Saturday, October 03, 2009

Chronologically you should read this one after the Grant Morrison Post: He's so dreamy... Wait I like women not men... Rabbit-man is confused :(

Ok so last column kind of got sidetracked and went to a weird place. Honestly I was trying to write about Grant Morrison’s brilliant run on New X-Men, but once I actually got started talking about Grant Morrison, I started rambling about crap. I mean the guy’s life story is an oscar winning biopic in the making, I swear it. I did a little bit of research about him a while ago, and there is some interesting, and paranoid shit out there, you readers should seriously look for it. Also to complete the night of grand conspiracy theories and paranoia, Look up the Montauk Chair, The Blue moon conspiracy, and Morphic Resonance. Actually just read the first paragraph on this website, the last sentence is probably one of the funniest things ever written on the internet. That Montauk wikipedia article is pretty funny too especially the part where it warns about how the article does not site any of its sources.
Crap! See this is what happens when I talk about Grant Morrison, I start rambling about conspiracy theories. WHY CAN’T I JUST REVIEW NEW X-MEN LIKE I WANTED? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.
Ok I think I’ll just settle down by talking about a movie that deals with conspiracy theories, the horrors of aging, and the sadness of being forgotten by the world. Yeah that’s right I’m going to review “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”! Wait, I didn’t see that crappy movie. I mean Benjamin Button is like 5 and a half hours long, and no one has been able to watch the whole thing through due to how boring it is. Why would I subject myself to that? For the good of my readers who want to know about the movie? Hah that’s funny, maybe if somebody started paying me to write shit then I would review godawful pieces of shite like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. No I’m going to review something that interests me, something like say X-Me—Bubba Ho-tep. Man what a great movie Bubba Ho-Tep was. I mean it had it all conspiracy theories, comments on the horrors of aging and the sadness of being forgotten by the world (Strange I feel like I’m repeating myself here), also it stars an aging Elvis Aaron Presley who teams up with a black guy who thinks he is JFK to fight a mummy. Yeah I know must of you loyal readers who have made it this far into the review probably were already sold based on that sentence alone so I should probably stop here with the review. But TWIST I won’t. I freaking promised to review something in this post, and dammit I am gonna review. Screw the ramifications! So basically Bubba Ho-Tep begins in a most depressing fashion depicting a bedridden Elvis Presley (Played by the amazing Bruce Campbell) trapped in the most horrible old folks home ever. Much time is spent showing how a place like that can just destroy a person, and Elvis is just a big sack of do nothing sadness. It’s a little hard to watch, especially when you think that the movie is supposed to be about Elvis and Black JFK fighting a mummy, but I digress. You see this is a movie about redemption and in order to get anyone to give a flying eff about a hero’s redemption you must first show the depths to which the hero has fallen. The first half of Bubba Ho-Tep concerns itself with that goal, and does a splendid job. Naturally once the plot reaches the turning point the rest of the movie is almost twice as enjoyable because of what came before. Overall I highly recommend this movie, for it’s humor, conspiracy theories, and surprisingly emotionally involving characters. This may be a B-movie, but it’s got more soul than any number of Hollywood blockbusters with 100 times it’s budget. (Crap I’ve been watching too much “How I met your Mother” I mean that show’s hilarious but if you watch it too long you start to think in lame metaphors (by Thor’s hammer that show is filled with lame metaphors, but it is so freaking hilarious that I love it) and even lamer analogies. So please forgive the terrible last sentence (although I would bet it is worthy of the DVD cover all it needs is a few more exclamation points.))
Rabbit-Man out!!

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Another Recycled Post: Writer's Block revealed!!

So I decided to do something different this week and talk about two comic books. Particularly I will be talking about two comic books that I bought at the store. These two comics are Jack Of Fables #35 and Ex Machina #43.
A long time ago I used to buy a whole bunch of weekly comics, mostly Marvel superhero stuff, but I kind of fell out of reading those lately (they have jacked up the price to 3.99 per issue, and they are all interconnected so reading just one is hard), and now I just stick with the Fables series of books and Ex Machina. I think explaining what both of those books are about in one sentence or so will probably make them sound lame, and won’t do the stories justice so I will just skip that part and talk about the specific comics I got.

Jack Of Fables #35
(Note this is part 8 of a continuing story) This issue begins with two hilarious two-page spreads introducing all the characters involved for those unfortunate enough to pick up this issue without reading the first 7 parts of the story. Pretty much everything is hilarious about the first four pages from the character descriptions to the art work. My favorite are the descriptions of the Genre Characters mystery’s description is left blank, SciFi’s is a bunch of technobabble, and Fantasy’s is a bunch of mythical type stuff so convoluted that the author gives up midway through. Also this book has a two page spread of a little girl brutally murdering like 8 people with her bare hands. Yeah you read that right.
This comic book was awesome! Makes me excited to see how this whole thing will be wrapped up in the next installment.

Ex Machina #43


Hopefully with Lost on hiatus Mr. Big Shot Hollywood writer Vaughan will find some time to finish the last seven issues of this awesome comic in a timely manner. Because hell he has gained a name for himself by writing some of the best cliffhangers ever, and the one for the issue before this was brutal. From the first issue of this series we were told that the year 2005 was a disaster for Mayor Hundred, and this storyarc finally begins to reveal just what happened in “goddamned 2005”. So far the mayor’s political career could easily be killed by any of three threats introduced in this storyline, the mysterious box he kept locked away in a safe house, the resurgence of his old archenemy Jack Pherson, or the fact that he has resumed his role as vigilante(!). This is the first storyline to put the main focus on the Superheroics, in all the proceeding chapters the superpowers-related storylines always came second to the political action, and this shuffling up of the series is pretty intriguing. Also I was waiting forever to see more stuff about Pherson who I think is the most interesting part about the whole Ex Machina series. This book deserves full marks by beginning in the most awesome way possible, with the Great Machine facing up to the Zombified mistakes of his past. Yeah you read that right.

Both Jack of Fables #35 and Ex Machina #43 are highly recommended by me, but both of these books continue previous storylines so be sure to catch up before you read either of them.

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I already posted this on the other blog: The Tragedy of the recycled post

Transformers 2 is the story of a severely disturbed young man who retreats into a vivid fantasy life to avoid the trauma of living with two severely mentally handicapped parents. Director Michael Bay presents Sam Witwicky as a great study of a character who has too much responsibility and wishes to escape it all. Clearly Sam is the rock that tethers his deranged parents to reality, and when he gets ready to leave for college, their whole world comes crumbling down. Bay cleverly represents this by having Sam’s childhood home get destroyed by his imaginary robot pals. Bay cuts between scenes of confusing, and poorly thought out fantasy, and heartbreaking family drama, to further play up how much the burden of his mentally retarded parents has affected his life. In one scene of pure cinematic genius Bay reveals how deep Sam has retreated into his rich interior world, by having an enormously attractive woman embrace, and kiss him after his house is destroyed. The brilliant camera work in this scene is what really conveys this retreat, by having the camera repeatedly circle around Sam and his fantasy ideal of a woman, bay begins to create a sickeningly dizzy display of emotion. Many spectators at my screening were beginning to get sick of all the camera rotation around this scene, and I smiled at how Bay got such a visceral, and real reaction from the audience with only his camera work. He is clearly an auteur to be revered.

Like any young man Sam envisions himself as the center of his fantasy world. In Sam’s fantasies he is the Christ like protagonist of some absurd struggle between warring robots. This reflects Sam’s real world responsibility as caretaker of his very very stupid parents. Intercut with heartbreaking scenes of his mother humiliating herself when Sam goes to college, are scenes of Sam rejecting his role as savior of the robots. Clearly this is all a metaphor for Sam rejecting stewardship of his childlike parents. Only when Sam’s fantasy world threatens to implode on itself in a sheer clusterfuck of amazing ridiculousity does he realize that cannot reject his duty of caring for his severely challenged parents.

Bay throws in several hints that Sam may be suffering some mental hangups himself with the portrayal of two grossly offensive illiterate stereotype robots, that seem to poke fun at how White people view Black culture, just by being so inherently thoughtless and offensive. Unfortunately the spectators at my screening seemed to think that these gross stereotypes were funny when they clearly, clearly were annoying and racist. Perhaps Bay can fix this in the just announced 5 hour long director’s cut.

Overall Transformers 2 is an excellent look at the life of a pathetic young man, and his burdensome mentally handicapped parents.

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