[Books] Doctor Who: Sting of the Zygons (Monster Collection Edition)

Admittedly a big part of why I'm so committed to reading more Doctor Who novels as of late has to do with my recent forays into running the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (DWAITAS) RPG. Reading more and more adventures of the various incarnations of the Doctor is proving to be tremendously useful in terms of inspiring new adventure ideas for future games.

Sting of the Zygons turned out to be a book featuring the Tenth Doctor, as portrayed on TV by David Tennant. In many ways I'll always feel that Tenth is "my" Doctor, in such that he's the one that I developed the strongest affinity for in terms of the Doctors thus far.

I wonder if the author had any idea that the Tenth Doctor might actually have to face the Zygons in a later televised adventure. As much as he never encountered these craft shape-shifting aliens during his television run, the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor actually made this little moment come true. Not bad for a book published in 2007 just as Martha Jones first joined the Doctor as his Companion.

[Movies] Son of Batman (2014)

I think I'm just about done with my catch-up activities in terms of the different DC Universe Animated Original Movies. And as I've been jumping back and forth across their direct-to-video library, the end result has me thinking that the older movies felt a lot better than some of their more recent endeavors. Maybe this is just a matter of opinion, but they don't quite seem to hit that mark of "great" that I used to feel after watching them. They're not totally bad just yet, but they're not getting that far past "good" either.

Son of Batman was another of the DC movies that were closely tied to a comic book storyline. And while you can sort of say this about many of the movies, the way that they structure things sort of  determines how important that particular comic book story is with respect to the movie. And while some liberties with the story are sort of expected, deviating a bit too far can somewhat ruin things as well.

Combine a somewhat odd story with different voice actors than the ones we're used to and other quirks like that and the end result is an okay but somewhat lackluster movie experience. I kinda miss Bruce Timm being more active with all DC animated productions.

[Pink Culture] Limited LGBT Benefits in the Philippines

So I was kinda surprised to see little banner ad on my way home recently - the message is both direct and subtle, depending on who sees it. For queer individuals such as myself, it's clearly an ad targeted to the LGBT demographic and states a message of support and inclusion. For folks unfamiliar with what the rainbow can also represent, it's just another recruitment ad with two rather chummy call center agents.

And as much as some foreign companies operating in the Philippines have made headlines by extending HMO benefits to same-sex partners of employees, it hasn't really struck me as something that is aggressively being used as a recruitment strategy. And given the few companies that do offer this, you'd think that they'd try to capitalize on these niche benefits more.

It's interesting to note that in other countries such as the US, employee diversity has extended beyond equal rights for women to a lot of focus on employing many different disadvantaged groups. Thus in order for a company to appear to be more diverse, they need to actively engage with minority partners representing women-owned business, those run by ethnic minorities and of course LGBT individuals, to name a few.

Thus far the expansion of company benefits to same-sex couples has been largely limited to multinational companies operating in the country such as the different BPO and ITO businesses and of course the captive centers as well. But beyond that, we haven't seen any particular engagement by local businesses to recognize their LGBT employees in a greater way.

But who knows, perhaps with the multinationals taking the lead, local companies will eventually follow in their footsteps. We tend to copy a lot from the US after all, so why not this aspect of running a business in an inclusive way?

[Movies] Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010)

So my recent efforts to catch up on reviews for the various DC Universe Animated Original Movies also resulted in a weird discovery - movies that we had missed. Despite my efforts to faithfully watch these movies as they come out, it turned out that I was less than perfect in such efforts. And for one reason or another, this was the movie we missed.

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is sort of a follow-up to Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, given they both share a single comic book series as source material. But oddly enough the title didn't quite capture what the full gist of the story would actually turn out to be.

Ugh, that last sentence felt less than ideal. Moving on.

What I meant to say is that this story actually featured a heck of a lot of  Kara Zor-El, better known as Supergirl, more than most else. And while Superman and Batman are certainly physically present in this story, it didn't really feel like they were the central characters. You could argue it was almost a Justice League style ensemble given Wonder Woman's participation, but in the end it was a little short on delivery.

[Theater] Pinocchio (Repertory Philippines)

When I opted to get the bundle offer for all of Repertory Philippines' shows for the year, the one show that I wasn't particularly keen on was the annual children's musical that comes after the regular season for the straight plays. But since it was actually cheaper to get all 5 shows instead of just the other 4, I went for the bundle anyway.

Pinocchio turned out to be a completely different play than what I expected. It wasn't particularly great, but it certainly had a bit of an endearing charm on its own. And given this was my first exposure to how Repertory handles their children's show, it was also a bit of learning from a different perspective.

Do I plan on watching all Repertory Philippines' shows in the future? Perhaps not - I know when I'm not the target audience. But at least I now know that it's not exactly a horrible experience and I wouldn't mind taking on another deal like this even if it includes this sort of musical.

[TV] Defiance: Season 1

As I go over my queue of TV shows that I committed to review, I feel like I've made a lot of bad TV choices. In a post-Firefly world, it feels essential to support science fiction and fantasy shows in order to help "protect" the genre from the hacking and slashing of narrow-minded television executives. But at the same time, recent years haven't been all that great in terms of the types genre television that has been created. And while I still don't want to lose another show before its time in a Firefly fashion, one also has to recognize that not all shows are Firefly either.

I really wanted to like Defiance. It has a lot going for it including a somewhat Firefly-like setting and a nice diversity of alien races that sort of reminds me of Babylon 5 or Farscape or something. And it had some tie-in with a video game franchise right off the bat. So the show had a lot going for it, right?

But then things just got mired down in rather shoddy storytelling and lackluster characters. Let's face it, SyFy hasn't been all that great in terms of bring out new science fiction shows of decent quality in recent years. Let's be shallow and blame the name change or something.

[Games] Smash Up

Back in my school days, I got into Magic: the Gathering, as was the thing for geeks my age. It was a clever card game that seemed like unlike anything else that I've seen and it quickly became a bit of an obsession. But over the years, I eventually quit Magic because I couldn't keep up with the number of new cards being released season after season.

Smash Up is one of the new card games out there that are less about building the perfect deck and instead working with what you have. We've seen deck-building games where the cards at your disposal change based on what you can pick-up in game. But Smash Up tried to keep things innovative by describing this as a "sufflebuilding" game.

I don't play enough Smash Up, admittedly, since I get obsessed about having the right type of plastic sleeves for the cards. And given they've released a few new expansions over the past year, we've needed to add more and more sleeves to our collection.

[Books] Hang Wire

Adam Christopher is one of the first authors that I met through the Angry Robot Books review program, known as the Angry Robot Army. For the most part he seems to have a penchant for super hero stories whether they have fantastical powers or even if they're just normal people trying to make a difference. His books have been fairly interesting, although I've yet to see a truly break-out novel from him just yet.

Hang Wire felt rather different from his other books given it has a stronger fantasy bent more than others. But this is not some medieval adventure or anything of that sort - Christopher appears to be most comfortable writing stories strongly tied to a city, and he certainly does this quite well.

And this time around he decided to experiment with the now classic concept of the old gods of myth and legend secretly living among us, as popularized in books like American Gods. And while I've already read a few different takes on the subject, Christopher made sure to bring his own spin to things, which certainly kept things enjoyable.

[Movies] Machete Kills (2013)

The B-movie has become an art form in itself. Sure, we still see low-budget ripoffs of popular movies (cue The Asylum), but that doesn't quite capture the now "classic" sense of the B-movie. And of course the challenge of precisely defining what makes these movies so entertaining despite how bad they are is probably worth creating a dedicated field of study all to itself.

But that hasn't stopped folks like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez from trying to create movies that clearly homage those types of movies precisely. And now we have the unusual campy sequel of a trailer that somehow became a movie, Machete Kills.

And I rather enjoyed the first Machete movie given it generally accomplished its goal - to celebrate the over-the-top craziness of the B-movie. It had a horrible script, gratuitous violence and all that good stuff. And this sequel tries to continue on in that grand tradition by finding ways to push things even further.

And while the movie wasn't much of a commercial success, I still rather enjoyed the movie precisely because of how hammy it was and its overall ridiculousness.

[Movies] The Young, the Gay and the Restless (2006)

I get genuinely surprised at times with some of the LGBT movies that I've gathered over the years. Admittedly I'm used to be a lot more liberal about acquiring such movies given the odd desire to somehow support the industry. And that means watching some pretty crazy movies at times. Over time, I've come to accept that I have a bit of a soft spot for gay comedies only because a lot of them are genuinely funny.

The Young, the Gay and the Restless had camp written all over it given its title alone. And I do have a thing for low-brow humor at times, I must admit. But "good camp" (as strange as the term may sound) is hard to find and I don't think this movie was quite on the mark.

If I were to attempt to define that further, I'll admit that any final answer will rely more on personal preference I suppose. There's a fine line between bad comedy and camp and where that line lies may depend on your perspective and general comedic sensibilities. What is hilariously campy for some may only be cringe-worthy for others. Thus really good camp manages to elicit laughs across a wider spectrum of viewers on its own merits alone.

[Movies] Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)

So I'm still back-tracking all the different DC Universe Animated Movies that I've watched over the years and adding them to the Geeky Guide accordingly. There's a weird gap where I wasn't all that consistent with posting reviews for them despite having seen them all. But I have to admit, a lot of the older ones were a lot better than many of the more recent releases.

Batman: Under the Red Hood was one of the many direct-to-video movies that seemed to make an effort to follow fairly recent comic book stories.  Admittedly I've had rather mixed feelings about this since I haven't been all that enthusiastic about the direction the main comics have taken, including the Batman family.

But to be fair, this story - whether from the comics or as an animated movie, wasn't all that bad. So things really boiled down to actual execution and how they brought the Batman to life. And this also marks another Batman feature that seemed to experiment with voice talents for many of the iconic roles.

[TV] Falling Skies: Season 3

As I mentioned on my personal blog last week, I don't fully understand why I continue to watch Falling Skies. It's not like I've found the story to be all that compelling. I think in certain ways I just watch because there's so little science fiction television out there. Thus there's the misguided logic that if I support mediocre shows like this one, it might help encourage networks to create better ones. But I don't think this strategy is working out thus far.

Falling Skies has dragged on for a while and has been going in pretty strange directions. It was campy enough to try and believe that a history teacher was proving to be an excellent military strategist because of his knowledge of historical battles. But some of the shifts in the first two seasons have really pushed the limits of good taste - or even just logic.

What started as a meager effort of a resistance group to survive an alien occupation has shifted to a rather serious effort to actually rid the planet of the invaders. And this third season tried to up the ante further by giving our human rebels something more to work with. But of course, not everything is as it seems.

[Games] Guillotine

During our recent trip to Singapore, Tobie and I finally picked up our copy of Guillotine, a rather cheeky card game that we had first played thanks to other gaming friends. A humorous game set around the time of the French revolution may not immediately seem like a good idea, but the resulting game was downright brilliant. Many thanks to our friends at Paradigm Infinitum for finally stocking a copy of this game.

Guillotine is one of those nicely simple games where the rules are easy enough to pick up however the strategy takes a bit more time. And a lot of the best games seem to be like that - the ones that are easily shared with new players and thus replay value becomes pretty high. And beyond that fact, it's a rather fun game as a whole with a clever pun in its tagline.

[Books] Doctor Who: Scales of Injustice (Monster Collection Edition)

I've been enjoying my little journey through the various Doctors thanks to the re-releases of key Doctor Who  novels. And while I'm still committed to eventually watching all of the Classic serials prior to the 2005 reboot of the series, I know I have quite a long way to go. The somewhat curated collection of Doctor Who books known as the Monster Collection has been a nice way to jump from Doctor to Doctor as he faces many different iconic foes.

Scales of Injustice has him once again facing the dreaded Silurians, the highly intelligent descendants of the dinosaurs that hid away underground in order to escape the cataclysm that destroyed most life on the surface. And a race of intelligent dinosaur descendants is certainly quite a fascinating idea - it's no wonder the new Who writers made sure to bring them back eventually.

Of course this novel still takes place in the classic era with our dapper, Earth-bound Third Doctor once again trying to find a way to deal with the Earth Reptiles. And he's certainly a very distinct incarnation of the Doctor - one that has a lot of flair and style added into the mix of things. And of course he has a car.

[Movies] RoboCop (2014)

RoboCop was a pretty iconic movie for its period. Almost everything that RoboCop had to say was worth turning into a nerd quote or could appear on a T-shirt or something. And like most things born in the 1980's, a lot of fans have a rather fierce loyalty to the franchise in its original form.

RoboCop as a remake was a little unexpected and one that admittedly I was rather prepared to hate right off the bat. You know how it is - the original movie may not have been perfect, but the combination of its bold concept combined with its often campy aesthetics sort of paid off and made an amazing franchise. And now we had some CGI monstrosity threatening to change the RoboCop image entirely.

Upon finally watching it, one has to concede that it's not actually a bad movie. As is the case with many remakes, you just sort of wish they had tried to explore the movie concept on its own without necessarily digging up some older IP to appropriate in order to tell the story. This could have been a different story entirely with a similar premise of the dangers of augmentation technology and without the need for the "RoboCop" branding.

[Movies] Clapham Junction (2007)

One of the bigger challenges of LGBT movies is finding the balance between realism and being downright depressing. Then again, I suppose the same could be said about a lot of movies that try to go for greater "realism" by presenting the negative side of a particular story or event - just look at the local indie movie scene for any number of "poverty porn" examples. It's a difficult balance to achieve.

Clapham Junction is one of those queer movies that kinda of struggled with striking this balance, at least in my opinion. It was pretty ambitious in terms of the themes it wanted to tackle, especially given it was first broadcast as a TV movie on Channel 4.

This is not to say the movie is without merit, of course. It's just that the jarring images and disturbing situations sort of leave you a little confused as to how you should feel about things. It's hard to support the individual characters in the movie since each has their share of good and bad decisions made over the course of the film. At the very least, it certainly makes you think.

[Movies] Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2012-2013)

Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is often celebrated as one of the greatest graphic novels created. And it's interesting since it's not exactly a "mainstream" release - it's a story that stands on its own and was not directly affected by on-going Batman continuity nor did it contribute to that same continuity. I guess that really added to the value of the title on the whole - the fact that it's such a solid story that stands on its own.

So I wasn't quite sure how to feel about the decision to create the DC Universe Animated Original Movie version of this comic as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The DC animated movies have been a mixed bag, but generally lean more towards the good rather than the bad. And so I was pretty curious to see how this would turn out.

I think the one thing that was both brilliant and annoying involved the casting of the voice talents for the movie. The animated life of Batman almost automatically triggers the need for Kevin Conroy and the like and this movie didn't go in that direction. It certainly supported the Elseworlds feel to the story, but it also still felt a little weird in terms of how the scenes came across. And a lot of the movie ends up feeling that way in general.

[TV] Houdini (2014)

The irony is not lost on me how strange it is that the one thing that the History channel seems to be really bad at is historical accuracy. More and more of its shows have very little to do with history and more with just about anything else including a lot of secondhand stuff and of course aliens. And yet we still sort of expect them to put more of an effort into some of their more serious productions.

The biographical drama Houdini could have been an interesting look at the life of the great magician Harry Houdini. Instead it was really a rather entertaining piece of fiction with very loose connections the actual events as they took place in the past - actual history, in other words. And it's such a shame too since it featured the very talented Adrien Brody as the titular character.

So how does one view the work? Do we just rate it on how entertaining it is as a television production? Or do we consider the significant degree of historical inaccuracy demonstrated? Or is there some middle ground that can be taken that side-steps the more obvious issues?

[Games] Zombie Dice

Tobie and I have just come back from another trip to Singapore. And our Singapore adventures are never complete without a trip to our favorite gaming hangout, Paradigm Infinitum. And we've picked up a few more games to add to our collection, which will act as fuel for future reviews and of course many, many game nights.

Zombie Dice is a game that I've been considering picking up for a while now. And while it's ridiculously simple,the fun of the game lies in this very aspect of the game. And what's even better is the fact that the game scales to support a large number of players, which is always a good thing for game nights with friends.

Dice games are always a bit of a  mixed bag, although most American games tend to rely on dice a lot as a way to introduce randomness into things. And thus the element of chance can be a little annoying at times, but it does make it easier for new players to try their luck and experience the game for themselves.

Such gateway games are always an essential part of any gaming collection. After all, not everyone is automatically ready to get into the heavier games.

[Comics] Avengers Assemble by Brian Michael Bendis

The lead-up to the big Guardians of the Galaxy movie resulted in a lot of cross-marketing efforts and tie-in deals. Or basically, anyone who had anything related to the Guardians was going to try their best to cash in on such items in time for the movie. In my case I finally picked up a copy of Avengers Assemble for similar reasons - it was on sale on comiXology around the time the movie came out. As much as it's an Avengers title, the first story arc featured in this comic heavily featured the Guardians as well.

I kind of look at Marvel NOW! with a little less disdain compared to DC's New 52. I guess it has more to do with the effort to still respect past progress for Marvel NOW! affected titles as compared to the supposedly complete overhaul of New 52. And this was one of those bridge titles that tried to tie together the past and future versions of the Marvel Universe.

And as much as I've always respected the Avengers as a superhero team, they've always felt a little out of their depth when it came to cosmic-level events. The Guardians on the other hand were pretty much formed under such conditions and would continually throw themselves into the fray of one interstellar conflict or another.

[Movies] Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014)

I realize that I haven't been regularly documenting my thoughts on the various DC Universe Animated Original Movies released over the past year for one reason or another. I guess it's easy t forget about such direct-to-video projects as being legitimate movies to still discuss and review. So once again I'm playing catch-up starting from the last one that I watched and trying to work my way backwards.

Batman: Assault on Arkham was a somewhat surprising movie given that it's set in the universe of the Arkham Asylum video games instead of the established cartoon continuity or even the somewhat Elseworlds-like continuity of these movies. Despite the Batman tag right there there in the movie title, this is really a Suicide Squad movie more than anything else with Batman really just a bit player in things. But hey, the name Batman sells more, right?

I had mixed feelings about this movie at first, but in the end I have to admit that I still enjoyed myself. It's not a perfect animated adventure whether for Batman or the Squad, but it's certainly worth an afternoon at home.

[Pink Scene] Metro Manila Pride 2014 Teaser

So the image above has started to make the social media rounds, which we can consider to be our first teaser for this year's LGBT Pride festivities. Interestingly enough, this was posted by a new page - Metro Manila Pride, which is different from last year's Metro Manila Pride March page. The dropping of the "march" seems pretty distinct and implies that our organizers want to do more than just put up a parade on December 6. But being familiar with how this annual event comes together, it seems clear that they're still trying to select a venue.

To be fair, the Metro Manila LGBT Pride March for 2012 actually featured a modest little bazaar featuring LGBT and LGBT-friendly businesses and was sort of the first steps towards getting out of the "just" a march model. Or you could go all the way back to when the Pride March was around the same time as the White Parties in June and thus they all felt like one integrated event.

Given how last year the LGBT Pride related announcements were a bit dizzying since it was on at QC, cancelled at QC and then revived at Malate. Hopefully things will run a lot smoother this year - whether or not the Pride organizers feel that they're ready to work with Quezon City again.

For now, stay tuned for more social media updates as they come along.

[Movies] Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2012)

This is part of my catch-up effort to review the various DC Universe Original Animated Movies that I've seen but I haven't reviewed. On Monday I'm going to focus on the most recent movie that I've had a chance to see. On Fridays I'll try to fill in the gaps among the earlier movies. Let's see how all this works out.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox was the inevitable effort to bring the New 52 reboot universe to life in animated form. And I'm not at all a fan of the New 52 reboot effort, but of course I understand the business logic behind the move in terms of the comics. I just don't really see why they had to adapt it into an animated feature.

Interestingly enough, one could say that this adaptation was generally more faithful to the source material compared to a lot of other DC Universe Original Animated Movies. The fact that they threw in the term "original" in how they brand these movies is pretty much artistic license to make changes in order to somehow make things more appropriate for the expected audience. I can't quite say whether or not this was done well, but I guess it was done well enough.

[TV] Wilfred: Season 3

I can't quite logically explain why I've continued to watch the US version of Wilfred. The stories are quirky and at times nonsensical. The primary premise involves a guy walking around in a dog costume being, well, a dog. It's a very, very strange show with unusual plot twists and a lot of recreational drug use.

But I have kept up with the show over the seasons and it still has me willing to watch the next episode time and again and I don't perfectly know why.

I suppose a large part of things is just wanting to understand why Ryan can see Wilfred at all. It's the central premise behind the show and naturally it's the one question that they can't really until the very end.

Or maybe I just get a kick out of humans behaving like dogs.

Or maybe I'm under some hypnotic spell cast by Elijah Wood's amazingly blue eyes.

[Games] Costume Quest (PC)

I had been without a gaming-capable computer for some time, and so I often feel like I'm still playing catch-up with several games. And it probably doesn't help that I've invested in quite a number of Humble Bundle deals over the years in anticipation of getting a better computer. But now that I have one, I'm a little overwhelmed with how any games I have in my Steam library.

Costume Quest wasn't exactly a game that I thought I would get into based on the title alone. But given it's a Double Fine game, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to try it out sooner or later. A few Humble Bundles later I realized that I already "owned" a copy of the game and it was just a matter of installing it and trying it out.

The game looks pretty simple compared to a lot of games on the market, but it has turned out to be nice little casual game that once can pick up after a long day at work. And while it was originally designed for consoles, the PC translation works pretty well and has eaten up quite a bit of my time.

[Books] Doctor Who: Shakedown (Monster Collection Edition)

I didn't realize that the BBC actually allowed folks to create independent productions based on individual characters and such from Doctor Who. In this case, the movie Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans played on this fact by creating a movie that focused only on the Sontarans and not the Doctor.

Shakedown is partly the novelization of that original movie but it's also an expansion of the story to also include our lovable Seventh Doctor. And going from a Doctor-less adventure to a more traditional one and yet still maintaining the original story at its core must have been a pretty interesting writing challenge, but on the whole it was done rather well.

And insights like that are partly why I'm enjoying these re-releases of various Doctor Who titles under the Monster Collection banner. The added introductions from the original writers does add a bit more flavor to things along the lines of a DVD extra or something. And more importantly, they're all pretty good stories that still celebrate the specific alien race (or monster) at the heart of things.

[Movies] Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (2014)

So the first Rurouni Kenshin live-action movie was rather brilliant. And while not necessarily a great movie strictly on its own merits, it was a great adaptation of the anime series and one that had a lot of long-time fans very, very happy. And admittedly, I enjoyed it too.

So we finally have the second movie of what is now a trilogy of Kenshin movies - Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, which launched here in a rather grand way complete with members of the cast being present. Of course since I wasn't fully attuned to the news related to this movie, I was pretty surprised that they've already confirmed that the next installment will screen by September. Strike while the iron is hot, I suppose.

They've certainly tried to take things up a few notches - which is only naturally since the folks behind it feel a lot more assured of their potential success. And the actors are obviously a lot more comfortable in their respective roles. And so things were practically fated to get better.