Left-4-Dead-2

Heck of a movie! (Picture by Yunus Emre KARTAL) January continues to go strong this year! Got in a fantastic movie this week along with plenty of good reading. Can’t complain about that at all. Movies American Hustle - I hadn’t heard a bad word about this movie and I will say that it did not disappoint. Just phenomenally done. It’s yet another super fun heist movie. I didn’t love the voiceovers that were peppered throughout, but otherwise I’d call it a mostly flawless and fun movie. Go see it before it’s out of theaters! ...

So this is Naughty Dog’s big new secret? The music at the end echoes some of the banjo musical cues of L4D2 as do the running zombie types. The overrun NYC reminds me of Enslaved. The young girl reminds me of a younger Drake ( and also a little Ellen Page) while the old guy is a little Drake meets Bill (from L4D). It’s easy to think it’s derivative and dated now, for sure, but I’m genuinely interested to see how this turns out. Naughty Dog proves in about a minute that they’re excellent at building characters. I wanted to know a bunch more about these two and why they hang out with each other. They seemed cool. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“337” caption=“Doesn’t get much better than being portrayed by Brad Pitt in a movie. (Photo courtesy nsusco)”] [/caption] It’s fitting that I watched a movie about baseball considering how much baseball I also watched this weekend. Had to watch to support the Rays. They’ve got three games to make up a one game deficit. You can do it, Tampa Bay! ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“I thought about posting a picture of Rob Corddry instead, but I think we’d all much rather see Malin Åkerman. (Image used courtesy of Gage Skidmore)”] [/caption] Movies The Wrong Side of Town - Danielle’s parents were watching the tail end of this terrible wrestler movie. It was pretty awful, so I read a Batman comic instead of paying that much attention. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Music joins WIBD!”] [/caption] Well, “music” of a sort. I have a last.fm thing that is linked to my tumblr that you can use to see what I’ve been listening to, artist-wise. No, unless a new awesome album comes out, the point of this is to talk about audio programming I’ve been listening to. Movies Morning Glory - This one came off the girlfriend’s Netflix queue. I had some interest in seeing it myself, but I didn’t realize just how much of a chicklit movie it was. It’s not actually based on a chicklit book, but I still got that vibe. Really didn’t do it for me. Also: full bangs are terrible. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“329” caption=“So glad I found this at my local Borders. An absolute delight to read. I’m keeping my eye on Langridge and Samnee”] [/caption] ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375” caption=“San Diego Comic-Con is coming up this week, so I thought I’d make this week’s post some cosplay”] [/caption] San Diego Comic-Con is upon us and for once I actually read comics. I’m excited to learn about Marvel’s new December event, but, in the meantime, here’s what I’ve been up to. Movies: Out of Sight - Steven Soderbergh’s Elmore Leonard adaptation was a pretty solid flick and about the only thing I’ve ever seen Jennifer Lopez do a fantastic job in. George Clooney turned in a great performance playing his usual role as well. Worth watching for their intriguing chemistry. Love noticing the similarities to other Leonard works like Justified (he loves him some US Marshals, huh?) ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“A performance from Tremé”] [/caption] Tomorrow night’s the All-Star Game, but my coverage might be a little different than usual. I plan on watching it with friends, so there may not be a liveblog, but I will cover it in the morning. In the meanwhile, here’s what I’ve been up to. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375” caption=“Super Potato in Akihabara”] [/caption] As is typical of me, I played a ton of video games this year. Here’s a listing of what I played along with a few short (or long) words on each game. For the most part, this list is restricted to games released in 2010 unless I did not play them until this year. It’s also mostly in chronological order, with some skips here and there. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Most impressive ensemble goes to the gaggle of Doctor Whos, but this was definitely my favorite Otakon cosplay ensemble.”] [/caption] The USA’s second largest anime convention came and went and I took pictures of it. Yes, Otakon 2010 happened, but, no, I didn’t want to actually pay admission to go in since I don’t watch as much anime anymore and I didn’t know any of the artists that were appearing, so I freeloaded along with my brother and took pictures of the cosplayers who were coming into or leaving the convention center on Saturday. ...