It really should be a snow day today, but circumstances conspire against me… (Photo by Hobbes vs Boyle) It’s cold and snowy and I hate it, but this should (hopefully) be winter’s last hurrah before spring and baseball season. Movies Silver Linings Playbook - You know? I actually enjoyed this movie a lot more on second viewing. The acting is all quite good. Definitely one you should see if you have yet to catch it. ...
The goofiest secret handshake ever (Photo courtesy: machu picchu) I did it, guys. I finally went and watched my netflix movie. It was…decidedly less awesome than I thought it would be. Movies Sound of My Voice - It’s not that Sound of My Voice is a bad movie. That’s not it at all…it’s more that I was expecting something a little creepier and a little headier than what I got in this. At least it was quick. ...
Even the Pittsburgh Pirates played video games this year. Knock on wood, you guys, but I managed to get through 2012 without having all my video games stolen from my house while I was sleeping [EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s 2013 now, you dummy. You don’t need to knock on wood]. Should that even be an achievement? 2012 seems to be a shift in the status quo. Perhaps it’s because the new console generation hasn’t yet kicked off, but I feel like fewer and fewer AAA, big budget titles have been grabbing my attention lately. Of the 56 games on this list I feel like very few (about 12) were big, huge landmark games. Maybe that’s not all that different, but it feels different… ...
As you may have figured out from the picture, weekends with Tiffany are a little different for my media experience. I like to think of it as a way to broaden my tastes and attitudes, but it’s also kind of tough to deal with some of these shows without laughing at how terrible they are. Movies Snow White and the Huntsman - Speaking of stuff I wouldn’t normally go to see…Look, this movie isn’t terrible, per se, it’s just…overlong. Like really long. It’s technically only 127 minutes, but it’s a long 127 minutes of watching K-Stew kind of pull it off. At least Chris Hemsworth has plenty of charisma. There were lots of lingering shots or just plain odd directorial choices, but I’m glad they trimmed it to what it was already. Also kind of weird that all of the dwarves were played by non-dwarves digitally put onto dwarven bodies. At least that allowed us to get Nick Frost smarming about, but I bet the dwarven union wasn’t happy. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Robert Downy, Jr. was definitely the MVP of the movie. (Photo courtesy JakesplacePS)”] [/caption] Readership assemble! Min and I made the great sacrifice of seeing The Avengers for you. Our verdict? It’s excellent. Go see it, y’all. Seriously. Movies The Avengers - It does precisely what I thought was impossible by focusing on each individual character for a bit and giving them all arcs. Granted, most of the groundwork was laid in all the other Marvel movies, but it’s still tough to do. High props to Mark Ruffalo for his portrayal of the Hulk. His barely contained anger was chilling and, most importantly, awesome. Joss Whedon’s writing also gels quite nicely with the movie, RDJ version of Iron Man. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Season 5, y’all! (Photo courtesy Roman Skrada)”] [/caption] Mad Men is BACK…but shhhh! I haven’t seen the premiere yet. Trying to finish S4 first and I’ve got about three episodes to burn through. I’ll get it tonight. Don’t worry. Movies Was supposed to watch one, but…didn’t get around to it. TV Persona 4: The Animation - This show continues to be awesome. The Nanako stuff was really emotionally tough to watch, wow. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“They are a group of six friends evenly split among men and women. Haven’t seen this formula before! (Photo courtesy Screened.com)”] [/caption] I’ll get into it more later, but despite it being pretty standard fare for a sitcom, Happy Endings is actually hilarious and kind of awesome. I blew through season 1 this weekend (half on Netflix, then I bought the entire season on DVD). Just catching any TV is impressive considering that I haven’t watched a second of it since Mass Effect 3 came out. Now that I’ve beaten that I had a chance to catch up on all the TV I’d missed. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Shepard and Joker get to have pretty awkard bonding time in this game… (Photo courtesy gamesweasel)”] [/caption] I’m about 66-75% through the game so I don’t think I can claim first impressions anymore. Here’s what I think: NOTE: I’m planning on avoiding story spoilers, but if you want to know absolutely nothing, don’t read this. - Remember the interface and flow of Mass Effect 2’s combat? It’s back! It’s pretty much identical, but Bioware says it runs a little faster. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Floating holo displays are awesome. (Photo courtesy gamesweasel)”] [/caption] Smoke alarms! They notify us about fires, but they also incessantly beep when their batteries are low. It’s tough to sleep when that happens and you don’t have 9V batteries laying around. Oh, yeah, also Mass Effect 3 came out this week and obliterated my TV watching. Movies Wanderlust - Sharing a lot of the DNA from Wet Hot American Summer, Wanderlust was appropriately strange, but also pretty darn funny. I’d put it at 3.5 or 4 stars of five. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“333” caption=“Best NPR First Listen!”] [/caption] Movies Tokyo Godfathers - I wrote at length about this movie here, but I just wanted to take a few words to say how truly fantastic it was. Great movie. Crazy, Stupid, Love. - Tiffany and I were choosing between this and Our Idiot Brother (ostensibly because they were the only two “date” movies, but really because of my dual crushes on Emma Stone and Zooey Deschanel), but I think this would have been the better choice. Crazy, Stupid, Love. was sweet and funny. Only real downside was the C-plot being a little creepy. Easily the best romantic movie I saw this summer (Best comedy goes to Bridesmaids). ...