I just ate kiwi! This isn't part of the song!

I saw Alice in Wonderland tonight.



No, not that one.



No, not that one either.




Nope. Not even that one. (which remains my favorite version).


No the one I saw tonight was the new one.

The new Tim Burton one.

Now this movie is basically a sequel to the original story. But at the same time doesn't really follow any events from "Through the Looking Glass" but makes reference to alot of things from that.


PROS
- beautiful cinematography.
- another retread of a more "goth" Alice world, but unique enough to have alot of fantastic ideas.
- uses the Jabberwocky poem as a large basis for the plot.
- Bandersnatch has the funniest run ever.
- CGI, as usual with Burton films, isn't completely photo-realistic which makes it look 10 times better than anything that usually ends up in action/fantasy movies these days that aren't Lord of the Rings.
- march hare done RIGHT.
- Jabberwock looks exactly like the original illustration but in GLORIOUSLY WELL DONE computer animation.
- Depp manages to be endearing and not creepy as the Mad Hatter
- good cast overall, really. Wouldn't change a thing about the voices or cast.
- Dormouse was adorable as hell. JubJub Bird was scary as hell.
- brilliant re-designs of all the classic characters
- lots of eye-gouging
- Danny Elfman

Cons
- The first scene in Wonderland has literally every character in the movie crammed into a 10-minute scene where they explain a whole bunch of useless plot points that aren't important at ALL to the story and ended up wearing on my patience. I cant imagine how people UNfamiliar with the material must have felt.

- So many characters meant few lines per character. The Jabberwock has fucking CHRISTOPHER LEE's awesome voice. He says 1 line. Alan Rickman plays the caterpillar and says like 2 things. A new character, a bloodhound named Baird or Bayard or something, has more lines then most of the cast. Why?

- No Mock Turtle.
- No Walrus
- No Carpenter
- No mome raths
- Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum...just...I dont even know.
- Depp sounds too much like a mixture of Willy Wonka with a SweenyTodd meanstreak sometimes. And his accent kept changing as well. For no reason.



A decent enjoyable film. Definitely captures the "gibberish-filled train of thought" the original story tended to sound like sometimes.

B - / C +

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The chap I mentioned a post or so ago who is a fan of my work sent me a picture of himself wearing one of my shirts. He's also wearing a bowl on his head. It keeps the mind-control beams from NASA from taking over his mind.


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For those who enjoy good music, HEY guess what.
The Gorillaz new album, Plastic Beach has been put online to listen to, FOR FREE. On the website for NPR (national public radio).

It is great. And much like their other albums, a very varied blend of electronica, rap, hip hop, and stuff I cant even think of a genre for.

The idents for the new album are all great. The ones featuring the characters are all done in that lovely 2d animated Hewlett style we've all come to know and love.


But simultaneously the new official music video has the characters in 3d CGI. But wait, its REALLY FUCKIN GOOD 3d CGI.

And I cant embed it. So you can see it here. It has Bruce Willis in it. And subtle references to two other songs on the album.

The story for the album is interesting as well. Noodle dead. Murdoc creates evil robot Noodle. 2D being terrorized by a whale. Russel pissed off as fuck and mutating into a giant.

And this is stuff just from the promo art and idents. God only knows what insane shit they have in store once more music videos start coming out.

The one bad thing I can say about this album really is that Damon does not perform as much as on the others. Alot more guest performers. Which I'm fine with, but I associate the Gorillaz with Damon's lovely voice. I miss it a little. He's in like 5 or 6 of the songs.

Still. Damn good album. Go listen to it go go go.
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THERES A WHALE
THERES A WHALE
THERES A WHALEFISH HE CRIED
AND THE WHALE WAS IN FULL VIEW

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Valve finally saw fit to mention the Engineer in their website. Wowie. It took months but I guess they realized the engineer has become an almost entirely useless class in the last 8 months or so.

In fact here's a handy guide I whipped up about the current engineer playstyle and what it's been forced into:

It was my favorite class once.
Now I usually have to be a scout/medic/demoman to do anything useful.

At least in that blog post they acknowledge that it takes no time for anyone to blow up his crap and that he's useless without his machinery which takes way too long to set up.
Simple things would fix him. Shorter build times. More health. A pistol like the spy has.
Oh well.

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Anyway thats enough crap for today. I have Bad Company 2 installed and I'm going to go have some fun with my friend Billy Monks.

Good day.