The Lousypoet

What more can I say? This was one of those things I really wanted to experience. I’ve long been a fan of anime, and though I’ve seen the Disney-Miyazaki films in theatres, there was something about seeing Evangelion on the big screen.

Evangelion was the first show that got under my skin. It was the show that made me plunk down mega bucks for merchandise and spending hours reading about Kabbalah, the Apocrypha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The first website I built was an Evangelion website I titled “New Century Gospel.” The first domain name I ever purchased was evangelion.ca. In so many ways, Evangelion was a seminal series for me. While the debates seem to rage if it deserves the notoriety it has achieved, I have little doubt in the influence it had on me.

So walking into that theatre tonight, watching so many scenes familiar to me from the TV series, it was like coming back home to visit an old friend. I enjoyed the film very much, probably because it differed so little from the original series. It left me wanting so badly to see the second film I can hardly contain myself. But alas, I suppose it will be at least another year-and-a-half or more until we see a decent North American version.

So, anime on the big screen was a big hit with me, and I would certainly consider going again. On a side note, it was pretty funny/cool that the film was projected from a Blu-ray DVD player. I recall working in theatres ten or so years ago and being told that such technology would never be usable. Funny how times change. At about the same time, I’m pretty sure I was told we would never see anime such as Evangelion shown in mainstream theatres.

So Funimation films have completed their english dub of the first of the Evangelion movies (the re-release movies that is).  And to celebrate they’re putting the film out in a limited theatrical release!  What has me hyped about this is that there is actually a pretty wide release here in Canada!

On September 30th, numerous cities across Canada will be showing this film on their screens!  Funimation’s website has the details on where the film will show.  I actually have several sites that are near to me, so I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to check this out.  I don’t know if I’ll manage to convince Carolyn to go, she’s not that big on mecha anime, but Evangelion was one of the first series we watched together, and she certainly didn’t dissaude my obsession with the series, so maybe for old time’s sake

Anyway, the dates in the US start in July.  If you can go, do so, cause the more successful events like this are, the more we might see similar events in the future.

So I’m pretty bummed about the progress I’ve made so far on the garage cleaning project. Yesterday I was all gun-ho and made a couple of trips to the dump, which ended up eating all my time because it appears that instead of going away for the long weekend, everyone in town decided to clean out their collective crap and take it to the dump! I waited at least an hour just to pull in every time I took a load! So, I figured today wouldn’t be as busy, but I ended up spending most of the day doing some running around. And, just to throw a wrench in the works, I have to go into work tomorrow for some meeting that I guess will be a grand holding hands ceremony that will result in no changes and probably just furthering bitterness. It just seems all so pointless.

I’ll probably have a few things to say on this blog tomorrow about the meeting. I’ll keep it PC, but I guess I just feel like this is a big spinning of the wheels. There is clearly some distance between management and staff. I sometimes think that the fault lies on both sides, but getting either one to admit it and then meet amicably in the middle is down right mission impossible!

But ah, we’ll see. Maybe I’m wrong and I’ll return tomorrow night all stoked that things got accomplished and it was a really positive experience. Deep down I doubt it, but it would be nice to have it turn out that way…

So I did manage to clean up some junk from the garage. I also found some interesting stuff. I fund quite a few books, which I always love! It’s funny to see the kinds of books I’ve kept around. I have a Scholastic picture book of The Empire Strikes Back and ET! They’re both 25+ years old, and still in pretty good condition. I wonder if eBay might be calling my name…

I also found some of my old high school yearbooks! It’s funny looking at them now and thinking how much like a gomer I looked. Wow, brutal picture in grade 10!! It’s also funny reading people’s comments, in which a number wished me well with my girlfriend of the time. The comical part of it is that she dumped my ass about a week after those comments were written! Ah well, fickle high school romances…

It’s also interesting to look at the people who meant something to me at the time; I had a habit of circling my friends with highlighter. I recognize them all now to look at their pictures, but I wonder if I would have remembered them had I received a friend request in Facebook. Seeing all those old faces, it makes me so aware of how everything seemed possible then. How awkward and foolish I was when it came to just about everything! But I think back then, in spite of thinking I was so mature and serious at the time, I was actually very immature and lacked any true vision of what would lead me into adulthood. I don’t think I gave any serious thought about the next five, ten or twenty years. And I don’t think that’s really a personal failing, I’m sure many kids then were the same way. Hell, they’re probably the same way today, though most kids I meet seem far more driven than I recall any of us; The driven ones were the few. After all, a friend from those days pointed out to me one time on Facebook that of all of us, only one actually managed to get into a field remotely similar to what she had wanted to do back in high school. The rest of us moved from thing to thing, eventually settling either far from where we wanted, or just far from where we planned. But that’s the tricky thing, I didn’t plan. I desired, I just didn’t do what it took to become the very thing I wanted to be. I see that all so clearly now, and were I able to tell my past self anything, it would be to stop just crashing through life counting on the whims of the universe and actually make a freaking plan! I always wanted to be a writer, yet I did virtually nothing to make that happen. I didn’t read half as much as I should have, I didn’t write as often as I could have, and I never sought any sort of mentorship. Instead, I moved from one love to another and eventually got myself so mired in the musical muck that I lost sight of everything else I ever loved or was good at. And where did that music get me? It’s currently a saxophone collecting dust under the stairs and a Bachelor or Fine Arts degree that does oh so much for me when I’m dispatching ambulances! But I suppose I’ve digressed far from any point and this has just turned into another mid-30s whine fest.

So, let’s leave that stuff behind.

Instead, let’s deal with the here and now. On Friday Carolyn goes away for the weekend, leaving me on single daddy duty. I’ve got plans to weed the backyard while the kids are occupied on Friday, and then I’m trying to figure what we’ll do other than that. I’m thinking a trip to the park will probably be in order, to try and get those kids to burn off some energy. Issue being that they’ll want me to play too, and I’m just not that fit. I really do need to lose the pounds. I don’t want to be one of those inactive dads that his kid is embarrassed to take a girlfriend home cause his dad is a frickin slob. I’d like to be one of those hot dads, or at the very least a fit dad that can still walk up the stairs without getting winded.

So the plan is Friday – pull weeds in the backyard and get the ground covering fabric in place to prevent further weed infestation. The weekend is pure daddy and kiddie time. No projects, no job, just hanging with my boys and maybe getting a little me time when they go to bed (by me time I mean blog, play video games, and maybe complete the site redesign I keep talking about. Though I guess I should come up with a plan for the site design before I commit to that project. Not to mention I need to get writing!).

Monday will bring the start of the swing set construction. It’s one of those wood deals with an elevated play place, slide and swings. This thing will probably require an engineering degree, so I figure it will take me at least two days to complete. The rest of my time off will probably be split between house work and writing. But I’m laying odds it will be weighed heavily in the housework’s favour! Maybe somewhere in there I’ll pick up an overtime shift, though I doubt it. As much as we need the extra money, I’m just so much more motivated to get the jobs around here done.

The way I see things, I can’t use all my vacation in the summer. With Carolyn going to school in September, I need to keep that time in case of scheduling conflicts with child care. So I don’t want to spend any of my time in the summer with the family blowing it on house related jobs I could be doing now. Though I don’t think we’re going to get the outside painting done in the next week. I’m ambitious, but not unrealistic

On a completely different note, I really want to see the new Star Trek flick again. I thought it was totally awesome and it did what I thought impossible; it made Star Trek cool!! My eldest was watching Family Channel tonight and they had a little segment on the movie. It just made me want to pack everyone up and head for the theatre! I totally love the scene between Kirk and Pike in the bar when Pike says “Your father captained a starship for 12 minutes and saved 800 lives. I challenge you to do better.” It’s just such a great line and totally sets the stage for the following acts. Anyone looking to do reboots or prequels, watch this film again and again. This one should be the text book for those type of flicks. I have serious doubts that Terminator Salvation will manage to do the job as well.

So that’s it for today. Back again in the next few I’m sure. Until then….

With my eight year old being an avid Family Channel viewer and fan of Hannah Montana, it was inevitable that he would see ads for the Hannah Montana film and insist on going to see it. So, since my youngest had no interest and Carolyn’s away, I was elected to be the parental escort while my youngest spent the day with my mom.

So let’s get a few things out of the way… First off, if you or your child are not a fan of the series, there really is no reason for you to see this film. Truly, it is made for fans. There is little exposition explaining Miley’s double life dilemma and why she insists on continuing with it. If you’re a fan of the series, you know that this issue has been addressed several times, most dominantly in the episode where Miley wishes she had only ever been Hannah Montana. So, assuming you are familiar with the series, you already know the level of acting, dialogue and musical performances you’re going to see, so it seems needless to mention it is all workable while certainly not being Oscar worthy. It’s also a Disney flick aimed squarely at its demographic, so the fact that it’s fluffy and relatively toothless shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone either.

It’s so easy to be cynical about this flick. I mean, there are nearly enough musical moments to qualify it as a musical, which is pretty clearly done to pimp the soundtrack and the careers of Miley, Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts and Billy Ray himself. There’s also the fact that this is a movie at all. That alone demonstrates that a) High School Musical 3’s theatrical release was a money maker and b) Disney wants to milk the Hannah cash cow until it runs dry.

So, I must have hated it, right? Well, surprisingly, no. The thing about Hannah Montana the Movie, is that a) you get what you expect if you’re familiar with the series and b) there is actually a surprisingly decent moral core running through this film about the importance of family, being yourself, and not letting the material trappings destroy who you are.

When you consider the material society we live in, it’s a pretty powerful message to tell kids that maybe riding a horse, appreciating an evening at home with family, and forgetting the hustle and bustle is more important than being a super rich and powerful pop star. But that’s exactly what Hannah Montana does. In the end, the big reveal of Miley’s secret isn’t something she does as publicity, or because she’s being forced. She does it because she is ashamed of who Hannah Montana is, and what maintaining that image has done to her and her loved ones.

In spite of the cynical commercialism of this movie, there is a gentle innocence to it. The message of family and being true to yourself is so very clear. But it’s not just Hannah. I was interested to see Billy Ray’s character even willing to once again sacrifice his own happiness to be there for his daughter. It was such a true father moment, that it seems only right that it was played by Miley’s actual dad.

So overall, I would say that for the exisitng Hannah fan, this is definately a winner. If you don’t know/like the show, you just have to realise that this flick wasn’t made for you. Fluffy, commercially driven, but with a clear heart on its shoulder, it surprised me that I actually felt inspired at points throughout. It also surprised me how many adults were singing the Ho-Down Throw Down at the film’s end. Parents, we’re a pretty crazy breed

I wouldn’t be a good Neil Gaiman fan if I didn’t mention that Coraline opened this weekend and seems to be getting some pretty amazing reviews! Over at Rotten Tomatoes, it has an 87% fresh rating after 119 reviews. The guys over at Ain’t It Cool News are all sold on it. I’m really looking forward to checking this out. Hopefully it will do well at the box office this weekend.

I haven’t written anything original in what seems like sooooo long. I mean, other than my rant about my job, what have I contributed to this blog lately other than the Word of the Day? And really, we all know that’s just filler so this place has something new on a regular basis.

The odd thing is, I really have wanted to write. Not just my usual obsession with writing the novel that I never will write, but just to throw some words at this blog, to talk, to vent, to do all the things I suppose a normal person would do with their friends. So pardon me while I go on about far too many things….

So I’ve been watching the anime Bleach almost consistently for a few weeks now. I think we hit episode 111 last night! I can’t tell you how much I’ve been enjoying this. It reminds me of the days where we watch Ruroni Kenshin until there was nothing more to see. Or the almost hypnotic compulsion to keep viewing Marmalade Boy or Fushigi Yuugi. I’ve said it so many times, I really do love anime, and it’s just great to get into a series that delivers episode after episode. Bleach has impressed the hell out of me in terms of how it can just keep being excellent and engaging after over 100 episodes! There are so many characters, and each of them is unique and ever increasingly fleshed out. Do yourself a favour and check out this fabulous series!

I recently finished the last of the Night Watch books – titled The Last Watch. I’ll try and get around to writing an actual review of this thing. Maybe today. Anyway, I think what it boils down to is that if you liked the previous 3, you’ll like this one too. But more on that later….

So via the Super Bowl last weekend, we finally got some of our fist glimpses at Transformers 2, GI Joe, and maybe something else, I can’t really remember. I’m in such a lazy mood right now, I’m not really going to bother giving you a link, I’m sure you can find it through a simple search on YouTube. Speaking of which, in checking out the GI Joe Live action trailer, I found this on YouTube, GI Joe Resolute! Apparently Hasbro is looking to release a number of web based episodes that will amount to an hour long show. It’s GI Joe taken to bad ass levels. It’s apparently written by Warren Ellis, a comic writer known for his generally gritty scripts. Gone are the red tracer fire, we’re talking bullets flying and Snake Eyes dicing a bunch of Cobras! The trailer is a cam grab, so the quality is shite, but from what I can tell, they must’ve gotten a pretty serious animation studio involved, cause it looks great! I think I’m actually more hyped to see this than I am about the Live flick!

The Transformers 2 trailer looks ok. I don’t know, it just didn’t get me as hyped as I thought it would. Maybe cause they just flashed so many scenes, there just was no way to get a real feel for how this was going to play out. From what I understand they finally confirmed that the Fallen was indeed a character. Maybe I mentioned that before… meh..

I got this crank call yesterday that kind of freaked me out. At least, I hope it was a crank. But it’s got me serisouly contemplating changing my number and unlisting it. You know, I remember when we were kids and if we cranked someone, it was something childish. This guy asked for me by name, then proceeded to ask if I had raped his daughter! I’m sitting there with my wife and the mother of one of my son’s friends. What the hell?! So I keep cool and start asking how he got this number and he tells me he was told by someone that I had done it and they gave him my number. Now, I know I’ve never done anything like that, so I’m not worried about that, but it just kind of creeped me out. I started thinking how this guy could find me, how if it wasn’t a crank what might it mean? Anyway, I’m trying to just let it go.

So I went into work this week, and it doesn’t seem like much of anything has changed with the whole fall out from that newspaper article I mentioned. I’m hoping that since we were in the 90% bracket that this thing will blow over for us. We’ll see I guess.

I was trolling DeviantArt and it never ceases to amaze me some of the really great work that people post there. I wish I could write more and get it posted over there, maybe more people would read it. Mind you, I’m really lazy there. I never write any comments or anything, which is really how you kind of get noticed. I guess if it were so important to me I would put the work in.

Anyway, this post is just dragging and I’m really getting a clear pic that I’m really just being apathetic, which is boring. Anyhow, I should hopefully return later today with that Last Watch review and maybe something else. Time will tell…

So in typical Entertainment Tonight style, they had a “first look” at GI Joe, the Stephen Sommers live action film that he is unleashing this summer. The clips are so quick that I think ET should be a little embarrassed, but oh well, I hear rumour that we might get an actual trailer this weekend during the Super Bowl. In the meantime, catch the first few glimpses from Youtube.

So after only two kicks at the can, Disney decided to pull its money from the Walden Media film versions of The Chronicles of Narnia. Usually, this would mean the series is dead, but here comes Fox to save the day! Though I have to say, given the drivel that Fox has produced, and that they are largely responsible for the death of Eragon as a film franchise, this doesn’t bode too well for this venerable series. However, Voyage of the Dawn Treader is by far a better story than Prince Caspian, so maybe Fox is jumping on at the right time. I suppose we’ll see during Christmas 2010, when they hope to get this one releases.

You can read all the details in Variety’s article here.

Saw this over at Ain’t It Cool News and thought I’d post it here. It’s the teaser poster for the new Transformers live action movie, Revenge of the Fallen.

Now, you might remember I mentioned in an earlier post how it was entirely possible that the Fallen was an actual character as opposed to just Megatron coming back. I’m still not so sure that this is the case, but I thought the poster looked kind of cool

So last night I saw Twilight. Ugh. Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind the book series. While I lost some patience with certain elements, it was ultimately readable and I did plow through all four books, so obviously it wasn’t irredeemable. But the film version of the first book just felt like a mess.

First off, let’s strip Twilight down to its bear bones. Twilight is a romance fantasy. The fact that Edward is a vampire has little to do with anything. The fact is, he is beautiful, charming, wealthy, and filled with the type of morals that are far and few between. I mean, the boy won’t even let the kissing get out of hand! Now, the fact that he’s a vampire adds that touch of bad boy danger. makes him stronger than the average bear, and naturally provides the books with the vast majority of their conflict. But really, this is about a girl falling in love with a boy. So, shouldn’t the core of the film be the love story? It should, but lord help me, I couldn’t see much in the way of romance here. In fact, the only real way I knew Bella was in love with Edward was because one of her annoying voice overs told me she was. Which is one of the other major problems with Twilight, we are told about things that we should be shown! Having been an aspiring writer for some time, I often read the advice that a writer must show his audience, not tell them. This theory makes even more sense when dealing with a visual format like film. I understand that in the books we were told the action almost exclusively by Bella in the first person, but in films, that doesn’t work. All the things that were done in voice overs, could have been more adequately done through actual action as opposed to the voice over.

I want to get back to the love story. Has anyone seen the movie Before Sunrise? It basically follows two characters walking the streets of Vienna. The whole film is just about them, walking, talking, spending a night together that they know will end, and that when the morning comes, their time together will end. My god, this film shows how a film centered on two characters can show characters falling in love, not telling it to us in a voice over. Why couldn’t they do this with Twilight, seeing as how the love story is what Twilight is really about? Oh right, because they had two leads that lacked chemistry, and a script that seemed determined to undermine the relationship aspect and turn this into, what, a vampire film? This isn’t a vampire movie. I don’t care that Ed and Co. are said to be vampires, this is not a “vampire” movie. I mean, why they felt the need to intersperse the scenes of the three, human eating, vampires coming into town and killing people, is beyond me. Those scenes weren’t in the book, and it helped to heighten the tension when the three arrived at the Cullens’ baseball game. In the film, by the time we see these three, we already know these three are killers, ruthless, and that Bella being a real live girl around them is a bad idea. It also took time away from developing the relationship with Edward and Bella, which is really why the story exists, and why there are so many rabid fans.

This doesn’t begin to address the wooden performances, and what felt like a really jumpy film. It just felt like the passing of time was too disjointed, and made each scene seem isolated from each other, robbing the film of a smooth cohesiveness. Also, the effects were, ahem, crap. I mean, the effect of Clarke Kent running at super speed in Smallville is better done than what I saw here.

So, is it worth watching? Only if you’re a fan of the book. If you’re a non-reader looking to see what all the fuss is about, forget this flick, cause you won’t get it at all. This film lacks heart, which is what it needed. I now understand why they fired the director of this mess and are giving Chris Weitz a kick at the can. Maybe he can work some About A Boy magic and find the emotional core of these characters. That’s especially going to be needed for New Moon, which is almost all driven by emotional angst.