Tuesday 31 January 2012

Anime Abandon: Ghost in the Shell

Bennet the Sage reviews one of my favourite anime and science fiction franchises.

Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses: The Movie

Saturday 28 January 2012

Is New Frontier's Wonder Woman a Hypocrite?

Ah, Wonder Woman. An Amazon who left an island that remained magically isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years, before coming to "Man's World" to spread a message of peace, and bring a message of love and compassion to the rest of the world.

This task has been interpreted in a number of different ways over the years, from straight up punching Nazis, to working as an Ambassador to the UN, to writing a book about her beliefs to spread her message one reader at a time.

But in Darwyn Cooke's excellent mini-series New Frontier, a story based during the late Fifties/Early Sixties and how superheros of the time interacted to things like the Cold War, amongst many other things, there was an instance that appeared to make Diana seems something of a hypocrite. After all, under what circumstances would someone who presents compassion and peace allow a group of unarmed men to be murdered and show no remorse for it?

Keep reading to find out my opinion...

Monday 23 January 2012

How the Return of the Jedi Should Have Ended...

Atop the Fourth Wall: Fifteen Things Wrong with Identity Crisis

Is 'the Incredibles' An Objectivist Movie?

Popular interpretation of the 2004 Pixar movie 'the Incredibles' is that it's Objectivist, as in that it holds to the principles that were laid out by Ayn Rand in her various books such as 'Atlas Shrugged', 'the Fountainhead' etc. etc. The basic idea that 'the Incredibles' shares a similar philosophy to Rand's works, where often an exceptional person or group of people are held back by the mediocrity of the government and are prevented from achieving their potential (in Rand's work it's, for example, the government keeping people from becoming stinking rich, while in 'the Incredibles' it's regular people forcing superheroes into retiring and taking up dull, pedestrian lives where they're not allowed to use their powers publicly). Are some of these criticisms accurate? ...Well a with all interpretations of media, there are a lot that seem to make a lot of sense, but the creators didn't seem to think that the Objectivist slant was that accurate.

I don't really either, to be honest. Here's my interpretation...

Wednesday 18 January 2012

RiffTrax - GhostHouse Sample

Similar, Yet Different: The Three Moriartys

With the recent Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes sequel, 'a Game of Shadows', and last Sunday's conclusion of Stephen Moffat's second series of 'Sherlock', I was struck by a number of things I thought were interesting. Namely, the ways that they portrayed Sherlock Holmes' archenemy: James Moriarty.

Now, the original one from the books was interesting in his own right: a celebrated mathematician and author of an early book on astrophysics who, at the same time, controlled all crime within the city of London. Every pickpocket, burglar, blackmailer or armed robber in town made sure that they gave the Professor a cut of their loot, in exchange for support setting up their capers as well as money for additional expenses if required.

Now both big and small screen incarnations of the character bear similarities to both each other, and their original source material, but how much so?

Here I cover the similarities and differences between the characters, and see whether sticking to source material effects the portrayal in a postive or negative manner. Is being original better than being being faithful to the books.

Now this contains spoilers for both Guy Richie movies as well as seasons one and two of Sherlock, so beware all ye who enter here. And, just to say, this is kind of my opinion, but if you have a different one, please let me know. Discussions are interesting.

Friday 13 January 2012

Korra to be Broadcast this year, maybe

Nickelodeon have confirmed that the series will be released sometime this year, not Autumn 2013 as was recently estimated.
https://twitter.com/#!/NickelodeonTV/status/157138953177280513
http://www.nickutopia.com/2012/01/10/legend-of-korra-2012-release-confirmed-by-nickelodeon/
Well, this is good news, that is if all parts of the company are aware of what the other parts are up to. Hopefully it'll be soonish. :)

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Saturday 7 January 2012

Kate Bush & Rowan Atkinson - Do Bears...?

My Top Simpsons Future Episodes

Over the two decade long run that the Simpsons has enjoyed, it seems that the episodes that are amongst the most popular are the yearly Halloween episodes, and I can't really find any fault in that. With the vaguely realistic rules that surround the regular episodes relaxed a bit, they are able to indulge in some jokes and character development that they wouldn't be able to do otherwise (for better or worse).

But for me, I've always had a soft spot for the episodes that portray how the future might be for the Simpsons Universe, as it has the same narrative freedom as the Treehouse of Horrors but generally is more emotionally invested in what's going on. Plus these episode fill the gap left when Futurama was taken off the air for the umpteenth time.

Anyways, here are the episodes based on the Simpsons' futures that I've liked the most, as of the current season (23).

Friday 6 January 2012

Disney's Fantasia 2000 - Firebird Suite

I always said that animation was an artform, and here is an example of that being true. From Fantasia 2000, Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, the 1919 version.

Thursday 5 January 2012

Movies and TV Shows I Saw Over the X-Mas Break

Over the Christmas Break, when I was travelling to and from my OS' family in Cincinnati, I ended up catching up on a lot of movies that otherwise I probably wouldn't have seen for one reason or another. And for the most part... I was actually pretty suprised. Even the ones that weren't great were actually still in the least fairly good.

Saw a good mix, and here are some brief reviews of what I ended up seeing.

Spoilers

Pingu's THE THING

Tuesday 3 January 2012

EspanolBot's Opinionated Bests and Worst in Comics of 2011

Due to moving house, I unfortunately have been unable to make any Casstoons to cover this, so here is a prose semi-list of things I thought were good and bad about comics (mainly DC) that happened in the year 2011.

Sunday 1 January 2012

EspanolBot's New Year Message

Well, I'm back from America, and what are my hopes for the new year?

Well I hope that this is a year with less earthquakes, tidalwaves and meltdowns. And hope that any revolutions to replace dictatorial regimes are actually successful, rather than installing someone worse.

I hope that there slightly less terrible people being around, following the deaths of Bin Laden, Ghaddafi and Kim Jong-Il, and again the hope that no one rises to fill their places.

Here's to a sane American general election, and the hope that Obama remains in the job and isn't replaced by a crazy person who doesn't know that Europe isn't a country or something.

Here's to people realising that humans are actually kind of awesome, to good entertainment being released, and the hope that people can make the world a little bit better in their own small ways, by not being dicks for no reason.

Here's to a happy new year, I hope you all have a good one.