Max Rambles (Again) in 2016

So it's been a while.

After going through the motions of keeping this domain active over the past few years since my last post, I've decided to try to get back on the horse and start blogging again. I don't know for certain that I'll succeed in keeping it up, and I don't even know what kind(s) of content I will be posting (I go to the movies a lot less these days than when I started this thing). But I want to work on my writing again and I'm still relatively opinionated, so I'm hoping I can harness those aspects of my personality by putting pen to paper (so to speak) in this forum. I suppose that means (however appropriately) that I will be rambling.

I don't intend to make this a very public endeavour, at least not yet. This time, as at this blog's inception, the point is more personal than promotional. I'm going to keep things quiet for now and focus on my writing, in terms of both quality and regularity. We'll see how that goes and where it takes us, and hopefully if anyone is (ever) reading this it's after I've built up a healthy backlog of posts going forward into 2016. Or else this will end up sitting embarrassingly at the top of the page for the foreseeable, a testament to my failure to rekindle this blog.

I suppose we'll see.

Patrick Klepek on the Internet and Comments Culture

Teaser for Gareth Edwards' Godzilla

Well, damn. Longtime readers (ha!) will know that I have something of an affinity for Godzilla movies, and the teaser trailer for Gareth Edwards' franchise reboot has made its way online. It's included below so give it a watch. My six word take on it is this: I am torn, but mostly excited.

On the one hand it just fucking nails the tone. The J Robert Oppenheimer voice-over with his famous "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" is absolutely perfect for more reasons than I can say in just this sentence, and really sells me on the idea that Edwards understands and respects the source material. It also points towards this movie at least doing something new with the whole "all giant monsters are a metaphor for 9/11 always" thing that's so pervasive these days, but that's another post for another day (or did I write it already?). I'll even buy the slightly-cheesy way they worked Gozilla's cry into the Oppenheimer speech, because they're using the iconic sound and it really works well.

On the other hand, that is not a man in suit.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Edwards' Monsters, but with a bigger budget we can at least be sure that this movie will nail the on-the-ground experience of the obligatory human characters. Judging from how dark they look to be going, it seems appropriate that they're focusing on the larger-than-life, beyond-imagination and control aspect of Godzilla. Really fits with the Oppenheimer quote, and actually makes me excited to see how human beings react to this incredible monster unleashed upon them.

Ok, I take it back, I'm almost entirely excited. Fuck! Godzilla man! #pleasedontfuckthisup

Edit: Now with a working video link.

Repost: Michael Jackson and the Music of Sonic 3

This is one of the geekier things I've posted in a while, but as a fan of video games, video game music, and Sonic the Hedgehog in particular, I found this video by GameTrailers fascinating. As you'll see below, the debate about Michael Jackson and Sonic 3 has been raging for years, and it's great to hear some (semi) official words on what went down.

I won't spoil it for you, check out the video below, it's worth the watch. And here is the link to the music-comparison video by Qjimbo they cite.

GameTrailers

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Well done to the Breaking Bad team, with special mention to Vince Gilligan, Michelle MacLaren, Rian Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Bob Odenkirk, and (especially) Betsy Brandt and RJ Mitte (who both broke my heart last night), not to mention everyone else. You've all managed to accomplished something rather incredible: you've created something truly special, memorable, and unique; you're stuck the landing (so far, at least); and you've managed to get the world at large at least tangentially interested in poetry. Well done to you all.