The Dark Knight is the Brightest Dawn.

Or, something poetic like that. Basically Dark Knight is frickin' awesome and there is no good reason to not see it. You don't like superhero movies? This doesn't feel like a superhero movie at all, this feels like "What if Batman were real." In the last one, Batman Begins, it had some fantastic elements: Secret Ninja Clans, Fear Gas, the VERY dark city. In this, everything feels like maybe it could happen. And The Joker is amazing. Even if they bring the character back later, everyone will say "Eh, he's not as good as Heath Ledger." And not just because he died, because he's just that good. I mean, I guess if you have some strange aversion to Christian Bale, or if you ascribe to some form of pacifism that extends to viewing acts of violence... Those might be good reasons not to see it. But aside from that I don't see why.



Also, something else VERY exciting: The Watchmen preview! Freaking Awesome. It looks so good. I'm not sure what they're going to do with it.... I mean they pulled off V for Vandetta pretty well, but Watchmen has a lot of back story.... As long as they run it over 2 hours it should be fine.



What else.... OH, the new Terminator movie about the time between the end of Terminator 3 (Thank God it ended) and the time John Conner sends his father back to save his mother from Arnold the Governator in the first movie. It looks pretty good, I'm hoping that it redeems the Terminator series like Batman Begins did the Batman movie idea (Honsetly, Dark Knight is so much more realistic in my opinion, that it makes Batman Begins almost like one of the first two.... Which isn't bad obviously, but by comparison of realness to... Atmosphere? I dunno.)

And there was a preview for "Quantum of Solace" 007 movie. I have no idea what "Quantum of Solace" is, or where you get one (Same place you get a Goldeneye and an Octopussy I guess?) It looks good, though its sort of an actual sequel to the last one which is kind of odd isn't it? For the Bond series? Ah well.

Next weekend the X-Files 2 comes out, and it should be rather good I think. I mean, it has David Duchovney, so thats all you really need to know I think.

Oh, on a final note there was a strange preview for a new "The Day the Earth Stood Still" with Keanu Reeves in it... It looks nothing like the original The Day the Earth Stood Still except that Reeve's plays a similar messenger alien type person and there was a snap look at a robot that looked like the one in the original. I dunno, we'll see I guess.

Last time on.... 24

Oh, wait, I don't watch that show. But I couldn't think of anything else good with 24, so there you go.

Anyway, I'm 24 now, or as of last Friday. I had a party- well, get together really, on Saturday. We ate pizza, played a little Rock Band, watched a couple movies (The Host and Southland Tales specifically). It was fun, but I wish a few more people had come as it was a group of people that I hang out with pretty regularly anyway. Not that there's anything wrong with, but it felt more like a normal movie night or something. Oh well, it doesn't matter. I'll tell you what DOES matter.

THIS is what matters. Yes, thats correct, the topic that might have 4000 comments by the time you read it (As compared to the usual 500-800 for a big story). Reading a scant few comments, it was pretty predictable: The PS3 owners were saying how this wouldn't affect their console at all because they are Playstation, 360 people laughed and jeered at this great blow to the PS3, and Nintendo people just kind of sighed as they sat off to the side with the console that is competing in its own private batttlefield... Against itself. So what is this great blow to Sony? What possible exclusive title did they hold in their posession like the Holy Grail of console sales? What else but Final Fantasy XIII. Yes, in a shocking upset, the Square-Enix rep at this years E3 event turned around as he was heading off stage as though remembering something. A trailer roles of largely new footage, ending with a shot of those few known characters from the new title and the industry shaking announcement that, for the first time ever, Final Fantasy would be released, not just on two consoles, but also in Japan, America AND Europe all on the same day. Sadly this means that 70% of my incentive to buy a PS3 (At its current price tag) is gone. However, as long as PS3 holds exclusives on FFXIII: Versus and Kingdom Hearts 3 they'll still have a pretty good hand... I just won't call until until they've raised the pot by bringing down the console's price.

Quad News Time SMASH!

Lets see, it seems like I had 4 things to write about, what were they...

Well, to start out with I finished the show Speed Grapher. At first I just thought it was an interesting look at the dark underside of the perverse corruption of the rich and powerful, but by the end I realized that it was about that AND being free from the corrupting effects of greed and money. Its kind of unfortunate that some of the monsters they threw in felt forced and unnecessary, but then it was the anime version, maybe the manga had better backstory for them. Anyway, very good.

Item number 2 is that I ordered and received my wonderful Nana Best DVD/CD collection that might be the best collectible for a fan of the anime version of Nana. The best part of my order is that I thought it was JUST the CD, but then I found out there was a DVD with. Whoa, it was really a great surprise, especially since I'm still not sure when the show is coming stateside.

While we're on anime, Anime Expo '08 was this past weekend. I didn't go, but I was reading some of the stuff associated with it through ANN. The most intersting item is definitely this: Fansubs - The Death of Anime?. Its an hour long panel discussion about the problems caused by illegal distribution and subsequent subtitling and then redistribution of anime. One of the most interesting statements was this: "We're seeing anime fandom and convention attendence steadily increase... And yet DVD sales are 20% lower than last year." The analysis of the problem is also interesting, something like "This wasn't a problem back when fansubbed material was hard to come by, like when you had to know a guy who knew a guy with a VHS tape. Nowadays you can say 'Hey man, go home a watch the new Naruto. Just click here and here and make sure you've got bitTorrent.' In other words, we've got a generation of anime fans who think anime is free." And thus why fansubs all over the net is a problem. But, until anime companies are bringing subtitled anime fresh from Japan to the states within a few days of broadcast through legitimate channels and in equivalent formats... Well, the fan who wants to keep up with the Jono-san's is going to have to keep tapping illegetimate sources. So right now people like Funimation, ANN, Bandai, etc. are focusing on educating their largely high school and economically ignorant fan-base on the fact that, yes, anime costs money to make, and if you don't pay for it then its going to stop being made.

My final note... Oh right I saw The Orphanage (El Orfanato) which was produced by "Pan's Labyrinth" del Toro. Its very good for a horror movie. Why? Because its doesn't rely on a lot of blood and gore. Its not incredibly scary really, to me anyway, but I think most people would enjoy it even if the ending is a little strange... Touching, but strange. I also saw Wall-E this weekend. As to expect with Pixar, very good. I liked that the auto-pilot resembled the HAL 9000 and the repeated revelations that they have a pool on the ship. My only complaint really is that its hard to understand the robot speech at times, but generally you don't miss anything too important.

Well, while writing this I composed two other posts on other forums, so I'm done with the internet for tonight.