What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more... sinister?

This was neither a superhero movie or a horror movie though. They focus on the gore more than the scare. They add in an overly sinister soundtrack. They waste the potentially most intimate moments. They don't do the idea justice at all.

Elizabeth Banks is great of course, and her in-movie husband too, played by David Denman. Great acting on their part. Jackson A. Dunn did a decent job as the sinister superhero - can't blame him for all this was movie was lacking otherwise.

In the end it was disappointing more so due to bad directing than bad acting I think. The directing feels like a limitation in what acting talent Jackson in particular is allowed to show, and he never reaches his potential as a villain because of it. The plot's so predictable. So cliché. So wasted.

It's neither good horror, nor gore, nor fun. It's like they expected us to applaud the idea itself, without having to convey it in a redeemable way.

They did great with the filming, and the acting sometimes, but it just feels bland.

This could've been so much more.

Hope some day they give this another chance; give it a directing that really unleashes this sinister villain's full potential. I'd say it'd be all but... detrimental.

 rated 2.5/5: almost not bad

Salt-N-Pepa will tell the story of nursing students Cheryl "Salt" James and Sandra "Pepa" Denton, who fell into the world of rap and hip hop, after recording for a friend's school project.

My big bro had a tape of this dynamic duo, the album with the Push It single. :) I used to listen to it when I was little, and still do occasionally during summer. Same tape. The sound's been saturated by time but it holds up even now! And this is their story huh...

It was more turbulent than I thought it was, but no musicians have an entirely sunshine-and-roses story do they? And it's an inspiring tale when it's over. It's good to see them reunited after all.

You wonder if some of the drama maybe wasn't there at all. How much was real; how much wasn't... I'd heard of Treach before, but maybe not of his anger issues...

Whatever's real or no though these are some good girls who made some good music, and this a good movie for those who knew them and feel like getting all nostalgic, or learning a little more.

That's all.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

I've caught up with all my lectures this week - ones I'd recorded this winter but hadn't yet taken the time to view, and I'm almost caught up with my diary - from three months behind down to just one, and I've caught up on some much overdue email correspondence... unsubscribed from the daily Morning Brew newsletter too. No time for media, be it main or alternative stream. I'm working on being. Working on emceeing. Working on the green.

Also working at the gym (pronounce that like gee-eam).

Really zoning in on the fitness regime. And I wrote about my newly attained gym card recently. I worked out Thursday, and planned to do so Friday but was still feeling pretty pooped, planned to do so Saturday but was still pretty sore, then actually did so today and holy shit do I feel tired now! Had planned on simple cardio but the machine I'd planned on using was busy - and remained so for about half an hour - so I ran from device to device otherwise and was out of juice entirely when time finally came for the planned cardio session, but I did that too, with but half a banana for breakfast before this, first thing in the morning. A one hour work-out without pause then... is that normal?

I'm listening to a David Goggin's podcast right now so I can't complain, but it's taken me the full day to finally get control over my arms again, and on the lunch walk I started getting light-headed and wobbly. Feels like I might be overdoing this a bit. I should probably start nice and slow and ease my way into this new BUT THEN AGAIN!!!!

I'm getting in shape anyway, even if I probably won't be able to train for at least another two days after this. Slow but steady; intense when it counts...

On the blog I've updated the stats page with a few more categories/corrections, and added the 'most viewed posts' bit here too - previously in sidebar only.

Messed around with WP functions trying to get some 'oldest posts' and 'most popular post per year' statistics there too, but it seems those are more difficult than they should be. Something for a later time! A public visitor count's in the works too - a plugin I currently use should be developing such front-end functionality soon.

I've also managed to upgrade PHP versions! Whoop. Not all that way, but to reasonably updated tiers at least. Had to remove just a couple bits of code for that to work, attempted rewriting them first but realized I didn't really need 'em after all. But I need to get better at PHP. There may be other bits that aren't as non-essential. Seems like a common problem though: NG Logs is currently dealing with a similar issue.

In regard to NG the one and only @GRUB-LORD (who now goes by simply grubbb) put out a pretty slick hoverboard blade animation with one of my old audio loops this week. Much obliged! And with all the recent exercise I think I'm finally starting to get into the right headspace (and physical form - vocal capabilities have felt a little strained recently) to get to composing this one title track that's been on the backburner all too long as well...

Things are shaping up in life! I'm going and growing. Will I transcend what's known through this hole in the ozone? To the throne in the Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte? Blow up slow like Yo Gotti? I don't know, but like David Goggin's says you get peace when friend is foe. Now time to sleep and end this toll and I shall creep till I can leap and maybe reap some fender flubber till I'm 1337 just like no other. Many roads, many shows to see to know how flows a dope emcee and breath till undercovers seeth and boil asunder and I'll be a God of thunder and smite feeble minds with wonder like Ken Block with lots of rubber let us rock though not so shuttered we get seasick. Open blinds: see the sights and feel it.

It's a Sunday! One day. Just like a steal it's: a rest.

Worked out hard and now I feel no stress.

Last week.

When you go to war with yourself, you find a lot of peace.

I've had trouble charging my phone for some time now.

Thought the cable might be going bad - or the USB socket on the phone, and was about to switch to a new cable the other day for starters, but figured I'd try cleaning the socket with a toothbrush first to see if maybe the contact area was just dirty.

Soon went from toothbrush to toothpick, and started digging out bits of compactly layered dust from the bottom of that socket, and you won't believe how much dust there was there! Holy shit. Fragment after fragment of dust - each expanding drastically upon contact with the outside air when released from their tightly and incrementally - with each charge occasion - packed socket prison.

And the phone's charging fine now!

Better than I remember it ever charging before.

Was there dust already there when I first bought the phone? Did I somehow manage to press in a square centimeter or so with the charger the first time I used it?

Probably not, but apparently it really amounts. Even if you don't notice. And there's room for more residue than you'd believe. If the charger gets progressively all the more difficult to use, but just little by little, at such a slow pace there doesn't seem there's a reason for it...

Try clearing out that dust.

What a movie.

Parodying but also parading as controversial an issue as this without repercussion, when the US and North Korea were in reality almost on the brink of war... ballsy.

I guess they did do something similar already with Team America, but this isn't animated. It feels a little closer to the fire, and they take it even further, they actually kill Kim Jong-Un.

It's a mad movie, but such a masterpiece too.

I don't know if I've become a bit more accustomed to humor as sick and sexual as this is sometimes, or if they just do it right here, but this doesn't feel as off-putting as for example The Hangover did. There's a semblance of class to this, or is it sympathy, or something else? That there's a higher purpose even when they take things too far? Or that it's ambitious?

For starters the Eminem cameo at the beginning caught me by surprise.

I thought they had a look-alike when they begin the scene at an angle where you can't clearly see his face, and ditto with Rob Lowe (wouldn't have known him were it not for his Hot Ones appearance - or his podcast I've been getting into recently) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's absurd and short but appreciative comedy bits. But that's just the intro, and even when they start talking about interviewing Kim it's just getting started. No way can you predict all that comes after that. They really go all the way!

Both script and filming is on point, and when the assassination plan was first outlined I was just as skeptical about Dave's plans as Aaron was, but no way can you predict all that's to come even then. Or can you?

You might be expecting a certain level of madness, but unless you've read up on reviews beforehand I still think this'll take you by surprise.

Spoilers ahead:

The tiger, the impeccable drone drop - quick filming of every step along the way, Kim's castle tour and intimate tank moment, or maybe most memorable of all the two bodyguards who had been with him since he was a baby dying violently in the banquet room. All these little bits build up to the thick of it all, the main plot element, the short-lived but all the more memorable interview. All it takes for them to get there...

You see people around the world watching when it finally goes down, and the one North Korean family with a TV.

I'm always mindful of how these world-is-watching moments to some extent add an artificial and self-gratifying level of extra reach with any particular scene - which sometimes feels unfitting - and takes away from the scene, but it feels like they did it with moderation here, with only relevant parties tuned in.

As the interview's going down fingers are getting chomped off and what-have-you. It's sad but glorious, and I appreciate how despite the parodying they actually portray the dictator in both a humanizing and glorifying light. He goes out guns blazing, and the interview questions don't actually leave him speechless, as they had planned.

Both movie and interview are a balancing act of so many elements, and crazy comedy though it may contain it feels like they catered to the world when they made this. They didn't mispronounce Pyongyang. They didn't make fun of any Korean names. They made fun of themselves, if anything, as unwilling assassins, as heroes with flaws.

Everyone gets their roses in one way or another - even those who maybe least deserve it, and I wonder if Kim might've seen this too (of course he would - wouldn't you?), and I wonder what he thought.

I'd like to think he might've been as impressed as I was.

I felt like there was a bit much puppy-talk at the end, and James Franco's character's sometimes annoyingly oblivious or over the top, but when it's all said and done it was so wholesome, and went full circle in just the right way.

You're along for the ride too. You get clued in at the right moment, and the tension keeps building appropriately.

Were this a normal movie I think I'd have given it a 4.5, but considering the premise they're well worth some extra praise.

They really went for it with this. All the way. On screen and off.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome