LOL Dog / Cat of the Day

YouTube channels to kill time with – as if you weren't already

    I have not been a big fan of YouTube. There, I said it, let the rotten fruit throwing start now. While I realize most everyone else on the planet has been glued to it, I have just recently found a couple of channels I like watch. So here are a few YouTube shorts I am, and you should be, watching:

Cinema Sins

http://www.youtube.com/user/CinemaSins

    As the tag line says, “no movie is without sin.” In generally 4 to 7 minutes you can see some of the things wrong with your favorite movie. Which is not to say that the movie is bad, every movie has problems and plot-holes. Cinema Sins is a series of short (1-2 second) scenes from a movie and a voice-over describing what is wrong with it. Which is great fun to watch and chuckle along. Think of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on fast-forward.

How It Should Have Ended

http://www.youtube.com/user/HISHEdotcom

    Another series of short clips, this time animated, about, well, how a movie (or game) should have ended. Great fun, and when Superman and Batman discuss movies at the cafe it is fantastic. There are over 100 as I write this, so be warned you may kill far too much time laughing should you choose to visit this channel.

Feminist Frequency

http://www.youtube.com/user/feministfrequency

    I love the Tropes vs Women series on this channel. Each video presents a common plot device in movies or games that are used to portray women in a bad light. For example the classic “damsel in distress.” Why don't we see 'princes in distress?' (or even 'princes gone wild'?) It is hard to find a well-written female character in, well, anything. What I like most about this series is that it is not an angry, evil-men-are-abusing-the-image-of-women series; rather, it takes an honest look at unconscious trends and metaphors that have crept into popular writing and asks why people don't write better. I have to admit that even looking at my own stories I have found myself not writing the quality of female characters I should. So it is an eye-opening series for any writer or person interested in art.

    I'm sure there are many, many more YouTube channels that are worth following, but these are the only ones I've bumped into so far. If you know of another, feel free to leave it in the comments section below.

Movie Review: Iron Man 3

The Homeless Nerd Reviews:

Iron Man 3

At a glance- if you don't know the armor-wearing billionaire genius philanthropist playboy Tony Stark and his Iron alter-ego then you've been living in a cave for the last 5 years

What is it? Back again after solid successes with Iron Man 1 and 2, then a blowout supporting role in The Avengers is our favorite smart-alec inventor. Superhero movies have always been a second-class citizen in the film world, and tend to only last for 3 movies then get canceled or re-booted. So how does our third outing fare? Well... fantastically.

     I have always been a fan of Iron Man. I mostly read the comics way back when, from the original through the Jim Rhodes days and ending about the Red and Silver suit after Obadiah Stane's takeover. Which if you haven't read the comics gives you an idea of how they have altered the original story for the movies. I was a huge fan of the first movie, and liked the second one (which many others seem to disparage), so I was hopeful going into this one. It did not disappoint, and on an interesting level. You go see a movie like Iron Man, and like the character, for the “Iron” part – the cool super-suit of armor and gadgets. Which was a formula that worked great the last few movies. This one however, does a wonderful job of expanding that theme. This movie is really more about Tony Stark than it is about Iron Man.

     One of the wonderful things is in its opening minutes. We watch movies to see heroes going off and doing amazing deeds, but what few movies ever show is what happens afterwords. After the dragon is slain, what does a now ex-dragon-slayer do? What kind of a mark does that leave on a person? After all, we know from real life that the people who go out and do amazing and unusual things, like soldiers and police and firefighters, can have a hard time adjusting to normal life when the flames die down. This is how we meet Tony Stark, who is struggling with fighting aliens and meeting Gods of Thunder and guys who turn into giant green rage-monsters and, well, having his world turned upside-down again. It has left him having trouble sleeping and with his relationships. Which is a great humanizing look into the metal hero. We also have Tony's past coming back to haunt him again. This is a great thing about Iron Man – comparing him with another hero, Spider-Man. Spider-Man is warned that “with great power comes great responsibility” - something Tony Stark never learned as a boy. He's lived a very wild life, and it has made him his own worst enemy: his weapons get turned against him in his original capture and injury then again fighting armored suits built with his own technology, followed by the device saving his life slowly killing him, his actions turn his friends against him and nearly ruin his company, on and on we see his fast and loose lifestyle come back to haunt him. It makes him a very real character as he struggles to deal with the problems that he created himself. This movie takes that another step and builds on the wonderful theme of the hero who can beat every outside foe, it is fighting himself that is his greatest weakness (something the writers of Superman would do well to meditate on).

The acting- Robert Downey Jr is, without a doubt, Tony Stark. It is almost impossible to imagine anyone else doing the role with all the style, flare and mix of braggadocio and vulnerability he has brought to the role. Gwyneth Paltrow is great again as Pepper Potts, and she seems to get better with the role in every appearance. Don Cheadle returns as James Rhodes and I would love to see him in a spin-off movie, he has had so little time on screen to play a role I think he would be great at. Jon Favreau also returns as Happy Hogan and is still the great plucky comic relief, though he gets a little less screen time then in previous movies. All of these actors were great at their roles and continue to deliver.

     New to the franchise are Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian, a fellow scientist Tony once snubbed who returns with an invention of his own. Mr. Pearce is a great villain who's diabolical plot was something I liked. Clever in an evil way. And Ben Kingsly is The Mandarin. I was surprised to hear that, in the comics the original Mandarin had 10 magic rings. As an opposite to Tony, the Mandarin used magic and people instead of technology and suits. So I was wondering if they were going to try to throw some magic into the mostly tech series, which sounded tricky at best. Thankfully they did not, and the movie Mandarin's magic is a very wonderful little plot twist. This was a great role in my opinion, though I'm sure some will disagree. There is no disputing that Mr. Kingsly is a great actor though.

     Last I want to mention two others. First is Ty Simpkins, a talented 12 year old who has a small but memorable role in the movie as Harley Keener. I want to give credit to him and the writers for his part – typically I hate kids in movies. They tend to stupid roles as either annoying brat or budding super-genius (which is just annoying in a different way), in this move though he is a great little comic relief part. Secondly is Paul Bettany as the voice of the super-computer Jarvis. While not integral to the plot, Jarvis provides such great comic relief as the straight man and his distinctive voice.

The story- the movie opens with a flashback to 1999 and a young Tony Stark doing something he says in voice-over will come back to haunt him. He is at a party and meets the attractive biologist Maya Hansen while making fun of the disabled nerdy Aldrich Killian. Cut to the present where we see Tony having trouble sleeping, haunted by the alien attack of The Avengers, and a new terrorist called The Mandarin is making threats and killing people. I really don't want to go into the storyline of the movie, it is meant to have some plot twists that I'd rather not spoil. I will say that we see brash and arrogant Tony Stark as a much more flawed and vulnerable person than we have seen previously. There is no final robot-on-robot fight (though of course, the suit makes its appearance), this story is focused more on Tony the man. We get to see him go MacGuyver and build some improvised gadgets, banter with a kid (who is, surprisingly, a good addition to the story unlike most kids in movies) which lets us kind of see Tony looking back on the better parts of his younger self while fighting his worst nature that got him into trouble in the first place.

My recommendation- see it on the big screen, worth full price

P. S.- yes, being a Marvel film there is a small clip after the credits that is totally worth waiting for

Review- GI Joe Retaliation

The Homeless Nerd Reviews:

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

At a glance- standard action fare loosely based on the toys, and a surprisingly good bad movie

What is it? In G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra we got the beginning of the Joes and their evil foe. I was a big fan of the toys as a kid, along with the Transformers; but while the Transformers movie reboot mostly worked, the Joes have not fared as well in translating to the big screen. The first Joe movie was, well, bad. Now, it was a pretty bad kids cartoon to start with, so I don't think anyone was expecting high art. But the funny thing was that for being a bad movie, it was actually kinda good. Well . . . watchable, let's say watchable. A trend that the sequel continues.

     Rebooting or translating any existing series to the big screen is a hard task. Audiences change, and what once looked like a cool idea for kids raised on Go-bots and He-Man look much different to kids raised on Power Rangers and Yu-Gi-Oh – not to mention The Venture Bros or Archer. So who do you target, the kids now grown up or the current generation? If you want to appeal to both, how do you juggle being true to the original and yet fresh and new? Often, given that most reboots stink, I don't think we appreciate how hard of a job it is in the first place.

     The trick is to identify the things that made the original most appealing. Something I think the Joe movies have really missed. At its heart, GI Joe was an ensemble story. There were literally dozens of different Joes, and each one had a backstory and unique costume as well as different abilities. Each Joe was supposed to be the best of the best in his/her field. And, of course, they had all the coolest toys and guns and vehicles. One good thing from this massive cast was that you could almost guarantee that you could find a Joe who you thought was neat and liked to watch. Sadly the movies have given us a smaller cast, made everybody wear about the same uniforms (which reduces their uniqueness), and shown a cool vehicle in just one scene, maybe two. For an action movie/concept/series there is a consistently depressing lack of action. For a gathering of different personalities everybody feels the same.

     Still, as I said at the beginning, it's not all bad.

The acting- We do have several characters, if not quite the whole Joe roster, to watch. Dwayne Johnson plays Roadblock and is an old hand at playing the action hero, of which he does a passable job. D.J. Cotrona plays Flint - not sure why Flint is in the movie since he only has a few lines (and is not the Flint I remember from the cartoons). Adrianne Palicki plays Lady Jaye – she does a good job playing a sadly stereotyped character. Would have been nice to have seen a tough, confident woman soldier who didn't wear skimpy clothing (granted, for only one scene); but that's asking for a lot from Hollywood. Ray Park is Snake Eyes, and the former Darth Maul does a good job playing the character who doesn't talk except with his fists. Lastly we have Bruce Willis as General Joe Colton. I kind of liked him, his acting was fine, but the role itself I wondered at – he didn't seem to fill in any missing gaps in the story, and his character had only a small part in the original comic books.

     Oddly enough, for a GI Joe movie, it is the villains who really steal the show. Arnold Vosloo is Zartan, and he is awesome. This is not the whiny Zartan of the cartoon, it is the more sinister yet smart-alec Zartan of the comic books. He was the best performance. Byung-hun Lee is Storm Shadow and does a great job looking, and most importantly moving, the part. Ray Stevenson is Firefly and for having a background role really manages to make his character stand out.

     Playing both good and bad roles is Jonathan Pryce as the President/Zartan-in-disguise. This is actually a very hard role to play, and he does it well. Playing both roles meant altering his mannerisms and speech to fit two characters, and I liked how he pulled it off. He actually gets very little time as the President, mostly playing his evil twin.

     Despite being on the posters, Channing Tatum reprises his role as Duke for just a few minutes on screen. The characters of Jinx (Elodie Yung) and the Blind Master (RZA) have minor roles, and like Bruce Willis' character could have easily been dropped.

The story- When we left our heroes the shape-shifting Zartan was pretending to be President of the US while Cobra Commander and his cronies had been captured. We have a short scene of Duke ineptly playing Call of Duty (which is a funny scene) with Roadblock's family before our heroes go off to recover some nukes and of course shoot bad guys. This is where the movie does something that I really, really hate to see. Zartan, as pretend President, orders the destruction of the GI Joes and our heroes get ambushed. Now granted, we don't see any bodies – just a pile of dog tags later – but you never, never kill off any heroes at the beginning of a sequel. It is a poor way to repay your audience who invested themselves in the characters in one movie to then kill said characters at the beginning of the next (Aliens 3 still sticks in my craw, I loved Hicks). Plus, the first movie made Duke and Ripcord seem like closest buddies – Roadblock wasn't in the first movie at all. So what happened to Ripcord? He elope with Scarlett? (who was, in the comics, close to Snake Eyes – don't want to upset the guy with the samurai sword)

     So with our huge cast of Joes cut down to just 3 (Roadblock, Flint and Jaye) our heroes have to escape the desert and track down the person who betrayed them. Who would be Zartan, disguised as the President. First we detour to seeing the super-secret prison holding Cobra Commander and Destro. Snake Eyes is brought in, and then revealed to be Storm Shadow. Now, why doesn't this raise any alarms? You think you have captured a renegade Joe, yet instead have a Cobra? In a prison of Cobra leadership? A ninja? Any yet nobody thinks, hmm.... this might be an escape attempt? So of course they all escape, with some help from Firefly – who has explosive mini-robot bombs shaped like his namesake.

     The real Snake Eyes is training fellow ninja Jinx and working to capture Storm Shadow, who killed their former ninja master. Injured from the prison breakout SS is in a Himalayan secret ninja hideout. Why does the Cobra health care plan involve going to the middle of nowhere when you are critically injured? Our ninja fight scene is somewhat underwhelming, but SS and SE's faceoff is okay. Storm Shadow is captured, and reveals that he is not a bad guy, someone framed him for the death of the Hard Master and he fled to find the true killer. This is actually true to the comics, in a pleasant change of pace.

     So former enemy-turned-friend in tow we meet up with our other heroes, who have discovered that the President isn't really the President. They decide to storm the nuclear disarmament talk the fake President is hosting. Apparently the Cobras managed to send a giant death ray (well, death rock) satellite into orbit and nobody noticed. This is actually a very odd scene. Zartan tricks every country present into launching, then detonating all their nuclear missiles. Then threatens them with destruction by death rock, and blows up London to prove the point. So Paris last movie, London this one – it sucks to be outside the US in this series. It is supposed to be very serious and evil-is-about-to-win, yet is also very funny and Zartan kind of does the world a favor by getting rid of a whole lot of nukes. It has a lot of layers.

     Of course the shooting then starts, and we are treated to our one scene of Roadblock driving a super-tank against the Cobra super-tanks; none of which reminded me of the comics. The death rock satellite can be stopped by just pushing a button on the briefcase that controls it (an astounding lack of safeguards) which our heroes fight over and of course ultimately win the day.

     Set up for a third movie, we have the closing ceremony and the vow to stop our evil villains.

My recommendation- wait for it on Redbox/Netflix/cable, if you're really a fan or bored it is worth catching the cheap show

$800

    Whenever you talk about being homeless there is one thing that will instantly leap to mind or the discussion, as nicely revealed in the epithet most often hurled at the homeless, "Get a job you bum!"
    I will deal with the bum part in a future post, let me look now at the 'get a job' part.  Being homeless I naturally wanted to get a job.  A job means money, which means food and housing and all the nice things that I did not have living on the streets (like somewhere to put my stuff instead of carrying it on my back, I'm a 38 year-old with a 75 year-old's spine).  Getting a job can be a challenge, but it is even moreso when one is homeless.  However, I got lucky and did manage to get a job.  I thought everything would be great, I was on the path to getting off the streets.  I did not think this for long.  The reason being what I now think of as 'homeless economics' and will present here.  Fair warning, there are going to be a lot of numbers in the rest of this post.

    Let's start at the important point, income.  Having a job means making money (actually trading time for money, not making it magically like a bank, but I digress), so how much money am I now making via gainful employment?  Well, I am somewhat skilled, though not specially so, and I got a part-time job making about $10/hr after taxes.  At first, for a whole blessed month, 'part-time' meant 30 hours a week, or $300/week after taxes for a whopping $1,200 that month in my pocket.  After that first month, sadly (and somewhat inexplicably, but I'm not going to go into all the job troubles here, just the numbers) 'part-time' became only 20 hrs/week, for just $800 a month.  It would remain there until I left, so we'll use $800 as my new income.

    Now, with income comes expenses.  First, I had to get to my job and for that I needed a bus pass - which was $80 a month.  Next I needed a phone, to be reached for scheduling changes and to call my boss if he wasn't at the office and I needed to know how to do something (which happened several times).  One no-contract Virgin Mobile cell phone was $20 on sale, and the lowest calling plan was $30 a month (and out of my 1,500 minutes I think I once used maybe 150 - I'm not a phone guy).  Work clothes need to be kept clean, so laundry at the friendly neighborhood laundromat ran about $20 a month (weekly washings of $5).  So incidental expenses ran about $130/month.  My $800 income - $130 expenses = $670 left over.  Not bad, right?

    Well, one other thing - I needed to eat.  Eating good.  Now not having a home is a problem when it comes to eating.  With a house and the ability to store and prepare food I have been able to easily eat for $2 a meal, so 3 meals a day would be $6 and a 30 day month totaling $180 for food.  Tack on a little for the few meals that were more expensive or random treats and a fairly consistent $200/month food bill is something I have lived on before.  But note how I opened that, with the ability to store and prepare food.  I didn't have that, I was still homeless when starting my new job.
    Not being able to prepare food means you have to buy stuff that is already made, which is more expensive.  A $1 frozen dinner is a lot cheaper than a $3 pre-made sandwich at the grocery store - and that gets worse if you talk about fast food.  A small fast food meal is usually about $6 (5 plus tax, rounded).  Eating fast food three times a day is $18 a day or $540 a month.  Ee-gads!  So let's pair down to just 2 meals a day, morning and night, which brings it down to $12 a day or $360/month.  So the $670 we had above - $360 for food = $310/month.
    As a final note, food is the hardest thing to budget when you're on the streets.  Being hungry is hard, and even a job like mine that just required walking and talking to people managed to work up quite the appetite.  Keeping control of food costs, and most importantly realizing just how much I was actually spending on food was a challenge.

    Now, we started with $800 and currently have $310 left - and we're still missing something.  So far we've (or, well, I did) spent money just on keeping the job (including staying alive in general by eating) - but we are (I was) still homeless.  We haven't paid anything yet for rent.  So let's look at the path off the streets that our job has provided.
    There are three options for getting a place to live.  First, the ideal, getting a small apartment of one's own.  Second, less ideal but still okay, renting a room.  Finally, least attractive, renting a hotel room.  We'll look at them in order:
    Apartment - well, this is the nicest, and the hardest.  First, to even dream about getting an apartment you need to pass a credit check.  If, like me, your credit score is embarrassed to show itself in public, this is a problem. If you make it over that hurdle though, there are others.  Starting, the cheapest, smallest studio apartment is going to run about $500 a month (easily 600 to 1,000 depending on location).  But that's not the real expense, no.  Most people just stop right there, the monthly cost, but you also have to take into account that you have to pay up-front.  First and last months' rent plus a security deposit (typically equal to one month's rent) before you can claim home sweet home.  So $1,500 up front, plus $500 a month.  And how much did we have left over a month?  Oh yeah, $310.  Not even enough for the monthly, and of course I didn't have any money saved up for that $1,500 hurdle.
    Room - okay, so getting an apartment is a bust, what about Plan B, renting a room?  Well, a search on Craigslist can turn up some pretty darned expensive rooms - I mean, who really wants to pay $800 to $1,000 just to rent a room?!  But there are some more reasonable people who will rent a place for just $400 a month.  Not bad, remembering that we'll be able to make our own food and lower that expense we should be able to get up to $470 a month, which will just cover the rent and leave a few bucks to do something fun with (though the library is a treasure trove of fun, and free).  Room looking good . . . um,  well, almost.  See, one little problem - all those nice $400 rooms also want a deposit, not as much- just first and last months' rent, but that still means coming up with $800 to move in.  And, well, $800 is everything that we make in one month - so that would be a whole month of not eating or riding the bus or anything to save up to move in somewhere.  Hmm...
    Hotel - now we get to the least desirable option, the hotel room.  These too can be incredibly expensive, up to $1,000 a month or more with a kitchenette.  But I was able to find a hotel that was only $200 a week - just a room, not kitchenette or fridge so still paying the higher price in food (though I did have room to store some non-perishable food).  But, $200 a week is $800 a month.  Still a whole lot of money, but at least you don't have to pay anything up front.
     This was the route I took.  I did not expect my hours to get cut, so with my $1,200 that first month I had enough to get a hotel room (yay, off the streets, woo hoo!!!) and still cover my expenses.  Then I realized I had a problem.  I had no money left over to save up to rent a room with (remember, $800 up front).  Then my hours got cut and I couldn't even afford to stay at the hotel.  I didn't have any winter camping gear, having arrived in summer; and in Denver it does not snow too much, but it does snow and get cold.  It took about $200 to get the sleeping bag, blankets, thermal pants, jacket, boots and such to be able to camp outside without losing any appendages to frostbite (which I say in a lighthearted manner, but I've met guys who have had toes amputated from it).

    So, getting a job is a Good Thing, no doubt about it - but it is not a "get out of being homeless free" card.  It takes quite a bit of money to get off the streets, and really at least a full-time job (which seem to be harder to find every year) making above minimum wage.  Sadly being homeless is a lot easier to fall into than crawl out of.  And if your job doesn't work out (I may someday go over how mine went sideways, maybe not - I don't like to think about how "almost but not good enough" I came to some measure of happiness) then you go right back to square one.
    So, there was your little economics lesson for the day.  Makes your own anemic checking account look better, doesn't it?

Movie Commentary: 2013 Oscar Nominated Short Films – Animated

At a glance- 8 animated films from 2 to 30 minutes; covering drama, comedy, romance, children's stories and just plain visual fun

What is it? It's February, and that means it's Oscar time. A lot of the nominated films have returned to the box office to drum up some more support, and we also have two films that showcase the Oscar-nominated shorts, one for Live Action and the other covering Animated. Being me, I went to see the animated shorts.

     Now, I have to confess that I really like animated works. From the first Bugs Bunny cartoon as a child to the fantastic work done recently by Pixar, and surrounded by a cloud of Japanese Anime over the years. Is this love because I'm such a kid at heart (which sounds kinder than immature)? Actually, no. I have tried over the years to find a way to explain the appeal of animation over live action, and at last I think I've found it. My ex-girlfriend is a huge Opera Lover (and note the capitols as I describe her)(she also sings opera like an angel), and so of course I listened to some opera myself. I loved it. It was opera that actually explained animation to me. See, in opera I don't know the language (no left-brain) – so I am listening to the music and the tone of the singing; it is a very right-brained activity. Animation is the same way. An animated character can convey far, far more emotion then any but the most skilled human actor – because the animated character is not constrained by reality. Eyes are almost always exaggerated, expressions can literally become larger than the character's head, and the background changes at a whim. All of this brings a character's inner emotions to life, it is the right-brained way of telling, and viewing, a story.

     Shorts add an extra dimension to the animation. A short film has no room to waste, every frame has to build the story and advance the emotions that are trying to be conveyed. It is a hard, fast punch to the gut (when done right, a forgettable commercial when done wrong).

     If I remember correctly (which happens from time to time) last year the shorts were all just presented one after the other. This year, there are two hosts who briefly speak in-between each short film. William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg are directors of last year's Oscar-winning "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore," and it was a great short. While some may wonder why you would need hosts for a 90 minute total collection of mostly 5 minute films, they actually were a very good idea. They provide a break, a way to let go of the last short and get ready for the one to come. Like having a glass of water to clear the palate in-between courses of a meal. And since the first 7 shorts have no dialogue, they also provide some human voices.

     Preamble aside, let's get to the shorts themselves. First, we have the nominees (in the order they appear in the film):

"Maggie Simpson in 'The Longest Daycare' "

Little baby Maggie has stepped out of The Simpsons and into her own short. This is a very cute story. Poor Maggie is put in a machine that deems her to be “normal intelligence” and she is dumped in a corner with the kids who are “nothing special.” She finds a caterpillar, which another child wants to smash, and she struggles to rescue it from the evil hammer of her nemesis.

"Fresh Guacamole"

At only 2 minutes this is the shortest of all the films. It is simply making fresh guacamole, as the title says, but with some odd ingredients. Like a hand grenade, baseball, dice and more. Claymation and brillant.

"Adam and Dog"

A dog is man's best friend, right? This short seeks to explain that. We see dog, roaming by himself, who meets Adam in the Garden of Eden. They form a bond, until Eve enters the picture. But even when the two first humans are cast out of the garden, dog follows loyally. This is a nice short, but I think a lot of it's impact comes from weather or not you like dogs. Cat lovers may not be so impressed.

"Head Over Heels"

A somewhat odd love story about a husband who lives on the floor and wife who lives on the ceiling. Something has broken them up, in more than just the spacial sense, and so we follow as they try to deal with their relationship. Good, very good story and well done. The only odd thing was that just a few days before seeing this I watched a preview for “Upside Down” which is an upcoming feature live action film about a boy and girl who live on worlds that mirror each other. Not sure if the short or people who worked on it had anything to do with the movie coming out next month.

"Paperman"

I had seen this one, so have you if you watched Disney's “Wreck-It Ralph” last year. This is a very cute boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-tries-to-get-girl's-attention-with-paper-airplanes story. You know, the classic romance.

     Then we have some shorts that are highly commended:

“Abiogenesis” – is a gorgeous special-effects short. It shows a machine that lands on a barren planet and fills it with life. Computer animated, and with such a level of detail it must have taken a heck of a lot of work to render.

“Dripped” – a tribute to Jackson Pollock, this is the rather unusual story of an art thief. Not merely stealing paintings, he actually eats them – until finally exploding in a burst of colors. This is an old-style computer animation, everything is pixelated, which surprisingly has a lot of charm. I liked the story, the artist so full of art that he can't paint something, he has to just release the paints in a frenzy. I am not much of an art guy, so I had to look up Mr. Pollock on Wikipedia the next day, but I think this is a fitting tribute to his work.

“The Gruffalo's Child” – at almost 30 minutes this is the longest, and out of the 8 shorts the only one with dialogue. An adaptation of a 2004 children's book of the same name (itself a sequel to the 1999 book, “The Gruffalo” and using the same characters) with an all-star voice cast and beautiful animation. This is a rhyming-couplet children's poem brought to life; and a very cute story of a curious child and clever mouse.

My recommendation- go see it if you want to just relax and enjoy a visual feast

P.S.- in case you were wondering, my vote is for "Fresh Guacamole" to win. It is a great example of the animated and short styles. It is like watching a wonderful magic trick. All of them are good, but I liked that one best.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

The Homeless Nerd Reviews:

The Dark Knight Rises

At a glance- superhero action, drama and explosions, the final movie in a trilogy

What is it? This summer has seen a reboot to the Spider-Man franchise and also, with this movie, a closing of the Batman series. Batman is a complicated character. After witnessing his parents' death as a small boy Bruce Wayne becomes masked crime-fighter The Batman. The first Batman comic was in 1939, the first Batman TV show in the 1960s and the first Batman movie in 1989. That's a lot of stories for one character.

One reason for the proliferation of Batman-related media is that the character himself is very complex. He is dark and brooding, fighting crime because of personal drive – and yet he typically has Robin, his wise-cracking (though also capable) teenage sidekick. He is a great fighter, called “The Dark Knight” - and yet also brilliant, designing all his own weapons and also called “The Great Detective.” Like James Bond, Batman ends up falling in love with different women, yet most every relationship ends badly since his hometown of Gotham city is his first and truest love.

The acting- As the 6^th actor to take on the role, Christian Bale is to me one of the best of the Batmen. He has the billionaire playboy good looks and yet moves like a dangerous athlete. He also pulls off the tortured and conflicted Batman well (not so much the driven intellectual, but nobody's perfect).

    Our villain is the masked Bane, played by Tom Hardy, a Russian master-criminal who has set his sights on Gotham city. I feel for any actor who has to play a part with a mask or dark glasses – one's face is vital to expressing emotions which in turn is vital to selling a role. You can take the easy way out like Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd and just take off the offending helmet/whatever; but it is far more difficult to act the role the way that it looks in the comics. Mr. Hardy does a good job of being physically imposing, but not like a mindless brute. My only complaint was that the distortion in his voice from the mask made it hard to hear some of his lines (though, it doesn't help that I'm partially deaf).

    Anne Hathaway takes on the role of part-villain / part-love interest Selina Kyle aka Catwoman. I was surprised at how much I liked her. While not physically imposing she still appears dangerous, and she carries the moral ambiguity and sex appeal of the comic character. Catwoman and Batman have had a long-term on-again off-again relationship, which is odd given that he is essentially a lawman and she a criminal. It's an 'opposites attract' thing.

    Speaking of lawmen, we also have Commissioner Gordon (played perfectly, again, by Gary Oldman) and the new character of Police Officer Blake (played by Joseph Gorden-Levitt). Gordan's world-weary leader and Blake's idealistic up-and-comer give some added dimensions to the script, and both men play their parts well.

    Rounding out the cast are the other love-interest, Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), engineer and businessman Lucius Fox (the always fantastic Morgan Freeman) and loyal butler Alfred (Michael Caine – the best of the Alfreds ever).

The story- There are several common themes in the superhero genre, on of which is “wishing for a normal life.” As our final act starts Harvey Dent's death has led to new legislation allowing the police to crack down on crime, and 8 years have passed with Bruce Wayne living as a hermit and having given up on being Batman. Losing his true love in the last film has shown him how high the price of being Batman is, and it's too much. “Gotham doesn't need the Batman,” he says. Until, of course, a new villain shows up – Bane. Incredibly strong and trained by the ruthless League of Shadows (a flashback to the first movie), Bane is out to destroy Gotham city. So once again Bruce Wayne has to face the cost of becoming the Batman and his desire to live a normal, happy life. The Dark Knight Rises does a good job of playing to its theme. Bruce has to face defeat and ultimately rise above his fears and struggles to save Gotham. Some parts are very unrealistic, like in most superhero movies, for example an improvised back surgery that takes place in a third-world prison (and would leave a real person crippled for life). Despite a few bumps the story unfolds nicely and there are lots of heroes and larger-than-life action. Judged by its theme, it is a good movie.

    Which is where this review goes a little sideways. I did not like this movie. That may come as a shock since it was generally well-reviewed and I just said it was a good movie. The problem is not the movie following its theme, the problem is with the theme itself. The “wishing for a normal life” is common to superheroes because so many of them acquired their powers involuntarily. Superman was born with his abilities, Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive (or now genetically-enhanced) spider. They didn't ask to become heroes, and so they often wonder what life would be like as normal people. That is not true for Batman. Bruce Wayne decided to become Batman, he spent an insane amount of time and training to make himself into a hero. He knew the job was dangerous when he took it (to quote Super Chicken). Comic book Batman has faced no end of pain and suffering and never given up on being Batman. In the comics when Bane appeared, called the 'Knightfall' story arc, when Bruce Wayne was too injured to go on he called another hero, Azreal, to take over. Then Bruce went on a trip to the best doctors, studied again under the master assassin who trained him originally, and came back to Gotham to beat up Azreal – who didn't have the willpower and emotional toughness necessary to be Batman. In the comics, other more powerful heroes were afraid of the Batman, because his will and his intelligence were so great that he could find a way to defeat any foe. Comic book Batman would not give it all up for 8 years and let the cops handle things. After all, the cops weren't able to save his mother and father from being killed.

    Ultimately that is why I didn't like this movie: it didn't feel like it was true to the source comic book material. Had it been another hero in the starring role I would have enjoyed it, it is a good superhero movie, it just didn't feel like a Batman movie. Several things, beyond just Bruce Wayne's character, are significantly altered from the comics. To me that's a deal-breaker. I understand a movie is different from a comic book, and heroes with decades of stories have to be reduced to 2 hours; however, the movie still has to respect and be true to the original comics and all the work that created the character in the first place. At least, that's what I think.

My recommendation-

    If you haven't read the comics: if you like superhero movies go see it, it's good.

    If you have read the comics: go see it, but know that it will be different from what you have read, so keep an open mind and no expectations.