 22, 2012 · 10:49 am

DC vs. Marvel (comic)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the greatest, most powerful heroes and villains from the DC and Marvel Universes met? How awesome would that be? Well, it already happened in 1996, so you missed out. But you can relive the past and pick up DC vs. Marvel and see the two worlds collide.

There is actually a pretty coherent storyline. Writers Ron Marz and Peter David are able brings some of the biggest characters from two rival companies together in a comprehensive way. So back in the day, these two brothers/entities were controlling their own separate universes, until they learned of each other’s existence. One brother is the DC Universe, and the other represents the Marvel Universe. They decide to have a battle between their top superheroes to determine which universe will be destroyed.

Each separate universe starts to be aware that something weird is happening when heroes and villains start vanishing in a flash of light, and new, different masks start showing up. A young man named Axel Asher finds himself inexplicably drawn to an alley where a crazy homeless guy is trying desperately to keep an inter-dimensional gateway contained in a cardboard box. Axel is the Access, and he just might be the key to solving the crisis if he ever accepts his destiny.

6 Marvel characters are chosen to fight 6 DC characters in one-on-one battles to determine the mightier universe. There are some really obvious fights between similarly powered characters like Aquaman vs. Namor, Wolverine vs. Lobo, and Flash vs. Quicksilver. There are also weird, random fights like Robin vs. Jubilee and Superboy vs. Spider-man. Elektra fights Catwoman, the Green Lantern and Silver Surfer duke it out in space, Wonder Woman somehow loses to Storm, Batman and Captain America are pretty evenly matched, and Superman barely beats the Hulk into submission.

Instead of one universe getting destroyed, the Spectre and the Living Tribunal are able to temporarily merge the two universes together. This buys them some time, and has the awesome bonus of creating hybrid superheroes like Dark Claw (a mixture of Batman and Wolverine) and Super-Soldier (Superman and Captain America’s lovechild).

Access finally gets his shit together and it able to separate the merged universe back to the two separate ones. He gets a little assistance from Batman and Captain America to end the Space Brothers’ hissy fit. And now the two universes can co-exist and life is good.

Yeah, there’s a lot of nonsense about two brother universes using magic humans to end a cosmic dispute, but once you get past that you can appreciate the story. What if the superhero you depended on was powerless to stop the end of the world? What if that superhero vanished and was replaced by a stranger in tights? What if you are a superhero and you can’t simply punch your way to victory?

The art is awesome. The panels spill over into each other, they overlap, it feels very fluid. Dan Jurgens and Claudio Castellini’s drawings are bold and powerful. And it’s pretty cool to see the Hulk and Superman exchanging blows in the desert.

There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but it doesn’t slow down the momentum of the story. If you like DC, it’s worth checking out. If you like Marvel, it’s worth checking out. If you like comics, then you should have read this already. You’re slacking.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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August 21, 2012 · 10:18 am

The Hunger Games (film)

Director Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) takes on the first book of The Hunger Games trilogy, written by Suzanne Collins. I never read the books, and all I knew to expect was a strong female character with a knack for archery. In a future dystopia, a girl is entered into a life or death contest that is part sacrifice and part entertainment. If you take Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, add a little bit of The Running Man and a splash of the Truman Show, and throw in some Fifth Element-esque costumes, and you end up with The Hunger Games.

In the future, the world we know has come and gone, and it is a new era. America is gone, and a new nation has arisen: Panem. There are twelve districts of varying levels of poverty surrounding a wealthy Capitol. There is an annual event called the Hunger Games where each district must sacrifice a twelve to eighteen-year-old boy and girl to fight to the death until a single victor emerges.

At the yearly lottery to choose the lucky pair, a plucky young lady named Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) bravely volunteers to compete when her younger sister is chosen. The other representative from District 12 is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a baker’s son. Katniss is brave and has skills with a bow. Peeta is cowardly and knows it.

The two leave District 12 and head for the Capitol. They meet their mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), a drunk and former Hunger Games champion. He gives them solid advice, like learn your enemy’s strengths and to be weary of the “Careers.” The Careers have been groomed from birth to compete and survive and thrive in the games.

All the contestants are treated like celebrities and they all appear on a TV show hosted by Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci). They try to be as appealing as possible in order to gain sponsors to provide them with supplies during the games. Peeta reveals a hidden crush on Katniss during his interview.

Katniss isn’t sure if she can believe him, especially when he forms an alliance with the Careers as soon as the Hunger Games start. Half the contestants are killed on the first day, but Katniss uses her skills to survive the first night.

Peeta leads the Careers to Katniss, but she’s able to drop a tracker jacker hive on them. Tracker jackers are like mutant wasps with hallucinogenic venom that’s deadly in large amounts. Katniss forms an alliance with Rue, a young girl from District 11. Rue basically saves Katniss from dying, and she saves her a few times. They find out where the Careers are staying and hatch a plan to destroy their supplies. The plan works, but Rue dies and Katniss feels bad.

Haymitch Abernathy is busy promoting Katniss and Peeta as star-crossed lovers in the attempt to get them more sponsors. This results in the Gamemakers announcing a new and unprecedented rule: there can be two winners if they are from the same district. Katniss hears this and decides to go find Peeta. She tracks him down and discovers that he’s badly wounded from a fight with Cato, the leader of the Careers. They get to know each other, more shit happens, more people die, some crazy mutant dogs show up, and eventually only the two District 12ers and Cato are left. And then there’s more fighting and only Katniss and Peeta are left, but instead of being declared dual winners, the Gamemakers change the rules again and say there can only be one victor.

Katniss decides a suicide pact with Peeta is a great way to get out of this jam, and the Gamemakers change the rules again and they are both winners. Hurray for District 12. Unfortunately, this action will rock the boat and threaten the dominance of the Capitol. The stage is set for the sequel.

All in all, this is a pretty satisfying movie. Jennifer Lawrence does a great job as Katniss and she carries the movie. Lenny Kravitz, Elizabeth Banks, and Donald Sutherland also play supporting roles and they add a little flavor. The cast in general was pretty solid, and that’s a tough thing to do with so many teen-aged actors.

I know that the books are probably a lot more detailed, and the movie leaves a bunch of stuff out, but the movie can stand on it’s own. There are too many characters to care about and there are a few plot holes, but that’s typical of most movies these days. It’s worth watching and maybe someday I’ll get around to reading the books.

Critically Rated at 14/17

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August 20, 2012 · 9:03 am

Saving Silverman

Saving Silverman is a comedy about two friends trying to rescue their friend from a miserable relationship. Steve Zahn and Jack Black play Wayne and J.D. and Jason Biggs plays the titular Darren Silverman. Amanda Peet plays the succubus, Amanda Detmer plays Darren’s long lost love, and R. Lee Ermey plays their old football coach. Dennis Dugan (Big Daddy, Happy Gilmore) is in the director’s chair. It’s a stupid movie about stupid people, but it’s funny and that’s what a comedy should be.

Darren, Wayne, and J.D. are best friends since the fifth grade. They share a common obsession with Neil Diamond and are in a Neil Diamond tribute band. They spend their days drinking beers and hanging out and having fun. That all changes when Darren meets Judith (Amanda Peet). Judith is a controlling, manipulative psychologist who has Darren wrapped around her finger. She can’t stand J.D. and Wayne and forbids Darren from hanging out with them anymore.

Wayne and J.D. want their friend back and decide they have to save Darren at any cost. The best and most logical thing to do is to kidnap Judith and set up Darren with Sandy, his long lost love from high school. The two friends capture Judith and lock her up in their garage, leaving a fake note for Darren saying that she ran away and doesn’t want to marry him. Darren is distraught and misses her, but Wayne convinces him to go out with Sandy. He’s relieved to know that Sandy is preparing to take her final vows to become a nun, and he relaxes around her. They catch up on old times, they share laughs, they have a moment, and sparks fly.

Wayne and J.D. have their hands full with their cunning captive. She outsmarts them and escapes a few times. She analyzes J.D. and makes him realize his homosexuality. While his two best friends are holding his kidnapped fiancée hostage, Darren and Sandy are falling in love. She even decides to leave the convent for him. And Darren is finally happy again.

But of course Judith escapes, Darren goes back to her, Sandy goes back to the convent, and Wayne and J.D. go to jail. Darren and Judith are about to get married and Sandy is about to become a nun, but Wayne and J.D. escape from jail with the help of their old football coach. They save Sandy from her nun vows, then they kidnap Neil Diamond, then they all go to stop the wedding. Darren ends up with Sandy, Judith ends up with Wayne, and J.D. ends up with their old football coach.

This is a stupid movie. But it’s a cult classic now. Jack Black and Steve Zahn have a lot of great moments and quotable lines. They are also eight and ten years older than Jason Biggs. Jason Biggs looked too young to be their friend, he was a little miscast. His role isn’t that important either. Wayne is the main character, he is the one who calls all the shots, he opens the movie, and he’s the one trying to save Silverman.

If you weren’t a Neil Diamond fan going in to this movie, you will be when you come out. Be prepared for that.

Critically Rated at 10/17

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August 20, 2012 · 8:57 am

Playing Catch

People like having fun and playing games are fun. One of simplest games you can play with another person is catch. All you have to do is throw an object to your partner and hope that they catch it. And then they throw the object back to you and you try to catch it. And then you throw it back to them, and on and on it goes. You can play catch with a baseball, a football, a tennis ball, a rolled-up sock, a Frisbee, a lemon, an egg… you have a lot of options. You can spice it up by keeping count of how many successful consecutive catches you make and then trying to break your record, or you can move around and try throwing to a moving target.

Playing catch is free and easy, but if you don’t have any friends you can throw a tennis ball against a brick wall or take up juggling.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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August 19, 2012 · 10:14 am

Superman for All Seasons

If you’ve never read a Superman comic before, start with this one. Superman for All Seasons is a character study of who Superman is and what he represents. This isn’t an origin story. It doesn’t go into Superman’s alien past and how he came from a dying planet and all that hoopla. Jeph Loeb’s story is about Clark Kent leaving home and facing his destiny as Superman. Tim Sale’s incredible artwork brings a sense of grandeur and makes the icon more iconic.

There is no central narrator. Each season has it’s own narrator with their own view on Superman and/or Clark Kent. It’s kind of like Citizen Kane; you get a sense of the man through other people’s opinions of him. The first season explored is Spring. Jonathan Kent narrates as Clark Kent is on the verge of graduating from high school, and Clark is trying to cling on to memories but knows that he can’t stay in Smallville forever. Jonathan is worried about Clark’s powers and what he will do with them, but one day Clark saves a guy’s life and decides that saving people will be his calling. The boy becomes a man and goes to Metropolis to start his new life as Superman.

Lois Lane narrates the Summer story. Her perfect reporter world was turned upside down by the arrival of the Man of Steel. She’s still trying to grasp the fact that things have changed, that a man can fly, that the old rules don’t apply anymore. Superman saves Metropolis and Lois from a nuclear missile and submarine attack, because he’s Superman and that’s what he does. He feels lonely and homesick so he goes back to visit Smallville and is dismayed at how it doesn’t feel the same. Martha Kent reminds him that’s what happens when you grow up and to shut up and go back to Metropolis. He gets back just in time to save a lady from a fire and he scolds Lex Luthor’s flying soldiers for almost killing her.

Lex Luthor is the narrator for the Fall season. He is in love with Metropolis and doesn’t like the new guy who also calls it home. He hatches a plot to make Superman leave. It involves poisoning the citizens of Metropolis and making Superman come to him for help. Lex finds the lady that Superman saved from the fire in Summer, and brainwashes her into becoming Toxin. Superman goes to confront Lex, but time is of the essence, so he takes Toxin and they fly around spreading the antidote. And then Toxin suddenly dies and Lex manipulate Superman into thinking it was his fault that Toxin dies. Superman gets all sad and goes back home to Smallville.

It is now Winter, and Lana Lang takes over the narrating duties. Lana reveals that she wanted to marry Clark, but had to let him go be Superman. Clark and Lana spend some time together catching up and reliving old memories. They walk around Smallville, feeling nostalgic about being home again. There’s a huge flood that threatens the town and Clark comes to grips that he is Superman and that he has to do something because that’s what Superman does. The flood is a wakeup call and Clark goes back to the city and accepts his life as Superman.

This is not an exciting comic. There’s not much action scenes. It’s a reflection on who Clark Kent is and why he does what he does. It’s about the impact of Superman, about how he affects other people and what he means to them. The story is great and the art is amazing. There are several pictures that take up two whole pages, showing Clark and Jonathan gazing at a sunset or Superman flying heroically across the sky.

Superman for All Seasons is required reading for a Superman fan. It’s worth reading even if you don’t like Superman. It’s a coming-of-age story, it’s about finding your place in the world. Everyone can relate to that.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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