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Random Reviews

Movie Review – Trolls

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A bunch of tiny multi-coloured misfits living and singing in the forest, happy as Larry with only the worry that some big baddy will come along and snatch them to eat.  No I’m not talking about the gay version of the Smurfs (or am I?), I’m talking about the latest kids movie to hit the cinema – TROLLS.

 

First off, let me clarify that I did not see this movie by choice.  Rather I got roped into it via work.  While I usually enjoy animated movies just as much (and usually more if I’m honest) as the next adult I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like this movie.  And lo I was right!

If you have a daughter aged between 5 and 13 then this is probably a brilliant movie for them.  If not in that gender or age group than this movie is a definite miss.  There is very little to recommend it to male proclivities and there are none of the subtle adult-aimed jokes that usually permeate animated movies in order to give the grown-ups a chuckle on the sly. This is very much a movie for little girls, with scrapbooking, hugs and glitter abounding.

 

PLOT

The movie follows a very Smurf’esque plot.  Happy little fraggers living in the forest singing away until a big bugger comes along and grabs a bunch for dinner (yes Gargamel in the movies was after their essence but I think in the cartoon he was gonna eat them or something.  I don’t know if Gargamel himself knew, senile old coot living alone with his cat that he was).  So Princess Poppy, who caused the mess by throwing a huge party teams up with the one grumpy misfit didn’t attend (Branch) to go rescue their friends before they become snacks.  That’s it for plot.  I wont bother going into it further as there is bugger all to say, there really isn’t.  It is so formulaic – Branch learns to be happy, the Trolls get away and the bad guys learn to be good.  Yawn.

VISUALS

The graphics of the movie are quite good.  The trolls are all ultra-colourful, can change shade seemingly at will and there are even a few glitter-based ones that seem to fart sparkles (the one crude joke in the movie, used too early and too many times to be funny).  The bad guys – the Bergens, are all green with crooked teeth and look like the atypical ogres out of a fairy tale.  Personally my favourite of the visual effects were when Princess Poppy first takes off to rescue her friends and various parts of the landscape come alive to try and eat her.  This was done in a clever fashion and was subtly reminiscent in some ways of the old Yoshi’s Island game on the SNES.

Also something I found clever visually was the way the Troll characters used their hair, which of course is what the toys have been known for for decades.  They use their hair to grapple, change its colour for camouflage and even turn it into stairs.  It was used in quite a different number of ways and full credit to the writers for how they did so.

MUSIC

The music is, like the whole movie, aimed at young girls with it being a relentless teeny-bopper fest.  I did like them using a Gorillaz track when we first encounter Bergen city.  For young girls the music is great – for the rest of us not so much.  But then this movie starts Justin Timberlake so what do you expect – it’s his target demographic.

VOICE ACTING

The voice acting is fairly standard and uninspired.  I was shocked to see John Cleese come up in the credits, I’m guessing he must have been the old King or something.  Gwen Stefani, Russel Brand – none of them really do a stellar job with what is a very simple script.  The only decent voice actor in the whole thing is Christine Baranski, immediately recognisable to anyone who watches The Big Bang Theory or was a fan of Cybil many, many years ago.  She does a great job as the main antagonist and her expressiveness leaves the rest of the cast in the dust.

 

WORTH WATCHING?

So is this movie worth your hard earned bucks?  If you are the type of grown up that still has a pink, fluffy diary that you write all your secret hopes and wishes in and dreams of one day meeting a nice boy who would rather hold your hand then get your knickers off then I guess maybe.  But otherwise, unless you have a daughter who really wants to see it, stay well clear.

 

So have you seen Trolls yet?  Will you see it after reading this review?  Would love to hear your thoughts below!

 

 

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Movie Review – Bad Santa 2

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A foul mouthed, alcoholic, sex-obsessed criminal in a Santa suit freaking out kids and shagging everything in sight.  13 years ago we got introduced to Willy – better known to the world as Bad Santa.  A movie that to this day remains my favorite ever Xmas movie and in my top 10 movies of all time (along with Sling Blade – Billy Bob Thornton rocks my world!).  And now in 2016 Willy and his crew are back for the long awaited sequel – Bad Santa 2.

First off, let me say that deep down I always knew this movie would not be as good as the original.  There was almost no way it could be.  Even Billy Bob was quoted in an interview during production that he thought the movie would be good but not as good as the first.  But the trailers had me hooked from the get-go, to the point that when I found out my local cinema would not be playing the flick I drove 180km to Echuca just so I could see Willy on the big screen.  That’s the kinda obsessed fan I can be.

This movie picks up 13 years after the original and that is fully demonstrated by the reappearance of Thurman Murman, the fat, curly-headed, slow witted kid from the first flick.  Thurman is all grown up now and turning 21, Willy’s birthday present for him being a session with Opal the prostitute (who was also in the first movie) which he makes Thurman pay for himself, though he runs off rather than going through with the act.  Listening to Willy instruct Thurman on how to have sex is one of the filthier and funnier moments between the two in the movie and quite the laugh.

Willy and Thurman’s relationship was the main focus of the first movie, showing how Thurman’s naïve trust and affection for Willy as Santa slowly teased out a glimmer of humanity from the drunken crook.  In this movie their relationship hasn’t changed.  Willy still talks to Thurman like he is an irritant, but feels some need to keep the grown up Thurman under his crooked wing.  While Willy never puts Thurman ahead of himself, he finds himself never able to completely abandon him when he is in need either.  While there are some short funny scenes between the two, their relationship never really grows in this film like it did the first, and Thurman is very much a secondary character, more of a hassle for Willy to take care of, even if that means dumping him in a hobo hostel where men are actively either vomiting or masturbating.   A very touching scene near the end of the movie shows Thurman singing in a choir and Willy, despite running late to rob a safe, can’t pull himself away.  Willy stands there almost in tears watching him sing, while Thurman’s face lights up with pure joy when he see’s Willy in the audience.

We also see the return of Marcus, the angry dwarf from the first movie.  Marcus, having been arrested after events of the first movie (which included trying to kill Willy at the end) has gotten out of prison after ten years and is going straight back to his old tricks.  He recruits Willy for a job where a safe-cracker is needed and takes him to Boston.  Once again, there is no real development of the relationship between the two from the first movie, their tit-for-tat mean-spirited bickering being a highlight of the original flick.  While we get some similar scenes here, every time they seem to be able to kick off properly they are interrupted by Willy’s Mother (whom we shall come to) laughing at or repeating one of their insults.  I found this to be a bit irritating, interrupting the flow of a dialogue which proved such a highlight in the first movie.  But like Thurman Marcus has been relegated to a secondary character.

The new character we are introduced to is Willy’s mother (played by Kathy Bates) who  has been in contact with Marcus since he got out of jail and arranged for him to bring Willy in on the job, knowing full well that Willy would say no immediately if she approached him directly.  This is the new focus of this movie, watching the relationship between Willy and his mother rekindle.  Willy’s mother proves every bit as foul as Willy, having fallen pregnant with Willy when she was 13 (according to her the only time Willy’s father didn’t give it to her in the ass) and giving birth to him in a state correctional facility, not realizing she had actually given birth until she tripped over him lying on the floor.  Throughout the movie it is portrayed that while she is an immoral, foul-spoken, dirty-minded, career criminal (explaining a lot about why Willy is the way he is in the process, she even framed him when he was 11 for a crime that she committed) she is also is trying to reconnect with Willy, due to her age and failing health, stating the reason she brought him in on the job because she thought it would be fun for them to work together.  Willy hates her with a vengeance, and quite rightly so, but over the movie softens that tiny bit, stealing a bottle of cough medicine for her and even smiling (albeit once) at one of her jokes.  She also presents him with the first gift she has ever given him in his life, a gun in case Marcus tries to kill him again.

Willy in the movie is, well, Willy.  The character has not changed since the first movie in any significant way except for at the start being so depressed he tries to commit suicide twice.  You still see that glimpse of softness you saw in the first movie when dealing with Thurman, though in usual Willy style this softness is portrayed as trying to abandon Thurman at a Laundromat and stealing his money, only to come back a minute later swearing at himself for being so weak to do so.  Willy’s sex-obsession is well in play, be it getting a handjob from a former shotput champion, having sex with the lady who runs the charity (played by Christina Hendricks who Willy quite accurately describes when trying to sweet talk her as having ‘humongous f*cken titties’) behind her husbands back and revisiting his predilection of having anal-sex with overweight women.  It’s shown that Willy has never truly gotten over his love affair from the first movie (stating at the start of the movie that there is only so many times you can throw up in someones lap before it kills the romance) when he keeps asking Hendricks character to wail ‘F*ck me Santa!‘ like his old girlfriend used to during sex.  Willy doesn’t have as many great lines in this movie as the last, a lot of which spouted from his drunken rages at having to be Santa again.  In the first movie he was bitter and very angry, whereas in this one he is bitter and comes across as just tired of it all.  He even see’s having to seduce and sodomize the hefty, slutty security guard as a chore.

And overall maybe that is the problem with this movie.  Willy comes across as tired because he’s done it all before and this movie as a whole suffers from that same issue.  While they have tried to introduce a new element with Willy’s mother, it just isn’t enough.  It’s the same jokes, the same antics, the same everything.  13 years ago a lot of these jokes packed a punch, these days folk are more desensitized.  The crux of the first movie was Willy’s degenerate behaviour and how others reacted to it.  In this movie Willy is actually that bit more moral than both Marcus and his mother which removes a lot of the humor.  There is no real character development or growth for Willy, except for the aforementioned very slight softening towards his mother.  Marcus is the same backstabber, Thurman comes across as a slightly more confident grown up version of himself but essentially the same, and Willy’s mother, who is now the new most detestable character, just isn’t as funny in this position due to the other characters and the public not really reacting to her wicked ways.

That isn’t to say this is an awful movie.  There were a few times I laughed damn hard, but it could be that my affection for the first movie made me more amenable to those gags than most.  But Bad Santa 2 movie is definitely a ‘Ghostbusters 2’ of a movie.  By this I mean it’s great to see the characters you love back on the big screen, but the magic and fun of the first movie just isn’t there.  I’m glad I saw this movie, but I wont be rewatching it 13 years later like I still do the first.

So have you seen Bad Santa 2?  Will you see it after reading this review?  Would love to read your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Live Show Review: An Evening With Henry Rollins

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The Show: An Evening With Henry Rollins

The Performer: Henry Rollins (funny that)

The Venue: Arts Centre, Melbourne

Date: September 19, 2016

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Last week I once again had the privilege of watching the aging alternative icon live.  This is the third time in the last 10 years I have been able to see Henry Rollins do his spoken word show in person.  In fact if you ever get the chance to watch the ‘Henry Rollins Provoked: Live from Melbourne’ DVD you can listen to me during the credits raving about how the show was 3 ½ hours long and I wish it had been even longer!  Or else that snippet of my fanboy gushing is on youtube at the 4.45 mark HERE.

 

The performance this year was at the State Theater in Melbourne, a huge room that fits just over 2000 and indeed it was completely packed out.  It was interesting to see the rest of the crowd, I think the majority were in their thirties and forties with a smattering of fans in their twenties and a healthy dose of the 50+ range.

Rollins was his usual self.  For an 8pm start he hit the stage at 8.05 (and I think the only reason he waited 5 minutes was for the latecomers to be seated) and as soon as he picked up the mike the mouth started going and didn’t stop for 2 ½ hours (good value for a 2 hour show eh!) with big dollops of sweat dropping from his left elbow illuminated in the spotlights.  As usual he started off talking about some of the local issues, in particular how despite his extensive vocabulary he had to look up the word ‘plebiscite’ and then proceeded give voice to what many Aussies at this time are thinking “Really?  Spending 160 MILLION DOLLARS on a question that in this century should be a complete no-brainer?”

I’ve noticed over the years that Rollins talks less and less about his showbiz days and more and more about his travels to different countries and this show was no different.  In fact the two showbiz stories he did tell I had heard before (about being on a plane with Motorhead and when he had lunch with David Bowie) but it was nice to hear them again and let’s face it, it’s hard to do new material for fans that obsessively watch every second of stage time you perform whenever another fans loads it on youtube.

I was a bit afraid that this show may go the way of the second live show I had seen him perform, which had been great as always but had almost verged on being a bit too preachy in telling people how they should travel more (I’d love to Mr. Rollins, truly I would.  However I have a wife, kids and a mortgage that sadly I have to support with a day job which precludes me from taking off to Nepal on a whim).  But no, while there were lots of travel stories they were funny, entertaining and I can’t get the image out of my head of Rollins listening to Iggy Pop while half buried in snow at the South Pole, fecal-covered penguins rutting like mad not 5 feet away.

The rest of the show was talking about how various old ideas society holds need to either reworked or thrown out which lead into discussions about his family (I had heard a lot about his family on different spoken word CD’s but even I learned some things about the man’s life I didn’t know before) and various other topics.  He often talked about the hate emails he gets for not hating particular groups like LGBIT’s and various ethnic groups and being told to get out of the county, sadly a trend that seems to be cropping up on our once ‘most friendly nation on earth’ continent as well.  One thing both I and my mate Matt who came with me noted was that Rollins did not swear once.  I mean – not one time!  Now he has never been particularly prolific with his penchant for profanity but neither have I heard him shy away from using f*ck, sh*t, a**hole and the like when emphasizing a point or when a sentence could benefit from it.  But not one swear here, in fact when giving examples of what people say about his President he would utter sentences like “Oh the President is a BEEP BEEP BEEP”.  Yes, he actually said BEEP.  I don’t know whether the lack of his usual mild obscenities was due to being in such a classy place like the State Theatre or whether this is par for the course for him now that he has reached the respectable age of 55.  Could it perhaps be a result of his vegetarianism?  His first spoken word CD I ever listened to a looong time ago to had plenty of curse words whilst talking about eating in Russia and mocking the vegetarians for the crappy food they were about to receive (“C’mon Veggie boy – eat your shit, you non-warrior pussy!”) and how he was looking forward to his big hunk of meat.  Now he eats no meat at all and uses BEEP in a sentence.  There may be no correlation there but I do wonder.  Meat and swearing and now neither swearing nor meat…. hmmm…  this requires study.  I best start rounding up a large enough pool of test subjects to examine this hypothesis.

 

Anyway, once again Henry Rollins provided a great show.  As said, he went a good half hour over time which means you were getting even better value for money. He was intelligent, insightful, witty, funny and was able to entertain the crowd discussing a diverse range of subject matter.  So if An Evening with Henry Rollins sounds good to you (and I know a few female friends who certainly wouldn’t mind) try to catch a show before he heads back overseas – if you miss him this time then I encourage you to catch him on his next Aussie tour.

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Movie Review: Sausage Party

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Some movies make you laugh.  Some movies move you to tears.  Some movies dazzle you with fast paced action and brilliant special effects.

And sometimes you come across that movie that makes you walk out of the cinema with your brain slowly dribbling out of your ear saying “What the bloody hell did I just watch?!?”

If you like that kind of movie, then you will love Sausage Party.

Looks a hell of a lot more innocent than it is!
Looks a hell of a lot more innocent than it is!

 

This movie is not for everyone.  In fact I will say it is probably not for most people.  Old people?  Nope.  Sensitive people?  Nope.  Normal people?  Nope.  Underage people?  Oh dear god no – you’ll traumatize them for life!

This movie is really designed around the concept of “The kind of messed-up jokes you make to your mates when no one else is around”.  You know, all the really wrong stuff that would make someone avoid you for life or get you arrested but you could say to a close mate so you could both laugh at how wrong simply saying such a thing is in the first place.  This movie is full of racist stereotypes (jars of sauerkraut going to ‘kill the juice’, falafel that thinks it is going to get 72 virgin olive oils etc), foul language (the c-bomb gets dropped 5 minutes in), drug use (everything from a twinkie getting stonned to a guy shooting up bath crystals on his couch) and just really, really wrong stuff (a used condom talking with fresh semen dripping from its mouth, corn kernels on a human shit moaning like ghosts).  The protagonist is a hot dog that has come to question the after-store myths that everyone is lead to believe and the nemesis of the movie is a douche that sticks itself up a clerks arse then uses the clerks scrotum to steer his actions.  That’s about it for plot.  This is definitely a movie where the writing staff, baked out of their brains no doubt, decided when pitching ideas “Oh yeah, that is soooo f*cked up!  Let’s put it in!”

That’s not to say it is a bad movie.  I enjoyed it well enough and it appealed to the part of me that used to watch the likes of South Park religiously.  I can’t say I ever actually laughed out loud, more had lots of ‘Holy shit!’ moments when something even more disturbing than what happened before came along.  And the end scene with every bit of food, no matter its gender or use-by-date, just f*cking the living shit out of every other bit of food was so madly messed up I just sat there with my hands over my mouth going ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’.

 

I really don’t know whether to recommend this movie or not. But if you want to challenge your own moral code to see just what you can withstand, then it’s a way to kill a couple of hours.

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Comic Shop Review: Good vs Evil

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Living in the countryside for a pop-culture fanatic can be hard.  Everyone plays footy instead of watching sci-fi and good luck when it comes to finding someone that can translate a Klingon text for you.  However if you are in Victoria, at least if you are into comics you are covered, thanks to a shop called Good vs Evil.

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Located in Bendigo, Good vs Evil would easily have the biggest comics range in central Victoria.  A whole wall in adorned in comics and there are usually plentiful stacks of all the latest issues to come out that week sitting on the counter for you to peruse.

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Like many comic shops these days, Good vs Evil has diversified to take into account the ever expanding needs and interests of the Pop Culture enthusiast.  There are sections of DVDs, a full section of various Manga and of course the obligatory collectables such as Pop! figures and and board games based on movies and video games.

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There is also the Games Workshop section.  Now all that stuff is kinda a closed book to me, I tend to look at it in the same way outsiders look at me collecting Transformers, thinking “Wow – do the guys into this ever get laid?”.  But I’ve seen on Saturday afternoons the store opened up with tables set up for big groups of guys all sitting there playing this stuff so it must have its appeal, and its great to have somewhere to meet to indulge the interest.

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Speaking of Transformers, here is why I personally shop there. Matt, the owner, is a fellow TF fan and I have been relying on his faithful service to get me every TF comic I require for the past five years.  He always comes though, and something that is a sign of a proprietor that genuinely cares about his clientele, I’ve often rocked into the store for him to say “Trev, I saw this and knew you would want it and chucked it aside for ya”.  After this fashion I’ve gotten all the FP TF publications over the last few years as well as the physical copies of what were originally net comics.  And if ever I find out about a comic that is now years old that I want, Matt is sure to do his best to track it down for me – a top bloke indeed!

How can you not trust two dudes in Grimlock t-shirts?
How can you not trust two dudes in Grimlock t-shirts?
So if you are after a Comic Shop experience where the owner is the guy behind the counter and will look after ya, will cater for everything you need to the best of the stores ability, and can be a great place to just hang out, then I heartily suggest visiting Good vs Evil in Bendigo.  Tell’em Big Angry Trev sent ya!

 

P.S: There has been no ‘Comics for Comments’ deal here.  If anything I’m slightly resentful towards Matt – I’d love nothing better than to run my own comic shop and that bugger is living the dream I should be!

 

Note: If in one of the major cities I can recommend Pulp Fiction in Adelaide and Comics R Us in Melbourne.  Pulp Fiction is small but the owner is great for a laugh and will pour through box after box to find you what you want.  Comics R Us in Melbourne has a funny crew of guys who have often had Bill Hicks playing on the store speakers of a Sunday morning and their glass cabinets often have a range of old 80’s toys in there that the rare toy hunter will drool over.  Minotaur in Melbourne has a huge range of pop culture stuff but it can all be quite expensive.  There is also Kings Comics in Sydney that I visited many years ago that I found some HOC figues at and I quite liked Daily Planet comics in Brisbane.  I’ve been to one other there but can’t remember which.  Should I ever hit up these big cities again a more detailed review will come your way!

 

 

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Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond

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To boldly go where no movie has gone before?  Well, considering this is the 13th Star Trek flick its going where the movies have been going for decades!  Simon Pegg once said that every odd numbered Star Trek movie is shit, considering he cowrote this one lets see if his prophecy is self-fulfilling with Star Trek Beyond.

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The third in the new series of Star Trek movies, this picks up a few years after the last one, where the crew of the Enterprise are three years into their 5 year mission.  Kirk is getting sick of travelling deep space and wants to move to the admiralty (as he had in the very first, and arguably, very worst Star Trek flick) and Spock is considering resigning his commission to go help what survivors of the Vulcan race are left after the events of the first of the new Star Trek movies.

But of course, something comes up (otherwise this would be a movie about politics and administration and we already have the Star Wars movies from the 90’s for that).  An alien woman asking for help for her crew stranded on the other side of a nebula which blocks all scanning and transmissions.  And off goes The Enterprise like intergalactic boy scouts  to do some good.

Very quickly we are treated to a big space-battle scene.  Thousands of dart-shaped ships acting as swarm, smashing into the Enterprise from all directions!  Some of these darts pierce the ship to release soldiers, others are just used to tear big holes in the hull.  The Enterprise very quickly finds itself completely outmatched and over the prolonged scene we get to see it completely destroyed a piece at a time.  Soon only a damaged saucer section is left and it goes crashing into the planet below (much like Star Trek: Generations).

The reason for all this?  Some little disk thingy the bad guy wants, that ironically Kirk tried to give to a bunch of ugly little fraggers at the start of the movie that were too paranoid to accept it.  After everything moves planetside the bad guy discovers he does not have it due to a switch and all the surviving Enterprise crew are either held in a detention camp or, if they are one of the stars, emerging from evacuation pods in the forest.

We are treated to some nice scenes between Spock and Bones during their struggle to find shelter for the seriously injured Spock, though they lack the magic, adversarial repartee that Kelly and Nimoy were always able to bring.  We also come to know the one good alien in the movie, a blond, slightly scary, slightly sexy survivalist who Scotty brokers a friendship with.  Over the film she becomes one of the few characters you actually come to care about – for an alien she comes across a lot more fragile yet strong and human than most of the actual human characters.  Strangely, Kirk doesn’t try to shag her, it must have been an off day for him what with losing the Enterprise and all.

As the crew on the loose hatch a plan, we get to see the why the bad guy wanted the disk (which Kirk had hidden in a crewmates head.  Considering it was Kirk and a female crew member this shows unusually tactful restraint on his part).  It triggers a bio-weapon that completely destroys organic life.  As weapons go, it’s just a little black cloud so not nearly as impressive as the black-hole generating red goop of the first of the new flicks.  He plans to release it into a gigantic space station we saw in the film earlier and which is really one of the major feats of CGI in the movie – it looks fantastic as a brain-bending, gravity altering snow-globe in space.

 

So off the bad guy goes with his dart-ship armada to lay waste while the crew, now rescued by Kirk on a motorcycle, find an old starship and fly off to stop him.  What we are treated to is the next big battle scene in the movie which on the one hand is awesome and the other hand has a lot of holes in it.  The crew discover that all the darts share a link to stop them crashing into each other and it can be disrupted with loud enough noise if broadcasted close enough.  So on goes a track by The Beastie Boys and they surf the space-wave of darts, them blowing up by the thousands to some bitchin tunes!

It sounds awesome, it looks awesome, but in the context of the movie it doesn’t make sense.  None of the darts are ever seen to be drones, they all have pilots, so why didn’t they scatter from each other?  Also, the ones stationary on the Space Stations hull also blow up – why?  They are not crashing into anything and it’s not like the dart and Bones and Spock are flying blows up as well.  And while there were thousands of darts before, there are MILLIONS now!  Certainty a lot more than were seen leaving the planet earlier.  But it makes for cool candy for the senses and we are talking about fictional space battles so I suppose one should not treat it too seriously.

As the battle with the main bad guy (naturally his ship survived while millions of others didn’t) moves into the space station we find out the truth about him.  It was his ship on the planet that crashed there over a hundred years ago and through alien technology he and his crew found there they discover a way to live longer, though it mutates them and allows them to an extent to change their bodies.  Now I liked this on the whole as I felt one of the things lacking in this movie up to that point was a backstory for the antagonist as well sufficient reasoning for him attacking the Federation.  It turns out he was a Captain during wartime but when the wars finished and the Federation evolved into a peaceful society, he found himself a solider without a fight.  Thus the bad guy in this movie, much like the Star Trek 2 and Star Trek Into Darkness is a human with extra powers.  Kinda cool.

However as cool as this is it leaves more plot holes in the storyline.  How did the crew of one small ship, over the course of not much over a century, grow into the millions?  How were they able to construct so many of those ships?  And if their longevity comes from sucking the lifeforce of other humanoids, how did they find enough aliens in this supposedly remote sector of space to do that without resorting to cannibalizing each other?  Frankly, even in this fictional world, it just doesn’t make sense for this old captain to have been able to make such a force with such limited materials and manpower over that time period.

Anyway, the movie comes to its rather predictable conclusion, and reaching the 2 hour mark you feel well and truly ready for it to be done.  Protagonist fights antagonist, Kirk sacrifices himself to save space station which results in bad guy getting eaten by own weapon, Kirk about to die but saved by Spock and Bones.  For a pretty good movie, the ending was very by-the-numbers and you instinctively know what is going to happen before it does.

 

So despite the flaws mentioned, is Star Trek Beyond worth watching?  Well, yes.  The acting is good, the special effects are excellent, the battles are entertaining and if you are a Trekkie like me you can’t bypass one of these flicks.  There are also for the Trek savvy lots of nice little Easter Eggs, such as Scotty saying that a ship was taken by a giant green hand (it happened in TOS – no really, it did!), Sulu having a daughter and his partner being male (Sulu had a daughter in Star Trek Generations and in real life George Takei who played him in the original series is a proud homosexual and proponent of gay marriage) and lots of other tiny little nods to other iterations of the franchise.  There are also some nice homages to Leonard Nimoy who as most of you would know appeared in the first two new movies but died before this one.  Whilst not delving too deep and not being too morose, both at the start and the end of the movie we are shown new Spock dealing with the death of the original Spock and what implications this has for the world.

 

So yeah, set your phasers to ‘relatively-fun’.  It may go where other movies have gone before, but at least it does it with extra explosions and a bitchin soundtrack!

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DVD/Blu Ray Review – Deadpool

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Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth!  And the Merc with a hugely successful movie that out- grossed at the box office nearly every other Marvel movie to date!  Being a very dedicated Deadpool fan for many years I couldn’t wait for this flick to come out, and then being suitably impressed with it I then had the wait to buy my own copy.  Luckily for me Deadpool is now available on DVD and Blu Ray pretty much everywhere.

But is it worth getting?  Well if you loved the movie of course!  But often it’s the extras on a disk that can make one decide whether to buy it now or buy it for a third the price in a few years time.   I personally got the Blu Ray so here is a rundown of the extras on it to help inform your decision.  By the way, this review is working on the basis that you have already seen the movie itself.  If you haven’t – well it’s awesome!  Now that that is said, on with the extras!

 deadpool

 Deleted/Extended Scenes

Nothing of major note, although one particular one shows Deadpool using his wall calendar a lot to show the progression of years of searching for Francis.  I didn’t pick up in the movie that it took him years, and after seeing this deleted scene I had to really watch the movie carefully again to pick up that’s what happened.  There is a pretty full on scene with him down in Mexico too so overall they aren’t a bad watch.

Gag Reel

It’s just a bunch of the actors laughing when they stuff up their lines – nothing special.

Galleries

Interesting to see the development of Deadpool’s suit and all the tiny changes they made.  But besides that, unless you are a CGI artist interested in how they designed the backgrounds and Colossus there is not a lot to hold your attention.

From Comics to Screen to Screen

Goes for about 80 minutes.  This is where you will see all the behind the scenes stuff.  It’s quite interesting to listen to how Deadpool actually getting made came down to the constant campaigning of 5 individuals (including Ryan Renyolds himself)  and all the hassle that came with getting this movie, not only to be released, but with the higher audience rating.  What was interesting was that every time the tiniest bit of a clip was shown from the movie it usually involved swearing, which is not a surprise, but nearly every interview with an actor or guest star took place at the strip club which was hardly in the movie at all!  This means that you see a lot of topless women in the background as the actors (and even Stan Lee!) talk to camera – between that and the language if you held out illusions that even if you could not watch the movie while the kids were about you could at least watch the extras, those illusions are now shattered. Boobs and bad words abound!  But then what did you expect – it’s friggin Deadpool!

Deadpool’s Fun Sack

This is mainly made up of all the PG trailers that appeared in cinemas and on youtube and then their more mature versions (swearing, graphic violence etc) that appeared on the official website.   However there are a lot of little extras like Deadpool celebrating Australia Day, Chinese New Years and the like.  In particular I found to be both funny and disturbing the video shot in a park at night with Deadpool hanging out with a bunch of little kids dressed as various X-Men – made me laugh as a fan and cringe as a parent all at the same time.  I shan’t go into detail – you need to watch it for youself.

Audio Commentaries

I haven’t had a chance to listen to them yet and not sure I will get to.  If anyone has and wants to clue the rest of us in, feel free to tell us about it in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Overall

Having the Blu Ray, I was impressed by the picture and audio quality though it’s certainly nothing majorly special compared to others.  And I quite enjoyed the majority of the extras on it.  So really in the end your purchase choice will come down to the following factors:

*If you liked the movie, buy the DVD (currently $19)

*If you loved the movie, buy the Blu Ray (currently $29)

*If you didn’t like the movie, are you really still reading this review?  I mean, really?

Happy watching!

Random Reviews, Transformatorium

Album Review – ‘Transformers: Roll Out’

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Many things can inspire someone to song, be it the rise of the sun over the plains, the look of affection in their lovers eye, the heartache of loss and regret.  However apparently giant alien robots can stir the muse within as well, and so we have ‘Transformers: Roll Out’

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This CD was touted as the Transformers inspired soundtrack.  This means it’s not from a Transformers cartoon or movie, but is meant to be a collection of songs by artists that have felt inspired by huge transforming mechanoids from beyond the stars.  The CD is made up of 10 tracks, all from relatively obscure bands and artists:

  1. “Roll Out” – Mount Holly
  2. “This House is on Fire” – Bush
  3. “Gigantik” – Crash Kings
  4. “Count to Ten” – MEW
  5. “Into the Fire” – Elle Rae
  6. “Exiled” – SPURS
  7. “Just a Spark” – Jameson Burt
  8. “Stronger” – Ours
  9. “Modern Man” – Darby™
  10. “Our Revolution” – Born Cages

 

Now some of these songs actually do have Transformer themed lyrics embedded within their songs. Examples are:

Roll Out – Mount Holly

“Let’s Roll Out, Rise Up…”

References to Optimus catch phrase before battle, and Megatrons battle cry from the Animated series

Exiled – Spurs

“We are the exiled ones – the lost daughters and sons of Cybertron.”

Reference to the myriad of Transformers genres where they had to abandon their home planet.

Just a Spark – Jameson Burt

“One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall”

Optimus catch phrase before he and Megatron have a big battle in the Animated and live action Movie.

 

So yes, there is some Transformer stuff in there for the robot aficionado.  However it doesn’t really save this CD from mediocrity.  A couple of songs aren’t bad, the first one on the CD by Mount Holly certainly being the best of the bunch.  But this is really a CD of filler songs, as in they are not the songs you hate, but ones you’d expect to be jammed between the big hits on other CD’s.  The ones you would listen to because you can’t be bothered pressing the ‘Next Track’ button on your cars sound system.

This CD cost me eighteen bucks from JB Hi-Fi.  So about $1.80 a song which isn’t bad but you could probably download them cheaper off iTunes or something.  There is nothing to hate about this CD, but very little to get excited about either.  Only recommended as a purchase if, like me, you are a Transformers fan that does a LOT of driving out of radio range and need all the tunes you can get to fill in those lonely country miles.

Random Reviews, Transformatorium

Collection Critique – Jordan’s Gigantic Stash!

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Welcome to the first, of hopefully many, critiques of peoples collections.  And we have an absolute pearler to start with!  But before that, let us put ‘Collectors’ in general in perspective (the male ones anyway).

There are your first type of collector who embodies the most well-known stereotype.  Sad, pathetic little fraggers who both look and smell damp like little toads, still living in the room they grew up in or entombed in their parents basement.  The touch of a woman will remain forever an unearthly and purely imagined delight that will never be sampled and human companionship is relegated to whatever chatroom they frequent most to angrily discuss the merits of whatever sci-fi foolishness is gracing the big screen.

Then you get the second type of collectors.  The ones who are your average joe.  Could be your neighbor or the guy sitting in the next cubicle.  They have friends, go to work, even do ok with the girls.  They just happen to have a penchant for collecting a particular genre, be it baseball cards or model trains.  They make up the grist of society and I’m sure one is responsible for creating the colour beige.

Then you get your third type – the fabled ‘Alpha Collector’.  These  guys looks like they could bench-press you and probably snap your spine with a modicum of effort if the whim struck.  Not only are they socially well-adjusted but also usually the life of the party, with plenty of mates who want to hang with them and plenty of girls who want to sample what’s hanging from them.  And when they collect they don’t dick about – they collect big time!

This third type of collector is rare.  I’m proud to say I’ve tried to live my life as one, this article is about another.  Let’s meet Jordan!

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Like me, Jordan grew up on a farm so a few thousand acres was his playground.  Now, also like me, he is older with a nice 3-bedroom house, a lovely wife, beautiful kids and a steady job.  Main difference is he still looks like he could lift a pizza truck whereas age has made me look like I could eat the contents.  I met Jordan in the flesh for the first time a bit over a year ago and despite the 11 hours apart we live from each other I promised that one day I would come to see his collection.  On Tuesday I got that chance.

Entering Jordan’s lovely hilltop home overlooking a picturesque lake you could be forgiven for thinking this is not the home of a collector.  Everything is very neat and tidy, you can see a couple of Lego Pirate Ships on top of a cabinet and a Generations Metroplex in the dining room but with kids in the house this is to be expected.

Entering Jordan’s kitchen I start to get a sense of what lies beneath.  Spread everywhere are quite large containers and boxes filled with various Lego pieces – even to my untrained eye there seem to be a few thousand.

“I’m just sorting out a bunch of old boxes while I have the house to myself” Jordan explains.  It then becomes apparent as my eye takes everything in that there is Lego EVERYWHERE!  Many of the boxes have pre-made kits in them.   A couple are old enough that I remember them from my childhood but obviously there are ones spanning the last 20 years on show.  Jordan takes me through all assembled (and also disassembled) and I marvel at some of the more elaborately constructed vehicles.

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“Right!  Let me give you the tour” Jordan says.

Now, here is why Jordan’s looks so normal on the surface.  Because every nook, cranny, cupboard, draw and shelf is absolutely CHOCKERS with collectibles of all sorts!  By the end of my tour I was certain if I opened the fridge I would have found a scale-replica Tie-Fighter in the crisper and some Micro-Machines in the butter dish.   There are MISB playsets in the tops of his kids cupboards, MOSC TF Animated toys in the top of his WIR, video games in draws under the master bed, TF jigsaws in the laundry, Xbox games in the basement and the study is just a mancave dream full of toys, video games and a bitchin guitar and drum set!

None of my descriptions or photographs can really do his collection justice since it is so spread out in so many small (but highly significant) groupings all over the house. With pics you can never really get an idea of just how BIG this collection is, you would need a specially designed shed or underground cavity to do it justice by having it all together.   I will say to my mind the most impressive collections were those of his Lego, retro 80’s toys, video games and of course Transformers!  But there were plenty of other smaller ones on show such Masters of the Universe and TMNT.

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Some personal thrills of mine were to see toys and games I had myself owned as a kid and not seen in manys a decade.  Strider (the metal horse) and Fisto (guy with a big metal fist – think he does German porn now) from He-Man made up 90% of my collection from Eternia back then and sure as She-Ra Jordan had them!

You know when some guy says “Oh yeah, I got thousands of games man!” and you think “bullshit you do”?  Video Games tend to be a lot like sex, the more a dude brags he has the less he probably really does.  Well I’ve only heard Jordan mention his games in passing before, but this is a guy who could say and mean it literally that he does have thousands of games!  Everything from the current era of consoles to dating back before I was born!  Some of these systems I had never even heard of!  The Vectrex – who has ever heard of a friggin Vectrex?!  But one was there and it’s like the first Tron movie finally made sense!  I got a massive rush seeing that many classic games I had owned that Jordan still had such as the Mario games on the NES, Zombies ate my Neighbours on the SNES, Goldeneye 007 on the N64 – all brought back brought back font memories.  A MAJOR thrill of mine was to see that he had ASTERIX on the Atari 2600!  And in the freakin box!  I wasted many hours of my pre-teen years trying to clock this unclockable game!

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After taking me on this big tour Jordan unveiled what he knew I had come in particular to see – his TRANSFORMERS!

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First off was the Animated collection in his WIR.  Nearly every figure I could think of was there MIB or MOSC.  And he very kindly took down (after he saw me nearly lay a freakin egg in excitement!) his pristine Botcon Stuntcon set.  I gotta admit, I was drooling over this and thoughts of grabbing it and throwing myself out the nearest window to run into the night did cross my mind (only problems were we were two stories up and it was daytime – small but critical flaws in an otherwise brilliant plan).  But then it was time for Jordan to take me to the linen cupboard of splendor!

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Inside Jordan had about 100 to 150 G1 figures.  Certainly a respectable collection!  He even had Hosehead and Camshaft who I lack myself.  But even more impressive was the massive amount of miscellaneous TF merchandise from the 80’s era he had!  It was UN-F*CKING BELIEVABLE!  Everything from tents to gift-set, candles-to tooth-brush packs, records to books-on-tape!  I have a lot of misc TF merchandise myself but to compare mine to his would be like comparing a dandelion to an oak-tree – in other words there is no comparison!  Whilst I may have more, very little of it is from the G1 80’s era (most from the last decade) and 80’s gear is what Jordan had in spades – I felt both envious and aroused on so many levels I would have fainted, except a lack of consciousness would have meant I had to stop looking at all the cool shit on show!

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In the end, I only was able to spend 2 hours admiring Jordan’s collection before time dragged me away, but I could have spent days there.  As I left I realized I’d spent so much time drooling over all the great collectibles that I’d forgotten to do the interview part of the visit!  Jordan said “Don’t worry man, just send me any questions you have” so if people have questions please post them below and I’m sure he will get a chance to answer them at some point.

I’d like to thank him for opening his home to me and showing me all his wonderful stuff!  This man and his collection are both to be highly respected and honored.  Maybe if you are lucky one day he will give you a tour too!

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Random Reviews

Movie Review – Captain America: Civil War

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Civil

Superheroes beating the crap out of other Superheroes – does that float ya boat?  No?  You don’t even own a boat yet alone have an interest in anything nautical?  In that case don’t go and see Captain America: Civil War.  However if that sounds like a hoot and a half and gives your box a big warm tick then this movie is for you.

 

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!  This is a review after all.

 

I have seen nearly every Marvel movie they have made except two – Antman and Captain America: Winter Soldier.  And it turns out that CA2 is one of the few movies you probably would do better to see before you see this flick.  However I was able to pick up the basics of what had happened – Cap’s best buddy Bucky got turned at some point into a brainwashed super soldier with a metal arm and he’s a good guy that goes into trances and does bad things – nuff said.

 

First Half Hour – Plot Devices

The movie starts off with the obligatory action scene which ends with the Scarlet Witch accidentally blowing up a bunch of civilians in order to save Captain America.  In the comics that came out several years ago along the same theme there was the ‘Hero Registration Program’ which caused all the heroes to choose sides with all the registered ones hunting down those that refused to register.  In this film it’s done on a smaller scale, simply focusing on the Avengers – because they keep causing collateral damage and accidentally killing innocent folk the United Nations want them on a leash.  Iron Man agrees, Captain America doesn’t.  That’s the first half hour in a nutshell.  Drags a tiny but but not too much.

Next Hour – Character Development

The next hour of the film is essentially reminding us of old characters such as Vision and Hawkeye and introducing new characters like Spiderman and T’Challa.  Chuck in a few decent action scenes and a bunch of CA and IM having restrained arguments and it boils down to set up for the last hour where it really begins to kick off.  Again, there is the tiny drag here and there as they set up plot points you know already are going to happen but the pace never becomes too dull.

Oh, have I not mentioned the bad guy yet?  That’s because he’d pretty uninteresting though quite believable.  No Superpowers or anything, just hates the Avengers because his family were some of the aforementioned ‘collateral damage’ (the A team never even sent a “sorry” car which is pretty cold!), he is only in this film to set up plot points to make the Heroes fight each other.  In fact that’s his intent so he sets it up that it looks like Bucky was responsible for a bomb that went off that killed T’Challa’s Dad.  This causes the rift in the Avengers to widen, with Cap trying to save Bucky and getting a bunch of the team on side, while Iron Man vows to hunt them all down and gets the rest of the team on side as well as recruiting Black Panther and a pubescent Webslinger.

The Big Fight!

At the hour and a half mark you get what you call came to see – 6 Avengers on either side beating the crap out of each other!  On one side Iron Man, War Machine, Vision, Black Widow, Black Panther and Spiderman.  Opposed are Captain America, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Ant Man, Scarlet Witch and Falcon.  This is a pretty damn good beat down!  In fact I’d go as far as to say it’s the best Hero vs Hero action sequence I’ve ever seen in a movie with everyone using their powers to fight or counteract multiple members of the opposition.  The fight goes for 10-15 minutes and at no point does it tire or become gratuitous.  Very well done indeed!

And the end is in sight…

Final 45 minutes?  Cap and the WS go off to fight the real bad guy.  Iron Man follows along to help having a change of heart.  The end is rather good, instead of the fight with the other super soldiers one was expecting all the bad guy does is show a film of Bucky killing Tony Starks parents which, understandably makes Tony a mite cross.  In fact one might say he is freakin pissed!  Cue final fight scene, everyone lives, everyone doesn’t like each other anymore and it’s goodnight nurse.  Predictable but entertaining.

Overall thoughts

So is this movie worth a watch?  Well I usually find most movies that go over two hours to be that bit too long with too much filler but this flick moves at a fairly good pace.  No poor acting to speak of, although I doubt anyone is going to win an Oscar with their performance here.  I particularly liked Ant Man, the actor made me want to see that movie.  Scarlet Johansson is showing her age a bit too much be the obligatory sex symbol she was in the first Avengers movie so instead of gratuitous butt shots of her like in that flick, they have tried to make up with it by making Elizabeth Olsen’s top that bit extra low cut.  Not a lot of eye candy for the ladies with Thor being absent from the roster but Cap is still a nice looking fella.  The fight scene is great and the heavy drama of the last leg of the movie works on several levels.  I’ve not seen Batman vs Superman as every person I’ve spoken to that has seen it has had very negatives reviews of it, so if you are after a Super Hero Beatdown than CA: CW is the movie to see!