2 Mini Movie Reviews sort of in honour of Comic Con

I finally settled down and checked out 2 movies that are comic book adaptions they are very different in style but both quite popular anyway let us get on with it.

First up Kick-Ass I come with this with some background knowledge I read the original comic book series which I would easily give 9/10. The movie is pretty good but there were a number of changes from the comic book series that I disliked and I felt pandered to the Hollywood need for happy endings above all else. That is all I can say without going all spoilery. It keeps most of what made the comic great in it but you have to understand the comic is mega-violent in a way that you hopefully will never see on TV I for one couldn't take it and I wouldn't want teenagers seeing it. True Blood is about as violent as I can take without stopping the show and doing something else.

The acting is Kick-Ass is good all around Hit Girl is a revelation and Big Daddy is pretty damn funny too as a whole the plot moves along nicely and I will admit that it probably is helped by the screenplay changes that have been made. If you had a rental voucher or a £10 to spend on a night in with some buddies then you could do more right than wrong by going with Kick-Ass as one of a double header that said for me it takes an awesome comic that hits hard and pulls no punches and changes it into a damn fairy tale.

8/10

Now on to Watchmen this time though I was not lucky enough to have read the original series so know compare and contrast this time. I heard a lot of good things about the director so I thought I would give this a shot after all V for Vendetta wasn't terrible. For those with only a small understanding of comics Watchmen seems to come from a whole different place it certainly isn't Spiderman for instance but for those more in the know will know that comics have been going to a dark place for decades it is just that they tend to take longer than the more mainstream to make it to film.

The movie is pretty good, the pace keeps a geek like me interested not sure if it will work on the non-comic fan but by this point you should know what you are queuing for I mean you don't watch Passion of the Christ and expect no religion do you? Anyway my particular tip pay attention to the fight scenes they are very well produced for a US film, compare it to the choreography in Batman Begins and maybe the rest of you might notice how sucky the fight scenes in that over rated film are.

You Smallville fans will of course see the similarities to the Total Justice storyline (which just crawled its way onto UK screens this week) and that is what the original story is based on - The JSA itself I mean. Basically if you like comics sit down and watch this film, if you like a action film with a thriller twist sit your ass down and watch this film, if you have a pvc fetish... well you get the idea.

9/10

BLOGGERS' BLOCK

Yep it happens to all of us.

Your favourite blogger has been more than a bit down lately. Regular readers may remember my issues with not being able to sleep at night well that has come to a head recently with much gnashing of teeth and swearing at 4 in the morning when I am as wide awake was a SWAT sniper on duty which is awake believe me. So to preserve what little sanity I have left I will be trying book an appointment with my doctor and see if he can offer some assistance.

In other news I am very jealous of anyone near San Diego for it is Comic Con time. All those comics all those shows and a few geek friendly and lovely actresses plus cool people from podcasts I tend to like. Twitter is a good place to follow what is going on at SDCC not just from the fans but also the stars of shows like Caprica, Smallville and Stargate Universe.

Just in case you were interested I follow these actors on Twitter

@iansomerhalder
@ashleytisdale
@xoMalese
@juliebenz
@BambolaBambina
@RobinDunne
@AgamDarshi
@ZacharyQuinto
@MingNa
@amandatapping
@JamieGirlXO
@DavidBlue
@JamesKysonLee
@BreaGrant
@greggrungberg

An interesting mix and the majority of whom have featured heavily in at least one or two Comic Cons past and present. Maybe you might want to follow them too but hey maybe you don't even use Twitter so whatever.

Moving on...

(This is what happens when like me you can never turn your brain off even for commercials let alone trying to sleep at night)
Hmm whey protein doesn’t look very tasty, I mean I think whey protein some milkshake type thing (and I don’t drink milkshakes) and I compare it to a takeaway pizza and I wonder how the bodybuilders do it. I digress.

As I write the second half of this I am waiting for my pain pills to kick in so bear with me. Tonight I just watched the season finale of the Mentalist. Now I remember when the show first came around it started out with a hell of a lot of hype and marketing now it has settled into its place as a part of the Five schedule. As a show it is harmless fun but nothing more.

It doesn’t really have an ongoing story arc except that whole Red John thing which doesn’t seem to be going very far. You could compare it to Law and Order but far less serious than the variants of those shows tend to be and a bit more formulaic which is disappointing in this day and age.

And for my final point of the day I may be getting some new hardware I will let you know if and when it actually happens.

[They've kicked in now and I am eating banana pancakes things are briefly chilled and not too painful]

See you next time True Believers!!!

Where has all the Wifi gone

I am screwed and not the hot and sticky variety of that particular condition that some of us like so much. No my normal avenue onto the world wide web seems to have closed down for good. My backup was o2 pay as you go broadband which as far as I am concerned is not PAYG. No PAYG should require you to have a credit card it stands in complete opposition to the idea of pay and go which is for young people and for those with irregular income.

So I had to go out on a limb and get another PAYG mobile broadband package, O2’s coverage was ok but the credit card thing is just too annoying with my current financial issues. We all know PAYG as a style of payment is horribly over priced but then it is meant to be to get all of us onto direct debit deals for our own good. Nevermind the sort of fines and sheer amount of trouble you can get into should you miss a payment, just as an example as a result of a missed direct debit I had to find an extra £70 in the coming weeks to deal with it. That is £70 in addition to the payment itself which is ridiculous. I could go on and on about the way this attacks the lower classes but I don’t think you need me to point that out.

Anyway enough of me complaining about the rich attacking the poor. See you next time.

Somehing I wanted to share with you fine people

This is not advertisement it is simply I found that I loved. I found it as a result of spending time on MMO Champion where I hide in the shadows and laugh at the trolls. It all started with a WoW reference and I was hooked.

Funny, quirky and thoroughly addictive I started from issue 1 and got caught up to the current timeline in about three weeks, I’ve read shorter books people with the current strip as of my writing this post being around 1700.

I can’t recommend this web comic enough it is funny and wacky in a way that Friends and Futurama wish they were. It is set in a slightly different universe but strangely with music just the same as our world though we only tend to hear about the indie stuff.

Don’t take my word for it head to the site start from the beginning and give it say 15 to 20 pages which won’t particularly take long to get through I am thoroughly convinced that 75% of you will not be able to turn away after reading those. If you can drop me a comment right under here and tell me what you didn’t like about it.

PS
Hope you guys like this posting just trying to streamline things through posting smaller and more often. At the moment I am thinking about Jedi and their evil ways.

Redheads are The MOST fun - Top 5 TV Redheads

I have heard all the stuff about blondes coming out on top but for me it has always been redheads. Having spent most of my time growing up on a Caribbean island there were few cute redheaded white girls around to notice so most of those I saw was through TV. So in keeping with that I have decided to devote this post to the gorgeous redheads of TV and film. So sit back and read on and see if you recognise anyone.

Now let us run down the Top 5 TV and film redheads as decided by the Shaft’s Word Blog.

At number five we have Christina Hendricks. Now when I say that name most people think of Mad Men a hit TV show in the US that is pretty well known here in the UK, the rest of the people are probably just swooning. I think it would be remiss to the fact that Christina has a rather eye catching body with some quite frankly unbelievable curves but she can act too which always helps. I never caught Mad Men myself can’t deal with what BBC2 actually have the balls to describe as scheduling, she came to my attention as a recurring guest star on Life the cop show staring Ginger God Damian Lewis.

Moving on to Number Four!
8 Simple Rules do you remember that show, tragic because of the death of John Ritter and remembered by a lot of young men for the emergence of one Kayley Cuoco seen on Charmed and then Big Bang Theory. But Kaley is a blonde although a hot one so who is in at number four. Amy Davidson is that’s who, the younger sister on the show who was older in real life but whatever just because she was shorter. Yeah Kayley’s character was the eye candy but if I had to date one it would have been Amy Davidson’s character, great body and that lovely hair.

New in at Three!
Cute, sweet the definitive girl next door in a strawberry flavour Molly Quinn. Currently appearing in Castle which is a great police drama featuring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. Molly is the youngest redhead appearing in our top five and I think she is destined for great things.

Now onto number two
Probably my first crush on an actress I first saw her on Cybill all those years ago. Any of you out there who watched it when it ran as opposed to reruns have my respect. I speak of course of one Alicia Witt. She is just stunning definitely the sort of celebrity that would leave me tongue-tied if I actually ever met them.

Number One aka TEH WINNAR
My guilty TV pleasure for probably more than a year was one Relic Hunter. People in the UK are likely to remember that well one reason I like this show was the comic relief in the form Lindy Booth who played the secretary for the first few seasons before being replaced. Her replacement was beautiful but couldn’t hold a candle to the flirty, air headed, boy crazy thing that Lindy pulled off. I’ve seen her in some horror movie awhile back but I can’t recall the name and I really remember her from catching Relic Hunter daily during the week.