Drive

This movie was pretty incredible, and probably the all around coolest film to hit theaters this year. The opening sequence alone is well worth the price of admission. We join Ryan Gosling's character, the Driver, as he escorts a couple of burglars through the city, avoiding the police all the while. This entire sequence, shot from the passenger seat of the Driver's car, is really intense, and sets the stage early on for what's certain to be a different movie going experience.

There are elements of a more dramatic, arthouse style of film, yet blended in throughout is also quite a heavy dose of action. The action is really raw and gritty, and I loved every second of it! Car chase scenes are actually shot in a way that doesn't leave you confused and dizzy, and the visceral action is all very clearly shot throughout, which is just a real treat to find in any action movie these days.

The plot itself is actually fairly simple. So simple, in fact, that even summing it up would likely give away some major plot points. But basically, it's a heist gone wrong, and that's all I'm going to say about it. Not to take anything away from the writing, which is very well crafted. But even more than the story itself, what's really important about this movie is the execution, which is beautifully stylized, and damn near flawless. The movie takes its time, developing the characters and their various relationships, all the while never feeling slow or drawn out. It keeps you engaged and really wanting to learn more. And as we learn more, our characters gradually find themselves getting into bigger and bigger messes.

The Driver is a very awkward character, someone who fills conversations with long silent pauses and happens to do a lot of odd staring. This initially feels quite inhuman, almost robotic, but as the character grows and he gets deeper into trouble, he slowly opens up and shows us why he is this way. It's a very deliberate performance from Ryan Gosling, who completely sold the character.

The real star of the movie, however, is the soundtrack. The 80s style music in this film is just phenomenal, and really compliments the retro-esque LA setting like no other. This is some of the best use of songs in a movie that I can remember, at times making for what are sure to become some of the most memorable moments in film for years to come.

I know I've mentioned very little about the plot and what this movie's really about, but honestly, I'm not sure that it's entirely important to know going in. I went into the movie knowing very little about it myself, other than what I had heard about the action/arthouse mish-mash that I mentioned. But this is a movie that will shock you, and definitely shouldn't go missed. It's one of the absolute best films I've seen all year, and was truly a delight to watch. Go see it!

Randy Orton: The Evolution of a Predator

So this week I bought the new Randy Orton DVD, The Evolution of a Predator, and after ranting about it to a friend, I will now be reviewing it at his request. I only watched the main documentary portion, but I've seen most of the matches included in this set already. The match list is decent enough, though I already own most of them. It's sort of telling that the further we get into Randy's career, the less matches are covered from that period, despite him becoming a much bigger star. And that's pretty much where this whole DVD starts to go wrong, because it completely skips over some of the most crucial moments of Randy's career thus far.

I've watched a ton of WWE's documentary features, and for the most part, they're really well done. This one, however, is a disaster from the very start. There is absolutely no focus whatsoever, the feature just randomly hops from one point in Randy's career to the next, with no rhyme or reason. To start things off, it doesn't even begin talking about Randy Orton, but rather, the Wrestlemania event in general. I guess since the DVD was being made around the time Wrestlemania XXVII took place, this is sort of the closing point that the feature is leading to, so they were starting us off here as well to try and bookend it a little.

However, we then randomly jump to about a month prior to this event, where they now shift focus on the Elimination Chamber. Yes, Randy's involved in the match, but they barely mention him, instead choosing to talk about the Chamber match itself and how dangerous it is, despite that it literally has no impact on the remainder of the story they're trying to tell us thus far. It's also at this point that they mention Randy's throw-away feud with CM Punk, which I'll get back to in a moment.

After randomly focusing on Wrestlemania and the Elimination Chamber, we finally start talking about Randy Orton himself. However, as I mentioned before, this feature just hops all over the place. We start off talking about some things that happened before he got into the business, then we randomly start talking about things after he had been in for a while. Then we, again randomly, start talking about the things he's currently up to, before jumping back to before he was in the business again. And it just hops back and forth and back again. Really, whoever put this thing together truly did a piss poor job of it. I've never seen a WWE documentary feature that was this sloppy, so needless to say, it was frustrating getting through it.

And it's a shame, because some of the things this DVD covers is actually fairly interesting. Like when they talk about his incident with the Marines, and when talking about his redemption with his family. Hell, they have all the tools at their disposal to tell us a classic story of one man's downward spiral and his gradual climb to the top, complete with the nice happy ending and everything. But instead of starting at the beginning of his career and working through chronologically, they just cover random bits and pieces in no particular order whatsoever, leaving behind a cluttered mess instead.

Now, while some of the things they covered was interesting, it's what they blatantly left out that's especially frustrating about this feature. Here's where I'll re-mention CM Punk. Going into Wrestlemania XXVII, Randy had a nothing feud with Punk, basically something to just keep the two preoccupied for the time being. However, going by this set, you'd think that this was the biggest thing to happen in Randy's WWE career. They place so much importance on this feud throughout, hyping it up, showing us backstory, and even going so far as to put together a highlight package of their match at the end. All of this for a feud that nobody even remembers just a few months after the fact.

Meanwhile, this DVD left off some of the most vital aspects of Randy's career. They barely mention his time in Evolution, and even then, they make no recollection whatsoever to his major ongoing rivalry with Triple H after the fact. They also completely ignore his year long feud with John Cena, the feud that elevated Randy up to the main event mainstay that he is today. They speak briefly of his first title reign, yet all his other, more meaningful reigns, as well as his Royal Rumble win, are never once spoken of. They pretty much gloss over every major detail that made Randy's career what it is today, and instead place focus on his throw-away feud with CM Punk.

Like the beginning of the DVD, when they're talking about Wrestlemania and the Elimination Chamber instead of Randy, there's a moment where they highlight the Hall of Fame ceremony, and even start talking about Shawn Michaels and what a great career he's had. Yeah, great, as if Michaels doesn't have enough DVDs of his own, he's gotta be shoved down our throats on this one as well. They use this as a way to sloppily transition into Orton's time with Legacy, which is, like every other major aspect of his career, only briefly touched on.

At the end, this was a very disappointing DVD, and by far the worst I've ever seen WWE put out. I really don't know what they were thinking with this set. It's poorly edited, poorly structured, and has a complete lack of focus, to the point where they're not even talking about Randy Orton for significant portions of the feature. Considering this is his first DVD, this is especially off-putting. Orton deserves better than this crap, and WWE is most certainly capable of putting together a much better set. After this lackluster set, though, I'll definitely be thinking twice before picking up future WWE releases.

Final Thoughts (BEDA 31)

Well this is it, Blog Every Day August has come to an end. And so to send us off, I figured I'd give some of my final thoughts on this little challenge. Firstly, man am I glad that it's over. For this entire month, almost every waking moment I didn't spend writing was spent wracking my brain trying to come up with a topic for my next blog. I've mentioned it in previous posts, but after a while, the well really does start to run a little dry. So I'll definitely be happy to be rid of that added stress.

But blogging every day has served as good practice blogging about topics other than movies for a change. And while I was going through a rough time, it helped take my mind off of things for a bit. So in that way, this challenge was really beneficial, and even therapeutic at times. Also, it was nice sort of being a part of the blogging community, keeping up with everyone else's blogs throughout the month, and even gaining a few new readers myself. Hopefully those readers will stick around, as I intend to do so with their blogs after this event.

That all said, I highly doubt that I'll be doing this Blog Every Day thing again. I just feel like it's way too much all at once, and that it clogs up my blog way too quickly. There were certain posts throughout the month that I really wanted to highlight in particular, yet now they're lost in the clutter. Plus, I'm really not a fan of short, pointless posts for the sake of posting, which I admittedly had a few throughout the month. That comes back to the whole having something worthwhile to blog about every single day, which I suppose didn't quite end up being the case with me.

So in the end, this was an interesting experience. I actually did learn quite a bit about myself, both as a blogger, and as a writer. It also leaves me pondering how I'll approach these types of monthly writing challenges in the future. I came to somewhat of a realization about myself a while ago regarding these challenges, but it took this particular one to really open my eyes. But now that I see just what kind of writer I am, I think I have a better idea of where to go from here...

So... (BEDA 30)

... after today, there's only one more day left in this Blog Every Day August thing, right? Right! Well alright then, see you guys tomorrow!

Why Movies? (BEDA 29)

So the idea for this blog came to me last night as I was looking at the upcoming Zelda game, Skywayd Sword. Based on everything I know about it, I'm certain that, no matter how good it may be, I'm not going to even bother with it this time. The fact that this one is completely based around motion controls is only one solid reason, but it's this next reason which is what I'm here to discuss today.

I own, and have played, all of the previous major Zelda releases. The series has always interested me, however, one thing that they all have in common is that I have never been able to complete a single one. I've probably gotten the farthest in either A Link to the Past or The Wind Waker, which is why I hold those two in higher regard than the others. However, even with those two, I still wasn't able to beat the game.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is one of the big reasons I'm not into gaming these days, because there is rarely a game that I'm actually able to see through to completion. Whether this is due to the fact that the game just gets way too hard, or because it just becomes so boring and tedious, either way, this has happened with so many games that I finally have lost all interest in playing most games. My backlog of incomplete games has become so long that it's just frustrating to even think about.

And then I gave it a little more thought, and I realized that gaming wasn't the first hobby for this to happen to me. When I was a lot younger, I used to be a big reader. But then it came to the point where I was only reading halfway through books before putting them away, because they were just so overlong and drawn out that they failed to keep my attention. Reading became a chore, and after obtaining a library full of half-read books, none of which I had any intention of ever returning to, I just decided not to even bother anymore.

Every now and then I would still pick up a book that interested me, but it was always the same. I could never make it further than about halfway into it before I just had to slam the book shut and put it on the shelf, never to be opened again. It's a hobby that had lost all its fun, and it required far too many hours in the day to just sit there and force myself to read through something I was no longer having any fun with. In fact, A Game of Thrones is the first book I've actually finished on my own since middle school, and is also by far the longest book I've ever completed. And the only reason I finished it is because I watched the show first and knew that it would be worth the struggle.

But that brings me to my point, which is why I love the film medium so much. Film requires no real effort on my part. Even if the movie I'm watching is bad, it's still only two hours, and then I'm done. That's it. I've never walked out of a theater in my life, and other than James Bond (aka, the most boring series of films that have ever been produced!!), I can't think of a single movie that I willingly started to watch where I wasn't able to sit through it.

And not only that, but you can't beat the replay value of a good movie. I can name the number of games I've replayed on one hand, and I've never been able to bring myself to re-read a book, no matter how good it was. However, I rewatch the same movies all of the time. Hell, I've even gone back and rewatched movies in theaters several times. That's how easy the movie-going experience is, and it's one of the main things that really appeals to me. It's something that I know I can revisit if I like it enough without having to sacrifice anything more than a couple of hours before I'm done.

I really think that's the reason I love movies as much as I do. It's a hobby that's never been too much for me to handle. The more I've fallen out of other mediums, the more appreciative and devoted I've become to film. And now, anytime I dive into any other medium, whether it be TV, books, comics, or games, the first thing I always think about is how this could be adapted into a good movie. As such, I'm constantly editing things in my head as I read or watch them, editing them down to a two hour movie format. Because there's just something about that format that strikes me moreso than any other. And I'm not saying that other mediums can't be great as well. They most certainly can. But there's just something especially captivating about a good, tight-knit movie.

Fright Night (BEDA 28)

So I caught Fright Night today, and it was alright. I had heard some pretty good things about this, and justifiably so. This horror comedy movie is a remake to the 1985 movie of the same name, though seeing as I haven't seen that film, I can't say how it compares. Based on reviews I've read, this one's apparently much better in pretty much every way, though I personally don't know that for certain. However, on its own, this one is pretty good, even if it doesn't necessarily do anything to make it stand out.

The plot is simple enough, a vampire moves in next door and starts killing people. See, simple! And the performances in this movie were really fun. Christopher Mintz-Plasse does overdo it a bit at times, playing the lead character's nerdy friend, but he's not around nearly long enough to really damper the movie too much. Colin Farrell looked like he was having a blast as Jerry the vampire, though, but the real star was David Tennant, who is an absolute joy to watch.

The movie does have a few roadblocks, however, particularly as we get closer to the end. The pacing goes all out of wack in the second half for one thing. There's a point near the end where it feels like we're watching the big final confrontation of the movie. However, that turns out not to be the case, as we revert back to even more preparations for yet another final confrontation afterwards. It just felt a little clunky initially, though this honestly may very well be a non-issue on multiple viewings. Also, some scenes do tend to go on for a lot longer than necessary. This movie was almost 2 hours long, though it could have easily been cut down to around 90 minutes, and likely would have been so much stronger for it.

But those were my biggest complaints, and other than that, this is just an overall fun movie. It's completely entertaining, and keeps a very light-hearted tone throughout. It's definitely campy and goofy, and you can tell that everyone in this thing is having a lot of fun with it. But overall, good as it all was, I can't really see this being something that sticks with me personally.

Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth (BEDA 27)

This new manga series debuted earlier this year, but only a few chapters were released before the series went on an extended hiatus. However, as of late, we've finally gotten more new chapters, and so now feels like an appropriate enough time to discuss Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth. It's the official Naruto spinoff series written by one of Kishimoto's own assistants, Kenji Taira, and starring none other than the handsome green devil himself, Rock Lee.

It's much more cartoony than the main series, drawn in a chibi style with a hard focus on comedy first and foremost. Hilarious as the series is, though, I can't tell for certain if all of the jokes will translate well to non-fans, because a lot of the humor comes from seeing characters who are known for being straight-laced and serious all the time (most notably Neji Hyuga) acting out in zany ways that you'd never expect to see from them.

The series is also supposedly targeted at younger kids. Yet, being Japanese, they have much lower standards than we have over here in the States, and as such, the humor is oftentimes quite risque. As a result, I'll be surprised if this series ever officially makes it over to America, and if it does, I'll shudder at the inevitable butchering that'll be in store for it.

We follow Rock Lee and his squad consisting of his rival, Neji, and their sensei, the flamboyant Might Guy. Also in the squad is Tenten, who is quite possibly the funniest of them all. She's seemingly the only "normal" person in this series, and her reactions to everything going on around her are priceless. In this crazy version of the Naruto-world, she's the only one who appears to notice how insane everyone is acting, which in turn drives her insane.



Each chapter is a short stand-alone story, and thus far, every new chapter has been more fun than the last. It's actually sort of surprising just how entertaining this manga has been given its overly-goofy nature. Usually this kind of thing runs thin pretty quick. And honestly, without some extended breaks, that still could very well become the case. But as it stands now, there's been times when I actually preferred the latest Rock Lee chapter over the main Naruto manga. And it's for these reasons why I feel that this series would be perfect for the Naruto anime to refer to when coming up with ideas for future filler arcs.

The quality is so good and done in a format that doesn't interfere with the main plot, so it's ripe for an anime adaptation whenever it comes time for fillers. The best fillers in the anime have been their one-off comedy episodes, and this series is packed full of just that. Plus it would give some actual screen time to the likes of Neji and Lee, much to the appreciation of their fans. And with the way the anime has recently had a tendency to have Naruto act completely out of character when it comes to filler, it'd be a refreshing change of pace to put the spotlight on secondary characters like Lee and avoid further misuse of Naruto's character.

This is a really fun series, though like I said before, you'll probably have to already be a Naruto fan to truly appreciate it. But even if you're not, there's still plenty of humor here that doesn't rely on knowledge of the original source. So if you're a fan of that wacky Looney Tunes style of humor, then you may well be able to find enjoyment out of this manga should you give it a shot.