Scott Pilgrim VS My High Standards.

So, I saw Scott Pilgrim VS The World at the midnight showing. All in all, I enjoyed the movie. Even if I was up to my balls in hipsters in the theater. First off, I'd just like to say that I may or may not have missed out on ten or so minutes of the movie. There was a skip and no one could really tell if it was intentional or not, so.... My knowledge may be incomplete. As usual, stuff I like comes first.

The cast in this is amazing. This movie had one of the best casts I've seen in a long time. Everyone not only looked the part, but they acted the part too. Even Michael Cera... Most of the time at least. He kept alternating between Scott and Michael Cera. Kieran Culkin stole the show as Wallace Wells. Seriously, I could not imagine him as Wallace at all until he spoke. Allison Pill made a a hilarious and sexy Kim Pine, and Ellen Wong might just be the cutest thing to ever go on a movie screen. It was also nice to see Brandon Routh again. I love that guy and he cracked me up in this one. All of the Evil Exes were great though. Like I said, fantastic cast.

There's a rad cameo by Thomas Jane as well. Seriously, this movie has Superman, The Punisher and Captain America/Human Torch. Nearly as impressive as how many action stars are in The Expendables, no?

Next is the soundtrack. All I really need to say, for me at least, is that it has exclusive songs by Beck. I'm such a massive fan of his it's not even funny. The score was perfect for the tone of the film though. Lots of classic rock, indie rock, and some pretty cool techno stuff too. The soundtrack is definitely a winner in my book.

Visually, the movie is one of the best I've seen in a long time. The flashback scenes are all told using panels from the comic, and they kept Scott's ratings for everyone. Stuff from the comics like the sound effects, the pee meter, and the coins were all kept. The fight scenes were also very nice-looking. Unlike some other big blockbuster that also featured a high-profile director, Edgar Wright knows how to do a great action scene.

And it's very faithful to the comic. Even the stuff that wasn't in the comic would've felt right at home in the comic. In my opinion, the fights with Lucas Lee and the Katayanagi twins were better in the movie than they were in the comic. The fight with Roxie even had stuff from the Free Comic Day issue. There was also a Battle of the Bands plot added that I dug too. Didn't really affect the story too much, but it set up the fight with Ken and Kyle.

And there was a ton of stuff cut, but it wasn't anything that hampered the film. There were side characters cut, but they kept nearly all of them. The only really big omissions were Knives' dad and Lisa Miller, and those would have been a bit too much in a film that already had a big cast. Unlike The Last Airbender, they kept characters who weren't in the main four or so.

Now I gotta deal with what I didn't like.... mutter mumble mutter gripe.


The pacing was just a bit much. It wasn't as condensed as I thought it'd be, but there was a lot of stuff in this movie. I mean, the movie adapts the whole damn series. So some of the stuff (Namely a lot of the non-fight stuff) seems a bit rushed sometimes. I kinda wish they did it as a series of animated films instead. Or at least two live action films.

And that's really my only beef with the movie really. Does a shitty, bandwagon-jumper fanbase count as a gripe?

But I digress, Edgar Wright's got a winner here. I don't think it's his best film (That's Hot Fuzz), but it's a hell of a film. I'm giving it an 8/10.

The Best Comic-Based Shows That Don't Exist Yet.

The following post was inspired by a late night conversation on an IRC chat.

But first, I'd like to think Jeff Parker for the free, signed copy of the Incredible Hercules VS Amazing Spider-Man: Assault on New Olympus issue. That and my latest issue of The Onion are the two best things to find in my mailbox.

And now to the point: Here are my ideas for some awesome series based on comics.

1. The Elongated Man: A slick detective series in the same vein as Psych or Monk, but slightly less humorous. Or Murder She Wrote, but he stretches? Focus on Ralph's detective aspect and maybe not his superheroics. He'd still be dealing with super-crime though. Not mundane cases or anything like that. As long as they avoid any mentioning of Sue's rape, then this'd be an awesome show. Also, don't make Ralph a tool like he was on JLU.

2. Gotham Central: Show how regular cops deal with things in a world full of super-beings. A straight-up adaptation would be awesome, but you could deal with members of other police forces on occasion, I think. Like, say someone winds up dead in Metropolis or Opal City or something, but the M.O. fits one of Batman's foes, so GCPD dispatches Montoya and Allen to aid in the investigation.

3. Nextwave: Agents of Hate: I'm not going to lie. I've thought about this one a lot. Give it a high animation budget and put it on adult swim, HBO or Comedy Central. Make it look very true to Immonen's art and get Ellis onboard. Let Ellis write original episodes to extend it, because twelve issues isn't a lot to go on for a series.

4. JLI/Blue and Gold Power Hour: Either give me a cartoon about the JLI, or a cartoon where Booster and Ted go around fighting crime. There'd be PSAs at the end of either of these.

5. X-Factor Investigations/Madrox: I'd love to see Madrox as he is now portrayed on the small screen. Keep the roster small if you it's X-Factor; Don't bog it down with tons of obscure characters. Just focus on say, Madrox, Banshee, Strong Guy and Rahne. Once again, focus on the detective aspect and not the superhero part.


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Here's a few ideas that are presented in jest. They are only here for my, and presumably your, amusement.


1. Like Madmen, but it's about all the billionaires and CEOs in the DCU. Lex Luthor, Max Lord, Bruce Wayne, Ted Kord and such. Absolutely nothing exciting, it's just them talking business.

2. Make a show about that fat white dude with the power to turn into a buff black guy for an hour. You know, the dude that called that hour "C.P.T."?

3. This one is half-joking/half serious, but Gundam Sousei. Seriously, the highly-dramatized story of the making of the original Gundam anime. I'd watch the hell out of this show.

4. Make a Doctor Fate series, but base it on the 90s version, "Fate".

5. Silver Age Batman/Silver Age Superman (But only the bad parts). Batman: The Brave and the Bold showed off all of the fun of the Silver Age of comics, with none of the awful parts (Racism, incredibly inconsistent characterization, Superman being a massive tool, Batman just doing batshit insane things all the time, etc.), so this would be all those bad parts. It would be sure to offend everyone.

Feels Good, Man. Feels Good.

Here's a few rapid-fire reviews to keep up the theme.

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour- The ending seemed a little off? But otherwise this was a great conclusion to a fantastic series. It's been a fun journey, you know? O'Malley's really made leaps and bounds as both an artist and a writer. And this volume really helped me work through a personal problem that I was having at the time, so that was cool.

Inception: Easily one of the best movies I've seen this year. It's probably Chris Nolan's best film to date. Fantastic visuals, great cast and an awesome twist on a classic genre of film. One of the few heavily hyped, heavily marketed movies that really lived up to the hype. For me, at least.

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And now, for something- Naw, I'm not gonna use that line. But I am considering doing something different from what I've been doing. I'm more than likely going to start posting short stories and terrible poems, straight from the neurotic mind of ZeroBuster. As a writing major, it seems like something to do. Get some feedback from the helpful staff and (Loyal? Small? Nonexistent?) fanbase at Der Panzer.

So yeah. Expect some crummy stuff from a shabby Creative Writing major. Coming soon. Maybe.