Meridian Herbal Trim Tea

There exist teas meant to assist with either weight loss or constipation depending on who you ask. They're generally referred to as "dieters' tea." To both myself and my fiance, they will forever be known as "poop tea."

Both my better half and I are in the midst of slimming down a bit in preparation for our wedding. We're running, going to the gym, and generally producing copious amounts of smelly laundry in the interest of looking as good as possible for the wedding and the photos that will be taken at it. Then one of her friends went and suggested this. 

It should be noted that my fiance detests vegetables or really most foods that could be considered "healthy" so this seemed like a good idea. I, the fool in love that I am, agreed to go on this adventure with her. Per her friend's warning we drank the stuff in the middle of the day to avoid being up all night visiting the toilet every hour or so since it was supposed to take a couple of hours to kick in. 

First, I should mention the taste. I'm not a big tea guy, or really a hot drink fan in general. I'll enjoy an iced tea every once in a while, but it usually comes in a can and is probably loaded with sugar and "fruit flavors." As such, the normal taste of tea isn't something I'm super familiar with nor is it something I find especially enjoyable. 

I don't know that this tea really tasted like much at all. I do know that it smelled like boiled grass shavings though. Like when you mow your lawn when it's still a little damp from the rain the night before but you don't want to wait to mow it because you won't have time later that week. 

It also didn't work. We drank the tea around 2:00 in the afternoon after we had eaten lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for the stuff to kick in. The "couple of hours" I mentioned before ended up being closer to twelve, with the tea finally doing its job in the middle of the night. Up until then, it had the opposite of the intended effect. I couldn't have pooped if my life depended on it. 

I have a pretty predictable bathroom schedule when it comes to defecation. I like that about myself. It makes my days easy to plan. This made the interruption of said schedule by this tea all the more distressing, not to mention the toxic sludge exiting my body at a time when I should have been muttering in my sleep.

"middleI've heard slash read that the tea causing a little constipation the first time you take it isn't out of the ordinary, but considering that it's literally supposed to have the opposite effect it's a little disconcerting. That it tasted like grass and took a couple days of my life before I got back to my normally scheduled poops didn't help. Some people sing the virtues of this stuff, but all it left me with was a dirty toilet and a whole lot of heartbreak. 

The Star Wars

The Star Wars is a weird comic. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, although the book has its far share of issues. I more mean that, as someone who's seen the Star Wars movies an unhealthy number of times and has in the past been steeped in the Star Wars lore in and out of the movies themselves it's super weird. 

The Star Wars is an adaptation of the George Lucas's first draft screenplay for what would, eventually become Star Wars the film. Interestingly, there are a handful of elements in the book that would also pop up in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as well, and there are even one or two visual designs that seem like they would be at home in the prequel trilogy. Though whether those are just nods by the creative team that adapted the book or actual parts of the original script, I don't know. 

This being a weird version of Star Wars aside, how does The Star Wars work as a comic? It's a mixed bag. The script by JW Rinzler is fine for the most part, but there's a lot of stiff or clunky dialogue. Some of that dialogue feels right at home in the kind of pulpy, fantasy story that is being told, and really, more even than the movies, The Star Wars is fantasy, not sci-fi, through and through. It just happens to take place in space. That said, there were other times when the dialogue was inexcusably poor. When characters yell "For freedom!" it always comes off as goofy instead of quaint. 

The story itself also has some issues, mostly in the last act. The book ends similarly to the movie in that the Death Star (although it isn't given that name in the comic) is destroyed by a group of rebel starfighters, but Princess Leia and Jedi Annikin Starkiller, still on board the "space fortress," make a harrowing escape during its destruction that doesn't pay off. There's also a Sith named Valorum (bonus points if you recognize the name) that switches sides and helps Annikin and Leia escape because the Imperials don't fight with honor... or something. Another Sith had no problem showing up at the beginning of the story and killing Annikin's kid brother, so Valorum's change of heart doesn't really make any sense.

And after the Death Star, or space fortress I guess, is destroyed, there's literally a one page version of the "everyone gets medals!" scene at the end of Star Wars the movie and some wrap up text. And that's it. It adds up to an ending that feels messy and unsatisfying. I don't know how much of the blame for that falls at Rinzler's feet or if it's due to the original script, but a good adaptation should know how to work around that kind of stuff.

That isn't to say that the book is all bad, however. The art provided by Mike Mayhew with colors by Rain Beredo is consistently great. It strikes a beautiful balance between a pencilled and painted look that actually reminded me a bit of Adam Hughes; a giant complement if you're unfamiliar with his work. As a result, even when the story goes off the rails, the visuals keep you hooked. The art team also did a great job of balancing the familiar look of the movies with some of original concept designs and new visuals unique to this comic. 

The Star Wars isn't very successful on its own. The dialogue is borderline bad at times and the story almost completely falls apart at the end. Even the fantastic job the art team did on this book can't redeem it. However, The Star Wars is almost a must have for fans of Star Wars in general. It's a really fascinating look at what could have been, even if in some cases you're glad it ended up being completely different.

Snowpiercer

I'm not really sure what I think about Snowpiercer which is why this thing is running today instead of Monday. There's a lot about the movie that I think is rad, but then there are other parts of it that are just outright weird and clunky. For every visceral action sequence there are weird pacing issues, and for every carefully thought out metaphor there's some borderline terrible dialogue.  

Describing the set up for the movie makes it sound way goofier than it is, but here goes. A bunch of the world's governments decide to inject a special chemical in the air in an effort to counteract global warming. This ends up backfiring and plunging the world into a new ice age. The last remnants of humanity live aboard a train designed by a man named Wilford that makes a loop around the world once a year and is powered by a perpetual motion engine designed to run forever.

A sort of social order a la The Hunger Games emerges with the rich who could afford tickets living in the front of the train and the poor who forced their way onto the train before its departure living in the tail. The passengers in the tail, headed by Chris Evans' revolutionary leader Curtis and John Hurt's revolutionary veteran Gilliam, tired of subsisting on protein cubes and living in filth while passengers in the front eat steak decide to take the engine to the train. They are kept in their place by Tilda Swinton's Mason, a character that seems like an especially weird transplant from Panem.

That's the basic setup, but like all great sci-fi stories it's all more or less a metaphor for something else. Sure, the metaphor is hidden behind a series of slick and thrilling action scenes, inventive and beautiful set design, and enough actors you definitely recognize from other stuff turning in great performances that you don't have to see it if you want to, but once you do the movie becomes a whole lot more interesting. 

In fact, I think it's the ideas and performances in Snowpiercer that make some of its issues forgivable. The pacing is all over the place and the movie is unabashedly weird in parts in a way that I've started to identify with Korean movies. The dialogue is bad in spots, but more often then not the actors, Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton in particular, sell it hard enough that you buy it. Sure, there's "Control the engine, control the world", but later when Curtis says that he hates that he knows what people taste like and that he knows that "babies taste best" the heartbreaking delivery makes it appropriately horrifying rather than silly.

Likewise, you can pick apart the whole conceit with the train and the closed ecosystem contained within with almost no effort. There's no way that they could store enough livestock to eat like that and just where the hell is everybody sleeping in this thing and on and on, but the idea of the train, its engine, and the ecosystem it contains is so integrated into the movie's plot and metaphor that if you buy into it, it all works very well. Almost in spite of itself. 

I get the feeling that Snowpiercer is going to go the way of the cult classic. It's an extremely interesting movie that's made better by its weirdness and flaws. It's at once a summer movie and an anti-blockbuster. The future of humanity is at stake, but the movie feels almost claustrophobic in how personal it is. It's definitely not a movie for everyone, and I'm still not even sure if I think it's good, but I do think that most people should watch it only so that they can tell me what they think.

Edge of Tomorrow

On a whim, I saw All You Need is Kill adaptation Edge of Tomorrow this weekend with a friend. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I like Tom Cruise movies. There's a reason the guy is a movie star. Plus, Emily Blunt runs around in a mech suit carrying a giant sword killing aliens for a good chunk of the movie, and the reviews for the movie were surprisingly positive.

Turns out those reviews were right. The movie is great. It's tightly paced, well acted, and the story is simple and straightforward in spite of the time travel conceit. Tom Cruise plays Bill Cage, an officer who does PR for the military in an attempt to avoid combat. When he refuses an order to take a film crew and document the first wave of an invasion on an alien controlled beach, he's charged with desertion, stripped of his rank, and forced into combat. 

During the battle, Cruise manages to survive long enough to kill one of the aliens and get covered in its blood before dying. He then wakes up the day before, and has to relive the day again. It turns out, the aliens that have been handily winning every battle that they've fought against the humans because they possess the ability to reset time every time they lose. They then go into the battle knowing what will happen and adjust their strategy accordingly. 

The only exception was the Battle of Verdun in which Emily Blunt's character Rita Vrataski also hijacked the alien time travel power before losing it. Cage eventually tracks down Vrataski, and with her help starts to devise a plan to win the war. This introduces one of the movie's more surprising elements: its sense of humor. Once the two characters meet, we get a pretty great training montage in which, every time Cruise's character gets hurt, Blunt shoots him to reset so they can start over. 

The time loop mechanic is integral to the story. It's the source of the movie's more humorous moments, but it's also sets up the sense of fatigue that soldiers feel in war. Cruise has great chemistry with Blunt in their scenes together, and it makes the turn when he realizes just how tired he is of seeing her die over and over again all the more effective. He really is great in the movie. 

The action, story, and characters in this movie are all very good. It could be my non-existent expectations made the movie just a surprise, but it's more likely that the film really is legitimately great. Some people might find the ending a little too pat, but it works given the rest of the story and gives another great little character moment with Cruise and Blunt before cutting to the credits. Edge of Tomorrow is a fantastic sci-fi war tale. I definitely recommend it.

Dead Space 3

I was pretty excited when Dead Space 3 hit Playstation Plus as one of the free games for July. As a side note, if you have a Playstation of whatever variety and don't pay for Plus, you're missing out. Probably half of the games I play, or most of them in the case of my Vita, I get "free" because of Plus. Not at all bad for the price of one new disk game a year. 

I really liked the first two Dead Space games, but never got around to playing the third, partly because I didn't hear the kindest things about it and partly because it came out at a time when I was decidedly broke. When I saw it was one of the free games this month, I excitedly deleted a bunch of stuff off of my PS3's hard drive to make room and set it to downloading. 

I finished it this last weekend and I've got to say, it's really quite good. Good enough, in fact, that I'm kind of puzzled as to why people didn't seem to like it. A quick look at Metacritic showed mostly favorable reviews for the thing so maybe it was just one or two critics that I like that disliked it. I honestly don't remember at this point. Either way, I thought it was very very good.

Set three years after Dead Space 2, Isaac Clarke is hiding out alone on Earth after killing the marker on Titan at the end of Dead Space 2. Both Earth Gov, severely weakened by continued attacks by the Church of Unitology, and the Church itself are after Clarke because of his experiences while he just wants to be left alone. Ellie Langford, fellow survivor from Dead Space 2 and Isaac's former romantic partner, had left him to try to stop the marker threat, but she returns to Earth to try to convince Isaac to help her an and Earth Gov team investigate what they think to be the marker homeworld. 

If that doesn't make any sense, I'm not surprised. There's a ton of mythology that gets built up over the first two games, and it all kind of comes to a head in this one. Suffice to say the markers make people into space zombies and Isaac is the only person with enough experience with them to destroy them so everyone either wants his help or, in the case of the Church of Unitology, wants him dead. I'd definitely recommend starting from the beginning of the series anyway since both previous games in the series are worth playing anyway.

The writing and voice acting in this game is on par with the rest of the series with the exception of some weirdness with character interactions toward the end. One of the characters in the group is Ellie's new boyfriend. His strange behavior is more or less explained by the end, but his eventual death causes a lot of weirdness between Ellie and Isaac. She's blames him for it, then she doesn't. She needs space, then she doesn't. She kind of hates him, then kind of loves him. It all bounces around in a way that feels kind of random and undeveloped. Otherwise, the story and voice acting are solid and provide a satisfying conclusion to the Dead Space story. 

The game looks and sounds as good as Dead Space ever has. The creatures still look and sound good and slimy. You still get a satisfying crunch and squish when you stomp on enemies or part their limps from their bodies. The dismemberment combat arrives completely intact from previous games and is still quite a bit of fun. Added to the mix are normal human soldiers who are just straight up shooting at you with guns, and while you'd think that they would serve to make the game feel more generic, encounters with them are rare and actually serve as a nice change of pace from your standard necromorph encounter. 

I really enjoyed Dead Space 3. Aside from some rushed and inconsistent character stuff, I thought it told its story well and served as a good send off to a pretty great series of horror shooters. It made me want to track down cheap copies of the first two games and play them again, which I know is a sign that it is one of my favorites. 

GI Joe: Retaliation

The fourth of July this year fell conveniently on a Friday giving me a lovely three day weekend. As a naturally antisocial individual, I spent a majority of the weekend holed up in the cave playing games on my PS3, reading books comic and otherwise, and watching a couple of random movies I'd been meaning to watch on Netflix, including Jack Reacher, End of Watch, and GI Joe: Retaliation. I'm going to write about GI Joe.

I guess I'll say this much about the other two. I like Tom Cruise and I'm secure enough in myself to admit that. Is his religion super duper crazy? Sure, but I'm put more religions in the super duper crazy category. The guy is still probably the world's greatest movie star, and he jumps into every role he chooses with unrepentant fervor. That said, Tom Cruise cannot pull off the stoic badass character Jack Reacher wants him to be. The guy has charm coming out of his ears, let him use it. You can't have a grizzled ex-military police how looks and sounds like Tom Cruise. It just doesn't work. However, I really really liked End of Watch. I remember reading/hearing a weird amount of praise about that movie when it first came out in 2012 and it was totally deserved. I kind of wish that they had committed one way or the other to the found footage conceit, but where they use it, they use it very well as a tension builder. Great stuff. 

Right, this was supposed to be about GI Joe. I have something of a soft spot for the first GI Joe movie. I know it's kind of terrible, but it also doesn't shy away from it's terribleness. The main villain has a giant underwater base for shit's sake. The movie at points hilarious, and I genuinely don't think it was trying to be anything but. 

The second movie took the buzzwords that surround blockbusters these days and went in a more "gritty" and "realistic" direction. This isn't to say that the movie isn't still super dumb, it totally is, but it's way more straight faced about it, which I actually kind of liked. It isn't devoid of a couple of winks and nods to the audience though. My favorite moment in the movie is easily when Bruce Willis, playing the original GI Joe, types in the passcode 1776 to open up a secret cabinet in his house full of rocket and grenade launchers. It seriously had me laughing for like five minutes. 

That's ultimately the movie in a nutshell. It's humorous, but nothing it played just for laughs. It knows the ways in which it's dumb, and it isn't afraid to lean into them. Cobra Commander definitely wants to rule the world. But, it plays it all straight. It's never ironic about the way it presents its dumb cliches and characters, and I loved it for it. It's far from a perfect movie, the dialogue is sometimes terrible in a not very funny way and there's a lot of character backstory exposition that is clunky as all hell. But then there's another character backstory flash back involving Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes in which one of them is framed for killing their sensei that would feel right at home in an old kung fu movie and it veers straight back into being bad in an awesome way. 

I have fond memories of watching a bunch of old GI Joe cartoons on rented VHS tapes when I was a kid. This movie brought all of those right back up. The GI Joe movies ultimately kind of remind of the Schumacher Batman movies. That isn't the damning it sounds like either. I've come to realize that those movies were straight up 90's continuations of the Adam West TV show and movie from the 60's. In that way, they're kind of great. Similarly, the GI Joe movies are modern extensions of the GI Joe cartoon of old. Thankfully, the Retaliation is a halfway decent movie as well.

X-Men Days of Future Past

I've never been a big fan of X-Men comics. Sure, I watched a handful of episodes of the cartoon in the 90's, but I liked the Spider-Man and Batman cartoons better. I've read a couple X-Men books, like Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men or Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men but I've never been able to get into the team in general. It's mostly because the continuity of those books, even in superhero comic book terms, is completely and irrevocably screwed to the point that I would be hopeless to unravel it at this point.

Which is kind of ironic given the state of continuity in the X-Men films. The quality of the individual movies within the franchise aside, the timeline is a mess in both minor and major ways. As a result, X-Men: Days of Future Past has to serve as a sequel to X-Men: First Class, a fond farewell to (most of) the original cast of the first trilogy of movies, and a big fat bandaid for the timeline of this franchise.

It is, surprisingly, pretty successful on all counts. There are a couple of times where the story chugs a bit under those burdens, but it remains an entertaining and well made modern X-Men movie. There is a little weirdness, Wolverine has metal claws in the future in spite of loosing them in The Wolverine. Kitty Pride can suddenly send people's minds back in time. Professor X being alive, looking the same, and being in a future wheelchair is a bit of a stretch too, even with the end credits scene after X-Men: The Last Stand.

Thankfully, the movie doesn't really bother with trying too hard to make everything make sense. The story just forges ahead, secure in the knowledge that everything will be sorted out just fine in the end, which it is. The movie's been out for a bit, so I'm not too worried about this being a spoiler, but the time travel conceit is used how a lot of people thought it would be. They reboot the X-Men movie timeline in a way that still acknowledges the original movies, with X-Men: First Class being the beginning of the new timeline.

It's cool as a long time fan of the franchise to see the old and new versions of some of these characters all in the same movie. It's fun to see the movie embrace the crazy kind of continuity that is present in comic books. The rebooted nature of the story also means that fresh life has been breathed into these characters in a way that makes the future of these movies with James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence's characters being able to go in a number of different directions. Lawrence's Mystique, in particular, has seen a couple big changes that makes me want to see where they'll take her character next.

If you don't like the X-Men movies odds are you won't like this one either, but it is nonetheless a fantastic comic book movie. The performances are all great from cast members both new and old, even if a couple characters end up getting shorted on screen time to make room for the mechanics of the plot. The action, especially with the addition of the portal creating character Blink, is inventive and thrilling. Days of Future Past has proven that the X-Men are here to stay on the big screen. It's almost like they never left.