Wherein I Rant About the World

A Brief Critique of Dead Space 2 (So Far)

2012-01-17T21:50:00.000-08:00

(Short post tonight, just sharing some thoughts I've had about Dead Space 2 whilst playing it.)

So I played some more Dead Space 2 today. I stopped at the beginning of chapter 5. While I find the fact that the villains are essentially scientologists hilarious, I'm still a bit underwhelmed by it in places. It startles, sure, but I don't think the first act has had enough pacing to really be "scary." So far the whole game seems to be "Go down hallway. Lights flicker. Cat scare. Real monster. Ahhh." And there's not really anything wrong with that formula, it's become so common for a lot of good reasons, but when you keep reusing it over and over, it stops being very effective.

Not to sound like any more of a Valve fanboy than I already do, but the reason something like Ravenholm manages to genuinely scare, is because it manages to make you paranoid. The scariest parts of Ravenholm are not the points you're fighting the headcrab zombies, they're the points where you aren't. The points where you hear the moaning, or skittering, or maybe it was just the fire crackling, or maybe it was a headcrab and oh god there's a corpse there is it really dead or is it a zombie I could shoot it but I'm low on ammo and don't want to waste it and OH MY GOD HEADCRAB FLANKING ME WHYYYYY...

Erm, you get the idea. In Dead Space 2 (keep in mind all of these comments are restricted to the second game, as I've yet to play the first), you get plenty of ammo, and due to a very predictable routine in every few rooms, it's just... Not scary. And I mean, I'm one of the easiest people in the world to scare, I have very low horror tolerance, if I'm not scared by something branded "horror," then something is very wrong with it.

As it is, it seems to be putting a lot of the set pieces you would see in something actually scary, (a nursery, a dark room, a hospital, etc.) but because of the way it's done it's just so blatantly manipulative that, most of the time, it only makes me laugh.

Not to mention a lot of the game seems to reeeeeally want to be BioShock in a lot of places, and it's just... Not anywhere near that good. (I'd still put it over BioShock 2 though...)

But I do like the game, the zero grav stuff, what little I've come across at least, seems interesting, the game has a good visual design to it, the monsters are cool looking (although I am confused as to how a "virus" literally FUSES BODIES TOGETHER) and the way the interface is integrated is a stroke of brilliance. I might do a full review of it here eventually, as I think it's pretty alright for an action game.

Oh, and little kid zombies? Really? I'd say you're "trying too hard," but that would be like calling the Titanic a "small boating accident." *facepalm*

The Second Annual Wherein I Rant Awards - 2011

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

Welcome, to the Second Annual Wherein I Rant Awards, where I document the best and worst of everything I saw and played this year! Sorry it's been a while since the last post (and even longer since the last chapter of Murder On Deck 36, don't worry, I haven't given up on that yet, it's just on hiatus) but between school and the holidays, I've been very busy.

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Film

Best Family Film - The Muppets

The Muppets
was a charming return to form for the Muppets, who haven't had much of a presence (with the exception of the odd straight to TV film, or youtube video) in recent years. Luckily the film is very self aware of this fact, and is in fact ABOUT the Muppets returning to the vogue after falling apart for years. The film is a laugh a minute film that all ages can enjoy, which doesn't have any content inappropriate for kids, but instead has jokes anyone can laugh at. The few jokes that do go over the kids heads are tastefully done, such as a certain Cee-Lo Green song performed by chickens. In fact, the high quality of humor in this film is what leads to me also giving it...

Funniest Film- The Muppets

As I said, this film contains a million jokes, nearly all of which hit perfectly. I really don't want to ruin any of them, but needless to say, you absolutely need to see this film. It's hilarious! Nothing more to say.

Best Stupidly Amazing Trailer - Battleship

C'mon! Have you seen this trailer?

They shoot giant pegs into the side of the battleship. This is obviously a film that knew it had a stupid premise, and just ran with it. This movie looks terrible, and I for one can't wait to see it.

Most Pleasantly Surprising Film - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

As I mentioned in my review, I had no expectations for Rise to be anything special. I thought it was completely unnecessary. Instead, it turned out to be one of the best reboots of recent years. Don't get me wrong, it had problems. It had many, many problems, and they showed, but not once did they keep me from enjoying the film. I saw this film twice and loved it as much the second time as I did the first.

Worst Film - The Zookeeper

The worst film I saw this year is Zookeeper. Let me preface this: It was a double feature at the Drive-In with Rise of the Planet of the Apes (I know, weird choice) and my family decided to stick around. Good grief, this movie is atrocious. There is nothing-- nothing --redeeming about that film. The protagonist spends the entirety of the film trying to win back a completely unlikable character, it's every cliche from every family film ever, and its jokes are offensively stupid.

*spoilers if you actually care, which you shouldn't*

But that's not what really makes this movie so bad. Let's set aside the complete idiocy of the main character taking love life advice from animals. Let's set aside that the movie is cliche. Let's set aside the scene where Kevin James takes a Gorilla to a TGI Friday's by saying he's come from a costume party. Let's set aside the fact that LITERALLY the only explanation of why the animals can talk is, "When did you guys learn to talk?!" "Well today's Tuesday so... Forever." Let's set aside the fact that if all animals are intelligent that means that, for the most part, they're serial killers. Let's set aside the fact that this actually has a pretty decent cast, for what it is, and yet still has terrible performance after terrible performance. Let's ignore the fact that apparently Kevin James is the only zookeeper to ever have problems with his love life. Let's set aside some bad CGI, the obvious false love interest, and the climax that I liked better when I saw it in Liar, Liar. Let's EVEN set aside the fact that Kevin James actually seems pretty happy with his job as a car salesmen in the third act, and seems very good at it. Let's ignore the fact that Kevin James apparently wasn't hurting with the ladies in the first place, since he was dating a pretty attractive woman for a long time, and had another obviously interested in him. Even if all of those things were fixed, there would be one scene that would take the cake, and ruin the film. Would you like to know what that scene involves?

Kevin James, asking a wolf for love advice because DERP DERP SHENANIGANS DERP, is advised to mark his territory. So, Kevin James starts peeing in the wolf habitat. Along comes Ms. I'm Obviously Who Kevin James Will End Up With At the End (that's a swedish name, I believe), who sees him. Peeing. In the exhibit. So he tells Bird-Lady-Chick that some scorpion or something stupid stung the wolf, and he was neutralizing the venom (I thought that only worked for jellyfish, but I'm not sure on that, so I will actually let that go.) so, she turns around, and he pees on the wolf. Fun times.

It gets worse.

After giving the wolf a bath (oh the HIIIIlarity) Kevin James goes to meet False Love Interest in an upscale bar because HIJINKS, and pees in a plant. IN AN UPSCALE RESTAURANT.

It. Gets. WORSE.

A WAITER WALKS UP TO KEVIN JAMES AND SAYS, VERY CALMLY, "Sir, we have a fully functioning bathroom," to which Kevin James replies, "Oh, yes you do." AND THEY GO ON THEIR MERRY LITTLE WAY.

THIS. MOVIE. SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS.

Best Adaptation - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Like it would go to anything else. Look, I love the Harry Potter books, this film did a brilliant job of both staying true to the material, and making it more suitable for the screen, and I loved it for it. Enough said.

Best Superhero Film - Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger was a really good superhero film, and, discounting The Dark Knight from this discussion, as I always do, it was probably the best Superhero film I've seen since Iron Man. It gave us the origins of the character, had an interesting plot, set up next year's The Avenger's very nicely, and was well executed in general.

Best Film

Honorable Mention - Super 8

J.J. Abram's tribute to classic Spielberg films hit all the right notes, paying homage to classics like E.T., but still remaining it's own film. I quite liked it.

Runner Up - The Muppets

Again, The Muppets was funny and had a lot of heart. I loved it.

Best Film - Cowboys and Aliens

Ah, here we are. An awesome action film that was everything it needed to be. Do you like Cowboys? Do you like Aliens? Do you like Harrison Ford and/or Daniel Craig? If your answer was yes to any or all of those questions, you will like this film. It blends genres together brilliantly, has great performances by great actors, and was just a really entertaining film on every level. I really enjoyed it.

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Video Games

Note: I can only play so much, so these awards only go to game I've made note of over the year during my time with them. Deus Ex: Human Revolution, for example won't be eligible for much, because I simply haven't had that much time with it. I'll also be going into more detail with each of these awards, simply because this is more of my forte.

Best Soundtrack

Honorable Mention - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Zelda has long been blessed with fantastic music, and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker even holds a spot as my favorite game soundtrack of all time, and is one of the things that propels that to being my favorite Zelda game ever. While Skyward Sword isn't quite that good, it's still a great Zelda game, filled with great tracks, which hold a lot of personality.

Runner Up - Batman: Arkham City

Arkham City's soundtrack is everything it needs to be. Dark, brooding, sinister, and filled with tracks that set the tone perfectly, and can't help but get your heart pumping. This is a great example of using the soundtrack to highlight the other aspects of the game.

Best Soundtrack - Portal 2

The original Portal is perhaps best known for 2 things; The questionable status of the existence of cake, and the Jonathon Coulton written surprise ending song, "Still Alive." While the cake jokes were sparse in Portal 2, and the ending song was less of a surprise, the song was of course, hilarious and grand. But that's not what nets Portal 2 soundtrack of the year. The tonally pitch perfect soundtrack, varying from techno, to melodious, to classical, to opera, without any track feeling out of place, but giving each area of the Aperture labs you visit their own unique sound, is what lets me say without a moment's hesitation that Portal 2 was soundtrack of the year.

Best Indie Game

Honorable Mention - Magicka

Magicka speaks to gamers on a level most of them will appreciate immediately: It gives me the tools to screw with my friends. One of only a few games I can throw the term "griefing simulator" around with, Magicka may be riddled with uneven difficulty, far too many bugs that slow the experience down, and other minor issues, but there's still something intrinsically fun about hopping into vent with a friend, and reducing him into a pile of red goo.

Runner Up - Sanctum

Sanctum is fun, combining tower defense and a first person shooter in a way that really gels together very well. Graphically, it's also one of the best indie games released recently, looking like a high res version of the Metroid Prime games, It's not a perfect game, but for the price, there's a lot of fun to be had with it.

Best Indie Game - Minecraft

Minecraft is a fantastic game. It ate up most of my march as I built an enormous cobblestone castle, and by the time I was done with that project, I only felt the urge to keep on going. Minecraft gives you the tools you need to make your own fun, and while it doesn't have much in the way of set objectives, it doesn't really need them either.

Best 2010 Game I Played in 2011 - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Brotherhood finally managed to deliver on the promise that the original Assassin's Creed showed so much of. While Assassin's Creed 2 felt like it was collapsing in on it's own weight, and had a plot that was messy and nearly incoherent, Brotherhood finally understood what these games needed to be, embraced the good, lost or trimmed the bad, and made an experience that was simply fun. As if that wasn't enough, the game also delivered a fantastic and interesting multiplayer component different from pretty much everything else on the market. The first two games are good, this one was great.
Game of the Year

Honorable Mention - Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City is a game that one-ups it's predecessor in almost every way. Most of the issues the first one had, such as a disappointing third act, have been completely fixed in Arkham City. While it's arguable whether the Metroidvania style of Arkham Asylum was a better fit for Batman than the Assassin's Creed style open world, and some of the downright scary atmosphere is lost in translation, it's traded up for a dark gothic atmosphere that fits Batman just as well. Add in a phenomenal final performance from Mark Hamill as the Joker, and an absolutely astounding ending with a plot twist that genuinely surprises, and it's inarguable that Batman: Arkham City is one of the best title's released this year.

Runner Up - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Bethesda has been working on refining the Elder Scrolls formula for years, with each game learning valuable lessons from the predecessor. In my opinion, each Bethesda release has been a step up from the last, with Morrowind being a great game, Oblivion being better, and Fallout 3 being better still. Skyrim has, in my opinion, continued that trend, showing that Bethesda has taken valuable lessons from their previous projects, and shown their work with the latest installment. Skyrim is like a distillation of all the good bits of previous Elder Scrolls endeavors, with lots of the fat having been cut out, and many of the issues fixed, and almost all having been improved in some way. A larger voice cast adds realism, and, while I was at first skeptical of a lot of the streamlining Bethesda did to the series for this installment, they've managed to make an RPG that offers an insane amount of character customization, but still knows to put fun first. Though Skyrim does tend to collapse under it's own weight in a lot of cases, and the PS3 version is supposedly nearly unplayable, many of the bugs the other versions of Skyrim face are the fun variation, like backwards dragons! Add in some of the best graphics currently out there (though muddy ground textures in some spots do depress) and you have an incredible experience, and Bethesda's best RPG yet. Now can we get that engine in a Fallout game please?

Game of the Year - Portal 2

Like I'd pick something else. Portal 2 is simply the game I found to be most well made this year. It's fun, it's funny, the puzzles are mind bending at times, it provides interesting new mechanics, while remaining true to the series core, and is simply a near-perfect game. There isn't a lot of content in Portal 2, but what is there is some of the best content produced this year, with great new characters, great old characters, great performances, great puzzles, great music, and of course, pitch perfect humor. All of those things and more make Portal 2 my Game of the Year.

Video Game Review - Deus Ex

2011-09-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

So my video card is broken. Overheats when I play anything even slightly visually intensive after about 15 minutes, scales that all the way up to like an hour when I play something not visually intensive. Interestingly, I can get two hours or so if I'm playing a game released 11 years ago. Which brings me to Deus Ex! Called by some the greatest game of all time, Deus Ex is a distopian future action game centering around conspiracy theories. This is also a game where the developers forgot to paint the WTC into the skybox of New York, (in the year 2000, mind) and then handwaved it away by saying terrorists blew it up. That's not a joke, that actually happened. So basically what I'm getting at is that the developers of this game are psychic, and we should pay attention to this since it's actually our future.

I picked Deus Ex up during the steam sale this summer for $2.50 figuring I'd get to it eventually, since I had heard very good things about it. I've been busy, what with school starting, so over the past month I've put in an hour here and there into Deus Ex, since my video card can't play anything made within the last five years without crashing. So around a month ago I downloaded it, I installed it, I loaded it up, I hit new game, and then I closed the game and downloaded a texture pack.

Deus Ex puts you in the shoes of [Insert name here], but that doesn't matter, because the game will call you J.C. Denton no matter what you put in as your name. It's kind of amusing if you, like I did, put in "J.C. Denton" as your real name, assuming it would come up at some point, only to have such golden messages pop up as "Wow, it's going to take a lot of getting used to calling you by your code name J.C..." J.C. Denton, as the game will inform you is your name now, is a spy working for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition, or UNATCO, in the far flung future of 2052. A plague is sweeping the U.S., Paris is under martial law, Hong Kong seems to be run by various gangs and shut down completely, and your first day on the job, you've got to go save innocent people from terrorists inside the (now decapitated) statue of liberty.

The story is probably where this game shines the best today. The world it creates is filled with detail. The story is gripping, feels as high quality as a good spy film, and is filled with twists and turns that are unexpected. Even in today's day and age where game stories have come quite far, it still holds up to the story of a lot of modern games, with only a few personal favorites surpassing it, in my opinion.

Another plus for the game, is that it's the oldest game I know of that is fully voice acted, which is a plus. Pretty high quality audio too. As for the voice acting itself, it ranges from passable, to... Well it was 2000. It's forgivable. The only voice actor I found to be exceptional was the voice actor of the character Bob Page, who I honestly thought was voiced by John De Lancie until going to look it up just now. Seriously. He sounds like Q.

Another place the story shines is in the conversation system, which feels like a precursor to games like KOTOR, or Mass Effect. Plus, the big choice at the end of the game, which leads to which ending you get, is actually one of the best choices I've seen in a game. Without getting too spoilery, you're given three options, each of with has serious downsides.

In fact, Deus Ex feels like the precursor to a lot of modern games. Deus Ex stealth system feels like it probably helped inspire games like Assassin's Creed and Batman: Arkham Asylum, in that the stealth actually involves watching guard patterns and walking quietly behind people, instead of leveling up a skill, ala Fallout 3.

If stealth isn't your thing though, there's always another option. You can either go head on and take people down, or go via stealth, or take a long way around where you might not run into many people. There's usually three or four given answers to every scenario, making most builds viable within the game for every situation.

Speaking of builds, I like the game's skill system. As you complete goals, you gain points, which can be spent to upgrade various skills. These range from things like weapon classes, to lockpicking, to computer skill, to swimming. How you build your character will greatly effect how you play this game.

Since Denton is a prototype for a new type of machine augmentation in Deus Ex, there are various upgrades which you can gather throughout the game, granting you special abilities, all tied to a power meter. While some of these are very useful, at times I wished there were alternative passive augmentations, since the active augmentations weren't all that appealing. Again though, this was made in 2000, so a lot of forgiveness can be granted.

It's also a pretty good length game. I clocked in on my playthrough at 23 hours, which is still considered a fairly decent length for an RPG today.

Unfortunately, at times, the gameplay in Deus Ex does show it's age to a point where it becomes difficult to forgive it. For one thing, balance is pretty awful. The tranquilizer dart, for example is supposed to let you do a stealth, non-lethal takedowns. While it does this, it also only does it after several moments of the guard running in circles like a madman alerting all nearby guards that something is wrong with him, and that you are nearby. But the most ridiculous thing is the dragon sword. About halfway through the game you get a weapon called the Dragon Sword (read: lightsaber) which is so ridiculously overpowered that you may as well simply throw all your other weapons away, because this thing kills people in one to two hits. Except robots. You need grenades to take those down.

By far though, the worst THING in this game, is INVENTORY TETRIS. For those not in the know, inventory tetris is a terrible, TERRIBLE inventory managment system, where you have a certain number of slots, and different items take up a larger number of slots, in a specific arrangement, which makes you spend time that SHOULD BE SPENT shooting terrorists/shadowy government agents, arranging your inventory. It's not fun. It's not a good system. It was a bad system then, it's a bad system now. If you think that there is any reason inventory tetris should exist, you are wrong. If you want to make me only carry so many weapons, fine make me equip or drop weapons. If you want me to only carry so much, fine, give me slots ala WoW, or weight ala the Elder Scrolls. ...I'm getting ahead of myself though, I still plan on playing the new Deus Ex game, and from what I hear THAT has inventory tetris, which is, as far as I'm concerned, a SIN in 2011. But I'll get to that, at some point.

So, bottom line, is Deus Ex still a fun game 11 years later? Absolutely. I had fun with it, and I'm glad I played through it, even though it's not required playing for Human Revolution, since that's a prequel. Deus Ex might show it's age here and there, but it's still a very good game, and considering that you can get it for $10 on Steam, and it won't take any fiddling with to get working, I would give it a recommendation in a heartbeat.

Buy this game if: You want to check out where a lot of the systems used in modern RPGs got their start, or you just want to play through a darn good distopian espionage story.

Don't buy this game if: A game that does show it's age somewhat too often is enough to turn you off. Also: INVENTORY TETRIS UGH.

No Chapter This Week (I'm Sorry)

2011-09-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

Yeah, there's not going to be a chapter this week, unfortunately. I had a few big homework assignments both this week, and this weekend. I really do feel bad about skipping so many weeks, but life has been really busy. I'll try really hard to get a chapter out next week, and hopefully keep getting chapters out on a weekly basis instead of the bi-weekly basis they seem to be coming out at so far.

Murder On Deck 36 - Chapter Six: Deck 210

2011-09-10T08:37:00.001-07:00

The elevators themselves were behind a massive gate, with one security guard in a booth surrounded by bulletproof glass the only one with the power to open it. The speaker on the side of the booth crackled to life as the man in the guard uniform spoke into a microphone. “Please place your elevator pass in the slot below,” he said. I looked down and saw a large, metal slot just large enough for the pass to fit through. Although it hurt to pass with what was undoubtedly the most valuable object I’d ever seen, I slipped the piece of plastic through the slot. The guard grabbed it from within the booth. As he flipped the plastic over, his eyes widened. I supposed it wasn’t often that he saw elevator passes like this— All access ones. Most cards have a maximum deck they allow you to reach, only ones issued on official business allowed all deck access, and it wasn’t often Deck 36 got visits from officials, only to inspect the engines. To see someone like me, grimy and obviously not from the upper decks, handing him one, must have been quite a shock.
I decided not to let the guard question the pass for too long. “Is there a problem, or can you please stop holding me up?” The guard shook his head. “Uh, no, sorry sir. Go ahead, please be seated in the courtyard, I’ll call the elevator. ” The metal gate slid open. I quickly walked through into the courtyard. There were four glass tubes lining the wall of the ship, heading straight up into the ceiling, and down into the floor. There was a small bench on one of the walls of the courtyard. The courtyard was nice by Deck 36 standards, no graffiti at all inside, even some potted plants placed in the corner, although they were withered as though no one had bothered to water them.
I sat down on the bench and waited. It was a long time before one of the tubes lit up with bright green lights. I suppose those four elevators were all they had for the entire ship. It took forever to get one where you needed it, but travel between decks was rare. Finally a platform slid down the lighted tube, and into place in the floor. The doors of that tube lit up, letting me in. I rose from the bench and walked over.
I entered the glass tube. It was very small, only wide enough for me to stand in, certainly not large enough to fit another person. The floor panel was as stable as any piece of floor in the ship, but there was a small ring of darkness around it, from which I felt a gust of cold air, which I assumed was at least one factor holding it into place. Another speaker, this one in the floor panel, I suppose, said “Destination sir?” “Deck 210.” I responded. I could tell the guard was shaken by my request, but he responded “Yes sir… It’s a round trip pass. You’ll be issued another card to return at the booth at your destination.” and after a moment, the floor began to rise.
It rose slowly at first, into the ceiling, which became the floor. At first I could distinctly make out the floors as I passed them, Deck 37, Deck 38, Deck 39, but then the elevator began to rise faster and faster, until it became too fast for me to keep count any more. Before long, each floor was a blur as I passed it. It was a disorienting feeling, seeing the ship go by so quickly, one I didn’t much like.
Before too long had passed, the elevator began to slow, more rapidly than it had accelerated. The floor locked firmly in place, and the doors slid open. I stepped out of the elevator and the floor slid down immediately as I stepped off of it. I was slightly lightheaded from looking out the tube on the ride up. This feeling magnified though, as I saw, for the first time, what an upper deck actually looked like— Not just AN upper deck, THE upper deck. It didn’t get higher than this.
My first thought was how clean it was. It wasn’t made of gold either, for that matter. It was, however, a lot bigger than Deck 36. Not wider, mind you, but it was much taller vertically, easily three or four times the height of Deck 36, which was already pretty tall. This however, was incredible. I’d heard of skyscrapers before, massive structures of concrete and steel built back on Earth, but I never imagined there were skyscrapers inside of Hope, which already touched the stars. What was really incredible though, was that the roads seemed to curve around the massive structures, linking together again, creating a massive spider web of sidewalks high above, reaching up and up to the sky.
Then I finally managed to pull my eyes away from the skies when someone said, impatiently, “Are you done?” There was a guard staring at me angrily from her booth. “Yeah.” I said. “Yeah, I am.” I walked to her. There was no wall around the elevators here, no bulletproof glass protecting the guard of the elevators. Why would there be? It’s not as though people were hurrying to leave this deck, after all. Instead the courtyard was exposed to the sidewalk. Where the gate would have been, there was an enormous fountain. It was a sculpture resembling Hope, hovering above a pool of water. The sculpture alone was easily the size of my entire quarters, back on Deck 36. Water rose from the basin, a quickly moving stream, which swirled around the sculpture. It seemed totally natural, looked amazing as though the water were flowing completely on its own. It, and the statue, must have been held up with some sort of anti-gravity. Surrounding this incredible sculpture though, was grass. Real grass. I’d never seen grass before, we didn’t have it on the lower decks.
I took the return card from the woman, who seemed disgusted at the sight of me. I suppose my grimy clothes repulsed her, or perhaps it was just me that repulsed her. Either way, after taking the card, I took off, looking for a security station. I probably should have asked her, but I didn’t like her attitude. I passed the fountain, walking on the sidewalk running outside the small circle of grass circling the fountain.
The lowest level of this deck, at the base of the enormous buildings was bustling with people. As I passed them, making my way down the streets, I realized that as I passed them people began staring at me. Mind you, I wasn’t much better, there were several of them I stared at too.
On Deck 36 we pretty much wear whatever we want, although everyone onboard is issued a navy blue uniform. As a security officer, I’m required to wear the shirt on it, not that people usually care, so I usually wear that shirt, and a coat over it. Here though, everyone wears uniforms, but not like the ones we have on Deck 36. While the base design is the same as our uniforms on Deck 36, the colors here are not uniformly navy blue, instead they have all sorts of spectacular colors, hot pink, bright orange, dark green, the color was unlike anything I’d ever seen on the grimy worn down clothes of Deck 36. However even beyond the uniforms, the people of Deck 210 had some baffling fashion trends. I saw people who had so many piercings their head must have been more metal than flesh, but not normal piercings. Rivets, pieces of metal injected into, or fused with, their faces. I saw hair that looked like it must have used similar artificial gravity as the fountain to stay up. I passed
After wandering the deck for what must have been at least an hour, I finally saw a sign that said security, and made my way over to it. I stepped inside. Again, all eyes in the room fell upon me. This was considerably different from the security station downstairs. It was at least four times as large, and the desks were sturdy. The walls were clean, and had the same metallic sheen as a lot of the rest of the deck. The officers themselves here wore silver uniforms that seemed to almost sparkle in the light.
“Can I help you sir?” One of the men near the entrance said. I responded, “Yeah, can you tell me where I can find Gregory Taylor?” As the words left my mouth I saw the officers began to glance at each other, and heard whispers pass through the room. “May I ask who’s asking?”, said the officer. “Ryan North. I’m a security officer down on Deck 36, I have some questions for him.” Again, muttering passes through the room. “Sir, Gregory Taylor is currently taking some time off, coping with the loss of his son. As I’m sure you understand, he doesn’t especially want visitors right now. Please, could you come back in, say, a week?” Obviously I could not, so I did what I had to do. I lied. “Listen, I’m here on official business. I’m the officer on his son’s case, and I need to ask him some questions, now please, where can I find him?”
This time the whispers got even louder than before. I wondered if they’d ever even seen someone from a deck as low as 36. Either way, saying I was on official business was enough, and they gave me Gregory Taylor’s address, and I made my way toward his home.

Murder On Deck 36 - Chapter Five: Conspiracy

2011-08-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

“It’s just a junkie. A criminal.” The chief’s voice was condescending, a fact I didn’t appreciate at that moment. “It’s murder, and it’s connected to Evan Taylor’s!” I shouted. I shouldn’t be speaking to the chief this way, but I was beginning to get fed up with the chief’s ignorance of what was right in front of him. “It’s a random act of violence! Finding who killed this girl… There’s no trail.” The chief sighed. “You need to stop with this conspiracy stuff. There’s no connection—” “It’s the exact same wound!” I interrupted the chief. “It’s just a wound! There’s no connection, no arms dealer, nothing like that. They’re just two very unfortunate, isolated incidents.”
“I want to talk to the family.” I said. “Dr. Taylor’s. The wife made it sound like the family was pretty unhappy with Dr. Taylor’s choice to come to the lower decks, maybe that grudge was what led to his death.” The chief looked around slowly. He rose from his desk and walked to the door, closing it. Very quietly he said, “That’s not going to happen.” I still wasn’t pleased, but I spoke quietly too, though not sure why. “Why not? You can get me an elevator pass, if it’s for an official investigation.” The chief walked back to his desk, and rested his hand on it. While still looking away from me, he said, “I did a little research of my own on this Evan Taylor guy. Do you know who his father is?” “No.” I responded, shortly. I was a little embarrassed that I hadn’t done that research myself. The chief turned back to me, and said, lower still, in the lowest whisper. “Gregory Taylor. The chief of security for the entire ship. You won’t be bothering him with your accusations. The cases— Both of them— are closed. You’re dismissed, North.”
I left the Chief’s office in a huff. Everyone in the security office was staring at me. “What are you looking at?” I snapped at them. I was fed up. There was a connection between Cindy and Evan Taylor’s deaths. I knew it. And yet the chief was completely shut off from the possibility. I should be used to it I suppose. Down on Deck 36 most cases are never closed for this exact reason. Everyone is so afraid that rocking the boat will get them killed, that they just keep their heads down and hope to get transferred higher up. Rocking the boat too much can mean negative reviews from higher ups, which means you stay down in this stinking slum longer. But this was on a whole new level. I had a link between the cases, a solid link, and the chief wouldn’t even hear of it. Still it made sense. If I accused Gregory Taylor of this, it would be suicide for my career. A toxin for everyone involved, guaranteeing that they’d be stuck down here for the rest of their lives. Still if it were right…
As I stormed out into the streets, extra smoky today due to some sort of malfunction down in the engine section, Sarah called to me from inside. I kept walking. Sarah was just as frustrated as I was, I’m sure, we had vented our frustrations to each other, at that moment though, I didn’t feel like talking. I ducked down a back alley, hoping to avoid Sarah if she followed me out of the security station.
I kept trying to think of a connection, something more solid, so I could convince the chief to give me more resources, but I had nothing. If the wounds being almost exact matches wasn’t enough, and my story about Cindy showing up at midnight (Which was met with a response of “I don’t want to hear about any more midnight visitors of that kind from you again North.”) then I didn’t know what would. If I could only get the chief to reopen the case, maybe get me some extra manpower on the case to talk with people, ask about a new weapons dealer… What I really needed was to talk to Dr. Taylor’s family. The chief of security for the entire ship. That was major. Deck 210, very top floor. One of the most important men on the deck. But that just made him fit the profile all the more. As I thought about it, it made more sense. Gregory Taylor could easily afford a heat weapon. He probably had twenty different kinds in his quarters alone. Maybe he begrudged his son’s choice to come to the lower decks. Hated it even. Enough to kill. Then Cindy found a link, some evidence, something, and he had to deal with her. That would certainly explain what Cindy had meant by this being “bigger than you know.” The chief of security for the entire ship committing murder?
That’s when it crossed my mind. Johnny. How could I have forgotten? I should have gone straight from the crime scene to talk with him, but I rushed to tell the chief what I had found, falsely hoping he’d reopen the case. I pushed the thoughts of Gregory Taylor and the upper decks from my mind, and began to hurry down the dark streets, toward Hole in the Wall.
When I arrived, I knew something was wrong. The place was usually pulsating with loud music all hours, but as I approached the hole, it was dead silent. I ducked in, and didn’t like what I found. The place was virtually empty, except for Johnny and the brunette from earlier, sitting at a table by the opposite wall. The strobe lights had been replaced by harsh flood lights lighting the area between walls up. I could see around a hundred feet in either direction, beyond that, only darkness. I suppose the expanse between walls could lead me around the entire deck, but no one ever strayed too far from the dance floor in hole in the wall, unless they wanted a dark spot for… Privacy. There were probably all sorts of diseased vermin who had made nest in the darkness, and besides, there was no point in wandering in the darkness, since the expanse was just an empty void.
I could tell the two were upset. As I approached them, Johnny looked up at me and, obviously grief stricken, said “What do you want?” angrily. Obviously, word had gotten to him. The brunette whose name I didn’t know said something I couldn’t hear, obviously meant to be comforting, to Johnny, but he shook his head. “What do you want Ryan? Now’s not a good time. I just got word about—” “Cindy?” I asked, bluntly. Johnny’s brow furrowed with confusion. “How do you know about…?”
I explained the story to Johnny, beginning with her midnight visit, and then ending by saying that the chief still wouldn’t reopen the case. There was a long silence after I finished. I could tell the brunette was very upset by what I’d said. I imagine she must have known Cindy well. Finally, Johnny rose from the table. Walked closer to me, and said, looking me in the eye, “What do you need?”
I was a bit taken aback. “What do I…?” “What do you need?” He repeated. “For the case.” I thought for a moment. “Well it’s hard, I’d need the manpower to… figure out what Cindy knew… I mean, I’d need people out on the street asking about the new arms dealer… And…” I trailed off. “And?” He asked. I sighed, before continuing. “If it were any other case, I’d want to question the family. Figure out if any of them have a grudge against Taylor, or know who might. Unfortunately he’s from the upper decks, and without a pass…” I left out the part about Gregory Taylor, no need to mention that to Johnny.
The most serious I’d ever seen him look, Johnny turned to the brunette. He said, “Rachel.” And that was it. She’d clearly been listening to me, because she knew what Johnny meant. She reached down into her chest, and pulling out of her shirt was a small plastic card. She handed it to Johnny, and he turned back to me. “Something this valuable, had to keep it close to me. People expect that I’d keep something valuable on me, but the girls…” His voice faltered, I suspect he remembered that he was one girl shorter now. “…The girls are invisible during deals to most people. No one expects them to have anything valuable.” It’s times like these that remind me that Johnny, for how reckless and carefree he asks, is the best in the business because he’s smarter than the rest.
“I’ll send every man I have to start asking about this guy. Cindy was the best at finding people, that’s why she was one of my best people, but I’ve got a lot of manpower. I’ll tell everyone to drop what they’re doing. Put a bounty on information about this guy. As for talking to this Taylor guy’s family…” Johnny handed me the small plastic card, and my eyes widened. I’d never actually seen one of these with my own eyes before, and instantly I knew why Johnny wanted to keep this so close. The small plastic card had a picture of Hope on it, on a starry background. Underneath it were the words “ELEVATOR PASS - OFFICIAL BUSINESS - ALL DECK ACCESS”
“Rachel swiped this on some guy, an official visiting 36 years ago for some evaluation, making sure the engines were being kept running. It’s only good for one trip, so I’ve been saving it. Only good for one person, so I was hoping some day I might get more and be able to get the girls and I out of here… But this will work for getting you wherever you need to go.” I kept staring at the piece of plastic. “Ryan.” Johnny said, keeping the serious tone that matched his face. I tore my eyes from the plastic, and met Johnny’s eyes. “I want the man who killed Cindy. Find him.”
I probably should have told Johnny that I’d have to arrest him, and I couldn’t bring him to Johnny, but this was different. Last time it was business, but this time the killer had hurt someone Johnny cared about. And as I thought about all Johnny did for her, I realized that Johnny really did care about his girls, maybe even love them. For all his faults, Johnny was still a good guy. All I did was nod and say, “We’ll get him.”
I left Hole in the Wall. I took the piece of plastic, put it in my pocket, but never let go of it. I headed toward the elevators. I was getting to do something I’d wanted to for my entire life. I was leaving Deck 36.

Movie Review - The Beaver

2011-08-25T22:42:00.001-07:00

The Beaver is a psychological thriller/horror film directed by Jodie Foster. I don't care if the trailer looks like a quirky drama, this crap is messed up. I don't CARE if Jodie Foster calls it a comedy-drama, this crap is MESSED UP. But is it any good? And just what makes me feel that this film can be seen along the lines of something out of a Stephen King novel?

Let me back up a bit, back to when I was seeing Source Code with a friend. One of the trailers in front of it was for the above film, ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnd I laughed hysterically for all the wrong reasons. I couldn't believe they were seriously making a drama about THAT premise. And the dialogue was so silly! "I'M THE BEAVER AND I'M HERE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE." Really movie? Really? It looked like Oscar Bait, plain and simple, along the lines of such terrible, terrible films as Seven Pounds. Still, I was informed by people who actually knew what they were talking about that the movie was supposed to be quite good according to test audiences, so although I was skeptical, I kept an interest in the film, and kept tabs on it.

After release, the film grossed under a million dollars, produced on a budget of $21 million, and had a very brief run in theaters, although it was critically acclaimed. Even though the film had star power, since it stars Mel Gibson as the main character, Walter Black (we'll get there in a moment) and Jodie Foster as his wife (who also directed the film) not even the star power was enough to draw in an audience. Jodie Foster stated that she thought it was because the film was a "comedy-drama" and that audiences didn't know what to feel. Well let me solve that problem for you: You should feel utter horror.

You see, as I said above, the trailers, and likely the filmmakers, would have you believe that The Beaver is intended to be the story of a depressed man. While that's true, the trailer is misleading, because this film is NOT merely a drama. I'm fairly certain that this film was directed, written, and acted as a dark, disturbing horror film about a man's slow descent into utter madness, and then got a quirky indie/alternative soundtrack and was recut at the last second. It's the only explanation I can manage.

I say that, but even that doesn't sit right. The film doesn't even feel like it's been recut. This film is terrifying! It starts off oddly, as Walter, suffering from chronic depression, begins to use, as I'm sure you know by now, a puppet of a Beaver to cope. At first this is funny, but that fades quickly, and before too long I started worrying that the film would end with Walter wearing a suit of human skin.

You probably think I'm exaggerating, but I swear, this movie is dark. And not only in the way I thought it would be, with Walter struggling with depression, but some of the scenes with the Beaver in it are downright eerie.

But the film isn't all bad. Even the things I've said above aren't "bad" per say, just bizarre. And I actually did like the movie. The acting is good all around, and the dialogue largely feels realistic and sincere.

Actually what were probably my favorite parts of the movie, oddly enough, were the scenes having to do with the sub plot about Walter's son Porter. The sub plot, a romance between Porter and a girl at his school, was pretty typical teenage romantic plot fair, but something about it felt very sincere, and I thought the two characters had good chemistry. It feels so vastly different from the rest of the movie though, it almost seems like two films got squished together.

So should you see this movie? ...Yeah! Go for it! This film is good! It's... Bizarrely dark, more than a little disturbing, and kind of make you confused to watch because you don't know whether to laugh or cry (as I said, I settled in the middle in UTTER HORROR), but it's still a film worth seeing, that I would definitely give a recommendation.

And on that note I'm going to go NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.

No Chapter This Week

2011-08-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I've been preparing for school and stuff, starting back up on Monday, and I haven't had a chance to write a chapter for this week yet. Hopefully next week won't be TOO crazy with classes starting up, but I hope everyone is understanding of there being no chapter this week (and possibly next).

Murder On Deck 36 - Chapter Four: The Second Murder

2011-08-17T20:55:00.001-07:00

The next day my head was still buzzing with questions. This Cindy girl, she was obviously in trouble. But who was after her? I’d seen her around before when talking to Johnny, she was one of his favorite girls. She always seemed harmless. In over her head. Another victim of the cannibalistic society of Deck 36 to be sure, but never dangerous. We’re all victims in our own way of this place. Even folks like Johnny who have things under control.
As I walked into the station I saw Sarah. I tossed around in my head whether or not to tell her about Cindy’s visit… Her warning. What troubled me was that I didn’t have anything solid to go on, and down here if someone tells you they’re in trouble you don’t tell anyone without a good reason. I’m not saying I thought Sarah was in on anything, she’s one of the few folks I trusted on the whole deck, but getting people involved gets them killed. I decided to keep Cindy’s midnight visit to myself for the time being.
It started as a pretty normal day at the station. Cases buzzing around, but nothing for me. Nothing for Sarah and I either. I sat around and dozed, still tired after a mostly sleepless night. I had been sitting at my desk without much to do for quite some time, halfway between the world and sleep, when I was shaken awake by Sarah. “Ryan, wake up. There’s been another hit, we’ve got to go check it out.” I stood and wiped the sleep from my eyes. “Where?” I asked. “The body was found in an alley somewhere, some girl. I think it’s by where you live, actually.”
Not unusual. I’d say I lived in a bad area, but all of Deck 36 was a bad area. Sarah had the exact location of the hit downloaded on a map. It was an old decrepit thing that barely worked any more, like most of the maps that were handed out to Security Officers as standard issue. As we neared the location where the body had been found, I realized how close to my quarters this hit actually was. It couldn’t have been more than a block or two away. “Where did you say this was, again?” I asked. “Oh I don’t know,” Sarah responded, only half listening to me, “The 63rd block?”
My stomach lurched. Each Deck was split into 120 “blocks” to make navigation easier. I lived on the 65th block. The murder had been just two blocks adjacent to me the night before. “Did anyone mention a time of death, when they told you about the case, I mean?” That got Sarah to look up at me, questioningly. “No… Why?” I shook my head. “No reason.”
It couldn’t be, I was sure of it. It was all a coincidence. A murder in my area isn’t an uncommon thing. Drugs, money, even looking at someone wrong, these were all things that could get you killed. Not to mention Johnny wouldn’t stand for it… No one would cross Johnny like that, not even the guy who was selling these heat weapons. Johnny wasn’t a complete sociopath, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have someone killed for crossing him like that.
But then we got there. Then we turned the corner into the dark alley. And I looked at the body lying on the ground, with a million thoughts jumping into my head. The wound. The place. The person. All my thoughts condense into one: Cindy. Lying on the dirty ship floor before me was Cindy’s dead broken body. Most of it, at least. To the right side of her chest was a large dark wound. A blackened hole burned straight through her torso, crisping her very heart. I recognized the wound instantly. It was the same wound that killed Dr. Taylor. Whoever was using the heat rifle had struck again, and judging from where the body was, it couldn’t have been more than minutes after Cindy had spoken with me the night before.
Cindy had come to warn me to stop digging into Evan Taylor’s murder, and mere moments later the same man killed her.
Whatever it was I was feeling at that moment, anger, confusion, and perhaps a tinge of fear, it must have shown on my face, because Sarah startled me as she said, “Ryan? What’s wrong?” I don’t look up from the cold body as I respond. “I knew her.” Sarah glances at the body, and says, “You did? Who was she?” I shook my head waking myself slightly from the shock. “She was… Her name was Cindy. One of Johnny’s girls.”
“One of… No… Who would cross Johnny like that? He’ll have them killed!” Sarah said. “Sarah, I think this goes a lot deeper than a new arms dealer. Look at the wound. It’s just like the one that killed Dr. Taylor.” Sarah looked at the wound, and I didn’t wait for her to respond before continuing. “First Dr. Taylor, then Cindy… Sarah, Cindy was the girl who Johnny sent to look into whoever had a heat rifle. I saw Johnny send her to look into this guy, and now she’s dead… And…” I sigh. Sarah picks up on my hesitancy, and says “And what?” more as a demand than a question.
“And she found me last night.” I responded. “What?” Sarah asks. “She found me last night. That’s why she was here. She must’ve been killed just after I spoke to her. She was scared, and she came to my quarters.” “Asking for help?” I shake my head. “No. Warning me.” “Warning you… Wait. You don’t mean…?”
I nod. I don’t need to say any more. We both realize why Cindy came to warn me. Whoever killed her has struck twice now, and all signs point to me being the next target.

My Thoughts On Reviews

2011-08-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hello. So, readers of my blog (yes, both of you) will probably know that I do a lot of reviews on here. You can find them all here. I thought, since it's one of the main things I do on here, I might as well spend a little time talking about my review philosophy, and a certain fallacy I think a lot of reviews, professional or otherwise, fall into.

The fallacy is, in short, the thought that the only point behind a review is to inform the reader of your own opinion of the film/book/whatever, something which I feel is only partly true.

I can hear the disagreements already.

Let me explain my point a little bit; While it's inarguable that reviews are subjective and opinion based, and in fact all personal taste is subjective, and there's no "right or wrong" taste (unless you like Twilight, obviously) informing the audience of your personal opinion should only be half of the point of the review. You see, there are two main reasons why anyone would read a review. People who have seen the film you're reviewing (or played the game, or read the book, and so on) want to see if they agree with your opinion of it, or hear alternative viewpoints and criticisms or compliments toward the work being reviewed. The second, and more obvious point, is simply to decide whether it is worth the money to buy the film/book/game/etc. And the review should, as such, attempt to inform both of these audiences equally.

Let's pretend for a moment that you want to write a review of a movie you just saw. Now, this hypothetical movie is the latest summer action blockbuster, and it's been being hyped for months. The trailers look interesting, and you decide to go buy a ticket to see it opening day. You sit down for two hours, and think it's the greatest film you've ever seen. You decide that you're going to go home and write a review of it on your blog, and post it for all your friends. (This is beginning to become uncomfortably familiar to me.) You sit down and write your post. In the review, you write about how it's the greatest film you've ever seen, and how it's changed your perceptions of how good a movie can be. You insist that everyone reading the review go see it immediately. However, you neglect to mention in your review that, while the action and effects were, in fact, the best ever seen in a movie, the acting and writing were awful. After all, though you know this is true and wouldn't argue otherwise, you didn't care about the plot and felt the action held up the film on it's own, thus making the plot, characters, and lame sex jokes in every scene (it's a Michael Bay film) irrelevant to your review.

Now suppose one of your friends, who for the sake of the argument doesn't like action films and instead only likes movies with intelligently written characters, reads your review and decides to see the movie you loved so much. He walks out of the theater instead feeling outraged at how terrible he thought the film was.

Now obviously, he wasn't the right audience for the film. Unfortunately, because of your review simply using broad language and not explaining what was good and bad about the film, he's going to feel cheated and not trust your reviews again. Maybe he'll even feel lied to. Obviously this isn't the best way to go around writing a review.

Now of course, if you loved the film for the action, that's your prerogative, and you have every right to tell people that on your blog. But a better way to about it would probably be to tell the audience, instead of simply that the movie was the greatest you've ever seen in your life, that the acting and writing weren't that great, but that you felt the unparalleled special effects and action scenes more than held up the film on it's own. Not only will you sound more intelligent in the end, but you'll end up pleasing your readers more, and will let people know whether they'll like the film, not just whether you did.

And this can go for any kind of review, of course. For example, Angry Joe, a reviewer of both video games and movies whom I have a lot of respect for, gave Mortal Kombat* a 9/10, but after watching his review, I know it's not a game I'd never be any interested in. It's a fighting game, a genre I'm not too interested in because I simply don't like it that much outside of Smash Bros.

That's what I try to do in my reviews, and that's my review philosophy. I try not only to tell my opinion of a game or movie, but inform my reader of why they may or may not like something. A game I really liked, and I still play quite a lot a whole year later, Beat Hazard, is currently sitting at a score of merely 70 on Metacritic, so obviously most reviewers weren't as in love with the game as I was. (Sidenote: The problem with the menus being laggy I mention in that review was patched almost a year ago, and Beat Hazard is still a phenomenal game in my opinion, though like I said, the flashing lights can be headache inducing.)

Now I may not always succeed in trying to bring through why you may like or dislike a game, and going back to some of my older reviews it's downright embarrassing, but I'm always trying, and back when I did some of those older reviews like Beat Hazard, I was still trying to find my identity as a blogger. Heck, I still am trying to find my identity as a blogger.

In fact, something most people will probably notice is that in my reviews I don't use a "rating score" at all, and even more importantly, in my video game reviews I end each one with a "Buy this game if:" and "Don't buy this game if:" quote. That's because, simply put, I don't believe in arbitrary review scores. Here, let me elaborate a bit. I just pulled three random issues of Game Informer out of my stack of 10 years worth of them. Let me pick three reviews real quick.

Mirror's Edge - 8 (Issue 188)
Wii Fit - 8 (Issue 182)
Nail'd - 8 (Issue 213)

There you go. Those 3 games, according to the review score, are exactly equal. Wii Fit, Mirror's Edge, and Nail'd are all games worth exactly an 8/10 score according to Game Informer. (I know a lot of people have problems with Game Informer. Shut up. I'm making a point.)

My problem with review scores, in case I haven't made it apparent yet, is that it's impossible to tell anything about a game from a number alone. I mean really, what do we know about these games from a review score alone. We know, apparently, that they're all games worth an 8/10. That's it.

Now, looking more carefully at each game, what we actually know about them is that one is a first person platformer, one is a glorified yoga mat, and one is a racer of some kind, I don't know, I'd never heard of Nail'd before, and it's not really relevant. The point is that these are very different games, and putting the number "8" on each of them is virtually useless. What does "8" mean? The magazine describes it as

"Very good. Innovative, but perhaps not the right choice for everyone. This score indicates that there are many good things to be had, but arguably so."

In other words, an 8 means "READ THE REVIEW!"

I just don't see the point in applying arbitrary numbers to a review. The scores are just a more professional way to give people a TL;DR ("Too Long; Didn't Read") without actually saying anything. They're essentially the exact opposite of what I was just saying about explaining the merits and problems with the film/book/game.

Now I get most review scores are meant to accompany the review itself. Most reviewers would claim that a review score isn't meant to replace the review itself, and instead should be read in context with the rest of the review. You know my answer? Well if you're supposed to have read the review, shouldn't you know how good or bad you thought the movie/game was anyways, without the review score? Either 1, you're being lazy and don't want to write too much or too passionately about what you really thought, or 2, your review score is completely and utterly redundant. Neither are a good answer to why the review score should be around. That's why I don't use them, and that's why I don't like them. I know I've given Ebert a hard time on this blog before, but I did like the "Thumbs up, thumbs down" review mechanic, and I still have respect for him as a critic when he's in his element.

The only thing I will say is that it is nice to be able to tell at a glance whether a review on Metacritic is positive or negative, so that when I'm judging whether or not to buy a game I can go to Metacritic and pick both positive and negative reviews to get a fair assessment of what the good parts or bad parts of a game are. The problem with that, however, is that most people don't USE Metacritic for that, and instead only take one look at the metascore, and either buy or dismiss the game based on that alone, which ties back in to what I said before. Reviews should be about helping people decide whether or not to buy the game. I'm sure many people have been angry that they got a game they really didn't like because it had a high metascore, simply because it was a critical darling, and I'm sure many people have missed real gems that they would have loved (like Beat Hazard) because they have a lowly score of 70.

Another point that frustrates me with game reviews specifically is the inflation in game review scores. I'm not going to go too in depth with that point because the Extra Credits guys already tackled that topic, and they put it more eloquently than I ever could, not to mention the fact that I'd just parrot what they say, but the short version is this:

As it is now, there's a huge inflation with game review scores, to the point where an 8/10 score among game reviewers is typically an average to mediocre game, instead of a 5/10 which would make sense. As such games at 80/100 on Metacritic are to be taken with a grain of salt (Oh, and keep this in mind and read that Game Informer review quote again. They're one of the biggest offenders of this.) and anything below that is generally a pretty poor game, equivalent to only a 2/5 movie score or below. There's even a Trope about how stupid it is that 8.8 is considered a lukewarm review. The end result, obviously, is that instead of having the range from 5-10 to review games that are above average, you only get from 8-10. The result is a lot of scores of, well, 8.8 or such. It's stupid. (Note: If you want a review absolutely not guilty of this, who actually uses review scores better than anyone else I've ever seen, Angry Joe is awesome with this.)

The end result is that, when I go to look for reviews I know of a few critics whom I generally find informative, like Giant Bomb, Angry Joe, or, if he's done a review of it, Totalbiscuit, and listen to their comments, ignoring the metascore entirely. (Unless, like I said before, I was looking for various opinions on a game.)

So yeah. That's basically a really long blog post about my review philosophy. I hope it's been informative and has helped people understand my reviews better.

*Note: Obviously I'm not responsible for any content such as language or blood seen in the review I linked to. It's for an M rated game, the review will have blood in it, and the reviewer doesn't have as tame a mouth as I do.

Movie Review - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-07T21:26:00.000-07:00

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot of the classic Planet of the Apes film series. Unlike the last film, this one is not a direct remake of Planet of the Apes and, more importantly, didn't cast an untalented idiot as the main character... Seriously, who though Marky Mark was a suitable replacement for Charlton Heston? Really?

...But I digress. What's important is that Humans are Idiots-- Sorry, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is meant, if successful, to launch a new film series, hopefully reviving the franchise, and again, most importantly, keeping Mark Hackberg as far away as possible from it.

Since it's virtually impossible to say anything about this film without spoiling the classic 1968 film (which if you haven't seen yet YOU SHOULD) please refer to the following videos to get caught up on the original film.

So as you can see... Sorry what? Oh, ok. Folks, I've been told one of those isn't actually a clip from Planet of the Apes, I apologize for confusion. Anyways, in a nutshell, the titular planet of the apes, is in fact Earth.

Basically, Humans blew up the Earth, Apes became intelligent and took over. It's a great film. Go see it.

But have you ever found yourself wondering, "Hmm, I wonder what happened? I wonder exactly how the apes overthrew humanity?" No? Me either. That's why I went into this film highly skeptical. I liked the ambiguity of the original Apes movies. It let you use a bit of imagination to figure out what happened. But Hollywood decided we needed answers, and that they would be given to us in the form of James Franco trying to cure Alzheimer's.

So was I right? Is Rise a failure, or a victory? Does the franchise deserve to be relaunched, or should we hold on tightly to our 1968 Heston films, or can we finally say the Apes franchise is ready? It's been ten whole years since the Marky Mark disaster, after all. (Actually, I didn't mind that movie except for Marky Mark. Oh and also the ending. And the... Rest... Of the movie-- Ok yeah it was terrible.)

Well, I was actually pleasantly surprised by Rise. The film begins with James Franco (Harry from the Spider-Man films) playing a scientist attempting to cure Alzheimer's with a modified virus called ALZ-112. He gives several different variants to Chimps before finding one that works (ALZ-112) that repairs brain cells using the power of SCIENCE. Basically, it's a smart virus. (I can only assume it was also being developed to counter the STUPID VIRUS that spread to all of humanity prior to the film, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

In short, the day Franco is showing it to the people who will get the drug to the public, the chimp with the ALZ-112, Bright Eyes, goes ballistic and rampages through the building before being shot. All the chimps have to be put down, and Franco's life long work is, in short, over and done with.

...OR IS IT?!

Well obviously not, or it'd be a pretty short film. No! It turns out that Bright Eyes went ballistic because it was protecting it's newborn baby Chimp, Gollum. I mean Caesar.

And thus begins the ~2 hour film. Yeah, that was all the opening.

Actually, while we're on that subject, let me just say the pacing of this movie is really good. It has that perfect balance of both keeping the story active, and yet never going too fast as to make it seem rushed. It gives each of the characters enough time to be developed as characters. Even Caesar seems really developed by the end of the film, and you understand his motivations.

I was also very pleasantly surprised by James Franco's acting. I mean, not to diss the Spider-Man films, or him in those films, but uh... His acting was a bit...

Hammy? And let's not forget his unbelievable Oscar performance this year, where he basically stood next to Anne Hathaway being Anne Hathaway and was, erm... Boring.

Luckily, none of that came through in this. He seemed likeable, and realistic. Stupid, but realistic.

Oh and also on that note, let me just say real quick RODNEY MCKAY IS IN THIS MOVIE AND IT IS AWESOME. Oh, and so is Draco Malfoy. And that guy who's in a ton of stuff.

So yeah, good cast, and good acting all around. I really enjoyed the acting, and all of the characters are really likeable, except the villain, but that's intentional.

Speaking of transitions, CGI! The CGI in this film is great! Absolutely great! Perhaps not uncanny valley escaping, but really good! The amount of emotion the apes all get across is unbelievable. In fact, by far the best scenes of the movie involve all ape characters, partly because of just how incredibly good the CGI is, and partly because the writing for those scenes is really good.

In fact, the writing for this is the best kind of prequel writing (except for the stupidity of the humans), because this is the same kind of prequel that KOTOR is, for example. In fact, the film works the fact that it's set so long before the first film into the plot really well. Since it's so undefined what happened during this film, it actually keep you guessing how it'll end. (Hint: There are some apes involved.) In fact it even works some absolutely brilliant references to the Charlton Heston films (which Wikipedia says this is not, actually, in the same canon as, and that at some point if this film does well enough, we'll see a remake of the '68 film) both obvious that almost everyone will get, and a few that are hidden in the background. In fact I almost want to see the film again just to catch all the shout-outs, and when you can say you want to see a movie again so soon after watching it, I'd say the film is a success.

In fact, I can even see, very easily, there being another Rise film between this film and the remake of the '68 film. In fact, the way this film ends almost requires it, since let's just say it leaves a few... BIG... Things... Unexplained. I'd almost be angry if I didn't think they were planning to do Rise 2 before the full remake.

So was the film unnecessary? Well, surprisingly, I'm going to say no. What I didn't realize, actually until writing this review, was that this is not in the same canon as the Heston films, and they ARE planning on getting to remaking the Heston film. So you know what? I actually like that they went a different route. It's a lot more creative than the typical route of rebooting a franchise with a remake. In fact, this movie has the most in common with Batman Begins, in that it's telling the origin story before getting to the real story. And you know what? It works. It really works. This was a good movie, maybe even a great movie. It was the origin story we didn't know we wanted. And I'd give it a recommendation in a heartbeat.

In fact, I really only have one issue with the film. You may notice that I've been subtly alluding to a certain lack of intelligence on the part of the human characters.

Basically, every. Single. Human. Character. In the film. Is. A. Moron. All of them. James Franco? Yep. McKay? Yeah, him too. Malfoy? Oh heck yeah. James Franco's girlfriend? Yep. The entire U.S. Military? Well, they didn't show up for the titular rising, so yeah, I'll count them too. It would seem every human being forgot either A. That they had guns, or B. How to use guns. And it shows. And it's painful.

The human aspects of this film is just watching one moronic mistake after another, that in the end forcefully pushes the movie toward a climax. Now I know that sounds harsh, but understand, I really did like the film. A lot. And you should definitely see it if you're looking to see a movie any time soon. It's a good one to see in theaters. But the human characters are IDIOTS. All of them. I saw this with a group of friends, and right as the credits roll I turn to them and say "You know what I don't get?" And one of them responds "Why Humans suddenly turned into idiots?"

It hurts me to say this without giving examples, but unfortunately most the examples are very spoilery, other than the gun thing. And honestly, that's not even the half of it.

Still, as I said, I liked the movie a lot, and the stupidity of the human race isn't enough to ruin it, not by a long shot. They won over me, one of the biggest skeptics of the film, and I can now safely say that I'm looking forward to any future sequels to Rise.

Oh, and one more thing. I don't know if this movie was meant to be in 3D and those plans fell through, or if it's only getting a limited 3D run, but there are a few shots that seemed like they were going for a 3D effect that... Wasn't there, in my theater at least. Bizzare.

Murder On Deck 36 - Chapter Three: Bigger Than You Know

2011-08-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

I stepped into the security station, taking a deep breath of the air, clean by comparison. Sarah was sitting at her desk, but as soon as she saw me she bolted up and came to talk to me. “So what’d you find out?” She asked me, “Did Johnny remember who bought it?” I gave a short sigh before responding. “Johnny doesn’t know who sold it. He didn’t know there was a deal going down about a heat weapon.” I can see the shock in Sarah’s face. “Are you sure he wasn’t just trying to-” “Fool me?” I interrupt. “Yeah. I’m sure. He was pretty convincing.”
Sarah turns away for a moment and sighs, before looking up again and saying, “I asked around, but didn’t get any word on heat weapons. Most of them don’t know anything, and those who might know something are too scared to talk.” Fear isn’t a new concept on Deck 36. Fear is power, and anyone who hopes to have power uses fear as a weapon. Johnny, for example, has a lot of men out there, and crossing him isn’t a good idea. Even us, the cops, the so called “good guys” use fear defensively. It’s all that keeps the scum from storming our station. What was different this time is that we didn’t know who it was that’s holding the power, that has people scared. Something new, and on Deck 36, new is frightening.
“The Chief wanted to see you when you got back.” Sarah told me. I nodded, and walked toward the chief’s office. I opened the door, and saw him sitting there at his desk, a proper desk, unlike our half broken tables. His office probably isn’t huge by mid or upper deck standards, but it’s enormous by Deck 36 standards, probably a quarter of the entire station is taken up by his office. “Ryan. Sit down.” The chief said.
As I sat down, the chief said, “So what do we know about this doctor.” I began relating what we’d learned so far to him, telling him how Dr. Evan Taylor came from the upper decks hoping to help the sick down here, how the mark looked like a heat weapon, how I spoke to Johnny, and he claimed no one had bought a heat weapon to his knowledge.
After I spoke the chief look up toward the ceiling, contemplatively. He stood up and walked around the office for a moment. Finally he spoke, “How sure are you, really, that it was a heat weapon? Hmm?” I remained seated, but responded, “Well it looked like a heat weapon’s mark.” “Right, but how do you know? Have you seen these marks before? I’ve never seen a heat mark before, other than a plasma cutter, of course.” I paused for a moment. I knew what the chief was implying. “It was too large to be the mark of a plasma cutter, and it left a hole, it didn’t just cook them through like a laser weapon.” I explained once again. The chief came back to the front of the desk. The expression on his face was a condescending one.
“North, I understand you’re anxious to break a big case like this, maybe get transferred up a few decks,” the chief was wrong, that wasn’t my motivation for solving this case. I wanted to find the killer before he struck again. Not that it wouldn’t be nice to get transferred to a nice mid deck, “but you’re making a bigger deal out of this case than you should be. Your case is really simple. A junkie broke in to steal drugs. Maybe had a plasma cutter, maybe just a laser pistol, I don’t know. Evan caught him, and the junkie killed him.” “But sir, there weren’t any drugs taken from the cabinet there!” I realized my voice was rising. I’d had this conversation with the chief before, and I knew how it ended. But I didn’t want this case closed before the killer was caught.
“Maybe the junkie was afraid he would get caught over the murder. Maybe Dr. Taylor had a ‘private stash’ of the really good stuff, and he took it from that. Who knows. Either way, a heat weapon? A new weapons dealer? You’re treating this like some sort of conspiracy, when it’s really very simple stuff.”
I sighed, probably a bit more loudly than I had intended, since the chief shot me a dirty look. “This isn’t going to go anywhere North. Searching for one junkie on all of Deck 36 is like searching for a needle in a haystack made out of needles. You’re needed elsewhere. Case closed.”
I wanted to protest. There was something going on here, I knew it. But it wouldn’t go anywhere but getting me suspended, so I nodded reluctantly and slowly walked out of the office.
The rest of the day was pretty mundane, once I told Sarah our case had been closed. I filed the closing paperwork on the case, which took a while, spoke to some of the other security officers about their cases, seeing if I could help with anything, but still, as I made my way home hours later, with the artificial lights dimmed to give us a false sense of evening I still had the Evan Taylor case on my mind. I thought about Ashley Taylor, and how she’d never see her husband’s killer brought to justice. I wondered if I should speak to her about it, or if she’d resent me for failing to catch the guy. It wasn’t my fault, of course, but she wouldn’t understand that, she couldn’t understand that, and I didn’t blame her.
Was I making this case out to be bigger than it was? I was so sure that wound was that of a heat rifle when I first saw it, but now? Maybe I had made a mistake. Maybe the chief was right, maybe I just wanted to break a big case and get transferred out of this slum. Still, something just didn’t sit right with me about his “junkie” explanation.
I walked into my quarters, nearly tripping over my bed as I was not paying attention when I entered. I think that I should probably eat something, but I was too tired. It had been a long day. I fall into my bed, not even bothering to undress, and let sleep overtake me.

I don’t know how much time had passed when I awoke to the sound of thumping on my door. The lights outside had fully dimmed into “nighttime” mode, so I suppose it had been a few hours at least. I scrambled to get up and get to the door. AS the door swings open, at first I don’t think that I know the person standing at the door. It was a young woman, who seemed to have been in a fight of some sort. Her lip was bleeding, and she had a bruise across her forehead. It took me a moment to realize I did, in fact, know this woman. It was the blond girl I’d seen Johnny in the club with earlier that day, the one he sent to investigate the new weapons dealer.
She looks at me and I realize her eyes are full of fear. Unsure of what, exactly to say, I fumble around with my words and say something in between “What is it?” and “Can I help you?” Perhaps, “What can I help it?” I don’t remember exactly. I’m not sure if she even noticed, since she ducked into my room quickly and closed the door behind her. The already cramped quarters felt even smaller with an extra body in the room.
“I found something.” She said. Her voice trembled as she did so. I struggled to remember her name, and gave a shot at what I thought it might be. “Samantha—” “Cindy.” She interrupted. “Right. Sorry. Cindy. What do you mean you found something?” She looked around the room nervously. “Listen, your case, your heat weapon… You need to stop looking into it. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” I shot her a puzzled look, and said, “Wait, you know who killed Dr. Taylor? Who?”
She shook her head. “No. They’ll… No. Listen, this is bigger than you know. I’m in danger even being here. I need to get back to Johnny. I only told you because I’ve heard Johnny talk about you before. You’re not like most cops on the station, you aren’t corrupt, you’re a good man. Deck 36 needs that, much as we might hate to admit it sometimes. Johnny likes you and he’s told us to do what we can to protect you before… So I’m telling you now. Drop it.”
“Who is it?” I asked, more frustrated this time. She shook her head once more, and this time opened the door. She looked at me one last time and said, “Drop the case. Be careful.” And darted out the door. I step out and chase after her for a moment, but the elevator taking her back to the ground floor closes without me and I know I won’t catch her. I head back to my room, and try to go back to sleep, with little success. What did she mean, this was bigger than I knew? Why was she in danger? I knew it. There was something bigger going on here after all. And I was going to find out what.

The Problem With Wall-E

2011-07-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

*spoilers for Wall-E to follow*

Hoo boy. This one's not going to win me any fans. Sigh.

...Buuuuut, I already called Tangled the best film of 2010 over Inception and Toy Story 3, and I still stand by that, so I suppose I just like losing readers whenever I talk about animation. (I'm kidding of course! Hardly anyone reads this blog anyways.)

Ok. I'm just going to say it. I don't like Wall-E. Never have. I don't think that it's a very good movie. But I'm always rather surprised to see that I'm in a rather small minority. People love that movie, and some even go so far as to call it Pixar's bst film... And I just don't like it very much. And don't get me wrong, I like Pixar. I like animation. I like kids films! Pixar is one of my favorite studios. I love Toy Story. I love Up. I love Ratatouille. I... Saw Cars. But Wall-E... I just don't get it.

Well, that's a lie. I do get it! I understand why the film currently sits at a whopping 96% on RottenTomatoes. I understand perfectly why people like this film. People like this film because of the first 40 minutes.

Alright, let's back up a minute. In case you're one of the two people on Earth who don't know already, Wall-E is an animated film released in 2008 about a small robot living alone on Earth cleaning up trash after all the humans left Earth. The unique thing about the film is that most of the movie, around the first 40 minutes or so, are mostly silent. They tell a story through visuals, of Wall-E alone on Earth cleaning garbage, and another robot named EVA coming to Earth to look for plant life and the two fall in love whilst never saying anything but their own names. Which is kind of odd. You'd think a future that could build robots and spaceships would but a voice chip in the robots that could say things other than their models. I dunno, maybe it was an attempt to keep robot communication limited to keep them from overthrowing us. It's as good an explanation as any.

In any case, the first 40 minutes of Wall-E are in fact good. Really good in fact! I'd even go so far as to call them great! They tell a great story almost completely visually, but still manages to be interesting enough to keep kids attention. EVA and Wall-E are both adorable and lovable, and are just kind of fun to watch.

And when I first saw the trailers for this I said something to the effect of "A nearly silent kids film? Yeah. That'll go well." But actually, it was excellently executed. I really do like the first half of Wall-E a whole lot.

And yet, this post is not called "Why I Love Wall-E," it's called "The Problem With Wall-E," so obviously I do have a big issue with the film. My problem with the film is the second half. The second half is so catastrophically BAD, that in my opinion, Kung Fu Panda was the best animated film of '08.

You see, about halfway through the film Wall-E and EVA travel to the spaceship holding some of humankind and... Well... Just see for yourself.

SEE THE PROBLEM?

So yeah. Humanity got so dependent on technology that they... Sigh... Got fat, and regressed into big babies. And I'm not the one who puts it that way, that's how the director put it. Seriously, the climax of the film involves the whole ship having to LEARN HOW TO WALK.

I see what you did there Pixar. I see what you did there. And so does everyone else because it's the LEAST SUBTLE THING I'VE EVER SEEN. This is a Captain Planet level of anvil dropping here people!

Basically the whole point of the second half of the film is simply to be a sort of "cautionary tale" against being lazy and overdependent on technology and computers. In a film that was, you know, made by computers. But that's not the point! I don't have an issue with a moral in kids films, or any films! The problem is that these things should be handled with at least a CERTAIN degree of subtlety, and the back half of Wall-E is about as subtle as a giant purple elephant sitting in your living room.

I mean, I didn't hate the first half of the film! I liked it! A lot! And that had an environmental message to it, something which is difficult to do correctly, and usually ends with such classic movies as Fern Gully.

But the first half of Wall-E was excellently executed. It started out with some brief exposition about Earth being filled with garbage and Wall-E units being deployed, and then let us draw our own conclusions. I particularly liked how we're never told what, exactly, happened to all the other Wall-E units, and why Wall-E is the only one left. And some people have even theorized that humans had already started coming back to Earth and the ships are what's starting those giant dust storms we see at the beginning of the film. There are quite a few subtleties to the beginning of that film I really liked. It showed you this world, filled with trash, and let us draw our own conclusions. It showed us a world bought out by corporations, and let us draw our own conclusions. And it was good.

Which is partly why I don't understand the acclaim for the film. It takes such a rapid swing from good to crap. I mean, the entire second half of the film is anything but subtle. It's filled with things that are so extremely environmentalist/anti-consumerist that it's just kind of painful to watch to me. Even that five minute clip started sending me into fits of rage.

The last half of that film just seems to consistently be jumping up and down in your face yelling "OOH OOH LOOK AT ME! SHAME AT YOU CONSUMERIST AMERICA! YOU'RE GOING TO GET FAT AND BE A BIG FAT STUPID BABY IF YOU DON'T STOP BUYING THINGS! I BET YOU LIKE MCDONALDS YOU CONSUMERIST GARBAGE! I BET YOU'D EAT FRENCH FRY MILKSHAKES IF THEY TRIED TO GIVE THEM TO YOU! I BET YOU'D BE ALL CONFORMIST AND CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES FROM BLUE TO RED JUST BECAUSE THE MAN TOLD YOU TO!"

And I just... Despise every single thing about the second half about this movie, perhaps with the exception of the scenes that involve, oh I don't know, THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THE MOVIE, WALL-E AND EVA.

So yeah. That's my issue with Wall-E. It's a film with a great first 40 minutes, and an absolutely awful second half. I love the first half, hate the second. I figure that means I break even and just feel kind of... Apathetic toward the film as a whole. And really, being apathetic is a pathetic way to be*.

*This joke shamelessly stolen from a Relient K song.

No Chapter This Week

2011-07-27T23:06:00.001-07:00

There will be no new chapter of Murder on Deck 36 this week since I'll be going out of town in the morning and other commitments prevented me from writing the chapter ahead of time. Blame a speech class I had earlier this week. Yeah. That's it. It was the speech class. Not Civilization 5 going on sale. Speech. I was talking. A lot. And I can't write and talk at the same time. Whereas if I were just spending way too much time playing Civilization 5, that would be irresponsible and highly deplorable.

...I'm sorry ok? For what it's worth I DID have a speech class that was 16 hours long spread over two days, so cut me a little slack. Geez. THERE'S NO PLEASING YOU PEOPLE.

...I'll try to write a blog post while I'm out of town. Happy now? ARE YOU HAPPY?! ARE YOU?! SADISTIC SADISTS!

...WHO ARE SADISITIC!

Murder On Deck 36 - Chapter Two: Hole in the Wall

2011-07-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

There are a few names everyone on deck 36 knows by reputation. A few of them are crime lords, scumbags who think they run the ship, of course they’re not wrong. One of them is deck 36’s chief of security, my boss, Franklin Ericsson. And one of them is Johnny. I don’t know Johnny’s last name. I don’t even know if Johnny knows his own last name, he might’ve been an orphan for all I know. But he’s a well known name on deck 36 for one reason— He’s the best at getting everything illegal on the deck, maybe even the whole ship. If you want something, guns, drugs, whatever, he’s the man to get it for you. So he knows every deal that goes down on this deck, and he’d certainly know about something as high-profile as a heat rifle. He was the first person to go to in a situation like this. Unfortunately, that meant going to Hole in the Wall.
Hole in the Wall was an illegal club start back years ago, before I was even born. It’s literally run out of a hole in the wall. Each deck’s walls are double sealed, so if something should happen to one of the walls, there’ll be a backup before the whole deck is vented out into space in the blink of an eye. However, there’s about a 50-foot gap between the two walls. Hole in the Wall is inside that gap. The hole was made so long ago no one’s even sure how it was made any more, but it’s there. It’s a small hole, sure, just big enough for a person to fit through, but it was still impressive. Something powerful had to make it through the steel that was several feet thick. On the upper decks a hole like that would be fixed within hours, but down here no one cares. If the outer wall ever broke, it’d just be one more deck that had to be sealed permanently, and no one above us cares enough to send a team down here to fix it. So Hole in the Wall was started. I suppose it’s the danger that appeals to people. Though really it’s no more dangerous there than anywhere else. In reality if the outer wall ever broke the whole deck would be dead within minutes, and the folks in Hole in the Wall would just be the first to go. Hole in the Wall isn’t owned by anyone, but there’s a definite order to things there. The more well known you are, the more powerful you are in the club. Power changes hands on a daily basis, but for a long time Johnny’s been the top dog of Hole in the Wall.
As I walked through the back alley leading to Hole in the Wall I noticed several dark figures duck away down corners and into doors as I approached. It must not have been hard to tell I was a cop. Most cops would’ve been nervous heading into Hole in the Wall-- I wasn’t. I nearly choked on some smog as I saw the neon sign hanging over the hole for which the club was named. The neon sign had been up since before I became a cop, advertising the illegal club to everyone nearby. It was restricted to go in between the layers of the walls, but no one cared down here enough to shut the club down and risk angering the crime lords who ran it. We had enough problems with them already, shutting down Hole in the Wall would cause them to declare an all out war on us.
I could see strobe lights flashing through the hole, and hear muffled thumping. As I ducked through the hole, the muffled thumping turned into deafening, pulsating music (or something resembling music at least). The strobe lights flickered. I took a look around. Most of the club noticed me as soon as I stepped in the door, and were staring at me now. I made them nervous. Rightly so, since most of them were obviously high off some illegal substance or other. That was fine by me, I wasn’t here for them, I had more pressing matters. The music stopped. The strobe lights flickered as the crowd continued to stare at me. I had my had on my gun, should anything go wrong.
“Ryan?” I heard a voice from the back of the crowd say. The crowd parted to let the owner of the voice step through. The man wore a torn shirt, had dark bags under his eyes, and had a woman on each arm, one blond, one brunette. “Ryan! That is you!” He said. “Hello Johnny.” I replied. Ryan turned to the crowd and said “It’s ok, Ryan’s with me.” That was enough for the crowd, as the music returned to its high volumes and the various punks and junkies returned to whatever they were doing.
“So Ryan, what brings you to Hole in the Wall?” Johnny asked. “Business.” I said shortly. “Oh you. Why don’t you ever just come to have a good time?” He replied. Years ago, before he had the name power he had now, I had arrested someone who had it in for Johnny. Coincidence, mind you, but Johnny still felt as though he owed me one. “I need some information on a deal—” “Ah ah ah,” Johnny cut me off, “now Ryan, you know I can’t tell you about my customers. Confidentiality policy.” I glared at him. “Johnny, this is big. If you help me now, you might make it out of this clean, but if I find out you’ve been moving heat weapons—” “Wait, heat weapons?” Johnny interrupted me once again. “Like what, a plasma cutter?” “No,” I continued, “A heat rifle.”
Johnny backed up and stared at me disbelievingly. The two girls standing near him tossed uncomfortable looks at each other. “Are you telling me there was a hit done with a heat rifle?” I wasn’t sure if Johnny was genuinely surprised or not. “It looks that way.” I said. “Who?” he asked. I didn’t see any reason not to tell him. Giving him a little information now, might get me a lot of information down the road. “Some doctor, Evan Taylor or something like that.” Johnny got a furious look on his face. “Cindy.” He said, still looking at me, but obviously talking to one of the two girls, “Someone has been encroaching on my territory. We need to find out who.” The blond girl nodded at him and took off somewhere.
“Johnny, are you telling me you don’t know anything about this?” I asked. “Unfortunately.” He replied, “And when I find out who does know something about this—” “I don’t want to know.” I said. While I wasn’t too keen on the idea of a new arms dealer on deck 36, I didn’t really want the incriminating details of what Johnny would do to them. “I’ve never dealt so much as a heat pistol, let alone a heat rifle.” He said, “Either someone else has made the biggest mistake of their life and started dealing weapons without my knowledge, or whoever made the hit on your guy already had a heat rifle.” I shook my head. “There’s no way anyone could keep a secret like that, not here.” “Which is exactly why I’ve got Cindy out looking for this guy right now. No one crosses me. No one.” Johnny said.
“Johnny, I want this guy.” I told him sternly, “If you find him, do not kill him.” Johnny let out a groan. “Really? Ryan, I have a reputation to keep here.” He said, tossing his shoulders back, glancing at the crowd, and letting out a short laugh. “I’ve done a lot for you because you’ve done a lot for me, I’ve made sure none of my guys would ever lay a finger on you, but I can’t promise that.” “Fine then.” I said, “Just give me a heads up before you do anything. Give me a fair chance at him at least. Let me talk to him before you…” I stopped short. Johnny must’ve gotten the idea, because he said with a sigh, “I make no promises, but I’ll think about it. That’s all I can do.” I knew Johnny wouldn’t say no to me. He was a crook, but he had always been loyal to me, and I knew he’d remain so until he felt he’d paid me back.
The pulsating music was beginning to give me a throbbing headache. I was done here, if Johnny knew anything he was doing a very good job hiding it. As reluctant as I was to admit it, there was someone with access to a lot of firepower loose on deck 36. That made him dangerous. He’d already made one hit, and odds were he was going to strike again before long.

Movie Review - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

2011-07-18T19:23:00.001-07:00

So it's over. Harry Potter 8, aka Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Now, something that I may or may not have mentioned on here before is that I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter books. I love them. My dad read the first 4 to me when I was too young to read a huge novel, and I devoured the rest within days of them being released. They are, undoubtedly, my absolute favorite books in the whole wide world. I wouldn't say they're the best books ever written, but as far as sheer enjoyment I got out of them, the books are my favorites. Ever. They, in a nutshell, were my childhood. They changed who I am. I wouldn't have half my love of literature if it weren't for those books.

The movies however, I'm not quite as attached to. Mind you, I still like the movies a whole heck of a lot, but they weren't a defining part of my childhood like the books were. So, since we're now on the shockingly high number of 8 total films, let me give you a brief run down of how I liked the last 7.

Sorcerer's Stone - Loved it
Chamber of Secrets - Loved it
Prisoner of Azkaban - Liked it, but not quite as much as the first two.
Goblet of Fire - Still good, but probably the weakest of the films.
Order of the Pheonix - Fairly good.
Half-Blood Prince - Loved it.
Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 - Absolutely loved it. Virtually the perfect adaptation.

So, now with the final film coming (at least until Rowling decides she needs a bigger money pit) there would be large shoes to fill. Book seven was my favorite book in the series because it took place outside of Hogwarts and showed us the rest of the wizarding world, plus it still ended in a satisfactory way for everyone.

I went to a midnight release of Harry Potter 8, since there was no way I was letting my favorite books in the whole wide world's movie series end any other way. So how did the film series end? A high note? A low point? Somewhere in the middle?

That. Was. Awesome.

Seriously, what a perfect way to end the films. A near-perfect adaptation of the books. It was great! I'm not surprised, since the last film was absolutely great, but this one was a great adaptation of the series.

The film stayed true to the books, though it did stray slightly at a few moments. The only slight variations I noticed (keep in mind I haven't read the 7th book since it came out, so I'm slightly sketchy on some details) were that they neglected to clarify why exactly Voldemort chose some of the Horcruxs he did. However, that's understandable as they only had two hours to fill.

The movie is mostly action, as it's based nearly exclusively on the final battle from the last book. It never feels too actiony though, and knows just when to give the audience a chance to breathe, without giving them enough time to quite fully catch their breath. I'm reminded of The Dark Knight, another film which is paced similarly, being almost entirely action, but still having a great plot. The action is great! The effects are great! Virtually every scene is a sheer joy to watch!

All of the actors brought their A-Game. The actor who plays Neville Longbottom, Matthew Lewis, has proven to me that Rowling could easily write a whole book that was book seven as written from Neville's perspective. He was a lot of fun to watch, and reminds the audience that really, Neville is just as much one of the heroes of those books as anyone else, and a true Gryffindor at heart. Luna, Hermione, McGonagol, they were all great. Daniel Radcliffe was good as ever as Harry Potter, and Ralph Fiennes was really rather frightening as Voldemort. Another real gem, perhaps even the best performance in the film (certainly the one that got the closest to bringing me to tears) was Alan Rickman as Snape. Those who have read the books will know that Snape has a very interesting moment in this film, and Rickman portrayed it perfectly.

It's probably the darkest of the films, which is fitting considering it's based on the darkest book in the series.

It was the best kind of adaptation, the kind that makes it feel like the movie is coming to life in front of your eyes. Mind you, the books are still, and will always be, better than the movies, but this is probably the best film in the entire series.

Bottom line, if you're a Potter fan you've probably already seen this movie. If you aren't a Potter fan, you can probably still get a lot of enjoyment from seeing the nonstop action this film brings.

Play me out Starkid.

Murder On Deck 36 - Introduction and Chapter One

2011-07-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Readers of this blog will probably know that I do a lot of talking about my hobbies. Those hobbies, primarily, are playing video games, and writing. I've posted small portions of projects before, but I've never posted a full story, even though I have about one and a half novels worth written, albeit unedited.

So now I'm proud to announce that over the next few months I will be posting weekly installments of a brand new project called "Murder On Deck 36" every Thursday. The story is a murder mystery taking place on a space station called "Hope."

Without further ado, I'd like to present the first installment of the weekly series "Murder On Deck 36."

- - - - -
Chapter One: Hope

Everything changes. That’s what they tell you, growing up. That over time, everything will change in one way or another. Hundred years from now, you’ll be dust, and some new punks will be running the whole world. Technology will change, status quo will change, who’s holding the power will change. Three hundred years ago the good ole’ U.S. Of A. Was rulin’ the world. Today there’s not even a world to rule any more. Earth is gone. Used up all its resources and left it to rot. That’s they kind of thing they tell you when you’re growing up, to convince you everything changes. They lie. There’s one thing that stays the same. Crime.
My name is Ryan North. I live in a giant tin can. The “Intergalactic Empire’s Star-Station Hope”. They put the “Intergalactic Empire” in the name to always remind you who owns the ground beneath your feet. They put the “Hope” in the name to let you know that there’s always something better on the horizon. Both are a joke. The “Intergalactic Empire” doesn’t exist, not really. Sure there’s a headquarters at the center of the thousand some Star-Stations posting around the ‘verse, but they don’t control anything. The “Hope” part, well you stop believing that part after a few years of seeing what this place is really like.
There are 210 decks on Hope. Each of them holds a few thousand people. There’s really three big areas you need to know about though. You’ve got the upper decks, the mid decks, and the lower decks. Mid decks are your typical. You’ve got office jobs there, good citizens of the empire, all that. Most people there live what you might call an average life. Nice quarters, loving spouse, two-point-five children, all that. Then you’ve got the upper deck. Those are the real high class type. The solar panels are on the upper deck, along with the offices where the president of the ship lives. I say “President”, but that title’s a joke. No one’s been voted into office on this ship in sixty years. The solar panels up top are what keep the ship alive, so the upper decks are pretty heavily locked down. If you’re not “essential” or very, very rich, you ain’t ever going to see the top floors. I hear they’ve got one deck where the floors, walls, and ceilings are lined with solid gold. ‘Course, the guy I heard that from ain’t ever seen a mid deck, let alone an upper floor, so I’m not sure how he’d know.
Finally, you’ve got the lower decks. That’s where I live. The lower decks are home to the engines. The things that make sure we don’t plunge into the star we’re orbiting. You’d think that’d mean that the rich sleaze up top would want to make sure the people running them are well taken care of, but that’s not so. The lower decks are slums. First of all, they’re smoky. The engines have vents that are supposed to vent the air out into space, but they haven’t worked right since long before I was born, and most the pollution just vents into the lower decks. There are some spots on these lower decks you can’t even breathe in any more. Half a deck was forced to leave because the pollution got so bad it was killin’ them not two years ago. The second thing is that the lower decks are dirty. Working the engines ain’t a clean job, and some part of these decks don’t even have running water. Add that in with the fact that the lower decks are about half the size of the mid decks, with double the population, and we gotta fit the enormous engines onto each deck, and things are a bit cramped. But the pollution, and the dirty, cramped quarters aren’t the worst part. The worst part is the noise.
The engines aren’t exactly quiet. In fact, imagine the loudest noise you can and then double it. That’s probably about half as loud as one engine, and each deck has half a dozen of them on it. You live with that your whole life and you get used to it, but it’s still not easy to hear yourself think half the time, let alone hear other people talk.
Life on the lower decks is anything but fun. Most people are just trying to survive it. But there are some who make that even more difficult than it already is. And those are the criminals. The gangs, and the independent criminals on the lower decks run rampant. Murderers, thieves, you name it and the lower decks have it. On the mid and upper decks you have two or three security stations on each deck. Get low enough down though and that cuts down to just one station per deck. Between the larger number of people on the lower decks, and the lower number of security, That means there just aren’t enough cops to control the decks. Most cops don’t even try any more. They just keep their heads down and hope they’ll be one of the lucky few who get transferred to a mid deck or an upper deck. Some do, and we don’t hear from them any more. Way I figure it, they’re trying to distance themselves from us. Must be too lowly for them or something. Some don’t, and they spend their whole lives just trying to survive. Still, there are a few good cops left. I’m one of them.
I live on deck 36 of 210. Decks 1-15 have been permanently sealed due to having such poor condition that they were no longer deemed habitable, pushing refugees onto the streets of the other, already overcrowded, decks like mine. Deck 36 has one of the highest crime rates in the whole station, next only to the decks that the crime lords call their home. The decks don’t start being even somewhat respectable until around Deck 50. The worst deck of all is deck 16, which rumor has it doesn’t even have a security station anymore, and has some crime lord running his “empire” out of it. But Deck 36 is still far from safe. I see good men and women die every day, and I see bad men and women— Cowards too afraid to fight —survive, whether they be cops who let the bad guys get away, or criminals who flee to kill some more people. Half of my life is death, it seems. And one specific death is where this story begins.
It had been a typical day for me when I got to the station. My life is better than most of the people on the lower decks. I have small quarters, just big enough for a bed, a bathroom, and a mini-fridge, but I have it all to myself which leaves me better off than the majority. In any case, after waking, I got something to eat and headed for the station. I carry my gun with me carefully as I make my way to the station every day. Cops are well known on the deck, and it’s not unusual for one to be assaulted on the way to the station.
As I got into the station and the rusty automatic door slowly creaked close behind me, I saw the chief. His name was Franklin Ericsson, but we never called him anything but “Chief”. He caught up to me before I could even make my way to the half broken table which passed for a table. “North. I’ve got a hit for you to look into.” The Chief said to me. “Just another typical day then?” I replied. He furrowed his eyebrows disapprovingly at me and said, “Watch that mouth North. You’d best keep your head down like the rest of us if you want to make it out of this place alive.” I’d heard the speech he was about to give before, so I promptly replied “Yes sir” before he could continue. He paused, frustrated, before saying “Yes, well.. The hit. Guy named Evan Taylor. He’s a doctor, runs a clinic not far from where you live.” I knew the clinic he was speaking about. It was as overcrowded as anything else, but the neon plus sign in front of the entrance drew my attention to it occasionally. “He was found dead this morning. Probably just some junkie looking for a fix, but you’d better go check it out.” I nodded affirmatively. Within minutes I was back outside.
As I took a deep breath and coughed, getting a lungful of smoke, I heard the deep roar of the engines. Whenever I heard them, it reminded me of how alive the station was. The people in it worked together to create a sort of personality. I passed some Chinese joint, the bright neon sign shining through the black smoke I was passing through. The streets in Hope are modeled after the streets of old Earth cities. Each deck is about three stories high, and laid out in a grid. The sidewalks used to be automated, but like a lot of other things on the lower decks, they broke a long time ago. The streets themselves are usually pretty empty. Seeing a car on the lower decks is pretty rare, since most people can’t afford one.
It took me twenty minutes or so to walk to the clinic. When I got there, some cops were already there preparing the crime scene for me to look at. The entrance to the clinic was guarded by a beat cop I didn’t know. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my HoloID, flipping between my various identification until I saw my badge, and a particularly unflattering picture of myself, pop up onto the screen. As I flashed him my HoloID, he let me in. As I stepped into the clinic, I saw the body on the ground. Evan Taylor. A doctor. There was a decently sized medicine cabinet open in one of the corners of the room. There were two other people standing in the room as I entered, one who I knew, one who I didn’t. The one I knew was another cop, named Sarah Black. “Hello Sarah.” I said to her, as I walked up. “Ryan,” She said, “This is Mrs. Ashley Taylor.” Mrs. Taylor looked at me with her tear filled face, and choking on the words said “N-Nice to meet you.”
“I know this is hard for you ma’am, but can you please walk me through what happened?” I said to her. She swallowed, and held her sobs back for a moment before saying “Okay. I came into the clinic to surprise him and-” She paused for a moment and looked toward the body. “I found him like that.”
The body itself was on the floor. It was sitting next to a chair that had fallen over, sitting behind a desk. There were burn marks on the chest. Taylor must have been sitting in the chair when the killer stepped in and shot him. I stepped toward the body and took a close look at the chest wound. It had burned all the way through his body. The hole was about the size of a fist. “A mark like this… Does this look to you what it looks like to me?” I asked Sarah. “Well the burn going all the way through indicates a heat weapon, not a laser weapon to me. I was thinking it’s probably a plasma cutter but-” I cut her off, “A plasma cutter wouldn’t have left that large a hole.” “I know.” She replied. “Honestly, I’ve never seen a wound like that. I’ve heard of them though. It looks like it’s from a heat rifle.”
There are two main kinds of weapons today, laser weapons and heat weapons. Laser weapons, of course, fire lasers, beams of focused light. They’re cheap, and they certainly get the job done, but they leave a very specific kind of mark. You see, they usually tend to cook you through, instead of actually leaving a hole, so while there’s a burn mark, it’s not a hole, just some charred flesh going all the way through. Only military grade laser rifles, or highly modified laser weapons would leave a hole. Military grade weapons are locked down and strictly banned from the whole station. There’s likely only two or so on the whole of Hope. Then there are heat weapons. Heat weapons actually superheat a special substance we call “goo”, although there’s a more technical term for it that I don’t know. Plasma cutters used by the engineers can leave a hole, since they use goo to create a stream that can cut through nearly anything. Those are pretty much the only heat weapon you see on lower decks, since anything bigger than a plasma cutter is expensive. Very expensive. High cost up front, and high upkeep, not to mention that goo itself is fairly expensive. A heat rifle would be impossible for anyone on the lower decks to afford, in fact it’d be nearly impossible for anyone on the mid decks to afford. The only people who would have that kind of firepower would be very, very powerful men.
“Mrs. Taylor, did your husband have any enemies that you know of?” I asked her. “Oh no!” She said, shocked at the very idea, without hesitation. “He was a good man! No one would have any reason to- He was a great man! He gave up everything for this clinic! To help people!” “Gave up everything?” Sarah asked. “What do you mean?” Mrs. Taylor took another deep breath. “He was raised upper deck. He got his medical license up there, could have stayed up there his whole life, but he decided to come down here and open a clinic. His parents disowned him for it, but he knew he could do good here. He knew he could help people. That’s all he wanted, was to save this place and- And now he’s-” Mrs. Taylor melted once more into sobs.
Sarah walked over to the corner with me and spoke softly to me. “Something’s wrong about this. At first I was thinking it was just a junkie. The medicine cabinet is open, but it doesn’t look like any drugs are missing. And that chest wound… How would a junkie get that kind of firepower?” I looked at the body. “I don’t know. I agree. Something is off about all of this. I think someone might have wanted Evan Taylor dead.” “But why?” Sarah asked me. I looked at her, and responded “That’s an excellent question, isn’t it?”

The Lack of Married Couples in Speculative Fiction

2011-07-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

*Note: The following contains spoilers for season six and beyond of Buffy, and seasons five and six of the new Doctor Who*

I've noticed a very strange trend of late, though the trend itself is not new. There are very few happily married couples in speculative fiction, especially in television.

Now, by "happily married" I don't mean that life is perfect for them, but I mean that they, generally speaking, have a strong connection between the two of them. In short, they aren't constantly second guessing if they love each other or not.

One very obvious example of this, and the one that bothers me the most are Rory and Amy on the current season of Doctor Who. Season five of Doctor Who heavily featured the two of them. Amy begins the season running away with The Doctor the day before her wedding, and right from that moment all the way through to the final episode the season spoke about their relationship. It teased the idea that Amy may leave Rory and was falling in love with The Doctor, but after a turn partway through the season where Rory was erased from existence (not only was he dead, but he had never existed) it turned right around, and Amy found herself crying without knowing why and other heart wrenching moments. Eventually though, Rory got better and came back. Oh, and then he shot Amy, mortally wounding her.

Luckily there happened to be a regeneration box nearby which brought Amy back to life. Unfortunately it would take two thousand years, and so Rory who was at that time immortal decided to stay with the box and protect it for two thousand year and oh my gosh this recap of a great story arc sounds stupid if you haven't seen the show. The point is, it ended with the two of them having proven their love for each other, and getting married. Happy ending right?

Well no, unfortunately the first half of season six has featured several points where Rory is still in doubt whether or not Amy really loves him or the Doctor after she chose him. This irritates me. As much as I like drama, this is the exact same story we saw in season five repeated again. Luckily the midseason finale of Doctor Who seems to have settled this arc, but the fact that they kept it alive shows me a troubling misconception that seems to be filling media right now.

Joss Whedon, who infamously feeds on the tears of fanboys and girls everywhere, has a famous quote. "Happy people make bad television." It really summarizes his philosophy on fiction, and more importantly it really summarizes the fault many writers have fallen into. You see, happy characters do, in fact, make bad television. Or film. Or any kind of fiction, really. No one wants to watch people go around being consistently happy. Shows such as Buffy are mainly about horrible things happening to the main character, deaths of friends and family, and then watching him or her work through it. That creates drama, and, if done properly, it creates a character who the audience not only identifies with, but empathizes with. We'll call them the Woobie from here on.

Watching horrible things happen to the Woobie is painful, and difficult, and emotional. The audience empathizes with the Woobie, and in some cases even put their own emotional troubles onto the Woobie if done really well. Also in some cases, watching the Woobie ride out their fantastical situations can help the audience understand how to make it through their own problems, even though they are much more grounded in reality.

The Woobie is a powerful tool, and it makes the concept of happy people making bad television. However, a very common pitfall that many writers tend to fall into is assuming that relationship drama is the only kind of drama that exists. This is false.

An example of this, coming from Joss Whedon's own show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Specifically between Xander and Anya. Now first of all, if you've never seen a Whedon show, you need to understand that one of his strengths as a writer is amazingly well developed characters. His characters can make even the worst episodes or seasons (looking at you season four of Angel) enjoyable. The character of Xander was one of Buffy's two best friends from the beginning of the series, one of the shows few characters who was an ordinary human. Anya, on the other hand was a former vengeance demon who had been turned into a human. Over the show anya went from being a selfish evil, well, demon, into being a human who, while still selfish and petty, showed a lot of character development. A large part of this was the relationship between Anya and Xander, that ended with Anya and Xander getting engaged at the end of season five.

For those who don't know, Buffy was actually cancelled and resolved after five seasons, and thus the show would have ended there with the two of them getting engaged, if the show had not been picked up by another network. When the sixth season premiered, it was obvious that the writers had very little idea of how to continue. While personally I loved season six and seven, they were less warmly received by many fans.

Unfortunately, one symptom of the shows sudden renewal was that Xander and Anya would not, in fact, get married. Thus after two and a half seasons of growing the characters and building them up as a strong couple despite all odds to the contrary, they began to show doubts.

*Video contains some mildly crude content*

That song I just posted was the only good thing to come out of this story arc. While the arc was, perhaps, more well executed than it could have been if it weren't being written by some of the best television writers ever, it still ended in disaster. Eventually the two of them continue doubting themselves for the first half of the season until Xander leaves at the alter, in a moment that was very out of character. After this Anya's character was, in my opinion, butchered. She forgot everything she had learned while being a human, and the rest of the show became a bitter mess. Understandable perhaps, but painful to watch, and not in the good way I listed above. I maintain that the show would have been better if the two of them had ended up together.

After all, plenty of storylines were going on at the same time, albeit not directly related to the two of them, and without going off into another long explanation, some really bad crap happened to both Anya and Xander over the last season of Buffy.

There is, however, at least one shining beacon of a happily married couple in speculative fiction. Zoe and Wash. Now, while there was admittedly one episode where Wash was jealous over Zoe's relationship with her old friend Mal, the captain of Serenity, the show never treated the two of them as anything but perfect together. While you might suspect this made the characters boring, not so. Firefly being another Joss Whedon show, both characters are beloved, particularly Wash.

Zoe and Wash were, in my opinion, the prime example of a happily married couple in speculative fiction. Bad things happened to them, but instead of arguing and bickering about it, they got through it together. They were always in love, and the show acknowledged that without forcing them to prove their love for each other every five minutes. If more writers took notice of the two of them, I think we'd all be the better for it.

Ok, I've been building up to it, let me finish by slamming the lack of understanding of how to write characters well home. One More Day.

Half the people reading this shuddered, and the rest will understand why in a few moments.

So, for those who don't follow comics, let's talk about Spider-Man shall we? He's a beloved character, arguably Marvel's most famous creation, and has a very successful film franchise. For those not familiar with the comics, Spider-Man, well, Peter Parker, and Mary Jane have been married in the comics for quite some time. Or, I suppose, were. They were married. Because Spider-Man sold his marriage to THE DEVIL.

Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried folks.

Yeah. One More Day was a 2007 four part comic event where, I say it again for emphasis, Spider-Man sold his marriage to the devil.

Well, technically the demon Mephisto but let's not argue semantics. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and weighs the same as a duck, it's a witch, and should probably be burned.

Now I'll admit I haven't read it myself, but the plot synopsis and fan reaction is enough for me to be nursing a headache just thinking about it. Short version is this: Aunt May is shot and killed by a bullet intended for Spider-Man. Spider-Man, feeling guilty and as though her death was his fault decides to find a way to bring her back, instead of coping with her death like a normal person. So he talks to Mephisto who says that Spider-Man is soooo happy that it disgusts him and if he sells his marriage he will bring Aunt May back to life. And Spider-Man agrees.

If you really need to understand why this is monumentally stupid, watch the following video by Linkara of Atop the Fourth Wall.

...Yeah. Not Spidey's finest moment.

The Problem With Bioshock 2 (And Why I'm Cautious About Bioshock Infinite)

2011-07-06T15:24:00.001-07:00

So this isn't going to be a proper review because I'll be honest: I haven't beaten Bioshock 2. I got what I think is about halfway through the game, and I just stopped playing. In fact, I only recently finished playing the original Bioshock.

Now, the original Bioshock is a great game. It had some issues, but is remembered for a fantastic, absolutely phenomenal ending that was really a deconstruction of the nature of games themselves, and then continuing for about three more hours of crap, because having an unhappy ending would be bad. Alternatively, if you're the kind of twitch-reflex Call of Duty fanboy who doesn't care about a fascinating deconstruction of the very nature of games themselves, it had Big Daddies.

The game took place on one of the best settings ever in video gaming, the city of Rapture, an underwater utopia turned underwater distopia. It contained a lot of interesting aspects, and entire discussions could be had about the first game alone, and have been. Is it a cautionary tale of the need for morals? Is it a warning that man should not play God? Is it just a haunting tale of an underwater city? Would the city have been doomed without the discovery of Adam, or was Adam itself what led to the downfall? Interesting conversations could be had about any of these.

In addition, the game had good, albeit perhaps not great, gameplay. Except the hacking, that sucked. But the introduction of Plasmids, which could essentially rewrite the human body to do anything led to some interesting mechanics. My favorite, although not the most useful, was the one that let you shoot bees at people.

So why would a sequel to this beloved game be bad? Well there's a few reasons. First of all, Rapture as a set piece was more effective as you explored and learned about the history of the city. It was a brilliant example of how games can be art, and how games can offer a different storytelling experience than a film can. Once you already know the history of the city, it loses a lot of effect. While the city is still beautiful and haunting, you've already experienced it, and it becomes a more familiar place. One of the greatest things about discovering Rapture is just how alien it is, just like the oceans below us can, at times, seem alien.

In addition to this, the story of Bioshock was rapped up beautifully in Bioshock. And then the game decided to keep going for about three hours- Ok, sorry, that's not what this is about and if I talk about why the game should have ended at the big "Would you kindly" scene, this post will be about something different. The point is, Bioshock had a great story. That story was told in Bioshock.

So a sequel to Bioshock was always going to be tricky, they ran the risk of shoving another tale into a setting that had already been explored. And in truth, that's exactly what they did. While the story in Bioshock 2 isn't bad, per say, nothing carries the same emotional, or philosophical weight. For one thing, this one paints the church in a negative light. Now, I could tolerate that, except it kind of goes against everything the first one was about. Now, I don't claim Bioshock had some sort of religious message, that would be foolish, but one possible interpretation, in fact something that's essentially said within the game, is that a society where every man fends only for himself and not for some form of greater good, is doomed to fail. Say what you will about religion, it's all about serving a higher power and doing the correct moral thing.

In addition to this, the characters introduced in Bioshock 2 (or what I've played of it) all seemed forced into the setting. Rapture had fallen, and almost everyone was dead by the beginning of Bioshock, and the survivors had turned the city into a warzone. With Bioshock 2 taking place ten years later, I find it hard to believe that the splicers would have survived another ten years fighting and killing each other constantly in a city that was falling apart. Plus, all the new characters seemed forgettable. I remember the characters from Bioshock one, even the minor ones. The deranged surgeon who likened himself to Picasso. The artist who had you hunt down and kill certain individuals on Rapture to use pictures of their corpses in his sickening art gallery. These characters are haunting, and sickening, and stay with you long after. I don't think any of the characters in Bioshock 2 had any of the same weight.

Now, the game isn't all bad. In fact, in pretty much every gameplay aspect, it's an improvement. The guns are all bigger and better and actually pretty fun to use, and the ability to have both a plasmid and a gun out at the same time is huge. But in a way, the guns are very telling of one of the games faults. Bigger and better syndrome. It just had to be bigger and better. Instead of a submachine gun, you get a machine gun. Instead of a pistol, you get a rivet gun. Instead of a wrench, you get a giant drill.

But none of these things are Bioshock 2's main problem. Bioshock 2's main problem is the protagonist, Alpha.

One of the most memorable aspects of Bioshock was the Big Daddies. The Big Daddies were giant monsters who usually wouldn't attack unless provoked, who guided the Little Sisters around Rapture as they collected Adam from the many dead bodies. They were scary. They felt big and heavy, with giant diving helmets, making loud noise and shaking the very ground as they walked near. You couldn't reason with one, you had no idea what they were thinking, they couldn't speak, only make bizarre grunts, and they didn't seem human. They felt more like an extension of the city itself. Not human, not even really beasts. You didn't have any idea what was going through their heads, if they could even think. They were one of the aspects that made Rapture seem the most alien.

Then Bioshock 2 made you one.

Suddenly, they lost all that effect. They felt human. If you were one of them, albeit a prototype one, then they were just as reasonable as you. Sure, for all intents and purpose they function the same as they do in the first game, but they feel different, knowing they can be reasonable. They aren't the same force of nature they were in the first game, they're just people. In a way, perhaps some may find that more disturbing, but they weren't really disturbing in the first game, just alien. The Little Sisters, now those were disturbing in the first game, but the Big Daddies? Not really.

Now, admittedly I haven't gotten far enough into the game to know what the Big Sisters are exactly (though I have my suspicions), but they aren't really scary either. Sure, they're deadly, but if the Big Daddies are just people they lose a lot of effect, and the Big Sisters probably are as well.

I mean, we knew from the first game Big Daddies were once humans, but I assumed they underwent some sort of brainwashing- In fact, I'm fairly sure there were audio logs confirming that they did.

Now then. I've said my piece on Bioshock 2, let's talk about Bioshock Infinite.

Ok, Bioshock Infinite, for those not in the know, is the new Bioshock game. It's a Gaiden Game in every sense. Now, let me start off here by saying I am cautiously optimistic about Bioshock Infinite. I'm not completely sold on the game yet, for reasons I'll go into in a moment, but it does have a really cool setting, art style, and it looks like it does some very cool things.

The game is going to take place on the floating city of Columbia. It's set about 30 years earlier than Bioshock, and it has nothing to do with Rapture, other than that apparently Rapture will someday be built in this universe. Columbia was built as a wonder of the world by the U.S.A., before it went rogue and started a war with China or Russia or something, at which point the U.S. denied any affiliation with it, saying it had gone rogue. Since then, Columbia has become a sort of bogeyman, floating around and attacking cities, hard to destroy with the technology of 1910, but very strong itself.

The setting is very steampunk, and the game looks cool aesthetically. It contains "Tonics" instead of "Plasmids" and features time manipulation as a main mechanic. The main character, as opposed to Bioshock or Bioshock 2, is not a silent protagonist, but a man fighting to survive on Columbia which seems to be experiencing a Rapture-style fall.

Now at first you might say, "Hey! Why wouldn't you love this to death? The game looks awesome and it addresses all the complaints you raised about the first game, even introducing new psuedo-cyborgs called Handymen instead of Big Daddies! The new setting will provide you a new interesting locale to explore, and a new story to enjoy featuring what seem like two great new characters named Booker DeWitt, a name that sounds like it came out of a 1940's detective serial, and Elizabeth, a name which is a name." To which I would, naturally, reply "Right you are theoretical yet very well informed person who is addressing my skepticism of the game. Now would you kindly tell me why the game is called Bioshock?"

It takes place years before Rapture was built, has nothing to do with any of the characters from Bioshock or Bioshock 2, takes place in the sky instead of in the ocean, features new villains, monsters, powers, characters, and gameplay mechanics, and according to some inside sources may even TAKE PLACE OUTSIDE THE BIOSHOCK TIMELINE ENTIRELY. WHY IS THIS NOT A NEW FRANCHISE CALLED COLUMBIA? I mean sure, I'd be calling it a Bioshock clone if it were a new franchise entirely, but there's nothing wrong with being a Bioshock clone! Some of my best friends are Bioshock clones, although admittedly they have the advantage of containing Batman. (Note: That's not quite fair, Arkham Asylum is more like Splinter Cell with a Bioshock skin pasted on, and then a Batman paint job.)

The idea of a Bioshock like game taking place in a steampunk city in the skies isn't a bad one at all. In fact, like I said, the game looks gorgeous. There's like a robot dragon on a giant floating city, for crying out loud, how can that not be cool? But it just doesn't seem like this game has anything to do with Bioshock itself.

I really do think Bioshock Infinite looks like a lot of fun, and they are doing some interesting things with the mechanics, like having Elizabeth be with you the whole time, mind you if they mess that up at all this game will be awful, and we all know how easy it is to mess up escort missions since there hasn't been a good escort mission in the history of gaming. Ok, Half-Life 2's Episodes, but being put up next to a Valve game for comparison means you have some pretty big shoes to fill!

There's nothing wrong with Gaiden Games (games which, though set in the universe of one game, are their own stories with little interaction outside of reference to the main series), I mean fans of this blog will know how big a fan of Portal I am, and that's a Gaiden Game to Half-Life, but the best Gaiden Games feature new settings that fit in flawlessly to the main universe. I have no difficulty believing Aperture Labs exist within the world of Half-Life, nor that the Combine were kept out by GLaDOS. I have no problem accepting it when Cave Johnson rants about Black Mesa stealing Aperture's experiments. But part of the point of Bioshock was that it seemed like the world outside Rapture was just like our own, with the exception of, well, Rapture existing. If Columbia existed and these Tonics which rewrote your genome already existed, why was finding Adam and creating Plasmids a big deal in the first place? And if it's true that this doesn't even take place in the same universe as Bioshock, then I ask again, why is it called "Bioshock" Infinite? It seems like a cash in to me, that's all.

This would quite possibly be the game I'm look forward to the most if I didn't have a feeling of dread that Infinite is simply going to be either another game that retcons the original Bioshock in a way which quite simply makes it less good, or it's going to be something completely different that shoves in a cameo from the main Bioshock world using the time manipulation powers. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised at all, since we already know that at certain points Booker and Elizabeth get pulled through portals to different time periods like the 1980's, if at one point you get pulled onto Rapture for five minutes, fight a Big Daddy, and then get flung back to Columbia and act like nothing happened.

I wouldn't be surprised, but that's not to say I wouldn't be angry.

Movie Review - Mr. Popper's Penguins

2011-06-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to start the review off with this; I know Jim Carrey is a very polarizing actor. You either love him, or you hate him. Personally, I'm of the camp that loves him. My third favorite film (behind The Dark Knight and The Nightmare Before Christmas) is The Truman Show. I love Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, The Mask, The Majestic, and I even find his less enjoyable films like Yes Man enjoyable. Heck, I even liked him in the awful film adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events, though honestly it was a poor choice to cast him in that role along with many other poor choices made in that film.

So basically what I'm saying is that I'm a fan of Jim Carrey. He's probably in my top five favorite actors for The Truman Show and The Majestic alone. I know he overacts and plays up the slapstick humor, and I honestly wish he'd make more dramatic films, but he's Jim Carrey, and I just can't make myself dislike him.

So, now that I've spoken about the leading man, let's talk about the movie, shall we? Mr. Popper's Penguins is- Ok, let's stop right here. You know exactly what this movie is already. It's a Jim Carrey movie!

The movie begins with Mr. Popper, played by Jim Carrey, obviously, being the dad from Liar Liar. Over the course of the film, Bruce gains the mystical powers of Morgan Freeman, and proceeds to use them to create wacky hijinks involving a mystical mask that calls upon the powers of Count Olaf to bring shame to a popular series of surprisingly well written and hilarious books.

Ok, seriously, I'll stop. Jim Carrey starts off the film as a divorced businessman with two kids who can't stand him. Then through the magical powers of plot convenience, Jim Carrey ends up with 6 CGI penguins who do various adorable things throughout the movie. Except for all those stupid toilet jokes. Those aren't funny or adorable.

I actually enjoyed this film quite a lot, but like I said, I like Jim Carrey. If you're a fan of Jim Carrey, like I am, you'll probably find something to enjoy in this movie. He's slapstick, over the top, and as much like a real-life cartoon character as any comedic Jim Carrey role. He's good in it, but make no mistake, he is being Jim Carrey. If you do not like Jim Carrey, you will not like this film.

What I didn't expect is that there were actually several things in this movie I liked outside of Carrey. In fact, my favorite gag in the entire film is his assistant Pipi, who proclaims perilously p-filled prose about Popper and his preposterously perfect penguins. My favorite moment in the entire film involves her in the last few minutes.

The penguins themselves actually look really nice. You can tell they're CGI, but they're very nice looking CGI. The acting from the entire cast ranges from good (Madeline Carroll, his daughter, who is also in another film I'm quite fond of, Swing Vote) to passable (his son, Maxwell Perry Cotton, seems a bit stale at times) and there are some gags that actually had me laughing pretty hard. Oh! Also the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent from the Marvel movies is in this film. And he's great in it, but only because I kept thinking of him as the same character, and that the job as a zookeeper he has in this film is just what he does on weekends.

I also thought the wardrobe for Jim Carrey, having him wear a tux for a large portion of the film, was a nice touch.

But let's talk about what I didn't like about the film as well. It's a kids film, and while it's a very well done kids film, there's nothing here you haven't seen before. A lot of the charm in this movie comes from the penguins, but of course it requires a LOT of suspension of disbelief for any of the penguin's gags to actually register. Not to mention the idea that a guy could just keep penguins in his apartment and not get caught.

Jim Carrey also attempts to coin yet another catchphrase here, "Yeahbsolutely." It's exactly as irritating as you might imagine.

I'm actually going to get a bit spoilery here to talk about the films biggest flaw, so if you really think this film is going to contain any surprises for you, skip the next paragraph.

About 2/3rds of the way into the film a disaster strikes the penguins. Mr. Popper tries his hardest to protect them, to the point where he obviously sacrifices not only his job, and his status, but quite clearly his health. Unable to prevent disaster, Mr. Popper doubts his ability to take care of the penguins. Thus, he gives them to the zoo where they will actually be taken care of. He honestly thinks he's doing the right thing, and to me it came across as a really heartfelt scene. The movie then makes it apparent that we're supposed to be disappointed in him for this. Sorry, but no.

Alright, no more spoilers.

Other than that one major flaw, the film is enjoyable. If you like Jim Carrey, you'll find this enjoyable at the very least. If you don't, you'll probably want to steer clear of Mr. Popper, and his penguins.

Video Game Review - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

2011-05-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Readers of my blog will remember my reviews of Assassin's Creed, and Assassin's Creed 2. In short, Assassin's Creed is a game worth playing, despite many flaws, and Assassin's Creed 2 is a game that, while probably a better game objectively (all the systems worked better in AC2) it was, to me at least, a less enjoyable experience. Still a game worth playing though. Also, it had a brilliant ending.

Now, folks, let me tell you, it is time for much rejoicing, for while Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2 were both sort-of-good games, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a GREAT game. This is by far the best Assassin's Creed experience thus far, and it blows the other two out of the water.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is sort of an "Assassin's Creed 2.5" if you will. It picks up directly where the second game left off, and honestly, if you don't play it you WILL be confused jumping into the inevitable Assassin's Creed 3. It puts you, once again, back in the shoes of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the renaissance assassin who you were put in the shoes of in Assassin's Creed 2. The game literally begins exactly where the second game left off, with Ezio *spoilers for the ending of AC2* walking out of the vault, bewildered by the mysterious message left for Desmond. Victorious over the pope however, he goes back to his home, and relaxes in a segment where you help the various townspeople with mundane problems.

And then, it naturally all goes wrong. He is renaissance Batman, after all.

In short, the son of the pope who you DIDN'T murder at the end of AC2 (which was dumb, Ezio has no problem killing hundreds of guards who likely just work to feed themselves and their families, but finally when he meets the evil pope he doesn't kill him? What?! Bah, I digress, that's a problem with the second game, not this one.) Cesare Borgia, blows up the city, and takes the Apple of Eden from you.

Cue going back to Desmond, and finding out the reason why you're still reliving Ezio's memories, to find out where exactly the Apple of Eden ended up. Of course to do that you have to relive the memories leading UP to that point because if you don't the polarity of the power couplings could be reversed causing a temporal anomaly which would leak vast quantities of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey radiation into the stargates which would then... You get the idea. It's a cheap excuse why we're playing a full game not just 15 minutes of one, but it works nonetheless.

The plot of this game, like most aspects of this game, is FAR superior to the other two. You'll remember one of my main complaints about AC2 was that you didn't become an Assassin until the last hour or so of the game. In this, you're already an Assassin at the beginning, and it shows.

However, another problem I had with the story of the second game was that it was CONFUSING! Half the time I didn't understand how the people I was killing were related to the overarching conspiracy, and was really just killing them because the mission told me to.

This game however, has a central story with definite first, second, and third acts. It has one central villain (Cesare), and it's coherent. Whereas the second game lacked any kind of focus and just felt as though the story were aimlessly wandering, Brotherhood has a story that pulls you in, and keeps you interested.

That said, Assassin's Creed is becoming my new Lost. Each game thus far has had an infuriating cliffhanger ending that leaves you scratching your head going "What just happened?!"

In any case, the game plays almost identically to Assassin's Creed 2, but every aspect of it has been polished to the point of near perfection. The combat is actually entertaining, the missions are tons more fun due to a new system of bonus objectives you don't HAVE to complete. For example, some missions have you get into a heavily guarded area, but the bonus objective is to do it without killing anyone.

The result is the perfect balance between being a stealth game, like Assassin's Creed SHOULD be, and still allowing you to muscle your way through large portions of it, like in AC2.

There are also loads of optional missions in this game, similarly to AC2, but they don't suck this time. There are Courtesan missions which follow their own storyline, missions to kill Templars, and missions reliving the past, introducing you to Ezio's first love Cristina.

The biggest change to the single player game though is a system where you rescue citizens and then teach them to become assassins, who can help you in combat, or go on missions of their own to get you money, among other things. As you teach them they gain levels and become more powerful, before finally become Assassin's themselves.

Overall, the game is a blast to play, and is definitely better in every way than the past two installments. It's the game the first Assassin's Creed should have been.

However, the biggest new addition to the series is multiplayer. In the multiplayer, you play templars who are in a training programs to learn to be assassins.

The object of the multiplayer is to assassinate your assigned target, while being pursued yourself by someone else. Assassinations earn you points, and the person with the most points after 10 minutes wins. However, the map is populated with NPC's who look like each of the players, and thus you have to learn to act like an NPC to fool other players into thinking you're an NPC, while figuring out (given only their general location via a compass) which one of the many people who look like your target are actually your target.

The multiplayer is a LOT of fun to play, although it seems nearly impossible to find a game anymore, due to lots of players having quite playing by now. It takes a good 5-10 minutes sometimes.

Buy this game if: You enjoyed the first two Assassin's Creed, or thought there was potential for a good game in them.

Don't buy this game if: You really didn't think there was any way you could have liked the first two Assassin's Creeds.

World War 2 Themed Hat Simulator

2011-05-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

Hey. Go watch my video. One thousand times. Then I will have a completely inconsequential, virtual hat. And that would make me happy.

Graphic Novel Review - Batman Beyond: Hush Beyond

2011-05-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

Let's take a trip back in time about 11 years, shall we? The year was 1999. Clinton was president, the twin towers were still standing tall, Buffy still had 4 seasons to give us, and a little cartoon called Superman: The Animated Series was in it's prime. Superman: TAS was the second series in the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), with the first being Batman: The Animated Series, considered one of the best cartoons of all time, with good reason.

However, executives had decided that, due to the success of both Animated Series, and the TV Show Buffy (Who was still in High School at that point), that they needed a new, more kid friendly "Batman In High School" series, to follow up Superman: TAS with. But the creators of the classic shows weren't about to make some watered down "Batman Babies!" show, no, instead they gave us a cartoon called Batman Beyond.

(I wanted to show the video of the intro here, but I can't find an embeddable version here... So click the link to see one of the best intro sequences ever. Seriously.)

Now, arguably they failed at making a more kid friendly version of Batman: TAS or Superman: TAS. In fact, if anything, it was darker and edgier than either of those shows. But it was incredibly AWESOME.

The series took place years in the future, after Bruce Wayne has hung up the cape, and Gotham has once again become a crime run city. New gangs, such as the "Jokerz" (who model themselves after the Joker) run around the city causing chaos, and corruption is rampant. That's when a new Batman, Terry McGinnis steps up and, working with Bruce Wayne, becomes the new Batman.

The show was excellently executed, giving Terry his own, new rogues gallery instead of just cashing in on the old enemies, while still paying their dues to the original Batman with episodes centering around old foes like Mr. Freeze, Bane, and the absolute pinnacle of the series, the feature length film, "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker", which in all honesty can hold it's own against any Batman film, and still be respectable.

I loved Batman Beyond. I was very young when it was on, but I remember loving every minute of it. I've even been watching the first season recently, and it holds up very well. (You can find it streaming here, but the episodes are out of order. A list of the episodes can be found here.)

The show was cancelled in 2001, and was succeeded by Justice League unlimited, along with Static Shock, both of which featured crossover episodes with Batman Beyond. In Static Shock, Static goes to the future, and rescues his future self, with the help of Terry. JLU featured an episode called "Epilogue" which finally gave the show the finale it deserved. I won't spoil that episode for you, but track it down if you get a chance.

Terry was a very different character from Bruce Wayne, but one who I felt, if given his due, could be just as compelling. Unfortunately, since the DCAU as a whole has been ended, and a new Animated Universe has begun, it seemed that Batman Beyond was dead for good.

Until, that is, last year, when a mini-series called "Hush Beyond" ran. 6-Issues. I didn't really start collecting comics until early this year, so I never read those. Until now that is, as I purchased the trade paperback for "Hush Beyond" collecting all 6 issues.

The mini-series itself was, thankfully, very popular, and actually ended up getting an ongoing series going, which started last January. IT. IS. AWESOME. I've gotten all 4 issues that have been released (the 5th is currently being mailed to me) and I've loved every second of them. I may review those at a later date, but for now, let me give you all my impressions of the mini-series "Hush Beyond".

"Hush", for those not familiar with Batman lore, especially recent Batman lore, is a villain who first showed up in Batman comics in 2003. He's really Thomas Elliot, childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, and super successful surgeon. I haven't read any of the Hush storylines from the Batman comics personally, so I'll explain his motivations as best I can, but for a better description, you may want to just go ahead and read the wikipedia article on him.

Tom Elliot was, like Bruce, a childhood billionaire, and a friend to him. Unlike Bruce, however, he hated his parents. A lot. As in, he cut the brakes on his parents car and tried to kill them both. He only actually managed to kill his Father though, since his Mother was saved by Bruce's Father, Dr. Thomas Wayne.

A lot of stuff, none of which is really essential to understanding today's topic, happens, and Tom Elliot (surgeon extraordinaire) unites with Edward Nigma (The Riddler...) to kill Bruce Wayne, under the persona "Hush".

Eventually, he figures out Bruce Wayne is Batman, things happen, he's evil, yada yada yada, all of Hush's plots involved other supervillains in some capacity, we're moving on.

In "Hush Beyond" someone, Tom Elliot supposedly being dead, has taken up the mantle of Hush once more, tracking down and killing old Batman villians such as The Mad Hatter, or Calendar Man.

In short, this is a bad thing. After all, all these years later, a lot of these villains either did their time and went straight, or are still in mental hospitals. Hush, however, seems to be sending a message to Bruce Wayne, and makes very sure that Terry knows that Hush thinks of him as an "Imposter".

The mini-series takes a much darker tone than the series had, including bloody sequences, some fairly brutal murders, and it's very clear that this is aimed at those of us who, like me, were kids when they saw the series, and are now teenagers (or adults). The end result is excellent.

The mini-series, much like the show used to do, excellently blends new and old Batman mythos, including appearances by Cadmus, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and even a new Catwoman.

The art is very nice, looking as good as any Batman comic on the market right now. The characters are fleshed out well, and it really feels like the writers knew, and loved, the characters as much as I did.

My only complaint, however, is that the last two issues are where the story falls a little flat for me. Without revealing TOO MUCH, let's just say Hush's identity is revealed, not because of Terry's detective skills, but because Hush chooses to out himself. That's just lame. Terry has taken up the mantle of Batman, world's greatest detective. I would have LOVED to see him use his detective skills he's picked up from Bruce over years of working with him, to figure out who Hush was BEFORE Hush unveiled himself. Unfortunately, that never happens.

Also, the identity of Hush itself felt a little bit anti-climactic to me personally, although your mileage may vary on that.

The action is great, the story is great, I absolutely LOVE the fact that they've introduced a new Catwoman (and I can't wait for her to reappear in the ongoing comic, as I'm sure she will) and overall, I'm glad I spent my $15 on the TPB. Could it have been better? Sure. Was it good? Oh heck yeah.

Seeing where all these characters who we never did see in the show are, even bit characters like Calendar Man, is awesome.

Now, I know I gave a lot of backstory at the beginning of this post, so I'm sure a lot of you are wondering, "Can I buy this without any knowledge of the Batman universe?". To that I'd say... Sure. It's actually a very good introduction to the Batman Beyond world. Everything you DO need to know is explained within the context of the story, even small things like who Dick Grayson was (which I'm sure most people know.) and even who Hush himself was.

So I'd say that if you're looking for a quality graphic novel, "Hush Beyond" is definitely worth your time and money. It may not be perfect, but it's a great way to start Terry McGinnis' comic career off.

Lyrical Analysis - Lady Gaga's "Judas"

2011-04-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

*Note: This song while containing no outright swearing contains some pretty explicit sexual references, and large amounts of blasphemy. You've been warned.*

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where WHAT THE HECK DID I JUST LISTEN TO?!

No, seriously! What did I just listen to? What was that? Was it music? Was it some sort of bizzare occult thing? Was it just blasphemy for the sake of blaspheming?

I... Buh... Wha? Whaaaaaa? Bwhaaaaaaa? Guh???? Blurghle snraflmgr ykrinder? Jfrinder? JFRINDER?!

I'm sorry, it seems that, in my confusion, I lost the ability to form actual words for a moment there. I think I'm mostly brkgh. Erm, back.

Anyways, let's talk about Lady Gaga for a moment shall we? Lady Gaga is an example of someone who is shocking purely for the shock value. Seriously. I don't like Lady Gaga much, not because most of her music is bad (it isn't, most of it is pretty listenable) but because it's obvious her persona only exists for image.

Seriously. With some people, things are shocking because it's clear that they aren't trying to be shocking, they're just like that. More power to them. And then we have Lady Gaga, where it's obvious she's only being shocking to get an image.

So usually, I try to ignore her, hoping she'll go away. And guys, I know that this song is just another case of her writing something shocking to be, well, shocking, but WOW. I mean... WOW. This is bad. Really bad. I may dislike this song more than any other song I've talked about here, including "My First Kiss". Yeah. It's that bad.

So I know writing this is just giving her what she wants, but I'm sorry, I've gotta talk about this song because... It's bad. Really bad.

It seems Lady Gaga is trying very hard to make it difficult to figure out just what exactly the lyrics to this song ARE, removing any youtube video with the lyrics in it, and claiming several sites have the lyrics wrong. So if I get the lyrics wrong at any point, that why. Sorry, but I've gotta work with what I've got. I'm basing this off of the lyrics for the song on a site called Metrolyrics. So yeah. Bear with me.

"Oh-oh-oh-ohoo/I'm in love with Juda-as, Juda-as"

Yes folks, one line in and already with the blasphemy.

"Judas/Juda-a-a/Judas/Juda-a-a/Judas/Juda-Gaga"

Ok this is actually something that annoys me in all of Lady Gaga's song (this and the pretentious and unnecessary french which bugs the crap out of me). She comes up with complete nonsense, and works her name somewhere in it. "Pokerface", "Bad Romance", "Judas", I think "Alejandro" had it... It's bad. Really, really bad.

"When he comes to me, I am ready/I'll wash his feet with my hair if he needs"

Oh I see what you did there! You see, it's like with Jesus, but she's talking about Judas! Oh ho ho ho, Gaga, you make blasphemy positively zany!

"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

Uh... What?

"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

Uh...... No seriously what?
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

...This has to be an error with the lyrics I'm reading. Let me check another site.

"Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain"

I... What? What does that mean? Is it blasphemy? Is it... I don't know! What the heck does "Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain" MEAN? I... I can't make fun of that! I can't comprehend that that line exists! What?! WHAT?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

"Even after three times he betrays me"

The "denies me three times" thing wasn't actually Judas. That was Peter. And it happened after Judas betrayed Jesus. So uh... Yeah. Here's some much better music.

Sigh... Back to the Gaga.

"I'll bring him down/Bring him down, Down/A king with no crown/King with no crown"

Holy crap. Lady Gaga just made fun of Jesus for being "King of the Jews". That stopped being clever around 33 AD. IN THE 1ST CENTURY. Let that sink in some people.

...

Wow...

...

Just wow...

...

Ok, here's some more much better music.

(By the way, if you haven't seen the movie I'm posting clips from, it's "Jesus Christ Superstar". Go see it. The 1973 one, not the 2000 one. Spoiler: Jesus dies.)

"I'm just a holy fool/Oh baby he's so cruel/But I'm still in love with Judas baby"(x2)

Never has upbeat sugary pop music met complete and utter blasphemy quite like it has here. You know it's a shame the lyrics are so... Erm... Awful, because the chorus's music isn't half bad.

"Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh/I'm in love with Judas/Judas/Juda-Gaga"(x2)

More annoying noises and crap. Hurrah. I am so enthusiastic about this.

"I couldn't love a man so purely/Even *Indecipherable gibberish*"

I'm not even going to bother POSTING what lyrics I found because there's no way they're right. I don't know what she says there, but it's not "Even darkness forgave his crooked way". It's just not. Even if that's the lyric, she's clearly saying something else there... I just don't know what.

"I've learned love is like a brick, you can/Build a house or sink a dead body"

Sheesh Gaga, that's a bit morbid even for you...

"I'll bring him down/Bring him down, down/A king with no crown/King with no crown"

No seriously Gaga, stop with that. You're just embarrassing yourself.

"I'm just a holy fool/Oh baby he's so cruel/But I'm still in love with Judas baby"(x2)

The day I believe Lady Gaga is a "holy fool" is the day pigs fly through a snowstorm in hell.

"Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh/I'm in love with Judas/Judas/Juda-Gaga"(x2)

Gah, this is worse than in Bad Romance.

And then, as if to say to the audience "Yeah, I know it sucks" the song insults itself with a loud,

"EW!"

...No, I'm not kidding. It's in there.

"In the most biblical sense/I am beyond repentance/Fame, hooker/Prostitute, wench/Vomits her mind"

I literally facepalmed when I heard this line. MARY. MAGDALENE. You know, the prostitute who was forgiven of her sins, and was one of Jesus main followers, AND the first to see him alive after his resurrection? Otherwise known as the woman who you REFERENCED EARLIER IN THIS SAME SONG. Yeah. The feet wiping thing? That was her. You're a moron. Do the research next time.

And even if you don't believe in the bible, you can't say you're beyond repentance in the BIBLICAL SENSE, especially when you're referencing sins that PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE WERE FORGIVEN OF. 'Doh.

"But in the cultural sense/I only speak future tense"

I don't know what that means, and I probably don't want to.

Aaaand the next line is stupid, disgusting, and I'm not going to talk about it.

"I wanna love you/But something's pulling me away from you/Jesus is my virtue/Judas is the demon I cling to/I cling to"

Wait what? Did we just switch songs? Because that almost sounds non-blasphemous. If I hadn't heard the rest of this song I'd easily interpret that as a line about how we all have certain sins we cling to and we need to learn to let go of them and stand with Christ. Seriously. What just happened? I'm confused. I'm too confused, we're moving on.

"I'm just a holy fool/Baby he's so cruel/But I'm still in love with Judas baby"(x2)

What's not to love about a man who sold his soul for 30 silver coins amirite?

Seriously... I just don't even know how to respond to this. This is one step away from straight up writing a song about worshiping the devil. I'm not even kidding.

Even if you're not a Christian... Writing a song about being in love with Judas? You gotta admit that's a bit much. Even if you only believe the Bible is fictional, it'd be like writing a song about how you LOOOOOOOVE Darth Vader because he killed little kids in Revenge of the Sith. It'd be like writing a song about how you LOOOOOOOOVE Benedict Arnold. You don't do it. It's just not right.

"Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh/I'm in love with Judas/Judas/Juda-Gaga"(x2)

STOP THAT. IT IS NO LONGER LISTENABLE. GOSH.

"Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas GAGA"(x2)

And so ends Lady Gaga's latest piece of crap, "Judas". You know, it's kind of a shame. With different lyrics, I honestly think this could be a great song. Lady Gaga's best, even. Seriously, the music is awesome with a great beat, and her singing is actually really good here... Until you hear what she's singing, and realize not only is she blaspheming, but several lines reveal she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. Y'know, like the fact that she doesn't know who St. Peter is. Or who Mary Magdalene is. But whatever.

Video Game Review - Portal 2

2011-04-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Anyone who's ever read this blog before probably knows I'm quite fond of Portal. As in, it's my favorite game ever made. I consider it a masterpiece in every respect, the puzzles were hard and mind bending, and the humor was pitch perfect, never failing to deliver laughs. Needless to say, when a full length sequel was announced, 3 times longer than the short original game, with a separate Co-Op campaign, I was a bit excited. As in, I've been looking forward to this game for AGES.

But now that I've played it, did I love it? Did I hate it? Did it take the masterpiece that was Portal, and make it better, or did it fail to impress, simply rehashing the previous games triumphs? Read on to find out as I tell you just what I thought of Portal 2.

Portal 2, as if you didn't already know, is the latest game from Valve, and as I said is the follow up to the surprise hit of 2007's The Orange Box, Portal. When Portal first came, very few people knew what to expect from it. It was being developed mostly by a new team Valve hired on after seeing their student project "Narbacular Drop" and saying, "Hey, we want you to make a longer version of this."

They bundled it together with Half Life 2: Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2, both long awaited sequels, in a bundle known as The Orange Box. When many people bought The Orange Box, they didn't expect Portal to be anything more than a little bonus they got with the other two games, but while Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 are both fantastic games (among my favorites, in fact) Portal ended up being considered by many people, myself included, the best game in the pack.

The game set you in a deserted laboratory controlled by a sinister A.I. GLaDOS, using a "Portal Gun" which let you shoot two portals, which linked to each other. The result was mind bending puzzles, and some of the darkest humor and possibly the most memorable villain, in all of gaming. Lines about murdering your best friend (a box), baking you into a cake, and of course the meme-tastic song "Still Alive" led to the game being warmly received by all.

Of course, a sequel was needed. The original game was only 3 hours long.

Story

Portal 2 takes place several centuries after the original Portal. Your character, Chell, has been in stasis for the past several hundred years, and is awoken by a personality sphere named Wheatley, one of the many which awoke at the end of the first Portal, telling you that the Enrichment Center's nuclear reactor is about to meltdown, killing you (and him) and that you need to escape together. You run around, go through some tutorial stages, and end up in GLaDOS's chamber. She's off. You go down to her central core looking for an escape pod, or some route of escape to turn on. This goes as well as you might expect. Of course, GLaDOS wakes up, and sends you straight back to testing.

There are a few new characters, Wheatley being one of them, who really add something to the game. Don't get me wrong, Ellen McLain reprises her role as GLaDOS and does an absolutely phenomenal job, but each of the new characters add hours of laughs, and a plot with some twists I genuinely didn't see coming. The plot is absolutely great, and the dialogue is just as good as it was in the first game. You'll be laughing hysterically throughout the entire game. I promise that. My family watched me play through large portions of the game, and said it was a blast to watch me play it, because of how well written it was, and how darn funny it was.

Again, it only ties in loosely to the Half-Life universe, but the connections are there (including an Easter Egg about a certain ship...) and are quite fun when you do catch them. Really though, Portal 2 focuses on being it's own thing. It's not Half-Life 2: Episode 3 like some (stupid) people seemed to be expecting. G-Man isn't in it. The Combine isn't in it. Gordon Freeman isn't in it.

Instead, the game focuses on building up the world of Aperture Science, and it does this spectacularly. One thing I remember hearing in the Dev Commentary for the original Portal was that they tried to convey in the escape portions that the facility was designed to reassemble itself at GLaDOS will, using pistons and panels to change around test chambers in whatever way she wished. This was something I never thought was all that well expanded upon in the first game, and I never would have known they intended that if I hadn't done the Dev Commentary. However, Portal 2 shows this, and the absolutely massive scale of the Aperture Science facility beautifully from the very first moment of the game. You can tell how the rooms fit together, and the very opening of the game gives you a shot of the inside of the facility, making it obvious it's bigger than you ever would have expected in the first game.

This also changes the atmosphere of the game. Not that the way the original game felt was bad in any way, the original Portal is still a masterpiece of game design in every aspect, but this game really felt like they cemented what the world of Aperture science was. The Half-Life series is a straight up drama, and Portal 2 is more of a black comedy, something which made itself apparent in the dialogue of the first game, and something which becomes apparent in every aspect of Portal 2, including the atmosphere.

The graphics, though still running on the Source engine first released with Half-Life 2 in 2004, have been refined a LOT from Portal, and look absolutely great in this game.

Something which is either an improvement or a step back, depending on your opinion, is that unlike in the first game, where Chell was essentially a mask for the player, she feels more like a character, and an aspect of the Portal universe, in this one. She's still silent, make no mistake, but unlike in the first one where she was silent because she was nothing more than a mask, in this she feels more like your standard silent protagonist, much like Gordon Freeman, or Link.

There are more references to her being mute, and many, MANY, references to her being female, unlike the first game where the only reference to her was the Curiosity Sphere saying "OOOH YOU'RE THE LADY FROM THE TEST!", other than that, there were no references to her being female, and it felt more like GLaDOS was talking to YOU than to CHELL. In this, it feels like the characters are talking to Chell first, you second.

In my personal opinion, it's not really a drawback of the game... But I will admit I do prefer the "mask" approach they took in the first one. I can't say it's poorly executed, it isn't, and it does work very very well in this game, I just liked the approach in the first game more. It's not a flaw, and the story still works excellently though.

But, of course, what would Portal be without, well, Portals? So I'm sure many of you are asking how well the gameplay measures up.

Gameplay

I remember hearing in an interview, I think it was from E3 last year, that the Dev team wanted to make the same leap of introducing gameplay unlike anything you'd ever seen like they had in Portal, in Portal 2. That they were introducing many new concepts besides just the Portal Gun (which, again, is the only "weapon" you have in the entire game).

So really, Portal was about using the Portal Gun to solve problems. Portal 2 is about using the Portal Gun to influence other elements in the level, to solve problems. There are many new game mechanics, such as tractor beams, which can travel through Portals to influence the levels. All of the new mechanics (There are a lot) introduce entirely new ways to view the levels, and include mind warping new possibilities.

The Portal mechanic has been noticeably improved too. In the first game, unless you hit a Portal head on, you would get stuck. If you even clipped the edges a little bit, you'd get stuck, and would probably die. I never had that problem in this game, and it's much easier to actually travel through Portals.

Of note, is that they took out a lot of the twitch aspect of Portal solving puzzles in this one. Now it's more about setting your portals up correctly BEFORE going through them, than it is to shoot one off while in midair. There is still the occasional puzzle that requires to shoot off a Portal while flying through midair, but they are few and far between.

There are also fewer places to put your Portals now. It's more like the end of the first game, while you were escaping, where there were only a few spots to place Portals, and the trick was to figure out how to use those precious few spots to achieve your goal. The resulting difficulty isn't necessarily any harder or any easier, it just plays differently.

The difficulty itself is pretty much on par with the original Portal. The puzzles aren't really hard, but they all require thinking differently than you normally would, and if you aren't "thinking with portals" you'll be stuck. There are still many points where you'll find yourself boggling, wondering if the puzzle is even possible or if the game is somehow glitching, only to remember that one technique you were taught earlier in the game, and propelling yourself to victory.

This game, just like the first, is very good at preparing you for more difficult challenges. Every puzzle seems to teach you new concepts you'll need to remember for later puzzles. In a way, just like the first, most of the game is a tutorial.

That said, I would still recommend against jumping straight into Portal 2. If you haven't, you should most definitely still play Portal before Portal 2, because the original is a masterpiece of storytelling within games, will set up the story for the second one for you, is only about 3 hours long, and will ensure you're already "thinking with portals" when you try Portal 2 out, a skill which will come in handy.

I got the PS3 version of the game, which includes a free PC/Mac Steam copy. As such, I played through the entire game on both PS3 and PC, and the controls worked perfectly on both. I never found myself struggling to make a shot on the PS3, but I never felt the puzzles were dumbed down on PC.

Something I've heard a lot of complaint about is that there are frequent load screens. This is true, there is a load screen after pretty much every puzzle. Honestly though, the load screens are very short, and I prefer load screens to the intrusive "LOADING..." message that popped up in old Valve games. Also, the frequent load screens help the game run on even lower end machines.

I hear some people claim the PC version is just a console port. This is stupid. Completely and utterly stupid. The only evidence for this at ALL is that when you save, the save message says "Please don't turn off your console..." on the PC, as opposed to saying "Please don't turn off your PS3..." on the PS3.

Even if it were a console port (which it isn't) it wouldn't matter. The PC version plays perfectly. The controls work. There's no other way to say it, the game controls very well on both PS3 and PC.

One thing I do wish they had included is advanced chambers, like the first game had, but they seemed to favor including achievements in the standard chambers, which require going through them differently to get. Still, a level editor will be included soon, so I'm sure some extremely difficult maps will come out of that.

Co-Op

One of the biggest and most exciting aspects of Portal 2 was the announcement that the game would contain a co-op mode, where you and a friend control two "Co-Op Bots" nicknamed Atlas and P-Body.

The story in the Co-Op mode is very thin, and is really only there as a sequel hook for Portal 3, taking place after the end of Portal 2's single player campaign. GLaDOS taunts the two of you, as you solve tests spread over 5 chapters, involving the use of all those new features included in the game, all the while using up to 4 portals (each of you with two of them, obviously).

The Co-Op levels are fun, and some of the GLaDOS quotes are pretty funny, but this is probably where most of my complaints for the game come in. Don't get me wrong, the Co-Op for this game, which probably took about 5 hours to complete, was very fun, but I would have liked to see some more challenging puzzles, especially toward the end. Even the very last puzzle only took me and my co-op partner around 15 minutes to figure out and complete. Maybe that's because I had already finished the entire single played campaign, and was already "thinking with portals" but only a few of the tests seemed all that difficult, and we breezed through the others, unlike the single player where there were some pretty brutal puzzles toward the end.

Hopefully Valve will either allow custom co-op maps when the level editor is released (PC only, and it's not out yet, even for single player, though it is announced) or will release some more difficult co-op levels in future updates for the game. Or both. Both would be nice.

Oh, and in case you've heard people saying that there's already $80 of DLC? That's only a half truth. Much like the Mann-Conomy in TF2, there's an item shop in Portal 2. Everything in it is purely cosmetic and is in no way required, isn't even available on the console versions of the game, and though it's true there is around $80 worth of cosmetic purchases, there's a bundle for only $30 of all of them, should you choose to buy them all. I ignored the item shop, only equipping my Mann Co. hat which was carried over from TF2 (there are 6 items which are carried over, IIRC) and an achievement item I got later on. It really doesn't matter, if you like item shops, hurrah! If not, ignore it, like I did.

Length

The single player campaign for Portal 2 took me around 9 hours to complete. The Co-Op campaign took me around 5-6 hours.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Make no mistake, this is not a long game. Compared to a lot of games out there for the same $50 pricetag, you're not going to play this for as much time. You could buy Fallout: New Vegas for that price, probably even less by now, and easily get a 100 hours of gameplay, instead of around 14-20. This would be completely understandable.

That said, the quality of those 14 hours is extremely high. This is a worthy addition to the Portal series, and just as good as Portal, my favorite game of all time.

Also, there are a lot of Easter Eggs and achievements hidden in the game you won't get on your first try, which will warrant a second play through, as well as a developer commentary which will warrant yet another playthrough. A level editor is also coming out soon, so I'm sure we'll see great maps coming out of that.

This game is short, but it's very good. You should, at some point, play this game. The only real question here is if you should buy it now, at the $50 price tag, or wait until the price drops. Honestly, it just depends on how much of a diehard Portal fan you are. Me? I regret nothing. Portal 2 was brilliant, and I am absolutely pleased with my day one purchase. But then again, I have 60 hours logged on the original Portal, a 3-4 hour game. I've played through it so many times, I've got each puzzle memorized, and I will likely do the same with Portal 2. For me, a day one purchase was a good choice. For others, waiting for the inevitable Steam Sale 6 months from now would probably be a good choice. Knowing Valve, it'll be $20 by Christmas.

Music

Real quick, before closing out this review, I'd like to mention the music of the game. The soundtrack is AMAZING, and I would definitely buy it in a heartbeat if Valve were to release it as an OST. Not just the closing song, penned by JoCo himself, just like Still Alive (I won't post it here though, it describes in detail the plot of Portal 2 and is extremely spoilery) but just the background music, or songs like "Robots FTW" the piece of music which plays over the Co-Op end credits. It's spoiler free, by the way.

Buy This Game If: Like I said above, you really should buy this game, it's really just more a matter of WHEN you should buy it.

Don't Buy This Game If: You're a stupid moron? Seriously. Buy this game. Play it. Eventually.

*This review was based on around 19-20 hours of play, including one playthrough of the single player on PS3, one playthrough of the single player on PC, and one playthrough of the Co-Op, also on PC. Portal 2 is rated E10+ for fantasy violence and mild language*

Lyrical Analysis - Miley Cyrus' "The Climb"

2011-04-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I'm incredibly bored.

Oh, hello again Miley Cyrus, how are YOU doing?

This song may not be the worst song I've spoken about here, but it's certainly more difficult to explain why this song is terrible over several others. Let me explain. This song isn't as bad as, for example, "My First Kiss", but this is an entirely different kind of bad. At least with songs like "My First Kiss" I get an emotional response when listening to them. Anger. This song though... Gah... This song is... It's BORING. BORING BORING BORING BORING. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING.

Seriously. This song is an "inspirational" song by Miley Cyrus. And I use the term "inspirational" loosely, since the only thing this song inspires ME to do is take a nice long nap. It was featured in the Hannah Montana movie and... It's stupid. Stupid, and boring.

But what makes this song so awful? Y'know, I mean aside from the music, singing, theme, and motivation behind the song. Why the lyrics of course! So enough talking about much more interesting things, let's examine the terrible TERRIBLE lyrics of Miley Cyrus' "The Climb"

"I can almost see it/The dream I'm dreaming"

This sounds inspirational until you realize her dream is to be the next Britney Spears.

"But, there's a voice inside my head saying/You'll never reach it"

I'mmah stop you right here. Miley, you're a celebrity, ok? You have buckets of money, dozens of songs, a hit TV show... You've reached the dream. Ok? You've reached it. Now can you please tell YOUR success story to the people to make them inspired? Oh that's right, you can't. You know why? Your success story sucks.

Here's her success story, her father was a crappy singer and a crappier actor. Then she became a less crappy singer and a less crappy actor, though still being crappy.

I smell inspiration!

"Every move I'm makin'/Every step I'm takin' feels/Lost with no direction"

Oh, I didn't realize this was a song about the writing of "7 Things".

"My faith is shaking"

Faith in what, you may ask? Well this is, of course, never elaborated on. This is that Hollywood "faith" you have to keep in order to be successful. You need to have "faith". "Faith" in what? Doesn't matter, just "faith". Scientology? Yep, that works. Yourself? We'll make a hit movie of your life story. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Sure, you can found a religion around them. Christianity? Eh, that might be considered politically incorrect.

Yeah, I went there.

"But I/Gotta keep tryin'/Gotta keep my head held high"

Gotta keep, one jump ahead of the breadline! One swing ahead of the sword! I steal, only what I can't afford! (That's everything)

I'm only kidding of course, that song is MUCH better than this one.

"There's always gonna be another mountain/I'm always gonna wanna make it move/It's always gonna be an uphill battle/Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose"

Bored yet? Me too. Moving on.

"Ain't about how fast I get there/Ain't about what's waiting on the other side/It's the climb"

That's a load of crap and you know it Miley. Sometimes it absolutely IS about the destination and not the journey. Sometimes we DON'T climb mountains for the sake of the climb. How about the cure for cancer? Huh? Are we climbing THAT PARTICULAR mountain for the sake of the climb? No. WE'RE CLIMBING IT TO CURE CANCER.

Yes, it's a lovely notion, but it doesn't always apply. In fact, it USUALLY doesn't apply. And it's a sentiment we've heard, oh, eight million times before? Seriously, have a little originality. Please.

"The struggles I'm facing/The chances I'm taking/Sometimes might knock me down but/No I'm not breaking"

It's here one of the problems I have with the song comes into play, and honestly this is more HER than the lyrics themselves, but it is somewhat a problem with the lyrics. This song is missing the essential ingredient to a motivational song.

Think of some good motivational songs. What popped into your mind? "Eye of the Tiger"
? "We Are The Champions", maybe? Heck, even bad motivational songs like "Never Say Never" have this quality.

Determination. When you hear "Eye of the Tiger" you dang well know you can achieve anything, because with enough determination there is no goal you can't reach. You WILL rise up, you WILL become the champion, because you ARE the champion. No one's going to stop you, and anyone who tries is going to be mowed down.

Miley, and her lyrics, seem to lack any sort of determination to me. And it shows. With slightly better lyrics, and a more determined sound to her, this song could be salvageable. As it is? It's boring.

Even the lines that attempt determination, like this one, reek more of a plea for reassurance. "I'm not breaking. Right? RIGHT?"

Maybe it's me, but this song seems more DE-motivational than anything.

"I may not know it/But these are the moments that/I'm gonna remember most yeah/Just gotta keep going"

Yes, but will you remember these supposed hardships fondly? Probably not.

Also, she's yet to tell us any kind of hardship she's gone through other than her feeling demotivated. Why? As far as we know, chronic depression. I'm just sayin'!

"And I/Gotta be strong/Just keep pushing on"

Oh boy here's the chorus again.

"'Cause there's always gonna be another mountain/Always gonna want to make it move/Always gonna be an uphill battle/Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose"

SEE?! You see?! "Eye of the Tiger" wouldn't say you should accept losing! It would say you should mow down your obstacles and take any hits in stride! (By the way, I consider "Eye of the Tiger" the definitive motivational song, in case it doesn't show.)

Seriously, I compare a REAL motivational song like "Eye of the Tiger" to this... From the very first note of "Eye of the Tiger" you feel motivated. From the very first WORD you KNOW you can do WHATEVER it is you need to. That was my song of choice last November during NaNoWriMo and it will remain so next year. And some of you may be saying that it's unfair to compare "Eye of the Tiger" to "The Climb". That one is a classic, and the other is a bland pop song, but y'know what? I don't accept that! Miley Cyrus clearly wrote this as a motivational song in the same vein as "Eye of the Tiger" and, in my opinion, all motivational songs should at least be able to have that very basic determination which "The Climb" is oh so lacking in.

That's why I didn't mention this in "Never Say Never". I don't like that song, but at least Justin Bieber sounded determined in it. He sounded like he was going to overcome whatever was thrown at him. Miley Cyrus, in this song, just sounds kind of apathetic. She sounds like "Yeah, bad stuff is going to happen. I accept that, I'll get through ok. Probably." Whereas a GOOD motivational song says "Bad stuff might happen, but if it does I will MOW IT DOWN, KICK IT IN THE FACE, SPIT ON IT, AND PASS IT BY TO GET TO MY GOAL."

"Ain't about how fast I get there/Ain't about what's waiting on the other side/It's the climb"

You know what I hear when this song is playing? I hear,

"This song is so very generic/I really can't make myself give a crap/It's so bland!"

Seriously. There is nothing original about this song. This song adds NOTHING new. This song is boring, generic, and has no reason to exist.

The rest of the song (A minute more, no less) is just chorus. I can't SAY anything else about it. It's just... Bland! There's nothing to say! Nothing!

And that's The Climb really. It's bland, and there's very little to say about it. At least some songs by, say, Justin Bieber try to do something interesting. They fail, but at least they try! This song is just... Boring. Boring boring boring.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to "Eye of the Tiger".

Lyrical Analysis - Avril Lavigne's "Smile"

2011-04-16T10:00:00.001-07:00

*Caution: This song contains extremely harsh language. I'll censor it in my post, but I'll also post a link to the song. If you are easily offended, don't listen to the song.*

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where at first I felt bad for a while, but now I just smile.

Oh hey, not only does Avril Lavigne apparently still exist, but she released not one but TWO Jormunga- sorry, singles at the same time. One of them was "What the H***" which, as I said, although it's lyrics were far from great, the song wasn't that bad at all.

The other was Smile. No, not that smile. You know how "What the H***" was her song about how innocent and good she'd been her whole life? This single is about what she's actually like.

So, without any further ado, let's dive right into "Smile" by Avril Lavigne.

"You know that I'm a crazy b****"

This is the first line of the song. She could have gone with any line to be the introduction to her song, and this is the one she picked.

Ah well, at least she's acknowledging it.

"I do what I want when I feel like it"

Yeah, I wasn't kidding. This is a song about what she's actually like.

"All I want to do is lose control/Oh oh"

But if losing control is what you want, and you then lose control, technically aren't you controlling yourself by losing control, thus keeping in control?

Ugh. 13 seconds in and already my head hurts.

"But you don't really give a s***"

Hey look, arbitrary and forced swearing that exists for no reason.

"You don't let it go/Let it go with it/'Cause you're f***ing crazy rock 'n roll"

ALRIGHT THIS HAS TO BE ADDRESSED.

Look folks, I can handle swearing in songs. Heck, I did a whole post about why "F*** You" was less offensive than "California Gurls". But see, if there's going to be swearing in a song, it should at least be there for a reason. In "F*** You", at least the swear is there because honestly, that's a very succinct way of conveying exactly how Cee-Lo feels about this girl.

Here, she's just swearing because her image demands it. Also, f*** is her favorite word, apparently. Anyways, it annoys me when artists swear for the sake of swearing. I don't like it, it only comes across as forced and makes the character in the song less likable... And it's just dumb and unnecessary.

"You-ou said hey/What's your name?/It took one look/and now I'm not the same"

"You-ou"? What?

"Yeah you said hey"

Don't you mean "You-ou"?

"And since that day/You stole my heart/And you're the one to blame"

Well yeah, no duh. I'd assume if HE stole your heart that HE would be the one to blame. That's just a tautology. It's like saying, "You drew a picture, so the picture was drawn by you."

A=B, thus B=A. Duh.

"Yeah and that's whyyyy/I smile/It's been a while/Since every day/And everything has felt this right"

WAY. THE WORD YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS WAY. NOT RIGHT. WAY. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. 3 LETTER WORD. ONE SYLLABLE. RHYMES WITH DAY. YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

"And now/You turn it all around/And suddenly/You're all I need/The reason why/I-I-I/I smile/I-I"

I like to think this is the song she wrote for her boyfriend immediately before cheating on him in "What the H***".

"Last night I blacked out I think"

You don't know if you blacked out? How's that work? It seems pretty obvious to me, if you remember the night before you did not, if you don't remember it, you did. Not a lot of gray area here.

"What did you/What did you/Put in my drink"

Real catch you've got there Avril.

"I remember making out and then/Oh oh/I woke up with a new tattoo/Your name was on me/And my name was on you"

HOORAY FOR MAKING MAJOR LIFE DECISIONS WHILE INTOXICATED!!!!!

"I would do it all over again"

Yep folks, that's right, she'd get drugged and get the name of a guy she just met tattooed on herself while completely wasted AND drugged again if she could.

"You-ou said hey"

Seriously the way she says "You-ou" is SOOOOO IRRITATING!

"What's your name?/It took one look and/Now I'm not the same/Yeah you said hey/And since that day/You stole my heart/And you're the one to blame"

Still a dumb line.

"Yeah and that's why/I smile/It's been awhile/Since every day/and everything has felt this right"

WAY IS STILL THE WORD YOU ARE LOOKING FOR YOU MORON.

"You turn it all around/And suddenly/You're all I need/The reason why/I smile/I-I-I/I smile/I-I/I smile/I-I-I/I smile"

Oh yeah, and this repetition of "I-I-I" is really annoying too, by the way.

"You know that I'm a crazy b****/I do what I want/When I feel like it/All I want to do is lose control (x2)"

Oh joy, I was just thinking "Hey, this song could use some more arbitrary swearing."

"And that's why/I smile/It's been awhile/Since every day/and everything has felt this right/And now/You turn it all around/And suddenly/You're all I need/The reason why/I-I-I/I smile/I-I-I/Smile"

And thus ends Avril Lavigne's single "Smile". What an idiotic song. That said, it makes a lot of sense that she'd sing this, as opposed to "What the H***". This actually sounds like her.

Seriously, it's an annoying song with arbitrary swearing every which way, and overall idiotic lyrics including a spot where there easily COULD have been a rhyme, but WASN'T.

Well, hopefully I'll be done covering Avril Lavigne for awhile. Hopefully next time I look for a song, this "Punk Rock Princess" will be in another castle.

Lyrical Analysis - Miley Cyrus' "7 Things"

2011-04-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis where there are more than 7 things I hate about bad music.

Miley Cyrus. Folks, this won't win me any awards, but I have to say... I really don't hate Miley Cyrus. Yeah. I mean, she's not great by any means, but I never found her music offensively bad, with just a few exceptions, and some of her stuff is even kinda catchy.

I'll admit I don't follow celebrity news, so I don't know all that much about her or any of the things shes gotten flak for but I try not to judge musicians by tabloids anyways so... Yeah. I honestly don't understand all the people who mock her. Heck, she's a lot more talented than some pop music artists. Insert your own joke about Justin Bieber here.

So really, I don't hate Miley Cyrus. I find most of her music tolerable. Most of her music. Enter "7 Things".

This song just irks me. So without further ado... Ugh... "7 Things".

"I probably shouldn't say this/But at times I get so scared/When I think about the previous/Relationship we've shared"

Hoo boy. First of all, you're rhyming "Say this" and "Previous"? Really? I mean... That's a stretch.

Second, think about this. She's saying "When I think about the previous relationship we shared." referring to an earlier time in their relationship... Except that doesn't work. It's the SAME relationship, just later on in it. It's not a "previous relationship" unless it was with another person.

"It was awesome/But we lost it/It's not possible for me not to care/Now we're standing in the rain/But nothing's ever gonna change until you hear/My dear"

Ok, just to point it out, I actually do like the way she sings this one line. Not enough to save the song, but still worth pointing out.

"The 7 things I hate about you"(x2)"

OH GOD HERE IT IS. Ugh. Now let me say, I actually think her voice kind of works in the slower parts of the song. Again, it's not great, but it's kind of... Ok. I like it.

Aaaand then she starts singing here and you can hear the strain in her voice. It's not good. Not good at all.

"You're vain" 1. "Your games" 2. "You're insecure" 3.

Really Miley? You're saying he's insecure? On a track where you're singing about how much you hate him for playing games with you? ...No, I'm not going to point out the issue there, if you can't figure it out for yourself you're hopeless.

(Not to mention, from what I've heard Miley has had several pictures of questionable morality posted online, so bonus points for calling him "insecure" there too.)

"You love me/You like her" 4. "You make me laugh/You make me cry" 5.

Oh. Ok. It would seem she's listing things she likes as well. Sure. Why not.

Also, she sounds very possessive here. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE ANOTHER GIRL EXISTS? YOU MUST DIIIIIIEEEEE...

Yeah. I dunno, she doesn't imply he actually cheated on her so... Kinda seems clingy.

"I don't know which side to buy"

This line irritates me, but to be honest I don't know why, so I'll let it slide.

"Your friends they're jerks"

THAT IS NOT SOMETHING ABOUT HIM. THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE CHORUS IS TO LIST THINGS ABOUT HIM. NOT HIS FRIENDS. YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

"And when you act like them" 6? "Just know it hurts"

NO THIS DOESN'T EXCUSE THE LAST LINE BECAUSE IT'S STILL STUPID TO BRING HIS FRIENDS INTO THIS WHEN YOU JUST COULD HAVE SAID HE ACTS LIKE A JERK.

"I wanna be/With the one I know"

Sounds like you are. It sounds like he's a jerk.

"And the seventh thing/I hate the most that you do"

Ready for it? READY FOR IT? The seventh thing?! Are you ready? ARE YOU EXCITED? What could it be? What

"You make me love you" 7?!

Everybody altogether now! D'AWWWWWWWWWWWW!

In case you weren't following my number tally, one of my big problems with this song is she lists so many positive AND negative things in her "7 Things" that it can be hard to tell what the actual "7 Things" are. Especially when one of them is that he makes her LOVE him. Sure, I managed to map out 7 things... But when you're listing 7 things you hate, you can't just add things from another list to it.

It just doesn't work. You throw out things you LIKE about him while listing things you hate. IT'S. CONFUSING. YOU NEED FOCUS MILEY. FOCUS. It would be like if I started reviewing a completely different song in the middle of one of these Lyrical Analysis articles.

Anyways, moving on.

"I whip my hair back and forth/I whip my hair back and forth"

As you can see the main problem with the chorus of "Whip My Hair" is that... It's not even really music. It's like some strange Eldritch horror that was somehow turned into music. Obviously the only reason "Whip My Hair" exists, much like the main reason Jaden Smith has an acting career, is because Will Smith decided his daughter needed a singing career. The difference, of course, is that Jaden Smith is actually a talented actor, whereas Willow Smith relies on autotune to the point where this song could actually make your ears bleed.

YOU SEE?! IT'S CONFUSING! YOU HAVE TO PICK SOMETHING TO FOCUS ON! YOU HAVE TO PICK A TOPIC AND FINISH THAT TRAIN OF THOUGH BEFORE SWITCHING TO ANOTHER TRAIN OF THOUGHT OR ELSE IT RESULTS IN NOTHING BUT

"It's awkward and it's silent/As I wait for you to say/What I need to hear now/Your sincere apology"

You know, we still haven't exactly heard what it is DID that he has to apologize for. Just really vague things like "He's vain". Or "His friends are jerks". Or of course the crowning achievement of EVIL, "He makes her love him".

"When you mean it/I'll believe it/If you text it/I'll delete it"

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude. You got burned by Miley Cyrus. *Snicker*

"Let's be clear/Well I'm not coming back/You're taking the 7 steps here"

Fun fact: Alcoholism takes 12 steps, mending a relationship with Miley Cyrus only takes 7.

And then we get the abysmal chorus again. It's exactly the same here, so I'm skipping ahead.

Now, you're probably saying, "Gee, that's not so bad. I mean sure, it's stupid, but it's not THAT stupid."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the last verse and chorus.

"And compared to all the great things/That would take too long to write/I probably should mention/The 7 that I like"

What. I know it's just a grammar error here and she got across what she wanted but... "Compared to the great things, let me list the 7... great things." Really Miley? Really? REALLY?

"The 7 things I like about you!"

Ugh. Fine. So tell us, what are these 7 things that are SO GREAT about this guy that they outweigh all the bad stuff? You know, like how he's vain.

"Your hair" 1. "Your eyes" 2. "Your old levi's" 3. "When we kiss I'm hypnotized" 4.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the first 4 things she likes are his hair, eyes, his pants, and the fact that he's a good kisser.

And HE'S the one who's freaking vain.

SCREW THIS SONG!!!!!!!!! Seriously. Let's assume for a moment the line "You love me/You like her" DID mean he cheated on her. Now look at the reasons she likes him. OVER HALF THE FREAKING LIST ARE PURELY THINGS ABOUT VANITY. No wonder he cheated on her! She's the shallowest person on the planet! (Note: I still don't condone cheating on someone for any reason whatsoever.)

"You make me laugh" 5. "You make me cry/I guess that's both I'll have to buy"

And once again her lists LACKS ANY FREAKING DIRECTION.

"Your hands in mine/When they're intertwined/Everything's alright" 6. "I wanna be with the one I know"

Does being a good... Erm... Hand holder... Count as vanity? Because if so, 5/7ths of this list are things which are purely vanity.

"And the seventh thing/I like the most that you do"

Like you don't already know what it is.

"You make me love you"

Yeah there's a shock.

Miley, I really don't hate you or your music. "Party in the U.S.A." is fun, though the lyrics are a bit stupid, and even some of the Hannah Montana songs are tolerable... But good grief this song is awful. Seriously. Just... Awful. Your singing is strained and painful to listen to, and of course you accuse him of being vain, then reveal yourself to be the shallowest person on the planet.

I don't hate you, I even want to like you, but this song is a dud, plain and simple. I know it's a few years old now, and I don't know what of hers is more recent (I THINK "Party in the U.S.A." is) but hopefully it's better than this because... Wow.

This song is just plain BAD.

Movie Review - Source Code

2011-04-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

Pop quiz: Who remembers Quantum Leap? The TV series? About jumping into other people's bodies? It was a good show.

Pop quiz number 2: Who remembers Groundhog Day? Y'know, the one with Bill Murray? Everyone reading this? Good, because if you hadn't seen it yet I would have to say GO RENT IT RIGHT NOW.

Well, imagine what would happen if you took one part Groundhog Day, and one part Quantum Leap, threw in a bomb on a train, and scaled back the reliving down from a day, into only 8 minutes. You would get Source Code.

Source Code is the second film by British director Duncan Jones. His other film is the 2009 film, Moon. I went into Source Code with very high expectations because HIS LAST FILM WAS MOON! Seriously! If you haven't heard of this incredibly low budget but high quality sci-fi film, go look it up. It was one of the best films of 2009, perhaps even THE best film of 2009.

In fact, it was so praised, and did so well (considering it hardly got a release. Seriously, only a few theaters for a month or so, and then DVD.) that they gave Duncan Jones a much much bigger budget for his first widely released movie Source Code!

So when I heard about it? I was psyched. I LOVED Moon, and the idea of a big budget film made by Duncan Jones? I couldn't have been more optimistic. I heard the plot, and the first thing I said was "This idea would be stupid, if I didn't have complete faith in Duncan Jones." I'm not kidding. This guy could have made the Twilight movies awesome if he were directing them.

So as I walked into the theater, I went in with the highest expectations. Was I disappointed? Well, I'm pleased to say that I was not.

The central plot of Source Code centers around Captain Colter Stevens, (played by Jake Gyllenhaal who's only other film I've seen is Prince of Persia which for the record, I liked.) waking up on a train, only to find he's not himself. Literally. He's someone else. Well a woman named Christina (played by Michelle Monaghan) is talking to him on a train, and naturally he is just a bit disoriented. So he gets up, searches the train, and promptly gets blown up.

After getting blown up, he awakens in a small capsule with a woman through a video screen informing him that his mission is to continue reliving the same 8 minutes until he can ID the bomber. He's told that he's in a sort of memory of the past, and that he cannot change anything, no matter how hard he tries, he can only find information on the bomber, before he strikes again.

And so he relives the same 8 minutes. And that's the plot of the film. It's better than it sounds, really.

I was slightly concerned that the idea of reliving the same 8 minutes for an entire 90 minute film could get tedious, but it's excellently done to where each time is interesting enough, because of how he interacts with it, to keep your attention.

Not to mention the fact that both of the leads do very good acting jobs here. Seriously. They have great chemistry with each other, and even though we only have 8 minutes with Christina every time, you feel like you know who she is, without having her pushed in your face by the end of the film. In fact, you feel that way about a lot of the passengers, many of whom aren't even given names.

It's a thriller, and it provides those thrills, while still keeping the characters interesting. Like any good thriller, it keeps you guessing about who the bomber is. Is it this guy? Is it this next guy? Was it guy one all along?! You'll keep guessing until it's revealed at the end.

Unfortunately there is a small problem. You see, once we finally do get explanations... They're based on some really bad science. The entire third act is plagued with plot holes, and the ending, while good, makes very little sense.

But if you're able to push aside some quirky plot holes in the third act, and just accept that this is what happened, it's an excellent film, and definitely worth seeing. I went in with high expectations, and Duncan Jones did not disappoint.

In fact, Duncan Jones film career is already tremendously better than his father's film career after only two films! Who was his father you ask?

I'm completely not kidding. Duncan Jones is the son of David Bowie. Is this relevant to Source Code? Not at all! Is it amusing? Heck yes!

Anyways, as I was saying, Source Code is a very good film. It's not quite as good as Moon, mainly because of the plot holes in the 3rd act, but it's still a great sci-fi action thriller, and it's definitely worth seeing.

Lyrical Analysis - Avril Lavigne's "What the H***"

2011-04-09T10:00:00.001-07:00

*Caution: The song I'm reviewing today, in case you didn't read the title of the blog post, has mild language in it. If you're going to be offended, don't listen to the video of the song I post.*

Hello, and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, I analyze it so you don't have to. IT'S A REFERENCE NOT A RIPOFF SHUTUP.

Hey folks, let's talk about Avril Lavigne for a moment shall we?

I really hate Avril Lavigne. Avril Lavigne is a pop singer who, even if you don't know her by name, you'd probably recognize a few of her songs such as "Girlfriend" (Harsh language), "Complicated", or the irritatingly titled, "Sk8er Boi".

The thing about Avril Lavigne that I find so odd is that, I don't really hate her music. Most of it, anyways. But good grief, her image, and her personality... Enough to make me despise her. Also, she released "Girlfriend". I hate "Girlfriend". Freakin' earworm...

Anyways, I had honestly thought (perhaps it was just wishful thinking...) she'd started to fade into obscurity. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the top 100 music charts looking for fodder for this post, and found that, shock and awe, she was sitting at the 23rd most popular song. Huh.

So then I gave a listen to the charmingly titled "What the H***". And I started laughing. True story.

Why would a song by Avril Lavigne make me laugh, you might ask? Well, what the heck, let's listen to "What the H***".

"You say/That I'm messing with your head/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah/All 'cause/I was making out with your friends"

Oh is THAT all...

Great friends, by the way.

"Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

"Complicated" said "No, no, no", this says "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah". I eagerly await her next single which will feature repetitions of the word "Maybe" in the chorus.

"Love hurts/Whether it is right or wrong/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

Oh god, it's going to do that "Yeah, yeah" thing the whole song isn't it? Give me a second I need to prepare myself...

...Sigh...

Alright, next line.

"I can't stop/'Cause I'm having too much fun/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

Just be glad she doesn't enjoy driving.

"You're on your knees/Begging please/Stay with me"

Sure, why not, you only cheated on him, why would he ever want you to go away? By the way, I love how Avril is played up to be the GOOD GUY of the song, as though her boyfriend was somehow smothering her by not wanting her to make out with other guys.

"But honestly/I just need to be/A little crazy"

Mission accomplished. Several times over.

"All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/I'm thinking/What the h***"

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT HOLD ON WAIT WAIT WAIT. "All my life I've been good"? Really? You're Avril La-freakin'-vigne, and you're trying to sing a song about how innocent you are? I'm sorry, but no one that released "Girlfriend" gets to talk about how innocent they are.

Seriously. You have a reputation for being a rebellious "punk rock princess" (say that without gagging, I dare you), you JUST CAN'T MAKE A SONG WITH THE LINE "All my life I've been good"! It doesn't work that way! You can't do it!

Wikipedia has an entire section of your article dedicated to your tattoos! And according to that same page, you have the f-bomb tattooed on your chest! And you said that's your favorite word!

That's like 3OH!3 releasing a song about not being a pretentious jerk. It's like if Cee-Lo were to now release a song called "I'm Sorry and I Should Have Watched My Language!" That's like if Justin Bieber made a song that didn't suck! IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY! YOU CANNOT JUST DO THAT!

GAH! Just... Next lyric...

"All I want/Is to mess around"

Ok see, now you're sounding more like Avril Lavigne.

"And I don't really care about/If you love me/If you hate me/You can't save me/Baby, baby"

Save you from...?

"All my life/I've been good/But now/Wooooah/What the h***"

Seriously. I get that you wanted to make a song about cutting loose, and just being yourself without caring about what people think of you. That's noble. BUT YOU DON'T GET TO TALK ABOUT IT IN PRESENT TENSE WHEN YOU'RE AVRIL LAVIGNE. GRRRRRAAAAAGGGHHHH...

"What, what, what, what the h***?"

Charming.

"So what/If I go out on a million date/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

OK CUT THAT OUT IT'S REALLY GOTTEN OLD

"You never called/Or listened to me any way/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

Ok, then break up with him. That's fine. If he really wouldn't listen to you, you had every right to be angry and break up with him.

...You did not have the right to FREAKING CHEAT ON HIM!

"I'd rather rage/Than sit around and rage all day/Yeah yeah/Yeah yeah"

I'D RATHER RAGE THAN LISTEN TO THESE IRRITATING "Yeah, yeah"'S BETWEEN EVERY FREAKING LYRIC. SO I WILL!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111!!!!11!!!one!!!

"Don't get me wrong/I just need some time to play"

You've had time to play Avril. It's called "Your entire life thus far".

"You're on your knees/Begging please/Stay with me"

I think he's probably singing "Love Me" to her.

"But honestly/I just need to be/A little crazy/All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/I'm thinking/What the h***/All I want/Is to mess around/And I don't really care about/If you love me/If you hate me/You can't save me/Baby, baby"

"La la la la la/Woah Woah"

Random noises!

"You say/That I'm messing with your head/Boy/I like messing in your bed/Yeah/I'm messing with your head/When I'm messing with you in bed"

And remember folks, this is her song about how innocent and good she's been her whole life.

"All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/I'm thinking/What the h***/All I want/Is to mess around/And I don't really care about (x2)/If you love me/If you hate me/You can't save me/Baby, baby/All my life I've been good/But now/Woooooah/What the h***/La la la la la la la"

And that's the end. THIS SONG... Doesn't really suck. Yeah.

I mean, the lyrics are BAD, but honestly, the worst part about them is they picked the worst possible singer. If I had gone into this song never having heard of Avril Lavigne before (I call such a place "Heaven") I wouldn't have taken nearly as much issue with the song as I do.

True, I don't approve of playing up the CHEATER to be the GOOD GUY in ANY song, but... Compared to some of Avril Lavigne's other stuff, this is like... Great. The music works well enough, and the "yeah/yeah"s are annoying but she uses them JUUUUUST sparingly enough to keep them from being TOO irritating.

I enjoyed this song more than I thought I would. As opposed to Bieber's work which irritates me, or 3OH!3's which enrages me, I actually found this song enjoyable to listen to. Not great, but certainly not terrible.

I still haven't forgiven Avril for "Girlfriend" though. Ugh.

Lyrical Analysis - Rebecca Black's "Friday"

2011-04-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I'm trying something a little different today.

Folks, some of you may have heard of a new phenomenon sweeping the nation. And if people catch Bieber Fever, I have to reason that this new fascination should be dubbed the Black Plague.

I'm speaking of course of the pure unadulterated GENIUS that is Rebecca Black and her new single that's been rising up the charts, "Friday".

I know, I know, those of you familiar with the song are undoubtedly saying to yourselves right now, "Don't you usually review BAD songs?" Well, that is true, but people a song like "Friday" only comes along once a generation, and I can't let such an opportunity pass me by. Every generation has an artist that DEFINES them. The Beatles, for example. Rebecca Black is undoubtedly such an artist.

Without further ado, "Friday". I warn you, don't listen to it all at once. A genius work such as this only come along so often, and if you don't pace yourself it IS possible to overdose on such genius.

What can really be said about such a work of inspiration? I don't know if I can even begin to explain all the reasons why this song is phenomenal, but I suppose I should try.

Before I start speaking about the words doubtlessly straight from the lips of angels that are the lyrics, allow me to comment on a few other aspects of this song and video.

First, her voice. The monotone she sings in doubtlessly signifies the deep depression many people in America try to conceal. The fact that the heavy autotune can't change her voice's monotone clearly represents that though America tries to conceal their depression, no one can fully conceal it forever.

The video itself is also a work of genius which hasn't been seen outside of the post-90's era animation works of Don Bluth. For example, the obviously underage drivers of the automobile in the beginning of the video clearly represent how many people are not emotionally mature in today's world, though they are physically mature, and perhaps considers for a moment that perhaps a reworking of the system which gives licenses out should be re-examined? The flipbook effect partway through the video represents how weeks can quickly change into months, months into years, and years into decades. As Rebecca sings about Friday, she begs you to slow down and enjoy yourself before your life passes you by.

But the lyrics are what you've come from. Honestly, there's no way I can do justice to such a work of inspiration which I can only assume to be divine, but I can try.

We begin with a repetition of "Yeah" for around 10 seconds. Normally I don't like repetition in a song, but here it shows the uncontainable optimism Black holds for the song, and the day in front of her. It works.

"7 AM/Wakin' Up in the morning/Gotta be fresh/Gotta go downstairs"

Right off the bat Black hits us with the heavy stuff, as she sings of the start of her day. 7 AM. She awakens. Once more she puts on the mask of a happy individual. A fresh face, behind a truly withering soul. "Gotta go downstairs" likely refers to the descent from her dreams into the harshness of reality. Powerful stuff most songwriters would wait a few lines in to get to, but Black is uncompromising, hitting us with the tough statements from the beginning.

"Gotta have my bowl/Gotta have cereal"

Here Black challenges the social norms. As she's presented, in the morning, with a bowl filled with cereal she says "Gotta have cereal". Why must she have cereal? Who created the social norm of eating cereal in the morning? How are social norms created? What justifies them, any more than anything else? Had she put waffles in her bowl, would that have made her a madwoman?

"Tickin' on and on/Everybody's rushin'/Gotta get down to the bus stop/gotta catch my bus"

Here again, she comments on the way time passes all too quickly, and how you can't appreciate what you have until it's gone, unless you truly live for the moment, but how living for the moment is frowned upon, even prohibited, by our modern society. This is represented by the pressure of missing her bus, were she to take a moment and relax.

"I see my friends/Kickin' in the front seat/Sittin' in the back seat/Gotta make my mind up/Which seat can I take?"

Here, once again Black displays her grasp of society, and how we can turn even the most arbitrary of choices into acts of war. Were she to sit in the back, her friends in the front would be upset with her. Were she to sit in the front, her friends in the back would be upset with her. Truly this is a lose, lose situation for her. Which choice she makes is left up to the listener to decide. But in the end she asks the question "which seat CAN I take?". Indeed, which seat can any of us take in a society liable to take offense to us "taking the other seat" as it were.

"It's Friday/Friday/Gotta get down on Friday/Everybody is lookin' forward to the weekend (Weekend)" (x2)

Here too she comments on the way time passes us by, albeit in a different manner altogether. Here she comments on how we are always too occupied looking ahead to appreciate where we are NOW. The dramatic echo of "weekend" clearly symbolizes that truly we can never fully reach our goals and must be happy with how far we've gotten, while still not completely giving up on our goals either.

"Partyin'/Partyin/Yeah!"(x2) "Fun/Fun/Fun/Fun/Lookin' forward to the weekend"

Here too she elaborates on the above idea. While we may pretend to live in the moment, we are never fully appreciating what we have. While part of us may be "partyin'" and enjoying ourselves, part of us is still just as driven toward "the weekend" as ever. Perhaps even more so.

"7:45 we're drivin' on the highway/Cruisin' so fast/I want time to fly"

Here she states how some of us even dare to wish time away, hurried with getting to where we want to be, as though we had time to waste. How spend so much time wishing for the future, we can't pay attention to the present. Coveting what we will have, we can't be thankful for what we DO have.

"Fun, fun, think about fun/You know what it is"

Clearly this is intended not as a statement, but as a question to the listeners of the song. Think about fun. Do you really know what it is? Have you ever truly experienced nothing but fun? No stress to dilute it? Has it been so long since you dared to let loose you can't even REMEMBER what fun was like?

"I got this/You got this/My friend is by my right, AY!"

This puzzled me for quite some time. "My friend is by my right, AY". I couldn't think of what she was implying. Was she saying that it's important to keep friends close? Was she saying that true friends are those who would do anything for you, "right hand men" as it were? Finally it struck me. She's implying with this nothing to DO with what's on her right, but what's on her LEFT. The brilliance of this statement overwhelmed me. She's saying that there's two sides to every coin. To keep your right side safe, with the comfort of friends, you leave your left side vulnerable to your enemies attack. Harsh words, betrayal, all of these things come with life, just as do the benefits of it, such as friends, enjoyment, and even love.

"I got this/You got this/Now you know it!"

Here she tells us implicitly that the purpose of this song was to share her unparalleled wisdom. And we do thank her for it.

At this point she repeats the chorus, once again to emphasize the message she tries to get across with the song.

"Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday/Today is Friday, Friday/We, we, we so excited/We so excited/We gonna have a ball today"

Here she says that, while it's important to enjoy the moment, you must also remember the past. It may not always be pleasant, but it's important to look back at our mistakes, our "Thursdays" past, to learn from ourselves, moving on into the future.

At this point the song switches to a rapper. This man is obviously meant to signify a man who has followed Rebecca's advice, and begun to live more in the moment.

"R-B/Rebecca Black"

He begins with her name as though to say "Remember this name." And I'm sure that we shall remember her, such a tremendous breakthrough in music history.

"So chillin' in the front seat (In the front seat)/In the back seat (In the back seat)/I'm drivin'/Cruisin/Yeah, yeah"

This is what tells us that he clearly is living by her words. Backseat? Frontseat? It doesn't matter to him. He's just drivin'. Cruisin'.

"Fast lanes, switchin' lanes/Wit' a car up on my side (Woo!)/(C'mon)Passin' by is a school bus in front of me/Makes tick tock/Tick tock/Wanna scream"
"

Here he sings more about the benefits of just enjoying yourself. A school bus passes him, and he laughs at the people inside stressing about the future.

"Check my time/It's friday/It's a weekend/We gonna have fun/C'mon, C'mon y'all!"

Here he closes out his rap saying that he's going to enjoy himself, and live his life for the now, not for the then. He begs us to do the same with our lives.

After this, she repeats the absolutely inspired chorus a bit more, and closes out the song. And thus is the end to a masterpiece we shall all hold in our hearts, and our minds for a long, long time.

With such a phenomenal song, it's no wonder so many people have begun to cover it. A quick youtube search shows parodies in many genres like Screamo, or Death Metal... But truly these imposters are just ripping off the immeasurable talent that is Rebecca Black, and her life changing work, "Friday".

I know with such inspired lyrics, I shall not soon forget the song, and I would hope neither would any of you. Happy April 1st everyone!

Top 5 (Of The) - WORST MOVIES I'VE SEEN IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE!!!!

2011-03-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I consider myself a down to Earth kind of guy when it comes to film. Ok that's a lie. I'm almost as much of a movie snob as I am a video game snob. However, even I can acknowledge when I movie is enjoyable despite massive flaws. True, I yell at movies quite frequently, but even then I typically enjoy the movies. I know it's absurd that the aliens use macs in Independence Day. I still love that movie. I love Jim Carrey even though he tends to overact (BUT SO HELP ME IF YOU THINK HE CAN'T ACT YOU GO WATCH THE TRUMAN SHOW AND THE MAJESTIC AND THEN TELL ME HE CAN'T ACT YOU STUPID STUPID PEOPLE HE'S A FREAKING GREAT ACTOR WHEN HE TRIES). I like the Star Wars prequels despite... Well...

THAT'S STUPID! IT'S SO STUPID! IT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE SEEN IN MY WHOLE-

*Ahem* moving on, the point is that I can enjoy a movie despite it's flaws. But folks, there are some films that just... Suck. Plain and simple. These films are just... Bad. They have no redeeming qualities... At all.

Here's 5 of them. Now I admit that when I say "Top 5" I don't think of these as the WORST movies ever made, but when I think movies that surpass being "so bad it's good" and go straight to "so bad it's terrible" these 5 tend to leap to mind. So without any further ado... Here's some bad movies.

5 - The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl

Trailer

Good. Grief. What an awful movie. So, some of you may remember the 2001 film Spy Kids. It wasn't a classic or anything, but it was entertaining enough, and I loved it as a kid. Plus, it had Tony Shaloub as a villain. C'mon. That's awesome.

Then there was a sequel. And it wasn't as good.

Then there was a third one. And it sucked. And was in 3D, back when 3D sucked.

But of course, since the Spy Kids franchise was milked, the director had to make just ONE more kids film. Also in 3D. And it was an abomination.

You see, this film had one purpose: Make it look enough like another Spy Kids movie, that any kid who saw the trailer would think it WAS another Spy Kids movie. And it worked. And it was extremely awful.

The whole movie was about a kid who daydreams in school all day about characters named Sharkboy and Lavagirl (he was a creative genius, as you can tell) and all of the sudden they come alive or something and they're actually the werewolf from Twilight (I swear to God, I'm not kidding. It's really Taylor Lautner) and a girl who I swear could be Carmen's twin from Spy Kids and I actually thought it was the same actress until writing this post (she's also named Taylor, oddly enough) and they pull him into his daydreams literally and then there's this bad guy made of electricity and then there's a world made of crappy 3D effects and an ice cream mountain or something and the werewolf from Twilight has to be taken to water or he'll die or something and they take him to water and the bad guy causes tornadoes to come hit the town the kid lives in and then the tornadoes make the kids divorced parents reconcile immediately before being devoured by the electric monster bad guy and then it was all just a dream OR WAS IT it wasn't it was actually was happening and then it turns out the generic main character has the ultimate power of imagination (a really bad one at that, "Sharkboy" and "Lavagirl"? Really?) and then he uses the magic powers of imagination to fight the bad guy who's made out of a TV and then-

If this sounds like a completely and utterly retarded plot for a movie, that's because it is.

Also, Taylor Lautner is even worse in this than in twilight, if you believe that. Oh, and I think he takes his shirt off in this movie at least once. HE'S A KID. C'MON.

4 - Fantastic 4 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer

The Fantastic 4. What can you say about them? They're the quintessential hero team. The X-Men may be more famous now, but that's only because the movies have put them in the public consciousness by being AWESOME (except for X3. That one sucked. And yes, I loved Wolverine.) as opposed to the Fantastic 4 films which were passable and an abysmal abomination which should be burned, respectively.

The first film was far from great, but it entertained me enough to continue watching it all the way to the end, even through some groan-worthy moments. This movie though? It put me to sleep halfway through. And I never felt interested enough to finish watching it.

This is just a blueprint for everything NOT to do when making a superhero film. Susan Storm spends the whole film WHINING to Reed Richards about how now that they're getting married they need to STOP BEING SUPERHEROS!

...Or, maybe it was that they need to KEEP BEING SUPERHEROS! I honestly can't be bothered to remember which. It was stupid and annoying either way. Seriously. I mean, is it really that hard to make Jessica Alba bearable to watch? Don't answer that. (Oh joy, I've found out from writing this article they're making a Spy Kids 4. And she'll be in it. Well, she can't be any MORE annoying.)

The film deals with Galactus, one of the most iconic villains of the Marvel universe. Galactus is a giant who roams around space eating planets. That is, he does that in the comics. In this, he's giant cosmic GAS that eats planets. Yeah. I'm not kidding. They turned one of the coolest supervillains ever into a huge space fart.

Then there's the Silver Surfer, who it seems is just sort of there. He's working for Galactus, or maybe against Galactus, but I never understood how that works since Galactus is just space gas, I don't know this is about where I fell asleep. The point is they dropped any pretense of caring about the source material and turned one of the greatest Superhero teams ever into cardboard cutouts that make the people in 2012 look like interesting and well developed characters. And for that, I SPIT ON ZEM!!!

3 - The Last Mimzy

Ugh. Just. Ugh. Watch this trailer.

Dawww! Look at it! It's just like E.T., but with that guy from The Office in it!!! AND IT'S A BUNNY ALIEN! This movie is going to rock!

*One viewing of The Last Mimzy later*

That movie SUCKED!

Seriously, this movie is again, a case of just thinly stringing together a bunch of scenes that will look good in the trailer. Dwight isn't in it enough to warrant being in the trailer, that thing about the bunny in the picture from 200 years ago is never explained, and the movie is actually about two little kids (neither of whom can act) finding some sort of cube thingy that makes them super smart and makes them dream about building an elevator to space. Or something stupid.

There's very little to care about in the dull movie, the plot makes no sense, doesn't really end so much as just stopping, and there are huge plot holes that are barely filled with the main characters suddenly developing poorly explained superpowers that would make Stan Lee weep such as "Spider-Speak". It's exactly what it says on the tin folks.

The kids superpowers are, of course, never actually explained. I'll admit I can't actually remember how this one ends, it's been a long time, but I remember it was stupid, like everything else in this abysmal movie.

Also, the main characters aren't so much "charming" or "endearing" like some of the great children characters like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, or Kevin from Home Alone, no, they're more... Annoying. In fact, by the end of the movie, you'll want to wring them by their annoying little necks. They're bratty kids, and we had a 90 minute movie focusing on them.

Also, Dwight when he IS on screen isn't all that interesting. The performance seemed very phoned in. Also, they make it very clear that the woman he's living with isn't his wife. This is a children's film.

2 - Zoom

Oh come on Tim Allen WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! You were in Galaxy Quest! That's one of the best comedies ever! Now you're doing a cheap knockoff of Sky High? Really?

Yeah, so basically this movie is Sky High but without any of the funny jokes, interesting characters, or awesome plot developments. Tim Allen plays Zoom, a washed up superhero who lost his powers. The government finds out through the magic of PLOT HOLES that his brother, who is a supervillain, is going to be coming back from the dead pretty soon.

So they find other kids with superpowers (because y'know, it's really easy to find those kids with superpowers) and get Zoom to help them. WACKY SHENANIGANS TO FOLLOW! And by wacky shenanigans, I mean complete and utter boredom. Oh, and a Wendy's ad. No seriously. They put a Wendy's ad in the movie. There was an ad for the restaurant, and they just cut that out and stuck in in the film. You think I'm kidding but... I'm not. I'm really not. It's a big lipped alligator moment folks! They just, get in a spaceship and... Go get frostys! It's bad!

It had enormous plot hole such as the fact that one character (who's superpower is to expand like a balloon) has a subplot where they develop fabric that can expand with him. The only problem is WE SAW A NORMAL SWIMSUIT EXPAND WITH HIM IN HIS INTRODUCTION SHOT!

Then there's a crappy deus ex machina where Zoom gets his power back. Why? Because he never had anything to care about enough to USE his power. That's right folks. It's a care bears movie.

1 - HOME ALONE 2 THE WORST PIECE OF CRAP YOU'LL SEE IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE

There's... Not much to say here. This is, bar none, the worst movie I've seen in my whole life. Worse than any of the others on this list.

I did a full review of it and please, check it out, I go in depth with why it's filled with suck and fail. (Hint: It's because it sucks and fails.)

Seriously. This movie is just... Bad. Really really bad. This movie ticks me off. Just go watch the first Home Alone instead. That one's a classic. This is... Pain. Just, pain. Pain diluted into it's purest form.

So in short, those were 5 of the worst movies I've ever seen. I hope you enjoyed this list more than you'd enjoy watching any of those horrendous films. Ugh.

Addendum to the First Annual Wherein I Rant Awards

2011-03-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Folks, as I'm sure anyone reading this blog knows, I am a near perfect individual. However, even I make mistakes now and then, and even I say things I regret. Not all the times I've called someone an idiot, certainly not, I was right all those times, and I remain right.

However, some of you will remember on the last day of 2010 I did a post called "The First Annual Wherein I Rant Awards" where I counted down the best and worst of film and video games of 2010. Some of you will perhaps even recall my awards for Best Animated Feature, and Best Picture. For those who don't, I said that Inception was the best film last year, and Toy Story 3 was the runner up, and that Toy Story 3 was the best animated film, and Tangled was the runner up.

Oh boy, I'm not going to make any friends with this post.

Back when I saw Tangled, I did a review of the film where I praised the film endlessly. Well folks, since then I've seen Inception, Toy Story 3, and Tangled again, and I have to say... Tangled was the best movie released last year.

Now, please understand, I'm not saying Inception or Toy Story 3 were bad films, that would be moronic, both were fantastic movies that had very little wrong with them. The thing is though, after seeing all 3 again... I really do regret saying Inception or Toy Story 3 were better films, when in all honesty, they weren't.

Inception, though one of my favorite films of last year, suffered from having too many characters and not enough exposition on any of them. All the actors did phenomenal jobs, and the writing for each character was excellent, but when you have dozens of characters in your films, you don't have a chance to truly explore most of them. The only characters we really know anything about by the end of the film are Leo DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy, who's dreams they are entering.

It's still a great film, with some of the best cinematography I've ever seen, and every single actor does a good job. The directing is excellent, the action sequences are intense, and the characters they do explore are really interesting (although, in my opinion the most interesting character isn't Leo DiCaprio, but Cillian Murphy, but that's another blog post entirely) but after another viewing, I do wish they had been able to explore the characters of Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, or Ken Watanabe a bit more. One of the things I loved about The Dark Knight was that every major character was fully developed. The Joker, Batman, Alfred, Rachel, Harvey, these characters were all explored, and unfortunately I just can't say the same about Inception. Again, fantastic film, just slightly LESS fantastic on a second viewing.

Toy Story 3... Yeah people are going to hate me for this. Now, I have to say, this movie holds up better than Inception does on a second viewing, to the point where I'd say Inception and Toy Story 3 are pretty much a tie for second best film released last year. Now, I did love seeing Andy grown up, and the fact that they gave us the movie we wanted to see. At the end of Toy Story 2 they went back knowing it wouldn't last forever, and that's what I wanted to see. What happens when it is over? They told us, and that alone was enough reason to love Toy Story 3. The fact that they introduced new characters, and that each and every one was a great addition to the series? Just icing on the cake.

That said, there were a few very minor complaints I did have the second time around. First of all, I found it extraordinarily strange the way Andy's mother just rushes him out the door when he's leaving for college, making him pack everything... I don't know, it didn't seem the way a real mother would act. At the same time, the very ending of the film *spoilers* where Andy is playing with his toys one last time... Yes, it was touching. Yes it was sad, and a good scene... But it just didn't seem like the way a real person would act. I know, I know, I'm complaining about realism in a movie with talking toys, but still. Fantastic movie with just a couple quirks.

Tangled, on the other hand, only got better the second time I watched it. As I sat there and watched, picking up on more and more subtleties, such as the incredibly detailed backgrounds I just fell in love with it more, and I still have not a single complaint about it. And this is me we're talking about, I love to complain.

This is one of the only films I own the soundtrack to, just because it's the best soundtrack I've heard in AGES! This is the only DVD/Blu-Ray/Whatever I've bought on the day it was released since The Dark Knight!

I think the real tell was at the academy awards. You see, every year, there's some movie I get angry at for being snubbed. In 2008, for example, it was The Dark Knight, for not even getting a nomination for Best Picture, an award it should have won.

This year though, Inception got nominated for a lot of stuff, won some stuff, lost some stuff, and while it got a nomination for Best Picture... I was honestly fine with it not winning, over films like The Social Network or The King's Speech.

However, Tangled not even being NOMINATED for Best Animated Picture? Criminal. Absolutely criminal. I loved How To Train Your Dragon, sure, but Tangled was a much better film. And Randy Newman's "We Belong Together" beating "I See the Light"?! What kind of sick joke is that?! "I See the Light" deserved that award more than "You Got A Friend In Me Mk. 26"

So folks, in short, I take it back. Inception and Toy Story are tied as the second best films of 2010. And Tangled? Tangled is in fact both the best animated picture, and the best overall film.

It had everything. Perfectly developed characters who you actually cared about, hysterical humor that rarely went for cheap jokes, absolutely spot on storytelling, some of the best animation I've ever seen, traditional or CGI, and a brilliant soundtrack.

For example, the King and Queen. They're only in that film for around 5 minutes. One scene at the beginning, one scene at the end, and one scene in the middle. They never utter a word throughout the entire film. And yet, in the middle of the film, as they light the lanterns in memory of their lost daughter, the Queen fixes a necklace on the King's neck, and the two have a moment. Just a brief look. And in that moment, they convey so much that by the end of the film, it's easy to forget that there wasn't a line of dialogue uttered by either of them in the entire film. It was a look that conveyed pain. That got across what the King was thinking, and a moment where you realize just how painful it is for the two of them. That they're missing yet another of their daughter's birthdays. Her 18th, to be exact.

And then the moment ends. And the two characters are more interesting, and more well developed than Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, or any of the other actors that weren't Leo DiCaprio or Cillian Murphy in Inception.

That's using film as a visual medium. Which it is. It's a brilliant scene, I'd put on par- No, above, anything in Inception or Toy Story 3.

And that's why Tangled was the best movie of last year. Sorry Inception, I love ya', but Tangled was the superior film.

Lyrical Analysis - 3OH!3's "My First Kiss" Ft. Ke-DollarSign-Ha

2011-03-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

*This weeks song contains lots and lots of sexual references, and has been known to induce vomiting the faint of heart. You have been warned.*

Hello, and welcome to the first weekly installment of Lyrical Analysis, where I find a crappy song, and explain exactly why it's so crappy.

Folks, until today, I've never managed to sit all the way through this song without turning it off. Ever. This song literally makes me nauseous to listen to. This song is worse than ANY of the Justin Bieber songs I featured during Bieber week. A lot worse. This is, in my opinion, a strong candidate for worst song ever written. And yes, I do mean EVER.

This song... Is "My First Kiss". God help us all.

Dear god. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

So, those of you who haven't been living under a freaking rock for the past year or so have probably heard Ke-DollarSign-Ha's hit singles "Tik Tok" (Pretty good song), "Your Love Is My Drug" (Decent song), and "Blah Blah Blah" (Not so good song). She's basically... Well, you know how Brittney Spears went from Disney star, to innocent singer, to blatantly sex crazed nut? Ke-DollarSign-Ha decided to just skip the first two steps. All her songs are about getting wasted and doing some illicit act.

Well, Ke-DollarSign-Ha decided to team up with the irritating sub-humans that are 3OH!3, to produce one of the most sickening abominations of a song ever written. Everything about this song is detestable. From the obnoxious vocals to the pulsing musical flow (or lack there of) the song has, this song is like musical vomit.

But quite possibly the worst part of this tone-deaf-shoe-scum are the "lyrics". And I say "lyrics" loosely, because you know how Bieber uses "oh" a lot in his songs? Well this song uses nauseating kissing sound effects.

So... Since I apparently hate myself, let's dive right into one of the worst songs ever written, "My First Kiss".

(3OH!3)"My first kiss/Went a little like this/*Smooch* and twist/*Smooch* *Smooch* and twist"

Oh dear god this is going to hurt a whole lot.

(Ke-DollarSign-Ha)"My first kiss/Went a little like this/*Smooch* and twist/*Smooch* *Smooch* and twist"

Two lines in, and I'm about to break down into tears. I really hate this song.

(3OH!3)"I said no more teachers/And no more books"

Remember kids, pay attention in schools, or you'll end up like 3OH!3. And kids, no one wants to be like 3OH!3.

"I gotta kiss under the bleachers/Hoping that nobody looks"

Why are you kissing under the bleachers then? Surely you could find someplace without, you know, tons of people? Right? Oh, I'm sorry, that would require actual functioning brain cells, which anyone involved with THIS is obviously lacking.

"Lips like licorice/Tongue like candy"

Remember when I said this song nauseated me? Yeah, I bet you thought I was exaggerating for effect. I wasn't.

"Excuse me miss/But can I get you out your panties?"

REALLY FREAKING TASTEFUL! SO FREAKING TASTEFUL! YOU, GOOD SIRS ARE SUCH FINE AND TACTFUL GENTLEMEN SOME SORT OF PRIZE SHOULD BE GIVEN TO YOU!

Prize for biggest idiots in the world perhaps?

"In the back of the car/On our way to the bar"

Dumb line. Next?

"I got you on my lips/(I got you on my lips)"

Folks, we're 35 seconds in, and I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. I really hate this song.

"With your foot up the stairs/And my fingers in your hair"

...So they're under the bleachers...

And her foot is "up the stairs"...

Hold on, I'm trying to picture how this would look...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Nope. I got nothing.

"Baby this is it"

I'd make a "Baby" joke, but honestly? Not even that song deserves to be associated with this travesty.

"She won't ever get enough/Once she gets a little touch/If I had it my way/You know that I'd make her say/Ooooooooooooohhh/Ooooooooooooohhh" (x2)

That's the chorus folks. They could have assembled any series of words in any order possible, and THIS is the chorus they went with.

Ah well, at least we're not talking about Ke-DollarSign-Ha's undergarments any more.

(Ke-DollarSign-Ha)"My first kiss went a little like this"

Oh ok, so we've got Ke-DollarSign-Ha singing now. You'd think, naturally, we'd have her sing the next verse right? Wrong. She doesn't sing either of the verses in this song.

Now, I don't like Ke-DollarSign-Ha's singing that much. She's not very talented, and she really more of speaks her lines to music. But I have to ask, what the HECK was the point of having her appear in this song? She doesn't sing anything but "My first kiss went a little like this"! It's pointless! Pointless! POINTLESS I SAY! POINTLESS!

"I said no more sailor's/No more soldiers/With your name in a heart/Tattooed on their shoulders"

Ok, think about this for a second folks. A minute ago he was talking about kissing her under the bleachers. Thus, we have 3 possibilities brought to us by this song.

1. She is a high school student who has gotten involved enough with a "soldier or sailor", presumably over 18, to have him get her name tattooed on his shoulder. Gross.
2. He and she are adults, sneaking away to the local high school to make out. Gross, and weird.
3. He's switching tenses left and right, and can't decide if this song is about something that happened in the past (the bleachers), or something that is happening now (no more tattoos). Stupid. (Also gross, but less so than the other two options.)

"Your kiss is like whiskey/It gets me drunk"

Judging from "Tik Tok" that's probably because Ke-DollarSign-Ha drank so much that literally just the fumes from her breath are strong enough to get you drunk, just by kissing her.

Most people would have died from alcohol poisoning, but Ke-DollarSign-Ha is completely immune to alcohol poisoning. I know this because she would have to be more drunk than humanly possible to agree to appearing in this song.

"And I wake up in the morning/With the taste of your tongue"

I hate this song. I hate this song. I hate this song. I hate this song. I HATE THIS SONG. I HATE THIS SONG. THIS SONG SHOULD DIE. I MUST KILL THIS SONG. BURN IT. BURN IT WITH FIRE. BURN IT UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT BUT SCORCHED EARTH-

Woah. Sorry. I blacked out there for a minute. Yeah... This song sends me some dark places.

"In the back of car/On the way to the bar/I got you on my lips/I got you on my lips"

And we're doing this again.

"With your foot up the stairs/And my fingers in your hair/Baby this is it"

...

...

...

...

Stiiiiiill don't see how this is possible.

By the way, remember how I said it was a bad idea to make the last 30% of your song chorus? Well we're only halfway through, and we've got, you guessed it, nothing but chorus, and sickening kissing sounds.

"She won't ever get enough/Once she gets a little touch/If I had it my way/You know that I'd make her say/Ooooooooooooohhh/Ooooooooooooohhh" (x2)

YES. WE GET IT. IT'S AN OBNOXIOUS SEX REFERENCE. LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS STUPID STUPID SONG.

(3OH!3)"My first kiss/Went a little like this/*Smooch* and twist/*Smooch* *Smooch* and twist"

ARE YOU NAUSEATED YET? BECAUSE WE'VE STILL GOT OVER A MINUTE LEFT OF THIS SONG!

(Ke-DollarSign-Ha)"My first kiss/Went a little like this/*Smooch* and twist/*Smooch* *Smooch* and twist"

Hello Ke-DollarSign-Ha.

Goodbye Ke-DollarSign-Ha.

(3OH!3)"She won't ever get enough/Once she gets a little touch/If I had it my way/You know that I'd make her say"(Ke-DollarSign-Ha)"Ooooooooooooohhh"

Rapping the chorus does not a third verse make.

"She won't ever get enough/Once she gets a little touch/If I had it my way/You know that I'd make her say/Ooooooooooooohhh/Ooooooooooooohhh" (x2)

...Is that it? Did I make it? DID I SURVIVE?! Oh good grief it's over. Scarier than any horror film. The nightmares will plague me for weeks, but I did it. I sat through "My First Kiss", and told you why it sucks.

Good grief. This is just an abomination. There is absolutely no redeeming quality about this song, whatsoever. At least songs like "Eenie Meenie" had the upside of some decent music. And with songs like "Eenie Meenie" the lyrics may have been stupid, but they weren't nauseating. This? This isn't even sexual innuendo. This is just SEX. That's it. It's just two annoying neanderthals screaming about sex for three straight minutes in the most annoying way possible. And the result is one of, if not the, worst songs ever written.

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber's "Pray"

2011-03-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I say things that are probably going to get me in trouble.

Folks... Bieber made a "Contemporary Christian" song. If you aren't slamming your head against the keyboard yet, perhaps you didn't read that correctly. Bieber made a "Contemporary Christian" song.

At least, that's how it's marketed. But let's list things that are never mentioned in this song.

God
Jesus
The Bible
Christianity in any way
The cross
Any sort of Bible story
Any sort of notable Christians of the past two thousand years
Any sort of "beliefs"
Did I mention GOD AND JESUS?

Yeah. So basically, this song is Bieber saying the word "pray" a lot, and hoping Christian audiences will love it. So on that note, let's dive right in to, "Pray".

"And I Pray..."

...That this song won't suck...

"I just can't sleep tonight/Knowing things ain't right/It's in the papers/It's on the TV/It's everywhere that I go/Children are crying/Soldiers are dying/Some people don't have a home"

Oh great, it's going to be a guilt song. You know what I'm talking about. One of those songs that talks about how bad things are around the world, and how I should be ashamed of myself for lounging around listening to music while some kid in Africa starves to death. I hate those songs.

Now don't get me wrong, it is certainly a very sad world we live in. But I don't need a song to tell me about it, and try to guilt me into doing something.

First of all, guilt is just a scare tactic. Guilting someone into doing something is no better than threatening them. You see, threatening someone forces them to do something because they fear for the immediate consequence of not doing it. If they don't do it, you may beat them up, or cause some other sort of issue for them.

Guilt, however, is invoking the fear of the consequence of inaction. For example, guilt, in this way, is causing someone to fear that some child will starve because they didn't take the action to stop it.

Now, at first you may think that this tactic, while not the most ethical, is at least efficient. It gets things done, at least.

There's a line in the movie Inception (If you haven't seen it yet, why not?), "I think a positive emotional response is more effective than a negative one." This line perfectly sums up the flaw with guilting someone into action. Guilt is a negative emotion. You can't guilt someone into really giving their all. You just can't do it. Inside, although they may be doing good, they won't really be putting their heart into it.

It's not enough to guilt someone into doing something. You have to make them want to do it. And that is a lot harder.

You see, if someone legitimately wants to do good, they will be a force to be reckoned with. They'll be more effective at everything they do, because their heart will be in it. They'll want to do what you want them to do, every bit as much as you want them to do it.

So I don't care who it is, guilt songs are not a good thing. They're a scummy scare tactic.

We're two lines in, and I've already done one full blown rant. I knew this would be a good one to finish Bieber Week with.

"But I know there's sunshine behind that rain/I know there's good times behind that pain/Can you tell me how I could make a change?"

Donate the proceeds of this song to charity. Boom.

Correct me if I'm wrong in the comments, as I said, I don't follow Bieber, but scanning the Wikipedia article on this song, I don't see anything indicating he did.

Edit: Alright, I've since been informed that he does in fact donate large amounts of money to charity quite frequently. Fair enough, like I said, I don't follow Bieber, I wouldn't know.

"I close my eyes and I can see a better day/I close my eyes and pray"

References to God in this song so far: 0
References to praying: 2

"I lose my appetite/Knowing kids starve tonight"

Let me translate this lyric from guilt-song-talk into normal speech.

"IF YOU LIVE IN ANY SORT OF COMFORT YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!"

"Am I a sinner/'Cause half my dinner/Is still here on my plate?"

Bieber would have you believe the answer is yes.

Seriously, this ticks me off. This is basically implying if you have any disposable income, have more food than you can eat, or have any luxury items whatsoever, you're somehow doing something WRONG! Well you know what Bieber, you're marketing this as a "Contemporary Christian" song, tapping into your "beliefs", so I have NO PROBLEM pulling out the scripture on you:

(From John 12, NIV, Verses 1-7)
"Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”"

Did you catch that? If not, perhaps I should give you that same passage in MUSICAL FORM!

For those still not getting it, Jesus was relaxing after all the stress of, y'know, living a perfect earthly existence, when Mary Magdalene anointed him with expensive perfume. Judas Iscariot (the same man who would later betray Jesus) said that Jesus was wrong to enjoy the perfume when there would be poor people starving to death. (The same thing Bieber is saying RIGHT NOW.)

Judas said they should sell the perfume and donate the money to the poor (although in truth he just wanted to take the money for himself). How did Jesus respond? By telling Judas that no matter what, there would always be poor people, and that while it's good to want to help the poor, there's nothing wrong with enjoying what YOU have.

In other words Bieber, no, you are not a sinner because half of your dinner is still on your plate. You may be an idiot for asking, but stupidity is not a sin.

Wow, two full blown rants, and we're only halfway through the song.

"Ooh, I got a vision/To make a difference/And it's starting today"

Great. Tell me what it is, and we'll get started on it. Hello? Bieber? Just tell me this so called plan you have. Nothing? Ok.

"Because I know there's sunshine/Behind that rain/I know there's good times/Behind that pain/Heaven tell me I can make a change"

Did you catch that? He's praying, not to GOD, but to HEAVEN. Because saying the word GOD would be too controversial and might hurt sales from the athiest audience. Screw. This. Song. I haven't heard such a messed up perception of what "prayer" is since that episode of Doctor Who where Amy Pond is praying to Santa.

"I close my eyes/And I can see a better day/I close my eyes and pray"

Ok, I have no idea if Bieber is really a Christian or if he just thought this would be good publicity, that's not my place to judge, but assuming that he is, he may be better off opening his eyes and reading the bible, judging from his previous question. Completely serious here.

"I pray for all the brokenhearted/I pray for all the lives not started"

Oh I'm not touching that line with a fifty foot pole.

"I pray for all the lungs not breathing/I pray for all the lives in need a break(?)"

1. That doesn't rhyme.
2. That REALLY doesn't rhyme.
3. You dropped the word "of".

"Can you give 'em one today?"

Break them off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar. C'mon man.

And then, like so many other crappy Bieber songs, we get a minute and a half of the chorus again. Ugh. Despicable.

What a shameful song! I understand that the world is in a bad shape right now, but writing songs like THIS and telling people the BLATANT LIE that it's immoral to live in comfort when someone else is worse off than you is just shameful. This song, quite simply, sucks. Everything about these lyrics is stupid, and obviously trying nothing but to give everyone listening to it a guilt trip, which irritates me to no end, especially knowing that Bieber probably recorded this song in a studio that's more luxurious than the homes of most of the people listening to this song.

This kind of drivel is exactly the problem with so called Christian music. I like Five Iron Frenzy. I like Relient K. I like a lot of other Christian artists, who certainly do NOT sound like this, and who actually sing about CHRISTIANITY!

And thus concludes Bieber week. That's right folks, I survived. 7 Bieber songs in 7 days. And all of them were terrible.

Due to positive feedback for Bieber week, I've decided to try to turn Lyrical Analysis into a weekly feature here at Wherein I Rant About the World. Not just about Bieber of course, there are LOTS of terrible songwriters out there just begging for me to decimate their lyrics. The Black Eyed Peas, Ke-DollarSign-Ha, 3OH!3, none shall be safe from my wrath.

So tune in next Saturday for the first weekly installment of "Lyrical Analysis"! I'll be covering a song worse than any song Bieber has ever made! Yeah folks, it's possible.

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber's "Love Me"

2011-03-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I take a crappy song and eviscerate it.

Today's song is, although probably not his worst, certainly one of Justin Bieber's saddest songs. Not sad in the "oh my gosh that's so sad I sympathize with him!" way either. More in that "Wow. He's one pathetic person." way.

Ladies and gentlemen, "Love Me".

"My friends say I'm a fool"

You are.

"To think/That you're the one for me/I guess I'm just a sucker for love"

Or, judging how well some of his other songs ended up, punishment.

"'Cuz honestly the truth/Is that you know I'm never leavin'/'Cuz you're my angel sent from above"

As opposed to, y'know, that dishonest truth.

"Baby you can do no wrong/My money is yours/Give you a little more/'Cuz I love ya'/Love ya'"

Once again, Justin Bieber tries to bribe girls into loving him.

"With me, girl/Is where you belong"

"Just stay right here/I promise my dear/I'll put nothing above ya'/Above ya'"

This part becomes really pathetic in about 5 seconds.

"Love me/Love me/Say that you love me"

"OH GOD! PLEASE! I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR YOU JUST PLEASE, PLEEEEASE SAY YOU LOVE ME! PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU! LOOOOOVEEEEE MEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

...Yeah. That's all I'm hearing during this song.

"Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you love me"

Seriously. The chorus of this song is LITERALLY begging a girl to love him. How sad is that? (Hint: Very sad.)

"People try to tell me/But I still refuse to listen/'Cuz they don't get to spend time with you"

Judging from how much you're begging her to love you, I'm betting pretty soon you won't get to spend time with her either.

"A minute with you is worth/More than a thousand days without/Your love/Oh your love"

Amazing. Justin Bieber is now stealing lyrics from worship songs.

"Baby you can do no wrong/My money is yours/Give you a little more/'Cuz I love ya'/Love ya'"

With me, girl/Is where you belong/Just stay right here/I promise my dear/I'll put nothing above ya'/Above ya'/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you love me"

And then we get repetitions of the pre-chorus and chorus again. Joy. Repetition. Of already crappy lyrics. It's like Christmas in March. If Christmas sucked. And also, was in March.

"My heart is blind/But I don't care/'Cuz when I'm with you/Everything has disappeared/And every time/I hold you near/I never want to let you go, ooooooh!"

Wow. This is like originality, only different. Seriously, these are some of the most bland lyrics I've covered thus far. They aren't terrible, but they aren't good either. That's really the biggest problem with this song, other than the fact that the chorus is literally Justin Bieber begging someone to love him. The song isn't awful, but it's just so lyrically bland there's not much you can say about it outside of the obvious "It sucks!".

With me, girl/Is where you belong/Just stay right here/I promise my dear/I'll put nothing above ya'/Above ya'/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you love me"

Aaaand we're done.

I've now review 6 Justin Bieber songs. I have yet to find an "Epic Lyric". I am, however, losing my mind.

Lyrically, while it's absurdly pathetic, the song itself is more tightly held together, and doesn't just seem to meander around aimlessly like Somebody to Love or One Less Lonely Girl. The lyrics are bad, but the structure of the song is better than some of Bieber's other stuff. Of course, "better" is relative, since it's still not GOOD, by any means.

Like I said above, the biggest problem with "Love Me", other than the obvious ("OH PLEASE LOVE ME PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING I'LL CRY IF YOU SAY YOU DON'T LOVE ME PLEASE PLEASE LOVE ME OH DEAR GOD WHYYYY?") is that it exists in that area of quality where it's bad enough that I'd never want to listen to it, but not quite bad enough that there's really all that much for me to get upset about.

And in my opinion, that's the worst kind of song to talk about. Worse than "Baby". Worse than "Never Say Never". Worse even than "Eenie Meenie". Because those reviews were fun to write, and I would hope, to read. The problem with talking about songs like "Love Me" is that they exist in a musical dead zone, not good enough to care about, but also not bad enough to care about.

You see, that's probably the worst thing an artist can do, no matter what medium they're in. Sure, you can make crap, but at least if your crap is genuinely bad people will remember how bad it was. I honestly think that may be the only reason Assassin's Creed, for example, spun off into an entire series. People hated the first game, but talked about it so much, and remembered it so much, that when the "improved" second game came out, it was still fresh in everyone's mind. And it sold like hotcakes.

True, you should aim for good, whether it be in film, television, gaming, music, books, art, or any other medium you can imagine, but if you're unable to reach good and only able to reach "adequate", that means your product will only be forgettable, just like this song. I can't really call this song abysmal, because in truth? It's not. It's a lot better than "Eenie Meenie", "Somebody to Love", or "One Less Lonely Girl". But as I said before, it exists in that dead zone of being so average that there is absolutely no reason for it to exist. If I want to listen to some bad songs I can listen to "Eenie Meenie", or "Baby". If I want to listen to some good songs, I can... I dunno... Go listen to Bowling for Soup or something.

So that's "Love Me". It's not really good, it's not really bad, it just sort of exists. Well folks, we've just got one day left of Bieber Week, and tomorrow I'll be covering something that will make me even rantier than usual. Tomorrow I'll be analyzing what happens when you make a Contemporary Christian song that never mentions God. Tomorrow, on the final day of Bieber Week, I'll be covering "Pray".

And, pun intended, God help us all.

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never" Ft. Jaden Smith

2011-03-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Lyrical Analysis where- Uggggggghhhhhhh which one is this? The Karate Kid one? Ugh. Fine.

"Never Say Never" was written for the 2010 version of "The Karate Kid", a phenomenal movie you should absolutely go see, despite the fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with karate.

Also, this song, which played over the credits, was the worst part of the film.

And because I'm a sucker for punishment, let's dive right in to, "Never Say Never"

"See I never thought that I could walk through fire/I never thought that I could take the burn"

Buffy did it better.

"I never had the strength to take it higher/Until I reached the point of no return"

Oh good, this one's going to actually rhyme.

"And there's just no turning back/When your heart's under attack"

Hmm, pro tip, when you're writing a motivational song, try not to group the words "Heart" and "Attack" near each other. It's depressing.

"Gonna give everything I have/It's my destiny!"

"I'M JUSTIN FREAKIN'-" Oh forget it.

"I will never say never/I will fight 'till forever"

But MAN, once forever hits, he's OUT of here.

"Whenever you knock me down/I'll never stay on the ground/Pick it up/Pick it up/Pick it up, up, up, up, up"

Please don't waste my time, time, time, time- ...Oh sorry, wrong song.

"Never say never (x3)"

You know, for a song about not saying never, they just say it a lot.

"I never thought that I could face this power/I never thought that I could feel this free

FREE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH MEEEEEEEEE... Crap, wrong song again.

"I'm strong enough to climb the highest tower/And I'm fast enough to run across the sea"

Hm... A version of The Flash with Justin Bieber instead of Barry Allen... Ehhhh, no thank you.

(Pre-Chorus) (Chorus) (That part with the pick it ups)

And then we get Justin Bieber and Jaeden Smith rapping. Joy.

"(Smith)Here we go!/Guess who?"

Hmmmmm, is it... Batman?!

"(Bieber)J. Smith and J. B."

Awww...

"I gotcha lil' bro"

That sounds dumb. Don't say that.

"(Smith)I can handle him"

Yeah, this is playing over the credits after all, didn't you watch the movie?!

"Well he's bigger than me/And stronger than me/And older than me/And taller than me/And his arm's a little bit longer than me"

Ok, I actually find that last line hysterical, only because... Have you seen Jaden Smith? The kid's tiny.

"But he ain't on a J.B. song wit' me!"

I'm sure that probably made someone jealous. Somewhere. That person is a girl.

"I be tryin' a chill/They be tryin' to side with the thrill"

Ok, can SOMEONE please tell me what "siding with the thrill" means? Because I have no clue. At all.

"No pun intended/Was raised by the power of Will"

Liar. That pun was totally intended.

"Like Luke with the force/If push comes to shove/Like Cobe in the 4th/Ice water with blood"

I'm sure that reference made sense to someone, somewhere.

"I gotta be the best/And yes we're the flyest"

Folks, I'd like to make a joke out of that, but honestly? There's nothing I can say to make that funnier. What is there to say about the term "Flyest" appearing in a Justin Bieber song? Nothing. That's what.

So really, all I can provide is this:

"Like David and Goliath/I conquered the giant"

Actually kid, he was pretty average size, you're just tiny.

"So now I got the world in my hand/I was born from two stars/So the moon's where I land"

OK JADEN WE GET IT YOUR PARENTS ARE FAMOUS! LET IT GO!

(Pre-Chorus) (Chorus) (Pre-Chorus Again?) (Never Say Never x3)

Aaaaand we're done. Ok. Well, the lyrics are cheese filled and CERTAINLY not "epic". The lyrics Justin Bieber was actually singing were awful, but that one line Jaden sung did get a pretty good chuckle out of me. I'd rate this above "Somebody to Love" or "One Less Lonely Girl" certainly, somewhere alongside "Baby" and "Eenie Meenie" in the land of being merely awful.

Next up... I don't actually know. I think I've covered his big 5 hits. I suppose I'll have to look through his discography, or find another singer to cover. Ah well, I'll figure something out.

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber's "One Less Lonely Girl"

2011-03-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome once again to Lyrical Analysis, where I- OH GOD THE CRAPPY MUSIC IT BURNS!

Today I'm going to be reviewing "One Less Lonely Girl". Today's is notable because as of writing this sentence, I actually have yet to hear "One Less Lonely Girl". I've got it all queued up in another tab, and I'm going to press play now.

*Time passes*

2 minutes 29 seconds in. This song goes on FOREVER!

*Time passes*

Ugh... Let's just start, shall we?

He starts the song with an annoyingly fake "Alright let's go" (trust me Bieber, I'd love to, but I'm doing this for the readers.)

"There's gonna be one less lonely girl (One less lonely girl) (x4)"

Oh joy, 15 seconds in, and already with the repetition. This is going to hurt a whole lot, isn't it?

"How many I told yous/And start overs/And shoulders have you cried on before?"

Yes, please do tell me how many I told you's, and start overs you've cried on. Please.

"How many promises/Be honest girl/How many tears you let hit the floor?"

Nothing spectacularly bad about this part, although I do have to comment that, again, like with the previous line, he starts with "how many promises" as though he's going to ask a question, and then switches to a different question entirely.

Focus Bieber, get one question out, THEN move on to the next.

"How many bags you packed/Just to take 'em back/How many either or's?/(But no more!)"

At least this one seems to rhyme.

"If you let me inside of your world/There'll be one less lonely girl"

Because Justin Bieber will no longer be lonely. ZING!

"Oh ohh ohhh/I saw so many pretty faces/Before I saw you, you/Now all I see is you/I'm coming for you"

Folks, he just rhymed you, with you, and then continued by rhyming THAT you, once again, with you.

Give him a hand folks, it takes skill to be that awful.

"No, don't need these other pretty faces/Like I need you, you/And when you're mine/In this world/There's gonna be one less lonely girl"

Do you see what he did there?! HE MIRRORED THE PREVIOUS LINE! MY GOD! HE'S A GENIUS!

...Wait no! He sucks!

"(I'm coming for you) There's gonna be one less lonely girl (x5)"

No seriously, I know I made that joke about him being a girl before, but much like in Baby and Eenie Meenie, it seems like he's setting himself up for some pretty obvious mockery with this one.

"I'm gonna put you first (I'm coming for you)/I'll show you what you're worth (That's what I'm gonna do)/If you let me inside of your world/There's gonna be one less lonely girl"

Again, nothing too offensively bad here, just dull and repetitive.

"Christmas wasn't merry/14th of February/Not one of them spent with you/How many dinner dates/Set dinner plates/And he didn't even touch his food/How many torn photographs/Saw you taping back/Tell me that/You couldn't see an open door"

Alright, this is actually the least sucky part of the song. It's not great, I'm not even sure I'd call it good, but it's certainly better than anything else in the song.

Basically, if the rest of the song were like this verse, I might not despise the song.

Aaand then we get more repetition of what I've already commented on. Greeeeat. Seriously, there's not much more I can say about the chorus. It's boring. It's bland. It's repetitive. It sucks. It has the same problem "Somebody to Love" had, of the chorus essentially being the same line over and over. So let's just skip ahead to the next verse, shall we?

"I can fix up your broken heart/I can give you a brand new start/I can make you believe/I just want to set one girl free to fall/Free to fall/Fall in love with me"

"I'M JUSTIN FREAKIN' BIEBER!"

"Her heart's locked/And nowhere to find the key/I'll take her and leave the world/With one less lonely girl"

This part puzzles me. So he's saying that her heart is locked, and he cannot find the key... So he'll take her anyway, even though, since he can't unlock her heart, she's obviously not in love with him? What? That's kind of a depressing message to be sending your fans isn't it Bieber?

"There's gonna be one less lonely girl (x80 or so)"

And thus ends "One Less Lonely Girl". This song is just BORING. Nothing about it is memorable. It's somewhere in that dead zone, where it's not BAD enough for me to really get angry about anything in it, but it's certainly not GOOD. I hate talking about this, because there's not much to say either positive OR negative. Is it as bad as "Somebody to Love"? No. But the music is slow and dreary, the lyrics are repetitive like everything else Bieber's done, and overall, it's a forgettable song, both musically, AND lyrically.

Next up, "Never Say Never". God help me.

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber's "Somebody to Love"

2011-03-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome once again to "Lyrical Analysis", where I decimate some poor unfortunate lyrics. It's ok though, they deserve it.

Justin Bieber seems to think "I'd" rhymes with "Mine". That's really all you need to know about this song.

"Somebody to Love" is not a Queen cover, and yes I was kidding when I said it was, and Justin Bieber is certainly no Freddy Mercury. ...Let's just start talking about the stupid song already. It's bad.

The song starts off with some strange "Gotta gotta gotta gotta" noises being sung by someone. I have no idea who. It couldn't be Bieber, the voice is completely different, but it doesn't seem to matter.

"Oh/Ohhhhh!"

Justin Bieber likes saying "Oh", it would seem.

"For you I'd write a symphony"

He never rhymes "Symphony" in this song.

"I'd tell the violin/It's time to sink or swim/March and play for 'ya"

...Violins? ...Marching?

...Am I missing some sort of common thread between these things? Because when I think marching band instrument, I don't exactly think of Violins.

"For you I'd be/Woahh woahh/Runnin' a thousand miles"

He never rhymes "miles" in this song.

"Just to get you where 'ya are/Step to the beat of my heart"

1. That doesn't rhyme.
2. I don't understand what "I'd run a thousand miles to get you where you are." is supposed to mean.
3. I also don't understand what "Step to the beat of my heart" means, but I'll dismiss that as lovey-dovey nonsense.

"I don't need a whole lot/Comin' from you I admit I'd/Rather give you the world/Or we can share mine"

First, he says "rather" give you the world. He never says what the other option is. Rather give her the world than... What? You... Never explain. Ever. That's only one half of the lyric.

Second, that doesn't rhyme either.

"I know I won't be the first one/Givin' you all this attention"

Ok, at least that rhymes. Sort of.

"I just need somebody to love!/I- I don't need too much/Just somebody to love"

Can anybody FIND me somebody to love?

"I don't need nothing else/I promise girl I swear"

That doesn't RHYME!

"I just need somebody to love/I need somebody/I- I need somebody/I need somebody/I- I need somebody"

We're quickly approaching Eenie Meenie territory here with all this repetition.

"Every day/I'd bring the sun around/slip away the clouds"

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a RHYME!

"Smile for me/smile for me"

"I would take/Every second/Every single time/Spend it like my last dime"

Hm. That's actually almost clever. Almost.

Then the chorus repeats, but it's so bland and generic, I don't think I can say anything about it. So... Next verse!

"Girl you can have it all/Anything you want/I can bring/Give you the finer things/But what I really want/I can't find 'cause money can't find me/Somebody to love!"

Really Bieber? Because it sounds to me like that's exactly what you just tried to do. Y'know. Bribe a girl into loving you? Basically this part of the song is just saying, "I'll pay you to love me because I can't buy love."

...And then the song repeats the chorus and pre-chorus for a minute forty. A MINUTE FORTY. This song is 3 minutes 42 seconds long. That means, not even counting the first TWO repetitions of the chorus, the last 35% or so of the song song is chorus! That's absurd! Let's compare that to a GOOD song, 1985 (Mild language) by Bowling For Soup. (covered by them at least... Popularized... Whatever. It's the best version.)

That song is around 3 minutes 13 seconds. The chorus is about 20 seconds long. They go through it twice at the end of the song, for a total of about 40 seconds. That's reasonable. Also, the chorus to that song goes,

"Springstien/Madonna/Way before Nirvana/There was U2/And Blondie/And music still on MTV/Her two kids/In high school/They tell her that she's uncool/'Cause she's still preoccupied/With 1985"

Now contrast that with...

"I just need somebody to love!/I- I don't need too much/Just somebody to love/I don't need nothing else/I promise girl I swear/I just need somebody to love/I need somebody/I- I need somebody/I need somebody/I- I need somebody"

Did you catch the difference? Let me spell it out for you, the chorus of THIS abomination is essentially the same line repeated ad nauseam. It would be like having the chorus to "1985" be,

"1985/Oh I wish it were 1985/1985/1985/Oh I wish it were 1985"

Do you get my point? The idea of a chorus is not to repeat the same line over and over again, it's to get across the main message of the song, in a way that's pleasant for the listener to hear. The chorus of "Somebody to Love" isn't even pleasant to listen to the FIRST time, let alone after 3-4 immediate repetitions. Even a chorus as AWESOME as "1985" has would get irritating after 3-4 repetitions in a row.

You see, the point of having verses in a song is to break up the lyrics, so it's not just the same set of lines being repeated. There's nothing wrong with a chorus, as I said it's basically the backbone of the song, but you simply CAN'T have a chorus carry on for a minute forty at the end of the song. It just doesn't work. It gets tedious and dull, no matter how great the lyrics are, and of course in this case it's even worse because the lyrics are tedious enough without being repeated 3-4 times in a row.

I think this is actually my least favorite Bieber song yet. At least the others rhymed! This is just dull, even more repetitive than Eenie Meenie, which I didn't think POSSIBLE, and just plain bad. Still nothing resembling an "epic lyric", although he did at least have one line that resembled "clever" in this song.

Next up, "One Less Lonely Girl". If it's worse than this one was, I may not survive.

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber and Sean Kingston's "Eenie Meenie"

2011-03-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to the next edition of "Lyrical Analysis"! Where I analyze every lyric of a bad song, and explain just what makes them bad.

We've got a whopper today folks. Today's song makes "Baby" look like it was The Beatles.

Today's song is Eenie Meenie.

Eenie Meenie is a joint effort by Justin Bieber, who we all know and (hopefully) loathe, and Sean Kingston. Alright let me get this part out of the way, I have no idea who Kingston is, but he's the more tolerable part of this song. He's not great by any means, but he's a lot better than Bieber. But I'm not here to talk about their singing voices, I'm here to talk about LYRICS! And this song has some of the worst lyrics I've ever heard. So let's begin listening to the song "Eenie Meenie".

It starts with a little intro of the rap portion later in the song... I'll cover that, oh TRUST ME, I'll cover that, later on in the song, when it's actually done all the way through.

"(Kingston)She's indecisive/She can't decide

"This song's redundant/It repeats itself"

"She keeps on lookin'/From left to right"

Well, crossing the street is serious business Sean.

"Girl c'mon get closer/Look in my eyes"

See, now THIS is the proper way to use the term "Look in my eyes". Good job.

"Searchin' is so wrong/I'm Mr. Right"

"I'M SEAN FREAKING KINGSTON!"

"You seem like the type/To love 'em and leave 'em/And disappear right after this song"

Honestly, I'm a sucker for self aware references like this in songs, even when they're painfully bad, so this was fairly amusing.

"So give me the night/To hold you and show you/Don't leave me dancin' out here alone"

Yeah... Hold you... That's what he's... Going to do... This lyric is not dirty at all... Not. At. All.

"Cause you can't make up your mind, mind, mind, mind, mind/Please don't waste my time, time, time, time, time/I'm not tryin' to rewind, wind, wind, wind, wind/I wish our hearts could come together as one!"

Geez! And I thought the first line was repetitive!

"('Cause) Shadi (Shawty? Shoddy? Shotty?) is a eenie meenie miney mo lova' (x4)"

Ok, I let me knock the obvious out of the way here, EENIE MEENIE MINEY MO LOVER?! EENIE MEENIE MINEY MO LOVER?!?!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!!@!@!111!!!!!!one!!!!

Seriously, this line is dumb. Just... Dumb. Eenie Meenie Miney Mo did NOT need to be used in a song. Ever. It's a children's nonsense rhyme, and they based the entire chorus- no, the entire SONG, after it.

Also it should be "an" not "a".

BUT! The point I actually really want to make here is WHAT THE HECK IS "SHADI"?!

Seriously, I first heard this term in Iyaz's "Replay" (not a great song, not a terrible song), and I thought it was supposed to be a name. Now I've been informed that it's a nickname you call a short girl, derived from "Shorty"?

...What?! Seriously... Is this going to become a thing? Because it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And I'm currently analyzing a song called "Eenie Meenie".

"Shorty" was already a short enough word, that there was NO NEED to turn it into some... Bizzare... Crazy moon language word. Seriously. This word, "Shadi", or "Shawty", or "Shoddy", or whatever... It just makes me angry. Maybe I'm alone, but I HATE this term, and it ruins a song for me when I hear it.

Anyways.

"(Bieber)Let me show you what your missin'/Paradise/With me you're winnin' girl/You don't have to roll the dice"

Wow. I haven't heard someone abuse syllables that badly since the Transformers theme song tried to fit "The Decepticons" into one syllable.

"Tell me what you're here for?/Them other guys?"

Um... Judging from everything you've said so far, I'd say... Yes.

"I can see right through ya'"

...Ok... And... Waiting for you to say the next line... What are you rhyming "ya" with? Anyone? Anyone? Song? Are you moving on? Hello? Song? Hello? Hello? Anyone? ...Ok, I guess we're moving on.

"You seem like the type/To love 'em and leave 'em/And disappear right after the song"

It was better when Kingston did it. And said "this". Not "the".

"So give me the night/To hold you and show you/Don't leave me dancin' after out here alone"

Stiiiiiiiill dirty.

"Cause you can't make up your mind, mind, mind, mind, mind/Please don't waste my time, time, time, time, time/I'm not tryin' to rewind, wind, wind, wind, wind/I wish our hearts could come together as one!"

One, one, one, one!

...What?

"('Cause) Shadi is a eenie meenie miney mo lova' (x4)"

Seriously, what does that even mean?! I get it's supposed to mean she's indecisive but... Eenie Meenie Miney Mo is a pretty strict way of making decisions. It's arbitrary, sure, but... Still... Unless it's literal, and she's actually making the choice of who to date by playing Eenie Meenie Miney Mo... Uhh... Red flag dude. Red flag.

"(Rapped by Kingston with Beiber joining in later) Eenie meenie miney mo/catch a bad chick by her toe/If she holla'- If- If- If she holla/Let her go (x2)"

Because remember kids, when a girl breaks up with you, grab her and don't let her go until she screams.

"('Cause) Shadi is a eenie meenie miney mo lova' (x4)"

You know how I said the line "Are we an item?" was not helping his case in the eyes of the people who make fun of him? I don't think Justin Bieber calling a girl Shadi (Shorty) is going to help that much either.

"Cause you can't make up your mind, mind, mind, mind, mind/Please don't waste my time, time, time, time, time/I'm not tryin' to rewind, wind, wind, wind, wind/I wish our hearts could come together as one!

MORE REPETITION?! JUST WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR! (Don't worry, we're almost done.)

('Cause) Shadi is a eenie meenie miney mo lova' (x4)"

And thus ends yet another abysmal song by Justin Bieber. Even more repetitive than Baby, and, while I do think that the singing is FAR better in Eenie Meenie than it was in Baby (thanks in no small part to Kingston), the lyrics were even WORSE.

Well, I've searched two songs thus far, and I've yet to find a single line that could be considered anything CLOSE to an "epic lyric". What next, you may ask? Well... Honestly I don't know. Didn't he do a Queen cover or something?

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber's "Baby"

2011-03-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

Hello! And welcome to the latest feature on this blog, "Lyrical Analysis"! Perhaps I should explain.

Now, I'm sure everyone knows who Justin Bieber is, that is to say, a no-talent hack. But, I've noticed something very disturbing as of late, and oddly, it's not Bieber Fever (although that is worrisome) that I find the most strange. It's the normal people, that is to say the ones who despise Bieber, who have on multiple occasion's told me they love Bieber's lyrics. These are people with musical taste I can respect, and who agree his voice sounds like that of a twelve year old girl, and yet they still somehow hear Bieber's songs and find the lyrics to be, and I quote, "epic".

I... Don't understand.

Now as I've said before, I don't know much about music. I don't play any instruments, I'm not a great singer, and most of the hit songs I've heard, I only know from Pandora, Glee, or Rock Band. I'm as little of a music buff as you can be.

But if there's one thing I pride myself on being able to examine in music, it's lyrics. I know what makes good writing, I know what makes bad writing, and I certainly know which of those two Bieber's abominable lyrics are.

So, let's dive right into Bieber's biggest hit, "Baby".

"Oh wooooah
Oh wooooah
Oh wooooah"

It's around here I start writhing in pain upon listening to his voice. I know there's nothing wrong with the song yet, I just want you to understand the pain I'm going through for you, dear readers.

"You know you love me/I know you care"

Oh great, the first two lines of the song and already I take issue with it. "You know you love me." He says. Think about this line for a moment. "You know you love me." he says. Basically, what he's saying is, "I'm so awesome, I KNOW you care about me, how could you not, I'M JUSTIN FREAKIN' BIEBER!" (Not to be confused with Harry Freakin' Potter. Look it up.)

What a conceited way to start the song.

"Just shout whenever/And I'll be there"

Fine, this is your typical cliched "I'll always be there for you girl!" line. Whatever. It's... Fine.

"You want my love/You want my heart"

Again, another conceited "I'M JUSTIN FREAKIN' BIEBER!" line. And I know if you're a fan of the song, you're probably trying to tell me it's not conceited, he's just stating the FACT that she loves him... Remember this line for later for me, please, please do.

"And we will never ever ever be apart"

Ugh, typical romantic cheese line. Again, whatever, this line isn't the worst thing in the world, and it's certainly not the worst line in the song (we still have Ludacris' rap to get through, don't forget.) but, much like a couple lines before it, it's cliched, and nothing I haven't heard a million times before, in much much better songs.

"Are we an item?/Girl quit playin'/We're just friends/What are you sayin'?"

Hoo boy, here we go.

FIRST! "Are we an item"? Really Bieber? I've got news for you. NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT. AT ALL. ESPECIALLY MEN. You know, people might stop giving you such a hard time about your voice sounding girly, if you didn't reinforce that with THE GIRLIEST LYRICS IN THE WORLD!

Second! Remember when I said to remember him saying that she loved him for later? Well read these lines. She is CLEARLY SAYING SHE DOES NOT LOVE HIM. In fact, these lines JUST MAKE IT COME ACROSS LIKE HE'S HITTING ON HER! Therefore the above lines WERE in fact him just saying "I'M JUSTIN FREAKIN' BIEBER!"

Third! "We're just friends, what are you sayin'?" Um... Justin, how much more plainly does she have to put it? Obviously, what she's saying is that you are JUST FRIENDS! NOTHING MORE! Seriously, you know the saying that you have to be drawn a map... Well this is apparently literal. She is LITERALLY SPELLING IT OUT FOR YOU, and STILL you don't understand. So let me explain. You hit on her. She turned you down. Likely because you used the term "item".

"Said there's another/Look right in my eyes"

Hey! Bad grammar! No seriously though, what does this mean? He switched from the first person, as though he were talking to another person, straight to talking to the audience with "said there's another" wrecking any flow this song might have had... And then... "Look right in my eyes"? What? What does that mean?

Is he saying that she looked into his eyes? It should say "Looked right into my eyes" then.

If he's switched back to talking as though he were in a conversation, then he's failed by switching tenses ONCE AGAIN.

Not to mention the fact that, obviously, he went straight from "Said there's another" (Past tense) to "Look right in my eyes" (Future tense).

Literally the ONLY correct way for this line to be written is "Looked right into my eyes".

"My first love broke my heart for the first time."

It would seem his first love is some random girl he hit on, and turning him down broke his heart. Ok. Sure.

"And I was like baby, baby, baby ooooh/Like baby, baby, baby noooo/Like baby, baby, baby ooooh/Thought you'd always be mine, mine. (x2)

Mine... Mine... My preeecious... My preeeeecious... We wants it... We neeeeeeds it...

"For you I would have done whatever"

That's not healthy Justin. Seriously. It's obvious you didn't know this girl ALL THAT WELL. Honestly, you're sounding a bit clingy. Like... Really clingy.

"And I just can't believe we ain't together."

Dude! You got dumped! It's not that unusual! And, even assuming you DID know the girl pretty well, with how clingy you sound NOW, NO WONDER she dumped you! My gosh!

"And I want to play it cool/But I'm losing you"

Lost. You screwed up the tense again Bieber. It's "But I lost you".

"I'll buy you anything/I'll buy you any ring"

Because remember kids, when a girl breaks up with you for being clingy, telling her you'll spend large amounts of money on her "JUST OH MY GOD DON'T BREAK UP WITH ME OH WHY", is always the correct response.

Also, I'm pretty sure he just proposed.

"And I'm in pieces/Baby fix me/And just shake me 'till you wake me/from this bad dream."

Again, she broke up with you, begging her to "fix you" and "shake you" are not good things to say in this situation, unless you are attempting to get yourself a restraining order.

"I'm going down, down, down, down"

I have no idea what this means. ...Like... At all.

"And I just can't believe/My first love won't be around"

"WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS BREAKING UP WITH ME?! I'M JUSTIN FREAKIN' BIEBER!"

"And I was like baby, baby, baby ooooh/Like baby, baby, baby noooo/Like baby, baby, baby ooooh/Thought you'd always be mine, mine. (x2)

Ok, I'm pretty sure this song was written by Johnny Bravo.

He is literally the only person who talks like this.

AND NOW WE HAVE A SPECIAL TREAT! The rap portion of this song is brought to you by Ludacris, who I'm told is a rapper of some sort. I wouldn't know.

"Luda!"

Apparently the narcissistic sense of self worth is not exclusive to Bieber in this song.

"When I was 13/I had my first love"

Rant incoming.

OK! SO! Allow me to place my own morals upon others for a moment. WHO THE HECK THINKS THAT DATING AT 13 IS A GOOD IDEA? Seriously! This irritates me to no end. Every single day I see young kids, FAR too young to have any interest in romance, update their Facebook statuses (which they shouldn't even have, I'm talking about 8 year olds here) with some sort of relationship change, or comment about their boyfriends/girlfriends, or talking about how cute someone is...

YOU'RE 8! It's absurd! That's too young to be dating. 13 is too young. 14, 15, 16, that's a decent age. But anything below 14 is just absurd! Now get off my lawn you darned kids!

"There was nobody that compared to my baby/And nobody came between us or could ever come above"

What the heck does "come above us" mean? I get the rest of this line. I do. I have no issues with it... But I'm puzzled by the term "come above us". Seriously. Let me know if you understand.

"She had me goin' crazy/Oh I was starstruck/She woke me up daily/Don't need no Starbucks."

Product placement! Hurrah! Justin Bieber got tons of money for that arbitrary and forced line that adds nothing to the song!

"She made my heart pound/And skip a beat when I see her in the street and/At school on the playground/But I really want to see her on the weekend"

See above, but angrier.

IF YOU ARE ON THE PLAYGROUND, YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO BE DATING.

"She knows she got me dazing/'Cuz she was so amazing"

"And now my heart is breakin'/But I just keep on sayin'"

And now we make the subtle transition from Ludacris' absurdly deep voice to Justin Bieber's... Not... Deep... Voice...

And thus, after several painful repetitions of the chorus and a few more repetitions of "I'm gone", the song is over. Thank god.

So, in short, "Baby" does not have "epic lyrics". "Baby" has terrible lyrics.

And the best part? This abomination is one of Bieber's best songs. But how should I pick which of his songs to analyze next? How could I possibly go through all of his songs and ever expect to be able to pick just one that's awful enough to top "Baby", when there's so many?

Hmm... Perhaps I should use EENIE MEENIE MINEY MO?!

Why "California Gurls" Is More Offensive Than "F*** You"

2011-02-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

*This post, due to the nature of the subject, will contain videos with more language and sexual content than I would normally post. I will not post the explicit version of "F*** You, but there will still be mild language in most of the videos. You've been warned.*

Well the grammys were not too long ago now, and at the grammy's there was one specific song that gathered a lot of controversy, namely Cee Lo Green's "F*** You". Not only was the song nominated for several awards, but Gwyeneth Paltrow (who performed the song on Glee several months ago) and Cee Lo Green did a duet of the clean version of the song on stage, featuring muppets, a giant peacock costume, and lots and lots of bright colorful things.

Was it too far too take such an "offensive" song and make it "family friendly" by putting muppets in it? Many people asked. Was it too far to make the song in the first place? Many seem to think so, and Cee Lo has taken a lot of heat for it.

Now, let me just say here, I really really like "F*** You" and "Forget You". In fact, they're my favorite single released last year, bar none. I don't swear, because I acknowledge that a lot of people are. I prefer not to hear people swearing, and I understand why people are upset by hearing swearing which is why I certainly don't think "F*** You" should be played on the radio, but if I hear swearing, I'm not going to freak out. I'm not going to get in an uproar over hearing that a song has the word f*** in it.

Because at the core, "F*** You" is a really really good song. Listen to "Forget You", the clean version of the song. Really listen to what it's saying.

It's honestly a pretty inoffensive song. In fact, it a very good song. The music is catchy and compliments the lyrics extremely well, and the lyrics themselves aren't offensive at all. In fact, they're kind of touching. You really get the history the singer and his girlfriend/boyfriend (depending on who's singing) have, and I think we can all understand how much it would suck to have someone leave you because you didn't have enough money for them.

The lyrics bring out a lot of character, and honestly? You feel really bad, and understand where the singer is coming from, whether you're listening to the explicit, or clean versions of the song. At it's core, it is a really really good song.

And then you have "California Gurls".

Now, let me start off by saying, and I'll probably lose a lot of respect from certain people for this, but I actually really like a lot of Katy Perry songs. "Waking Up In Vegas", and "Hot 'n Cold" are both really good songs, and "Teenage Dream" was probably my second favorite pop single last year (Behind "Forget You"). But this song... Ugh.

For those who don't know, let me give a little background on Katy Perry for you. Born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, Katy Perry, as she would later be known, started off her career as a christian singer. A rather unsuccessful one at that. Of course, then she realized she could make considerably more money by compromising any values she supposedly once had by releasing the hit pop single "I Kissed A Girl (And I Liked It)"

While I have problems with that song for a WHOLE other set of reasons, that actually did get controversy and it's not what I'm talking about today.

After a string of singles I really really did like, as I said above (Teenage Dream is a great song, and you are WRONG if you say otherwise.) she released the little song "California Gurls".

"California Gurls" is, in my opinion, far more offensive than "F*** You" is, and not because of swearing.

I think the main reason "F*** You" is taking more heat than Katy Perry's musical disaster is that we, as a society, need to learn that there are more offensive things than a bad word. More damaging things. Like I said above, I understand why people are offended by "F*** You". That's why it's not played on the radio, and "Forget You" is. However "California Gurls" is played on the radio.

Why do I find "California Gurls" more offensive? Simple. Yes, "F*** You" has swearing in it. Lots and lots of swearing. "California Gurls", however, is all about sexual innuendo and objectifying women. Which is NOT ok. Let me post a few lines from the song.

"Sun kissed skin so hot we'll lick your popsicle"

"Sex on the beach, we got sand in our stilleto's. We freak in my jeep,"

And of course the entire Snoop Dog rap,

"Toned, tan, fit and ready
Turn it up cause its gettin' heavy
Wild wild west coast
These are the girls I love the most
I mean the ones, I mean like shes the one
Kiss her, touch her, squeeze her buns.

Come on boys, hanging out
All that *** hanging out
Bikinis, tankinis, martinis, no weenies
Just to get in betweeny'
Katy my lady (yeah)
You looking here baby (uh huh)
I'm all up on you
Cause you representing California"

So basically the whole song is just sexual innuendo (most of it painfully stupid innuendo at that), and on occasion just a sexual comment with no pretense of being something else. And yet "F*** You" is considered more upsetting? How?

The key difference between "F*** You" and "California Gurls" is that "California Gurls" is completely gratuitous. Say what you will about "F*** You" being offensive, you have to admit, Cee Lo gets a lot of emotion into those two words, in either the clean or explicit version. "California Gurls" however, is just sex for the sake of sex.

Speaking of gratuitous sex, let's look at the music videos shall we?

First let's look at the music video for "Forget You". (No I won't post the one for "F*** You". It still has some language in it though, so be prepared.)

This is a GREAT music video. It goes through the life of a young boy (Cee Lo Green) as he constantly tries to get a girl to fall for him, but just like in the song, she's not interested in him because he's not rich enough for her. It's, like the song, touching, interesting, and tells us a lot about the characters within four minutes. It's certainly the best music video I saw released last year. A lot better than "Teenage Dream"'s, at least, my OTHER favorite pop song of the year (Behind this single, for those wondering).

And then we have the video for "California Gurls". (No kidding, this video contains a lot of sexual themes, and a Katy Perry wearing... Well... Very VERY little. If you're going to be offended... Don't watch it.)

Good god. Now, maybe this song wouldn't be THAT offensive without... This... Thing... The song, personally, I dislike because of the blatant sexism in it, but I won't deny it has a catchy chorus and beat. In fact, I know of quite a few parodies that I quite like because of the beat. In fact, if I could ignore the verses, I may even LIKE this song.

But then there's THIS video that's just... WOW. Where do I start? The fact that it's OBVIOUSLY trying to be a LOT hotter than it actually manages to be? The outfits? The nude Katy Perry blocked only by a cloud? The giant cupcakes being worn on the women's chests?

Yes. There's all of that. There's one sexual innuendo after another. And finally... There is this.

What the forget?

Seriously. This video, and this song, are a LOT more offensive, and a LOT more harmful to young people than anything in either "Forget You" or "F*** You". Yes, Cee Lo said a bad word. Katy Perry did THIS.

This is more offensive than hearing the word f***, to me at least. This might even be more offensive than "I Kissed A Girl"! And this, as opposed to "F*** You" is being played on the radio. Sure, they edited out a word or two, but not the offensive bits.

Seriously. This is worse than "F*** You". Get over Cee Lo, and start hating on Katy Perry! And please, not just because she wore a dress that made her look like a girl of questionable morals on Sesame Street.

Movie Review - Knight And Day

2011-01-31T20:44:00.000-08:00

I can sum up everything you need to know about this film in one sentence.

Tom Cruise shoots two SMGs at once.

That's all you need to know. That sentence will tell you whether or not you will like this movie.

Knight and Day is a 2010 Action Comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. And GOD KNOWS Tom Cruise needs a good movie. His recent track record hasn't been spectacular. His last hit movie that could actually be called GOOD was... Well... War of the Worlds. And that was 5 years ago (from the time this movie was released).

Honestly the only thing that's really kept Tom Cruise relevant was his string of movies that were hyped and did... Moderately well. Not blockbusters, not flops.

Oh, and the fact that he went completely and totally insane, but that's beside the point.

So Knight and Day was being hyped. MAJORLY. I remember seeing tons of commercials, tons of posters, tons of interviews, tons of publicity EVERYWHERE for this movie... And then it was released and promptly fell off the radar in 30 seconds flat.

So why did this movie perform so poorly? Did it deserve its rapid death? Is it worth seeing?

...I honestly don't know why it did so poorly because I LOVED this movie.

Seriously. This movie is a blast to watch. It's over the top, cheesy, ridiculous, and AWESOME.

Cameron Diaz is the main character June Havens. (Fun Fact: Her character was so bland and cliche that I had to go wikipedia the character name. Yeah.) She is getting on a plane to head back home to her sisters wedding. At the airport she bumps into Roy Miller (Tom Cruise). On the plane they talk, she spills something, goes to the bathroom to clean it off her shirt...

Oh and then Tom Cruise is attacked and kills everyone else on the plane. And it's AWESOME. So then, in a totally over the top sequence he lands the plane in a field... After coasting over the ground for around a minute.

It's absolutely absurd and insane. Seriously, this movie has so many cliches, tropes, and cheesy over the top action sequences (Someone is stabbed in the chest, and then removes the knife and continues the fight sequence. No joke.) that you will either love this movie for what it is, or hate everything about it.

I'm serious. There are a lot of things to criticize here. Like I said, the characters aren't terribly interesting, and the plot is just silly but my gosh it's fun. That's it. It's just... Fun!

As for the acting... Well let's start with Cruise. I loved his performance in this movie. Not because it was his best performance of all time, but because you could TELL he was enjoying himself. Perhaps this is the movie he should continue making. Completely crazy ones, that is. His personality really shines through.

Cameron Diaz performance is ultimately rather forgettable. It's not BAD by any means, it didn't distract from the sheer insane fun that the movie provided, but she didn't seem to have the same energy Tom had. Or maybe that was drugs. I don't know. Could be either really.

Oh and Mark Blucas is in this, and I think this is the only thing (other than one episode of Castle) I've ever seen him in outside of Buffy. (He was Riley on Buffy, in case the name doesn't ring a bell.)

This is a movie that will make you laugh, both from funny jokes and just sheer absurdity. Whether it be landing a plane in a corn field, jumping from car to car on a moving freeway, or whatever else this movie throws at you, if you see this film wanting nothing more than an absolutely insane action-comedy, you'll most certainly enjoy this film. I did.

Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2, And Now, So Do I

2011-01-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you a story. The year is 1999. Buffy is still on TV, people are scared of Y2K, and the World Trade Center still stands tall. A game called Silent Hill has just been released.

Silent Hill is a horror game.

Now, I have never played Silent Hill, nor any of the games in the franchise, but I have the utmost respect for the series. Silent Hill, from what I understand, would likely be on my list of games that are art. It's very symbolic, it's very cerebral, and it's very very scary. Which is why I haven't played it.

I don't like horror games very much. They just aren't my thing. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Left 4 Dead... Heck, I got a copy of Penumbra: Overture in the Humble Indie Bundle ages ago and I've never installed it on my computer. I loved Ravenholm in Half-Life 2, but that's about as scary as I care for my games to be.

But I respect Silent Hill, and games like it. Horror games had existed before the franchise, but Silent Hill defined the horror genre. It knew when to be gory, it knew when to refrain. It understood that the unseen is far more frightening than what we can see. The enemies that were in it were all highly symbolic of the main characters inner psyche and emotion. (Again, from what I understand) The games were tense, emotional, and scary.

Which is why many Survival Horror games made since it have tried to copy it. Enter Dead Space.

Now, I don't hate Dead Space. Like I said, I've never played Dead Space. But, speaking as an outsider, here's what I understand the plot to be:

You're on a ship afloat in space. The power is failing, it's dark, it's tense, and it's-OHMYGODWHATISTHATTHINGITSEATINGMYHEADGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFOHTHEPAINOHITBURNSITHASACIDBLOODOHGODWHYWHATISTHISABOMINATIONOHGODTHEPAINIWANTTODIE

...Yeah. Also, puking. So there's that.

Like I said, I don't hate Dead Space, I haven't played Dead Space, I've heard it's a good game, and honestly I believe it. It looks like a good game. It got good reviews, it sold well, and it's getting a sequel. I've watched some trailers for the second game, specifically the E3 footage. It looked intense, gory, and as I said, I have no plans to play it.

And then EA decided Dead Space 2 needed just a little more publicity before launch. And of course, they decided to do it in the worst way possible. (Link contains a video with graphic violence. Beeeewaaaare.)

"Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2"

They took 300 middle aged mothers in "the heart of conservative America" and sat them down, completely unaware of what they were to see, and showed them the goriest, most disgusting scenes from the game.

The idea was simple, get the disapproval of mothers. As their new tagline says, "Dead Space 2: It's everything you love in a game, and your mom's going to hate it."

It's a brilliant marketing strategy really. The disapproval of mothers is, to many, a good indicator that something is in fact cool. And I have no doubt that my mom would cringe at many scenes in games I play, T rated, or M rated.

But here's the thing. I hate this ad campaign. I hate it. You see, there are a few reasons why I hate this ad campaign, and have lost any interest I may have had in this game before now.

1. It Makes Games Lose Creditability

You knew this was one of the reasons before you started reading this post. Don't even lie.

Let me explain something. Every time some stupid ad company pulls something like this, the whole games industry, AN ENTIRE MEDIUM, lose creditability as an art form.

Many of you probably heard about Schwarzenegger Vs. The Games Industry this past fall. In short, a bill was brought in front of the Supreme Court which was essentially saying that all violent video games were equivalent to porn, and should not be sold to children. If passed, it would show frightening precedent, and the bill itself was possibly one of the most frightening threats to our freedom to artistic expression which has ever faced the country. Do you know what games were used by the (complete scumbags) supporters of the bill? Postal, for one.

Postal is not a game which I have any sort of respect for. Postal is a game which revolves around violence and only violence. You can do all sorts of unspeakable acts in it, and YES, it's a horrible game. It is not art, and anyone who even CLAIMS that it is should seek mental help.

Let me give examples of games and game series which would be very easy to ban if the bill were passed, which were not mentioned.

Portal.
Half-Life.
Fallout.
Mass Effect.
Bioshock.

All of these games are, in their own right, art. In fact, if you want to see examples of how games can be art, any of those games are very good places to start. I could write full articles on the artistic merits of any one of these games, and those were just names I came up with off the top of my head.

All of these games could be banned from sale to minors, essentially making them on the same level as porn, and would likely be ejected from most major retailers, because Postal was made.

Every time a stunt like this is pulled, every time someone makes a game that is gory it needs to be able to take flak for being bloody. But when someone pulls a stunt like this, when someone TRIES to convince mothers that their games is "demonic" it's nothing but attempts to set the genre back. Because, sadly, for every Portal, Half-Life, or Fallout, there's a Postal.

Of course, for every "Citizen Kane", there hundreds of "Meet Dave"'s. But movies are already an accepted art form, and until games reach that status, where they no longer need defenders and white knights, stunts like this only set the medium back.

2. It Tries To Sell An M Rated Game To Teenagers

I am a teenager. I have played M rated games. Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Half-Life 2, all of these are M rated games, and are GREAT! So am I a hypocrite for saying that these should not be marketed towards teenagers? Absolutely not.

You see, the difference is between marketing them towards teenagers, and teenagers playing them.

Guys, I know this sounds cheesy, but the system works. The ESRB, while far from perfect, deserves some credit. IN GENERAL, it is a good indicator of the CONTENT of a game. And while I could write a whole article (and probably will at some point) about the absurd double standard between games and movies, M rated games are, generally speaking, worthy of their rating.

Now, that's not to say not all teenagers should be able to play any M rated titles. It depends on the person, plain and simple. But, those who do play M rated titles, LIKE ME, should absolutely have the permission of their parents first, and honestly, should know the content within the game and their own maturity level.

This campaign is quite clearly trying to sell teenagers an M rated game with disapproval of mothers. It's dumb. I hate it.

3. IT'S JUST STUPID!

Seriously. When did showing that a group of people DISLIKE your product become good marketing? I just... It boggles the mind. How dumb do you have to be to come up with this? I mean, I fully think this ad campaign will sell copies of the game, and because of that I suppose it's a success, but seriously. Can companies in general please stop talking about how other people hate their stuff, but YOU, if you're a COOL KID, will definitely love it? And how if you don't love it, you must be a POSER? And a LOSER?

Seriously. I hate this ad campaign. It's stupid, it's irritating, it's childish, it poorly reflects upon the industry and medium at large, and it absolutely should not be repeated.

An Alternate Character Interpretation of Dr. Horrible

2011-01-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

*Note: The following contains heavy spoilers for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I strongly suggest you see it first, before reading this post. The Three Act musical runs at about 45 mintues long, and can be found by dubious means on youtube, can be streamed on netflix, or purchased on iTunes or Amazon. It has not been rated, but would likely earn around a PG rating. It contains mild language and some crude humor.*

*Note 2: I don't actually think this was the intent behind the plot of Dr. Horrible, nor behind the characters within it. I merely offer it as an Alternate Character Interpretation.*

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. A fun, if ultimately... Strange... Musical.

I love Dr. Horrible. The characters, the actors, the songs, the humor, everything about this show is just FUN.

But recently, I was listening to "On The Rise" and I noticed something. It was if something clicked in my head ever so suddenly. Now, I don't know if Joss Whedon intended this, but... I find this amusing. This alternate character interpretation. Honestly, this is probably just me reading to much into it, but other people online seem to have similar theories to mine, I've found.

What is this theory? My theory is an alternate character interpretation of Dr. Horrible, which harshly changes the tone of the musical. What is this theory exactly? Well, this theory is that there is no Dr. Horrible. There is only Billy, a sad schizophrenic man who has created an alter ego, Dr. Horrible. By realizing this, it brings a strange new change.

Dr. Horrible

Let's start at the beginning. What is Dr. Horrible? Dr. Horrible, as I said, is Billy's alter ego, his second persona which he slips into, protected from the harsh realities of his sad world. You see, Billy (Neil Patrick Harris) is a schizophrenic. He doesn't have multiple personality disorder persay, but he does have an alternate persona, Dr. Horrible, which he is aware of. He sees the world not as it is, but as he imagines it to be. With heroes and villains, and superpowers and fantastical things happening everywhere.

However, Billy, while aware that he has multiple personas (persona? Personi? I don't know.), neither fully realizes, nor is fully oblivious to the nature of how he sees the world. Thus, unable to cope with the way he sees reality fully by himself, he creates his blog, able to vent the way he sees the world through this blog, on the internet. Thus, any scene of him speaking to the camera, is actually happening.

Now, let's start with laundry day.

"My Freeze Ray"

This is setting up the way he feels about Penny (played by Felicia Day) who he has noticed at the laundromat before. Now, in the context of the musical it's of course, simply setting things up, that he has a crush on her, but... What if it's more than just a simple crush? What if Billy is fixated with her. Stalking her, without her knowledge. He does say at one point that he knows her exact laundry schedule. Takes on a frightening new light doesn't it?

Overall though, the "Freeze Ray" concept, shows that at this point he's still mostly harmless. He's not fully sane, but he's also not dangerous. He doesn't want to kill people, he doesn't even really want to steal money (as evidenced by the intro "It's not about making money, it's about taking money!") he just wants Penny, and he wants more people to see the world as he sees it, chaotically.

Bad Horse and the Evil League of Evil

Bad Horse and Evil League of Evil serve two purposes. The first is to establish something that Billy must strive for. Billy wants to bring chaos to the world, as he views that, in his madness, as the only way to fix the world. To "cut off the head of the fish" as he says, bringing chaos to the world, so it can regrow stronger. "Joining the league" is his goal, his mile marker, for having reached this goal.

The other, is to establish that, while Billy considers himself "Evil" he still feels he's not totally gone. That he's still on the edge between evil, and good. He still feels that he can be saved from his evil, and thus his madness. His blog is one way of him trying to explain this to the world. Trying to establish that he still feels he can be redeemed.

Captain Hammer and "A Man's Gotta Do"

Immediately before "My Freeze Ray" Dr. Horrible is answering e-mails. He mentions Captain Hammer, who will of course, be extremely important to later on. However, what is important here, is that he calls Captain Hammer his "Nemesis". This establishes past history between the two of them. You see, I think Captain Hammer is a fabrication created by Billy's schizophrenia.

What if Captain Hammer (played by Nathan Fillion... Wow, this cast is so good. My favorite actor, and my favorite actress in the same thing... Sigh... Ok back on topic.) was a jock who went to school with Billy? Always getting the girls, while Billy stood in the back of the class, a nerd, an outcast, and a loner. I doubt Hammer was even what would be called a bully. He was simply popular. And Billy hated him for that, enough that he wouldn't have forgotten about him, and would still consider Hammer his "Nemesis" after high school, and college.

Thus, "Captain Hammer" is not a real person, but a persona that Billy has created, representing everything that stands in his way. Everything he hates. Everything he views as wrong.

You see, Captain Hammer is a jerk in this. Comically so. And while I do think part of that is simply his personality, I also think a lot of it is Billy seeing Hammer how he wants to see Hammer. For example, while Hammer may have pushed him around a bit in school, I don't think he hated Billy. But I doubt that they have even seen each other in years. Not, at least, until "A Man's Gotta Do".

Billy is stealing a truck, likely one containing money, or something like it. He's being chased by the police, who he interprets as "Captain Hammer" viewing anyone who tries to stop him as his nemesis.

And then he sees Penny. Driving at high speeds, he almost hits Penny. He slows, almost caught by the police, but can't slow fast enough while pursued. He certainly would have hit her, if the real Hammer hadn't have been there. Just by crazy random happenstance, the actual Hammer pushes her out of the way.

He pushes her into the garbage, saving her life. And all Billy sees is the way he pushes them together, as he drives away, escaping the police, and slipping away quietly.

"On The Rise"

Billy is being torn up inside, after not only seeing Hammer (the real Hammer, for the rest of this I'll refer to the real Hammer as just "Hammer" while referring to Billy's imaginary nemesis as "Captain Hammer") for the first time in years, but pushing her and Penny together. He's in full on stalker mode now, as he shadows Penny and Hammer on their first date. I mean, tell me you don't get chills as you see him appear in the background at the shelter. He's insane. He's angry. And he's slowly becoming more dangerous.

The next day, he returns to his home, only to find the police there. They've found him, the thief who stole the weapons/money/whatever. They recognize him, and chase him, but he, once again, manages to slip away.

Again, in his mind, he sees it as Captain Hammer coming after him, attacking him, for using a "freeze ray" on the mayor. By this time he's realized that stealing things isn't enough chaos to bring to the world any more. There's only one thing he can do now. Only one thing, he views as "enough".

Notice the change in background from the first blog entry we see, to now. Implying he's relocated, perhaps after fleeing from the police.

In any case, he realizes now, that the only way to enter into the league (to bring chaos to those around him) is to kill. But at the same time, he struggles with the morality of killing. Remember, at this time, he's still harmless enough, never meaning to hurt anyone until now.

"Story of a Girl"/"Brand New Day"

The next day he goes to the Laundromat, and actually manages to talk to Penny, who's of course unaware of his status as an outlaw. As he talks to her, she tells him about her date with Hammer. She also tells him about the homeless shelter Hammer is helping fund, being wealthy himself. (Perhaps he opened a large chain of hardware stores, making large sums of money. That would explain the "Hammer" persona Billy invented for him.) He's enraged by this, but hides it from her. She tells him a bit about her life, and how she really likes her new boyfriend, Hammer.

And then Hammer himself comes in. Billy tries to slip away ("OH LOOK AT MY WRIST! I gotta go!") but Hammer realizes that it's Billy, someone he once knew.

I don't know what he said here. Hammer, although I truly believe he liked Penny greatly at this point, must have said something to Billy. Perhaps it was a comment about how "hot" Penny was. I don't know exactly what, but whatever it was Billy found it disrespectful. This is represented by the "And these... Are not the Hammer" line... And the following line... Yeah. You know the one I'm talking about. In any case, this finally pushes Billy over the edge. Billy finally slips into his Dr. Horrible persona fully, both in real life, and on his blog, letting it sink in.

He's going to kill Hammer. Penny will understand why, he tells himself. She'll understand he's doing it because Hammer doesn't respect her.

"So They Say"

The new homeless Shelter is featured on the news, and brings hope to many people, as Penny contemplates whether she may have found "the one". Note that the more obscene and absurd lines Hammer has in the 3rd act, as opposed to the less absurd (although still ridiculous) ones in the first and second act, are representative of Billy's descent into madness worsening, as he is now merging not only the personalities of himself and "Dr. Horrible", but of Hammer, and Captain Hammer.

Meanwhile, Billy/Dr. Horrible realizes that the opening of the homeless shelter is his opportunity. Hammer, funding it, will be giving a short speech at the opening. It will have a crowd, and it will be the perfect place for him to strike.

Moist (his roommate) tries to call him, worried about him, but Billy/Dr. Horrible ignores it. He manages to obtain a gun. And he heads to the crowd for the opening of the Homeless shelter.

"Everyone's A Hero"/"Slipping"

As Billy/Dr. Horrible watches the speech Hammer gives to the crowd. The ridiculous lines Captain Hammer is now saying have reached their peak, as Billy has now completely merged the persona's of Hammer and Captain Hammer. The lyrics of "Everyone's A Hero" represent both the merging of Hammer and Captain Hammer, and that Billy wonders, inside, if he's really past the point of no return. He isn't. But unfortunately, he's too fueled by anger and hate to leave the path he's on.

Dr. Horrible shoots Hammer. He tells no one to move as he walks around and monologues like a crazy man. He slowly walks toward Hammer. He looks around, not seeing Penny. She's hiding. She realizes what Dr. Horrible is about to do though, and runs up in front of Hammer before Billy kills him. This is what Captain Hammer standing now represents, is Penny's defense of Hammer. (Remember, Captain Hammer represents whatever gets in his way.) He now splits Penny into two Personas. Penny, and Captain Hammer. Penny is everything he loves. Captain Hammer is everything he hates.

Confused and angered, he shoots Penny (the real one).

Penny (both real, and the persona) die. Captain Hammer, however, lives, as now matter what he does, there will always be things to get in his way. Hammer too, lives (now needing severe therapy after seeing his old schoolmate kill his girlfriend, for trying to talk Dr. Horrible down.)

"Everything You Ever"

After killing Penny, he does in fact cause a lot of fear and chaos. In his mind, "[His] victory's complete". Billy, seeing Penny dead, realizes what he's done, but of course blames it in his mind as Captain Hammer's doing. You see, the moment Penny resisted him, getting in his way, she became representative of Captain Hammer. Thus when Billy shot HER, it was really (in his mind) Captain Hammer shooting Penny. Captain Hammer killing Penny. Thus he collapses, and mourns her. In his mind he has now achieved it. He has now joined the Evil League of Evil, both because he became what he truly feels is the worst he could be, what he feels is truly "evil" and because he caused enough chaos to have reached his goal. He is now irredeemable, he feels, after having killed Penny.

The police come and arrest him, but he simply revels in his victory. He's taken to an insane asylum, being truly crazy. In his mind though, he's taken to the league, and parties with them, reveling in his achievement. He did it. He got everything he ever wanted. Now the nightmare's real. Now he is truly Dr. Horrible. In his mind, there is no longer a Billy, there is only Dr. Horrible, who is now represented in a red costume. And yet before the credits roll, for just one second, we see Dr. Horrible in his old costume, talking into the camera, on his blog, tears streaming down his face.

There is, perhaps, some ounce of humanity left in Dr. Horrible. Some trace of Billy.