Straight Outta Compton

     Let me first say that this movie was amazing. I really, really liked it. As a movie about a music group it takes the viewer on a great trip through the life of NWA's lens. I would put this movie on the same level of greatness as say the first Avengers film and Mad Max Fury Road. I would say its the best movie of 2015 other than Mad Max.
     Here's the basics: "Straight Outta Compton is a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by F. Gary Gray about the rise and fall of the Compton, California hip hop group N.W.A. The film borrows its title from the name of their 1988 debut studio album. Straight Outta Compton stars O'Shea Jackson, Jr. as Ice Cube, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, and Paul Giamatti as N.W.A's manager Jerry Heller. Among the film's producers are Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Eazy-E‍ '​s widow, Tomica Woods-Wright. The film was released on August 14, 2015, received positive reviews from critics, and has grossed over $140 million. An album inspired by the film, Compton, was released by Dr. Dre on August 7, 2015, and debuted at No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 charts." (Wiki)
     The story in the movie is supposedly the story of the how NWA came together, their rise and fall, how they break up and form solo projects, and how they come back together in the end to reform right around the time that Eazy dies from aids. It doesn't sound very exciting but the movie just keeps you in a state of wanting to know whats going to happen next. At first they are just regular black guys (albeit poor thugish black guys) living in Compton California. Eazy was a real thug gang banger drug dealer type of guy, Ice Cube is a high school student that writes great lines, and Dr. Dre is a guy who loves music that got kicked out of his moms house for not finding a job. The only guy who was portrayed as even slightly a thug was Eazy E, although there were moments where they all stood up to racist pigs (cops), and even one incident where Dre gets sent to prison just for standing up to a white cop. The way the LAPD was portrayed in this film was very realistic. I've been treated the same way even in Wisconsin, I think they're even worse out here in LA, especially back then in the late 80's. There was a fucked up part of the movie where a black cop and his white partner roll up to the group outside of the place they were recording. The black cops says,"You niggas belong somewhere?". Then, when the manager is getting the group back inside the black cop says,"That's right, go back to your master", which was all kinds of fucked up. It just goes to show you that even black cops can be pigs too. Let me remark upon some of my favorite moments of the movie, there were a couple great ones.
     My favorite part of the movie was when they were recording their very first song. They had some group of guys from New York come in to do the song. It had dope lyrics but they sent these guys in as the talent because this was before they had tried rapping for themselves. Eventually the New York guys read the lyrics and they're all like,"This shit is wack, what's a 6 4?", and then they start dissing our guys from Compton, calling them jerry-curl ass niggas. Eventually they figure they're money is wasted unless they find someone to do the song. Dre suggests that Eazy does the song because the song was about him. Eazy is reluctant at first but decides to give it a shot. Let me just say that he sounded so cringe worthy on those very first attempts at rapping. He was so offbeat and he sounded weak. Dre and the guys laughed at him, it was pretty funny. But eventually Eazy tells the other guys to get out of the other room and he gets on beat, and sings the first line with bravado. Dre responds with "great, now we only have 59 more lines to go", which makes me believe that Eazy E did all his raps one line at a time in the studio, which is very funny!
     Some of my other favorite moments where just some random scenes where they were in the studio and Dre was playing a keyboard on the track, and it sounded hella dope. It was cool that he's the only real musical one in the group. There was a scene in the beginning of the movie where we see Dre doing sick turn table scratching inside of a friends house. Also, we see him working as a DJ at a club, but the club owner kept telling him that he didn't want him to put on any of that rap shit. And that he preferred those slower songs, like dance music like rnb and soul stuff. Not only was Dre more musical in the studio than the other guys but he also rapped too. I liked him the best although Ice Cube wrote most of NWA's shit, and the other guys just performed the songs onstage.
     One last funny moment that was interesting was when this one guy knocks on the hotel room door of NWA while they're having this wild crazy party where people are having sex and stuff like that. He comes to the door, Ice Cube answers, the guy says,"I heard my girl Felicia is in one of these rooms, do you know where she is?". Ice Cube yells at him no and slams the door hard as fuck on him, but the guy holds the door open and shows him a gun. So Ice Cube runs back inside, looks for Felicia, and she's inside the bathroom sucking off Eazy! Eazy hears the news about the guy, grabs a shotty, and the group all grabs their own guns as well, and they head into the hallway walking towards the guy with all their guns to the ready. The guy just runs away scared. They all laugh and head back inside. Ice Cube slams the door on Felicia, sayinig "Bye Felicia, leaving her in the hallway wearing only a bikini. Pretty hilarious. I've heard some song about a Felicia and I guess this is the girl that inspired the song.
     Now, was this movie entirely realistic? No, I do believe that they took some liberties with the characters, and sanitized them in some ways. I believe they were all a bit worse people than they appeared to be in the film. A friend told me that Dre used to beat up women. And my dad told me that Ice Cube was much more the criminal than the regular high school kid who wrote rap lines. And also Shug Knight was also a ruthless motherfucker. I think in real life he might have even been charged for murder or attempted murder, not sure about that one but my brother told me something like that. So yeah these guys ain't saints. They were real mother fuckin' og's son! Haha, but seriously in the movie they appeared to be a lot better people than they actually were.
     Also, I feel like this movie has been accepted by the masses because rap has become accepted by the masses. By the masses I'm mainly referring to white people, because they control Top 40 Radio, Pop Music, and what's left of the music industry regarding record sales and stuff like that. In some ways Dre, Ice Cube, and Snoop have all sold out. They made it and that's it, they've become the establishment. They ain't real mother fuckin' og's anymore. To me they're kind of a bunch of sell outs, but that doesn't mean that they aren't brilliant masterminds, great businessmen, and good rappers. I mean Dre has some headphones that sell for $300, ain't that a bunch of bullshit? But for me they aren't what real rap represents anymore. Now rap represents corporatism, fast cars, money, bitches, smoking weed, having life made, etc. Back then when rap was real they were actually talking about what was happening in the ghetto, people getting shot, and what it was like being an actual gangsta. This is the main reason why I'm not a rap guy. In some ways I'm against rap because most rappers represent something that they're not. This is just my opinion. I choose instead to listen to Jazz because its not a part of all the corporate bullshit, record companies, and now streaming services companies. To me Dre, Snoop, and Ice Cube have become like white people-successful, rich, and living in houses as far away from black people as possible. Just a thought.
     With all that being said, I really enjoyed the movie. Its definitely one of the best music movies I've ever seen and I'm not even really a rap fan. However, I did know about NWA and Eazy E especially before I saw this. I knew a lot of the songs too. It was awesome hearing the songs on the big screen at a movie theater with all the people around me. I think that was the best part of the movie really. Just the music in general. If I had to give this movie a rating I would give it a 9 out of 10, fucking amazing! It gets the Bad Ass Stamp of Approval.

American Ultra

     I went to go see American Ultra today with two friends. We meant to go see Straight Outta Compton but we ended up seeing this movie instead somehow (why!). What I expected: a stoner comedy action sleeper agent film. What I got: a moody, drama focused sleeper agent film. One of my friends said it best when he said,"It was kind of fucked up. I wouldn't want to see it when I'm high." I wouldn't say that its quite that fucked up but it was intense and moody, which was weird to us because the trailer shows the movie as more of a stoner comedy action sort of flick. We totally didn't see the drama incoming! I'm going to give you the good, the bad, and the nerdy. 
     Here's the storyline:"Small-town stoner Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) spends most of his time getting high and writing a graphic novel. What Mike doesn't know is that he was trained by the CIA to be a lethal killing machine. When the agency targets him for termination, his former handler activates his latent skills, turning the mild-mannered slacker into a deadly weapon. Now, the utterly surprised Mike must use his newfound abilities to save himself and his girlfriend from getting smoked." (google.com) 
     It's a pretty cool plot and it seems like you can really go anywhere with this premise. But it doesn't really go anywhere, like at all, other than just the mindless killing (a lot of action, gun shooting in this movie). The acting by Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stweart (the girlfriend/CIA handler of Jesse's character) was what was so great about this movie. You get the feeling that they are the perfect fucked up couple. We've all seen these kinds of fucked up couples in real life and they acted it out really well. I really 'felt' their characters so to speak, they were believable. Eisenberg's character could be many people in real life. In fact, I've met people exactly like him, and I've met girls that are just like Pheobe Larson (Stewart's character). 
     Another thing that was great about this movie is that if you like gun shots, action, and people getting wasted you will like that aspect of the film. It was pretty cool but for me it gets old after maybe the 20th gun shot. Guns are kind of boring to me. I also hate how they're so popular in American culture. Every douche-bag sports all kinds of guns from assault rifles to pistols, we get it. It would have been more interesting if he used more of his hand to hand combat skills, or if he knew kung fu or something (that would've been awesome). 
     There were two greatest moments for me in this movie. The first was when Eisenberg was about to kill an agent sent to kill him. He was a former mental patient who went through the same CIA training program that Eisenberg went through, except he was a failure in most aspects. The failure, named Laughter or something like that because he laughs crazily, said that Eisenberg was 'better' than him. Then he proceeded to ask him who controls him. Eisenberg answers with nobody. Then Laughter says, "that must be nice". To me this was moment in the movie that stood out. In the end Eisenberg lets him live. 
     The second and best moment of the movie was the ending.. Its cheesy but I still loved it. At the end the government decides to use Eisenberg as an undercover agent. We see him and the girlfriend in the Philippines at a fancy hotel. She kisses him, and then he goes into an elevator.  Then, we see a group of Chinese men in the elevator proceed to throw a bag over his head. Once he's captured, the Chinese gang lord starts talking in Mandarin saying stuff about how this guy is pathetic and unarmed, this is all they're going to send against him. Then Eisenberg laughs and the gang lord says in English,"something funny?". Then Eisenberg answers him in Mandarin,"I didn't know I could speak Mandarin". Then he punches him and it goes into this really cool gorilla ape comic strip type thing, going into the credits with that. Great ending mate. If I could rate that ending it would be a 10 out of 10, just awesome. 
     Now, for what was bad about the movie. The biggest thing was that the story doesn't really go anywhere, and on top of that, as the story goes on it gets progressively more drama focused-resulting in what my friend called a 'fucked up' movie. Its just kind of depressing because he finds out his girlfriend is just a CIA handler and that maybe she doesn't even love him, but later another CIA woman tells him that she quit the CIA just to be with him and start over, so I don't know which is which but in the end they ended up loving each other, Eisnberg even giving Stewart a Wedding ring, and he shouts out to the cops and government officials,"she said yes!", before they taser the fuck outta both of them. Also, it sucks that we were mislead into thinking it was a stoner comedy. That's the way they are marketing it. But in fact its its own thing. I'd like to think of it as action drama-something like the Bourne Identity or something like that. The movie has almost no laughs except maybe one stoner moment where they're talking about a tree and a car, and how that represents their relationship. It seemed funny at first but then you realize its not. In addition, it starts out as very stoner-ish so you're kind of expecting it to be that way but it just slaps you in the face with drama instead. 
     And now for the nerdy. Its awesome that this movie stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristan Stewart. I only really know about Eisenberg because I know he's going to be playing Lex Luthor in the Superman V Batman movie. And of course I know about Stewart because of Twlight, something that I guess used to be popular and maybe isn't now? Not sure but I haven't heard about it in years, at least since that last moving Breaking Down or whatever it was called. I read a couple reviews for this movie and most of them said the movie was bad, but don't let me or the critics decide. Check it out for yourself. I would say this is a good movie to see with a girlfriend because there is a love factor in it between Eisenberg and Stewart. If I could give this movie a rating I would give it a 6 out 10 because the movie gets boring and it doesn't get weird despite the fact that this is a young stoner couple. Some parts of this movie were hard to enjoy. It doesn't really go anywhere other than just action action action on repeat with some lame dialogue like,"who are you, what is going on with me?", kind of crap. Also, stoner couples should be funnier than this. There's not enough jokes or laughs from all the characters in general. The baddie that laughed a lot wasn't funny, he just seemed like a psychopath. The director is an Iranian named Nima Nourizadeh who is only 37 so he is still young and has time to learn and make better films. I would give this movie a 6 out of 10 solely for the acting skills of Eisenberg and Stewart, they were good but the movie was bad.  It doesn't get the Orlando Figueroa Bad Ass Stamp of Approval.

Call of Duty Black Ops III beta, Starting guitar lessons

     I got into the Call of Duty Black Ops III beta on PC today. I'll tell you a little bit about it. From just loading the game and checking out some of the new features, it seems that all fps games are trying to copy each other. For one thing, BoIII has hero characters that you can pick, and they all have unique abilities that only work with that chosen hero. Sounds kind of similar to what I was playing just the other day, the Dirty Bomb beta. Another thing that BoIII has that all fps games already have been doing is the whole parkour running on walls thing-which I believe came from this game called Brink, a game that kind of flopped as a major fps sell. I don't consider myself a fps gamer by any means, and I really suck badly at them but I do have a lot in my pc game collection: Battlefield 4, Titanfall, Cod Advanced Warfare, and Cod Ghosts. What I can say about BoIII is that it is way better than BoII because of the heroes and the way the unique abilities work. It's really like a brand new Call of Duty game even though its really just the same old style gameplay of run and gun, and with people going in like little Rambo's, even on team deathmatch, which is the only gametype I played today. Let me give you the good, the bad, and the nerdy (thumbs up if you get that reference).
     First of all, team deathmatch is a joy to play. It's really really fun. Probably the most fun I've ever had playing a fps game ever. I played for maybe an hour, an hour and a half and I never got bored. I played this hero where after a while you get to use this ability where you use this electric gun, when you shoot them, they get electrocuted. In addition to him I played this female hero who uses a bow and arrow as her special and the arrows explode when they stick to anything. Pretty cool stuff. The guns seem pretty unoriginal and boring. And my biggest complaint about the guns in every CoD game is that they have no fucking recoil. You can go full auto all day and you just don't 'feel' it at all. I like to have some kind of realistic ideas in my games. Its a total fantasy gun game, I get it, but it would be a game changer if the guns worked just a tiny bit more like real guns. In Dirty Bomb, there's a bit of a kickback to the guns, which I definitely prefer. It makes you aim your shots a little bit different, its a better way to shoot in my opinion. Now, if you're looking for a major graphics upgrade you will not find it here. The beta graphics look just the same as Advanced Warfare, maybe only a step up above Ghost, albeit a little bit more colorful because most of these maps in the beta are all outside for some reason, and Advanced Warfare was kind of gun-metal gray for the most part. All I played was team deathmatch so unfortunately I can't really say anything else about the game. But from what I played I am very happy with the game. It's the same CoD gameplay that everyone knows and loves, but there's the twist with the heroes. Also, they didn't go crazy with the futuristic stuff they did in Advanced Warfare. Instead, you're mainly using standard guns, maybe a little bit more advanced than real life weaponry but not complete crazy like the lasers from Aw. I think this will the best CoD to come out in a long time, they've always done a great job with the Black Ops part of the series. Looking forward to participating more in the beta and seeing the finished product in November, the 6th if I recall correctly.
     Also, starting on Sunday I'm going to be taking guitar lessons from a jazz guitarist that comes to the store I work at. I got to talking to him and I mentioned that he should give me lessons because I'm having a rough time trying to learn how to play jazz on my own. The truth and best idea I think would be for me just to go back to college, even if its just community college. I'm sure I would learn more if I got to play with a band instead of just playing solo guitar, which can be a bit hard to improvise over changes because I can't hear the changes as I'm playing over them. It's a real conundrum for me. I think I will eventually just go back to college because the only way to get better is by playing with real jazz musicians, and I'll find other young musicians like me at schools. Going back to school is something I should've done a while ago but I keep holding off. Anyways, I'm looking forward to the lessons and I hope I can learn stuff and put it to good use. By the way, that's Marty Friedman, the guitar sempai with a bunch of cute Japanese girls. He's one of my favorite guitar players. Not necessarily a jazz guitarist but he does do a lot of jazzy stuff in his playing. 

Update 1.05-Competetive Gaming, New Headset, Dirty Bomb Beta, Plans

     Lately, things have been fabulous. I had the weekend off, went to a concert, hung out with a friend, did a lot of gaming, and hung out with my older bro. It was so fantastic that it kind of changed my outlook on life at the moment! Spent the day at work thinking about plans for the future, things I wanted to get for my birthday next month, stuff like that.
     First of all, I got a brand new gaming set from Gamestop, my favorite store. It's a HyperX Cloud pro gaming headset endorsed by ESL, MLG, and Intel Extreme Masters. It's pretty nice, I've only had it for 3 days and I can honestly say that I got my moneys worth. It wasn't cheap either, it came at a price of $69.99, which is a steal because online they go for $79.99. I gotta say that these are the best headphones I've ever had. When I'm playing Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, I can actually hear people's footsteps coming up behind me as I'm running around. Pretty sick. In addition, the headset is great for music too, I listened to a lot of music today and it works well for that as well. Not too shabby. The thing about gaming headsets is that the price range can go from $100-to over $300 but when you're going that far you might as well just get great regular sounding headphones that audiophiles use, and not just stick to just gaming headsets. Anyways, it was expensive because its a brandname (HyperX), which is part of Kingston technology, they do everything from computer memory, ssd, usb drives, headsets, and mouse pads. Here's a little info about the headset here if you're interested-http://www.kingston.com/us/hyperx/cloud#h3cl. Basically, the best thing about this headset is that I can game without that feeling that I have something on my head, sometimes it feels like I'm wearing nothing at all, nothing at all (thumbs up if you got that reference).
     Next, with the addition of the HyperX Cloud of course I got into some major gaming, some might call it major league gaming (ha, get it?). I haven't tested the headset on all my games but I did test it out on the ones I play the most. Mainly Heroes of the Storm. I've gotten so into Heroes that in some ways I've become a god at it. I mostly play competitively but I'm still in the unranked stage in the ranked matches ranked thing. I really want to get a team and play on it exclusively and talk through vent or teamspeak and really enjoy the game that way but I don't know enough players who play it as much as I do. My favorite characters to play in Heroes are Novazon Nova (Nova w/ the Amazon skin from Diablo II), Leouric (from Diablo III, that's a cosplay of him in the picture), and Kerrigan (from Starcraft II). I'm honestly great with all three of those characters but I do play them all to do those quests that the game has. When you complete quests you earn in game gold that can be used to buy characters, mounts, and skins. I've unlocked most of my characters that way, although I did finally break down and buy a Blizzard card to buy the Novazon skin. I still have $10.01 left but I'm going to save it until there's something really cool that comes out in the game. Anyways, I've been playing Heroes really competitively and so far I've been pretty successful. I didn't think I'd ever be good at a moba. League of Legends and Dota 2 are way harder than Heroes but that still doesn't make Heroes an easy game for noobs. No filthy casual here.
     Also, I've been playing competitively in Smash 4 3ds. I figured out that I will be using 3 mains: Fox as my number 1 character, Zero Suit Samus when I can take things easy, and Sheik when I want to try to throw my opponent off. I usually play late online on For Glory. I've gotten so into Smash 4 that I've been thinking about saving up and buying a Wii U for my birthday next month. Might have to save up a little and spend less money because even used Wii U's go for $260, and that's the one with the smallest storage space. I don't need the Wii U but it would be nice to play online against people with better graphics and not having to look at a tiny ass screen. Sometimes the stages are so bright on that tiny screen that I can hardly see when I'm in battles. In addition, it would be a good investment because I'm thinking about going to Smash tournaments with my friends in the future and for the most part everyone plays the Wii U version at these tournaments. It's a great game and a fantastic E-sport as well. My favorite Smash pros are Mew2King, Zero, Mango, and Korean DJ, I'm the stereotypical Smash Brothers fan xD. By the way, I can beat most people online with ease but every once in a while there are people who are just on a different level than me. I have a win rate of about 50% at the moment in For Glory.
      Next, I decided to partake in this fps (first person shooter) beta called Dirty Bomb. This is a great tactical, objective, and team-based fps game where you choose from about 12 hero soldiers that all have special abilities; like orbital strikes, healing, and throwing out ammo packs to your teammates. I only played it just yesterday and I can honestly say the game is amazing. It's only in beta so it can only get better. The only bad thing I noticed is that even though its still in beta, there is a cash shop, which sorta makes it pay to win in my opinion. The thing that I like about this game is that it isn't about who can get the most kills or headshots, its about working as a team to complete the objectives. Without the objectives you can't win, which is an awesome idea for fps's. I heard about the game because steam emailed me about it telling me to participate in the beta. For the longest time I held off because I am not particularly into fps's. But I saw TotalBiscuit's review for it on the youtubes and I was pretty impressed with it. It can only get better with this winning formula of objectives over kills or team deathmatch stuff that is prevalent in fps's.
     Lastly, I'm waiting on the next Starcraft expansion to come out. My pre-order for the deluxe edition says its coming out on December 31st, so it will be after Christmas. I'm thinking about starting to play Starcraft II again competitively so I can gain my skills back and get back where I was, maybe try to get higher in the online ranking system. Last time I left off was in Gold League, at number 1 or 2, so I can easily get into Plat, if I try hard enough. The ranking system goes like this-bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, masters, and grandmasters. Koreans are all grandmasters. Us Americans have to work harder at it haha. Also want to work on playing Warcraft III, I've always loved the game but I've never played it long enough to understand the mechanics, especially online in 1v1 matches. When I did play I mained the Undead race because of the Death Knight hero. Also, in November I want to get a BlizzCon virtual ticket so I can follow everything that happens, especially the Starcraft tourneys, I know some sick Korean players will be there. One day I'll have to go to BlizzCon with my bro, he's gone once with his buddies. It's always in Anaheim, here in California. As you can tell, I am a huge nerd, haha! Then, there's going to the jam sessions for the Baked Potato on Mondays as well. So I'm really stepping up my guitar game as well as competitive gaming skills. Also, there's anime that I want to watch too; JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. So many plans! I hope you all had a great summer and enjoy the fall coming up soon here in September, my favorite month because of my birthday and my step-dad's birthday. Figueroa out.

Michael Landau Group at the Baked Potato

     Saw a pretty cool concert tonight at the Baked Potato. This is my third time there. This wasn't as good as the last show I saw there, but still better than the first show. I saw the Michael Landau Group, which consists of Michael Landau on guitar, Reggie Hamilton on bass, and Gary Novak on drums. I gotta say first of all that Landau is a great guitar player but I can see that most of his skills come from being a session player, and that perhaps he doesn't really have much of a career going for him in terms of the performer context. The one thing that surprised me was that he has such an amazing rhythm section, why don't they get to play any solos? The obvious answer is because Landau is the leader but with a bass player and drummer that good, its a bit wrong not to feature them. The style of music they play is more akin to blues-rock and progressive-rock, but most of what they played was based on the blues. There are moments where he adds some spice to the chords, maybe playing some slightly jazz sounding chords but I wouldn't call Landau a jazz guitarist. I noticed his favorite chord is a simple bluesy 9th chord. However, Reggie Hamilton sounds like a jazz bass player to me, I could see him playing jazz fusion or standards. Same with the drummer. When it comes to improvisation I'd say that Landau is great when it comes to great rock and blues licks, and he adds a lot of chromatic jazzy licks in there as well, but his improvisation only goes so far. However, he does have his moments and those moments were amazing! There were times when he pulled off these great blues licks that sounded just like stuff Jeff Beck would play. Another great thing about Landau's guitar playing is that he has a great guitar tone. He sounds like Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Johnson, all great players with great tone. Do I think he has his own sound and personality? Sound, probably not. But I do think he has his own personality and unique sound as a player, one of the all time great achievements in being a musician. Part of his own voice is that he rarely ever 'goes for it' when he's playing solos. By that I mean he never gets into a show off-y kind of thing, he's very relaxed and he's always holding back until just the perfect moment to cut loose with a flurry of blues based licks. It's actually amazing how he never overplays. If anything, he underplays, which me and my friend both agreed he did that.
     Now, let's talk about the rhythm section. Reggie Hamilton is an amazing bass player but he played much better bass just warming up before the show started testing out his 12-string bass with a huge neck. He played some jazz stuff on it but when it came to the band playing together, he was confined to simply playing root notes and background, not even really playing fills. He is another great example of not overplaying. But when you don't overplay to the point where everything you play is very simple, you run the risk of underplaying, which I felt happened for sure. I don't think regular people notice it that much but musicians can definitely tell. Its a shame because he sounded like a monster bass player when he was testing out some jazz stuff on his 12-string bass but when he was playing it with the band he was just playing single note stuff. A little underwhelming but he did have a great sound. It's hard to say who he sounds like as a bass player because I'm not familiar with enough great black bass players to say who's who, but he does sound like a funky bass player from the 70's, that's for sure. I think Hamilton is probably the most talented musician in the band, especially judging from the jazz stuff he was playing just testing out his bass before the show started.
     Next, Gary Novak is a good driving drummer. Again, he kind of underplays. I would say he had maybe one moment where he sort of kind of had a drum solo, but I don't think I can call it a drum solo because it was just a flurry of great fills, but it only lasted like 30 seconds. They could've let him stretch it out a little bit longer than that! His style is really good. He's a great all around drummer and he can even do a bit of that fusion stuff, he sounded great on the more moody jazzy sounding stuff, especially his cymbal work. I could see him working in a fusion context for sure, he would probably sound better than doing simple blues-rock stuff. He sticks to the rhythm mainly, and he doesn't really add too many fills, a great drummer for a leader who doesn't want a a drummer who shows off. He was really good.
     Lastly, it was a bit hard to enjoy the show because I was standing in the back. However, I was able to see all of the musicians clearly, especially the guitar so that was cool and satisfying for the money I paid. It's become a hang out place for me lately, but it isn't cheap. It was $25 at the door plus 2 drinks that came out to $14, not exactly cheap for me because I only work part time. However, it is worth the money and I did enjoy it. Even my friend had a good time. The sound quality was terrific too by the way. Everything in the mix was clear and sounded 'tasty', as they say. One thing I have to say is that every tune he played sounded the same. They all sounded like some kind of blues-rock jam with some quiet jazzy parts. At that point, he's not really playing songs, he's just playing an outline of a song just for the purpose of extended solos. Nothing wrong with that because I love solos, but this isn't really a band that plays 'songs'. Every time I go to these concerts I feel like I'm learning something on the guitar, and as a musician in general. Came for the fun with friends. Left with some great blues-rock guitar sounds in my head.

Wreck It Ralph

     Today I saw this cool video game movie called Wreck It Ralph. It's a little old now but I think its still recent enough for me to be writing about it. My brother got it on DVD and we watched it. My immediate conclusion is to just say that this movie is good-but not great, pretty much every video game movie I've ever seen has been either ok or just terrible (think of Pixels, Mario Bros.).
     Here's the sit-rep from Wiki. "Wreck-It Ralph is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 52nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The film was directed by Rich Moore, who has directed episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama, and the screenplay was written by Jennifer Lee and Phil Johnston from a story by Moore, Johnston and Jim Reardon. John Lasseter served as the executive producer. The film features the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch. The film tells the story of the eponymous arcade game villain who rebels against his role and dreams of becoming a hero. He travels between games in the arcade, and ultimately must eliminate a dire threat that could affect the entire arcade, and one that Ralph himself inadvertently started.
Wreck-It Ralph premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on October 29, 2012, and went into general release on November 2. The film has earned $471 million in worldwide box office revenue, $189 million of which was earned in the United States and Canada; it was met with critical and commercial success, winning the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and receiving nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature^. Wreck-It Ralph was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 5, 2013." Now let's talk about the story and my favorite and/or best parts.
     Basically this movie is about a bad video game character tired of living in trash and wanting to move in the pent house and be a hero (he thinks he can achieve good hero status by getting a medal), basically Ralph is a guy who wrecks stuff in this old school arcade game and now he wants to make a change in his life and become a hero. The hero in his game is Felix, a short guy with a hammer who fixes everything that Ralph breaks. Pretty simple minded eh? Well, this is a children's movie (Walt Disney). The coolest part of this movie was the very beginning, where Ralph is in a bad guy video game therapy session. Here we have people like M.Bison, Zangief, Bowser, those ghost guys from Pac-Man, etc. What's really cool is that Zangeif talks about how he likes crushing people's heads between his thighs. He has this European accent that fits his character very well. Then they end their bad guy therapy with a mantra about how "I am bad, that is good". It's a great part of the movie. Then, when Ralph goes back to his game we see there's like a video game arcade city between all the games and I got a glimpse of some other great famous video game characters, people like Chun-Li and Q-Bert. To me this was probably my favorite part of the movie, it was that awesome seeing my favorite video game characters brought alive on my big screen tv! I won't talk about every single detail in this movie regarding the plot as its kind of all over the place and would take forever to talk about.
     Next, my second favorite part was when Ralph left his game Fix-It-Felix to go to a space first person shooter game called Hero Duty. He heard from another soldier in the pub he goes to that there's medals to be earned in the game and Ralph thought if he went back to his game with a medal he would be a good guy character, because good guys earn medals. In this game the real world player shoots cyberpunk type ammunition against insects. Once Ralph is inside the game he meets the Commander, a blonde haired woman with great leadership skills and a cool sounding voice. This was just a cool part because it reminded me of games like Starcraft and Halo. After Ralph freaks out and makes the real life player lose the game he climbs up to the top of this mountain in the game and grabs a medal, but accidentally stepping on an alien egg in the process. By the way, the room where he got the medal was entirely full of alien eggs, shadowing Prometheus in that scene. Then, he accidentally activates a spaceship while the alien is alive and attacking his face! This is where the movie starts to go wrong for me. Up to this point the movie was terrific.
     The ship ends up flying out of the game, leading our anti-hero to another game called Candy Rush. Once Ralph's there he throws the alien into a swampy area, thinking its dead, but it actually lives, and growing and laying eggs, something they have to deal with in the ending of the movie. After that Ralph meets a girl named Vanellope Von Schweetz, a really cool name for an adorable little girl. It turned out that Vanellope wanted to use Ralphs medal as entry to put her name in the big race (its a racing game), she thinks its a coin for that purpose and not a medal. When she turns it in it actually works. What's interesting about Vanellope is that she's a glitch in the game, her code has been tampered with by the real bad guy in this movie (who turns out to be the King of Candy Rush, but he's also an old racer from a really old racing game). He has been tampering with the code in the game for a long time, even erasing people's memories, so people have forgotten who Vanellope really is, the Princess of Candy Rush. A lot of stuff happens at this point in the movie. So much in fact, that you could say there are multiple plots to this movie. One is that Ralph is trying to become a hero and get his medal back. Two is that Vanellope wants to be a racer and get acknowledged as someone more than just a glitch. Three is that Felix is trying to find Ralph in Candy Rush to stop their game from becoming an out of order game. And four, the alien that Ralph brought to Candy Rush that Sergent Calhoun (the cool woman from Hero Duty with the big ass gun) is looking for. So there's all that going on at this part of the movie. It begins to kind of get muddled in but it works fine enough. I think Vanellope's character makes Ralph grow into something more than just an anti-hero, he's pretty much a father figure to her in the end. Vanellope's character is so kid-like, it's like watching a real life kid on an animated screen. The things she says, the way she says it, it's very authentic for what I'm guessing a 5-8 year old girl would be like. Whoever did her character is an amazing voice actor.
     Lastly, the ending of the movie was ok but not great. Basically all the eggs the alien dropped out hatched and all of a sudden Candy Rush is going to be destroyed, and they think Vanellope is going to die because a glitch can't leave the game, but things happen in the end where everything is resolved and there's a great feel good ending for Ralph. Ralph ends up going back to his usual routine of being a bad guy but he has a new outlook on life because of how Vanellope ended up being one of the roster characters that real life players at the arcade like to use, despite the fact that she glitches all over the place. It''s very cool that a video game character can have such a great outlook on life, it's a great movie for kids and young adults. What is great about this movie is all the video game character cameos that appear in it, and the great animation that Disney has been known to bring us (think Big Hero Six). The voice acting was good too, especially Vanellope, Felix, Ralph, Q-Bert, and Sergent Calhoun. Final Verdit: 8/10, not quite good enough for a 9 but not bad enough to be a 7. Not bad Disney. Not bad at all.

POA and the Buzz Wizards live at the Baked Potato

  

     Last night I was at the Baked Potato again. The first time I went was ok but this second show was great! The first band that played was a band called POA-Planet of the Abts, which consists of the rythmn section of Matt Abts, Jorgen Carlsson, and Swedish guitarist and lead singer T-Bone Andersson. Matt (drums) and Jorgen (bass) are both from the famous jam band that Warren Hayes plays in, Gov't Mule. What did I think of this band? They were incredible. They blended jazz, rock, blues, and psychedelia all into one slamming power trio. I was sitting right in front of them. The music was so loud-Andersson played a black stratocaster through a giant Marshall stack, it was deafening. Andersson's sound and style is a mix of many other famous players, you can tell who's influenced him right away. The easy thing to say is that he sounds like Jimi Hendrix. But there were shades of the blues (people like BB King, Albert King, etc) in his playing, David Gilmour (they even played two Pink Floyd songs), and even some old school Black Sabbath Toni Iommi type stuff in there as well. Let's put it this way; while he may not be the greatest technician or shredder, he makes up for in terms of pure feel, raw emotion, and great screaming guitar tone that blows your head off with its sheer awesomeness. His guitar playing made my whole night, it was that impressive and amazing. Jorgen's bass playing is very lead bass kind of playing, while Matt's drumming sounds like a laid back John Bonham, complete with all the great fills. They played a bunch of great songs, but what particularly stood out to me was the song they opened with-a rock version of what sounded to me like Afro Blue, a jazz standard. It was incredible, especially Andersson's guitar playing. What stood out was his double stop licks he was using the Afro Blue melody line, and his screaming solo. He would hold a note, give it all the vibrato he had, and just hold it forever. Very simple but very effective. I learned a lot from Andersson's guitar playing-you don't have to show off or be all that great really if you just have a great feel. His playing is all about feel, although he does have his moment in the sun for technical guitar licks. But he isn't as technical as say me or the other guitarist that played after him.
     In addition, another song that stood out to me was when they played Frank Zappa's Dirty Love. That song is just so catchy, rockin', and is perfect for a blues-rock power trio to play. I enjoyed Andersson's vocals on this one especially. He has a pretty good voice. So that was the first band. A Swede that sounds like Hendrix, rather than playing metal like Ywngie and the guys from Opeth, my favorite Swedish band.
     The next band was Toshi Yanagi on guitar (from the Jimmy Kimmel show), Jorgen from Gov't Mule on bass, and Toss Panos on drums. This was their first show together as the Buzz Wizards, a cool name for an instrumental jazz fusion band. Toshi is a much better technician than Andersson is, but he doesn't have the same stage presence or feel. What I can say that was amazing was that the first song Toshi played sounded like something Jeff Beck would play, it was a great, rocking, jazz kind of thing that wouldn't sound out of place in the early or mid 1980's. Although Toshi is a lot older than me, I can tell that he is hip on the scene because he has tons of shred licks that young people would use-licks that sound like Guthrie Govan and Eric Johnson. He had this really cool Strat-like guitar with a Floyd-rose on it that sounded and looked super cool. Also, when it was his time to play, that was when all the Japanese people arrived. By this time (around 11-11 30pm) most of the people from the first set had left. His other songs are kind of songs that sound dated today. He even said some of the songs he was going to play were written back in 1992. You need to write more modern songs dude! Haha, but seriously he had this other really cool tune called 'Assassin', that was pretty far out. Also, it was pretty cool seeing the drummer, Toss, play jazz-rock beats using traditional grip. I've tried it myself on drums and it is not the easiest style to use when playing those more rock type beats-and he can go straight up rock at times, pushing the beat super fast and going for super fast fills. Toshi is a great guitarist but I want to see more out of him as a guitar player, I felt like he was holding back at times, not utilizing some of his best licks and ideas. Sometimes a song would go into a great groove that would have a perfect spot for more intensive solos from the bass, guitar, or drums, and instead they would just end the tune, and I'm just sitting there like "come on dude, you had the perfect set up!". All in all though this was the best show I've been to at the Baked Potato, the best jazz club here in the valley. I even had a cheese baked potato, a coke with margarita salt on the rim, and coffee. On top of the great music and eats, the guy at the door let me stay for the second set without paying-talk about cool. I'm going to start taking off Mondays from work to go to the jam sessions they have there. Planning on bringing my Hagstrom Super Swede Les Paul and show them my stuff. I'm especially excited about jamming there because on Monday Night Jams they have the guitarist Jaime Kime, a great guitarist that played with Dweezil Zappa in Zappa Plays Zappa. I really dig his guitar style. Anyways, it was a great show, check the place out if you can, its relatively cheap for shows, food, and drink. Cheers.

Update 1.04

     

     Hey, what's up everyone? This is just another short little update on what's been going on in my life lately. For one thing work has gotten to be very stressful, it hasn't been stressful at all until recently but I'll just have to deal with it in my own way-gaming, playing the guitar, and listening to fantastic music. Right now I'm enjoying the new Joe Satriani album called Supernova Shockwave. I gotta say that Satriani really does a great job of creating instrumental guitar anthems. His songs are short, punchy, poppy (but in a good way), melodic, and of course he shreds. On this album it looked like Satch was going more for different moods and styles on every type of song, it's really incredible and I've only heard the first two cuts. Apparently this is a concept album of sorts, but its instrumental-cool stuff Satch! That's his album cover on the top.
     Anyways, I just got reconnected to the Internet after being offline on my desktop for a couple days. It's nice being reconnected and back to PC gaming. PC master race guys, right? It's seriously great to be reconnected. I'll probably try to do a stream tomorrow, testing all my games streaming and checking out the quality of it. Hopefully it will be good quality and I'll be able to stream in my time off from work. I've done streaming before in the past but I think because I was connected wireless and the quality was bad, even for a game like Heroes of the Storm. Games I'm thinking about testing the stream on are Snes emulator games like Super Metroid, Super Mario World, and Chrono Trigger. But I'm also going to check out games like Starcraft II, Heroes of the Storm, Fallout New Vegas, and Bioshock. If this new internet can handle all those at 60 fps I'll be grateful and surprised. It should be able to technically because this internet is AT&T U-Verse, its supposed to be with fiberoptics and shit like that. I know the PC games I play don't exactly test out the latest graphics drivers on most high end PC's but these games I play are the most fun in my opinion. I'm still kind of new to PC gaming so I'm not all about the latest PC games like Witcher III, GTV V, and Batman Arkham Knight. I'm excited about testing the streaming potential today. I would've tested it out yesterday but I had a doctors appointment and didn't have much time left over for the day so I just relaxed, played some Diablo III, and went into work in the evening. Look out for when I tweet my streaming sessions on  twitter-https://twitter.com/fig_land. Also check out my Twitch page at twitch.tv/megaman1597.
     On a side note, the summer is almost over here in California and boy am I glad that is! I am tired of the heat of California's summers. Sometimes it was over 100 degrees! All in all I'm just glad to have a great internet connection back again. I really want to get back into playing Starcraft II competitively. I think I can get ever farther than I've ever been before in the ladder, possibly try to break into Platinum or Diamond maybe if I work at it and stick with it. Starcraft has always been my favorite game but I haven't stuck with it. I actually haven't really played it much for about a year now sadly because I've been getting into other games. The cool thing is that the new expansion for Starcraft, called Legacy of the Void is supposed to be coming out soon, maybe Fall or Winter hopefully. I am very excited for the last installment of Starcraft. I still remember when Wings of Liberty (the first SC2 expansion) first came out in 2010. It was a glorious time to be a PC gamer, and all I had back then was this (brand new, at the time) Lenovo laptop. I also want to get back into World of Warcraft but I know I'd have to make extra time for it and lose time for other things in life. :'( Like maybe I'd have to sleep less or something lol.
     Lastly, as I get farther into this Satriani album I notice that the rhythm section is amazing, especially the drummer, who I believe is Marco Minnemann, drummer for the Aristocrats. The cool thing about this album is that it isn't a 'guitar shred' album, its an instrumental guitar album, if that makes sense. There's less guitar pyrotechnics here and there's more in terms of songwriting and style, especially the style of all the musicians put together. I would say that although Steve Vai has gotten more attention, Satriani is one of the shred guitarists that is easy to love. I mean this guy made Surfing with the Alien, he's a ledge! It's awesome that he's still playing great guitar music. In comparison to Steve Vai's stuff, Joe is a lot more musical. You don't have to be into guitar shred to listen to an album like Supernova Shockwave. That's the mark of a truly great guitar virtuoso. It also doesn't hurt that he can sound like Jimi Hendrix.
    

Dragonball GT

     The other day I finished Dragonball GT. It is quite a feat because the whole series lasts about 64 episodes. Usually I avoid any anime longer than 24 episodes but sometimes I make exceptions. I've been kind of interested in watching One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach but because of how long those anime are I have avoided them. However, I might decide one day that I need to watch those because they are 'thee' modern anime of our time. GT is basically a bit after Dragonball Z, where Trunks and Goten are older, and Gohan and Videl have a daughter who's still a kid, her name is Pan. In GT, Goku gets transformed into a little kid because of Emperor Pilaf using the dragonballs. So basically the first 30 or 40 episodes of this anime are kid Goku, Trunks, and Pan searching the galaxy for the dragonballs.
     The entire beginning of this series is kind of lame. Goku fights some alien type dudes but most of them are extremely weak and he's able to defeat them as a Super Sayian while in kid form. However, once the series starts going, it gets really good! I would say GT is amazing just because of the enemies that Goku fights near the end of the series.
     The best part of GT, in my humble opinion, is the Baby saga. Baby is this robot mutant created by this evil doctor named Doctor Myuu. Baby kills Myuu and then proceeds to go after Goku. This is the hardest fight that Goku has ever faced at this point, even since Dragonball Z. Baby was way stronger then even Majinn Buu! Basically Baby's main power is that he can take over peoples' bodies and make them kind of do anything he wants. Eventually he takes over the entire Earth and turns them into his race, something called Truffles. He even takes over all the Sayians (Goten, Trunks, Gohan, and even Vegeta!). Once he takes over Vegeta he realizes he's at the peak of his powers and decides to use the dragonballs to re-create his Truffle planet that was killed years ago by King Vegeta and the Sayians of old. But eventually Goku comes to the rescue and has to take down this Baby. The Kai's decide that Goku isn't strong enough so they make him re-grow his tail the hard way; by using a giant pair of pliers and pulling his tail out of his rear end. It was pretty comical but effective. They did this because Goku's only chance of getting stronger was using his tail to become a Super Sayian four, the highest level of Super Sayian in any of the Dragonball series (but not in the Battle of the Gods or Resurrection of Freiza movies). Goku becomes a giant ape against Baby in the middle of their fight but goes on a rampage, almost destroying the entire Truffle planet (which had all the humans from Earth on it). Eventually Pan calms Goku down and he eventually transforms into a Super Sayian four, the peak of Super Sayian power! What's interesting is that he transforms as a kid but once he's Super Sayian four he's an adult again, with a fur coat, a tail, and long black hair; he looks super cool. In my opinion, this is the best looking Super Sayian form and the best. All is going well until Baby Vegeta (because he took over Vegeta's body) turns into a giant ape using something called bluntswaves from the moon, something that evil Bulma uses (he took over Bulma too) to help out Baby. This was the best fight in the series. It's hard to say exactly how Goku won because I've kind of forgotten a little bit. But from what I do remember it is a very close fight but in the end Goku annihilates him into the Sun using a Kamehameha wave.
     The second best part of GT was when Goku had to fight Super Android 17. I'm still a bit confused on how there were two Android 17's and how they fused together to become Super Android 17 but I don't mind being a little clueless; after all this is just a cartoon. This fight is very intense and basically Goku loses this fight just because he's simply not strong enough, even at a Super Sayian four. He ends up only winning this fight because Super Android 17 was fighting within himself, the good side trying to stop the bad side from killing everyone. It was interesting seeing Goku get utterly destroyed in this fight. It was also cool how Super Android 17 looked. He had his classic look but he was bulkier, his hair was longer, and his clothes had a different flair to them. Android 18 was the last one to stand up to him but eventually Goku punches through Super Android 17's chest using an attack called Dragon Fist. It was brutal and awesome!
     Finally, the last best part of GT was the last 20 episodes where Goku had to fight all of these dragons that were the evil contents from all of the dragonballs. At the end he fights this one super powerful dragon that uses all the dragonballs' power. His name was Omega Shenron and the fight against him was super fun, but trying at times because technically Goku could've killed him at some point and it would've been over with, but instead it just doesn't work like that. The horned guy in the picture is Omega Shenron, and that's Gogeta in the middle. In this fight Goku and Vegeta fuse as Super Sayian fours, becoming Gogeta! This fight could've been over when Gogeta used his fatal attack Big Bang Kamehameha but instead Gogeta is having fun at Omega's expense. But things turn bad when Gogeta's fusion time suddenly runs out, and Goku's left as a little kid again, and Vegeta's back to Super Sayian four. By the way, it was awesome seeing Vegeta turn into a Super Sayian four because for most of this series we don't get to see much fighting from him. Everything turns all bad and Omega's about to destroy the Earth, and pollute the entire galaxy with negative energy but then Goku tells Kai that he needs energy from all over the entire universe for his Spirit Bomb to be strong enough to destroy Omega. It was a great finishing move to end the series.
     Lastly, I loved GT and it has a place in my heart with the rest of all my favorite anime. Even though most DBZ fans call it crap I actually loved it. The last episode was amazing and almost brought me to tears, it was so beautiful. In the final episode we see Goku JR (Goku's great grandson) and Vegeta JR (Vegeta's great grandson) duke it out at the World Martial Arts Tournament. Vegeta JR says to Goku JR,"what are you wearing rags?" and then Goku JR (in the exact same cool manner as Goku),"they're not rags Vegeta, these happen to be the clothes of my great ancestor". It was awesome hearing him say that. Then they start fighting and they're amazing. Eventually Vegeta JR turns Super Sayian and Goku JR does the same. Vegeta JR makes a comment about how he didn't know they could both go blonde, and says,"This is gonna be a good fight". It was just awesome. If anyone is debating whether they should watch GT or not (basically because its not canon), I would say they definitely should. The good thing about it is that it is super old and I watched every single episode on YouTube. Its very easy to find and the series gets good right in the middle and stays super exciting until the very end. The cool thing about this was that I finished this series on the same day that I saw Resurrection of Freiza. I'm thinking about the next anime I'm going to watch next. I'm thinking I'll start watching Yu Yu Hakasho. My friends seem to like it so I'll probably give it a shot soon. What are some anime that you all watch? Let me know in the comments.

Dragonball Z: Resurrection of Freiza

    

     Yesterday was an awesome day. For one thing I've had a super busy and exciting week. On Sunday my friend had a party at his place. And then I had some important official business that I had to do for work on Wednesday. But also on that same day me and my friends went to go see Dragonball Z: Resurrection of Freiza. It was awesome! It was the first time I ever saw a Dragonball Z movie in the theaters. Usually I just watch them online. The last one, Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods, I just saw online in Japanese before it came out in America. In comparison to BoG (Battle of the Gods), I would say that RoF (Resurrection of Freiza) is a lot more exciting and cooler. But for some reason I still prefer BoG because I think the language is better in Japanese, and I saw I saw in Japanese. The English voices in DBZ are what all the American fanboys are used to. However, I feel like sometimes the words and the sentences are better translated in English rather than being said in English. That's just how I prefer my anime. I am kind of elitist about this. I'm sure other people out there feel the same way about their anime. The one thing I hated was Freiza's voice in this movie. The Americans sometimes do very poor voices for anime characters. In this case I can't say that it's bad because its the classic American Freiza voice that we all know and love. But I just found it annoying. The voice for Freiza was at times high pitched and just hits my eardrums the wrong way. Everybody else sounded fine, especially Goku. However, Vegeta seemed to have a much deeper voice. I didn't mind it but I did notice it. Lets talk about the plot of this anime movie.
     Basically Freiza's in Hell being tormented in some childlike land with toys and fairies. He's been in Hell all this time after Goku's defeated Cell and Majinn Buu. Now, Freiza's henchmen suddenly decide that they should use the dragonballs on Earth to resurrect Freiza. When they make the wish Shenron (the dragon that grants wishes) tells them it is not wise because Freiza's body has been dismembered and cut up too much. They say to do it anyways and Freiza comes flying out of the sky in pieces. However, with the new technology that Freiza's henchmen have they are able to put together his dismembered body! Once Freiza's back to life he decides he's going to exact his revenge on Goku. He's comes up with a plan to train for four months. Why he thinks he can beat Goku after only training for four months is a major problem with the plot in this movie, because Goku has been training for years! Anyways, after Freiza trains he decides to attack Earth with a thousand of his men. Meanwhile, Goku and Vegeta are training with Whis on Lord Beerus's sleeping area. Whis is Lord Beerus's (God of Destruction, destroys planets for not having good food) caretaker. He was so fast that Goku and Vegeta together couldn't land a single blow on him. After their training was over Whis told Vegeta that he needs to relax more. And he told Goku that he relaxes too much. While that's happening there's a big battle on Earth. Piccolo, Gohan, Tien, Master Roshi, Krillin, and an Intergalactic Spacecop alien are fighting the thousand Freiza troops. They are all really weak so this is where the classic DBZ fighters shine. I really liked it when Master Roshi was all like,"All right. Let's do this!" and he powered up, getting extremely bulky and strong, reminding me of how Goku looked when he was first fighting Vegeta. My other favorite moment of the movie was when Master Roshi was using Kamehameha against Freiza's henchmen. That was pretty epic seeing as how we hardly got to see Master Roshi fight in classic DBZ. Finally, Goku and Vegeta get Bulma's distress call and Goku instant transmissions to Earth, ready to confront Freiza.
     Freiza is all cocky and challenges Goku to a straight-up fight. Freiza says that he's going to transform into his final form right from the start. He powers up and he's his classic white and purple skinny super fast form from classic DBZ. Goku punches him around like a rag-doll easily. After a while Freiza says that he's been holding back and transforms into a newer, kind of more lame (in my opinion) form. In this new form Freiza is golden, which looks hella lame. But he's like way more powerful in this form now. Him and Goku continue to fight but he's still not quite strong enough to damage Goku. So after a while he says he's done and that he quits. Goku, being who he is accepts this but a split second later Freiza's commander shoots his ray gun at Goku, and Goku's lying on the ground, his hair going from blonde to black. However, he isn't dead yet because Krillin gives him a Sensu bean and all of a sudden he's back up and walking. Freiza made a funny comment about how they had some kind of 'wonder drug'. Oh, and by the way Goku was fighting Freiza in Super Sayian God form, which he learned from the BoG movie. So now Vegeta is up to bat. He punishes Freiza easily. However, Freiza decides he's going to kill himself, as well as everyone on Earth, and the entire planet! Lord Beerus and Whis (who have been watching the fight w/ the Z fighters) put them all in a protective barrier and they watch as the planet explodes. Lord Beerus mentions that Freiza can survive in Space after being blown apart (somehow but I didn't get why, maybe its because of his race), so he calls what Freiza did a cheap blow but rather ingenious. Whis tells Goku that he can go back in time three minutes and Goku can just kill Freiza, thus preventing the Earth from being destroyed. So they go through with it and when they're back Goku just annihilates Freiza with a Kamehameha wave. Very nice!
     Lastly, I thought that ending was rather cheesy. They could've just had to re-fight Freiza on another planet and used the dragonballs on another planet to restore the Earth and all the people who died, but that would've made for a much longer movie. I believe this movie ran around one hour and forty-five minutes, something like that. So yeah, that's the gist of the movie. I really enjoyed the fight against Freiza's minions because they were weak and the other Z fighters looked extremely strong against them. I enjoyed seeing the other Z fighters getting in the fight. Also, it was cool seeing Vegeta go Super Sayian God against Freiza. Vegeta usually doesn't get as much airtime as Goku so it was cool seeing him absolutely destroy Freiza in some cool attacks. Also, it was cool seeing this movie in the theaters because I was sitting next to a young dad who was there with his kids and his wife. The kids were so excited about the movie and the characters, it was cool seeing kids excited about characters like Goku and Vegeta. DBZ was a big part of my childhood too so I could relate. The dad even talked to me a bit about DBZ and how he likes anime and stuff. At the end he even shook my hand and told me to have a good night. It was pretty cool. Later that night when I got home I watched the final episodes of Dragonball GT. If I had to say which is better: GT or this movie, I would have to say that I like GT more. I know most DBZ fans hate GT but I actually love it. Not more than classic DBZ but it does have a special place in my heart now (haha). Anyways, I would interested in seeing this movie again but in Japanese just to hear the difference in voices. This movie won't be in theaters very long so try to go see it soon. Otherwise you'll have to wait to see it online somewhere. It's probably out online in Japanese as I'm currently writing this, look for it if you want to see it. I highly recommend this one.