Lost, but my computer's busted...ward!

Hey there. First things first: What's up with the comic? Two weeks, no updates -- probably gunning for a third as it is... well, while the first week-off was out of deadlines, the second one was because my computer's motherboard just died. Straight-up died on me.

 My employers asked me to bring my PC -- my rig, not just a laptop -- to the offices so we could get everything done in one sit as quickly as possible, regarding the project I'm handling for them. Things went smoothly up until I had to leave, because something got so fucked on my computer at some point of my cab ride towards home, that by the time I plugged everything back into it nothing happened when I tried to turn it on. This event made for an awful, brutal weekend, as every cell in my brain was trying to figure out how to meet my deadline due the following day without my main computer, but luckily I managed to take out the files I needed from the still-intact hard drive and I hurried over to my buddy Ariel's apartment so I could finish the job in his computer.

 What wasn't so lucky was that the following day my other buddy Héctor and his brother Carlos arrived at my home, after the former insisted on diagnosing my rig since I intended on sending it for repairs at a nearby computer goods store, and he claimed they could be pretty slow and expensive for what could be something relatively easy to fix. Fair enough, I've been with them before and I know what he's talking about, both regarding the store in question and his own computer building skills. Might as well be just a case of a ruined PSU, for all we knew.

 The PSU was fine. It was the motherboard. We tried every combination possible to make it run and it just refused to do anything. That's just fantastic, we went from a 20-25 bucks solution to something over 150 bucks! And for something I can't even pinpoint and say "well, it's just this one part fucking things up"... brilliant. But oh well, at least this new piece of hardware's vastly superior to the one I had before. It's newer, for one thing.

 But then Ubuntu happened. Look, I've always loved Ubuntu, I've even got my parents to use it for their everyday needs -- and they genuinely like it too. But the ball was dropped way too hard here. Ubuntu out of the disc works fine. Windows 7 out of the disc works fine, too. But when trying to install Ubuntu after installing Windows 7, things just get weird for Ubuntu, as it's unable to recognize my Windows 7 partition. It's (probably) because my new motherboard's got an UEFI instead of a BIOS, so it works differently (don't ask me how). So differently that when trying to re-install Ubuntu over the already made Ubuntu partition, the installer straight-up deleted EVERYTHING IN THE HARD DRIVE, including my updated-to-today Windows 7 which already contained some personal files and documents. Original Illustrator files, some noteworthy photos, ... my Skyrim saves. They're gone.

 I'm not terribly hurt over losing things on the fire like this (I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what kind of files I lost), but I'm bummed over Ubuntu just being this ... naïve, this by-default faulty. The extra steps you gotta take to make it run aren't hard at all (Live CD, run FixParts. Install. Live CD, run Boot-Repair. You're done), but we're talking about a slip-up that nullified hours of updating and installing; and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's gone through this.

 As I'm writing this, my PC's still not back on a full track yet. I've still some things to move and some programs to install, but I'm getting there -- but needless to say, I don't think I'll be getting #56 done in time this weekend either. Past Monday, I'll be fully working on it, no doubt about it, but as of right now: you guessed it. The deadlines never end. At least by monday I'm assured I'll have some time to myself, so there we go. Apologies for the delays, but trust me that in due time, I'll make something up for it.

 But that was my day. How was yours? Did you catch up with any movies? I did. There were two I saw not too long ago -- the two that got the people talking the most, certainly.

Gareth Edward's Godzilla's finally out with a roar, hoping to make amends for the Emmerich "that's a lot of fish" thing from 97. Honestly it's not like he had to do much for that, he just had to make a decent movie. And he did, as this Godzilla's an american redemption, albeit one by default. It's closer to the source material, yet it keeps something original under its sleeve at all times.

 You probably know the drill here: there's a giant lizard monster causing havoc and destruction over Tokyo and whatnot, but deep down it's a metaphor for the nuclear attacks Japan suffered in WW2. It doesn't stray too far from the former, but it rewrite things a bit for the latter, as Godzilla's taking a world tour of sorts as an alpha predator, hunting down some other two new kaijus called MUTOs, by the military -- but as it turns out, these monsters feed on radiation, so mankind's best weapon is actually their dessert.

 But you know that for as much as you've got a movie called Godzilla, you're gonna need humans for it to make it work... and this is where the movie kinda fails for me. See, some of the ambients Edwards pulls out every now and then are just fantastic -- silent, ominous, surrounding, skyscapping chaos. There's this one scene in which soldiers parachute their way down to a MUTO-Godzilla stricken city that's just gorgeously dark and haunting. But the thing is, they don't require much effort from an acting point of view -- if anything, if there's one element I gotta give an standing ovation for, it's not even the visual effects or the cinematography (which are pretty good). It's the sound. This movie should have the two sound categories in a deadly headlock at next year's Oscars, if there's any justice left in the world.

 But the problem in it being not terribly dependant on acting is that... well, you kinda wish it was for a movie that's this serious minded and grim. The only actor who's a true stand out here's Bryan Cranston, and if you've seen the movie you know that's kind of a problem. Every one else's just there, barely registering enough to remember duties but not names. And that's a bit of a shame considering the art-house leaning talent on board: Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen... they're either not given enough time to leave a mark or they're of the dull-surpise faced, expositing-on-Godzilla club. And no one here dull-surpised more than Aaron Taylor Johnson, who's in a role I could certainly do without in this movie. Not only he doesn't add anything to the movie, he just forces himself to be the hero.

 And it's a shame that Cranston, for as much as he was in the trailers, isn't. The man's behind one of the most MUST-SEE TV series not only of recent memory, but of all time, and he's still not trusted enough to carry out a mainstream film on his own. But maybe that's his own stand on the matter -- maybe he's happy with being a supporting actor. I don't know the guy, but I just want to always see more of him in all the movies he's in. Whether it's Argo or Drive or even something like Total Recall -- a movie so bad he was its only saving grace as the villain.

 But seriously, that's my only gripe, even if it's a rather major one. The human element's not great here, but the action and the visuals make up for it somewhat. This new Godzilla plays it like if he was Jaws, keeping himself away from view until he can't hide anymore -- and it just shows up as dramatically chilling as possible. By the time the climax was over I must've said "fuck your shit!" over 20 times out just because of much shit was fucked between Godzilla, the MUTOs, and the soldiers running across the destruction between their feet. It was a pretty fun while. But a fun while on the same page as Man of Steel and Prometheus for me -- I liked those movies just okay too, even if I have to admit they're kinda clunky and less-than-perfect given its own ambitions. Give it a watch.

 But on the higher hand... something came out of nowhere for me. Literally, like out of a clear sky. Wasn't expecting it to be this good, this first-movie-of-2014-I'm-giving-5-out-of-5 good. If back in 2011 you would've told me I might end up putting an X-Men movie in my Top 10 best films of the year list (let alone a movie with a title starting with the letter X), I would've called you a crazy person. I really enjoyed the McAvoy-Fassbender affairs of First Class, but not to a damn-that-was-good level. But here we are. Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past. Damn, that was good!

Plot spoilers ahead, caution. Also, minimum knowledge of X-Men required to understand it.

 Not exactly picking up where First Class ended (it's closer to The Wolverine, actually), we're introduced to a future in which Sentinels, machines built for hunting down mutants, have run things to the ground. Only a handful of mutants are still alive, forming a resistance against them, dodging certain death from them through the powers of Kitty Pryde, who sends someone's consciousness through time so they can avoid the present deadly outcome and start anew from some place else. The surviving X-Men contact them hoping to use her power to send someone in time to prevent this whole scenario from happening -- and the one chosen for the ride's Wolverine, as he's the only one who could endure and self-repair the heavy brain damage of sending someone THAT far back in time -- 50 years, or so. He's sent to locate the younger selves of Xavier and Magneto, so together they can prevent Mystique from causing the event that will trigger the apocalyptic future they're living in.

 Plots with time travel involved often leave a handful of plot holes too big to ignore, but its time travel isn't the main concern here. Instead, Wolverine here deals with his journey with a lot of human, warm hindsight -- he's not acting high and mighty or even tough and menacing towards the has-been, washed-up Xavier, who's gone depressed and remorseful over the few years, as things haven't been great not just for mutants everywhere, but for his own friends too. Wolverine treats him not exactly as one of his own, but as the one he'll become -- the one who'll give him some much needed purpose in his life, along with a family he can protect, love, and spar with. He'll be as patient as he can be, even if he's on a short, borrowed, past time.

 And I don't want to go that much deep on the movie because... what's good here is just so, so refreshingly good that I don't want to expire things by talking too much about them. The action sequences are just so joyous and uniquely shapen. Long gone is the Marvel standard (yes, I'm aware the X-Men are part of the Marvel universe, but I'm talking about the Iron Man/Thor/Cap line of movies) of ever-intensifying scenes, in which the third act without fail must be on something huge that's gonna explode in the end. I mean, that's something that even Batman and Star Trek have borrowed by now. Instead, there are no two scenes that are remotely alike here. The funny action scenes are just a blast to watch in motion (Avengers 2's gonna have a hard time surpassing this Quicksilver, I'll tell you), and the serious-minded scenes are just so engaging in their minimalistic scope: they can be big, but never distractingly so. You'll never be falling over the details of a massive, mechanical 3D model, because your attention's undividedly spent on whoever's pulling the strings here.

 And the same applies for character interactions. While the swagger and the optimistic eagerness from First Class's dead for sure, there's still some good room left for snappy quips and comebacks (again, Quicksilver!), but it also feels desperate and urgent, always in motion, and with lots of skeletons in its closet. You can always feel that something dear was... maybe not lost, but twisted and, well, mutated, into something unrecognizable, and they're trying their best to either move on with their lives, or hoping for better days to come back, if not both things at the same time. This movie drove me to the brink of tears, if you can believe it. There's this one scene showing with painful greatness how much of a bitch hindsight can be. It's simply heartbreaking.

 And that's something else, too -- it's been a long, LONG while since I've cared about the heroes themselves. Lately it's been that the heroes themselves have so much charisma that at times their problems don't seem too big all things considered. As long as they get the girl in the end, or the evil guy's defeated, they're good and snappy. But here's something at stake. This is a race against time as literal as it gets. It's the one chance. This is not "we're gonna avenge it!", this is "do or die". And it's something that spans both ends of the time spectrum, as everyone here's acting their part with a luxurious commitment to balance. There's not a speck of someone trying to steal the spotlight from the rest. Not one trying to be too funny, not one trying to be too serious-minded. They're all in the same boat and they're all the one captain at the same time. And that's just stunning to me because of how... FUCKING HUGE this ensemble is. This isn't a cast, it's a fucking constellation! James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage, Omar Sy, Ellen Page, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, my god. If I hadn't known, I would've sworn this was some kind of Soderbergh heist flick or something. And they're all so, so game for it! Hell, there's even ANNA PAQUIN! For a tiny bit, sure, but there she is. Reading on Wikipedia I found that her scenes were cut in post, but they'll be added for the DVD/Blu-ray release. Can't wait.

 And that's it. A fantastic film that brings a pretty welcome gust of fresh air into our lungs and into the comic book genre. I mean, after seeing it, if there was one word I had on my mind was "embarrasment", because I felt that this movie kinda put NEARLY everything to shame. This movie is in another level, is it's in a league of its own. It's the one worth caring for. Go see it ASAP.

That's it for now! I hope I'll be able to get the comic done this week! See ya next time!