“Did you know your last name’s an adverb?”

1984’s Johnny Dangerously has been something I’ve been meaning to watch for some time now. When I found out it was on Hulu.com, I figured what better way to celebrate that serendipitous discovery than going to FYE and buying the DVD… Wait a minute….



Plot
A young boy growing up in early 20th century New York wants to be an honest kid, but needing cash to pay for his mother’s surgery leads him to helping out a local crime boss. Taking on a double life as Johnny Dangerously, he eventually becomes one of the most wanted gangsters in the city, but considers going legit when a new District Attorney arrives determined to bring him in. Also, Johnny falls in love with a beautiful nightclub singer.

It’s a straightforward plot that pretty much runs on its rails all the way to the end of its 90 minutes, but this is a farcical take on gangster movies, so really, why bother nitpicking it to death? Johnny’s courtship doesn’t hit many bumps after the initial ice and you never really feel like he’s in danger or not in control of the situation. But it’s a farce, like Airplane! and The Naked Gun movies.

Characters
Johnny Kelly/Dangerously: Michael Keaton plays a character that everybody in town except his family knows is a notorious nightclub owner/gangster/etc. Hell, he even hands the “friggin’ Pope” (Dom DeLouise) a wad of cash in one scene. Johnny’s kind of a marty-stu in that just about everybody loves him, he’s almost always right, and everything is about him. But Keaton plays it with charm and a knowing grin. He’s not taking things seriously as he hams it up across the film. You like Johnny, and you end up rooting for him, despite knowing he’s a crook, and despite/because of one of the funniest gang assassinations involving Danny DeVito and a bull I’ve ever seen. Keaton has to carry the movie for it to even hope to work, and he does. I have to admit, he is quite the badass in this film.

Lil: Johnny’s love interest (Marilu Henner). She’s a sultry singer with not a lot of character development, but she “gives good banter” when she meets Johnny, which is enough to get their relationship on the road.

Danny Vermin: Joe Piscopo is this film’s villain. A thoroughly unrepentant, self-aware psychopath with a really big gun (“it shoots through schools”) who likes crime for its own sake. Its fun watching him and Dangerously trying to out-ham each other on screen. He’s two dimensional, sure, but he’s funny as hell too.

Ma Kelly: Johnny’s mom, mostly played for laughs as the dirty old woman with an endless stream of medical ailments. Frighteningly competent when push comes to shove near the end of the movie.

Tommy Kelly: Johnny’s younger brother who goes to law school (not knowing he’s being funded by his brother’s criminal career) and becomes a D.A. determined to bring in Dangerously. He’s so full of “aw gee shucks” law-abiding honesty and idealism that it makes you want to puke. Fortunately, it makes almost all of the other characters want to puke too, and Tommy gets the crap beaten out of him (physically and verbally) throughout the movie. He also gets a character arc where he has to come to grips with the revelation of his brother’s criminal career.

Jocko Dundee: Peter Boyle plays Johnny’s crime lord mentor. A very fatherly father figure who eventually retires, leaving his empire to Johnny. Has a rivalry with…

Roman Moronie: Ok, he’s a fairly minor character who’s good for about one joke, but it’s a great joke. He mangles the English language so badly when he curses people out it comes out to something like “Its fargin’ war to cork-soaking icehole bastiches!” He gets written out of the movie by the second act, but damn was he fun to watch.

Visuals (Direction/Effects)
It’s a “period film” so that means old-timey cars, guns, clothing, etc. Like I said, it’s a farce also, so a lot of anachronisms creep as well, some intentional, some not.

The directing by Amy Heckerling gives it a very “movie” feel. You know the kind, when you know that a lot of it is filmed on sound stages and the lighting is fairly uniform. It has that visual look and feel of a movie from the golden age of cinema when realistic sets were needed only so far as they looked enough like what they were supposed to look like without going into obsessive-compulsive detail. I believe that was an intentional choice for this movie.

Writing
Four writers for the film: Harry Colomby, Jeff Harris, Bernie Kukoff, Norman Steinberg. That’s quite a few writers for a 90 minute flick. Then again, there’s a rapid fire endless stream of jokes, visual gags and one-liners. Since the plot is pretty linear, the sheer number of jokes muscle the story onward. The thing is, when you rapid fire the humor, not every punch line is going to hit. Some of the jokes fall flat, or are so dated to 1984 that I didn’t get them, but overall there are more hits than misses. Being a PG-13 movie (one of the first, apparently) I was rather surprised by just how much innuendo and other stuff they managed to sneak in under the radar. I like getting those kinds of surprises in a movie.

There’s one scene where Johnny breaks the fourth wall to tell the kids watching that smoking isn’t cool, even though all the gangsters in the movie are doing it. I think on repeat viewings that might bother me, but the first time through it was just kind of a surreal moment that made me laugh in a puzzled way. The characters are a little bit two dimensional, but nothing that stopped me from laughing.

One thing that really did nothing for me was the framing narrative of Johnny working in a pet store. I get what they were trying to do, and some of the jokes, like using a price gun on puppies, were great, but the pet shop scenes just kind of dragged.

Sound
You know, I can’t remember any of the music aside from Lil’s song in the night club and the “Weird Al” Yankovic song “This Is The Life” at the beginning. Those songs were amusing.

Conclusion
I will concede that there are flaws with this film. Most characters are more like caricatures who don’t really develop, and the plot is extraordinarily vanilla. But you know what, I laughed. For the duration of the film. For a comedy, that’s mission accomplished, right there. Great one-liners, good gags and a lot of talented actors hamming it up in a genre that doesn’t have a lot of straight-up comedies. I can see why people might not like it, but I can’t see why it isn’t more popular than it actually is.

“I’m gonna make Gretzky’s head bleed for superfan 99 over here.”

RMWC trundles onward into the DVD shelf, grabbing Doug Liman’s Swingers (1996) for two reasons. I really love that movie and its only 96 minutes long. Funnily enough, checking IMDB, Liman also directed The Bourne Identity, as well as Jumper. That has no bearing on my intended viewing whatsoever.

PlotA group of young actors with shitty jobs in Hollywood hang out after hours and try to score chicks. Hilarity ensues.


All right, there’s a little more too it than that. You’ve got Mike, a stand up comedian who’s been reeling for six months after breaking up with his ex and moving to L.A. from New York. The movie follows him as he tries to get over his ex. It’s a simple plot, but often in comedy, simple is perfectly suitable.


Characters
Mike: Our Hero, and also Iron Man director Jon Favreau. Mike’s a nice guy, but therein lies his problem. He just can’t get over his ex girlfriend and that stunts his ability to function around his buddies. Of course, that’s the main crux of the movie. Can he get over his ex girlfriend and his own awkwardness to woo the beautiful babies? Here, Mike really is likeable, and a lot of the humor comes from the downright painfully awkward situations he gets himself into.


Trent: Mike’s best friend and a would-be actor, played by Vince Vaughan. Trent is the fast talking, action-taking flipside to Mike. Trent is the cool buddy who’s constantly trying to push Mike into self confidence (and also through leading by example). Trent is this movie’s baddass, calling anyone out on bullshit, always backing up his buddy. The only real downside to his character is that he doesn’t get a real character arc, and that difference shows by the end of the movie.


Rob: Mike’s friend from back east, recently moved to L.A. and struggling to find work as an actor. Certainly a side character, he struggles to swallow his pride after auditioning to be Goofy at Disneyland after playing Hamlet Off-Broadway. Also happens to be played by Ron Livingston, who was in Office Space.


Sue: A local who’s dad loved that Johnny Cash song, Sue is more Trent’s friend than Mike’s since they both chase the ladies with gusto. Sue’s also got an image thing going on where he projects himself as a hard-boiled badass who grew up on the streets and carries a gun around, which invariably causes trouble. Sue’s the easily pissed off one, which leads to the somewhat surprising end of the second act.


Visuals (Direction/Effects)
No special effects to speak of, considering the subject and budget. All that leaves is cinematography to deliver on the mood. Liman delivers. Sure, some of the shots are deliberate shout outs to other movies, but the composition of the movie is overall very solid. Los Angeles and Las Vegas are captured in a fairly realistic way. When they roll into Vegas in the first act, Trent & Mike, Vegas looks like the swanky, fancy, neon playground that everyone expects. Then they get inside one of the lesser casinos and it looks like how the midnight-6 AM crowd on a Wednesday night would look: slow and a little bit sad.


A similar thing gets done with L.A. Its not the over-glamorized movie factory town, but its also not the crime riddled war zone of the underbelly. It’s a lower middle-class L.A. where people who drive beat up old cars go to hole in the wall jazz/swing bars and their apartments have cracks in the walls from all the earthquakes. It’s a refreshing snapshot of a nightlife scene that doesn’t really exist anymore (after all, its been more than ten years and the swing revival didn’t last very long).


Also, I have to mention that I absolutely love some of the shots in the movie. Trent pissing by the side of the road on a bright sunny morning is awesome. Mike standing in silhouette in his doorway after coming home from a bar is one of my favorite shots of all time for some reason.


Writing

An indie film like this lives or dies on the strength of its writing. Jon Favreau’s script is a solid three act story where the main character learns something about himself and the movie doesn’t waste time getting there.


More importantly, the dialogue is outstanding. I’m struggling to sound glib and urbane here in describing it and nothing good is coming to mind, and I don’t want to just start quoting it because I’ll feel like a douche. It is funny. It is damn funny. It is infinitely quotable in a variety of situations.


Sound
The soundtrack is suited to a movie about the not-wife-swapping kind of swinging. A laid back jazz soundtrack punctuated with a country song here, a rock song there just hammers home the underground feel of the movie: playing Dean Martin over the opening credits in a movie about 20-something actors in L.A. in the early-mid 90s was not a mainstream decision. Also, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy made a live appearance in the film, one of their earliest exposures to a wider audience.


Conclusion
I love this movie. It blends thoughtfulness, style, music and banter into a compact little package that is best viewed in the company of others. Thoroughly recommend it, and if you don’t like it, then there’s no accounting for some people’s bad taste.




This... is an awful trailer. Do not let it discourage you.

"I don't know. Fly casual."

1983’s Return of the Jedi brought the Star Wars Trilogy to a close, and appropriately that’s the next movie on the slate to watch. Once more, I’m working with the 2006 Limited Edition 2 disc set which contains the theatrical cut on one disc and the 1997 Special Editions on the erroneously named “disc 1”

Once again the director’s chair changed hands, with Richard Marquand taking over.

Plot
Han Solo is rescued from his carbonite prison and the Rebellion mounts a final offensive against the Empire and its new Death Star. In the meantime, Luke Skywalker moves toward his fated confrontation with his father, Darth Vader.

Characters
R2-D2: The little droid continues to be a Swiss Army Knife of useful MacGuffins, smuggling weapons and serving drinks at the same time.

C-3PO: So he spends almost the entire movie teamed up with Artoo, providing more comic relief. This time around though, Threepio also ends up being useful to the heroes, being revered as a god by the Ewoks of Endor. That’s definitely a first for the golden droid.

General Lando Calrissian: By this movie, Lando’s made up for his betrayal in the first movie, getting a promotion and being in on Han’s rescue. Then he separates from the other heroes to lead the assault on the Death Star and ends up being the only other person in the movies to fly the Falcon. Not bad at all.

General Han Solo: Han’s back, but doesn’t seem to really have much of an arc. He’s already become a full time hero in Empire. Here he’s more of the same and gets his romance arc with Leia completed. Still, Han Solo screen time is good screen time.

Princess Leia: Leia fully becomes an action girl, infiltrating Jabba’s Palace with style and later kicking ass on Endor. She’s also the lynchpin of this movies twist. Oh yeah, and along the way she gets captured again and turned into a pop culture sex symbol that helped usher in a generation of nerdy boys into puberty. Metal bikinis

Chewbacca: Still in the sidekick/muscle role, but Chewie finally gets a little solo time to basically turn the tide for the ground battle.

Yoda: Yoda’s not on screen much, but damn he’s still impressive. Its quite surprising how moving a puppet’s death scene can be.

Darth Vader: Vader comes across as having second thoughts. Luke’s his son, determined to confront him and the Emperor. Vader seems a little…I don’t know, mellow in this film. He doesn’t choke anyone.

The Emperor: The “guy behind the guy” and this movie’s Villain. A menacing, scheming, withered old bastard in a black bathrobe. His presence naturally lowers Vader’s menace. After all, a guy who can boss around a guy like Vader has to be bad news. Still, he doesn’t really seem to upstage Vader because the Emperor has no arc. He simply smiles sinisterly and twirls his moustache (well, if he had one)

Admiral Ackbar: It’s a trap!

Luke Skywalker: You know, considering where he was in the first movie, you wouldn’t think that Luke was this film’s badass, but he is. Okay, first he’s matured since being by his suddenly revealed father in the last film. He’s capable, powerful and one of the most powerful assets in the Rebellion. He orchestrates Han’s rescue with a LOT of contingency plans (like being captured), and kills a giant monster with only a skull. Luke’s a Machiavellian genius in this film. The real arc for him is his struggle with his bloodline. Just how much of his father’s weaknesses are in him. How much does he want to kill the Emperor? How close does he dare get to becoming amorally powerful? Its rather compelling stuff without lessening Luke’s “just as planned” gambit to redeem his father.

Visuals (Direction/Effects)
Three years after Empire, the special effects are the tightest of the three movies, as well as being central to the action scenes. Jabba’s a fantastic visual, the stop motion for the walkers is outstanding, and the rancor is a fantastic monster in the Ray Harryhausen tradition. In terms of fighting, the Battle of Endor probably has the best dogfight of the three. The ground battle on the other hand feels a little long to me.

In terms of directing, I’d equate it below Empire but a little bit above Star Wars. The playing around with lighting and framing to create mood is great, but the pacing is slower and has a little less tension than Empire.

Writing
I have to admit, I think the writing on Jedi is maybe the weakest of the three. Its much more serious than most of Empire’s dialogue and probably the least enjoyably quotable of the trilogy. Han and Lando are still pretty snarky, but Threepio & Artoo’s lines aren’t quite as good as in the other films. The serious dialogue seems a little too hamfisted as well.

Sound
If saying the Star Wars trilogy has epic sound effects and music sounds like a broken record, then I don’t want to be fixed. John Williams’ score + Ben Burtt sound direction = Epic Win. Some of the music in Jabba’s Palace delves into synthesizers, but I can forgive that for the “Yub Yub” song at the end. Its impossible to listen to it without a grin.

Conclusion
Return of the Jedi was my favorite of the Trilogy growing up, but after the passage of time and a BA in English later, I have to give in to the prevailing wind and admit that The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the three. Doesn’t mean that I like Jedi less than I used to, but Empire is better crafted. I think that part of the problem with Jedi is that it mirrors the first Star Wars A LOT, and not just because of the Death Star. The movie starts with Vader making a strong entrance, then shifts to the two droids on a desert planet getting captured by strange and dangerous aliens before Luke shows up.

Still, the movie has worth. It is fun and a pretty good conclusion to the Star Wars ADVENTURE! Ultimately I recommend it.

"I thought they smelled bad on the outside."

Well, after watching the original version of 1977’s Star Wars (later subtitled A New Hope), the next logical step would be to look over the sequel. 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back brought the cast of the first film back for more ADVENTURE!, and was very clearly on its way to being a series, adding “Episode V” to the opening Wall of Text and ending on one hell of a cliffhanger. The pieces were set, the budget was bigger and a new director, Irvin Kershner was at the helm of Lucas’ baby. Blowing up the DEATH STAR (again, going with how the title crawl spelled it) set a big precedent for this movie to live up to.






Plot
The Empire is pissed about its defeat in the first movie, and proceeds to kick down the rebels’ snow fort and chase them into space, while Luke goes walkabout and everybody on the Millennium Falcon has a really bad day. And THEN shit gets real. It may not sound like much when put that way, but this movie definitely plays on the ramifications of the first film. Darth Vader survived the explosion of the Death Star, and he is pissed. While it may not “go big” in the same way that the first one did, it ratchets up the tension by throwing the main characters into serious life threatening situations from the start and also throws some interesting twists into the works.

Characters
Luke Skywalker: The Hero continues his journey. He’s a little more experienced now, but a near death experience at the beginning of the movie causes him to seek out training for his jedi abilities. Luke learns a lot in this film, and not all of the revelations are welcome.

Han Solo: By this film, he & Luke are bro’s, and he’s becoming a lot more respectable in the eyes of the rebellion. Unfortunately, he’s still got that bounty hanging over his head and means to pay it off somehow. Han’s arc continues his discover that there’s something worth fighting for beyond self preservation, except in this case its someone worth fighting for.

Princess Leia: Our plucky heroine continues to be a fiery presence within the rebellion. This time around she’s with Han for most of the movie, and the sparks fly between them. Then she gets captured again (though to be fair, so does Han, Chewie & Threepio)

R2-D2: Artoo ends up with Luke on his spirit journey, side kicking for the Jedi-to-be, but unable to sample the peyote himself.

C-3PO: Threepio ends up separated from Artoo, becoming someone for Han to yell at when things go wrong. He’s very much comic relief for the crew of the Falcon, but then again he also gets shot, so he gets a little pathos too.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Still dead, but still on-screen. Ben goes into full-on mentor mode when Luke gets to Dagobah, since he’s incorporeal now.

Lando Calrissian: Lando’s awesome. A smooth talking administrator with ties to Han’s past, Lando gets his own character arc where he finds out he’s gotten more than he’s bargained for (or rather, less).

Yoda: The new mentor figure for Luke, and one of the best realized puppets on film. Yoda’s first impression is of an insane little swamp dwelling alien that doesn’t take no to Luke telling him to go away, then he reveals himself as a Jedi master (like it’s a spoiler anymore). Voiced and operated by Frank Oz, Yoda’s an old hermit who’s taught centuries of Jedi trainees and gives the impression of a wise old samurai, imparting his wisdom, is about as far away from Kermit & Co. as you can get.

Darth Vader: This film’s badass, without question. Vader continues his favorite hobby of chocking people out, welshing on deals and generally doing whatever the hell he wants. Tarkin’s dead and we only see the Emperor in a holographic teleconference, so this film is Vader’s playground. Aside from that, we also get hints at his true nature, only hinted at in the first movie. A quick glance into his evil little snow globe shows that he has been seriously messed up at some point in the past. Of course, not like it’s a big surprise anymore, but he also drops the biggest bombshell in the movie on Luke.

Visuals (Direction/Effects)
The success of the first movie combined with three years of technological improvements resulted in just as many if not more effects. There’s a lot more stop motion for creatures like Tauntauns, and the Battle of Hoth has a lot more visceral visual energy than the Battle of Yavin (the ships move faster). Yoda is a masterwork, and the planets (Hoth, Dagobah and Bespin) are all plausible looking and distinctive. In terms of directing, I will be very honest and say that I think that this movie is better than Star Wars. I think its better framed, there’s a much more dynamic use of color and lighting by the final act on Cloud City, and in general is a lot tighter in jumping from scene to scene. Irvin Kershner really deserves a lot more credit than he seems to get.

Writing
Decidedly improved over the last film. As the “darker, second act” the movie ends up in a really dark place that leaves you wanting for a resolution. However, despite that whole darker image, its also a much funnier movie, probably because for the audience, this movie has heaps of Schadenfreude. The dialogue is snappier, the characters feel more comfortable, and putting C-3PO with Han Solo is pretty much guaranteed comedy. It wasn’t just Lucas working on the script this time, and it paid off. Also, Empire features some nifty new twists on things. For one, the usually accepted policy of Hero gets the Princess gets turned aside because Leia and Han turn into an item (the other reason why it wouldn’t work gets revealed later). Then there’s the paternal reveal which really threw audiences for a loop back then. Darth Vader is what!? Whether everything was plotted out beforehand for the trilogy or not doesn’t matter. This movie is better written than the first because the story starts to bob and weave around the audience in a good way.

Sound
Still top notch. Sound effects are still top shelf and the score by John Williams takes things up a bit by introducing the Imperial March. Again, without either of those elements, the immersion would be incomplete.

Conclusion
As a kid, Empire was my least favorite of the trilogy, maybe because of the downer ending. As a pretentious adult, I have to admit that The Empire Strikes Back is a much finer crafted film than Star Wars. Everything from the acting to the pacing to the framing feels tighter. Obviously, if you’ve watched the first film, you should see this one, and once again, it’s a slice of cinema history to enjoy the theatrical original cut.

"That's funny, the damage doesn't look as bad from up here"

Because I have a large stack of movies available for my viewing, and being a bit of an opinionated ass when it comes to storytelling, there is still a place in my schedule to update RMWC. The Royal We will now begin the new direction for this...whatever by trying to systematically view, subjectively judge and cast aspersions on these poor, defenseless DVDs. That said, what better starting point than...




Star Wars. I know, I know. What hasn’t already been said about Star Wars? Well, you could always peel away the baggage; the happy memories, the broken dreams, the subsequent fan hatedom. Wouldn’t it be great just to go back to 1977 and forget about all the crap that’s piled on top of the franchise and watch it as “Star Wars” and not as “Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope?”

Well, I can’t go back to 1977, since I didn’t exist yet (and neither did a lot of you), so the next best thing would be to just watch the movie. Just watch the movie as it was, and take it on its own merits as the flick that launched a million imaginations (and just as many trilogies). It sure as hell launched mine.

Unfortunately, George Lucas had in the past announced that there was no way the original theatrical version would be released on DVD. This was around the time that the big boxed set of the trilogy was released, which didn’t even feature the Special Editions from 1997, but was instead an even “Special-er Edition.” Yeah, I didn’t get that set. FORTUNATELY, in 2006, a Limited Edition of the original movies was released individually, featuring not only the 1997 Special Editions but also the Original, Original Trilogy. You bet your ass that’s the version I’ve got.

Plot
Young farmboy Luke Skywalker dreams of leaving his small town home (okay, planet) and having adventures. A chance purchase of two fugitive droids carrying crucial information about a deadly super weapon gives him that chance to learn about his hidden heritage as well as teaming up with a scoundrel and rescuing a princess. It’s a straightforward plot, no big twists or surprises. Very primal. No wait, that’s not it. Its mythic (which is no surprise since Lucas has said as much). The frame is the “hero’s journey” with touches of the “Quest” and a little bit of the “road movie” thrown in for good measure to yield not just an adventure, but an ADVENTURE! (all caps with exclamation point). I think that ultimately, the best take on propelling the narrative is that it throws a wall of text that, for someone completely new to the film, makes no sense whatsoever but also establishes an internal backstory that exists for the film, but doesn’t need to be shown. Then it throws you into a ship to ship gunfight and boarding action, leaving you to wonder just what the hell is going on. It's a fantastic in medias res beginning. Sadly, after playing dozens of Star Wars video games, the iconic Wall of Text has lost most of its meaning and impact for me.

The other thing the story does is draw in the audience by going big. What’s at stake? The bad guys have a space station the size of a moon that can blow up planets. And they use it.

Characters
Quite a few, and almost all of them undergo some kind of arc. Let’s examine them.

R2-D2: Yep, the little trashcan that could. As the vessel for the plot’s Macguffin, he’s crucial and oddly enough, brimming with personality for an armless little robot that speaks in beeps and whistles. This little droid has moxie in spades, and is both a sidekick for Luke and the “funnyman” of his duo with…

C-3PO: Threepio’s interesting. He’s anthropomorphic, looks like the Oscar statue and the robot from Metropolis had a baby, is incredibly prissy and his dialogue consists mostly of whining and complaining. In this film, he’s mostly useless to the plot, tagging along with Artoo to provide comic relief (and quite a few quotable lines)

Luke Skywalker: Cool name, in a cheesy, old school b-movie kind of way, right? Yes it is. Luke’s the Hero, the young farm boy who goes off on an ADVENTURE! and starts learning new skills (like lightsaber combat). He’s in way over his head, but its his idealism that drives not only him forward, but a few other characters too. Let’s face it, Luke’s likable.

Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi: The great Sir Alec Guinness as the infinitely patient old soldier/mentor figure. He’s the one who helps light a fire under Luke’s ass to get his ADVENTURE! started (the murdered family also helped). Guinness plays Ben with charm and a twinkle in his eye, which makes the hit from his heroic sacrifice that much more effective.

Princess Leia: The famous cinnamon roll hair. There, I said it. Okay, so she’s a princess, and princesses need rescuing in mythic stories. Still, despite spending most of the movie captured, she’s fiery, not really taking the Empire’s shit and mouthing off to the villains at every opportunity. She’s not above tearing her rescuers a new one either, and is pretty handy with a gun too. Its hard not to like her.

Han Solo: The film’s biggest badass is the smart mouthed, swaggering, audacious space cowboy with the badass name. Say it out loud: Han Solo. It freakin’ works. I never really realized it before, but Han has the second major character arc of the movie. He’s introduced as a shady smuggler in a shady bar with some hefty debts to pay off. He’s kind of desperate, and not above plugging the poor mook (poor, stupid Greedo) sent to collect the bounty on his head. He’s dangerous, and I love the fact that Luke can’t exactly trust him. Even on the DEATH STAR (hey, its all caps in the title scroll), Luke has to twist his arm into helping rescue Leia. Luke’s in over his head, but Han’s in WAY over his head and he knows it, wants to survive it and get paid. But then something happens and he has a change of heart that’s subtly played by Harrison Ford. Han Solo goes from being just another stain on the armpit of the galaxy with a hot rod ship to an actual heroic character (with a hot rod ship).

Chewbacca: Han’s copilot and sidekick. He’s big muscle and ends up providing a lot of comic relief in tense scenes. Oh yeah, and he’s pretty much Han’s conscience. He’s a supporting character, is great at it, but there’s not a whole lot else to say.

Darth Vader: The Villain. Sure, he’s not “THE Villain” (that’s Peter Cushing’s Tarkin) but he’s the badass villain who’s mysterious, dangerous, dresses in all black, has quasi-religious magical Force powers, a red lightsaber and James Earl Jones’ voice. Sure, Tarkin’s all oily and smug and has a big battle station, but Vader is just so commanding and badass cool. He really is one of the great screen villains.

Visuals (Direction/Effects)
How does it look for a 30+ year old movie? You know, the original cut still looks great, and since I’ve never actually seen this cut in widescreen before, there were some nice new bits for me to look at and go, “oh, cool.” In terms of directorial technique, I don’t think I can point to any single frames and go “this one shot is particularly amazing” but I think the visual strength of the film is Lucas’ ability to make the Star Wars universe look lived in and plausible enough to suspend disbelief for (remember, I’m talking about THIS one particular movie here, omitting discussion of all others). I do have to admit, however, that I loved some of the transitions/wipes, like when Threepio is being lifted up transitioning to Ben’s homestead. That could just be me, though.
Turning imagination into visually engaging storytelling is always an accomplishment. Of course, he couldn’t have done that without a kickass special effects team. It still looks great (overall) Lightsabers, lasers, spaceships, costumes, midgets in costumes, puppets, etc. They pulled off so much awesome with not a lot of budget. Look at Chewie and tell me he doesn’t look plausible.

Writing
While its not the best written movie ever, it gets the job done. Characters speak as though you think they should. Obi-Wan’s wise, Luke’s idealistic, Han’s jaded and Vader is threatening. Dialogue gets from point A to point B mostly painlessly, tossing off in-universe references to help flesh out the plausibility of the story. Whole conversations may not be mind blowingly awesome, but the movie’s infinitely quotable (as pop culture already knows)

Sound
Shucks howdy, this movie sounds amazing. First, the sound effects complete the immersion into the film. There’s a reason why Ben Burtt wins an Oscar every time he shows up on a credits reel, and yeah, Star Wars is really where he got his start. Second, the film (alright, trilogy) features possibly the greatest original score for a film EVER. John Williams is a prolific composer, and has worked on some huge movies, but for Star Wars, the music is epic. Without it, it wouldn’t be half the movie that it is today. The visual effects in this film are still great but the sound, my God, the sound is flawless.

Conclusion
Like I was seriously going to say “don’t see this” for Star Wars. I mean, its Star Wars, not Episode IV, or A New Hope, just Star Wars. Of course I like it. Hell, I still like it after all this time. You know what, no matter what Lucasfilm Ltd. Has done or not done since 1997, I can’t justify retroactively putting any of that blame on the original Star Wars, because somewhere on the space/time continuum, there’s George Lucas toiling away on a labor of love in 1977, trying to prove, with a small budget and mostly small name actors, that you can make a kickass ADVENTURE! movie full of crazy visuals and wild-eyed wonder. If you’ve never seen the original cut of Star Wars, you really should track down the “limited edition” 2 disc set and enjoy yourself some cinematic history.

What Is And What Should Never Be Remade

Would’ve updated last night, but Venture Brothers Season 3 hit stores. Watched it instead. Good times, but a word of warning; the box isn’t kidding when it says “uncensored.” In addition to the poopy words to be heard, there is also nudity. There are animated dongs. You have been given fair warning.

Speaking of uncensored profanity, the following will contain lots of it.

It was looking like a pretty good week. Busy, but a good week. Then I saw this. And double checked it here.

I hoped it wasn’t true. I really hoped not, but apparently it is and there is a Three Stooges Movie in the works. “Updated for the new Millennium.” Allegedly with Benicio del Toro, Jim Carrey, and Sean Penn as Moe, Curly and Larry respectively.

Fuck. Me. Fuck la mode, as a t-shirt in Quebec once told me. I… I thought I could muster up some words trying to explain why something from the wildly adolescent days of cinema that embodies beautiful, pure, mindless slapstick with such genius SHOULD NOT BE REMADE FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM!!!11!!1!!!!!!ONEONEELEVENTY!!!

There are not enough exclamation points made to express my rage.

First: The original actual Stooges were a product of their time. They translated what was essentially a vaudeville act onto the silver screen. That’s what a lot of comedy teams did then. It was the Depression and it was cheap escapism for people. And it was pure slapstick. The plot was secondary. Wanna know what a Three Stooges plot goes like?

Simple setup: Crooks want to rob a bank, grave robbers want to steal a mummy, a woman’s throwing a party, a guy wants a haircut before his wedding. Random shit like that. The Stooges get involved somehow: They’re hired to do the job, they’re looking for work, they get mistaken for (insert profession here). Hilarity ensues as they proceed to do everything wrong, get in fights with each other, spout one liners, Moe gets really mad, Curly unleashes catchphrases and bad puns and Larry occasionally plays the violin. Pies are frequently involved. The ending features them either: running away, getting killed comically, or (rarest) somehow outsmarting everybody else. Rinse and repeat for any situation you can think of. Three Stooges in Space. Three Stooges playing football. Three Stooges as dog catchers. The Three Stooges foil some Nazi spies. They even had the Three Stooges taking over a country and making fun of Nazi Germany with Moe as Hitler. Yes Really.

The point I think I’m trying to make through the foggy haze of fury is that the Stooges are classics for being what they are when they were made. Larry, Curly & Moe were funny because they WERE Larry, Curly and Moe. Everything was a vehicle for their perfectly delivered lunacy. And the shorts were short, like 7-10 minutes each.

There is nothing, NOTHING in this information that tells me that this is a “franchise” that should be resurrected to hook up to the movie machine to be sucked dry out of every possible penny. What’s other franchise can they resurrect that was popular based solely on the charisma & performance of the original cast? Steve Martin already did terrible, terrible things to the Pink Panther. How about the Marx Brothers? (I’m sure there’s already a script being worked on as I type) Laurel and Hardy? Charlie Chaplain? How about Jack Black as W.C. Fields? Ooo, I know, Buster Keaton! Hey, let's take formerly offensive ethnic stereotype franchises like Amos & Andy and update them for the New Millennium!

Who needs to come up with modern characters that can fill roles through their natural charisma? Let’s just mine the past for ideas that we can ape! It’d be hilarious! So fucking hilarious! AHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAAHAAHAHA!!! LOLLERSKATES!!! ROFLCOPTER!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

HAHAAHHAHAHA!

Oh god. I have to laugh, otherwise I’d probably get drunk and start bawling my eyes out. Because I sure as hell won’t be laughing when this actually becomes reality.

Bwa-fucking-ha.

Bullet Points

*Item: Laptop was infected with a virus and the wireless card doesn’t seem to be working anymore either. Possibly connected. Making do with improvisational Ethernet cable. Suspect conspiracy.

*Item: Watchmen was good. Rorshach, Dr. Manhattan, Comedian steal show. Mostly faithful adaptation that, given a director’s cut closer to the book, could be great movie. Studio meddling may have affected the theatrical ending. Suspect conspiracy.

*Item: Coraline is fantastic movie. Henry Sellick is artistic visionary. Realize comment on movie is month late. Suspect conspiracy.

*Item: Smugly pleased that personal MP3 player contains almost 10,000 sounds and still has 35% free memory space. Marvel why Creative Zens are not more popular than stupid iPods. Suspect Conspiracy.

OUTRAGEOUS!

Now, I’ve been focusing a lot lately here things that aren’t fun, good, enjoyable or whatever since, well, two reasons: 1) It’s the internet and hatred is as common as hydrogen and 2) Angry ranting is fun.

So to switch gears dramatically, here’s something I DO like: Batman The Brave And The Bold. The short of it is that it’s a Batman cartoon that combines cheesy one liners, crazy-awesome ideas, a 60s retro aesthetic and guest stars galore. The Dark Knight might’ve been a monumental movie about the darkness in men’s souls, but The Brave And The Bold has something over the Dark Knight; namely, I can spend the entire experience with a big stupid grin on my face. It’s a Batman that inner monologues with tongue embedded in cheek, plays well with others and is crazy prepared for any obstacle because even if he doesn’t know how to solve a problem, he knows someone who does.

And the show single handedly made Aquaman awesome.

Read that sentence again.

See, now you’re curious. Aquaman = Awesome on this show. He’s like a barrel-chested Errol Flynn that can’t stop speaking in exclamations and regaling people with tales of his adventures. And he say “Outrageous!” a lot.

It’s…glorious.

Extended Metaphors

So the wireless card in my laptop decided to stop working its unholy magic. Not sure how exactly yet. Maybe its supply of blood sacrifices was interrupted. The end result is that I’ve had to go back to a more old fashioned way of accessing the internets. Instead of the arcane chanting of sinister monks worshipping Dagon allowing me to access it without any visible connection, I’ve had to reconnect an Ethernet cable the old fashioned way. The way Ben Franklin did.

This item is… Well, I’m not really sure “why” is an appropriate enough question. I understand rebranding a cable television channel is just something that happens. It’s a corporate decision to reflect a change in direction/theme. When the History Channel rebranded to just “History” I was visibly upset because it was a kind of giving in to genericness. “History” contains a large number of programs that are not, in fact, about recorded history. Pop science and reality television have already mutated “History” (which doesn’t seem to be really a success at rebranding. I don’t know anyone who does not add “channel” after it to separate the network from the field of study). After shedding a few manly tears, I realized that I was watching Discovery a lot more now (a network that already contained reality programming and pop science). I haven’t watched Sci Fi with any regularity since 2001, so the impact of the change to Syfy is, well, just about nil.
The reasoning behind the name change has me scratching my head though. “Syfy.” Phonetically it sounds identical, yes, but visually? Well, it looks…really geeky. You know how in (movies about) high school, where you’ve got the fat/and or skinny nerdy kid with posters of Tron and The Last Starfighter in his bedroom and a stack of shitty Star Wars novels on his bedstand. So he wants to ask out the head cheerleader and there’s a long comical montage about him trying to clean up his body image, physical fitness and social skills. That’s what this name change feels like, because often in those circumstances, if the nerdy kid succeeds in becoming socially presentable and DOES get the date with the cheerleader (I guess E! in this metaphor) the comical denouement features an awkward dinner at a fancy restaurant where our protagonist realizes he has nothing in common with the object of his desire. Insert a ham fisted moral about being true to yourself and roll credits.

Actually, that’s exactly what this feels like. No matter how much the Sci Fi channel may try and change its image, it’ll still have that stack of Sci Fi Original Movies in the closet. He might pretend to like Sex And The City to get chicks, but deep down inside he’d rather be watching Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath Of The Dragon God.

Ten Days In Sunny Azeroth pt. 3: Young Brightmace Takes A Holiday

(Couldn't update earlier through no fault of mine)

It was right around the time I got to Westfall that I discovered that I could heal myself. Yeah, DURRR, N00B, but come on, it only said “friendly character,” which I assumed meant “people in my party that weren’t me.” The problem with that line of reasoning is that as of writing this, I haven’t teamed up with anything for anything.

My enjoyment of the game is dropping swiftly. Westfall has proven itself to be a blasted wasteland of repetitive death. The roads aren’t safe because coyotes and ugly vulture things will jump at you even if they’re four levels below you. The fat, ugly scarecrow golems aren’t so bad, but they can be pretty tough to take down, but they don’t hover around the paths. I can’t find a trainer in the settlement, just a few dinky shops, a gryphon depot that charges 99 copper to fly you back to Stormwind and some people who want me to take the fight back to the bandits. Fighting bandits and gnolls makes sense, but when I’m fighting them the coyotes have a nasty habit of coming around and bushwhacking me.

Which brings us to the death system. Running back to your corpse can be annoying, but its fecking infuriating when you run back to your body, come back to life and are immediately torn to pieces by coyotes before you can get your auras back up and heal yourself! And the graveyards aren’t a better alternative anymore. In addition to the durability hit your equipment takes, now your combat and magic abilities are crap for a set amount of time. I’m around 13-14 and I have to wait three minutes before my abilities are worth anything. Its as though the game is taunting me. “Don’t feel like running back to your body? Then you’re a pussy! Enjoy three minutes of uselessness!” I could live with that, really. Gives me a chance to get up, stretch, take a piss, get some iced tea, whatever. HOWEVER, after rezzing at a graveyard and getting ready to wait, three more coyotes charge into the cemetery and gangrape helpless old me. The word “fuck” doesn’t even begin to describe the rage this inspires, and it happened MORE THAN ONCE.

So running around Westfall is enough to shake even Brightmace’s faith in his Shovel God. No, that’s a bit too tame. It makes him want to smite himself with his own hammer repeatedly until he concusses himself enough to feel like the pretty visuals of the game and potential “phat lewt” are worth the effort. Maybe it would be more fun if it wasn’t such an “lulz, every man for himself” atmosphere, or I could actually stand up to multiple enemies at a time. I kind of hate to keep pointing to CoH, but that’s been my other MMO experience. My lowbies in that game, even squishies like controllers or defenders can stand a reasonable chance against five guys. Scrappers, Tankers and Brutes can regularly handle groups of enemies that are three levels higher. Hell, on teams, I can engage those same enemies and type out one liners at the same time without fear of death. A paladin who can heal himself, debuff enemies and hit things at a slow-but-not-unreasonable rate shouldn’t have his ass handed to him by an even leveled bandit spell caster. Travel powers in CoH (flight, teleportation, leaping and super speed) become available at lvl 16, temporary jetpacks with limited charges are available even earlier. There’s no way in Hell I’m getting a mount in WoW in the ten day trial.

I dunno, maybe I’m just unlucky playing this thing. Maybe if I fell in with a regular running crew like a guild or some people I know well in real life I could actually enjoy this game. A gnome paladin would be pretty sweet to roll up. As it stands, I honestly don’t think I’ll be wasting any disposable income on this after the free trial expires. I feel like I’ve gotten to know Brightmace pretty well over the last week, but no amount of paladin-y moxie can keep me riveted to this boring dice rolling simulator. It just feels so… Well, the crap about crafting, grinding enemies that you don’t actually enjoy fighting anymore, having to sit through actual travel times if you want to go somewhere. My God, that’s it! WoW is simulating everyday life. THAT IS THE OPPOSITE GOAL OF ESCAPIST FANTASY! There’s a reason why that shit is skipped over in movies!
I shouldn’t be running away from a trio of bandits in the game. I should be running toward a bandit camp, spade raised high, spittle foaming from my mouth as I shout prayers to my Shovel God to guide my hand as I bring down righteous fury on the skulls of the wicked who would dare threaten the peace of the land.

This game is only marginally more exciting than fantasy football. Or is it…?

I hear Warhammer Online’s got a ten day trial. Its got race-specific classes and their orcs are, well, orkier. Maybe Brightmace will ride again as a warrior priest of Sigmar.

Ten Days In Sunny Azeroth, Pt. 2: Shovels For The Shovel God!

I’ve noticed a few things in my WoW experience. Aside from the WALKING EVERYWHERE part, there’s also a crafting system that I’m not anal retentive enough to explore right now. The biggest difference from CoH I’ve noticed is that I haven’t seen any teams. Nobody’s invited me to a team yet. I just see random solo character running around hunting down the things I’m also hunting down. Occasionally we’ll buff or heal each other, but that’s about the extent of player interaction. Contrast: in CoH, its certainly possible to solo, but you also get invited to random pick-up-groups, even at the lowest levels. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a tell asking you “hey, want to go break some faces in the sewers?” but often its just “Captain So-and-so has invited you to a team” out of the blue. Hasn’t happened yet to me in WoW.

The other thing that kind of rankles me is that in WoW, at low level I feel like a mook. I can handle, at best, 2 or 3 enemies at a time (if I’m lucky). And the missions don’t have the weight of importance either. There’s a lot of “hey, can you take this mundane shipping manifest over to Stormwind for me?” or “I’m hungry, kill some boars and take the meat to this lady at the other farm to bake into a pie and bring it back to me.” Brightmace isn’t sure about being a courier boy (especially with no bicycle to speed things up). Contrast: in CoH, even at low level the missions include stuff like “Kill ten Hellions to help clear the streets of gangs” that can segue into “Rescue this doctor from the Lost in the sewers before they mutate him into a murderous freak.” Of course it doesn’t have any actual effect on the game world, but it feels more…heroic.

The other thing that’s tough to adjust to is the chat/whisper/tell/shout system. I just found the emotes last night and had the game since Saturday morning. Its no fault of the game, I just don’t know the shortcuts to all that stuff yet.

So we return to our budding young paladin, Brightmace and his Blessed Kobold Shovel of Smiting (and Shoveling). He delivered a letter to Stormwind, got a dramatic intro to the Human capital and realized the city was friggin’ huge. After delivering the letter, he stopped off at the cathedral to level up and, unable to find any missions for him in the city, walked all the way back to the forest and accepted a quest to hunt down some murlocs.

Murlocs are a primitive, amphibious species that make amusing gurgling sounds when they “talk.” Should be no problem to a warrior of virtue, right? I head over to a logging camp (and notice that the trees in the game are all comically gigantic beyond the realm of normal earth trees), kill some wolves and bears for the locals and turn my attention to the puny murlocs. Apparently they killed an Alliance Patrol and I have to find out what happened to them. Shouldn’t be too hard.

Individually, a murloc is easy to take down. They were of roughly equal difficulty level, so no worries, right? I get to their village and see a lot of them shuffling around. Okay, if I can manage to isolate and contain them, I should be able to--oh shit, two of them just spawned right behind me. I manage to take down one and fall to the second. Ghostwalk time. I rush back to my corpse, rez and am immediately beset by three of the bastards. I try to run away because I’m not at full health when I rez, aggro a wolf and am killed again. The red mist begins to cover my vision as scrapperlock starts to kick in.

Scrapperlock is a phenomenon in City of Heroes where a character (usually the melee damage oriented Scrappers who already have a daredevil attitude toward combat) encounter a situation that is proving difficult, such as repeatedly being defeated by a superior enemy. The scrapperlock solution is “KILL IT TO DEATH” regardless of how many times you get defeated and sent to the hospital. You will always rush back to the scene as fast as possible to keep at it until the specific targets you have marked for death are in fact, dead. Its reckless, foolhardy, and potentially glorious to charge headlong into the enemy against terrible odds because there’s a chance it might work. This, in a way, sums up the Scrapper class in CoH in general. Reckless, Foolhardy, yet capable of pulling off impossible feats of heroics.

Brightmace’s scrapperlock was considerably less glorious, but the stubbornness to not let those damn frogmen beat him won out eventually (and when I say eventually, I mean like forty minutes into it).

By now, I had out leveled my Shovel of Smiting and upgraded to a more powerful hammer, but I didn’t sell off the Shovel like all my other junk. No, no. The Shovel had served Brightmace well, and he continued to carry it as a reminder of his blessed favor.

Eventually, I dinged level ten and was told to send some messages to a place called Westfall. More walking occurred and I crossed a bridge that opened up into a rather arid looking plain. I see some people in a farmstead who have missions for me. They complain about the hard times that have fallen on them. Ah, good. A chance for me to bring some justice. Brightmace eagerly looked forward to fending off bandits, curing the sick and rescuing slaves.

…

Get some oats from the monster infested field for their horse. Deliver a RECIPE to the next farmhouse??? Look lady, do I look like a Rogue to you?? I’m a PALADIN!

Alright, fine, since there’s nothing else to do and I can definitely use another bag to store stuff in, I’ll do it.

Ten Days In Sunny Azeroth, Pt. 1: You No Take Candle!

Daylight Savings time screwed me over for this update.

Like I said, I got a 10 day trial to World of Warcraft and figured what the hell, I’ll try it out. See how it compares to City of Heroes. So after registering and installing I was ready to play. The enthusiasm declined after having to download patches for a day straight. Eventually though, it finished, and I was ready to go.

After a lavish cutscene of things fighting each other to set the mood, I got to the login. The login screen featured an undead dragon of some sort (a dracolich?) flying around and occasionally roaring at me. So the mood was set pretty well. Lots of monsters, atmosphere, Action and Adventure were strongly implied.

To the character creation screen! Ok. Not as detailed as CoH (and that’s City of Heroes, not Company of Heroes. CoH was around before that CoH came out). You can only mess around with facial features, and even then, you have a limited palette to choose from. There’s no slider for physique or height. You don’t choose your clothing either. I understand why its like that because of the loot system, but CoH has a real edge in character creation.

So I roll up a human paladin, because in these types of games, I just gravitate towards goody-two-shoes justice seeking guys who wade into combat with a mad-on for smiting evil in the face (later I rolled up a female gnome fighter because it was funny). Picking the name Brightmace, my mustachioed avenger entered the world.

After a pretty nifty cutscene/narration that explains the human situation in Azeroth (they’re against the ropes after Warcraft III and trying to rebuild), Brightmace was greeted by Northshire Abbey and a bunch of wolves and kobolds swarming around. Ok, cool. Time for smiting. Go to a contact. Hey, they actually talk when you click them. Do they-? Yes, they do get annoyed when you keep clicking on them. Ginchy. Anyway, I’m told to kill something like 8 kobolds. Go to another contact who tells me to bring back some wolf meat. I kill some wolves (no doubt EVIL wolves, since I’m a paladin and all) and loot the corpses. Some of them had fangs and claws and…pants? Okay… I get to the kobolds hanging around by a mine. Smash a couple of them with my bigass mallet. As I attack the next one, a text balloon appears over him screaming “You no take candle!” This being level one, the poor bastard doesn’t stand a chance since its level one. Curious, I loot his body (in the name of JUSTICE!) and find a small candle. Curious, I take the candle and examine it. Can’t do anything with it. Maybe I can sell it. It occurs to me that essentially murdering a hapless kobold who just wanted to hold onto his beloved candle and then taking it isn’t exactly…heroic behavior.

I gain a level or two, get some low quality armor to wear, get sent after some bandits, who tear me a new one when they gang up on me. I was still trying to figure out the auras and seals and blessings system in the game. I died a couple times. There’s no debt system like in CoH that you have to pay off before you can get full XP again. Instead you pop up in a graveyard as a ghost. Everything’s greyscale and there’s a weird spirit healer/angel of death thing floating in front of you giving the option to run back to your corpse or be rezzed (resurrected) on the spot with a durability penalty to your equipment. I realize that I have to repair my equipment in this game. Minor inconvenience, but makes sense in the loot system.

Many of the missions are “kill x number of enemies and bring back x number of this specific loot.” After some more levels, I gain some new powers. I’ve already got an aura, a heal and a seal (which is a kind of temporary-well, 30 minute temporary, buff). I pick up a seal of judgment, which debuffs an enemy for something like 20 seconds and gives me a chance to heal back damage as I smash my chosen enemy. Cool beans. The only WTF moment was when I realized I had to pay copper to learn my new abilities. Again, it kind of makes sense, but CoH spoiled me with the trainers who’s only requirements are reaching the appropriate level.

Then its time to leave Northshire. Unlike CoH, WoW doesn’t have “zones” that have to load before you can wander around. You just start walking and eventually you get there. There’s pros and cons to each system. Loading zones in CoH simulates traveling long distances without having to actually experience said long distances, but can also disrupt the illusion of the world you’re in. in WoW, you can wander around exploring (and trying to run like hell away from things that outlevel you). And you will walk, since you can’t get mounts (like horses) until you reach a certain level. So I wander around Elwyn Forest, do some more quests, repair my equipment, level some more, repeat. I will admit, getting some slightly better loot as quest rewards is kind of nice. It reminds you what kind of goals you’re working for.

One quest had me exploring another mine and butchering some more kobold candle-fetishists. After examining the loot of one of them, I see a shovel. Examining it closer, I see that its got weapon stats and is better than my mallet and qualifies as a mace, which plastered a big grin on my face. Brightmace and his Blessed Kobold Shovel of Smiting (and Shoveling) set out on his holy mission to kill and loot monsters with a sense of renewed purpose. Clearly, the Light had sent him this blessed weapon to validate his crusade for justice. Shovels for the Shovel God!

You Know Who's Awesome?

Sir Orfeo is awesome. Whodawha? Sir Orfeo, the star of a medieval Breton Lai written in Middle English. You know why he’s awesome? Because the anonymous poet who wrote it took the classical Orpheus myth, modernized it for his time and threw in a creepy fairy kingdom instead of Hades.

And you know what’s crazier? Orfeo has a happy ending. Better still? It works.

Enjoy your mind being blown. Unless of course you’ve already read the poem.

That’s all I’ve got for tonight. Got a free trial to World of Warcraft that I’m checking out for the sake of smashing evil in the face with a hammer, because I roll with paladins.

Welcome Back...To The Stage Of History

I so desperately wanted to like Soul Calibur IV. I mean really wanted to like it. Loved Soul Calibur. Loved Soul Calibur II, Loved Soul Calibur III (never played Soul Calibur Legends, but then again, no one did. ZING!).

It was a winning formula before. What happened?

First the good. Major next gen graphics upgrade. A bit obvious, considering it’s a next gen game, but it looks fantastic. The character creation system got a major upgrade from III. Adding sliders for almost everything made a world of difference (and also allowed the adolescent to put F cups on characters). The weapon enhancement system is pretty nice too, adding some depth. The actual gameplay is pretty solid too with a few exceptions to get to later.

So what’s not to like about it? For all of the actual upgrades they added, there’s a lot of steps away from things that made the game great in the first place.

1. Story Mode: Only 5 missions, making it the shortest in the series. III’s labyrinthine story (and multiple endings depending on what buttons you press) stands as an immediate contrast.

2. Survival Mode: A standard of the series, right? Well, now its only accessible through the Tower of Lost Souls mode and you have to pick two character to go through it. This in itself isn’t bad, but what if you want just a standard survival mode with one character and no weapon effects/costume effects? No dice.

3. Multi-character fights: A lot of fights involve fighting a string of enemies one by one. When one is defeated, the next one charges in swinging. The problem here is that when you ring out a character (you know, one of the most reliable ways to end a fight), you’re still staring at the splash they make and can’t turn around to prepare yourself for the next guy that you KNOW is coming. So you wait there, shuffling from side to side leaving your back completely exposed.

4. The Weapon/Costume Enhancement System: It’s a double edged sword. The depth is nice, but not when you want to maximize your survivability. Some costume items may look cool but actually end up hurting your defense/offense/hit points. Min-maxing can result if you want an edge in survival mode.

5. Shallow Single Player: I realize it’s the first in the series to have online multiplayer (I don’t know if the Dreamcast version did…) but what if I don’t have or want an X Box Gold account? I’m stuck with Story Mode, standard Arcade Mode, and story-less Tower of Lost Souls.

6. Character Variety: Naturally, all games in fighting franchise add new characters to the storyline . 2 Added Cassandra, Raphael, Necrid, Yunsung, Talim, 3 proxies for Lizardman, Rock & Hwang, and a guest character depending on the console (Heihachi, Spawn or Link). That’s 5 new characters with fully fleshed out storylines in the game world (not counting the random imitator guys like Charade & Olcadan). 3 Brought back Rock and added Tira, Zasalamel and Setsuka as fully fleshed out characters, then threw in a ton of bonus weapon styles that were either incomplete or broken, but out of these, Arthur, Li Long, Hwang, Amy and a couple others had a place in the game world. Some of the other characters were unique to the campaign mode, but they weren’t too out of place among the normal characters (in appearance). 4 has only two new characters that aren’t a guest or a bonus, Hilde & Algol (Amy already existed in 3). Now, admittedly, she’s pretty cool with the sword & spear style, and Algol’s the boss of the game (and a big cup of crazy moves voiced by the guy who did Lu Bu in the Warriors Orochi, which, by the way, I finally unlocked the last character of, okay, random tangent over) but the bonus characters? They’re all clones of somebody else in the game. Shura’s a Cervantes clone for example. Some of them don’t even make sense in the aesthetic of the game: Angol Fear & her attack nipples, for example. Oh, and this really burns me. Using a character gains levels for the character (in terms of how many enhancement slots they have), but the clones have their own levels, separate from their clone daddies. One doesn’t carry over to the other (which it does for the Create-A-Soul characters you make). If Shura has the same exact moves as Cervantes, she shouldn’t have her own fighting style for leveling purposes.

And then there’s the guest characters. They’re from Star Wars. Now, I know what you’re thinking. 2 had guest characters, isn’t that the same thing? Yes and no. Spawn was kind of a weird one, but they gave him an axe. Heihachi was from Namco’s other big fighting franchise Tekken, so he made sense. Link, despite looking completely different, came with a sword and shield, making a perfect fit. 4’s bonus characters all have lightsabers, weapons that can cut through just about anything unless there’s a plot infused macguffin to prevent that. Maxi’s nunchaku shouldn’t be able to block Darth Vader’s lightsaber. Still, the last fighting game featuring Star Wars characters was Masters of Teras Kasi, and the less said about that the better.

So the Star Wars characters are Darth Vader, Yoda & the Apprentice from The Force Unleashed. Now, Vader & the Apprentice both have pretty cool move sets and without the force powers could fit in pretty well in Soul Calibur. Yoda on the other hand is pretty broken. He’s a tiny target that can’t be thrown. Not even Yoda can throw Yoda in a mirror match. He’s just…annoying. Personally, I’d rather they fleshed out & balanced the bonus weapons from 3, because I’d rather have a wave sword or grieve edge in a SOUL CALIBUR game than Jedi.

Its…its…Basically it comes down to feeling like there’s less game for the buck. The new, innovative stuff that’s actually there is pretty nice, but it feels like less game than the last gen games in the franchise. I don’t hate it, but I…don’t like it.

03/05/09

Now, I know you’re thinking, “hey you inconsistent jerk, why can’t you update on time for your little self-indulgent marathon session?” And, well, most of that’s true, but the thing is, I had an update ready to go for last night, but it was long and I didn’t want to split it up into two parts.

Why is it always snake gods?

I can’t think of anything particularly insightful to write at the moment. Um, Orochi X has been unlocked, so hooray. Now that the snakey bastard’s been unlocked, I can go about finishing games with better storylines and innovative features, like GTA IV. If it’ll let me load my gamer profile…

Anyway, the Orochi monkey is off my back and I feel free. Free to frolic through meadows, whistling back to the blackbirds as the first green buds start to show the greenery of life. Then I remember I live in Northeast Ohio and that won’t happen for another month.

3/3/09

Happy Feast of St. Winwaloe…ladies.

Also, today is Square Root Day. Apparently happens nine times a century.

Ruminate on that, I'm going to do things relevant to gaining a year.

Booooonesawwwwww is Readyyyyyyyyyy

Let’s talk Spider-Man. Remember 2002? There weren’t a lot of successful comic book movies based on the mainstream stuff from Marvel or DC. Batman was still lying in a shallow grave after Batman & Robin tanked. X-Men was out by that point, and while it hit a lot of right notes, it still wasn’t exactly what people really wanted, which was lots and lots of colorful mutants. Other than that, all we had before were the first two Blade movies, which is…I mean, there weren’t a whole lot of hardcore Blade fans that complained about the changes made to the character.

Spider-Man came out in May of 2002. Audiences were jonesing for some wonderment on the screen. (For the sake of argument, let’s not remember that Fellowship of the Ring came out at Christmas time 2001, even though that as well provided ample wonderment, but I mean come on, we’ve seen elves and dwarves on the big screen before, usually in really bad movies)

Leading up to the movie, buzz was good. Sam Raimi was known for being a cool director, what with Army of Darkness and everything, but Spider-Man isn’t the same kind of thing. Sure, X-Men was good, but Spidey’s look is iconic. You can’t just have him in a pleather jumpsuit like Wolverine.

So after the moody Danny Elfman intro music, we get an origin story. Admittedly, a necessary evil for a super hero movie, but this one…works. I mean, a bad origin sequence can tank a superhero movie. Raimi pulled it off great.

I mean, sitting in the theaters, watching nerdy Peter Parker pining away for Mary Jane (Watson! Not hemp!), Flash Thompson getting his comeuppance! Willem freakin’ Dafoe as Norman Osborne! All that early stuff was pretty cool, but what about, you know, Spidey?

And Holy crap, it’s the first time he webslings and he slams into a billboard! Awesome!!!! Then he figures out how to swing around New York!!! And it’s the first time we see J. Jonah Jameson!! And he calls Spider-Man a menace!! You get the idea. It was an inner child’s dream come true.

Are there flaws? I just watched it again, and yeah, there’s some goofy moments and some of the CGI doesn’t stand up to age that well, but come on! We got to see Spidey swinging around New York in live action and it looked almost exactly like we imagined it would in our heads (except for the Green Goblin’s costume, that was kind of weird). And that ending, that bittersweet ending!

It. Kicked. Ass.

I Never Promised Good Content

My PS2 gets a considerable amount of use. I only got it about three years ago, pretty much near the end of the last generation of consoles, but catching up on the library of quality games for it is considerably cheaper than chasing the next gen hits obsessively.

Whatever, I’m a firm believer in gameplay and concept taking precedence over cutting edge graphics. It’s all part of a simple philosophy I have. I don’t tolerate shoddy writing in novels I like to read, or bad everything in movies I want to watch, so I suppose I’m also of the camp that “games=art” just as much as anything else can be. Ocarina of Time is possibly my favorite game in history. The old Lucasarts Adventure Games (Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, etc) and any spiritual successors to them are also uber high on the list of quality rides.

And then there’s one game that has continued to see heavy rotation on my PS2 for longer than I can logically explain. Warriors Orochi 2 is a mindless beat-em-up that is a crossover game of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, two OTHER mindless beat-em-ups. The premise, such as it is, is that a scythe wielding anthropomorphic snake god named Orochi from Japanese Mythology got bored one day, created an alternate world and sucked the characters from the Chinese Three Kingdoms Era and the Japanese Warring States Period through space-time so that they could fight for his amusement. That’s pretty much it. This, being the sequel, continues the story of these Asian warriors in this alternate dimension as they try to come to grips with leaving behind everything they’ve ever known- No, I’m kidding. They continue to fight with inexhaustible numbers endlessly like its Valhalla. Sure, there’s some other gods showing up to put Orochi back in his place and hinting at some character depth about being a fugitive from divine justice with a death wish, but its not developed more than that. Ultimately, Cartoony Asian Valhalla is pretty much all that this game is all about.

So the story is ridiculously bad, the voice acting is goofy in both bad and good ways, and the combat couldn’t be simpler. Actually, yes, there is a way to make the combat simpler than combo system. There’s a weapon upgrade called “almighty” that you can collect parts for and then apply to a weapon that turns any basic attack into a win button. Hitting X at that point is guaranteed to kill something in your radius, and even joke characters like Yoshimoto Imagawa can own former monsters like Lu Bu.

And I just. Can’t. Stop. Playing. The reason for that is because unlocking the last Character, Orochi X, takes in inordinate amount of level grinding. There’s 92 playable characters with their own move sets (which means something until you slap almighty on them) with a level cap of 99 and a proficiency cap of 50. The end result is a hell of a lot of level grinding. I still don’t have Orochi X and I am rapidly approaching at least level 30 proficiency for each character. Every single character HAS almighty on their weapon. This is no longer a stress relief activity after a long day. This isn’t even a single character genocide simulator that features the deaths of thousands of ninjas and snakemen. This is a quest motivated by pride. Arrogant pride that is keeping me from playing other, better games, like Okami or Shadow of the Colossus.

I… I’m so ashamed of myself.

Gonna Take Pollution Down To Zero

I was thinking of tossing in a movie and commenting on it, like Labyrinth, since I mentioned it in offhand manner in a previous post. But I’m just not in the right mood to remember the order of ‘y’ and ‘i’ in the word “labyrinth.” That’ll be for another time, and I promise, it’ll have a section on how “Dance Magic” belongs on every David Bowie Greatest Hits compilation.
Maybe I can write an entry on watching Captain Planet when I was a kid after school. Sounds good.

So watching Captain Planet back in the day made me want to club baby harp seals. I didn’t want to do that before watching the show, but by the end of an episode, I was damn sure ready to start.

…

…

…

That took considerably less time than I thought it would.

Not About Movies

Have you ever sat down to take a good hard mental look at why we name hurricanes? I mean, here are these destructive storms that have the capability of wreaking millions of dollars worth of property damage and leaving death tolls in the thousands, and we give them names like “Andrew,” “Katrina,” and “Bobbi-Sue” (maybe not that last one). Why anthropomorphize a force of nature? And if so, then why don’t we do the same to earthquakes, blizzards and tornadoes? What is it about hurricanes that gets the news all hot and bothered so they can say stuff like “the devastation left by Andrew was devastating for the devastated survivors.” Is that supposed to make the carnage “better” somehow? This is not a six year old who threw a tantrum and his Thomas the Tank Engine set across the room. These are real trains being thrown through houses, citywide evacuations, mass destruction swirling around. How does giving them the commonplace, mundane names of the W.A.S.P. neighbors down the street help anything? At least give them suitable names like Hurricane “Sonofabitch” of “Fuckshitup.”

Hypothetical situation: A hurricane blows down my house, turning it into a patch of kindling, brick and asbestos. That would make 2009 a bad year for me. It would suck royally. Then to add insult to injury, the scientists who watched the onslaught of wind approach named it “Stevie.” So “Stevie” knocked my house down. Why “Stevie?” Well, there’s a complex naming system for hurricanes, since more than one can occur in a season, so they have to enter a secret bunker in Colorado and offer a blood sacrifice to Dagon before spinning around a list of acceptable names in a hopper, then having a thalidomide baby reach in with their foot to pull out the winner. Meanwhile, hypothetical me has still had his house knocked down by hypothetical Stevie and is hypothetically cheesed off something fierce. Hurricanes are not cute and there is no purpose in giving them an anthropomorphizing name. The world has had hurricanes that f’ed S up for centuries. Ships have been sunk, cities like Port Royal were submerged. They did not have, nor need boring names for tempests that could shake the very foundations of the world.

You know what? Eff it. I’m going to start anthropomorphizing all sorts of weather systems. Hey look, here comes Summer Storm Joel to be followed by Heat Wave Tatiana. Last week we had Alberta Clipper Ishmael come through. See, I named them to make the weather seem less imposing. Next time, I’ll start giving them home addresses too so I can send them Christmas cards, because I’ll miss them and want to keep in touch.

Neverending Soda

Yadda yadda, Hollywood would rather go back to the well to dredge up old franchises instead of coming up with new things. You know the drill. If its critically & financially successful, a string of theoretically unnecessary sequels are bound to follow (Pirates of the Caribbean, Saw), or worse, a remake (The Manchurian Candidate) if the sequel machine has died down/is nonexistent. Its so common that most audiences are pretty damn jaded about the potential of said followups being worthwhile, usually accompanied by a hefty dose of internet nerdRAGE. Fondly remembered franchises from childhood are particularly prone to rage, so if you’re into seething rage at your fond childhood memories being violated in non-consensual sexual terms, this should get the hatred pumping through your veins.

However…it has been a very long time since 1984. (Wolfgang Petersen directed Troy also, a movie that fills me with rage) The Neverending Story is beloved for being a charming, well-made flight of fancy that stands on its own as a great movie. Yeah, there’s hefty doses of cheese in it, but also a great source of nightmare fuel for the kiddies, which any great children’s movie has (Those Sphinxes, man. Sphinxes with death beam eyes). Seriously, the best children’s movies are ones where the threats are truly disturbing and frightening so that you legitimately wonder how and if the hero overcomes it. Look at Labyrinth: Jennifer Connolly has to rescue her baby brother from David Bowie before the kid turns into a goblin muppet forever. Think about that for a moment.

I just realized I’ve gone off on a tangent. So, anyway, before you go off on a rampage about how the remake’s gonna suck and how it should never be made and wah wah wah, ask yourself, did you ever read the book? Yeah, I know, “don’t compare the book to the movie because the book’s always better.” But, that’s kind of my point here. The movie’s great (the sequels, I’m told are considerably less so) but the book is bloody amazing. Think G’mork is freaky in the movie? Ten times more so in the book as he has his showdown with Atreyu. The Nothing eats away at creatures while they try to warn other characters to get away. The movie is only the first half of the book, roughly. After Bastian gets to Fantastica (yes, Fantastica, which is much cooler sounding than Fantasia; which reminds me of Mickey Mouse in a wizard hat), it actually gets darker as the book examines a child with the powers of a god and wish fulfillment. Then it gets darker still before the heartwarming ending. Its fantastic, and throughout, Michael Ende’s narration is full of wit and charm (ok, yes, my copy’s an English translation, but the wit jumps the language barrier).

My advice? Swallow the rage. Calm down. Read the book and think of the potential that something like this has at being awesome. Think of someone like Guillermo del Toro directing a two movie situation with an effects team as experienced as the Jim Henson Company. Not that it actually will happen, but oh how sweet it would be. Of course the execs could screw it up royally in a bid to make some quick cash, but the concept itself of a more book loyal adaptation has got legs.

‘Kay, I Don’t Make Films, But If I Did, They’d Have A Samurai

Oh look, the day after Mardi Gras, must be time to try out another 40 day marathon of updates. Wonder how long it’ll last this year?

Movies come in a few flavors: Commercially Average movies that are forgotten a year later (most Comedies), Bombs that critically & financially flop (Delgo, just... Delgo), Guilty Pleasure/Cult Films that make up for questionable quality with enthusiastic moxie or winking self-awareness (Army of Darkness), Oscar Bait that tries to remind you that Cinema is serious business (critically acclaimed, frequently ignored by average filmgoers), Legitimately Good Movies that most everybody agrees are damn good times (Braveheart), Financially Successful Movies that Suck (The Phantom Menace) and the list can go on. However, there’s also a category of films that are regularly elevated above the rest of the pack. Movies that aren’t just Good, but also Good For You, in a creatively inspirational way. Transcendent experiences that click on the visual, acting, writing and basic concept level. Movies that good creative teams will try to spiritually emulate and bad teams will outright rip off (there IS a difference).

Which brings me to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Those who’ve seen this movie can see where I’m coming from. High Five your screen with me. Those that haven’t seen it, well, you actually have seen this movie, just wearing a slightly different hat with the same plot. A village is helpless to defend itself against raiders and sends out a few members to recruit some champions who’re willing to work for a pittance but all bring unique skills to the table. There’s usually seven of them. Adventure ensues, with doses of comedy then heartwrenching drama (particularly in the final showdown with the raiders). It’s a simple formula, that done right can yield awesome results, such as successfully transplanting Samurai from the Warring States Period to Cowboys in the American Southwest, but if done badly, provides a checklist for hacks to tick off.
But that’s not why this is a great movie. Seven Samurai is great because it throws in a whole mess of themes, from the coming of age of a young warrior to class conflict and so on, and makes them all work.

Released in 1954, it’s a black and white film in Japanese (natch), directed & co-written by Kurosawa and clocking in at a hefty 206 minutes in its original Japanese release, the move is an epic that gives the audience an intermission. It combines violent action scenes with grim resolve and dynamic visuals. Yes, it runs long, but every scene has a point. Is it perfect? No, there are flaws in every film, even this one (the love story angle is kind of *meh*), but that doesn’t matter when you get to the samurai themselves. Badasses to a man, the biggest badass of them all is Toshiro Mifune’s Kikuchiyo.

Kikuchiyo is, for all intents and purposes, insane. Laughing at bandits firing muskets at him, jumping around with the energy of a meth addict, shouting very loudly very often, and carrying around a gigantic Nodachi sword. Mifune goes full blast with Kikuchiyo, layering the character more than a simple berserker; giving him sympathy, a sense of humor, a temper, flaws and the biggest heart of the seven, and possibly one of the funniest true badasses of cinema. Mifune steals every scene he’s in, no question. Runner up goes to Seiji Miyaguchi’s Kyuzo, a stoic, frighteningly skilled duelist who volunteers one night to single handedly raid the bandit camp to claim a rifle and runs off into the darkness, leaving the rest of the heroes wait nervously (especially the youngest samurai). Some time later, he walks back to the village out of the fog, carrying a rifle. He drops the rifle, simply saying “got two,” and TAKES A NAP. Hardcore.

I suppose I should at least mention The Magnificent Seven, which is the 1960 American remake, which does not suck. In fact, it’s a classic in its own right, and features a team-up of domestic badasses by the likes of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Yul Brynner and James Coburn, but that I suppose would be a discussion for another time.

Fw: Abhorrent!

There are many, many, many things to hate about the internet. My sloth in updating content for this self-indulgent little blog that maybe five people read is one of them. Keeping in lockstep with the self-centered nature of this side-project, I personally hate, with the seething passion of an active volcano on the Pacific Rim, forwarded e-mails that migrate across the web like gazelle running across the veldt. Except instead of exciting footage taken from a helicopter, its horrible, anonymous attempts at humor and/or knowledge misspelled enthusiastically (if it wasn’t copy and pasted from someone who actually took the effort to write something original) in Comic Sans, usually in a rainbow of unnecessary colors and oddly sized so that if it were actually printed out it would stretch onward and onward, like a useless parody of the Bayeux Tapestry. Its nothing personal against Comic Sans. Its rather harmless and well meaning, and I liked it once. When I was in 8th grade. Over time (and I owe no small debt to the Internet), I came to realize that it was the Short Bus of fonts: It may provide a useful service (ie. Conveying sentences through legible letters, unlike Wingdings), but few people take one seriously when they see it on the road.

Anyway, back to forwards (see what I did there?). Last week or whatever, I don’t care enough to verify, I received one such forward (oddly enough, not in Comic Sans) that featured the creative tagline of “Interesting Stuff.” What followed was a long list of “facts” about things that I don’t waste my time angsting over, in short, useless “information” that is probably fodder for watercooler conversations or whatever it is cubicle jockeys do to give their Monday mornings the illusion of tolerability. Unlike many other such crap forwards, the list was very, very long and written in confident, matter-of-fact tone (unlike this here blog, which is written in a conversational, cocky, sarcastic-ranting-bastard kind of tone. I don’t actually talk like this in real life. Usually.). The use of quotation marks above is important, because these “facts” were, of course, nothing of the sort. Now, one thing you may have noticed about me is that I convey the image of an intellectual elitist who looks down upon bourgeoisie and bohemian alike when I write. Receiving this list of lies from a well-meaning and innocent party caused me to swell up like a puffer fish, except instead of self-defense it was pure outrage. Not caring a whit about the mathematical “facts” on the list, I chose a select few cuts from the abomination I was asked to unblinkingly accept, jotted a few notes down then scuttled myself over to Snopes to double-check that I had indeed sniffed bullshit through my monitor, and what follows is the result. The format is: The quote from the forward, unhampered except to fit the format of the page. My own gut reaction/thought process to the “information” and then a link to Snopes or Wikipedia (Yes, Wikipedia. Its more credible than the damn forward) where you can see for yourself just how idiotic the “fact” really is.

“Many years ago in Scotland , a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.”

No. Just simply no. Its probably Scottish in origin and would follow an etymology. Not to mention, until about the 1700s, people played fast and easy with spelling (even into the printing age), so a standardized word for it is just nonsensical. Of course, the original sender was considerate enough to provide an origin for the word “golf,” but placed it in the foggy “many years ago,” which as we all know, is where myths and legends continue to dwell. Except for, you know, myths and legends have some basis in truth.
http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/golf.asp

“Coca-Cola was originally green”

Wha-? That’s it? Just “Yep. It was green.” I mean, aside from being blatantly wrong there’s no effort in it, no soul. Dan Brown was blatantly wrong about so much in the DaVinci Code, but at least he put real effort into selling it. He created outlandish backstories and situations that caused me to slam the hardcover edition of the book repeatedly into my forehead every chapter. I hated it, yes, but at least I felt involved.
http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/green.asp

“Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David Hearts - Charlemagne Clubs -Alexander, the Great Diamonds - Julius Caesar”

I’m sure people substituted any four legendary/epic kings in there when they felt like it. Its not like the cards even have any kind of telltale signs as to who’s who. Julius Caesar was incredibly famous for being fastidious in his appearance and was an obsessive shaver. The Medievals knew this. All 4 King cards have big, bushy beards. I could just as easily say the 4 Kings stand for The Carolingians: Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, Charlemagne and Charles the Bald. There. Equally plausible, and I just made it up. Moreover, the number of playing cards in a deck was not fixed for a long, long time. The Tarot deck was originally used only for card games, and look at how damn confusing that deck is.
http://www.snopes.com/history/world/cardking.asp

“If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes."

That just sounds silly. Am I to believe that throughout the world stone carvers/bronze casters have all had an unspoken rule about how to position the legs? What about other cultures? The color red symbolizes good luck and fortune in China and Japan, but passion and violence in the West. They had horses too. Am I to believe that these other cultures, developing parallel to our own, did the same. Exact. Thing? Its eyerollingly bad. Yes. Its so ludicrous that I had to make up an adjective to describe it.
http://www.snopes.com/military/statue.asp

“It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.”

That is a horrible, horrible stretch. The Egyptians and later Sumerians/Babylonians had Beer and wrote about it quite a bit. Not as we know it now, but it was still beer made from grain since the Fertile Crescent was an agricultural area. Also, all the mead you can drink in a month? That’s a horrible dowry, particularly for a people who’s lives depended on crop tending all year long. A husband going on a month-long bender doesn’t sound like it would be encouraged. And mead is not a “honey beer.” Beer is beer, Mead is mead, Wine is wine, and this list of "facts" is enough to drive any man to drink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeymoon

“Many years ago in England , pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.”
“In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England , when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down." It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"

Now speaking of alcohol, here's a twofer.
That “whistle” phrase has two possible meanings. Whet means to sharpen or excite, so to ‘whet your whistle/appetite’ simply means to excite your thirst/appetite. Wetting your whistle can also mean to take a drink, since whistle has a double meaning as the sound your lips can make and also a name for a flute. Knowing what I know about Renaissance English, its probably also innuendo, which means its almost a guarantee that it was innuendo. Whether it goes back to the Renaissance is questionable, since this is, after all, set in “many years ago,” when Star Wars was good and Gungans never walked the land. Either way, its informal slang and I highly doubt it has such a civilized origin based on an impractical invention. Actual bar patrons probably just shouted or threw things to get the barkeep’s attention, depending on the establishment. A small built in whistle on a mug would have to compete with the talking, shouting, singing and live music around them.

As for P’s & Q’s, that’s a saying that’s got an even more muddled and full of contradicting origin stories. I personally think the typesetting one is fairly reasonable since the lowercase letters are mirror images of each other, but if its true, then the phrase means just to watch your spelling and grammar, nothing about manners.
It’s a stupid phrase anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_your_Ps_and_Qs
http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.asp

The lesson of this should be clear. Don’t send me forwards, because I will hate them with a concentrated spite and they’ll ruin my day. A more “afternoon special” friendly lesson is to repeat the mantra “sez who?” after each “fact” in one of these lists instead of “durr” and hitting forward. It would renew my faith in humanity’s potential.