Rhapsody of Fire

This is not really a review of anything, but more like a recommendation.  Actually, not a recommendation, but a requirement for your music library and to visit this blog.  Rhapsody of Fire (formerly known as Rhapsody) is a completely awesome symphonic metal band from Italy that makes listening music an adventure.  If you're into all things metal, classical, and adventure then any given song by Rhapsody of Fire will definitely become your new battle music.

Reminder: New Animation Domination, Dexter, and Metalocalypse tonight

Tonight is what may be this year's finest night in television programming in my opinion.  Dexter, Metalocalypse, The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show, and Family Guy are having their season premiers.  We can all go on about how The Simpsons and Family Guy are not as good as they were many years ago, but they are still worth a watch.  The Cleveland is also another good show and not bad for a spin-off.  And don't forget that American Dad premiers next week.  So much animation goodness on Fox.

Now that I got the Fox cartoons out of the way, let's talk about Dexter.  Dexter is entering it's fifth season and features the conflicted serial killer being a single dad, due to the events of last season.  I know Dexter may have been the only person who could've stopped the Trinity Killer, but he got married and had kids, he should've stopped his killing there.  The paradox of that would be that if he did that, then there would be  no point in the show, but the fact that he did not stop killing kind of makes him an asshole.  That's just my only discrepancy, I really love this show and I look forward to seeing what comes next for Dexter.\



Up next is the most brutal show about the world's biggest Death Metal band, Metalocalypse.  It's not a season premier, it's a mid-season premier.  All I expect is the same dark humor and kick-ass metal music that makes this cartoon on Adult Swim so cool.  I'm also expecting a lot of "hamburger time" on tonight's episode.  DIE FOR DETHKLOK.

Clash of the Titans

First off, the original Clash of the Titans is a favorite of mine.  It's dated, but it still makes me feel as if I have 1980's standards and still impressed by its visuals.  Aside from that, it also told the story of Perseus and his quest to defeat the Kraken.  Each character is presented as if they are important and that makes a good story.  Is it starting to show its age?  Yeah, kind of.  Sure, some aspects of it are cheesy and hoaky, but sometimes, I just love that stuff.  Now on to the remake.

The remake is not as good as the original, of course, but it is overall just average.  Characters: pretty average.  Character development: not really fleshed out.  Special effects: pretty standard, but still overall good.  Story: borderline meh/okay.

The story of the original Clash of the Titans started from the birth of Perseus to Perseus being triumphant.  The remake had flashbacks, which made the story kind of choppy.  There are also some things behind the antagonist's motivations, which push the story forward, that can be perplexing.  Was the godlike weapon that only works for Perseus supposed to make him successful or failure?  That's one of the things that makes me wonder what side the God's are on.  I suppose it's just a game the God's are playing with one another, but it just makes me wonder what there is to gain.

Sam Worthington always speaks in a low and raspy tone while everyone else spoke with deep and mighty voices.  It somehow makes him seem a bit underplayed as compared to everyone else since everyone speaks high and mighty while Perseus sounds like the silent type.  There is also less reason to care about Princess Andromeda.  Turns out she isn't the most important lady in the movie and I really didn't care whether the Kraken could take her or not.  The real leading actress was Io, who fills the role of the wise man from the original.  She could have been left out, but she is more important to Perseus, being that they are both in way godlike.  Liam Neeson makes a good Zeus, but his motivations are unclear as to whether or not he wants Perseus to win or lose.

What I could say about the remake that it holds over the original are the antagonists, but by slightly.  Hades is the mastermind, but I still don't know if he just wants to punish the world of man by releasing the Kraken or if he has a plan to take over Mt. Olympus.  Is it both?  I actually liked Medusa in this one, because she moves fast and her arrows come out of nowhere.  It's kind of a detractor from her menacing side that she kind of looks hot, but that's when she isn't giving her stare.  The blind oracle sisters are not either better or worse than the originals, but they still do their part anyway.  Kalibos even more clear reasons as to why he wants to kill Perseus and he is still the evil and ugly monster we make him out to be.  The Kraken looks like a Rancor, but it's the Kraken nonetheless.  It comes from the ocean and wreaks havoc.

The remake also has some nice fight scenes and special effects.  Some stuff is kind of hard to make out, especially when the harpies attack because it happens so fast.  In the very least, this does pass as an epic.  Again I say in the very least when meeting requirements for an epic.

The Clash of the Titans remake is at best worth a watch or a went if you want something that you're in the mood to watch just because you like action/adventure/Greek-ish type movies.  It's just overall an average sort of movie.  You're neither too impressed or disappointing, but there is no reason to hate on it too much.  It's a half and half sort of movie.

Score: 6/10

It's Pat

Lately, I've been writing about stuff I like.  Now I'm going to review something I hate, because it is really stupid.  That movie would be It's Pat, a movie based on Saturday Night Live sketches about a person who no one could tell if it is a man or a woman.  Those sketches were funny, just seeing how hard people would try to figure out if its (I'm using "it" as a pronoun, keep in mind) and Pat being oblivious to any suspicion and staying its optimistic self.  While some of that spirit is in It's Pat, the movie is still dumb and unfunny.

Julia Sweeney, who played Pat on SNL, plays Pat in It's Pat and Dave Foley, from The Kids in the Hall, plays another androgynous person (or male/female thing), Chris.  While a woman is playing Pat and a man is playing Chris, there is still no way I would refer to the characters as he or she.  I remember a Pat sketch where Dana Carvey plays a different Chris character, but it was probably a good thing he didn't appear in this movie.  Chris seems to be the smartest character, while Pat is just a real obnoxious dope.  The only thing this movie has going is the questionable androgyny, and even that doesn't carry this movie.

The main premise of It's Pat is that Pat is trying to look for a job, while having a relationship with Chris and it is being stalked by a guy named Kyle who is obsessed with figuring out Pat's gender.  Pat's quest  to find a career just show how stupid and obnoxious Pat can be.  Pat becomes a mail person (not mail man), but it opens everyone's mail.  Pat first seems like someone who is right in its mind and opening people's mail should get Pat thrown in jail, since tampering with other people's mail is a federal offense.  Pat also becomes a sushi chef, which in itself seems completely out of place.  Just to show how Chris is the only person right in its head, Chris is a bartender and has been doing so for 10 years and has a college degree, but Chris likes to bar tend because it likes it.  Any job Pat gets, Pat will instantly screw up, regardless of its difficulty.

Another plot that is in this movie is of this guy named Kyle becoming obsessed with figuring out Pat's gender.  He becomes so obsessed that his wife leaves him and he then becomes Pat (if that's even possible).  He thought he could expose Pat's identity by getting it on national television, but that only leaves America as baffled as he is.  Somewhere along the line, he gets Pat's diary (which leads to maybe the only other remotely clever joke) and even that does not tell him anything.  Figuring out nothing from Pat's diary just raises even more questions.  There is even a scene where everyone looks a Pat's genitals, except Kyle, yet Kyle does not even bother asking anyone what they saw.  I could go on about Kyle and Pat, but it is pretty clear just how much the audience is being teased about Pat's gender.  Okay, one more.  If Kyle is so obsessed with Pat, why doesn't he just sneak into Pat's apartment and stick a video camera in its bathroom?  Pat has to pee sometime.

It's Pat does more of a job showing how even more obnoxious and stupid Pat could possibly be, rather than showing Pat's optimistic spirit.  Out of all the movies based on Saturday Night Live, this one is the worst.  I would choose A Night at the Roxxbury and Superstar over It's Pat any day.  Am I biased against this?  Probably.  Adaptation movies, if they are based on sketches, have higher expectations because we expect the thing's to work in them as they did in their source material, but It's Pat fails at being It's Pat.

Verdict:  Do the legacy of Pat a favor and burn every copy of It's Pat you can find.  This even has a score of 0% on RottenTomatoes.com, but there is no way it will be a so-bad-it's-good cult classic like Manos: The Hands of Fate or Troll 2.  Much like how V's face is never revealed in V for Vendetta (and for good reason), Pat's gender is also never revealed, like in the sketches (also for good reason).  In other word's, It's Pat is just one sketch stretched into a feature film with nothing funny.

True Blood Season Finale and Venture Bros. Season Premire Reminder

Tonight, one fantastic show will end its season while another fantastic show will premiere it's new (mid)season.  True Blood will have its season finale and may wrap up some plots that I already forgot, since it took a break last week.  Venture Bros. will begin as season 4.5, and all I know is that it'll have Shore Leave and all his glory.

The verdict:  Like I need to recommend any of these shows, go watch them, even if you have to change your cable plan.

The Human Centipede

Hi everybody, it's time for a review of a movie that is really disturbing.  Incase you missed the title and the video above, it's The Human Centipede.  This is a movie that really doesn't have a mainstream distribution, but it becomes so infamous, that you hear about from word-of-mouth (or Daniel Tosh).  If you're looking for something really creepy to watch or just to take pictures of your friend's reactions, then get The Human Centipede.

The premise of The Human Centipede is about a German (I think) surgeon who kidnaps strangers and then conjoins their mouths to their asses in threes.  To him, it must be a scientific achievement by making a Siamese triplet, but how would this be beneficial to the human race?  I'm sure the only good to come out of it would be a reduction in the consumption of food, thus solving world hunger, but it would still be a horrible experience to eat people's shit.  This stuff makes you think.  And if you want to see what a more realistic Siamese triplet looks like, then go read Batman and Robin #2.  If I may go off-topic, I just can't help but think that if this surgeon lived in Rapture City, he'd get away with this.

Going more in depth (no pun ever intended), it's about 2 girls from the United States going on a road trip through Europe, but get sidetracked when they get a flat tire and stumble upon Dr. Kantz house.  Dr. Kantz drugs them and keeps them in his underground laboratory.  Then an Asian guy, who becomes the front of the centipede, joins the mix.  Other than Dr. Kantz, the Asian guy is my other favorite character. Then once all the kidnapping and plotting is dealt with, Dr. Kantz does what the title of this implies.  Which is conjoining the human subjects ass to mouth.

After the experiment becomes a horrible success, this is where stuff really gets even more disturbing and depressing.  He treats the human centipede like a dog, or dogs.  I should also mention that tried this stuff on cows and dogs, and now he's upgraded to human.  That's all I can say about The Human Centipede.  People get kidnapped and conjoined ass to mouth in the name of science.

Verdict:  Go watch it, but you're probably going to be disturbed.  So get your friends over and be disturbed together.

Bad Kids Go To Hell

As a special thank to my new followers, I'm going to recommend and indie graphic novel.  Today's subject is Bad Kids Go To Hell by Matthew Spradlin and Barry Wernick.

Before I review the graphic novel I want to say a few things about reviewing indie comics and how I got this.  Indie comics have little expectations for the reader, and depending on how good it may be, it could exceed all expectations and leaves the reader with a good impression.  It's not like characters from well-known properties who you expect to be in character all the time, and then get a bad impression when they are be out of character.  Bad Kids Go To Hell has the advantage of being mostly original and exceeding expectations.

Now how I got this was a story of its own.  I was walking around the convention center of the San Diego Comic-Con dressed as Cogpool (or Deadpool if he was in Gears of War) when a hot booth babe, known only as Th3 Rogue, pitched it to me.  As charming as she was, I then listened to the creators and decided, what the Hell?  It'll be a good read.  They then autographed my copy and Th3 Rogue kissed and blew on it.  I also asked Th3 Rogue out on a date, but she refused.  So I cut off her arm with my lancer.

I told her I would give her arm back if she gone out with me, but she decided to donate herself to science and got a robotic arm, technically making her a cyborg.  So on to BKGTH.

BKGTH already reminds me of the Breakfast Club, with a bunch of angsty teenagers coming into the library for detention on a Saturday.  There are differences, like the teens go to a prep school, they're wearing their uniforms, and there's a supernatural force haunting the library.  The teens are locked in the library and they must stay alive and not let the supernatural force kill them.  What drives this graphic novel are the characters, whose names I forget because my memory is shotty and I don't have the graphic novel with me, so this is a review from memory.

I'll just name the characters by description.  The black jock with a broken leg.  The mysterious new student.  The nerdy brunette.  The bitchy blond.  The hot goth chick.  The smart Arab guy.  And the a-hole teacher keeping them there.  By the way, is it really necessary for students getting Saturday detention to show up in their uniforms?  It's bad enough they're in detention, now they got to wear their uniforms.  Don't they have other clothes, or do they have multiple sets of the same uniform?  I'm looking at you Goth girl.

The main plot concerns with the students waiting through detention in the library, while the supernatural force is haunting them.  Aside from detention, there are also flashbacks as to how each student received detention.  These are kind of important, because they do concern some of the twists that result from the story.

I'm not really an art critic, so I'll just say that the art passes.  Everything is in proportion and there are no complaints.  Sometimes, I feel as if the text get shorter than it needs to be that my face touches the paper. It's like some of the characters are being played by Ray Palmer.  That's a small gripe that I can get over, but small text is always unnecessary, unless the character's have shrinking powers.

Throughout the story, characters meet tragic ends (I won't say which ones), they freak out, develop, and many twists come about.  It's the kind of stuff M. Night Shyamalan used to do before he got lazy.

The verdict:  BKGTH is an entertaining read for those who have a hankering for some indie books.  I definitely recommend it, and not because a booth babe altered my senses.  You can get BKGTH from their booth at the given convention or buy it from their online store.  I wouldn't know if you can buy it in the book store, since I heard the first print was sold out.

Official site:  http://www.badkidsgotohell.com/

Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/badkidsgotohell