The Pros at Cons A Review of Convolution 2014: Halfway Home Part 7
Day 2 Continued: Star Trek or Star Wars, LARP, and making new friends.
On my way back down in the elevator, there was another convention-goer and a layman on the lift with me. The non-Con attendee asked us, “Are you guys with the Star Wars convention or the Star Trek Convention?” And we were like, “No, it’s all one big Science Fiction Convention. We’re with both.” (Image courtesy of the Star Wars t-shirt category) After that, I had every intention of going to panels, but they were hard to find and I kept getting distracted. Plus, all of the panels were scheduled in blocks from 10-12, 12-2 and 2-4, and it was already around 3pm by the time I left the hospitality suite. There may have been a fourth block of panels from 4-6 on Saturday only, but the schedule guide and key to where to find things was small, poorly designed and hard to understand unless you had used it before. Then there was the mighty task of choosing between similar panels that were held on opposite ends of the hotel at the same time, which is something I always detest about the whole convention-going experience. So I went in search of LARP groups instead in order to pass the time until Day 2 was concluded.
I did not find the Firefly LARP group (that day) and it might not have mattered if I had since their game for the night was for 21 people and 25 had pre-registered, not including the people actually working the Con or helping to run the game itself. But I did stumble across the table of the Victorian World of Darkness game, “Gaslight”. They invited me to sit and have a cup of fresh brewed tea from a nice China tea set and I ended up spending the next 2-1/2 hours talking with them about writing, running game vs. playing NPCs vs. being a PC and having less control and less responsibility. Then I sat down with Glenn Barett, the only founding member of the group still on and running things after several incarnations, and we talked OOC about RL stuff, like family and feeling like a creeper at Cons because you’re getting older while fans are getting younger, and about feminism and the school system and California’s crisis with prisons and how that relates to youth, feminism and what we as individuals can do about it. That’s all not as deep or hysterical or even as liberal-hippie-fight-the-power as it sounds, either. It was just a gentle yet sweeping reminder that I get to be myself at these things. I come to Conventions to have fun, to spend money and to meet new people. Vendors come for the same reasons, but also to make money, to make inroads towards a better future and connections within their industries. Convolution was convoluted, poorly advertised and expensive, but it was also the single best experience I’ve had at a Convention so far yet, and it was for no other reason than that these people weren’t just other fans at the same place as me, these were my people. I went for work reasons and came out with new personal friends. That is not to say that I didn’t learn anything. More on that in my next post.
Lego movie incoming?
Dave did a little weird happy dance when I told him about this rumor. He really is a dork. Apparently Warner Bros wants to make a CGI animated movie based on Lego toys.
I’m torn on this. On the one hand, kids of all ages and dorks like Dave will probably enjoy it quite a bit. On the other hand, Lego has toys, video games, t-shirts, telephones, keyboards, and pretty much anything else you can use to fleece your fan base. They are effectively the Kiss of the toy world. Do they really need to make a movie?
I also kind of expect the lengths they will go to to include every aspect of the Lego universe will get annoying after a while. Also, will this movie be about Lego toys that run around like Toy Story, or will it be a world adventure where all the characters happen to be Legos? In other words, is it going to be derivative or just lame?
Dave is threatening to throw stuff at me so I will wrap it up quick. This image from Dave’s Starwars trilogy t shirts was the best I could find for a Lego image. You would think he would stock more Lego stuff given he has been collecting them since he was three and will talk about his collection forever at the drop of a hat.
Jason
Snow White and the Huntsman Review
Not bad if you can swallow a few plot holes.
I saw this right before leaving for Italy and I hope you can forgive me if I have taken my seeing and enjoying this fabulous country more seriously than sharing my opinion of the film. On the one hand I feel guilty about letting this (and a bunch of other movies like Prometheus and Rock of Ages) sit on the shelf. On the other hand really I feel no guilt whatsoever. This is the first real vacation I have had in years.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It does have it’s issues, each hanging over the script like a veritable Sword of Damocles except instead of swords each thread suspends a medium sized bag of dog poo. If you stand in one place too long eventually you will be struck by one.
However, if you can keep moving along with the pace of the movie you can avoid most of the poo and just have to deal with the lingering stench. This film is definitely several steps above the other, more schizophrenic Snow White remake Mirror Mirror. At least it tried to maintain a consistent tone. The acting ran from mediocre to very good, and the story didn’t land too far into lala land (it did, however, take a nice trip through the Valley of Plot Holes).
I’ll get into some of the more egregious plot holes when I do the black holes, but there is one that annoyed me throughout the movie. The Evil Queen Revenna (Charlize Theron-Hancock, Young Adult, the Italian Job) has a spell that helps her stay young and hot as long as she is the fairest in the land. The magic mirror tells her Snow White (Kristin Stewert-Twilight, Twilight, and more Twilight) is destined to out do her in the looks department. Unless as part of the aging process Kristin Stewart was destined to get a full body, face, and personality transplant there is no way she could ever be more fair than Charlize Theron. Charlize is a super hot woman who breathes sensuality into her role with every breath while Kristin Stewart is basically a Real Doll that can move.
Anyway, the story. Honestly, just reread my Mirror Mirror review and you more or less have it, only with the King actually dead. In another impact crater sized plot hole the widowed king meets Revenna after rescuing her from a fake army, they get married 24 hours later, and he dies of natural causes (being stabbed in the chest repeatedly is a natural way to die, right?) in bed with her that night. Somehow no one but some duke we never really get to meet calls shenanigans on this and the kingdom is placed under a terrible curse.
Fast forward 10 years. The magic mirror tells the queen she needs to eat the heart of Snow White in order to remain young forever. She has been keeping Snow White locked in a tower all this time (where somehow she is in awesome shape, can fight with a blade, and is a great swimmer. The tower must also be home to a 24 Hour Fitness) but instead of simply walking up there and gutting her she sends her idiot brother to fetch her. Snow White managed to escape through a sewer and runs into the Black Forest.
At this point the queen does not send in her entire army but rather recruits a local huntsman (Chris Helmsworth-the Avengers, Thor, the Cabin in the Woods) who is the only human to enter the forest and survive or something. He obviously doesn’t want to do it but is coerced by being told Revenna can resurrect his dead wife (zombie wife!). They enter the forest, find Snow White, he has the painfully obvious change of heart, and the rest of the movie is a quest to kill the queen.
The stars. I thought Charlize Theron was excellent. As I said in my review of Young Adult the one role she excels at is the cold, heartless bitch and honestly it rings a lot more true here. One star. While derivative the story was engaging and interesting. Nice twist on a lot of the old story. One star. Excellent visuals and CGI. Everything works well visually. On star. Charlize Theron is always easy on the eyes. One star. I thought Chris Helmsworth did an admirable job with what he was given, and seems to be the only character to actually describe a full arc. One star. Pacing and direction were good. One star. The fight with the troll was excellent. One star. I thought the Seven Dwarfs were pretty cool, although none of them were allowed to develop. One star. Overall very entertaining. Two stars. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. While none of the plot holes were truly gargantuan, they were numerous. Two black holes. I can tell you from personal experience the last thing you want to assault a castle wall with is heavy cavalry. Just dumb. One black hole. The idea that Kristin Stewart is supposed to be fairer than Charlize Theron is laughable, and in this movie her performance was wooden and formulaic. One black hole. 
A dumb fatalistic sub plot lifted directly from Star Wars (and not good Star Wars. I’m talking Episode 2. Republic image courtesy of the Star Wars T-Shirt category). One black hole. As cool as Queen Revenna was, her dopey brother was dumb and annoying. He was like having Shemp from the Three Stooges shoved into the Godfather. He did nothing but screw up. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad. Well worth seeing, and some of the visuals do cry out for a large screen. However, I think if you have a decently sized TV you could probably survive with NetFlix. Date movie? Meh. Sort of. It wouldn’t be a mistake, but it also wouldn’t be my first choice. Bathroom break? I’d say the scene in town introducing the Huntsman as a drunken brawling loser. Not a lot added to his character there, especially since he more or less doesn’t get wasted enough to impact the movie again. If that is too soon in the movie I’d say any of the scenes involving the duke and his son. Felt very much like filler.
Thanks for reading. I get back from Italy tomorrow about 4pm and may well celebrate by seeing a movie. However, I have some horrible films to see. Rock of Ages and That’s my Boy look to be excruciating. However, as astute and regular readers I’m sure you have figured out the bad ones make for the funniest reviews. I am looking forward to seeing Prometheus, and next weekend promises to be very cool movie wise.
Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments about this review feel free to post them here. If you have questions or suggestions that are off topic you can always email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
George Lucas continues to defile and disgrace his whored out legacy.
So while listening to Geektime this morning I heard that the new Star Wars Kinnect will be coming out soon. I don’t really have any problem with that. The problem I have is that it is supposed to include a dance off feature where you can dance against or as Darth Vader. This is wrong on so many levels it boggles my mind. This Vader image is from the Star Wars tshirts, by the way.
It seems pretty obvious now that not only was George Lucas specifically not responsible for all the things that made Star Wars great but actually does not get the movies himself at all and possible has never actually watched them. Darth Vader should never dance. The very idea of him dancing is so wrong that anyone suggesting it should probably be executed for the good of humanity. Darth Vader is in all ways cool, menacing, and deadly. The only people dancing around him should be the people he is force choking for failure.
However, it seems pretty obvious that Lucas really doesn’t care one bit about Star Wars and would willingly show any of his characters engaged in illegal and immoral sexual acts if someone offered him enough money. He started it with the Holiday Special and has steadily spiraled down and down. By the way, his dumb 3D Phantom Menace comes out this weekend. Join me in specifically not seeing this opus and no longer supporting him in any way.
Jason
Join me in the Boycott Lucas movement.
So George Lucas has announced Feb. 10th as the day of evil as he rereleases his horrible movie The Phantom Menace, now in 3D. I am calling on all nerds and, for that matter, all Americans to boycott the entire series. As everyone knows the prequels were crap, and post production 3D is crap. Why would you spend money to support crap?
This Empire logo comes from the Star Wars T Shirt category.
This goes beyond mere dislike of what Lucas did to his franchise. We need to take a stand against the raping of cherished movie franchises. Hollywood needs to realize that they don’t have carte blanche with regards to good movies just for a fast buck. In case you were wondering what the inevitable conclusion to this ugly trend I have one thing to say to you: Highland 2, the Quickening with 500 Years Ago on Planet Zeist. You think I’m kidding? How about a Alien prequel that has Ripley in flight school but somehow involved with aliens? A remake of Weird Science starring Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith as “geeks” who can’t get girls? How about a remake of the Karate Kid starring Jaden Smith but mistakenly set in China? Oh, wait. That one happened. How about On the Waterfront but make it about MMA?
So do the movie world a favor and don’t go see any of these. This goes well beyond my personal desire to see Lucas fall on his face. Don’t take your kids to see these films. You know the new ones will just damage their soft brains and the older ones will be so full of extra worthless crap that you will want to scream.
Jason
Tower Heist Movie Review
I was very pleasantly surprised. I guess I should have had faith in Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy’s ability to pick a script that didn’t suck, but honestly the trailers made this look like a bad 48 Hours remake and given the fact that for the past few years Eddie has been doing Daddy Daycare and the like, I was expecting something painful. Not in the least.
The fact is, this movie is well written, clever, and above all funny without being goofy schtick. The humor is subdued enough to make you appreciate it, as well as the acting ability of the main characters as they deliver the lines. Eddie Murphy’s character Slide does borrow heavily from Reggie Hammond, but does not reprise the character entirely and makes this one less clever and sophisticated, but much more street smart and, to be honest, believable. In fact, all the characters are 
extremely believable, especially Josh Kovacs, played by one of my favorite actors Ben Stiller, star of the great Zoolander (Derek Zoolander Center for Children who can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to do Other Stuff Good Too image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
The story is of Josh Kovacs, manager and majordomo of the most plush building in all of Manhattan, the Tower. While working for some of the richest people on the planet he is living in a slum and gets hassled by Eddie Muphy’s character Slide as he goes to work every day. He is aided by a dedicated staff of doormen, security personal, and cleaning staff including his brother-in-law concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck – Good Will Hunting, Gone Baby Gone), veteran doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson – Everyday People, the Good Heart, Keane), new elevator operator Enrique Dev’Reaux (Micheal Peña – Shooter, Million Dollar Baby, Crash), and maid Odessa (Gabourey Sidebe – Precious. That’s it. Glad to see her adding to her filmography). Their richest resident is Arthur Shaw (cough cough Bernard Madoff cough cough), played excellently by the great Alan Alda (Mash of course. A few others but Mash is more than enough), who gets arrested for securities fraud after taking every employees pensions and life savings.
I’d like to add a thought here on the brilliance of casting Mr. Alda for this. If there is one thing the otherwise weak Schwarzenegger film the Running Man taught us is that if you take a beloved American icon and cast him in the role of a villain, he somehow seems much more evil. It worked for Richard Dawson, and in all ways works great for Alan Alda here.
In comes FBI agent Claire Denham (played by the one time love of my life, Téa Leoni. If you want to see why I loved her set the way back machine to 1992 and watch a short lived comedy called Flying Blind. She also starred in Deep Impact, Jurassic Park III, and the Family Man. She was also married to sex addict David Duchovny. She has gotten older, but still looks super hot), who caught Shaw and now has to see him under house arrest in his fabulous penthouse. She gets hammered one night and tells Kovacs that Shaw must still have a secret stash of money somewhere in his place. That is when Kovacs decides to rob Shaw. He just got fired for going nuts on Shaw and recruits evicted former tenant Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Glory, Godzilla 1998 (eww)), Charlie, Enrique, and Odessa. They quickly realize they don’t have the skill set required and recruit career criminal Slide, who aids them in the robbery while forcing them to prove they have what it takes to rob someone in humorous ways.
Crime comedy hijinks ensues. I don’t want to give away much of the plot, as I liked it a lot and hope you all go see it, but at one point the ridiculous meter dips so deep into the red it actually hits infrared. Other than that the movie is fun, super entertaining, and ends in what I thought was the most appropriate way.
The stars. Great, fun story well told. Two stars. I would like to give a star for every great actor in this film, but that would actually skew it too far in the star direction. It’s a good movie, but it’s no Wrath of Khan. Murphy, Stiller, Alda, Leoni, even Matthew Broderick would be five stars. I’ll just give three for great casting. Very real characters. One star. Dialog and direction were great. One star. No annoying subplots or unnecessary characters. Even the weird Russian girl (Nina Arianda – Midnight in Paris) had a significant role. One star. An ending that made sense (mostly) and didn’t have any sugar frosting smeared on it to make it more palatable to the unwashed morons of this country. One star. Two bonus stars for an overall pleasant movie experience that exceeded my expectations. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. For a movie that seemed to work hard to stay funny in the real world, when they got to the actual robbery they went in a really stupid direction and completely blew out my suspension of disbelieve circuit (sorry, but elementary violations of the laws of physics even a grade school child could spot grinds me like sandpaper underwear). Two black holes. The humor, which until the robbery had been pretty low key and subtle, took a left turn down Three Stooges alley and cruised there for most of the rest of the movie (ever see the one where they are skyscraper construction workers?). Tonal shifts 3/4ths of the way through the movie rarely work. One black hole. There was a romantic undercurrent that felt really undeveloped. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
I will say that this movie was rated PG-13 and in all ways worked at that rating. It was one that didn’t need to go any deeper into R. Kudos to director Brett Ratner (who managed to insert a speaking cameo). However, Brett, you are going to have to come up with a few more great movies to make up for X-Men Last Stand and Rush Hour.
So a total of seven stars, a great score. Should you see it? Absolutely. Do you need to see it on a big screen? Not really. There are a couple scenes towards the end that benefit from being on a bigger screen, but like most comedies this one will do just fine on a TV. Good second date film, IMO, in that it is funny, but not super sexual. Also, none of the people in this movie are super Hollywood hot, so unless she has a thing for Eddie Murphy you won’t lose anything in comparison.
Thanks for reading. I fell way behind in my movie watching this last week and will try to nail a few more down this week. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. By the way, I did great the first day at the Warhammer Tournament and got my ass beat on the second by a guy I hate like I hate the Star Wars Holiday Special, so kind of a bummer weekend. I probably would have done better sitting on my ass at home writing more.
Dave
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 7: translating online post speak into English
This post I will translate what people claim to do for a living into real language, as well as comment on what you can expect if you date this person. Before I get into this understand that, at least for men, people with high paying jobs or who are wealthy really have no need to go to a dating site to meet women, so if there is someone claiming to be a doctor or stockbroker probably has some serious issues along the lines of lost his fact in a tragic belt sanding accident. If you are looking to meet a doctor, go to a hospital.
Teacher. For some reason I have dated a lot of teachers (what did your mom do for a living, Dave? Thank you, Dr. Freud), although not so much lately. They tend to be pretty stable, with few annoying habits and plenty of free time on weekends and summer. They also have no gray area when it comes to kids; either they love them or hate them. When a teacher posts online it typically means they are sick of dating other teachers, so if you are one best you should move on. For men, this guy usually falls into the hates kids camp. However, they tend to be pretty reliable, loyal, and while they don’t have a lot of money coming in should be able to one day buy a house and retire. For women they also tend to be the same, except they all inevitably “love to travel” and once in a while you will meet one who is a freak in bed. Something about having to be so proper all day, I guess.
Medical Professional. This is a term people use to try to trick you into thinking they are a doctor. They are not. Doctors say doctor. This person is at best a nurse, probably an orderly of some kind or at worse the guy who mops up the bio-hazardous waste or works in the kitchen. Sometimes pharmacy. The thing about being in the medical profession without being a doctor is you tend to get your ego punched in the stomach every day by pretentious, overbearing doctors, so if you are looking for someone you can dominate in a relationship this might be the person for you. Also, most of them hate doctors, so whatever your lame job is it will probably look more appealing. For women this person is usually a nurse, so you can expect to talk a lot about either sex or disgusting work stories involving having to clean up something truly repulsive or changing an adult diaper or bedpan. On the other hand, they tend to be pretty horny. For guys this is more often an orderly, which is the medical equivalent of a pizza deliver guy except they don’t make tips.
Medical examiner. The one exception to the no-doctors-online rule is the medical examiner. I’ve never met a female one, so I will not comment on what it is like to go out with one. From what I have seen second hand male mortician actually tend to know some of the funniest jokes you have ever heard, especially if you like gallows humor. If you have a darker side, love vampires or zombies, and/or want to creep out your friends by all means date this guy.
Lawyer. Lawyers are interesting. Usually they are so busy with work that you will be lucky to see them one evening a week, if that. They also, for the most part, hate their job and life but spent so much money on school that they cannot afford to do anything else. For women this seems especially true, as I have dated a few and they all feel frustration about their life. They also tend to have little interests outside of work and working out, so whenever I date one it tends to be a painful struggle to find something to talk about beyond the whole trying-to-remain-true-to-your-nerd-self-while-talking-to-a-woman thing. For men this never, ever means a rich corporate law guy. This is usually a public defender or ambulance chaser. I don’t date men, so I can’t comment too strongly on this, but from what I have seen these tend to not be the most loyal on the planet. On the other hand even a poor lawyer can afford a nice evening out.
Business owner. Take it from a business owner, this is never a Fortune 500,000 company. For men, the best case scenario is a guy who has his own tech service fixing computers and networks. These guys tend to be pretty geeky and therefore fun to date if you are a geek, but they also tend to work a lot, especially at night. At worst this guy owns a failing Play it Again Sports and is a few months away from going back to work as a sanitation engineer. In either case the problem with these guys is there will be good months and bad months. One month he will be rolling in dough and the next eating Top Ramen. For women this somehow always ends up being owning a bead shop somewhere. Don’t ask me why. They tend to be kind of fun and have more free time than guys who own shops, but they also tend to be pretty uninclined to hit the gym, if you know what I mean.
Of course, it goes without saying that if the business owner happens to be a guy with a website that sells nerd t-shirts and writes a hilarious dating advice blog than he is not only fun and entertaining, but also sexy and virile as hell. You should probably sleep with him as soon as possible.
That’s it for now. More tomorrow. By they way, I just reread my last post and think it’s one of the best I have written, so if you didn’t read it go back and do so.
For the last posts who-would-win, I would have to bet on the half squad of Stormtroopers beating the full squad of Sandmen. Better combat training (although Stormtroopers seem to be missing the part of their training that would teach them to hide behind cover or maybe even duck down), better weapons, and better armor. Not to mention they are about 1,000 times cooler. The numerical superiority of a full squad of Sandmen would not make up for that. (Stormtrooper image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirt category)
For today the question I cross genres to ask who would win, Donkey Kong versus Mecha-Godzilla?
Nerd Dating: Making “the Move” part 3: Kissing basics
I’m not going to dig in too deep on this. There are any number of sites with advice on how to kiss. Instead, I will highlight things to look for that can make the kiss work well or fail miserably (trust me, when it comes to mistakes you can make to crash and burn, I am an expert).
1. Clean breath. I have stated this before many times, but it is important enough to restate again. If you think you might make out, don’t order the onion-garlic special for dinner. In fact, operate under the assumption that you might be kissing on any given night and order accordingly. Get your stank breath dinner plate on the way home after she rejects you for other reasons. Also, brush, floss, and toss in a breath mint at some point.
2. Match her tongue technique. Kissing a girl can be like trying to pet a strange cat. The slightest bad move and she will skitter under the bed, never to be seen again. Some women like a lot of tongue. Some women think it’s gross as hell. She will show you what she likes with her tongue. Go as deep as she does and not one micro-millimeter further. The difference between her thinking you a nice guy or a sex driven pervert is literally one lick too many.
3. Hold her face. Most (not all) women kind of like it if you put one hand on the side of her face while kissing. DO NOT use both hands. Try it and see if she seems to respond positively. Also, if you have hands big enough to encompass her entire head (I generally do) just use the the finger tips.
4. Go gentle. Slow and easy. Remember that strange cat. (Actually, this advice can be applied to all your interactions).
5. Close your eyes, and keep them closed. Some women will, at some point during the long kiss, open her eyes to make sure you don’t have your eyes open. Somehow the romance is robbed if you open your eyes, but not if she does. It’s called a double standard because it is twice as true.
6. Do your best to control your autonomic responses. Nothing will kill the mood like you having to belch (or something even less savory) during the kiss, but that should be obvious. However, given the audience I am talking to I can’t assume anything, so don’t belch during the kiss. The important one to avoid, however, is showing your excitement in a physical sense if you know what I mean. For some girls this would not be a real problem, but like I have said most women are constantly looking for an excuse to dump you and pitching a tent 30 seconds into your first kiss can give her the rip cord she is looking to pull. Think about baseball or something.
That’s it for today. Next post I will start talking about when and how to initiate the kiss.
Last posts’ “who would win” question actually seems pretty obvious in retrospect. I think Gandalf would kick seven kinds of crap out of Harry Potter in about 30 seconds. Sorry to all the Harry Potter fans out there, but any man who can beat a Balrog one on one will not have a lot of trouble with a pimple faced teenager on a broom.
Today’s question is kind of a “stoppable force meets movable object” one. Who would win; a squad of Stormtroopers verses a squad of Red Shirts? (Stormtrooper image courtesy of the Star Wars t-shirt category).
Movie Review: Megamind
Ok, I know I shouldn’t interrupt the interview series with Danny Nero, but I just saw this movie and want to do this while it is fresh and the movie is still relevant. Also I have nailed down the rating system and want the chance to present it.
Like many movie reviews, I am going to award movies stars. However, unlike other movie reviewers, I am going to tell you exactly what each star is for. Each positive thing I see in the movie will get a star or two. For example, I might say “Plot was decent. One star.” Then, because I am a nerd who loves outer space and knows what happens to stars when they go bad, I am going to award black holes for negative things I see in the movie. An example might be “After the movie I felt compelled to go upstairs and murder the projectionist in an attempt to keep other film patrons from suffering as I had just done. Four black holes.”
At that point I will add up all the stars and subtract all the black holes and hopefully come up with a number between 1 and 10 in either stars or black 
holes. So a movie like Blade Runner would have like 10 stars and one black hole (for coming out with 14 different versions and making the first release the weakest of them. See the final cut if you haven’t) for a net total of 9 stars, an extremely good score. A movie like Zardoz would have like 10 black holes (plot, acting, character development, costumes, chest hair, the list goes on) and two stars (for having Sean Connery in it and for the fact that pretty much every woman in the film has a nude scene at some point) for a net of 8 black holes, a terrible score. (Blade Runner image courtesy of the movie t-shirt category)
Let’s try it out, shall we? Megamind is an animated superhero movie that borrows so heavily from Superman comics that if it were a lung transplant there would be no chance of tissue rejection. It details the adventures of Megamind, a super intelligent alien sent to earth by his parents while their planet got blow up by a supernova-I mean sucked into a black hole, and his arch nemesis, Metroman, a completely different super powered alien sent to earth by his parents from a different planet that was being sucked into the same black hole. The twist here is that Megamind, the protagonist, is the villain rather than the hero. I enjoyed the movie too much to give any more spoilers that that.
Stars first. Excellent plot-one star. Animation was un-freaking-believable-one star. Main character was very cool-one star. Main character was voiced by Will Ferrell, whom I am a big fan-one star. Main character was a villain-one star. Comic relief characters were not completely worthless but were rather actually pretty bad ass in and of themselves-one star. Dialogue was fun and well written-one star. Female supporting character was drawn as a younger, hotter version of Tina Fey (whom I already think is pretty hot looking) and basically had her sarcastic, dry personality with short haired brunette elfin-like looks-one star. Tons of super villain devices, robots, explosives, and weapons-one star. Total: 10 stars.
Now the black holes. The movie had not just one, but two comic relief characters (in a comedy, no less)-two black holes (one each). Story was kind of predictable-one black hole. While the writers can claim it’s a tribute to comic books all they want, it’s basically a Superman story with a twist-one black hole. Also, they couldn’t decide if they were writing the Incredibles or not-one black hole. Total, 5 black holes.
If you have a 1st grade eduction you can probably subtract the 5 black holes from the 10 stars and get this movies final score in my opinion: 5 stars. However, remember that there is a range of stars (positive) and black holes (negative) so really, it’s like a 15 out of 20. And that’s the last time I will explain that. Essentially a 5 is very good, as even a one star movie is still in the positive.
Also, note that there is no upper limit to either stars or black holes (just like in space). As an example, I give the Star Wars Holiday Special one star for each of the main movie stars that made the horrible mistake of showing up in it and another star for the cartoon first appearance of Boba Fett. Then I give it one black hole for every second of it’s existance-7200 black holes. Plus a black hole each for the appearances of Harvey Korman, Bea Arthur, and Jefferson Starship, with 10 bonus black holes for the wookie porn scene and 83 black holes for Bea Arthur singing. Net result: 7289 black holes.
(Please note-that is not my clever way of saying you should see the Star Wars Holiday Special for some kind of nerd cred. There is nothing good about that flick. Trust me. It would be better if you watched the Phantom Menace in slow motion every day for a month than watch that. If you ignore my advice on this you will have a cherished childhood memory sexually abused, murdered, and then have the corpse desecrated. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
But I digress. Megamind gets a 5 from me, which means it’s totally fun. You can bring your kids to it. You can bring a date to it. Heck, I think I’d even bring my mom to it. Well worth seeing, even though I had to watch it in 3d, which gives me a headache.
By they way, as far as that rating system goes, Copyright 2010 Dave Inman
On the road again
No dancing or dating advice this weekend. I am headed to LA for the LA Comic Book convention. If you are in LA stop by and say hi.
The celebrities at this show are Todd Bridges (Willis from Different Strokes) and Daniel Logan, who played young Boba Fett in Episode II, Attack of the Clones (image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirt category). I guess you can tell the show is not huge, but it is fun and there is usually a lot of stuff to see there. Also, my super hot friend Olga will be helping me out, and afterward we are going to see Res Evil 3D so look forward to a review by me next week.
Talk to you soon.
