A grim day in blog land...

Hello internet friends. I trust that the Universe is treating you all well. Sadly, I must report that the Powers that Be are not so friendly to me. It seems my life has taken a dip into a downward spiral, right into a puddle of mud and dragged around by its testicles until they were eventually pulled off. My brother went to prison for dog rape on the same day that my mother was skin-pinched to death while the girl that I sometimes love up and left me for a muscular version of Ryan B. Doyle.

Living is as cruel a venture as cruel ventures go. It feels like I’ve been stabbed in the heart. But my heart is so black and lifeless that I can’t even feel how terribly painful it is. My soul is stomped mush. My brain is achy and stuffy. My toes are… itchy.

My future seems bleak. I feel like a nobody in a world full of somebodies. It must be because my insides have been reduced to rubble and hollowed out only to be put inside a piñata so women of the world can whack it with sticks.

How can a person with such darkness inside ever fully go on living? Why, oh why have I been cursed? Will I ever learn to smile again?





… If my blogs ever sound like this somebody fucking kill me. Treat me like Old Yellar and blow a shotgun sized round through my skull and put me out of my misery. The internet has offered society two things: Midget Porn and a voice. The most frustrating thing is most people will use that voice to complain endlessly about movies, music and everything else under the sun. The other half spends their time expressing to others how hard living is, or how sad they are, or posting their shitty poetry.

I’m all for freedom of speech, but when you use that freedom to spout out the most useless information to the world it just becomes a waste. It’s also self pitying and pathetic. Get a journal. Buy a diary. Confide this information to your friends. Stop wasting time getting people to feel bad for you. Find your sense of self respect, because you’re not adding anything new, you’re just encouraging weak behavior.

The Universe isn’t fickle or vengeful. The Universe helps you become a stronger person. Just when you think that you’ve conquered one problem it throws another at you, yes, this is true. The reason it does that is because it finally knows you’re strong enough to get through it. To keep going. We live to strengthen ourselves and to be better people for the ones we care about the most.

Pain shouldn’t be used as a rod to fish for compliments. Pain is a tool you use to educate others, or to help people out when they're down. The reason we feel is to understand others when they’re feeling blue. No pain is the same, but you have to keep going. Take another step. Don’t stand still and watch things crumble, be strong enough to stop the collapse.

You have to keep going in life, face things dead on, and fuck, stop complaining all the time!


What Ryan's listening to: "Splinter's Out" by Golden State

Growin' Up Hellboy

I’m a huge fan of “coming of age” films. The Graduate. Reality Bites. Garden State. All about characters trying to find their place as grownups in the world. That doesn’t sound much like a summer blockbuster to me. As it turns out, Hellboy 2 is just that.

This isn’t your average superhero movie. And I know that sounds more like a vague review coming from some moron who just uses some throwaway sentence that doesn’t reflect how he/she really feels. But it truly isn’t your average superhero movie.

It starts off with the worst scene in the movie that will no doubt cause everyone to wince, groan and hope to God the rest of the movie will be worth the price of admission. It opens in 1955 with a young Hellboy begging his father (John Hurt) to tell him a bedtime story. The young Hellboy makeup looks like it was left over Who prosthetics from Ron Howard’s The Grinch, only with horns and it being painted red (of course.)

After this excruciatingly painful exposition scene is delivered the movie finally kicks in. And it kicks your ass. We pick up, I’m guessing a couple months after the last Hellboy ended. Liz (Selma Blair)and HB (Ron Perlman)are having relationship issues, adjusting to living together and all. While Abe (Doug Jones – doing his own voice work this time around) and Hellboy and the rest of the group struggle with going on destroying the creatures that go bump in the night without having their father (or a father figure) present.



At its core, this is what the films all about. Struggling to be adults and having adult relationships. Becoming a HellMAN. All the characters are left, eager to grow up, unable to find the proper guidance or the understanding to do so.

I have to admit, I wasn’t completely sold on the film until they went to the Troll Market. It’s an underground bazaar for the bizarre. Some of the best looking creatures you’ve seen put on screen that weren’t completely CG. This is where writer/director Guillermo Del Toro shines. He creates worlds and creatures that seem tangible. Using practical effects and CG together to enhance the illusion. It’s a beautiful scene for those of us who miss the old puppets of Labyrinth, Star Wars and the Dark Crystal. It’s a scene that not only invokes old school fantasy films but also expands the entire Hellboy universe. You’ll constantly wonder “What else is out there?”



That’s half of the fun. The other half is watching these odd characters take on very familiar feelings. Watching Hellboy and Abe get drunk off cheap beer and singing love songs is a blast, especially realizing that we’ve all been there. Or Hellboy getting into a jealous locker room fight (literally, in the locker room) with the new man (don’t even want to spoil it) they bring in to be their leader. And I think that’s what surprised me the most. Relating to the characters. Watching them make poor, selfish decisions that you know will kick their asses later (a hint at Hellboy 3 perhaps?)

It’s a surprisingly touching film with plenty of cheesy (but strangely beautiful) moments. I know its cheese. The actors know its cheese. Del Toro probably knows its cheese. But dammit, sometimes I like me some cheese. It’s cheese with heart.

This film is pure entertainment. It makes you giddy. Smiley. A happy shiny person. And it holds you there until the very last (and hilarious) freeze frame. It feels like The Graduate with wise cracking creatures, and I couldn’t ask for anything more out of a comic book movie.



As Guillermo Del Toro would say “Tell your fucking friends!”


What Ryan's listening to: Loan Shark by Voxtrot