Two fun things for a Snow Day

Today I am enjoying my first snow-day since I was in Grade 12. I was still a gentleman and walked my wife to work but I'm home now drinking coffee wondering if I should fire up The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Night of the Living Dead dvd? Decisions, decisions.

Otherwise, I did managed to watch a fantastic movie this weekend as well as read a fun, if not hard to explain its existence, comic.

I read the Hellboy Animated: Black Wedding digest. It was great Hellboy story with witches, demons, and magic book stores all taking place in Paris. It's basically the equivalent of the Batman Adventures comics only with Hellboy. There is a long explanation of the series in the introduction that is sort of a primer on how big time animation happens, and it is both and interesting story and a slightly foreboding message to anyone thinking of just breaking into the animation world.

So what you have is a slightly more cartoony version of the Hellboy characters in a fairly standard Hellboy adventure although there is still the death of an agent so I'm not entirely sold on whether this was completely censored for kids - which of course makes it awesome. I mean, really, it can't be a Hellboy comic without some BRPD agent dying. But unlike the Batman adventures which took a bloated franchise and reduced it to its core awesomeness, this is a bit unnecessary for a franchise not really flagging. I guess it can introduce a new audience, but I'm not sure a lot of parents who aren't already familiar with the character would be willing to pick up a cartoon book called Hellboy, especially when there is a blood-slug eating through the chest of a man in the middle of the story.

That being said, I really enjoyed it, but I generally like this kind of thing anyway. I have to say the Young Hellboy/Lobster Johnson backup story is pretty much worth the cover price on its own. I mean who can't love someone who replaces the word "pain" with "justice" and uses phrases like "Time to inflict some justice"? If you don't like that you pretty much don't have a soul. Or Hellboy may have used his right hand of doom on your sense of humour.

Movie wise I watched Equilibrium and it was pretty much one of the coolest movies I've seen in a long time. It's basically The Matrix without Keanu. It stars Christian Bale who does a wonderful job of acting emotionless as opposed to Keanu's inability to emote. Let's just say this movie is a mixture of 1984, ritalin, Fahrenheit 451, and Gun-fu. In order to avoid war humanity has come up with Grammaton Clerics who study the Gun-Kata in order to punish Sense Offenders in the name of the Tetragrammaton and Father. If that doesn't sound like the best movie ever then know that the big change is sparked by someone finding a puppy. Yes, a cute puppy. Then reems of unfeeling armored thugs are taken out at extreme close range by a dude with two guns in a mix of kung-fu and wild west quick draw because someone tries to kill the puppy.

It is really good and don't let my attempts at humor or flippancy deter you from giving this movie a whirl. If you are in the mood for an action movie but don't want to watch something like Live Free or Die Hard, it's because you want to watch Equilibrium. It was recommended strongly by two people at Elgin St. Video and it's the first time I put a note on the returned DVD thanking someone for their recommendation.