Review: RWBY Season 1

I'm going to preface what I'm going to say by stating that everything about RWBY screamed "this is going to be great" to me before I watched it.  It felt like it was equal parts Mai-Hime (which I should get around to talking about at some point, since it is absolutely crazy) and Red Vs. Blue, which is understandable because the creator, Monty Oum, choreographed and (I believe) helped animate some of my favorite fight scenes from RvB.

Plus, it had trailers leading into it that looked like this.

How could I possibly not love it?

Let's Talk: Magic

As people know, I can sometimes overthink things.

No, really.  If you look back at my blog posts, you'll see me getting overly analytical and thoughtful about everything from Christmas Carols (seriously, see every post I did in December), to ... well, really any post I do on anything.  I love to nitpick.  I love to puzzle things out.  I love to dig deep into the "why" and "how" of things.

This, I think, makes it all the more puzzling that for years (in fact, to this day) the thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a stage magician.

Vegas stage, dark suits, mysterious stare, perfect hair, non-offensive rock music, smoke machines, giant death traps, cards flying through the air, sexy assistants, I wanted it all.

Or, barring that, I wanted to just be good enough to be able to do birthday parties and leave kids amazed.

Yes.  This.  This is exactly what I wanted.

éX-Driver: The Movie

"Hey, Erik," you're asking, "didn't you just do a blog post about éX-Driver, like, two days ago?"

"Why yes," I'm replying, "I did.  In fact, it was exactly two days ago, so you didn't need to say 'like.'"

"Wow," you're now thinking, "way to take my innocent question and turn into a royal jerk about it."

"Well," I reply, having the uncanny ability to read your mind, "I have a good reason.  It's because we're discussing this, and having rewatched it, I'm in a pretty foul mood."

Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers - Episode 13: Gravity Control! Graviton!

It must stink to be a construction company in a comic book universe.  On the one hand, you always have work available to you since heroes and villains are always destroying giant structures around cities.

On the other hand, they destroy them before you even have a chance to finish them sometimes, which must be extremely frustrating because then you need to deal with insurance, overtime, contract renegotiations, suppliers...

It can't be fun.

So on that note, let's jump right into this week's episode of Marvel Disk Wars!  It opens with a huge fight at a building currently under construction!

A place truly doomed the moment the contracts were signed.

Erik's Favorite Things: eX-Driver

I am not a car person.  I have only the most basic understanding of how a car even works (key goes in hole, pedals and stick determines if car goes or not), and watching car movies like The Fast and The Furious, Days of Thunder, or most other car-centric movies bores me to tears.

There are exceptions, of course.  I loved Duel, but that was more psychological terror than "car" movie.  Bullitt has one of the best car chases in history.  And yen here's one of my all-time favorite animated series to come from Japan, a series that I honestly can't even explain why I like so much, because where Moribito broke every single stereotype it could find, this series embraces a ton of them.

But anyway, here's my adoring, gushy love letter to eX-Driver.  Watch the opening theme then click to read more.

Review: Inside Out

Trying to think back to the last time a movie really had an emotional impact on me, I found myself thinking back to the movie The Impossible.  The movie Inside Out is nowhere near as powerful a story, yet I found myself getting extremely emotionally involved in the story spotlighting the little characters controlling the emotions of an eleven year old girl whose parents move her halfway across the country from Minnesota (no city given) to San Francisco (no state given).

I will freely admit that, during one part of the movie, I was crying.  Not choking sobs or bawling or anything like that, but I had tears coming down my cheeks as I watched.  For some reason, an animated children's movie was able to evoke a powerful emotional response in me, and I think I know why.

The Adventures Of The American Rabbit

When I mention "patriotic superheroes" odds are you think of a lot of the standards.  You have Captain America, the soldier who never stops fighting for the ideas the nation was founded on.  There's Superman, the ultimate embodiment of the immigrant who comes to America and is successful.  Uncle Sam (yes, there's a comic book character by that name) frequently leads the fight against threats to America over in DC comics...until his book gets mired down in continuity and is cancelled.  Again.

Then there's the patriotic heroes who aren't American.  Captain Britain's powers are directly proportional to how close he is to his homeland's soil.  Sabra is the super-powered defender of Israel.  The Winter Guard protects Russian interests, though they're often portrayed as bad guys or "misinformed."  

These all pale, though, before the greatest American hero of them all.  

I present...the American Rabbit.

Remember, everybody, send your angry letters care of:

Donald Trump

Trump Tower

725 5th Avenue

New York, NY  10022

Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers - Episode 12: The Unstoppable Force, Juggernaut!

Okay, admittedly, it's been a while since I've done one of these, but the last few weeks have been rather... interesting, to put it simply.  I'll have some personal updates shoved into a Let's Talk soon, but for now, let's just get into another episode of the best Avengers program to happen outside of the movies...and in some ways, better than the movies.

Besides, in this episode, we finally get a massive threat to the Avengers.  Someone who isn't normally one of their own foes, and is wildly remembered for a pretty terrible meme that came out in 2005.

I mean, I just watched the video it came from again, and I still think it's terrible.