22/November/2010
This was originally just going to be a reply to Greybob's comment on the previous entry, but it kind of spiralled out of control into an outrageously long ramble on everything tangentially related to what he said. And then I thought, well, why waste it in the comments box? Who even looks at those things, anyway? (don't answer that)
Well, personally I think zombies are more versatile and have been handled a
lot better then vampires have recently. I’m not quite zombied out yet. I’ve been
meaning to check out Walking Dead, both the show and the comics.
Have you heard of High School of the Dead? It’s an anime about a group of high
school students who get trapped during the zombie apocalypse. I’ve been meanng
to check it out, but I’ve heard it’s very very fan-service-y.
I definitely think zombies are the most universal of all the typical monsters
and I'd say there's probably tons and tons of stories you could use them in that
haven't been utilised, both from simply the environment you put them in but also
just how you view them. Though, yeah, after playing Left 4 Dead several
times a day, every day, for months on end, I think I am quite officially
zombie'd out for the time being. It does speak volumes about how much I love the
game and how much I like zombies, though. My brother has given up on zombie
media as part of his wedding vow (no, seriously), but even he admitted that
The Walking Dead TV adaptation sounds great and he had tremendous fun with a
short playthrough of Left 4 Dead; he had tremendous fun intentionally
startling Witches.
Though, why are they so appealing? I suppose you could say that it's the
combination of simplicity and depth to zombies that makes them universally
appealing. They're mass mobs that stumble around and eat brains, but from the
nuances you give them you can analyse them in so many ways. Fido, for
instance, has the zombies used for menial labour and are treated like trash, but
one little boy becomes best friends with his family's personal zombie, and it
almost prompts the question - are zombies still people? Do zombies have rights?
Yes, they perform mundane tasks such as mowing the lawn and delivering
newspapers, and they may be undead sons of bitches, but if Fido himself is to
serve as a prime example, they still have some degree of humanity left in them,
if because of traits from when they were alive - it's just a matter of getting
to know them enough for them to display it. Though in that case, would society
really be willing to love their zombies enough just so they could act like
really, really shallow people with zero conversational skills? Would giving
zombies (mostly harmless zombies!) rights just mess up the
whole architecture of civilisation? Who knows.
In a way, I guess because zombies are so simple, you can do pretty much anything you want with them. I have zero familiarity with it, but Pride and Prejudice and Zombies must be some kind of achievement, I guess. Meanwhile, some other monsters have so much mythos that if you start just picking and choosing what you want, they're no longer the iconic monsters and just become... things. Vampires, for instance. The Space Vampires, despite the amusingly kitschy title, is less about bloodsucking astronauts and is more about some metaphysical gobbledygook about sharing life-force between people, or something. It has less in common with movie vampires and more to do with psychology and the concept of energy vampirism, which given the author is clearly the dude's forte; though as I've described it before, it comes across as an outrageously quaint story that's about very level-headed people being very level-headed, even when faced with three invisible space monsters threatening the integrity of the universe. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the movie Lifeforce is much better in the freaky supernatural department than the source material.
Also, sorry, but I think it's very hard to write about vampires without them becoming pretentious. I read a book quite a while back called The Golden - it had some beautifully-written descriptive prose detailing wonderful Victorian architecture, but Christ almighty, its had some pretentious-as-shit dialogue. I gave up on it two chapters in because everyone was an obnoxious fuck. I'd like to see a serious and unbiased vampire fan give their well-written views on it if just to hear their thoughts on it, but for me it was just obnoxious people being incredibly obnoxious and getting emotional and angry far too easily. It was kind of a vampire detective story - a concept that could be intriguing! - but everyone anyone ever talked to was an obnoxious twat to each other, and I constantly wished I could just give them all a slap on the bake. I don't normally resort to Irish euphemisms in my "critique," but sometimes you just have to say it straight.
To get back to the original comment... I have heard of High School of the
Dead. At first the idea sounded reasonably promising, but from what I've
read and seen of it I'm not exactly enticed. If it were done realistically
(well, about as realistically as the dead rising from the grave
and eating human flesh can be done) I might have been interested, but it
just looks like rampant fanservice wrapped around a mildly apocalyptic
environment. It's hard to take the premise seriously when all the males look
like viewer surrogates or wish fulfilment, and all the females have triple-digit
cup sizes and are constantly flirting with them while in their skivvies. I'm
sure that joke would work better if I actually knew how cup sizes worked. The
numerical part is actually the chest size, not the bust size, isn't it?
(it's kind of sad that I know the basics of measuring bra sizes,
yet I can barely tell what size feet I have. The unfortunate priorities of a
young male, eh?)
Of course, sometimes for a concept to take off, all it needs is a really dynamic source of origin. I haven't read Dracula (I read an abridged version in school years ago which described everything as "suddenly". even the teacher agreed it was a terrible version), though I hear it's pretty good, and I won't deny that Nosferatu is my personal definitive vampire film; it really highlights the many connotations surrounding the term "vampire," and not just the usual Cliff's Notes. I think what I'm poorly trying to say is that one good story with an intriguing concept can inspire a lot of others to expand upon it, but quite often they lose the unique charm of the original.
This is mostly a poor attempt to segue into how I watched Jurassic Park a couple of nights ago, and holy crap, it was incredible. I would not deem my vocabulary or structure of words suitable enough to express the sheer awe I felt at watching this movie again. I haven't sat down and watched it in years, but my god, am I glad I saw it again. It's a spectacle. It makes me love dinosaurs all over again! Watching it with my mother who shrieked at every frightening moment reminded me just how darned scary the film can be. Throughout most of the movie I was thinking, "gosh, could they make this any more wonderfully whimsical and appealing to a child?" Honest to god, hats off to John Williams. I had forgotten just how beautiful the soundtrack was - yes, the dinosaurs are terrifying, but you can't deny that the sheer magic of seeing the creatures alive on screen is just breathtaking. I can't think of a better word to describe it than "magic." It captures the awe of it just so well.
Watching it with my mother did bring me down to earth and remind me just how terrifying the movie could be to one less desensitized than I am (thanks a lot, video games!). After flicks like Land of the Lost and Night at the Museum where the tyrannosaurus rex is reduced from king of the Cretaceous to basically a big joke, it makes you appreciate how savage yet strangely noble (some say deus ex machina-inducingly noble!) the Jurassic Park t-rex was. It's a hulking and frightening monster, but it is still a mere creature of the wild doing what it does best - it doesn't track one particular woman across the globe just to give it grief like a certain shark once did, it's just a dangerous animal doing its natural thing. I think a lot of other dinosaur flicks emphasise the "oh shit giant dino wants to eat me!" element and less the part of humans invading on a land they were never part of. Yes, it's all genetic experiments and security precautions gone terribly wrong, and the characters explain in detail how there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't bode well with the thunderous lizards (you used the wrong plants, morons!), but it really captures the essence that these dinosaurs have been brought to modern day, but are still in their natural environment.
Yeah, I'm running pretty low on decent doodles - there's stuff I started that needs finished, but I'm clearly too lazy to do that anytime soon, so here's something from over a year ago. I think it was part of a crude animation project, but I honestly can't tell.
19/November/2010
Would you believe me if said I actually finally had an update after so many months of being a completely lazy arse face? If so, would you believe me if I said it was a large, extravagant update that totally makes up for my multi-month absence? If so, ha! It's just a Random Action Hour update. Yeah, even I wanted a bigger update, but it's either churn one out now or wait another five years before I realise what a good work ethic is.
I have not been up to much excitement this week. Really about the only interesting things were the ways I totally wasted my time, and a couple of things I watched.
Vampire Wars: It's another anime thing that's been sitting around for quite some time, and the name always seems to grab visitors' attention, but I'd never bothered to watch it until now. It's a typical example of a 90s OVA - an amusing piece of fluff that tries to be something big, but is overall very forgettable. I could barely even understand the plot when I watched it, and having to write about it like a week later is even worse, but I think it was something like guys from the space project and blood transfusion industry are being slaughtered, so an ex-Communist (our main hero!) is hired to look into the situation. Eventually we find out that, surprise, vampires are behind these attacks, but not just regular vampires - space vampires! They've come to Earth looking for their new ruler who will grant them stronger life and blah blah blah, but in the meantime their life-force is rejuvenated by drinking human blood.
It's probably kind of sad that despite being a total sucker for escapism fiction, the space vampire rubbish bored the crap out of me. I actually had more fun watching the down-to-earth conspiracy nonsense, if just because it was a bunch of jerks with accents being jerks to each other, with the same amount of colourful swearing as Cyber City Oedo 808. "You probably fist your wife because you don't know what to do with your cock!" Classy stuff, folks. It's only fifty minutes long and there's a fair few characters who the protagonist expo-dumps on briefly, giving the impression it's trying to create a more tiered and flavoured world that could be expanded upon later, but all it does is make you wonder where they disappear to when, well, they disappear from the plot. It doesn't help that after a fair amount of fluffing around in the opening half, the actual ending comes across as a bit unceremonious, and a bit lame. Our ex-Communist hero falls in love with a teenage film star who is now the queen of the vampires. Can you say awkward? Alternately, can you say sitcom premise?
Aside from that, there's not much I can comment on. Being a 90s OVA it tries to make the main character hardcore and "mature," so of course he constantly bangs prostitutes and breaks peoples' necks on a daily basis, but there's one particularly disturbing sequence. While expo-dumping on an old ally he's sought refuge with he explains that they went on a mission together to destroy the economy of Japan, and to do that, they crashed a jumbo jet full of nukes (!!) into Tokyo's business district, leaving it an inhospitable wasteland with only scarred remains of the once tall buildings. I'm pretty much the last guy to think anything is an allusion to 9/11, but when I saw it I was like, Christ. It's like 9/11 times a thousand! On a lighter topic, the OVA has an amusing fixation on riddling bad guys with as many bullets as possible. I'm sure I counted at least four guys who die by being shot with machine gun fire for a solid fifteen seconds before they can finally fall down. And I think one of them can still speak afterwards.
It's an amusing piece of fluff, but it's totally forgettable.
The Walking Dead: Pretty darn good! I only watched the first episode, but I was definitely impressed. It's very accurate to the original comics and it captures the atmosphere so, so well. The comics are basically a drama-filled slice-of-life in a zombie apocalypse, which actually makes for a really engaging story where you can get to know the characters very well, making it all the more heartbreaking when they kick the bucket (Axel, you were taken before your prime!), and a lot of it is simply the characters adjusting to the end of normal civilisation. I haven't kept up with the series since issue 50, but I was well and truly enjoying it... but I won't deny that sometimes the slice-of-life style and pacing felt a bit out of place in a comic. There were times when the mothers were discussing if they should let their children watch Ghost Busters or not (which is actually an amusing conversation) and I'd be like "man, is anyone going to go crazy and starting shooting people anytime soon?"
I remember the first issue of The Walking Dead being very strong, but the TV version really amps it up. It emphasises the lonely and frightening environment so, so well, and it makes such a change actually hearing the characters talk to each other. I'll be looking forward to more, though I do feel like I'm all zombie'd out lately - I've been playing Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead and House of the Dead: Overkill a lot in the past few months, I've watched a few crappy zombie movies, and zombies just seem to be the hip thing nowadays. I can't help but get the impression there's going to be a backlash against them soon enough (there's been a backlash against vampires, right?) and that'll sink any zombie-related media for a while. Then again, I'm an idiot. What do I know? It's awesome to finally see the TV adaptation after so much talk about it, and I definitely look forward to the jailhouse arc - I just hope it doesn't get cancelled before it covers all the good stuff.
Today's doodle is a scribbly Cyclonus. It's not very good. Also, man, Transformer eyes are weird.
10/November/2010
Man, forget minimum wage! If photocopying stuff for close friends gets me paid with a pumpkin cup, I'm all for it.
One thing concerns me, though...
WARNING: This is not a toy. For decoration only.
This warning label. It informs me that this pumpkin-shaped cup is not a toy. Okay, cool. If it were left at that, I could live my life happily without further question.
But then it says "for decoration only." What does that imply? The label on the bottom of its base clearly describes it as a "pumpkin mug," which suggests that you drink stuff from it. Are cups considered decorations nowadays? Do modern issues of Home Beautiful detail the many ways you can spruce up your boring living room by inventive placement of colourful drinking cups? More importantly, is it safe to drink from this? The warning label never once mentions whether or not you can drink from it! You could argue that drinking from the pumpkin mug brings unpleasant after-effects to the poor sod gulping tea from it, but I imagine it's a more down-to-earth threat like lead paint or something.
Minimum wage never raises this many questions.
The first time I showed this guy on the blog I was hoping he wouldn't end up plaguing the doodles section constantly. Laziness and a lack of other drawings to use has forced this predicament upon us!
08/November/2010
Today's observation: Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing a pigeon with a limp.
07/November/2010
"And you're just a fuckin' cow." "A fuckin' cow. That can fuckin' talk."
Was roped into watching Shrooms. Okay, I exaggerate, my dad said he was keen on watching it and I didn't really argue. It's been a while since we've sat down and watched a film, and what better movie to get us back into the routine than a slasher flick set in Northern Ireland involving shroom addicts getting axed?
... okay, plenty of things would've been better.
No, I wasn't terribly enthused by it. Basically, a bunch of American tourists and their handsome Irish guide go to the deep woods to pick mushrooms and get totally wasted, dude. What better way to set up fake-outs and jump scares than by having everyone coked out of their heads? Mercifully, only the first guy is of the guffawing and slack-jawed druggie archetype, while everyone else remains some degree of sense. After very ham-fistedly employing the "no cellphones" cliché (by claiming that having them when they're high will just result in embarrassing phone calls. Boo hoo, grow a spine!) and dropping some very forced exposition on the "black-nippled shroom" and some story about a murderer in the woods, the girl eats the dreaded shroom and has hallucinations. Hallucinations of the future! More specifically, of people dying because of a hooded murderer, and she tries her best to try and prevent them from happening.
To be frank, I wasn't very enticed. You could argue that a horror movie where everyone is doped off their skulls could have potential, at least so we could have some Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas style hallucinations, but aside from a show-stealing scene with a talking cow, the rest of the visions are just fake-out jump scares and some mildly blurry surroundings. At least the black-nippled mushroom acts as a reasonable excuse for why the leading girl has these visions - did the Final Destination series even bother explaining that? It doesn't help that once their idiotic friend wanders off and gets killed, the movie just seems to lose any real drive, and the rest of the film is just the characters wandering around aimlessly, getting spooked and being silly. The characters have a spat that indirectly results in one of their demises later on, simply because that's a horror movie staple. There are hillbillies with creepy attitudes who seem thrown in just because that's another horror movie staple (Irish hillbillies! whodathunkit?), and blah blah blah.
I repeat, I was not enthused.
There's also a ridiculous twist ending where, oh no, the leading girl was actually the masked killer the whole time! Given the obvious fact that everyone's coked off their heads and some rather suspicious time elapsing, it is pretty feasible, but I just found it really dumb. I think in books stuff like this can be executed well if done correctly, but in a visual medium it requires a certain effort to make it believable. I mean, who's to say there was a real killer, but the girl just imagined herself killing her chums? Sounds like a hook for Shrooms 2: Partners In Trippin'!
Please no.
Yeah, I thought it was a real slog. There's a couple of decent chuckles such as the guy trying to hit thrown objects while blindfolded and the ever popular talking cow, but I really don't have any good words to say about this. It's not worth watching it for those two scenes because even at eighty minutes it felt drawn-out and unsubstantial, and as a horror movie it's pretty darn lacklustre (though I'm not sure if I'd dub myself a horror movie enthusiast). I mean, I guess if you absolutely must watch another uninspired horror movie then there's nothing stopping you, but really, it's not worth it.
About the only amusing anecdote I can make about the movie is that the leading girl looks a lot like someone in my workplace. Spooooooky!
Today's doodle is a gun-toting avian. With some kind of spiky tail, I guess. Man, don't ask me.