Twitter Flooding – Trying To Read Twilight

A while back I tried reading “Twilight”. I thought it would only be fair, right? Before hating it? Here’s my experience, summarized on Twitter to everyone else’s horror.

You know what I’m doing before sleep? I’m reading the first chapters of “Twilight”. You know why? Not fair to hate what I don’t know.

Upon the first words of the fourth chapter, I literally covered my head with my hands and let out a painful “oh my fucking God”.

I think I can now stop the torture, yes? I’m qualified to talk shit about this now?

Due to popular request (exactly one person), here’s my summary of the first three chapters of “Twilight”.

I thought the fact the first chapter failed in any way to endear me to the self-pitying bitch of a protagonist was a little problematic.

Stephanie M — Isabella Swan is, to summarize, an inconsequential, self-centered, superficial and faux-humble neurotic.

Okay, so she’s flawed! I could accept that until she began fingering herself at the first sight of Edward Cullen.

Okay, so the book doesn’t say she fingers herself, but she comes — er, she GETS very close to it.

Her entire reason for falling in love with Edward is “he’s incredibly supernaturally pretty and it seems like he hates me. Oooh, mystery!”

Then we get to the point when Bella is almost hit by a car, and is saved by Edward, which instantly made me hate him.

(and no-one in the enormous crowd sees Edward sprint to Bella and stop the car with his bare hands except — Bella, accident victim.)

(she’s so convinced of it, in fact, that she gets angry at the guy who just saved her life for not telling her how he did it)

(I mean, it’s only courteous to wait a day or so before being angry at the guy who just saved your life, you bitch)

Bella continues to be a cunt to everyone who isn’t immediately useful to her, and wetting herself at the sight of Edward.

The fourth chapter starts with, “In my dream…” and I could feel my rectum instantly shut. TMI, but I’ve been asked my reaction.

It continued with, “… and what dim light there was seemed to be radiating from Edward’s skin.” My rectum swallowed my buttocks.

That’s when I stopped. But I think I can guess what happens next. “I could feel his icy cold hand freezing my cheek and turning me on.”

“Serenely, he smiled that perfect smile, every single one of his thirty-two teeth perfect, especially the canines, sharp like scalpels.”

“I’m turned on by sharp canines, freezing skin, passive agressive behaviour and color-changing eyes because I’m such a complex character.”

“Leaving aside the male-dominance metaphor, I took the initiative of pulling his pants down, exposing the freezing stalactite, his penis.”

“I was delighted to see the urethra had canines as well!”

(All you need to make me stop is say it, guys. Honestly.)

“I started to lick his freezing member, and then realized my tongue had gotten stuck to

“And then the sun came out, he started shining and I went blind too, but that’s just my duty as a submissive future housewife.”

“His eyes had gone white now — no, wait, his eyes were so rolled back in absolute pleasure they were looking into his own head.”

“Then I realized it was actually pain — my mouth had gone numb with the cold and I was biting his dick.”

“I woke up from the dream covered in sweat — no, wait, vaginal juices, actually.”

Two people so far asked me to stop, everyone. In fact, one begged. I face a serious dilemma.

“I staggered my way to school, because Stephanie Meyer’s understanding of ‘clumsy’ is based on Inspector Closeau.”

“Like every day, everyone loved me and wanted to have sex with me. I feel so left out.”

“One boy seems to like me very much, being constantly helpful, chivalrous and kind to me. What an uninteresting idiot.”

“And then I saw Edward, looking at me, once again, with that expression of deep hatred that turns my vagina into a geyser.”

“Why am I so interested in him? Maybe I’m an idiot.” (sadly the book treats this as false)

I presume this repeats for the remainder of the book. I don’t think I’ll ever find out, my heart is threatening to stop beating if I try.

Not that I needed any encouragement from my organs to stop reading this shit. Okay. So how many people died throughout this summary?

Brief Commentaries On Fourth Season Of DEXTER

(SPOILER WARNING DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU’RE NOT UP TO DATE WITH TV SERIES “DEXTER”)

The first season of “Dexter” remains unbeatable, which is no surprise. I doubt the writers can ever surpass its twisted storytelling, when Dexter found himself mourning his serial killer brother more than he ever mourned anyone in his life save his father. And while the (competent but heavily flawed) second season and the (excellent) third season experimented with different ideas, they always succeeded in one thing: developing the protagonist, always played phenomenally well by Michael C. Hall.

In this regard, the fourth season is no different — in fact, perhaps it’s better at character development than any other season, even the first. To Dexter, family life is much more problematic and nervous than serial killing, and the number of things he had in his mind at any given time during the episodes was impressive. And there was also the fascinating Trinity Killer played by John Lithgow with immense competence, in a performance that easily rivals with Jimmy Smits’ from the previous season (on a different character, but equally brilliant as an actor).

Until the finale, the season was being excellent and well-plotted, and it had all it needed to be memorable. And then the writers made a narrative choice that elevated it to a new emotional level, and save a major misstep on their part (to be discussed shortly), they couldn’t have made a better choice.

Not only the scene was set-up in a way that led to a dramatic crescendo (with Dexter realizing what the ring of Rita’s cellphone means), it was directed brilliantly by Steve Shill. The use of slow motion and few sound effects might feel like a melodramatic combination, but not if it’s correctly used — and it is, not only thanks to the excellent editing and Daniel Licht’s low-key but beautifully composed music, but especially thanks to Michael C. Hall.

Many talented actors would have gone for an emotional explosion. Not him. As human as Dexter became throughout four seasons, he is still a psychopath, and the really tragic thing is that, as terrible as Rita’s death is — to Dexter, it was a scenario he knew could happen. So when he finds her corpse, you can see it as it dawns on him — the look on his face is painful to watch, and most of all when he sees his son crying on a pool of blood. Not surprise — only guilt.

However, the writers seriously fuck up with their use of voiceovers, not only in many scenes throughout the episode (and the season), but especially in THIS SCENE. This scene needed SILENCE. Total silence save for Licht’s music. This is a moment when Dexter needed to be speechless. And while the voiceover doesn’t ruin it, it certainly prevents it from reaching its full potential.

In fact, the writers are relying too heavily on Dexter’s voiceovers — which are often darkly funny and delivered greatly by Hall, but they go way too far into Dexter’s emotions, clearing them up for the audience instead of letting us interpret for ourselves — mainly in this episode. Hall doesn’t NEED voiceovers — he should be trusted to do his job without aid. “Dexter” is a smart but arrogant series, patronising the audience more and more, and it’s vital it stops doing that.

I think this is indeed Dexter’s best season since the unbeatable first. The fascinating characters, good dialogue and brilliant actors (Hall stands out from them because he’s just too good) ensure it’s always at the very least entertaining, even when the writers misstep (the eleventh episode of the third season saw Dexter being kidnapped… by Masuka). It remained surprisingly consistent and engaging, and the ending managed to withstand the voiceover fuck up.

Comic Reviews On (Possibly Permanent) Hiatus

Okay.

Reviewing a movie or a game or a novel (so I don’t do the latter, but still) has the advantage of, well, you’re reviewing ONE thing. Reviewing a number of books a week is, frankly, murder. Three thousand words per post, it’s incredibly hard to keep it polished and readable, avoid it falling into a reviewing formula or just sheer repetition. While I stand by my opinions (and I insist to all of you who complain about “that’s not an impartial review!”, reviews are fucking opinions of whoever wrote them because nobody owns the goddamn truth you absolute moron. Just my opinion, though.) I’ve wrote a number of bad reviews, not as in “negative”, as in “badly-fucking-written”, where I failed to expose my thoughts well. In order to avoid doing that, I need free time I honestly do not have at the moment.

I remember the “Back To Brooklyn #3″ review, which I thought to be mediocre (both the book and the review) and it felt, to me, like most of the mistakes had more to do with Jimmy Palmiotti than Garth Ennis, the co-writers. And while I can’t deny I did feel that way, I failed to recognize, in the review, that I was ASSUMING this, that I didn’t bloody know it. Jimmy Palmiotti took offense, very understandably, something we later sorted out (and he was very sweet). This was quite ironic because “Back To Brooklyn #5″, I felt was equally problematic, but this time — and this is, as you must know, VERY rare for me — because of Garth Ennis, not Jimmy Palmiotti. I should explain that better in another, future post about the subject.

It’s vital, if you’re going to expose your opinion, that you expose it well. I believe, with a little effort and more training, I can do that (and I’m much better at reviewing than I used to be, which doesn’t actually mean much but it’s a personal victory). But I don’t have the free time, and I am not going to rush my reviews — it’s unfair to the writers and artists of whatever I’m reviewing. I noticed a pattern in my weekly posts — when I’m reviewing the first book of the week, I do relatively fine. When I reach the last, I’m out of patience.

Sorry, this will not do.

All the other reviews will remain, and I should publish some weekly capsule reviews of whatever I’m reading (I SHOULD — it’s no longer a regular feature, dunno if it will be again).

Understand: I review not as a job, but as a way of dissecating what I like and learning to write MYSELF (also, pointing what I like to people is always nice). It’s a very healthy exercise for an aspiring writer.

Busy as I am right now, it’s an exercise I can’t afford.

Hah, like anyone’s going to actually miss this. But anyway!

The stuff I’m busy with is mainly for this blog. So, three people who read this, stay tuned.

Please.

Happy Halloween From Someone Who Lives In A Country That Completely Ignores It

First of all, I apologise for the lack of updates. I’ve been — no, seriously, I have a good excuse this time — I’ve been busy writing a children’s play and — DON’T GO AWAY FUCKING LISTEN I seriously wrote a fucking children’s play and even added some musical bits because I am an insane jackass.

I have an upcoming review for “UP” and a new flash fiction that should be published on Weaponizer soon (probably all my fiction will be there from now on, with a link here — oh stop whining, hypothetical-reader-who-actually-gives-a-shit-about-my-fiction, it’s only a click away).

Regular updating shall return in a day or so. Until then, a happy Halloween to you. Enjoy yourself.

(And kick some kids for me. Hey, they’re dressed as scary things, you can tell the police they startled you and you kicked them by accident)

Updates On Daily Life 03 – Censorship Problems

Trying not to panic at how many comic reviews I have to write this week, I realized “Inglourious Basterds” has finally been released in Brazilian cinemas. Yeah, this has happened just yesterday. Welcome to third-world country. I called a friend of mine and we agreed to meet at 20:00 for the 20:40 session. As I usually do, I went to buy the tickets way before that.

At the queue, I notice a potential problem: the poster for “Inglourious Basterds” has a sticker on it that reads “Not Recommended For People Below The Age Of 18″. My friend is 17, but his birthday is tomorrow. Also, it said “Not RECOMMENDED” instead of “Forbidden”. Still, a potential problem. I did not remember having ever watched a 18+ film on the movie theather with someone younger than me, so I couldn’t be sure how things stood now.

Next to it, a potential solution: “District 9″ — which is still on pre-release here, seriously — was for people above 14. There was a session at 21:10, only thirty minutes after “Inglourious Basterds”.

My turn arrived. In the process of buying the tickets for “Inglourious”, the woman made the kind of face you make when you’re about to ask a potentially awkward question and I braced myself. She said:

“Is your friend above 18?”

“No, but his birthday’s tomorrow and I’m above 18.”

“I’m afraid this doesn’t matter, sir. He cannot go in with you,” roughly translated to English, it might sound like she was rude, but she wasn’t.

I said I’d be right back. She kindly told me I could go straight back to her instead of going in the queue again, but I politely refused because I didn’t want to risk causing trouble, plus I’m a patient person (seriously). I tried calling my friend, but some times, it’s easier to get a hold of someone in the International Space Station, so after several tries I gave up, thought for a while, and went back to the queue.

There was no point in arguing, obviously. I wasn’t talking to the rulemakers here. They were just doing their job. But I wanted some doubts cleared up (as quickly as possible to prevent people behind me from waiting longer in queue).

My turn arrives again:

“Hi, I was just here and was told my friend, who is under 18, cannot watch ‘Inglourious Basterds’ with me. I am 19 — that really doesn’t help?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“But here’s what I don’t get — the sticker says it is not recommended, not that it is forbidden.”

Their supervisor heard that and looked at the sticker like he was seeing it for the first time. He joined the discussion, a bit confused.

“Well, er, he can’t go in regardless, sir.”

“So it IS forbidden, correct?”

“Theoretically, you’re right. But we get the stickers straight from the Ministry Of Justice, they’re already like that.”

This baffled me. The people we pay our taxes to either do not have the necessary brainpower or don’t give enough of a shit to do their job properly. Not that this is anything new, but I had hoped it wouldn’t stretch to something as casual as watching a fucking film. Especially because when it’s available in DVD and blu-ray, no-one gives a flying fuck what your age is when you rent it.

But as I said, as far as I knew, I wasn’t talking to the rulemakers, plus I had spent enough of everyone’s time.

“I couldn’t get hold of my friend, so if I buy two tickets for ‘District 9′ and he decides not to watch it, can I give one ticket back and have my money returned?”

They said yes, as long as I did it twenty minutes before the session. Fair enough. I bought the tickets and left the movie theather, thinking about the sheer stupidity of all this all the way home.

I still couldn’t get a hold of my friend, by the way.

UPDATE: He told me he watched “District 9″ YESTERDAY.

On Obama Winning The Peace Nobel

Let’s talk about this, shall we?

One view is that Obama is, so far, unproven and does not deserve a Nobel Peace prize yet. Another is that the Peace Nobel is not for what one has achieved, but serves as encouragement for what one is achieving.

I did not get the impression encouragement was lacking. Obama is the first black president in the history of the United States, elected in a status of near-worshipping after eight years of Bush and Cheney raping the USA’s collective arse. So yeah, I prefer encouraging people when they need it.

Let’s get this straight first: I like Obama. So far.

But it hasn’t been even a year since he took office. We’re still riding the momentum of something new. Obama has fortunately remained the same Obama from before he got elected, and his efforts have been admirable. But first years are no way to judge someone’s presidency (let alone the first hundred days), especially the first year after eight horrible ones. Obama has tackled the main points of absolute stupidity in Bush’s administration, but more subtle issues lie ahead.

Do I think Obama deserves a Nobel Peace prize? No, not yet, although he’s — er, was well on his way to one. He gets enough praise, and his encouragement consists of being the fucking president.

Mark Mardell, the editor of BBC North America, has said:

“There was already a huge weight of responsibility on Obama’s shoulders, and this medal hung round his neck has just made it a little heavier.”

I do not see this as something positive. He is one man, and men have their limits. You put them on unfathomable pedestals, you’re basically asking to be disappointed.

Mardell is right that Obama already had a huge weight on his shoulders. But according to the rest of his quote, what the Nobel Prize has done was to act like that annoying fuck who keeps pressuring you and putting unreasonable hopes under your responsibility.

I have always disliked Obama worshippers who see him as someone who will fix everything. Being realistic, he might get us on the right path — and so far, he seems to be on the right path for that.

A Nobel right now is more of a distraction than encouragement.

Nevertheless… congratulations. I think this is a bit of an excessive and very early way to show appreciation for his work, but it’s not like he’s been sitting on his ass for these past months drumming his fingers.

Taiko (8th Japan Festival In Rio De Janeiro)

A friend of mine begged with glowing eyes (at least the emoticon she used did) for me to go with her to a Japan Festival in Aterro Do Flamengo. I hesitated before I agreed, because the Japanese are all insane and in a species of their own, judging by their sexual taste (something brilliantly covered here and here — NSFW warning) and art output. However, they are great in their insanity. So I couldn’t refuse, plus I hadn’t seen this friend in months.

A quarter to midday and I found myself on the entrance, puzzled at the lack of Japanese people in Japan Festival. Of course, they were there, but much like a light condiment on a huge soup made out of curious Brazilians, to put it very stupidly. I found my friend (and her friends) and we talked while they waited on the ridiculously gigantic queue to get a yakisoba. After talking a bit and watching two of them play a very boring game of GO (which seems like a nice game, provided you’re not just watching), a performance on the stage caught my attention. I got there just in time to see the last bit of a Taiko performance — Japanese drums. The coreography and the sound were simply hypnotic. Visual music. There would be a second performance in two hours. I hurried home to get my camera and returned in one.

Thanks to having been quick, I had to endure two godawful presentations (I had chosen a decent spot to film from and I may have lost it if I left it) — one of them was a fashion show with Brazilian girls wearing Japanese “lolita” outfits. The girl hosting the show was reading her lines from a piece of paper, and when she improvised she was so slow and stammered so much I wished she’d go back to reading the paper. All the outfits, in my opinion, looked ridiculous, so it was still fun to witness the girls parading around in them, one of them wearing long socks with a chess pattern. Even better, there were about eight girls and exactly ONE guy, who was instantly giggled at by the audience — and ironically, he was very into it, probably the most professional of the group, which, judging by what the audience muttered around me, they instantly read as “total faggot”. I, for one, admired how he kept a straight face while looking like he was ambushed by a mean-spirited wardrobe.

The second presentation had no redeeming factors whatsoever. It was an Aikido performance. The performers didn’t even bring a bloody mat. Their teacher — who is one of those people who upon climbing on a stage insists on giving a five-minute long, boring introduction and is unable to shut up for the rest of the show as well — said the students would avoid getting hurt and would be careful when performing the moves. Obviously, this meant the moves were very slow and the falls were simulated, which made Aikido seem like a very, very bad way of defending oneself. The teacher also talked about the “chi” and referred to the area right above the pubis as, if I remember correctly, a “center of energy”. He proceeded to grab this area and show it proudly, in a way that made it look like he was cock-slapping an invisible girl. I have no idea how the entire audience, me included, managed to hold back the laughter. Maybe because the guy was too into it and it would be like taking a toy from a child. Or maybe because only I and my dirty mind found this to be very funny.

(Okay, so I’ll admit that is ONE redeeming factor.)

Finally, the second Taiko presentation, which I filmed and edited in three parts with the five main performances (two intermission performances were cut). Apologies for the inevitably shaky camera (handheld) and for my hand passing past it on the second part — I was distractedly trying to shield the top of it from the rain. Enjoy.

Vacation

It was my birthday on September 11 and I’m taking the opportunity for a few days off. Normal activity will return to this blog very soon.

As for comic reviews this week: both Punisher #74 and Kickass #07 are excellent. From the former, Victor Gischler seems to understand The Punisher well enough and has crafted an entertaining, well-written arc with exceptional artwork from Goran Parlov — and from the latter, Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. prove once again they’re a good team-up. Two very good reads.

Now excuse me as I try to forget anything even remotely related to work of any kind for a few days.

WET Demo (PS3)

You can tell from the title alone that “Wet” is supposed to be pure over-the-top gunwank. Okay, so maybe that’s not the first thing the title makes you think of, especially with the super-hot protagonist Rubi right next to it, but still, that’s what it’s supposed to be: a game based on the old Grindhouse style movies that used to make Quentin Tarantino have orgasms. And I’ve had an interest in “Wet” since I found out not only that, but that the game mixes acrobatics, gunplay and swords.

And the demo managed to make me lose a lot of my excitement. I’m not wet anymore, just slightly damp.

(har har fucking har)

The demo opens with Rubi spying on a meeting wherein one of the participants, Simmons, has a case that belongs to her, as she subtly tells us while pretending to talk to herself. She literally crashes into the party through the glass ceiling and a tutorial starts.

First thing I noticed: unless she’s sliding across the floor, somersaulting or running on walls, Rubi’s shooting sucks. You’d think doing any of that would make her aim worse, but strangely if she’s standing still her gun might as well shoot feathers. However, start hopping around and not only she shoots quicker (while in slow-motion, paradoxically), she draws another gun that aims automatically. The message is clear: fuck strategy. Your job is to kill people as stylishly as possible. I can dig that. Or I could, if it was well-done.

Remember “Stranglehold”? It suffered from a shitty story, uneven gameplay and several little problems that added up to an irregular game — one of the things that bothered me was the enemies’ death animations. You shot them in the face and they’d clutch their throats, or their eyes (despite the bullet hole being quite visibly on their foreheads) and take half a minute to drop dead. In “Wet”, the death animations are also problematic. The physics are badly-implemented. Enemies don’t seem to have any weight. As opposed to say, the exceptional “Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood”, enemies in “Wet” react exaggeratedly to gunshots (which is perfectly acceptable considering this game is a homage to the grindhouse style), but the physics make them flop like they’re made out of paper.

What’s more, enemies get drenched in blood as soon as they die. This transition is not done smoothly. Shoot them and they’ll look pristine until the moment their health runs out, and suddenly they look like an extra from a George Romero film. In fact, blood is, ironically, another problem in “Wet” — it splatters on walls, but the blood spurt from the gunshots is underwhelming (when the grindhouse style dictates it has to be exactly the opposite) and your guns seem to have very little impact on the enemy.

The swordplay is very simple: press square until everything dies. Again, though, the physics get in the way and the dismemberment seems like an afterthought, considering all I could hack off were forearms.

There are also some arcadey elements that simply didn’t ring well with me, like a set piece where you have to close three “spawn doors” (doors that, if not closed, will keep vomiting enemies at you) to get past an area and keep chasing the asshole who has your case.

But the worst part of the demo is, easily, the one that showcases Rubi during pissed-off-mode or whatever it’s called. Maybe, considering the title, pre-menstrual tension mode, but I might be murdered by feminists if I insist on that. The whole screen is drenched in shades of red and the only white thing is the blood. It is so, SO absurdly stylish it forgets to be fun — all you’re doing is slashing at black silhouettes that spill white blood and that pause midway through their death animations and vanish into thin air. I didn’t find it visually compelling at all, let alone enough to make up for the dumbing down of the gameplay (which is normally already dumb).

Speaking of style, the developers don’t seem to have any idea how to walk the fine line between “style” and “gameplay” — “Wet” has a filter that simulates video scratches on the screen like in old films. I fail to see what that accomplishes other than making the game uglier simply to pay a dumb, obvious homage to something that isn’t even a GOOD THING. Tarantino used it in “Death Proof”, but more common-sensical than the developers of “Wet”, he used it on certain moments, not all the damn time.

And finally, we get to a highway chase where Rubi jumps from car to car chasing the one she wants. Again, the developers do an underwhelming job, with the jumping being pre-scripted and executed through those fucking quick-time events. All you can do aside from pressing buttons when prompted is aim and shoot at goons who stick their bodies out of windows WAY more than is necessary to try and shoot you. And their aim is much better than Rubi’s, whose gunplay when riding the roof of a car is just as bad as while standing still — however, leap from one car to the other and suddenly she’s Annie Oakley.

The acrobatics are a mixture of acceptable and clunky. Wall-running is definitely clunky, while sliding and jumping around are acceptable. You can shoot enemies while doing just about anything (the more complicated, the better she shoots), but for all the power your guns have, maybe it’s better to just use the acrobatics to get close to an enemy and sword him to death.

Important to say, though, that except for the awful pre-mens — pissed-off-mode sequence, all you can shoot in this demo are revolvers — which actually shoot like pistols, since they never need to be reloaded. Not that pistols have unlimited ammo, but they don’t need to be reloaded as much as re — oh, shut up, you understood. They are probably twenty-two caliber as well, considering the damage they deal.

While the graphics are decent (too much red and brown used in the color scheme, which make the violence seem tame since there is no contrast between the blood and everything else), the soundtrack is awesome. This is something they got right, the songs that play during action scenes are engaging and well-chosen.

All in all, “Wet” seems like it can be mildly enjoyable, but not the blast a title featuring swords, guns, acrobatics and hot chicks could be. Let’s see if the complete game has better things to offer.

Updates On Daily Life #02

I have slept relatively well for two days now. That is because I went without sleep for twenty-four hours before that. And the second day’s sleep was fragmented and light. So logically tonight’s sleep will probably be shit. And no, I do not consider going an entire day without sleep every now and again to be an attractive routine. So bollocks to that. However, my sleep’s been so bad I wonder if I can knock myself out by punching my own jaw. I am not insane enough to have tried that yet.

So, in between trying to sleep, being angry at life and blah blah blah, I’ve been trying to work on my projects. The recovery of my novel “Ares” (which I lost at sixteen thousand words because I was stupid enough not to have any backup of it) is going slowly but steadily — oh, who am I kidding, not steadily at all. Steady would be writing the thing every day. So no, it’s going slowly — but it’s fucking going, dammit. I’m writing a comic script for practice, another one for real — I’ve made concept art for the latter:

That is a key scene in the graphic novel, which will be called, probably, “Morris”. The title might change because the title is the same kind of title as “Ares” (someone or something’s name). I have written a number of pages already, and the overall story is complete in my mind.

This is how I look today:

I will not lie: I have been miserable lately. But I am a bloody writer, what the hell did I expect?