My Indecisiveness in the summer time.

It seems at this point in the summer I have a lot of free time to laze around and do nothing and as much as I love being a lazy man of the world I do actually like to do stuff in my spare time. Luckily I have many things at my disposal to do, unfortunately I have a few to many options open which means that choices collide and clash meaning that I then become indecisive and never end up doing anything.

This is what my decision-making looks like on a near-daily basis.

Normally when I wake up I have a basic idea of what I want to do. I’ll normally go on my laptop and decide what my next motive is from there. But since it’s the summer time I feel like I should be doing more and capitalizing on my free time. Before I finished my first year of uni I said that I’d get so much done in the summer, but as of yet I have yet to scratch the surface of the plans that I sent up for myself. While I have encountered moments in time where I have done exactly what I wanted to do, those times are sparse at best and need to be in bigger supply. So what are my options? Well I’ll tell you below:

Sketching

Now this is something I like to do, technically speaking it is what defines me. I’ve been drawing/sketching since the dawn of my existence, however in recent years it feels like I haven’t been as committed to it a I should be. After I came to uni I started sketching again, but now that the summer’s here I have barely drawn a thing and that’s problematic. I thought with all this free time that I would draw more than usual and get some of my comic ideas and portraits going, but I have yet to get into that kind of groove. Every time I want to sit down and draw something else interrupts me or I can’t find the incentive to work. I just hope that I can find that groove and start sketching properly before the summer ends.

Here’s a picture I drew of a friend of mine, this is what I want to be doing all the time during this summer.

Gaming

If there is one thing that I need to start doing more of it is gaming. I call myself a gamer, yet I barely touch my consoles and have long gaming sessions like I should be and that is because of my indecisiveness and laziness. I’d say in the last quarter of 2011 was when I was in proper gaming mode when I was playing Sonic Generations and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Since then in 2012 I became the proud owner of a Nintendo 3DS and have been discovering the wonders of the portable console along with my casual playing of Mario Kart 7. But even then my gaming hasn’t gotten to that epic level yet.

Recently I have gotten a hold of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 and at first I really wasn’t into it, but after giving it a try I’ve liked it a lot. Its miles better than the first game in terms of graphics and control, but I need more time to assess the gameplay and level design. I’ve also tried out Transformers: War for Cybertron and also far its a pretty crackin game and I’m annoyed that I hadn’t played the game sooner, it’s gameplay is fast, kinetic and very fun. Transforming is great and the visuals and voice work is pretty damn impressive. And lastly after around 2 months of being lazy I finally got around to playing Kid Icarus: Uprising on my 3DS. While the control scheme for the game does feel awkward at times, the overall aerial and ground combat is incredibly fun and addictive, the graphics are fabulous and the voice work and soundtrack is very well-crafted.

I’m currently playing through this game and I’ll soon have my review up on my blog and on YouTube asap!

Me and gaming have a long way to go before we are back to the place where we were back in 2010 when I really cared for video games with a passion. I just want to be gaming the way that I did before; all the friggin time! 😀

Writing/Blogging

Well the funny thing about this is that I do it nearly all the time, but recently things have started to slow down and my uploading of posts has slowed down significantly. This blog was created for work purposes when I started uni, but after a bit of tampering it turned into my own domain to write freely about anything on my mind. And for the first few months it was crazy, but around March to April things started to slow down and by May things really got inconsistent. My reviews are one of the more solid things on my blog, my film reviews and my episode reviews of the Ultimate Spider-Man are the main things that I blog about. But other than that my material on my blog has been rather lacking and needing much more consistency. Well I have a lot of drafted blog posts, but its all about the inspiration and timing, some times I feel like blogging and other times I can’t be arsed. But blogging has become part of my world since uni began  many months ago and I would like it to continue. So yeah this summer I need to get my blogging stuff back in check, for sure!

If nothing else specific comes up soon, then this will be the next thing I blog about. Look out for my comprehensive Spider-Man review!

Watching Movies/TV shows

As you may be able to tell from all the film reviews that I do on my blog and on YouTube, I love films. I live for them. It just fills my life with happiness.

Outside of films, I love TV too, though these days I don’t have a TV of my own to watch shows regularly so I play catch up online and recently I’ve gotten into a lot of American TV. Outside of watching my animated shows like The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and the Ultimate Spider-Man, I have recently started watching Fringe and I am obsessed! The show is so well-thought out, so cool and it has everything; science fiction, action, drama, mystery and so much more. Never have I been so addicted to a show since Boardwalk Empire. And speaking of that show I still need to watch the second season of that. And then there’s other HBO series that I’ve been meaning to watch now which is Game of Thrones. The second season has just ended and from what I have heard from my friends it sounds incredible and don’t wanna miss out on this epicness anymore. And then add to that my Idris Elba obsession that’s been going since last year, I really want to watch the two shows he’s most known for; The Wire and Luther. Both are critically acclaimed shows and have a lot of hype, however I have yet to see them, so I was hoping that this summer I would finally get around to watching both of them. But annoyingly I never like to watch more than one show at once because it messes with my continuity. So I say that I won’t watch another TV show until I’ve gotten up to date with Fringe, but even then, after finishing that show, finding a new one will be difficult with al of the material I have to work with. XD

I could even decide to clean my room, though I doubt I will due to the fact I shall be leaving my flat in a few weeks. But as you can see I have a variety of options at my disposal and yet I never know what to do or what to tackle first. When I do one thing, I feel like I should be doing something else at the same time and sometimes when I don’t pick something specifically I just avoid the choice altogether and do something else or worse, I do nothing 😦 I am hopeless in these types of situations haha.

This sign should really be given to me because I really have a bad habit of not being about to make up my mind on the simplest of tasks.

Well one could argue I shouldn’t be freaking out about trying to do so much in such a short space of time since I still have the whole of July and August to sort it out. However my indecisive behaviour can become terrible on occasions to the point where I put off things for days, which then turn into weeks and then months

 

Prometheus Review

Good day to you ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another film review and today’s review will be on the latest science fiction film Prometheus. Now unlike most of my usual reviews this oe will be a much more condensed block of writing unlike my usual writing style.

There was a lot of talk, speculation and hype behind this film before its release. So is it good? Read on to hear my thoughts on it.

So here we are in June with the release of Prometheus, the latest film from Ridley Scott that sees him return to genre of science fiction to give a film on a grand scale that promises great sci-fi elements, action, potential horror and violence thanks to its 15 film certificate. Much hype was floating around this film because of the viral campaign, massive advertising and most importantly the hype surrounding this films connection to the Alien franchise as a potential prequel to the original film or not.

Now I’ve already placed this film as my fourth favourite film of the year and have given a decent mini review of what I thought of the film in a recent blog post about my top 5 films of 2012. ut for those wanting some extra clarification I’ll try to elaborate. As I said before Prometheus came out there was much hype, I can recall when the teaser trailer came out back in December of 2011 and I’m sure that in many places of the internet the world blew up. After that point everyone was talking about Prometheus, like it was going to be the film of the year or something. Even before that teaser trailer was released, nuff people were talking about this film on websites and in film magazines, just loads of places talking about Prometheus and before December I can’t say I was very much interested, thought I did keep a sneaky eye on updates on the film every now and then. But then I watched the teaser trailer and said to myself“Okay this film is worth my time.” And from that point onwards I followed everything and every subsequent trailer got me more and more excited. The main reason I was interested in this film was because I wanted to know much of connection this film would be to the first Alien film, but hearing Ridley Scott be so coy about the subject in interviews was kind of annoying. So I just decided to stay open-minded about the subject.

So story of Prometheus in a summarised fashion goes a little something like this:

” A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.”

For me I thought the film was pretty good, though I was a tad conflicted at the time of leaving the cinema as to whether I really liked the film or not. about the way I think about the film. The story is a good for the most part, but unfortunately it’s a bit predictable and once the mystery unfolds some of the generic codes and conventions of the science fiction and horror genres become apparent. It also doesn’t help that the film also suffers from a cast of one-dimensional characters, a lot the people in this film you know are just there to die in some way done the line. Luckily there are three decent performances from Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace and Idris Elba. Though in truth the only standout performance and main person you care about is Michael Fassbender as David, he was incredible, versatile and the main thing that kept this film afloat. Oh and before I forget I have to give a shout out has to go out to Idris Elba as Captain Janek, he was just this cool, calm and collected character who just did his job but was also hella funny and a right badass who I enjoyed watching in the film too.

There was a lot of good stuff to be found in Prometheus, for one it was a great-looking film, with a great atmosphere created by the  CGI and visual style, it also had action and some nice gruesome scenes of violence. However the film lacked the creepy and disturbing nature present in the 1979 Alien film, plus there wasn’t any proper scares, suspense or surprise. The film was a little predictable and some of the characters were dull and uninspired, you just knew that a good number of them would die. Now as a film that takes place in the same universe as Alien it has a lot of notable references here and there, but it should be noted that the film technically isn’t a direct prequel to Alien it just has elements of it sprinkled all over the place. Overall I think Prometheus a good film that looks incredible from a visual standpoint and features some great scenes of action and gruesome stuff, but  it has issues with its story and some very uninteresting and predictable characters (bar the people I mentioned specifically beforehand). Though I think the worst thing for Prometheus was the fact that the hype was too high, lots of people expected far too much and that’s why I think not too many people came away happy with the end result. But again do not let that deter you from watching the film, go watch Prometheus, it’s a good summer film, just lower your expectations and you’ll be fine.

Well that’s my thoughts on the film in a smaller format, if you want to know everything I thought about Prometheus then check my video review below:

 

My Top 5 Films of 2012 So Far.

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another blog post! Okay here we are at the halfway point of the year, it’s finally June and there are many films that have come out this year and still many to come through the summer right up until the end of 2012. So with that in mind I thought I would give you my top 5 films of the year so far, in order from my top favourite to number 5.

1. THE AVENGERS

To be honest was there any doubt in your mind about what my top choice would be? I have been going on about this film long before it was released talking about trailers and complaining about the waiting period before it was released in April over here in the UK. Suffice to say The Avengers aka Avengers Assemble was everything I ever wanted in a comic film and then some, it had action, it had a good story to tell and a wonderful soundtrack and it was really funny! But most importantly it got the characters right, thanks to the power of Joss Whedon as the director and writer! Marvel Studios got it right and all their developing of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the last 4 years paid off. The Avengers got all those individual superheroes from their own films and put them together in this one with all of the conflict and resolution you would expect. All of the actors and actresses brought heir A-games and had some brilliant chemistry in many scenes too. This film really was the definition of a true comic book film, made for fans of Marvel material and while it may not win over Dark Knight-obsessed fans, anyone who can appreciate a good, solid, action summer film will have a good time with The Avengers.

2. MARLEY

The funny thing about this documentary was that I didn’t even know it existed until around two weeks before it’s release when I was in my local Cineworld in Luton and saw it advertised on the TV. So I researched about Marley and saw it got a full 5 star rating from Empire Magazine so then I was like “Okay now I have to see this film!” Lucky I did go when I did because the film had a limited screening in the UK and was only available in certain cinemas. But anyway, was Marley good? Hell yes! Marley is probably the most comprehensive look at the life of Bob Marley in a film format. This documentary went above and beyond to give you th definite story about the origins and life of Bob Marley through the archive footage and interviews with his family and friends. For me I really wanted to watch this film due to the fact that my knowledge of Bob Marley is pretty weak, so Marley was very insightful and comprehensive in the information it provides with the viewer. It is loud, proud and profound, it touches the soul in many ways due to Bob Marley’s tenacity and flair and most importantly his famous music that’s scattered all over the documentary. It is truly an incredible watch and I recommend it to everyone especially Bob Marley fans!

3. CHRONICLE

Now long before the epic Avengers film would grace our cinema screens we had this film right at the start of the year. Chronicle for me was a film that seemed like it would be an interesting watch, but not be anything worth mentioning after the film ended. But to my surprise Chronicle was a fantastic little science fiction film that gave us a more realistic look at what would happen in the real world if teenagers were to obtain super powers. The fact that the film was all shot using that found footage style of camera work was very interesting and risky, for the most part it worked though it could be a tad iffy at times too. From the trailers you got an interesting yet basic story premise: three guys obtain super powers and use them for their own needs, but one of them goes bad and has to be stopped. But luckily there was much more to the story then that, each of the three teenagers were different and engaging, most importantly Andrew, the teen that goes rouge and causes a lot of destruction later on in the film. Chronicle was definitely a very inventive, intriguing and fantastic look into a more realistic form of superhero movie in many ways. Chronicle had some incredible action sequences, great acting from the three main lead actors, it also had a very dark and gruesome nature as the film unfolded and there was also some great nods to the anime film Akira.

4. PROMETHEUS

When it comes to this film, I remember before the teaser trailer came out and there was many people on websites talking about Prometheus and I didn’t really care that much. Then I watched the teaser trailer and thought “You know what this is worth my attention.” But the main reason I was interested in this film was because I wanted to know much of connection this film would be to the first Alien film, but hearing Ridley Scott be so coy about the subject in interviews was kind of annoying. So I just decided to stay open-minded about the subject. Though I would bare in mind what Ridley Scott said about Prometheus having “strands of Alien’s DNA, so to speak” and when he said this film take places in the same universe but isn’t a direct prequel. Prometheus has come out recently, it’s been out here in the UK for almost 2 weeks and it’s been around for just one week over in the US. And of course I have seen already, I saw it on opening day on June 1st and for me I thought it was pretty darn good, though at the same time I am a tad conflicted about the way I think about the film. I mean there are clearly things that I liked and things that I didn’t, but when I came out of the cinema screening and my sister asked me what I thought I had to think about it a little bit before coming to a decision. Prometheus was a great-looking film, with a great visual style through the use of CGI and the film also had a nice soundtrack, but it lacked the creepy and disturbing nature present in Alien and the trailers leading up to Prometheus‘ release. It had action, some gruesome violence and an atmosphere of its own, but there wasn’t any real scares, suspense or surprise. The film was a little predictable and some of the characters were dull and uninspired, you just knew that a good number of them would die. The only standout performance would be Michael Fassbender as David and a shout out has to go out to Idris Elba as Janek, he was hella funny and such a badass. I think Prometheus a good film, but the hype was too high and that’s why I think not too many people came away happy with the end result.

5. MEN IN BLACK 3

Now this was film I was hoping to be good before it was released. I mean it had been 10 years since the second film and after its lengthy development process and troubles during filming, the third installment in the Men In Black franchise could have easily turned out to be a horrible mistake that shouldn’t have been made. Luckily though Men In Black 3 was a good film all round that seemed to recover some of that classic 90s magic that made the original so popular. While this film didn’t better the original, it was a hell of a lot better than MIB2. For me it was great to see Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as Agents J and K, that chemistry between the two of them is still as solid as ever, but I think this film really hit its stride when Josh Brolin stepped in as young Agent K, his ability to imitate Tommy Lee Jones is insanely good! And its great that Brolin has that same chemistry with Smith and it makes for some really funny scenes in the film. While the story of the film is a little lacking in areas and the villain isn’t overly memorable, Men In Black 3 works on many levels and for me I love it for its nostalgia factor and the fact that Will Smith is back in the world of films!

Well that’s my pick of my favourite films of the year so far. And while some of my choices may not surprise you I think maybe two of them might. To be honest 2012 never provided me much to work with in the way of good films until around May and while there were a few gems to be found, a lot the films just ended up being really dull or disappointing. I really didn’t find myself having fun until The Avengers came around. Luckily the summer looks to be filled with a lot of promise in the shape of big titles like Brave, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, The Bourne Legacy, The Expendables 2 and Total Recall. But there’s many other titles lurking around like Rock of Ages, Fast Girls, Ted and The Watch that I really want to check out. Any even after that there’s still Skyfall in October and The Hobbit in December too. 2012 better not leave me disappointed at the end of the year! Well let’s see how this summer pans out first.

Anyways thanks for reading people! 😀

 

Ultimate Spider-Man Episode 9 Review

Howdy ladies and gentlemen, I know it’s been a LONG time coming but  today I’m finally going to be giving you my review of the ninth episode of the Ultimate Spider-Man.

Alrighty then here we are at episode 9 (Field Trip) and after the abysmal episode that was episode 8 (Back in Black) I was really hoping to be impressed with this one instead, mainly because of the guest appearance of one of my favourite Marvel characters, Thor… However even with the addition of Thor and elements of his world, it couldn’t safe the Ultimate Spider-Man from having just another average episode.

So what’s the story this time around. Well it goes a little something like this:

“While on a field trip, Spider-Man and his superhero friends encounter the mighty Thor, who is transformed into a frog by his mischievous half-brother Loki. Now, the heroes must venture to the magical world of Asgard in order to save the nine realms from Loki’s wrath.”

The story in this episode wasn’t half bad, but with the additional material that had to work with in regards to Thor, Loki and Asgard the writers could have done so much better. At first I hated how this episode started out, with Peter complaining about field trips because he keeps getting bitten by different animals on each one, then cue the visual gags to represent what he means. It was just ridiculous especially when there was the visual gag about the radioactive goat-man. Again it’s that poor and simplistic humour that really isn’t all that funny and it annoys me, but if you’ve been reading my reviews on this show then you already know what I’m on about. The story moved at decent pace though it started to move strangely after Thor brought the team into Asgard and dealt with Loki. It really is down to the writing that makes this show suffer and it doesn’t really improve here. After Thor gets turned into a frog for the majority of the episode so many frog jokes are told and they all suck!

The Ultimate Spider-Man seems to thrive on making  jokes at any given moment, whether they be visual gags or verbal ones with horribly cheesy sound effects found in slapstick cartoons and when they are used in this show they are not funny. THEY ARE NOT FUNNY!.. Unless you are a child watching cartoons for the first time. But besides the jokes, the writing is the thing that really breaks this show, the stories are never overly compelling, they never challenge the viewers perception of anything. The show really is aimed at young kids, that’s their true demographic and in that regards this show may succeed with them. But with the way things are going at the moment, the creators of this show are seriously alienating a lot of their fan base by not including the quality found in the previous Spider-Man show or the currently airing show, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

When it come to the characters, oh goodness gracious. How can Spidey, Nova, White Tiger, Power Man and Iron Fist still be so detached and uncoordinated. Its like this show likes to develop their characters only a little bit only to undo their own work a few episodes later. What I mean by that is that the team still hasn’t solidified yet, they don’t act like a unit and they still bicker like little kids, most notably Spidey and Nova, again! It’s been 9 episodes already, you’d think their would be some character development and the team would have some form of strategy when they fight. But no, they are almost as useless together as they were when the series started. It’s tragic really. Peter/Spidey is still lame as ever, with cheap jokes, no logic and no nods to his scientific genius (like the comics imply!), and the rest of the team are just annoying or just there for show. Oh and speaking of the team, when will Power Man and Iron Fist ever get some proper screen time in this show, they are part of the team right? So how comes both Nova and White Tiger have their own main episodes with Peter, but the other two haven’t? Do the creators of this show just not like Power Man and Iron Fist that much?

Anyway now let’s talk about the guest appearances from Thor and Loki. While they were technically a good representation of their comic book counterparts, both characters felt like they were lacking. Thor had all of his strength and bravado, but I didn’t like how he was so absurdly arrogant in this episode, he just seem to come across as a bit of a douche at times coz of his pride and big-headed nature. I thought he would have learnt his lesson in humility long before meeting this team, but I guess that’s why he was turned into a frog in the first place. As for Loki he was okay, I didn’t get that evil vibe from him, he just seemed like a generic bad guy who you knew was gonna get his comeuppance at the end of the episode.

So when all else fails with the story and characters it’s normally down to the presentation of the show to save the day and as usual its the best part of the Ultimate Spider-Man. The art and animation looked good for the most part and the fight scenes were decent especially after the team got their fancy new weapons from Eitri the Dwarf King. Though the action sequences still never have any stand-out moments and the fighting choreography between the team still lacks quality, style and most importantly creativity (something the Spectacular Spider-Man excelled in). The character designs for Thor and Loki looked decent enough, though their overall design looked a tad bland and lacking in detail, both of them looked much better in The Avengers: EHM. Costume-wise Thor’s looked similar to the comics thought I found Loki’s costume looked similar to the one worn by Tom Hiddleston in the live-action version of Thor & The Avengers (which I thought was a nice touch). Also the frost giants looked okay but like Thor the seemed to come across as a bit bland too.

In conclusion this episode was a cut above the last one, but not by much. The core team hasn’t bonded yet, Thor and his realm of things didn’t add much spice to the basic formula the humour is still weak. Again you as the readers may be asking yourselves “Why is he watching a series he clearly doesn’t like?” And as I said before in one of my previous episode reviews the only reason I watch this show is because it’s Spider-Man and some part of me what’s this stupid show to actually be good, to improve and be a show worthy of the name Spider-Man! However so far it still seems to be content with basic, conventional stories, dull characters and dialogue and having nothing smart or intelligent that challenge the viewers like Marvel’s other current and far superior show The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Rating: 6/10

 

Gotta love Pandas!

Howdy ladies and gentlemen of the web, today’s blog post will be about the awesomeness that’s pandas! Yes pandas!

Aw, gotta love those panda bears and their little faces they’re well cute yo!

Now this blog post probably won’t be all that long coz I thought about doing it very spontaneously, but one day I was just chilling at home and just thought to myself, “I like pandas, I think I’ll make a blog about them.” So here we are. This blog will primarily be focused on I think my liking for pandas came from a young age, I mean when you’re young there’s always certain animals that capture your interest and as far as I can recall among the many animals I liked as a kid pandas were definitely up there.

One of the key things I think I’ve always liked that still applies to present day is the way pandas looked so docile and lazy, just chilling and doing nothing most of the tim you see them in a zoo or on nature programmes. Though that isn’t the only reason I like them, they also seems to eat a lot of bamboo too and I dunno why I’ve always found that interesting, but it’s just something that makes them more unique than most other animals.

I also find it incredible how big they are and yet they have the power to climb trees and roll all over the place. Yes roll. There was this video I watched on YouTube where there was this crazy panda chilling in a tree, then he sort of fell off and then started doing a load of forward rolls all over the place before rolling into a bush. It was hilarious. Pandas are just random and cute and have inspired so much random stuff in the world from music to clothing, vehicles to films. So in the end pandas are cool 🙂