Mike Matei Jumps The 1-1 Flagpole… And You Watch Ads

Original link: http://www.cinemassacre.com/2011/01/12/how-to-jump-the-flagpole-on-stage-1-in-super-mario-bros/

Okay, you know what? I have to admit; that’s a rather neat little trick to pull off and it’s probably worth replicating for those with plenty of time and patience on their hands. It was a rather nice waste of ninety seconds. I like that.

What I don’t like is having to sit through a thirty second ad to watch a video that’s only three times as long, and another ad that’s also pretty long after the end of the video. I can understand putting in ads for longer videos and whathaveyou, but for short stuff like, disable the damn ads. What’s being shown here is pretty cool, but not worth the extra minute worth of ads I have to sit through.

Free entertainment holds no weight here – there’s lots of free entertainment out there and chances are there’s probably an equivalent video to what’s featured here without the ads. Even if it’s a lower quality…

But all negativity aside… that’s a neat trick, Mike. Hope you’ll do more of these… without the ads.

RAW (Jan. 10th, 2011) – Ooohhh… John Cena Said @$$! I’m never watching this show again.

Yes, John Cena said ass… because CM Punk’s ass is grass. And of course, for showing a mere SECOND of potential badassery after another one of his trademark stupid promos, he apologizes for it and jokes about it on Twitter. Apparently, John Cena’s testicles have risen and need to drop again.

Not much to say, other than that. Morrison and Sheamus had another solid match, Jerry Lawler is getting more active in matches these days, the Miz is still feuding with Randy Orton for some reason, the new Nexus initiations did nothing for me, and the Bella Twins still haven’t been future endeavored.

HBK in the Hall of Fame? I mean, come on. Who didn’t see that coming?

So yeah, RAW was actually pretty good. No complaints or quibbles

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #2 (Marvel)

Our second Marvel issue of Mighty Morphin contains another two stories of the mighty Marvel fare.

The first story, Playing Dirty, has the Ranger teens helping out at a car wash before Zedd decides to turn a car (occupied by Bulk & Skull… naturally) into a monster. This story reads more like an abridged episode than anything; set up the plot of the day, follow up with the pre-requisite Tenga battle (which feature the Rangers morphing to their usual fare instead of the Ninja suits… I guess we can’t mix and match suits in these two comics), introduce the monster for the Rangers to fight and introduce the Zord battle, which is actually quite unique in the way it disposes of the car monster.

The second story, notable for being illustrated by the legendary Steve Dikto, has Aisha and Kimberly looking after kids while Bulk & Skull attempt to be upstanding citizens or something… aren’t they supposed to be cops at this point? Anyway, Rito Revolto shows up and threatens the kids, but our two teens can’t morph in front of kids. It’s a fairly basic story with some surprisingly mediocre artwork. The humans look bad and the monsters are drawn in a somewhat cartoonish fashion. Not one of Dikto’s better works, but the story itself isn’t too bad, as it’s more of a Bulk & Skull sidestory than anything involving the Rangers.

PPV Predictions – TNA Genesis 2011

Okay, so it’s been a while since I did one of these PPV Prediction things and since there’s a TNA PPV tonight, I’d figure that I throw my two-cents in. I have to admit that I haven’t really been following Impact all that, although I did see a couple shows and checked the recaps, so the picks are based on speculation and personal thought.

So here we go…

Continue reading “PPV Predictions – TNA Genesis 2011”

VIDEO COMMENTARY #04 – NC17Productions' Wolverine Review

(2013 Update: Replaced the two-part commentary video with its Extended Edition.)

A video commentary of a review for Wolverine (NES) by NC17Productions. Some followers of this blog might remember I did a written commentary for this review many moons ago and gave up on the video afterwards. I sort of calmed down here and am not as vocal as I was in that written piece.

Super Junior beats John Cena and SpoonyOne in MASHABLES

Super Junior, a Korean boy band whose name could easily pass for a luchador’s name, won the Mashable Awards’ Must Follow Personality award, beating the likes of John Cena and Noah “SpoonyOne” Antwiler. While Cena couldn’t overcome the odds in this category, he can take solice in two things:

1 – He still won the Mashable Award for “Most Influencial Social Good Champion Sponsored by Yahoo.”

2 – Spoony didn’t win. Therefore, no inane victory speech from him.

Oh well. Back to not caring.

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 (Marvel)

Marvel Comics took over the license of producing MMPR comics, beginning with an adaptation of the first MMPR motion picture and following up with not one, but two short-lived comic series. For this run, we’ll be focusing on the main MMPR comic and get to the Ninja Ranger stuff later down the line.

Each issue has two stories and unlike the Hamilton comics which tried to keep the formula of the show intact, the Marvel kinda sorta does its own thing. The first story has the Rangers at a computer club where they marvel over the Internet, inspiring Zedd to create a virus-based monster, while the second story has the Rangers dealing with a copycat monster of sorts. For what they are, they’re perfectly adequate and quick little reads; something that would work as part of a digest edition or something like that. The characterization could use a little work; other than little sparks from Billy spewing technobabble, all these Rangers could be interchangeable.

The low point of these comics was the art, which is basically that rough-looking style with square faces and thin eyes that was the style in the mid-90s. The first story isn’t all too bad and is the typical Marvel 90s style that dominates most of the stories in this run, but the second story is where the art takes a nosedive, with characters not resembling who they’re supposed to be (Rocky is blonde here, whereas on the show, he wasn’t) or the action bits just being a confounding mess of visuals. Never been a huge fan of the art for this Marvel run and it doesn’t get any better from here.

RAW (Jan. 3rd, 2011) – John Cena’s Off My TV This Week… Best X-Mas Gift Ever. PLUS Moar RAW Thoughts

So yeah… John Cena’s off my TV this week due to an injury. That’s the best belated Christmas gift I’ve ever got. Unfortunately, he might return next week to sell more merch. Because that’s all the fucker could sell.

Other RAW thoughts:

– So the whole story is that Wade Barrett has been usurped from Nexus by new arrival CM Punk. Does this mean Barrett goes away for a while or is this the beginning of a face turn of some kind? I’m probably reading too much into this, because Nexus’ relevance died in 2010 and I have very little faith that CM Punk’s inclusion into the group is going to revive it. Yeah, CM Punk is a solid talent and a great talker, but even he can’t save Nexus from being a footnote.

– The Miz retains his WWE title in a match against John Morrison, defeating his former partner in an pretty awesome match (Did I say it was okay? I was stupid). Strange that a title match would open the card, but whatever… Watching the match again, I have to tip my hat off both guys for opening up with a phenomenal match. This should have been the main event – this was good enough to close out the show – but instead we’ve got a lethargic cage match between Orton, Sheamus, and Wade Barrett… that Orton won.

– So anyone willing to fork money over for the Royal Rumble will get yet another Miz/Randy Orton main event. Some people might get upset over this because Orton’s been in one too many title matches (last one he had was LAST MONTH), but as long as it’s not John Cena in the title match, I’m very happy either way. That fucker needs to go away and get new material.

– Nice job by the tag-team champions. Those will really boost the credibility of those titles… wait, Santino and Koslov are still the champions? Never mind.

– Alberto Del Rio defeated R-Truth in the only real sour spot of the night. It wasn’t a bad match per se, but nothing that kept me from fast-forwarding.

– So they’re bringing back Tough Enough, huh? Hopefully they’ll play it straight and make good use of whoever wins the competition… oh, who am I kidding? This is going to be a complete waste of time. I have very little faith in these people’s ability to run a credible show.

– Why do the Bella Twins still have jobs? And where’s Daniel Bryan Danielson? I want a good wrestling match to my wrestling show, not more plastic.

But, yeah this was actually a good show. A rare one that included a lot of wrestling. John Cena should suffer more injuries more often if it means giving the WWE Universe quality sports-entertainment programs such as this one. Top-notch effort.