Creative Title

Having a bit of a lazy day, at least partially due to the fact that I accidentally had caffeine at 11 last night and consequently couldn't get to sleep until after 5 am. On the other hand, Chai tea is delicious.

Now, I have two options for apology music today: Muse, or Coheed and Cambria. I've been listening to Muse a lot lately, but last night while working on I'd Hit It (yeah, sorry about the ridiculous title) to help sleepify myself, I had my Coheed and Cambria CD playing on random. A song started up that happened to match the mood of the scene (which happens to be fairly sad... actually, more guilty on my part. You'll see once part 5 rolls around) rather well. Funny thing is, that seems to happen relatively often. I just find it kind of cool.

Well, let's post the Muse video, since C&C got the link. Not sure whether or not I've put up this particular video before, but I really don't care at this point. Enjoy it quick, 'cause time is running out!

Just in case you guys missed it on Hot Air, Jon Voight wrote an article pretty much tearing up the entire democrat party, peace movement, and Obama campaign. His political leanings aren't really news to me, since I saw him a couple years ago on The O'Reilly Factor back before Bill started on his crusade against all things internet.

He's also one of my favorite actors. I've seen him in quite a few different roles, including (among many others) old father; Mr. Sir; old, grumpy father; and crazy, snake-obsessed Spanish guy. The thing is, though, unlike the large majority of actors these days, he's great in all of those parts instead of being confined to basically the same role. While he seemed pretty much perfect for his somewhat wimpy character in National Treasure, you watch Anaconda (all things considered, really not a great movie) and you can hardly see him as anything but that crazy, snake-obesessed Spanish guy. Heck, I didn't even recognize him in Holes.

Maybe it's just me. Oh well. Yay for stomping on liberals' faces!

Yeah, I actually occasionally see movies less than a decade after they're released.

Overall Impression: Cool, Hans Zimmer did the music. That's my third favorite composer.

Hah, just kidding. That's just some random thing I noticed during the credits.

Real Overall Impression: That was an awesome movie. Seriously.

This is one of those I may have to see a couple times to really "get" everything, but it would be totally worth it. First and foremost--what absolutely everyone is talking about--The Joker. Ah, but everyone has reason to talk about him... and not just because of the whole Heath-Ledger's-dead thing (may he rest in peace). It truly was a spectacular performance. He was... really very creepy. The character was completely twisted, and Heath Ledger just added to the sense of absolute psychopathy with every little thing. The sort of constant shaking, somewhat neurotic licking of the lips, extreme swaying in his walk, and--of course--the eyes. His (uh... the character's) expressions and actions weren't completely out of control, and he obviously was aware of what he was doing the entire time, but there was the obvious sadism and lack of empathy at the same time.

God help me, I'm writing a psychological profile on a fictional character. Aww... I don't think that's the first time I've done it, either.

The thing about this particular line of Batman movies that makes them stand out from... everything is that they're very darkly themed. There are no cheesy catchphrases, few jokes (though there are, in fact, some very good ones), and absolutely nothing cartoonish in any way. It hardly seems to be a "superhero" movie in any way, shape, or form. Bad things happen to everyone in here. Innocent people die--even ones we really care about, Bruce gets very injured, people are driven mad with need for revenge, and generally terrible things of the sort. Even so--and perhaps I just have a terrible mind--but it was a far better movie because of all that. It was simply realistic... well, not entirely with all the special effects and gadgets and all (what Batman does at the end of that big batmobile chase sort of scene, for example), but the emotions and characters, at least. the Joker's plans and threats and videos and everything, Harvey Dent's entire change from beginning to end, Batman's decision in the end, all that jazz. Bits were certainly surprising, but everything was realistic.

Another thing about it is that things don't stay the same in this series. The citizens' attitudes towards Batman, which decision a given person would make in a given situation, relationships, certain characters' alive/dead status, etc. There are very few things that are static, which is the way the world would really work in situations such as those presented in the movie.

Well, before I yammer too much to keep making any sort of sense (I sure hope I haven't already crossed that threshold), I'll go ahead and leave. Just go see that movie; it is truly wonderful.

I've been wanting to get back into writing lately. However, my graduation project may have been a little ambitious for one of merely 18 years of age and going through school. Apparently, novels and novellas take whole lot of effort. Therefore, I think I'll be doing some short stories in here.

The first is already planned out and may begin by the end of the week. It will be in 14 parts, but will certainly be nowhere near as great as Firefly (which happens to have been made up of 14 episodes not including Serenity). However, it will be in a blog sort of style, just because that seemed to fit with the whole thing. It will begin being posted once a week, but later on will vary more to fit the plot.

Two more things: 1) comments are incredibly helpful with fiction, especially seeing as almost the only critic I've had for the past couple of years (for my fiction) was my mom, and 2) I'm very proud of the title with which I came up, especially seeing as it's probably the worst double entendre imaginable for the plot. I'm usually terrible with titles, but I really like this one, and you may see why.

To make the day more interesting, I shall provide Shura No Hana (Flower of Carnage) from Kill Bill and sung by Meiko Kaji. Currently, she's just about my favorite Japanese singer.

There are better things to do today, but I feel like a quick post right now. Possibly followed by a root beer float.

First, Dr. Horrible got me thinking, and so I have a question: Why do all these villains make death rays all the time when it would be so much easier and cheaper to just get a gun? The basic purpose is the same, so the only reason I can think of (of which I can think) is that death rays just look so much cooler.

Second is some music. Because sometimes, you just really feel like German industrial metal. I'll just go ahead and warn of the strangeness of the videos, which should already be apparent when one sees any one of those words (with the possible exception of "industrial"), much less all three put together.

On the way to my job... yadda yadda yadda... made me feel like I was driving fast. So today's first is probably the most popular artist of this genre--at least in America. You must have been living under a rock for a couple decades if you've never heard of Rammstein and Du Hast. But the song I've been listening to is actually Rosenrot.

Ah, but there is another band to be shared. Not really less crazy, but a little different. For example, this one (called E Nomine) is Christian. Catholic, I believe, though I can't really find much information on them (not even in the Wikipedia!). So it's technically not metal, but they still sound pretty cool. I first heard of them a couple years ago whilst looking for various YouTube videos for the anime Hellsing (which I highly recommend), and happened upon Mitternacht. And... yeah, that's about it.

P.S. Just in case you want some apocalyptic 80's German pop as well, here you go. Als Scherz.

Tschüs! (Apparently, I've been spelling it wrong this whole time. I could have sworn my teacher gave it to us as tschuß).

Joss Whedon, you wonderful, crazy, maniacal genius, you've done it again.

Overall Impression: Words cannot possibly express just how great this was (and still is for another 12 hours or so).

Oh, where to begin with the praises? I hadn't known that this existed until the very day the first part came out, but I am eternally grateful that it came to my attention in time. The characters were perfectly portrayed, the songs kicked the butts of the ones in the musical Buffy episode (or really any musical ever made. And yes, that includes Sondheim's works--and I love Sweeney Todd), and the story was just too ingenius for this universe.

First, I suppose, shall be the characters. They were slightly cliche--the nerdy guy/supervillain who can't talk to a girl, the egocentric superhero who sort of bullies him, the ultra-caring girl herself, the Evil league of Evil, etc.--but there was one important thing that helped that fact make it better than anything else with a combination even vaguely similar to that: it wasn't overdone. The dialogue was simple and casual, the scenes weren't more dramatic than need be, and most importantly, the acting wasn't extreme in any way (with the possible exception of Captain Hammer, but he may have needed the extra boost of narcissism to lend more sympathy to Dr. Horrible). There were no exaggerated movements, no yelling where it's unnecessary, no dramatic pitch changes, nothing of the sort. That just seems to be a very common thing to do in spoofs of any sort--especially of the superhero genre--and everything really works better in the absence of that.

The songs--a necessary part of any musical--were very beautiful. Perhaps it's just preference of characters or certain themes, but I tended not to enjoy the pieces sung by Penny very much. I did, however, love the large majority of them. From the Bad Horse songs to the... uhh... 2nd to last one where he's all creepy and stuff (I don't know the name of it!). Apparently, Neil Patrick Harris sings incredibly well.

Now for the story itself, and--oh my goodness--I loved it so very much. As someone with a minor obsession with unusual hero/villain positions in plot (whether by changing who is the protagonist and/or changing whether the protagonist prevails in the end), I found it to be just about perfect, and certainly couldn't have done any better in my various attempts at writing. So now I'm jealous. Thanks, Joss.

But really (WARNING: Spoilers ahead), it couldn't have been any more awesome. Dr. Horrible has the two main goals: get into the Evil League of Evil, and get Penny to like him. Throughout the acts, Penny starts dating Captain Hammer after they meet basically due to a mishap or two during Dr. Horrible's wonderflonium heist. For this reason, along with the fact that Bad Horse demands a killing, he decides to kill Captain Hammer.

This is where it gets interesting and ultra-spoileriffic. There are a few possible endings when the villain is the protagonist, and only the stupidest one can really be considered happy. The protagonist can win and acheive his goal, which is sure to cause people suffering. Alternatively, he could lose and, while people will be saved, the person with whom the audience has connected and sympathized ultimately fails. This means he either dies, goes to jail, has various other misfortune befall him, or (the stupid ending here) is somehow convinced to become good. That being said, Joss Whedon and his totally unfair amount of awesome came up with something completely unexpected that I couldn't forsee. His plan to kill Captain Hammer fails, at which point the death ray explodes and Captain Hammer is defeated while Penny is killed by the shrapnel from the gun. Her death, however, gets Dr. Horrible exactly what he wanted: fear and power amongst the general population and a position in the Evil League of Evil. So it's a bit of a bitter-bitter-bittersweet ending. He gets what he wanted, but at a terrible price (TANSTAAFL to the extreme).

All things considered, it was the best thing to hit the internet since Al Gore invented it. I don't know about everyone else, but I plan to watch it as many times as possible before I'd have to pay for it. Who knows, though? Perhaps I'll get the DVD when that comes out. Later, guys.

So, I felt I should put something up here around now. I was planning on making the post by yesterday, but stuff came up (like running one of my mom's many WoW characters through an instance, for example).

As any reader probably knows by now, I've been in a music/band-discovering kind of mood lately. That being said, I think I may have found a temporary favorite artist--at least of the classic rock genre. Yet my parents don't have a single one of their albums...

Perhaps three weeks ago or so, I was on my way over to my sister's place. A rather neat song came on the radio and I ended up rather enjoying it. When it ended, the person mentioned the name of it and stated that it was by Foreigner. Now, this rang a very loud, obnoxious bell in my head, as I knew there was a song with which I'd been obsessed in the past by that particular band. Unfortunately, however, I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was.

Luckily, that particular song came on the radio the very next morning as I left to return home. Naturally, that was Cold as Ice, and I have, in fact, mentioned it on here before, mostly in reference to a funny scene from Supernatural (Here. It's the link that says "this video"). Of course, by that time, I'd long since forgotten what the one I'd heard the day before was. Nonetheless, I went on glorious YouTube and found a couple more that I quickly grew to enjoy.

This brings me to last friday after Tang Soo do. I got in my awesome mini-tank of a car and headed out of the parking lot. As I was about to turn onto the street, the song that had been playing ended and the announcer was nice enough to let me know what it was. Lo and behold, it was the one for which I had been searching! It just so happens that it turned out to be Blue Morning, Blue day, which I've since not enjoyed quite as much. It's got a bit of a Munsters feel at times, though it's still certainly good.

The other day, then, I was going through a good list of various songs by both them and Blue Oyster Cult (love them too) whilst cleaning my room, which by then had Double Vision and Jukebox Hero among the ranks. However, the video I'll actually be embedding is Urgent, just because it's the one that was playing when my mom walked in and approved of the percentage of floor space visible. She commented that it was good, and that our NJ friend also liked it.



And it won't stop either. While writing this post, I also found that Foreigner did Blinded by Science. This is starting to get a little annoying.

So I can't find the second one. I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually.

Overall impression: Jeremy Irons! YEAH!!!

Now, I said in my review of the first movie that Alan Rickman had nearly the perfect villain voice. However, I have long since believed that Jeremy Iron's voice knocks anyone else's right off the face of the planet. This time around, though, I wasn't aware of the gorgeous casting before my viewing of the movie. During the second call from Simon to the police, I began to realize that he sounded somewhat familiar (and not just because it's actually very similar to that of Rickman's. Perfect casting, I tell you.). Whilst pondering this, I determined that it must be Iron. Being my careful self, I wouldn't say for sure until the credits, at which time it was confirmed. He was just a little hard to recognize without a mane and a scar... and blonde hair (that was a new one). Rickman does give the impression that he'll kill you in just a few seconds, but Irons gives that plus the idea that he'll be laughing about it the whole time.

But that's enough of that. The rest of the movie turned out to be very good. It's rather rare that the quality of a series doesn't plummet after the first one (See Indiana Jones (particularly Temple of Doom) and Pirates of the Caribbean for examples of this). Yet--to my knowledge--that doesn't seem to be the case at all in Die Hard. I'll admit that this one wasn't quite as good as the first, but it was still an exhilarating ride from beginning to end. John McClane's character didn't change one bit, and they didn't seem to be trying to make the storyline bigger, better, more meaningful, or anything of the sort. It was simply a continuation of the first one, but with enough important differences to make it its own movie.

For example, there was the entire style in which it began. The first movie gave us a great deal of exposition on all the characters, their relationships with each other, etc. before anything remotely exciting happened. This one, however, lures you into a sense of security by playing a nice song (those sideburns!) and letting you lazily half-read the credits. Then, all of a sudden, BOOM! A bomb goes off near the street, and you're plunged, without bathing suit or noseguard, into the cold waters of the plot. That was actually probably the best beginning I've seen yet--or at the very least, the most creative. However, it's something that may only work in a sequel, as background information is absolutely essential for any good story. It just so happens that anyone who sees this is expected to already be familiar with John McClane and what happened to Hans Gruber. Since that is probably the usual case, it worked very well for this movie.

If I have any qualm, it is that the "Yippie-ki-yay, motherf*cker" line felt far less like it belonged in the context of the film than the first one. On the other hand, I would have been incredibly disappointed had it not been present at all, so we get the double-edged quote-sword here that ends up being present in just about any sequel. However, the side that they chose to use was immensely less painful than the alternative, so I can't really complain. At least it wasn't overused the way some quotes end up being ("Why is the rum gone?" anyone?).

All-in-all, it was a wonderful movie. I was very pleased with the way it managed to live up to the standards of the first one and didn't try to overshoot it or anything of the like. It turned out very well, even though it wasn't Christmas, (and) he didn't get any help from Alan (Yeah, great video. Thanks, Hober).

It helped me find a song today. On the way back from the office, most radio stations were again conspiring to air all their commercials at one time. It is during these times that I usually turn to the college radio station (if that's also in on it, it's time for the classical channel!). The songs on there aren't always great, and I've never heard any song twice, but there's occasionally one that I particularly enjoy and decide to look up.

That's sometimes a little hard to do when they don't tell you what the song is when it's over. Therefore, I memorize a line or two to search, and I usually do come up with what I wanted. I've so far only found two songs this way, but you only get one today. Ha ha. Enjoy State of Massachusetts by Dropkick Murphys:



I like it. Sounds vaguely Flogging Molly-esque (In case you haven't heard them, I recommend this one), though not really Irish at all. The banjo adds a nice sense of individuality.

Well, another post eventually. For now, there is a graduation party for a friend to which I must go.

Overall impression: Dude, that was the best movie ever. Seriously awesome.

This was another one of those that I've been meaning to see for a while, but have continually procrastinated on actually doing so. So sue me, my dad felt that it was more necessary for me to be able to change a tire should I have to rather than be knowledgable of the awesome action movies of the time. However, I recently found out that Alan Rickman plays the villain, and I just couldn't deny myself that movie any longer. It's the voice--far too perfect for any bad guy. Sort of like Vincent Price, but instead of a somewhat cartoonish creepiness, Rickman's got more of a "I'm going to kill you right now" kind of creepy.

Granted, the plot may not have been the deepest one imaginable, but the movie certainly had plenty of storyline behind, around, and through it. It also had lots and lots of explosions, gunfights, blood, and other forms of awesomeness. To me it had nearly a perfect balance of the two, actually. The exact amount of various fight scenes did outweigh the amount of plot, but it certainly wasn't lacking in thought. Every time someone was killed or some spectacular explosion took place, it had a clear purpose in the film. Not only that, but it gave plenty of background on every character--even Al, the random police officer talking to McClane on the radio the whole time.

Speaking of Al, I also loved how this completely lacked the whole PC "guns are evil" brainwashing. In fact, it seemed rather pro-gun, save for the fact that the only good people doing any shooting were police. What happened with Al was that he'd apparently accidentally shot a kid years back and "couldn't draw my gun on anybody again." Yet at the end, when a bad guy comes out of the building looking dead-set on killing everyone in sight, Al is the one who shoots and kills him--and that's a happy ending! I just love seeing actual logic in movies.

There's really not a thing I didn't like about it. The gunwork was, of course, a little hollywood-esque, but at least people didn't cock their guns two or three times before firing or anything major like that. It wasn't anywhere near unbearable.

One last note: the "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf*cker" line was delivered with infinitely more greatness than I could have possibly imagined. It was almost beautiful.