Years pass and I fall out of comics for a while.  It wasn't until I was in college, and moved to California that I tried picking them back up.  I picked up Marvel (with the House of M storyline) and read the Infinite Crisis event from DC.  It introduced a lot of new characters, but there was so much backstory that I couldn't really get into it.  Then came something called the Sinestro Corps War.  I had heard of Sinestro and since it was a Green Lantern story I thought it would be a good time to get back into it.  I read Green Lantern: Rebirth (a prelude story that brought back a previously dead/kind of alive Hal Jordan) and then jumped into Sinestro Corps War.  It was the first time we saw the full line up of the Sinestro Corps that I was hooked.  A splash page featured The Anti-Monitor (who I had been introduced to in Infinite Crisis), Superboy Prime (also from Infinite Crisis, my favorite moment was watching him punch someone's head so heard it literally exploded) and Cyborg Superman (from the Reign of Supermen arc).  My jaw dropped.  I have been hooked on Green Lantern ever since.  I've tried reading Batman, Superman and some other DC stuff, it never hooks me like Green Lantern.  Green Lantern is my favorite DC character.

When I first heard about the movies that were going to arriving this summer I couldn't believe it.  Thor, Green Lantern, X-Men First Class and Captain America all in the same summer.  The only one out of those four that I wasn't worried about was Green Lantern.  While I don't think Ryan Reynolds is a good choice for Hal Jordan, I like him as an actor.  He was able to elevate Wolverine.  Mark Strong as Sinestro is a perfect choice.  The rest of the cast I could go either way on.  But the previews showed me exactly what I wanted, Oa.  I didn't want them to completely disregard the science fiction part of Green Lantern.  He is a space cop and that's what I wanted.

Liking Thor and loving X-Men First Class I guess I was bound to be disappointed somewhere.  Green Lantern isn't a bad movie, it isn't a good movie, it's just a disappointment.  It tries to do too much and fails at almost everything.  Daredevil was a horrible action movie that was elevated from Ben Affleck's protrayal of Matt Murdock.  This is the opposite.  Hal Jordan is a horribly boring character that you never really get to love.  He's portrayed as a womanizing man that's afraid to fall in love with the one woman he actually loves.  Yes, they made him into Tony Stark.  But he's Tony Stark without any of the confidence.  But when Tony Stark gets the Iron Man suit, he kicks ass with it.  When Hal Jordan gets the ring, he doesn't want it.  He pulls off the reluctant hero thing, but it doesn't even seem like it fits with the character.  Blake Lively isn't bad, but isn't given ANYTHING to work with.  She's the Mary Jane of this movie, but given even less backstory.  I didn't get any feeling that the two were supposed to be in love with each other until Hal gives the "remember that time we had sex" memory in the bar.  Then I realized she was supposed to be the love interest.  All she does is yell, get into danger and then get saved.

The Green Lantern Corps does a little bit better.  Kilowag and Tomar-Re are perfect for what they are, but are given so little to do.  Them and Sinestro are the Warriors Three of Green Lantern, but given even less screen time.  Abin-Sur looks cool, but again, nothing about him makes you think he's a great Green Lantern.  We are told that he contained the villain Paralax, but they don't tell you how.  The problem with Paralax (and science fiction/fantasy movies in general) is that if things aren't clearly defined you don't know what you are dealing with.  Paralax is a giant floating pile of dust, how and why is that a threat?  Well it shows Paralax eating creature's souls.  But the amount of time it takes to steal a soul seems to vary depending on when the movie needs it to.  To show it's power it kills off other Green Lanterns like it isn't a problem.  But sometimes it takes it's time.  

Sinestro is done really well but not given enough screen time.  Most of his motivations make sense.  Hector Hammond is completely wasted in this movie.  He doesn't need to be a villain and the only reason he exists is for the fighting to occur on Earth.  The performance is actually kind of fun to watch, but unnecessary.  

One of the things I did enjoy about the movie was the Green Lantern powers.  They did a good job of varying up what gets created by the ring.  It isn't all shields and blasts of energy.  It feels like someone actually tried to be creative with it.  The special effects were cool.  It just feels like nothing is earned in this movie.  It feels like this is what Thor could of been if it sucked.  Green Lantern failed at mixing the space stuff with the Earth stuff and that is where Thor worked.  Thor made an asshole likeable, where as Green Lantern made it's asshole try to convince us that getting a super powered ring makes him a nice guy all of a sudden.  

Similar to: Iron Man, but for the DC crowd. 

Watch Thor instead.  Or X-Men First Class again.

SPOILER TALK:

* The turn for Sinestro at the end of the movie is completely unearned.  There is no reason for him to turn to Fear.  His worry was that they would be unable to stop Paralax, but they do.  So then he tries it out?  It's like they completely left out a scene.

* The "Warriors Three" showing up at the last minute to save Hal?  Really?  So stupid it doesn't even make any sense.

* While I thought the way Paralax got stopped was a cool idea, the setup for that event was so weird I didn't even understand it at first.  Kilowog is able to just create a sun with his ring?  Just...weird.

* The mask still looks stupid.

* The suit looks cool.

* I loved how Hal spoke the oath near the end.  Just a great scene.

* The training montage was the best action sequence.  Seeing creative use of the rings is what I want to see.  No more stupid Blake Lively.

* The projector at my screening kept shaking back and forth.  Any still moments were almost completely ruined.  But it gave me an excuse to look away at the screen.

* Loved the look of the Yellow Lantern costume.  Gorgeous.

* Was there ever a scene where he demonstrated his ability to overcome fear?  He did completely destroy a multimillion dollar plan because he got scared.

Thor manages to be an origin story without being an origin story.  We start with Thor already being a loved hero of Asgard.  What we get is how Thor learns to become a true hero.  The story is the best one we've seen from a Marvel Studios movie (Iron Man 1 and 2 and The Incredible Hulk).  It was also the first one I loved not because it was intergrated with the greater Marvel Universe, but because it is actually a good movie.  It's not great, not mind blowing, it's not Spider-Man, Dark Knight or X2.  Looking at my comic book movie list:

Currently it might edge out Blade for the 10 spot, but it'll take a while before I can really nail down a position.  

I've only seen The Fast and The Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious.  I land on the side of liking 2 Fast 2 Furious better.  It's not a great movie but I found it way more enjoyable.  So when I say Fast Five is the best movie I've seen all year, it's because I went into it not expecting much.  

Fast Five has managed to almost completely strip away the street racing aspect of the franchise and focus on the cool stuff, the heist.  The action scenes are long and amazing.  Every one seemed to last exactly as long as I wanted them to.  The final chase in concept is so brain dead that it allowed to sit back and marvel at what I was seeing on screen.  A smile was on my face the entire time.  But like any action movie, there is down time.

Paul Walker should not be allowed to talk.  I am happy to report that I don't ever remember hearing the word "bro" exit his mouth.  He's so wooden and fake, it really is like a CG character or a T1000.  He has his little monologue segment that is actually an interesting moment.  But is ruined by the fact that he is trying to say it.  Vin Diesel isn't much better.  He managed to ooze charisma when I feel like there isn't any there.  I like his character, but I really don't know why.  The Rock is the saving grace of this movie.  Even if he is the most cookie cutter character in it.  I can't believe the writer had the balls to make him utter the phrase "Stay the f*** out of my way."  (This was part of his opening scene where he tells the local cop his "two rules."  That one was rule 2).  It's so dumb that you can almost see The Rock winking at the screen.  Tyrese was a favorite of mine from 2 Fast (it less of a "step forward cause you are awesome" and more of a "well, everbody else step back cause you suck" type of thing).  And in Fast Five he's not really a character.  Again he's the wise cracking black guy who says funny stuff ... because he doesn't really have any other talents.  Luda is also there, as the funny guy, but he has a purpose because not only is he a mechanic, but he is an electronics expert (commence eye-rolling).  The Asian guy, who I never met because I never saw the third one, is Han.  I'll call him Han because I don't know the actors name.  He's likable and probably the "coolest" character in that he actually seems like he's not trying to be cool.  He's the Michael Weston to everybody else's attempt at being James Bond.  Jordana Brewster returns to look pretty, but mostly do nothing.  They have a plot point for her that is so useless I don't even know why they added it.  Nobody watches this movie for the drama.  The other chick, I don't know who she is.  She's so freaking skinny that it is actually kind of gross when SHE decideds to bust out in a bikini.  Really her??  If she tripped she would break into a million pieces.  She's supposed to be good at something, but all she does is try to be the "hot" one.  And for some reason she has the power that the guy from Psych has.  Only she uses it once for the most pointless thing ever.  She uses it to impress a guy who is already in love with her.  She doesn't even do anything cool for the heist.  There is also a rookie cop who is also a hot chick.  She might be the hottest woman in the film, but again it's because the other women aren't.  All she does is look confused.  I'm not sure I saw her ever translate anything (the reason she is chosen), though she does end up having other uses.  I almost forgot about the Spanish brothers.  Best guys in the movie.  Glad they exist because they are actually funny.

The story isn't horrible.  The set up is okay, the team is brought together to do a heist job.  But I feel like nobody was ever taught how a good heist story works.  You don't spend a good 30 minutes trying to solve a problem that has the dumbest solution ever (so dumb that the useless guy figures out the solution).  But the BEST part, they don't even use it.  It's like a training montage for Rocky and then in the end Drago gets two in the head by the ghost of Apollo Creed.  I tend to ignore moments that make no sense from a physics stand point because the whole franchise is based of the concept that a 10 second race lasts 5 minutes.  But there are dramatic plot points that make 0 sense.  They land in the "this would be a cool thing to see," but doing the easy thing would have accomplished more. (Honestly entire plot is like that, but we won't worry about that...unless it's SPOILER TALK).

Fast Five is a really good movie.  I'd watch it again.  I'd own it.  

SPOILER TALK:

• Reyes has his entire network of money on a chip.  We know he knows where his money is.  So he doesn't NEED the information.  He just needs it not to be in the wrong hands.  So someone could have just stolen the monitor from the car.  That way they wouldn't need drivers, no white people and everybody goes home happy.  OR he could have just moved the damn money.  You know, picked 10 new houses to place it.  I'm pretty sure they have more than 10 buildings in Rio.  I'm pretty sure I saw at least 30. 
• Jordana Brewster getting pregnant was stupid and had 0 point.  All it does is handcuff them for any more movies.
• I still don't understand why they spent so much time on trying to race past the cameras.  Really?
• And just leaving 8-10 million on a table in Rio.  Really guys?  Maybe they could have sent her a check.  How long before she is dead?
• Why burn the money?  If you would ahve stolen it, he STILL would have been pissed.
• I'm not really going to make fun of all the tech stuff, because it's a movie and they set their own rules.  But you shouldn't break the rules once that happens.  Like why was The Rock able to pick up Vin Diesel's car the second time he goes to the street race but not the first?

M. Night Shyamalan managed to make a name for himself by surprising the audience.  Zack Snyder managed to do something similar.  Snyder surprised us by making a remake of Dawn of the Dead not suck.  Then he created an amazing comic book movie (300) followed by one that is one of my favorite movies of all time (Watchmen).  But like Mr. M. Night, Mr. Snyder has decided to take a small step in the wrong direction.  

In 2006 M. Night Shyamalan released the critically panned movie Lady in the Water.  The concept for the movie was" a fairy tale for adults," a concept that seemed fresh and interesting.  Instead M. Night's ego overtook the creativity of the film and it bombed.  Snyder has decided to take a similar route. 

The clearest take away from Sucker Punch is that Zach Snyder should not be left to his own devices.  With all his previous movies, they were adapted from source material or written by somebody else.  Each movie had a world that was already created, not Sucker Punch.  He co-wrote this mess.  And I say mess in the worst way possible.  Story?  There actually is one.  And that may be the most dissappointing thing out of everything.  It seemed like there was a moment of "this would be cool," but the problem those "cool" things are telegraphed so obviously that they aren't really cool anymore.  The "characters" if you want to call them that are poor one-dimensional nothings. The main character Babydoll, who's backstory is featured in the opening, barely even speaks in the movie.  The "plot" is your basic fairy tale; you have well defined good guys, well defined bad guys and well defined goals.  And I mean well defined in that they are pointed out specifically, there is no depth to any of this.  

I wish this movie was better.  I wish this movie had a point.  I should have listened to the critics.  

Maybe the power was inside me all this time.

You want to watch the better version of this?  Watch Pan's Labrynth.

Want to watch the exact same thing? Watch Lady in the Water.

On to the Spoilers!

I'm going to discuss some of the finer points of the movie.

1. You could argue that the characters are 1 dimensional because they are all made up in Baby Doll's head.  Or you could say that Blondie and Amber are made up.  The problem is that there is no real proof of any of this.  If we believe the opening of the movie all these girls exist prior to the "first level" of hallucination.  We also find out in the end that Baby Doll did help a patient escape.  

2. Who the hell was the bus driver?  The beginning discusses "angels" that are around to help us out.  You could argue that Baby Doll was Sweet Pea's angel.  Luckily Sweet Pea was actually one of the only "fleshed out" characters in the movie.  Problem is, she isn't likable until about half way through and even then you don't ever really root for her.  The story isn't about her, but it is.  It all feels like some stupid way to pull at our heart strings that our "hero" Baby Doll isn't going to make it.  But SHE ISN'T.  It's pretty damn clear from the opening that all the movie is, is her hallucination before she goes brain dead.  

3. Why did Blondie betray them?  And how did that change anything?  There was no reason for her to tell Blue.  There just wasn't.  They all hate him.  They know he's slime and then all of a sudden she decides to trust the Devil?  Really?  Which leads me to...

4. It's a film about female empowerment, but it really isn't.  You'd think from the posters and the trailers it's about some bad ass chicks that are kicking ass.  It isn't.  You know what it's really about?  Lost women who need an old man to show them what to do.  I suppose the old man is just supposed to be inside all of us, or something like that.  Or maybe it's about how we are all old men deep down inside.  I get that it's trying to have sexy women that take control of their lives, Bayonetta for the movie crowd if you will.  And it almost works, there really isn't any gratuitous shots of the women themselves.  Blondie probably shows the most cleavage, but she doesn't really have a lot of screen time.  Baby Doll is dressed as a school girl, but you see less of her than you would if she was at the beach.  There really isn't a lot of skin in this movie.  There is a lot of action scenes and it's the women that kick the ass, but none of this happens without the male spirit guide.  I figured the lady doctor would be the mentor to the young women, but she isn't.  She's as useless as everybody else. It's not until Baby Doll meets this old man, then he tells her exactly what to do and then tells the entire group what to do.  

You know what...I can't dedicate any more time to this mess.  Only the first two fight scenes are any good.  Everything else is just... a mess.

"Do you want us to hate you?!"

I originally wrote a blog post hating on EA and their $10 policy plan.  If you don't know, EA (and now Ubisoft and THQ) has started a plan where a code will be given to NEW versions of their popular games (for EA they are limiting it to their sports franchises) that will allow for online multiplayer gaming.  A feature that for years has been included in their games now costs $10 if you buy the game used.  



Liv Tyler in Empire Records. Why don't they match?!

The good old days.

The dynamic duo.The Shaq/Lakers days were ones filled with a lot of wins.  Once I was in high school Kobe had come on and they were a force to be feared.  Their rivalry with the Sacramento Kings was passed into me and I learned to hate them with a passion (and to be living spitting distance from my most hated team is pretty weird).  It got to the point where I wanted them to lose more than I wanted the Lakers to win.  After graduating high school I moved to Hawaii where I got Fox Sports West on cable and was able to watch every single game.  It was a long way from my high school days where I would leave the box score on a website during class so I could watch the score reload as my teachers tried to lecture about chemistry, math or english.

     It was after I had moved to California that things started to change.  It was gradual at first, but now I barely even watch games.  The Lakers are still a great team, but I miss them sort of being an underdog.  The one thing I hate the most in any sport is dynasties.  It was around this time that I started to play fantasy football.  Football to me was always a sport that was cool, but I never watched.  In high school the only game that would be televised would be the Super Bowl, but because of the time difference ended up being shown on a Monday morning.  Starting up fantasy football got me into the game because I never had a team to root for, but now I had players.  I had a purpose for spending a Sunday watching football.  As much as I love watching the NBA and watching the Lakers there is a sense of anxiety that comes with it.  Because I want them to win, I hate when they lose.  But in football I could care less who wins the game, only if the players do well.  A guy gets a touchdown and 40 yards, it's a success for me.  

     After about 6 years of playing fantasy football it finally dawned on me why it's such a great sport to watch.  And I mean watch, not play.  Because I would much rather play basketball.  

     Here they are, the reasons why football is a better sport to watch than basketball.  In order of how obvious the are, descending.

1. Sundays
NFL gets the majority of their games done on one day.  While they might have a Thursday, Saturday or Monday game, the majority fall on a Sunday.  A day off.  A day of rest.  A day that you can spend, uninterrupted watching games.  Most Sundays have three games to watch.  THREE.  During the season you KNOW when you can see a game and that is extremely important.  For basketball there is usually games happening every day.  How can I keep up with that?

2. Fantasy Football
This ties in with the first one, but because of this little meta game I care about football.  I not only care during the season, I care in the OFF SEASON.  I pay attention to drafts, mock drafts, expert analysis of players and schedules and anything else that might be important.  Now just playing fantasy football would do all this, but since I play with family there is even more.  Trash talking your Aunt or Uncle or young cousin is awesome.  Debating if trades between teams owned by a mother and her daughter should be allowed is awesome.  Discussing how a retired uncle might have an advantage toward Monday morning waiver wire picks is awesome.  A friendly and cheap fantasy football league can do wonders for interest in a sport, but that one was probably pretty obvious.  But what makes it better than fantasy basketball or baseball is that since all the games usually happen on the same day, you know when your lineup needs to be ready.  You can spend Tuesday and Wednesday (and usually Thursday, Friday and Saturday) because there aren't games on those days.  It doesn't need your constant attention.

3. 11 Minutes
Image from the Wall Street JournalThere was a Wall Street Journal article that dissected NFL games and found that on average the amount of actual football being played in a telecast was 11 minutes.  Everything else is split between, replays, players standing around, cheerleaders and more.  So how does that help?  When watching a game of basketball you can't take your eyes off the screen.  At any second something awesome might happen, a steal, a shot, an assist or a dunk.  And because of the frantic nature of the game there isn't always time for replays.  But in football there are pauses.  There is a break after every single play.  After every pass, there is a huddle.  That huddle gives you time to see the play again, dissect whats going on, discuss what should happen next and then prepare.  There is a freaking countdown clock telling you how soon the next play has to start.  You can read a book, talk to friends, or work on a podcast while watching an NFL game.  It is almost the perfect spectator sport because it doesn't demand that much of the viewer. 

• I really want a life size Claptrap to follow me around.
• I bought both the opening song and the closing song.
• Ninja Assassins are awesome.
• I played as the Siren and got to level 35 on my first play through.
• Can't imagine why someone would choose a shield that doesn't replenish health.
• There was only one case where I chose a weapon because I liked it better even though it didn't do as much damage
• Once the Phase Walk (Siren's special ability) actually is strong enough to damage people I loved it.
• I wish there were less areas and less loading screens.
• I might actually play through it a second time, not sure.
• I played it co-op the entire time.