#2LR Meta Navel-Gazing

Through seven years now we've posted about seventy or so #2LR Too Late Reviews on this blog.  I wanted to write the post in order to try to collect my thoughts about criticising movies, video games, and television shows/anime in one place.

Before I start though, I'd like to thank Megane 6.7 for writing #2LRs for recent video games.  I'm not as plugged into the videogame scene as I once was... and the recent Civilization V review and subsequent strategy guide that I posted to GameFAQs is pretty much the sum total of my hardcore gaming through a couple years now.

One of the most major reasons that I started doing the Too Late Reviews postings is that I've noticed something about movie reviews personally.  When I read a movie review, especially a good movie review, its almost as much art as the movie itself.  A movie review even with a summary isn't the whole movie... but I find that the best reviews not only hit on the high points, but they give me an idea of the movie other than just the main plotline.

I've strived to write these reviews so that you, our readers, will get an idea of not only the movie but to understand some of the things underlying the movie.  As with the most recent Oz review, which was a bit desultory, the point behind it was that the movie was somewhat desultory as well.  I want to give you an idea when things go right of why they went right... for instance, writing about Grave of the Fireflies, in order to tell you why a movie that may be relentless and gripping and depressing is worth watching, the things that the movie did so right that you can't easily find in other movies.  I want to highlight the high points and the low points and to give you an idea of the why behind the reasoning that they're high points or low points. 

Ultimately, I want to try to peel back the story to show an aspect of storytelling, writing, moviecraft... anything that will hopefully give you more of an insight.  I'm certainly no movie insider... but I am someone who tries to notice detail, even the smallest ones.  The training for this is the fifteen years or so that I've been writing Mystery Science Theater treatments of fanfics and constantly trying to focus not only the words on the screen in front of me, but what they symbolize.

One of the most recent MSTings that Megane 6.7 and I are working on is a story that is rather technically competent 'fic.  It's a crossover between two series that Megane 6.7 and I seem to keep returning to.  When we requested permission, the authors expressed a bit of surprise... they thought their 'fic was good.  Well, their 'fic was good.  I loved it because the concept behind it is an interesting read, and hopefully our jokes will add with the interest factor of the 'fic to make it even better.

That's my goal with the #2LR series.  I want to make whatever you watch or play a better experience, whether or not it's something you've already watched.  Not only that, I want to express why something worked, or why something didn't, and my goal is to not only enjoy what I watch but to really concentrate on it, to figure out why I liked it, and then to find similar examples.

Alternately... above all, whether it's good or it's bad, I'll do my level best to make the reviews interesting whether through humor or insight.

We hope you continue to enjoy reading these reviews, our blog in general, and our website.  Speaking for both Megane 6.7 and myself, we feel honored to have you spend your time reading our work, and we hope that you enjoy.

#2LR Too Late Review: Epic

There's more than a little to report as the calendar shifts to September.  Our little blog is about to crest 10,000 hits, which is certainly not exactly a big deal in the Land of Internet... spamlink posts designed to get little ol' me to click on them probably contributed around 350-500 of these hits, so it's really a hollow number regardless.  At the very least, we're getting roughly the same number of legitimate hits per month, 350-500, and I thank you all for reading our musings and reviews.  It's been about a year or so since I started posting more frequently, and I can see that there's interest in the numbers.  Thanks for everyone, you readers are on the cutting edge of this ride and I hope that you all enjoy it.

I'm also typing this on my fixed laptop.  Best Buy *wants* you to buy a new laptop, hence the $300-$700 quote.  HP is at least slightly interested in keeping their equipment running.  $200 later, my screen works and all of the niggling little things (loose battery packs, cameras that don't work, etc.) are taken care of.  It's $200 that I didn't want to spend, but those people at HP managed to turn around my service call in only two days flat... I boxed up the package on a Wednesday, HP received it, fixed it, and boxed it back up on Thursday, and I had it back in my hands by Friday.  Thankfully, HP didn't do a system refresh on it, so I don't have to spend the next two weeks figuring out what software was and wasn't installed.  I'm both grateful and annoyed at the same time... gratenoyed?  ann-ateful?

Which leads me to tonight's review.  I'm at least as current as it gets around here, reviewing the movie Epic, which was released in late May of 2013.  The movie is based on a book by William Joyce, which I had never read before anyway... you're getting nothing but critique without the Harry Potter-ish book insights or complaints.

Spoiler space below:

In some indeterminate forest, there's a fight in the air between little skull dudes on larger black birds (ravens?) and little dudes in green armor, riding ruby-throated hummingbirds.  The little skull dudes -- "Boggans" -- always seem to outnumber the green armor dudes -- "Leafmen", but the Leafmen manage to make up for it with better tactics and the ability to take out multiple Boggans.

One of the Leafmen is woefully out of place, Nod.  He pulls multiple Beetle Baileys and is ultimately kicked out of the Leafmen ranks for not being a team player by another of the protagonists, Ronin.  Ronin carries himself rather like a stereotypical Japanese warrior, between the kendo-style armor (without faceguard), the katana blade, and the hand holding the blade, where one thumb is enough to expose the blade to show that "he means business".

In the world of us regular-sized people, Mary Katherine (MK) is being dropped off at a solitary house in the woods.  Her father Bomba has wired the whole forest for sound, trying to keep an eye on the little people with all the cameras he's rigged in the forest.  He's meticulous, keeping a map of all the contacts, and even has a miniature display of Boggan armor.

Back to the little people, the Queen of the Forest has to hand her powers over soon.  She helps everything to live, while the Boggans derive the power to decay from their leader.  The night that the story opens is the important one, as she needs to pick a pod in order to transfer her power, and the pod has to bloom by the light of the full moon on the summer solstice.  (Time to set up a new system, Queenie.)

Meanwhile, MK finds that she's not crazy living with dear obsessed Dad after a short time and ends up writing a goodbye note.  She packs her bag and calls the taxi to depart.  However, the little three-legged, one-eyed dog escapes the house, and MK chases after it.

As the queen and the Leafmen come back from pod-picking, they get ambushed by Boggans.  The Queen ends up shot through the chest, and at the same time MK and the dog bust onto the scene.  MK happens across the odd little panorama, and the queen's magic ends up shrinking MK to little-person size, with instructions on how to deal with the pod.

From here, Nod, Ronin, MK, and the two slug pod caretakers end up on a whirlwind adventure, getting instructions from one of the oldest trees in the forest via a caterpillar, to losing the pod, to infiltrating the Boggan headquarters, to almost getting caught by obsessive-compulsive Daddy, to almost failing when the pod is to be opened via the moonlight.  MK figures out why the Queen used her magic to call MK into the land of little people, as she serves as the conduit to her father who's able to deal with the Boggan menace and save the day at the end.

Refreshingly, the story ends as Nod and MK share one last kiss, and she returns to full size.  She realizes her dad isn't a complete kook, definitely wants to stay by the forest so that she can talk to Nod via the forest webcams, and finds out that her place in life is in the forest.  (For the time being, at least.)

Spoiler space over.

It's quite a bit up there, isn't it?  Originally, I was going to just shrug my shoulders and give up, because the screenwriters packed in a lot of stuff into the movie, including frogs, vast multitudes of talking plants, all the odd mythos that I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with, and so on.  This is a movie that you can't just get up to refresh your drink or go get some popcorn... either you're going to miss a portion of a fight sequence that you need to keep up with what's going on, or you're going to miss a plot point that will be important at some time in the future.  This movie is dense.

Our family bought the movie and decided to have a family night watching it, and I can tell how the movie was with the reactions of our children:

11-year-old: mostly interested.
10-year-old: at times, dozed off.  Other times, watched.
7-year-old: as interested in cuddling as in watching the film.
3-year-old: playing on my legs like a jungle gym.

When the ten-year-old talked to us after the movie, he expressed interest in watching it again.  I asked him why, as we had watched it last night, and he mentioned that he was asleep through a few portions but wanted to see them in context again.

So, I suppose that this will be the basis of my final grade for this movie.  The action sequences are typically fun if a bit dizzying, the plot is dense and dizzying unless you're really giving some attention to the movie, and if you do it does feel like you've seen a long, twisty-turny story.  This movie is not a pass-the-time movie, it's a "give me ATTENSHUNS! nom nom nom" movie.  The only issue is that you have to keep yourself interested in the movie to keep going forward, and if you lose focus.... you're in the net, watching the other tightrope walkers try to balance their way across to the denouement.

Final review: 2.3

Five weeks later...

I apologize to the readers of this blog, I've pretty much taken a six-week hiatus from writing.  I will have a few more reviews to post soon, including a general overview of the television show "Castle" and hopefully a couple more films too.  I have been out of town for much of July, in Florida and in Michigan at different times, as well as being sick for much of the past week, but I should be able to post new content soon.

Thanks for your patience!

New MSTing... now at nabiki.com/mst!

  After a bit of a website access snafu, we've finally updated A MSTing For All Seasons with the new Megane 6.7 MSTing!  You can find it linked at the Recent Updates page if you go to www.nabiki.com/mst.  I also updated our frontpage to include our Twitter and Google+ links.  Enjoy the new content!

Quick notes, general maintenance, and slight status update:

Finally, May.  There's just something about this winter that really lasted for quite a while for me.  I suppose my first task is to not write posts like this to invite some instant karma, but now that winter's over and I've been on the new job for two months, I feel far more optimistic.

We have made an effort to step up the posting, and I'm still extremely glad to have the Too Late Reviews series to continue.  I apologize for the recent downswing in posting, but I must admit that I've not been looking out for new stuff lately.  Escaflowne is still progressing and while I don't have too much pinpointed recently, I'll be working on figuring out a few other new articles to post in the next month as well.

On the MSTing front, Megane 6.7 posted his "Let's Play", a commentary for one of the shortest and most bizarre puzzle games I've ever seen, "Paul Quest".  It's pretty much a Rifftrax plus the game video itself, it's in four pieces and about fifty minutes total.  It's also pretty funny, please check it out if you have a few minutes.

In other news, Megane 6.7 and I will also be publishing a new MSTing very shortly.  We'll be announcing it here and posting a link to A MSTing For All Seasons when it is up, so stay tuned to this space!

Thank you to all our new readers.  We're more than happy to take suggestions, so please feel free to drop a comment on this or any other post if there's something you'd like us to review or comment on.  We are cross-platform to some small extent; Megane 6.7 is available on Twitter at @MSTerMegane67 and I am on Twitter at @ZoogzMST.  I also upgraded my Google account to Google+ and hopefully can be found via the name link at the bottom of this post.  I typically write a post on Google+ whenever the blog is updated.  Without cable anymore, I'm not sure if I can do a live commentary on anything going on, but I'll see if I can't get a few more quick-hit comments on Twitter if anyone's reading.  Whichever place attracts activity, I'll be there.

See you again with another #2LR soon!

Incidentally,

I have created a Twitter feed for myself at @ZoogzMST.  At this point, I have been putting up blog announcements, but in the future there may be additional comments/commentary especially if I am doing a liveMST-style running commentary on any television shows or movies.  Feel free to check it out.

Edit for 21:00, same evening -- I also updated the blog.  I was tired of not having an "older posts" link at the bottom, instead making everyone page through the archives with the date links.  I suppose that's what you get when you decide on a template in 2007 and *never update it*.

Cinematic Titanic Review: "Alien Factor"

Another Cinematic Titanic offering! Today is "Alien Factor", a pretty crummy late-70s low-budget alien movie. It was almost like rewatching "The Giant Spider Invasion", except the riffers' voices were completely different.

The riffing was pretty solid through the movie, and I enjoyed it. At one point though, the riffers even acknowledged that the movie was difficult in spots to riff, as Josh broke what little of the fourth wall existed to state, "This is why riffing is hard!" while one of the characters was involved in an oft-seen repetitive action. There were a few spots where I was just begging for a riff to be said, but unfortunately there were no callbacks this time. (Dangit, "This is where the fish lives!" C'mon, Mary Jo, you watched that heap of parrot droppings!)

The live audience still does terrifically in helping the mood along, and there were a couple of riffs (one by Trace, and one by Frank with comments by Trace) that got the crowd going. I also enjoyed that the riffers broke out laughing over both the movie itself as well as a couple of the riffs that were happening. I suppose that one of the disappointments with MST3k is that the riffers sometimes seemed as if they were just tossing jokes and there was really no interaction between the jokes and human reaction, as if there was a mandate that they had to be silent. Well, this is definitely a strength of the Cinematic Titanic franchise, especially apparent in the live episodes.

Last note; I saw the trailer preview they did for East Meets Watts. I feel completely vindicated when I noticed that they ended the trailer on Josh's Journey riff. There were a couple other spots in the movie that they could have shown, but that Journey riff was the culmination of some good riffing, just like a big guitar hit and the final chorus.

Minor mainentance note: Blogger is discontinuing FTP publishing. This pretty much means that the blog itself has to be hosted outside the www.nabiki.com/mst domain, and if anyone has bookmarked this page (?, yeah right...) they will need to adjust their bookmarks once I finish transitioning to a Blogger-approved domain. I will post more details when they come available, and my deadline for this is 1 May 2010.