WALL-E rocks. It just does. I am so definitely going to see it in theatres asap. I laughed almost constantly, it’s cute as buttons, and I laughed almost constantly. Slightly predictable, no, very predictable and cliché, but still cute and hilarious. It’s the kind of movie you’ll love, because if they’re going to rehash an old kind of story, atleast they’re doing an awesome shot at it.

Hancock sucked balls. It just does. It goes from an alcoholic self-pitying man that tries to do good but only gets yelled at by the public because he’s doing mistakes, to a douchebag that’s influenced by some dumbass moralist with some silly happy ending. If there’s one thing I hate in movies it’s blatantly obvious feel-goodery that can only inspire me to squirm about in the chair. Also, if you’re going to watch it, you might notice that the whole movie will seem out of whack after about 30 minutes. Apparently there’s been 976343 rewrites of the script. Go figure. Gah, all that potential flushed down the toilet.

Definitely, maybe is hilarious, cute, funny and sweet. Even if you’re so manly there’s hair growing on your tongue I’m pretty sure you’ll like this movie simply because it manages to cater to so many things. Feel-good movie without the squirming and the miserably pathetic do-goodies. Now, to figure out how he manages to get so lucky with the ladies.

Kung Fu Panda. We all know what’ll happen. We all know how it’s going to happen. We all know why it happens the way it does. It’s demographics I’m sure. Or statistics. Something to milk money anyways. Embarassingly enough it works. Kung Fu Panda is sweet, warm and almost non-stop hilarity. Not only is Jack Black really awesome as the panda, the panda’s an awesome character. I couldn’t stop laughing at times. A small minus for annoying feel-goodery at certain points, but they were quickly obscured again. Way awesome!

Chaos Theory is another Ryan Reynolds movie. The guy’s like everywhere these days, kind of like STD’s and the iPhone - and like those two there’s almost always been something cool preceding/succeeding it in some way, the movie is fun. It’s not your regular comedy/drama/romance either, it’s different, it’s unexpected and if I wasn’t laughing I was simply enjoying myself. Strangely enough this is another slightly feel-goodery movie, but for some reason I managed to overlook that until the movie was over. I must be getting old or something. If you see both Reynolds movies you’ll see paralells between them. Mucho of them.

Stargate Continuum. Let me just get it over with, I’m a fan of the series, the themes, the cha… I’m a fan. Huge fan, so I’ll be highly biased. In any case this movie felt like a return to the old-school nitty gritty Stargate SG-1 stories with lots of character-stories and fun plots. If they keep making these movies about the SG-1 team and their continued exploits I’ll be one damne happy fan. Tight plot, lots of fun interaction, surprisingly little combat and such - revisiting lots of old characters. It’s the kind of movie that warms an old fan’s heart. Much love guys, much love <3

In other news

My shoulder has a problem, it’s been dislodged and brutalized a few too many times in my life and is now protesting heavily. So heavily in fact that I’m on painkillers and will most likely have to operate it. Partially severed tendons it seems. Hurts like a bitch, but the night-time is the worst with having an issue sleeping from before. We’ll see how that goes, atleast I get time off from work. The downside is that I’m pretty fucking bored.

Oh, and after I discovered that Picasa could do an efficient job at fixing up pictures automagically so they look a tad better, I’ve apparently taken a liking to the whole thing. Pictures of the dead car coming up.

Oh, and Halvard, it was another car that had those annoying covers on them, not this one. I spoketh too soon.

So what makes a normally uninteresting, interest-changing idiot that can barely latch his interest onto something for over a month into a fan? I had trouble putting it into words, and for some things (make that most) I still do. Then the other day I discovered why One Piece manages to reinvigorate my interest over and over again.

Chapter 502 was again about things that’re wrong. Things that’re very very wrong. Not nail-polish being in the wrong colour, the wrong tone, or whatever the hell I can spam this sentence with. No, nothing like that. To freely quote myself in a previous post about chapter 502:

This time around it’s about slavery and oppression, abuse and discrimination. Topics that really whips my chords around until there’s a knot in my stomach.

One Piece picks up human suffering and shoves it in your face, pointing out that there’s something wrong, and that this kind of shit happens. Does injustice happen in the real world? You can bet your ass it does, we just do like the ostrich supposedly does, shove our heads as far into the ground as possible - hoping to never know.

One Piece rips our heads out of the ground to point out that there’s crap going on, injustice happens, and the further you get the more shit you see, the deeper you come the deeper the pile of shit. That description’s depressing as hell, it really is, and the manga wouldn’t really amount to much if it was depressing 24/7, if every single issue spent all it’s time shoving your head full of depressing abuse of commoners and everyday people trying to get by.

Here’s where One Piece goes from a gritty tale about unfairness and injustice to downright awesomery and kickassing, where it makes fanbois jump in joy because asses are getting kicked (almost literally). It’s awesome to see Luffy kick ass in the most impressive and spectacular ways, it really is. It’s so gratifying to see your hero whip out his arm (literally) to smack the bad guys right where it hurts the most, in complete righteousness. Fighting for justice, avenge the wrongs that’ve been done, pony up some hurt in return to those who would hurt and exploit the weak.

That’s where One Piece really shines. It dares to show that the world sucks in strangely realistic ways. Rich people abuse the poor, the strong prey on the weak, the weak banding together to be strong, then preying on the weaker, things like that. Then it shows us that there’s hope and a bright light at the end of the tunnel through Luffy and his crew.

Luffy and the crew’s travelling through their world in a crusade to gain fame, notoriety and fulfill their dreams, however weird or awesome they are. From Luffy’s famous dream of becoming the Pirate King, to Usopp’s dream of becoming the bravest man in the world. They’re dreams, childish, simple, and so easy to relate to in so many ways. It’s hard to explain, it really is, but every one of their dreams can seem ever so ridiculous in the beginning, until you see the determination that Oda’s portrayed in their eyes.

See, the crew has dreams. Simple dreams, awesome dreams, impossible dreams (read: Usopp… ). They’re not afraid of pursuing them either, and they support each other in the quest. Support and friendship being one of the most important aspects of the series, an ongoing theme about relating to those you cross paths with, befriending new people - as well as protecting new people, new friends. Even going as far as declaring war for their friends. Friends who have been wronged in some way, because they’re weak, too kind, or just unfortunate. I suppose it doesn’t matter since it’s a friend in need, or just someone in need of help.

That’s when you get to watch Luffy and his crew turn from the jolly gang that can’t stay serious for a moment into a manifestation of righteous fury that makes your knotted guts unwind because justice will be served, that the wrongs will be right. You get to watch their vaunted abilities come to light, see the awesome and impressive moves and whatsitnots that comes romping through the issues.

The fights are spectacular, awesome, well thought out, and most importantly; meaningful. I could go on and on about all the details in the fights, their abilities, weaknesses and so on. I don’t see the point in that, you’ll see it for yourself if you pick it up, and you can run around talking about all the abilities at any time you want. What really matters to me in the end is that the stories and themes in One Piece are meaningful, they invoke feelings, they matter.

To me, that’s what makes One Piece epic and it’s the reason I’m a huge fan. One Piece tells a compelling and serious story about amazing and funny characters that’re willing to walk through fire and fun for that which matters and doesn’t in a world that feels all too real despite it’s surreal setting, invoking glee and sadness like no manga has ever managed to do for me before.

The downside that isn’t a downside? Originally I bought the version that brought a USB soundcard along, and the one I was returned is the non-USB version. Not that I mind, in practicality the USB-soundcard was good, but totally unnecessary for my needs (something I discovered later, but I wanted to use it for several machines back then). So now I’ve sent a letter to komplett.no detailing their mistake, telling them that it’s ok, but considering the price-difference combined with the shipment cost, the extra price for the headset I’m wearing now is over 200 NOK more than the worth in the shop. Would be nice to get some of that back. We’ll see what happens.

Happy!

Oh, and prepare for being Skyped again, the sound is back, and it’s nice to talk in them again.

Haven’t logged in on my blog for some time now, with GTA IV and other activities being available. So I come in, I peruse the Wordpress news, I think “…wait, wut?” and scroll back up again; I saw this in the little traffic monitor embedded in wordpress. Wtf?

Must be my wordpress installation on shrooms or something, because apparently Google Analytics doesn’t agree with it.

And in case you’re missing it, here’s the latest Zero Punctuation. This week I laughed harder than I usually do. Got to love a guy that apparently gives a flying fuck about a politically correct language to soothe the frantically-scrubbed-yet-still-dirty masses (as opposed to unwashed masses).