Sexy Shigalyov and His Turkish Coffee

Yup.

I Should Get Back To Writing Stuff Soon. But If You Want Some Mustache Fanfiction, I Think I Have You Covered With This Post.  It Took A Lot Of Time Out Of My Schedule, But I Think Everybody Will Love It. I Have A Sequel Too, But I'm Too Scared To Post It.


Deadictaed to thos peeple who made city of stones, the BEST RODIO DRAMA EVVAR!!!1

Comarade Shigalyov took a seat in his comfy and cozy chair finally relazxcing from his stresssfull day of beating everybody up beacause he is smawesome. Sighing he fell into it with vigor and the stress pooored away from him like a shedding an acron from a oak tree. He wanted to talk to his family beacausse he missed them SO MUCH but he couldt beacccuase they were farr away from him and he didn't know wwere they where beeaccsue he was fairly away in the psst frm all them peeps.

Sheigalllyov was very naked too doing all of this beecuse thats how he rolled. When he heard a knock on his front door to his rooom that he was in preseeently beeeacsue he was just so beeffy n hunky and he was a delicious sppecimen and a man of all men and everybody wanted him and he new it sincee he aw s do delivisi.

Whoopps I made a mssitake there. I ameant dto so baidniehn MY KEYBORAD IS TNOT WORKKING CORRRECTIGNKLY.

Donut you daer maek fon of m.e okat now im gonna doo the ret of the stoyr yes.

Anymor, Shehehgilav went and oppend the door and found a beaautfi mab lokngib back ant him. The man had a wondrous mustache of maginificent propositions. It would felt so nice tickling his chin. He desired it so grately it was fantastic. He stood there nekaed and the mustachioed man looked down at him and gasped with wonder! WITH WONDER!

“im Curnel Haki.” Man said,. “You are shigelyev, right?” He tried to ceep his eyes above the mans waste but could not. It was impossible. His eyes were drawn to the mans lower proportions. And how could they not be. He was fanaTSIC.

WHPOOS I HATE MY I MEAN HIT CAPLOCKS GOTTA PRESS it... okat.

Shaglove took Hakios arm and dragged him inside. “i am he.” He said. “And I want you, Mr. Hake.”

Thats whan thaere mustaches met in extasty for the first time,. It was a wondrroful feeling that meeting of mustaches. All msutaches should come togetehr in the harmony that these came together in . It would make the world a beter place and make eveelt body happier. Love. Man love is amazing. No homo.

WAIT.... my “friend” is tellibg me that manlove is homo. Oh dear. Im gonna stop and let “friend” end the rest of this. Here ya go.!

Wow, this is a pretty awful story, so I'm going to spice this biznatch up. So, Haki and Shigalyov, they're getting it on like two hardcore men like them are doing. They're making out like two mustachioed pornographers being all queer and everything. But then Shigalyov, he pulls away. Haki tells him “No” and to “keep it up”. Heh heh... But Shigalyov still plays hard (heh heh) to get. “I have a wife and I love her.” Shigalyov says. “I can't be doing these homo things with you.”

Haki is confused since Shigalyov was naked and he started it. “But I want your body.” Haki said in almost a whining tone. His mustache twitched as... man, that other dude really had a mustache fetish, huh? I'm not too partial to mustaches. Then again, I'm straight. Well, anyway, Haki still wants Shigalyov's bulging manmeat, but Shigalyov suddenly turns straight and isn't into all this stuff no more. It happens, y'know? Then he hears another knock on his door and its the sweetass and beautiful Contessa with all her bosom and everything heaving. I mean, you gotta have some kind of sweetass dame in this place if you want to have getting it on fiction. Well, the Contessa is all hot and bothered as Contessas are wont to be. I mean, hell biitches, if I was a Contessa, I'd probably be all hot and bothered too. Well, anyway, this Contessa, she's in some kind of stringy... man, it's kind of getting hot in here... I'll be back... give me a second....

what kidna shot is this? I donut like any of it. Whers all the mustachioed? Men? I want morea them and less a some werd Cuntessa whos all evil and whatbnot. All right.The contesssa leves and goesoff with soyona or mody or somehting bc those ppl donut mater nop. Only shiggy and Haks mater. An maybe some wseett syodiaaction. Yeah. I want me some nice and hunky soyida in my story. That other personb can stay away from me story. Stop with your heterosexuality and embrace the mustachioed men.

Anyway. Haki and Shiggy, their getting it on. Oh yeah. There bumping and griding and getting all the stuff DONE. Bc that hoe w they do it. Yeah, shiggy. Kepe going. MUSTACHAE> Uh... so theyre kissing all over and doin g it. What you may aks? SEX. There totttally doing sex to one another. You npow? That kind of sex that involves mostaches . Yeah. I want some hot mustache action. No homo.

Dude, no. That's really homo, aright? Seriously. Stop it. You're freaking me out. Mustaches are not hot unless you're a gay person, a white trash woman, or into racecars or porn. Seriously. I don't mind any of that, but stop saying “No homo.” It's totally homo. No lie.

Shut up, “friend”! You donunt undertsand my feeelingson the maters! So sotp youre nilllywaking!

What? Look, the story should be, all I'm saying, not all gay and everything, especially if you're not gay. You like the womanfolk then you should be writing about the womanfolk. When you write about mustachioed men getting it on, it's a little upsetting to me. Look, I'm tearing up over here.

THIs iz me storee!Stop it! Shiggy and Haki are geten it on and theats it. No womanflock or nothing. Crap, I shoud deleeet your conceveratisatiinog. But MY BACKSPICE Key donut work! And DELLLETTT is eten by my sisster. Shes gotta key fetsih sumtimes. Weird, right? NO, Cpompurter, Im not spelling “werd not like that! Yiour rwong!

SHUT UP, all you hatas! Im gonna write this fanfiction about my favotire radio dram! And you aint goong stop me! Nobodyes gonna stop me massage! So then Soadyi cum in and getsinto the mustache mixture of love. Oh yeah. And... uh... stuff happens and then they all go and smoke everthing afterwedrds! Yeah! Perfect storee 100%!

Movie Appraisal: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)

Star Wars... the original, the one that kicked off an entire franchise that nerds and normals equally love. It is a near-perfect space opera, a fantasy done in a science fiction universe with an epic story and beautifully done characters.

I was originally going to start my Star Wars movie reviews off with The Phantom Menace, but I thought that the name of that movie was so stupid that I'm going to save that when I'm feeling particularly vicious and angry at everything.

Star Wars, the original, also subtitled these days as A New Hope, and which I will abbreviate as ANH throughout this review for ease of typing since this is going to be a particularly long review, is simply a sublime movie from beginning to end. Some may say that Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is the best of Star Wars, but I tend to believe that they are objectively equal in status and quality. ANH starts off the story, it begins everything. It is a self-contained story full of great characters and situations, humor, seriousness, and many other beautiful and colorful elements. Despite the alien environments, we connect with the characters. We understand their plight.

Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill), the protagonist, is a young man working on his uncle's farm (It's a moisture farm for those of you who want to know.) who dreams of one day doing great things, going to the Imperial Academy to be trained and then defecting to the Rebellion against the Empire. He hates the Empire and everything it stands for, and our impressions of the Empire are already not good. The Empire has stormtroopers, and a big guy in a black suit and helmet named Darth Vader (David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones), who really does not really seem like a good guy. The Empire also employs only British actors, so therefore they must be evil! Seriously though, the Empire comes off as a bunch of regular bureaucrats and such working for a corrupt and often evil higher management. It almost, and I'm certain this was meant to be the case, is indicative of the Nazis. This extends to not only how they act, but the way they are dressed as well. Stormtroopers bring to mind the German Storm Troops of World Wars I and II, and Darth Vader is very reminiscent, especially in the way he acts, as being an SS officer controlling the shock troops.

This whole idea makes the entirety of ANH a fight between good and evil, and we see it as such. We are reminded of the Nazis and just how bad they are and we are made to feel a certain way about the Empire and feel pity and even hope for the small band of rebels struggling to change their galaxy. We see heroic archetypes all over the place, from Luke Skywalker being the classic hero, without a tragic flaw, ready to stand up and fight against nearly insurmountable odds, to Han Solo (Harrison Ford), the anti-heroic archetype, the rogue with a heart of gold in the end. We see that Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) is the damsel in distress as well, just like in many classic myths and stories, but the twist is that she's a strong woman, ready and very able to take care of herself in a hostile environment. This shows so much about the story and I have not even touched upon the story yet. 

The characters define the plot. Each and every character is memorable. When you think about Star Wars you generally are going to think about something in this movie, whether it be the Death Star, any of the characters or situations, or a quotation or two. That's one of the reasons this movie is so good. It is so memorable. It sticks in our heads and makes us want to fly our own Millennium Falcon, shoot down a Death Star ourselves, or join a band of freedom fighters looking to save the galaxy from oppression. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) represents an old mentor, dying before his time and giving the hero a reason to fight, a real reason, and not simply a philosophical one. He becomes the most interesting character in some ways because of his relevance and because of how he is portrayed within the film itself. I will get back to that point.


ANH takes ideas from so many other places that it is ridiculously derivative in some ways. The obvious ones are from World War II, but other ideas come from Frank Herbert's Dune in terms of Tatooine, the desert planet to "spice" and its connotation in the film, to Akira Kurosawa Samurai films, especially The Hidden Fortress (1958) where much of the ideas of the droids, the princess, and much of the main plot comes from. The droids, R2-D2, and C-3PO, are used as comic relief in some ways, but they are never unrealistic despite something like a droid not actually existing in our own world. They do things that are not impossible for a droid to be designed to do. They help make the universe of Star Wars have meaning, and it becomes defined forever as a science-fiction fantasy epic, as full of humor and social commentary as it is with heroic ideals and wonderful visuals.


You come to fall in love with each and every one of the characters in turn. Every single one means something to the story. Obi-Wan Kenobi, for example, despite being an old man full of regret, still deems it necessary to fight in any way he can. He is an old Jedi, basically a warrior-monk with a lightsaber, a sword that can cut through anything, and the Force. The Force is everything in the galaxy. It is a religion, a way of life, and source of energy and motion of the mind. Jedi can control the Force and direct it outward, either to see into the future, feel what's going on in the present, and speak with other peoples' minds across a great distance, or to use it to perform extraordinary acts, like moving something with their mind, tricking people into thinking or doing things they would not have otherwise, or simply doing something that requires an intense trust in oneself.


Getting back to Obi-Wan Kenobi as a character though, he becomes devious in the movie, moving the plot along and manipulating circumstances to get exactly what he wants. And he's a hero! You may not see it all at first, but watching it as many times as I have, I have come to see which characters are much more than they appear and which are single-minded, and none in this movie are single-minded... at least not in the bad character kind of way.

You can balance Obi-Wan Kenobi against the true villain of ANH. No, it is not Darth Vader, despite every single fanboy thinking that is the case. The real villain is Grand Moff Wilhelm Tarkin (Peter Cushing), the man who destroyed an entire planet, who had no mercy whatsoever, and who nearly destroyed another. He wanted to wipe out the Rebellion, and succeeded in wiping out a planet sympathetic to the Rebellion and what they wanted, but this also succeeded in rallying people against the Empire and what they stood for. Their show of force was countered by an equally brutal show of force when Luke blew up the Death Star moments before it would have blown up the fourth moon of Yavin where the Rebels were based.


The whole story has a very early cinema feel to it, taking things from Metropolis (1927), like C-3PO for example, and a movie like Casablanca (1942). Han Solo especially gives off the vibe of a Humphrey Bogart-like character, and the dialogue seems so natural and banter-ish, that it is easy to see where the fast-talking World War II movies had their influence here.  


The plot is so intricate and fascinating. Everything flows together, from beginning to end, shaping our perceptions and our sympathies. We have fallen in love with this film because we have had no choice. It is an objectively good film, derivative in all the right ways, new in even better ways. What is does right it does so well that it blows most other films right out of the water, and what it does wrong is very little.


I have mentioned the characters so much because those are the iconic elements from this film. Sure, there are many great plot pieces, from the Millennium Falcon and our heroes getting stuck on the Death Star, the Empire's fortress, to Obi-Wan Kenobi letting himself be struck down so that he can assist Luke in the future by being even stronger than he had been. The first shot of the movie, the VERY FIRST SHOT, tells us everything we would ever need to know about the very nearly simplistic plot of the film. The Rebels are in their blockade runner, the Tantive IV, racing away from the Empire, represented by a gigantic Star Destroyer. The Rebels have stolen the plans to the Empire's fortress and evil space station, the Death Star, that has power enough to destroy an entire planet in a single blast.

The Rebel ship is boarded and we come to see and fear the Stormtroopers and their apparent leader, Darth Vader. They make short work of the poorly equipped freedom fighters. At the same time, seamlessly integrated into these scenes are the first two major characters introduced, the droids. We sympathize with them. R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) is cocky and rebellious himself, hotheaded and ready to help in anyway he can, whereas C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) is timid, and would rather not get involved in anything too sketchy, and yet he is every bit the hero that R2-D2 is, but in a different way. He focuses more on the moment and communication, but helps in his own way throughout the film, even if its nothing more than reprimanded R2-D2. And because these droids receive our good graces, everyone associated with them gradually does too. Princess Leia, a strong female archetype from beginning to end, interacts with R2-D2 all but a moment and her status as a hero in her own right is established early on.

Then as the movie advances we meet Luke Skywalker, the new owner of the droids. We see his life, see him whine about not getting the chance to do what he wants. We get the feeling that he is being held back for some reason, but we never see why, not until the next movie at least. His Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru seem to think he would be safer away from the war and the Jedi, and yet Luke is picked up and dragged into the fray as if he were destined to be a hero from the very beginning. His uncle and aunt are ruthlessly murdered and set ablaze by the Stormtroopers looking for the information on the Death Star placed in R2-D2 by Princess Leia. With nothing left, Luke decides to fight and the plot kicks off and never stops. Obi-Wan and Luke meet a rogue with a heart of gold and his hairy co-pilot, Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and they set off on an adventure to find Alderaan, and help out Bail Organa, Princess Leia's father and a leader of the Rebellion against the Empire.


Unbeknownst to them, Alderaan is destroyed by Grand Moff Tarkin and the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ship, is taken into custody by the Imperials while our heroes go off to save the Princess and themselves. The Death Star scenes are some of my favorites, a comedy of errors and misfortunes, eventually resulting in almost all of our heroes getting away, with Obi-Wan sacrificing himself in front of Luke, I think, for the purpose of showing Luke the true evil of the Empire, and how he needs to fight them and not run away. Remember that Han Solo, before he leaves right before the assault on the Death Star, asks Luke to come with him. Maybe the outcome would have been different if Obi-Wan had not died. Maybe everything would have changed. Maybe he needed to die to cement Luke as the hero of this story rather than a simple side character. And that's the brilliance of Star Wars. The rogue comes back to save the hero and the hero succeeds and gets awarded for his bravery in the end.


The perfect ending to such a wonderful and engaging story. I could spend hours going over every aspect of this film, from the beautiful scenery, to the special effects which were amazing for their time, and, in my opinion, are still gorgeous today, even by modern standards. The aliens seen in the movie are diverse and different, giving a feel of a place so far away, but with the same problems we face. And that's the brilliance. That's the art of Star Wars. It is not about the special effects. It is not about what could not be done. Instead this movie seems to be a triumph in the idea of winning in the face of every adversity. If you go and watch a making of feature about this film, you will see just how many things the filmmakers had going against them. They were doing something completely new in some ways, the special effects were ahead of their time, the costumes, and George Lucas, the creator and director of Star Wars wanted things to go his way despite really not getting his way over many things. Some editors he worked with only wanted to do their cut of the movie rather than what he wanted. He had constant fights with the cameraman over angles and the kinds of shots he wanted. The actors more than likely improvised large portions of dialogue, and the filming off of any set was difficult. Filming in Tunisia for the Tatooine scenes were particularly trying. And maybe that's all part of it. Maybe the artistic vision needed to have setbacks, needed to have troubles. It made everybody more invested, more in love with the product they were making. It was not about being in front of a green screen on a sound stage, or inserting CGI all over the place without giving us a reason to care about the characters. No, it was a character study from beginning to end, giving us the feeling of real relationships happening between characters, real friendships either forming or being there all along. EVERY character feels real. Every plot is engaging. You can feel the budding friendship between Han and Luke, the stable friendships between Han and Chewbacca and between the droids.You can see how Luke truly respects R2-D2 and C-3PO, but also uses them as the tools they are meant to be, something we do not understand because to us the droids are every bit as much characters as Luke or Han, but in the Star Wars universe, they are machines used for doing certain things, and that is what this movie gets right. It gets the details right, the feeling right. Sure, there may be mistakes that anybody can point out, but on a whole this is one of the best movies to ever be made, both in terms of scope and in terms of quality. This is the movie that made me into a Star Wars fan to begin with, and I will always look fondly on this film, even though I have seen what Star Wars has become. To go from such amazing beginnings and to end on such a low note, to have the drivel that is coming out of the collective excrement hole of all the writers and such of Star Wars today is a sad thing to see, but I will, no, we will, always have the classic... Star Wars.

Emotion Critique: Love

So, I was told recently by the voices in my head that never stop speaking to me that today is something called "Valentine's Day", a day supposedly used for giving people generic store-bought cards, candy, and flowers that will wilt and die, much like most love will. Oh, I kind of made myself sad with that analogy. It's okay, self. You'll be okay. All you have to do is think about all the fond candy that your significant other might try to fatten you up with... and once you get fat...

Oh, look, I'm supposed to be critiquing a topic here. This one is the emotion humans call "love". What is this "love"? How do you go about making it happen? Well, I will be your guide to the "love". Yes.

Love is supposed to be one of these kinds of selfless ideas, like saving orphans from a burning building. Those orphans are never going to pay you back no matter how many times you save them. Nope, they're just going to want you to adopt them and feed them probably... and you won't know what orphans are supposed to eat and you'll give them some dog food, and then somebody will tell you that you're not supposed to feed the orphans dog food, and then you'll be all like, then what do I feed these orphans? There are so many of them and I'm not giving them my food. Then the orphans will be taken away from you, unless you're really crafty, but... uh... I'm not supposed to get into that. I had one of those things... a... uh... yeah... moving on...

Love is all about doing the right thing and not screwing up even a little. Since I'm a straight man, I'll give you a straight-manly example of screwing up love. So, let's say you go and like a chick and she likes you back and you hit it off pretty well. You're going on a date taking her to some nice Italian restaurant with some nice music playing in the background, and your orphan slave is carrying your bags... NOPE! You see? You already made a mistake, you moron!  You can't take her to an Italian restaurant! That ruins love! That's it! Love is thrown straight out the window because of your rancid garlic breath. No woman ever like rancid garlic breath and if they tell you, oh, it's not problem. I like garlic, then she is a succubus and will probably attempt to feast upon your viscera. Hint for love: Don't let this happen to you! The only known way to stop a succubus is by making terrible bird noises and poking her incessantly until she leaves, never to return probably.

Okay, so, don't look now! Love is staring at you in the face! You and your mildly disconcerting orphan slave have managed to impress a female homo sapien by taking her to a nondescript restaurant owned by a nice slick-looking man named Jimmy, and by not eating garlic or having her be a succubus. THIS MEANS YOU ARE SUCCEEDING AT LOVE.

Haters will tell you that this is untrue, that love is not a game, but they are wrong. Love, an emotional state, is a game that you WILL NEVER WIN. Don't even think you can. The only way to win is to not play at all. Well, that's not true. You can do some things to win, but I'll get to those things later.

Look, the first kiss of love is the most important thing in the world. Don't be intimidated by the female's proboscis, or her strange desire for your blood. This is only natural. Once you couple with the love-creature-female, you will only have seconds to make certain you have established that the title of lover is yours. You must hurry and deliver the stork to the messenger... if you get my meaning. *wink*

After you are finished with love, you have to run really fast or else angry love-gnomes will chase you down and beat you with aluminum bats. Yes, this is actually a part of love that many people forget. DON'T BE THE GUY OR GAL WHO FORGETS THIS IMPORTANT PART OF LOVE. Remember to bring your anti-love-gnome spray, as well as a golf club or two to take those little suckers down once and for all, those damn horrid creatures.

Oh, you don't believe all of what I say? Fine. Go ahead and love and see what happens. If it's not as bad as that then you have evidently copulated with one of the genetic mutants of the female branch of our species. If it's worse then I will pray for you because I think you are to be pitied.

The one thing I haven't mentioned is that once you have established your dominance and given the female all of your time, effort, and fortune... as well as all your "love" as if that were a quantifiable thing without the love-gnomes... then you have become the slave to her. And there is nothing you can do. You're probably not even reading this because she has already removed her chassis and is now  feasting on your organelles.

Yup. I'm not wrong even a little bit because I'm the smartest and also number one. If you disagree then you just don't understand and you're a spud of lard.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Don't let the love-gnomes get you...

La lala la la la la la la l ala la la la la al al ala la la la la la lla.

P.S. Also, from what I've seen, love also involves sparkly men and bored women. I must research this because this might be the breakthrough I've been looking for... it involves a movie-book called Twilight, and I think... well, I think to understand the love-gnomes and the females I know what I must do. I must watch this Twilight and see why it is the greatest love story in the entire world. I shall get back to you and tell you what I've learned. I am not a sparkling man or a bored woman, so I don't know how I'm supposed to fit into this "love", but I suppose it should be obvious when I watch the film. I think it will involve dumping barrels of glitter on myself and streaking through the women... all the women... it is the only thought that makes any sense at all. The movie will be interesting if it is about sparkling streaking men and bored women looking to find their glittery princes through spontaneous, and oft-times disgusting means.

P.P.S. If you disagree with me about love, write me a message, 10 words or less, telling me how and why I am wrong. If you can't prove it in 7 words than I have to say that I'm right and you're an idiot who doesn't know anything about the "love".

Movie Appraisal: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

So, here's a fun movie here that was really nice and watchable.

All right, I'm going to admit that I have no idea how to review a movie like this. I don't even know what kind of genre this is. I AM LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER REVIEWING THIS SUCKER. I'm used to horror, psychological horror, video games, horror, psychological... oh... I already said that. So, this child movie is kind of throwing me down, beating me up, and stealing all my lunch money, and I don't really know what to do. I'm basically letting this movie run off with my lunch money. I'm not even chasing the film down, tackling it to the ground, and then shoving its face in the snow, like I would do once upon a time if anybody dared to steal the lunch money of the Saquarry. I can be vicious is what I'm saying, like a small angry weasel of death come to reap your soul. Why would I reap your soul? WHY NOT?

Okay... okay... so, yeah... getting to the review... because I'm reviewing this. This is happening. I'm telling you I'm going to review a child movie full of dragons and tiny young people who kind of freak me out a little. What is with tiny young people anyway? Why are they so small and stupid? Oh, and if you are one of these children people (Children is such a stupid word.) then you should not tell me about it, because I... What am I doing here? Why am I ranting about how small things kind of freak me out? I think I'm supposed to be telling everybody reading this what I thought about this movie and probably making you either want to watch it because I'm a perverse individual full of hatred or because I'm a nice guy who thinks you'd enjoy it.

All right... All right... This is a good film. It was fun to watch. Kind of cute. I didn't mind the cuteness too much, but if there was an inch more of cuteness I would puked stakes of fire out of my nose. Yes, you don't understand. Cutesy films are not my kind of thing. This one wasn't bad though. I thought the plot was fun. The characters were interesting, but contrived. The whole Viking thing was interesting and silly, but also kind of fun as well. The imagery was pretty cool. The main dragon himself was neat, good ol' Toothless. The main character wasn't too annoying and I didn't mind him all that much.

Basically I did like this film even though it was WAY OUT OF THE WAY not my kind of genre. Basically this is about as far away from my genre of choice without getting into romantic comedy that I will allow myself to get. Romantic comedy makes me shoot suns of doom from every orifice of my body. So, I tend to avoid romantic comedies, especially those that involve that certain blonde that I'm not fond of or that guy who's in like every romantic comedy ever made who also happens to look like an absolute tool and if I knew any chick who was dating that douchebag, I would think less of her for doing so, to the point where I would disown her... even if I didn't own her in the first place... look, that's not the point. You're thinking I'm creepy, but you're not getting the point. Get the point. No, don't judge me... GET THE POINT.

Okay... is there anything else I should mention? Okay, the battle thing at the end of the movie was cool. The voices and characters and dragon design were pretty good.

Yup. That's about it.

I am so going to try and have more time this next week to actually watch something that I can actually review without making myself out to be completely out of control of every one of my faculties including mind control of myself...so, self-mind control, which should so be a thing... which it is, I guess, but it should be called that constantly.

I am so going to try and review Silver Bullet before next week arrives. I've been wanting to review that movie for months...

Movie Appraisal: Ink (2009)

Have you ever wanted to see a truly artistic film, a film that is every facet of beautiful and endearing? Have you ever wanted to fall into the realm of the story of a movie so fully that the movie seems to become real to you?

I know I speak out a ton about some of my favorite movies, and sure, maybe I'm wrong about their quality, but I enjoy them quite a bit, and this movie is in my top movies of all time. It's not because it's psychological horror or because it's Jacob's Ladder, but because this movie stands on its own. It does things I've never seen movies do before. It uses the visual effects to its advantage rather than its disadvantage like most modern movies seem to. I can compare the Star Wars prequel movies here or Transformers, movies that used special effects to look "cool" or whatever the hell they were trying to do. I don't even care because all those movies are terrible.

Ink, on the other hand, is a wonderful case of needing the visual effects for the story to be better. And the story is so absolutely stunning that I don't even have the words for it. I watched the movie for the first time about a year ago and fell in love with every aspect of it. There was not a single line that made me cringe, not a single scene that made me question the motivations of the characters or the people making this film. It comes off as a beautiful story from beginning to end, a fairy tale in some ways, and in others nothing more than a dream, but a dream with so much meaning.

Yes, I tend to like the "It was all just a dream." or "The guy was dead/dying the whole time." kind of plots. And this has elements of that, but it also has, I think, a deeper meaning than most of those types of movies. I think it is in many ways much more metaphorical, and also much more beautiful. It isn't trying to be horrifying, it's trying to tell a story, and for that I have to give it all the recommendation I can possibly give. It feels like a true hero story, from the beginning and the introduction to the characters' struggles and trials, to the middle, the darkest point, where nothing is certain, to the end where everything is resolved and you kind of just want to sit down and cry for a while because of just how sad, bittersweet, and beautiful this movie is.

Ink reminds me of What Dreams May Come quite a bit, if you've ever seen or hear of that book/movie before. The plot is somewhat similar, but flipped, and the situations are very different, but the stories end up being very similar to one another. And because What Dreams May Come is one of my favorite stories I have to say that it makes Ink that much better.

This is one of the few movies I would say benefits from its characters and story. Most movies have characters that don't matter and a story that barely exists, but this film relies so heavily on those things that it would be nothing at all without it.

I guess I should summarize the story... Anyway, there's a man who's depressed, his daughter who is taken by an ugly, scarred brute, and the being who seem to protect the people of the world. That's about all I can say. I hate giving the story or plot of this movie away. It's better to watch it than have me reveal all of its secrets. The movie is actually free to watch online. I don't think the filmmakers charge anything to watch it, or at least they didn't back when I watched it the first time.

This is truly one of my favorite movies and I think it should be required watching for every single living person. It's simply that good.

One thing I do have to say is that I was checking this film's Wikipedia page, and it told me that this film's genre is science fiction and fantasy. It's not. Wikipedia lies so badly it actually makes me want to rage throw Wikipedia out of a window. This film is very psychological and very dreamlike, but there is absolutely no sci-fi anywhere in this, and the fantasy element is less fantasy and more straight psychological metaphor. I would group this film much closer to the Silent Hill movie, for instance, than to Inception, just because of the metaphorical ideas presented within. I don't think the meaning of the movie is pointedly hard to get or anything, but it seems like a lot of people really don't understand this film when it's actually quite easy to see what it's about if you pay any attention at all. I guess I think that most people don't really get a movie like this because they're too stupid to actually pay attention to anything for a few minutes straight without wanting something to explode or a big famous actor to come on screen or something. Society makes me sick.

This film is such a wonderful experience. It made me, the harsh cynical Saquarry, who hates everybody and everything, really want to give everybody a collective hug and kind of tear up a little and pretend I had something in my eye... because I did have something in my eye, all right? I was totally not crying. My point is that this is a feel-good movie with elements of being bittersweet. It's the movie equivalent of hugging a cute puppy.

Now, go watch this film. No, stop reading this and go watch it. You're wasting your time and mine continuing to read this when you should be watching the film and doing something productive. Fine, I'll stop and you can go and watch it and you can tell me how right I was and I can act smugly superior for a while.

Yeah.

Video Game Assessment: Portal (2007)

So, when I think of a wonderful and nearly perfect video game, Portal is it. I'm not going to go ranting and raving about how good this game is because every other reviewer worth anything has said the same thing. This game is amazingly fun. It's a puzzle game that's unlike anything you have ever seen before. It has amazing graphics, a wonderful pace, and an interesting story presented in an extremely memorable way.

Basically the point of the game is to go through a series of "test chambers" and complete puzzles while a female computerized voice (named GLaDOS) gives you advice and kind of helps you throughout the different chambers eventually leading to... well, I'm not going to spoil that...

The premise of the puzzles is that you have to use a gun that creates a "portal" between two different places in the chamber and use combinations of gravity, inertia, and general physics to solve the different puzzles.

Valve created this game and it does use the same kind of graphics and physics engine that Half-Life 2 does. It looks incredibly good and is an incredibly fun game to play. Its short length (I can beat it in about ninety minutes or so.) really does leave you wanting more, and not many games today do that. Most games seem to overstay their welcome while Portal doesn't in the slightest, which is probably why there is a sequel coming out soon... the demand for this type of game is huge.

I'm not going to say much more. If you haven't heard of this game, you really should look into it, and if you have then you don't need me to tell you how good it is. If you like games and haven't played this one, what the hell are you waiting for? If you don't like games, I still recommend trying Portal out. It's fun and intelligent, and really is one of the best video games out there PERIOD. I mean, it's an incredible game and needs to be seen to be truly believed.

This is one of my favorite video games. I really enjoy it. Check it out if you get the chance. Just remember that (I'm going to smack myself after saying these memes, but I think it will be worth it because this is a review dammit.) "the cake is a lie" and that you have to kill your best friend, the companion cube. Also, you're a monster.

There, are those enough memes? Can I stop now? Yeah, now you're thinking with portals...

Movie Appraisal: Deathwatch (2002)

Deathwatch is an interesting take on the psychological horror genre. I won't say that this is the psychological horror film to end all psychological horror films, nor will I say that it's better than a ton of the mainstays of the genre like Jacob's Ladder, 1408, and Sauna, but I will say that this is a good film for satisfying a bit of a psychological horror junkie.

The film takes place in World War I in the trenches and follows around soldiers from Great Britain as they fight their way through the Germans. The movie has an interesting cold opening followed by a very different kind of set piece altogether. You might think that this is a film about war, and to a point you would be correct, but this is a film about war like Sauna and The Objective are movies about war. There's no real war that we see on screen, rather most of the movie shows us imagery of war and the horrors one could see, from madness, to losing limbs, to forgetting God, to being shellshocked, and others. I feel that this movie shows a decent psychological approach to war, especially World War I and its trench warfare and lack of good medicine.

The barbed wire imagery is especially telling, and I feel it makes this movie even better. I'm not going to praise this movie up and down. There's a lot wrong here even if some of it is done pretty well. The acting is decent, but some of the actors are better than others. Andy Serkis really stands out in his part, blowing away the other actors in this by a long shot. The CGI stuff (I suspect it's CGI at least.) looks pretty fake, but then again this is a 2002 movie, and I guess I can forgive it a bit, since it alternates between looking really good and looking pretty bad. The fog effects are sometimes very good and other times pretty awful.

There are gore effects well, and I do understand why they're there, but I also think some of it was completely gratuitous. I feel that the filmmakers really shied away from very visceral imagery, but at the same time seemed to revel in gore, which makes absolutely no sense if you haven't seen the film. I almost feel like they showed us the wrong scenes as gory save one towards the end that I felt was especially justified to show. Most of the gory scenes felt tacked on and needless where a lot of the scenes that should have had gore shown in them really did shy away from the gore. It really made no sense to me, especially in a horror movie like this.

The cinematography is decent, but not amazing. This is not a masterful psychological horror movie, just an interesting and decent one. Most of the scares come early on in the movie as does most of the atmosphere. By later on the movie really kind of loses all suspense and becomes a glorified slasher film which really took a lot away from this film. It was too predictable, too easy to figure out. There were no interesting twists or turns, no huge revelation, no interesting plot. If you've seen any given psychological horror movie, you've seen this one. The thing going for this one is that it's different. The characters are interesting, it takes place during World War I, and it has a lot of war imagery when most psychological horror doesn't. That's not necessarily a huge plus in my mind, but I do think this movie really does work decently and was kind of enjoyable if not even close to the best film of its genre.

There's not much more I can really say. The ending was silly, the story moved slowly despite being a short film, and I never really felt engaged with anything besides Andy Serkis who was playing, like always, a crazy person.

Man, if I could I would just make a movie about Andy Serkis flipping out. I could watch that guy flip out all day. The best parts of the movie for me were him flipping out at people. I can't stress that enough. If you have some kind of deep Andy Serkis flipping out fetish, this is the movie for you, otherwise just go watch Jacob's Ladder since it's a better war-driven psychological horror movie by far.

Movie Appraisal: Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

"There is no way out of here. It will be dark soon. There is no way out of here."

You said it, Torgo. I don't think I'll ever be able to get this film out of my head. It's like a disease that won't let up... It's like I've watched the movie in The Ring except it's not some creepy little fifty pound girl who's going to come out of my television and get me, it's a brain aneurysm caused by anger and confusion over this film and just how bad it was.

I watched this film not knowing what to expect. I knew it was bad... Hell, I knew it was REALLY BAD, but I thought that maybe somebody got it all wrong... maybe they didn't know what they were talking about and this is really and fantastic and underrated gem of a movie. No... no... It's not. Don't watch this film. Don't even think about watching it. It's not fun, not enjoyable... it's like getting repeatedly stabbed in the chest with all the pain that entails, without dying, and also being completely bored and wishing you could just end it all right there and then.

Am I even making sense anymore? Okay, this film, nowhere near as bad as the abomination that is Space Thunder Kids, but it's bad. The film is amateurish, and is shot like a really bad high school student film. The acting, although bad, is actually usually palatable when the main female lead isn't on screen. The main female lead, I believe her name is Margaret or Maggie... possibly both... I don't know or care and I'm not going to use my brain to think about it... well, she happens to be my least favorite character is any film I have ever seen. I wanted her to suffer in a way I've never wanted any character to suffer. Useless doesn't describe her... I want a word that is more intense to describe her... rocklike... a big sack of nothing... DAMMIT, WOMAN! Why couldn't she do anything? Why did she get tired constantly? Did she have brittle bone disease? Some kind of horrible disease that make her weaker than a newborn kitten that also happens to have no legs, and may in fact be pond scum. THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!!! I hate that woman so much! She gives human beings a bad name. No, Maggie, when it seems like some creepy guy might try to take advantage of you, you do not just stand there staring at him awkwardly, not backing away or trying to get away at all... you don't do absolutely nothing... The only thing that saved you was that Torgo was a decent dude, who although a bit of a moron himself, was smarter than your stupid idiotic self. WHY THE HELL DID YOU KEEP CHANGING YOUR STUPID MIND ABOUT WHERE TO GO AND WHAT TO DO!!?!? Why did you fall on the ground every five seconds? Were you that tired? How can any human be that tired and not be on a freaking respirator in some hospital somewhere looking for a lung transplant or dying of awful cancer or something. I'm not even saying this in jest. What the hell was that woman doing?

Moving on, I need to talk about some of the positives of this film to get the awful taste out of my mouth. I liked the music mostly, believe it or not. It was pretty decent and it set the mood pretty well. Torgo, the caretaker of... wherever they were... was pretty awesome. I would have watched a film of him just talking or doing stuff. Hell, a film of Torgo doing his taxes would have been more enjoyable than this. The Master's mustache was pretty awesome. I think that's it for positives.

Since most of this film is made out of negatives, it's really hard for me to precisely focus on what the worst things are, although I am damn well going to try.

The dubbing was awful. The cinematography (That is way too technical a word to call the crap that is this film.) is atrocious. I'm pretty certain every cut is awful... right before the editing cut the character might be running away and then it cuts and the character has stopped, turned around INSTANTANEOUSLY and looks very comfortable talking to another character.

I've never seen a movie make a cat fight (and by "cat fight" I mean women fighting each other for some reason only they seem to know) unappealing and frankly weird. It was awkward and uninteresting. I'm not the kind of dude who even cares about stuff like that because it's sexist or whatever... but I was bored to tears of the movie by this point, and I see that these chicks are going to start fighting and I start thinking, "Man, this might get at least a little fun to watch." No. It wasn't fun. It wasn't fun at all. It was like watching grass grow. Worse. It was worse than watching grass grow.

The movie was boring, made no sense, had little to no quality to it... had stupid women... stupid men... stupid everything... and I just... I want it to end! Stop playing those images in my head! Torgo, save me!

I can praise Torgo. He was really the sole saving grace of this film. (Okay, he didn't save it, but I enjoyed when the dude was on screen.) He really was the only decent thing to see here and I thought he was entertaining.

Okay, on to more negatives: "Well, sound does travel a long way at night." 

.....what.....? 

...what...? 

WHAT!? 

I don't think night has anything to do with the way sound travels, genius. I don't think darkness or light HAS ANYRHIGB TO DO WITHT HE WAY SOUND TRAVELS.  I know there are typos there in the previous sentence. I don't even care. I can't type without almost throwing my computer across the room I'm so angry at that STUPID line. So, that's the best I can do without breaking anything. I'm not ever reading that sentence again because I'll probably start spitting blood out of every orifice in my body hoping I can create a rage explosion rather than just plain flipping out and watching my brain rip itself out of my head and hunt down the actor who said that line, living or dead, and telling him about simple physics and sound waves... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'M GOING TO THROW MY TOASTER THROUGH DEATH ITSELF BECAUSE OF THIS MOVIE!!!

Okay... hey, Torgo... no, I'm fine. I'm fine. Thanks, buddy... No, I'm calm. Look, I'm very calm. Okay... yeah... Do I need to keep going, Torgo? Please, I want to stop. I don't want to remember anything else...

Okay... okay... you're right... I'm almost done. I'm almost done...

So, the noises in this "film" are atrocious. There's an EXPLOSION at the end that's supposed to be thunder and instead sounded like nuclear fusion. I seriously thought that the shack had been H-bombed out of existence... not even kidding. Oh, and earlier in the film some... uh... I'm going to say that they were supposed to be animal noises... were going on, and it sounded like a whole bunch of people were howling and vomiting off-screen. They must have been watching the finished version of this film because those were the exact EXACT sounds that I was making after I saw this film.

This movie is more of a comedy than... uh... whatever it was supposed to be. There were a few times I laughed, but I don't think I was supposed to laugh. I don't think I was meant to laugh. I don't think they wanted me to laugh... I don't want to laugh anymore... TORGO! TOrgo, I don't want to laugh anymore! Make them stop... I don't... no... no... The movie's not funny, Torgo... It's a bad film... full of bad people... bad everything... I want it all to stop. WHERE'S MY TOASTER!? I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU DOWN, MASTER!!!!

Give me a second.

Okay... okay... Torgo gave me a strange look and now I feel a little better. DO YOUR TAXES, TORGO! I'LL BE FINE HERE REVIEWING THIS MOVIE!!

So, a lot (and when I say "a lot" I simply mean, "more than there ever should have been") of the film has a couple making out in a car and drinking... at various different times... and the police come and tell them off... Why not, I guess? I guess it makes sense. (No, it doesn't. it has nothing to do with any of the main story of the film and is, in the end, completely useless and astoundingly stupid.)

Torgo, I think that's the end of my review. Are you proud of me for keeping my sanity?

Movie Appraisal: Inception (2010)

Okay, I have to collect my thoughts after watching this film. Wow. Just wow. I'm almost speechless. This film was beautiful and extremely well done. This is the kind of movie that every single movie should be. It was wonderful from beginning to end. It surprised me... no, it stunned me. I was expecting something decent and kind of watchable, something like the other films of Christopher Nolan (the director), like Memento or, God help me, The Prestige, neither of which I liked very much. This film was sublime. It was long, but never felt long. It was beautiful and always felt real even though most of it took place within dreams.

It was an exciting experience from beginning to end. The storytelling was top-notch even if it was predictable. (And it was predictable, incredibly predictable.) That's not necessarily a bad thing though. I thought that the film going the way it did was the only way the film could have possibly worked. Any deviation and the film would have been phenomenal and especially not to me.

I'm not saying this is a perfect film, and sure I can criticize and nitpick some small things. The beginning of the film goes very slowly. Some of the characters feel a little thin and kind of unreal, and the whole science-fiction premise is kind of barely based in real science at all. Despite those tiny... and I do mean tiny... flaws, the film is wonderful. Due to the nature of the film and the interpretations you could come out of the film with, the characterizations could make PERFECT sense, as can the slow start, and even the science-fiction premise.

I like films like this. Actually these are the films I not only like, but really love. They are vague and have a huge amount of interpretations and conclusions. This is why I love Jacob's Ladder and 1408 and speak of how good those films are at every turn. Those films have multiple interpretations. They both have such odd things happening that it's hard to believe they are happening in reality. Inception is exactly the same even if it isn't a horror film. It deals with the same arguments of fantasy versus reality and the real versus the unreal. It doesn't show all its hand, and it proves, in my opinion, that even a popular movie can be intelligent and philosophical, unlike drivel like The Matrix.

The story is basically one of a man, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), trying to find a way back to a normal life after finding himself in a bit of a bind. He is a professional dream thief with his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). They essentially try to steal information from people in their dreams by making a dream world and breaking down a person's mental defenses.

The story unfolds and we find out that Cobb wants to reunite with his children whom he is estranged from for various reasons that I'm not going to spoil. Cobb isn't allowed into the United States for a certain reason and soon after Cobb and Arthur's job fails, the person who they were supposed to steal information from, Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), approaches them with a new contract. They accept and the story unfolds from there, bringing other characters into the fold such as Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusef (Dileep Rao), and Ariadne (Ellen Page). (I like how they named her Ariadne since she's "spinning" the web of the dream. Really big pun there, folks.)

The story is labyrinthine and beautiful, a tale being woven together through dreams. As the characters go deeper into the dreams, we, the audience, go deeper as well. We learn the secrets as characters learn the secrets... we feel their pain, know their confusion, fight their fight. It's beautiful and satisfying in every sense of those words. I found myself utterly taken in by the plot, following it as closely as a deer follows headlights. What I'm trying to say is that the story is wonderful and brilliant. It's incredibly hard to find something I dislike here. I love the vagueness of it all. I love how some things don't seem to make a ton of sense. I love how some things aren't explained.

Hell, this movie can make a great comparison piece to Black Swan. This movie succeeded where that one failed. This movie left me wanting so much more whereas Black Swan told me way too much. This movie was visually stunning, but didn't rely on that alone, whereas Black Swan only had visuals to fall back upon because its psychological and plot elements were badly done. The film is so much better than Black Swan that it's hilarious. To me this isn't so much a comparison as it is a slaughter. Inception wins by a landslide.

Another obvious film to compare this to is What Dreams May Come, a beautiful movie that shares some similar elements to this film. I don't even really want to go into it that deeply because both films are so beautiful and stunning that I'd rather not spoil anything about them. If you've seen both films, you already know what my comparisons are, and if you haven't seen both films, then go see them immediately, you stupid fool.

There I go calling my readers "stupid fools". Oh, well... can't do much about it now. It's not like I can just erase it or anything... well, I can, but... then I'd have to move my finger and everything... *sigh*... I simply can't be bothered.

I'm going to gloss over the visual effects here. The movie is beautiful, enough said, but it's not the visuals of this movie that make it beautiful, it's the story, the subtle art of the cinematography, the wonderful editing, the great direction, and the amazing acting. Everything comes together and creates a world and a story that I find hard to look away from. This is a movie I didn't want to end because I wanted to see more. I wanted more to happen... and yet it ended exactly where and how it should and left me smiling.

I do have to mention the acting again. It is superb. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Leonardo DiCaprio both really did an amazing job, as did Ellen Page. I've never even seen her in anything before, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt for that matter either, and they both do a wonderful job. It was wonderful to see Ellen Page's awe as she descends into the dream for the first time. And watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt was fantastic. He had an interesting character with a unique outlook. He was pretty cool.

Okay, I'm practically gushing over this film... but, to me, it really is that good. I would happily watch this Inception over and over again, like I would do with Jacob's Ladder, 1408, and Stay if I had the time. It's such a beautiful piece, both psychologically and emotionally, as well as visually, and it's kind of inspiring to know that a film like this can go on to not only be made, but to do well in popular opinion. I haven't even touched upon some of my favorite sequences, as the team, gradually decreasing, goes from a dream into a dream within a dream and into a dream within that dream and so on. It works out so well, showing the tension  on every level of the different dreams. Some of the emotional bits towards the end are absolutely fantastic and beautiful (I keep using that word!) and work so well in my opinion. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but if you have a heart at all you have to empathize with Cobb and maybe even want to cry a little bit... not that I did for I am a man, but it does get kind of sad, you know? And I wouldn't necessarily blame even a manly man for crying a little tear out of his eye a little bit at the ending sequences... Yeah...

Anyway, I'm going to stop gushing. Go and watch this film. It's really good and really fun and pretty darn wonderful. It was a great film experience. It made me happy.

Movie Appraisal: Black Swan (2010)

So, I went to my annual movie theatre trip tonight and saw Black Swan. It's actually great timing that I saw it when I did because I can compare the movie to Pandorum which I saw earlier today.

Black Swan is a film that has received critical acclaim. The critics absolutely love it. It has cinematography of an art film, but the genre of a psychological film, and some very good acting performances. What I have to ask is why. Why does this film get such good ratings and Pandorum doesn't? This film was well done, but certainly nowhere close to perfect. Darren Aronofsky is a good filmmaker, but he does seem to have issues with certain things. I can safely say that the man likes making his movies into art, and also that I really don't like the endings of the man's films.

The plot here doesn't really even matter. There's a production of Swan Lake by a ballet company and Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a quiet ballet dancer who really wants the role as the Swan Queen. That's about all you need to know about the plot. We're introduced to a few issues throughout, such as some possible emotional problems Nina might have, as well as the demanding pressures of her part and how she wants herself to be perfect.

The psychological aspects of this film come out as Nina changes from the person she has always been to somebody else. Certain themes pervade the film, such as sexuality and lust, a darker half of oneself, and going mad. The sex theme is probably the most interesting to explore. It seems that Nina's introduction to "exploring" herself releases something inside of her, maybe something that had long been hidden away. She becomes empowered as she finds her lusts, but also self-destructive. This is an almost purely psychological film, showing madness as something that can warp one's own reality. I find the idea fascinating, but the execution seems to be lacking.

The acting was very well done. The cinematography was superb. The dancing was beautiful. Hell, most of the scenes in this film look more beautiful than real life. My problem is that the actual film is all over the place. Hectic would be a good word to describe it. The film doesn't have the focus it should have. It focuses on the plot rather than Nina's psychology, which actually takes away from the message the movie was trying to get across. The psychological elements in this film are where the real interest lies, but they're often not really touched upon, or very vaguely shown. I feel like this kind of film needs to either embrace the psychological elements of the film or scrap them... and I feel this film took a very middle of the road approach, which didn't work out.

I look at how wonderful Pi was. It explored the human psyche and the insanity of the mind, and if this film were more like that this could have been great... but instead this film focused too much on an uninteresting plot and psychological details that either went nowhere or were done badly.

I do have my complaints about this film about what it should have done... as well as what it did wrong, but I did enjoy it, maybe not as much as Pi or even Pandorum, but it was really well done. The shots were beautiful. The actors looked like real people in a real story. I liked it... well, I liked it pretty decently until the ending. I don't know what it is about Aronofsky, but any movie he makes I hate the ending of. The last fifteen or twenty minutes of this film was kind of stupid. I loved the last shot and some shots in between, but I found the whole ending sequence fairly stupid and easily predictable. I'm not going to spoil anything. I'm simply going to say that I didn't like it and do not think it worked at all. At a basic level, with a movie with as much realism as this movie showed, the ending should have been better than what they had come up with.

I did like the different aspects of Nina shown in this film though, as well as the beautiful and creepy shots involving mirrors. I thought those were extremely well done. The whole dual nature really was wonderful to see and easily one of my favorite parts of this film. My favorite part of this movie was honestly some of the shots that felt derivative from other, better films... one in particular that I swear was stolen straight out of David Cronenberg's The Fly. I also liked the creepy little man on the subway. Man, he was awesome... and I also felt he was indicative of Nina's own sharp madness by that point in the movie, brought out by newly found lusts, a darker nature, and her own loss of innocence.

This film could have been so much better. It could have been better than Jacob's Ladder, and yet it fumbled in the end-game. The ending made me cringe when it should have made me cry.

I would rather see Pandorum again over this movie any time... and that's why I feel that the critic rating system fails. Yeah, this was a very well made movie, but at times it didn't quite hit my enjoyment center. It didn't speak to me like Jacob's Ladder did. After seeing this film I told one of my friends that I saw it with, "This movie would have been excellent if it had been more like Jacob's Ladder." and I'm sticking with that thought. if Jacob's Ladder is the pinnacle of psychological films then this film is a nice little peak far under it. It's not that it's bad. It's only that there are many other films, especially psychological films, that are better. Go watch Jacob's Ladder if you want a fantastic psychological film. Go watch this film if you want to see some top-notch cinematography. Again, I'd still watch Pandorum over this movie any time.

Critics are morons.

Book Evaluation: 'Salem's Lot (1975) by Stephen King

I may have spoken of this in my first October Nights review of the television movie Salem's Lot, but since I don't remember, I'll reiterate myself for the masses, yes, the absolute masses of people reading my reviews. 'Salem's Lot is my absolute favorite Stephen King novel. To me, this novel is better than anything else he has ever written. Now, also keep in mind that this was the second novel he ever wrote. Yeah... yeah... I hope you understand where I'm going with this.

Now, it's not that I don't like a lot of his other books because that is grossly untrue and I'd probably go berserk for even trying to think it. Some of his other novels are fantastic. Duma Key and The Dark Tower series come especially to mind, but I also love many of his other works. Some of his short stories and novellas are absolutely brilliant as well, but I'll get into more detail about them when I review some of them whenever I do that. I will say that some of his legitimate novels are absolute rubbish and that I'm not afraid to say that. Actually many of his better known works tend to really rub me the wrong way.

Getting back to 'Salem's Lot though, this novel is his best to me for many reasons. It may not be as perfectly written as many of his later novels, it may not be as subtle nor as creepy as his other novels, and it deals with vampires, something that Stephen King has had almost nothing to do with before or since except in a few Dark Tower novels for brief periods. So, what makes this novel my favorite? What makes me love this novel more than the rest? What draws me back for more?

Well, one of my favorite novels has always been Bram Stoker's Dracula. I love that novel. I'm pretty certain it is the perfect vampire novel. I happen to like vampires. I think I mentioned that in my freaking review of vampires. They are my favorite presumably not real creature/horror monster. I think the idea of them is fantastic and works so well as something both exciting and creepy. That isn't to say that vampire fiction is all good. It mostly sucks. (Ha ha ha...) I make a stupid pun, but I mean it. Vampire fiction is mostly terrible, but the few shining gems really did make an impression on me.

'Salem's Lot is, at a basic level, a retelling of Dracula with a modern day small town instead of some British gentlemen and a castle. It also doesn't set itself up to be a vampire story. In fact, the whole story is set up to be a haunted house story. It seems like everything is leading up to the Marsten house and finding out that the place is haunted and everything, but no, Stephen King does something nobody reading that book would have ever expected: He brings a random vampire named Barlow into the mix along with his creepy hairless familiar-thing, Straker. Now, that actually sounds awful, but it works in the book. It really does.

The characters are absolutely fantastic as long as the character isn't one of the three leads. Ben Mears, Mark Petrie, and Susan Norton (the three leads) are the worst characters in this novel. They really come off as very one-dimensional characters, but that's okay, since some of the best Stephen King characters ever come out of this novel: Father Callahan, Doctor Jimmy Cody, Matt Burke... these characters are the reasons that the novel holds up so well. They work so beautifully in the world this novel takes place in.

This novel also happens to be Stephen King's first novel to focus on an entire town rather than a few individual characters... It is, in style, a lot like Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, and, seen in a grander scale, The Stand. It was the first time Stephen King used this style and it works here better than the rest of his novels in my opinion. It works really well, I think, because the main character here is the town itself. Yeah, that sounds a little crazy coming from me, but that's exactly how it feels. 'Salem's Lot is its own entity, a town already cursed by many things, becoming gradually less human because of a vampire outbreak and possibly its own disease. The town is diseased, you see. It's cursed and everything. That's why Barlow comes to the town. That's why he picks that town to feed. Or at least that's what we can assume. It sounds good though, doesn't it? It gives the vampire some motivation, some characteristics. He's drawn to a place of evil. So, in many ways the novel is a haunted house story... or rather a haunted town story.

I'm sure a more astute person could write essays on how 'Salem's Lot is a metaphor for the degradation and falling apart of small town America, or that it says things about AIDS, or some similar kind of STD that vampirism usually suggests. These are apt metaphors, and work really well, but I'm not really into examining something with that much academic acumen. I think a vampire is a vampire and the town is a town. You see bad towns from time to time. Who's to say some vampire won't try to make it his own village of the damned?

Why would Barlow do it anyway? I mean, what's his motivation here? Is he trying to create an army? His own town? A vampire refuge? It doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess he could have been really inept and couldn't control the very vampires he made, and they in turn started turning everybody else into vampires. That explanation works, but really takes away from Barlow as a character. I guess the more apt thing to say is that Barlow just wanted to screw up things in the town of 'Salem's Lot. He wanted to go and mess everything up and destroy the town. I guess that makes sense. But what would have happened once he finished with the town? Would he have moved on? Huh... that actually sounds really cool...

I guess my point is that this is a novel that should be read by pretty much anybody who likes old-fashioned vampire stories. I think this is one of the legitimate best novels I have ever read and really does work quite well. I love this novel. I love so much about it. Sure, it has its flaws, but it does work very well, and holds up very well despite being written thirty-six years ago. Hell, the idea of small-town America and its portrayal sounds exactly like it does today.

I love this novel and I have to add that again. Go ahead and check it out. I'd rather not tell the story again or spoil this novel for you. Check it out for yourself if it sounds interesting. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Video Game Assessment: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009)

After the abomination and train-wreck that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, don't you just want to relax with some good treasure-hunting that doesn't involve stupid plots, terrible CGI, Shia LeBeouf, or a guy escaping at ATOMIC BOMB by hiding in a friendly refrigerator. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, an action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Entertainment for the PlayStation 3 (PS3), is as close to a good Indiana Jones story as we're going to get without Indiana Jones. This video game is at a very basic level Indiana Jones in its better days crosses with something like National Treasure, but without being National Treasure. It's also a video game, and adventure really does seem to translate better in video game format than in movie format. I guess it's one of those things. How many other really good adventure movies are out there besides Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and The DaVinci Code... and even most of those aren't good by any stretch of the imagination. I do like the first three Indiana Jones movies. They're fun rides and that's what this game is. It's an action-adventure styled in the good parts of the adventure genre.

I liked this game. I liked it a lot. I thought it had a lot of very interesting stuff in it. It had interesting villains, heroes with motives beyond simple video game or movie logic, and banter that was incredibly well done. The gameplay was fluid, and the cover-based combat was mostly pretty good besides a few exceptions which I'll get to.

Honestly though, I don't think this game is about the gameplay mechanics or the combat, the shooting, or the leaping around like a gigantic monkey. (I'll get to that too...) This game is about the story. It's about the characters. Those are the things that make this game every bit as memorable as something like Indiana Jones, because there are characters that are memorable, situations that are fun and interesting without being stupid or absolutely unrealistic. The world feels real. Hell, with the graphics on this thing, the world looks more real than real life. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous. I've heard the term "scenery porn" thrown around talking about this game and it's a good description. The scenery here is simple breathtaking. If I weren't actually trying to beat the game and kill the bad guys in the game I could just stop and stare at the beautiful mountains and forests that this game has to offer. Oh, and the rain and snow! I've never seen rain and snow really captured like it is in the game. It looks like real rain and snow, and also acts like real rain and snow. I guess my final word on this matter is that this game is visually stunning and can really show what our current generation consoles are capable of.

Now, getting back to the critiques and analyses of the actual game... Uncharted 2 was called, by most, the game of the year for 2009, and now I see that it was for good reason. With the varied environments, great character interactions, great shooting mechanics, and great story, it's hard to see another clear contender for the best game of 2009. I'd nominate Dragon Age: Origins, but that game also had some weird bugs in the system, and had mostly terrible gameplay and graphics, and the story was nowhere near as epic as Uncharted 2. I liked Dragon Age a lot, but it's nowhere near the level of what Uncharted 2 is.

Now, I'd never call this game sublime or wonderful. Maybe it was the difficulty setting I had the game set to, or maybe it was that I was being constantly distracted by the pretty colors in the environments, but I was constantly dying. Most of death of poor Nathan Drake (the player character) were because I had no idea where the hell I was supposed to jump to. And now I get to the real meat and potatoes of my annoyances with the game and why it could never be one of my favorites despite all of the praise I gave it. The jumping mechanics, although fun at first, do tend to get old very quickly. Yes, game, I understand how to jump. I don't need to have a jumping puzzle that takes me an hour to get through involving a bunch of clockwork gizmos. Yes, it looks very cool, but Nathan Drake must have jumped or fallen to his death in the one huge jumping puzzle I'm describing a good... oh, let's be conservative and say twenty times. I'm not saying that the jumping puzzles are hard exactly, but it can be really hard to see where the hell you're supposed to jump to, and you pretty much only have the option of trial-and-error, where error is Nathan Drake's death. I think if the game had fewer stupid jumping puzzles I'd have less a huge issue with the game.

As for other issues, why did I have to do the same jumping puzzle twice? It's not as if I screwed it up badly the first time I did it. Why do you want me to waste time seeing something you already brought to my attention? I don't forget things right after I play them. And the fact that I can go back and play the chapter again in freeplay mode... well, I guess I don't quite understand why I had to do it again... That made me ornery.

Also, some of the levels seem to be reminiscent of other older games... hell, most of this game reminds me of a game I played on the PlayStation 2 a few years ago called Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. This game could be a remake of that game. They share a lot of similar environments and set pieces... they even set off to similar areas with similar goals in mind. There are jumping puzzles in each game too... sometimes terrible jumping puzzles... jumping puzzles that will haunt me...

There's a train level... and what I mean by that is a level that takes place on a moving train... that takes place about halfway through the game. I hate that level and all levels like it. I played Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire back in the day on my good old Nintendo 64. I remember that stupid train level. This level in Uncharted 2 was as annoying as that one was. Hell, I'm pretty sure levels like that must come with the genre. I don't remember if Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb has a train sequence, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had that train chase sequence at the beginning of the movie...

Those are a few complaints that I've found about this great game... and even though I complain, I played through those levels to get to the parts I wanted to play. Now, I was also playing on a hard difficulty setting. Maybe parts of the game would have been much more enjoyable if I had played it on a leisurely easy setting, but being the hardcore man that I am, I had to play it on hard and subsequently died a lot, although honestly the things that killed me mostly probably had nothing to do with the difficulty settings... mostly jumping. I died a lot while jumping... or when I tried to get Drake behind cover or over cover and he wouldn't listen and died from a shot to the back.

I am going to tell one hilarious anecdote that happened during the final boss fight. I was fighting the final boss (fairly obvious from when you first meet him that he'll be the final boss) and as I was fighting him I jumped and landed on his head and directly next to a vine. Drake looked like he was falling, flailing his arms about and everything, but he was just hanging in midair. It was hilarious. I died, obviously, but it was worth it to see the game bug out like that. I guess my point is that sometimes there can be really funny bugs in video games.

I guess my ultimate assessment of this game is that although flawed in small ways, it is both beautifully stunning and enjoyable. It's an Indiana Jones of the modern age, when current Indiana Jones is awful and we have nothing else to hold on to except a smug man named Nathan Drake and his adventures finding old stuff. I'd go and play this game a million times over rather than watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that insipid piece of garbage.

Animal Contemplation: Squirrel

The squirrel, nature's evil nut-collecting rodent. I'm not going to go on a crazy megalomaniac rant about how I think squirrels are out to get me or why you should fear these cute balls of absolute terror, why you should lock your doors, run, hide, get out the anti-squirrel spray, and pray for a zombie apocalypse to kill these suckers off. I'm not going to start raving like a lunatic and waving my hands around saying things like squirrels are the most evil animal in the world and have attacked me on numerous occasions appearing much smarter than I would have ever thought. They seem to know how to team up with one another... and even worse, they seem to know how to enact revenge against a singular entity. I'm not going to say those things because it will probably take away all of my internet credibility and make me into a laughingstock amongst my peers and then... and then...

Wait, I don't care. I did a review on the majestic pangolin once. I think I'm shameless already. So, I guess the squirrel-lawyers should bust out their legal books and sue me for libel, because I'm about to shoot some possibly libelous TRUTH at my readers.

Look at that face. It's the face of pure evil.

I guess instead of doing something cool and neat like the rest of you hip people for a "new year", I'm going to inform you on the horrible things squirrels are and what they do. You think they only have cute little faces and store those nuts in their cheeks, and are sometimes really fat and kind of wobble when they walk... and you basically have to laugh at them or feel like you're going to explode... well, you're wrong! WRONG, I SAY! Squirrels are masterminds of the highest echelon, born from constant hate and an irrefutable passion for said hatred. Oh, don't even tell me I'm wrong. Have you ever seen one of their overly cute faces with their big eyes just look at you? They stare blankly at you, STEALING YOUR VERY SOUL! Oh, you think I'm kidding, don't you? Well, I ask you one thing, have you ever stared in a squirrel's black eyes long enough to find out? Would you like to after hearing all of this? would you chance it? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I can tell you stories about squirrels, terrible war stories about what they've done to me, how they've accomplished their goals of ruining whatever life I could have had. I've barricaded myself inside of a small room for years now. I don't go out, I barely eat, and I never sleep. I have these monitor devices watching the perimeter... telling me when the squirrels are active. They watch me all the time...

OH NO! A squirrel just went past my window. Oh dear... AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

LOOK AT THE EYES

Whoops... my finger seemed to just hit the "H" and exclamation mark key a ton. Sorry about that. The squirrel went away. It was a false alarm. See these little creatures used to attacked me. They've made concerted efforts to make my life miserable. Every bad and terrible thing that has ever happened in history has involved squirrels. Adolf Hitler-Squirrel, Josef Squirrelin, the Squirrelocaust, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Squirrels Booth, a squirrel biting my finger that one time when I tried to give it a cracker and it thought my finger was the cracker, and the most obviously evil squirrel incident, that time when squirrel George Lucas made the Squirrel Wars prequel trilogy. I think that's the worst of all and unforgivable as well.