Friday, May 31, 2013

Kickstarter Weekends: My Gimpy Life (S2), MMPR, Time Crash

Normally I would have waited untill posting one more blog before even considering a Kickstarter Weekend but thing are going bad for my ability to go to the cinema these days and thus my movie reviews are suffering. So I figured I might as well do this while the getting’s good. So anyway we have three new Kickstarter projects but before that let’s check out the ones from last month.

Emily and the Strangers: Funding Successful!

Final Earnings: $64,749

I was getting worried about it but close to the end it ended up making it. So the legend of Emily the Strange will continue to grow. It didn’t break the bank so, unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think we’ll be getting a full EP but perhaps that will come later. What I’ve heard of the song so far seems like it should be a pretty good video.

Code Monkey Save World: Funding Successful!

Final Earnings: $340,270

So yeah, this made nearly ten times its goal. I knew it would do well but damn! The stretch goals that were met ended up including a children’s book based on the Jonathan Coulton song “The Princess Who Saved Herself”, which is pretty cool. Apparently Greg Pak underestimated how well they’d end up doing. That just shows you how awesome JoCo’s music is.

The Return: Funding Pending

Final Earnings: TBA

This was my acquaintance from college Katie Dickinson’s project with her APT Theater group. Now as of this writing the campaign is still underway and, I’m sad to say, probably not doing as well as it could be. Since Katie was a friend of mine I would like to do everything I can to help her out with this. Please check out the project if you haven’t yet and even if you can’t pledge please spread the world. Right this second they need a bit under $7,000 to succeed (though it's Indiegogo so if they don't don't reach the goal they could still collect what they have, I just don't know if they will or not). There’s still time but they seriously need help. [Link]

Three new projects after the jump.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Review: Fat Kid Rules the World (Film)

Well, I need to re-watch Star Trek Into Darkness, actually go through Return to Oz uninterrupted, possibly skim through Tears to Tiara super quick and post at least one more blog before I feel justified in doing another Kickstarter Weekend (also it’s not the weekend). I’m actually in a weird spot with the blog where I have a lot of stuff I need to write but not a lot of ability to actually write them. I know I need to post something to keep the blog traffic coming. So let’s review Fat Kid Rules the World. Because why not?



Fat Kid Rules the World is a young adult novel written by K.L. Going published in 2003. This is a fun story: some years ago Hollywood actor and professional Shaggy Rogers performer Matthew Lillard was asked to record the audio version of the book and soon fell in love with story. Lillard would spend the next decade or so trying to get the book turned into a movie. He eventually succeeded, with himself in the director’s chair. However when he needed extra cash to help with the distribution and promotion Lillard turned to Kickstarter a bit over a year ago. Fun fact: the Kickstarter project (found here, long succeeded) was one of the first crowd funding pages I ever saw which helped start my obsession with, and my subsequent coverage of, them. The idea of Lillard, who is famous and beloved (by me, at least) for his role in SLC Punk (one of my favorite movies of all time), directing his own punk rock themed film was an amazing idea and I was stoked by the prospect. Sadly no theaters were playing it near me.

Fast forward to last week when I noticed that the film was on Netflix. So you know I had to watch the damn thing. I mean it has all the right beats: it’s a punk film, it’s a Kickstarter project turned successful and it was convenient, my favorite thing in the world. So does this film live up to the hype or is Mathew Lillard better off keeping to playing Shaggy for the rest of this career?

Full review after the jump.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Review: Star Trek (2009)

[Late posting due to some personal issues on my part. A review of Star Trek Into Darkness is forthcoming as well but it may be a short while]


Star Trek Into Darkness is upon us, weird ass name and all. Now you know that I’m going to try some way to see it opening weekend come hell or high water I totally saw it opening weekend. But before [we review it] I thought it’d be fun to revisit the film that revived the Star Trek franchise. It was 2009 and, at the time, it was extremely controversial due to the decision that it would not be a sequel or follow established continuity but rather a reboot. Actually this was known for some time prior to the filming that the studios really wanted to basically have the adventures of Young Kirk and Young Spock…I don’t know exactly who would want to see that, but there it was. Thankfully J.J. Abrams was the director tagged to tackle the project, though this too was controversial since Abrams repeatedly admitted that he was NOT all that into Star Trek and was more of a Star Wars guy. But luckily Abrams is a talented guy so he was able to come out with something that both Stark Trek and non-Star Trek fans both said “Yeah…pretty good.” In fact this film was the most mainstream the franchise has pretty much ever been. Which is sad.

Now prior to this film there had been ten Star Trek films, six featuring the original cast and four featuring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Deep Space Nine couldn’t have films made because they would have been so awesome and metal that they would likely have melted both the projectors and the faces of the audiences nationwide). The last few weren’t…they weren’t well received. This reboot was successful but was it actually any good?

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: Full spoilers in this review, but seeing as this movie is four years old at this point I gotta say I don't feel that bad about it]

Friday, May 10, 2013

Anime Review: Princess Tutu

I’ve finally got around to this anime, which is probably the single most suggested series I’ve gotten in over a year. I hadn’t gotten to it sooner partly because it’s been on my list but fairly low, partly because I was somewhat hesitating because it aims at a young demographic, and partly because I tried watching it on Netflix but was turned off by the English voice acting for the main character and instead waited for the DVD to creep up my queue. But I’ve finally watched it so I’m happy to review it.

Princess Tutu, which was suggested by a fan named LaTonya as far back as early last year, is an original anime series created by Hal Film Maker in 2002. A twenty-six episodes, evenly split into two seasons, it was licensed by now-defunct ADV Films. It currently is being licensed by AEsir Holdings but the DVD I watched was the ADV Films copy (this will be important later). This show is clearly in the magical girl genre, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; young girls given powers from some magical source. Sailor Moon is probably the most well known in the west but it’s a pretty varied genre with all sorts of shows under its umbrella.

So anyway with all the time it took for me to actually watch this show I have to ask: does it live up to all the hype?

Full review after the jump.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Review (Rant): Iron Man 3

Despite having started writing them in the past I’ve obviously never reviewed the first two Iron Man movies. Let’s do that right now.

Iron Man: It was funny action packed, featured a smartly written lead character that was well acted. While the villain wasn’t super memorable in the grand scheme of things it’s was okay because the rest of the movie was so strong.

Panda Score: 4/5

Iron Man 2: Robert Downey Jr. is great as Tony Stark, as is Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer and Don Cheadle as War Machine, but the villain was pretty weak and uninteresting and the whole film felt unnecessarily bloated due to tie-ins with upcoming non-Iron Man films. It was fine but it was a letdown from the first one.

Panda Score: 3/5

Okay. So Shane Black, writer of Lethal Weapon and director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which helped revitalize Downey’s career) takes over for Jon Favreau as director. This will be the first post-Avengers Marvel Studio film which means that “Phase Two” officially begins now. It’s a tall order but we’re expecting this film to be both a sequel to the previous Iron Man movies as well as a follow-up to one of the biggest films in history. Does it succeed? Can it possibly succeed?

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: This review is not only extremely spoiler filled but it also contains one of the most frothy nerd rants I’ve ever done. DO NOT continue reading if you are planning to see this film and/or if you’re not a jaded, bitter nerd like I am]

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