[Movies] Swiss Army Man (2016)

When it comes to those more art-style movies that seriously compete at film festivals, you can end up with some crazy stuff. And I definitely had that feeling when Tobie first showed me the trailer for Swiss Army Man.

The premise of the movie seemed pretty ridiculous - you have a guy trying to find his way home and finds a corpse. That corpse proves to be extremely useful for all sorts of functions like as a farting jetski or a seemingly spring-loaded  wood chopper. Why all this was happening or just how deluded the protagonist was for him to imagine these things were left in the full movie to explain.

I was not expecting to watch this movie with the office crew after work, but that's exactly what happened. I was intending to watch the movie together with Tobie but I certainly won't mind watching it again once we find the time for it.

Needless to say, I enjoyed it a lot.

[Comics] NerdSync Breaks Down the Clone Saga

The Clone Saga was a Spider-Man comic book crossover event that began ran from 1994-1996. It was the reason I quit reading Spider-Man comics entirely. Wikipedia calls it "one of the most controversial Spider-Man stories ever told" and is quite justified in that statement. And so I often look back at this story with very, very mixed feelings. As much as there was a lot to dislike about the event, it also gave us some great moments like Aunt May's (first) death and of course the unforgettable Ben Reilly.

It's 2016 and I've learned to appreciate what has happened to Spider-Man since that time. Sure, I still think more recent decisions were silly like Civil War and One More Day but not everything can be perfect. And yet the Clone Saga remains

In this episode of NerdSync, Scott Niswander tries to break down how the Clone Saga came to be and why it became such a mess in the end within 20 minutes. That seems long for a YouTube video, but this is already the condensed version of the story as told by many others, so this is still a great summary.

Watch, experience and share in my pain.



Why the SPIDER-MAN CLONE SAGA Sucks! || Comic Misconceptions || NerdSync

[Books] The Flux ('Mancer Book 2)

In these book universe created by Ferrett Steinmetz, the use of magic always come with a cost. And this book seems to be all about the price that 'mancers have to pay - and this is known as The Flux, which is also the title off the book. From the very first book the challenge was all about how 'mancers could manage their flux loads whenever they practice magic.

And for our dear protagonists, they have quite a lot of 'mancy to account for. And the biggest source of that magic is now a little girl, perhaps the youngest known 'mancer out there. And when you give such a young person so much power with equally significant consequences, you have a lot of potential danger.

This second book felt a lot smoother, as if Steinmetz was feeling more comfortable in his writing this time around. There are still some awkward narrative bits here and there, but that's understandable. The overall effect is still pretty awesome and quite a lot of fun, too. And that's really all that matters.

[Games] Adventure Time in LEGO Dimensions

With the release of LEGO Dimensions Year 2 upon us, let's take a moment to celebrate one of the more popular franchises coming to the game - Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time. Despite my amazing love for the show, I feel like that I have not written enough about the show and all of the great stuff that makes it so memorable. And it's nice to see the crazy character of the show immortalized in LEGO form in this way.

As before, the LEGO Dimensions Team has steadily released more videos featuring the characters in the game to get folks excited about the game.

And I'm feeling plenty excited after watching these character videos!

[TV] Voltes V and Other Classic Anime on iFlix!

As much as I love the original content on Netflix, regional streaming service iFlix has been getting seriously competitive in recent months. They already had a pretty competitive price point that certainly made adoption easier. But beyond that they've putting a lot of effort into expanding their content library, with both Western and regional content of interest.

So I kinda freaked out when we  got the update announcing that now iconic anime series like Voltes V were now available for watching. Beyond that, they even had the "original" Tagalog dubs that dredge up all these memories of my younger years watching some of these shows. It may not seem like a big thing, especially given how Voltes V was mainly a big thing here in the Philippines. But it just goes to show that iFlix is really thinking about their target markets and what shows may matter most.

In addition, iFlix has Voltes V focused booth this weekend at Bonifacio Global City (BGC) near Starbucks High Street on October 1-2 from 11:00am to 10:00pm, where you can get a chance to win Voltes V goodies and iFlix merchandise!

Check out the full press release below:

[TV] Don't Trust the B---- In Apartment 23: Season 2

So the first partial season of Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 wasn't exactly the most amazing piece of television out there, but it was certainly interesting. And it was enough to get me to at least finish the season and be curious enough to watch the second one. Plus man, this is a very different Jessica Jones, if you catch my drift.

Given I got into this show because of a seemingly random Netflix recommendation, it was an interesting coincidence that we also fell in love with Fresh Off the Boat, which I had stumbled upon thanks to iFlix.. The real kicker here is that both shows have the same creator / executive producer - Nahnatchka Khan, although the two shows can be pretty different. It was just interesting to note that they had this in common.

This second season is much longer but is rather reliant on the first season since it's really a Frankenstein creation that is still part Season 1 and somewhat Season 2. But the beast was not enough to see it through to a third season.

[Transformers] Destruction's Dawn

Is this the end? Is this the second part of Episode 7 or is it a mislabeled Episode 8? Is this episode supposed to make all of Machinima's Transformers: Combiner Wars somehow make sense?

And what is Starscream supposed to be now? He's like a big CGI energy blob gone wrong here.

WTF guys!

I have no more words.

[TV] Fresh Off the Boat: Season 2

So after our initial iFlix foray into the Fresh Off the Boat series we quickly made our way through the second season as well. The series is funny and quite well-written given how it manages to juggle complex racial stereotypes in a manner that isn't overly offensive.

This second season of Fresh Off the Boat builds on the first season by making some minor changes to the presentation format and focus instead on the characters and the relationships within the Huang family. And I think that was for the better - something I'll get into in a bit more detail in my review below.

There's a weird saying that I've encountered once or twice about how it's ironic how Asians are some of the more racist people around. The statement in itself seems racist and there's no clear way to validate it one way or another. However I bring this up since I think it nicely captures a lot of what works about the show in terms of its writing. There's a lot that could be taken out of context and be considered offensive. But the way it was worked into the show just works - and it's pretty darn funny.

[Games] Harry Potter in LEGO Dimensions

One of the big changes coming in LEGO Dimensions Year 2 is the inclusion of the Harry Potter universe in the game. The LEGO Harry Potter games were already pretty solid on their own  but tying them into the LEGO Dimensions property is pretty exciting!

And the official LEGO Dimensions YouTube channel has been featuring some interesting video previes of the new characters and the new worlds.

[Books] Flex ('Mancer Book 1)

I've been trying to catch up with my NetGalley reading queue to get out reviews for all those fellow authors trying to make a name for themselves as of late. I still have a long way to go and it isn't easy to juggle books for formal review and books that I just want to read.

But then I got into reviewing books on a more formal basis in order to discover new authors and stories of interest since a lot of my favorite book franchises tend to involve authors who have passed on and thus are unable to write more stories. And when I get lucky, I find books that feel like stuff that I genuinely want to continue following.

Flex is feeling like one of those book franchises indeed. It's a novel spin on the whole magic bit that feels distinct from the likes of The Dresden Files and yet genuinely feels like a clever innovation on the genre. Instead of relying heavily on what had been done before or dredging up concepts from mythology, we have a new exploration of magic that feels fresh and quite exciting.

[Movies] Gaydar (2013)

One of the quirkier aspects of iFlix is how they include preset playlists whether curated by iFlix folks themselves and more recently by various celebrities and internet figures. I was most surprised by their #LoveWins list, which is a collection of LGBT movies, most of them being local ones.

And this is how I discovered Gaydar, which turns out to be one of the products of Quezon City International Pink Film Festival. At first glance it appeared to be a decent effort to create a commercially viable LGBT movie with some fairly well-known stars, and so that got me a little excited.

Plus the partner and I have had a decent appreciation for Rafael Rosell without any serious effort to watch him in any local movies or TV shows. So this was an opportunity to see him in a movie and that had to count for something, right?

Sadly, the hiccup here is that the movie felt like a really old plot re-hashed in a local setting, which I guess says a lot about the sort of stories one can expect from the local movie industry.

[Games] Abyssrium (Android)

The first clicker-style game that I got sucked into was Cow Evolution. It was a silly little game that just had me clicking more and more to make cows poop in order to help grow more cows. I eventually played Clicker Heroes on desktop and more recently I tried the very sad Tap My Katamari game, which was yet another clicker variant. It was also a very sad addition to the Katamari franchise.

I got into Abyssrium because of the many screenshots that friends have shared online of their quaint little fish and their lush coral collections. It got me curious and I was surprised to find that the core gameplay style was actually that of a clicker game. But more importantly, it's also probably one of the most relaxing clicker games out there, which seems ironic given the nature of the genre.

[Transformers] Combiner Wars Episode 7 - Darkest Hour

I'm not entirely sure why I continue to re-share the episodes for Machinima's Transformers Combiner Wars web series. The writing has been a little weird given its attempts to tell a story of a scale that is larger than what these 5+ minute episodes can tell effectively. And I had already found the ending of the last episode a little "jump the shark" -ish in nature. So maybe it's all downhill from here.

Not much happens in this episode apart from Starscream rambling to himself and other characters grunting or shouting in response to his actions. The dialog is clipped and oddly paced. The action isn't much.

And of course, Starscream has gone crazy.

[TV] Fresh Off the Boat: Season 1

Over the weekend I was looking for a sitcom to help pass the time and ended up watching the pilot episode of Fresh Off the Boat over on iFlix. The pilot actually wasn't all that impressive but by the second episode I was hooked. And I had to make sure that I got Tobie to watch it as well.

Sure, I bet that a lot of folks find shows like this problematic since the humor can be accused of being highly racist and all that fun stuff. Plus the usual fun of minority actors from different countries being asked to portray Taiwanese immigrants yet the show has them embracing being Chinese, which is still a different thing when you look at it closely.

But when you get past thinking like and and just embrace the humor, there's a lot of fun to be had. The show relies a lot on the strength of its characters and we have quite the peculiar crew in this one. But given they're all in one family, in the end it all works out for the best and makes for some rather compelling stories.

[Videos] 107 Facts About My Neighbor Totoro

I'm forever grateful that my partner Tobie introduced me to My Neighbor Totoro and the rest of the Studio Ghibli world. These movies have something completely different about that that's hard to put your finger on. It's a unique sense of charm and wonder that really does something for you, no matter how scary or sad the story can sometimes get.

Channel Frederator has decided to do a 107 Facts video about this lovely movie and some of the insights can be quite surprising.

[Books] Battletech: Close Quarters

It has been a while since I've found the time to cycle around to a classic Battletech novel. I'm still making an effort to read through all of the classic novels that I had missed out growing up. And it's still a bit of a slow process given real life stuff like work and of course the many different books I try to read.

Close Quarters follows the established pattern of the time of creating stories around various mercenary companies all over the Inner Sphere. Admittedly it's a nice way you give your story a solid enough foundation to work with to explore and play around it. Playing with the big Houses can get complicated given the books still had to dance around the timeline of events established in the RPG source books. Thus creating new characters of relatively less importance does give the writer a little leeway.

And Victor Milán is certainly one of the writers who really contributed to fleshing out the Battletech universe back in the early days and his books had a very different tack to them.

[Comics] Star Trek/Green Lantern

Comic books are all about crazy crossovers at times because comic book fans tend to enjoy resolving the sort of lunch table questions we ask from time to time. "Who would win in a fight?" Then we pit character A against character B even though they're both accepted to be good guys because why not, right?

Star Trek/Green Lantern is the crossover ever that we didn't really hear an overwhelming clamor for and yet we still got it. The folks at IDW Publishing and DC Comics decided that this was a tie-up that needed to be explored.

As more or less a fan of both franchises, I wasn't quite sure where this was going to go. The introduction of additional colors in the emotional spectrum in recent years has made the Green Lantern side of the fence ridiculously colorful and has resulted in a mix of good and bad stories. How these characters would interact with the world of Star Trek would be anyone's guess.

But another comiXology sale allowed me to purchase the title, and thus the reason we're all gathered here today.

[Transformers] A Big Combiner Mess

Devastator will always be one of the more "important" combiners in the G1 Transformers fandom. He was the first one to come together to deal some serious damage and the one who didn't have an immediate opposite, if you can call it that. And so I was hoping that Machinima would handle him well enough in their Transformers Combiner Wars series.

But his surprise appearance at the end of last week's episode wasn't enough of a basis to measure his worth. This episode was all about facing him and I certainly felt the limitations of Machinima's animation capabilities. Throw in all the important dialog with more bad mouth movement and it ended up feeling pretty weird as an ending.

But you really have to see the ending. It's...something else.

[TV] Downton Abbey: Series 4

I consider the Christmas episode of every season of Downton Abbey to be considered the end of the season and not the beginning. And that seems fair enough given how many major plot twists tend to work their way into that last episode, sometimes erasing all the hard work that had taken place throughout the regular season.

The third season of Downton Abbey was a tragically good example of this phenomenon, and it certainly made getting into the fourth season more than a little difficult. But given the skilled writing talent behind the show, this series was largely a nice way to recover from the shock of the last series.

This is not to say that the series was not without its own share of shocking twists, tragedy and intrigue, but what else can be expected from the residents of Downton Abbey after all?

And this series does have quite a few remarkable, memorable moments - both good and bad.

[Videos] Everything Wrong With Batman: The Killing Joke (CinemaSins)

I already posted my review of Batman: The Killing Joke and the short version is that I was disappointed with the first half but generally okay with the second half. And given the controversy around the additional content tacked on to the original story, I figured that the CinemaSins take on this story would be most interesting indeed.

And yeah, it's awesome. And at times it also looks at things from either a healthy feminist perspective or a common sense "don't to that to Batgirl!" point of view.

[TV] Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23: Season 1

The Netflix streaming library in the Philippines is not as diverse as the library in  the US. Despite that, I still find myself exploring the depths of what we have available here or at least what everyone else seems to be watching. And I was a little surprised that this show was trending among other Netflix users.

Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 is a sitcom that began as a mid-season filler that didn't survive too long after that. The show laos quirkily includes the likes of Krysten Ritter before her Jessica Jones time and James Van Der Beek playing a shallow caricature of himself.

I don't exactly love the show, but it's the sort of low brow comedy that can help pass the time. Watching it scratches the same sort of itch I feel when I decide to watch 2 Broke Girls. Again, also not a bad show but not something I really go out of my way to watch.

[Movies] 4th Man Out

So we recently signed up for Netflix and have occasionally taken to skimming the library for things to watch during odd hours. This movie represents the first LGBT-related piece that we ended up watching, although my expectations were pretty low given the show's premise and the general lack of familiar names.

4th Man Out feels a bit more straight that gay and thus lives in that happy valley that makes it a bit more acceptable to people in a wider audience yet still generally okay with LGBT audiences. It wasn't amazing and it wasn't life-changing but it was pretty okay.

I think the only remarkable thin about this movie is just how generally likeable and almost neutral it is. It still has the sort of jokes you'd expect from a story about straight guys coming to term with one of their longtime friends turning out to be gay, but I guess that's Hollywood for you. But it's just not a great movie nor is it a terrible one - it's just sort of generally quaint and nice and unexceptional.

[Games] Legendary Encounters: A Predator Deck Building Game

Our love for that various Legendary games goes beyond the various Marvel-related ones but also includes their efforts to branch out into other franchises like with Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game. That was actually our first Legendary game and the one that we initially thought would be the only investment we'd make into the system. But yeah things have changed since then. And we have no regrets.

The Encounters version of Legendary was unique in that it felt a lot more story focused and it found a way to simulate that sense of tension and fear you get in horror movies. With cards entering play face-down the simple fact that you don't know what your facing right away made for quite the twist on the system. And it carries well to other movies of a similar nature. And thus it totally made sense to adapt this system to the Predator movies as (1) they're in the same genre of horror science fiction movies and (2)  we all just want to see Predators fighting aliens.

And this game gave us precisely that. And the experience is pretty brilliant.

[Transformers] Combiner Wars Episode 5 - Homecoming

Finally, we have an episode of Machinima's Transformers Combiner Wars series that doesn't involve two people meeting and fighting. Now we had a full three on three, although the Council was rather pretentious this time around. And we have some terrible CGI guns.

At least the episode did not focus too much on their talking since they can never sync the animation with the voice work and it's terribly distracting. Today we just had to deal with the very cheesy guns and a big surprise at the end. The surprise was okay, but still a little hammy.

Where does this series hope to go?