Bone

I've seen this book recommended on forums and I've also been told to read it by friends, but what info I could find on it didn't really make me want to. I think the main thing was the image shown on the wikipedia page, which doesn't show much aside from the lighter side of the comic. I've grown accustomed to human characters, and these blobby white dudes didn't interest me much; too simplistic. However, this image is pretty deceiving; there is a lot of darkness and non-kiddy (I don't want to say adult) intelligence and humor.

The main thing I liked is the tone; it's been a long time since I read something that could really be a children's story, and this had just the right amount of silliness mixed with seriousness to make it enjoyable. It made me feel the way I did when I read The Hobbit, and the few Tintin comics I got somehow. There is a lot of cutesy art and such, but it doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

I read the color version, and it was very pleasant to look at. I love that thick edge style for some reason too. Anyway, as for a summary of the plot, read just about any fantasy novel and you have the basic premise. There's a deposed queen, a fairy princess, dragons, epic battles, and quaint town-folk. Smith pokes fun at some of the more formulaic bits, which makes it a lot more fun. It isn't a simple story though, really; it gets pretty in-depth with lore and such. Really interesting stuff really.

Anyway, I highly recommend reading it. It's pretty long though.

Flight of the Conchords

I didn't know much about this show until I started watching it a week or two ago. All I knew was that it had something to do with music, and I assumed it was a sort of a "hipster show." I suppose it kind of is, but it's more of a ridiculous comedy than that. It reminds me of The Office in a number of ways; mostly because the characters are rather oblivious to the world, not unlike Michael Scott. There's also a lot of awkwardness.

As I correctly assumed, music is a big part of the show. Every episode has at least one off-kilter music video that somehow ties into the story, but doesn't actually seem to happen in the actual world of the show; it's just something we, the viewer, get to see and hear. The style of the music is really quite varied. The mainstay is of course a sort of indie-rock sort of sound, but they also hit electro, kraut rock, dance, and a bunch of others (I can't really remember. This list was supposed to be longer.) Anyway, it's fun music with absurd lyrics. Apparently the first season's tunes were all songs they had written previously and had performed before, while the second season used new songs written specifically for the show. Personally I thought they were of a higher quality than those of the first season.

The other big part is the comedy, mostly centering around Bret and Jemain's romantic and social foibles, along with their failing attempts to promote their band. Their incompetent manager Murray and his faithful underling Greg bring in some good laughs, while their cute but scary stalker Mel always seems to bring the awkwardness to new levels. Eugene Mirman seemingly plays himself as the landlord, something that might have made me watch the show sooner if I'd known. That guy is funny. Maybe not so much in this show, but he had a few moments.

Overall it was a fun viewing. Nothing earth-shattering or anything, but a nice little distraction. Kinda makes me want to move to New Zealand someday.

Watchmen (Film)

Adapting the most highly acclaimed graphic novel of all time is a rather daunting thing. Zack Snyder has already proved himself with 300, showing that he can be very faithful to the source and put out an entertaining film. The problem with 300 was Frank Miller wrote it, and mostly for that reason it was a hollow straight-forward sex/violence fest. Snyder was faithful to that, and a lot of people loved him for it. Watchmen is not hollow in any sense of the word, and I'm not sure Snyder did the greatest job transferring that substance to the screen, but you can definitely tell he made an effort, and I think what came out of it satisfied my expectations.

The sad fact is that no matter how faithful an adaptation it is, the hardcore fanboys are already nitpicking it to death. Yes, there are a few minor details (and one rather large and squishy one) that were removed or changed, but not resulting in any major derailing from the spirit of the graphic novel. This, like 300 and Sin City is very obviously based on one; the visuals are beautifully stylized with a similar color scheme to the source, many frames are directly modeled on panels from the comic, and the delivery of the actors' lines don't sound like anything anyone would actually say in real life; they sound like they were read from the pages of Alan Moore's genius story.

As a movie in itself, I don't think I can give an objective assessment. My gut feeling is that it is largely too confusing to be appealing to most new audiences, and I've been reading quite a few one-line reviews citing the lack of non-stop action. I thought there was just enough action, and I was actually surprised at the brutality of it all. This is very much an R-rated film, and I love it for that. It's good violence too. There is one scene in particular that is very reminiscent of a certain scene from the Korean masterpiece Oldboy, although it doesn't quite hit the same genius level of cinematography.

I don't really want to nitpick, but I think some of the music selections (while great in themselves) might not have fit as well in context as Snyder or whoever had hoped they would. Most people who've seen it seem to agree with me here. Still, altogether it sounded pretty powerful.

Of course the most important part of the movie is Rorschach, and he was perfect. For that reason it gets 5/5 from me. Go watch it, just don't bring your kids. Or your mom, probably.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This movie won three Oscars the other night: Visual Effects, Makeup, and Art Direction. I don't think it deserved any of those, let alone the nominations. Of course it's obvious to pretty much everyone that the Academy doesn't award Oscars based on merit; it's all a political puddle of slime. Ben Button is a movie formulated to win an Oscar. It has all the marks of a winner; lots of heart-warming moments, little in the way of substance, and a bunch of pretty people engaging in wrenching romantic foibles.

As you probably know, the story revolves around Benjamin Button and his highly unlikely predicament of aging backwards. This of course brings all sorts of emotional stress to the table as most of his friends get older and die while he gets younger. Goody goody. Of course there's a girl who he's destined to love in a star-crossed sort of way. Blah blah, you get the picture. There have been comparisons made to the storyline of Forrest Gump, and I do not disagree with them in the slightest. It's actually pretty shameless how much of the formula they've lifted for this thing.

Thankfully it didn't win Best Picture, although it was nominated. Having just seen it today I am very very glad that it didn't win, and I'm actually a little appalled that it made it that far. I guess you could say that it deserved the awards it did win; however, it won Visual Effects for the CG head plastered on little old Ben in the early parts of the film, and I think it looked horrible. The baby looked like some sort of rubber Buddha doll or something, not believable in the slightest. Coupled with the crappy delivery of crappy lines in crappy fake accents, the CG head was laughable. Sure, I'm sure it took a lot of work to get it to look as real as it did, but I think it sucked.

Perhaps my biggest complaint with the film was the voice acting. The only believable voice in the whole movie was Daisy's daughter, staying by her side as she belted her horrendous old-lady narration. The daughter sounded like a real person; I guess that's because she wasn't constrained by a fake accent. Everyone else looked like a bunch of floating heads with words floating through them to the listener.

I liked some of it, but every time a smile creeped onto my face it was dashed by the sheer fluff and fakeness of it all that would always rise up afterwards. It's overlong and pointless. Watch it if you want to waste two and a half hours.

Dead Space

I got this a while ago, started it, and gave up when my computer crashed. I've since discovered that the constant crashing was most likely due to a faulty stick of RAM which has been replaced; so I started back up on this game and it went just swimmingly, aside from the jarring atmosphere.

That's what this game is all about; screwing with your head until you're jumping in your seat every 5 minutes. It's a combination of sound, light (dark), and a lot of grisly imagery that makes it the scariest game I've ever played. Granted I haven't played many scary games. I started Doom 3 a little before this one and gave up because I didn't seem to like it much; the graphics were a little dated already. Dang I'm loving these semicolons. I haven't touched Silent Hill. I've only played the demo for F.E.A.R. 2, and I don't think I went all the way through. That was an experience though... I think it might rival Dead Space in the jolting aspect. Bioshock was a little creepy, but nothing like this.

There are a bunch of documentaries on youtube and other places about what the designers came up with for the fear aspect. A couple things they stressed were the lighting being similar to dentist lights, and the sound being emitted by baddies in a "fear radius." I think that's pretty cool. A lot of the sounds are timed to hit you at just the right moment to make you jump, and it usually succeeded with me.

As for the story, it was pretty neat. There was a bunch of religious and political background written up and given to you in doses to make the situations make sense. It kind of reminds me of Dune in respect to the religious-political stuff, how it's all connected. The end was a bit predictable though.

The gameplay was okay. Movement is a little stiff; I guess it makes sense since you're in some sort of armored suit the whole time. The weapons were cool. I really liked the first gun, the plasma something-or-other that allows you to switch between vertical and horizontal slicing for more convenient amputation of enemy limbs. The stasis and kinesis modules also made for some interesting situations, although I think I underused the stasis module.

I went through the game in a constant mixed state of dread and anticipation; I think the dread made it a little less enjoyable, but more of a real experience.

WE3

WE3 is a combination of Milo & Otis and Robocop. Pairings like that can't be anything but brilliant. It tells the story of three domestic animals (a dog, a cat, and a rabbit) who have been hooked up to armored attack suits and cyborg technology, and their version of The Incredible Journey. It's very much a tirade against animal cruelty.

In no way is this a soft and fluffy story like the two animal movies I mentioned. It's even more brutal than Robocop. There is some major gore and violence; pet lovers should be warned that it doesn't hold anything back. That said, it's some of the most emotionally affecting imagery I've come across in the comic book world. I literally shed tears a few times. I'm not going vegan or anything, but hell.

It's also very intelligent. I remember all those stupid animal movies for kids where the pets would talk; they do the same here, but it's believable and remarkably well done. The art is completely fantastic and original.

It's short and sweet. I recommend checking it out sometime. I seem to recall hearing it's going to be made into a movie; I really don't see how that's possible, but I'd watch it if it were.

House

This show has been on my to-watch list for quite a while. I recently saw this webcomic by the talented KC Green, and it finally got me to start trying the show out. So far I've gotten through  the first season and a couple of episodes from the second.

It's a pretty formulaic show; this guy House is a genius with attitude problems who loves fixing patients with weird diseases. At the start of every episode, the patient is introduced getting some nasty symptoms, and then House and his crew get ahold of him or her. They then spend about three quarters of the show screwing everything up with incorrect diagnoses, and then House has a lightbulb explode in his head while examining some inconsequential patient and fixes everything. As of yet no patient has died, but I'm told that will happen at some point.

House himself is of course the most interesting part of the show. His acting is very good, and his psychological/physical problems make for some entertaining empathy. The rest of the cast is usually pretty bland with a few shining moments here and there. For some reason though, this show is addicting as freeze-pops, and it supposedly gets even better. It's gonna be a fun ride.

It's not lupus.