No Lives Left

  I don't know what I expected. If you've been reading this blog, superhero movie reviews here are commonplace. It seems that the latest entry from DC, Black Adam, decided to become the quintessential DC movie ever made. And I don't necessarily mean that nicely. This movie probably packs in all the mistakes (and some highlights) that other DC movies made in the past. Cram in a bunch of superheroes where some have no bearing on the overall plot? Check.  Load up exposition fast and frequently? Check.  Weird ass pacing? Check . Nonsensical motivations? Check . Make sure to focus on moments/scenes and not a cohesive story? Check. Odd on-the-nose soundtrack to action sequences that feel jarring and tone deaf? Check. Slow motion and lighting? Check. There is talk that the movie was in development for several  years and it totally shows. It's not even that the movie didn't bring anything to table, it is more like it ate everything at the table, partially digested it and sp...

It's been a long time since I experienced a piece of media and wanted to immediately want to experience it again. Even with the things I really really  love, the invested time I sink into it makes me want to decompress from those things for a while. With my short attention span, I end up moving on to another show, movie, or game; failing to ever revisit things I said I would. Ever since I started working, I've been blessed with disposable income to spend on video games. So it's always easy to just buy a new game when I finish the current one I've been playing. It's good to have the variety, but at the same time, I seem to have forgotten how to make fond memories of games. I write most of these blog posts to help me remember what I liked about something. Writing also makes me feel less guilty for playing games, too.  Enter The Sandman ... As I'm writing this post, I'm re-watching it. So that is a big sign of what I think about this show. The Sandman  is a Net...

In Netflix's Resident Evil , there's a point where the main character, Jade, is trapped in some nomadic groups jail cell with her antagonist, Richard Baxter. They are surrounded by zombies and this group of nomads are sacrificing prisoners to the zombies so that they can power the building's electricity. Baxter doesn't want to be the next victim and ends up whipping out a hidden knife from his belt and tells Jade to call him "the master of unlocking." It's such a contrived line that will try to please fans since it is a reference to the start of the original Resident Evil game . Besides the inclusion of zombies and names and places, Resident Evil does it's best to try and tell its own story while still fitting into the established Resident Evil lore.  And while it respects the original trilogy and actually uses it as the backdrop for the current setting, it by no means tells a great story . And while I know little of the Resident Evil lore, I do know t...

Note: I didn't really want to spoil the game. So hopefully this doesn't have any spoilers.  So if you're ever wondering, " What do Star Wars, X-Men, and Spider-man all have in common?"  You'll be happy to know the answer is not just  Disney but also Twelve Minutes.   Not sure if I am just on an Annapurna Interactive kick or maybe just trying to play less expansive games, but I was very interested to see how this game turned out because of the game's premise.  First off, this game has some big names in it. Daisy Ridley (from  Star Wars fame),  James MacAvoy (from  X-Men  fame), and William Defoe (from many movies, but was pretty spectacular in  Spider-man) . Disregarding Defoe, it's interesting that both Daisy and James had to mimic American accents despite both being British for their roles. It's an interesting choice and the acting is still top notch, so it's not a distraction. It's just interesting because there are loads of ...

  Meow... (purr....) Mmrrrr Mrwoer.... (Purr..Purrr) Hisssss... Mewowowwwowweeow... Score: 7/9 lives ------------------------------   But for real,  Stray  is a fun little game.  It really makes you feel like cat. When this game was first announced, the trailer immediately roped me in. The idea of playing as a cat in a sci-fi setting just seemed had the perfect amount of cuteness and intrigue. I've been around cats all my life and still love to be around them to this day. So it's only natural I'd be inclined to want to play this game and discover its world.  Don't get so used to your friends Stray  is a short game. It doesn't take more than 6 hours to get through the whole story. It would have been shorter if I didn't get intentionally lost in the first area of the game. Your cat is outfitted with surprisingly few mechanics. You can meow and jump and run. Eventually, you can use a flashlight and UV ray but the flashlight is rarely needed and the U...

  "That is why We ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever takes a life—unless as a punishment for murder or mischief in the land—it will be as if they killed all of humanity; and whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity. ˹Although˺ Our messengers already came to them with clear proofs, many of them still transgressed afterwards through the land." (Qu'ran 5:32) One of the last sentences of Ms. Marvel Season 1-paraphrased of course. It felt weird hearing this from Kamala's dad. Especially how it's paraphrased. It's like when in The Amazing Spider-man  when Uncle Ben says, " He believed that if you could do good things for other people, you had a moral obligation to do those things! That's what's at stake here. Not choice. Responsibility." instead of the obvious line, "With great power comes great responsibility."  In the last episode of the season, Kamala Khan comes back to Jersey City and immediately...

I honestly don't know why I am still writing about this.  I've been talking to other people and I've confirmed that the show  somehow isn't for me. Despite it showing the a character with the color of my skin and sharing my religion. At the beginning of the season, I mentioned that Ms. Marvel  is akin to a nickelodeon show or a CW show. The quality of writing is as such and while I was hopeful the writing and pacing would get better, it really didn't. I actually doing enjoy some zany live action Disney channel and Nickelodeon shows, but looking back on it, I never really cared about teen drama shows. So What I do want to get into is the flashback/time travel of trains traveling out of India to Karachi. Being an South Asian American who didn't know much about the partition, it was really cool to see a western take on it that wasn't whitewashed or brown-washed. Somehow it felt kinda... just normally washed to me? To be honest I haven't seen much media abo...

Spoilers for Plot Points of Ms. Marvel Episode 4. But if you've been following this, you know I am planning on spoiling the whole thing.  Episode 4 is in the books. In this episode, Kamala travels to Karachi, Pakistan to visit her Nani. I was originally wondering if she would somehow sneak out with Bruno to go on an international flight, but it seems like there was an offscreen reason for Kamala's mother to visit. In any case, Kamala meets her cousins who don't really do anything throughout the episode (they are just excuses as to why Kamala can do stuff without her mom knowing). She meets new superheroes that fight Djinn called the Red Daggers who immediately fail at fighting Djinn/ClanDestines (they end up escaping to protect Kamala).  We do get to see more of Ms. Marvel's powers and how she controls Noor  (Light), so that was cool. I have warmed up to the powers she has but I do wish she had the powers from the comics. In this show, it feels like she has a limited ve...

  We're at the halfway point of the first season of Ms. Marvel Season 1. I think I've come to peace with the... style ...this show is going for. I realize that Marvel is trying to bring a new superhero into the MCU, so they trying to cram her origin story and make her develop into a real character so that she can be involved in other MCU affairs. Yet, other shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones (I know, they are Netflix shows) were able to provide a compelling story in their inception shows.  In this weeks episode, Kamala is now dealing with the fallout from her mistakes when saving the boy at the mosque minaret. A video of her goes viral, the Damage Control starts snooping around her mosque, and Bruno might be leaving for caltech. Not to mention that she is befriended by people known as the Clandestines (or Djinn?)that know who she and her great grandmother are. They have a simple request: To use Kamala's power to get back home. Kamala finds out that its dangerous and the...

I am going preface this post like I did with the first one:  I do enjoy seeing Muslims depicted with  more nuance than one dimensional villains. It's great to see Muslims as characters who have lives with decisions and struggles just like any other demographic in America. It's a great method to get non-Muslims related to Muslims without really knowing  a Muslim.  However, another word of caution is that I don't recall if I could relate to all the things 16-year old Kamala went through as a teenager. I didn't have as big of a Muslim community growing up and didn't have many Muslim friends that I went to school with. I'm over 30 years old but some things I will mention are coming from a person who isn't "cool with it" anymore. Also I never grew up into desi culture. I was an Indian-born white boy through and through. I don't know Urdu and don't know Bollywood at all.  That being said, I didn't like episode 2. I was optimistic from the ini...

It's been a while since I talked about Muslim representation in the big and little screen. Ramy was the last show I watched and I ended up feeling conflicted about where it landed in my headspace. On one hand, it's cool to see a main character who is Muslim and struggling to be more religious and practicing  (something I can always relate to). On the other, watching some dude committing explicit acts and also deal with some suggestive and unnerving situations kind of goes against your own religion's teachings-even if it's "only acting."  I have made peace with Ramy since then and am glad to note that I do not have ill will toward Ms. Marvel. In fact, I somewhat enjoyed the first episode. It reminded me of a teen Nickelodeon show mixed with the tone set in most MCU movies. While it's only been one episode, I wanted to muse about what I thought was good and what wasn't. I also wanted to overreact a bit since, well, it's what I like to so. I definitel...

I finally did it. I finally beat Elden Ring. Or at least got one of the six endings  the game has to offer. It took over 100 hours and plenty of deaths. In the end though, I'm so happy that I completed this endeavor. While I was very excited in the first 30 hours  of experiencing the game, I think I have different thoughts after completing the game.  One thing that has remained constant is how impressed I was at how large this game truly is. Each area kept my jaw dropped with how big  each area was. Stumbling across vast open vistas with verticality in each area never got old. Underground dungeons, hidden passageways,  and sneaky shortcuts strewn about everywhere to encouraged exploration. So many "legacy" dungeons very expertly crafted (legacy being basically larger, story-driven, dungeons). And while it certainly was a positive, the grand scale of Elden Ring  really got tiring. By the end of the game, I was exhausted.  Don't get me wrong, each area w...