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Sukiyaki Western Django is a combination of a spaghetti western and a classic Japanese tale of two rival clans who are attempting to gain control of an area. To start with it is directed by Takashi Miike, who is a Japanese director well known for making ultra violent and sex filled films who have a cult following. While most of his films are very much not for everyone his first attempt at a film shot primarily for the west is putting him in a direction that can be better excepted by the masses. (Personally I’m a fan of everything he’s done that I’ve seen no matter how far fetched, but with over 60 films to his name I can’t claim to have seen a majority of them.)

Two clans, the Genji and Heiki have been feuding in a Nevada town over a treasure of gold that is claimed to be hidden somewhere in the town. The two sides have reached a stalemate and into the town rides a stranger. This stranger ends up being a gunslinger who is not to be ignored and both sides attempt to have him join their clan against the other. Quentin Tarantino opens the tale with a short dialogue and ends up being the one in his old age later in the movie to explain how a few key pieces of the plot flow together. With sets that combine Japanese designs from ages past combined with the western look that should be prevalent of the time this would take place you can’t help but be drawn into the strange world that has been created. There’s a lot of violence, action, and ridiculous events that occur but a fun western gangster movie to watch!

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I know it’s been awhile since I’ve talks about anything I’ve been watching as of late so I figured I’d jump back in with a movie I actually just enjoyed (and think you will to!) While there was an Incredible Hulk movie done a few years back (that was horrible,) you do NOT have to have watched it before watching this one. In fact I beg that you don’t as you might not want to even give the new version a shot, and you should!

The casting in the new Hulk was incredible. I’m a huge fan of Edward Norton to begin with and to add in that both he’s a fan of the Hulk and was involved in such a great script was perfect. He played out how I wanted to see Banner on the screen 110%. Liv Tyler I felt fell a bit short as his love interest but still was able to pull it off. Honestly I wish they had given her more dialogue to flesh out her character a bit but I suppose we’ll see how that works in the sequel. Tim Roth played off a cocky military secret ops agent who ended up as the villain perfectly and we round off the cast with William Hurt being the general who is attempting to catch Banner. You can always count on Hurt doing a good job in any role where he is in a position of power.

That’s not all! To flesh out the past of the Hulk in Marvel’s new movie universe as well as give some throwbacks to the TV series and comics we see a lot of familiar faces and references. There was also a bit of foreshadowing for the next movies villain. Bonus! So to start with let’s go with the TV throw backs. Lou Ferrigno (original Hulk) made an appearance as a security guard that Banner talks his way past as well as did the voice when Norton turned into the Hulk. Bill Bixby who played the original Bruce Banner also made an appearance, though as an actor on a TV show that was playing in the background of one of the scenes. Last TV throw back? The TV show’s theme song was briefly played while Norton was walking alone down a street in Mexico. A few throwbacks to the comics came in the form of Betty Ross buying Bruce a pair of purple stretchy pants for when he turns into the Hulk (in the comic he always wore purple pants.) Finally on this when talking about the super serum formula to help tie in the movies together they showed a label on a storage tank “Dr. Reinstein.” Reinstein is the original inventor of the super serum that turns Steve Rogers into Captain America. To mix in the movie references? After the credits there is a guest appearance by Robert Downey Jr. who talks to Hurt’s character about the Avengers initiative and “Nick Fury” is on one of the government document that were shown in the opening credits. Bonus for someone noticing that there is a portrait of Steve Rogers in General Ross’s office. Also they showed a potential origin for Leader, one of Hulk’s main enemies in the comics. TALK ABOUT FAN SERVICE! Seriously Marvel knows that they are doing to cater to any fan of Hulk.

With all of that so far I’ve also left out that it’s a great plot moving the film forward! The movie begins with Banner hiding out in Mexico trying to have a normal Hulk free life. Living day by day, attempting to be useful, attempting to not get angry (you wouldn’t like him when he’s…), and trying to cure himself. Due to an accident the US Military is able to track down where he’s hiding and at that point everything in Banner’s zen filled life falls apart. Still trying to find a cure he contacts his ex-girlfriend and a scientist to help him leading into the government project behind this mess to find a way to make their own mutation. That’s where the movie gets fun and that’s about all I can say without giving away spoilers. I’ll leave just one in. Sit through the credits. I have a feeling Marvel is going to sneak something in at the end of all of their movies now.

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Wow.. Life… something that keeps me far too busy and as usual outside of work I’ll go over the highlights of the last two weeks. (I figure the above picture will accurately explain while I’m late on updates?) To start with and totally off topic: Music wise all I’ve been listening to for the last couple of weeks has been Buckcherry and The Black Crowes. That’s not really relevant to anything I just wanted to toss that out there.

Last week Molly was out visiting the grandparents and needed a ride back to the city. She got dropped off at my ‘rents for me to pickup. Carpooling with Neil meant we stopped in to have some Chinese for dinner and to find out that my dad might have a new job lined up. Sweet.

For Halloween I went over to Sal’s for his yearly party (which I have always skipped until now) and I’ll admit it. I was impressed. He had hyped the hell out of his back yard for years and it fully lives up to it. About 40 people filtered through his house while I was there and I knew more than I had expected to. (On a site note I’m really out of practice at Flippy cup.)

Monday I met up with Jen for lunch and a movie. Every time we meet up it’s the constant entertainment with the promise that we should hang out more than once every two months. So I’m sure we’ll hang again in 2 months We watched Zach and Miri make a Porno though I was a bit disappointed. It was funny however not the caliber or a regular Kevin Smith movie. Sadness.

Than there was last night. Adam and Mia live on the 31’st floor right off of Roosevelt overlooking Grant Park so with Neil, Brad, Ben, and about 20 people we eagerly watched the election coverage. Yesterday’s win for Obama has brought Americans a message of hope. I for one want to see this hope pan out, everyone I know was excited for the win to actually happen and I think it would be too painful for this country to have our hopes crushed at this point. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” With that opening Obama brings forth the idea that we can overcome what is happening to our country. The economy, the health issues, the educational issues, the war, everything ‘can’ be overcome.

“But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to — it belongs to you.” I could feel the cheering from Grant Park when that was said. Hopefully it’s true because I want to believe that a positive change is finally coming to our country after 8 years of a downward spiral.

“I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.” I hope everyone truly listened to what was being said here. Change can be done to fix our nation. It is coming. It will NOT happen overnight. I have this horrible feeling that too many people will not focus on the fact that this is not an overnight fix and something that will take time to truly have happen.

If you did not hear or have not yet read the full speech you can head over to The Chicago Tribune for the full break down. It’s truly a moving speech and one that I hope will be followed up by actions that will fulfill our hopes. After 8 years of watching the Bush administration help drag our country’s name to where it is today I’m excited for the future.

Online I’ve been pretty active on just about everything but this site. While I did make a couple changes here that aren’t too visible (Re-enabled comments after they’ve been off for about a year and fixed my RSS feed button on the top right which I was informed was broken.) I haven’t been doing much on updates. I have been trying to keep up on updates on Buy Zombie and The Shiny Swine. Also I’ve been pre-writing a HUGE pile of content for another site that I am starting in order to have a lot of breathing room so that it will be impossible for me to fall behind on it. Still this has caused Civin.org to suffer and go from daily updates to maybe twice a week updates. I’ll try harder I promise!

This is the post where I throw all credibility on my taste in movies out the window. Speed Racer has a pretty low rating on Rotten Tomatoes, was panned by critics and fans worldwide, and I can’t help but say that I enjoyed the movie. Yes. I enjoyed the movie. I almost considered not writing this review, and actually put it off for the shame that it brings upon me.

The plot focuses on Roger Allam’s character attempting to spend the entire movie fixing the racing syndicate for his cars to win so that he can sell more of his car engines. Speed’s family becomes involved as they attempt to recruit him to the team and when he turns down the offer everything goes to hell. They ran with the movie not trying to explain away any of the unbelievable and just put it out there as if it was normal. Cars that jump and racing as the largest sport in the world. Chim Chim showed up and no one reacted strangely to the fact that the Racer family had a pet monkey who actively helped them out. Honestly I think I giggled at every scene that they threw Chim Chim into. The entire movie was a complete mix of surrealism and real life.

I have to admit I think the staff is what made the movie. Emile Hirsch was perfect in the role of Speed Racer by both having the look and pulling off mannerisms and speech that felt like the original dub of the TV series I grew up on (thanks to Rex.) Christina Ricci as Trixi was perfect casting (and I was doubtful on this at first), though low on dialogue when she did speak it was perfect and the eyebrow arch was perfect (and damn was she a hotty in the role.) John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as Speed’s parents: great casting, acting, and played the roles in a way that made them both human (instead of.. a cartoon) with more than enough throw back to the original actors. Finally Roger Allam played the roll of the corporate executive attempting to fix the racing syndicate to make himself more money. Ever since I saw him in V for Vendetta I have been hoping to see him in more major film rolls and was not disappointed.

The one complaint that I have about the movie is what I’ll start out with, it was a bit long. Honestly there was no necessary reason for the movie to run at over 2 hours. Short of that having sat in one place for far too long feeling I had when it ended I had a good time.

The race scenes were a mix of great action sequences, visuals, and I’m sure the feeling that could only come from a mix of hallucinogenics. There is a fight sequence where Speed’s dad has to fight a few people and seems to grow in size in comparison which was a bit cartoonish and fitting. They even manage to throw in most of the classic one liners from the show! Finally I have to mention that.. there were ninjas. As we all know ninjas make everything better.

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*Looks at above picture* So THAT’S how I’ve felt about reading lately *sighs* why does LOLCats so fit my mood on regular post updates lately? It’s wrong I say. At any rate it’s time for another one of my actual updates on Life! Not just the random reviews I’ve been doing. So aside from work I haven’t had too much going on for going out the past couple of weeks. With my 6 month insurance being a month earlier than I thought the extra spending dough has been a bit low.

So the three main times I went out off of the top of my head first was for a family party to celebrate birthdays for my Grandmother and Aunt. How can anyone not enjoy a HUGE home cooked meal (with extra corn bread to take home) and some time with the family. Everyone left stuffed (as it should be!) and content. Also hit up Bar Louie in Bolingbrook (*GASP!* the suburbs!) after work one night with Neil, Rex, Sal, and his wife. It’s good to know that even having not been there as a regular in quite a few months I still knew the majority of the waitresses. This leads to free booze, and life is good. Finally ended this last weekend a tower over from my place for Adam and Mia’s Engagement party. Hung out mainly with Neil, Ashly, and Brad on and off though I have met a few of Adam’s other friends so chilled with them a bit as well. All in all good times though there was no reason to take my Wii over with the pool table and copious amounts of alcohol that was available in the lounge

On the gaming end of things I’ll give you *1* guess what I’ve been up to. Call of Duty 4. That’s right. My highspeed was down one night so I ended up playing the single player campaign on veteran and got a few new achievements for beating the first 3 acts:

Aside from that multiplayer I now have every golden gun aside from the sniper rifle with max level… but wait.. Just CoD4? Surely not? That’s right… I have access to the Call of Duty 5 multi-player beta! While I’m reading a lot of negative reviews (and the tanks are a waste of space alongside of a few bugs being there.. hey it is a beta) I have had a blast playing through it. I can’t wait to see what the final product is like as if the bugs are fixed it will be a good time.

In the realm of websites and projects I changed the title format on this blog a bit, while posts about me will still be titled after whatever song is stuck in my head at the moment (or something that fits with the post) any reviews that I do will have it’s own post title with a Review: Name format. Why? Because I felt like it that’s why!

Onto other things my friend Matt Rotroff has been wanting to start a project with me for quite some time now and we finally came to having one that we both liked: The Shiny Swine. (Now by both liked I do mean that I was procrastinating on us getting something going and hey we’re doing this. Hey I just bought the domain. Hey I setup hosting. Hey the site’s up we’re gonna do it now. Right now. So… good for him on knowing I was busy and procrastinating!) Basically it’s a site of cool things that you can buy or read about online that is overall entertaining… oh yes.. and bacon. MMM bacon. We’re trying for multiple daily updates on fun things around the ‘net and plan on keeping it going for as long as we’re able!

Onto other things with a new AOM extender that I have access to I revamped The Wii Addict. For those of you that don’t know The Wii Addict is one of my trial amazon affiliate stores that’s just fun to have running. also I picked up the domain Retailiphone.com on the cheap and setup an ipod site because.. well.. the new script I was playing around with had an ipod setup already so why not run with it?

Finished reading Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman. This is the 22nd novel in the Alex Delaware series, about a child psychologist who had been enlisted to help the LAPD by his friend Milo Sturgis. One would think that a series 22 books in by the same author would get old and repetitive? Not the case at all! The characters have been been being developed over the years in a masterful style that keeps you not only interested in the characters but feverishly tearing through the pages to see what happens.

In Compulsion, a murderer is apparently randomly killing people while using expensive cars. It’s very vague and the evidence linking everything together doesn’t give any idea of a suspect and barely ties the cases together. Milo and Alex of course find the thread curious enough to follow and it leads them to a great end that ties everything together. As the investigation continues the body count starts to add up with ‘possibly’ other murders being connected to this one. When the end comes though there is no dues ex here and the hints actually allow you to get an idea of who the killer is before the final act comes to a close. My main fault with Kellerman’s previous novels is that I could barely guess ahead of time who the murderer is and this time we have suspects which end up giving you the ability to think it through. (Not a real fault as I’m obviously addicted to the books being 22 in and still buying them! You usually get enough of a hint 3/4th of the way through but this is the first that you could start making serious guesses 1/4th in.) The problem with writing on any murder/mystery is you can’t really go into details without starting to give away key ones and I know at least 2 of the people who follow this blog are fans of the series.

The subplot in the novel felt a bit under developed and there was low character development between Alex and woman he loves (Robin) however you do get so sucked in by the main plot that these are really much room for the usual subplots to get fleshed out. More than worth picking up if you follow the series. If you don’t, do yourself a favor: Buy the first one and read through it!

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If you were to watch one action movie this year. If you needed to see one sequel that defied logic in it’s awesomeness. If you wanted one more continuation of a series that didn’t go straight to DVD and had all of the original cast in it… than Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior is.. NOT the movie for you.

I’ll be honest, the first movie was sub par at best but The Rock at least made it entertaining in his trying to be a serious action star after being a wrestler kind of way. While it was horrible it at least had a plot that made sense (if not at all fitting with his tie in in the Mummy Returns.) It wasn’t a GOOD plot but it made sense. They did take the idea of having a wrestler attempting to be an action star in it though! The ‘villian’ of the movie was also an ex-wrestler. (Honestly I guessed at this and had to check IMDB to verify that.) Rise of a Warrior seemed to take basic important information from The Scorpion King, ignore it, spit on it, take a few plot lines and remake them so the younger version of the future king followed, and ended up making NO sense in the continuation of the universe.

I feel bad for the lead actress in this as she was actually cute and probably could have worked her way up through B horror movies to land a few successful acting gigs but no one will probably want to touch her after the travesty of this ‘movie.’

Oh yes the plot. It’s the story of our future Scorpion King becoming a warrior (which in this society are apparently called scorpions..), avenging the murder of his father, and fighting a wrestler that tricks a demoness into giving him power which he uses to turn himself into a giant CGI scorpion ghost thing that doesn’t really do that much.

If your in the movie for a borderline C movie with OK special effects (until the scorpion at the end..) sure, pick this one up. Honestly though this was 109 minutes of my life wasted. “ONE” good thing did come from this though:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1104123/board/nest/115298083

This thread is a GREAT read.

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There’s been a lot of Zombie related stuff passing through my BuyZombie e-mail as of late that has just been heads up on neat stuff!

To start with there is a lego building convention every year called BrickCon which had a Zombie theme this year. I was originally linked to The Brother’s Brick page to find out all of the details on it and WOW .. you just need to check out their flickr set of Zombie Apocafest 2008 for all of the pictures! Awesome! I commend all of the people who still have time to creatively play with toys since, well, I don’t. There really are a ton of well done sets there and I highly suggest checking out the entire flickr gallery.

Onto other things, this is one I did post about but I thought was creative enough to share. Being the season of horror (or pumpkin eating, or candy gorging, or..) what better way to share the spirit of season online than with an ecard? Let’s face it we’re all lazy. This one is with a twist though as it is a zcard! You can actually have it show a picture of whoever (you, the friend your sending it to, a mutual friend, whoever! be creative!) being eaten by a zombie in a fun little animation. It’s worth checking out over here if interested.

Apparently the Colbert Report had a special on the top 5 dangers to the United States.. and you just KNOW what made #1 on the list. (*Deep breath* I hate Hulu. I hate Hulu. I hate Hulu. Why isn’t this streamed somewhere else?) Awesome watch after the ads and buffering

What post is complete without a LOL cat?

My inbox at BZ is far too fun sometimes.

I’ve been running a bit dry on watching horror / apocalyptic end of the world styled films so when Doomsday came in I couldn’t help but be sure to put it at the top of the list of what I needed to see next. While not a zombie movie I was hoping this would temporarily get the job done and fill my want for the genre. This is the first film I’ve watched directed by Neil Marshall so I wasn’t fully sure what to expect, however I wasn’t disappointed (until about 3/4th of the way through but.. I’ll get to that.) The future is hell in Britain as the country has been ravaged by a plague that forced them to seal off half of the country behind walls to stop it from killing off the entire population. This has helped lead the country to be cut off from the rest of the world to avoid spreading the infection and society is slowly breaking down. Years have gone by and suddenly the plague is once more spreading throughout the nation. While there is no cure in sight apparently a select task force is assembled to enter the hot zone of the original outbreak of the virus and determine if a cure had been found as is a report of survivors beyond the wall.

The female lead played by Rhonda Mitra (who I’ve seen in a few movies though never with this type of a role) played a cop who is sent on a government mission to investigate of a cure to this virus was actually discovered by the apparent survivors. She did play the roll of a badass quite well and I hope to see her in more similar roles in the future. Sent in by her commander (Bob Hoskins.. who really needs to be in more movies in general.. and star as one of the characters in the upcoming Dune movie as Gurney Halleck if I had any say in the matter! Of course I don’t.. but a man can dream.) They battle through a band of cannibalistic ‘punks’ while investigating the lab of the lost scientist and rescue someone who claims that she can guide them to their goal. When they finally tracks down the scientist who was working on a cure (Poor Malcolm McDowell.. he’s only good for playing an insane villain these days!) all hell breaks loose. On a side note. The barely shown Prime Minister was played by “Doctor Bashir” of Deep Space 9. While I checked his IMDB I seriously don’t remember seeing him in any roll between the 2 (I haven’t finished Season 7 of 24 though so that would be why!)

While fight scenes occur between this special forces team and neo-cannibal biker punks and a civilization that has ‘formed’ based upon medieval principles (…what?!) I was still able to suspend most of my disbelief until a chase scene near the end of the movie. With what these ‘biker punks’ were driving compared to the Bentley our main hero just ‘happened’ to find… there is NO WAY they would have been able to keep up with her. I’m sorry she was in a Bentley… Really just… I had to suspend my disbelief for enough of the movie that I couldn’t ignore something that blatantly just did not make sense in ‘the real world.’ The ending… was just lame.

It’s a decent paced action movie and was fun to watch. If your looking for a sci-fi thriller that will give you something to think about, this is not it. If your looking for a movie with no plot holes, again not in. In the mood for a good weekend action flick though and you should enjoy this one. Just have to turn off your analyzing skills a bit while you watch it! (It was a fun movie just not if your going to over analyze it.)

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