Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull

Alright, to be honest this post should've been up like 2 days ago, but I've been distracted by three things: the massive archives of Scary-Go-Round, Dr. Apollo von Pizza, and marker fumes. They are very distracting indeed. But, enough wish-wash. We went to the 12:01 showing at our local theater, and let me just say I am very glad we went and saw it before pretty much 99% of everyone else who will ever watch this movie. No, really I am.

So, honestly it's been twenty years since the last Jone's flick, but I am convinced that Harrison Ford gets into this costume on the weekends and pretends to be Indiana like Jews celebrate the Sabbath, dutifully, regularly, and from sundown till sunup. He was pretty swell. Karen Allen's return was pretty swell, and the development of her character was nice too. She was no longer the smarmy, smart-mouthed lush she was in Raiders, but was much more fitting with what had happened to her in between. They also very neatly wrote out some old characters, and added some excellent new characters. These new people being of course Shia TheBeef and Cate Blanchett. I thought both played their characters excellently, and really helped flesh out plot of the movie.

*****SPOILER ALERT******




As for the plot, I thought it was well conceived and an excellent late 40's continuation of the kind of things Indiana Jones had experienced and sought after in the original three films. The transition from Nazis to Russians was (to me at least) the only logical choice and I'm glad it was made rather then going for some kind of rebel Nazi group fighting on in the Fuhrer's memory. This was already excellently done by Hellboy and others and did not need to be reiterated. While the whole alien skull thing may have been a tough pill for some to swallow, I thought it made perfect sense. It fit right in with the scientific and military priorities of Russia at the time as well as many popular, if not decried, theories about early human civilization. Bravo to George and David for bringing us a fine story and a fine script.




******SPOILERS OVER********





Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull (forever after to be refered to as Indiana Jones 4) gets Seven Beards and A Mustache.

Dresden Codak and Rice Boy

Earlier today I was reading the new page on my new favorite webcomic, Dresden Codak, that I picked up on thanks to the Emerald City Comicon. It's a pretty sweet comic, and Im excited to see where this story goes as he's only like 20 or 30 pages in. The art is nice too, kind of reminds me of the E-surance commercials but with more attention to lines and a slight mixing in of anime chracteristics. The writing is witty and smart, including two Wonder Twinesque characters that take on different scientific properties. It's righteous. I would recommend starting here.

Well, anyways, after reading the page I read the news post at the bottom and it told me that a certain comic called Rice Boy had just finished, and that it was probably one of the writer's top 3 favorite webcomics. So, I decided to take a look, and man am I glad I did. The series ran a little over 2 years and took place over almost 40 chapters. The art is elegant, but has a childlike aspect to it which makes it more powerful. The story is an epic arc about prophecies, searchers, fulfillers, friendship, destiny, and doing what has to be done. I read the whole thing in about an hour and a half, it shouldn't take most people much longer unless they're hampered by a slow connection. I warn you though, once you make it through the first few chapters you'll have a hard time tearing yourself away. From the home page, just click where it says "or Start at The Start".

Dresden Codak gets 6 Beards and A Mustache for being promising, having sweet art, and making me giggle a little bit so far.

Rice Boy gets 9 Beards for being beautiful, awesome, and epic. Go read it right now.