Battleship: The Trailer

I think my question for this new trailer is roughly the same as everybody else's:  "why?"  Actually, "why" isn't quite strong enough, it needs to be in all caps, bold, and filled with exclamation marks.  Like so:  "WHYYYYYYYYY??!!!!!!!!!"

I've decided to start a brand-new feature here at Planet Blue, trailer deconstruction.  This is when I post a link to a trailer, you watch it, then I either complain about it, or tell you how much its going to be awesome.  "Battleship", being one of my favorite board games as a kid, is a trailer that hurts with particular feeling because its really the worst idea for a movie ever.

What happens in a game of Battleship?  Two players trade shots until one guy loses all of his ships.  It isn't as deep as, say Chess*.  Battleship is a game of hide and seek really, competitive guessing.  The only tension comes from where the enemy is hiding (which leads to believe that the game should be called "Submarine").  Battleship is so simple that basically every game is exactly the same, thus showing why nobody over the age of seven ever plays this game.  So I guess the best way to make a Battleship movie is to have two admirals fight each other while trying to find where the other guy is hiding.  Kind of a double thriller where two masters continuously outsmart their rival.

Well, "Battleship:  The Movie" didn't even try that hard.  Instead its simply the US Navy fighting aliens.  Which leads me to this question:  why?

Konso Cop Karakurizer Recaps: Ep. 2, Rape is OK When Its Girl on Girl

Seriously.  Do we really need to watch this show, or can I simply skip to 12:30 and watch "Durarara!!", or as I like to call it "DURRR!!"?

Well, as it turns out, we can't.  Because much to my shock, this episode didn't suck half as much as I thought.  Even in the midsts of a bizarre Super Sentai parody show, "Bleach" actually managed to create a storyline that was semi-coherent that had a whole two funny moments, which is better than last week.  I still do not think that this duology of randomness was entirely necessary, but I can respect an attempt to write something that at least makes sense and barely links up with the larger plotline.  I still think Katakurizer is a complete non-sequitur that cannot possibly be canon with the rest of the "Bleach" universe, but this was okay enough.  The characters might be dressed as the Prince of Space, but this show tried its best.

Last week Kon was, for reasons still unclear to me, made into a cheesy Japanese superhero named "Karakurizer".  I don't entirely know what that means, or that significance the term "Konso Cop" adds to the title of these weird episodes.  Is Kon somehow a member of the Ethiopian Konso tribe?  Nobody ever asks these questions, I don't know why I have to be the one.  Anyway, Kon fought a 2D monster for some reason, then fought a bunch of dinosaurs.  Then a bunch of other characters turned out be superheros, and floating Doom Fortress beat up Nabashin from "Excel Saga".  At this point I finally went insane, turned into a poptart-cat and farted out a rainbow as I flew through the cosmos singing a catchy song.  Later I returned to human form, and started this recap.  (Also at some point I returned to the United States, in case you're keeping score on that one.)

100,000 Hits

That's a lot.  But we did it!  I think we hit it two days ago, I really didn't notice until somebody pointed it out to me in the comments.  100,000 is only a tenth of the way to a million, a number so large that I'm almost guaranteed to become more interested in another hobby before we reach it.  Then again, I've been at this for two years, maybe I'll never lose interest.  I dedicate this milestone to Stephenie Meyers and Tite Kubo, who both are so insane as to be the best muses I'll ever need.  I also dedicate this milestone to my first pet, Orea, a turtle so full of curiosity and wonder that she hid under a tower made of Disney VHS boxes and then died of dehydration.  I'll miss you, Orea.

Konso Cop Karakurizer Recaps: Ep. 1, What Is This? I Don't Even...

Did I actually watch an episode of "Bleach" or did I eat a bad falafel and hallucinate the entire thing?  Obviously whatever it was, it couldn't have been "Bleach", right?  Adult Swim must have suddenly canceled the show and replaced it with some other inferior show.  Maybe this is an elaborate prank created by the Internet to fool me, since I can't actually watch "Bleach" when it airs.  Either I have finally lose my mind, or the universe fundamentally is a place without logic or reason.  Ultimately, I don't think there can be an explanation for what I witnessed.  Its a bizarre literary mystery that will be studied forever by endless scholars in desperate attempts to construct an explanation for its existence.  Did James Joyce write this episode?  I bet he hopes he did, because "Finnegans Wake" has got nothing on the Karakurizer.  Heck, a collection of Jackson Pollock paintings bound together in a flip book would make a more coherent episode of television.

In order to unravel a great mystery, one must begin by stating the facts that we know.  This can create a rational basis by which we can stand while dealing with the horribly horribly irrational.  Obviously this is a filler episode.  It stars Kon, and shows what happened to him while Ichigo was away fighting in Hueco Mundo.  At some point Kon is given a ridiculous Japanese suit and has to fight monsters... I think.  This might be a tongue in cheek reference to crappy Japanese superhero shows like... um... that show "Power Rangers" is based off.  Don't ask me to actually remember its name.  I would like to extrapolate a bit further by saying that this episode is possibly a parody and sucked on purpose but I feel that might be falling right into Studio Perriot's trap here.  Unless Studio Perriot hates shows like "G-Force" as much as I do, I really don't think I'll be in on the joke this time.

Well anyway... somehow or another, I'll recap "Konso Cop Karakurizer".  ...You have no idea how much it hurts to type that stupidity.

The Way of Kings

I left for Israel just a week too soon.  Right now, someplace, thousands of people are reading "A Dance With Dragons", the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series.  They're finally finding out what happened to Dany, Jon, Bran, and Tyrion.  Maybe they'll know who Jon Snow's real mother is*, maybe they'll see Queen Cersei's death, maybe they'll see the Dragon finally return to Westeros.  I am so jealous right now.  As a matter of fact, if you already have a copy of "Dance With Dragons", I will find you and murder you in your sleep.  That's a promise.  Nobody, not even George R. R. Martin's editor, should read that book before me.  Well, since I'm vacation for roughly three weeks, I did wisely bring along a fantasy book of equally insane size and mass:  "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson.

"The Way of Kings" is Book One of what Sanderson thinks will be a ten-part epic fantasy series called "The Stormlight Archive".   For those of the fantasy community (I guess that's what you'd call them) you'll know Brandon Sanderson's name as one of the new stars of the genre.  He wrote the well-received "Mystborn" series, and is currently finishing "The Wheel of Time" because its original author is too busy being dead to pick up a pen.  I have read none of this, only a little novel called "Warbreaker" that I only got because there was a hot chick eating a rainbow on the cover.  It was decent enough, had a lovely color-based magic system, but sadly the story was overly focused on a mystery plot that really was never all that interesting to begin with.  "The Way of Kings" promises something far grander, something on the R. R. Martin scale.  With ten whole books, Sanderson has basically proclaimed his magnum opus, a story that will take at least decades to complete.

And really, if you're going to do something that big, you might want to try for a better first installment than this one.