Monday, December 7, 2009

Of Balls and Men


MD Geist is on the TV right now. Its dubbed, but the dubbing crew didn't feel it necessary to subtitle any of the numerous expository texts at the beginning of the movie, so, no idea what's going on. Guts be flyin', and robots be blowin' up... but there's a wicked 80's soundtrack goin' on, and that's all that really matters.

Oh, and the main character just spoke. He sounds like an 18 year old kid doing a Barry White impersonation. Awesome.

This blog has been awfully sleepy lately. Black Friday crushed my soul. Apologies.

But this week, I finally saw something worth blogging about: Robin Williams' stand-up. Vegas was his last stop on his Weapons of Self-Destruction tour. Well, he was scheduled for Vegas like a year ago September, but emergency surgery postponed the act till now.

The good news is that the man is still funny after all these years. Worth noting, however, its a different kind of funny. His delivery is something a bit more like Lewis Black than old Robin Williams. The manic, hectic running about the stage has faded with Williams' coke problem. Now he's more political, but the jokes are a bit dated... its a really strange act in some ways. I never thought I'd hear Robin Williams say 'dude', as in "what the fuck, dude?" But he says it a lot. Dude?

But after a few, he's back on the body humor, comparing scrotums to turkey necks and getting a good laugh from the lowest common denominator.

Aw, hell, its good dirty fun. The man's far past his prime, but the show's still a lot of fun.



In other news, I was reminiscing about Planetnamek.com this evening. That DBZ fansite is long gone, but I do remember fondly how I wasted the hours away, obsessively absorbing the Dragonball universe, laughing at all the arguments about arbitrary power numbers... hell, Planet Namek is how I got my first writing gigs.

Well, little did I know that they've been making new Dragonball lately. Kinda.

In 2008, and never scheduled to release stateside, came a Dragonball reunion show, marking the 10 year anniversary of the show's completion. It takes place between DBZ and DBGT, and is pretty well put together, more on the comedy side than the faux drama of DBZ. Despite being a present for Japan only, the whole thing is on Youtube. Enjoy.

In addition, someone out there in the world heard my ideas for one of my dream projects. I love Dragonball Z, but its so long, and repetitive. The comic book its based on is very fast-paced. But the show, pacing itself to not outrace the comic, is loaded with filler fluff material.
I've often wanted to go back and edit out the filler to make the show worth rewatching, but now i don't have to.
Dragonball Kai is the original show, but sliced down so that the filler is gone. Its also getting the HD treatment, and is being converted to widescreen. Some new animation was made to replace scenes that weren't up to snuff.
The original 291 episode run is being converted down to 100 episodes, which sounds about perfect. No word on whether or not this 'director's cut' will still include Buu, but its a good idea regardless. If I ever buy a DBZ animated collection, it'll be the Kai version. Who's got 145 hours to watch the show? 50? more doable.

Dragonball, now with 66% less standing and screaming. Check out that opening sequence up there!

We gotta powa! Afterall...

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