X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Der Readers, I finally had some time to go to the cinema again and watched X-Men: Dark Phoenix before it gets taken out of projection.
If you want to hear my honest opinion, I wouldn't say it is totally worth it and a must-watch movie. It has his interesting sides but it can't compete with a few more movies that came out around the same time. That doesn't make it a B-movie, but sure is if you can choose among a wide range of options, you will pick another movie instead of this.
Additional information about myself is that I am not too fond of the X-Men world. For this reason might be that some details have not been recognized by me while watching the movie as I don't know the whole background story.
The plot is simple:
X-Men troup goes out in space to save a human spaceship which lost control orbiting around some energy field. Hearing what the X-Men say, this is the first time they go out in space, and nonetheless they go to save some humans before even having done tests if they and their technology are able to survive out there.
Trying to save everyone, Jean gets exposed to the energy, absorbing it in herself to avoid the explosion.
Mission complete. Everyone safe.
But, is it really safe for Jean to have all that new unknown energy in herself? Can she control it?
Answered soon enough: no. She can't really control this much power, gets scared and runs away. Meanwhile, an unidentified number of aliens reaches Earth and plans to get rid of all humans and inherit the planet. They felt the presence of the most powerful creature of Earth and plan to convince her to help them get rid of the humans, or maybe just absorb the power from her.
Jean is scared as she by accident hurts her friends, even killing one of the X-Men by accident. And this leads to a break between the X-Men themselves. Some want to take her down and get revenge, labeling her as dangerous and uncontrolled. The other half wants to take her back, bringing her back to the family accepting the powers or eventually find a way to get rid of them for good.
The two groups clash but eventually come back together when they discover the aliens' plan. They somehow avoid that the alien leader absorbs all Jean's power, fighting them untill Jean herself finds the best way to win and leave heart and its inhabitants in peace. An heroic move, but it brings sadness to the whole group of X-Men, especially Xavier and moreover Scott.

If it weren't the X-Men, but any random group of unknown superheroes created just for the movie, the movie would still be enjoyable. Maybe more enjoyable as you don't expect anything too great from that than entertainment.
I was probably expecting too much. It is a Marvel branded movie, automatically lots of other productions involved.
The plot is simple enough that anyone can enjoy the movie without any previous knowledge. Which is a good thing.
I found it lacking of introspection and development for the characters. The only character that has some kind of development is Xavier, who realizes how selfish he has actually been while convincing himself he is doing what he is doing for the others. The idea of what is right or wrong is very subjective. And lies told with good intentions might have to be revealed eventually before it is too late or they get uncovered by accident.
He probably was right at the beginning of his journey, but his school and programs got so big that he has to revise his doings and his way of thinking. What he drastically does in the end of the movie.
I watched the movie in "standard", which is how German theaters label the non 3D movies. I just don't enjoy the 3D part, it makes the images in front of my eyes loud and distracting. I want to concentrate on the photography and acting skills.
Since I lack the comparison with the 3D version, I am just hoping the cheap sfx of the 2D version are because they invested more money to make the 3D version look decent. Especially the thunders coming out from Storm's hands looked very cheap made in my opinion. Many computer effects, post effects and little details looked less impressive than what I am used to. All those big names on the screen before it starts, and low investing into production. Interesting.
I have been questioning myself about the death of some charachters, and also got curious if the movie storyline alignes with the comicbooks or has its own storyline growing parallel.

To know more about what I found out with my researches and my opinions on the other aspects if the movie, consider joining my Patreon for further articles and a longer review of the movies I watched. Thank you!

A nerdy selfcelebration

Not sure if I was what you would call “nerdy” during school time. Sure thing is, I had interests that were popular among a number of students but not among everyone. And I kept myself a bit out of the big lights, enjoying my freetime to do stuff I liked more.
I had average marks in all subjects, and a few top marks in subjects like Arts, English, Informatics and History. I even got top marks in Italian and Literature every now and then.
I really enjoyed learning how to analyse and compare with each other different works. Art pieces as well as literature pieces. And I started pretty young making my own websites and stuff like that.
My nerdy side was reading comics and playing boardgames, cardgames, videogames... Nothing too original, most teenagers do that don’t they?
Being so enthusiastic about that, I attended a comic art drawing school, applied for a study program in Japan and after high school enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts.
Here is where I got to learn a lot of different things, or don’t learn things you were supposed to (Thank you, professors, for not showing up for classes. Really, this changed the life of all your students. Really helped us a lot in our future careers. T_T). And when and where I started to have discussions about comics systematically.
To the point, I presented a comic’s analysis as my final work paper for my Bachelor.
I already was famous for picking comics as a theme for every exam I had to make papers or presentations, so nothing unexpected.
I applied what I learnt in high school during art class and literature class. You know. You can “read a picture” or “comment an artwork” and you can analyse a text or poetry. So I did all these things to comic books and related them to the historical time they have been published and even interviewed the authors if it was possible (for contemporary titles, of course).
It has been a real productive time, I got invitations for lots of local comics related events and asked to be a speaker or a moderator in conferences or discussions about comics. I wrote articles and updated a few blogs. And I was barely 20.
A few times I got people stop me on the streets to greet me because they saw me at a conference speaking or they followed my blogs. That was so cute!

I feel a bit nostalgic. And I feel I need to state this as a curriculum so that people know why am I so friendly and give opinions about things. It is not just because I can’t keep my mouth shut but.....it is because my opinions and point-outs can be really helpful for artists or for readers.

This is why I leave comments on webcomic platforms or make a few posts on this blog or facebook or instagram or twitter. I need to share that bit of knowledge I have and am able to combine and apply in different fields and new titles, I so want to share it and just can´t keep mouth shut.
So dear readers, happy readings! And please always try to see what is behind the “check out this story” or “look how beautyful the art is”. There are so many things playing together in a comic or in any other piece. You maybe just need to adjust your point of view or maybe need a few hints. And here I come with all my suggestions and relationships between titles that apparently have nothing in common!
I will be making a guide for my readers. Join me in this amazing trip!

Few thoughts about new comic formats

It has been over a year that I am thinking about writing a long article about different comic formats, what I think about them and a general comparison of pros and contras that you can objectively see.
On one hand the time to do it throughly is missing and on another hand I probably need more readings of newer and current titles, and I am not the avid reader I used to be.
That said, my analysis might be missing something and I don`t like to write articles halfhearted unless it is something I really have an urge to yell out loud and now. And I have to communicate and share something about this topic right now.
My attention was caught on some social media, as the shared link was shared again and again till it reached my dashboard and I read it.
It is an article in Italian, originally published by the english version of a korean publisher, with the information that the article is Italian and talks about the said title.
What title? What publisher?
The article can be found here on wired.it and it is an interview done at Lucca Comics&Games 2017, few days ago.
The interviewed are Kooji, author of Killing Stalking (the title I was talking about), and an editor of Lezhin Comics (the webcomic publisher of the said title).

What really took my attention was that everyone was so fired up that “Italy is the first country ever to publish this title on paper in a book version”. So the author as well as the publishing company were skeptical about the results but once they saw the draft adaption of the book they accepted.
I do prefer paper over digital, still. But I have to tell I DO read webcomics on my mobile phone while going to work or coming back from work, the mobile phone fits in my hand and I have it with me anyway, no need to bring a book with me making my bag extra heavy. With the risk, I won’t even open the book and carry extra weight for nothing. So I see so many positive things on reading on mobile phone! Comic books keep piling up at home and I don’t get a chance to read them. I DO buy them, but I DO NOT read them.
What is it wrong with that!?
Answer is simple: I don`t carry them around and at home I have so much housework that needs to be done before I can gain those 15 minutes for myself to read something. Or I need to lighten up the book correctly if I want to read books in bed before sleeping. The mobile phone lighten ups itself and I don`t need anything else than just it for my readings.

Now, do comics on paper work as comics on mobile devices?
Of course you can find .pdf or scans version of paper comics and read them on your mobile device (there are both legal and illegal options for that) and a lot of artists publish their online comics following the set of mind and organize the work as you would when you work on a paper page-after-page version of your comic. This still works as everyone still knows how to read a comic book and it still is easy to adjust to this hybrid version. But. Webcomics, also called webtoons, have the component of dynamic as you let the images scroll down and you don`t turn any page. So the mindset that the author uses (or should use) is slightly different than working on a comic book.

Translating a webtoon into a comic book seems a legit action today, but will soon be pretty blasphemous in my opinion. Why? Well, would you ever try to “translate” a statue into a paint?
You can surely make a paint or a picture of that said statue, but you can`t translate it into a picture.

Today it propably still doesn`t feel like this new comic format is so different from the classic comics format. But I feel it already, it has its own grammar and words and we all gotta learn them to communicate using this form of media.
No worries: it was the same when comic grew from strips into comic books. Wasn`t it?

P.S.: Just to let you know: I did buy the comic version of the korean webtoon “NOBLESSE” in Japanese, when I was in Japan. I am a collector and I needed to have something I can hold onto. And I also have to say you can notice the change of grammar and words in this serie as it goes on. At the beginning the translation into comic book works great, the webtoon itself is still in the comic book mindset. But look up the newer chapters: would you be able to do a good job translating them into books? I probably have to make a trip to Japan again and check the new released books. LOL

That`s all, folks.

Fifty shades of laugh about the worst movie.

I really wanted to share this video with everyone. The movie 50 shades of Grey is not worth being watched at all. But this 18 minutes short video is totally worth watching and laughing along.

The movie is so absurd and I can´t get why people are still crazy about it. I keep hearing colleagues at work talking about it and a bunch of aquaitances can´t wait to watch the follow movies. I don´t think I will watch the other two movies, and I already feel ashamed I agreed with a friend to watch the first part that day I did. I expected it to be bad. But I didn´t expect it to be it to that extent.

Worst movie I ever watched? Guess so.



Now please enjoy this video:

Everything Wrong With Fifty Shades Of Grey In 18 Minutes Or Less






If you still feel like wanting to watch it, here is a link to grab it on amazon.

Tennis, Ballerinas, Dylan and more

I just came back from vacation as I have to work again tomorrow.
During my 10 days off we had many nice opportunities. So we gave it a try. I took my little Princess to the tennis school I once went to when I was little. I was way older than her, so the plan was only looking at other kids playing. Once we got there, she was like "I wanna join those kids", so I asked the teachers and they made her join the activities. She is still younger than the accepted age but they made an exception. It was fun to look at her play with that tiny tennis racket.

The Princess also had her first time at the cinema. We went to watch Ballerina.
It is a French-Canadian movie that came out in February that none of us had seen by the time. I briefly googled it before buying the tickets, just to be sure it really would tell us a story about some dancer and I found out a few more information. When I showed the trailer to the Princess, she was like "I wanna go to cinema!" and I took her.
The movie was very enjoyable. Good animations, nice scripts, great direction and a lot of fun especially for the guardians of the children. The story is easy enough for the kids to follow, and there are many scenes that result very funny for older public. I appreciated this a lot since the parents need to entertain themselves too while taking the kids to the cinema!
I remember my father sleeping when he took me and my siblings to watch Pokemon! I am glad I had no reasons to fall asleep during this one :D
Simple story: two orphans decide to leave their stay to find fortune and fullfill their dreams in Paris. The girl wants to become a ballett dancer and the boy wants to be an inventor. They both somehow make it. The movie goes about the ups and dows, plus envy of the rich girl who was born and raised by her mother only to be a ballerina, another boy who wants to win the heart of the girl and some friendships and parentig relationships evelopments.
A great movie for kids and, as said, very enjoyable for the parents too. Really, me and the mommy next to me were dying from laughter!
What I wasn´t completely satisfied with, is the Italian dubbing. Italy is famous for having the oldest school of dubbers, being the best dubbing country ever. So, what happened!?
Someone had an amazing idea: one of the main charachter being dubbed from a real Italian ballerina. So Eleonora Abbagnato, great dancer and director of the Theatre in Rome, dubbed Odette. Which was very real when she explained all the dancing steps and amazing when the charachter spoke while seen from the back or not seen at all...but unfortunately very poor while you saw the mouth moving. I think she really practiced a lot, but still the synchronizing part didn´t work out so smooth and the voice was too stiff. It sounded like those automated responders with a registered message. I felt sorry for that, since it was a very nice idea to have her in the casting.
And I wasn´t very satisfied with the choice of who dubs Rudolph and how. Rudy is a Russian ballet dancer who came to Paris because of his skills. Would have been fun to have him speak with a bit of accent. Not a clichee one but like slighlty noticing he might not come from around the corner.
Probably I am too demanding, but I spent a lot of time watching Duck Tales (the old serie) with the Princess and it has such a fine and amazing dubbing that I feel too spoiled for any other dubbing.

If you haven´t watched it, grab a copy on amazon:

 

An update about comics.
Planet Manga is publishing Lupin III from volume 1. It was in stores this month so I just bought it. I am not sure if I ever bought it before (I am pretty sure it was published before) but I don´t remember ever reading it so I decided I should at least read the volume one. I am curious to know how the story is taken care of in its comic version, as I have grown up watching the cartoon.
Bonelli Editore has done its first crossover ever. Dylan Dog and Dampyr are together in one story. The story begins on Dylan Dog 371 and ends in Dampyr 209. Both comics are on sale in August and have two different covers that, put next to each other, will give you the whole illustration. I bought them all four and will be posting the picture of them together later today on my instagram, so be sure to check it out.