Ronda Rousey SuperHero or super Villian?

Social media has made its pretty clear that current UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey wants to be immortalized as a super hero. In the last few months, she has been posturing hollywood to make her Captain Marvel, in an upcoming Captain Marvel Movie which is expected to release in 2018. Director Kevin Smith, has thrown his hat in the ring, supporting Ronda for Captain Marvel

There seems to be one problem, Ronda isn’t an actress; she is a MMA fighter. Granted she was in the movie Expendables 3, but she was not a leading character. Playing a super hero is both a gift and a curse. It can either launch you into the halls of stardom that will never fade (i.e Robert Downey Jr., Chris Pratt, or Chris Evans) or totally wreck your career, making people question your super hero credibility (i.e Ryan Reynolds in Green Lantern, Toby McQuire in Spiderman, or everyone who has been in the Fantastic Four.))

I am not saying that Ronda doesn’t have what it takes to be Captain Marvel, nor would i ever. Have you seen what she has done to trained MMA fighters in under a minute? I am pretty sure i don’t stand a snowballs chance in the center of the earth. Ok maybe slightly better, i am pretty fast and could possibly just keep running until she got tired of chasing me, but what i am saying is playing a Leading role is difficult.

I think if there is one female who can play an ass kicking lead, outside of Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie, and Scarlett Johansson, it would be Ronda. If there is one thing that makes her an ideal candidate, its the fact that she has Mixed Martial arts training, as well as she is an olympic Judo Champion. Few if any actors can say that they are Judo champions, let alone trained fighters, This means that it is more than likely that she can do her own stunts. It add’s a bit of realism to the movie, if the actor is doing her own stunts. Tom Cruise is living proof that doing your own stunts can make the movies more exciting than when the actor is added in post, or not there at all.

Another thing that Ronda has for her, is the fact that she is a fellow nerd. Ronda has been very open about her love for Pokemon and Dragonball Z. Ronda has been rather proud of her Pokemon collection, what is better for the Marvel universe, than a female lead who is a trained fighter, that loves Nerdy things. the only fault i can give her, is her supposed crush on Vegeta.

Come on Ronda, seriously? He is a self centered jerk. Granted Bulma is the one person tougher than he is, and he has a reason (His wife and kids) to not wipe out the planet, but you can’t tell me that Krillin and his little bald head don’t excite you just a little bit. They say big things come in small packages and he is rather tiny.

With that being said, i can not really find fault with Ronda being a possible candidate for Captain Marvel. She clearly wants the role, and you don’t see many people that adamant about playing the role. If you look at Pictures of Captain Marvel next to Pictures of Ronda, you can’t help but see the resemblance in the two of them. Ronda’s fans have been like a snowball on a down hill path, with their support; posting pictures of her in the costume which looks amazing.

There seems to be one small thing that is dogging Ronda as of late, it is past comments she made about her clothing brand and a fellow MMA fighter. But lets be honest, her comments were not that derogatory as much as they were just her personal opinion. It recently resurfaced, a series of comments she made about a transgender fighter, and she made it known that she believed the fighter had an unfair advantage over other women because she was once a man. she cited that the bone and muscle structure gave her an advantage regardless of her sex change. Most people took this as an attack on the trans community, saying that she hated them; but she never made that comment. She never said she didn’t like the fighter or the community, just she believed there was an advantage.

Another thing that people have been attacking her for is her clothing brand, DNB or Do Nothing Bitch. People are attacking her, saying that it is belittling the female cause, but she doesn’t see it that way. Ronda has supported the brand and the fact that she doesn’t want to be a female that just sits around and waits for life, she goes out and lives her life; hence the name of her clothing.

Some people may try to use that against her, and say that she doesn’t deserve to have the accolades she does, or deserves to be a movie star, but i sure as hell wouldn’t say that to her face.

It is only a matter of time before we find out if Ronda gets to be the next Female Super Hero, but if her fans are anything like Deadpool fans, I am sure Disney has their servers being spammed non stop with Ronda for Marvel emails.

Mad Max Fury Road. Awesome and Shiny!

Mad Max Fury Road is the newest installment in the George Miller Post Apocalypse fun house. This movie is the fourth in the series and it did not disappoint. While the three Prior Mad Max movies stared Mel Gibson, George Miller decided to go a new direction and give the lead role to the super villain Bane, (Tom Hardy). The movie was originally supposed to be filmed in Australia where the story takes place, unusually wet weather in the Australian desert  forced them to delay shooting and eventually shoot the film in Africa. The film, which was highly publicized and anticipated, was released on May 15, 2015.

Without saying to much to spoil the movie, It contained enough Explosions and fireballs to make Michael Bay giddy.

The movie definitely stuck very close to its roots which is most likely due to George Miller’s continuing with his project, on top of the fact that he has a passion for using practical affects rather than using CGI for action sequences. Throughout most of the movie, there is a large truck chalk full of guitar amps with large drummers on the back. In front of the amplifiers, a single guitarist hung by bungie chords playing a flame spitting guitar. While most people even myself thought much of his scenes might have been CGI, a recent interview with MTV would prove different. It was revealed that not only did the guitar shoot large balls of fire, but it was also a fully functioning guitar plugged into a fully functioning wall of Amplifiers.

While the Guitar playing “War Boy” (As they are called) does not draw focus and take away from the film, it is a rather welcome addition as it only adds to the feel of the movie. The guitar combined with the war drums, is almost a rally cry for the War Boys as they chase Max through the desert. On top of the moving concert, many of the war vehicles were also completely drivable and used through the entire movie. This only made the movie feel more realistic. While i didn’t see the movie in 3D, i can only imagine that it would have made the movie that much more intense, to combine many practical affects with the in your face 3D glasses.

One of the big points of this move was Charlize Theron, who plays “The Imperator Furiosa” in the movie. the Imperator is basically the right hand of Immortan Joe which was played by Hugh Keays-Byrne. Many people complain that movies have become very sexist against women, in the fact that women can only be kick ass characters until a man shows up and then they become helpless and need the man to save them and basically save the day. This movie did not come off on that in any way. If anything i felt that Mad Max would have been dead long before if it wasn’t for Furiosa and her ability to be hardcore.

  One of the scenes that sticks out is when one of Immortan Joe’s brothers is tracking their truck at night and is using a spotlight and random gun fire to lure them out. Max fires two shots, missing both. Furiosa comes up and takes the come from him and knocks out the spot light in one shot. There are many other scenes, like when Furiosa climbs out and repairs the rig while Max is driving, or several fight scenes where she is shooting bad guys and taking out everyone that tries to climb on her truck and stop her. While some people complained about her being too tough, i honestly thought it made the movie that much stronger having Furiosa, as her own independent badass that helped Max save the day, and not stand there while he does everything. 

If you have not seen this movie, i highly recommend going out and getting a ticket. While i can’t say that it is worth the 3D ticket price, i can tell you that seeing it in the theater only makes it that much better, one of the best movies of the year by far.

Interstellar, not what i thought it would be.

I am quite possibly the last person to watch Interstellar. That not to say that i didn’t want to see it, i just was not that interested in it at the time. I love space movies as much as the next person, but i can’t say that this one was really one on my top to watch list. I know that there are a lot of people who claim that this movie is amazing and that the science behind it is pretty solid. They had an Astrophysicist who helped out with the science while writing the story, as well as Neil Degrasse Tyson was very vocal about his thoughts on the movie which coincided with the fact that the theories behind wormholes and black holes and long distance space travel were all pretty reasonable and well thought out.

What bothers me about the movie was the story that revolved around the movie. Basically if you haven’t seen the movie, Matthew McConaughey is a pilot who has to become a farmer after the earth begins to die and food becomes scarce. He accidentally stumbles upon a secret research facility that is planning to launch a ship through a wormhole that randomly appeared just past Jupiter. He finds out that they had sent a ship once before but had lost contact with the scientists that were the first through the wormhole.

McConaughey has a daughter who is a genius just like her dad, but she seems to have a ghost that is haunting her room, pushing over books, and breaking things. It is in that room that they discover the location of the secret Space facility. His daughter begs him to stay and that she doesn’t want him to leave, but McConaughey is convinced that if he leaves, He may be able to find a planet that can sustain life so that the rest of the planet can board some larger ships and follow them through there.

They make it through the wormhole and find themselves heading towards the first planet. They arrive only to find out that the planet has large tsunami’s one of them destroyed the ship they were looking for. One of the astronauts dies when he gets caught in the Tsunami. Ann and Matthew survive. Ann is rescued by this robotic AI called kip. McConaughey keeps talking about returning home in time cause he misses his family but the one planet have set them back.

They find out that Ann’s boyfriend played by Matt Damon is on one of the planets. His transponder keeps sending back data. They find his ship and bring him out of his cryo sleep. while investigating the planet one of the astronauts is blown up and they find out that Matt Damon has been faking the data so they would come and rescue him cause he didn’t want to stay on that planet alone. Matt Damon runs and blows up part of their main space ship.

Eventually McConaughey realizes they need to use the last of the fuel in their lander ships so they can get to the final planet by using the black hole as a slingshot. Ann realizes that McConaughey is going to sacrifice himself along with the AI Kip so that she can make it to the planet.

What bothers me about this is that They have the technology to create a nearly self aware robotic assistant that can move and even saves Ann Hathaway, not to mention the cyrochambers that keep them in a suspended animation for months on end and yet with all this technology they never created a way to remotely run and or eject the ships that were connected to the main ship. I realize it is a movie and that is how McConaughey discovers that the black hole isn’t really a black hole, but still i am pretty sure they could have ejected those ships without any loss of life.

The only reason why they find the last of the math they need is because McConaughey plunges into a black hole. but as he is plummeting in, he ejects into the black hole and  after some intense experiences, he finds himself in this weird place. Kip is also alive and they come to realize that they are in a forth dimension where McConaughey can see every aspect of time and space from behind his daughters bookshelf. He then tries to send messages through the shelf trying to prevent his younger self from going into space. This is were i start to get a little confused and put off by the movie.

Basically through the last 30 mins of the movie you are told that either Aliens or a future race of humans put this fourth dimension here for McConaughey to find so that he could send his daughter the information on the black hole and how gravity and time work so that she can solve this complex math problem. I realize that they believe that if you left earth in 2014 and went through a wormhole, even though it would be 2020 on earth, you will still be in 2014, thus you would technically gone back in time.

The thing that i hate is that they believe that going back in time could create a time paradox if you were to change something in the past. McConaughey spends a handful of his time in the 4th dimension, trying to prevent his past self from going into space before he realizes that he was the one who sent himself into space with all the coded messages. The problem is that if McConaughey had actually stopped himself from going into space, then he would not be there in the present to give himself the message, thus creating a time Paradox.

Eventually he sends the information and the 4th dimension begins to collapse around him. He then finds himself floating through space and running out of air. Somehow a ship comes out of nowhere and saves him with only minutes to spare. decades have past and while he is 129 in earth years he is only in his 40’s because of being near a black hole, and see’s his daughter who is in her late 90’s.

As far as I am concerned the science behind the movie is solid as far as i can tell, since i am not a scientist, but just the fact that he somehow survived a black hole and floating in the void of space seemed a little farfetched. The fact that he sent himself the coded message so that his daughter could solve the gravitational problem seemed a little bit of a slap to the face. I realize they had to figure something out as a way to sent it to her i just thought the going back in time to when she was a young girl was a bit of a stretch when she was in her 30’s 40’s by the time he was in the black hole. But then again as i sit here and write this, everything he did, could have spanned in the time of maybe one or two years, it was just him seeing himself in the room and trying to prevent his past self from going into space that kind of ruined it for me.

I am not saying that the movie isn’t worth watching i just am not sure how i feel about the ending. it seemed like a kick to the stomach.

Age or Ultron: Best or Worst Avengers yet?

Fortunately or unfortunately for me, it is 2am as i write this because i just got out of the Midnight screening of Avengers: Age of Ultron. It probably doesn’t help that i am hopped up on Cherry coke but i digress.

Never before have i gone to the midnight screening, mainly because the movies release on a week night and i work, but i decided that i wanted to be one of the first billion or so people to see it as soon as i could. I took my dad along because he had enjoyed the previous Marvel movies and i figured it would be cool to hang out and watch the movie. I must say that the Star Wars trailer was awesome. Even my dad was excited for that movie to come out.

After the two hours of previews and the 30 or so minutes it takes to get through the Marvel Logo, we were treated to another Avengers Movie. I probably should mention that i saw the movie in 3D, but that really didn’t make the movie that much more mind blowing. While it was good, they could have done a lot more with the 3D. I have to admit that there was a lot more to the 3D in this one than previous movies i have seen in 3D, but still not blow your mind out of the back of your skull 3D.

A lot of people have been complimenting or complaining about how dark movies have gotten lately. The Batman Trilogy, Winter Soldier, Iron man 3… the list goes on. Everyone has made it known that they think Comic book movies are taking a dark turn, but most of them don’t seem to mind it. I can see why, things have to get worse before they can get better and that is what it is doing. Each movie is a small story in a larger plot that is building up to one giant climax. If you watch the end credit scenes, you can pretty much put together exactly what is going to happen.

For as dark as the movie was, it was done incredibly well. I felt the despair and sadness the movie was trying to purvey but there was also quiet a few up beat moments in the movie. I couldn’t believe the amount of jokes that they managed to throw into the movie at the perfect times to really keep you on the edge of your seat. I found my self breaking down the movies scenes and dialouge, thanks to recent college classes i have been taking. Everything was so smooth and the up beat moments really helped keep the movie from going down a dark road.

I must say that i was incredibly impressed with the movie. I was constantly engrossed in the movie that the time flew by. I must say that this is by far the best Avengers to date. I really think they went to an all new level with this movie. They really put together something that is going to make people return to the theater to see it again as well as become hungry for the next Captain America.

On an unrelated side note, about an hour into the movie, the guy sitting right infront of my dad passed out. he was out for a solid fifteen seconds. He was there with friends and the woke him up, but there was definitely a min of panic as we were trying to make sure he was ok. I am not sure what caused him to do that, it could have been he was tired and just fell asleep or any other number of things, but he was awake the rest of the movie. Also the guy sitting right in front of me felt the need to check his phone every twenty minutes with his screen on Solar bright. Buddy its 12 in the morning, no one is texting you.

I give this movie an A+ i plan on seeing it again in theaters.

Why am i watching Wrestling Again?

Lately i have been asking myself the very real question; Why am i watching professional wrestling again?

As of late, i have found my self turning on the WWE on monday nights. In the last month i have watched it at least twice. Granted i have not watched the whole show but just bits and pieces. I wonder if it is because i am bored and at that point and time there was nothing else on, but i have a Netflix, and Crunchy Roll account, so i have more than enough shows in my cue, plus my On-Demand has enough content to keep my attention for weeks.

So why do i keep flipping back and watching the show? When i was young, i used to watch wrestling every night it was on. I had always been a fan of the WWE (Formerly the WWF) over all the other wrestling companies that were on television, but this was back in the 90’s when i was watching it. I was a fan of Wrestling when you had NWO, DX, Stone Cold, The Rock, Hulk Hogan, etc… Something about those guys always made the show exciting, but as they got older and new characters emerged, my attention shifted to other things and away from wrestling. Before this year, i hadn’t watched a single episode of WWE since the late 90’s Early 2000’s.

To be honest, i just got tired of the boring story lines that seemed to repeat day in and day out, not to mention everyone was jumping from good guy to bad guy every other week and it was rather confusing. I preferred when you had the established bad guys like NWO or Stone Cold who was always a fan favorite because he did what he wanted. I remember he drove a giant beer truck to to ring side and Sprayed vince McMahon with a fire hose filled with beer. I remember i thought that was one of the coolest things. I remember The Undertaker and Mc Foley falling through the cage. Those were good times.

To be honest as much as i am not a fan of the new WWE, i still watch the shows. I think it is because i am amazed how popular it still is. I guess you could say the same thing about my love of Hockey, Football, and Soccer. Those Athletes don’t stay young forever and to keep the product alive you need to refresh the talent pool with newer and younger stars, but it just seems that this new Era of Wrestling is more Soap Opera and less People beating each other into a pulp on top of a 20 foot cage, or someone being thrown off the Entrance ramp onto a pile of tables and cables.

I realize that the characters back in the day were more gimmicky than they are now, but honestly i liked that more. I heard someone talking about wrestling in the modern day and how the characters now are more relatable and that those people are someone you could aspire too or look up to, but i find that boring. Every character is pretty much the same now a days. They are a guy or a girl and they are good or bad, and they are friends with this wrestler but they hate that other wrestler.

The wrestlers back in the 80’s and 90’s were far superior in my opinion. You had characters like Jake the Snake who always carried that giant python around and occasionally he would use it to scare or distract people. You had Ray Mysterio who always had that mask and even though he was small, he was fast and agile. I liked the characters who were a little bit out there, they almost had a sense of superhuman to them. I liked that they seemed a little too farfetched to be real because that is what made the show so much better, these almost wacky characters fighting for championships or just because they didn’t get along with someone, all the while having some bizarre back story that made their personality all the much more amusing. I even remember when the four horsemen were still around and would occasionally make an appearance. I remember seeing Ken Shamrock wrestling, only to find out years later he was an MMA fighter.

I don’t see the same unique characters in the Modern Wrestling era, the majority of them are just cookie cutter copies of the others. The Miz who started his television career on Reality Tv is a narcissist who thinks that he is the greatest wrestling star in the world and that he is god’s gift to the world. The most interesting thing about him is his former Stunt Double. Damien Sandow who at the time went as Damien Mizdow was hilarious. He was quirky in a way that as The Miz was getting pummeled, Damien would pretend like he was getting beat up as well. I enjoyed watching Damien act out everything The Miz was doing almost as if he was actually mocking him.

Another Character who also plays a narcissist is Seth Rollins, he was the 2014 winner of the Money in the Bank match and he walks around in this almost paranoid delusion that is fueled by triple H and Stephanie McMahon which the two of them seem to be called “The Authority” which is rather odd, but i understand why. I never see him wrestle, but then again i haven’t watched much, but the times i have seen, there seems to be twice as much conversation. Seth is always talking how he is the future of wrestling and how he is the best and what not, but i never actually saw him fight.

I could go on and list more characters that fit this narcissistic, or sociopathic tendencies, but i could fell several pages with it. I miss the crazy characters that seem to be dwindling. Going through the WWE’s active roster, I see only a handful of truly unique characters like Star Dust, Diego, Fernando, Sin Cara, and there are a few others. Even Kane has succumbed to the mainstream demystification of the wrestlers. There was a time where Kane was the supposed hell spawn brother of the Undertaker. Kane used to come out in this red leather mask that covered his face, and when he entered the ring, red fireworks would explode from the corners of the ring. He never spoke, he just beat everyone into submission and occasionally he shot fireballs into peoples faces, but now he shaved his head and is a normal every day joe wrestler.

I can’t say that I am fully back into the wrestling, but i have found myself flipping to that channel every once and a while to see what is going on. I think that it is a curiosity of what is happening more than it is anything else. I don’t find myself having to watch the whole thing, just a few minutes of curiosity and i am good. I am not saying that wrestling is dumb or anything, i just can’t say this modern wrestling really impresses me, call it what you will but i prefer the 90’s wrestling where someone would get a beer dumped on them or occasionally buried alive, to me that will be when wrestling was at its best.

Gotham. The best and worst new Show on Television

Fox has finally come into it’s own. They have produced a line up of shows that seem to be performing well in the ratings category. The combination of laid back and light comedy, mixed with the dark and gritty drama’s seem to be spelling success for the studio. Gotham is possibly one of the biggest hits that fox has in its current rotation. Gotham is a spin off of the Popular Batman comic that has been around since 1939, and is one of the feature hero’s from DC Comics. Gotham takes place right after Bruce Wayne’s parents are gunned down in the streets. The Show follows A Young James Gordon, a detective as well as an even younger Bruce Wayne.

While the show will jump around to a multitude of various characters, including Selina Kyle (Cat), Oswalt Cobblepot (Penguin), and Bruce Wayne; the show mainly follows James Gordon. Detective Gordon moves so the city of Gotham and finds himself in a city over run by corruption. He makes it her personal job to find Wayne’s killer and clean up the corruption that has infected the city of Gotham like a plague. Detective Gordon constantly finds himself caught between the justice that he seeks, and the seedy underbelly that grips the city, making him go along with the corruption to allow him to continue his mission of finding the Wayne’s Killer.

Now i don’t consider myself an expert on Batman, but i am a huge fan of the comic, the shows, and the cartoons that have followed. The movies have been hit and miss. I was a fan of the Dark Knight series, more so than the earlier versions of the batman movie franchise. While i find the new look at the batman franchise refreshing, i have some reservations about the show. I am not saying that i hate the new show and think that it is ruining the batman franchise, there are a few things that bug me and take away from what is a really good show.

Good-Story

The Show in general does have a very dark and gritty feel, which i really do enjoy. There is quite a good bit of suspense that goes on which will keep the viewer quite interested in the episode. They do a pretty good job of keeping things relatively real world where the comics and a few of the movies have tended to stray off into the fantasy realm. I like how detective Gordon seems to really toe the line between good and evil. He is generally a good character, he tries to be the one shining light in Gotham where inch is covered in the filth of corruption. He occasionally finds himself having to play by the thugs rules and act as he must for the greater good and to reach his ultimate goal of finding the man who killed the Wayne’s.

Bad-Technology/Time Period

One of the most confusing parts of the television show, is the exact time period that this show is taking place in. It has a very 1950’s feel, with cars and the dress. Most of the men are in suits and the women in dresses. In the Pilot episode, they are in a diner and there is a woman wearing a 50’s style waitress outfit. You can quite often catch older model cars that look brand new. Some how in Gotham, their are color television and cellphones but yet there is not a computer to be found on any desk. I realize that i may be picking at hairs, it is just a little confusing that there are television’s and cellphones combined with older style dress and vehicles, yet computers were left out. The City is almost a modern day gothic style city, where it moved on with certain technologies but is still trapped in a 50’s area feeling.

Good- Penguin, Alfred, Selina Kyle.

there are some very good characters that are in this show, that really make the story. While there are others who are lack luster in their story line.

Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot.

He is quite possibly one of the best characters in the show. The movies did no justice to the Penguin. He was portrayed as a bungling idiot of a criminal. The original Penguin was short and chubby with a big nose. Even though he came from a wealthy family just like Bruce, he was never accepted and was constantly picked on. The Gotham Version is skinny and has a very sinister side to him. He does not come from wealth like his comic counter part but i think that really makes him ever better. He acts like he is an easy to push around servant, but as you watch the show you can tell that he is playing everyone. He is quite diabolical. His ability to manipulate and control people is what makes him an amazing villain.

Alfred.

Now when most people think about Alfred the butler they think of a simple easy going butler that helps batman with the day to day and assists him when he is pretending to be a millionaire playboy. There is another version of Alfred out there where Alfred was a Former MI6 agent who became a butler for the Wayne family. The later version is the Alfred in the series of Gotham, which i prefer over the quite plain butler. He has a very grizzled voice and demeanor. He will lash out at Bruce when he makes a mistake but he will quickly apologize and show how much he cares for Bruce.

Selina Kyle.

Now i have to say when i first saw Selina Kyle, i honestly thought she was in her twenty’s. She just has a mature look to her. Someone i talked to had told me that she was in her twenties, but after looking her up on google, it turns out she is 15. That is good, knowing that makes it a little easier, but she still has a look that she is a bit older than Bruce, who is played by a 13 yr old. At first i was not a fan of Cat, but now i must say i do like her. Granted the Original Selina Kyle back story would not work.(( Her original character who was an adult was a Dominatrix in the comics.)) Her being a quick thinking street urchin really fits the Cat burglar style persona she takes on later in life.

Bad Ivy Pepper.

I just want to make a quick point, that you briefly run into Ivy Pepper, who i assume will eventually become poison Ivy. The thing that bothers me is in Gotham her parents are poor. In the Comics, her parents were wealthy but distant, leading to her paranoid and obsessive behavior. Also her name in the Comics is Pamela Isley. I don’t understand why they changed her name and her background, and it irritates me slightly.

Bad. The almost endless corruption.

Now I realize that Gotham was always a rather corrupt city, even in the comics. There is a seemingly endless supply of criminals and villains flooding the streets, but in the television show is seems a little ridiculous. There are two major Crime families and a seemingly endless supply of under bosses that want to take out their boss.  The entire police force has been bought by the crime syndicates except for Detective Gordon, and the two people from major crimes. Harvey Bullock starts off as a pretty dirty cop, who changes his ways because of Gordon. I just can’t see that the entire police force being on the take with the crime family. the cops are either completely inept or incredibly dirty. There should be a few good cops somewhere in Gotham.

I realize that people will scream at me that the original Gotham was incredibly corrupt before batman showed up, but it just seems a little over kill in the context of the show. My gripes with the show are very small and probably something your average viewer won’t notice nor care but i just wish that there was a little more cohesion within the show. I just find it a little weird there are cellphones and modern technology (ex phone activated car bombs.) and yet there are somehow no computers and everyone seems to be from the 50’s era. This won’t stop me from watching the show but i just hope that season two will clean up a bit of the stray hairs that seem to be poking out. Maybe i am just picking at hairs, but it is just small things i have noticed.

Aaron Paul. The next big action star?

Before breaking bad became one of the best drama’s on television, would you have even know who Aaron Paul was if someone said his name, or if he walked up and introduced himself. For me, the answer is no i would not have known who he was. Going back through his career on IMDB, he played in a lot of television shows and some movies. I was always a fan of the Mission Impossible series, but i never remember him being in the third one. It is not like he was in no name shows or anything, He was in major shows from CSI to Criminal Minds, and Bones. Most of his roles were rather small or short, but the fact is he is a good actor that he got roles in major shows.

In my opinion, if it wasn’t for his role as one of the stars in Breaking bad, it is possible that he would never have been the lead in Need for Speed, which would have been sad because in watching Need for Speed, i thought he was perfect for the role. When i got Need for Speed in the mail i was rather opened minded about it, but skeptical. Video games turned movies sometimes tend to be rather lack luster and don’t perform very well (See, Super Mario Brothers, Mortal Combat, Street Fighter, Doom, I Think you get my point). While Need for Speed is no Fast and the Furious, I liked that. There is nothing wrong with a racing movie that doesn’t involve car explosions every five seconds and several fight scenes while a plane tries taking off. There are a few car explosions in Need for Speed it wasn’t overkilled.

(Here come some Spoilers)

The Story for Need for Speed is pretty simple, its about driving. There is a lot more to it than just that, Tobey Marshal (Aaron Paul) Plays a former racer turned mechanic and car customizer who’s old rival and the movies antagonist Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) comes to him with a proposition, the chance to help tune a 2million dollar Shelby Mustang that Dino plans to sell . The car is a success and Tobey finds himself in the presence of some rich clientele. After the sale, Tobey and one of his friends and pseudo little brother Pete (Harrison Gilbertson) find themselves staring at three very rare very expensive European Koenigsegg Agera cars that are owned by Dino’s dad.

Dino makes a bet with Tobey for the money that was made off the sale of the Mustang. Dino ends up clipping the Car Pete is in and kills him, but is able to Frame Tobey for it. Tobey then spends two years in prison and can only think of one thing, redemption. The movie itself is very powerful. As there is a lot of action for it not being your typical action movie where there are guns and explosions and fights every five seconds.

Aaron plays the lead very well. When i look at him, he kind of seems like a blue collar street racer that tends to get in trouble, and would be seen running from the cops. His grizzled tone of voice seems to fit the persona of a person with nothing to lose who may be a wild card. While i am not sure If he would make a typical action star that runs around with an assault rifle that magically fires nonstop for 90 minutes, i could see him playing the lead in a action role that may involve multiple car chases. It is clear that Aaron Paul has some sort of spark, It has long been said that his Breaking Bad character (Jesse Pinkman) was supposed to be killed early in the series but the fans loved him and wanted him to stay. It seems now that the sky is the limit now that Breaking Bad has ended. Does this mean we will see him running lead in more Action movies, or do we see him play the hero in a horror flick? Time will tell but i think he is the next big star who could make a run in many movies.

Scorpion, New CBS hit or one season wonder

Last Monday after my favorite comedy The Big Bang Theory ended, I saw a new show come on after it that I sat down and watched. For Some reason the “Nerd” thing is all the rage. Ever since The Big Bang Theory started dominating the ratings for best comedy, people have been trying to duplicate it in some form or fashion. Last week CBS aired a new show called Scorpion. The show is a dramatic series along the same lines as the NCIS franchise, except this new series focuses on a group of the smartest minds in the world.

The first episode started off as most dramatic series do; something happens and someone gets in trouble. The show starts off as Federal agents and SWAT descend on a small house. When they enter the bedroom a small boy standing there tells them that he will explain how he hacked into NASA for immunity. Fast forward a decade and the child genius is working a dead end job doing networking and other computer repairs to put enough money together to help keep the lights on for his makeshift company. The main protagonist, Walter O’Brien(code name Scorpion) is a genius computer hacker who has assembled a team of geniuses like himself. His team consists of him, a mechanical prodigy, a world class psychiatrist, and a math wizard; all of them are the best in their fields.

The group finds themselves short on money and their electricity shut off. Their partner Tobias gambled their rent money in a game of poker with a group of thugs who figured out he was reading them and didn’t like losing all their money. The thugs are outside their office building pounding on the door when Homeland Security appears at their door. They are there to offer them a job by helping them stop a handful of planes from crashing to the ground when a software update has a bug in it and they have no communication with any of the planes or landing guidance.

Walter turns down the offer because the Federal agent, Cabe Gallo and Walter had a falling out when Walter was younger and worked for him. His friends convince him to help bring all the planes in safely. The show follows them trying everything they can to get the software fixed and the planes to land safely. There is also a subplot where Walter meets a waitress named Paige who has a son that is also a genius but she seems to have trouble understanding him and communicating with him. Paige helps them understand the real world outside of their small circle.

The concept of the show is pretty general. It is a very typical drama where good guys try to help the antagonist who is also a good guy (Federal Agent Gabe being said antagonist). I realize that the first episode needs to be a big deal and have a huge draw but I think they overdid it a tad. They tried several tactics to fix the issue but they kept running into road blocks that prevented them from properly fixing the computer bug. One of the planes is low on fuel and needs to land so they hack one of the cellphones of the people in the plane and get a line to the pilots. They hack the ignition of a Ferrari and drive it up the runway as the plane comes in for a pass by. During this chase, Paige is standing up in the car holding a laptop as the Co-pilot hangs from the landing gear in an attempt to download the data from the plane so the can fix the bug. As you can guess they get the data they need just in time for the plane to miss crashing into the ground and the Ferrari hitting a barrier.

I feel like this was slightly over done. I realize that most television shows tend to exaggerate what kind of things are possible but i feel like the whole catching a plane with a car and downloading the data may have been over kill. There are several ways that they could have solved the issue but this was the most exciting way to do it.

Yet I do enjoy the show, it does have a pretty good appeal for all people to enjoy. I feel like the story tended to be a little bit slow but for a show just starting out and building the characters and their stories I can understand. If you are looking for a new Drama and enjoy watching people solve problems with their minds instead of running around and shooting everything till its fixed, then this is the show for you to check out.

 

Internet Television Vs Regular Television

The internet has come a long way in ten years. It is crazy to think that my younger cousins were born after the birth of the internet; heck they don’t even know what a Nintendo is. Along with faster and more reliable internet came the birth of being able to stream media. In order to watch your favorite television shows you had to either record it or wait till it came back on during the week, but with the internet and on demand television you can watch your favorite shows whenever and where ever you want. Another thing that came about was website dedicated solely to watching television and movies whenever you wanted. Netflix is probably the first thing that comes to mind when you think of live streaming media. Netflix was the first legitimate company that offered you a way of watching your favorite movies. They have one of the most expansive collections of movies and television. since the birth of Internet streaming, sites like Hulu, and Crunchyroll, have appeared to help fill the gaps.

Network television has been the long running supplier of original television content. Networks like HBO, AMC, and CBS are pumping out hit shows and original content every year as if they tapped into some never ending stream of ideas. Having the money to back up very in depth and complicated shows has allowed companies like HBO, AMC, and BBC America to pump out hit shows like Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, and The Sopranos just to name a small fraction. The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad are both AMC originals that dominated the ratings for many years. Breaking Bad ended its long run on AMC after five gritty seasons, while The Walking Dead is running full steam ahead rolling into season five. When you have shows like that gracing your television, you would think that no one would take the risk of creating internet only content.

Hulu and Netflix have both taken that first step into challenging Television for original content. Netflix has spent quite a bit of money trying to put together solid programming that would draw people away from television and to their site. Shows like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards have proved that Netflix can and will stand their ground in an attempt to draw in more customers. While their original content is limited to what Hulu has, Netflix has established that it wants to be more than just a movie hub. Hulu started itself as probably the better choice if you wanted to catch the television shows that you missed that week; while Netflix doesn’t allow you to do that. Hulu took a risk and began pumping out their own original content with shows like The Awesomes, Quick Draw, and Dead Beat.

Hulu, while having a bigger line up than Netflix, lacks the pull that Netflix does with original content. Will this always be the case? Only time will tell, as Netflix has the bankroll to take risks on original content while Hulu is just getting its feet wet. The cult show Community was recently canceled by NBC but Yahoo decided to pick up the show for its sixth season. It is surprising that Hulu didn’t try to buy the show as that could have been a big boost to their lineup.

It seems that there is a chance that the streaming content providers, with their internet only show, can pick up some large revenue with their content but they will need to take some big risks if they want to start pulling in more viewers. When you have shows like The Big Bang Theory, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones on network TV, they will have a hard road to travel to compete. Only time will tell if Netflix and Hulu can gain some ground, but it will take some capital and some risk for them to be able to even get a foothold in the hopes of pulling away the throngs of loyal viewers that swarm to their televisions every night.

The Soul Headphones. The Beats little brother.

Dre beats, or should i say Apple Beats are all the rage. If they weren’t apple wouldn’t have spend upwards of $4billion to buy them. Lets be honest probably ninety percent of people with headphones own a pair of beast. I am probably wrong cause they are expensive but they are popular lets not kid ourselves, hell i even own two pairs of beats. One pair of in ear for the gym and one of over the ears for when i am working on projects on my computer. With that being said i can’t say i am 100% sold on Dre beats. Everyone knows that monster likes to make overly priced electronics. Monster makes good stuff, all my cables are monster, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t be cheaper but that is a different story for another time. I like my in ear beats i do. They don’t fall out until i build up a good sweat. They do have a special longer ear piece that fits deeper in your ear, well they did on older models and i have since lost those ear buds. I can’t say that i really like the Dre studio’s i have. They are the noise canceling over the ear headphones. I was doing my normal geek thing when i saw a pair of noise canceling headphones for sale on Amazon. Being unable to resist a good deal i quickly purchased the headphones. A few days later they were here and i was unsure if i wanted to keep them. (the inquisitive in me opened them up and well they are mine now.) The head phones were Soul SES high definition noise canceling headphones. I was not sure what to think about them. They had a similar look and feel to that of  the beats. On the outside they look pretty nice. Once i got inside i was impressed with how they looked. The headphones themselves do look rather nice. The diamond pattern on the headband is very puffy. I sat there looking at them. The battery door is one of those twist lock features which isn’t bad. I was afraid that these would eat AAA like my beats did. Listening to them i noticed something about them. They play music even when the noise canceling is off. The switch on them turns the noise canceling feature on and off. But if the feature is off you can still use the headphones. The beats that i have did not allow that, i could only listen to them while the noise canceling was on which kills the battery. Another thing i liked about the Soul headphones was how the earphones moved. They sit on a sort of bearing where they can roll. So if your head is a little odd shaped like mine the ear pieces adjust and fit very flush. It was nice, probably one of the features i liked the most on them. That sat really comfortably so i decided to run them on my laptop and my Iphone to see how they felt. the audio wasn’t too bad on them. the one other thing i really like about the Souls is their cable. The buttons on them are very robust and they are easy to find while you are not looking. The beats is a little smaller and i fumble around with it more. I decided that i needed to sit them down next to my beats and then give a sound comparison. While they do have a similar look and style i must say the Souls feel a good bit lighter. The one thing i wasn’t sure of was when i listened to them back to back. For some reason the Soul headphones seem to have a more hollow sound to them. I can’t really place my finger on them but it seems a little more metal. you can hear the vocals a little better but the songs don’t sound as warm. The same when you put the Soul’s into noise canceling. the other thing that i don’t understand is why Soul put LED”S in their headphones. There is a small button on the inside by the earphone that when you press it lights up the outside ring around the S logo’s. It seems kind of tacky. I don’t really need the LED feature, although if you are a DJ in a dark club it would be cool but for me i don’t notice it. I took my Soul’s out for a run today to see how they felt. They held onto my head rather well, they didn’t feel to0 tight and they didn’t slip down much. But again they still seem a little hollow sounding. I am not a music expert but the instrumentals just don’t seem as warm and the base seems to lack some. The headphones over all are pretty nice, but for the price i am not sure how much i liked them. I think they could really compete with Apples new beats but they need to work on making the sound quality a little better. I honestly like the feel of them and their cable as well as how the earpieces swivel back and forth to really fit your head. I do plan to use them, but i can only hope that they are working to make newer headphones with a rich warmer sound. They may be able to chisel away at the Beats throne. The only thing i would really remove is the LED that i don’t think most people care for.