Kicked Up a Notch; The Kick-Ass Review

Superhero movies are pretty hot right now, but the new trend is making these heroes more realistic, superheroes that we can relate to. "Kick-Ass" takes this idea and runs with it, taking a visceral look at what would happen if an average kid donned a super persona. Based on a comic of the same name, the film follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) a guy who decides one day that he wants to fight crime. He soon finds himself in way over his head as more heroes enter the picture. While he is the main character the real show stoppers are Nicolas Cage and Chloe Grace Moretz as the father-daughter team of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl. Nick Cage's performance goes from Adam West levels of cheesiness to being one of the more intimidating superheroes, but Hit-Girl takes the prize for toughest character. The eleven year old assassin slices her way through multiple thugs while spouting some of the dirtiest language in the film, it's pretty entertaining, and it really reflects the talent of the actress, who when out of character calls the movie "Kick-Butt" because she can't say ass. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Aka Superbad's McLovin') does a pretty good job as a superhero as well, but really Cage and Moretz are the ones you'll remember. The story is pretty fast paced and the cinematography is snazzy as well. The characters are all likeable, even the villains to some degree, all in all it's a good movie. Once again lots of violence/language so don't assume just because there's an eleven year old in it that it's the new "Spy Kids" movie or something. If you like Superhero movies with a bit of wit and grit, check out "Kick-Ass" it... Kicks Ass... 5 out of 5!

Robot Drawing

So this was just a drawing for fun, i really think im getting a hang of Photoshop coloring. For those of you that like to draw people, i based this pic off of a model from http://www.characterdesigns.com/. It's a really cool website, lots of nice reference material, but if you have issues with nudity, then steer clear, it's mostly nude models.

Ball State A** Slapper; Funny Harm or Harmless Fun?

So for those of you who haven't heard (all two of you) here at BSU there was an incident Wednesday. A man slapped the butts of two girls while riding his bicycle. The girls contacted the police and this set the ball rolling for a whole lot of craziness to go down. The real catalyst was an email sent to all the students, warning them of the "attacker." If you know anyone who wouldn't laugh at an email about a bicycle vigilante slapping butts than i'd be surprised. Just to clarify I do not condone sexual harassment, that stuff can get really bad sometimes and should be dealt with, if the guy gets caught he should be punished. In the end though, the people getting upset have to understand something...Our generation thinks everything is funny. We've grown up in a world of terrorist attacks, school shootings, and the constant threat of disaster/death around every corner, we might be a tad cynical. Also the internet likes to take stupid things and make them %100 bigger than they actually are. I would also like to point out the following scenario, have you ever seen someone fall down the stairs? It's pretty funny right? That person probably got hurt, hell they could snap their neck and die...but it's funny. You're not laughing at the person that fell, it's just funny to see someone fall down. This whole bicycle incident could have gotten real bad if it were someone with malice intent, but it was just some d-bag slapping some butts. If we took every little thing in life seriously we'd all end up in an insane asylum... So leave the girls that it happened to alone, but it's ok to laugh at the situation as a whole.

Dragons! ; How to Train Your Dragon Review

What an unexpected pleasure, i literally had little to no expectations before i saw this movie, i was surprised. The movie revolves around Hiccup, a young viking who wants to impress his fellow vikings by killing a dragon, I'll just leave it at that, cause it's kind of cool to see where it goes. Voice acting was great, no one is too over the top, and all the acting was enjoyable. The one thing that really blew me away was the way it looked. It was a lot of little things that have been really tough to tackle in computer animated films. The big one is hair, this may not sound like a big deal, but the hair looked awesome. just go back to older computer animated films and look at the hair, alot of times it looks horrible, it's a very small detail, but it adds alot to the movie. Everything else is great, it finds a nice spot between cartoony and "realistic." The overall quality of this movie comes pretty close to what most expect from Pixar, which the past couple years has become a little dull to me. It's not that i dont like Pixar but it just feels like they never take many risks anymore. This is a great animated movie, and you should check it out. I would suggest seeing it in 3D IMAX, cause that is intense, you're entire field of vision is encompassed, makes for very immersive entertainment. 5 outta 5!

Fantastic; The Fantastic Mr. Fox Review

What appears to be a pretty standard stop motion kids movie, is turned into something entirely different in the hands of Wes Anderson.The film trades in goofy gags and other nonsense with a more mature approach to the material and the end result is a movie that kids would probably like but adults will definitely enjoy to. The story revolves around Mr. Fox (George Clooney) giving up his thieving ways to settle down with his family. While this sounds pretty silly it's handled competently.There is some well known talent in this film, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, William Dafoe, but some of my favorite acting came from the people i had never heard of. The writing is very clever, more than most other animated films, so it might make some of the humor go over kids heads.The art style is a little off putting at first, but it grows on you, and the characters emote fairly well, and it really shows how much the, somewhat, forgotten art of stop motion is capable of. Over all i liked it, I don't think little kids will like it, but anyone over the age of 9 will probably get a substantial amount of the story. I'd say this deserves a 4 outta 5.