I’ve been following the controversy over sales rankings, and I have to say that I’m appalled by the double standard at work here. (See http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/12203.html and http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html for more information, if you’re unfamiliar with this issue.)

Why can I find sales rankings for a book of Playboy centerfolds and not for the autobiographies of gay men and lesbians? Or “The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students”? I’d love to give you the benefit of the doubt and say this was an honest mistake, not blatant homophobia, but you’re making it extremely difficult to do so.

I’ve always looked to Amazon as my first choice when buying books: the low prices, wide selection, and Super Saver Shipping made it easy for me to get whatever I needed delivered. Since I don’t own a car, Amazon was an invaluable resource for me.

Unfortunately, I can’t in good conscience continue to give you my business while this is going on. From now on, I’ll be going to the local bookstore, despite the added cost and inconvenience.

I’ll get my girlfriend to drive me.

The sequel, though… Just because I found a Crow: City of Angels shirt on sale one day when I was in high school and wore it religiously didn’t make me a fan. Far from it, in fact — it was a beautiful image on the shirt (Vincent Perez in Crow makeup with the crow silhouette superimposed on it), and I loved the mythology of the series, but plot-wise, I was unimpressed. Oh, the movie had style — it oozed style out of every pore, but it was completely lacking in substance, leaving me with the distinct impression that it was just a tired old retread of familiar ground.

Still, I’ve decided to give it a rewatch, just for the sake of finding out just how crappy it really is, over ten years later. The rest of this post is part review and part running commentary, written as I watch.

First, let me just say that I’m delighted to have a Spanish (okay, half-Spanish) main character. Maybe someday we’ll have a movie adaptation of The Crow: Dead Time with its Native American protagonist (though it’ll probably suck), and a bit more of my ancestry will be covered, but until then, Vincent Pérez as Ashe will have to do. And I love his accent.

The fact that his kid has no trace of accent and appears not Spanish at all is less delightful, but maybe he’s adopted. Maybe the Spanish Pretty didn’t get passed on. Who knows? If I ever did, I don’t remember it now.

Look, Sarah’s back from the first movie, all grown up and unable to act! She’s very pretty, though, and I love the wings tattooed on her back.

And… Dude. That’s Richard Brooks, who, thanks to Firefly,, I’ll never be able to see as anyone but Jubal Early. He’s named Judah Earl this time around, which really makes me wonder about Joss Whedon’s taste in movies.

Richard Brooks is so good at playing them crazy and eerily calm. Also, he’s very pretty in this. I approve of prettiness, manskirts, nail polish, and what might just be a little bit of makeup. And the wonderful thing is none of this diminishes his masculinity. It’s almost impossible to deny that he’s very definitely male — he’s just pretty. And the world needs more manpretty.

And IGGY POP! Oh my GOD Iggy Pop. He makes this almost worth it, because he’s IGGY POP. …Why yes, I’m a squeeing fangirl. Moving on.

Pretty Kali is pretty. I haven’t seen her do much other than be pretty yet, sadly, but she’s doing that very well. This movie has a lot of pretty right now. Not much else going for it, but the pretty is there in abundance.

Also, would it not have been awesome, while they were going for continuity with the first movie, to have had the(?) Sybil (it’s hard to be sure whether it’s a name or a title with her) be Myca from the first movie, blind but somehow still alive, as opposed to another apparently-blind chick?

…Actually, it would have been horribly contrived, but I liked Myca and her creepy incest, damnit. And how many blind/blinded magic chicks does any franchise need?

Bai Ling had all our blinded magical chick needs covered, thank you.

Ashe’s resurrection was impressive, but his flaily flashbacks aren’t that good. He’s too stiff in all the wrong ways. I just don’t believe him, there.

Judah is still pretty, though. I rather like him, for all that he’s no Top Dollar. Still, Michael Wincott as Top Dollar is a tough act to follow, and Richard Brooks is doing quite well with what he’s got so far.

…Right. The harlequin makeup had personal significance to Eric. The only significance it could have in Ashe’s case, given the sexual nature of the scene in which Sarah paints his face, is that she wants him to be Eric, because she wants Eric. That’s not cute. That’s creepy and obsessive, and I really don’t want to think about the implications too much.

…Still hot, though.

And the fact that she’s using his dead son’s paints does give it some symbolic tie to him… Though it doesn’t make the implications of the style of face-paint any less sketchy.

But now we see Ashe with face paint that looks suspiciously like Eric’s, putting on an outfit that looks suspiciously like Eric’s, and, let’s be honest here… Vincent Pérez has nowhere near the grace Brandon Lee did when doing what was essentially the exact same scene. And the ‘woosh’ sound effects when he put his arms through the sleeves of the coat… Were those really necessary?

Though, again, Ashe on the motorcycle with the coat flapping behind him is some high-quality pretty. That’s just about the only thing this movie’s doing right.

But now that Ashe is getting his vengeance on… There’s none of the charm that we saw in Brandon Lee’s Eric, none of the morbid humor. The card tricks just made him come off as a second-rate Joker. (And here’s a creepy little thought — watch the original Crow, then watch The Dark Knight. There are a few disturbing similarities, especially when you consider the fates of Brandon Lee and Heath Ledger.)

And palm trees bursting into flame with the crow flies over them? Really? REALLY?

Head, meet desk.

And we’re briefly back to Iggy Pop, who does a beautiful job with some anvillicious symbolism. Again, as much as I hate to compare this to the first movie: Eric Draven left the image of the crow as a calling card. The fact that it appears in the tattoo would have been a nice bit of synchonicity, if not for the fact that, for Ashe, it’s magically appearing everywhere. This doesn’t add to the movie — it just makes it seem over-the-top and ridiculous.

Sarah gets a moment of asskicking! Yay Sarah!

But is it intentional that her boss’s accent keeps slipping? It’s distracting.

And now she has a moment of crazy. Way to ruin my happy feelings towards her, movie.

Okay, the peep show scene started off promising. “Do you want me… baby?” And then Ashe starts mangling quotations about blackbirds with absolutely no flair, and my heart sinks a little. “You always have a choice!” redeemed him a bit in my eyes, but not enough by this point. Not nearly enough.

The origami crow was nice, though. So is Ashe’s coat.

And now, the obligatory ‘drugs are bad’ scene. Yes, movie, we know. And it’s followed by the obligatory ‘spooky magic chick tells the Big Bad about the significance of that crow following our hero around’ scene. Let joy be unconfined.

More Iggy Pop — I mean Curve — and and Kali in a disturbing scene with a tattoo needle. Sweet. Then we cut to the scene of great sexual tension. Why is this even happening? Doesn’t Ashe have more important things to worry about?

…Oh, right — this isn’t about Ashe. It’s about Sarah’s obsession with Eric. How silly of me to have forgotten. At least Ashe appears to know he has more important things to worry about.

More important things, apparently, involve having more flashbacks of him and his son and their deaths. This is getting boring.

Sarah gets kidnapped. No one is surprised. That’s why she exists.

Even the fight with Kali is boring. This is going on far too long, and we didn’t need to see the same flashback we just saw two minutes ago again, thank you. And then we get more promising moments of psycho vengeance ruined by crappy line delivery, which makes me want to compare Vincent Pérez to Brandon Lee yet again… And not in any way that would flatter Mr. Pérez.

Oh look. Blood pooling in the shape of a crow with outstretched wings, again by Freaky Magical Coincidence.

…Really, movie? Really?

And then we switch to Curve at fetish night at the local club/Lair Of The Big Bad, with whippings and sex on the dance floor and him snorting whatever the drug of choice in the Dystopian Future is. Okay, I get it. It’s a dark, edgy movie. But not even happy, happy perverts and Iggy Pop together ease my suffering. I want this movie to be over with so, so badly.

Oh, hey! It’s the ‘arms spread in a crucified pose while our hero gets shot all to hell’ scene! It seems… familiar, somehow. Like I’ve seen it before. In another movie about leather-wearing guys with crows and facepaint who seek vengeance. What was it called, again?

…Though the motorcycle chase here is an improvement over the car chase in the original. But then, I hate car chases with a firey passion.

And I’ll admit, I love everything about Curve’s death (and not just because it’s Iggy Pop — it’s just a great scene, and Vincent Pérez remembers how to act for once in this movie), though I could have done without the Magical Crow Symbolism, especially since Curve had his tattooed on him already.

Judah explains his evil plot to Sarah while Richard Brooks forgets how to act, and does some mystical somethingorother in order to get the crow to come to Sarah. We also learn that our Blind Magic Chick had the Sight and clawed her eyes out to make the visions go away. Lovely.

The crow discovers Sarah is in trouble, and Ashe goes racing off to save her. In saving her, he’ll discover who was really behind the death of himself and his loved one… Again, strangely familiar.

The crow, however, is either under some pretty heavy compulsion, ir it’s the stupidest bird ever. It gets caught. With a cage, which was rigged to fall right on top of where it would land. I roll my eyes. Soon, soon my pain will end.

And Ashe suddenly is full of more awkwardness than ever before, and may be having a panic attack. I’m going to be kind and assume this is because his crow is trapped, but it’s disappointing to watch.

The scene in which Judah takes Ashe’s power… Of course he has electrical tape. OF COURSE he just happens to get his own version of the makeup by drinking the blood of the crow and smearing it on his eyes. Otherwise, it’s just, like, totally not symbolic enough, yanno?

Again, there’s a whole lot of pretty, but not much else.

Ashe’s son shows up to try and motivate him or emotionally manipulate him or something. Or perhaps he’s a hallucination. Perhaps I’ve stopped caring by now.

And Judah is suddenly Exposition Man. Seriously, did they think audiences were too dumb to understand what just happened? It’s horrible dialogue. Horrible. Why would anyone explain that? I think this is the point in the movie where Richard Brooks just gave up completely. Given what he had to work with, I don’t blame him.

And since Judah’s just absorbed all of Ashe’s power, there’s really no way for our heroes to kill him. Sarah dies trying, and I resist the urge to cheer. Judah’s face as he stabs her is lovely.

So that leaves the filmmakers with the deus ex machina option in which a shitton of special effects the souls of all those who came before Ashe — in crow form — fly through Ashe and at Judah until he vanishes.

Movie, could we have had a little bit less time spent rehashing the same details and a bit more setup for WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED? It would be appreciated.

And then the movie ends. I feel unclean.

…In short, there are some wonderful moments in this movie, and a hell of a lot of style, as well as quite a bit of imagery that borders on BDSM porn. (I leave whether that’s a good thing or not up to personal taste.) But overall, what elements of the plot aren’t stolen shamelessly from the first movie make no fucking sense. None. There’s very little real acting involved here, but, given what the actors have to work with, again, I can’t blame them. The writing’s atrocious.

I enjoyed the soundtrack, though, and several scenes that would have been unbearable otherwise were much improved by the music. To that end, if you want the experience without the pain (if, by some freak chance you’d like to see this and aren’t suffering from a severe case of Trainwreck Syndrome), I suggest you watch the movie with the sound muted and the soundtrack playing. All the pretty, all the good music, none of the dialogue. It’s just a very long music video.

And in that context, it might actually work.

Today was interesting, for two things: first, I came home to find a present from Beka on my desk: the first issue of the Devil May Cry comic book, which basically retells the first game, with somewhat better dialogue and a bit more backstory. While not sterling writing, by any means, it was nice to get some actual interaction between Sparda and Mundus, and a bit of character development for Dante.

Dante comes off as flippant and driven by turns, and it’s a well done, thoughtful portrayal. The first issue takes us up to the first boss fight of the game, glossing over most of the tedious running around and getting straight to the meat of the story… Though I was sorry to see the scene in which Dante acquires Alastor get cut. Devil Arms are more than cool weapons — they’re living things with their own personalities and desires, and they can be damned picky about who’s wielding them. One of the things I liked most about the original DMC is that, unlike the Devil Arms in the sequels, obtained through defeating demons and taking their power, these aren’t gifts, or things taken by right of conquest. They’re pure demonic power in weapon form, just waiting for someone stupid enough to try and pick them up. When Dante does, he’s obviously in agony as they test him, and only through withstanding the test of pain does he earn the right to use them. And that hits all sorts of fiction-kinks for me. I like living (and sentient) weapons. I like the idea that just because a powerful weapon is there, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for you. And to see that test, to see Dante’s reactions as he has to fight for every bit of power he gains… That would’ve been lovely.

Still, this isn’t without gleeful moments for me. Dante walking into the castle and being overwhelmed with memories of his father’s fight with Mundus, as well as memories of Vergil and his mother… That alone would be worth the price of admission. And when he actually has to fight to keep his own demonic nature from surfacing? All I can say to that is YES. Strong, capable characters who can destroy anything they come against having to fight to control themselves — and winning — well, that’s a fiction-kink right there. I have a thing for weird power dynamics, and when the dynamic involves two sides of someone’s nature, it’s all the better.

And really, that’s one of the reasons I love Dante so much: he’s an insanely powerful half-demon, son of the demon knight who took on the armies of hell single-handedly and won, and yet it seems like his biggest struggle is against his own demonic nature. For all his swaggering bravado, for all that everything about him is designed to scream BADASS to anyone who’s listening, he’s a great big softy underneath it all, and I’ve always had the feeling that’s a part of himself he fights to keep alive. Yeah, being a sap (even secretly) leads to doing really stupid things now and then, but it’s what makes him different from what he fights, and there’s no way he’d ever allow himself to be as indifferent to others as he pretends to be.

To stop caring is to stop being human. And when he stops being human, he becomes one of them, one of the creatures that killed his mother and destroyed his life. (This is also why his rivalry with Vergil is as bitter as it is — Vergil’s everything Dante’s most afraid of becoming, with his contempt for humanity, and how he whole-heartedly embraces all things demonic.)

Brad Mick’s writing brings out parts of the characters that I’d always suspected were there, but were only hinted at in the games. And Pat Lee’s art more than does Dante justice… Though somehow Trish just ends up looking weird, as her proportions seem slightly off more often than not. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess. Back to the positive, major props for showing Sparda as the Big Damn Demon I always suspected he was, when seen with Mundus for comparison. (There are two instances in which “Sparda” appears roughly human-sized in the games — the first is the Legendary Dark Knight costume for Dante, which lets you appear to play as Sparda — but really, animating a lot of additional mass would be annoying when it’s just a bonus costume. The other instance is Arkham taking on Sparda’s form as he takes his power — and since it’s not really Sparda, we have no idea if that’s an accurate depiction, size-wise, or if Arkham just shapeshifted without considering scale. Personally, I think Sparda was powerful enough to be whatever damn size he wanted to be.)

All in all, it was a wonderful (and completely unexpected!) gift, and I’m absolutely delighted with it. Yeah, it’s cheesy at times, but that’s the beauty of a character like Dante: he’s a nigh-invincible badass in a longcoat. He knows damn well he’s a huge dork, but when he do things like toss you into the air with his sword and then keep you aloft on a cushion of bullets, are you really going to call him on it?

No, there’s not a point to this post, except to get me in the habit of updating, and to wish everyone out there all the best in 2009.

See, here’s the deal. Once upon a time, I had five or six different sites. I ran a mailing list, a couple of webrings, my vanity page, and so on and so forth. So the main page of MtM was a pretty, splashy portal page type of thing, where I showed off my amazing web design abilities and kept a list of sites. If something happened, then I had all the files backed up. No big deal, right?

And then I decided it would be easier to keep all my sites updated if I installed some kind of blog software. I started out with Movable Type, which had a fairly easy template system. I still had pretty sites, and a way of keeping my updates intact. All was good.

And then Movable Type started sucking, and I went over to WordPress. I love WordPress, don’t get me wrong, but I had neither the time nor the patience to learn how to make templates.

In short, I got lazy. (Something very similar happened when LJ switched to the S2 style system.)

And because the site was ugly, I didn’t do so much with it. So my main update blog wasted away, my personal site wasted away, and I really wasn’t doing that much with my webspace.

And here is where we get to the crucial bit. See, a couple of times I’ve tried to do something more public than my LiveJournal, which worked with… Varying levels of success. But I’ve started thinking of… Lots of things, really, like how every other site you sign up for has a blog feature, and what to do with all those blogs. Also relevant is the fact that I’m roleplaying a lot these days, which means that I don’t spend as much time logged into my LiveJournal account.

Also, I really miss having a pretty site to show off.

So here’s how it goes. I’m not doing that much with the main MtM page. This annoys me. And if I’m going to have a self-hosted blog, it shouldn’t be consigned to a subdomain while the main page is just rotting away. So the old vanity page is redirecting here now, the old site update blog (for sites I never updated in the first place!) is going away, and I’m making a fresh start. I’m going to try to get a decent design for once, make this place actually worth visiting, and then… We’ll see.

I’m also setting Thorn Garden up again, and I may even try to revive the Neitherland project. Neitherland, for those of you who don’t know, was my attempt at a webcomic, which died in infancy because I can’t draw. What I’m thinking of doing now is doing a set of short stories and seeing if I might lure in an artist this way. I stumbled across some (really horrible) drawings I did for the Neitherland Tarot — I could do the Major Arcana as flash fiction, which would give people a feel for the world without actually giving away any vital plot. (Yes, Neitherland insists on having its story told in comic form. I’ve learned not to argue with my own stories — it never ends well.)

Anyway. New version coming soon. Wish me luck.