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As some of you may already know, I’ve been reviewing the top 100 pop songs of 2010 over on my forum. Well, I’m finally at #1 and I thought I’d do something special for it. I made a video review of the song.

Watch it on Youtube

Trigun: Badlands Rumble is an animated movie based on the Trigun series that was originally based on a manga by the same title. If you’ve never seen Trigun, well, why are you reading this review? Seriously. Go watch it. It’s a series that’s set on a desert planet (named Gunsmoke) and is a bit like the old west. It’s main focus is on a man named Vash the Stampede, who has a $$60 billion reward on his head and is nicknamed “The Humanoid Typhoon” for the complete eradication of a town. It turns out, though, that Vash is not as devious as the most wanted posters would have you believe. The series is full of comedy and action and will definitely keep you hooked until the end.

With that said, the original animated series ran in 1998 for 26 episodes. Most of us that watched and loved Trigun were begging for more. Then we heard rumors that a Trigun movie was going to be made. So we were excited. And we waited, and waited. But no news came. Slowly we forgot all about Trigun’s movie and the series itself sort of slipped into the back of our minds as something we enjoyed but it was time to move on. Until 2010.

BAM! The Trigun movie, Badlands Rumble, came out of NOWHERE! Lord knows I didn’t know anything about it until I saw a news article for it being released on DVD/Blu-ray in Japan. But there it is. Turns out it was released in theaters (in Japan) on April of 2010 and on DVD/Blu-Ray on December 15. FUNimation has gotten the rights to dub and release it here in the States, so if you’re not keen on the Japanese version just hang in there a bit longer and perhaps you’ll see it too.

Now then, with the basic intro of it all, let’s get right down to the review. Was it good? Bad? Did it keep with how Trigun was in `98?

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Iron Man 2 is the second installment of the Marvel comic book film that follows Tony Stark as Iron Man. This film fits as part of the newer “Marvel Cinematic Universe” in which multiple Marvel films are related and interconnected (leading up to an Avengers film). Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey Jr., who reprises his role as Tony Stark. In cinematic canon, it takes place six months after Iron Man [2008], and directly before The Incredible Hulk [2008]. But how does this film hold up to the first (which I haven’t officially reviewed on here yet but absolutely loved)? Let’s take a look.
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The Leprechaun is back for his 5th film, entitled Leprechaun in the Hood. In the last film he went to SPACE! Can they top it? Let’s find out!
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Well, after some technical issues I have finally seen the classic film Casablanca. This film is considered one of, if not the most, classical films ever made. The film was released in 1942 and was directed by Michael Curtiz. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid and features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Is this film really as classic as everyone always says? Let’s take a glimpse at it and see.

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Viva Maria! is a 1965 comedy-adventure film starring Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau as two women both named Marie (they later become referred to as “Maria”) who meet and become revolutionaries in the early twentieth century. The film is mostly in French with some Spanish, a bit of Dutch and very little English (thanks Kuro for not informing me of this :P).
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Desperado is a bit of an old one (1995) by Robert Rodriguez starring Antonio Bandaras. I’ve seen it a good number of times but have never reviewed it before. Since I rewatched it last night I figure this is the best time to do so..

Plot
“I’m looking for a man, calls himself Bucho.”

The movie starts with a sleezy looking bar where a man named Buscemi (played by Steve Buscemi) recounts a tale of “the biggest Mexican I have ever seen” and how he basically goes on a murderous rampage, killing everyone in search of information about a man named Bucho. Buscemi then leaves, warning that the man is on his way to town.

It turns out that the man is a Mariachi who is looking for vengeance. If you’ve ever seen “El Mariachi” then you already know why as this is a direct sequel to that film. If you haven’t, basically the Mariachi gets mixed up with a killer by a drug lord and is chased all around town. Eventually he’s captured and, well, the Mariachi sums up what happens to him with this line: “They killed the woman I loved and ruined my life.” Oh and he got a huge hole in his hand. Now he’s hunting down all the drug lords and is down to his final one: Bucho.

The film is basically just him killing as many bad guys as he can as he tries to draw out and get closer to Bucho. Eventually he’s injured and is taken care of by Carolina (Selma Hayek). She gets involved and it all leads up to the final confrontation.

The Good
+ Lots of action, if you’re into that sort of thing
+ I enjoyed the music a lot in this film (“Strange Face of Love” is an awesome song to me and one of my favorites still)
+ A decent twist happens towards the end
+ There’s a cameo appearance by the guy who played El Mariachi in the first film (he plays Campa)
+ There’s quite a bit of humor in this film, mostly around Bucho and his dealings with his henchmen.

The Bad
+ The plot iiiiiiiiiiis a little thin. It literally is a bang-em-up, shoot-em-up type film.
+ The romance subplot isn’t really believable at all but I wouldn’t expect it to in this kind of film
+ This film can seem a little cartoonish at times. I mean, how many times can 20 henchmen shoot at the Mariachi and miss him when they’re using freakin machine guns?! There’s parts where he’s literally just walking and bullets are shooting everywhere around him but seem to constantly miss him.

What The?
+ What’s the point of having Quentin Tarantino in this film again?? I mean, his character. I know Tarantino and Rodriguez are BFFs and all, but the character he plays doesn’t really serve any point other than to tell a joke and to show something we already know (the bar is corrupt and does backdoor dealings).

Overall, I really like this film. If you can turn your brain off and can enjoy mindless violence, shootouts and crazy crap going on then it’s awesome. If you CAN’T do that, and you’re an overly analytical person and can’t get past some of the cartoonish aspect of it all, you’ll probably hate it. For me, I’ll give it 4 out of 5 just because it still makes me laugh with its humor, makes songs stuck in my head with its music and I just enjoy the senseless shootouts.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a fantasy adventure film released this year that is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Jon Turteltaub, and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It’s basically the same team that did the National Treasure franchise. Parts of the story are loosely based on the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment in Disney’s Fantasia, which in turn is based on the late 1890s symphonic poem by Paul Dukas and the 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ballad.

I have to be honest here. When I saw the trailer for this movie I thought “this looks awful” but I had a few friends of mine tell me that I’d be surprised if I went and saw it. So yesterday Bri and I decided to see it yesterday for $1.50 each (dollar theater raised the price lol).

How was it? Let me tell you..

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Furuhata Chugakusei is a Japanese drama “special” that runs about an hour and a half long. It’s technically a prequel of a J-drama tv show called “Furuhata Ninzaburo” which had three seasons. The TV show is about a detective named Ninzaburo Furuhata who must solve ingenious crimes and outwit elusive criminals without the use of violence or weapons. But that might be for a different review. For now, let’s take a look at this special.

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Fear of Clowns is a fairly low budget film (but not as low as Mr. Jingles) written by a guy who wants to create a classic icon on the same level as Freddy Kreuger, Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees. Did he succeed? Let’s break down Fear of Clowns and find out!

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