April 2013 – eLEWsive Thoughts

I saw the trailer online, thought the concept was ok, but I didn’t care for it either way… I wasn’t in a rush. That aside, my general feeling for this film is one of mixed feelings. Personally, I find that it didn’t know what kind of movie it wanted to be. From the early stages, it’s definitely an apocalyptic love story with some action. Well, more of a haunted love story and a really grand optimistic view on a dark reality. I say haunted, not in the horror/scary movie sense, but just simply by a moment in time before this the end of the world. Then it turns into a fight for the power, but it’s very short-lived. In a 124 minute film, a good percentage is spent on the love story side of it all. Then the rest, roughly 45 mins, is all “kill the slave masters” (yes, I’ve been watching way to much Spartacus).

Tom Cruise.. He runs in all of his movies so if he didn’t do that, I would say that this movie really sucked. But, this role didn’t have him as hero bad ass, as his last installment, “Jack Reacher” would imply. But, he did run, and, surprisingly enough, he made his co-stars seem very much believable from his acting skills. Now that’s some talent. Andrea Riseborough I didn’t like, I don’t know her, by face, from any other film/role, but she creeped me out the entire time she had any screen time. Her role seemed to be the most organic, however. The main love interest, with the help of Cruise, also seemed to be very believable. She comes in late, but you kinda care for her once it’s all said and done.

The biggest highlight to this motion picture, was the cinematography. It just has these great use of camera angles and meaningful ways to convey hidden messages. There’s a bit of a Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings style with showing a lot of landscapes as Tom Cruise’s character, “Jack Harper” travels the barren wastelands. They found great ways to get images to work in their favor. Apparently, they used a projector lamp to get some of their final shots. They took HD images of what they wanted, placed it behind Jack Harper, who was in front of some kind of projection screen. It actually comes off pretty nicely. Typically, a director would just use some kind of “green screen” (so far I’ve seen purple, blue and the traditional green for effects of this nature). One thing I was disappointed with was that this movies seemed to be a movie worth a bigger scale. It could have easily been an Imax movie (after it’s all said and done of course) or looked just that much better in 3D. Truthfully, I can only guess why a movie isn’t in 3D these days.

The general story line gets mucky after the character Julia shows up. It just doesn’t flow as it once did. The audio for some actors isn’t entirely crystal, so when they speak, you hear them, but you can’t entirely hear what was being said. Now, that could have been due to the theatre of choice and then the theatres choice of auditorium (I saw it in an AVX theater for those of you Canadian/Toronto folks). the story also very predictable if you rationalize everything. The details point to a very clear “twist”, then by the end of the feature, you’re kind of left wondering how it all started, even with the explanation at the beginning.

Bottom line, it’s a good movie. If it happens to be in IMAX, for the cinematography alone, it’s worth the price. But, ONLY, on a cheap day. You really aren’t missing much that you need to pay for.

Rating:

Overall rating of the movie: 2.1 out of 5,
Cinematography: 5 out of 5,
Editing: 3 out of 5,
Audio: 2.1 out of 5,
Acting: 2.5 out of 5,
Theatres or wait for the blu-ray? Honestly, just download it when it gets to be a blu ray rip, & used the money you just saved on the soundtrack.

THAT’S IT! Cheers: “To Peace” . Your eLEWsive Thought Provided by: the “LEW System”

– Xavier – @CoolyoNgeLEW

Listen to the Sounds of Man Of Steel

Amazon has released 30-second samples from Hans Zimmer’s upcoming score for Man of Steel. You can listen to them by clicking here, but be warned there are potential spoilers in the track listing.

The album will be available in two editions: a regular version with 18 tracks and a deluxe editionthat includes six additional tracks.

Video of the Day: Joss Whedon gives Avengers

Last week, Marvel’s The Avengers writer/director Joss Whedon dropped some interesting details about the upcoming sequel to the film, including the addition of a brother/sister team. The director has now spoken withDesde Hollywood and has teased some more about what we can expect, but first he spoke about whether Robert Downey Jr. will return as Tony Stark.

-Source: SuperHeroHype.com

Video Of The Day: C2E2 2013: Dan Slott

Coming from the future is Dan Slott, but I will let him explain how and why to you.

Video of the Day: Patton Oswalt’s Star Wars Filibuster – Parks and Recreation

On “Parks and Recreation,” Patton Oswalt ad-libbed a filibuster containing his story idea for Episode VII. Some of it is incorrect (Sony owns Spider-Man and Disney, the rest of Marvel outside of what Fox owns like X-Men for example) and there is no X-Men “Quinjet”. But does it not sound bad ass? Apparently he even got a response from J.J.Abrams (scroll to see)

Bad RobotVerified account‏@bad_robot

.@pattonoswalt Time ribbon it is!! – JJ #starwars pic.twitter.com/NnSALt1BEN

THAT’S IT! Cheers: “To Peace” and May the Force be with you!
– Xavier – @CoolyoNgeLEW

Smallville Season 11 #32

Back with the Effigy story arc where John Jones has seemingly snuck into the Batcave. Batman being on the offensive tries to fight him, but John Jones isn’t just some thug, John gets past his offence and enters his mind. Batman seems to have some kind of counter mind control/mind reading defence and orders Alfred to aid him orally. After Batman realizes that Jones isn’t a threat they head to go to the crime scene, since Jones is a Martian as well. Once there GCPD’s (Gotham City Police Dept) Jim Gordon (rank isn’t clear) feels uneasy with the presence of another cop in his jurisdiction, but quickly learns that he really hasn’t a clue what to do in this particular case. Jones asks if Gordon knows about Barbra, and Batman says he doesn’t, since it’s not up to him to tell him. The two determine that Jones is being hunted and that he’s lucky to live alone. But Jones lives in an apartment building, not a house or secret base. Jones rushes off, leaving Batman to call Watchtower (Chloe). He asks where Superman is, and she tells him away on a mission. He then calls Alfred who send the Bat-Plane. In Metropolis, the white Martian is attacking Jones’ neighbours as he arrives to his building with Batman not far behind. The two Martians fight each other to a stand still where Batman tosses a batarang incinerator (or incendiary?). the white Martian takes off and Batman asks why John was called a murderer by it. Jones simply say because I am…. To be continued.

Batman needs a new name for all his gadgets and vehicles. I’m tried of writing bat this, bat that. Ugh. Anyway, I’m happy to see more DC universe characters being introduced. As much as I’d like to see more Superman oriented stories, the additional characters are a bit of a way to not have Superman over kill, especially with these side stories.

There’s a bit of an easter egg in this issue, the bat-plane, if I’m not mistaken, it’s the same one either from the animated show from the 90’s or from the Keaton Batman movie. I’m curious to know if that was an artist choice or writer’s. In saying that, Axel Gimenez and Diana Egea, work very well together. I don’t know if they have in the past, but on this book they do. I think Axel was a great choice for this book, he’s able to capture the original actors face, and give real emotion each time you see one of the live acted characters. His style may take a bit more experience for me to fully grasp but I am enjoying it with Diana on the inks.

The overall story here seems to be a little forced, why? I don’t know, but it doesn’t flow as much as you would hope. Bryan, is still making a a worthy mythos, but I just don’t think this one works that we’ll. But it’s still very much a smallville story, which is probably the only reason this book is selling at the moment.

Rating:

Overall rating of the comic: 2.6 out of 5,
Art: 3.7 out of 5,
layout: 3 out of 5,
True to character dialogue: 3.4 out of 5,
Story: 2.6 out of 5.

Thank you for reading feedback is always helpful. Enjoy your Week!

THAT’S IT! Cheers: “To Peace” and May the Force be with you!
– Xavier – @CoolyoNgeLEW

Video of the Day: Hard Luck Narine

So since Sony didn’t want me to share their video (For now), here’s something to make up for it

THAT’S IT! Cheers: “To Peace” and May the Force be with you!

– Xavier – @CoolyoNgeLEW

Smallville Season 11 #31

Gotta add, of all the covers, this is the “worst” one. why does Impulse look like he’s 6?

On the roof top of the daily Planet, Lois and Clark are talking about how much they miss each other and then she shows him info about the man who turned old, at the old Lexcorp facility. She also tells him others like this have been showing up all over the globe with the same end result, Supes then determines they’re all places Bart has been, and the frequency is increasing. Then Lois’ intern, interrupts the rendezvous with info on the note Lex seemingly wrote without knowing. It was indeed the handwriting of one Tess Mercer. At S.T.A.R. Labs, Ollie and Dr. Hamilton discuss the possible outcomes of what “Earth one” (aka: E1 from here on out) Chloe may get from Ollie’s fringe idea(see bottom of post), one being that the baby will be fine, but it’s all a risk after that. Meanwhile, at the Justice Society of America HQ, Abigail Hunkel aka Red Tornado let’s Impulse, and Superman in to get a lead on where Jay Garrick is. Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Chloe finally enters the memories of E2 Chloe, where she sees Lois running away from or to something. She yells something to Chole, then a face in the sky, disintegrates her… To be continued…

So, I’ll come out and say it, the face was the “Anti Monitor” from the story “Infinite Crisis on Infinite Earth’s” . This was expected but his entrance to the show has probably been the best reveal since any of Clark’s friends/foes from season one to now. It just has this grand moment that I could easily see being a mid-season finale. Well, at least that’s how I pictured it.

Smallville Season 11 031 (2013) — Favourite page of the issue

Jorge is largely in part to why this arc is so fantastic right now. Rarely is there a bad panel or page. It’s not always true to character or to the actor’s face, but at this point, that’s expected and it’s not so bad. I mean, it’s better than some other artists, who don’t really change the way anyone’s face is structured. When you get to the end with Lois getting killed, you can really feel a Smallville like essence. This dude has really captured the flair of the show.

Bryan Q. Miller even, he came on late to the show, I believe, between season five to seven, and he’s just gradually getting better. I would like to believe that his scripts are detailed enough to really get the best out of Jorge. I don’t think since reading the first two final crisis’ that I’m really excited for a DC book. Add the fact that all the back story you need is in the show and light references are always made in this book, right now is the best time to jump on this book.

OLLIE’S FRINGE IDEA

Rating:

Overall rating of the comic: 4 out of 5,
Art: 4.2 out of 5,
layout: 4.3 out of 5,
True to character dialogue: 3.4 out of 5,
Story: 4 out of 5.

Thank you for reading feedback is always helpful. Enjoy your Week!

THAT’S IT! Cheers: “To Peace” and May the Force be with you!

– Xavier – @CoolyoNgeLEW

Smallville Season 11 #30

Back to the hunted story line, where Lex is in his own mind, talking to Tess. He tells her that they’ve pinpointed the exact location of where Tess’ consciousness lies. With that said, he gives her an ultimatum, “… Let me know everything you know about Superman…. Or I give myself brain damage.” Meanwhile at S.T.A.R. Labs, Dr. Hamilton tells his crew plans for the night, one being to help Impulse, the other being they want to re-purpose the technology during the Hank Henshaw incident. Back at Luthercorp, Lois has infiltrated the building, and as Otis and Lex pass by, she steals Otis’ swipe card. As she gets to where she’s going, her cousin Chloe stops her by turning out the lights to show her it has a higher security system than meets the eye. And as Lois confesses how much she misses Clark, Chloe tells her they took the machine brain machine Lex was using to talk to Tess. Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Superman and Impulse begin to race on a machine that allows Superman to reach the needed speed that allows Bart to see the “Speed Demon”. When Superman does, he’s booted and vows to save Bart from it… To be continued

It’s very interesting to see how desperate Lex is. He really wants the secrets that are seemingly locked in his brain. Which actually, besides the main story, is one of the reasons I’m still reading this book (that and cause I’m legit a fan of the show). Miller is handling things very well, I really think that this is the best arc, in terms of development of both character and story. There isn’t much that happens, but for what is, it’s a nice balance.

One thing I usually couldn’t stand in the show, was there was never a real reference to previous episodes in a direct way. Here and there yes, but not common in the slightest. With the Lex story there’s a lot of that and I think it’s helping.