Goddamn! Or "Assassin's Creed III E3 demo"

Piranha 3DD

The problem with a movie like this is having yourself a few good blog buddies, it gets hard to say anything that hasn't already been said. With that in mind, Piranha 3DD hit VOD this weekend, and most of us got our first chance to see it, myself included. I will be doing nothing except continuing the singing of it's praises here, I was promised blood, boobs, and a hell of a good time, and that's exactly what I got. I am clueless as to where all the negativity surrounding this movie is coming from, it's a movie about prehistoric piranha eating mostly naked people at a water park...were you expecting it to be the next Schindler's List? Lighten up, folks.

After the bloodbath at Lake Victoria the previous summer, the town has become deserted. The next town over has decided to take advantage of this by turning it's newly opening water park into an sexually themed oasis, complete with stripper lifeguards and a separate "adult pool" where clothing is entirely optional. Meanwhile, a whole new swarm of piranha hatches from eggs inside a cow carcass and make their way upstream, looking for a bite to eat.

Fun, period. That's all it felt to me like Piranha 3DD set out to be. There are plenty of cameos, including a completely bat-shit insane Christopher Lloyd, they guy who re-wrote the book on bat-shit insane Gary Busey himself, Ving Rhames reprises his role from Aja's Piranha 3D, and David Hasselhoff in what will go down in history as the first role he's played since Knight Rider that I didn't hate. I don't think there was any way that 3DD was going to be able to match the gloriously gory massacre at the end of the first film, but that's not to say this one isn't gory as well, it is. The gore is just a bit more over the top and silly in this one, there were several times I literally said "Oh my God" out loud, followed by lots of laughter. The nudity this time around is plentiful, as it was with previous one, but as classless as it was then, it seems to be even more so in 3DD. I'm not complaining, just saying that whereas the first time I actually felt like I was watching college kids on spring break getting nekkid, this one made me feel like I was sitting in a dark, smoke-filled strip club getting a lap dance from a coked-out stripper with huge fake boobs....not that I know what that feels like or anything....ahem. To summarize, this is every bit a John Gulager film.

My one complaint was that it was too short, with a run time that just barely hits the 70 minute mark for the actual movie, although the credits more than make-up for it. Trust me, watch the credits. Piranha 3DD pulls no punches, it makes no apologies, it simply is what it is, a slightly trashier sequel to a wonderfully trashy remake of a trashy horror flick from the 70's. It's sleazy, bloody, ridiculous, and a shit ton of fun. I can't imagine why if you know all that going in, you come away from this disappointed, I certainly didn't.

Friday Night Drive-In

In honor of my first trip to the beach next weekend, tonight my Drive-In is getting a little fishy...

They're eating the guests, sir.

Let me say this first of all, when I saw that the new Batman hardcover by Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor was shipping this week, nothing else shipping mattered anymore. Sure, a new Walking Dead is always nice, and one of my top 5 favorite Batman villains is introduced into the new 52 when Mr. Freeze makes his debut in Batman Annual #1 from Scott Snyder, which is exciting, but the first thing I picked up and started reading was "Dead by Design", and dear fictional character many believe to be responsible for our creation, it was good. So, so, so very good.

Taking inspiration from real-life events, Death by Design opens with Bruce Wayne announcing that Wayne Central Station in Gotham is being torn down in order to replace it with a more modern transportation hub. As with the destruction of any long time monument, the news is met with resistance from plenty of sources. One of whom takes particular offense at the monument's demise, and decided to take matters into his own hands to ensure that the demolition never takes place. Of course, Batman also has a little something to say in the matter.

That might not sound like enough to fill 122 pages, but believe me if you care anything at all about classic Batman stories, you will not be able to put this book down. I read the entire thing in one sitting, from cover to cover. I was in love with every single aspect of it, the art was beautiful, but it was the way it felt like reading a Silver Age story that really had me hooked. Even the setting, which wasn't really dated, was obviously set back in that classic age when comics were far more innocent than they are today. Not saying this was a kiddie book, but for those of us who have been reading for years, it was a wonderful throwback to when comics were just fun to read and the good guy always won.

For you non-long time comic readers, Dave Taylor is probably best known for his Batman work for DC in the 90's, as well as his contributions to 2000 A.D. over in England. It took Dave years to complete "Death by Design", but the detail and hard work he put into it really shows, this book is gorgeous. Reading through a brief sketchbook section in the back of the book, Dave says he drew the entire book with blue pencil, refusing to erase anything, then going back over it with graphite to darken and add depth. Absolutely nothing else was done to the art he turned in, it was published as is. The end result is a mostly black and white penciled book, with just a hint of color thrown in every few panels. To be completely honest, I was in awe of this book after reading that. It's amazing.

Chip Kidd is a legend in the graphic design field, winning multiple awards for his book and cover design. He's also worked with DC on several projects, including The Complete History of Batman, The Complete History of Superman, and my personal favorite, Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross. This is Kidd's first time writing a full length graphic novel though, and let me assure you, his knowledge of the medium goes far beyond just design. I hope this ends up being a starting point for his comics writing career, even if only in graphic novel form every few years, as he's made a life-long fan out of me with just one book.

I can't say enough good things about this book, from story to art, this is the total package when it comes to comics. It may not have been the case when I was a kid who dreamed of making comics, but I can in all honesty say that had I been able to make that dream come true, this is the kind of thing I would like to have been associated with. Highest recommendation I can give for long-time comic fans, or just people who love fantastic art work. It might not do anything for people who exclusively read new comics, but it was nothing short of magic for me.

Na-Na, Na-Na, Na-Na, Na-Na....MOOO!

Battleship

Prepare yourselves, as I'm armed and ready to defend Battleship. First things first, I am not a fan of the movie Independence Day, and if you think that bit of information alludes to the fact that I'm going to be using that movie as a basis for comparison, then the concept of foreshadowing is one that is not lost on you, congrats. Battleship set sail on theaters a little while back, armed to the teeth with special effects, aliens, and explosions, yet was met with the unfortunate momentum of the summer movie juggernaut that is the Avengers, and thusly sat dead in the water after the weekend ticket sales numbers came in. Being the morbidly curious individual that I am, I had to see for myself if it was just because of the Avengers, or if Battleship was indeed as awful as the numbers indicated. At first, I feared the worst and thought maybe everybody had been right about this one, but then the aliens surfaced, and I couldn't help myself, I turned off my brain, strapped in, and went for the ride.

This will likely be the absolute shortest synopsis for a movie plot that I have ever written, which as you may have surmised is why I'm padding this second paragraph with this fluff about how short it will be. When scientists discover a distant planet, approximately the same distance from it's sun as we are from ours, they made contact in the hopes of discovering life. They succeeded, and unfortunately for Earth, the other planet answered back.

As I reported, Battleship stumbles a bit out of the gate. The first 30 minutes or so are almost painful to watch, with cliche after cliche, some bad acting, bad dialog, and very little to actually like. It was enough to make me think I had made a horrible mistake, and made me fearful for the next 90 minutes, thinking the trailers had shown me all I needed to see after all. But when the alien shit finally does hit the Earth-fan, Battleship starts living up to it's potential in spades. Once the action starts, there's maybe 10 minutes of total downtime in the remainder of the movie. It's non-stop, good old alien on human violence, and it's absolutely gorgeous. Most of the budget went to the special effects, and they are jaw droppingly amazing. The aliens look awesome, the ships look awesome, and there's enough shit exploding to give Michael Bay a boner that even Viagra would be proud of.

As to why Battleship will likely be viewed as a failure in the long run, as I mentioned before right now the theaters are being absolutely owned by the Avengers, and rightfully so. It's going to take a combination of both time, and probably something just as big like The Dark Knight Rises to finally dethrone Marvel's monster hit. But that can't be the only reason Battleship hasn't performed as expected, and I can't help but feel like maybe if this movie had been called ANYTHING other than Battleship it would've done better for itself. There's automatically going to be a bit of a sense of hokines expected when you tell people your movie is based on a boardgame they played when they were kids. It works for other things, like video games, and might even work with more exciting premises like Dungeons and Dragons or the like. But Battleship? The game with the ships, and you call out number/letter combos hoping you hit your friends hidden ship? Lame. I wonder how many people completely disregard this movie for that reason alone? I'm willing to bet more than a few. The thing is, Battleship is actually entertaining, and is every bit as good as Independence Day which took over the world when it hit theaters, which honestly I've never understood anyway as I've said since the very first time I saw it that Independence Day is one of the most over-rated films I've ever seen. They're essentially the same movie in almost every way, except Battleship mainly takes place in the water, and most of Indy's action was in the air. Oh, and Will Smith, but if his being in a movie is the control you use to judge whether a movie is worthy of your attention or not, please feel free to never visit my blog again. The other difference is that Battleship has all the benefits of using present day technology, and therefore really brings it visually. It's light years ahead of Independence Day in this regard, and yet Independence Day is likely going to be viewed as a superior film when all is said and done. Bah.

Apologies for the Independence Day mini-rant, I just really don't like that movie. Battleship is one of those movies that comes around every summer, big budget, big action, big effects, and not much more. All that's required to enjoy these movies is some popcorn and your ability to turn your brain off for a couple of hours and feast your eyes upon the retinal porn on display. That's right, Battleship is like porn for your eyes. When all was said and done, and the credits began to roll, Battleship had been a success, at least in my eyes. It did exactly what I had hoped it would do, it entertained me for a couple of hours. It has all the trappings of your typical summer popcorner, it's as paint-by-numbers as you can get, but when the paint is as pretty as Battleship's, sometimes that's ok. Do not dismiss this movie just because of the name, if action flicks are your thing, this is definitely worth checking out.

Friday Night Drive-In

In honor of my finally buying the Subspecies 20th Anniversary Edition blu ray!

You can't destroy me Stefan...nothing can.

My Newest Addiction

Being that I'm clearly in need of a new obsession, I've recently taken up collecting shot glasses. I'm still just starting out, so I only have a few but I ran across a set on Amazon that are absolutely perfect and I wanted to share....

How badass are these?! I don't have them yet, I literally just ordered them today but I can't wait to throw them up on my shelf. If anybody knows of any more like this, or that are just cool looking, please point me toward them. I hate an empty shelf.

What are you?!

Random Screen Grab