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New Jaspi Art on FA: Jaspian Character Ref (first-ever!) [Jan. 28th, 2010|11:02 pm]
[Current Location |Partman!]
[Current Mood | Char ref!]
[Current Music |Sigma - Front to Back]

The first "official" pic of Jaspian the fennec for reference
Yey, I has character ref sheet (finally)!


I just uploaded my first-ever character reference sheet of Jaspian. I commissioned it from moodyferret  moodyferret - she does such a good job with fennecs, and Jaspian in particular. I really needed a ref sheet with all the furs asking to use Jaspian in their commissions... and so I felt Moody was particularly well-suited to do the first-ever Jaspian character reference sheet! And it came out fantastic too.

Thanks Moody!

The image is located here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3337757
(or you can just click on the image to the left!)

BE FOREWARNED... it does have some sheef in it. Therefore NOT SAFE FOR WORK (NSFW)

The sheet depicts Jas in 3 different poses, and in three different costumes (or rather, 2 costumes, and one lack-thereof).

.... and yes, I do own all of Jaspian's costumes iRL and wear them. :P



Anyway! Hope you enjoy. If you like it, plz fave it and post it everywhere.  :)



Laters!



-jaspi
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Fennec Film Review: Book of Eli, Legion [Jan. 25th, 2010|01:02 pm]
[Current Location |werk]
[Current Mood | this is madness]
[Current Music |Subfocus - Could This Be Real]

I saw Legion this Saturday, and Book of Eli the Saturday before that. If you're interested in reading my review,

Click On  HERE )

- jaspi
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Repost - Jaspi pr0n :p - Harem fennec fox boi by MoodyFerret [Jan. 15th, 2010|01:23 am]
[Current Location |parman!]
[Current Mood | Got kicked in the head today]
[Current Music |Ingame music for Global Agenda (beta) :)]


So I haz some new Jaspi pr0n from Moody Ferret coming down the pipeline, and in celebration, I've reposted some of her previous work to my account. I'm sure most of you have seen it, but those who haven't - just click here and enjoy  :p
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Fennec Film Review - Daybreakers and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [Jan. 13th, 2010|02:07 pm]
[Current Location |Werk]
[Current Mood | Found mah wallet]
[Current Music |Broken Note - Crux]



So this weekend I performed the usual double-feature with my non-furry friends, and now I bring you back wild stories detailing the far-flung realms of imagination that I witnessed there.

First off, we have...
Daybreakers

This film kind-of crept up on me. I even forgot that that two of my favorite actors were featured in the film... Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire, Boondock Saints, American Psycho) and Ethan Hawke (Gataca). Although I made a mental note to see it, my anticipation was low. I had less of a genuine interest in seeing it, and felt more of an obligation to see it because of the content... vampires taking over the world and enslaving the human population as cattle. It was just such a clever concept that I had to see it, even though I was almost entirely certain that they would just fuck it up, as Hollywood does with almost all clever concepts.

So I had low expectations, and I am pleased to say that it surpassed them by a lot, but not enough to make it a great film. Its unique enough that I won't forget it, but wasn't exceptional. The acting was pretty good. The pacing was a little odd, and some portions of the film, such as the cabin full of corpses I didn't feel were adequately explained, but for the most part it was pretty good. The story, while it was based on an interesting premise, had a fairly cheesy resolution, but not so bad that it made me scoff.

My real "problems" with the film were.... first, that it was really fucking loud. The range of volume was so drastic that some parts were actually painful to hear. Second... there are a lot of holes in the story... like why do they have to hook humans up to matrix-esque pylons and thus make their blood supply finite? They could simply keep them like cattle and allow them to breed. There are many holes like this that could cause the story to unravel at a fundamental level... but for the most-part these are encapsulated in the viewer's suspension of disbelief. Third, I really had a problem with light-proofed cars, and the light-less suits, and vampires in the shade. I think they're missing the whole point of sunlight burning vampires.

But there are some counterweights to this - one of the greatest is at the end of the film (SPOILER ALERT) where the "cure" (Changed Vampire Blood) spreads through the starved population in the form of a horrible cleansing massacre, where each vampire feeds on a changed vampire, usually killing them, and therefore becomes changed, and then killed by the next vampires that find them. I thought this was ironic and interesting conceptually. It doesn't seem like something Hollywood would normally do, which made it laudable.

In the end, I still have to give Daybreakers two-ears-drooped. It wasn't a bad film, and I was entertained, but I don't think it was worth the time or money to watch it, even with the interesting plot and the unique climax.

Next, on to ...
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

I didn't know anything about this film at all prior to Saturday. But one of my friends suggested that we see it because "its by Terry Gilliam and he's never let me down before". Which is true enough. At the very least, the ratio of excellent Gilliam films to "poor" ones is dramatically skewed in his favor, and so I consented. It wasn't until halfway through the film that I realized what I was seeing. But first, I'd like to discuss Gilliam's style...

Gilliam comes from a older, somewhat obsolete film-making perspective. Everything is extremely high-contrast colorful (except for the digital artwork) and scenes are cramped and the camera moves quickly, and the actors speak and move quickly. Its a little nauseating... but most of his films are this way. There's an ancient comic appeal that has since (mercifully) died, that people talking quickly and moving quickly and behaving stupidly while overreacting is somehow funny. This persists throughout most Gilliam films, but doesn't negatively impact them because they are such a minor part of the overall experience. This inevitably throws-off the flow and pacing of the film, but Gilliam is such a gifted storyteller that it really doesn't matter in the long-run - because the story is so good that later-on pacing missteps seem irrelevant, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is no different.

One thing that did throw me off, however is that the actors change throughout the film. It turns out that this is the final film that Heath Ledger worked on before he died (he passed away partway through filming) and the project was shut down. It wasn't until several months later that Johnny Depp called Terry Gilliam and asked what was going on with "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", after which, he volunteered to fill Heath's shoes for the remainder of the film, to see that it got out. He was later joined by Jude Law and Colin Farrell, who also played the same character at other points in the film. This, in its own right, makes this film notable.

In the end, despite cheesy anachronistic scenes and plot devices that are Gilliam's crutch, this was a fantastic movie. The acting is fantastic. The visuals, while they aren't very good, they work well for the dreamy world of Parnassus' mind. The art in many places is very appealing, and the direction as a whole is top-notch. The dialog, while weak in places, is compensated in other places by being totally spectacular. I give "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" two ears perked up and omnominate it for the 2009 Fennec's Choice Awards (which I really need to get around to actually DOING... but still)  :)

Parnassus... if you like Gilliam, you should probably see it in theater. If you don't know Gilliam's work, you might want to see it anyway because it's a prime example of his style, but really this movie doesn't mandate a 'big-screen', so it can wait for DVD. If you don't like Gilliam, then you should probably pass. But I like him, and I thought this film was great.

Thanks for reading!
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Fennec Film Review - Fantastic Mr Fox, Avatar, Sherlock Holmes [Dec. 28th, 2009|03:12 am]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | BLAH!]
[Current Music |Chase&Status - Hurt you]


So its been awhile since I've posted about any of the films that I've seen recently - and the reason for that is simply that I haven't seen all that many, as-of-late. However, some of them are fairly notable, and so I figured I'd just lump a few together. About two weeks ago I saw...

FANTASTIC MR FOX

... I honestly didn't have a very good feeling for the film, going into it. Unlike many other furs, who're less jaded than myself, apparently ... some went to see the film opening day. I didn't. In fact, I saw it at the "discount" theater close by, meaning that it already left the theater somewhere. My expectations were low, but I knew that I would judge it favorably due to the content: specifically, that its starring foxes. I felt that otherwise the film would not hold its own. I was wrong.

I saw the film with non-furs who I managed to talk into going to the film anyway. For the most part, I think they went because of the animation - which was almost entirely to be stop-motion. This dead art still hits a soft spot in some people ... including myself. We picked a late showing in order to minimize the number of screaming brats that were to be in attendance. To our pleasant surprise, not only were there no screaming brats, but we had the theater all to ourselves.

From the get-go I realized that the film was going to be different than I had expected. The opening scene with Foxy and his wife trying to steal chickens was just so full of great humorous dialog that my expectations suddenly lifted. This film is really really funny. Lots of puns, unexpected silly things, and "uncomfortable silence" humor (my favorite type). Its more adult-oriented than I had expected, with much more intelligent humor and less slapstick than is typical in what I would call a "kids movie". As for other merits, George Clooney's voice is perfect for this character.

However, I didn't feel that the voice acting was all that great for every character, and sometimes the animation didn't sync up with the mouths as well as I would have liked. Furthermore, the animation is only so-so. It's not Wallace and Grommet - more of a high-budget Robot Chicken. Lastly, and probably worst off, is that the plot progression isn't very good. Pinecone grenades and bullets that never seem to hit what they're aiming at, are among the notable "eyeroll" moments in the film, but they don't seriously detract from the overall film. By the end, I hardly remembered such cheesy devices were even used in the overall story - so they covered that well.

Overall, I give Fantastic Mr. Fox 2-ears-perked and will nominate it for the Best Picture for the Fennec's Choice Awards, even though I don't think it stands much of a chance against some of the other omnominees. I would recommend seeing this on the "big screen" because there's a lot of detail, and I'm not sure it would be easy to see what's going on from a home theater, but I don't think it needs to be seen in the big cinema. "Cheap-seats" are OK for this film. DVD might be OK too, if you have a big screen or sit close enough  :)


AVATAR


For AVATAR, my expectations were fairly high, but unfortunately opening-night coincided with a concert in Boston that I wanted to see more. Unfortunately the concert wasn't spectacular, but conversely I'm glad I chose it over Avatar. Not to say that Avatar was bad, just that my expectations were virtually unreachably high, and Avatar didn't meet them.

I saw Avatar the way that I feel it has to be seen - in IMAX 3D. Anything less will do it no justice, and even IMAX 3D might not be spectacular enough for the visuals of Avatar... unfortunately its the best that we have currently, and so it will have to do. I saw the film on the Saturday of opening weekend, and like a fool amateur movie-watcher, I arrived at the theater with only 40 minutes before the movie was to begin. Opening weekend on such a blockbuster film ... I should have known better. I wound up about 100th in line. My friends and I had to choose between middle-row and being far from the screen. We chose to take middle-row, which meant that I had to turn my head to see from one side of the screen to the other. It wasn't as bad as I had expected, and didn't detract much from the film.

The first thing that should be noted about Avatar is that it is possibly the most competent use of 3D in any movie ever to date. Its definitely pioneering new ground and discovering new reaches of the art. The scene when the main character wakes up in the cryo-bed in zero G and slides out on a tray has so many layers, mixed 3D special effects and video footage so seamlessly that it's absolutely awe-inspiring. The level of detail throughout the film, for that matter, probably reflects James Cameron's devotion to the project, which took him somewhere in the neighborhood of five years dedicated-effort, including designing a new video camera for this project alone ... and it shows. One place in particular that it shows is the flying scenes, which have the most fantastic color palette I've ever seen in a "conventional" film. The color and contrast is so rich, and the detail levels are so profound that watching the movie is enjoyable from start to finish, and glosses over, at least initially, many of the film's shortcomings.

The acting is pretty decent... at least it is on the surface. I ended up watching the film again a second time last night (with GhostWolf), and got the best seats in the house. This allowed me to see it with a more uncorrupted eye, not-so-dazzled by the special effects, and I've gotta say that Sigourney Weaver's acting in the film is distinctly sub-par. Its not as bad as the Na'Vi, probably because Cameron can CG away anything he didn't like, but her "human" moments were not-good. Everyone else was great, however.

The real place where Avatar fails is in the story. The telling of the story is masterful, and the pacing is wonderful, but many scenes felt like they were forcing content in. Case-in-point, when they decide to move the science team to the "mountains", the geeky sidekick Avatar-driver says, in response to the query about the mountains "We're only going to the famous Floating Mountains of Pandora - ever heard of that??" This took me out of my suspension of disbelief, because ... well... a good storyteller will take care of all of the "suspension of disbelief" moments within the first 10 minutes of the story. The floating mountains were also, for the most part, irrelevant. The energy vortex that caused them as a phenomenon, was the only part that mattered. I felt that this was a "life imitating art" moment, where concept-artists drew floating mountains unbidden and Cameron said "Oooh I like those - lets do that". I got a lot of that "surprise! Lets do this now" feeling from the film. But other than these minor details, Avatar is a very "stock" film. There's nothing new here after the visual effects. Its all been done before - almost verbatim (check out "Battle for Terra" which came out last year. Its a terrible film, but similar in so many ways - even including the humans having to wear the oxygen-masks). Its almost like they have a movie-script-generator-computer in Hollywood that randomizes a few parameters and makes a story, then fills in the dialog. At the end, I couldn't help but feel that Cameron's efforts in advancing the technology of film was wasted on this picture. It's just not a worthwhile story... its been done before... there are no surprises, everything happens in typical  Hollywood style.

I found the message of the film to be embarrassingly naive, as well. It promoted tribalism over civilization - mysticism over commercialism - and I realize that there is a revival of that crap these days, but I hope that everybody who watches Avatar knows better and that the message that *I* felt goes unheeded - that we should go back to being "one with nature", which Avatar glorifies spectacularly. In reality, tribalism sucks. We created civilization to get away from that type of life because it was simply a terrible way to live. I do not want to go back to it. Also I find it hard to believe that the humans would have lost the war on Pandora. They could have dropped those bombs from 60,000 feet, rather than trying to fly under the mountains... and even if they couldn't, they have a 20-story bulldozer strip-miner tractor thing that nothing on that planet could have stopped (shown at the beginning of the movie).

I also didn't like how the Na'Vi were monsters. Thoughout the film, we're made to empathize with him. They're tall and slender and beautiful, but when next to a person (especially in the scene where the girl Na'Vi is trying to revive the suffocating Jake Sully), they appear to be horrible monsters. They have such huge heads! And their skin looks sorta gray with a human hand on it. -shiver!-

In the end, I felt that it was an entertaining film to watch, but not a particularly good film. It absolutely needs to be seen in IMAX 3D or the largest screen you can get to. I do recommend seeing it, but I am only going to give it one-ear-perked, one-ear-drooped because of the story. As stated above, the story is just a cut-out of any number of earlier films, merely with other needless crap taped-on (such as "Floating Mountains") to try and distinguish it... which, I believe fails. The only reason to see this film is the visuals.


Sherlock Holmes

I was not that interested to see Sherlock Holmes, but I ended up seeing it anyway because of the content. There aren't many big-budget action-films that I allow to slide through my grasp, and I've always had an affinity for Victorian-Era England, but that doesn't necessarily mean that those two things should be mixed, which is what Sherlock Holmes attempts to do. Sherlock Holmes, as a novel,  is not a fast-paced action-thriller. Its mostly a mystery series... and from the trailer, I felt that this film was going to miss the point completely.

I was wrong, however. While action-packed, action is not the primary focus of the Sherlock Holmes movie, despite what the previews lead the viewer to believe.

My anticipation for the film peaked only hours before seeing the movie when I found out that Guy Richie, one of my favorite directors, was the director for this film. (You may remember him from such masterpieces as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and Rockinrolla), but moving away from the crime-comedy genre, was a mistake for Richie. He should stick to what he's good at. Even so, that didn't cause me to dismiss Sherlock Holmes (on the contrary - I am glad that the director of the film was a Brit!).

So... onward! The dialog is clever, but the accidents, especially the Americans who're trying to mimic a Brit accent, are sometimes difficult to understand because they're speaking very quickly. Also, I was a little bothered by the British characters who had American accents, and the American character with a British accent... but those are minor details. The acting is mediocre, for the most part.

The story is pretty bad. They wrap-up a lot of the lose ends towards the end of the film, and everything seems plausible enough. There's a bit of Deus Ex Machina in the final fight (never a good thing!) The highlight of the film (as with the books) is Sherlock Holmes' deductive reasoning capabilities and his acute sense of observation. This is very entertaining in the film when he analyzes his opponents' weaknesses in order to exploit them when entering a fight, as well as some of the times when he weasels embarrassing truths out of other characters, but most of the other important and interesting attributes of Holmes are lost... or perhaps "modernized" out of the original story. Being a bit of a purist, I do not believe that taking such artistic license is ever a good thing, and that they should stay true to the original story. Holmes fails in this regard in a number of places. First - this film is not based on a real Sherlock Holmes story (at least not one that I've heard of!), Second - Holmes has a major personality flaw in that he is addicted to opiates in the book. In the film, he seems to be more of a simple alcoholic. Third - Holmes in the books hates women, or is possibly even a homosexual. In the film, of course, it alludes to a female character as being a previous lover (although he doesn't seem romantically interested in her during the course of this film, which I consider to be a good thing).

Lastly, I should point out that the cinematography (other than the fight-scene cinematography) is not very good. There's a lot of head-jerking back-and-forth between scenes, and with all of the characters having similar clothing and looks, sometimes it can be hard to follow. Also, the speed of the film is far too fast for the mystery that they're trying to solve. Thankfully, the characters are distinct (perhaps even flamboyant) enough that the viewer doesn't get too confused as Holmes rattles off connections that he's deducted when he comes to revelations. I hope for the sake of the viewer that they are able to maintain this distinction in the sequel (a sequel is implied), in order to preserve the viewer's SANITY.

In the end, Sherlock Holmes gets two-ears-drooped. It really doesn't have anything going for it, except for some of the dialog, and Holmes' deductions, which can be better-served by simply reading the book. The Star Trek (Next Generation) Sherlock Holmes episodes are far better than this film. I wouldn't advise not to see it, if it peeks your curiosity, but don't get your hopes up! You might want just wait for DVD. There's no "big screen" moments in the film except for one fight-scene when they're battling at a shipyard.


Anyway, thanks for reading, and happy movie-watching!  :p

- jaspian
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PARTY REPORT - FOXmas 3 (2008) [Dec. 2nd, 2009|02:51 pm]
[Current Location |partman!]
[Current Mood | tummy rumble]
[Current Music |Mt Eden - Over Dose]

Logo of FOXMAS 3



I realize that this post is a year late, but I committed myself to posting all of my previous unposted convention and party reports from this past year. I wrote this article slightly after the election, but I just never got around to putting it on LJ. So, better late than never! Here it is, Jaspian's party report from the FOXmas party!
Click here to Read! )



Thanks for reading!

- jaspi
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Fennec Film Review: Ninja Assassin & Black Friday Recollections [Nov. 29th, 2009|02:43 am]
[Current Location |partman!]
[Current Mood | yiffy]
[Current Music |none]

So Thanksgiving has come and gone. I spent my Thanksgiving with my family and family friends, mostly bored out of my mind. They don't really understand me, and I don't understand them. Probably the finest moment was at the dinner table when I made a joke completely straight-faced, and only one person got it.... they just kept on eating like it was a normal thing to say. That's how disconnected my family is. Unless its about sports, they probably just won't understand. I get the feeling I was adopted...

Anyway - most of the festivities for me happen AFTER Thanksgiving dinner, where my highschool (and even some gradeschool) friends go out and partake in our Thanksgiving tradition - first, we go to see a movie or two. This year it was Ninja Assassin. After this, we go to the local Best Buy and stand in line all night long for the Black Friday Sale.

So now - ON TO THE STORIES

NINJA ASSASSIN

From the beginning I had low expectations of Ninja Assassin. It really didn't have anybody in it of note - figured it would be low-budget, probably poorly-written and generally awful... but as The Dex said when we saw the movie poster, "It will probably suck, but how can we NOT see a film called Ninja Assassin?"

Well, I did end up seeing it, and I have to say, it wasn't bad at all. The acting was weak in places, the story was virtually nonexistent, but the dialog and scenes were brilliant. As one might expect, the special effects were marvelous - better towards the beginning than the end. One thing you will notice is how the ninjas seem to simply appear out of the shadows. Its a very nice effect. Later on in the film, they seem capable of turning into a black mist to move around, which detracts, overall, from the awesomeness of the ninjas. What I mean to say is... it would be cooler if the ninjas were actually so sneaky and stealthy that they're just ordinary people trained so well that they can get anywhere undetected, rather than having any supernatural/magical abilities.

Also - while this was minor - I was a little disappointed in their lack of storytelling actually including any real ninja history, or historical ninja weapons (the blade on the chain might be one of them, but people generally overestimate ninjas and their fighting skills. In real life, ninjas were masters of stealth and poison and trickery - avoiding direct combat at all costs.)

But the movie was plenty-fun. I was entertained from start to finish. There are some laughably-hilarious moments of absurdly gratuitous slayings... always a good thing... and I have to say - Ninja Assassin is the goriest film I've seen since Dead Alive... or possibly even EVER. Thankfully the sheer volume of blood makes it unrealistic enough that I don't think anyone could possibly ever feel ill over it - but even so. If you're affected by lots of blood and guts, do not see this film. If you're offended by violence, don't see this film. If you're looking for a martial-arts film, this one isn't the one you want. If you want a slightly cheesy, entertaining action-flick, you may want to give Ninja-Assassin a try.

One last warning about Ninja-Assassin; the name is a little deceptive. Its not about a ninja who assassinates people. It's about a man who assassinates ninjas. He happens to be a former ninja himself, but regardless... if you wanted to see ninjas killing political figures and drug lords and stuff - it's not in this film. There are a couple assassinations from the time before the main character "goes rogue" but don't expect that as a staple of the film. Its mostly the main character killing ninjas.

I give this film one ear perked, with the other one kinda half-perked. As I said - entertaining, good fight scenes, choreography, cinematography, special effects, dialog. Passable story (there isn't much too it, but there doesn't have to be). Its a decent big-screen movie, but outside of the opening sequence its not vital. I'd recommend either theater of DVD. Both are passable mediums for this film.

The Black Friday Adventures

For the past 4 years running, my friends and I have, as I said before, gone shopping at Best Buy on Black Friday. This year I was somewhat reluctant. The problem is that I had an absolutely abysmal shopping-experience at Best Buy about a month ago, and I resolved to no-longer give them my business. But it seems that tradition overrides my resolution as a couple of my friends admitted that there were items on sale only at Best Buy that they had decided that they wanted to pick up. It wouldn't be fair to them to insist that we go elsewhere simply on my personal preferences - at least not this late. Perhaps next year I should mention it early and try to get the venue changed.

We got there around 11 pm. There were already hardy souls there the first time that we drove past to get to the meeting place before the movie, around 6. The hardcore Black Friday Shoppers were all pitched out in the Best Buy lawn in tents...! Part of the reason why we do this crazy all-night Black Friday pain is that its genuinely fun. The people who do this crazy shit tend to be colorful characters and there are always stories to tell the next day. My friends and I go more for the experience than the deals. This is really the only way not to be disappointed when the night is over. You do it for the experience. Not for any particular item or to get good deals. The item you want might not be there anymore when you get into the store, but the experience of spending the night with a bunch of crazy strangers and people-watching all of the antics will always be with you when you leave. Not to mention - it's good quality time with friends. In today's age, how well do you really know your friends? Most of the time, I am playing video games with them, going to loud nightclubs, going to movies or concerts. We're sharing experiences but not really sharing ourselves. I don't know much more about that friend after the night is over because we weren't able to communicate much. You really know your friends if you can talk for 6 hours in the freezing cold and remain interested in what the other people have to say.

Anyway - it was the mildest Black Friday I've ever been to. It was above freezing, and even rained. As miserable as that is, it certainly beats the year when it was below-zero, plus we had umbrellas. We spent a lot of the evening speaking with Scott - a total stranger who sat behind us in a folding chair and tried to get homework done as he waited. He was a Black-Friday Virgin and had a lot of questions about what to expect. We spelled it out as clearly as we could, being old-hands at this now. Ahead of us there was a saucy latino family ahead of us that unceremoniously verbally eviscerated a meek black girl who seemed to be sneaking into line up where we were (about 100 heads back from the front of the line).

My predictions that this will be a weak Christmas season seemed to be prescient this year. Not only were the sales fairly meager, the number of customers who showed up was far smaller than all of the previous years when we attended Black Friday, and those who did show up didn't shop around. The number of people who were in line for the cash-register by the time we were leaving wrapped almost all the way around the store - meaning that the people came in, grabbed one or two items, and immediately went to checkout. This is opposed to last year, for example, where the line to get into the store wrapped halfway around the mall, and the lines for the cash register were much more reasonable because customers were shopping.

I, for one, am generally satisfied with the stuff that I've got - or more accurately - Best Buy doesn't really carry anything that I feel that I need currently. With my recent purchase of an Android-Smartphone, my collection of consumer electronics is complete. Furthermore - none of the items that I was buying for others was sold at Best Buy, so I ended up buying something that my mother asked me to pick up that she wanted to give to my father.... and that was it. I ended up getting this (Netbook) and leaving the store. Thinking about it on the way home, I really shouldn't have done this. I was the one who waited out all night long in the rain (yes, it rained) to get into the store for the sale, and yet, I took no advantage for myself. I think that I will end up cheaping-out on my Mother's Christmas present and claim that getting her this great deal (saved about $140 over Amazon.com) was my gift to her this year.

Anyway, after that, I went home and SLEPT. Then I got up, met the same friends again, and we played Left 4 Dead 2, completed the first two missions. Gotta say - much harder. Much more frustrating. I am not a fan of some of the new Super-Zombies. They seem less clever and far more powerful (and abundant!) than previous ones. However, I am a fan of the new array of weapons. For the most part, in Left 4 Dead (original) there wasn't anything worth a damn except for the shotguns. While the other weapons could be used, they weren't nearly as effective. In Left 4 Dead 2, there are a wide variety of weapons that are also useful in addition to the shotguns. My favorite new weapon is the "ninja sword". :) I will do a full write-up on Left 4 Dead 2 when I have completed it to the end, but so far - looks promising! :)

Anyway, thanks for reading, and have a good one!

- jaspi
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PARTY REPORT - FSO Political Party (2008) [Nov. 25th, 2009|01:51 pm]
[Current Location |partman!]
[Current Mood | falafel :)]
[Current Music |Upbeats - Thinking Cap]

I realize that this post is a year late, but I committed myself to posting all of my previous unposted convention and party reports from this past year. I wrote this article slightly after the election, but I just never got around to putting it on LJ. So, better late than never! Here it is, Jaspian's party report from the FSO Political Party!



Jaspian the amazing fennec fox boy: mini adventures – Book 1: the Political Party

Click here to read! )


Thanks for reading!

- jaspi
Link7 comments|Leave a comment

Fennec Film Review: 2012 and Pirate Radio [Nov. 15th, 2009|08:37 pm]
[Current Location |partman!]
[Current Mood | i has a twitchy eyelid]
[Current Music |Truth - Amnesia]

So last night I went to another double-feature at my local cinema.... something which has become a bit of a routine. It's totally going to throw me off when there's a week with no interesting films coming out. I think next weekend is like that.... there's an interesting flick with Nicolas Cage coming out that weekend, but it looks like it's more of the art / indy variety and I might not be able to find a place where its showing. So this might be the last movie post until Thanksgiving.

2012

I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I do like the follow conspiracy news because its interesting to understand what people think and why. As such, I was well-versed in the 2012 conspiracy theory stories, and so I was excited when news of the film "2012" reached my abnormally-huge ears.

Personally, I was hoping it would be the Nibiru story (which is also the story I am hoping for with the sci-fi action TV show "V" commented earlier in my LJ). In this, Nibiru, is a planet on a wide comet-like orbit around the sun, which will cause cataclysmic destruction when it re-enters the solar system, due to gravitational shifts.

I was hoping that the Nibiru story would make its way to the silver screen before 2012 and play off of the hype to address this interesting conspiracy theory. The opening shots of the film "2012" even teased me into alluding that this the cause of the global catastrophe in the film 2012. I am not going to announce what causes the widespread destruction in 2012 - the trailers didn't announce it, and I think its better that the viewers find out by themselves. But I will announce that it is not a Nibiru movie... repeat: the destruction caused in "2012" is not caused by Nibiru, nor is the "rogue planet" scenario brought up in the film. While disappointing, 2012 does play off of some of the other conspiracy doomsday-scenarios.

As films go, 2012 is ... expectedly... fairly stock. I went in expecting to see a whole bunch of stuff getting destroyed elaborately and beautifully in high detail on a huge screen, and I got just that. It was a very entertaining film, but... just like most "disaster" films, it wasn't much of a film on its own merit. It was extremely predictable, and very cheesy at times (although not as cheesy as most of the other disaster films of recent years). They repeated the same action sequences almost obsessively (in this case the "we're trying to take off in a plane with the runway falling out from under us" routine, which was done at least 3 times.) I can't go into much more detail without giving away aspects of the film, but I will say that I found the latter half of the film a little disappointing with the old Hollywood cliche "We'll put the future of humanity at risk to save these few people, because it would be inhumane not to!", which, if a real apocalypse situation ever comes, I sincerely hope they do not do.

In the end I give this film one ear perked, one ear drooped. Not a great film, but entertaining. Cheese-factor, and hippie sentiments did affect it for me a little. The last five minutes were sappy and totally lame, but the special effects were top-rate, the suspense was good (I bit off all my fingernails), the acting was surprisingly good for a disaster film, and the pacing was good up until the end when it fell apart a bit. Definitely a big-screen movie... DVD likely won't cut it. If your IMAX is playing it (mine wasn't), I would recommend seeing it there.


PIRATE RADIO

Next up was "Pirate Radio" (aka: "The Boat That Rocked" depending on where you see it) - the film about
a bunch of radio DJs who rebelled against the censorship laws of Britain, who considered Rock music crass and banned it from the airwaves, and took their radio show off the coast of England in a barge, and continued to broadcast. The film was advertised as the DJs entertaining the public as the British government attempts to find a means to shut them down, even though technically they are outside of England's jurisdiction.

Being a bit of an anti-establishment person, this resonated with me. I appall censorship, government bullying, and I applaud people standing up for themselves and for "the little guy" against the crushing force of government power-abuse. However I was a little disappointed that the film really isn't about that. It primarily follows a kid who joins the boat and his life there, and his experiences with the other DJs. The whole "government bullying" angle is really more of a subplot - perhaps even an afterthought.

The pacing was poor - even a little confusing. The acting was mediocre. The dialog wasn't witty or even very well-written. There were a few humorous moments, but overall I can't say I liked this film very much. I liked it even less when I found out that the film was not a true story from a friend who actually lived in England. He told me that there wasn't one pirate radio barge - there were several independent ones - and that they didn't resist the government. The government simply went after their sponsors, made it illegal for them to advertise on the pirate radio barges, and crushed them all financially.

Probably the highlight of the film for me was the costumes, which are impractical, flamboyant, yet utterly adorable. I might even use this film's wardrobe as a template to come up with some new costumes for myself. But it's not enough to save the film. I give it two-ears-drooped, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I was never bored or annoyed by the film, I just felt that by the end I had lost more time and money than I had gained in entertainment value. As a movie-lover, that's hard for me to ever feel.

And so, Pirate Radio is the first film ever to get two-ears-drooped for Fennec Film Review.


Hope you enjoyed reading! Signing off.

- jaspian
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Fennec Film Review: Double Feature - The Box, & The Men Who Stare At Goats [Nov. 8th, 2009|02:51 am]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | ty ty]

The Box

A bit of a surprise development, "The Box" sort-of just appeared out of nowhere. It was never detected in-advance on the Fennec radar screen as a film of any note - this is probably due in part to the vague and mundane title.

However, any reservations on my part were dispelled upon learning two important details about the film "The Box". First, it's based on an episode of The Twilight Zone from the 1980's called Button, Button. Automatically, that gives it at least some props, because The Twilight Zone is awesome. But the killer is that "The Box" has been adapted for screenplay and directed by Richard Kelly, the legendary writer and director of the cult classic "Donnie Darko". This perked my attention, and I was sold on seeing it, which I did tonight.

The film follows a suburban family that is down on their luck, and their experience as a man comes to their doorstep and offers them a way out of their woes by giving them the opportunity to use "the Box" - a wooden device with a red button on it. If they decide to push the button, they will receive one million dollars, but some person whom they have never met before will die.

The moral and philosophical conundrum that this film puts the viewer into is... significant - and that is part of the fun of the film. The viewer ends up asking themselves some weighty moral and philosophical questions. "Would I have pushed the button?" "How much is one human life worth?" "Is it really the person pushing the button who kills the innocent person at the other end, or does the person offering the box share some of the responsibility?"

These are just some of the questions I ended up asking myself. I would love to discuss any points with any reader who has seen The Box and wishes to write on it.

The film itself is wonderful. The pacing is fantastic - although they do go off on a tangent in the middle of the film that is totally unnecessary in hindsight (I assume that they needed "filler" to extend the length of the original hour-long screenplay of the original story.) The special effects were fantastic except for some of the "water" effects. The villain's base, for example, is phenomenal, and the guy who delivers the box (who has a horribly scarred face, similar to Two-Face from Dark Knight) is much better rendered than in Dark Knight. The suspense in the film is great, the dialog and writing, the acting was good, and the story was good.

Overall, I highly recommend seeing The Box. I give it two-ears perked, and have omnominated it for the Fennec's Choice Awards of 2009 for best picture. Unfortunately, it has done very poorly in the box-office, probably due to lackluster advertising and the vague forgettable title - so if you want to view it in theaters, I recommend seeing it as soon as you can, because it might not be around much longer.

The Men Who
Stare At Goats


When I found out that "The Men Who Stare At Goats" was being made into a film, especially a mainstream one starring George Clooney, I was thoroughly amused. This is another one of those films that I had prior insight into, from my days of Conspiracy-Theory Interest, I came across the source of the information for this film.

An independently-produced British documentary was produced a few years back called "Crazy Rulers of the World". The first episode of "Crazy Rulers of the World" was called "The Men Who Stare At Goats", available here:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=38921299CF1DC975&search_query=The+Men+Who+Stare+At+Goats

... in which the narrator had heard of some nutty-crazy experiments that the US military had been running to develop psychic powers for information gathering, and as a weapon.

I figured that the film would be a dramatization on the documentary (which is a very fine documentary series, by the way!) However, the film "The Men Who Stare At Goats", although inspired from the documentary and having many of the situations shown in the documentary, is not really telling the same story. Much is embellished for the silver-screen, including the primary plot (where the narrator gets into Iraq as a war-correspondent) . The "true" stuff, IE - the stuff from the documentary, is mostly contained within flashbacks.

While I was a little disappointed at that, I did enjoy the film. The dialog is witty and clever, the pacing is good, and the acting is also good. However, I think that the amount of enjoyment that I had was amplified by having seen the documentary. I DO NOT ADVISE YOU TO SEE THE FILM WITHOUT SEEING THE DOCUMENTARY FIRST. As I said earlier - I believe that this film is a better film with the knowledge gleamed from the source than without it, and my companions tonight agreed. This gives at least some basis from where the viewer can discern where the truth ends and the Hollywood embellishment begins. I would actually recommend that you see both Crazy Rulers of the World episodes 1 ("The Men Who Stare At Goats") and 2 ("Funny Torture"), since topics from both are covered in the film "The Men Who Stare At Goats". Both are available on the multimedia site Veoh (sadly, only Episode 1 is on youTube).

Overall, while I did enjoy the film, I can only give it one-ear perked. Some of the antics just aren't called-for, such as their use of LSD-humor as a crutch. Meanwhile, many of the "true" items from the documentary that were left-out are actually movie-worthy, such as the "Jedi" who would have soldiers run over him with their jeeps to show his hard-body technique, which eventually killed him when someone ran him over too fast. These things are interesting, and I can't understand why they weren't included. Lastly, I am annoyed that the film, which has a British lead actor (Ewan McGregor), has an American lead character, even though the original documentary is produced and narrated by a Brit. I know it seems like a trivial minor detail, but it just seems odd to me that a native brit, is playing an American character that is ripped off from a Brit. Couldn't they have just made it easy and kept him as a Limey? That way Mr McGregor wouldn't have to fake an American accent? Just a thought...

Thanks for reading!

- jaspian



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Fennec Critic Review: V (ABC), Boondock Saints 2 [Nov. 5th, 2009|09:33 pm]
[Current Location |partman!]
[Current Mood | garlic]
[Current Music |-none-]

BOONDOCK SAINTS II -
ALL SAINTS DAY


As many of you know by now, I am a bit of a movie buff, with a special love of anything action or science-fiction-y. As one might imagine, I have a a place in my heart for the Boondock Saints. Not only does the film take place about 20 minutes drive from where I live, and therefore is somewhat special to me, the film is the type of movie that I enjoy watching.

I will now take a moment to gloat and admit that I saw the original Boondock Saints long before it became a cult classic. I like to think that I am one of the "originals" who started passing the film around early and helped make it into a classic. But even though I like to think that way, I can admit to myself that it probably wouldn't have even noticed if I weren't there, in its rapid ascent to popularity.

Even so, I feel a connection to this film, as if its partly my own. As such, I had to see the sequel when it came out. Boondock Saints, somewhat in retrospect, makes my TOP 10 list for films that SHOULD NOT HAVE a sequel. The first one ended on a high note, with a fun tone (the interviews at the end for example), without loose ends to be tied, and in a manner which did not even hint at the possibility of a sequel. The story was told, a sequel could do nothing but ruin it. So, I have to say, I went into this film hopeful, eager to see more Saints, but with a feeling that this movie simply should not exist.

I left the theater somewhat bewildered. Boondock Saints II - All Saints Day is NOT as good as Boondock Saints. The pacing is a little off, the acting is weaker, the story is more confusing, and the characters are not as good (for example: Willem Dafoe as the gay FBI agent is usually considered one of the high points. He has been replaced by a southern girl who isn't nearly as good.) On the flip side, the dialog is wittier, (although they seem to be fixated with anal sex in their insults) and the characters are generally funnier. The fight scenes are slightly better from a technical standpoint, but slightly better from an artistic standpoint, but they rely much more heavily on odd camera angles and varying film speed, which is a little frustrating and disorienting. The film is a little more predictable than the first one - mostly because we know what to expect.

What I liked least about Boondock Saints II is something that they really can't help - everybody got old and fat. Even the saints. Its harder to believe that they're the characters who they are meant to play - young, vital, violent,  shoot-first-ask-questions-later types. Many of the characters I didn't even recognize until they spoke. Most characters were excellently casted for the first film, but don't look-the-part anymore because they've changed so much. Surprised at how old everybody looks - I checked on IMDB after the movie and found that it's been TEN YEARS since Boondock Saints. Anyway - despite the fact that this bothered me, I can't consider it in my review for the simple reason that they really can't help it. The alternative would be to hire other actors who look similar, and that would be even worse.

In the end, I give this film TWO EARS PERKED, and encourage you to see it probably on DVD. The large screen isn't necessary for this picture and might actually detract a litlte by increasing disorientation. However, Boondock Saints II : All Saints Day is NOT in the running for
the 2009 Fennec's Choice Awards.

V(ABC)

I'm fairly certain that I am not alone in the fandom in watching the series premiere of "V" on ABC. The likeness of V's logo to V for Vendetta automatically makes me warm to the show, and of course, a remake of a cult-classic alien-invasion show gets a head start for me, who is easily bored.

I was also interested to see many familiar faces - two from the cult sci-fi space-western FIREFLY, and one from the pop series LOST. (Her appearance in this series leads me to believe that she will NOT survive the atomic explosion on the island of LOST... just a hypothesis, however).

So V starts with props in my book. Did it live up? I'd say "yes". First off, the acting was pretty good for a network TV show. I was a little disappointed in the "familiar faces" not holding up as well in their new show as where they came from, but it is the first episode, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt and let them grow into their new roles. the special effects are decidedly sub-par. Hopefully this will change, as there weren't all that many effects in the first episode. The high point is the ships coming in, reflected in the glass of the skyscrapers. The low point (at least for me) was the F-22 crash-landing, which I thought looked terribly fake. (Anybody know why the pilot looked like he was dead?)

The writing and the dialog is pretty standard, so is the art. Nothing special there. What is special, however, to me, is the LIZARD PEOPLE. I find it particularly interesting that they mentioned "infiltration to cause unnecessary wars". I'm not sure how many of you readers have read into far-out conspiracy theories, but there is one called NIBIRU. Believers in Nibiru think that there is a planet that used to be a sister world to Earth, inhabited by lizard people, who had humans enslaved, and used them to build the pyramids and such. Nibiru (or "Marduk") crashed into a smaller planet, annihilating it, and that caused the asteroid belt. The collision send Nibiru on a long elliptical orbit (somewhat like a comet's) and it went hurling into space, and that this story became the basis of Babylonian mythology. The conspiracy theory goes on to say that some of the lizard people were stranded on earth, had to blend in, even interbred with the humans, which created various "bloodlines" of families that inherently wish to oppress and rule over humans (stated bloodlines include the Bushes and Clintons among others), and that these people will serve the lizard people when Nibiru comes back into the solar system on Dec 21 2012 (which ties in the the Mayan Calendar Doomsday prophecies).

Personally I think it's all a total load of bunk, and even somewhat laughable. But if some media company actually made a show or a movie (maybe '2012 the movie' will be this? I can only hope!) based on this outlandish theory, I would probably cream myself, 'cuz that takes a ton of guts, and I'd totally have a "whoa" moment, and it's actually a good base from which to launch an incredible story, allowing for a lot of expansion since those people who know the Nibiru story have already discounted that much from their suspension of disbelief. It's like making a Jesus story - You already know he's going to do miracles, and so you don't question that far. Of course, for the uninitiated, that would be a little more to swallow.

So I give V (on ABC) a tentative one-ear perked. I will definitely keep watching, since I am currently waiting for season4 of Dexter, and for the final season of LOST, and "Caprica" on Syfy (scheduled to air in January). With nothing better on, V has my attention, and I think it has a lot of potential. It just isn't quite there YET.


Hope you enjoyed reading! Feel free to let me know your thoughts.

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Fennec Critic review Law Abiding Citizen [Oct. 25th, 2009|01:55 am]
[Current Location |partman!]
[Current Mood | ginger]
[Current Music |Bjork - Hidden Places (Evol Intent remix)]

Jaspian reviews: Law Abiding Citizen

So... another movie night, another review in my journal. The film "Law Abiding Citizen" was high on my list ever since I saw the trailer. This should come as no surprise to those of you who know me, as the premise of the film is basically to rip the establishment down on itself. I am a rebel at heart, and I love to see individuals terrorize corrupt, despotic, or irresponsible government fatcats. This film promised just that (one of many films this year in such a vein: however, this was the most overtly-so of the films that I've seen this year).

Basically the premise of "Law Abiding Citizen" is that the main character's family is killed in a robbery, and he was supposed to die as well, but he's rescued by EMTs. However, the DA reduces the sentence of the more horrific of the offenders because he agrees to cooperate. The main character is offended and plans his revenge. He murders the two perpetrators, and is then arrested, but he doesn't stop there. Each day, the "hero" kills more and more of the individuals involved in setting that killer free by elaborate remote traps from his jail cell, and essentially holds the whole city hostage.

Going into the film, I thought that Gerard Butler (main character) was taking out a corrupt legal system, getting vengeance where vengeance is due, as if the perpetrator got off from some good-ol'-boy connection, or organized crime getting its tentacles into the law. However, I was displeased to find out that the people he targets for execution are mostly just innocent people, going to work, doing their jobs, and doing them correctly. That's where my perspective differs from the film: in the film, the law is doing as it should - its following the constitution, and therefore is undeserving of wrath. If the law in the film were like the real world, where laws are not applied uniformly, and the constitution is little more than toilet-tissue, I'd be able to understand where Gerard Butler's character is coming from, but it isn't. In short, the courts in "Law Abiding Citizen" are not corrupt, and he attempts to destroy that system anyway, mostly because they didn't violate the constitutional rights of the killer of his family.

That did take away some of the enjoyment I had for the film. In part because it wasn't what I expected, but also because it seemed to be anti-constitutional propaganda. Vigilantism is promoted, through Gerard Butler's character, but later Jamie Foxx's character ends up adopting some of Butler's hardcore unyielding zealotry. Search and Seizure, Due Process - the film portrays these as flaws of the system, which I cannot disapprove-of enough. We have these things to prevent innocent people from being punished, and sometimes even these are not enough! ...but enough political rambling. What did I think of the film?

The film itself came off as being "just another movie" to me. Nothing really stuck out as being significant. There's a few brutal deaths, but overall it's pretty stock. I will forget that I saw it before the end of the year. Despite its clear attempt to be unique, by having the killer killing FROM PRISON, it really fails at achieving that. The acting is good. The pacing is a little "off". A lot of it seems rushed, and slightly jumbled. Some of the set-work and story is sub-par, such as the Mayor meeting with Federal Law Enforcement in a huge meeting room, and the FBI has those infamous FBI windbreakers on. I hate to state the obvious, but ... in a conference room, the FBI wouldn't send guys in FBI windbreakers, they would have SUITS on when meeting with the mayor. These would be top people - administrators, strategists, logistics, profilers and analysts and the like - office agents. Not field agents. The Dex was also dismayed at Butler's character, who is supposed to be this great planner and strategist, and some of his blunders that would be obvious to any law-enforcement bureau, when, if he were such a genius, he would have at least covered his tracks on the obvious stuff.

Still... neither of these sins are so shocking and appalling for me to lower my rating. The dialog is clever, and believable, and overall the story is well-written, despite some holes. But it all comes back to this: overall the film is unremarkable, unmemorable, and run-of-the-mill. If you have a burning desire to see this film, I'd recommend seeing it on DVD. That doesn't mean it's bad, it's just "meh". It gets "one ear perked".

Thanks for reading!

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ZOMBITHON - Fennec Critic Takes on Zombieland, Left4Dead Expansion [Oct. 4th, 2009|05:25 am]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | sleepy]
[Current Music |Wickaman - Anything you say]



Tonight was a bit of an interesting night for me. I have a bit of a connection to Zombies that I'm sure many of you have heard about, some of you in painful and dreary detail. Thing is: I have reoccurring dreams about Zombies. Not dreams about Zombies like I dream about equines, or even my own yacht... more like nightmares. The reason why I call them dreams is because.... I have no irrational fear of Zombies. I have an irrational fear of spiders, but not Zombies. Zombies don't freak me out as much as some of the people I see on the highway or on TV or in the grocery store. But for some reason, my subconscious is fixated on Zombies. I blame eating doritos late at night before bed.... but I'm getting off the point. What I am trying to articulate is that this weekend has some sort of vague meaning to me on some level, since it's the opening weekend for Zombieland, and the release weekend for the new Left4Dead expansion pack (these are probably not a coincidence) and I experienced them both tonight.


Fennec Film Review:
ZOMBIELAND
When I first saw previews for Zombieland, I thought, "Gee... can they really stoop any lower? This is clearly just a bloodier, more violent, and unsophisticated knock-off of the masterpiece Shaun of the Dead. However, I was committed to seeing it simply on those grounds, if not my own personal curiousity. I'm not really fond of Zombie film, but Zombies don't necessarily disqualify a film from being good, in my opinion. Then I heard, in the grocery store of all places, radio personalities discussing this exact take, and how it was wrong. They were talking about how Zombieland is a good film AS A FILM. NOT as a ZOMBIE film. They talked about how, from the trailer, they were expecting a Shaun of the Dead knock-off, and were pleasantly surprised to find something fairly original in the newly-forming subgenre called Zomromcom (Zombie + Romantic + Comedy).

And so I became excited about the release of Zombieland, especially when, as release date approached, more and more positive reviews started to pile up in its favor.

... and they weren't wrong. Zombieland is a masterpiece. It is well-written, well-executed, nice film, well-acted, nice effects, pretty good pacing (it gets a little rougher around the end), its funny, engaging, and all-around a great little film. Top-props on the pseudo-originality, too. It's really taking the Zomromcom genre into the spotlight, and I appreciate that.

On the negative side... I really can't find anything to complain about, except perhaps that the girls at the end are idiots. Their plans are not rational - they make good sense only for a movie, in which funny and interesting situations need to keep an audience interested, but in real life during a Zombie invasion, its pure foolishness. I'm also a little put-off by the lack of humans in the film. There are only a handful, and everybody else is Zombified. I would think that at least SOME people would be able to survive in Zombieland, especially considering the main characters, none of whom I would consider to be particularly capable as a survivalist (especially not the two girls).


Overall, I give this film two ears WAY perked, but it is not quite good enough to be in the running tor the Fennec's Choice Awards 2009. Better luck next time.

Fennec Game Review:
LEFT4DEAD: CRASH COURSE

I also got to play the new Left4Dead DLC : Crash Course. I loved Left4Dead. I think it's one of the best games I've played this year, and it is in the running for the Fennec's Choice Awards Game of the Year 2009. So I was excited when I heard that a new expansion would be deployed for it. This is the earliest I could play it - I heard elsewhere that it came out last weekend, but this was the first chance that I got to play it.

What did I think? It was short. It was easy. And the environments weren't drastically different from the original game. However, these flaws aren't enough for me to hold a grudge against it. The game is still fantastic. One of the main flaws I griped about Left4Dead is the fact that its so damn short. They needed more content, even if it's not dramatically different from the content that they already have. That's why I am not at all disappointed in the lack of variety in environments. Yes, the new mission is short - much shorter than the original missions even. However, the new expansion is also very inexpensive, and I felt that it was worth the cost for the length. Lastly... the easiness: they tried to make it harder. The first zone in the mission had not one, but TWO Tanks. But my crew never got into a situation where we were threatened enough that we might not make it to the end, unlike 3/4 of the original missions. The last area didn't have any really spectacular place to hole up in with bottlenecks for the Zombie rush (my usual strategy), but the final horde wasn't as large and formitable as the original missions either.

Conclusion: Yes, it's worth buying if you enjoyed the first Left4Dead.


I also watched part of Dead Alive today in anticipation of the Zombiethon. If you haven't seen it, you probably should. Its ridiculous and funny. As a Peter Jackson film, if you haven't seen any of his work pre Heavenly Creatures, you might be shocked to find out that Peter Jackson has not always been a respectable director - and its because of films like Dead Alive - which will go down in film history as one of the great classic indie Zombie movies for its sheer absurdity.


Anyway - that's the end of my Zombiethon review. Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

- jaspian

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Fennec Film Review: Surrogates [Sep. 28th, 2009|02:23 am]
[Current Location |partman!]
[Current Mood | whaaat?]
[Current Music |Jaspian (megamix) - Classic+Tekstep_DnB_001]

FILM: SURROGATES
Tonight, I saw the movie "Surrogates", which was played up basically as a Bruce-Willis show-piece. The impression I got from the previews was less that this was a film and more of a "watch Bruce Willis doing this and watch Bruce Willis doing that" -sort of film. It really seemed that the story was going to be secondary to the fact that this movie stars BRUCE WILLIS.

Unfortunately, this actually turned out to be the case. The film doesn't really try to stand on its own... it's very "Bruce-Willis-is-Awesome"-centric. As annoying as that may be, it's not necessarily going to make Surrogates a bad film. On the contrary, that formula has worked out extraordinarily well in many cases, the most obvious of which is the film Castaway which was all Tom Hanks and nothing else really mattered. However, in that case it was necessary for the story. Surrogates is actually similar, in my opinion, in that the story us unnaturally main-character-driven by the progression of the plot, which is very "lone-man-on-the-run". That begs the question, however - Did it have to be that way? Or did we write this around Bruce?
Of all the actors who may have deserved such a role, I would honestly rank Bruce Willis pretty high. He's one of the only action-film-stars who's actually a good actor. In short, I will fault Surrogates for being so Brucey, but not overly-so. The main consequence of structuring a film this way, in my humble opinion, is that history will look back on it as "another Bruce Willis film" - which is exactly what it is, since, as I stated earlier, it doesn't stand on its own feet without Bruce.

My review will also be tempered by the fact that most of this film was shot in the city where I was born, and the rest was shot in Boston, which is very close to where I currently live. Another factor is that the story is actually pretty good, once you suspend your disbelief.

In the film, people begin to replace their physical selves with robots called "surrogates" which they control remotely from their homes, basically inhabiting the robot, and going through life as if it were Second Life (strange that this film and "GAMER" should come out so close together and be so similarly themed!). The reason for this is multi-pronged. The surrogates have superhuman strength and agility, can be upgraded for better vision, are more beautiful, ageless, and perfect than humans (myself obviously not factored in), and most of all, if they are destroyed, the owner is not harmed. So the story really starts when a user is killed by the destruction of his surrogate, and the investigation into how that could happen.

There are some nice plot twists and decent dialog in the film. The story seems a little rushed, though, which makes it a little difficult to follow unless it has your undivided attention. There are also some minor inconsistencies in the film itself, but they're not so glaring as to warrant much attention - just minor irritations.

Overall, I reluctantly give "Surrogates" one ear perked, for its story, plot twists, dialog, and Bruce Willis, who's pretty decent in the film. But its not enough to get over the slew of problems that this film has. My recommendation is to only see this movie if you have nothing better to do. It doesn't really require the big screen. It can wait until DVD if you really want to see it at all. If you're not that interested in it, don't bother. It's, as I stated earlier "Just another Bruce-Willis film".


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I HAS PR0NZ!!!1! [Sep. 25th, 2009|02:43 pm]
[Current Location |Pandora Bread]
[Current Mood | wheee!]
[Current Music |Clipz - Give It to Me]

HEADLINE: New Jaspian Art on FA

In case some of you haven't checked twitter in the past few days, or don't have me watched on FA, there is sum new Jaspian pr0n out by Bonk of Jaspian giving Fuzzwolf some oral action. Here's a little taste (baddum!) ...
... and here's the link to it.

Please fave it if you like it. It makes me more appealing to the artists if they think I'm some kinda celebrity. (Well I am, aren't I? *harumph!* )

Anyway... this image was like 2-3 years in the making. The sketch came out pretty fast and I loved it, but it took awhile to get colored, and then it took FOREVER for Bonk to put the text on it (yes... there's text. It's funny. Give it a click!) Its actually been done (with text) since January or so, but then he never published it to his FA. So if you're wondering why it looks like some of his older work... it is. That's why it looks like his older work.  :)
More on Art...
So I've also signed up about a month ago for the Vorephile art exchange. I should have probably mentioned that yesterday on #vorethursday but it kinda slipped my mind. I've been tasked with drawing vore for taben clearwater. Hopefully I won't drive myself batty trying to draw characters that are new to me over the next few weeks. I don't know who got my pic. He asked questions anonymously (very mysterious!!!1).

FOXMAS: 
Website up & need a few good furs
Web
In other news, www.foxmas.com is up... at least the FTP portion of it. Right now it's just hosting the poster image, but I plan to deploy information tonight. It will be fugly, but informative. Sometime this weekend I plan to deploy the CSS-enabled HTML site, complete with preliminary online registration, and then within the next two weeks after that I'd like to have the flash site up (HTML will still be an option for all you cavepeople out there...) Hopefully the Flash site will force me to establish a template from which I can bang out a website frozen oasis and a personal website for myself.

Volunteering
I am also looking for a few good furs to help with FOXmas. Specifically, I need volunteers to DJ in the dance room. Right now I only have one "maybe". Since we are planning on going all night, (literally), I'm going to need a LOT of DJs. DJing is fun, but it gets tiring after 4 hours straight. So if you want to DJ please let me know. Also, I would like to hear your ideas for convention events. "Cheap" or "Free" is always a plus. Volunteers for panels would also be nice. Unfortunately, being an econo-con this year (pre-reg is only $20!) we can't guarantee compensation in rooms or travel, and we probably won't be able to comp con attendance either unless we cream our attendance forecasts. However, I can offer you a little piece of fame by adding you to our convention conbook, with a little bio on how awesome you are.

If you're interested, email me HERE or hit me up on AIM/YIM/GIM/MSN as jaspianfox or on Meebo as Jaspian. The sooner you get back to me, the more likely I will be able to block time for feasible events.


Thanks for reading!

- jaspian



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Jaspi Poster, and boring announcement! [Sep. 21st, 2009|02:29 pm]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | sleepy]
[Current Music |Ewun - Screw Up (Upbeats remix)]


So how is everybody out there? I am stressing my little fennec brain out. I just wrapped up the High Society Party last night, and I am dead tired today for work. Meanwhile, I'm working with the Rochester crew to get FOXmas looking like a real con by December.

To dispel any of the rumors, we have only officially been planning FOXmas since early August, which means its one of the shortest ramp-ups for a convention probably in the entire history of the fandom. So we have to work twice as hard to get things in place... all of this while I have a job, and while I labor at my multitude of creative efforts... none of which seem to be bearing any fruit right now.

So I am gonna tighten the shoes and try to get running with this. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to start posting a year or so of con reports that I just never got around to posting. They've just been sitting on my laptop in a word document forever.

If you don't like reading con reports, I apologize, but this is supposed to be a journal, and I am supposed to be recording my thoughts and activities. Since most of these focus around the furry fandom these days, its only natural that I post about my convention experiences.

I am also posting here with the initial FOXmas poster, courtesy of Bonk, just in case some of those who're subscribing to me don't know that I, along with Soron the Panda, will be running a Christmas-themed furry convention this year (as stated above) called FOXmas. Stare at the art. It is a pretty Jaspian fennec with a candy cane.  -^.^-

I <3 it very much. Hope you like it too.


And with that, I bid you a fair day.

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Fennec reports on Sunday Night Double-Feature: 9 and Gamer! [Sep. 14th, 2009|03:58 am]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | molested?]
[Current Music |A Sides - Heavyweight]

Hello and welcome to another Fennec film report! This week I had a double-feature: 9 (the movie), about a post-apocalyptic world where living dolls and twisted recycled garbage monsters are battling for control of whatever is left of earth... and: Gamer, a somewhat dystopian future where people are allowed to control other people in various circumstances... most notably in a game called "Slayers" where players pay to control a death-row inmate in combat.

Now... on to the nitty-gritty..!


9 (the movie)


This film is the continuation of a short by Shane Acker (the director of "9 - the movie"), which is also called 9. (If that isn't confusing enough, there's also another film coming out this year called "nine" (spelled out), and we've already had DISTRICT 9 this year as well!)

I have included a link to 9 (the short) in this article below, for your viewing pleasure.  :)

One of the qualms I had with 9 (the short) is that, while it takes place in a wonderfully-artistic and intriguing dystopian future, that future is somewhat irrelevant to the story. The characters could easily be a cat and a clever mouse in a cartoon.

This is probably the greatest advancement of the movie over the short. In 9 (the movie), the environment matters more, and the nature of the dolls and machines are both more clearly defined in their own right - that is, you couldn't really substitute anything for the characters and have the same plot at the end. That gives the setting more weight and emphasis, and allows us, as an audience, to appreciate the world that they live in.

Another great feature of 9 (the movie) is the animation, which is SUPERB, especially in the case of a few of the machines... most notably, the dreaded Fabricator, which is a wonderful design in terms of sheer imagination, but is animated so well that it becomes breathtaking. The other machine that I was particularly impressed with is the sewing cobra thing. Once more, the design is awesome and frightening, but the sewing animation is very cool to watch.



However, my compliments to 9 end there. I felt that the voice acting was lackluster, and the plot and dialog are both fairly weak... especially the ending. I won't give anything away, but I will admit that I, personally, was extremely unimpressed with the end, and that it affected my appreciation for the film as a whole.

In the end, I give it 1 ear perked, 1 ear drooped. It is worth seeing... probably in theaters, too, because it would benefit from the large screen, but I'd wait until it comes to the cheap-seats.

On the other hand, we have...

GAMER

Gamer was made by those crazy bitches who made the films Crank and Crank 2, namely Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who're both crazy psychopaths, as far as I can tell.

However, from the trailer, I was lead to believe that Gamer would be different from Crank. For those of you who have seen Crank and / or Crank 2, you probably know what I am talking about. The Crank series is very unique... both in having extremely sick and twisted humor, no-holds-barred graphic violence, and surprisingly innovative filming (wonderful camera angles, transition sequences, etc... both Crank and Crank 2 are masterpieces... if you can stomach the content!) But I can safely say that I was not expecting Gamer to be anything like Crank.

And I was right. Gamer is not Crank, but there is a lot of bleed stylistically from Crank. Gamer is far more professional. It's far more of an action film and less comedic... but that didn't stop a LOT of Crank's morbid humor and outlandishness from seeping through, which was a pleasant surprise for me.

The acting is pretty damn good, the visuals are stunning, the plot is lacking, but the viewer doesn't care so much about that by the middle of the film. Enough disbelief is suspended early-on that the sheer ridiculousness of the plot becomes irrelevant. The dialog is witty and clever, and the pacing was spot on (I'm sure many of you know by now that I am a whore for good pacing!) I was riveted to my seat for the whole film... or at least the parts where I was trying not to pee myself with laughter (I appreciate a morbid sense of humor just a little too much at times...)

So I thoroughly recommend Gamer, but you might have a hard time finding it. Opening weekend was so slow for Gamer that many theaters have already pulled the film from their projectors, which made it hard for me to find a theater nearby that was still showing it only on its third week after release. But if you can find it, and you don't mind gratuitous violence (and I do mean GRATUITOUS VIOLENCE... perhaps even worse than Inglourious Basterds...), then I think you should check it out in the theater while you still can.

Gamer gets 2 ears perked, and is omnominated for the Fennec's Choice Award for Best Picture of 2009.

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Inglourious Basterds are glourious [Aug. 25th, 2009|02:18 am]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | ew]
[Current Music |Mt Eden - Daniel]





Once upon a time in Massachusetts...

                         ... I got to see "Inglourious Basterds"...


First off, let me start out by saying that I had extremely high expectations for this movie - expectations that probably could never be exceeded. I consider Quentin Tarantino is one of the world's greatest directors, and in such a role in my mind, it is nearly impossible for Tarantino to surprise me.

... And in this movie, he didn't.

But the strange thing about Tarantino films, at least for me, is he doesn't have to surprise you. These films are carried almost entirely on witty dialog, strong acting, and pacing. Needless to say, Inglourious Basterds had all of that. But no matter how high you set your bar, you still come away from a film like Inglourious Basterds feeling satisfied because its a good film, and nothing more is necessary.

Inglourious Basterds is probably the best film I've seen this year. I give it TWO EARS PERKED and I am putting it in the running for the Fennec's Choice Awards for 2009.

Details details details...

Before you go see this film, be forewarned - it's probably the most violent movie I've seen in a long time - possibly the most violent film I've seen period. In this film lots of people die in gruesome horrific ways, and Tarantino isn't the sort of director to pan away. You see every drop of blood with disturbingly vampiric fascination from Tarantino. Every blunt instrument caving in a skill, every stab, every exit wound is reverently offered to the audience. There is some torture. If you are squeamish about blood, violence, or torture - do not see this film. It is not for you. Even I, who have a pretty tough tummy, and often laugh at horrible deaths in movies, covered my eyes in a few scenes. It's grizzly.

Another thing you should be aware of is that, despite the film's name, the Basterds are not the core focus of the film. There are 3 separate story arcs that are occurring simultaneously - one of the Basterds, one of a movie-theater owner, and one of a Nazi who is trying to ferret out Jews hiding in France. So don't expect to see all Brad Pitt and ambushes.

However, that didn't stop it from being a great film. The dialog (as usual for Tarantino) is fantastic. The acting is top-notch, with a star-studded cast. A name like "Tarantino" calls out the best in acting - where even minor characters are played by major actors in cameo roles, probably just to schmooze the legendary director, And of course the pacing is the best. That's what makes a film satisfying, in my opinion (for example Equilibrium was paced fantastically, Ultraviolet was paced poorly, both had pretty bad stories, fair acting, similar fight scene choreography and even moves (I think they might have had the same fight scene choreographer and director, but I'm not sure)... anyway Equilibrium was a fantastic film, and Ultraviolet kinda sucked... because of pacing.) Best of all is that there is a character named "FENNEC" (spelled "Fenech" according to IMDB), played by none-other than Mike Myers , which pleased me greatly. (Free points!)

Lastly, I'd like to commend Tarantino for his accurate depiction of the Basterds and their little-known sabotaging campaign in WW2. They don't get nearly enough recognition for their contributions, and I think this movie is doing a great service by letting the public know all the great feats that they accomplished during the war. Bravo!

However, there was one negative.... Brad Pitt wasn't very good (wow I can't believe I said that..!), his acting seemed extremely forced. I think he puts a bit of himself into his characters when he acts, but Aldo wasn't really compatible with his personality. He simply doesn't work that well as the "drill sergeant" -type, and his performance ended up feeling very forced. It came out most in his speaking - he spoke too quickly. The pauses between his sentences seemed rushed as if he were reciting rather than acting natural. (which of course he was.... but the point is he's not supposed to sound like he's reciting).  :)


So... in conclusion: 2 ears perked, omnominated for the Fennec's Choice Awards 2009. If you don't mind hyper-violence and gore; see this film.


-^.^-






-jaspi



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Movie Night - District 9 reviewed! [Aug. 16th, 2009|04:07 am]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | sleepy]
[Current Music |Portishead - Roads]




So I just back from seeing District 9 - the expansion on the award-winning short film "Alive in Joburg". Here are my thoughts...

Let me start off by stating the clearest difference between District 9 and Alive in Joburg - which I'm sure many of you have presumed, or know beforehand - that District 9 is a movie, not a mockumentary. About 20 minutes into the film, it abruptly (and surprisingly) drops the documentary fascade and becomes like an ordinary film. However - this film is by no means ordinary. It's really pioneering in quite a few areas. For example: the activist "fake documentary" has never really been done in a movie before. The extent of fake documentary films have been comedies like "Best in Show." They have not been films that are mocking serious crisies worldwide. Additionally, we always think of aliens coming to earth as being invaders, or looking for first contact. This is really the first time that a "first contact" scenario has been designed in film with the idea of aliens as refugees, who we would need to take care of. District 9 earns points for pioneering.

It also earns points for visuals. The film is incredibly attractive. While some of the animation leaves something to be desired (mostly the prawns' naked selves), generally speaking it's far beyond average. The exo-suit, and the spaceship, in particular, are amazing. However, they should have stuck to the puppets from Alive in Joburg for the creatures - they are much more convincing.

Acting was good, and the pace was pretty decent. Dialog was passable, and there is some humor for everybody - for example, one man is killed by a flying pig for the slapstick crowd. I found particularly amusing how the humans gave human-sounding names to these weird cockroach creatures with cthulu mouths that speak in pops growls and clicks. (This is an obvious jab at giving American-sounding surnames to American immigrants, especially those from Eastern Europe or Asia.)

One thing to note is that District 9 is rated R and it deserves to be. It's far more violent than the trailers make it out to be. There's mutilation, amputation, tons of gore, including some very horrible deaths, a lot of humans being turned into jelly by all sorts of weapons, executions of unarmed aliens... you get the idea. There's also a lot of the F-bomb. Most particularly disgusting for myself is there's a lot of fluids. Vomiting, pissing, oozing weirdness from the nose and mouth, coughing stuff up, in addition to gore. You may want to eat a big meal before watching District 9 so that you're too full to get popcorn or snacks - you may not feel like finishing them.

To me, the glaring flaw of District 9 is the story. They should have kept the documentary-style format. It had an amazing feel to it. While this would not have made the plot of District 9 (as it stands now) suffer, because the benefit of returning to the mockumentary format adds fewer points than I have taken away for poor storytelling. THERE ARE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT.... (1) Lets start out by talking about the critical elements of the story: alien refugees on earth. While they are not touted specifically as refugees per-se, it is implied considering the squalor that they arrived in. We are never told what happened on their planet to make them flee the world. This is a vital element because the movie ends with two of the aliens returning to their homeworld. If its so easy to return, why did they leave to begin with? (2) The fuel for their command module turns people into aliens? How does that make sense? (3) Aliens get their fun by derailing trains. They kill people, and cause massive amounts of crime. In the real world, such mischief would have meant napalm. Considering their more advanced technology, and the possibility of it going away if the mothership left, means that the military (at least the US Military...) would probably have wiped out all of the aliens and attempted to reverse-engineer the technology. (4) Humans are bad. Everything that humans do, aside from the main character, paints us as evil. While this isn't really a problem with the story, it is very annoying. (5) When they levetate the command ship at the end, the SAM launcher doesn't try to hit it again. (I also felt that the command module crash after the first rocket attack was mediocre graphically). (6) This movie really needed a down ending. The flow of the film pointed decidedly at a letdown. I was hoping that the ship in the tractor beam would get shot down and the humans would take over the ship, or master their technology and use it against them, or the aliens would conquer the world by sacking each capitol city with their huge powered exoskeletons. It was a bit of a letdown that the ending was so happy.

In conclusion - this movie has a lot going against it. There's a lot that could have been done a lot better. There are plot holes, inconsistencies, and silly things that don't make sense to reasoning people. However, I don't think that it outweighs the novelty of the film itself. I give it two ears perked, but with some reservation. Even so, it is officially in the running for the Fennec's Choice Awards for Film of the Year.




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Movie night! GI Joe and Public Enemies Reviewed! [Aug. 9th, 2009|05:04 am]
[Current Location |partman]
[Current Mood | zzzzz - *snort* huh what? z-zz]
[Current Music |Burner Brothers - Sinister]


Tonight I had my movie-thon with longtime best friend and movie connoseaur "The Dex". The lineup was Public Enemies, followed by GI Joe. So... into the gap, boys!
Public Enemies - the surprisingly accurate film about the infamous gangster John Dillinger - was the first film I saw tonight. Despite what I would consider to be an "all-star" cast, it was a pretty bland film. I blame the director Michael Mann. When you watch this film, you're likely to notice that the quality of the film itself (the media) is total absolute shit. It looks worse than a made-for-TV movie. It looks like a history-channel reanactment for a documentary. Even worse is some of the camera angles, and some prop malfunctions (such as a squib pack that goes off AFTER a major character has just been shot to death). The lighting is awful and there are a lot of obstructed views in scenes. Ultimately I get the feeling that the director just didn't give a damn - that everything was shot once and kept. It might have even worked, since the acting and script pretty-much speak for themselves.... if it weren't for the quality of the film itself. It turns out that the film is digital. While many people are often duped by that word, "digital" is a curse. It is a representation of a thing - not the thing itself.

Some directors have begun to shoot digital media because its less expensive. It is more tolerant to low lighting, and therefore doesn't need elaborate lighting rigs - and it can be carried in smaller, cheaper cameras. But just because it tolerates low-lighting well, doesn't mean you should shoot in low-lighting. Small cameras doesn't mean you should shoot everything from the shoulder or from the hands. Unfortunately Michael Mann didn't consider these things. A tommygun firing at night, with a long licking tongue of flame erupting from the muzzle, for example, should be extremely bright, and it should be follow each shot with darkness. That's the way it SHOULD look. Digital low-light tolerant cameras don't pick up this effect. It makes the whole thing look ametuerish - and even moreso when so many shots are done shoulder-cam.

Finally, I would like to say that Johnny Depp was a poor choice as Dillinger. He just didn't fit the role. I think that they wanted to cast Leonardo Dicaprio and merely failed. I would also like to note that they failed to note Dillinger's legendary penis, which has been rumored at times to have been as long as 23 inches. While I seriously doubt it was that huge, I still wish they had at least mentioned the rumors as a humorous aside.

Overall, this movie was 'meh'. 1 ear perked, 1 ear drooped.


Next I saw.... GI JOE. Let me start out by saying that I know nothing of GI Joe. My wealth of "Joe"-related knowledge comes from a few public service announcements I saw as a kid, later bastardized in my highschool years to my delight... and from Robot Chicken, which parodied the show at least once.

That having been said, there's probably plenty of stuff that I missed out on, having not followed the show (and further: there's probably a lot of stuff that they changed that I should be upset about, but I'm not!)

What it comes down to is this... GI Joe was not at all what I expected.  I had expected to see Army combat with slightly futuristic gear. I expected HMMWVs and Abrams and Apachies and F22s. What I got was much more "comic book" style. I think they might have followed the show very closely. GI Joe is not a realistic movie - even if one were to jump ahead to the "near future" as they claim.

But what's left over is something that felt very magical and new to me. As far as I can tell, nothing like GI-Joe has been done before. It didn't feel like a war movie, or even much of a comic book (contrary to what I said before)... but more like James Bond with serious futuristic technology. They followed a similar "covert ops", "trail of crumbs", "eccentric characters" (and more) motief, that, as I said before, felt more like James Bond than anything else I can think of to compare it to.

I thoroughly enjoyed GI Joe. It was pretty. The acting wasn't as bad as I'd feared. While it did have its cheesey moments (just how exactly does a particle accelerator weaponize nanomachines? Does that make sense to anybody?), it also had some witty dialog and was thoroughly entertaining.

I've already heard claims that GI Joe is for "the ignorant people of middle America", but, having seen the film, I'd say that right there is the ignorant statement. Right-wingism does not seem to be a high prioraty in this film... except in 3 places that I could detect.
1. Destroying the eiffel tower
2. The database of public images that they search to find people... clear constitutional vioation there, and they're playing it up as being ordinary and helpful. That's something that the Right would love but is wrong.
3. Polar ice caps - they seem to make an intentional effort to show that the polar caps are there, and that there are polar  bears on them. Clear snipe at Global Warming Alarmists.

As weird as this sounds, I am actually going to omnominate GI Joe for the Fennecs Choice Awards best picture of 2009 - although I don't think it stands a chance against "Know1ng" , personally. Either way: GI Joe? 2 ears perked
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