Review: Evil Dead (2013)

Happy Halloween, guys. Now I don’t normally do anything special for this occasion, mainly because I don’t enjoy being frightened like a lot of people do. However I decided to review the Evil Dead remake for a few reasons. 1) I legitimately wanted to see it in theaters but chickened out since (again) I’m not very fond on scaring myself. 2) The film makes a lot of use of practical effects as opposed to CGI, which as I understand it only uses the bare minimum of. These days a lot of horror films, science fiction films and even straight action films have been using computers to fake special effect. Even blood splatter being generated by CG is pretty common these days. I like practical effect because they are actually there, not added later in post-production. I guess director Fede Alvarez felt similarly as he went out of his way to achieve this. 3) The place I’m currently crashing on has a Blue-Ray copy of the film just sitting here calling my name. Hopefully that’s just colorful language I just used and not the first sign that I’m about to unleash demonic forces by succumbing to the movie’s allure.

Anyway as I said this is a remake of The Evil Dead, an iconic but low budget 1981 horror film directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell. The remake was produced by both men but directed by Fede Alvarez. It was released earlier this year to what I recall being shockingly positive reaction. Well, positive reactions and a tremendous amount of disgust by numerous viewers who were freaked out by all those practical effects. So the question isn’t just whether this is a decent film but also whether I can hold my dinner as I watch it. Let’s find out.

Full review after the jump.

National Novel Writing Month Annual Disappearing Act 2013

Hey guys. If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years you may be aware of this already but for those of you who have started reading more recently this may be news to you.

So November is upon us which means it’s once again National Novel Writing Month, which for most of you it likely won’t matter much. But for me and all the other would-be fiction writers out there I plan on taking the annual challenge of writing 50,000 words in a month. Two years ago I tried and failed to achieve this but last year I managed to finish it, despite great distraction from my personal life. This year is arguably way worse as far as shit in my life goes but I at least want to make the attempt.

So as far as Beta is Dead goes for the next few weeks I will likely be putting in on the back-burner as trying to write at least 1,600 words a day for a book and then writing articles for which I do not get paid for is a tricky thing and easily leads to burn out. That said I’m not officially on hiatus so if I have time and am feeling up to it I’ll try to get something up on Beta is Dead. However just remember that I’ve said that twice and in both instances I ended up not posting anything in November. (I'll also be upgrading the counter on the sidebar so in theory you can track progress that way as well)

I apologize for the inconvenience. I know that there aren’t many people who regularly visit this blog but I know you exist and I understand how frustrating it must be to have hardly gotten any blogs recetly only to be told “See you in a month”. I suggest following me, or otherwise keeping track of me, on twitter (@jasonbetamagnus) to keep up with the situation (I post links to new blogs on twitter) or maybe even to check out my progress in the challenge….or to curse at me for not doing the blog. It’s a free internet; I can’t force you not to troll me.

Anyway following November things should get back to normal. If the Battle of the Atom reviews aren’t done by then they WILL be done by the end of the year and I will likely be posting several movie reviews as well. I also watched an anime recently so, assuming I can get it together enough to work on it, there may be a new anime review some time in December. For now please bear with me.

Mini-Reviews: Rush, The Family

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Review: X-Men Battle of the Atom Part 7

I’m way behind in this review series and indeed way behind on the blog in general. With National Novel Writing Month (aka my annual month long self-imposed exile from working on the blog) coming up in just days it’s pretty upsetting how little I’ve been able to write and post the last few weeks. I’m going to try to post a few articles before Friday marathon style but we’ll see if I’ll be able to manage it.

Anyway this is the next part in the Battle of the Atom X-over that’s taken over the X-Men titles. This review is of [Non-Adjective] X-Men #6 which was written by Brian Wood with art by David López (pencils) Cam Smith with Terry Pallot on inks and Laura Martin with Matt Milla on colors. Check out the previous reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Full review after the jump.

Review: X-Men - Battle of the Atom Part 6

Battle of the Atom Part Six. Not much to talk about so let’s just get into it. This review is of All-New X-Men #17 which was written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Stuart Immonen (pencil), Wade Von Grawbadger (ink) and Marte Gracia (colors). Previous reviews: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Full review after the jump.

Review: X-Men - Battle of the Atom Part 5

Sorry this has taken so long. Lately I’ve been feeling unmotivated and, just like through summer, am dealing with personal problems that have been consuming my time.

Anyway we’re still looking at X-Men: Battle of the Atom and thankfully this is the issue where shit starts getting interesting. It only took four issues…well, four and two thirds because things still take a while to get to the point. Really the ball drops in the next issue, which I would totally like to get to in less than a week and a half if that is at all possible.

For the record we’re reviewing Wolverine and the X-Men #36, which was written by Jason Aaron with art from Giuseppe Camuncoli on pencils and Matt Milla with Edgar Delgado on colors. The previous reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Review of part five after the jump.