STRANGE LOG: Keep your Head Warm

So what's up? Let's talk about things for a bit. I changed jobs, W00T! I now work at a grocery store! Which means better hours and closer location and direct deposit! W00T! That being said a whole lot of nonsense happened lately, let's dive in head first, ya'll.

Watchmen S01E01"It's Summer And We're Running Out Of Ice" Review

"Watchmen", "Watchmen", "Watchmen"...one of the 3 comics DC unfortunately believes are among the only comics that matter ("The Dark Knight Returns" and "Death Of Superman" being the others) and oddly enough, "Watchmen" has been making something of a comeback. I won't attribute this entirely to the upcoming (or concluding) DC comics event "Doomsday Clock", which will (in some respects) serve as an honest to God canon sequel to Alan Moore's original "Watchmen" (for better or worse, I'll let you know after I read it), and I won't attribute this entirely to DC Comics having come out with prequel books for many of the Watchmen characters in the series "Before Watchmen", and I definitely won't attribute this to the 2009 film directed by Zack Snyder that brought "Watchmen" to the masses. I can't attribute this series to any of those factors because, in reality, a "Watchmen" series was always in the works WAY before a movie was.

"Watchmen" has been one of those hot properties for a long time now, the book came out in 1987 and that's a long time for something that literally shook the comic book industry to its core (not an exaggeration) to be sitting on the shelf. Before a movie was even proposed people talked about doing a mini-series, HBO was involved before But Alan Moore's work has largely been considered unfilmable, mostly by Alan Moore himself but that didn't stop people from wanting to do it and Zack Snyder managed to do it (and in my opinion, well). But I'm not going to belabor the history of "Watchmen", just pointing out that now we're about to have 2 (count'em), 2 sequels to the same series one for the canon story or the print version of "Watchmen" ("Doomsday Clock") and one for the film ("Watchmen" the HBO series). And while The HBO series doesn't consider itself a sequel to the films, let's be 100% honest and say the mainstream aren't going to care or be aware of the comic books.

So...going into this series...I'm gonna be 100% honest, I think this is going to suck, and I say that without an ounce of care because in all honesty, I don't care. I had no real expectations going into this and once it was announced I simply rolled my eyes and said "Whatever." because the idea sounds bad on its face. For starters, if "Watchmen" were to have a sequel, it'd have to be done IN PRINT (hence why I'm more interested in "Doomsday Clock" than I am this) and second, this won't feature the "Watchmen" characters, just greater ramifications of the fallout of the events of "Watchmen"...which again I'm not interested in. The ending to "Watchmen" is left ambiguous for a reason, did Ozymandias managed to save the world? The ending is left open for you to determine who's in the right...but sadly, in the words of Dr. Manhattan "Nothing ever ends." and that includes people's obsession with this series which brings us back to this series. Which I can only imagine was conceived because "Game Of Thrones" was ending and The HBO execs were like "Holy sh*t, we need to fill airtime! What other property can we produce that already has an established fanbase?".

So am I expecting this to be good? If by production and acting quality, absolutely, but that's about it. The cast is nothing to write home about apart from Don Johnson and Jeremy Irons (playing an aged Ozymandias, how he'll manage an American accent will be fun to watch) having played 2 DC roles (Alfred and now Ozymandias) and that's about it. The writer and showrunner for the series is Damon Lindelof...and he's a huge fan of "Watchmen", and I enjoyed "L O S T", but ever since then, at least in my opinion lightning really hasn't struck (then again I never watched "The Leftovers" which might have been good...wasn't interested, I'm not too keen of works adapted from books) so having him as writer for this...I don't know. I'm gonna dive into the pilot episode and give you guys my take on the series when we come out the other end, just know I go into this not exactly wanting to hate it, but not exactly looking forward to it. We'll see how I'm doing after the break;

The One Punch Man/Dragon Ball Debate

Why am I doing this? Why? I know why because I've had a lack of things to write about as of late and this is an article that despite the eye-ball rolling subject matter of this article this happens to be a topic I have much to say about...unfortunately...So let's get into the subject matter. Ever since his introduction "One Punch Man" main character Saitama (the eponymous One Punch Man) has been the subject of many debates, namely whether or not he'd be able to beat "Dragon Ball's" Goku. Both sides have their arguments and both sides aren't backing down from their initial claims, while these topics would be better settled by Death Battle (despite many disagreeing with many of the outcomes of their fights, myself included....Majin Buu would own Kirby) I doubt Death Battle will do Goku vs Saitama anytime soon and I think those results will still be contested (hell, people think Goku would beat Superman..and no...sadly, no). I hotbed for this debate is an Instagram channel I follow @dbz_exlusive where this debate is carried on, so I decided since I have no dog in this fight and could really care less, I'm gonna settle this debate and figure out who would win between Goku & Saitama. Let's dive in.

Mortal Kombat 11 Story Mode Review

So it's been a while since the game's release but better late than never, right? Now that I've had time to sit and let everything marinate and listen to a few perspectives on it, I think I'm ready to talk about "Mortal Kombat 11". I've said in my review of the previous game I was disappointed with "Mortal Kombat X"s story but I was interested to see where things were goings; new characters were introduced, new relationships were established and very different things were happening that altered the "Mortal Kombat" universe from the one we're familiar with. This game...*sigh* let's dive in.

STRANGE LOG: May Non Sequiturs Reign!! Vol. II

Okay, okay, okay. I get it! Yet ANOTHER Strange Log! *sigh* I know, there hasn't been any genuine articles on this site for a while and that's because I'M BUSY and #Dadlife! But I've got some downtime at work to burn through a few topics that are not worthy of an entire article, so let's dive in, yeah?

Why An AEW Weekly Show is a BAD Idea!

So it looks like AEW is well on it's way to being WWE's biggest rival as TNA or IMPACT Wrestling as it's called now is merely a footnote in the scope of wrestling. AEW has BIG dollars behind it with the Khan Family and some very talented minds involved in the process, Cody Rhodes and 2 major coups behind it with Chris Jericho and the now renamed (although it was previously his name) John Moxley (formerly Dean Ambrose) adding legitimacy to the new brand and 5 star match collector Kenny Omega as an Executive, AEW is an up and coming force to be reckoned with that the wrestling world has never seen before since Hall, Nash and Hogan formed The nWo. With that being said, AEW is still a new federation (or territory, as they're called in the biz) and with that they can learn from the mistakes of past territories and I'm here to explain why an AEW weekly show is a BAD idea. Let's dive in.

Rethinking Ari Aster

Okay, listen, I still think "Hereditary" sucks, let me be clear, the performances are great, the directing and cinematography is great, and aside from the wasted use of Gabriel Bryne, I'd say overall "Hereditary" is a technically sound movie through and through, but just because it looks good doesn't mean it is good and the story could have been told A LOT better, the characters could have been a lot stronger, especially Peter but unfortunately he turned out to be your typical high school senior obsessed with girls and smokin' pot, so when the bad thing happens to the poor boy you can hardly say it was that bad as the boy barely had character, to begin with. But I digress, all of these are issues I had with "Hereditary" and I'll be happy to discuss them with anyone but I'm not here to talk about "Hereditary", not entirely anyway, I'm actually here to talk about its writer and director, Ari Aster. Very few in Hollywood can claim both writer and director of their own projects and usually, when that happens it typically means the studios has quite a bit of faith in them.

"Hereditary" despite my best understanding has somehow managed to become a massive cult hit, and while I'm not the only one who doesn't like the movie, I'm the only one (that I'm aware of) who doesn't like the movie because of the story and how its told. But I digress, so Ari Aster's next film "Midsommar" which does look interesting enough to warrant my observation as details emerge is now on everyone's radar as being the next cult hit. So I wanted to take a look at Ari Aster's available body of work and stumbled upon his film "The Strange Thing About The Johnsons" and this began my rethinking of Ari Aster. I'll explain what I mean after the break. Spoilers of "Hereditary" and "The Strange Thing About The Johnsons" below.

STRANGE LOG: Make It Rainmaker!

The time is 4:55am and I'm currently awake because, A) I can't sleep and B) I have to be up and out before 8am. I got a long day ahead of me. I'm planning on changing jobs fairly soon, while I enjoyed my previous job, I got laid off and started to notice various flaws that just became too much to deal with, two of the most major of those flaws being they didn't have direct deposit, therefore, checks always came late and my last paycheck was $200 short...which as a new father is a BIG inconvenience. But I digress, using the time I have now before I shower and cook breakfast I decided to at least start writing myself a Strange Log. Rest assured actual articles will be coming somewhere down the pike, I still gotta review "Mortal Kombat 11" and I'll have quite a bit to say about it but for now here are a few things I need to discuss after the break!

STRANGE LOG: The Lysol & Katie Question

Boy, I can already tell this Strange Log is going to be one "hot take" after another and is probably going to piss a lot of people off but such is the nature of where we are today, everyone has a side to be on and a bone to pick and regardless of what brand of media you consume you'll eventually be faced with that reality, so let's dive in.

"Detroit: Become Human" Review

So finally a proper article, more or less. My wife pushed me into FINALLY getting a PS4 and with it I was finally able to play my previously purchased copy of "Detroit: Become Human". Quantic Dreams as the studio is called has produced "Heavy Rain" and "Beyond Two Souls" both fairly decent hits in their time (with "Beyond Two Souls" boasting the acting talents of Wilem Defoe & Ellen Page) but these games have more or less put the choose your own adventure style of gaming in a Triple-A market, giving players the feeling that they're not exactly playing a game, they're more or less controlling a movie. I've played "Heavy Rain" and despite having issues with it (issues I'll get into when I discuss spoilers for "Detroit") the game was decent. "Detroit: Become Human" is what "Heavy Rain" was trying to be, therefore it's the superior of the two and undeniably the better game. But is "Detroit: Become Human" good? The short answer is yes.

Overall, I give the game a 7/10, it has a great cast, a fairly interesting (although predictable) story, the decisions actually matter and the Flow Chart feature helps you see what could have been without showing you EXACTLY what could have happened. I enjoyed this game but like "Heavy Rain" I won't be replaying it anytime soon, I might replay a few chapters here and there but diving in the game again, no. I won't bother discussing the obvious parallels it has with real-world events and I won't bother discussing the plot at length, it's basically androids become self-aware. The game misses a few opportunities to really consider the impact of where the story could go, and again I think it's become the game is bogged down in real-world parallels but overall it was a decent experience. 7/10 would recommend BUT ONLY if you enjoyed "Heavy Rain". Now on to Spoilers.

STRANGE LOG: Half Naked In France

I'll admit, this is going to be a weird Strange Log as I have a lot to discuss and yet not a lot to discuss. I'll explain what I mean in a bit but for starters, I've been busy and not busy. I've been laid off of work since November and I think my lay off may be coming to a close. In the time I've been without work I've been working hard on my card game "Blue Mist" and the project has made a considerable leap which you can read about on The Official Blue Mist Blog. But guys, I've been struggling like hell to keep this blog strictly entertainment and while that's entirely up to me there are somethings that I just can't go without discussing and as such I'll be addressing those topics in this blog and then some. Anyways, let's dive in.

A Snapshot Review of "The Punisher" Season Two

This isn't a habit I'm hoping to fall into and by habit, I mean reviewing things that are bad, and that's not to say this season was bad bad...but...it wasn't good either. Netflix is really doing this character a disservice and after his explosive entrance in Marvel best (now canceled) series "Daredevil," we all had hope for Jon Bernthal's Punisher series. The 1st Season was good as his first solo outing but this...naw...and let me explain. Let's dive in.

Early Thoughts On "Mortal Kombat 11"

There are very few things I can speak authoritatively on, "Mortal Kombat" happens to be one of them. Despite my disappointment with "Mortal Kombat X's" story mode (let's face it, it was just a rehash of "Mortal Kombat 4" with some new faces), I did say that it bridged the gap to between established continuity (ie, the original "Mortal Kombat" timeline and the current/new MK timeline) and timelines as we'll see is something that becomes very apparent in this game. Let's dive in and see where we go!