Batman: HUSH

Another Loeb Batman story down.

This is another must-read for anyone looking to get into the chaos of the Batman comic world. The story is fairly complicated, but to sum it up as concisely as I can, it's Batman using his detective skills to solve mystery upon mystery that involves nearly all of the regular villains who seem to be guided on a strategic rampage by some unknown mastermind. The story involves Bruce heading to Metropolis and duking it out Superman, once again. (I know I've already seen them battle it out in other stories, but it's a rivalry that never gets old. It's comics literal interpretation of man versus god... and who doesn't like rooting for the underdog in this situation?) Batman and Catwoman hook up. Lex Luthor is the president of the country. Two-Face is back with his face healed. There are even signs that Jason Todd (the Robin who died in the 80's story arc Death in the Family) might be back from the dead.  And an old childhood friend of Bruce Wayne is introduced. It's a really fun story that truly exhausts all of the resources in the DC world. 

Beyond the story, the artwork is fantastic. Not as weird as Dave McKean or as scatterbrain as Frank Miller. Jim Lee's work is where my mind immediately goes to when I think of comic book illustrations, only executed to complete perfection. 

Anyways, that's all I got. Gotten through a bunch of other story lines in The New 52 that I'll be sure to post soon. But this is definitely a fun comic buried in mysteries and loaded with cliff hangers. 

Puzzle Quest 2

A little more than a year ago, I finished Puzzle Quest and was surprised by just how much fun I had playing it. Simple but sharp looking interface? Check. RPG elements like leveling up, equipping weapons, and learning spells? Check. Easy to play while watching something on TV? Absolutely. Don't get me wrong - Puzzle Quest wasn't a fantastic game, but it was an enjoyable game, which is all you want from a six-dollar title.

Fast forward to six or seven months ago. I'd just finished the then-last-remaining DS game on my backlog, and I figured I could use another one. You know, for business trips and for logging in front of shitty TV shows and such. I found Puzzle Quest 2 for ten bucks at GameStop and thought, hey, why not?

Big mistake.

For one thing, within two months or so, I'd received a 3DS for Christmas along with three or four games. So much for needing another title, huh? Secondly, where the first Puzzle Quest took me somewhere between 15 and 20 hours to beat, this one took me close to 35. And thirdly - and most importantly - while the first game was light and charming and easy to appreciate, this one just flat out sucked.

I'm not sure why. The core gameplay is exactly the same as it was last time around; to succeed in battle, just line up three discs, Bejeweled-style, to either gain mana reserves or deal damage. Seriously, I have no idea why what was so fun a year ago was such a pain in the ass for me over the last few months. Let's quickly walk through the differences to see if I can figure this out.

In Puzzle Quest, you spent time between battles on a world map, viewed from the top down and navigated by clicking on different places. Simple. In Puzzle Quest 2, the inter-battle environment was an isometric dungeon crawl. Blech. In Puzzle Quest, every battle had something to do with the plot at hand and advancing the story in one way or another. Nice. In Puzzle Quest 2, most battles were just random encounters with unavoidable bad guys standing in the dungeon hallways. Ugh. In Puzzle Quest, I controlled the game on a fifteen-inch screen by lazily flicking my fingers back and forth across a trackpad. Easy. In Puzzle Quest 2, I controlled the game by tapping and swiping a stylus on a four-inch screen a few hundred times per battle. Hand cramps and squinty eyes, dammit!

Alright, I'm starting to see why I was so down on Puzzle Quest 2. Just goes to show how a few minor differences in gameplay can drastically affect the extent to which you can enjoy a game. You know what the Puzzle Quest 2 experience really reminded me of? Luxor 2, the second game I ever posted on the blog, and still one of my all time least favorite. Such tedium! No fun!

At any rate, I'm very happy to move on from this one. And on the bright side, that's now three thirty-plus-hour games beaten so far this year.

Black Swan

I've seen this movie twice now, and although I've enjoyed it both times, I'd be lying if I claimed to fully understand it. Darren Aronofsky has always had a penchant for the abstract - look at π and The Fountain if you want some real head-scratchers - but he's certainly also got some serious chops. If I had to classify this movie, I'd call it a psychological thriller of sorts, which is just right up his alley. In fact, this could be the most Darren Aronofsky movie in Darren Aronofksy's repertoire. It's about a manic-obsessive young woman with a suffocating mother, it has fun with trick photography and nightmarish effects, not everything happening on screen is happening in the real world, and the main character is essentially a were-swan.

But as much as it's an Aronofsky film through and through, the movie itself will always belong to Natalie Portman. Holy shit, did she earn that Oscar. The cast around her is tight and solid -  there isn't a weak link in the chain - but I'd posit that Portman gets as much screen time as the rest of the main characters combined. And in a movie fairly light on expository dialogue and background stories - which only adds to the murkiness of the plot, by the way - it's never unclear what's going on in the main character's deranged mind. Well done, Natalie. You've come a long way from being Zach Braff's manic pixie dream girl.

Look into this one if you have the opportunity to do so. Even if the story and thematic content ain't your cup of tea, at least you'll walk away with a deeper respect for ballerinas.

Wilfred: Season 1

Not for nothing, but where the hell is everyone? This is just the seventh post of the month, 17 days in, and I've authored five of those. I know people are starting new jobs and going on cruises and such, but man, we're a far cry from the blistering pace of January, or even the moderate pace of a post a day that we managed over the last three months. Just saying!

Anyway, let's talk about Wilfred. I don't have much to say about the comedy aspect of the show, which varies wildly from week to week. Some episodes feature some of the funniest things I've seen on a TV series, and others are pretty flat throughout. Of course, the humor is almost a secondary concern in Wilfred. It's a comedy, sure, but it's also a bit of a psychological mystery. Not a thriller, really, as there aren't really any stakes to any of this, but a mystery nonetheless. Who or what, exactly, is Wilfred? That's a question the show has yet to concretely answer. Ostensibly, Wilfred is a dog. Main character Ryan, however, sees him as a grown man in a dog suit. They hang out, have conversations, smoke weed, and waste time in Ryan's basement. But Wilfred offers Ryan a series of life lessons, too. Stick up for yourself. Seize the day. Let your feelings out - all that sort of stuff. So, is Wilfred just an odd manifestation of Ryan's subconscious? Ryan does do a lot of drugs, after all, and insanity runs in his family. Or, is Wilfred truly a supernatural being that appears to everyone but Ryan to be a dog?

Piecing this puzzle together is one of the main reasons to watch Wilfred. It's a funny show and its characters are endearing and relatable, but it's that weird psychological mystery element that makes Wilfred stand out in some way. Over the course of the first season, we're offered several clues - or maybe just red herrings - as to what exactly is going on. In one episode, it's revealed that Ryan's mother (who's been living in a mental institution) sees her cat as a woman in a cat suit. Throwaway joke, or meaningful sign? In another episode, Ryan meets another man who can see and hear Wilfred. But is that man also just a hallucination? Impossible to say! In one episode, Wilfred channels Ryan's childhood dog, Sneakers, speaking to Ryan from beyond the grave. Their conversation includes details Ryan has never shared with anyone else, suggesting that Wilfred is really just a manifestation of his imagination. On the other hand, if Wilfred really is a supernatural being of some sort, sure, why not let him channel dead dogs?

The biggest factor leaning in favor of Wilfred truly being a sentient being, and Ryan not simply being crazy, is that Wilfred sometimes shares information with Ryan about other people - information Ryan couldn't possibly know on his own. If Wilfred is an agent through which Ryan comes to learn new things that he never learned independently, and if those things are later confirmed to be true, then doesn't Wilfred have to be more than just a dog? Or, is the whole point that Ryan must have known this information all along, or else is just wildly speculating things that later are confirmed to be true?

Look, clearly I'm over-thinking this, but there aren't many comedies you can "think" about at all, and that's what makes Wilfred one of the most compelling shows on TV right now. I wouldn't call it one of the greatest, or even a personal favorite, but it's pretty damn interesting. Season 2 gets even deeper, darker, and weirder, but I'll save that post for another time.

Thomas Was Alone

I try to play a few acclaimed "indie" games, or at least DLC games, every year. They lack the depth and polish of your blockbuster releases - Call of Duty, BioShock, Final Fantasy, what have you - but the best ones are interesting, unique, and memorable. Plus, they're always cheap as hell and almost always short and easy. Bastion, Braid, Journey, Limbo, and Super Meat Boy are examples of such games that I've played and posted here before. World of Goo is another great one that I played just a few months prior to the creation of the blog. None of these games was large enough in scope for me to consider it one of my very favorite games of all time, but they're all great games.

Enter Thomas Was Alone, perhaps the most minimalist game I've played to date on a console this side of 1995. (It's tough to say something like Pac-Man or Tetris doesn't win that contest, but that was entirely due to graphical limitations, not design choices.) The game consists of a hundred levels in which you navigate little squares and rectangles toward an exit. Throw in a charming British narrator, giving each of the quadrilaterals different names and personalities, and you've got yourself quite an endearing little puzzle platform game. The whole thing cost me ten bucks and took two, maybe three hours to beat. The platforming elements weren't challenging in the least, which made it a nice foil to the last DLC game I played, Super Meat Boy. Nope - this was a simple, elegant, fun, quick little title that I'd recommend to anyone. I'm pretty sure there are Windows and Mac versions of the game to download if you lack a PS3 or Vita.

Actually, this game was so quick and fun and simple that I think I'll spend some time trying to 100% it - a rarity in the backlog age. I may then also look into a DLC add-on that gives you a new character and twenty new levels. Time will tell!

That '70s Show: Season 8

All done! That's a wrap on the widely frowned upon Season 8, and a wrap on the series as a whole.

How familiar was I with the season's various episodes?

Again, only vaguely. With perfect hindsight now, it's clear that I regularly watched this show - or else caught a lot of repeats - right up through Season 6, then just stopped watching abruptly, catching maybe five episodes total between Seasons 7 and 8. This actually lines up perfectly with me getting my driver's license, and thus having a means of escaping the confines of my house and bedroom. Pre-driving me? Homework in front of the TV most weeknights. Junior and senior year me? Not watching TV so much, that's for sure.

Were there any key ways in which this season was different from previous seasons?

Oh, certainly. After seven seasons, the show lost its main character (Topher Grace's Eric Forman) and most consistent source of laughs (Ashton Kutcher's Michael Kelso). To help the four remaining regulars carry the load, the show added a controversial character in Randy Pearson, played by Josh Meyers, younger brother of Seth Meyers of modern day SNL fame. Fans hated him, and although I didn't really mind his presence here, I can understand why he was met with such disdain; it's tough to replace a major character after seven years, let alone two. Also, Hyde got married to a stripper between seasons for essentially no reason at all; as the first episode began, he just kind of had a wife. So.

Any particular highlights or lowlights worth singling out?

You know, I was really ready to hate this season. I sharpened the proverbial knives heading into it, ready to just lash out with disgust over what a disaster it was, based on everything I'd heard. No Eric, no Kelso, an awful replacement character, and apparently by the end of the series Jackie and Fez were an item? Blech. But you know what? It wasn't half bad. It wasn't the best season, and truth be told it was probably the worst one, but not by a wide margin. The show was clearly a bit long in the tooth by now, and had lost arguably its two most important characters, but given that, I was impressed by how well it held up. The Jackie-Fez pairing actually came up kind of organically and seemed kind of sweet for both characters. Even Randy, with his Eric-replacing Donna-dating blandness, didn't bother me. One lowlight? Hyde's stripper wife. Shitty character, shitty actress, no purpose. My highlight would definitely have to be the series finale. It brought back Eric and Kelso, reuniting the whole gang, and it wrapped things up on its own terms. The final seconds of the series take place on New Year's Eve, 1979, with a ten-second countdown to 1980. Fitting!

Final thoughts on anything else relating to the season or series as a whole?

Three or four seasons into my trek through That '70s Show on DVD, I was starting to regret my decision to trek through all 200 episodes of That '70s Show. I had already seen far more episodes than I realized, and the show wasn't quite as innovative or funny as I'd remembered it being. For some reason, in my head this was a real underrated gem that had somehow lasted for 200 episodes without anyone really respecting it. I remembered watching and enjoying it for years, but five, six, seven years after it was off the air, it seemed entirely forgotten and ignored. A few seasons in, I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe this was just another multi-camera network sitcom after all. Yet, here I sit, at the end of all eight seasons, and I'm leaning back toward, "no, you know what? This show was way better than anyone gives it credit for being." Hey, maybe that just makes me a fan.

So that's that. One thing's for sure. I will not miss the Cheap Trick theme song - which served as the menu music on each and every DVD - one iota.

Game of Thrones: Season 1

Well, that didn't take long.

I can completely understand why everyone is so damn pumped for the this show. It's addicting as all hell. Love the characters, and love to hate the characters even more - that damn King Joffrey has got to go! Basically the show is just plain fun and I'm so glad that I'm finally running with the bulls. 

With the conclusion of the first season, I can see how the title of the series comes into play. Basically the groundwork is now laid out for battle to control the throne and the country (or whatever the name of that kingdom is called). In fact, that leads me to a my only real hang-up with the show. I have a great deal of confusion when it comes to understanding who's who or where's where. Sween provided a great written introduction into the series for me. When I first read it (prior to seeing episode one) it made no sense. Then, giving it a glance over after wading into the waters a bit, it really helped provide some clarity on what was unfolding. Now, this confusion isn't hampering my enjoying of the show - far from it - but I do come across head-scratching moments every now and them. "Who is this guy again? Have we seen them already? I think so, but... Wait, where are we again?" Bit by bit, this problem does clear up with every episode I devour. Curious, though, if I should be reading the novels to help out further. I'm definitely loving it enough that I think I would enjoy them. However, knowing myself and how preoccupied I've been with other things on my plate, I'll probably never get to them - still looking at this damn Tom Wolfe novel sitting over my sitting over my desk. Curse you comics! You soak up all my free reading time! (Speaking of which, many more comic posts to come.)

Anyways, I'm sure to power through season two much like I did with season one, and what better time to start then when sitting at airports this weekend. 

Happy Endings: Season 2

I didn't start watching Happy Endings until about halfway through its second season, but I was able to see several earlier episodes On Demand; I think, then, that I had seen all but two or three of these episodes before. That's fine, because the second season was full of great episodes. In fact, I'd call this the best of three seasons of Happy Endings. It's not definitive or anything, but the show was still finding itself in the first season and I felt like the third just went a bit too over the top a bit too often. As of this writing, Happy Endings has yet to be canceled, but given that it was the lowest rated show on ABC by year's end, the writing is pretty much on the wall. Best case, it gets a similar deal Cougar Town got and moves over to USA or TBS or something. Worst case, we're left with 57 pretty solid episodes and nothing more. At any rate, it's a solid show, but I wouldn't recommend anyone go that far out of their way to see it if they haven't already. The ship has pretty much sailed at this point, and there are plenty of better options out there. Still, I'll miss Happy Endings. Good night!

Six Feet Under: Season 2

I like this show. It doesn't suck me in the way I expect most good dramas to suck me in, nor are its characters particularly enjoyable, nor its plots very memorable. But whenever I put it on in the background while using my computer or playing my DS, I tend to really watch it. That shouldn't be surprising, but in the past I've been less lured in by much better shows; The Wire is something I could easily get sidetracked from in its early seasons, and although I blame myself for this and not the show, it's still worth bringing up as the one counterpoint to all the other positive things I have to say about the show. And on the other end of the spectrum, take a show like Carnivàle where I didn't care for it much to begin with, and watching it in the background only made it worse. My point is, there's something undeniably good about Six Feet Under, but I can't figure out what it is as I look at the show element by element.

I'm left with nothing else to attribute it to but the relatability of the characters and their situations. None of the characters are particularly exciting or endearing, but they deal with very realistic problems unlike the people on most TV shows. Employer-employee strife. Health problems. Aimlessness in life. Relationship issues. Petty lawsuits. Perhaps the reason it all works so well is because none of it is melodramatic or over-the-top. Two seasons in, I can't call this one of my favorite HBO shows, or even a great show, period. But it's solid, and thus far it has built up a foundation for its characters and its tone. The big question now is whether or not it can parlay all this into something bigger in the final three seasons. The all-time great shows can do that. But again, if this is Six Feet Under's apex, that's just fine.

The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season

I admit it. I am stressed the fuck out about my CPA exam. And when I'm stressed, I watch TV. A lot of TV. It happened during finals week at college - I watched a few seasons of the Office while I should have been studying and it's happening now. Rather than sleeping, I've been watching a lot of this show. I still find time to study, don't worry. As weird as it is,  I find this show to be a huge stress relief. There's just enough action and violence to keep it entertaining, but this show is all about Tony's family dynamic. It's tough to explain, but this show is really great. I wish I had more to say, but I'm watching season 3 currently and they're at the strip club.