Avengers: The Age of Max

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

  

Saturday, we decided to go to a matinee at Cerrito Theatre… and oddly enough, Big Ben & his family did too… we saw them in line… and then we saw “Avengers: Age of Ultron” starring… the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You know the actors & characters… and if you don’t, you checked out a LONG time ago. Basically the story starts out with the Avengers attacking a Hydra (bad guys from previous movies) stronghold to recapture an ultra-powerful scepter… and incidentally release two new foes, the Maximoff twins (Quiksilver & Scarlet Witch, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson & Elisabeth Olsen… who played a married couple in their last movie “Godzilla”, don’t think about that though). While the Avengers have the scepter, Iron Man decides that it’d be a good idea to use it to make artificial intelligence using its power.. you know, so that they can achieve world peace… and spoiler alert, it doesn’t happen… and he ends up making a super-powerful robot called Ultron (voiced by James Spader) who spends the rest of the movie making a horde of indestructible robots that he can transfer his conscience through (using the internet, which he also runs now) and there’s a floating island and… you know, what? I’m not going to be able to do a good job in making this sounds like a good movie… but trust me, it’s better than a lot of people are giving it credit for. It’s a huge movie event… so there are gonna be things to knit-pick… but yeah, it’s an action movie. Here are my quick pros & cons:

 

What I Like About This Movie

·         Getting Everybody Involved – It’s a massive cinematic universe… it’s actually easier to tell you who from the previous movies is NOT in here (Gwyneth Paltrow & Natalie Portman) and they even added another dozen or so including…

 

·         Andy Serkis – Because there wasn’t enough big names in this movie, they brought in the Great Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaw who will probably be in the Black Panther movie, which I’m okay with… and other new faces include the twins (mentioned before), the voice of James Spader, and Hawkeye’s family with his wife Velma from “Scooby Doo”

 

What I Didn’t Like About This Movie

·         The Floating Island – Yes, THIS was the point in this movie of superheroes and such that I just gave up on the Physics like I’m watching “Interstellar” or a Syfy movie… but yeah, even given the stuff like the magnetic/force field used to making it fly… then why are people falling off the edge?

 

·         Ultron’s Motivation – Look, you’re an indestructible robot who utilizes the internet as your plaything with (apparently) limitless vibranium resources to make thousands of clones and such… who’s threatening you? Just run sh*t! No need to wipe out all humans… you want to destroy the world K2 style and then NOT have your resources? Logic flawed!!!

 

·         It Wasn’t Infinity War or Civil War – Quick cockteasing me!!! F**k the anticipatory foreplay, let’s get down!!!

 

Yeah, go check it out… it’s no Mad Max: Fury Road… but on that note…

 

We rewatched the rest of the Mad Max trilogy starting with “Mad Max 2: Road Warrior” starring Mel Gibson & directed by George Miller. In this installment, Max (Gibson) is wandering the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Earth and stumbles upon a small oil refinery community… and he’s out of gas… but there’s also a band of marauders who are looking to take it over, get the gas & kill everybody inside… probably after some rapening. So then it works out that Max isn’t a complete dick & tries to save them… while saving himself. Before Fury Road, this was the best Mad Max movie… not just my opinion, basically FACT. Google it. There’s great action & intrigue throughout… and I highly recommend that you see this as soon as possible… and then go see Fury Road.

 

Later that night, we also watched the finale of the original trilogy “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” starring Mel Gibson and… Tina Turner. Yes, THAT Tina Turner… who also provided the soundtrack. Ugh… okay… in this installment Mad Max (with really long 80’s hair) is inexplicably surprise camel-drawn-wagon-jacked by one of the people that he saved in Mad Max 2… and then follows him to Bartertown, the Mos Eisley of this realm… where people come to trade their goods, get some companionship, and just not die if at all possible. Well, he goes in to get his camel-drawn wagon & supplies back… and then stumbles upon a political coup when the mayor of Bartertown (Turner) who’s trying to killer Master Blaster, who’s running the pig sh*t farm that this city (and plot) is built upon. Okay… so in summation, there’s THUNDERDOME which is a duel to the death… then there’s a surprise group of children who save Max… and a train… but did you notice one thing that I haven’t mentioned about this movie? Anything that’s missing from the plot outline? F**KING CARS!!! THERE’S NO CARS IN THIS CAR-CHASE MOVIE UNTIL… about 80 minutes in… and even then, it’s the bad guys who have the cars… and they’re on a train… which apparently still runs just fine on a clean track and… INEXCUSEABLE!!! Ugh… look, it’s easy to mock this movie… I mean… Tina Turner is the 2^nd billed ACTOR in this movie. Is it a horrible movie? Not at all… seriously, the potential of this movie is f**king amazing… and I want to see the sequel to Fury Road be a reimagining of this concept in some way… but yeah, it’s not great… and almost killed the franchise… until 30 years later when it RISES LIKE A PHOENIX IN FURY ROAD!!! SERIOUSLY GO SEE THAT MOVIE!!! “PITCH PERFECT 2” IS THE #1 MOVIE IN THE AMERICA!!! MEANWHILE FURY ROAD MADE ABOUT HALF AS MUCH MONEY & IS AT 98% ON ROTTEN TOMATOES!!! THAT MAKES ME ASHAMED TO BE A F**KING AMERICAN!!!

   

Earlier in the week, we were forwarded an email (possibly propaganda) about 20 horror movies available on Netflix that we should check out. We’d already seen three of them… but we figured that we’d watch some of the rest, if not all. First up was “Housebound” which is the story of New Zealand troublemaker (Morgana O’Reilly) who is arrested and sentenced to 8 months of house arrest… at her mother’s house. That’s right… moving back in with your mom & stepfather… what could be worse? Well, what if your well-intentioned blabbermouth mother also thinks that the mouth is haunted… and after a few days, event cause you to believe her. That’s about all I’m going to give you about the story… but I would highly recommend checking this movie out. It’s not super gory or anything… the acting is decent… the suspense is great… the story is even pretty decent with just a little disbelief. For example, I was trying to figure out how old the main character was supposed to be. In the story, she seems like she might be anywhere between 17 & 22 because she’s apparently fresh out of school… but the actress is obviously in her late twenties… but I just assume that’s why they mention that she’s on meth (quickly, but she’s pretty gorgeous for meth head, just saying maybe it aged her a bit)… and there are a few other things that you’ll just have to wave off… but overall, check this movie out! Support independent movies from Kiwi Hobbit World!

 

Next up was a movie called “Late Phases” starring Nick Damici & Ethan Embry (was in “Can’t Hardly Wait”, “Empire Records” & “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” but has honestly not aged well) and is the story of an aging wounded war vet (Damici) who moves to a retirement community where people are dying of mysterious circumstances… like BEING TORN TO F**KING SHREDS!!! Okay, I really do recommend checking this movie out… I want to get that out of the way right away because it’s a good flick & Nick Damici does a good job at playing a blind iron-resolute vet who seems amazed that everybody around him is f**king stupid… and the other actors do pretty well, including Tom Noonan who I haven’t seen in a while… you can see him as a priest with a beard. There are also some great teases that show that the writers have obviously seen past werewolf movies like “Silver Bullet” (there’s a priest involved AND an eye-patch guy) and others of the ilk. My main problem with this movie… is that EVERYBODY IS SO F**KING STUPID!!! The police? F**king useless… like even more so than they are in real life. “Eh, maybe it’s dogs doing it.” THEN KILL THE F**KING DOGS!!! The neighbors & other people in the retirement community? Friends & member of your community are dropping like flies… and not the peacefully in their sleep way as you might expect… more like screaming & being torn asunder… so what do you do? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! No heightened security, no extra camera footage (like three cameras in the whole sprawling city and two are at the front gate?), all kinds of stupid sh*t that you just have to say… “Okay, they all long for death’s sweet embrace & the people running the community have a lot of prepaid leases and a healthy waiting list for new entries… I’ll go with that… I guess.” Aside from that though, I liked this movie… made me think of my dad a little bit (sadly) and he would’ve probably liked this movie… picture a blind Charles Bronson going against a legion of werewolves… you’re welcome!

 

We also watched an odd little movie called “Volcano High” that… apparently was a Korean martial arts movie set in a high school where I guess everybody has super fighting powers… insert the new kid protagonist… and was on MTV for a while back in the early 2000’s. Now, I like martial arts movies… even the ones bordering on anime… but why would I watch this one as opposed to the hundreds, thousands of others? Well… this one was dubbed into English… but some of the biggest hip hop artists of the day… namely Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Andre 3000 & Big Boi of Outkast, Kelis, Mya, even Li’l Jon before he blew the f**k up… and random ass selections like the late great Pat Morita& Tracy Morgan. Intrigued, right? Yeah, me too! Well… the movie was okay… the lead guy especially had some amazing Jim Carrey-esque goofy smiles and stuff that was entertaining… the story is… well, it’s what you expect… and fighting scenes are okay loaded with special effects & reality bending… but it’s what you expect. My knit-pick… is that everything seems to be in super slow motion when they fight… to the point where I’m pretty sure a regular speed version of this movie… would last about 22 minutes, your average sitcom episode. Anyway, do you need to check it out? Of course not… but then again, that got me thinking about doing some ADR work for other foreign language movies… but these ones are actually good… so I give you my ADR nominations for the English dubbing… of “Raid: Redemption”!!!

 

Now, because it’s so jam packed with action, there’s not a whole lot of dialogue required to dub… I feel like Rama, the protagonist supercop could be voiced by… Eminem. Hear me out! Why Eminem? Because you can understand what he says… regardless of what Sly, Arnie, JCVD & others might say that’s pretty f**king important. Plus, he has a more miniscule, almost childish voice that he can use to give some empathy towards the hero. One thing from “Volcano High” that irritated me was Andre 3000 voicing the main guy who’s supposed to be kinda nerdy… Andre 3000 sounds cool as f**k all damn day… every day. Plus… you get a lot of raging Eminem “Ha-YA!!!”s once the fights start… you’re welcome!

 

I also like the idea of the injured officer Bowo being voiced by the great R. Kelly. Why? Why the hell not? That velvety voice would sing-song it’s way through his moans of pain... and I just like the idea.

 

Now for the crime lord Tama Riyadi... you'd think that I'd go with some boss like mutha f**k like Jay-Z... and that's an interesting pick... and I'd watch that movie... probably twice. We're talking about the "final boss" in this basically video game movie... and to have Jigga yelling out orders & runnin' sh*t from the top floor would be nice... but I'm casting Jay-Z's voice (if he has time) as the police commissioner barking out orders or something. Instead, I'm giving Tama's role to...

 

DMX!!! That rough, gravely, crazy voice with emphasis EVERYWHERE... you know it's the right decision. This show would be epic... how is this not already done? DMX should be in everything.

 

Anyway, that'll do it for tonight... busy little weekend coming up with Izzy's graduation & her family in town. Have a great weekend everybody!!! Support our troops!!!

Crabstravaganza

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday morning, Izzy & I went to the Farallones Museum on Crissy Field for their Crab Extravaganza… which honestly is intended for children ages 4 to 8 years… but we got to learn about crabs, including their anatomy… play with some real live shore crabs and sand crabs… and also do some crab trapping off the pier. What’s not to love? Here are some pictures…

 

The rest of Saturday, Izzy had been feeling under the weather, so we spent the rest of the day watching award winning movies… but that’ll be another entry.

 

Sunday was Mother’s Day, so we started it off with calls to our mothers letting them know how much we loved them & missed them… and yeah, what else can I say? I miss my mama… and I love her. You all know this. Moving on…

 

After waking up & eating breakfast, we started brewing our Beet Pale Ale. Yes, we tried something similar on short notice a few months ago… and that turned out pretty well & went quickly… but you really couldn’t tell that beets were involved really in taste or color… mostly because I think it was basically the juice from two pounds worth of beets… but this time, we’re upping the ante. In the boil, we basically chopped up about two pounds of beets… and just threw them into the boil to get as much of the color & sugars as possible. We’re also going to put about FIVE pounds in the secondary when the time comes… but more on that on about two weeks. In the meantime, here are pretty beer wort pictures to hold you over…

 

Also, check out our greens...

Another thing that I’ve been really getting into is podcasts. It started about two years ago now when Izzy got me hooked on Adam Carolla’s podcast… and then eventually going out to a bunch of others in his network as well as Channel Awesome, NPR, Podcast One and a few others that Izzy recommended as she’s been in the podcast game for a few years. It’s really taken off the past few weeks when she also convinced me to have an iPod shuffle so that I can listen to more while I work, ride the bus, all that other stuff. They’re a lot of fun to listen to when done correctly… and usually run the gamut from insanely entertaining to at least pretty interesting… and it seems pretty easy to find out what’s genuinely intriguing to a listener… and what might not be working for most.

 

So… we’re thinking about doing a Podcast ourselves… and we’re trying to come up with a good format that we can keep up pretty regularly. My guess is that, like this blog, it’ll be along the lines of a weekly update… possibly twice a week as we get things going & get the technology working right… but we have a few ideas for formats… and I think we can actually switch it up as things go along… but curious what you all find interesting. There’s always the Interview Format where we basically just have conversations with our friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, local dignitaries, successful entrepreneurs, unsuccessful entrepreneurs, business personalities, and interesting people in general. Always interesting to see how people get to where they are now. We also have skits that we can occasionally do… but not sure how readily we can do that with both working full-time and all that stuff… but that’s VERY intriguing.

 

Basically this blog may be coming into an audio format to save you time reading… and translate the format into your earholes at your convenience. Movie reviews, beer adventures, interviews, random weird ass dreams, eccentric breakdowns of random cultural turning points, news updates on pandas, Megan Fox, the Apocalypse and more… and I’m kind of excited about it… I’ll keep you posted obviously because… as much as I like talking to myself, it’s usually a little better to get some feedback from somebody other than the voices in my head. Also, you’ll never know what you can do unless you just f**king DO IT!!!

 

Anyway, it was a great weekend… but I’ll do a separate entry for the movies that we watched… so until then, have a great day everybody!!!