Atlas Shrugged: Part 1

(Blogger has been down for the last two days, so that explains no updates.  But you all probably didn't even notice considering my update schedule.)

No, this is not a review of the movie "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1".  That film holds no interest to me, since everybody has already agreed that it completely fails to adapt Ayn Rand's message.  No this is part 1 of a review of "Atlas Shrugged".  You see, this book is so huge that I must break down the review into two parts.  Also, I cannot continue to read this book any longer in silence.  I will not sit through another word without a response.  There is simply too much to say now, I can't imagine where I'll be once I reach the end - if I ever reach the end.

"Atlas Shrugged" is the great dystopia novel of Ayn Rand*, one of the most controversial authors of the 20th century.  Having suffered in the Twenties through the birth of the Soviet Union, Rand became a serious anti-communist.  Not content to merely prove its corruption or its impracticality, Rand instead decided to prove that communism in its very moral foundation was corrupt.  Societies and individuals should not base themselves on helping others, rather the best way the human race should be run is with Enlightened Self-Interest.  (I'm giving the best explanation I can of Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, which like most 20th century philosophical movements is filled to the brim with complex jargon and bizarre metaphysical haggling.)  Altruism, the idea that the service of others is the highest moral goal, is according to Ayn Rand, pure evil and destructive.  One should work for the self primarily, as this is the only method that mankind creates anything of value.  I'm not going to say that Objectivism is entirely without merit, though its a bit too extreme for me.  To say that giving to others is pure evil is about as ludicrous as the idea that working for yourself is evil.

"Atlas Shrugged" exists as only half a story about characters and their actions.  The other half is a poorly disguised philosophical treatise about how Objectivism is awesome.  Every character exists only partially as a true character, they are forced to fit Ayn Rand's scheme of the human race.  Either they're unbelievable workaholic Supermen who can build industrial empires overnight or ridiculous incoherent joke villains who are easily the dumbest characters ever put to print.  Obviously then, "Atlas Shrugged" is not going to be a good book, but goddamn if it isn't hilarious.  This is going to be a long one, trust me.  But it won't compare to the massive size of this book - I think the weight that Atlas was supposed to shrug off was the weight of Rand's prose.

Thor

Last year was the year of movie made about obscure comic books that nobody had ever heard of like:  "the Losers", "Scott Pilgrim", "Kick-Ass", and about a million other movies that I don't even care to name.  2011, however, looks like its going to be the year of Super Heroes with "X-Men", "Green Lantern", "Captain America", and "Thor".  I never knew that Thor, the Germanic/Norse God of thunder and champion of humanity was actually a Super Hero, but you learn new things every day.  Honestly I couldn't give a damn about most of these movies*, and I'm going to miss a lot of them.  Super Heroes are a genre for somebody else.  Unless its "Batman" or stars an actor who is absolutely utterly perfect for the lead role like Robert Downey Jr., its just not the movie for me.

But "Thor" for some reason got really good reviews.  I don't know why, but critics were really into this one.  Personally I suspect that the critics only gave "Thor" a pass because their darling Shakespearian auteur Kenneth Branagh directed this.  Well, whatever your opinion of Kenneth Branagh is, even though he did "Othello" and "Hamlet", the guy also was the bad guy from "Wild Wild West".  Just because his name is attached to something doesn't mean its anything better than just another crappy Super Hero movie.  And "Thor" really is a just another crappy Super Hero movie.  Hey, if you're into Super Heroes, power to ya.  But don't expect me to be along for the ride as well.

I came into the theatre hoping for "Iron Man" and left knowing what I'd seen was far closer to "Iron Man 2".  Not a good omen for the first of what seems like half a billion Super Hero movies to come.  Thank God I don't actually have to see all of those.

Bleach Recaps: Ep 203, A NEW BEGINNING OF ACTION!

Sorry for a lack of updates in the last week.  It was Finals, I was busy.  I see my daily pageviews have been plunging faster than Bush's approval ratings circa 2005, so I'll have to get back on the horse.

Last week Kenpachi killed Spoony in furious revenge over the latter's failure to ever finish his Let's Play of "Deadly Premonition".  I mean really, you start an LP of one of the weirdest games ever, a literal goldmine of comedy, and then you give it up to recap "Ultima"?  Who gives a damn about "Ultima"??  Anyway, Spoony is dead, meaning that for the first time in a long time there are no battles going on.  Since... God, I don't even know, episode 150, maybe(?)... all of the simultaneous plot battles have ended.  Its basically been always the same three or four plotline fronts all fighting at the same time, meaning that its taken this long for the fighting to finally cease - and we still have four Espada left to kill!  Its just been an endless hurricane of weird fights and the plot hasn't moved an inch since.  Yeah, two of the fights have been good:  Ichigo vs Grimmjow and Spoony vs Kenny.  But then there's stuff like the entire Granz fiasco that only seemed to continue in a hateful attempt to waste the audience's time.

But this week the plot moves.... into a completely ridiculous place.  But at least it moved, right?  Now that this current wave of endless battles has reached a conclusion, we now set up a whole new even longer and more ridiculous wave of endless combat!  And if you thought things were silly now, you haven't seen the half of it.  Its episode 203 right now.  The war this episode sets up will not end until episode 310, which I predict won't air in this country until the year 2014 or later.  So yeah, we're going to be at this for a long goddamn time.  Better strap yourself in, because this is going to take awhile.

Osama Bin Laden Defeated

This is easily the most major piece of news I've ever covered here at this blog.  Tonight the President went on the air to officially announce that Osama Bin Laden, the archenemy of the United States was killed in Pakistan in a special forces raid on his evil lair.  Osama Bin Laden, architect of 9/11 and founder of Al-Qaeda is now dead after a ten year world hunt.  For years Osama's survival has been an embarrassing recurring joke, an awful reminder of the incompetence of the War on Terror.  His very existence was a reminder of the weakness of the American military, and his death is now an affirmation of our power.  But today President Obama made the order - as he promised on the campaign trail, sent in the troops, and took him down.  This is not the end of the war, but it is a victory.  Now the world knows once again, that nobody who attacks this nation will escape without retribution.  There are few times that when you turn on the news networks that you hear news that legitimately puts a smile on your face - this man's death is joyous moment for all Americans.  But not just for the people of this nation but all people who love freedom, and stand against Jihadism.

Now Osama has joined the other great villains of our past in the place that they rightfully belong:  the pages of history.  The war is not over.  Many will mourn this man.  Some might even plan reprisals against America for killing their leader.  But those who cry out in anguish on this day must know this:  you're next.

AMERICA FUCK YEAH! - I know this song is a parody of this exact kind of this ultra- patriotic American propaganda, but its so appropriate.  FUCK YEAH!  Also we need a few USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!

Bleach Recaps: Ep. 202, Using Both Hands

In tonight's episode the long epic tale of the Spoony Experiment comes to an end.  You know, we've had some fun with Spoonz for a while now, mostly because of his ridiculous spoon-shaped hat, but honestly we've been unfair to him.  I mean, I never pointed out how stupid his curly elf shoes were.  I kid, I kid.  But the guy did manage to survive some twelve episodes of pure combat against the good guys, defeating Grimmjow, Ichigo, and Nel, all while giving Kenny some trouble.  ...Of course Grimmjow and Ichigo were both exhausted from pounding each other, and Neliel spontaneously devolved into her child form.  And Kenny's entire modus operandi is to hold himself back so that the fight is more fun.  Okay Spoony, maybe your battle record isn't all that good, but you at least put on a good show.

But of course first we have a recap...  Yeah, I know Kenny is fighting Spoony.  Yeah, I know that Kenny lost his eye-patch and then cheesed like a maniac.  I know that Spoony grow four six arms and just ripped out Kenpachi's guts.  Can we move on?  I'm the recap man (self-declared) but I deserve better than this!  Stop stealing my thunder "Bleach" guys.  I do good work every week and this is how you repay me?  By making this entire thing superfluous!  I will not be redundant!  From now, readers, I command you to skip the first two minutes of every "Bleach" episode so that way my recaps will not have any competition.

So last week Kenny was seriously injured and seemed ready to keel over.  Spoony stands triumphant with all of his arms including the two magic ones.  Then he shots out spears from little holes in his wrist a la Spiderman.  Weird...  "Its all over... Soul Reaper" shouts Spoony.  Ichigo desperately tries to help but Yachiru won't let him because its Kenny's fight.  We're getting a lot of opinions about the situation, but let's ask Kenpachi what he thinks of it: