Peep Show (Series 1-4, DVD)

I have six of the seven seasons of this and at the moment I'm just about halfway through season 4. This show got off to a slightly shaky start, David Mitchell seemed a little nervous in the first couple of episodes but his acting improved greatly, and this show is my favourite comedy program. Out of the episodes I've seen this month, my favourite one was the one where Mark and Jeremy go and visit Sophie's parents, Sophie's insane father was hilarious. Just about any time Super Hans said or did anything was great too. I'm looking forward to next month though to watch the rest of the episodes I have, as the best ones are yet to come.








Superman II (DVD)

Superman was on TV and as usual, I didn't see it all (I have never seen it all the way through as of yet) but it did remind me that I have Superman II on DVD, so I watched that instead. And it was fairly good! Christopher Reeve is great as the title character and I really like the new villains, Terence Stamp gave a great performance as General Zod. Although I have to admit I cracked up when he said one of his most famous lines. It was the second "Zod" that did it for me, plus I loved the way he thrust the President down. The special effects also held up pretty well, especially for some of the flying scenes.

However, the ending was dumb. Not Superman 1 dumb but still, basically Superman kisses Lois Land and that somehow makes her forget that Clark Kent is Superman. WTF? There were also a couple of parts that dragged on, particularly the scene where the villains literally blow away a load of civilians, which was filled with unnecessary humour (like the guy talking in the phone booth and the person on roller skates). I also hated that it wasn't explained how Superman got his powers back, surely they could have worked something in without Marlon Brando?




Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (DVD)

The DVD I had also came with this different version, which features a lot of completely different scenes and brings back Superman's father, played by Marlon Brando. This version is, for the most part, superior to the original release. You get to find out how Superman gets his powers back, the way Lois finds out Clark is Superman is completely different, there is no scene in Paris and there are plenty of other changes, most of which are for the better.

Mostly. Because the ending to this movie is certainly more stupid than the original, as it features that ridiculous "Superman makes the Earth go back in time" thing that was featured in the first movie. It makes even less sense in this movie that it did the last, because it means the villains are put back into the Phantom Zone, Superman's fortress is rebuilt (I never got why he blew it up in the first place) and the scene at the very end where Superman beats up that trucker no longer makes any sense, no one in the bar would recognise Clark and it just makes him look like he's beating up some guy who did nothing to him. I'd still say this is better than the original, but the ending isn't very good.




Winter Brawl 2011

Winter Brawl is a fighting game tournament. Thanks to team spooky streaming it, I got to watch some of the Super Street Fighter IV matches, and some of the stuff I saw was really great. I really wanted to see the Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 footage, as this was the first major tournament the game was featured in, but by the time it started it was late. I only got to see a couple of games of that, sadly, but thanks to darksydephil recording some of the final matches I got to see the end results. I think I'll just link to the final match, where everyone watching was mega hyped and the gameplay was really, really exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing the game at this year's evo.








Youtube round-up

Geoff the Hero returns with more madness this month: first off was a Super SF IV Dan madness, which wasn't quite a funny as the previous ones, but then he put up some really entertaining videos to do with Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. First is his beginner's guide to the game, along with some madness and then finally a good tutorial for Zero which I learnt a few things from.

Rocky Rose is also back on Youtube, once again bringing some of the most random commentary ever to Street Fighter II Turbo. Favourite videos include teaching kids how to play Mario, drunken destruction , classics and unique music. Probably my best find this month is that Howard C Neal -aka Kolibiri -is back on Youtube. I hope he puts even more reviews up.