Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Earth.

First off, I’d just like to say that I enjoyed Green Lantern.  I liked the movie. It was far from perfect, but I don’t agree with all of what is being said about it.

It has been a long time since I’ve seen such venom spewed at a movie, from pretty much every critic and every review I’ve read. As an openly huge fan of Green Lantern in the comics, I could have easily hated this movie for all of the things being said about it, or for all of my own complaints about it.  I didn’t, though.  Also, as a fan of GL comics, it makes me very sad to read and hear all of these venomous reviews.

I know the movie isn’t great, but for the love of god, it’s NOT FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Batman & Robin, or X-Men Origins: Wolverine bad.  I understand there was a lot of hope going into this movie for a lot of people, but just because it wasn’t the second coming of The Dark Knight, doesn’t mean it deserves a lot of what I’ve read about the film.  Remember, Batman Begins didn’t blow anyone away either (No, GL is not as good as Batman Begin, this is just an example), but it laid the ground work for what was needed for the next Batman story, that the filmmakers really wanted to tell.

I’m not going to apologize for this movie, or say that’s it’s completely misunderstood. It’s not.  Not entirely, but just a little bit.  I will gladly give you that the advertising was misleading.  From the reports out there to read, the advertising department did not like advertising the movie the way they did, based off of the final film they saw.  They knew it was misleading, but the exec’s made a commandment, and it was so.

As I said before, this movie is NOT perfect.  Not even close.  It seems to me that people were expected something on the level of Iron Man or The Dark Knight, but those were two movie that were not made for younger audiences.  Green Lantern was clearly made with younger audiences in mind, and that goes right back to the failure of the marketing.  Watching the trailers, I never got that sense from them.  There is darkness in this movie, but this movie is NOT dark.  Not remotely.

I liked the Green Lantern movie.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I do have problems and complaints with it though.  First of all, lose the cheese.  Oh, dear god, the cheese.  This was my first clue that this movie was made with a younger audience in mind.  I’m not sure how much they tried to do to make this enjoyable for the 18+ age group, but I have to hope they at least tried.  Some of the shots of Hal (Our main hero of the film) flying off, with the horrible music playing the background, just screamed children’s movie. And the score… God help me.  Superman has an amazing theme, that just IS Superman.  Whenever I hear that music, it always brings to mind the same things; strength, sacrifice, hero, flying, saving the day.  Superman.  Then there’s the Green Lantern score and theme.  It’s like they followed a blue-print for generic, Superman knock-off, crap.  It’s terrible. The majority of the cheesiness in this film comes from the theme playing over shots of Hal flying off to… Fuck if I know.  I mean he literally flies off into the god damned sunset to this music.  *Sigh*

My next problem is much less an issue for me, but it’s there.  This movie is funny when it tries to be, but it tries to be funny too much.  The comedy works pretty well throughout, but they go to it too often.  Also, no, this is not, NOT, Van Wilder in space, so for everyone who thought/said that just from the previews, you can kindly fuck off.  This is not your validation.  My only problem with the comedy is not that it’s bad, it’s just that there is more of it than is necessary.  I think that also adds to some of the cheesiness of the movie as well.

That’s honestly pretty much it for my problems with the movie, with exception to a few minor nit-picks. There are a few things I could jump on if I wanted to be a complete Green Lantern purist. For example…

——SPOILERS!!!——-

For example, the Guardians being the creator(s) of the yellow ring which Sinestro will eventually use.  Or Parallax basically being a combination of two characters from the comics; himself and another character by the name of Krona, who is basically a fallen Guardian (from the same race as the Guardians, dating back to before they were “The Guardians”).  If you’re really paying attention, it will be pretty easy to see the reveal of Parallax being a “fallen” Guardian coming, long before it happens.  Also, Sinestro putting on the yellow ring at the end seemed a little forced, premature, and unnecessary considering the events that just happened in the film.

——END SPOILERS——

For example, Hector Hammond’s storyline was completely unnecessary.  I understood what they were trying to do with it, but it didn’t need to be there.  If it was just Hammond as the villain, or just Parallax, I think the movie would have worked much better.  And then there’s Blake Lively.  She handles herself well enough, but is just not up for the role of Carol Ferris.  Don’t get me wrong, she nails the look.  The girl looks amazing, but she has no range as an actress.  I remember cringing when I first read she had been cast in this role, and my worries were warranted.  I had about the same reaction to her being cast as Carol, as I did to Kate Bosworth being cast as Lois Lane, but Lively was, thankfully, not as terrible as Bosworth was as Lois, so I will give her that.  The rest of the cast I felt did pretty well, no other complaints there.  I do have a few minor complaints about some of the effects.  I don’t dislike the costumes, but the occasional floating head was a bit distracting.

The ground work has been laid for future movies to be made in this series, should they choose to, and I think it’s good ground work.  They need to made better casting choices going forward, hire someone else to do the score (and hopefully re-score a better theme),  tighten up the writing a bit, and maybe look at getting someone who could do a little better job in the director’s chair.  I sincerely hope this movie does well enough to get a sequel, if nothing else to, like Tron Legacy, get the chance to correct the missteps of this movie, and make something truly great with another.

The Green Lantern Corps, from the Green Lantern comics.

This movie is far from perfect, but it’s also far from the worst thing you’ll see this year.  There is a lot of room for improvement, and a lot of potential, so I hope they get the chance to take a shot at both of those.  (Personally I liked it better than Thor, as I was fairly disappointed with that movie, but that’s likely not a largely shared opinion.)

If you have kids, take them to see it.  I’m sure they’ll love it… But be prepared for a trip to the toy store after.  If you’re a Green Lantern fan, go see it, just don’t expect The Dark Knight.  If you go expecting to get Green Lantern, you’ll be fine.  There’s plenty of Green Lantern there.

P.S.

Oh, and there is a short “easter egg” after the credits start to roll, but it’s not at the very end of the credits, so no need to wait until the end of them.  Also, if you can avoid seeing it in 3D, do so.  It really didn’t add anything to the movie, even though it was shot with 3D post-conversion in mind during the filming.

QB Terrelle Pryor after Ohio State’s the 2008 home loss to Penn State

I saw a story on ESPN last night about Ohio State’s QB Terrelle Pryor being the key to the OSU/USC game, and how the last time USC played against a QB like Pryor, Vince Young in a National Title game, USC was unable to stop Young, and lost the game.  In the comments on that page was a guy, an OSU fan, calling the other OSU fans “pussies” for saying OSU would most likely lose, or if they did win, that it would be close, and not an out right ass-kicking of USC.  Basically saying these people aren’t true Ohio State fans, or something to that nature, because they apparently don’t think OSU will always win, every game, ever.  Someone did call the guy out, telling him something along the lines of “it’s called being realistic.”  It kind of reminded me of a friend of mine, and his die hard approach to saying OSU is going to easily beat USC.  As much as I’d love to believe that, it’s just not that realistic.

Dear God, if they get blown out again, can you imagine how bad that will be?  Not just for Ohio State, but the entire BigTen.  Not only will any national respect for OSU be completely gone; for the team and the program, but for the BigTen as well.  Do you realize Ohio State has lost three straight bowl games?  Christ.  That’s simply not acceptable.  Couple all that with Iowa’s by the teeth “win”* over Northern Iowa, whom they should have destroyed, and Illinois’ embarrassing loss to Missouri (again), when their QB, Isiah John ‘Juice’ Williams, is supposed to be one of the best quarterbacks in the nation, not just the BigTen.  People are going to start looking at the BigTen like they do the MAC or Mountain West Conference (except the MWC actually has a few teams on the rise!).  No one will think the BigTen is worth their time.
* I put win in quotes because I think that even in losing, that game was more of a victory for Northern Iowa, than Iowa.

Also, if Ohio State loses to USC again, I give [coach Jim] Tressel two years tops, before he’s ousted by the school, as I’m sure the backlash from the fans, alumni, and the media will be huge.  Think about it; former OSU head coach John Cooper won games, sure, but he couldn’t beat Michigan: Fired.  Coach Tressel wins games and beats Michigan, but can’t seem to win big non-conference games: Hot Seat?  Fired?  If OSU loses to USC, then loses another bowl game this year, I’m not entirely sure Tressel will still be the head coach at Ohio State next year.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Jim Tressel, but people are going to look at him like he’s not getting the job done when it counts.  This is a very important season for coach Tressel.

On top of that, people can even start making the argument that a lot of the recent wins over Michigan don’t mean as much as once thought, as the last three or so seasons have shown (with exception to the 2006, #1 vs #2 meeting) Michigan’s program has been falling apart, and they may not have been as good of a team as everyone had thought at the time.

Taking a look at the rest of the BigTen, there are still some other question marks floating around.  I’ll start with Michigan, as I already touched upon them above.  They had a great season opener, the first win in a season opener in three years, a dominant victory, and great play on both sides of the ball, but that’s one game.  This “new” Michigan team has only played one game, only looked good in one game, and only won one game, so far.  The uncertainty shouldn’t last long, one way or the other, as they will be playing a newly invigorated Notre Dame team, in the unofficial “Best of the Former Worst” game of the week.  Next we’ve got Illinois, with a QB that had a legitimate argument about being overlooked as the preseason BigTen Offensive Player of the Year (which went to Ohio State’s Sophomore QB Terrelle Pryor), until this past Saturday after losing to Missouri, in a pathetic showing.  Penn State, Michigan State, and Purdue all look promising, but like Michigan, they have yet to really be challenged.

Finishing up my thoughts on Ohio State, I don’t want to be all negative, because there really is potential there.  OSU has a lot of talent, but they’re still a young team, without a great deal of experience as a whole unit.  Ohio State also doesn’t get enough credit for what they did in the Fiesta Bowl last season against Texas.  Texas had a strong argument to be in the National Title game, but instead got lowly Ohio State for an opponent.  An Ohio State team who was embarrassed by USC earlier that season, and lost to Penn State at home, for the first time since Penn State joined the BigTen, in a game where OSU was favored.  Not only did Ohio State show up to play in the Fiesta Bowl, but they damn near won.  One could even argue that OSU should have won that game, if not for one small breakdown on defense, which lead to a big play.  Sadly though, a lot of the talent OSU had in that Fiesta Bowl is gone, replaced with new, unsure talent.  Honestly I think this will be a rebuilding year for Ohio State.  There’s a lot of young talent that needs time and experience to improve, and that’s going to be over the course of this season.  With that said, if OSU can somehow beat Southern Cal, that will be a huge step forward for the team, the program, Terrelle Pryor, and coach Tressel.

I am keeping my fingers crossed this weekend, hoping that the BigTen comes out of Saturday still breathing, strong, worth the attention of the rest of the country, and not little more than a polished turd.  In two day’s time, we will see.  God help us all.

In the Navy

I’ve also completely reconstructed my DVD List site, complete with brand new PHP/MySQL backing.  All dynamic, baby.  Shortly after I implemented the database driven content on there, I also rebuilt the layout, which I am now much happier with… For now.

Out.

Every time I close my eyes

Then you’ve got all the releases coming on the home front for the holidays, can anyone say The Dark Knight? There is always a minimum of, at the very least, ten DVDs I would really like to purchase at any given time.  Maybe someday I will get them all, maybe not, who knows.

But that’s all to come, and this is now, and right now we have a great many movies that have come out over the last year that we can talk shit about, so lets do that, right?  Right!  Well then lets get started…

I’ve seen a great many films this year so I doubt I will be able to hit them all equally, but I will do my best to get as many as I can.  Also from now on I will attempt to do a more monthly coverage of these things we call “entertaining cinema” as well as TV rap-ups as well… Maybe… Yeah.

I’ll start from latest and go backwards, I feel that will be the best way to go about this.  So to start off we have Quantum of Solace, the follow-up to Casino Royale in the newly revamped James Bond 007 franchise.  This movie picks up, literally, within minutes of the end of the last film, and it starts quickly.  The film wastes no time jumping right into the action, and for the most part keeps it going pretty well throughout the film.  I enjoyed this, as it all seemed to be very well done, it was very entertaining and drew me into it as a result.  With that said, I did find myself missing some of the more subtle and cerebral moments from the earlier films in the franchise.  It was always fun watching Bond get the upper had on his enemies by merely out-witting them.  Not to say that there is none of that in this film, as there are some moments that are just fun, but they have clearly decided to go with a more action-oriented style of story telling for these new films.

Personally I wasn’t very excited about the casting of Olga Kurylenko as the female lead, or “Bond Girl” if you must, as I just wasn’t that fond of her.  Don’t get me wrong, she is a gorgeous woman, I just didn’t think she was a good choice for the film, but I will admit when I am wrong, and I was.  Olga did a great job in this part and her interaction with Daniel Craig as Bond was, in my opinion, great as well.  I still feel Daniel Craig is a good, if not a traditional, Bond.  I understand the direction these last two films are going with, and he plays the part well with that.  All in all, I enjoyed Quantum of Solace, even though it was only a mere 106 minutes running time.  For those who are fans of the Bond films, this one is a definite go and see, especially in theaters, but I am always an avid “go to the theaters” guy, it’s just the best way to enjoy bigger movies.

Alright, that was longer than I was expecting so I’m only going to do one other movie right now, and to mix it up a bit, that movie will be Role Models.  To make it short, I really loved this film.  It was just great.  Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd are amazing in this movie.  They work perfectly together and separately, as well as with the kids.  The chemistry between the actors in this film is very good, they all really feel like they’ve known each other for a long time and get along great, or horribly, depending on what is called for.  I would recommend this movie to anyone who really enjoys a good, dirty and at times, blue comedy.  Though it is definitely not for a younger audience.

I feel as though I should throw something in about a movie I saw that I didn’t really care for, since I basically just made mad-love to the two films I just wrote about, but I think this post has gone on long enough, and I will try and throw something negative in about something else, in the weeks to come.

That’s it for now.

Out.

I was wrong about you.

With that said, I will… Not begin. Not yet. Right now I’m just making a general post. Speaking of making a general post, I have decided to discontinue the use of my DeadJournal in favor of just using this site. I mean what’s the point in having this one finally working all spiffy and the way I want it to when I don’t even use it? And as far as the DJ is concerned, I’ve really not been keeping up with it anyway, so I figured it was just a good time to move on. So with that in mind, moving on…

Last week I went back home to Ohio to take care of some things, mainly a doctors appointment and to VOTE. So I left Indy Friday night to head back to… (Walks away to blow out a candle) …Okay sorry about that, anyway, I got back to Ohio Friday night (Halloween, woohoo!) and took it easy for the weekend, though I was dismayed to find that Ohio State was on a bye-week, bah! So Monday I got up about 11am and got ready for my doctors appointment at three o’clock. The point of this appointment was to get a blood test, and I was nervous about doing it, so Annie came along with me, mainly because she talked me into it. That all went well, even the needle part. (>_<) No worries though, the test came back negative, I’m not pregnant! Seriously though, everything came back normal, I’m good and healthy. It was overall a pleasant trip to the doctor’s office, with exception to some of the ‘discussion’ Annie and I had.

After Monday comes Tuesday! Right? Got up early Tuesday morning, and yes I realize that 11am is usually considered early for me, but mother and I got up and went to vote at about six o’clock, that was fun! It actually wasn’t that bad, it only took about an hour. The rest of the day was spent waiting and the night was spent watching. Luckily it was a short night, and by eleven o’clock that night, we had our first black President of the US.
The rest of the week was spent working on various school work and just relaxing. Friday afternoon one of the guys mom used to work with came over and I helped him build a nice new big shelf in the garage. Saturday I got up and watch OSU trample Northwestern, again, then packed up the car and drove out to Kaska’s for the day/night. It was a nice time, except for Iowa being dick-heads and ruining it for the rest if the BigTen, but I digress. Sunday we watched football, in-between video games, and then I departed for Indy once again. That about brings me up to date.

In other news, I’ve started working a, soon to be paid hopefully, intern position at a local web design firm here in town. I’ve worked about four days, and so far I really enjoy it. It really helps having great people to work with as well. Oh, I also went to see Role Models (CLICK) last Friday night. Great movie, VERY funny, recommended.

That’s about all for now.

Out.

The Bible is a great story