We March for Macragge!

AND WE SHALL KNOW NO FEAR!

Telemelia hooked me up with the Ultramarines movie, by way of some friendly space pirates. I just finished watching it through, and I'd have to say I enjoyed it. I was thinking about picking up the special edition DVD when I have money again (assuming, of course, that Games Workshop deigns to produce more than four copies of it outside of a locked vault miles below the surface of the Earth), but it's going to depend on the quality and breadth of the extras.

The movie itself is nothing really to complain about. It's a generic enough tale, starring some Ultramarines (who are blank-slate enough to serve as a nice gateway Chapter for the uninitiated to 40K) on a sort of mission to help out on a planet where some Imperial Fists are guarding a shrine. Our heroes are some fresh-faced recruits, or as fresh as any Ultramarine's face really can be, who've never faced real combat in their armor before. What is it about the 41st millennium that makes everybody so lumpy? The Apothecary is a gruff badass, so that's cool. I wish there'd been a tech marine, but I always wish there'd been a tech marine. There's really not a lot else to say about these guys. Proteus is impetuous, but he's a newb, so it's expected. Heipax (think I'm spelling that right) is his foil, I guess, being more favored by the Captain.

It's really no spoiler to say that as they find their way across the planet, they find that something seriously bad has gone down, and it smells like something that rhymes with Gray-oss. It turns out the Black Legion are here, and they've left all kinds of cool desecratory goodies strewn about to dress up the otherwise fairly drab, brown backgrounds. These include things like whole Imperial Fists marines crucified on rock faces, encircled by runes of darkness. It's the little things, really, that make an okay thing good.

Anyway, the Ultramarines fight some Black Legionaires and someone has a bad fall, but it's the cool kind like Gandalf and the Balrog, and, shit, the stairs outside the shrine even look like the ones in Moria. In the shrine, they meet John Hurt as a Chaplain of the Imperial Fists, which is awesome because John Hurt is a treasure who also read the big screed about the Imperium over the opening titles. The Fists have a special book, and the Ultras help them get it off-world.

I'm going to end my summary there because it's annoying as hell when reviews are just a pile of summary. Anyway, there's lots of bolter fire, chainsword ripping, demons of the Warp, and some heroic moments. There's a twist and a big climactic battle, and a nice coda piece. All in all, it was generic enough that you could show it to someone who knows nothing beyond, "Bro, those are some hella-big shoulder pads. Is he gonna, like, body-check that demon?" and they'd get on fine.

From a technical perspective, it's got an interesting look. On the one hand, it just looks like a video game cinematic from 1998, but so did Beowulf, and oh, no, that's right Beowulf was kind of stupid. No, it looks nice enough. I was reminded at points of articulated and automated versions of the table top miniatures, which was cool, if possibly unintentional. I think the game-opening cinematics for Dawn of War and Dawn of War II are still cooler, but it's not like they were working with a huge budget here. It's much easier to make something cool that lasts for a few minutes, as opposed to a feature length film. I didn't have any big problems with the way anything looked; it was just a little underwhelming at points. I got major Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within vibes from some of the mashed potato faces for whatever reason.

The sound design was totally spot-on, and really, it's an under-valued thing in smaller productions I think. Lending a tactile reality to what we see on screen goes a long way to selling something like this.

While I hope we might see something more interesting next time around, if there is a next time, I would have to say this is a good place to start from for further Games Workshop animation ventures. The Ultramarines are about as generic as you can get with space marines, so they were a good choice for an introductory feature. Here's hoping for Space Wolves and Orks, or Dark Angels and Dark Eldar in the next go-round.

OTHER CRAP I DID WHILE TRYING TO WRITE THIS REVIEW

+ Talking to Valkyrie at work on AIM, and trading Deviant Art craziness

+ Getting totally sucked into Deviant Art, and finding myself morbidly fascinated with some of the artists we found. There was one guy who, I swear, could have made a killing in the early Image-fuelled boom of the early nineties. It's like he missed it by such a small margin. Well, I guess he'd have to actually finish a drawing for once, but that's small potatoes, right?

Unemployment sucks

LIFE

I haven't written here in a long time. I really only started this account so I could comment on Telemelia's posts anyway, but I guess it's somewhere to spill my brains every now and again, so I may as well take advantage.

I have been unemployed since I got laid off on December 12th. One month prior to that, on my birthday, I was asked to scale back to part time hours. I thought, at first, that I might be able to return to my previous employer, but now I've come to find that the store is closing in a few months.

So far things haven't been horrible by any means, but I'm starting to get tired of this unemployment thing. I check online postings for graphic design jobs and the kind of customer service positions I think I could remain somewhat sane in, but most of them seem to be far away or else above my credentials. A few, I admit, are just things I really don't see myself doing, whether or not I qualify. I've submitted some applications around town, too, of course, and even had an interview, but it's all come to naught. Every other Tuesday, I sit here and certify on the unemployment website, and every time I feel a little further away from where I want to be.

BOOKS

In my newly revived free time I've been reading a lot. Usually I just read internet forums. When I could reasonably afford them, I used to read lots of comic books. It occurred to me that I really don't do a lot of book reading. Sure, I've got lots of books, but I usually pick up a short story collection or a Warhammer novel, or something, and I'll read it for a little while, but I almost inevitably lose interest or get distracted and either end up starting something else, or just going back to the internet forums and wikipedia. Lately, I'm trying to read more books. I'm not going after Chaucer or Proust or anything fancy, but it is nice sometimes to sit and read an actual book in my hands.

Patton Oswalt's Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland

The last book I read was Patton Oswalt's Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland. I started and finished in a single sitting. It's not a huge book by any means, but it does feel good to really plow through something like that (The last books I got through that quickly were the novelization of the live action G.I. Joe movie and a book-only prequel to the movie, though they were entertaining for totally different reasons).

I love Patton Oswalt's stand-up, so I figured I would like his book, and was actually surprised to see it for the first time with no prior knowledge that he'd even written it. It's not that surprising, though, because he's also a really talented writer. The English major really shows in the way he constructs sentences and throws around vocabulary, but not in a way that comes off as annoying, pretentious, or pedantic. The book is basically a collection of funny essays about things he has experienced or just thought about.

Unlike a lot of books by comedians, I was pleased to see that this was not just a prose transcription of Patton's act. What the fuck do I need a book for when I can listen to an album and get inflection and silly voices with my funny words? No, this is all original stuff. If anything, it's a nice companion piece to his stand-up because it peels away some layers and informs where he's been from a similar, but different angle than the anecdotes in his act. I would totally recommend it to anyone who likes, or has been curious about, Patton Oswalt, or anyone who likes reading intelligent comedy with an honest perspective. There's just something about Patton Oswalt that just makes sense to me. I feel like he gets it. If that doesn't make any sense, I understand, given that I haven't qualified what it is that Patton gets. Either way, it's a good book from a good comedian.

David Wong's John Dies at the End

I originally read John Dies at the End on the internet, back when that's how it was available, and we liked it that way by gum. When I saw that it was coming out in a physical form, I thought, Nah, I've already read it for free. Why the fuck would I pay for it now? I hate re-reading stuff anyway. David Wong is a fuckin' sellout. What happened to your free online book, man? Hack the planet! It's kind of retarded how many of my thought-trains end in Hack the planet, but I guess that's what happens when you watch Hackers so many times that you lose count of how many times you've seen it.

Anyway, I think I was talking about John Dies at the End. So, yeah, I read it a while ago online, and now I have a paperback copy many years later because I felt like re-reading it (WHAT?), and I have also come to realize in the intervening time that it's nice to throw money at people who make things you like, even if you'd rather get things for free (That said, I'm not deleting my music library or anything. It's a statement, not an ideology). It's been long enough since the first time I read the book that I only kind of had a shadowy memory of what went on in it. I have not been disappointed with the re-reading. Usually I refuse to re-read a book or re-watch certain movies because my brain feels the need to pre-empt everything with a reminder that it remembers seeing this before and that I'm wasting my time. That said, JDatE is a book worth re-reading because it's also different to hold it in your hands than to read on a monitor.

Jesus, this is really disorganized. I don't even know what the fuck I'm driving at at this point. "Write like you talk," my ass. Whatever, if you're reading this, you know who I am, and this should come as no surprise.

John Dies at the End is the story of Dave, the narrator, Dave's friend John, and a dog named Molly. Dave is pretty much a dude. He has some nerdy hobbies, but he's mostly a relatable-y blank slate. I keep picturing him as the lead from Undeclared (Jay Baruchel) for some reason. John is a crazy dude who exemplifies what I think I hoped I could be after high school. I don't know who he looks like, but he has wild hair and a beard in my mind. Dave and John get into all kinds of weird supernatural situations, sometimes brought on by their association with Molly. I guess it's something like Ghostbusters, Phantasm, Shaun of the Dead, and Grant Morrison's Invisibles all got hammered, stayed up listening to Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero, and popped out a weird-ass composite baby that liked fart jokes and delightfully awful puns. I'm reminded vaguely of what I've seen and heard from Telemelia about Marble Hornets, although I've never really checked it out myself. I guess having practically ground-floored the origins of S********n (censored for the sake of Telemelia's sleep schedule) kind of deflates the appeal a bit, but I'll probably check into it sometime.

Anyway, I think I've lost any real semblance of a coherent review at this point, so I leave it at, "John Dies at the End is a totally awesome book that you should read if you are into any of the things I have mentioned in describing it".

Clive Barker's Imajica

Prior to JDatE, I read Clive Barker's Imajica, but that book was like 800 pages, so I'll spare you the full review. It was good, but not great. Just about everyone had a dumb or boring name, but the world was generally more interesting than the what people were doing, so I guess it balanced out?

Anyway, I've got to go wake Valkyrie from the sleep of Winters or something. Come to think of it, I'm not sure anyone will even know I've put this here. Whatever.