Reign of Winter

After recuperating for a few days in town (and feeling more mighty for it!), we gather new supplies, and head once more into the forest of winter. We quickly strike through to the lodge we were before, and rest for the night. The next morning, we set out across the bridge, when we are beset by a strange fey creature... unfortunately the bridge is too slippery for me, but the others drive the creature back, expending their energies.

So the next morning [*sigh* still only level two...], we try again, the creature comes back, but this time we are able to end it. Rather than rest up again, we press on. Ahead of us are tracks, with traces of undead. With Hogan thus forewarned, he is able to detect more undead around us, and soon we are attacked by then... although one swing of my mighty (and new) club soon puts paid to them!

Onwards, we encounter a fallen hunter, who was hunting some kind of strange large weasel. He has set traps for the beast, which we will no doubt fall into. After that we see a strange clear patch of snow nearby. Investigating it, we are attacked by living trees! Fire and my mighty axe soon fell them, and then there is only the matter of the clear ground they made to put their young pinecones in... oh, but we are truly not mighty that day.

We camp in a nearby cave, and will see what the morrow brings.

[END]

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Dragon Half

What's the best anime ever? That's right, Dragon Half! (Okay, there are better ones around, but I'm talking about this in this post.)

Dragon Half was a manga and then adapted into an anime... that only lasted two episodes. Boo! (You can find the episodes on the internet if you know where to look.) The basic premise is that Mink is half dragon (father human, mother dragon. He was supposed to kill her, but what do you do when you fall in love?). Then Mink and her two friends have adventures. Wacky, but there are many wacky moments in this. One of the more interesting features is that the art style flips between the more normal/serious style, and the chibi/cute style (and the ultra-chibi style).

It is just so much fun (and slightly ecchi), that it is a damn shame there were only two episodes. More, dammit, more! And, as far as I know, the manga never made it into english. Sigh.

For something really wacky, here's the end song, with a slightly out of sync translation:

[END]

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Secrit Cety

Have you been to London? I mean the city of London? I mean the mile square inner city of London? Which is one of the problems of this movie is that this is about the mile square centre bit of London, but doesn't ever quite show where or what that is. This is, in that way, a documentary for Londoners who already know about it.

The point of the City of London is that it is run by corporations, who now wield a whack of political power (in deed, they even have voting rights). Yep, that's pretty screwed up. No matter how nice it might be legally, treating corporations as people has only led to corporations abusing that position.

We get a bit of history of how the City of London grew into London, but that history largely comprises of showing maps from the 18th and 17th centuries and saying that London was more distinct from the surrounding burrows, and now it isn't. Not exactly a great historical discourse there. Then the movie jumps to modern day and says that it is largely a financial power, has all the banks, and runs all sorts of political dealings and tax shenanigans. Basically it has become a 'shadow' economy, and is more powerful than the real economy. (There's a bit of shock implied with showing news of the recession of 2008, but no actual explanation of how that impacted these banks. Good? Bad? I'm not clear at all what was implied.) And then it ends.

This movie clearly has a point it wants to make, that the City of London Corporation is bad, but does not explain itself well.

[END]

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Redomptien

Hey, it's a Jason Statham movie! Yay, I feel like some mindless violence!

Joey was in Iraq, did some bad things, and now is a bum in London. After an escape landed him in luxury for a while, he tries to turn his life around, and be a good man again. But to be a good man, he does things and has to turn his eye away from people who do bad things. The only person who believes in him enough to try to help him is a nun...

Oh, okay, it's a serious drama movie then. There is some moments of Statham violence, but it's mainly about how Joey is trying to be a good man while being bad. What lengths does he have to do to in order to gain... salvation?

Jason can play serious... but the problem is his gravely voice makes it fricking hard to work out what he's saying at times, which rather undercut his performance. He looks earnest, but yeah... I'll just have to take the director's word for it that it works for him. Opposite him is Agata Buzek as Christina, the nun who is his guide. She has an interesting story, moreso than Joey in some ways.

If you are in the mood, this is decent enough, but there are better movies out there.

[END]

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Flashing the Paradox Point

The latest Warner Bros DC Animated Movie (which is its own genre now) is the one based on the Flashpoint Paradox, a fairly recent event in DC universe which seems to tie the pre-52 continuity to the 52 continuity and... no-one cares about that. It's a Justice League movie featuring the Flash!

After fighting his Rogues Gallery, the Flash wakes up to find that he's just Barry Allen, and the world has gone to crap. Wonder Woman (with the forces of the Amazons) is now fighting Aquaman (with the forces of Atlantis) and the land dwellers are trying to deal with both of them. And, because this is basically an Elseworlds tale, there is a lot of death and very casual violence. A lot of them. So much so that you would be surprised that this is just PG-13 rated. But hey, as long as no-one swears or bares a nipple, then it's fine for the kiddies.

This film is quite good, although I feel that some of the basic ideas (that it's in a parallel universe) is assumed by the audience before they watch, or they expect the audience to be confused for a while. The story, while dark, is decent, and this movie, in general, is better than a certain recent other live action DC film. Many of the usual actors return, and the production is clean (even if I have no idea who some of the superheroes are).

Decent movie, worth watching if you are into these animated movies (and know a few things about the DC universe).

[END]

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The Killing Joke

Have you read The Killing Joke?

Have you heard The Killing Joke?

Have you seen The Killing Joke?\


Now you've got no excuse not to have.

[END]

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Spacific Grim

This is new IP! So I have to support it! Regardless of it being worthy of being supported, it is new IP so SUPPORT SUPPORT SUPPRTY!!!

Two guys are having a bro-tastic time and fighting on some monsters, and then time passes and dudes must get together more and go full bro on the monsters to win!!! I've read that using 'bro' helps define things as being without women, and here's a question: name all the main females in this movie... there's Mako... and the Russian pilot... and that's it! And they don't talk, so no Bechdel test here!

One plot point I was wondering about was: why two people needed? They do explain it, but it's basically to provide more story plot points when one person is in trouble.

Fine, it's decent enough, but a lot of visuals are gun metal grey giant robots fighting dark blue giant aliens at night... it could be easier to see what's going on. Mostly I can follow the scenes... but yeah, quite a few jabs from the monsters, I had no idea what part of the robot they were hitting. Nice to see, but mostly just sit back and take it all in, don't try to diagram it out.

Of course I need to mention Burn Gorman who was playing... German, I think? But I wasn't clear on Idris Elba's character's accent either.

Overall... it's, as I said, decent. But the dark picture didn't impress me much.

After this, I want to dive into my MST3K Gamera box...

[END]

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