Gaia is sick!

I posted a new written review, the first part of Media of the Year and a video review today. Merry Christmas! Sorry it's late.

So anyway I was browsing Gaia and something on the front page caught my attention. It seems a little sick for a previously non-profit community forum to encourage it's many, many users to purchase a credit card in times of "economic strife" (to quote pretty much everyone in politics these days) so that they can gain 10,000 gold in the game. Gaia's ad revenue for this must be massive because it pretty much violates every single thing that a "free" forum stands for.

What really got me was the section letting people under 18 sign up. Encouraging children to sign over thier livelyhood to VISA this early are we Gaia? You ungrateful dickheads.

Content Coming Soon. Rant Here Now!

Sorry I haven't posted reviews or MotW episodes for the last two weeks, I been a little swamped and my uncle died last Tuesday. Content will be resumed as per usual on Christmas, with a massive push to make up for the last two weeks. Also, I'm getting a new camera for Christmas so video quality will improve quite dramatically.

I might try to get a review done for tonight but I doubt it'll make it.

Right, now to rant.

Twilight:

The pre-teen erotica is here! In the form of pre-teen porn. By that I mean the film is out. I'm not going to rant about the film because I haven't seen it. Nor am I going to rant about the books, because I couldn't bring myself to read it (it was that badly written). I'm going to rant about the fans.

First off, I'm perfectly justified in this. No other form of fandom has spread this fast or been this consistently vocal, admittedly hardcore (worse than me) fans of Heath Ledger's Joker are almost as bad but at least they confine themselves to the internet when spouting their propaganda.

Twilight fans spare no-one. They are not courteous enough to confine themselves to the internet, nor are they kind enough to leave our forums. They are everywhere, even my English teacher has fallen to the menace!

I went to the cinema on Friday to see The Day The Earth Stood Still remake (review coming soon) and it was swamped by Twilight fans. I can't be sure given the generic nature of all the characters in Twilight but I think there were cosplayers.

So my message to Twilight fans is this: SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I'm going to play risk now >_<

Lack of updates

Sorry, my uncle died. 

Anime hurts my brain. (Top five worst trends in anime)

I've been watching quite a lot of anime recently (not always of my own volition) and I'm beginning to notice a few trends which I really think the culture needs to start addressing.

1: Monologues in Shoujo/Emotional Shonen

You know what I mean right? When one of the characters in an anime confesses thier feelings or wonders about how a different character can be so great: they always have a fucking monologue. Often it isn't even spoken, it's simply the inner macinations of their mind; but it's always insipid. 

I don't know about you but I have NEVER thought like an anime character. They seem to deliver huge monologues about the positive things in everything and it's just embarrasing. Maybe it's a reflection on Japanese culture, maybe I'm slightly more depressed or irate than the average anime character but it doesn't make sense to me.

To illustrate my point let's compare my viewpoint with an average Shoujo viewpoint on life.

Problem: In love My reaction: Wistful and joyous, with a slight sense of melancoly. Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: On a date My reaction: Nervous, compensated for with sarcasm. Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: Life in general My reaction: Angry, Annoyed, Sarcastic, Pompous, Exauhsted, Opinionated, Perplexed, Frenzied, Bored and Hungry.  Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: Homework  My reaction: Angry, Worried and Useless.  Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: Death My reaction: Depressed and Harrowed Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

You get the idea right?

2: Stereotypical characters

There are only three or four female archetypes used in standard anime. They are: the emotional one (often serving as a main love interest or main character. Occasionally hides behind the pretense of being intelligent/strong willed), the perv (often bullys the love interest because they have MASSIVE issues with their own sexuality which are never fully explored), the wacko (serves as a rival love interest and comic foil) and the mysterious one (serves as either a rival love interest, main villain or the love interests best friend. Has massive issues with everything from sexuality to troubled childhood). In contrast there are five male stereotypes used in standard anime. They are: the nerd (serves as empathetic main character, love interest or comic foil), the perv (invariabley the main characters best friend. Serves as little more than a comic foil but has been known to fall in love towards the end of anime's run), the old man (serves as a mentor for the main character. Often a battle hardend warrior in Shonen), the mysterious one (serves as main villain, rival love interest or tortured friend) and the plucky youth (serves as main character or comic foil).

Now I wouldn't have a problem with these stereotypes if they weren't practically the only characters present in modern anime. Admittedly there is room for advancing these characters or creating highly stylised versions in order to create a unique anime, but even then characters still seem contrived and badly thought out. I find it extremely difficult to be empathetic with an archetype, the story and style of which has only been slightly changed since I last saw them.

3: Abprupt and unexplained changes in art style

This one has to stop! NOW! It's fucking ridiculous and it happens in every anime out there. You must know what I'm refering to. In an anime, any anime, when a seemingly "random" and "hilarious" event has occured, the art on the characters changes to reflect the situation. They often degenerate to barely identifiable circles.

I'm now going to use the anime Macademi Wasashoi! as a microcosm for the entirety of the culture. Within Macademi Wasashoi! the art style changes constantly to illustrate when the audience is supposed to laugh. However the art with Macademi Wasashoi! is not confined to the simple parameters of traditional anime animation: it uses clay! The clay figures have no resemblance to the characters they are supposed to be representing. Most ridiculous of all the clay figures appear in sequences alongside traditional animation. Do you see why this has to stop yet?

4: Clever animes getting pretentious, stupid animes being stupid

I admit it: I'm pretentious. I think that every piece of media must have some form of deeper meaning in order to be great. My admitance to being pretentious will not shock anyone who knows me, or even anyone who has visited my website, but just because I'm pretentious it doesn't mean that I want my anime to be pretentious because, more often than not, anime can't be pretentious effectively. EVA is dreadful, it spews philosophy at you. To be blunt: it isn't subtle. Death Note, one of my favourite animes, is too subtle. Most of the time I haven't got a clue what message it is trying to communicate. And to be honest EVA and Death Note are the only clever/pretentious animes I can think of.

Stupid animes on the other hand annoy the hell out of me. If an anime isn't funny or Death Note chances are I'm not interested because it doesn't mean anything. Like the majority of Hollywood being made of stupid and rubbish action films, most of anime culture is poluted by stupid anime's like Naruto or Bleach. 

5: Fans

Any culture that has fans who dress up as characters from their favourite animes regularly, draw fan art of their favourite characters having buttsex in all manner of fetishes, or write fanfiction which would make even those who have read the infamous Guts wretch, seriously needs to reasses itself. Enough said.

Heh.

This week's review is Wanted, both it and Media of the Week 3 are currently sitting up on the internet like a bird sits on a flag pole. Sorry; I just thought I'd try something different. It won't happen again don't worry.

Many of you may be wondering about the rather abrupt change in MotW and to put it simply: consumerist media moves slower than news, once I get into this I'm appealing to a wider audience, I have no money and I'll have more to talk about. Good? Good. 

Blog post titles are hard sometimes >_<

Sorry for the title, for some reason I couldn't think of anything else.

I've been thinking about completing my Lord of the Rings spoof by adding spoofs of "The Two Towers" and "Return of the King" and maybe recording the script as free to download MP3. I'd need actors though and I hate actors.

That leads me rather nicely to the film, which now has a full cast. They're going to be awful to manage they barely even listen to me as it is. The soundtrack for the film has potential now that I have Joe and another musician (named Barney) on board, I'm gonna try and supervise them so we get a really trippy rock tune with lots of chip-esque mind fuckery; I'll get you guys an MP3 when it's done (that was quite possibly the most awesome sentence I've typed in this blog). As for when you can expect to see the film's trailer, your guess is as good as mine. We're mainly dealing with finance and motivation at the moment and my work is over until we begin shooting.

I began writing a Spiderman comic when I was ill, just for fun, and I enjoyed it so much that I might continue with it. It's kinda dark and by "kinda dark" I mean Spidey totures people. I've gone for a clear cut narrative, with Spidey narrating over the course of his life as an old man, I realise that may seem a little inconcievable to most Marvel fans, but I think it works. To put it short I'm trying to do for Marvel what The Dark Knight Returns did for DC.

I just finished my UCAS forms. I'm staying local, mainly because I love Newcastle and the North East of England, but partially because of some of the people that live here. I'm, going for English Creative Writing and Film studies so I'll let you know how that turns out.

I'm done.

Treats

Call of Duty 5: World at War review is up, as is Media of the Week Episode 2.

After today I'm going to stop embedding videos in my blog and simply keep a YouTube video bar at the side.

I.O.U

I've been falling behind on my written reviews as of late and I haven't really got an excuse for it beyond: "I've been ill!" So basically I owe you guys three or four extra reviews this week. I'm working on it don't worry.

Watchmen: Movie

I hate to break it to all of you, but the Watchmen movie is going to suck. Don't get me wrong the comic book is the singularly most brilliant comic that I have ever read and the main reason for that is that Alan Moore wrote Watchmen to be a comic book and nothing else. The comic shows off just how amazing the comic book genre is and whilst it features some truely cinematic moments, it's one million miles away from film material.

Watchmen is probably going to be a box office bomb as well. Who does it appeal to beyond fans of the comic? It has an "R" rating, meaning that it can't appeal to children and anyone over the age of 30 who hasn't read the comic probably isn't going to be interested either. I realise The Dark Knight made superhero movies appeal to a wider and more importantly, older, audience but it was still rated "12A" and it had both Heath Ledger's death and general Batman media frenzy thrown all over it.

It's also impossible to convey the complexity of Watchmen's plot effectively in a film, it would take at least 4 hours to get everything in and by that point half of the audience would be dead. Maybe if Watchmen had been released as two films I might be less skeptical but sadly I doubt anyone thought that making two box office bombs would be a good idea. 

I suppose most of this skepticism comes from my lack of faith in the film's director, Zack Snyder, who's previous work has left me with the impression that the man can only direct fairly shallow action films. Although Snyder is undoutabley very good at creating a specific look for films, I doubt he can convey the plethora of subtext seen in the comic. Watchmen is subtle, it needs a subtle director.

Maybe I'm being too harsh about Watchmen. Maybe it will rock. I'm still going to go and see it.

'Nother video

Wow. I've been ignoring you guys.

Well, I've been offline for a long time so I thought it was probably fair that I gave all you guys a look at what I've been doing all this time.

First off, reviews have been going up, about the same amount as usual but rather sporadically. This has been partially due to the fact that I have alot of work to do at the moment (final year of A-levels) and partially due to a massive decline in my mental stability. I think it's probably fair to say that the last two weeks of my life have been two of the worst. It's getting better now but I'm doubtful that it'll stay that way.

Secondly, I've been writing a lot. Mostly quite dark stuff. I've recently gotten involved with a school creative writing project and I'm currently operating as the publication's editor, which is eating up quite a lot of my time.

Finally, my first video is up:

Halloween

This is just a quick update to tellm you that I'm going to be reviewing horror movies exclusively this week to celebrate Halloween, the best day of the year. This does mean that sadly my War on Star Wars is going to have be post-poned until next week but it also means that their will be five reviews released this week. Starting with my review of Saw which I just uploaded. 

Word Processors

Two reviews this week: Soul Calibur 4 and Stars Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith.

Why is it that Openoffice claims to be compatible with Microsoft Word when it clearly isn't? I mean sure most of the program is compatible, but there is one key difference. Images. If you put an image into an Openoffice document, it works fine. If you put an image into a Word document it works fine. If you put an image into a Word file then open it in Openoffice, it works fine. But heaven forbid that you should put an image into an Openoffice file then open that in word.

As an ICT student who needs to screenshot and explain what I'm doing consistently, the effects of opening an image heavy Openoffice document in Word are horrendous. Every single image on the page is streched to astronomical levels. Look at this if you don't believe me:





Yeah...

Anyway I finally got an Ipod and I made the horribly stupiud decision of getting a shuffle. Whilst this model is far cheaper, I'm going to tell you to stay as far away from it as possible. You're only paying for an Ipod which denies you the liberty of choosing what you want to listen to.

Could I be any nerdier?

Two reviews this week: The Force Unleashed and The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear.

Right, now that's out of the way, I finally caved and played Yu-Gi-Oh! with Patrick.I sorta see where he's coming from with his rant. Yes, the game has the potential to be incredibly complex and yes, 4 Kids have marginalised it in the anime. However the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is just an elaborate marketing device coupled with a fairly simple tutorial of how to play the game. It's a fairly clever way of getting kids into the game and hooking them for life. I still prefer Magic the Gathering anyway.

Anyway I'm hoping to get a lot of work done today so that's it for this blog post.

Me versus an art cinema snob

I'm currently having a massive argument on the devart forums about The Dark Knight check it out:

Me: I'm sorry I don't understand your reasoning. Do you have any past the obvious "this movie is popular therefore it must suck"?

Tungska-Butterfly: Do you have aside from "Heath Ledger was great and now he's dead"?

Me: I refer you to my review of The Dark Knight [link]

Take that bitch.

Tungska-Butterfly: Stick smacks of fanboyism personally. You put it up there with The Godfather. Just ... no. The film was enjoyable, but deeply flawed.

However, I only asked you that to point out that you just wrote off his opinion because it wasn't long enough. Instead of going into a massive debate about it, he just stated his didn't like it and it was overhyped.

What's your first reaction? "You're only saying that because you're pedantic". You know, maybe he just didn't like the film? It had some fairly massive flaws.

Me: I'm allowed to offer my opinion as well you know.

Tungska-Butterfly: But you didn't. You just attacked him by saying he was only going against the grain to be cool. Rather than conceeding that he may just not like the film.

Me:I provide a counter-argument.

Tungska-Butterfly: And a poor one at that.

Me: Fuck you. My argument has all the points which have been generally agreed in consensus, I provide a fairly detailed argument as to why I believe each of my points and I spent a lot of time working on that review. Why're you being so offensive?

Tungska-Butterfly: "Although the film becomes incredibly complex"

Nope, pretty simple stuff. Joker arrives. Joker is crazy. Bad things ensue. Pretty simple.

"often shock the audience to it's core"
OH NO! HE BLOWS UP A HOSPITAL! Die Hard did it 10 years ago, WITH A SCHOOL! OH NO! THEY DRESS THE PRISONERS UP AS CAPTORS! V For Vendetta has also done it.

"not a single line ever feels out of place or obscure; unless of course it's meant to be."
So the opening line of the film "So, who's this Joker guy?" Is SUPPOSED to sound like a really shit and easy set up to the film?

"The plot itself is an adrenaline fuelled masterpiece"
Masterpiece? So the whole massive "yup, we've just totally swapped every bodies phones with sonar devices, as well as find a random Black guy who can monitor 2 million phone calls at once to find the Joker in a huge abandoned warehouse with no mobile contact" plot hole actually IMPROVES the film?

"Aaron Eckhart ... gives a truly deep, and dark portrayal of Harvey Dent, again never breaking character or becoming unbelievable."
Yes, because "I am a very nice and incorruptible guy. Therefore when my girlfriend dies I will murder the only other good person in this town" is a TOTALLY logical path for him to take.

"Gary Oldman ... a character who was side-lined in Batman Begins and has now been fully and brilliantly realised"
He's brilliantly realised by disappearing for 1/2 of the film. And whenever he does show up he's mostly to look wistfully off and fantasize about Batman.

"Michael Caine ... and Morgan Freeman ... both give exceptional performances as supporting cast members."
* as stereotypical Old English Guy and Mystical Negro respectively.

"Ultimately this film is a Masterpiece"
No, it's a very good piece of stupidly good cinema that put my bum on a seat and kept me entertained for 2 hours.

"it isn't perfect, but nothing is or ever will be"
Yeah, coz who cares about a film having no plot holes, a believable actor for a main actor, a not annoying love interest or a ridiculously over acted ending involving over the top string music, a SPELLING OUT OUT TO VERY VERY LETTER ending, with an amazing actor wasted staring wistfully off into the middle distance. Coz, y'know, this was a BATMAN movie god damnit!

" I go for the message; and this film's message is both true and necessary."
The Joker is a dick may be true, but it is not necessary.

"The Dark Knight has earned it's score, and shall go down with Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather as one of the greatest films of all time"
I don't even LIKE the Godfather, and I know that that's a retarded sentiment. Just ... no. Yes, it's the best Batman film ever made, and Heath Ledger blew everyone else off the screen. But that's like saying Airplane! is the best parody film ever because it's so much better than The Crowded Sky and Leslie Neilson blew everyone else off the screen.

Look, I have 4 years of nerding out over films on you. I also have NO connection to Batman. The closest I've ever come to reading a Batman comic is idly flicking through a copy of Return To Arkam in a comic book shop because my friend recommended it to me. So I judged it by it's filmic qualities. Everything I didn't contradict is true, I'll admit. But seriously? Best film ever? It doesn't even follow it's own logic.

Me:Dear god I hate you. 

First off you've quoted me out of context rather alot, entirely missed the point of the review, but most importantly you've missed the entire point of the film.

1. The film is about messages, most of which you seem to have entirely missed. To help you I've provided this helpful guide.

Subtext in The Dark Knight for professional morons:

Duality: This is shown quite a lot through the film, obviously with the Dent/Two-face character, but more importantly with Joker and Batman's relationship (the two characters seem to offer the two sides of madness, Joker being a free-flowing psychopath and Batman retaining all of his emotion). 

Insanity: I'm pretty sure even you got this one, right?

Politics: Batman is the ultimate capiltalist superhero, carrying with him all of the worries of the world. Joker is an anarchist. Whilst watching the film it should become clear that Joker is a more complex person, this shows anarchy is at the very least more interesting than capitalism. 

9/11 and terrorism: Joker = Terrorist. Batman = Soldier. Get it yet?

Anyway my point with this subtext is that:

a) You are dumb for thinking that the plot can be reduced to "Nope, pretty simple stuff. Joker arrives. Joker is crazy. Bad things ensue. Pretty simple."

b)The film is incredibly complex.

c)As the film is about messages, fairly important messages at that, can't you forgive it for it's plot holes? Or are you in too deep now?

2. The Dark Knight is still a superhero movie and as such it can't be expected to make it's entire plot entirely do-able. I don't know about you, but I didn't go to see The Dark Knight expecting everything done in the film to be completely realistic.

3. So what if you have four years over me? That doesn't make my opion wrong by default. In fact, if you think that then you obviously don't subscribe to this little thing called freedom of speech, and as such, are an arsehole.

4. You didn't like The Godfather? How valid can you possibly think your opinion is?

5. I didn't call The Dark Knight the best film ever I called it one of the best. Big difference.

All right I'm done.

Tungska-Butterfly: Why do you hate me? For giving an, admittedly pedantic, argument as to why The Dark Knight WASN'T one of the best films ever made. Especially after you lambasted the OP for not giving any reasons why he didn't like it? I enjoy debating. I also enjoy analysing films.

I don't believe I quoted you out of context. I tried to ensure that your original sentiment remained intact at all times. Also I'm not entirely sure what the point of your review was, aside from the very obvious "this film is great, much better than the first one, go see it".

1 & 2) You're confusing Themes with Messages. Duality and Insanity are Themes. If one were to treat them as messages we would simply learn "sometimes good people do bad things" and "crazy people just want to blow shit up". Seriously, those are the messages it gives off.

3) Surely Captain America or Superman would be the ultimate Capitalist super heroes? Batman was the first major mainstream effort at an Anti-Hero (as opposed to Spider-man, who was an unwilling hero), rather than the cut and dried world of The Boy Scout.

3a) The Joker describes himself as an agent of Chaos, not Anarchy. Big difference. The Jokers message would appear to be that life is dull, and you have to make your own fun. Albeit in a rather twisted way.

4) You REALLY want to use this as a metaphor for The War On Terrorism? SERIOUSLY? Alright ... I'll play ball. Right, so Batman is the soldier. And The Joker is Al Quieda. This means the American government is represented by The Mafia. The soldier didn't CHOOSE to join the military (Batman didn't CHOOSE to become an ass kicking, name taking super hero), but due to his poor social and economic background, he was left with no other choice by the government (the Mafia killed Bruce Waynes parents, forcing his hand). Then Al Quieda arrive on 9/11 and fuck everything up, completely out of left field (The Joker starts picking on the Mafia for no reason), forcing the soldier to fight a war with no rules (forcing Batman to kick even more asses and take even more names). As a result, the soldier becomes dehumanised (as a result, Batman becomes darker) and at the end of the day is the whipping boy for a turning public opinion. But it's alright, because we all known that the poor soldier shitting himself in a foxhole in Iraq will be TOTALLY vindicated when they return to the limelight. I mean, look at Vietnam!

Seriously, you REALLY want to reduce it to that?

Alright now onto the second bit.

Yes, it's very simple to reduce the plot to those 4 statements. Because that's what the plot entails. Sure, I could go into a HUGE in depth plot summary, but those 4 sentences give you the entire gist and point of the film. That is what a plot is, the action of narratively getting from A to B.

The film ISN'T very complex. It's fairly cut and dried. There is an entirely linear progression in the plot, the character developments. The only twist that comes out of left-field is the fact that Gordon isn't dead. Which isn't so much a twist as a Deus Ex Machina plot device to get Batman out of his motorcycless hole. The rest of it is simply Psychology light mixed with a pessimistic world view. Name me one deep and complex portion of that film.

I can forgive The Dark Knight it's plot holes for being a stupid action film. However, as a Great Work Of Serious Literature I cannot forgive it anything. Nobody would argue that Die Hard 3 is up there with The Godfather in terms of cinematic greatness, but at least it all makes logical sense. You don't seem to get the difference between suspension of disbelief and breaking the logic of the films own reality. Is Do The Right Thing flawed by some slightly hammy acting and a moderately simplistic plot line? Yes. Does it make an important statement on Black Culture In America? Yes. Batman, however, is both flawed and fails to make an important statement on ANYTHING.

Having 4 years over you isn't a matter of maturity, it's a matter of seeing 4 years more films than you. Especially since those 4 years are the ones I spent in college, where I experimented far further afield in my filmic tastes. It's got to do with the fact that I don't believe you can claim it to be one of the All Time Great Films based on say, Harvey Dents crisis of faith after his moral rug is pulled out beneath him after you've seen The French Connection II. Or credit the score with building suspense having seen The Battleship Potemkin. Or talk about The Jokers little speech on Chaos to Harvey Dent having seen The Third Man. Or discuss it's underlying metaphor with even a vague knowledge of Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas.

You're hiding behind Freedom Of Speech? I guess it must be a matter of maturity then. For a start my friend, I'm Irish, so I have no constitutional guarantee of that. I have the right to not be discriminated against for my religious or political beliefs, but not to say anything. And nor do you actually. You have Freedom Of The Press, but The United Kingdom also has the most restrictive Libel laws of the Western world.

Me:All right: I'm all better and ready to DECIMATE your argument! I'm going to do this in a fairly orderly fashion (I like my arguments to be tidy), in that I'm going to be answering any questions you provided me in your argument before attacking your core reasoning outright. 

Question One: "Why do you hate me?" 

Answer One: I don't really hate you, don't worry. If you really think that I hate you and it has ruined your day to day life completely then I think you should seek counselling. Simply because you care what someone you met on the internet thinks of you. 

Question Two: Especially after you lambasted the OP for not giving any reasons why he didn't like it? 

Answer Two: That... isn't a question that makes any semblance of sense. Good job! ^^ 

Question Three: Surely Captain America or Superman would be the ultimate Capitalist super heroes?

Answer Three: You're going to have to follow my reasoning with this one. If we take Batman to be anything other than the ultimate capitalist superhero then the entire plot of any Batman story ever (except Frank Miller's wonderful BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN) doesn't make any sense whatsoever. To put it in easy to understand terms, Batman cannot achieve anything he does without capitalism. The only reason that Batman is able to do the things he does is because he is extremely rich. He posses no super-powers, he isn't privy to bionic enhancements and he certainly isn't from Krypton. So to answer your question: it's open to interpretation but I think Batman is the ultimate capitalist superhero because of the manner in which he accomplishes things. 

Question Four: You REALLY want to use this as a metaphor for The War On Terrorism? 

[Note - War on Terror, not Terrorism. I know it seems stupid to wage war on an emotional state but I guess that's just how the American government do things.] 

Answer Four: Yes, albeit a fuzzy one. I would prefer to have expressed myself better on this earlier, but as you should hopefully know, I have other things to do. Basically the chaos caused by Joker, and the method in which he causes it, is a reflection upon 9/11 and the hysteria which grew out of it. If we take Joker to be a terrorist, which is not a stretch of anyone's imagination, then most people come to the association with 9/11 immediately, without trying. You also said that the film doesn't make any points but I'll come back to that later. 

Question Five: SERIOUSLY? 

Answer Five: Yes. If I was an annoying arsehole this would be the perfect time to make a "Why so serious?" joke wouldn't it? I'll leave that to DevArts community, more than enough annoying pricks here... 

Question Six: Seriously, you REALLY want to reduce it to that? 

Answer Six: Not in the way that you interpreted it, no. In this case you may have missed what either I've been trying to say, or what the film is trying to say. Basically I meant to say that The Dark Knight serves as an examination of the hysteria caused by 9/11, with Joker symbolising everything that America is afraid of, and Batman symbolising the established order. At least at the end of the film, they are symbols, not people. They fight for beliefs, nothing else. Make any more sense now?

Question Seven: (I'm not answering questions you answer yourself so we'll come back to the Godfather thing) You're hiding behind freedom of speech?

Answer Seven: Not really. It's just my go-to excuse for everything.

Okay now I've answered your questions, let's deal with a few things you said.

“Also I'm not entirely sure what the point of your review was, aside from the very obvious "this film is great, much better than the first one, go see it". “

My reviews serve as consumer guides, that should become evident with my inclusion of a scoring system (any serious critique of a film shouldn't really include a scoring system, not enough flexibility). So I ask you this, does my review, a consumer guide for people who don't necessarily understand films, need to have a point beyond “this film is great”? 

“1 & 2) You're confusing Themes with Messages. Duality and Insanity are Themes. If one were to treat them as messages we would simply learn "sometimes good people do bad things" and "crazy people just want to blow shit up". Seriously, those are the messages it gives off. “

A message doesn't have to be complex to be profound. I think film-elitists like yourself (we'll get back to that) often forget that. I honestly don't think you gave The Dark Knight a decent look in terms of subtext, how many times have you seen it?

Finally we come back to this four years thing. To which I have only this to say, stop being such a snob. We differ quite considerably in terms of films, I review and watch films that are intended for the general public, and you enjoy art cinema. The two aren't comparable in any fair manner.

(Oh I almost forgot. You don't think the Godfather has plot holes? Try this one for example:

- Don Corleone is shot at at least 12 times, in the back, at point blank range and two very stupid things happen. 1) Only 5 of the bullets hit. 2) He doesn't die.)

I'll keep you guys posted on this one, it makes me laugh.

The war on a war

I declare war on Star Wars! I'm sick of this series and it's cash cow. It ends now! 

In case you hadn't guessed: I'm going to review every single piece of Star Wars shit I can get my hands on alongside my regular reviews and at the end of it all I'm going to create a video detailing exactly what I've learnt from the experience and why Lucas has to be stopped. For anyone willing to support me, here's a wallpaper.

Don't worry even if this is a war my reviews will be fair.

Three is company.

I would like to introduce my third partner: Joe!

You might have heard me mention him before but just in case you didn't here's a synopsis-thing.

Joe! - Joe is an electronic musician who creates chiptune-esque music. He is a very good friend of mine in real life and happens to be one of the most talented people I know. Treat him well. Better than the other two. Got that?

Mini Comics

Bytes Minis

Just until I find the time to draw stuff again.

Goings on.

I've been pretty quiet since my post about the devil, with due cause. I've been busy, very busy, mostly with schoolwork. However I have been planning into the future and would like to announce the following projects:

• Unbreakable film recap - Ever since I watched this I've had a pretty complete selection of jokes (at it's expense) in my head, and not much idea what to do with them. Then one day (possibly thursday) whilst browsing The Agony Booth (http://www.agonybooth.com) and The Spoony Experiment (http://www.spoonyexperiment.com) it hit me, why not do a recap? So I will.
• Book and comic book reviews - This one has been a long time coming, but as of late I've been brushing up on techniques and critique methods in order to bring you guys a useful look at what these mediums. I'm also considering increasing my review output to two reviews a week, however that might not happen.
• Video Review - My first video review was originally going to be on a Batman game but after careful consideration I've decided to review a game called Tracer instead, the review is fully scripted, I just need money for a decent webcam or camera.
• Short Storys - The Long Silence is well under production and just to prove it the first story (entitled Idle Crime) can be viewed here.

I think that's it for now project-wise. Last week's review was Tropic Thunder. This weeks review will be The Force Unleashed (Part One of an organised attack on the Star Wars saga).

-------

Okay now that all the professional stuff is out of the way, I'm going to bitch and moan at you. I'm broke, completely and utterly. So much so that I can't even afford the hosting charges of my website right now. This will all change when I get my EMA (educational maintenance allowance) but until then, the site can't go up and I can't afford new material to review. What this means to you guys is that all of the reviews are going to be of slightly older games, movies and books for a while and I'm going to bitch about it a lot. Don't worry, the reviews will all stay free and I'm not going ask you for money. I'm just saying is all.

Time to change the subject methinks. Why isn't limpetry a word? I know this might seem like an odd question but I was watching documentarys about fish (I had flu ¬_¬) and people refer to proffesors studying limpets (whatever floats your boat...) as proffesors of limpets and it occured to me that not only does a proffesor of limpetry sound like a much more impressive job title, it makes more sense anyway. Campaign for limpetry anyone? (Petition)

Kate Perry is the devil.

I've got to say this: I HATE KATE PERRY! SHE IS A BITCH AND IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE YOU'RE STUPID! Right, now to justify myself.

Let's start with Miss Perry's most infamous song "I Kissed a Girl" which is not only the stupidest song ever (apart from Ur so Gay, but more on that later), it is also a gross lie. If the people who stalk Miss Perry have never seen her kiss a girl, it hasn't happened! Not only is she creating a power ballad lie on the same level as TATU (they aren't lesbians and they never were), she is also insulting the intelligence of everyone who has heard of her (which until this song came out was a relatively small number).

Okay, moving on. Let's talk "Hot n Cold", which just annoys me terribly. In some ways it could be said that I'm only talking about this song because my newest associate Bladescope made an audiosurf video using the song, well they'd be right. That doesn't make the fact that the song is the most insipid, annoying and yet catchy thing I have ever heard any less valid. Whilst watching the video I found myself screaming at Miss Perry's future spouse "Just stab the bitch! You can't go to jail, she's the devil!" However this song has yet to raise moral outrage in me.

Finally we come to "Ur so gay" to which I have simply this to say: shut the fuck up you ignorant slag. This song promotes using the term gay as an insult and the fact that word penis is considered funny. No-one ever laughs at vaginas do they? Why isn't the word straight an insult?

No, I'm not gay. I'm just a pedant with the english language, and all for equal rights for everyone. Except Kate Perry, who should be excecuted.

Partners Program (Introducing Bladescope and Demonicham)

Introducing my two partners, Bladescope (also known as Sean) and Demonicham (also known as Patrick). I know both of these guys in real life and would probably count them as two of my best friends if that didn't mean actually having to admit that I was fond of something. Anyway I've decided to provide these blurbs for their sites.

Bladescope: Sean is a code monkey, nothing more, nothing less. This means that his website is a lot better than mine despite not offering any real content outside of the inane ramblings featured on his blog. 

Demonicham: Patrick is completely and utterly dumbfounded by the concept of code. So much so that I set up his page for him. He offers no content yet but has art potential. He also blogs occasionally.

So I'd say we have a pretty nice mix now. Sean with the code and not much else, Patrick with art and not much else and me, with talent.

(Note: They know I'm only taking the piss. (Note on a note: The wiser among you know I mean it all (Note on a note on a note: Or do I?)))

It's weird...

Whilst ill I often find myself diving into deeper and deeper wells of depravity. If you've been following my posts then you'll know that I currently have flu, and so haven't left the house. Instead of going to college today I watched Unbreakable, which has to be one of the most singularly boring films it has ever been my displeasure to watch. 

To put Unbreakable's plot into to one simple statement: black people are evil. Just watch the film, it won't make sense but you'll know what I mean. Other than that I really haven't done much today, I finally embedded this blog into my website, and I spent about four hours browsing the internet. 

Anyway, I'm going back to bed. I might be able to go to college tomorrow, hopefully. If I do then expect a new review to be up tomorrow night. I did promise to review Tropic Thunder didn't I?

Finally, go here. You won't regret it.

Blog

I finally managed to get this embedded into my website! Go me!

Sniffle

I'm sorry I haven't uploaded anything this week, I've been looking after someone with flu and as such, caught it myself. Foolishly I decided to go out yesterday despite feeling like shit, what resulted was an alcohol and coffee fuelled evening at a friend's house. I now have food poisoning from the chinese as well.

So in short, I'm ill, when I'm not ill again I'll start uploading again. 

The inner fanboy has been unleashed!

First of all, ignore the tag at the beginning of the video I didn't put it there, this was simply the best quality video on youtube. Secondly, did you see how awesome that was? 

If you answered no, watch it again and re-read the text. 

If you answered yes, you've just condoned my fan-boy like rantings and should burn in hell forever for what you have unleashed upon the world and yourself. There is no escape, besides clicking the back or close button on your web browser...

All I can gather from this trailer is that this game is set in a slightly cartoony Halo-verse. You can tell it's the Halo-verse from the design of the drop-pods, which are exactly the same as Halo 3's. So unless Bungie actually can't design games for shit, we're back in the Halo-verse. Why the Halo-verse you ask? I have no idea... I'm not sure I'm looking forward to this as much now.

Fanboy mode deactivated.

Do we really need another Halo game after all? What with Halo Wars being released next year I was rather hoping that Bungie could develop something new in between Halo games. Have they run out of ideas or something? Why not make a game which doesn't hurt the Halo-verse? It's almost as bad as Lucas and Star Wars. Although not quite, I'm pretty sure he just steals fan-fiction now...

I'm probably just letting my natural cynicism poison what will probably turn out to be a damn fine game, but I'm sick of ill thought out sequels being churned out every so often by developers with too much money, massive(ly stupid) fan bases, and a lack of creativity, not to reference Final Fantasy in any way you must understand. Alright that was a low blow. 

I leave this alone until it's actually released, or at least given a name and a premise. 

I recently picked up an N64 really cheaply from a local market, and I must say how much I missed playing this retro-shit. I'll be getting a SNES next week, and you can probably expect video reviews of as few games later down the line. Speaking of video reviews I realise it's been a while since I gave you guys any idea what's going on in that area. To put it simply, progress is being made, it'll be here soon.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to announce a new project, namely a collection of short stories. The collection is currently under the title "The long Silence" and as of now consists of four stories:

1. Idle Crime (First draft finished)

2. The Long Silence (First draft nearly finished)

3. The Last Politician (An ill-formed idea)

4. 1983: A prequel in the form of a short story. (Started)

At the rate which I'm writing these stories the full collection will be done by the end of the year.

Finally this weeks written review is Tropic Thunder.

It's been a while...

I know it's been awhile since I last updated and I apologise, but it's been unavoidable. I recently started my A-levels and as such I've been swamped. I've also had a lot going on personally, but the less said about that the better.

I'm going to open with a topic which is a little alien to me, music. Up until now I kept my musical opinions to myself, for several reasons (1. I don't know much about music beyond "hey that's catchy", 2. I've been told my music taste is appaling.), but I feel I have to advise each and everyone of you to go and buy Blue October's album "Foiled". Go get it! Now! Then come back and read the rest of this...

Secondly I've been considering taking my snarky resources to an area beyond that of the nerdy internet critic. To put it simply, I want to begin to review literature alongside films and video games. I've always had an extremely large appetite for literature, and considering the fact that I want to study creative writing at Uni next year I thought it might be appropriate for me to try my hand at reviewing literature. 

Don't worry though. I will still be reviewing films and games regularly. 

I've also been considering writing some movie re-caps a lá SpoonyOne or The Agony Booth. I know this probably isn't a good idea considering my current work-load, but I want to give it a shot. Watch this space.

Finally, before I forget this weeks review was Another Cinderella Story... Shut up.

Birthdays, toads and stuff

First off I would like to wish a very happy birthday to two of my friends, Tim (whom I imagine those among you who follow my activitys will remember) and Joe (no more plugging, I promise).

Right now that's out of the way, I need to ask a question (a purely rhetoric question). Is it odd to find toads on a metro? I ask this because tonight at roughly 8:30PM I found myself on a metro ride home, surrounded by 10 toads. What perplexed me the most about this incident was the manner in which other people handled it.

Several people ran in fear. Most looked on with mild interest. None but me and my friends did anything to help the poor animals. The toads are now safe, albeit terrified.

Speaking of animals I played Spore. I like it, but a review be coming soon in order to elaborate upon that. I have far too much catching up to do, I haven't even reviewed MGS4 yet, despite having frequently referred to the series and it's director (Hideo Kojima) in many of my reviews. 

So yeah, MGS4 review coming soon, next week maybe. Look out for my review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford, it should be finished and uploaded tomorrow. 

Chrome

I recently downloaded the Google Chrome Beta and I must say I'm impressed. The layout's basically a copy of Internet Explorer, and FireFox, but with the tabs at the very top of the screen so that you can easily tell what you have open at any one time. I'm not sure whether that's quite an interesting take on FireFox's gimmick, or just real clever stealing. 

Although Chrome does prove one thing. Microsoft are loosing. Why would I ever want to use Internet Explorer when I can choose between any number of alternatives for free? 

Alright it comes pre-installed.

Flash

So, I was trolling Newgrounds when I noticed that the new "There She is Cartoon" is out. I clicked on the "Play this Movie" button expecting the usual light hearted and upbeat adventure the series is famous for producing, and instead I got, well... this, and it blew me away.

It's simply amazing how much this cartoon does. It made me care about characters who don't talk. It made me muse upon our condition as a race, in paticular the way we deal with prejudice. It made me think about the exact nature of love, and how far it can be pushed. It represents everything that Flash can achieve as a medium, and is the single most outstanding thing ever produced using the tool.

This got me thinking, and ultimately let me come up with the question "can flash cartoons be considered fine art?". I know that on the surface this may seem a stupid question, but if a single 5ish minute cartoon can make me think more than an entire film, or an entire television series, then surely Flash deserves as much recognition as other genres.

However, I doubt anyone will ever come around to my way of thinking. Most people still don't consider any television to be fine art, and unbelieveably a vast majority of people don't even consider video games art at all (which is beyond stupid). So unless "There She Is! Step 4 " is somehow stapled to a canvas, and the animator cuts his own ear off, then I'm guessing Flash isn't even art in pop culture.

This is rapidly becoming irrelevant so I'm going to move to another topic. Namely the Facebook-Myspace triangle of despair. Recently a large number of my friends have been arguing about which is better, and I think the time has come for me to offer my opinion.

They both suck, shut the fuck up and leave me alone.

I mean I own both a Myspace and a Facebook, and can see only a few differences, mostly appearance based differences. Alright, I admit Myspace is better for music, and Facebook has better networking options, but ultimately your just wasting your lives arguing over which coporate monstrosity is better. Although I can't talk, what with being a critic and all.

All right here's the deal...

Okay, regarding my horrible and horribly neglected webcomic. I haven't quit - technically. I won't be doing any of that "plot" stuff that I promised anytime soon, I find that webcomics with meaning and subtext generally have to have good art; something I find myself sorely lacking. So as of now the webcomic shall be refined to random jokes, released whenever I get the time.

In a related matter, I'm plugging (yes that's right) my friend's (same friend) webcomic. I promised that I would write, and draw a guest comic for him, and considering that I have over three years worth of expeiriance in not doing anything at all (well I release every six months or so) I think he should be honoured. So, go here.

Okay in semi-related matters. I've begun filming for my first video-review, it should be finished within the month, I hope. Other than that written reviews will still be released every thursday, and other projects shall stay in development.

Blogging

Isn't blogging a stupid pass-time?

There are millions of things that I could, and should, be doing right now and yet I choose to type out stuff about myself. Why? To feed my ego? To annoy you? To promote worth causes (Look I'm plugging a friend's music already - http://www.myspace.com/nin10joe64)? To inform you of things you might actually care about? All equally valid possibilitys, none true. I'm doing this because I'm bored, well that and so I can plug (http://www.myspace.com/nin10joe64) things. Lots. (http://www.myspace.com/nin10joe64)

Okay, I'll stop doing that. (http://www.myspace.com/nin10joe64)

Okay, on another note, I went to see Hellboy 2 today, and my opinion is a resounding "Urgh". First off I would like to say that I loved the art direction, and the special effects were good, but other than that the film has very little to be proud of. The script is all over the place, one moment dealing with the concept of genocide, then returning to obsess over the intricacies of puns. The sound is ripped directly from the "generic action movie" school of classical music (unlike my friend's music - http://www.myspace.com/nin10joe64 - sorry, it was just too easy), and the actual plot is so... dull. Full review coming soon.

I also picked up the Force Unleashed demo from the Playstation Store earlier this week, it's too early to say how the full game is going to be, but if the demo is any indication; I'm out. The force controls are crap, you never really feel involved in the action, and the enviroment in the demo is so lifeless. Also, the graphics are crap, which is a real no-no in this day and age (which are the same thing, damn phrases). I'll wait until the full game is out until I condem it though.

Last thing I'm gonna rant about today is the Max Payne trailer (go to youtube), which looks very pretty -- but already confirms that they messed up the plot. I mean, Flying Demons? Unless this is the Director being artsy and using physical representations of a Valkyr to show what happens when someone takes the Valkyr drug, then I think we're screwed. The only other explanations that I could think of were that the Valkyr drug somehow causes people to mutate, or the director was high and thought he would make Constantine 2.

Whatever, I'm done for today. First comic issue should be released this week, and reviews are gonna be released as usual.