Are You Superbad?

Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of raunchy teen films. Or teen films in general. They always seem to be about a bunch of spoiled rich kids dealing with spoiled rich kid problems, and I just can't identify. I've never been a spoiled rich kid, so I don't know what it's like. Moreover, I just don't feel the need to identify with them in any way, shape, or form. I guess I just don't like spoiled rich kids all that much.

Superbad was the first comedy I have ever seen in a theater. No lie. And you know what? For as raunchy and irreverant as it was, I actually had a pretty good time. It was incredibly funny, in a sick and twisted way that I wasn't expecting. The plot was your average dungeon-crawler "get-to-the-party" affair, but that's okay. I imagine that the writers watch Can't Hardly Wait about 90 times and said to themselves, "If I was making this movie, I would..."

You get a lot of that in this movie. "If I was a cop, I would totally..." or, "If I was a nerdy dude I would..." You get the idea. This concept is best seen in the character McLovin. That's not his real name, of course. This kid buys a fake ID and names himself McLovin- one word, and claims to hail from Hawaii. Although the song "White and Nerdy" was written for this kid, his story arc completely makes the movie, and yields some of the funniest comedy I've seen in days.

If you are offended by crude comedy, this movie is not for you. Superbad goes way beyond American Pie. If I had to make an analogy, Superbad would be the teenager with a fake ID buying the cheapest alcohol on the shelf for American Pie, and pocketing the change, going to the party, and drinking all of American Pie's alcohol, and then hitting on its girlfriend. and then scoring.

I guess you have to ask yourself, then- Am I Superbad?

The Tinkerer

Not a lot of time here- been having some technical difficulties while getting caught up with school. I just thought I'd put up that picture of The Tinker I had talked about from the Super Mario vs. Wilford Brimley post.

The picture is line art that was scanned into the computer, colored in Photoshop with multiple layers. The background was made using Vue6, which is modeling software used primarily for terrain. The lens flare isn't photoshopped- it's included in the calculations of the Vue6 software.

I'll try to get back to popsting normally as soon as possible finals week is always a lot of fun, ya know. Let me know what you think of The Tinkerer!

Superhero as a Girlfriend

The following is in response to a random blog I found about a girl trying to figure out which superhero she preferred as a lover. I think she settled on Aquaman, because she liked seafood and Aquaman would have easy access to it. That, and he wouldn't have to come up for air too often. It inspired me to start up a blog of my own so I too could talk about senseless things, and hopefully brush up on my writing in the process.

Although I am a guy and a geek, I never really thought about a superhero lover until my friend Silver sat me down and forced me to watch Mallrats, which is easily Kevin Smith's best movie. When Brodie started talking about the breeding possibilities of Superman and Lois Lane, it sparked a discussion between us.

My friend Silver is female, and she chose Wolverine as her lover. "Other than the fact that he has metal claws, he's pretty much a normal guy, you know." Silver is a very practical girl.

Since I was a Jehovah's Witness as a child, comics were forbidden, so my list of superhero women was rather short.

The Invisible Girl from the Fantastic Four movie was right out, as she could turn invisible and spy on me. Call me crazy, but I don't like to fart in front of girls, let alone my invisible girlfriend. It's just... akward.

The girls from the X-Men movie were even less promising. One girl can read your dirty, lustful, wandering mind, one girl can kill you with a touch, and the other was played by Halle Berry. (Sorry, I'm not a fan of her attitude in the last X-Men movie. Her haircut was nice, though.)

Which brings me to Catwoman. I'll be horribly honest here. I liked her as the normal girl, but not as the cropped-hair superhero. It's not that I'm uncomfortable around dominant woman, but come on, cats are serious creatures. Catwoman as done by Halle Berry lost control, went on a fashion rampage, and was altogether a very bad cat.

I finally decided on waiting for Raven from the Teen Titans on Cartoon Network to turn 21. Silver assures me that all of the Titans are 18, but I'm no fool.

Why Raven? Aside from the fact that she can teleport us beers from the fridge when we're marathoning anime DVDs, she'll be on call a lot as a superhero, and that would probably work well with my erratic writing schedual. And she seems like a laid-back, low-profile superhero, despite the fact that she's currently gallivanting about in tights and a cape. Once she's out of Goth phase and is of legal drinking age, I'll totally give her my number.