Waste of Time Awards - Film and Television

To continue our trend of shocking awards, the second day of the Wasties proves that a movie grossing several trillion dollars is no guarantee it will even end up on my top five.

Thanks to a money-grubbing "Special Edition," "Avatar" was in the running as a 2010 contender for Biggest Waste of Time in Film and Television. Thanks to a director more concerned with visual effects than substance, it also allowed it to be utterly terrible. In fact, given its long run-time and embarrassing writing, this year, it receives "honorable" mention as "Worst in Film and Television."

But no need to dwell on the negatives.

As for the actual winner, the best series of 2010 goes to "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood." This anime - based on the original manga rather than cobbled together like the first series - was utterly amazing. With excellent characters, action and a plot-line that kept you guessing until the very end, it was everything an anime should be. And for non-anime folk, it's at least watchable.

Perhaps most impressive is the fact that it's only sixty-four episodes. This clocks in at about five hundred less than longer-running series like "Bleach," "Naruto" or "Inuyasha." Being able to stay awake through the entire run is a nice bonus.

It did, however, face some stiff competition:

2) "Family Guy: Something Something Something Dark Side" - As a "Star Wars" spoof, this technically qualifies as a nerd program. This was just a step from taking the first place spot. Pretty much one more good Meg joke would have done it.

And yes, "Family Guy: It's a Trap" was pretty good, but like "Return of the Jedi," it just didn't stack up to the second movie.

3) "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" - Yes, I see some eye rolls at this one. Unfortunately, my hands were tied. As the only movie of the year that featured violent vampire wars, it was pretty much guaranteed an award. If you can point out another movie where an undead Civil War officer decapitates evil vampires alongside a pack of werewolves, please point it out.

4) "How to Train Your Dragon" - This one edged in at the last moment, since I went most of the year without seeing it. I was impressed with the continuing ability of animated films to not be overly-cutesy when they need to. Let's hope that in two or three years, there will be nothing in these movies for kids at all.

5) "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" - Overall, this was a pretty good movie - one I definitely recommend seeing. Bafflingly, Nicolas Cage didn't do the usual "Nicolas Cage' thing and muck up the movie. I would absolutely love seeing a sequel someday soon.

You may notice that the two big guns - "Avatar" and "Inception" - are absent from the list. What can I say? "Inception" was over-hyped to the point that it was essentially unwatchable. "Avatar" was under-written to the point where it was unwatchable. (Believe me - I tried.)

What do you think? I wouldn't be surprised if people second-guessed my choices. Then again, given how quickly people stopped talking about "Avatar," I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't.

Up next on Friday is the "Alternative Media Category."

Manga Aversion: Length

As a public service, I’ve decided to address the issues that are causing most people to not love things like anime, manga or video games as much as I do. Today’s issue is the length of manga series. Or, to put it another way, why should I read “Bleach” if it probably won’t end before I die?

To be honest, I won’t defend the length. Many of the mangas I read are at about the 500 issue mark and show no signs of stopping. Ever.

What I would say is that length isn’t the problem as much as a few other things:

1) Mindset – As many manga are turned into anime, people expect them to end like all television shows. This is an expectation people don’t hold for American comics. And this is why “Superman” is going into what seems like his sixth century of publication and no one feels the same way.

2) Training Content – When you’re having fun, the time flies by. When you’re, say, training to learn a new technique instead of actually using it in battle, things slow to a crawl. “Training arcs,” or portions of the manga where the characters train to get stronger, take an agonizingly long time to resolve. As was established in “Rocky IV,” training is only interesting in musical montage form.

If it gets too tiresome to handle, I suggest doing what I do and listening to some “Queen” music during the training arcs – though, to be fair, this would improve almost anything.

3) Battle Content – Sadly, when people fight it’s not always better. This is because many manga fights can span ten issues or more. For example, the (possibly) final battle in “Bleach” involved dozens of underling fights before the ultimate bad guy transformed into a stronger form, second stronger form, a god, a butterfly (which totally isn’t a joke – go look if you don’t believe me), a god again and finally a very angry, slightly stronger god.

Obviously, some of the fights need to be pared down a bit – it would occasionally be refreshing to see a decapitation in the battle’s first panel to end things quickly and cleanly.

That’s how I see it anyway. While manga isn’t perfect by any means, I’d put it squarely on the corner of “it’s not as bad as you think” boulevard and “you’re not giving it a fair chance” lane. If you’re not familiar with the neighborhood, you can always “Mapquest” it to get the directions.

So if you’ve got a spare week or so, try reading a manga. The stories are actually quite good compared to a lot of the American comics. This is particularly true for “Marmaduke.” I get it. He’s a big dog. He eats things off the counter. Can we just get it over with?