Spar-Spangled Circular Banter

Bouncing back to that weird, vaguely airheaded, very affected and annoyingly divorced persona that I and many many other people actively reject nowadays.

Cool.

Spar-Spangled Serious Talk

I tend to remain distant from talking about any serious matters because I am exceedingly bad at articulating points.

This time is an exception, because it parallels many other topics in orbit lately and it is rather concerning to me.

Acts of Terrorism – Doomsday Kinda Doesn’t Suck

It’s another year, so you know what that means. Yes, it’s time for another post about Batman v Superman (BvS): the gift that keeps on giving. But if you’ve ever heard me talk about it, you have also probably seen that there’s a hulking, grey, spikey monster (no, not Steppenwolf) that I tend to ignore. Well, this post is all about the various observations and insights I have about Doomsday, the often overlooked part of BvS discourse. Lets get rolling.

Reign of Terror – Godzilla vs Kong

There is a scene in this movie where Godzilla uses its atomic breath to shoot a hole through the earth’s crust that penetrates the Hollow Earth and then Kong climbs through the hole to confront him, and they battle through a city.

This film is a perfect encapsulation, in many ways, of Godzilla as a franchise, and is either a laudatory piece for consumerism, or an indictment against it. Back in 2019, I wrote a review for the then-latest Godzilla movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters—I’ll try not to cover the ground I did there, but I might fall into it a bit. Needless to say, I wasn’t a fan of the depiction of Godzilla there, and to nobody’s surprise, I’m not here either, but I find that depiction endlessly fascinating.

Acts of Terrorism: What Batman v Superman Means to Me

This isn’t yet another post analyzing the thematic or allegorical significance of the film. It also isn’t me dunking on other films while praising this one (though you’re free to perceive it that way). This isn’t like my others, where I argue some empirical, or heavily sourced factoid. No, this is a more personal posting—more personal than anything I’ve written here before. What I’m saying is, feel free to disagree with me, or mock me, or whatever it is that gets your rocks off. This is just my journey with Batman v Superman (BvS).

Acts of Terrorism – Broly – Second Coming

Broly – Second Coming is a movie in the Dragon Ball franchise and a sequel to a previous Dragon Ball movie that also featured Broly, which is about the only thing that they have in common. So let’s talk about it.

Reign of Terror – Godzilla: King of the Monsters

For the longest time, had you asked me if I was a kaiju fan, I would’ve answered “Yes” without hesitation. I mean, who doesn’t love giant monsters swinging their various limbs, tentacles, tendrils or what-have-you around? Well, after forty minutes of the newest installment of Legendary‘s Monsterverse, Godzilla: King of the Monsters I must change my answer to “No.” In this piece, I will explain why this movie was such an unpleasant experience for me, and how it opened my eyes to what I really like about Godzilla. Spoilers, it ain’t the monster fights.

Reign of Acts of Terrorism: Magic the Gathering and War of the Spark

If you’re confused about the title, you should be. I generally write two columns on this site. One is Acts of Terrorism, which is generally geared to me talking about a topic; it’s a catch-all for anything that doesn’t fit into my other column, Reign of Terror, which is strictly reviews. I recently read the new Magic: The Gathering (MtG) novel War of the Spark, but I haven’t talked about MtG in years. I had fully intended to review the stories concerning each successive block (essentially story arcs) but I couldn’t bring myself to keep writing about something I’d grown so dissatisfied with; what had been passion had become apathy, which is a death knell for storytelling. When I heard, however, that Greg Weisman would be writing an MtG novel, I quickly caught up with the happenings in the story before purchasing and reading the story.

Now do you see why the title is the way it is? There’s a lot I want to talk about, so this won’t strictly be a review, and it for sure will not be a play-by-play of the plot. I’ve decided the best way to handle this is to get the review out of the way first, and then we can speak about more meta aspects. Yes, there will be spoilers.

Seeds of Discord – Die Frauen’s Blue Serenade

What’s promised is due, my readers. Welcome again to our not often high in traffic, highly opinionated column, to finish up where we left off. I expected to get this entry in one fell swoop, but my first draft scratched 10,000 words, so my colleagues deemed it wiser of me to split it into parts (imagine a 10K essay on a YGO deck).

So to close this one-shot series with a golden brooch, let us take on Nekroz again, this time from a Flavor standpoint. We’ve discussed it from a gameplay standpoint, but there’s still lots to tread, so make yourself comfortable and have a drink next to you, because this might be a ride.

 

Acts of Terrorism – Dragonball Super: Broly

 

This is not a review of Dragonball Super: Broly. I have no interest in retelling you the plot or advising you on whether you should see it or not—those are trite purposes when I look at my thoughts about the film. To be perfectly truthful, I don’t know exactly what this is. It isn’t a review, neither is it an analysis per se, and it probably doesn’t count as a dissertation or essay. Without further ado, these are my scattered, unfocused thoughts about Dragonball Super: Broly.