Smuel's good morning extravaganza

Good full moon equinox.

Summer is coming. Well, winter down here but that means we ducked fires and cyclones for another year.

Good morning.

 

My back hurt so badly this morning that I needed assisting out of bed. Then across the continent my grandfather died of shame that his grandson was lifted out of bed by a woman.
Where is Andy Serkis when you need him?
Good morning!

 

Standing right in front of Christopher Walken, presumably.

Good morning.

 

Frickin' fantastic.
Now I'm hearing Gollum in Walken's voice.

Good morning.

 

Just found out I have a last minute weekend off. Suffice to say, I'm in a good mood.

Good morning!

 

You americans, trying to muscle in on our religious public holidays. Why don't you enjoy your oh-so-secular Labour Day or Independence Day and leave our Easter in peace?

But also, good morning.

 

Sorry for your loss, TDC, and your acute back pain.

I am giving due reverence to the religious holiday. Good on Moses, good on Jesus.

Good morning.

 

Was just out for a run and got bit by a dog. Poor bastard signed his own death warrant. If I see him again, he's getting perforated.

Good morning.

 

I've heard I good way to stop a dog biting you is to stick a finger up its bum. I've also heard that this might be a lie, spread by people who want someone else to both violate and further anger an angry dog. I guess there's only one way to find out Japes.

So I watched Batman vs Superman, and I liked it - I'd give it a 6 or 7 out of 10. It's a bit of a rush job and there are some flaws, but I'm not convinced it deserves the rinsing that it's received by the critic. Ultimately I think a lot of critics were looking for a bit of an excuse to score it low and look like the credible critic who had the balls to admonish a blockbuster - it certainly isn't a film that deserves a 29% by aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes (6 out of 10 being the requirement for a "fresh" review for anyone who didn't know).

I think it is a bit disappointing that the vast majority of plots points (literally 80%) are all covered in the trailers, spoilers for those purists who haven't seen the trailer:

Spoiler

It seemed like they wanted to have Wonder Woman in the trailer, and as she only shows up in character in the Doomsday fight they had to show that too. Then also only had time for one meaty Batman vs goons fight in the film so they showed it in the trailer, however it also turns out that fight is pretty important to the story. So yeah, all the big bits of the story and many of the cooler action sequences were pretty much in the trailer.

So thoughts for the actual movie:

Spoiler

Ben Affleck as Batman was good. When people talk about Christian Bale as they often complain his Bruce Wayne is very good in comparison to say Michael Keaton. Ben Affleck has that kind of charm as Bruce Wayne, but also he's intimidating as Batman. His motivations to want to stop Superman, seeing the human cost of Superman's Man of Steel fight in Metropolis similar to the pointless deaths of his parents, goes over well. He's also brutal now, a lot like The Dark Knight comic where he kills the Joker when necessary; given the alluded toll he's had being an older Batman it suits the character.

I thought the dialog about Superman and the responsibility that comes with his godlike power was interesting, and is a perfectly relevant argument to today's society. His acting is more of the same that's in Man of Steel, so if you weren't keen on his more serious outlook then you're probably going to be disappointed here. Wonder Woman was good, I've never followed the character but what was represented was fine, she's seems cool and self-assured with a bit of a wry sense of humour - but not much more depth to her can be found in the film.

Lex Luthor is a bit the zany psycho, but as someone who doesn't like Jesse Eisenberg I liked him in the role. I don't think it was overdone, and I thought they took some efforts to make he seem a bit more relatable in terms of not being able to deliver a perfect speech at his party. I think his kind of punky attitude is probably par for the course for more of these DC movies with serious stoic heroes, a standard set in place slightly by the Heath Ledger Joker.

A huge problem a lot of people seem to have is that at the end of the Batman Superman fight what breaks it up is Superman mentioning his mother Martha who has the same name as Bruce Wayne's dead mum. While it's definitely a moment of ex machina, I thought it more or less worked as it drilled into Batman that Superman is someone who is human at his core. Though contrived, given Batman's torment about his own mother I think it went over well enough.

Another problem people have is though while Batman's problem with Superman is ideological, Superman is more or less forced into the battle by Lex Luthor as he's keeping his mum hostage. I don't think there really was a need for some ideological battle from both people, or that they didn't talk things out before the fight given Superman's cease and desist or suffer promise earlier. I can see why people didn't like it, but for me I never expected some great ideological battle in the first instance.

For some last points, I thought the action was good and the Batman Superman fist fight was great and brutal. The film on the whole is dark and mostly humourless, however I vastly preferred it to Avengers where they quip constantly and their constant irreverence about everything really detracted from the serious stakes they were hoping to represent in the film. In terms of Superman dying, I think it added some heft to the film. I won't call it gravitas as it was too easy to deserve it and he's obviously coming back to life, however it did give a bit of dramatic weight to proceedings in the short term - and Zack Snyder has stated out right he somewhat wanted it so Batman could assemble the Justice League, which to me sounds good as Superman could have had the potential to out-shadow other "meta-humans" in terms of an introduction.

Bottomline, I think the film was good but not great - even so and as mentioned before certainly not worth the panning it's received by critics.

Having said all that, I watched 10 Cloverfield Lane a couple of weeks ago and it was really good - a solid 8 out of 10. If you ever wanted to watch John Goodman being a creepy bastard, this is the film for you. This is from someone who really disliked Cloverfield, so don't let that put you off.

After that last paragraph and the very lengthy spoiler section, Good Morning.

 

It was a pretty cool trailer.

Good morning.

Oh and good luck with the whole jogging gunfight with attack dogs, Japes.

In my day we just called that 'jogging'.

 

If what I've learned from computer games is true, you can feed the dog a Smoked Ham and then it will join your party. That's probably more valuable than the XP you'd get from fighting it, especially for someone at Japes' level.

Good morning.

 

I don't think Japes would have dog issues if he stopped using Lea & Perrins as a rubdown ointment.

On a side note:
SakuraCon (anime convention) went well. Watched good and not so got anime. Spent almost nothing in the dealer's room (must mean I'm dying). Took absolutely NO pictures (feel a bit guilty about that). Had great food.

Good morning.

 

I suspect that an anime convention is not something that generally suffers from having too few photographs taken of it. So I wouldn't feel too guilty about that.

Good morning.

 

god this thread is like 4 years old or something

 

...

...

Good morning.

 

i know rite, lmfao. and the forum lets you write posts too, shit be crazy bro

Good morning.

 

I go bored and made a thing in WorldEd not long ago.

Good morning.

 

god that game is like 15 years old or something.

Nice work.

Good morning.

 

God, ytzk is like 30 years old or something.

Good morning.

 

i wish