Trailer: Kick-Ass 2 (Extended Red Band)

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Arleigh

This past week saw the largest collection of nerd, geek and comic book fandom gathered in one magical place. The place in question is San Diego and the event is called San Diego Comic-Con or simply just uttered in awed whispers as Comic-Con. It is a place that many outsiders have shunned as a place that has no place in good, normal society yet they continue to arrive in larger numbers to ply their products to those they shun. Even this blog has it’s shamers and ignorant individuals who spew insults yet they too continue to visit because deep in their subconscious they know, like those who ridicule Comic-Con and those who attend them with a passion, that they’re the ones out of step with whats not accepted in society.

What does this mean when it comes to the latest trailer for Kick-Ass 2 that just came out of Comic-Con?

Absolutely nothing other than the trailer and the film itself is just another weird meeting of the two cultures. It’s a film that celebrates the ridiculousness and absurdity of the comic book culture, yet it’s one that’s funded by the very same people who insulted the scene just a decade ago.

The first film was a revelation and helped introduced the world to one Chloe Grace Moretz, but it also showed that comic books and films made from them didn’t have to be PG or even PG-13. There was a place for ultra-violence in our comic book films. It also helped bring the name of Matthew Vaughn into the forefront of comic book fandom. While he’s not directing this sequel (he elected to go with X-Men: First Class and we’re all the better for it), he did help in bringing it to life and hand-picked his successor in Jeff Wadlow.

While Kick-Ass 2 is not getting the same sort of buzz from Comic-Con the original film did it is still one film I’m quite interested in seeing just to find out what has happened to our young superheroes and vigilante crime fighters since the last film. Plus, it’s main villain likes to call himself “Motherfucker”.

Review: True Blood 6.6 “Don’t You Feel Me”

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I review tonight’s episode of True Blood, I have to apologize for not reviewing last week’s episode. For the past six months, I have been basically working, writing, and dancing nonstop and last week, it finally caught up with me and I nearly collapsed from exhaustion. I’m still in the process of recovering but hopefully, I’ll be more active this week than last week.

Going into tonight’s episode, I knew that there had been a lot of speculation online about the possibility of one or more major characters dying. A lot of people though that it might be Lafayette, especially since he was in the process of trying to drown Sookie when last week’s episode ended. Some people thought Alcide would kill Sam and still others insisted on breaking my heart by speculating that Eric might experience the true death.

Instead, it turned out to be Terry. That’s right. After spending all of last season dealing with that stupid Iraqi fire demon and then spending most of this season feeling guilty for having murdered his friend Patrick, Terry appeared to have finally found some peace tonight. Arlene and Holly recruited a vampire to erase Terry’s memory (which is really what they should have done in the first place) and Terry was cheerfully taking out the trash when his friends kept their promise to him and shot him in the neck. Arlene rushed outside and held Terry as he died, no longer aware of why he had asked to be killed in the first place.

To a certain extent, Terry’s death was not that surprising. If there was any major character that True Blood could afford to lose, it was Terry. And, hopefully, his death will mean we won’t ever have to hear about that Iraqi fire demon ever again. However, even if it wasn’t totally unexpected, it was still a perfect example of how True Blood, at its best, can so gracefully walk across the thin line between heartfelt melodrama and over-the-top satire. We all knew that Terry was doomed as soon as he told Arlene that he had never been happier but the scene worked because both Todd Lowe and Carrie Preston gave such heartfelt performances in the roles of Terry and Arlene. Even if there was little left for the show to do with Terry as a character, I will still miss Todd Lowe’s likable presence.

However, Terry was not the only character to meet an abrupt end tonight. After putting himself into a coma and having a typically cryptic meeting with Lilith, Bill drank a vial of Warlow’s blood. Now even more powerful than before, Bill confronted Governor Burrell and demanded to know why he had been having visions of all of the vampires being burned to death in a white room. When Burrell didn’t answer quickly enough, Bill responded by ripping the Governor’s head off of his body. And while Burrell certainly deserved the punishment, I doubt that’s going to do much to help human/vampire relations.

Governor Burrell was played by Arliss Howard and, in just six episodes, Howard had transformed Burrell from simply being a standard evil politician to being one of the best villains in the history of True Blood. While I knew that Burrell was too evil to eventually not suffer some sort of violent death, I was surprised that it occurred at the mid-point of this season as opposed to the end of it. I have a feeling that Sarah Newlin will take his place as the main human villain and I’m sure that Anna Camp is more than up to the job but I’m still going to miss Arliss Howard’s brand of evil.

Meanwhile, Sookie continues to consistently make the worst choices in men. After Warlow saved Sookie from being drowned by the possessed Lafayette, Sookie took Warlow to a fairy dimension where, after she tied him up to keep him from losing control, she proceeded to let him feed on her and then did the same to him. As they made love, their respective lights glowed together and it would have been a beautiful image if not for the fact that we know that the only Sookie gave herself over to Warlow was because Bill’s found religion, Eric’s prison, and Alcide’s off searching for Sam.

As for Eric, after he and Pam refuses to fight to death gladiator-style, Gov. Burrell forced him to watch as Nora was injected with some sort of vampire virus known as Hep V. Then, like a typical short-sighted villain, Burrell left before Nora actually died. While Burrell was busy having his head ripped off, Eric was summoning Willa and getting her to free both him and Nora. Disguised as a guard, Eric discovered that the all of the new Tru Blood is being spiked with Hep V.

Jessica is also in the prison. Sarah Newlin attempted to force her to have sex with a new vampires named James. I don’t know if we’ll ever see James again but I hope that we do because, seriously, he’s really hot and, as opposed to every other male character on this show, he actually seems to respect women.

Meanwhile, Jason has infiltrated the LAVPD. I just loved Ryan Kwanten’s performance tonight as he attempted to out-fascist the fascists.

Finally, Sam and Nicole … wow. Just typing the words “Sam and Nicole” makes me want to close my eyes and go to sleep. Seriously, I love Sam and all but he doesn’t need to be running around with a new girlfriend when Luna hasn’t even been dead for more than a week. Anyway, Sam ended up giving Emma back to Martha and Alcide allowed Sam and Nicole to leave town but told them that if they ever returned, they would be killed by the pack.

Tonight’s episode pretty much epitomized everything that I love about True Blood. It was over-the-top and melodramatic but, if you weren’t touched by Arlene singing as Terry died, then you just don’t have a heart. That was True Blood at its best.

Finally, the Emmy nominations were announced last Thursday and, not surprisingly, both the Walking Dead and True Blood were pretty much ignored. (Instead, space was made to honor the predictable political blathering of House of Cards because I guess the Emmy voters love to feel smart without actually being challenged.) The lack of respect for televised horror ultimately say nothing about the quality of shows like True Blood and everything about the lack of guts on the part of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

What’s important is that we, the viewers, know what the best shows on television truly are.

Random Thoughts and Observations:

Tonight’s unofficial scene count: 42
Before I watched True Blood, I had to sit through a commercial for the Newsroom. I was just like, “Oh yay! A chance to relive Occupy Wall Street!” BLEH!
Can Lafayette ever go for two episodes without getting possessed?
I want to do bad thing with you, Eric.
I love that Jason responds to his name by saying, “The one and only.”
That was a sweet scene between Andy and his last remaining faerie daughter. I would have named her Bernadette, after the patron saint of asthma sufferers. (I’ve been praying to Bernadette a lot this past week…)
Arliss Howard made a wonderfully hissable villain.
“I just think we have the type of friendship where we can give each other keys!”
“I love you, brother.” “I love you, sister.” *Sob*

It Figures (No. 3) Misaka Mikoto

Posted on July 21, 2013 by pantsukudasai56

It may have been awhile since I’ve done an It Figures post, but anyone that’s followed the site with any regularity knows that they’re here to read posts by Lisa Marie Bowman, or maybe Arleigh, but if they’re here to read anything from pantsukudasai56, then they’re in for a long wait in between entries. My latest entry was about a little show called Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, and keeping with that theme, I have the latest figure I’ve received who also happens to be the protagonist of that show, Misaka Mikoto.

First off, this box is big enough to hold an entire Spartan. Is that Master Chief in there? Ok, I really only took this pic as a sort of comparison. My TV is a 55″ screen, so you can see just how big that box is. Incidentally, the show that I’m watching is Yozakura Quartet. All in all it’s a pretty average show, so there won’t be a post dedicated to it, but it’s not like it’s a terrible show. Just one of those shows you watch if you have nothing better to do. Anyways, that’s all I’ll ever mention of the show, and no, Master Chief is not in this box, although he would almost fit (not really) The box winds up being 9180 square inches of space. By far the largest box I’ve ever received from Glorious Nippon, but is this the size of the figure I’m reviewing?

No. There’s two figures in here. Still, two figures for a box this size is pretty impressive. The other figure is of the Princess of the Crystal by Good Smile Company, and she in herself is almost worth a post. But today we’re focusing just on the FREEing Misaka Mikoto (FREEing is also a subsidiary of Good Smile Company, so getting the two in one box makes a certain amount of sense)

Even though it’s not as large as you’d think coming from a shipping box that size, this is still a 1/4 scale figure, which is FREEing’s forte. While they also do the normal 1/6 to 1/8 scale figures, they’re mostly known for doing the larger 1/4 scale figures. For those who don’t quite get what I’m saying, it basically means that if you increased this figure’s size 4 times what it currently is, you’d have a life size figure. For the curious, 1/1 size figures do exist, and they also cost several thousands of dollars. Far more than even this reviewer can afford to spend on a figure, regardless of how awesome it would be to own one.

The first thing I’d like to point out about this figure is a big difference between her and most other figures. A lot of other figure collectors would probably spot this right away, but for the uninitiated, here’s something to look at. She doesn’t have a standard base like so many other figures. That stool is what supports her, an unlike a lot of other figures, she’s not attached to it by pegs or screws. She’s just sitting on it, with most of the figure weight being put directly on the stool, and a small amount being put on her foot which is touching the floor. While this is an interesting choice, it also leads to the possibility that she will not be quite as stable as a figure that has a base that it’s pegged in to. Still, from my experimentation, it seems that she will remain quite stable, so the chances of her falling off the base are fairly slim, unless you live in an area that experiences a lot of earthquakes.

The backside of this figure stays faithful to the bunny girl motif that Japan (and I) so dearly love. FREEing is well known for its bunny girl figures, having done them for highly popular series like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and lesser know but still well loved series like Sora no Otoshimono, so naturally they’re not letting their customers down with this series. This is actually their second figure from the series, with “good friend” Kuroko Shirai already having debuted in a similar outfit. So, they’re no strangers to making sure that their figures look good from any angle.

Dear Jeebus, she had no face! Ok, this is a fairly new thing for the 1/4 scale FREEing figures. Usually with this line, you get what you’re given and that’s that. But for these figures, they’ve given us the option of changing out the faces. The face that I showed you earlier had her smiling. That’s all well and good for most people, but for fans of the series and people that feel they know Mikoto well, that just isn’t good enough.

This face is much more suitable to her. Anyone that has watched the series would know that if Mikoto were to find herself forced to wear a bunny girl outfit, that she would be very uncomfortable doing so. So it’s great that FREEing had the foresight to include a second face that makes Mikoto look as though she is highly embarrassed to be seen wearing such an outfit. Now, to each their own of course, so if you liked the previous face then by all means display her as such. However, for people like myself who feel that Mikoto would normally show a lot more restraint in this situation, this secondary face is a great addition to the figure and I’m thrilled that FREEing gave us a choice.

One other aspect that I’d like to focus on is the stockings. This just goes to show the attention to detail that FREEing made to this figure. It would have been so easy for them to just paint the stockings on and call it good, but that’s not what FREEing is all about. You can’t easily tell from this picture, but I’m here to tell you that those stockings are actual net stockings and not just painted on. What I mean by that is, I can grab a portion of the stockings and pull them off from her legs. Now, granted, you can’t actually removed the stockings entirely, but the fact that they are actual fabric stockings and not just molded plastic means a lot to figure fans. These small attention to details makes a figure like this worth putting in ones collection.

All in all, a big part of FREEing’s draw is the sheer size of their figures. Not many companies make figures larger than a 1/6 size. But regardless, if it was a large sized figure with poorly sculpted features, it wouldn’t matter what size it was. With the inclusion of a secondary face, FREEing tackles any problem I might have had with this figure, and makes it one that would be welcome any any serious collector’s home. This kind of attention to detail is exactly what we all expect when we get a figure related to Good Smile Company.