Sons of Anarchy: Season 4

It's been a long time since I've posted about Sons of Anarchy, and in the interim I've seen Seasons 4-6 in real time and then gone back to watch Seasons 1-4 again with the wife. I went back and read some of my posts from Seasons 1-3, and while it's always cringe-inducing to read old writing, some of my glowing praise for this show back then was particularly hard to stomach: "It's certainly one of the best dramas I've seen and warrants consideration for placement in that elite tier that includes Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and perhaps Boardwalk Empire." Blech. It's safe to say that at this point I have a much better understanding of just what this show is, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. "An elite drama" it ain't, and we'll leave it at that.

But Sons of Anarchy is still a very solid show, and one I've probably soured on too much. This very fourth season is when I recall turning on the show; after raising stakes on half a dozen different fronts all season long and building toward an inevitable explosive showdown, the show coasted into hibernation mode for Season 5 without really resolving anything, and it did so in the form of a cop out of sorts, when some of the major players involved in this season's biggest arc turned out to be working for the CIA undercover. Elsewhere, hatchets were buried and a few key characters were left dangling between various rocks and hard places, unable to bring long-brewing conflicts to their conclusions in favor of maintaining the status quo. The ending cheapened the otherwise fantastic season that had come before it, and the show's inability to kill off or otherwise write out some of its favorite characters felt like a fatal flaw.

That's what it felt like at the time, at least, to the extent where I found it hard to get excited for Season 5 at all and don't honestly remember much of what happened in that one. But, with the benefit of hindsight, knowing how this season would end - or maybe it was the foresight of what Season 5 and 6 look like - I was much happier this time around with Season 4. Yeah, it was a clumsy landing with more than one cop-out, but it also sets in motion - or maybe just keeps in motion - some more compelling stuff that comes in Seasons 5 and 6, and that I anticipate will come in Season 7. I look forward to re-watching Season 5 next, and hopefully walking away from that one with an improved opinion, too.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

Before I get to the movie, I'd like to start with a question about something that has bothered me for a long time. Does anyone like Ed Helms? At all? The guy just annoys me. He annoyed me in the Office, but man was he unlikeable in this movie. And I don't want to hear that his characters are supposed to be unlikeable. Because I hate him in everything. I don't find him funny.

Anyway, this movie tried too hard. It had very little plot, and although it thought that was a positive, it most certainly was not. I could care less about Jeff or his brother or his mom. And don't expect to laugh. Ever.

Recapping 2013

This is already the fifth post of the new year, but let's take a minute to reflect on the year that was: 2013. First, a personal take. Then, a blog-wide look.

I'll own up to it - 2013 was a pretty big failure with regard to my overall goal of trimming my backlog down to nothing. No specific category carries the brunt of the blame; I read just a dozen books, but also acquired only eleven. Meanwhile my movie-watching was up, but so was my movie-acquiring. And as much as I'd like to blame some big milestones this year for my underwhelming progress - planning a wedding, moving, going on a honeymoon, and so forth - I really can't blame my life events for the bad year on the blog. Yeah, my logging was at an all time low, but I could have easily countered that by not getting anymore books, movies, or games. Instead I went on a few too many acquisition splurges, and what could easily have been a successful year turned instead into a bust. Here are two interesting year-ending trends. First, sixteen straight video game loggings from me were either handheld games or downloadable games. The last console game I played on an actual disc (or cartridge) was Donkey Kong Country Returns back in late May. Wow! Second, fifteen straight movie posts were actually TV season posts; I've watched fifteen straight TV seasons since I last watched a movie. Both of these trends seem weird, as does my completely apparent lack of reading.

Enough about me, though. Let's look at what everyone did collectively.

Books

No series or author really stood out in 2013, although it warrants mentioning that both Webber and Dee were heavy on the Brandon Mull posts early on in the year. Elsewhere, Marissa and Keith both read The Giver and its sequels and both Webber and I dabbled in The Dark Tower just a bit. Sweeney posted a couple of Song of Ice and Fire books and I pitched in a third from George R. R. Martin. Tack on a couple of Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King books, and you've more or less got the year covered, aside from a late diverse run by Marissa. Nothing really "trended" in 2013, I guess, but it was nice to see a bunch of people looking into stuff that had previously been blogged by others.

Video Games

We had another eight Final Fantasy games posted, again avoiding repeating the same one twice. This time four of us - Webber and Trevor in addition to Sween and me - combined for Theatrhythm, Tactics, IV, IX, Crystal Chronicles, VI, X, and XIII. There were four more Zelda games as well, along with three Sonic the Hedgehog postings. Strangely, no other franchise registered more than a pair of games on the year. One trend I did notice, though, was the emergence of shorter indie titles, whether those were PC downloads or console-based content. Titles like Dear Esther, Little Inferno, Starship Defense, Pushmo, Proteus, Hotline Miami, and Thomas Was Alone appeared on the blog this year, in addition to many others like them.

Television

To my great delight, The Wire really blew up in 2013, with Keith, Marissa, and Sween making ten posts about that show. Keith and Sween also made ten posts on The Sopranos and Keith and I did the same for Dexter. Not far behind was Game of Thrones, which racked up eight. Friday Night Lights and Sons of Anarchy each received four posts, and if you want to count it as its own show, WWE was responsible for five posts in 2013. That each of those posts was made by Keith should surprise no one. As always, I was our biggest TV contributor, so a lot of shows that I watched - Six Feet Under, Big Love, The IT Crowd - were also posted several times.

Movies

World War Z and Looper each got posted twice. It looks like JFK almost did, but the second post - Trevor's - is still in "draft" form. There was a decent amount of Kubrick from Trevor and me, and then a large amount of Wes Anderson for which I must take full responsibility.

And of course, a job well done by all to clear 400 posts on the year. Let's shoot for 500 this time around. I think we can do it!

Alien Storm

Hey, that wasn't so bad. Couldn't have taken me more than half an hour to beat this game, a straight up arcade style beat-em-up that felt overwhelmingly like an undercooked Turtles in Time. I suspect I'll be seeing a lot more of these. I played as a chick with a flame-throwing gun of sorts. I believe I could have also played as a man or a robot. Whether or not it mattered, I have no idea. Anyway, that's two games down in one night. At this rate the entire Genesis stockpile will be depleted by mid-January. Of course, there's no way I maintain this rate, and there's no way these games stay this quick and easy.

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

As all the most frequent readers of this blog know, I recently received quite the Christmas gift: a Chinese knock-off Sega Genesis that came pre-loaded with 80 games. Yeah, that's right. Eighty fucking games! It was a great gift - I've never owned a Sega system, and now I can go back and play a lot of old gems. But it was also the single most devastating blow to my backlog in, well, ever.

There are two silver linings here. The first is that forty of the games were of a trivial homebrew-like variety. We're talking about "titles" like "Air Hockey," "Chess," and "Mahjong." None were ever licensed by Sega or given a full release, and as such, I see no reason to count these toward my backlog. They're not even real games. The second silver lining is that eight of the forty legitimate titles were repeats from my Sonic Mega Collection. So those aren't in the backlog either. Still, that leaves 32 games of varying quality. One day into 2014 I've already matched my game acquisition total from last year. It's going to be a long year if I want to break even on my video game totals, let alone make some progress.

Anyway, the first game I tackled was Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, a 1989 platformer. There's not much to say about the game, other than that it was a 1989 platformer. Did you know Alex Kidd was Sega's unofficial mascot before Sonic came along? You'd never have guessed it by playing this game, which was - I stress again - just a 1989 platformer. With a strange emphasis on rock-paper-scissors duels.

Next up, if I just storm through these games in alphabetical order? Alien Storm.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 3

So I went into this season knowing two things:
1. SAMCRO will go to Ireland and they don't until episode 6 which is lame.
2. Steve did not like it as much as the previous two seasons.

Personally, I think this was a great season! I actually almost liked this better than Season 2. I may have somewhat of a bias because I was able to watch all of the seasons in rapid succession rather than week by week, but oh well! My biggest flaw with the first half of the season was it was confusing. I really did not know what anyone's motives were at any times. Maybe that was the point, but it made it a wee bit hard to follow. My second biggest flaw with the season has to do with the use of the word "shag" more than one times. Something I gained from this season is that the club is nothing without their old ladies. Overall, I thought was a great season with a thoroughly satisfying ending. On to season 4 lads!

New Years Resolution Update: Going well so far, but fairly pissed I couldn't be the first post of the year. Dag nab it!

Friday Night Lights Season 5

After 5 seasons, my journey with Friday Night Lights is over. And wow, this show had no right being as good as it was. Not just good, but great. Like one of the best shows of all time. That's a strong statement for sure, but I've never seen a show with more genuine emotion or a more widespread appeal. This show literally can be enjoyed by anyone and everyone. I think that has a whole lot to do with Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. Michael B. Jordan did a hell of a job. Aimee Teagarden sucked but whatever. Anyway, this show ended exactly as it needed to in a logical point. I'm really glad to have been able to watch it and recommend it highly to any of you fools who haven't watched the whole series. Other than season 2, it seemed to get better as it went on and not many shows can say that. Alright, onto smaller and worse things.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

Let's see what surprises lie behind door number two!

First things first. Let's address the title. Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Apocalypse. The destruction of the world. So, you might gather this film is going to be about the T-virus spreading across the world and wiping out the whole human population. Not so. This movie takes place solely in Raccoon City. Basically, the Umbrella Corporation went back down into the Hive after kidnapping Alice and Matt. In doing so, they released the virus into the city and now the zombie outbreak is going down. Luckily, Umbrella was at least smart enough to quarantine the whole city before things got too out of hand. Still, losing a city to a zombie outbreak hardly qualifies as an apocalypse. But I digress...

Last we saw Alice, she had woken up on an examination table in Umbrella's research facility. She walks out into Raccoon City, now in shambles, and picks up a discarding shotgun. "What exactly happened to her?" you might ask. Well, Umbrella exposed both her and Matt to the T-virus... and, well... Alice is basically going to discover she's a superhuman now. Run at lighting fast speeds. Leap 20 feet in the air. Take a punch from a super strong monster and still keep on kicking. Yup, that's what she does now. Although, the writers decided they finally need to bring some explanation on how the T-virus came to be, so we're introduced to its creator, Dr. Ashford. He's some genius researcher who he and his young daughter are suffering from some degenerative disease. To correct this, he made the T-virus. Apparently it's original intention was to help humans heal and regenerate from any illness or injury. Unfortunately, it turns them into zombies and in rare cases mutates them into horrible creatures. Alice is the exception to the rule and is the only person to have successfully bonded with the T-virus without succumbing to its horrible side effects. She is the Umbrella Corporation's prized possession... so it only makes sense that she was left behind to die in the research facility when the outbreak began. Oh, but they do get Dr. Ashford out and Matt -- or what's left of Matt. 

Anyways, this film is basically about Alice (and a handful of others) trying to get out of Raccoon City alive even though Umbrella has barricaded everyone in. They do find a ticket out, though. Dr. Ashford's daughter who got trapped in a car wreck while being transported from school. Ashford establishes contact through pay phones and security cameras with Alice and gang (who are now probably the only survivors left in the city) and offers them a chopper out of the city if they can locate his daughter. 

I'll make the rest of the movie simple. With a many zombie/mutant fights... they find the little girl... battle against Umbrella (who use Matt -- now a giant, powerful mutant under their control -- to fight Alice)... and make it out of the city. Only, one of the last scenes is of the escaping helicopter crashing in the middle of the woods on the outskirts of the city after Umbrella sets a nuke off destroying Raccoon City -- and, hopefully, containing the outbreak. 

Few points I need to raise. One, I'm confused about Dr. Ashford's role with Umbrella. Yes, they establish him as the creator of the T-virus. And, because he's a cripple in a wheelchair, I guess he just works from home which is why he didn't perish in the Hive in the first film. What's also weird is that his daughter is the avatar for the Red Queen (the Hive's state-of-the-art security system). In the last film they made a reference that the computer's avatar was designed after the maker's daughter. So, Dr. Ashford isn't only the creator of the T-virus, he's also the designer of the Red Queen. Which also begs the question, shouldn't he have known shit was going down the second the Hive went into quarantine mode? When you first see him in this film, Umbrella is in the process of collecting him before the city is sealed in. He greets the Umbrella henchmen at the door to his house and is somewhat confused by everything. He only says, "How bad is it?" I feel like this guy should have been thought out a little more. If he's responsible for everything gone wrong in Umbrella, he should at least have some insight into it. 

My last grievance is the final scene. As the helicopter goes down during the nuke blast, Alice takes a piece of shrapnel in her chest saving Dr. Ashford's kid form death. Presumably, Alice dies and the rest of crew survives the crash and escapes into the woods. Next, we see Alice wake up in Umbrella HQ in some sort of water tank. Was she saved? Is she a clone? No clue. But in a matter of seconds her memory returns to her and she remembers who the enemy is. She kicks ass and makes her way out of the research facility. Next thing you know, she's greeted by all of her old cronies from the Raccoon City disguised as Umbrella henchmen sitting in a getaway SUV. They (apparently) came to smuggle her out. What? Was this all planed? How the fuck did they know, "Oh, this is the day they're waking Alice up from a regenerative sleep so we got to bust in and sneak her out." Much less, one of the men in crew was a wise-talking pimp from Raccoon City who somehow managed to survive. And now he's prepared to fight elite mercenaries? No. I don't buy that. I don't buy any of this shit. 

Still... show me more!

I know all of this should just be ignored. Focus on the crazy, over-the-top battle scenes and have fun, but some of these plot holes are so glaring it's ridiculous. Can't wait to rip into the next film, though. (I've got some serious problems with that one.) But -- sadly -- that will have to wait for 2014. 

Happy New Year's everyone!

Pitch Perfect

My Dad works from home and because of this tends to have movies on in the background. He'll start a movie in the middle on HBO and watch it dozens of times in the background. Everytime I would come home my Mom would make fun of him because he had seen Pitch Perfect the most of all. Well, turns out, I come home on the night before my wedding and Pitch Perfect was on. And ya know what? I watched it. Apparently my Mom didn't think this was a fun way to spend the night before your wedding, but I liked it just fine! She got me this movie for Christmas to remind me of that and I just watched it again. It's cute! Anna Kendrick is an outsider at college and joins an acapella group at her Dad's insistence. She has new and bold ideas that the group leader just doesn't want to roll with. Making things more complicated, she has a crush on a member of the rival acapella team which is VERBOTEN! Taking a page out of the Step Up plot book, the group does moderately well and begins to become friends, something dramatic happens which causes the group to split apart, and the group comes together and respsects the ideas of Anna Kendrick to win it all! You go girls!

Cute fun movie which isn't too annoying for a singing movie.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 2

Oh boy, shit sure does go down in Season 2 of Sons of Anarchy. Season 2's main villian is Ethan Zobelle. He is allied with a white supremicist group and is bringing drugs into Charming and stealing the Irish gun trade from the Sons. Don't you know not to mess with Jax and his crew? Ethan Zobelle is also in bed with the Mayans, a rival crew of Samcro. Somehow the Niners, another crew, also get involved. The seasons starts with a real upsetting uncomfortable scene which sets the tone for the whole season. There's a lot going on which makes the whole season real exciting and upbeat. There are explosions and gun fights and motorcycle gangs and jail time and some real extreme guilt over something that ended last season. The season goes out in an unexpected but surprising way and really sets the tone for season 3. It was a really exciting season of television that I look forward to watching again some time.