Up-All-Night

Pitch Perfect -0 Thanks to the long weekend this is posting a little later than usual. I also jammed a ton of TV in this week thanks to all that extra time. Movies The Guard - Irish movie about an Irish policeman who is one of those curmudgeonly old man types. Funny, but ultimately not that substantive. Worth seeing if you’ve got a free afternoon. Pitch Perfect - I loved most of the music in this movie and I always enjoy Anna Kendrick on the silver screen. Mostly I found myself impressed by how well she inhabited her role. The other two movies I saw her in, Up in the Air and 50/50, had her in a much more professional, trying to be respected role. Here she’s aged back to 18 and everything about her performance reflects that. Good, fun stuff. Go see it. ...

Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation Lino Block Print Not everything’s back yet, but TV! It’s back! Movies Cabin in the Woods - Watched about 20 mins while Scarlett was napping. I wonder what Danielle’s gonna end up thinking of the movie. I’m a huge fan. Love Fran Kranz TV The Daily Show - The Romney gaffe-fest made for some interesting commentary this week. Love the bit about how being Latino would make everything easier. Yeah, try being a minority for real Romney… ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“346” caption=“Seann William Scott is so innocently dumb in this movie, but it’s actually quite good. (Picture courtesy nxusco)”] [/caption] Guys, Goon was really good. More later, but you should check it out. This week was a real scattershot weekend as I tried to play a bunch of games I didn’t give much time to before. Movies Martha Marcy May Marlene - The cult in the movie is an interesting contrast to the fundamentalist Christian society in Higher Ground and the hippie commune of Wanderlust. This movie really ratchets up the tension of not knowing what’s real and what’s not. Ideally they would have made Patrick a scarier presence, but the movie is still on pretty solid ground with what it accomplishes. Congrats on the fantastic part, Elizabeth Olsen. Keep it up! ...

[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. ...

I don’t think it’s possible for you all to understand how pumped I am for baseball to come back this year. It’s been a long, hard offseason, but spring training is off the ground and I’m super pumped. Movies Higher Ground - Vera Farmiga (and her sister Taissa) stars in this intelligent movie about a woman constantly seeking religion, but unable to arrive at the faith and two-way relationship she so desperately craves. It’s beautiful and slow and it’s fantastic work by Farmiga. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Man, nothing else on television is close to as good as this show is right now. (Photo courtesy flipittyjupe2)”] [/caption] It was a hectic, busy weekend that resulted in me becoming an uncle. So glad that the delivery was ok, but now I’m crossing my fingers for everyone to get healthy soon. Movies Almost watched one this week! Didn’t though. TV Justified - The stuff with the organ thieves was awesome. Also the scenes with Limehouse have been stellar. Tensions are running super high in Harlan County and I can’t wait to see what happens. Definitely the best action drama on air right now. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“409” caption=“The journey is over. (Photo courtesy Sold Out Activist)”] [/caption] Big TV week for me. A lot of huge episodes and great acting made me a very happy viewer. Movies I was supposed to watch Hanna this weekend, but I never got around to it. TV Samurai Champloo - Turned out to be a show about transition and the end of things. About an age where Japan was forced to move forward and accept the great wave washing over it. Combining that with hip hop was a great idea. Mugen’s final battle was annoyingly unsatisfying. With Jin and Fuu at least the fight had something to do with the plot. The guys Mugen fought were not plot-relevant at all to anything that happened in the series. Also, everyone took ridiculous amounts of abuse and damage and then just lived to tell the tale? ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Here’s a suggestion: If you’re playing Cave Story for the first time, don’t pick hard mode (Photo courtesy escaped.monkey)”] [/caption] Busy weekend with lots of media consumed. That kind of thing happens when I hang out with Min. Movies The Descendants - Shailene Woodley was a revelation as Alex in this movie. Excellent acting. George Clooney was also quite good. Pretty chill movie and worth seeing, even if the land ownership subplot is kind of tacked on and not as interesting. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“This is a French video game for sure. (Picture courtesy Giant Bomb)”] [/caption] Movies Evangelion 1.11 - Min has never seen Evangelion all the way through, so I figured the movies would be the best/easiest way to watch them. Ip Man - I ran into this movie as a “Watch It Again” recommendation on Netflix, so I thought I’d show Min the aggressively pro-Chinese/anti-Japanese parts because I find it funny how blatantly nationalistic this movie is. Also the kung fu is pretty great to watch. ...