The Rambler's rambles

The epic third novel in this gargantuan series delivers on its title. It's bloody and brutal with many characters dying over the politics of this realm. I think this book in particular exemplifies how brutally honest and ruthless Westeros really is as events like the Red Wedding and the death of Oberyn Martell give this sense that Westeros is a turbulent and cruel place to live in. This novel also progresses extremely quickly with new events happening all the time to ensure readers will have the same feeling of wanting to learn more about one character but forced to see through the perspective of other characters (see Daenerys, Jon, Arya, Tyrion). Martin gives another great work unto us that illustrates the world even more and progressing the plot. I also noticed that politics weren't as big of a thing as in the second book which meant that this book focused more on social issues and events occurring in a specific area. Like I said before, this novel is brutal and I like ho...

I finally decided to watch the movie that everyone loved from last year. When I was watching the trailers, I thought this movie was just one of those generic space horror movies and that everyone would disdain it like they did for "Apollo 18" or the recent Alien movies. Imagine my surprise when I found that critics and audiences alike were raving over this movie and that the Academy even gave the movie a huge number of Oscars. This movie seemed to be phenomenal and I wanted to watch it since I was interested in the concept. So I finally did it. I'll say right off the bat that Sandra Bullock was amazing in her role. I loved her character as Bullock portrayed the broken feeling the protagonist had. Our entire journey revolved (no pun intended) around her as we felt every single emotion she was going through. Most of the time all we needed to hear was her panicking to draw breath or screaming at the faulty machinery to feel what she was feeling. It also helps that Bulloc...

I finally got around to playing this acclaimed game of the past year. Multiple gamers and game critics have put this game on their top 10 games list for 2013 which made me curious for why this innocuous Japanese series finally obtained a legitimate big title. Fire Emblem loyalists rejoiced as this game was announced to come to Western audiences and this game apparently did not disappoint. So with all this hype surrounding a strategy, turn-based game, I wondered what was so appealing about this game to so many people. Well, it's an rpg that plays just as well as its predecessors. The Fire Emblem series has been notorious for its extreme difficulty since characters that die stay dead. This game actually has a difficulty setting as one can simply set it so that character deaths aren't official and reduce the difficulty of the game overall. In this way, the game is already accessible to all audiences yet playing the game on casual and normal which is the easiest mode is still a...

I'll come right out and say I was underwhelmed. Now I hear people saying that I "don't understand the experience of legos" or "never had a childhood." That's fine, I guess, because I honestly don't care. I've never really played with legos but I have played with toys and I loved my childhood. I loved "Toy Story" and the sequels. I understand the appeal of nostalgia and there is some merit to approaching the movie in a nostalgic fashion. But this movie was just forgettable and I didn't really care too much for what it had to say at the end. It's fine if you like it but I just didn't get the same kick out of it everyone seems to have. First of all, I'd like to address the aspect that it was pretty forgettable. The jokes that were made seemed to be a bunch of pop culture jokes and the only jokes I actually laughed at were the more subtle ones. Everything was fast-paced and trying to absorb every environment, every set ...

It's another Japanese animated movie. But it was not made by Miyazaki who is known for classics like Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away. So I was kinda apprehensive of the movie since it was drastically different from the magic Miyazaki typically captured. Nonetheless, I was pretty optimistic for this film since I love animated movies a lot and I also liked the distinctive anime style that was a feature of the film. So to start off, the animation was a little jarring. There were moments were the animation was just plain and a little boring on the eyes but there were also some scenes were the animation was truly breathtaking. I don't know if this is just an aspect of anime in general or if Japanese people are used to this kind of flair but it definitely deviated from the creativity and finesse of Miyazaki films or American animated films. It didn't matter in the long run but the entire style seemed mixed. Next we get to the plot. The whole reason why time trav...

Two songs I had stuck in my head throughout this movie were "Ice Ice, Baby" and "True Love." Yeah, none of the songs that I just heard were in my head, just those stupid songs. Yet they fit pretty well. Well, here we have Disney pull out another animated film after their huge flop with "Planes" this year. And what do you know, John Lasseter was executive producer which means that this was kind of a collaboration between the Disney and Pixar staff. This is seen from the short flick before the film where it has the Mickey Mouse cartoon that has a recent update and toys with the fourth wall. But how does the main film hold up? This movie is like a conglomeration of Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, and Wicked. You've first got this film trying to emulate Tangled with Anna looking like Rapunzel and the whole theme of freedom along with true love. Then Beauty and the Beast is seen with the whole idea of prejudice against this film's equivalent of th...

After waiting about a year from the release of Black and White 2, we get another game that has a weirder title. According to the developer of this game, he imagined it as a coordinate plane that signified a path or destiny and how both the X- and Y-axis intersect at one point. It's a nice explanation but I'd rather imagine it as sex chromosomes but I just prefer that to make fun of girls who get Y. Anyways, these games added a lot of features that excited Pokemon fans and they are generally favored by everybody. Let's begin by looking at the new stuff. The biggest changes were the fairy type and the mega-evolutions. The fairy type was created to counter dragons and are generally the new over-powered type that everyone seems to use. Mega-evolutions are evolutions within a battle to a pokemon. Mega-evolutions always mystified me since I felt that they should've just went balls to the walls and created the elusive fourth evolution but Nintendo evidently loves its r...

Now almost everyone was disappointed with the first chapter of the Hobbit. An Unexpected Journey  started off slowly and it didn't have the same Lord of the Rings vibe that the trilogy had. Many people left the theater disappointed and hoping that Peter Jackson could astound us with the second and third installments. Seeing as how The Hobbit is a children's book, it makes sense that it isn't as astounding as the Lord of the Rings trilogy but separating a small book into three movies was an astonishing decision. And so we're left tagging along for the ride as Tolkien fans like me will indubitably attack the film for deviating from source material or implementing stupid scenes. Well this movie was much better than the first movie. While not living up to the revolutionary status of the original Jackson trilogy, it still entertains and allows for good fun. The middle chapter was paced exceptionally well and the locales of this movie were amazing to look at. If Peter J...

So apparently the crew behind Despicable Me made the atrocities we know as Hop and The Lorax . And they've decided to make a sequel to their original hit. What is with these companies that try to be as good as Pixar was? Dreamworks, Disney, and this company among countless others seem to vie for dominating the animation industry. Let's not waste any time and plunge right into this new movie that they made. But first, let me address the stupid love thing that they decided to add that was every bit as cliched and tasteless as the one in The Lorax . I was somewhat okay with how they handled the one between Groo and Lucy but then the eldest daughter had to go and fall in love with El Macho's son. I see a growing trend in our media today about how we focus primarily on appearances when judging love. Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, because it is true despite best intentions. But when you have this cliched cliche that just feels so cliched in young love, I just tear out my ...

The second law of thermodynamics states that energy goes downhill and leads to entropy. Let's start with the basics. In the beginning we have Walter White, a chemistry teacher who has the diagnosis of lung cancer. Facing imminent death, Walter takes up cooking methamphetamine with Jesse Pinkman while keeping this a secret to his family. Throughout the seasons his notoriety grows exponentially as his alias of "Heisenberg" is often used. Cut to the ending and you have Walt dead in a meth lab. Skyler is addicted to cigarettes, Walt Jr. or Flynn has moved out and will inherit the vast sum of money, and the meth business in the southwest is exterminated. This sounds like what Walt desired, doesn't it? Well, that was achieved through hundreds of deaths. Walt never meant for any of this to happen. In "Ozymandias," Walt's legacy is tarnished. His brother-in-law is dead, the neo-nazis took away his money, and his wife and child hate him. Walt runs away ...

You know how huge "A Game of Thrones" is? Well this book manages to be around a thousand pages which is two hundred more pages than the previous book. And "A Storm of Swords" is longer. This is one weird series. Without further ado, let's see how this holds up when compared to "A Game of Thrones." Since all of the characters have been established, the plot speeds along at a brisk pace. Arya is captured, Jon is going out beyond the wall, Stannis is trying to assert himself, Tywin is fighting Robb, Robb is doing nothing throughout the book, Catelyn does some stuff, Sansa is still stuck in King's Landing, Theon is trying to assert himself as king, Daenerys doesn't do anything, and Tyrion is being a boss. This book is full of twists and turns that left me really wanting to read more. This is one of the few books I can say that is a true page-turner. The conflicts that come along seem real and tangible and added depth to this book. Then the char...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm really late for this. But I've been busy for the past month...kinda. Anyways, here's the review. This is a prequel to the acclaimed "Monsters, Inc." Many people were pissed that it wasn't a sequel since the idea of a Boo and Sullivan relationship was tantalizing and they wanted resolution to Sullivan's torment. But, it's Pixar. Ya' know, the company that made "Cars 2" even though they said they'd only make a sequel if it was worth making. First off, I want to say that we can say that we are past the amazing period of time where Pixar could do no wrong. People feared that Cars would start Pixar's digressions from their masterpieces, but then Pixar made Wall-e, Up, and Toy Story 3 which were some of Pixar's best. Then Cars 2 came and everyone hated it. Brave came which was more pretty good, but not brilliant. Because I watched this movie this late, I knew the audience reaction was generally favorab...

After hearing fanboys gush over this cartridge as if it was their first-born, I didn't get what the deal was. I watched NintendoCaprisun's lp of it and it didn't impress that much as compared to Majora's Mask. Even when I played this at my friend's house, it wasn't spectacular. But was that just because I wasn't in the generation who played this and looked upon it with reverence? Could be. Anyways, the story was your typical Zelda story. Ya' know, the three goddesses made the golden cheese, Zelda, Ganon, and etc. And time-travel. Can't forget that. So the plot isn't spectacular at all. I barely got engaged with whatever pressure Link had and preferred to complete sidequests as the world burned. The gameplay was pretty good. Though it isn't as fluid as Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, or Skyward Sword, it was the first so it is excusable. The L-targeting made its first appearance and for the most part, the transition from 2-D to 3-D was pret...

Finally, I got off my lazy arse and got this book from the library. The copy, unfortunately, was in shambles. It felt like there was only one copy of the book in the library and the thousands of people who used it also wiped their butts on it as well. This book managed to have pages ripped out twice. One time it was just the map, the next time had seven hundred pages torn out. But I digress, we're here to talk about the book, not the library's unfortunate copy. First of all, I want to say that it's astonishing that this book hasn't been recognized in such a long time. Granted, I don't pay attention to popular books, but I do know that I haven't learned about this series since the TV show came out. Diving into this, the plot involves a conflict in the land they live in. There's rumors of creatures from the north, Varys and Daenerys Targaryen waiting to reclaim their throne, and differing factions in the Seven Kingdoms itself. There's a lot going on in t...

After eagerly anticipating this release, I finally went to this puny theater to go watch this movie. Does the inclusion of humans make this a bad movie? Was it worthy of being part of the Friendship is Magic Universe? Was it show quality? Well, you know the answer is yes for the last one, it was made by the same creators. Well let's start with the premise. Twilight has recently become a princess and her friends are staying with her at the Crystal Kingdom. But while Twilight is sleeping, Celestia's previous student, Sunset Shimmer, steals the crown and brings it with her to a parallel universe with humans. My god, humans in my pony show? Twilight darts after Sunset with Spike and they must go to Canterlot High School and reclaim the crown at the ball. Right of the bat, this seems like a lackluster idea. I mean, come on, we've had millions of high school dramas. A parallel universe?  A formal ball? Sunset is totalitarian? Kinda typical. But you never notice how thin this pl...

After hearing all of my friends gush over how great this, I watched it. I was expecting quite a lot from this musical considering how many Academy Awards this was nominated for. Did this actually ring as a great film for me or was it a flop? Well, let's start with the story. Apparently, after the French Revolution, these under-represented poor people want to lead another revolution. The film never made it clear whether it is another revolution or just a continuation. Since I barely know anything about the French Revolution, I had no idea what was going on. Then there's the other storyline following a convict arrested for stealing bread. He goes on and helps people to prove his worthiness, but alas, the officer sees no good in him. As someone who never read the book or watched the musical, I didn't see how this had to do with France itself. I think the movie expects that the viewer would read the book to actually know the plot, but doesn't explain what actually happens...