The Thanos Imperative

Well I haven't enjoyed a comic this much in a long time. It is a near flawless example of how comics should be. Long story short (very short actually), due to constant galatic warfare the fabric of the universe has been damaged to a point where a tear into an alternate reality has opened. This is a reality where death has literally been destroyed and without death present life "has won". Which comes across as an overflowing universe full of many familiar faces but slight to extreme mutations. I guess with not even cellular death present you will get some weird growths. At the same time in the normal Marvel Universe, Thanos - the avatar of death has returned to life. He was romantically involved with the abstract of death who can appear in either typical skeleton form or female form. Anyway, looks like they broke up and he had to be sent back to the world of the living. He's not happy about it. Then there's these jerls of the universal church of truth who worship the weirdos from the cancerverse (where life has won) and through their sacrifice allow them to march right in and try to take the normal universe. The only thing that can stop them is the freak Thanos and their first goal is to find him so they can eliminate death in this universe also.

This story continues mainly out of what is the complete awesomeness that is The Guardians of the Galaxy. The center heroes are obscure enough that even seasoned comic book fans might never even have heard of them. And this is where things shine. Abnett and Lanning (the authors) have such great characterization that you immediatly like each character and care about what happens. When one character is a tree who can only say "I am Groot" and you actually want to see what happens to this guy and feel bad for him when he gets smashed is saying something. Then there's Rocket Raccoon, who may sound silly, but very quickly became one of my favourite parts. Then there's Star Lord, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Mantis, and others. Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a Guardians review. I'm sad to see that series end.

The Thanos Imperative is perfect for its exciting plot, loads of action and twists, great art, great dialogue and story pacing and anyone with even a passing interest in comics should read it. There's appearances by Silver Surfer and Galactus and who wouldn't like to travel the galaxy on a surf board? Serious. The only bad part is that it's over after 6 issues and Marvel has discontinued their cosmic line of comics.

I give it 5 creepy tentacle monsters out of 5.

Shutter Island

So after several people recommending this movie to me on account of me being a psychology major, I finally watched this movie.
-side note- I watched it from a 99 cent bootleg my mom bought illegally at some variety store where this old chinese guy pushes movies he burns onto his customers. My mom is a loyal customer.
I'm not going to give a plot summary, some people hate that whole spoiler thing and normally I have no problem doing it. Keep that in mind when reading reviews from time to time.
So everything starts with an investigation on an island where a facility for the criminally insane is set. A missing patient. Here's an island of psychopaths and all sorts of delusional creeps. It grows into an exploration of schizophrenia although I feel the need to point out that statisically speaking, schizophrenics are less likely to be violent than other demographics. It seems movies and media really like to use delusional schizophrenics are scary villians. But seeing as that can be good fiction I'll let it slide and not take away any points by perpetuating an incorrect stereotype.
What I like about this movie is the blurred line between reality and delusion that is only resolved in the final moments. It keeps you wondering what exactly is going on and who is true or false. My only complaint is that I expected one final twist in the end and didn't get it. I suppose keeping things within reality may be a better choice anyway. I was diggin the whole conspiracy thing.

I give it 4 Haldols out of 5

Popcorn Flavoured Jelly Bellies

Jelly Bellies can be a fun surprise. What's that orange on? Mango you say? oh ya, and how about the dark green ones or any shade of red? So good. But whats that white and yellow flavour? Banana? That could be good. Roasted marshmellow? Mmmmm. Perhaps some tropical concoction. Let's give it a try...

POPCORN!!!??? are you serious??!!! That is the most putred, vile thing I have ever eaten! I become like unto this pumpkin - just tossing my seeds in the lavatory. I would rather have the Harry Potter beans with ear wax and puke cause I'm going to end up with puke taste in my mouth anyway so I'd rather not add the sick popcorn flavour on top of it.

And that is why it is so important to eat Jelly Bellies one at a time. The popcorn flavour will over power any other flavour combination and send you straight to the seventh circle of hell.

I give it one half breath mint out of 5. (Half is the minimum I am allowed to give as a rating)

Super Mario Brothers 3

Don't lie, you've played this game. And everytime the card game or coin ship or mushroom house came along it totally made your day. But nothing was greater than getting in that goomba shoe and stomping on spikey guys. Possibly the hammer brother suit... no nothing was better than the shoe. Flying with a raccoon tail never seemed so plausible than it did here. Now theres another thing - who didn't have (or know someone who had) a raccoon tail in the early 90's? It was the procyonid hollocaust back then. Oh it was worth it though. I saw one once jump over a fence. See what I mean by plausible? of course you do.

Anyhow, Super Mario Brothers 3 gets 3 and a half giant land koopa's out of 5. (Lost a few points for the frikkin hard levels on world 7 that drove me crazy)

Ramly Burgers

Good luck finding these beauties outside Singapore or Malaysia. And they may very well be one of the greatest things you'll ever eat! Hold on just a second cause it sounds a little gross... cheap beef or chicken wrapped in a fried egg, add various toppings like baked beans, cabbage, carrot, hot sauce, mayo and cheese and a sprinkle of greasy love. Holy crap, I want one right now. Its been over 6 years since I've been in Malaysia and was able to chow down on this awesomeness. Gila! Gila I say! (ya, my Malay has grown weak)

If you ever find yourself wandering the streets of Ipoh, Perak at night, hope you find a Ramley burger stand and it will make your life complete. I give it 4 and half pepto bismols out of 5.

Marvel Civil War

This is several years old now but I got thinking about it the other day. This is what generated my current interest in comic books, which at times I think can be a vastly under-rated medium of literature and other times... not so good. It's a big hit or miss industry. Anyway, here's is my quick synopsis. Imagine a world where people have super powers, sometimes not very nice people. Super villians obviously. Sometimes it's well meaning people who doesn't have good self control or judgement. This describes many of the protagonists in Marvel comics. Specifically the New Warriors in this story. They start up a reality show about catching super villians. One of these villians, Nitro, ends up blowing up and entire neighbourhood while defending himself. Hundreds dead as a result. (Interesting commentary on reality tv there) The government and people want more control over the actions of super powered individuals and soon it becomes law for everyone with any super human ability to register with the government and go through a training program. This splits the Marvel heroes into two opposing political groups and is where this story gets into some deeper messages.

A very basic philosophical concept of freedom is the major theme throughout this storyline. That is "freedom to" vs "freedom from". In the story we have the pro-registration side supporting "freedom from" the harm that unqualified and/or dangerous super powered beings cause whether intentional or collateral damage. The opposition is supportive of the "freedom to" privacy basically. Both sides can be seen as the protagonist here but some writers clearly show a bias towards the opposition unfortunetly.

This brings up many current political issues of freedom. Freedom isn't the ability to do whatever you want. To take an extreme, if I want the freedom to kill someone then I must give up my own freedom from being killed. (Since as a society attempting to build equal rights what one person is allowed must be applied to the others within that society. But thats getting onto a tangent) Freedoms are sometimes mutually exclusive. Thus, freedom to and freedom from are sometimes polar opposites and both cannot be satisfied. Now we can all agree that freedom from being murdered is a freedom we want. So we have made freedom to murder against the law. We don't want to be robbed so we as a society have made laws against stealing. But freedoms are not always so easy to agree upon. Think about the different political issues today. Legalizing marijuana (freedom to smoke weed vs. freedom from the effects of it) for example. It seems to me that after periods of prosperity, the "freedoms to" are pushed more than the "freedoms from". As we feel safe (due to our freedoms from) we want allowance to do a wider range of behaviours without legal interferance. The 60's was a good example, following the safety of the conservative 50's. After hard times, it is the freedoms from that recieve a greater push. See also the conservative 50's after World War 2. Discussion over which type of freedom is more important can obviously get very heated and depends greatly on perspective. I think of George Orwells book 1984. In that world, a great war has occured and the following society is almost completely based on "freedom from" so much that people don't have the "freedom to" be themselves or to really do anything. It's an extreme. The opposite view would be complete anarchy if we had all the "freedom to" that there could be.

Moderation in all things. Finding a balance between freedoms will be an ongoing battle. That brings me back to Marvel Civil War. Go read it. There's good character moments, great art and a thought provoking between the lines story about personal freedoms that can be related to everyone.

Welcome to Random Reviews

I was going to write things like this on the sollywoods.blogspot page but then I felt I should save that for the adventures of Mrs.Sollywood and myself. Oh and trust me, the adventures will come! I mean, we almost went to South Korea and I would have ended that entire conflict by now if we had. Too bad we'll never know... but go there to find out about all that madness. Welcome to Random Reviews! (because alliteration makes everything better and who doesn't use the word random out of context these days?)

I found this sign when I searched random on google