Sucker Punch *SPOILERS*

All right, here it goes...

 Some of you may know (in fact all of you. Only my friends actually read this thing, I'm sure) that I was really excited for Sucker Punch. This movie looked AWESOME. I mean, check out this trailer and tell me that this doesn't look like it's going to be the coolest movie you've ever seen.

 The above video encompasses basically every daydream I've ever had. This is almost literally how I see things in my head! (Same thing I thought when I saw Scott Pilgrim, btw). But anyway, that's not the point. The point is: I was really excited for this movie. 

 I really wasn't hoping for much. An entertaining night at the movies with some strong female characters and awesome fight scenes. I've got to be honest, that's what I got when I went to see Sucker Punch. But, man, that movie was not good. It wasn't bad, but it was most certainly not good.

 I was a little confused from the beginning of the movie. The opening scene shows Baby Doll's mother dying, leaving everything she owns to her two daughters. Baby Doll's father isn't too pleased, and gets all drunk and stuff. Long story short, Baby Doll shoots at her father, but misses and kills her sister instead. Daddy sends Baby Doll to the crazy house, which is where our adventure will take place (well.. kind of).

 Baby Doll meets 4 other girls, including a black-haired girl named Blondie, an asian girl names Amber (a little racist? naw) and two sisters named Rocket and Sweet Pea. Rocket, Sweet Pea and Baby Doll are really the only important characters in terms of plot, but the others are cool too.

 Blue is the name of the guy who takes care of them in the mental institution. This is all the exposition you really need to know.

 The girls go on quests (like in an RPG) in their imaginary world and recover artifacts that they need to escape. In the end, turns out that all of the main five characters except for Sweet Pea and Baby Doll were imaginary, and Sweet Pea eventually escapes, and Baby Doll is left in the asylum. (She wasn't insane before, but now she is. That actually did used to happen, and that's actually something I would have liked to have seen more of. Baby Doll's transition into insanity). I did mention there were gonna be spoilers. right?

 Here's why I didn't like the plot. The whole deal is that Baby Doll imagines herself and the other characters in a brothel. Which is fair, because Blue exploits the women. The whole movie basically takes place in this brothel, causing you to be confused/not care about what's really going on. Zack Snyder's trying to go all Inception on you, and ultimately fails. When the dancing instructor (the therapist in real life) puts on music, Baby Doll goes into a further "dream state" where she fights monsters and stuff. basically, a video game. These moments are the only cool parts of the movie. Seriously, if this movie were just the fight scenes and the soundtrack, I would be just as happy, if not more.

/END OF LAME STORY CRAP/

 So, the feeling I got from the movie is that Zack Snyder made a few fight scenes, and thought "I want to show people these, but there's no context for them." I'm having trouble explaining this, so I'm just gonna show you guys a conversation I had with a good friend of mine, Joelle over Facebook. She's a girl, so I really wanted to get her perspective on the film. We were both excited to see strong female leads. Anyway, here is a peek into the grand social like of Zach!

Joelle: "I can't rate it, there are too many aspects to consider. The whole idea of the different realities/dreams/imaginary worlds was awesome, but the rest of it sort of lacked. I don't know... if I have to choose, maybe a 5 or 6." (5 is average, btw).

Me: "Fair enough. The feeling I get is that it was a really awesome idea, and they could have done a lot with it. But it wasn't completely clear what Zack Snyder wanted me to think. What message was this movie trying to portray? To me, he wasn't JUST trying to give us a fun time, he wanted to tell us something. Perhaps about the mistreatment of women by authority? Funny way of doing that, what with all of those camera shots from under the characters skirts'. I'm still not completely sure what to think.

Joelle: "That's exactly what I got from that, too. You could get a different message by looking at each scene from a different perspective, but none of those messages fit in every part of the movie. It's almost as if someone told Zack Snyder that he needed to show that girls are awesome too, so he threw in some female fighting, but wanted to get the male audience to come, so put the girls in fishnet stockings.

Me: "Okay, I can get that. But maybe he was trying to do too much, and two completely different things, for that matter. Like you said, to appeal to the female AND the male audience. It didn't work for me. (I'm not both genders, but I'd like to think I'm in-tune with this sort of thing. :P). And the whole concept of the movie lead me to believe it was just gonna be a fun time, but instead they tried (key word-tried) to give a deep plot. I think a lot of things Snyder was trying to do got lost in translation."

Joelle: "I don't even know how to reply to that, because that's the perfect way to explain it." You're so smart and you have really big muscles.

I think that this movie had acknowledged that it was basically a video game, then they could have had a lot of fun with it, and the audience would have had fun, too. I think this movie took itself too seriously. Like I said, Snyder wanted to have a really fun action movie, but he also wanted to have a complicated plot and a deep message. This movie could have just been a fun action movie with a message about self-empowerment, and it would have been a lot of fun. This move could have been like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World if it had simply acknowledged that it was silly. The audience all understood that it was silly, but I can't be sure if the director did.

 Anyway, I was disappointed with this movie. I wanted it to be a cult-classic, and it could have been. Should you watch it? That's a great question, inquisitive reader. I'd say that if you want to have a fun time at the movies with your friend, or a lady or whatever... then yeah, sure. It was not worth seeing opening night, though. If you're looking for an Oscar movie, you're out of luck. I'd suggest going to see it with some friends, and deciding for yourself.

 PS: (For those who have seen the movie): Would this movie not have been totally awesome as an anime movie? I mean, anime can get away with stupid stuff like this. It could have worked!

TL;DR (a segment done by my friend, zorkonlikespie)

Today, I had a nap. When I woke up, I had birthday cake. True story.

Heroes Season 2

 Yeasterday (I'm posting this at 1:30am, so technically yesterday) was St.Patrick's Day. Every year, I've got to appreciate the Irish. Last summer, I went to a town called Midland for an international rowing (yes, as in boats) competition with teams from all over the world. I will never forget the enthusiastic Irish and their loud cheers, and of course, their incredible ability to dance on top of tables. I mean, St.Patrick's Day is a day that the abuse of alchohol is not only socially acceptable, but almost expected of you. And for that, I tip my green hat to the Irish.

 The preceding paragraph had nothing to do with the following ones. It was also brought to you by the letter "J", so I'd love to give a shoutout to "J". Thanks, man, I owe you one.

 So anyway, while you were all out drinking and having the sort of fun that normal members of society seem to have, two of my friends decided to watch all 11 episodes of Heroes, season 2. (I wrote about the first season a couple of posts back, if you want to take a look.) Basically I want to relay my initial thoughts about it, and hopefully initiate some discussion either in the comments, or if you see me in person. (As is my goal with most of my posts.)

 When I tell people I was planning on watching all four seasons of Heroes, I was told "seasons 1 and 2 are the best. It's not even worth watching from that point." Well, I'm going to watch season 3 and 4, just so you guys know. But I've got to be honest, I was really under-whelmed by season 2. Like I've said before, my favourite character was Noah Bennet because of the great growth he went through, and he seemed to be a constantly changing character. But in season 2, it was as if he had forgotten all that he had learned. In terms of the characters, I think that Nathan really shined, and so did Hiro. He's becoming more and more wise, as are a lot of the characters. I also found myself loving Claire even more. She's starting to find herself I think.

Nothing says "strong character" like cutting off your toes, just to see what happens!
You can read that post sarcastically or not. It works either way.

 In terms of the plot, I was unimpressed, and I think that's what got me most about it. It was cool to see what happened to the characters after the explosion, and their whole adventure in season 1, but that's all thanks to the characters, not the plot. With the first season, it opened with telling us of an explosion that it going to completely destroy the city, and the whole "save the cheerleader, save the world" deal. It kept me watching. I wanted to find out how they dealt with a seemingly unstoppable explosion. With season 2, I didn't really feel that sort of suspense. I enjoyed watching the whole Hiro/Kensei thing that was going on, and I liked seeing the situations that the characters were put in. But in terms of the main plot about the previous generation "screwing things up", I found myself generally uninterested. Maybe it was just me, or maybe (as one of my friends pointed out later) it was the context in which I was watching the show, but I was not engaged nearly as much as I was in the first season.

 So, I'm going to watch the rest of the series, and will hopefully finish season 3 in a week or so. I'm not saying that season 2 was bad, I'm just saying that I got my hopes up after the brilliance that was season 1, and I was let down.

Sentient Tires Will Rule The Earth!!!

 Eye-catching title, right? And believe it or not, it actually has to do with this post! Crazy, right?!? So, I watched a movie called "Rubber". It's a comedy-horror film about a sentient tire that can blow up people's heads. Still don't believe me? Here's the trailer for this thing.

 So, I saw the trailer for this and I was like "okay, this could be really funny. It'll be interesting to see how they keep my interest for a whole hour and twenty minutes". Well, I've got to be honest... they didn't. Don't get me wrong, I totally got what they were trying to do with the movie. Just skim over this. (It's basically modern art, only in the form of a play/movie or whatever.) But as a comedy, this movie isn't really very funny. As a horror, it's not scary. It's a tire. Sorry, folks, but unless you have some sort of tire phobia (I couldn't find one on the internet. But it's got to exist) then tires aren't scary.

Doctor Who makes inanimate objects SO much scarier. Don't blink, kids.

 While watching the movie, I was basically thinking the same thing in my head. "What am I watching? When is something going to happen? What am I watching? When is something going to happen?" etc. The only real enjoyable thing about this movie is the novelty that such a film exists, and that you just watched it.

 In terms of plot, there really isn't one. The movie starts off with an explanation about how there are so many things in this world that don't have a reason. Basically, they're saying "Don't expect an explanation to any of this. We're just as confused as you are."

Gonna haunt your dreams, aren't they? Yeah, me neither...

 So, it's getting late (actually, it's only 11:00. But that was just an excuse to stop writing. I've stopped caring at this point...) and I'm gonna close this up. This is a movie to watch with your buddies for the sole purpose of watching a movie about a murderous tire. If I had friends, I'm sure that's what I would have done, and I wouldn't have blogged about it afterwards. It's not a good movie, but it's a movie worth seeing for the obscurity of it. (I call "no hipster")

Have a great March Break.

Zach

Heroes Season 1

 Last night, I finished watching Heroes season 1. This post isn't going to be long, I basically want to express how much I loved it! The character development, the story. It was all great.

Look at how happy they are. Awwwww...

 For the first couple of episodes, I was concerned as to how they were going to keep the interest going through the whole 23 episodes, let alone 4 whole seasons! But Time Kring's creativity (plus the fact that I have nothing else to do with my life. Hence this blog) managed to keep me watching all the way through. It made me laugh (especially Hiro. More on him later) and it made me cry (Noah Bennet's scences, and, of course, that ending...) and I loved the plot twists and everything. But what I really want to talk about is some of the characters that I loved, and how the characters are really what drives this story.

 Everyone has their favourite characters. Personally, mine is Noah Bennet. He doesn't have any powers, but he deals with people who do every day. From the beginning, there was something about the character I loved. He started off as a loving supportive father, and although he didn't know what Claire was going through (well, he did. But we didn't know that he knew. so it doesn't count) and he still supported her. Then he became a villain, then a vigilante, then a hero. I'm really looking forward to what happens to him in the rest of the series.

 The characters are so important in this show. The show isn't called "Stop an explosion", it's called "Heroes". It's about the characters. Something I noticed was that near the end (SPOILERS) the supporting cast was ignored. I realize that it would have been impossible to incorporate all of those characters, but I would have liked to know how they were doing at least. Hopefully they cover that in season 2.

 Anyway, I guess I kind of just wanted to let you guys know I watched season 1, and I will be watching the others. I like to pretend that people care what I think, and blogging helps with that. :P

G'day all

Zach

 I also want to give a shout out to everyone in Japan right now. My thoughts and prayers are with the families over there.