Best Manga Dub Evar

Can I just say that it’s great to see Andy Richter back with Conan?

I’m Not a Keith Urban Fan…

Note to self: I don’t want to live.

A Positive Review of Transformers 2 [How to Let Go and Let Bay]

This is really a post that give you a few pointers for enjoying Transformers 2, or as I like to put it, “how to let go and let Bay.”

I’ve been looking forward to watching Transformers 2 since Transformers 1 ended, mostly because they didn’t seriously screw with the premise, and it’s cool to see huge robots on the screen do cool stuff.  The special effects are awesome, and I’ve always loved Transformers.

I had a discussion with Sean P. Aune just before I went to go see the film this weekend about it.

Sean: btw, I may hate Michael Bay, but you have GOT to see how Optimus Prime arrives in the new movie, watch to the end of this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaXIPBn24fs&feature=player_embedded. Pirated from a Japanese theater, btw
me: k.
 me: heh. not shabby. Iris and i have decided to watch it in the IMAX.
Sean: I KNOW Transformers will suck, but I think I am better prepared for it... and driving a semi out of a plane oddly helped lol
me: if you let go and let bay, it helps. Michael Bay = explosions. I know what I'm getting when I buy the ticket.
Sean: It will be... BAY-TASTIC.
me: BaySPLOSIOns!
me: ba ba ba bay boom!
me: And as a guy, Megan Whatsername helps the picture a lot.
Sean: lol Megan Fox
me: whatever. All I know is that she was hot when she was looking under Bumblebee's hood.
Sean: lol
me: one or two of those scenes in the sequel, big robots exploding, and i'll call it a win.

Sean: Dude, the final scene of that movie is SOOOOOOOOOOO disturbing.
Sean: Megan and Shia making out... ON TOP OF THEIR ROBOT FRIEND!
me: haha – robophilia
Sean: and to top it off... the other robots are sitting there with their headlights on watching them!
me: and you wonder why the movie does well in Japan? That's worth at least two tentacle rape scenes right there.
Sean: I sat in the theater going, "Does no one else get how fucking creepy this is?!?"

That really sums up my thoughts on the movie pretty well, though.  It’s not that Michael Bay is a bad filmmaker – maybe he is, maybe he’s not.  I don’t follow his work that closely, and really only know him from Transformers and that other asteroid movie.  I do know the reputation he has from Robot Chicken pretty much bears out from the small sampling of Bay films I’ve seen.

Here’s the thing, though: my expectations for a Transformers film aren’t that high to begin with – Baysplosions or not.

  
If you’re around my age, you probably have romanticized memories about the Transformers series.  How awesome it was, and what a cool storyline it has.

Go back and watch the original series, though.  I have.  My eldest son AJ just before the original came out made us go out and buy a ton of the original series because he suddenly had an urge to watch it.  If you go through it as many times as I have, you’ll realize that the series really sucked.

Sure, there was a storyline, and as an overplot, it made sense.  The dialogue and the episode storylines were barely strung together and made one cringe more often than not.  It’s easy to see why the cheaper cousins of the Transformers, the Go-Bots, were as popular as the original series – the apple didn’t need to fall farm from the tree.

 
Taking a crappy storyline, making it look pretty with million dollar CG, hot babes and explosions? Marketing genius. It takes the original turd and bronzes it, puts it in a Neiman-Marcus bag, and gives it back to us.

You really expect this thing to compare to the Godfather, Ebert?  The original concept has as much legs as the Asteroid remake they’re working on.

*** Spoiler Alert – Here Comes the Actual Review ***

So I saw the movie.  And I liked what I saw.

Here’s the plot synopsis in gross over-simplification:

Sam goes to college, and accidentally downloads the Matrix to his brain.

Optimus gets killed.

Humans march into battle.

Humans do some ass-kicking.

But lose.

Sam goes on a vision quest and brings Optimus back to life. He bolts on parts from an SR-71.

Optimus goes apeshit and kills all but a few of the bad guys.

The heroes (literally) ride off into the sunset.

The End.

(... or is it!?! … duh duh ddduunnnn).

How can you not like that?  It’s formulaic Transformers, not Shakespeare, Roger.

New Music: Wordpress as a CMS [#wcdfw09]

One of the many highlights of the WordCamp Dallas 2009 weekend was the WordPress song.

The song was by Scott Kingsley Clark, a developer and songwriter, lead a discussion on Wordpress as a CMS as opposed to just a blog platform.  He kicked it off with a song.

You can get more with his “error folk” music project titled Soft Charisma.

Persepolis: The Iranian Revolution Explained

As you know, my head’s been wrapped up in what’s now being called the New Iranian Revolution. You can read my extended coverage of it around the blogosphere here.

On the weekends, I try to unplug, and one of the ways my wife and I pass the time is to catch up on our movies.  This week, one of her picks was Persepolis, which is available, amongst other places, on AT&T UVerse’s Video on Demand service.

The movie is a French independent film that was critically acclaimed and took home several honors from the Cannes Film Festival, and follows the life of Marjane Satrapi as she comes of age during the original Iranian Revolution (see the Wikipedia plot summary here – contains spoilers, but gives a good overview of the film).

There are a lot more intellectual ways to catch up on the historical backdrop against which the current events are unfolding in Tehran right now, but this makes for a far more personal and engaging perspective.  I definitely recomend it. 

I wasn’t able to find it on Joost, Hulu, or any of the other usual (legal) suspects, so my best suggestion is to go the old fashioned route and rent it if you can’t find it on your DVR service.

Helen Hunt in a Mind Blowing Performance with Hall & Oates

Accompanied by Keyboard Cat.

This thing blows my mind. Completely.  Watch to the end.

Dark Side of the Taco

“I hear that if you play this album in sync with Dr. Doolittle, Greg Luganus will fall through your ceiling and tell you a bedtime story.”

- Brad Williamson via Friendfeed