"That's it! You cocky cock! You'll pay for your crimes against humanity!" -OR- "She geeks, she geeks. She has the capacity to geek."

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 2010. Three Stars.

BACKSTORY!!! I like a lot of the stuff that Oni Press publishes, so even though it looked like it could be obnoxious, I decided to give a book called "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" a shot (yes the backwards-facing quotation mark on the cover irks me, but I'm like that!). AND I LOVED IT. The art style is amazing. It's really fun. And really funny. All the characters are dorks and like music (who does that sound like??). And the main character has to fight his girlfriend's seven evil ex-boyfriends, and all the battles are like video games. OH MAN! I'd alternate in between spazzing out about it and forcing it on anyone I could to read it! That was back in 2004; for the past six years I'd been impatiently waiting for all six volumes to come out (they ended up being released pretty much one volume a year; the final volume came out in July).

FAN BOY ALERT!!! If you know me, you know I never shut up about this. But I think this is still so unbelievably cool: So, before Volume 3 came out, I happened to be on the internet the same time Bryan Lee O'Malley was on it, asking fans for photos to use on billboards in the book. I exuberantly sent at least 15. Check out Chapter 15, 14th page: IT'S ME!!!

THE MOVIE!!! Firstly, I knew Bryan Lee O'Malley was involved in writing the screen play, and I'm a big fan of Edgar Wright, but I had serious doubts as to whether this comic that became so near and dear to my heart could successfully be adapted to movie form. I didn't wanna see any trailers, I didn't wanna see any clips, I didn't even wanna talk about it, so that I'd have zero expectations for this movie. Because if I let myself, I would totally nerd out and get really excited for it, inevitably getting my expectations too high, then be inherently disappointed when I finally did see it.

But, my super friend Alex got a few of us sneak preview passes to see it last night! So I finally let myself watch the official trailer on the website yesterday. And, it didn't look half bad!

The movie had me at the 16-bit Universal Studio logo. Mamma Jamma.

I can't believe Michael Cera pulled off being Scott Pilgrim. He was good! And Ann from "Arrested Development" was one of the evil exes! Reunited!

All the actors in this were superb. This review would be even longer if I wrote about every single one of them, so I won't. But I have to say that the girl that played Knives Chau was exceptional. I was very impressed with her performance!

I just absolutely love Aubrey Plaza, and I'm so happy she's in this movie. She's a perfect Julie. Uncanny in appearance, and she nailed the character.

Also, Jason Schwartzman is the perfect Gideon. I had my doubts about Kieran Culkin as Wallace (I thought he looked too slobby when I saw the trailer), but he ended up being perfect too. I can't remember if I saw Superman Returns or not (must not have made a good impression on me if I did...), so I was always like "Oh Brandon Routh's playing Superman, so he must just be another boring Hollywood actor." But then I saw this, and I was intrigued... His being Todd in this movie has sealed the deal on my small infatuation with him!!

Why didn't they have the real Comeau play Comeau? Nelson Franklin did just fine, but, there's a real Comeau so how cool would that have been?

Thomas Jane is the Vegan Police!!!

I liked the comic book-y graphics they added; I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, but it ended up looking decent and fun. Really appreciated how they incorporated some of the text from the book, especially the names/descriptions/ratings boxes. And there was a good ratio of real-life scenes to fastly-cut-fantastical scenes.

Hey, is that Gideon the cat on Scott's mug in the first scene?

I have lots of little details I'd really like to talk about, but I think I have to stop here. But maybe someday, if you see the movie, we will talk about it!

Because I'm such a fan of the comic and already knew the story, I knew what was going to happen in the movie and I knew what kinds of things to expect. So I can't say if it was good or not, or even if the story was cohesive or if the pacing was effective. But I can definitely say I really really enjoyed it. They did a really good job of taking a six-year labor of love and adapting it to a 1 hour and 45 minutes movie.

If you've never read the book and know nothing about this, and you see this movie, please tell me what you think?

I want to watch it again right now.

BTW, at the end of the screening, Edgar Wright, Anna Kendrick, Michael Cera, and Jason Schwartzman came out and took questions about the movie. They talked about behind-the-scenes stuff, and Edgar talked about how they did the music stuff for the movie, and such. Cool!!


Hee hee hee.

Also, read the book some time! scottpilgrim.com




Can I please be a "Music Supervisor" for movies?????

"In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon."

Watchmen, 2009. Three Stars.

I'm personally giving this movie Three Stars because I really liked it. But, it's not a very good movie!

I love the comic book, and it was so cool seeing the characters come to life and the story unfold on the big screen. There's so much that happens in the comic book, however, and it was a good move to not include every single thing in the movie, and instead focus on the larger overall themes. That being said... the pacing was so slow at some points and so fast in others, that the things that were supposed to have a big impact on the audience (like, Holy Shit The Comedian! and, Oh, THAT'S why Bubastis exists!) ended up coming up short.

The beginning of the movie was well-done: Totally dug the snapshot-ish narrative of the history of the Minutemen and what happened to the superheroes, it was fun and effective.

The ending has been changed, but it's just a different means to the same end. I thought it was pretty interesting and okay. Plus, the movie couldn't handle including the original ending.

I didn't like some of the casting. Matthew Goode was good as Veidt, but he lacked the "god-like" physique which added to his "superhuman-ness" in the comic. I GUESS Malin Akerman did a great job because Laurie Juspeczyk is a pretty vapid and one-dimensional character, but she sounded like Drew Barrymore and it was annoying.

Who's actually great in this? Patrick Wilson is perfect as Dan Dreiberg (and he's wicked cute!!). Jackie Earle Haley is everything I could have hoped for in a Rorschach. And I gotta say, it was SO COOL seeing Doc Manhattan! Way to go, Billy Crudup! The blue wang didn't freak me out as much as it did everyone else in the cinema. Everyone else in it was pretty decent too. Jeffrey Dean Morgan looked just like The Comedian.

So like I said, I liked it. If you're a fan of the comic book, you'll probably like it more than dislike it. If you're not familiar with anything about it, you'll most likely leave the cinema confused, dissatisfied, and tired.

**UPDATE 3/18/09**

There is something important that I forgot to mention. The soundtrack SUCKS. Cheesy, dumb, uninspired. The music during the awkward sex scene would've been HILARIOUS, only if the movie had that fun self-awareness to pull it off. But it didn't! Totally sucks!

(If memory serves correctly, I don't think I minded the song used in the opening credits though. Eh.)

"You're in love. Have a beer." OR, "I'm not a baby. I'm a tumor."

Hellboy II: The Golden Army, 2008. Four Stars.

Such a gooooooood movie!!! And I totally agree with my friend Alex: Ron Perlman doesn't play "Hellboy;" Ron Perlman IS Hellboy!

I'm totally okay with the story line in the movies being different from the comic book. It's actually a necessity. And for some reason I'm okay with Hellboy and Liz having pyro demon twins.

The ONLY bothersome thing in this movie is Hellboy as a little kid, it looked too weird!