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Nataku’s a real creep, for sure, but Eijiro’s kind of a whiney brat himself. Perhaps they deserve each other.
We often see movies with one of our long time readers, friend, and blood relative to Joe, Slogra (not his real name). Being quite the movie buff, he wrote up some entertaining thoughts concerning this year’s big blockbuster films that reflect my own, so I thought I’d share them!:
I am a heavy consumer of movie previews, teasers, trailers, production stills, information leaks, and the like. After years of diligent service to this media, I’ve become quite good at judging movies before they even come out. Even with my expertise, however, I was fooled this year on two separate occasions within a day of each other.
I watched the breadcrumb trail of Avengers: Age of Ultron in the months leading to its release. I feasted on the slurry of information leaked to the public, ranging from casting decisions to pure speculation. The time came when the movie itself was finally released and I approached the theatre. I garnered all my strength to cease my quaking legs as I walked into the cinema, and the hype pouring forth from my personal aura was palpable, seasoning the popcorn in the equally eager laps around me.
I watched.
It wasn’t exactly like the moment in my youth where I realized my parents were fallible. It was more akin to the moment where I realized I had made a very grave error, all because of my uncompromising belief that my parents never made mistakes, and that I had allowed them to lead me astray.
Yes, I still blame my father for taking me to see Reign of Fire.
But that is another harrowing tale for another time. I’m really amazed at how much good will seeped from the porous, shriveled mess of a movie before me. It wasn’t a bad film; it just wasn’t nearly as good as it should be. It largely rehashed aspects of the first film that didn’t need rehashing. The Avengers once again turn on each other like moody teenagers but learn to work together through the power of friendship and teamwork, only to disassemble by the end so that Marvel can make more money more stand alone movies.
There was a lot of awkward exposition, many witty lines that fell flat, and a really weird scene where Thor slips into a hot tub full of memories. Or visions. Or something. The movie teeters on the edge of being a complete mess, held together only by good acting by good actors and some action sequences that are pretty to look at, even if they are silly.
What really ground my soul into powder was the spirit-crushing nonsense sprinkled throughout the movie. I won’t list all the logical fallacies here, for there are only so many words of hatred that you, dear reader, can ingest before exploding in a bitter bomb of disgust.
But just to give an example of the systemic nature of the movie’s problems, consider Ultron’s abilities and how he didn’t utilize them, even when the movie made it clear on certain points what he could and could not do. Ultron, we are told right away, can exist without a body, and his brain as it were can be copied. This creates the problem of having an enemy that cannot be truly destroyed. The writers of the movie ingeniously get around this problem by ignoring it as the movie goes on. Even when the Avengers are told that they must destroy all the robots, stating that none can leave the arena of the final action scene, no one brings up the fact that if the super-smart Ultron is in fact smart, he will have made a copy somewhere else. Perhaps he did and perhaps the next 8 Avengers film will be about Ultron reappearing like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, always defeated but never caught. Or perhaps Ultron screwed up in not realizing he could copy himself. Or the Avengers screwed up in not realizing that there’s a tablet somewhere possessed by a copy of the evil AI. Or perhaps the Ultron writing staff screwed up and wrote themselves into a corner.
I tire of writing about Ultron, so I’ll have you know that by the time I got around to seeing it, it was the day before opening night for another movie, Mad Max: Fury Road. What’s odd is that unlike the previews for Ultron, Max’s trailers left me uninterested. Cars exploded and characters said lines. There was no creepy Pinocchio music and there was no shared universe with other lesser Mad Max characters, composing themselves in Fury Road in a heroic assembly.
And yet any given moment of Mad Max was more exciting and entertaining than the broken promise that was Age of Ultron. Exposition was given during action scenes because the movie is basically one continuous action scene – not in an exhausting way, but in a fascinating fashion that kept my body consistently at the edge of its seat. Literally, the story is told as the main character is tied to the front of a flame-spewing vehicle, racing through the desert as the blood races through his veins and into another man’s like some nightmare version of the Red Cross, all the while that a one-armed badass traitor drives a fuel truck through a lightning-fire storm.
I don’t even know what the lightning-fire storm was. Age of Ultron would have given me some bullshit explanation that made no sense anyway. Mad Max just gives you the storm, and you either accept it or you don’t have a soul and you don’t accept it. I’m just stating facts.
I won’t list every time my heart lept from my chest and I was forced to retrieve it, no doubt missing some beautiful moment in Mad Max in doing so. There is only so much joy I can express in this prose before I lift my fingers from the keyboard and race off to the cinema, thirsting for more Max.
I will instead leave with the inescapable denouement that one does not always get what one wants when one sees an Age of Ultron, yet one may yet pick up the shards of disappointment and rearrange them into the mosaic of a Mad Max or its equivalent, if one can be lead to believe that Max in fact has a theatrical peer. I’m sure there’s some lesson to be learned in all this, perhaps a message of hope for a recovering drug addict and the life such a person hopes to find, but I am not a person to draw such lofty conclusions. I can only wait for the sequel to Max and devour the inevitable trailers, make hopeful predictions, and likely become disappointed in the sequel that never lives up to the original.
It would seem that I cannot learn any lesson after all.
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It’s a shame, really. That hawk had a promising career ahead of him!
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It’s another sunny day on the front lines! I wonder what Nataku would think if he got a hold of Atsumori’s message…
Okay, now I’m going to go on a long rant about Tomorrowland, so let me explain why! You see, I was super excited to see Tomorrowland since it’s Brad Bird‘s second live action feature. Brad Bird, for those unfamiliar, is the director behind some of the most highly rated animated features in the last couple decades; Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and The Iron Giant. Every movie he’s directed has had over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. He’s so well regarded that there was an online petition after Disney bought Lucasfilm to get Brad Bird to direct the new Star Wars film. His first live action film was Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, which was easily the best of the MI films, with a lot of great action set pieces and fun character moments. So I was pretty hyped for Tomorrowland. THEN I DISCOVERED HE CO WROTE IT WITH DAMON LINDELOF.
Damon Lindelof is screenplay poison. The guy is a master of writing nonsense, as far as I can tell. Screenplays he’s written include such greats as World War Z (which famously had nothing to do with the popular book it was supposedly based on), Star Trek Into Darkness (whose plot makes less sense the more you try to understand it), Prometheus (in which, again, nothing makes sense and scientists act like idiots and get killed), and LOST (the cultural phenomenon that raised so many intriguing questions and then copped out with a “they were dead the whole time!” explanation to invalidate a need for answers). I do not care for Lindelof’s writing, and so my expectations for Tomorrowland plummeted pretty sharply.
In the end, the movie’s somewhere in between great and awful, so I guess it’s OKAY. SPOILERS: The plot itself has some big holes, and although the movie spends a good amount of time at the beginning teasing the futuristic city of Tomorrowland, the main characters don’t actually reach it until close to the end, spending most of their time being chased around by humanoid robots. I think my biggest problem with the film, other than some uneven pacing, is that it’s message is exceedingly preachy while its story is rather muddled. It crams the message of “stay optimistic, work towards a better future” while at the same time not really having a story that reflects that mentality. In no way does working towards a better future and remaining optimistic help the main characters overcome any of the movie’s problems! In fact, the day is saved by a little girl robot who self destructs, blowing up a building that then crushes an evil Hugh Laurie, who’s already half crushed be a piece of debris from a previous explosion. A lot of things blow up in this movie, and there’s quite a bit of violence. It’s frustrating the characters didn’t have more constructive, less destructive solutions to better match the supposed theme of the film, which leads to another major problem, the lead character.
We’re introduced to a young boy who we immediately know grows up to be George Clooney because the intro is unnecessarily narrated to us by the boy’s older self. We’re then introduced to a teenage girl, who is supposed to be the true main character of the movie because she’s quickly established to be the chosen one who can prevent a future path where Earth goes all post apocalyptic. But in the end, the girl never really gets to shine, she’s never very proactive in the story, and the majority of the problem solving is left to Clooney. It reminded me of Jupiter Ascending, another film where the female lead spends all her time falling off of tall buildings and being saved.
Both of these problems could’ve been solved at the end of the film in a pretty simple way! We’re told a device that Clooney’s character created in Tomorrowland is sending out negative feelings and ideas that are affecting the people of Earth, and that will lead to the Earth’s apocalyptic future. They end up blowing this device up with the self destructing girl robot I mentioned earlier. The idea of what’s causing the coming apocalypse and how to ‘stop it with explosions‘ comes from the lead female character, which is her most proactive moment. But if she had instead thought “let’s use this device to send out positive, hopeful messages, like the one that got me excited to come to Tomorrowland in the first place!” Then the film could’ve had that constructive, feel good solution that it really needed so it could gel better with it’s in-your-face preachiness. It certainly would’ve saved my opinion of it, at least!
Tomorrowland isn’t all bad, though! George Clooney plays a great ‘bitter old guy’ trope. I did like a lot of the dialog, which was clever. I laughed out loud quite a bit, and if a movie can make me do that I can be pretty forgiving of its faults. I totally did not like how the film used a lot of cartoon physics for its action scenes, though. There are between eight and ten separate occasions where either main character should’ve died or received serious injury from a nasty fall or impact. Right at the beginning of the movie the young George Clooney character straps on a jet pack, and it misfires, sending him smashing multiple times into the ground and through a fence. It looks like it should kill him, but he doesn’t have a scratch, which pretty much eliminates any sense that the characters will ever be in danger. Maybe they did that because it’s a kids movie and they don’t want kids to worry? But, having been a kid, I can say that when characters are in danger I’m far more engaged in a story!
Anyway, I’m not sure how much I’d recommend Tomorrowland, as it is basically a bland kids movie. There is one sequence where the girl walks through the future city for several minutes. My eyes glued to the screen, soaking up the imaginative Land of Tomorrow. In that moment I could completely understand why the main character was so driven to get to that city. The first thing I said as we left the theater was “I wish that part had been the whole movie!”
Friday (5/29) at 9PM EDT, Joe and I are going to be online for a NN4B SMASH BROS NIGHT. Post your WiiU username in the comments and join in!
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Hey, Yori’s unknown superpower is something we’ve known all along! But he did, perhaps, need the reminder. Now it’s time to refine him into a two sword wielding badass!
Joe has compiled the times that Yori has used his left hand/gone dual swords without thinking about it. Perhaps to make it look as if we planned this!
http://nn4b.com/?webcomic1=29
http://nn4b.com/?webcomic1=133 & http://nn4b.com/?webcomic1=136
Sheath catching
http://nn4b.com/?webcomic1=239
Sword catching
http://nn4b.com/?webcomic1=242
Can we talk about Mad Max: Fury Road for a second? Full disclosure, I’ve never seen any of the other Mad Max films before. I did not expect to like or care about this movie at all, but I did end up seeing it after noting the exceptionally high praise it was getting from critics. Thus far it’s been my favorite movies of the year! I’m fairly confident I’ll like Force Awakens more, hopefully, perhaps… but there’s no denying that Fury Road is just an exhilarating rush! I think it’s just that after all these comic book action movies that rely so heavily on CG effects for their action set pieces, sucking them of any real sense of danger or tension, having a film come along that sticks mostly to practical stunts and effects, and builds such a tangible and imaginative world, is so refreshing! Fury Road also keeps extreme gore and ‘gross out’ moments to a minimum, only using those types of visuals to heighten dramatic moments, so it never feels likes its pandering to a low ball demographic. It is quality action film making, the kind I don’t think I’ve seen in a while (maybe since Skyfall?). Does the internet even need my recommendation to see this movie?
On a final note, seeing as how Abrams is pushing the practical effects in Star Wars, and how tired all the overly CG’d superhero movies are getting, I’m hoping this year really begins a trend toward the toning down of overblown CG and the reliance on more grounded props and effects. Maybe that’s too impractical to hope for, since I’m sure it’s significantly more time consuming and expensive to go the latter route. But the old grouchy man inside me can dream!
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And suddenly Ina’s rage metamorphosed like a magical butterfly into unparalleled fear!
“We are the Crystal Gems, we’ll always save the day, and if think we can’t, we’ll always find a way. That’s why the people of this world believe Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl… AND STEVEN!” Now imagine that looping in your head for hours on end. That is my current state of being and I am totally cool with it. Just so you guys know, Steven Universe is great, as I have recently discovered, and it’s first 35 episodes are currently on Hulu Plus ad free. There was a lot of SU fandom going down at Emeral City Comiccon, and it got me intrigued. What I really love about the show is how it takes its time world building. It doesn’t smother you with exposition even though the full story of what’s going on is fairly complex in its details. Also, the characters have great ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ style moments that you can’t not smile at, and the music? So catchy.
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Hey, I got that extra page up! Here’s some classic samurai training for you! OR IS IT??
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Ina be all like “watchoo touchin’ my man fo!” I also like that Matrix refers to Cho as “Fists”. Also, I suppose if you perhaps had a rather dirty mind, you could come to some very wrong conclusions about where this scene is going. That may or may not have been intentional.
In other news, I’m going to try and do another two pages update this week, so look for the next page on Thursday! And we may do another Smash Bros Friday Night battle, I’ll keep you posted.
Joe and I also saw Avengers: Age of Ultron! I have some mildly spoilery thoughts on it:
- The title is very misleading, seeing as how there is no lengthy period of time pertaining to Ultron in this film. No “AGE OF ULTRON”, if you will.
- The Joss Whedon banter is in top form. Some people complain about Whedon banter, I think it is the heart of his films and I love it to death. Hang those lanterns, Whedon, HANG ‘EM HIGH!
- All that sexual tension between Hawkeye and Black Widow in the first Avengers seems kiiiinda awkward now!!
- Quicksilver had no problem moving people out of harm’s way throughout this film, but then he felt the need to use his body as a shield to stop bullets instead of just moving Hawkeye and the little kid out of harm’s way as he had before! Just gonna say it, Days of Future Past Quicksilver is the superior interpretation.
- It bugs me that the teaser for Cap 2 made all these Hydra characters intimidating, and then they were all pushovers at the beginning of this film. If I was watching these movies in order I’d feel like I missed out on a storyline.
- The hellicarrier may be my favorite thing about any Marvel movie ever. That sucker is like every kid’s fantasy wrapped up in one uber rad package!
- this movie has far too much undefinable, subtle mind control as a plot device.
- Why is Black Widow dressed up like an extra from Tron Legacy?
- Robots in Marvel movies seem to both be incredibly durable and easily blown apart all at once depending on what the scene requires.
- After a public Hulk rampage, Bruce Banner dejectedly says the world has finally seen the true Hulk. And yet I could’ve sworn in the first Avengers movie, they show a clip on a monitor of the Ang Lee Hulk film from 2003, implying that it, and possibly its soft reboot sequel, were part of continuity. If that’s the case, the world’s seen the Hulk go ape shit several times now! Just being super nerdy here.
- Why should I care about Thanos again? The guy has done a whole lot of sitting-in-a-chair in this film franchise, and it’s not exactly been intimidating.
- I’d totes recommend Age of Ultron! In the end, Ultron doesn’t feel any greater a threat than Loki in the first Avengers, but it’s still a heck of a good time.
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If anyone’s wondering, Matrix bugs Ina because Ina always gives an entertaining reaction and not because Matrix holds a grudge against her. Also, Ken and Yori could totally bromance over swords if Ken weren’t such an antisocial dude.
We saw Ex Machina tonight and it was GREAT. I just want to dump some non-spoilery thoughts here. I’d have to say what really impressed me with the film was how it so clearly defined each character’s point of view and illustrated how those views clashed. There’s one scene where the CEO character, Jay, shows his house guest, Kaleb, a video that Kaleb had previously only seen without audio. With audio Jay was certain it was a convincing argument of a point he was making, and yet Jay only saw it as further cementing his own point of view as the correct one. I super geek out at character development like that. Manipulation of points of view feels to me like the heart of great story telling, when you can absolutely understand multiple characters’ motivations and reasoning and be in total suspense when those motivations clash. For me, a story often falls apart when the motivation make little sense, but Ex Machina nails it, so I’m just gonna recommend this movie, yeah.
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Hey, It’s that promised extra update! As you can see, the tree did not fall on Ken, but I’m sure it gave the idea some thought.
Just to reiterate, Friday (4/24) at 9PM EDT will be our NN4B SMASH BROS NIGHT. Joe’s WiiU username is jwkovell, his SKYPE username is ALSO jwkovell, and we’ll have skype set up. We’ll also put a Skype button on the site so, assuming you have Skype installed, you’ll be able to push the Skype button and immediately connect with us. If you have no Skype, though, you can also tweet us @SuburbanSamurai @jwkovell. I hope at least one other person shows up to mitigate the pummeling I will receive from Joe’s many proficient characters. Oh how I lament the loss of Snake!
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POP POP! Ken’s sword is officially sharp as sin! Anyway, not much happens on this page, other than treevenge revenge, but I will be attempting another two update week, so look for the next page on Thursday.
ALSO, this Friday (4/24) at 9PM EST, Joe and I are going to be online for a NN4B SMASH BROS NIGHT. We’ll both be playing on Joe’s WiiU (I haven’t even purchase Smash Bros yet despite this pile of smash amiibo I’ve acquired!). Joe’s WiiU username is jwkovell. His nickname is Joedo, although I’m not sure if that’s relevant.
And, UGH, UUUHHHH, I could literally write a five thousand word essay on all my thoughts concerning the Force Awakens and SW Rebels Season 2 trailers! But I’ll keep it brief cause I’d like to sleep at some point tonight.
Force Awakens Trailer: LOOOVE that shot of Vader’s melted mask, utter BRILLIANCE, I can’t believe they thought of that. I got chills from the music buildup, John Williams I will hunt you down and FRENCH KISS YOU I love you so much! And the look of this movie, it FEELS like Star Wars! Finally. the best film makers in the industry, the ones who grew up loving Star Wars and thinking about how to make their own great SW film, have been given the reigns to the franchise! It feels SO GOOD to be a Star Wars fan again, without the burden of an overbearing control freak with awful world building skills! I’ve got a bunch of the concept art books from the prequel films and it bums me out how much great artistic vision was wasted on Lucas’ incompetent storytelling. This new film feels like it’s actually utilizing all those great ideas to incredible effect. That first shot with the crashed X Wing that leads into the downed Star Destroyer blew my mind! It’s so effective. I’m ready to get lost in this movie when it comes out. MY BODY IS READY!!
Star Wars Rebels Season 2 Trailer: I LOVED the first season finale, and even though I mostly disliked the Clone Wars CG show, I’m so happy to see Ahsoka, the only redeemable character, make a returns in Rebels. It looks like they’re pulling in a bunch of other Clone Wars characters, too, which I’m not super excited about, but I’m very willing to trust the show’s writers to handle these characters in ways that will make me completely forget all the dumb stuff they did in the previous show. Probably what I’m most excited to see is Darth Vader being in his prime, being the intimidating figure I remember from Hope and Empire. I want to see Vader hunting down rebels and DOMINATING, not getting sad and wrapped up in his teen-angsty past. In fact, if they reference his past at all, I hope they keep is real vague so I don’t have to think about Hayden Christensen rolling on top of Natalie Portman while spouting hideous dialog about how he can’t keep living without her love. My ideal Vader desires the order of the Empire and nothing else! They’re also breaking old EU canon in the trailer by showing off A-Wings and B-Wings, which have long been established as ships that weren’t designed until well after the battle of Yavin. That’s just a nerdy observation, though, cause I loves me some starfighters and if they want to break old canon to bring us more Wings sooner, I’m not gonna complain!
Published on by Alex Kolesar | 65 Comments on 600
