This is Halloween. This is Halloween.

I'm not that big of a Halloween guy, I have nothing against Halloween and on occassion I do enjoy taking part in the custom, but it just wasn't that big of a holiday for me growing up, in fact I think my best memories as a kid is getting to watch all the Halloween specials on TV, I mean yeah I went trick r treating a couple of times and that was a lot of fun, but I really don't remember it all too well. And of course when I was a teenager I went to Halloween parties and I went as a bloody doctor (that's bloody as in blood not the British adjective). But...yeah Halloween just isn't a thing for me, I don't have many fond memories of Halloween nor do I particularly look forward to it, the only reason why I'm talking about it is because it's Halloween and I feel like you have to dedicate a post to it. In fact I really don't think anyone cares about Halloween anymore, I went into a shop a few days ago that had already taken down their Halloween decorations in favour of Christmas and I saw an old man yell at them saying "It's October, you daft fucks!"so you know, that'll be a treasured memory.

-Danny

Walk.

Walking is underrated. My best memories of summer when I was at school and for most people always start with the same activity, walking. Whether it be walking down to the lake, the beach, the arcade or wherever the hell you hung out with your friends during the summer, it always involves you walking somewhere, but you almost never get that during the winter time, people always want to drive everywhere because it's way too cold to walk places. And more often than not the actual walking to places is where me and my friends would get the most talking done and we'd learn things about each other that we never knew. Walking is also a great place for epiphanies, how many times has someone been upset about something and said "I'm going for a walk" so they can think about their problems, they don't have a destination except to eventually end up back where they started but while walking they can think about their problems. I think this is probably where the whole "it's not about the destination, it's about the journey" phrase came from, so many things can be learnt while simply going for a walk, whether it be with friends or by yourself. And more so, walking really lets you sink in where you are and the beauty around you, driving past a place you only get a second to enjoy your surroundings, but walking you can really take it all in and admire it properly. A walk can change everything, you can learn something you never knew, you could have a life changing conversation in the time it takes you to get to your destination, really, never underestimate the power of a walk, because a walk can change everything.

-Danny

Supernatural, Sam is an idiot

I am a big fan of Supernatural, and one of the biggest draws for me are the two main characters Sam & Dean Winchester, who frankly are one of the best duos in TV for me, however if I did have to pick a favourite it would be Dean, not only is he the braver and more heroic one but also he doesn't make nearly as many dumb decisions as Sam. Now don't get me wrong, I really like Sam, but i'm not gonna pretend like the guy hasn't made some stupid-ass decisions in his time that often have me yelling at the character. Let's take the season 4 finale for instance, Sam has a choice to make on who to trust; Dean, his brother who has saved his life countless times and always has his back and would be willing to do anything for him and has helped him save the world on several occassions. Or Ruby, a demon with a shady past and got Sam addicted to drugs and has been trying to put a wedge between the brothers...guess whose side he picked? And guess what happened? Ruby betrayed him! What a shock! A demon turned out to be a bad guy! Or how about in season 5 where they needed a way to send Satan back to hell and Sam came up with the brilliant idea of letting Lucifer take control of him and then Sam sacrificing himself and suicide bomb himself into hell, that was a smart idea! And they go along with it! And of course, it doesn't work! Because the devil is pretty damn powerful! You would have thought that someone who hunts demons for a living would know that! But know! Godammit Sam! Get your head in the game!

-Danny

It's just for kids!

Continuing my rant on people's views on children products (Don't worry this won't become a thing), I am now going to talk about the argument "it's just for kids!". This of course normally refers to things like kids' TV shows, kids' movies, etc. And whenever someone would have the balls to critisize them and people just say "it's meant for kids!". Now look, I am a 19 year old man who I'm not going to lie, I enjoy watched these type of things, I watch Gravity Falls and Adventure Time because I remember watching the shows I grew up with and I still love them to this day, hell I still think some of them are fantastic shows, so I know it's entirely possible that there could be a hidden gem amongst shows of today. I also enjoy watching kids movies, like this year alone The LEGO Movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2 are some of my favourite films of the year. And yes I will critisize shows and movies meant for kids if I think they are bad products or if they have glaring issues, and the worst argument you can hear in retort is "it's meant for kids!" which roughly translates to "it's allowed to be bad!". No. No it is not. If kids' entertainment can provide us with great films like Toy Story and Beauty & The Beast then we can also critisize the bad ones like The Smurfs of Quest for Camelot. Now being a kids film does allow for some room to allow problems go through, they are often quite short so if a film has rushed exposition then I can let that go, or even if there are things in the film that aren't explained but don't instantly contradict the film or leave a giant gap in the plot then that's fine too. I don't need an explanation on how Elsa got her powers or why she can make dresses and bring snow to life with it, I can leave that simply at "it's magic, bitch!".

And also people seem to forget that these products are made by adults, with brains, so if they make an obviously stupid mistake then I'm going to call them out on it (Despicable Me is cliched & predictable!), and when they do something smart and take their audience seriously then I will applaud them for it (Hotel Transylvania took a tired cliche and did something smart with it!). The master of this was obviously Don Bluth, who always said you can make your film as dark and serious as you want and kids will be fine as long as there's a happy ending. And that is true, but more so than that, it' the films that take us seriously as kids are the ones that we come back to in the end. Toy Story has stuck around for two decades because it's a damn good story with well written characters, Shrek keeps us engaged for it's unique take on a tired old moral and has a lot of hidden adult jokes in it. The Lion King still has fans because as we get older we have a new found respect for the beautiful animation and its timeless message and characters. It's the films and shows that took us seriously that we remember and hold closest to our hearts, and these type of products do still exist these days so if me or thousands of other adults want to enjoy them then we shall, enjoy living in your outdated views.

-Danny

"Kids today and their damn iPhone!" - The hypocrisy of a generation

The whole "kids these days" argument is as old as time, the previous generation will always find something wrong with the current generation. And one of the biggest arguments made against kids of today is that they all have phones and tablets and other expensive gizmos. "What the hell do they need an iPad for!?" well let's see, it plays games, music, can watch movies, a whole lot of things that kids enjoy. "But why buy something so expensive for a kid!?" oh right because raising a child doesn't cost anything and i'm sure your parents never bought you anything costly when you were a kid like a Gameboy or Playstation..."But I never needed anything like an iPhone when I was a kid" NO. You didn't have one not because you didn't need one, but because they didn't fucking exist. If iPhones and iPads existed back when you were a kid of course you would have fucking wanted one, you'd be begging your parents to buy you one for christmas. "Honestly, life for kids these days is so easy" oh right so you want children to suffer? Isn't the whole point of being on this planet to make life easier for the next generation? Because if I ever have kids then I would like life to be easy for them because they're children you sadistic bastard. What I find the strangest element about this argument is it's always people between the ages 18-40 complaining about this kind of stuff, never old people, you know why? Because old people are smart enough now that they've realised that each generation is going to have luxuries that the previous generation didn't. This generation it's iPhones, the one before that was game consoles, before that it was the computer and before that it was television and before that it was the lack of a threat of global catastrophe. So whenever you complain about kids having things that you didn't just remember how childish you sound.

-Danny

Will This Ever Stop?

Yesterday was my 4 month anniversary of starting this blog, that means that everyday for four months I have posted something on here, whether it be short or long, positive or negative, insightful or arbitrary, I have always had something to talk about. And sure sometimes I struggle to come up with something, in fact on several occassions I've made a post just for the sake of making a post without any real subject in mind. But then comes the question, how long will I do this for? When will I decide to stop producing posts for this blog? After all coming up with a different subject each day isn't always easy, isn't there going to come a day when I run out of subjects entirely? Well, not neccesarily, after all I made this blog so I could talk about literally everything, even though the majority of my posts are about the media in someway or another I'm not limited to that, if I wanted to talk about something serious then I could, or if I want to talk about something from my personal life or even something completely pointless with no connection to anything then I will, because I can. So even if I never run out of topics, will I ever stop doing the blog? Well, I started this thing on a whim, I thought to myself "Gee, what if I started a blog where I could talk about whatever the fuck I wanted?" So I did, I made a blog, I write on it everyday and if I ever want to stop doing this, then i'll stop, and if I ever want to return then i'll return. Of course if I do ever stop then I'll actually make an announcement, not that it matters, I really only write these for myself. So...yeah, here's hoping that I can keep this up for a very long time, or at least long enough for people to give a damn.

-Danny

Alright Let's Talk About DC Already

Incase you've been living under a rock for the past week, DC/Warner Bros. have announced their movie line-up from 2016-2020 (Jesus i'll be in my mid-20's by the time they've finished). Anyway, they've got a ton of movies coming out and here's my opinion on all of them.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
I've already discussed this in a previous blog post, all I can say is I am very much excited for this film, the biggest problems with Man of Steel was the script and the cinematography; well, we've got a new writer and a new director of photography so we got that mess cleaned up! Also apart from that...it's Batman & Superman on screen together...of course I'm fucking excited I grew up with these people! Not to mention it is heavily influenced by The Dark Knight Returns, one of the greatest Batman stories ever told. So yeah, Batman V Superman on March 25 2016 (Side Note: I actually like the fact that it's not a summer movie, you don't all need to compete in the box office people!).

The Suicide Squad
I wouldn't blame ya if you don't know who these people are, basically imagine The Expendables but with C-list DC Villains (And a couple of B-Listers). Now I don't care about Suicide Squad, hell I even skipped the episode of Arrow with them from how much I don't care. I mean I guess it'll be cool to see an R-rated supervillain movie but...why do it this early? Seriously? Suicide Squad gets a movie before Wonder Woman or The Flash?...Suicide Squad!? The only thing that has peaked my interest is finally getting a live action Harley Quinn, but there are rumours that she might not even be in it, in which case What's The Fucking Point!? You really think anyone is going to see this movie for Captain Boomerang? That's not a supervillain, that's a cereal mascot! But oh well, it comes out August 5 2016, I'm obviously going to see it but...really? Suicide Squad?

Wonder Woman
I feel kinda bad for Wonder Woman, she's an important member of the Justice League and completes the trio of her, Batman & Superman, and while Superman has a total of 6 films to his name and Batman has 8; this will be Wonder Woman's first movie! And on top of that she's been played by Gal Gadot, though to be fair we haven't seen her in action yet, who knows, she might be good. All I can say is It's About Fucking Time! Honestly, Suicide Squad got a movie before Wonder Woman, when this film comes out June 23 2017 you bet I'll go see it opening day!

Justice League Pt. 1
Christ i've only just started university, by the time this film comes out i'll have finished...superhero movies need to stop freaking me out! Anyway, as you can see the title is Part One, this is because supposedly Justice League will be split into two movies, the second one coming out two years later (I'll be 23...someone get me a paper bag!). So yeah, I grew up with Justice League, so of course I'm looking forward to this...but only if they play the theme song from the cartoon, that shit is awesome. November 12 2017.

The Flash
The Flash is one of my favourite DC characters, in fact I'm kinda going back n forth over him and Batman over who is my favourite character, and the current Flash TV show starring Grant Gustin, despite only being several episodes in, is all kinds of awesome, so this film has a lot to live up to. Now it has been confirmed that Ezra Miller has been cast in the film, HOWEVER, people have instantly jumped to him being The Flash, because obviously you would name your main actor first, but so far nothing is confirmed on who he is playing, and being honest, I don't want him to play The Flash. Now don't get me wrong, Ezra Miller is a fantastic actor, I just can't see him as The Flash, why? Because he looks too threatening. I can see him as Nightwing or Jason Todd but Flash? No. Then again it is rumoured that they will be doing the Wally West Flash rather than Barry Allen, but this doesn't really matter to me, I just don't see him as The Flash, which will be released March 23 2018.

Aquaman
A lot of people have taken the piss out of Aquaman, he's been the punchline to everyone's joke, which I have never really gotten because Aquaman is a badass, don't believe me? Read the Geoff Johns comics, or play Injustice: God's Among Us or watch Justice League or actually expose yourself to any Aquaman content rather than assume he sucks just because everyone else says so! Not to mention he's being played by Khal Drogo himself, Jason Mamoa, and I dare you to look at that guy and call him a pussy. Aquaman comes out July 27 2018 and I am looking forward too it.

Shazam
It's currently unconfirmed whether or not Shazam will take place in the DC Cinematic Universe, all we know is Dwayne Johnson is Black Adam, and hey, it was gonna happen sooner or later that The Rock would play a superhero/villain. Here's hoping they get a good kid actor and adult actor to play Shazam (Think the movie 'Big' but with super powers). Honestly I just wanna see someone shout "SHAZAM!" and get hit by lightning, it's fucking badass. Shazam is released April 5 2019.

Justice League Pt. 2
The second part of this Justice League franchise, although having two movies inbetween is weird, I am very curious on how all of this is going to play out. But nevertheless, I am excited, and here's hoping that this means we will get either Doomsday or Darkseid on the big screen finally. Justice League Part 2 comes out June 14 2019 (Seriously, I could be married/have kids when this film comes out...I mean it's unlikely seeing as i'll be 23 but it's possible!).

Cyborg
Here's the movie that no one asked for but apparently we're getting, Cyborg. I'm just kidding about of course, I love Cyborg, I grew up on Teen Titans so obviously I'm a big fan of the guy, but I dunno, a whole movie to himself? He was never the standout member of the Teen Titans or the Justice League, he's always more of a team player. Also the fact that the actor Ray Fischer has done literally one thing before getting cast is unnerving. However, whether or not I like this movie all comes down to one thing, above all else, after Cyborg has done something badass, I want him, just once in the whole movie to just go "...Booyah!". Cyborg comes out April 3 2020.

Green Lantern
And at the very end of it all, we have Green Lantern...can't believe it took him this long to get his own movie. But he did get a movie back in 2011 starring Ryan Reyno--SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! We Do Not Talk About That! Sorry...So very little is known about this film, is it gonna be a Hal Jordan reboot? Or are we going straight to Jon Stewart? Don't know, Don't care, all I care about is the casting, Nathan Fillion for Hal Jordan or Idris Elba for Jon Stewart, I don't care if they'll be in their 50's when the movie comes out, if RDJ can do it then so can they! Green Lantern will be released June 19 2020.

So then those were my quick thoughts on all of the DC Film line-ups, are all of them going to be released in the way planned? Probably not, afterall Justice League was supposed to come out in 2015, how'd that turn out for them? Fact is, the industry changes so DC is gonna have to change along with them, comic book movies are different now from where they were a decade ago so I'm sure they'll be different entirely in 2020, so who knows if all of these actually come to fruition. Enjoy the oversaturation of superheroes for the next 6 years...I'm gonna be 25 by the time they finish all these films...*Screams internally*.

-Danny

HATRED: Is it going too far?

You often see the subject of videogame violence in the mainstream media a lot, I'm surprised this game hasn't made them lose their shit. Hatred is a upcoming shooter where the main goal is playing this emo Kiss member wannabee who is on a "genocidal crusade" to kill as many innocent civilians as possible, being developed by Destructive Creations(...) you can imagine this game has caused a lot of controversy amongst the gaming community, asking the question "is this going too far?". In my opinion, yes, yes it is, now let me make something clear I don't mind violence in videogames, in fact I often play violent videogames, but there needs to be a point, there needs to be a reason for why we are being so violent, whether it be a deep and complex metaphor or just simply survival of the fittest, without a reason then it is just violence for the sake of being violent. Let's take Grand Theft Auto for example, a videogame that is often criticized for its violent nature, and yes, even killing civilians, but what makes Grand Theft Auto different from Hatred are several things. One: The killing in GTA is unrealistic; can you honestly say that the deaths and reactions from GTA are accurate to what would happen in the real world? No it's over the top and kind of corny. Two: You get punished, if you kill someone then the police come after you, the more you kill the more police come for you, it acknowledges that what you're doing is a bad thing and should probably avoid it. And Three: It's a satire, this is what a lot of non-GTA players have never actually realised about GTA is that the entire thing is just one big satire, it mocks the third person shooter, it mocks how seriously some games and cultures take these things, even more so it's pretty cartoony and unrealistic in its world that you're not supposed to take it seriously. Hatred on the other hand doesn't have a reason to kill apart from he hates humanity, which is already a pretty deplorable moral view for our protagonist, but maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, maybe it'll be like The Last of Us where the point is to disagree with our protagonist and violence will be used as a narrative to express the darkness and depravity of humanity and what makes us human...but considering that the developers are called "Destructive Creations" I have my doubts about that. Honestly this seems like just another Manhunt, just a sick game with no purpose other than to fulfil someone's disgusting fantasies and damage the name of gamers (though with Gamergate we're doing a pretty good job of doing that ourselves).

-Danny

Why Do People Hate Predatorssszzzzzzzzz?

Predators is the 2010 sequel to the classic action film Predator, however while the original Predator took place in an Earth Jungle and was a squad of soldiers being hunted by a single Predator, the sequel takes place on an entirely new planet and is a group of Predators hunting down a group of the deadliest humans from Earth. Now this film is nothing special, though to be perfectly honest I didn't think the original Predator was anything special up until the last 30 minutes. This film however had memorable and distinct characters (simplistic but distinct) as well as some fun action and nice production design behind it, and not to mention a lot of callbacks to the original Predator. However a lot of fans of the original were not fans of this film, I mean granted it has its problems but nothing overall that made it shit, I still think it has a lot of fun stuff about it, so why do fans of Predator hate it so much? The only real thing that I can notice is a distinct lack of Arnie. I mean don't get me wrong, I love me some Arnie as much as the next guy but I mean, a Predator movie without him isn't exactly a deal breaker (Like a Terminator movie is). And granted Adrian Brody isn't the most...enthusiastic of actors but again, I don't think he did a bad job, is he as good as Arnie? Fuck no. But really, things are quite backwards with this film, I would have thought that fans of Predator would have enjoyed it and non-fans would have hated it, but it's surprisingly backwards. Oh well, at least there's one thing we all agree on...AVP: Requiem was a peace of shit.

-Danny

Orange is the New Black First Impressions

So I just started watching Orange is the New Black and I'm currently half a dozen episodes in...Where have you been all my life!?

-Danny

So Naruto is Ending...That Kinda Sucks

Naruto was a manga first published in 1999 and the anime series began in 2002 and on the 10th of November 2014 the manga will come to an end. Now even though this was announced a couple of weeks ago it has taken me this long to actually have my thoughts collected on this topic, on one hand, I am so glad that it's coming to an end, the arc that it is currently in, when it started I thought to myself "alright so Naruto's probably coming to an end soon"...that was in 2011. That is how long it has taken this series to end, so when this news was announced that it's ending in a couple weeks my first thought was "it's about time!" especially seeing as though I still keep up with it on a weekly basis, I just really don't care anymore and just want it to end already. But then a thought occured to me...I used to love Naruto, when I was 12 I was obssessed with the series, I absolutley loved it and couldn't get enough of it, it has a special place in my heart as being one of the anime that got me deeply into anime, and manga, I think this was the first manga series that I ever bought. And all the classic Naruto episodes still get to me, I love the characters, the creative action, the music, the stories, the animation, I remember Naruto being really really good. So now...I don't know how to feel about Naruto leaving. Sad because of the nostalgia of the series? Or happy that they're finally putting down a series that has gone on long enough? It's like a post I did a while ago about The Simpsons when that finally leaves, it's just hard to imagine a world without them...oh well, at least we still have One Piece.

-Danny

Don't Tell Me About The Pineapple!

Often considered to be one of the best episodes of How I Met Your Mother is season one's The Pineapple Incident (fun fact: for the longest time this was the shows highest rated season up until the last season). And one of the reasons why is because as Marshall puts it "Dammit Trudy what about the pineapple!?". If you're confused, basically the episode revolves around Ted waking up with no memory from the night before when he got drunk, and there are two things unordinary that he finds when he wakes up, a woman in his bed and a pineapple; we later find out that the woman is named Trudy, but the pineapple remains a mystery, throughout the entire episode we never find out where the pineapple came from but not only that, we never find out where the pineapple comes from for the rest of the show. And this was a show that always made callbacks and references to previous moments, and for a moment as popular as the pineapple to never get a resolution on where it came from is quite a big deal, but they said in the episode "we never did find out where that pineapple came from" and I'm happy about that, I'm perfectly fine with never finding out where the pineapple came from. However, a few weeks ago, people were posting all about the revelation of where the pineapple came from and the mystery was finally explained. Now I don't know if this was an official statement by someone from the show or if it's just a complicated fan theory simply because I didn't read any of the articles. I don't want to know what happened to the pineapple that lead to it being placed in Ted's bedroom, after all, it's a Classic Schmoesby moment, why ruin it with the truth?

-Danny

My Favourite Characters - Wallace

This one isn't anything deep or complex or anything, Wallace is a character I love simply because he's funny...that's it, he doesn't have many layers to him, he's just funny, in fact, he's more than that, he is really really funny. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is one of my all time favourite comedies and Wallace is the funniest character in the film, and considering how many funny characters are in this film, that's saying something. Wallace is Scott's gay and often passive roommate who really doesn't seem to have a care in the world, all he does is sleep with dudes and make fun of everyone else. You know how often the supporting character is the one you end up loving more than the main character? Wallace is one of those characters, he has so many lines that me and my friends are constantly quoting "Look out! It's that one guy!" "Kick her in the balls!" "Uh you know what, he just left". The dude is friggin' hilarious, but in fact he almost has no purpose in the movie, he doesn't have his own arc to go through, he only interacts with a handful of characters and whenever he's present during the big set pieces he's always just the guy on the sidelines heckling everyone, and really, sometimes that's all you need. I will say probably the most "complex" thing about him is that he really doesn't act like your stereotypical gay character, in fact, when they first said he was gay I thought it was just a joke, but nope, he's actually gay, so props to the writers for giving the world a hilarious and gay character that doesn't just rely on stereotypes in order to get some good comedy out of him, in fact a lot of his jokes don't rely on him being gay, I mean yeah there are jokes about him sleeping around with other dudes but I feel like 80-90% of them could easily be made if he was sleeping around with women instead. So Wallace really is a unique character and easily one the funniest characters I've ever seen.

How I Budget

I have been budgeting myself since I was 15, of course back then it was just simply buying fun shit that I could afford, but now that I'm at university I actually have to pay for real things like food and other things that you need to live and stuff. Now I normally budget myself on a monthly basis and I get income from student loan and some cash from the folks so I budget myself at about £500 a month, and I split that off into £200 food £200 fun stuff and £100 emergency cash and currently I am halfway through October and I have spent all of my fun stuff money (and probably gonna spend more) but I'm just under halfway through my food money so what I've come to learn is that I need to better budget myself when it comes to fun things but when it comes to food, I seem to be doing alright, that being said I feel like I need to introduce different types of food into my diet because ever since I got to university I realise that I don't have enough variety and have been eating a lot of meat so i need to try and balance that out with carbohydrates and vitamins and other shit that you need to live, while before I would just eat whatever my family would buy me, in the past month i've only had one bar of chocolate, so i've cut down on junk food, that's nice, although I do have a cook book for students that I am yet to use, so I should probably get on with that. Overall my biggest issue seems to be fun stuff, need to take better care of the fun stuff.

-Danny

Well, I Saw My First Christmas Lights

You always hear about people complain about shops selling Christmas stuff way too early, in fact it seems to get earlier and earlier every year, well I just saw someone take it one step furthur. Within my block of flats someone has already put up Christmas decorations...it's October! Selling them is one thing but putting them up is a completley different level of pointless. I don't care how much you love Christmas there is no way you're in the Christmas mood already, the weather is shit, it's chilly but not cold enough to create frost so it rains all the time and looks damn right miserable, no one is playing Christmas music, there's nothing Christmassy on TV and if you watch a Christmas film then people will tell you it's bad luck still, it is impossible to get in the Christmas mood, hell we haven't even gotten past Halloween yet! Seriously guy, there's a time and a place and this just isn't it, stop decking the halls, it is not the season of jolly just yet and the nights are very loud, do you know it's not Christmas time? Like. At all?

-Danny

P.S. Those were all Christmas puns at the end by the way for those of you who think I sound like a lunatic.

Jesus Christ Are Sarkeesian Haters Crazy!

This is no longer an argument on sexism in the gaming world people, this has expanded into "seriously what the fuck is wrong with you people?" territory. I mean granted things were already pretty fucked up before by ways of people sending death/rape threats to a woman for committing the heinous crime of...talking about games on the internet. Now I've always said I admire Sarkeesian for her ideals and the fact that she is definitely making an impact but I've always felt that her methods have always come across as though she is attacking gamer culture, a culture that I often associated myself with. But now holy fuck have things gotten out of control to the point where I'm beginning to feel ashamed to call myself a gamer! If you're confused about what I'm talking about, Anita Sarkeesian was supposed to give a talk at a university until the university received an anonymous message from a student saying that if she gave that talk then the university would experience "the deadliest school shooting in American history"...this is a woman that talks about games...games!! Now I have always said that videogames are important to me and are a important and influential part of our culture but I mean positively influences our culture! Not threaten to kill people over something as simple as textures on a screen! Now it's unknown if the threat is legit or it's just another butthurt fanboy who's all bark and no bite but that doesn't really matter, because at this point I think I'm more in favour of Sarkeesian than I am against her because no way in hell do I want to be associated with psycho maniacs who think that a person deserves to be killed or assaulted simply because she said something bad about A FUCKING GAME! So what if she says she doesn't like Bayonetta, does she deserve to die for that? (If anyone actually says yes then you are a fucked up person no matter who you are). Look this is the peak of harassment in the gaming industry, we're at the point where women getting harassed in this industry can't get any worse, mostly because if it does get any worse then it becomes more than harassment, it becomes something much worse. So if there are any hardcore Sarkeesian haters reading this or anyone that has ever sent a threat to someone for disagreeing with you over a GAME(!!!!!!!) please, I am begging you...shut the fuck up. Seriously. Shut-the-fuck-up. You are not helping your cause in anyway you're just making yourselves look like cunts and in fact you are causing the general public to support the argument opposed to yours, great job there guys(!). All I can say is I hope this all blows over soon without any permanent consequences and we can all go back to loving videogames except this time with maybe some more women around, is that such a bad thing? (Again if you said yes then you're fucked up).

-Danny

Captain America Vs Iron Man

By now you've probably heard the rumours about Captain America 3 but if you haven't, i'll fill you in: There is a RUMOUR going around that in Captain America 3 they will be using the civil war storyline from the comics, where basically the government decides that all superheroes have to be registered as an official government agent and give up their secret identities, now a lot of superheroes like Spider-Man and the X-Men are against this while others like Iron Man are all for it, and at the centre of this conflict is Captain America leading the anti-registration and Iron Man leading the pro-registration which of course leads to the titular civil war between the two parties. It's a very interesting story and one of the best storylines from the past decade from Marvel so I definitely say pick it up. Now this would be a big thing for the movies to do, especially seeing as there would have to be a lot of changes seeing as Marvel don't own the rights to Spider-Man so they can't use him, or the X-Men...or Fantastic Four, in fact they're missing a lot of characters; and not to mention the current Avengers line up don't really have secret identities, everyone knows Tony Stark is Iron Man and Steve Rodgers is Captain America, there isn't much secrecy to it so lord knows how they're gonna talk it. So yes, if Marvel do this then Captain America 3 will see Captain America Vs Iron Man (And DC thought CA3 was competition before). Now, I am all for this being a real thing, except here's my problem people, IT-IS-A-RUMOUR!!!! Nothing has been confirmed yet, there has just been reports and speculations but Marvel have not come out and said "yes, we are doing this" yet almost every single newsight is reporting is as IRON MAN IN CAPTAIN AMERICA 3!!!! When again, nothing is confirmed, I don't see why newsights feel the need to say it's confirmed, surely the rumour is enough to clickbait fools into checking out your website. After all the first website that I saw this posted on was Schmoesknow.com (Awesome website by the way) and they made it farely clear that nothing is set in stone just yet, but you know what, the rumour alone was enough for me to read the article and get me super excited, and the fact that I'm praising them for honest reporting is by giving them free marketing right here, I doubt it'll do much for them but it's the thought that counts, and because I know they're never going to put speculation as fact then I'm always going to check with them first for my movie news, most webites don't do that because they're entirely clickbait websites with no integrity to them. So remember folks, movie news is awesome, but always take it with a grain of salt, and news reporters? Grow some fucking balls.

-Danny

Is Juno A Generation Thing?

Juno is a movie that a lot of people have some strong opinions on, a lot of people see it as a masterly written movie that captured the voice of a generation that understood teenagers and the realistic manners that people behave; while others saw it as a quirky piece of crap that was trying to capture the voice of a generation but trying too hard and ended up failing; while other people thought that it was completely off and didn't capture the voice of a generation at all. So as you can see there is a variety here, and it all comes down to the same question, is Juno actually speaking for a generation of teens or is it just a quirky comedy that's trying too hard? Well I'd say neither are right, you can't just sum-up an entire generation as one group, especially teenagers who love to split themselves into their own little niche subcultures, the goths, the jocks, the nerds, etc. Obviously this movie isn't going to appeal to every single subculture of that generation, however I do feel that it successfully appeals to one subculture more than any and that would be what I refer to as "lite hipster" and by that I mean people who are into hipstery or quirky things but they're not into it ironically, they're into it simply because they like it. I'd say the film perfectly captures that group of people in a way that no other film has and does feel very genuine; and no it's not even that niche of a market because hipsters are cooler now than ever. I did a post a while back discussing what this generation's identity will be, and one point I made was that we made hipsters cool, everyone wants to be a hipster, but people didn't wanna be ironic about it, they just wanted to explore more of the indie scene, and I'd say this is one of the major subcultures of this generation. And that is the film's main demographic, and I'd say it captured it pretty successfully, afterall I saw this movie when I was 16 and absolutley loved it, I felt like these were people that I would hangout with in real life, and several years later my love for this film has only grown. So when people just write it off saying that it doesn't capture the voice of a generation, just keep in mind it doesn't capture your voice, and it doesn't try to be the film for an entire generation to enjoy, just a particular group of people. It's like the old saying goes, one man's trash is another man's hamburger phone...seriously that thing looked really cool.

-Danny

The Trio of Awesome

Every gamer of my generation played at the very least one of these guys, they were the games that everyone owned and for a lot of us they were our favourite games and might even still be, I know they are for me. And that trio would be Ratchet, Jak & Sly.

All three have become staple Playstation characters and their games have reached legendary status, hell for some of them it's still going on, Sly Cooper had a 4th game released just last year on the Playstation 3, Ratchet & Clank never left and are still making games to this day and Jak & Daxter...well, they don't actually have a new game but everyone wants one, so that's something. Each one of these characters means something different to me, let's start with Jak. Jak & Daxter will always hold a special place in my heart for being my first ever Playstation 2 game and I loved it and it's still fun to play these days...Jak 2 on the other hand does not hold up for me, it's one of the most uneven sequels ever, it feels like a completely different franchise, it's like watching Batman & Robin followed by Batman Begins, you wouldn't believe it's the same character. Also the driving sucks, the shooting mechanics suck and any mission with a timer was instantly the devil. I honestly do not like that game, the only good thing about it was Dark Eco Jak, that was awesome. Jak 3 I haven't played since I was a kid, not because I don't want to but because I don't want to start until I beat Jak 2; but I remember liking it the most so there's that, so yeah, out of the trio Jak would be my least favourite, but that doesn't mean I don't still love 'em.

Then there is Sly Cooper, now this is a franchise that holds up, while granted the first game is hit or miss, simply because Sucker Punch didn't really know what it wanted to do with the character yet, by the second game they got the Sly Cooper identity down and it was perfect, hence why in the 3rd game they barely changed anything and it was just as great, those two are some of my favourite games, I love the characters, the sandbox environments and the creative boss fights. The 4th game I felt was a weaker sequel, it didn't really do much with the characters, the texture change didn't look very good and it didn't take advantage of the possibilities of the new characters. So 2 awesome games and 2 okay games is what we got out of this franchise.

And finally there is Ratchet & Clank...it's perfect, it's my favourite of the trio because straight from game one Insomniac Games had the identity of Ratchet & Clank down, the characters, the environment, the gameplay, it was all great and the sequels just added onto that with more creative weapons, a larger galaxy to explore, more customization and a new game plus mode. And not to mention the sequels on the PS3 known as the "Future Series" were awesome as well, this was a series that was able to survive on two different generations, because it's just fantastic.

So those were my thoughts on these amazing characters of nostalgia and fun, but it's not over, because these characters are STILL around to this day, and that being through MOVIES! Yes, movies based on these characters are being made and judging from the teaser trailers they are going to be fan-tastic! Yeah we got Ratchet & Clank in 2015, Sly Cooper in 2016 and Jak & Daxter in...okay they don't have a movie announced yet...damn.

-Danny

The Pokemon Theme is Back!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am not a music critic, I have no idea what goes into making a good song or how to analyse it, my reasoning for liking a song starts and ends with "I just do" I bring this up because it's important to take into consideration when I say...*deep breath* the original Pokemon theme is my favourite song. Now I say this simply because when I think what is a song that I know all the words to, I've listened to a hundred times and yet I never skip it when it comes up on my iPod and I always want to sing along too? And the answer is the original Pokemon theme, I love that song and I'm very nostalgic for it. But of course, that's not the only Pokemon theme. Every season Pokemon gets a brand new opening and like most people I feel like the quality of these songs have really dipped in the past few years. I mean I think they were good up until Diamond & Pearl, after that they seemed to forget what Pokemon was all about and just generally sucked. But the most recent theme, the XY theme...it's back...the original Pokemon theme is back!...sort of! It's actually a cover of the original theme in a more modern rock version of it, and it's only about a third as long but still, it's the same song, it's the same lyrics and the same set-up (again, not a music critic) and when I first heard this I thought to myself "wait this sounds famil-HOLY SHIT!!!" And I pretty must lost my shit, I was so excited! And of course it's not as good as the original, it's just missing than passion that the original theme had but I think it's a pretty good cover and would like to hear a full version.

-Danny

Top 10 Videogames That SHOULD Be Movies

You always hear about what videogames should be movies or which ones feel like movies; if you were to ask a gamer what game should be turned into a movie then you normally get something like The Last of Us or Uncharted or Red Dead Redemption and to those I always say “NO!” mostly because those games in my eyes are already cinematic masterpieces, they’re perfect in story, atmosphere, characters, visuals, you know…everything needed to make a great movie. If you were to make The Last of Us into a movie then you’d be taking a 14 hour experience and turning it into 2 hours, and The Last of Us already has a perfect story and perfect visuals and characters, there is nothing that a movie version could add to it, it would just be taking away from a perfect videogame, the same with a lot of games that get mentioned often. That’s why I’m going to be discussing those videogames that should get movie adaptations, because they have a chance to do something different.

10. Infamous

Infamous is remembered fondly for its addictively fun gameplay, while the characters were entertaining, the story & visuals were just…good. A movie version could be awesome, and I’m talking big explosive special effects with awesome action scenes and a beautiful visuals. Who could direct something like this? My pick: Zack Snyder, while hit & miss with the stories of his films, you can’t deny, visually, the dude knows how to make a damn good film, particularly with action scenes and I imagine he would not disappoint in this adaptation.

9. Mirror's Edge

Being perfectly honest, I’m not the biggest fan of Mirror’s Edge, mostly because the gameplay isn’t really my cup of tea, but you can’t deny that Mirror’s Edge has a very unique style to it and those parkour and hand-to-hand fight scene would look amazing on the big screen. And the person who I think would be great with this is Gareth Evans, best known for directing The Raid and The Raid 2, which in my opinion are the greatest action movies of the past decade, so I imagine he would do phenomenal with this film.

8. American McGee's Alice

Honestly I want this simply because I would love to see this style brought to the big screen, a gothic adaptation of Alice in Wonderland; I imagine it might confuse audiences as most people think Alice in Wonderland of a classic kid friendly Disney film. My main problem with this is that the director who I would have chosen for this project, Tim Burton already made an Alice in Wonderland movie which…well, sucked, and ironically did not feel like a Tim Burton film.

7. Halo

Halo is one of the biggest sci-fi stories in gaming history, yes a lot will have to be cut in order to make this into a movie but let’s be honest, a lot of stuff in the Halo series is just plain filler, I feel like this is a story that could easily be compressed into 3 movies, (because let’s be honest, Halo would definitely be a trilogy) and this is a series that has been in development hell for years now, it’s time we got this ball rolling! And my pick for directing: Neill Blomkamp, duh, the guy has wanted to make a Halo movie for years.

6. Legend of Zelda

I honestly want to see this out of curiosity more than anything, to see if it’s possible, to make a legit Legend of Zelda movie, while still being a faithful adaptation, that means Link-Doesn’t-Talk. I get that this would be a challenge to pull off but I really want to see if this is possible, because if you can make Legend of Zelda into a great movie, you can make any videogame into a great movie. And I think we should bring along the man that made an unfilmable book into a great film, Peter Jackson.

5. Devil May Cry

Again, curiosity more than anything, that plus some amazing visuals, can you imagine how a Devil May Cry movie would look from a visual stand point? Your brain would explode from the awesomeness happening on screen. The director I have in mind for this would be the one the only Guillermo Del Toro, one of the greatest visual directors of all time so him taking on a project like this would be a match made in heaven as his previous film Pan’s Labyrinth proved he can do dark fantasy while Pacific Rim proved he can do action, mash the two together and you have Devil May Cry (Just make sure it’s original Dante).

4. Metal Gear Solid

Metal Gear Solid is an incredibly difficult story to adapt into a feature film, mostly because if you ever try to explain the plot to this franchise to anyone then it sounds absolutely crazy, like something you’d never be able to take seriously, but somehow we’re able to do it, that takes the very talented Hideo Kojima to be able to pull that off, and I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t be able to take on the film adaptation, after all the Metal Gear games are very cinematic so it wouldn’t be that difficult to adapt it to the big screen. But the main reason why I want this to be adapted is because first of all, to see if it would work, to see if mass film audiences can watch something as over the top as MGS and take it seriously, to see all those action set pieces and cinematic moments brought to their best on the big screen, and finally to have a cohesive MGS story that doesn’t feel bloated and really long, because let’s be honest, there’s plenty of stuff that you could have cut out, a movie version might actually have a better flowing narrative.

3. Resident Evil (But Good)

There have been a ton of Resident Evil movies…but none of them are any good, guilty pleasures at best, but not only are they bad movies, but they’re also bad adaptations, the further these films have gone the less they resemble the videogames, but the worst part about that isn’t the story or characters have changed, but the tone. Resident Evil is often considered one of the greatest horror games of all time and revolutionised the industry, I want to see that brought to the big screen, I want to watch a Resident Evil movie and have the living daylights scared out of me, so have someone like James Wan or Scott Derrickson direct a Resident Evil movie and give this movie franchise a good reputation for once.

2. Bioshock

Bioshock is just begging for a film, I mean the themes and cinematic experience that people have while playing this game is beyond what anyone expected, not only was it able to creep the hell out of you but it also made you think about deep subject matters like what it means to be human and how far can humanity go while maintaining said humanity. The game has an incredible atmosphere and smart writing behind it, but there is still plenty of room for change for a movie adaptation, mostly through the main character, who remains the silent first person protagonist for the entire game (I hate that cliché) they could do whatever they like with him and the game is paced like a videogame obviously which means there are parts that are there simply to fill up time, so it is a story that could easily be compressed into two hours, or hell, even 3 hours, I wouldn’t mind, I doubt most fans will, because the story is so gripping and interesting that it can hold your attention for that long.

1. Eternal Darkness

Eternal Darkness is one of the most creative videogames of all time, for those of you that have never heard of it, it’s a psychological horror game that often breaks the fourth wall. And while most games break the fourth wall to create some comedy, Eternal Darkness uses it to psychologically mess with the player, such as pretending to turn the volume down, making you think your controller disconnected and even going as far to make it look like you accidently deleted your saved file. These qualities and more make it one of the most creative break the fourth wall games I’ve ever seen and I would just be dying to see what they could do in movie form, see what techniques they would use to fool the audience or make them think something has gone wrong, it would be incredible to see, and that is why it is my no. 1 videogame that should be a movie.

-Danny

Where Are All The Good Heroes?

You get this all the time, people don't want simple do-gooders anymore with our superheroes, we want them to be complex and have a darkside, we want Tony Stark to have a drinking problem, we want Superman to feel like an outcast, we want to see Batman struggle with his morality. And there's nothing wrong with this, making the characters more complex makes them more interesting and by giving them real life problems makes them more reletable and more likely for us to root for them, but my problem is now all of our superheroes are like this. And really it makes me feel like we've lost the purpose of superheroes, they originally started out as ideals, as people for us to look up to and hope to be like them. Captain America was all about standing up for your country and getting ready to sock ol' Hitler in the jaw. Superman was a symbol of truth, justice and the American way. In fact let's just focus on Superman here for a second, because in the past few years he's come under a lot of critisism for being too powerful and being a goody-two-shoes. But my thing is, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with having that perfect superhero? The one who you can always rely on to do the right thing and to always save the day. DC used to be all about the heroes that you idilized while Marvel were the ones who handled the relatable heroes, but now DC have lost that, and Superman was the leading man of heroes to idealize. Now true, it is still possible to idealize heroes that you can also relate to, but i personally don't find it to be that affective and now rather than having the balance we have no more idols and it is all relatable heroes, and I don't want to see that, give me the perfect hero to look up to, give me the real Man of Steel, give me my true hero.

-Danny

My Favourite Characters - Mabel

Like I said in my previous post, Gravity Falls is one of the best TV shows on kids TV right now, it is simply hilarious, and one of the best elements about it is Mabel, a character from the first episode I thought to myself "this is one of the greatest cartoon characters ever". Because fact is there is no other character like Mabel, she is as unique as they come, she's not "adorkable" she's just a dork. She wears home made sweaters, has huge teeth with braces, has a pet pig named Waddles and is really, really weird, she is a total dork...and she couldn't be happier. Mabel does whatever the heck she wants, if she wants to dance with a pig then she'll dance with a pig, if she wants to wear silly sweaters then she'll wear silly sweaters, she knows what makes her happy and she knows that other people find it weird but she doesn't care, it makes her happy so that's exactly what she'll do. But she's never in your face about it, she never stands up on a soap box and claiming it's her right to do what she wants, she just does it.

But at the same time it's never just about her, she obviously cares a lot about her friends & family, she's just not going to go out of her way to impress people because she doesn't need to; and I think that that's a great character trait, especially for a character in a kids show. Now I know what you're thinking, "yeah well, there are a lot of characters out there who teach kids to be who they want to be" not like this. This is why I wouldn't describe Mabel as "adorkable" because someone could easily look at her and go "wow, what a weirdo" in a negative manner, the same way how someone can go "wow! What a weirdo!" and be positive about it. Fact is there are a lot of kids out there, especially little girls who don't have a character who's weird like this that they can relate to. If there are any kids out there that are like Mabel where some people think that they're too weird for their own good then they can look to her and realise that it's not such a bad thing, you don't have to be what society says, as long as you're not hurting anybody then be as weird as you like. There are very few characters who get this message across as well as Mabel.

But on top of that, the girl is freakin' hilarious! I mean seriously, she gets all the best jokes in the entire cartoon, she completely steals the show and always makes me laugh, in fact she's the only character never to be annoying, which is strange especially at times when they intentionally try to make her annoying but she's too darn funny to actually find annoying. Mabel, never change, you're a great inspiration to kids and one hell of a funny girl.

-Danny

The Best Modern Cartoons

You always like to hear about how everyone's generation had the best shows, music, people, etc and fact is none of them are right because they are all incredibly biased. Yeah I'm sure there were awesome things about your generation, but to assume that you're the best that's ever existed is pretty damn ignorant. That being said, let's talk about cartoons. Everyone always likes to think that they had the best cartoons growing up, especially 80's/90's kids, who love to say how awesome cartoons were back then despite the fact most of them were god awful (The GI JOE cartoon sucks!) sure they had some greats like Batman, Gargoyles or Animaniacs, but most shows were really poor in quality and the only reason they like them is because of nostalgia. Now i'm not saying you shouldn't love these cartoons, but at the very least admit that they're not brilliant. I mean I LOVE the Pokemon anime with all my heart but I'm not gonna act like it's an amazing show, it's stupid as hell. But there are plenty of cartoons that I grew up with that are still fantastic, Avatar, Teen Titans, Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. Yet a lot of the 80's/90's generation will say that my cartoons sucked despite the fact that they haven't FUCKING WATCHED ANY OF THEM!!!!!...sorry, sorry, it just really annoys me when people do that; just assume that my cartoons sucked simply because they didn't grow up with any of them. So, I'm gonna talk about some of the more popular modern day cartoons of the 2010's and give my take on them, but before I begin I just want to point out that I haven't seen: Sym-Bionic Titan, My Little Pony, The Looney Tunes Show or Regular Show, so I have no idea if these shows are actually any good. But with that being said, let's talk about some of them.

Adventure Time

This is easily the most popular of modern day cartoons, everyone knows it and everyone watches it and I...just think it's okay...it's not great, it's not bad, just sort of okay. The entire gimmick of the show is that it's weird and can do whatever the fuck it wants, which is fine, I love silliness, the problem is, there's not really any sense of boundaries for this show. Which means when the characters react to something weird, I don't really know if it's weird or perfectly normal for the world. But even more so, I don't think it's that funny, I mean don't get me wrong, it has some good jokes but nothing mind blowing. Also I feel like the show is so aware of it's adult fanbase that it doesn't even bother putting anything in there for kids anymore. If you love if, then that's great, but after watching a season and a half I just personally couldn't get into it.

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Every kid has a group of superheroes shows to grow up on, and one of the ones that this generation had was Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I've only seen a season of this show and I'll say this, it's pretty good, I don't think it's great, it's not the next Justice League or anything. The animation is decent, the characters are well represented, but there's just nothing amazing about it...except for the theme song. The theme song to this show is just simply incredible, it kicks all kinds of ass and is the main reason I began watching this show in the first place. I haven't seen Avengers Assemble and I hear it's not very good, I believe it, I don't really care though.





Gravity Falls

So you can probably tell by now that a lot of these shows don't really live up to the hype for me...Gravity Falls, completely lives up to the hype, this show is fantastic. It has great animation, a great opening and most of all, is a very, very funny show. This show knows it's a kids show but it still treats its audience with respect and never panders. It's jokes are fresh and the characters are brilliant, my favourite being Mabel, who I'll talk more about tomorrow, all I can say is, if you want to watch a funny show, then watch Gravity Falls.





Legend of Korra
A spin-off from Avatar: The Last Airbender, my all time favourite childhood tv show, this show had a lot riding on its shoulders, trying to live up to the greatness that is Avatar. And I can sum up each season in one word each. One: Okay Two: Bad Three: Great. I will say it doesn't rely on the Avatar brand in order to be a success, it's definitely been able to be successful all its own, and I respect it for it. But its best achievement is having the best animation on all of television, visually, this show is stunning, truly the best looking show on childrens' TV, and again, it takes its audience seriously, you have no idea how important that is to me in these type of things.




Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
In case you didn't know, I'm a huge Ninja Turtles fan, I have watched almost everything Ninja Turtles related, even that god awful Next Mutation program...*shudders*. And despite numerous adaptations of the turtles this show did something that no other version had done...it made them act like teenagers! I know right! It is kinda weird to think about it, in every other version, do they actually behave like teenagers? In this version I think they pretty much nail the turtles. But the best character upgrade has to be April, this is without a doubt the best interpretation of April O'Neil that I've ever seen, because she's not just a red head in yellow that's there as the Turtles' cheerleader, she has an actual personality and has to save the Turtles just as much as they save her. The animation is...well it has a very unique style to it that I really like, but the actual character designs and textures kinda bring it down for me from having great animation. Overall I thoroughly enjoy the show and any real Turtle fan should give it a watch.

Young Justice
And the final show that i'll be talking about, and in my opinion the best modern show is Young Justice. How do I describe this show? Imagine Teen Titans meets Justice League...yeah, it's that good. This show had spectacular animation, very well written and developed characters and some damn great action scenes as well as an engaging story, it took the best parts of TT and JL and brought them together...and then it was cancelled after 2 seasons and replacing with that fucking piece of shit Teen Titans Go! (Don't worry, I'll have a separate rant one of these days for that show). Fact is this was the best show on kids television, I absolutely loved it and I highly recommend it to anyone who's a major DC Animated fan.


-Danny

Don Bluth, What Happened Man?

There were a lot of things from the 80's that just didn't survive in the 90s, John Hughes Movies, Neon Clothing, Freddie Mercury. And of course Don Bluth, one of the greatest animated film makers of all time, making films such as Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, Land Before Time. The guy has made some of the greatest animated films of all time, the animation is beautiful, the stories are fantastic and the themes are memorable, also they can be scary as shit (Sharptooth anyone?). Fact is these aren't just some of the greatest animated movies, but some of the greatest movies...so what the hell happened to him in the 90's? 80's Don Bluth was so good that he was giving Disney a run for their money, and that's saying something, so what went wrong? A Troll in Central Park, Anastasia, Thumbelina, all of these movies sucked big time and I have no idea why.

The only major difference is that Bluth was credited as co-director along with Gary Goldman (Goldman, not Oldman) but I doubt he's the reason everything sucked because he produced all of Bluth's big hits and even wrote a couple of em. Maybe it was because Disney was entering the Disney Renaissance so the competition became too much for him? I guess but I don't see how competition would have caused his movies to decline in quality. Fact is I have no idea why Bluth suddenly dropped off the map, I mean the guy seemed to start going against everything he stood for, one thing that he said that I will never forget is "You can make a movie as dark as you want and kids will be alright as long as there's a happy ending" and that I feel is so true, so why did his movies become kiddier and more pandering? Studio interference maybe? Well it's possible but I don't really know. And things didn't get better in the 2000's where he only made one movie Titan A.E. which would end up being his last movie as well, which is a huge shame because that was one of the worst animated movies I've ever seen. Seriously how the hell does a guy go from making some of the best animated movies to the worst animated movies!? I just hope that the guy has it in him to make at least one more movie because I know the guy has it in him to make another hit, please Don Bluth, come back!

-Danny

Hans Zimmer, stop trying to be Danny Elfman!

Okay, confession time...I think Hans Zimmer is severely overrated. I mean the only one of his scores I think is truly great is the Inception score, fucking awesome score. As for all of his other great scores, he was only the co-composer, like Pirates of the Carribean has Klaus Badelt, Kung Fu Panda had John Powell (Who also did How to Train Your Dragon so I'm gonna assume he did most of the work). And now I know what you're all screaming "What about The Dark Knight!? That score was amazing!" well no, in my opinion that score does not represent Batman, you know what does represent Batman? The Danny Elfman score from the 1989 version, that theme just screams Batman, it goes through a wide range of emotions, from ominous to suspenseful, to epic, to scary, to bombastic, to somber. When I hear that theme I hear Batman. You know what I hear when I listen to The Dark Knight theme? The same several notes over and over again...and eventually it goes duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU and that's it, there's no emotion, no range and it's incredibly repetitive. And don't forget Elfman also did the theme to the Batman Animated Series, and anyone who dares insult the opening to that show, fuck you that opening is amazing.

But the weird thing is, this isn't the only time when Hans Zimmer will try and follow in Danny Elfman's footprints, but he would do the same again with Spider-Man. Danny Elfman did the original theme to the Spider-Man movie franchise, and if you saw my review of the original Spider-Man movie then you will know how much I love that score, it is a masterpiece in my opinion and again, everything about the main theme just feels like Spider-Man. Then Hans Zimmer ended up doing the score for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and while being honest I do thoroughly enjoy the score, let's be honest, there's no identity to it, I mean listen to the main theme, it could easily play over a Superman or Captain America movie; when you listen to the original score, there is no fooling that that is Spider-Man's theme.

My point is, Mr Zimmer, stop copying off of Danny Elfman, because trust me, you can't fill those guy's shoes, after all this is the guy that did Nightmare Before Christmas, both music and Jack's singing voice, he's clearly a man of many talents, you have a funny name to pronounce.

-Danny

Where Would I Travel Through Time?

This is a question that you will ask yourself dozens of times throughout your life, if you could travel through time, where would you go? If you only had one chance to travel somewhere in the world, when & where would you go? Well first of all, I definitely would not want to go to the past, why? Because the past sucks, racism, poverty, disease and no internet, life would suck, hell go even further back and you don't even have toilets, and I don't know about you, but I consider those to be a necessity in life. Let's face it people, the past sucks, I mean we're not perfect now but I like to think we're better than what we used to be, which is exactly why I would travel to the future. Because that means that things will be either be amazing...or we will all have killed each other in a technologically advanced war and it's probably America's fault, i'd say it's 60/40.

So then it comes down to how far will I go? Would I want to travel just a few years into the future? A few decades? A few hundred years? Thousands? Millions? Honestly I'd probably wanna go maybe 100 years in the future, because by then I imagine most of the problems that we experience today will either be solved or destroyed the world, if not then we might have a whole bunch of new problems to deal with. But more importantly it'll be far enough that I can see what I did with my life, what my job was, did i have a family, basically what I did with my life. Also to see just how things were in life, what movies are now considered timeless classics, was the new Mass Effect game ever good? Did they ever make a sequel to Zombieland? Do Google end up taking over the world? And will government ever pull their heads out of their own asses? Oh who am I kidding, we all know the answer to that last one.

-Danny

My Favourite Characters - Thane

For the record, sooner or later you're gonna see a bunch of Mass Effect characters appearing in this series because Mass Effect has some of the greatest characters in all of fiction, two of which are in my top 10 favourite characters of all time, which means I will not be featuring them on this series because I don't want to reveal my 10 favourite characters just yet (though I'm pretty sure you can figure out who they are). So the first of many Mass Effect characters to be featured on this series is the Drell himself, Thane Krios.

"It's strange, but the last word i'd label Thane with is 'assassin'. We covered each other in firefights, that makes him a partner" this is the way how Garrus described Thane and he's right, Thane was a former assassin with a terminal illness, he joins your crew as a chance to redeem himself for his past mistakes and die as a hero, not a killer. And that is what Thane does, all the way till the end, should he survive at the end of Mass Effect 2 he spends all of 3 in a hospital, too sick to fight and in constant need of medical care, that is until the Citadel is attacked and he is forced to fight against Kai Leng, a fellow assassin hired to kill a member of the council, Thane fights against Kai Leng as best he can, and though he puts up a good fight, sadly he ends up losing and is fatally stabbed, unable to do anything, he dies in a hospital bed to a prayer from his son and Commander Shepard.

Thane was one of the most honourable members of your team, he was a loving man who cared about his family and his comrades, he was more than willing to sacrifice himself to protect others and despite being an assassin, he was a good man. Not to mention he was a damn good fighter, after all despite being sick & weak, he was still able to put up a good fight against Kai Leng and if he was as tough as he was in ME2, you know he would have kicked his ass no problem. Fact is no matter how much good he did, he never saw himself as a good man, always believing he was yet to make up for his mistakes, despite helping to save the galaxy it was sacrificing himself to save the life of a stranger which is when he is finally at peace, and thinking about it, it's easy to see why. Thane met his wife after she saved the life of a man Thane was hired to kill, she didn't know the man, she just refused to stand by and let someone die. Thane was in awe of this, how a person can have so much kindess in them that they'd be willing to die for the sake of a stranger, this was the first step in their relationship and Thane becoming a better man, alas, it was because of his job that his wife ended up being murdered by rival assassins, leaving Thane cold and with no reason left to live, making him a stone cold killer again. Him becoming part of the Normandy crew gave him a purpose and a reason to fight, not only did he save the galaxy but he was reunited with his son, he had a life again and you saw how much it meant to him, and in the end he redeemed himself by becoming exactly what he admired in his wife.

But even more so, I would argue that he is the best romance option out there, because out of all the romances, you see just how much it means to him to have someone like Shepard in his life. Without a romance, you're able to give him a purpose and reunite him with his son, but he still has that void left by his wife, you can fill that void, you can make him whole and you see how much that means to him, you see the love he has for Shepard is true and grateful. He cares about you and treasures you more than anyone else, and not to mention, romancing him is the only way that you can see Commander Shepard cry, so you know that those feelings are mutual. You were his Siha and that meant everything to him.

"Amonkira, Lord of Hunters, grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift. And should the worst come to pass, grant me forgiveness."

"You have only made my life better. You gave me Kolyat...even the Omega-4 Relay made me feel...purposeful. We are alive Siha. And when we are not. I will meet you across the sea"

-Danny

Nothing.

Not a goddamn thing.

-Danny

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is my 100th post on this blog...oh boy, what am I gonna talk about?...No seriously, what the hell am I gonna talk about...shit.

-Danny

September, brace yourself, Winter is Coming...Well Autumn first but THEN it's Winter!

September, the most depressing month of all time is finally over and done with. I'm not exaggerating, September is the Monday of the calender (apart from, well, mondays) I mean there is nothing good about it, the lovely weather starts to go away, there are no holidays to celebrate, no good movies and of course there is going back to school...*shudders*. Face it, no one likes September, September sucks, and for those of you who were born in September then I hope you realize that you were just a Christmas present, or possibly New Years' Present, either way, you know why your parents ended up with you. September is just not a good month of the year, in fact I would argue it's the worst. Too hot for jackets but too cold for t-shirts, too late for the summer movie season but too early for oscar season, it's just this middle ground of nothingness, September is the nothing of the year. There are no major holidays to celebrate and who can forget the moment that everyone experienced with a sense of dread is having to go back to school, it's one of the worst feelings a human can experience, man fuck September.

So...what did I do during the month of September? Well i've already mentioned this in several posts, I started university, and what's that been like? Okay. Not really any life altering events have happened yet, I just moved to a new town which is only an hour away from home by train, in fact as I'm writing this I'm currently at home because from Tuesday-Thursday I have no lectures or seminars so I thought "fuck it, I'll go home for a few days" and let me say, despite it being only 2 weeks life already feels quite fucking weird, going from a busy town to a small village and realizing just how quiet everything is around here. Also the town that I now live in (Sheffield) is made up of nothing but hills...seriously, everything is on a hill, it's exhausting, whosoever idea it was to build a town on top of dozens upon dozens of hills, fuck you, seriously, who thought that was a good idea?

And that's really it, nothing else has been happening, because in case you couldn't get it from the first paragraph of this post, September is fucking depressing and boring.

-Danny