Star Wars Old Republic E3 Trailer

Seen this? Pretty damn epic.

Oglaf - Perverse Fantasy Comix

Check out this wonderfully perverse fantasy webcomic at Oglaf.com.

Heard from a friend that the cartoonist had originally intended to create a porn site, but ended up with a webcomic similar to the historic Sexy Losers series. Oglaf is graphic, taboo shattering, and really very clever. Playing with fantasy tropes is a good way to get on my good side. Example: the super-charged machismo of Conan. Oglaf gives us Kronar.

And if the raunchy stuff doesn't typically impress you, it isn't always the crux of the joke:

Miyazaki Has Made a PS3 Game!

Legendary master of animation Hayao Miyazaki, creator of Princess Mononoke and other fantastic films, has decided to make an RPG. That news fills my heart with joy.

Looks pretty wonderful, like all Miyazaki projects. So far it seems like it's just in Japanese, and there's no telling whether or not we'll see an English release in North America. But fingers crossed! And please buy me a gaming console.

Here's a vid!

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #39: Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (2009)

It was a long wait for Red Dwarf fans. Series VIII ended in 1999. Over the ten year gap Dwarfers grew jaded (if they had not already been so) and milled about in great and murderous street gangs, causing mischief and violence wherever they went. Hanging out in vindaloo joints. Drinking lager. Smoking kippers. Petting cats. Vacuuming. You know, British things. When they heard that a new installment of their beloved Red Dwarf was on the way, they returned to their old homes and waited. When it came, they seemed mostly disappointed. But while many of my kin thought Back To Earth was crap, I actually thought it was pretty good. Maybe they liked the old days with the laugh track best.

The show has always had a dramatic leaning, and has preferred to construct characters with some real pathos. Their dynamics and psychologies have been the crux of the show to satisfying and impressive effect. Back To Earth decided to get a bit heavier on that element and present Dwarf fans with a little less comedy and a lot more emotional closure, in case this would end up being the very last of the Red Dwarf crew's adventures. As I've heard it, there's more on the way, and I'm glad for it.

Back To Earth's plot leads from an old and favourite episode from an earlier season, which might be awkward fan service to some, but comes to serve more as a useful and somewhat eerie contrast between the vibe of the earlier series and its current incarnation. This episode's filled with Blade Runner references, and the set work and scene recreations are fun to pick out and ponder in terms of their relationship to the characters. Oh, they visit the Coronation Street pub as well. It all gets pretty meta, which is of course often very trite in television, but in this case, works reasonably well.

So: If you like Red Dwarf and its characters, you really should give it a shot. If you've never seen any Red Dwarf and like sci-fi and laughter, you've got a lot of joy heading your way.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #38: Super Vixens (1975)

Here's how Russ Meyer claims he lost his virginity:

During WWII, Meyer found himself in a French brothel. There he met Ernest Hemingway. When Hemingway learned that Meyer was a virgin, he told the boy he could have any prostitute he liked, and that he'd pick up the tab. Meyer picked the one with the most ample bosom. Later he made films.

And his movies can be pretty surreal at times. If you're unfamiliar with Meyer's brilliant sexploitation work, I'll sum up the basics: incredibly voluptuous women, usually stuck somewhere in arid Arizona, entrenched in hyper-campy battles of the sexes. His films seem to be some kind of reaction to second-wave feminism, and it's debatable as to whether or not his films bash women's liberation or support feminist critique by satirizing sexual politics. For my vote, I find that feminist readings work really well with Russ Meyer films, since men and women are caricatured so completely and intelligently that there's more to it than skin. Women are presented as manipulative psychopaths and sexual enslavers, and men as violent psychopaths and sexual slaves. The flip can be true in other Meyer films, but both genders are always ruled by the power of sex, and the exchange of that power is often disturbing if its not busy with being humourous. Russ Meyer films are a special kind of wonderful bizarre.

Super Vixens is a great example. An evil babe, an asshole boyfriend, a psychotic sheriff, a death, a resurrection, a not-evil babe, a nice boyfriend, Shakespearean vengeance. Of the films I've seen to date, it's Meyer at his most surreal, and possesses Meyer's usual charm in pretty large quantities.

So: If you're going to see any Russ Meyer films, this and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! would be the way to go.

Earthquake Hits Waterloo Ontario - My Fault

Sorry guys, it was my fault. Pun intended.

Earthquake, thunderclouds?

Best case scenario: A Minor Wurm got bored.
Worst case scenario: It's fucking Ragnarok.

Since the burning of Mel's Diner I'd suspected that a Big Terrible Old One had awoken and razed it to the ground. A dragon was the obvious answer, and I had apologised for not acting on its presence sooner. I still miss the milkshakes.

For weeks I've been searching for clues as to the whereabouts of this mystery beast in the vast network of tunnels and caves that make up the Waterloo Downbelow, which is a place I do not recommend you visit without serious preparation and accoutrement - most important being your travel papers and a magical axe. Maybe bring this guy, to keep the bone-crunching trolls satisfied while you run away stealthily into the shadows of cowardice:

Not that I'd do that to him, he was a good man. Is a good man. If he were to disappear without a trace, I'm sure his friends and family would, out of reason and well-balanced emotion, reach the conclusion that he ran away from home because he hates everybody.

So after battling with some trolls and thumbwrestling some goblins I managed to glean some choice rumours about a big something lurking in the Downbelow. My money, I said to the gnome, is on this being the dragon. I lit up one of my wizard pipes, the one that protects me from thought control, and struck into deepest depths of Waterloo.

It was there I found it - A Great Old Wurm, dripping its malice onto an annoying Happy Bunny dayplanner. "INCINERATE WATERLOO, PICK UP THE KIDS" was written there. Right. Well. I knew what I had to do.

For the next two days I battled that thing deep below, and it was very hard I'll tell you. Whenever my anti-thought-control pipe went out the beast made me do the truffle-shuffle until I could struggle out a match. Anyway, it finally went down around 1:45 pm today, which is what you guys in Waterloo and across Ontario felt.


And what thanks might I get for my labour? None of course. A wizard needs not these things. But when I kick a Great Wurm's ass and the only loot it drops is a Happy fucking Bunny dayplanner, I start to suspect that I've picked the wrong career.

Ooh! Acid Drop to play at the Chainsaw!

Looks like local Kitchener thrash-punk crossover band Acid Drop are going to be hitting the Chainsaw (formerly The Spur, at the corner of King and Dupont) with some bands I have yet to sample in uptown Waterloo this Saturday, the 26th. Be there or be square!

Here's their video for Banana Cream Pie. :3

Banana cream pie

Acid Drop | MySpace Music Videos