Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf is the latest attempt to adapt the age old poem to the big screen. There’s probably been a half dozen attempts to adapt the source material, but this one by far has gotten the most exposure and attention in the press, largely because of the fact that the movie is computer generated. It’s interesting that more non-children movies haven’t attempted to be entirely CG, and it’s perhaps an easy attention getter for Beowulf since CG has largely been bound to your typical Pixar fare. Adding to the visual “wow” factor is that this movie is appearing in IMAX and as a 3D film. It might be the fact that I just had bad seats, but the effects varied between really cool (fight scenes with two planes, like the floor and rafters) and extremely tacky (blood flying at the screen). Also, the effects didn’t always look perfect, and were disorienting.

Anyway, onto the movie. This version of the Beowulf story is a bit different than the poem, but it’s a surprisingly competent alteration of the main plot, perhaps due to the fact that the script was co-written by Neil Gaiman, a well respected comic writer and novelist, and Roger Avary, whose writing credits includes some Tarantino movies, Silent Hill, and some other respected Hollywood movies. In the original poem, Beowulf travels to Heorot and defeats Grendel, then later beheads Grendel’s mother. The poem then ends with Beowulf fighting a dragon many years later and dying in battle. I think the new version of the story ties the whole storyline together better and makes it a more coherent movie in general. Without giving too much away, Grendel’s mother manages to survive and the final battle with the dragon is related to Beowulf’s past decisions and battles with Grendel and his mother. The movie also gives Beowulf a much more human side, and portrays him as a flawed man whose bravery is nearly matched by his mistakes.

There are some issues with the movie however, and it’s a shame too, because it hurts an otherwise great movie. The movie has some very childish and goofy potty humor and sight gags that feel a bit inappropriate in a ’serious’ movie. When you have Beowulf jumping around on Grendel buck-naked and boob-flopping sight gags, it kind of ruins the feel of the movie. More importantly though, the movie feels a little emotionally hollow. Beowulf has a decent amount of characterization, but most everyone else feels pretty one-dimensional, and you don’t know much about them other than what their name is and what their role is. If they were changing the source material to start with, why not give the characters more depth?

Other than that, this is a pretty straight forward action movie. Some of the action sequences are just simply bad ass, and look like they could be straight out of God of War or another video game. The CG looks great really makes these pretty impressive and otherwise impossible action scenes, and many of the close-ups of the characters are totally in the “wow, this can’t be computer generated” category. Some of the scenes with a lot of the supporting cast tend to look pretty fake and not as impressive, but overall the CG is, at the very least, not a detriment to the movie. I’m not totally sold that this couldn’t have been done live action, but they did a good job nonetheless, and at least there’s no worry that the CG scenes look really fake in comparison to the live action ones. It’s this quasi-real, quasi-fake look, but it is consistent throughout.

So overall the movie isn’t really perfect, but it has little to do with the CG gimmick. The story just could have been a bit more rounded, and you would think that for the amount of money they spent on animating this that they would have made sure the story and characters were truly solid before starting. However, it still is an entertaining movie that’s a really fun theater experience, and if you have an IMAX theater near you, it really should be the only way you see it.

“Where does Thanksgiving come from?” This is the third most popular question* asked of me by children across the land. Honestly, I never know what to tell them. Usually I just make something up but this year I decided to do a little research. Using the popular website “Google”, I’ve deduced that the Thanksgiving holiday dates back to the 1600’s when white people sailed across the Atlantic in boats to the New World so they could escape oppression and persecution. When they reached this New World, originally dubbed “PuritanicalkillallfunnoboozesalesonSundaylandia”, they found that it was already populated by many different tribes of indigenous people that called themselves “Native Americans”. They liked this name so much they decided to change the name of this new land to America. This shorter name was good because a lot of these settlers were either severely handicapped or female so the less letters they have to deal with, the better. After unloading all their boats, the H.C.I.C. (”Head Caucasian In Charge”) John Woodlief asked the Indians “What’s good?” Since they had stuck on boats for countless weeks, the settlers were starving for something other than salted fish and their own urine. The indigenous people provided them with, among other things, maize, lobster, venison, and swans. Seriously, they ate swans! That’s wild, man. How could you look at a graceful swan and say “I’m going to eat that whole fucking thing!” At least turkeys are gross looking with that red ball sack under their beaks. If I had my way it would be a law of nature that only the ugly animals get eaten. Anyway, the pilgrims and the Indians sat down to this feast to celebrate the end of the white settler’s oppression and the beginning of the Native American’s. Nice how that worked out, right? Model of efficiency right there.

So the big question we have today is “Why are we still celebrating a feast that’s probably tied to the beginning of a dark time in our nation’s past? Also, why so much food when so many are so hungry?” 13 red and white stripes and 50 stars on a field of blue, that’s why. Maybe the better question to ask is why are you such a buzzkill? It’s one day out of the year that I eat too much, drink too much and watch tremendously shitty football games. Can I just have this one goddamned day without you up my ass? Fine, you want to spend all day preaching that’s your right. Honestly, that’s what makes this day so great. You can celebrate it however you want to. You want to bust balls and be a dick, go for it. Hell one year I celebrated with a tofurkey! Sure, it was the worst Thanksgiving of my life but that’s beside the point. What I’m saying here is that Thanksgiving is what you want it to be. For me it’s about getting together with family and friends, putting up with their bullshit and eating good food. For others it may be the exact opposite of that. Look you most likely get the day off so just shut up and enjoy it, alright?

This year is going to be a low key affair at my house. Nothing much more than my immediately family and hours of passive aggression and thinly veiled criticism. Pffft. Nothing a little booze and pork can’t fix. In the past couple years, my wife and I have slowly started making more and more food for the meal. Sometimes I think if my parents had their way, it’d be some Stove Top and canned cranberry sauce all around. I imagine we’d probably eat in the basement under a lone bare bulb too just to really nail the mood. Look, I’m not asking for swans or ostrich or anything like those damn Native Americans show-offs prepared, but this is a once a year meal. Let’s stretch our legs a bit. I’m making a brined turkey, cornbread, sausage and cranberry stuffing, mixed greens braised with bacon and onions, and some honey and clove cranberry sauce. My wife is making glazed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie cake and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon which she grills. Good god. Just thinking about tomorrow’s meal has me feeling like a nap and a dump. It’s a good thing Thanksgiving is only once a year or America would probably be the fattest nation in the world. What’s that? Really? We are? Well I’ll be damned.

The truth is that Thanksgiving is a pretty straightforward holiday. It says right in the name that it is for the “giving of thanks” which is a much better thing to give than herpes. If nothing else (unless your religion forbids it) take a minute tomorrow to count your blessings. I know that when I’m sitting down to dinner, buzzed and content, I’ll say a little thanks for everything that matters in my life. Lolcats, roflcopters, and amirite. Happy Thanksgiving internets.

^{* First most popular: Where do babies come from? Second most popular: Why does my mommy have so many one dollar bills?}

There are a whole lot of fantasy books out in the world anymore. They range from spectacular reads to ‘Hero A’ does ‘Quest 1′ in order to restore peace to land Sigma. Sabriel stands near the higher end of the scale. You can tell there’s something a little different about this story though, as the first paragraph in the main story we are treated to is the description of a rabbit that has just been run over by a car. It is very soon after this that it is revealed that the titular character of the book is a necromancer, but not exactly how you’d think. See, Sabriel is the Abhorsen-In-Waiting.

The Abhorsen is kind of like a reverse necromancer, one that tries to keep the dead in death. According to Garth Nix’s mythos, there are nine gates through death. The only true way to make sure something stays dead is for it to pass through the ninth gate. Otherwise, the nastier spirits can come back into life, and they usually have bad intentions, or at least must feed on the living to stay in life. It’s the Abhorsen’s job to make sure that anything that comes back into life from death gets to the ninth gate, where it will rest for eternity. So anyway, it turns out that Sabriel’s father, the current Abhorsen, suddenly goes missing, and of course, Sabriel must go find out just what happened. Otherwise the book wouldn’t really have a taking off point…

The author of Sabriel, Garth Nix, has a great style of writing, and loads tremendous amounts of description about every detail into every moment of reading. You never really wonder what something looks like. You know in your mind how it looks. Every character has their quirks and mannerisms, and is brought to life through Nix’s writing. It’s a little slow at first, to be sure, but once it gets going, it is a very enjoyable book. You’re not going to be gushing about this book 5 years from now, and it’ll never have an obsessive fanbase ala Harry Potter, but it is a very good read.

Dementium

I have been excited by the production and release of this first person shooter/survival horror game for the DS for quite a while now. Resident Evil Deadly Shadows proved to me that the handheld medium can still provide jump scares and an uneasy atmosphere so I anticipated Dementium to further explore and build on this. So far, about half an hour in, while it hasn’t been disappointing, I haven’t been enamored by it either.

The game is set up and logged by a chapter system and the first 3 chapters are easily traversed in 20 or so minutes; we you can save at any time when quitting the game, should you die you start the chapter over. The game play is typical run and gun, with weapons like a pistol, baton and shotgun at your disposal. So far the bestiary ranges from zombies with giant maws in their chests to these overgrown leeches which make a rather disconcerting “cry” to the latest monster I’ve encountered, decapitated shrieking heads which launch themselves at you from across the room (similar to the same heads encountered in Prince Of Persia 2). For the most part it seems that you have to kill everything you come across; hand-to-hand combat is difficult to emerge from unscathed but the ranged weapons have plenty of ammo lying around and I’ve been using them liberally to no ill effect.

The environment is rather repetitive and I don’t believe you leave the hospital setting but the execution of the game mechanics is quite well done and I anticipate a few choice boss battles to come. Dementium is no psychological horror thrillfest nor is it a Dead Alive bloodbath, but it does provide some solid entertainment that is easily digestable in small spurts of time.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat

As a youngin I always prefered the kartoonish graphiks and smoother play kontrol of Street Fighter 2 over that of Mortal Kombat but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to enjoying the upperkut-fests and gory finishes from time to time. UMK3 has just kome out for the DS and I must say it translates to the small skreens quite well! By default the aktion is on the bottom skreen while moves and fatalities/babalities/friendships are on the top. A handy reference for sure, I found the exekution of moves and abilities to be quite easy with the DS kontrols. Inkluded in the game are lokal WIFI & online fighting as well as Puzzle Kombat but I have not tried any of these options yet. Grab this if you’re Kombat Krazy or even a just a kasual fan.

Neves

This is a fun little time-waster if you like tangram puzzles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram). I haven’t attempted these kinds of puzzles since the fifth grade but I’ve played and solved about 15 of the “first floor” puzzles and it’s been entertaining. Control is what you’d expect, with dragging and dropping pieces on the silhouette of a very angular rabbit, person, flower, and so on. Music is jazzy and low key and the presentation is very straightforward. I don’t expect much more content to come out of this title, just as one wouldn’t expect anything else from a Sudoku game save for lots of 3×3 boxes and numbers, so I imagine this is only for the hardcore tangram addicts out there or if you really need a quick puzzle to play while on the crapper.

First things first, I have not finished a Zelda game since Link to the Past which in my opinion is the flagship of the series. Many would
argue that title belongs to Ocarina of Time so we’ll just agree to disagree. My problem with Zelda games is they’re exciting for the first couple of
hours and then quickly become a chore. I’ll usually make it up to the 6th or 7th dungeon before calling it quits or I’ll find something more enjoyable to play. That’s just how I roll so this review may be a little unfair in some ways. So ask yourself, are you a die hard Zelda
fan? Then avert ye eyes. (more…)

I got to be honest I haven’t done much of anything worth reviewing lately. Well I could review the process involved with applying for a certificate program at a local university. Let’s be honest though, that would be as interesting as watching flies fornicate. Actually watching that would be pretty interesting. Interestingly sexy. Anyways, how about some leftovers?

Hanging on the Telephone by The Nerves

For the past few years I’ve been involved with a “Mix Tape Club”. Basically a friend of mine put together a group of people who were willing to make a mix cd and mail it out to strangers. Kind of like The Jelly of the Month Club without the crippling loneliness. Anyways, this song was on one of the discs and it’s now one of my favorite songs period. There’s been a bunch of covers of this song, most notable being Blondie and Cat Power. (The latter featured in a Cingular commercial) Hell, Def Leppard has a version out there too, but it doesn’t matter. They all suck compared to the original. This is not debatable. All the covers polished off the rawness of the Nerves version and pretty much stripped away what makes the song so awesome.

Am I right or amirite!?!?

Feist - The Reminder

This is a good album. I’m admittedly late to checking out her stuff, even though I love Broken Social Scene. There’s a lot of great songs here, especially “Sea Lion Woman”, “My Moon My Man” and “I Feel It All”. Even the overplayed as “One Two Three Four” is, I don’t mind it in the context of the album. Still, the best song on the album is “Past In Present”. This song has been running through my head for weeks now and it shows no sign of slowing. If I was a complete asshole, I might say it’s at top of my brain’s charts! With a metaphorical bullet! But I’m not and I didn’t. So shush.

Costco Superstores a.k.a. The Place Where Unicorns and Dreams Still Exist

I don’t care man, I love Costco. It’s probably a bit hypocritical to hate Wal-Mart but love Costco. Good thing I have a long, proud history of hypocrisy or else this might bug me. Besides, if Wal-Mart didn’t sell such shoddy merchandise maybe I would be a little more comfortable using them. I mean what kind of sweat shops are they using? Chip in a few extra cents a day and get some quality merchandise out of those little seven year old fingers. Cripes! Until that day comes, my heart belongs to Costco. I love the ability to purchase an entire half a cow, a life-sized stuffed pony and a flat screen tv all at once. (Which I plan to do once I get the certificate for the aforementioned University. Maybe I should put this goal on my application? Can’t hurt right?) Also, they have cheap booze. I don’t know if every Costco has a liquor store but they should be required to by law. You can save a few bucks off name brand beer and liquor or roll the dice with their “Kirkland” brand. I even saw a Kirkland brand 12-year scotch. Granted it probably tastes similar to the wine brewed in correctional institution toilets, but so what? It’s was only $30 and you’re now blind drunk*! Next to the Yo MTV Raps trading card and $2 bills, my Costco card is the most important thing in my wallet. Don’t steal home without it.

^{*Note: You might actually be blind. Who knows what the hell they put in that stuff.}

When writing these Music Of The Week’s, I try to keep in mind both mainstream artists and smaller artists, and basically anything that I think that My Kinda Guy (TM) will enjoy. This week, Kevin Hagge, aka Wizards and Warriors and a friend of Good-Evil, released a new EP Wave Traveler. I think what is great about this release and W&W’s music in general is that though it can easily be classified as Chiptunes, it’s not really an acquired taste like some artists. Wave Traveler is another great example of upbeat, catchy melodies with a dance floor feel to them.

Also, the EP has a very nice flow to it, where the songs segue into one another and all 4 seem to fit as almost a suite instead of just a few songs thrown together. Additionally, the drum samples used in these songs are really dynamic and help add an extra bit of energy to the EP. I heard the term “NES Rave” used for this, and I think it’s pretty appropriate. Check it out if you are interested.

The Movie: GOOD

Ahhh nothing I love better than a good, cheesy Japanese giant animal movie. Gamera, second cousin and knock off of Godzilla, is a beloved movie character from Japan who has been in many, many movies. This is one of them! Gamera is set apart from Godzilla in that he is considered “the friend of children.” Now, how you’re going to convince me that a giant turtle who took apart Tokyo brick by brick in his first movie (appropriately called “Gamera” and also riffed by MST3K in episode 302), then appeared in a movie without a single child actor of any major role (”Gamera vs. Barugon”, episode 304) is the friend of all children baffles me, but apparently the Japanese just take the creator’s word for it.

In this thrilling installment of Gamera’s adventures, Gamera doesn’t show up until about 20 minutes in. Apparently, radio waves from outer space have come in and the world is abuzz about it. Two boys, Akio (who is called Akira in the credits for some unknown reason) and Tom, have taken a great interest in these waves, and while looking through a telescope, happen to see a spaceship land. After Akio’s mom scolds them for staying up, they agree to go to the ship in the morning. Along the way, Akio’s sister looks cute and they are harassed by Officer Kondo, also known as “Kon-chan”, which gets misheard as Cornjob. They find the spaceship, and it automatically takes off with Tom and Akio aboard. They almost crash into a rock but are saved by Gamera. The spaceship then speeds ahead of Gamera and lands on a strange planet. Turns out it’s a twin “star”, as Akio calls it, of Earth. There, they meet two space creatures, who are women that want to eat their brains for information, and Guiron, a kind of dog monster with a knife for a nose. High hilarity ensues as the boys find out the plan, Guiron fights Gamera, and everyone makes it home in time to have a good laugh at Cornjob’s expense.

The dubbing is cheesy, the movie is hilarious, and there is even a scene where Gamera looks like he is on the high bars. All in all, a perfect movie to riff.

Note for Upright Citizens Brigade Fans:The little boy Akio in this movie dreams of a planet “without wars or traffic accidents”. This leads to his interest in space. That is why in the Mogomra or whatever that cowboy lobster was, they had the badly dubbed thing at the end about no traffic accidents. They either had seen this movie or this episode of MST3K.

The Host Segments:

Very strong episode all around, starting with great host segments. It begins with the Bots playing school lunch. Tom has a note from his mother saying that she loves him and is very proud of him, embarassing him. Then Crow reminds him he doesn’t have a mother. He begins to cry.

Satellite of Love Invention: Collapsing garbage can for those who go camping. Saves the planet. Joel’s working on a port-a-potty on the same concept. Everyone is disgusted, but it’s funny.

Deep 13 Invention: The “Racy Rorshach” for Psychologist Monthly. Frank’s mom turns out to be in one of them. It’s pretty humorous for just ink blots. Great back and forth between Frank and Forrestor.

First Host Segment: Joel and the Bots do the Gamera theme song, but change the words. It’s really good stuff, especially with Joel dancing all weirdly. He’s a goofball, that one.

Second Host Segment: Joel does a magic trick, sawing Crow in half by using Tom Servo, playing Guiron, as a sword. It’s great because Joel used to be a magician and he used to do prop comedy that was very toned down and not over the top. This time, he totally hams it up to great hilarity, poking fun at magicians and all that. Crow ruins the reveal while in a towel.

Third Host Segment: Crow does the voice over of Richard Burton, because one of the kids kind of looks like Richard Burton. It’s a great segment because Trace is fantastic at impersonations, and because it’s just ridiculous. The kid doesn’t look THAT much like Richard Burton (who was one of Elizabeth Taylor’s many husbands, by the way, and an actor.)

Final Host Segment: Joel and the Bots do the Gamera thing song again, this time, just trying to speak Japanese and failing miserably. Not as bad as the Sci Fi episode jokes at the expense of the Japanese, but rather un-PC regardless.

Mike Nelson absolutely kills this one though as Michael Feinstein in Deep 13. He shows off his prowess with the piano and is absolutely hilarious. Forrestor kills him as Frank pushes the button.

The Riffing:

Pure goodness. This is one of the strongest episodes in the best season, making it a definite standout throughout the series. The movie is ample fodder for jokes, and Joel and the Bots dive in head first. But this one is special again, like Mighty Jack, because the movie is cheesy enough that they focus all their jokes on the movie. It isn’t just a chance for the guys to rip on the Japanese, like they do in later episodes. It is genuinely funny and not cruel. This might just be a feeling of mine, but I think that Joel and Trace actually really enjoyed these movies, because they don’t seem to be bitter at the movie. They have fun with it, which makes it fun for those watching. Just kind of a trend with Joel and Trace.

Final word: Watch this episode any way you can. It is one of the few that I think are pitch perfect throughout.