Movie Reviews: Drive
by Mike Agnew Jr.
When I first saw the trailer for this movie I thought, "Oh look they made Transporter 4 without Handsome Rob." The opening scene of the movie fulfilled my prophecy. The Drive(r), played by Ryan I'm-fun-to-look-at Gosling, explains his ground rules, meets the clunky, disorganized robbers, and then does what he does best, drives. However, after this opening sequence, the film leaves the Transporter genre and enters down a road of its own; pun intended. Unlike the Transporter movies, of which I do love the first in the series, Drive dishes out chases scenes that are believable and obey the physics of a car. I should also point out that the movie is not one long chase scene *cough*Ronin*cough*, but actually digs pretty deep with a story that will keep your significant other guessing the outcome through most of the movie. A good chunk of this movie is spent in silence as Ryan I-am-so-good-looking-that-I-can-break-up-with-Rachel-McAdams Gosling looks off into the distance, smiles, looks back, stops smiling, and then turns again to reveal another heart-warming smil.....I'm sorry what were we talking about. Oh right, the silence. Yes, the Earth is to Water as the Dialogue of Drive is to Silence. But it works. And, actually, it's a bit fun. It makes me want to try it out in real life. When someone asks me something, I will just look at them and smile without acknowledging anything they just said and see what they do. The silent treatment leaves you to hanging on Ryan Your-Girlfriend-thinks-about-me-more-than-she-thinks-about-you Gosling's every syllable. All in all it was fun movie with the title font of a Lethal Weapon, the music of a foreign french film, and the graphic fight scenes a la the Departed. Drive gets a B+ for it's unexpected twists, turns, and frequent lane changes.
Movie Reviews: A Story of Two Adams
by Mike Agnew Jr.It's been a while since I've written anything on Agnew's Mind. I guess the Jon and Agnew show has been a good enough to get most things off my chest. This MLK Jr. weekend has been nice and relaxing. I've been cooking and cleaning and been the perfect house wife for myself. In between the chores I have treated myself to a few films. The two I watched today were Real Steel and 50/50.
REAL STEEL
Real Steel, in case you can't tell from the movie poster, is about boxing robots. The best part about this movie is that it never tries to be something it's not, at least until the end, but I will get to that later. If you have seen the trailer for this movie then you already know the ending. Basically Wolverine is wagering has been who owes people a lot of money. He used to date Kate from LOST but she moved on, or so it seems, since he started gambling his life away. Enter little Anakin Skywalker, ok so it's not the same kid but I swear they cloned him. The young Jedi has a knack for training robots and so the two pair up to train an older generation boxing robot named, Atom. (I thought the robots name was Adam until they spelled it later in the movie almost making a point that everyone watching also thought his name was Adam.) Fill in a montage here and there and throw in some bonding moments for Logan and Annie and you have a big chunk of the movie. One thing I think needed to be addressed was the fact that these robots could malfunction and crush their human counterparts. Most of the movie I waited for the robot's eyes to change from blue to red and go into destruction mode. When it didn't happen I found myself wishing it would. The main villains are never really developed so who knows why they do what they do. Then you get to the end of the movie which is the only part that resembles a Rocky movie because it's taken straight from Rocky 1 and 4. But something is missing. The emotion. They fill in the emotion in this drawn out slow motion moment where everyone sheds a single tear. It's weak. So weak that I dropped the movie down to a C- just because of that scene alone. That and the fact that little Annie lets out a Phantom Menace "Yahooo" at the end. My recommendation would be to wait for some little cousin or friend's kid to ask you to watch this movie. I think with a kid's perspective the movie would be much more enjoyable. Wolverine with ROBOTS! If you watch this alone and have seen a boxing movie before be prepared to experience some deja vu. A sequel is planned for 2014. Get ready for robots running in the snow. C-
50/50
Fifty-Fifty is a movie about Seth Rogan's friend, Adam, who gets diagnosed with cancer. I remember seeing the trailer for this movie. It had pre-preview segment with Seth, Adam, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt( 3rd Rock, Inception) who plays Adam in the movie. This part was so memorable because (the real) Adam finishs the clip with, "Watch the movie and see if I live or die." This is the tone throughout the movie; a serious life challenge surrounded by comedic light-heartedness. This is exactly how I like my movies, emotional and real. If you have seen (500) days of summer, this movie is somewhat similar. I won't tell you what happens in the end but I will tell you a few things. You will cry. You will laugh. You will say out loud, "Oh what a b*tch!" at one point. You will stand up and cheer at another. Be ready for many realistic life lessons. It's not a downer of a movie but it is a movie about cancer and anyone who has been close to the disease will probably be vouching for the validity of many of the scenes. By the end of this movie my face hurt from laughing and crying so often. Some of the Seth Rogan jokes are quite raunchy but they actually lighten up as the movie progresses. I give it an A- because it's just a really great movie. I may watch it again at a later time. Until then, it will be on my shelf next toa copy of My Life. I suggest watching this with someone who you don't mind crying in front of on a night where you can watch without laptop and cell phone distractions. A-
Goodbye HDMI
by Mike Agnew Jr.Technology has always been an elusive being. Much like a child throwing a temper tantrum in an isle of Toys R Us, we try to hold on but it always manages to slip through our fingers. When the big HD craze came around, it was the first real innovation in television. First, you bought an HDTV and you were the cool guy on your block for all of 5 minutes because the Hendersons next door just got a Widescreen HD. Then it became a matter of size. People went for "the bigger the better". Then you had to upgrade to 1080I, then 720P, then 1080P, then LCD and Plasma and LED and Backlighting and True Color and pixels per square inch and lumens and...
Who cares? really. Most of you won't see the difference. And with 3D TVs, I couldn't care less. I see it as a gimmick and the wrong direction for TV to go. But the other day I was reading an article about a new standard that will replace the HDMI cable you dropped $30 bucks at Best Buy for even though it's a $3 cable.
This new standard is nothing to laugh at. In fact, it will probably make most of our parents feel like grandparents as they try to understand. The new standard is called HDBase_T. It runs on the ethernet cable you already own. (Cat5e/6)
"Agnew, whats so great about that?"
Well, I will tell you. It not only provides video but power to your HD TV. And not just one video but all your video, all your audio and even your internet connection over one cable. That means the back of your beautifully polished, wafer-thin TV will run on one cable. No more rats nests or conduits in the walls. Just a simple Ethernet cable you already own. Pretty cool.
Find out more at http://www.hdbaset.org/
And if you though HD was at the peak, I heard SuperHD comes out next year. HA.
I own an Xbox 360 and You Should Too.
by Mike Agnew Jr.Growing up there was always a huge gap in my video game system lineup. It was either Christmas of '88 or '89 when I was blessed with the original Nintendo power set which included the powerpad and zapper. My house was filled with the repeating Super Mario Brother's theme throught the holiday season. I was also the only kid on the block with the power pad and that made my house the place to be. I even charged girls kisses to give it a go at World Class Track Meet. My original NES taught me about business, popularity, and that I was the fastest man alive. But all that would soon fade. 
Soon 16-bit systems became all the rage. Sure, Game Genie helped me breathe new life into the console but, even that, would lose it's luster and die.
A classic story: I had my NES on for about a week straight. I was playing Zelda with GameGenie and had several cheats turned on to be sure I would finally see the ending of the game. In Zelda you can only save when you die. It was the first game to have this save feature. However, since the cheats were on I could not die and, hence, could not turn off the system. I had finally made it to Death Mountain on a nice summer day. Jon was over and getting bored of watching me play video games. He decided to check out my baseball card collection. As he crossed in front of me, his foot caught the controller cord. It all happened in super slow mo. Jon landed hard on the floor. I was also yanked forward and fell to the right. We both looked up at the same time to see a flashing screen. Between the flickers of black and green screens we could see our hero, Link, about to walk through the doorway to face the final boss, Gannon. He would never get there, though. Stuck in that spot for all eternity, a cartridge glitch hell. I leaned over and released him from his pain. Once the system was off I realized that the NES would never be the same again. I still tell this story to the children of my town who run around carefree with their wireless controllers and Digital game DVDs. That, my friends, is how my Nintendo died. It would be 5 long years before I would eventually face that doorway again this time for real, with no cheats. As the goblin guarding the door his precious meat, I bowed my head, said a little prayer, and pressed the up arrow. I would slay Gannon that day, but not without first remembering the horror of that day.
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It wasn't until I was in college that I owned my next system, a Nintendo Gamecube. I got it cheap and hacked the crap out it. It helped pass the time and was a big hit senior year among my roommates. Post Graduation, I fell victim to getting a Wii and a stack of gamecube games never finished. I bought it on whim while returning a printer to best buy. I thought everyone was just waiting for the store to open. Once I realized I was in line for a Wii, I figured what the hell. This brings me up to last summer when I bought an Xbox 360. Now I bought the system for one reason and one reason only: Batman Arkham Asylum. It was worth every penny.
Since I now had the Xbox I also went onto Amazon.com and bought a bunch of old games for $5-$10 bucks each. Two games I would definitely invest in is Crackdown and the Orange Box. In Crackdown you play a superhuman cop who "cracks down" on the gangs and mobsters that live in his city. It's kind of a mix between Spiderman and Grand Theft Auto. Orange Box is actually 4 games in 1: Half Life 2.0 and 2.1, Team Deathmatch, and game called Portal. Portal was just kinda tacked on at the end, but it is by far the best game in the pack. Portal gives you a gun that....aw hell just watch...
Well the Xbox has been a great investment for me. I use it as a media hub for watching downloaded movies and TV, streaming Netflix movies right to my TV, listening to music on last.fm, checking facebook, and even downloading new game demos. The Xbox will soon be coming out with its new Kenect system that is like Wii without controllers, plus voice and face recognition, so basically big brother in your living room. Jon, I have posted the only video that matters to you concerning Kenect, lightsabers. They also just released two new models of a "slimmer" Xbox 360, a 250 gig model for $299 and one with 4 gig of internal memory for $199.
But the real reason to get one is because there is both a Batman Sequel (Christmas maybe) and a Portal Sequel (Feb 2011)coming soon. Once you get on Xbox Live, my Gamertag, as always, is BigRedSign. See you there.
P.S. - To all the PS3 fanboys...your system is cool too, but I chose XBOX.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
by Mike Agnew Jr.A few weeks ago, after watching Avatar: The Smurf Ferngully, Amanda and I found this original Avatar cartoon on Netflix. I say original because it ran during 2004-2008 whereas Avatar just came out in 2009. But, I'm sure James Cameron would put up a fuss that he thought of it first. Whatever. He can have it. He'll never let go. Anyway, we are not talking about tribal people with plug and play dreads. We are talking about the Last Air Bender. I had heard of this TV show before but wrote it off as another Pokemon/YuGiOh regurgitated kid-hypnotizing crap. I could not have been more wrong.
From the first episode I was hooked. Here's the gist of the story.
Sokka, Katara, Aang, and Prince Zuko
Avatar starts off as many stories do. There is great unrest and a chosen leader is born and must lead the people of the world to rise up and overthrow a great evil. Avatar takes place in a world that is split into 4 different nations: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Goooo Planet! But before you go looking for 
Matee and his useless heart power ring, this show is no Captain Planet remake. There is a power called "bending" that allows the people of these different lands to control their elements. It is also important to note that not everyone has these powers. It is just a random occurrence in the different tribes. This bending power is awesome, it really is. Sure, it starts off with throwing rocks and balls of water but as the characters learn and train, their bending becomes way more advanced. Take water bending for instance. Sure, you can move water but what about freezing someone running at you in mid-step? And how much water is in your body? What would happen if a water bender started to bend the water inside you? I like to think of myself as a creative person but some of the inventive bends even made me go, "I would never have thought to do that. Even the Green Lantern would have been put to shame.
Avatar State = Run Away
As far as the writing goes, we all know that no show can compare to LOST, (this has been scientifically proven) but Avatar definitely has a very LOST-like/Star Wars-like storyline. The main character, Aang (sounded out Fran Lang), is a young boy who, as the Avatar, is destined to bring balance to the force. As the Avatar he is the only that has the power to bend all 4 elements. Each season of the show, referred to as Books, cover Aang's journey to learn and master these abilities.
Although the show is named after the Avatar, he is not the main character. No one really is. It would be like saying Captain Kirk is the main character of Star Trek or Jack is the main character of LOST. We root for who we root for. And like LOST, each character has their own back-story, some even with their own flashbacks. The stories come together by the end of the 3 book series very nicely. Along the way, there are many twists and turns and just when you think you have got the story figured out, you will be wrong.
Right now all 3 Books of Avatar are available on Netflix and Netflix on Demand. I give them 5 out of 5 stars.
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The poster and previews got me excited to see the movie. An 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes did not.
Now, there is a movie that has been released called the M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Air Bender that is supposed to be based on the cartoon series. Yea... right! This movie is based on the cartoon like a Steak and Cheese Sub is based on a Philly Cheesesteak. M. Night took something that was great and original and desecrated it. This post could be pages long if I felt like getting into everything wrong with this movie. Instead, I will just list them off and then address M. Night directly. All the characters names are pronounced wrong. All the dialogue is monotone and makes no sense. The movie is dark like Terminator and the Matrix. The humor is misplaced and trite. These are kids learning to fight not 4 Neo's stomping through bad guys. And what actually made me walk out on the movie, they exposed secrets, through narration, that should not be uncovered until the later books.
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Dear Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan(adingdong),
You gave us the Sixth Sense and for that, we thank you. It was a shocker and one of the first movies to have such a Planet of the Apes type twist at the end that we all rewound our VHS tapes to find what our eyes had missed the first time. But, you persisted and decided to make a genre for yourself. You wanted to be the reincarnation of the great Alfred Hitchcock. Well you, sir, are no Alfred Hitchcock. You have proven time and again that you are short-sighted to what the audience wants and, still, you drag them through the most boring and vain story-lines ever to hit the silver screen. You add your name to the title of movies like it's a gold star, like it has somehow ascended to your divine status. But again, I say to you... You are no Alfred Hitchcock. As your final twist you took a beloved and complete story and removed all the mystery and emotion. You stole the essence. You missed the point. But all is not lost. The Last Airbender, at least, took you down with it. You will never make another film, Mr Shyamalan, and I think you owe everyone an apology. Get out of my sight.
Mike Agnew, Jr.
DC University: Booster Gold
by Mike Agnew Jr.
Ahhh...Booster Gold....the T.O. of the superhero world. Well, let's not be that mean but you will see why I made the correlation.
Picture, if you will, the 25th Century. For the non-math majors out there, that is 4 centuries away or 400 years into the future. Thanks to technology, life has become a lot more livable. Most of the super-heros you know and love have died off, but they are still remembered by their descendants. In fact, there is a museum that honors their memory. This museum has different collectibles like batarangs, ice ray guns, and even statues of the original Justice League.
Now, for a quick background. Michael Jon Carter was born in Gotham City in the 25th century. He and his twin sister, Michelle, never knew their dad, a degenerate gambler, since he had left them after gambling away the families savings. Nice. Michael was a gifted sports star and even got a scholarship to Gotham University for football. He became the star of the team and was even nicknamed "Booster" after his amazing speed on the field. Re-enter his degenerate dad looking to leach off of his son's newfound fame. To make ends meet Michael worked the night shift at the Metropolis Space Museum which had a lot of the items described above. He spent most of his time studying the displays and became a bit obsessed with some of the heroes, especially those of the 20th centruy... how convienient. One night his oh-so-helpful father pressures Mike into throwing a game so he can make a bet and capitalize on it. This plan backfires and soon Mike becomes an outcast of the sports community and loses his scholarship. Basically, he goes into a Jack bender and decides to escape. He swipes a Legion flight ring and a force field belt from the displays at the museum. He and his secutiry robot pa , Skeets, hop in Rip Hunter's Time Machine (also on display) and travel back to the 1980s... because we all know that is where people from the future vacation to.
Rip Hunter's Time Machine
So, now Booster is back in the 80s with the hopes of becoming a superhero named Goldstar. At one point, he saves the President Ronald Reagan's life and, when he goes to introduce himself, slips up and says "Booster Gold".
Bromance
I always liked Booster Gold because he is constantly in a state of flux... is he in it for the fame and glory? Or is he in it to be a real superhero? Wherever he goes, comedy is sure to follow. There is a running joke in the DC universe where people call him "Buster" instead of "Booster". The banter between him and Skeets is also usually very funny. He hangs out with a lot of the B level characters like Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) and Elongated Man, like they are dorm room buddies. This becomes even more enjoyable when he is face ot face with one of the A-listers like Batman or Superman because he will always mumble his words, regret everything he said, then walk away wondering how foolish he had looked.
Martian Man Hunter and Batman evaluating the new recruit.
Getting wooped by Doomsday
One more important point I want to make is that Booster isn't always a push over or marketing whore. He has played some very key roles at big moments in DC's history. My favorite example is Doomsday, the guy who "killed" Superman. When Doomsday first showed up, climbing out the ground, Booster was the first to face him and, I have to say lasted longer, than Superman. Clark was off-world on some mission and was racing home once he heard the news. But it was Booster leading the charge and holding the line. He ended up getting his butt handed to him but if he had not been there Superman's parents, Martha and Jonathan, probably would have been killed as well.
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Booster had a episode all his own on Justice League Unlimited named "The Greatest Story Never Told"; the perfect title.
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Most recently the Booster Gold line of comics has been started again, this time with our Hero as kind of time line librarian. He attempts to go back and "set right which once went wrong" but fails horribly. If you have not read The Killing Joke yet, you should. It's one of the best events in DC History. Well, Booster tries to go back and stop the Joker. You will have to read to see what happens when he does.
DC University : The Spectre
by Mike Agnew Jr.Characters of the DC Universe fall into several categories: aliens, magicians, demons, time-travelers, etc. The Spectre falls into a very specific category only one other character shares (as far as I know). To be honest I just found this out in one of the recent comics I read. The other interesting point here is that comic book characters develop just like the stories. They grow and change and even have revelations from time to time. The Spectre is the perfect example of this because he has a few origins, many of them conflicting. This occurs a lot when writers want to resurrect stories and characters from the past. They sit around and try to think up some way to bring some minor character back into the picture and usually get scrutinized for it. But I digress, time to meet the Spectre.
He's Tan....like me
He is the wrath of God incarnate. See I told you, whole new category. Let's jump into the back story...the original back story. God is good. Devil builds up an army. The Devil revolts against God. Devil loses. God smites him. Yay God. As the story goes the Spectre was one of the angels that revolted with the devil but later repented. God punishes the Spectre by sending him to earth deal out judgment, which he carries out in a very poetic and sometimes completely misguided way. For instance, in the case of the pending execution of a wrongfully convicted man. His death sentence was commuted to life in prison after the Spectre threatened to kill the entire population of the state of New York in retribution, arguing that if the execution was carried out, the "people of the state of New York" would become guilty of murder in his eyes. For those of you who have read the bible or just the cliff notes, the angel of death that killed all the first born sons of Egypt....the Spectre....at least according to the DCU.
Hal Jordan as the Spectre
To balance this wrathiness, the Spectre has always been paired with a human host. Someone to say, "Hey you know wiping out New York is not such a good idea." You end up with a buddy system that makes situations very intense and confrontational as an internal debate ensues. Jim Corrigan, a murdered cop who decided to reject the afterlife, assumed the role of the Spectre for a very long time. He is the version of the Spectre we see as part of the JSA(Justice Society of America, a 1950's style Justice League). Later on his soul found rest and for a while the Spectre was on his own. At one point he was tricked into thinking that all the magic elements in the world were evil and had to pass judgment on them. I would say a good 50-60% of all magic characters were killed off in the chaos that was the Day of Vengeance. Soon the role was passed to one of my favorite characters, the late (at the time) Hal Jordan. After the Green Lantern went a little nuts and tried to rewrite the universe....yes...that's right. He eventually let his guard down and was killed by the Justice League (see Zero Hour). Hal was a cool host for the Spectre because he argued with the ridiculous totalitarian logic of the Spectre on almost every occasion.
To really get a feel for the Spectre you have to read all the big events, Infinite Crisis, Day of Vengence, Identity Crisis...there are a few more but the names escape me.
At one point he was labeled as too powerful but the writers of DC. How is Superman going to beat the Wrath of God? By punching him? So eventually they gave him the weakness of blind justice and absolute power. When you read a Spectre story there will always be a point where you put down the book and figure out what side you would be on; what you would tell the Spectre. Then you hope it plays out that way.
I like the Spectre. He's mid-level character but definitely one of the good ones.
Read: Books of Magic; Day of Vengeance; Crisis on Infinite Earths; Zero Hour
Hi, My Name is Mike Agnew.
by Mike Agnew Jr.Well I have been busy and left this blog to dwindle in the wind. With work, school, videos, a little brother, and a girlfriend, I have been stretched quite thin. Not that I am complaining, but this is a formal apology. A formal apology that will hopefully stop the Hassinger's Mind jokes. Even though I don't mind them at all because all of my friends pretty much make up my mind. 
I wouldn't think the way I think if it wasn't for them. So it's all part of the same thing.
It's a remix...shut up.
So I think I got stuck when it came to writing the DC University. I got all caught up in getting everything exactly right and became consumed by the research. In the next few weeks you can expect to read articles on The Spectre, Booster Gold, The Death of Bruce Wayne, and, my favorite topic, The Origin of the Joker.
Along the lines of comic books, I will also be posting all the reasons why Heroes had all the potential of becoming a great show and threw it all away to become a prime time soap opera.
I will take some time to brag about my Motorola Droid and what it actually does. I will give my opinion on the best apps and also what the greatest annoyances are. Eventually Bill and I will switch phones for the weekend and give a real showdown comparison of the Droid vs. the iPhone.
Finally I will be building the SDAND website with Flash. I will post about my progress and find ways to explain working with flash and photoshop in plain english. I will also be posting updated information on the Summertime SDAND event set for July 24th.
P.S. There are a few other side projects I plan to work on. One of them being turning one of my previous posts into a book, a novel of sorts. Wait. Wait. Ok now that all the eye rolls have finished....you know you will read it if I do write it.
Also thanks to Jon for keeping this slumbering bear of a website alive. I'm calling all the baby daddies out. Where's the Fatherly Advice?
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