Lego Marvel Super Workout

Last week I made a Youtube video entitled, "Lego Marvel Super Workout." This video consists of Lego Wolverine and Lego Dead Pool working out together and facing the troubles that come with being a Lego and getting a good workout. Lego Magneto also makes an appearance as an extra.

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The Name of a Superhero

The name of a superhero is extremely important. It has the utmost significance in who a superhero is. Okay, maybe it's not that important, but it is really important. Superman is a great name. It's very simple. It's almost too simple. It's so simple, it's almost lame. Any other similar name like deluxe dude, or ultra guy sounds lame, but Superman stands strong. Of course, to me, there are better superhero names out there. Look at Wolverine, for example. Wolverine is an awesome name. Heck, Wolverine is an awesome word. It just sounds fun to say. And when you look up the attributes of that animal, it describes him perfectly.

There are many other cool superhero names like Batman, Green Arrow, the Incredible Hulk, but I don't have time to go over all of them. Let's just say that my point is, the name of a superhero is very important. SuperJake had to take his time in picking his superhero name. He couldn't just pick any old generic superhero name. He had to do research. In this episode of the new superhero show, watch as SuperJake discovers his name.

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How I Met Your Mother is Over

How I Met Your Mother is probably my favorite comedy television show. After Friends, of course. Now I'm not sure where I'll get my comedy from. Maybe, I'll spend more time doing other activities until the next great comedy show comes along... but maybe there won't be another Friends, or How I Met Your Mother. There will probably always be good shows, but I doubt they will be that good.

Of course, How I Met Your Mother had it's flaws. Although, I probably won't mention any of them. I just wanted to write in this post in honor of the great things that I enjoyed about the show. Even though I compare How I Met Your Mother with Friends, there are quite a few differences. I like the unique characters that both shows have. Since this is a HIMYM post, I'll just focus on those characters. Maybe in the future, I'll write about both.

I identify most with Ted and that is because he gives too much too soon. I have done that all too often in my own dating experience. Luckily, I haven't gone to the extreme of blurting out the "L" word on a first date, but I have done what I feel are some pretty stupid things. Although we have that in common, I admire that Ted doesn't have much of a problem initiating a conversation for a potential date. That is something that I have struggled with.

Barney is such a selfish and horrible character, but I see where he came from. That guy took his girl and she broke his heart. I can understand his desire to never take a chance and put his heart out there. All of the selfish and immature things that he did were just a reaction from getting his heart broken. It's something that most of us would never do but there is a small part of us that wants to. A part of us that wants to just give up on the hope of a relationship and become a selfish heartbreaker. But there is another part that convinces most of us not to go that route. I guess we could call that part of us, the part that keeps hope, the "Ted."

Robyn, Marshall, and Lily are also great characters but I think I just want to limit this post to Ted, and Barney. And of course, I want to talk about Ted and Robyn. Ted and Robyn were always meant to be. That's what it seemed like from the start, and that's the way they ended the series. Of course, for most of the series I had just accepted that they weren't going to be together, and it just felt wrong. The way the ended it with Ted basically asking permission from his kids to date Robyn after his wife being gone for six years, all made sense. Everything came together. Well, everything except for the fact that Ted included a lot of crude detail in stories that he was telling his children.

New Superhero Show

Growing up in the 90's, I was a big fan of superheroes. The 90's was a great time for superhero cartoons. It's when they started to get really good. Shows like Batman, X-men, Spiderman, and Superman were the best and paved the way for more great cartoons like Justice League, and X-men Evolution. I've also been a fan of actual comic books, but superhero shows were what got me started.

Now today, I am excited to be in my 20's at a time when superhero movies have really taken off. There are many people who claim that there are too many superhero movies today, but I am definitely not one of them. I don't think there will ever be too many superhero movies for me. I think that taking stories from comic books is like taking stories from other books and making them into movies. And in some cases, the comic books themselves have more depth than regular books.

So what's my point with all of this? Well, with me being an amateur actor, writer, and comic book fan, I've long wanted a way to combine the three. Now with my new superhero show, I can. My youtube channel, superjake88 wasn't meant to house a specific super hero show, it was just named that because I really like superheroes. Now years after naming it, I have decided to take advantage of it. The SuperJake show is taking over the superjake channel, and I hope that you'll enjoy what is to come.

SuperJake is a new superhero show about a confused young man that decides to make himself into a superhero for no other reason than that he just wants to be a superhero. It's a superhero parody of sorts. The show will go through his transformation from a normal citizen into a superhero over a few webisodes, and then we will witness what happens beyond. Each step to becoming a superhero is as important as the last, and SuperJake will find out just how difficult it can be.

Quinoa Cooking

Quinoa.Kind of a funny word. If you haven't heard of Quinoa, I'm sure that you soon will. Quinoa is a super food that contains high quality protein, carbohydrates, and a little bit of fat. Quinoa originates from South America, primarily in the Andes mountain region. This video doesn't go into detail about the health benefits of Quinoa. That's why I thought I'd share them hear. This video will also not teach you how to cook quinoa, but it will show you a moment in one man's Quinoa journey.

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The Lukewarm Light of Day

Lately, it seems that I haven't been very good at picking out movies to watch. My buddies are probably getting tired of it, but for some reason they keep leaving it up to me to make the choice. At first I liked that, but now I'm not so sure. I don't trust my judgement like I used to. Before I go any further I just want to state that this review isn't meant to completely bag on the new movie, "The Cold Light of Day." However it is meant to criticize it, hopefully in a constructive manner.

The trailer for this movie looked great, a common problem that I've been dealing with a lot lately. It's not to say that the trailer looked fantastic, but it did make it look like it had the potential to be fantastic. The problem is that Hollywood is churning out way too many movies too fast. They're not giving enough attention to detail. They usually bank on things like special effects, star status, and beautiful people. Those three things are all visually stimulating. A car hits another car and blows up. They do it right and it looks awesome. A leading man shows up with his quick wit, and charming smile, and people are drawn to watching him. And of course, a beautiful person shows up and you just want to watch them, of course. Why? Because they're beautiful. I mean we could get into a discussion about Fibonacci and perfect symmetry and all that other good stuff, but I think you know what I mean.

I used to be blind to most of this stuff. I used to just love movies. Then I decided I wanted to become an actor and I quickly learned that everyone has strong opinions about everything in movies and television, especially acting. I've heard and learned a lot from teachers, and other actors, and reading reviews among other things. It comes down to this, I prefer to not be critical. Especially if I want to act and act professionally one day. I don't want people always criticizing my work, but the fact remains that as a customer, I was not satisfied with watching, "The Cold Light of Day." Having said that, there are always going to be varying opinions among people and some people may absolutely love the movie. I honestly hope they did.

There were definitely things that I liked about it, but let me first point out what I didn't like. I felt that Sigourney Weaver's character was a little... well, annoying. I like the bad guys/girls that are interesting and fun to watch. She seemed very robotic, almost like the terminator from the second terminator movie, except I like watching that character. Now I'm not sure what she could have done, and I think that at least some of it has to do with the script. The script just didn't seem very well thought out, and Sigourney's one liners were the worst of it. The parking garage seen made her seem a little too powerful. She simply walked around shooting one person at a time while there were a lot of people that could have shot her. She stayed right out in the open. Truth be told though, I haven't seen very many of her performances. I know thought she's been heralded as a tough girl from her Alien's performance, and I don't want to nor do I think it's my place to criticize her overall acting ability.

I really don't think that they should have killed Bruce Willis' character. It just doesn't feel right to have Bruce Willis killed in a movie, it felt wrong. I know it was bound to happen now that he's getting older, and in this he's making room for his son to take lead, but it just seems wrong. Besides, from the trailer, I was thinking that this was going to be a cool father-son team up. It would've been cool to see the dynamic between the father and son play out more, because they were definitely different people. Which brings me to the main character, Will, played by Henry Cavill. I haven't seen much of Henry Cavill, I don't think many of us have, but soon he will be a household name. He's going to be the next Superman in the "Man of Steel," produced by none other than Christopher Nolan. I thought Cavill was good in Immortals, but there were some things that bothered me in this movie. I guess that they were going for a more sensitive character versus the tough character that his dad his, but it didn't really work for me. The crying on the bus, maybe a realistic response for some people but I think it would have been better if we saw more of his anger rather than his whimpering vulnerability. However, I'm not giving up on him yet. I look forward to seeing what he does with his performance as Superman.

Anyway, not that we've got all that other stuff out of the way, let's look at the good stuff. The girl that he ends up teaming up with that turns out to be his sister, she's one of those beautiful people I was talking about. I also liked the actress' performance. Played by Veronica Echegui, Lucia was a tough but vulnerable character. Veronica Echegui is from Spain and looks like a mix of Penelope Cruz and Natalie Portman both of whom are very beautiful as well. Although the action scenes were not bad there was another visual element that stood out. That is the location of Spain. Since I don't know for sure, I am assuming that a good part of the movie was actually filmed in Spain. Wherever it was, it was fascinating to look at. The beach area with the cliffs, and out in the water, it was amazing. They also showed a great deal of the city area which has beautiful landscape and architecture. It made me want to visit Spain, or at least travel more often. Overall, I was left with a slightly disappointed feeling in my movie loving heart. But hey, at least it wasn't as bad as Haywire.

Avengers Assemble!

Wow! The Avengers movie was fantasti-rific! It was everything I could have wanted out of a comic book movie. Being a comic book fan growing up, the release of this movie was like a dream come true. Interestingly enough, I started out as a fan of superheroes, not even knowing about comic books. The 90's animated Batman and Superman adventures were probably my first experience with these amazing characters of fiction. I was also an avid viewer of the 90's animated X-men and Spiderman adventures. For a while, I actually didn't even know much about the Avengers. Now, I kind of wish I had. But it doesn't really matter, because I became a fan after realizing that there were more heroes other than X-men, Spiderman, Batman, and Superman. I think I will still have to say that the X-men and Batman are my favorite heroes, although as far as movies are concerned I may have to give it to the Avengers. The Avengers and Batman, of course. Don't get me wrong, I love the live action X-men movies, but I think that I prefer what Marvel has done with their own material. Starting off with Iron Man in 2008 couldn't have been a better decision. Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr owned that character, and story. In fact, before that I had always thought that Iron Man was cool, but I didn't give him much notice. After the movie came out, I began to think that he was one of the best characters out there. I greatly attribute that not only to the actual character created by Marvel, but also to Robert Downey Jr, one of the most talented and skilled actors out there. And he is definitely out there. The character dynamics in this movie were extraordinarily accurate, and entertaining. They didn't just come together and form a perfect team. They all, to a certain extent and selfish motives that they pursued rather than purely working as a team. Of course, they eventually realize that they have to make certain exceptions and can't do everything their own way. The fact that Iron Man, Hulk, and eventually Captain America chose to go behind the back of SHIELD is a true exemplification of who these characters are. I have to say that my favorite thing about the Avengers movie is that not only did it work as an ensemble/action/adventure/superhero movie, it also worked as a comedy. This of course, was also set up by RDJ himself, who is hilarious as Iron Man. The interesting thing is that, there was humor to be found with every character. Nobody got left out of the funny lines. Every character just had a different type of humor. I especially like this with Captain America, because he could easily be played as a complete stiff. The character just lends himself to that, but Chris Evans is smarter than that and he knows where to give his characters a little more personality. Needless to say, I have already seen this movie twice. Many have seen it much more than that, and I completely understand. If I wasn't so cheap, I probably would have seen it four times by now. However, I can assure you that I will be buying the dvd that has been said to contain 30 minutes of deleted scenes. I really hope that the dvd has a theatrical edition as well as an extended edition. It also needs, or rather deserves a good behind the scenes featurette, and of course a gag reel. In closing I just want to say, great job with the casting, the acting, the directing, the writing, and everything else including, but not limited to, the Shawarma.