Ratty Randnums

Indeed. At the time (around Shrek 1) Disney was pretty shite. What with Cinderella 2, Goof Troop 2, Little Mermaid 2, Jungle Book 2 etc. all coming out straight-to-video, it was apparent that they were creatively bankrupt and cannibalizing their old properties for their sentimental value even more than usual. The old fairy-tale princess and hero shtick hadn't been revitalized in the "disney princesses" line of products yet and the Disney brand was losing relevance and growing more stale by the minute.

Might have watched more in the last 3 or 4 days than as many months. So I'll just sum them all up


Shogun's Samurai (The Yagyu Clan Conspiracy) 9/10
This is actually a fantastic epic of political intrigue and war. The action may seem (relatively) sparse but what is there is excellent. My head kind of hurt near the end from trying to keep all the names and the plots twists and turns straight through the brisk subtitles, but it was worth it. Sonny Chiba has a small but memorable part, and all of the performances are just great. Be wary of reviews before you watch it though, some of the ones I saw on amazon and imdb would have kind of spoiled it had I read them before watching the film.

The Black Cobra (Cobra Nero) Trilogy - average 5.5/10
Typical super-low budget Italian (/Filipino) 80s cop movie blacksploitation schlock, if there is such a thing.
The movies individually-
1. Barely qualifies as "so bad it's good". Ploddingly paced and terribly acted, with a boring plot that would disappear if you turned it sideways. Only watch this if you're a big
Fred Williamson fan. Or just really like seeing guys on dirt bikes with leather jackets try their hardest to look like Schwarzenegger.
2. This could have almost been a halfway decent 80s cop movie had it had better direction, writing and a slightly larger budget. The two leads actually have a lot of chemistry and it's too bad they didn't team up again for the third entry. This is still a really bad movie make no mistake, but it's good fun. Definitely the best of the three.
3. Better action than the other two (though that's not saying a lot) but the acting is almost as bad as the first.
The most interesting thing about this one is the plot, wherein one of our heroes major goals is to suppress information on the USA's wrongdoing in breaking treaties and international codes by supplying weapons to terro- er, "rebels fighting for democracy all over the world". I'm surprised the government hasn't yet funded a movie that is to wikileaks what this one is to the Contra scandal.

Ninja Wars (Black Magic Wars) 6.5/10
Weird, just... weird man. Well made, but definitely one of the stranger films I've ever seen. Apparently head transplants just mix the personalities of the transplantee's.
Who knew amirite?

Some truly beautiful cinematography makes me give it at least a point higher than I would have. Most of the villains ham it up (while remaining gruesome make no mistake) but the other actors turn in good performances, especially for such a bizarre story.

Is that what they call it in Australia?

Not every woman who's husband is going to Iraq (or man who's wife is going to Iraq for that matter, not to mention boyfriends/girlfiends) saw what appeared to be their significant other getting killed in action over a year ago, only to have that person come back to them after all that suffering and then choose to put themselves back in danger. Sally's character developed and acted realistically with the things that happened. Ian just turned her into a flat, boring and 2 dimensional "action girl" character which she never was in the first place. Because as he once said in a blog titled "The Perfect Princess?" "Sally is good in just about everything." Well written characters are not perfect.

If you think that a fictional relationship is worth tottally changing everything about the characters until they're completely different except in name and physical appearance, and to the point that it makes no sense in the story that they would suddenly act that way. Well, I'd just have to ask how you can care about said relationship but not the individuals nor the story they are in.

Oh it does does it? You're right, I'm sure Ian has no say whatsoever in who works on the comic. Lord knows if his opinions carried any weight they'd have given him an important position like head wri- oh wait. And I know you sucked up but didn't get the job because he doesn't have editorial control and your backgrounds or perspective needed too much work to be accepted by the guy who was actually the editor.
The comics industry is rife with cronyism, I'm sure Ian can and has put in a good word for his friends/followers, like say Herms and Yardley, both of whom he knew IIRC. And I'm sure, judging from what I've seen of his sneaky nature, letting people on his board (including his wife) verbally abuse and harass any major critics so his public image stays clean, that he does or would do the opposite to his critics.