127 Hours

Ok, I know because I didn't see this movie when it came out, it was probably impossible for it to get spoiled. But I was still upset when the entire plotline of the movie was given away to me. So stop reading if you don't know what happens! SPOILERS!

Anywho, before even saying I wanted to go see this movie, everyone was all like "oh man, that's the movie James Franco cuts his hand off!" And I'm all like "well thanks buttholes, I didn't want to be surprised or anything,"

Anyway, I wasn't surprised. And the entire movie I was waiting for this guy to freaking cut his arm off. He leaves his Gatorade in the car. Big mistake! Didn't tell anyone where he was going. Big mistake! He meets two lovely ladies before falling and getting stuck. One of these ladies was from American Horror Story. I kinda figured they would come back and save him after realizing he never showed up to their party. But nope. This movie entirely focuses on him alone in a cavern with his arm pinned between the wall and a boulder. He slowly runs out of water. He starts going crazy. He records movies to his loved ones. (On that note: I thought it was the ultimate guilt trip when in his movie he was like "mom, you should have gotten me a more expensive pocket knife" ooo burn. That would really hurt if your son did die.) Anyways, he doesn't die. Like everyone already knew. He saws his arm off and MAN is that scene gross. It really only lasts like two minutes, and you're thinking "How is he going to get through the bone?!?" but you forget all of the tendons and muscles he has to snap as well. Man this is getting me all grossed out just thinking about it. After that he leaves and finds a family and gets medical attention. It really was heartwarming at the end.

Valentine's Day

Ok, I thoroughly enjoyed Love Actually. It was a festive romantic entertaining movie. That does not mean every move should try to replicate this. Valentine's Day. New Year's Eve. Jeez. We get it. You have an ensemble cast with some notable names, and they are all caught up in some kind of love trouble. In Valentine's Day, Ashton Kutcher has lady trouble with his 24 hour fiance. His best friend Jennifer Garner has some man trouble with her love who turned out to be married man. Jennifer Alba hates Valentine's Day but finds someone she likes. Bradley Cooper turns out to be gay. He befriends Julia Roberts who is flying home from active service for 24 hours to see the love of her life. Her son. Who turns out to be in love with his teacher. Jennifer Garner. Connections! Love stories! Oh my.

Been there. Done that.

The Help

So! I <3 blogging on New Years Eve. This year I'm going to blog before 11PM completing my New Years Resolution. Check!

I read this book the Help because it seemed like the thing to do. I heard lots of ladies talking about it so I figured I would give it a go. It was the first book I rented from the library on my Kindle. How exciting is that!

I liked the book! It is a book about white women and their black maids in Mississippi. The book alternates between the perspective of three women: two black maids and one white women who is not quite like all her friends. The white woman, Skeeter, enlists the maids help in writing an anonymous book about being a maid. The fact that the perspective kept switching kept my interest, but it also meant I developed a favorite and least favorite perspective leaving me to look forward to some parts more than others.

I won't go into it too much more, but I am excited to see the movie remake which came out fairly recently. I would recommend this book! Check!

The Sopranos: Season 5

Based on the timestamps associated with my various Sopranos posts so far this year, it appears as though I've taken three months on average to finish most of these seasons. This one took nine days. Not coincidentally, this was also probably my favorite season of the show yet. I'll need to re-watch the entire series a second time before I can confirm the way the individual seasons compare to one another, but Season 5 was the most Shakespearian and imagery-laden season so far, stretching from one autumn through more than a year to the following winter and killing off at least a couple of likable characters along the way. There have always been tones of fatalism in The Sopranos; the people in Tony's life end up worse off just for knowing him, it seems, and Tony himself is merely the product of his upbringing and environment. We are who we are for reasons beyond our control, and as such, we may ultimately do things without really choosing to do them at all. If you can compare The Sopranos to The Wire - and God knows plenty have - then this show's fifth season is most readily parallelized with that show's fourth season because of some thematic similarities in the exploration of fate and free will. And in case you forgot, or simply haven't read my Wire posts, The Wire: Season 4 was the greatest 13-episode arc of television I think I've ever seen. It makes sense, then, that I'd enjoy its Sopranos counterpart. Just one Sopranos season remains for me to watch, but in classic HBO fashion it was split into two parts, so the next time I post about this show it'll be midway through an extensive sixth and final season. Who knows? That could be at least three months from now.

Breaking Bad: Season 3

A good friend of mine recently got into Breaking Bad and asked if he could borrow the third season from me sometime after Christmas. I consented in a heartbeat - the gift of Season 3 of Breaking Bad beats most other things you can give or get for the holidays. The only problem, which wasn't really a problem but more of an interesting wrinkle, is that I myself had not yet sat down and watched Season 3 on DVD. I'd seen it when it aired back in the spring of 2010, and I'd watched most of it a second time when my girlfriend was DVRing repeats trying to catch up in time for Season 4. At any rate, I decided it was high time for a third go-round with Walt and Jesse's big third year and I began watching the season about a week and a half ago. Having seen Season 4 in the time since I last saw Season 3, I was surprised to find just how far back down the chain of action Season 3's premiere was. It'd be spoiler-ific to point out any specific big changes that would occur over the course of Seasons 3 and 4, but suffice it to say that shit happens. A whole lot of shit happens, and most of it isn't good. This is the season that Aaron Paul finally won an Emmy for, and it wasn't without merit. Bryan Cranston has yet to fail to win an Emmy for his work on Breaking Bad, and he was excellent here, too. But this dynamic duo wasn't alone in making this season a memorably outstanding one; perhaps the most gripping scene of the season occurred when an all-bark little-bite DEA agent faced off against two assassin brothers in a parking lot. And the season's biggest badass was easily Mike, a new character who, in one scene, managed to take out four armed guards with a bunch of balloons, a pistol, and a woman's shoe. Drug lord Gus remained elegantly powerful, and of course it was easy as always to appreciate corrupt lawyer Saul. This really is such an exceptional TV show where stakes keep growing, morality keeps eroding, and the end keeps drawing nearer and nearer for our antagonistic hero. Watch it! And watch it now!

Happy Endings: Season 1

All year, I've been watching Modern Family on Wednesday nights at 9:00 on ABC. More accurately, I've been DVRing it. And the thing about ABC is that, for whatever reason, its shows run a minute or so ahead of their timeslots. So, all year, I've caught the first minute or so of what comes after Modern Family in my recording. And that show is Happy Endings. About two months ago, I decided I liked the assorted sneak peaks of the cold openings enough to actually check out a full episode. And I liked that full episode enough to watch every On Demand episode there was. And, yeah, you can see where this is going. Anyway, for Christmas I received the all-too-short 13-episode first season on DVD and I've already finished watching it. It's been called "the Friends clone that's funnier than Friends" and I think that's an apt description. No laugh track, no mockumentary gimmick - just a straight up stream of set-ups and jokes. In addition, you've got a gay guy, a black guy, and a plus-size girl (still beautiful and by no means "fat" - just, you know, "Hollywood heavy"). I mean, doesn't this just sound better than Friends? It is. Or at least it has the potential to be if it can last ten years. A long shot, yes, but so far I'm enjoying this show a great deal. Or at least more than I'm enjoying Modern Family. Besides, if nothing else, it's nice to see Elisha Cuthbert doing something with her post-24 career.

Red Dead Redemption

While open-world games are usually poison for backlogging purposes, I've found that a game that doesn't require you to do anything but the main campaign to progress can be pretty fun if you just breeze from one mission to the next, not stopping to smell the roses. It's what I did with L.A. Noire, and it's what I just did now with Red Dead Redemption. This was not a hard game, and thus the lengthy 57 mission campaign managed to be completed in just a few days. As expected, it's basically Grand Theft Auto meets the Old West. Grizzled ex-con John Marston is seeking his 'redemption' in the eyes of the government- they have taken his family, and Marston needs to turn in or kill several key members of a gang he used to run with to set them free. This sets up a series of Western-stylized missions- duels, shootouts, train robberies, stuff like that. What I found most interesting about the game was the lengthy 'epilogue' of sorts. After Marston spends the whole game talking about how he plans to "leave this life behind" when the government gives him his family back... he does. And you play through it. The game gets a little less rated M and a little more Harvest Moon as Marston stops with all the gunfights and goes back to missions herding cattle and teaching his boy how to hunt. That kind of stuff at the start of a game feels like needless padding, but at the end it set an interesting tone- could John Marston really completely give up his old life to become a basic rancher? Play the game to find out, or read Trev's post if you're lazy.

And So It Goes

A recent Christmas gift from my girlfriend, And So it Goes is the authorized biography of probably my favorite author- Kurt Vonnegut. I have to give the author Charles Shields plenty of credit- it sounds like he barely got to spend any time talking about the book with Vonnegut before Kurt died in 2007, yet between that and family interviews and old records and letters he came up with a fairly in-depth look at Kurt Vonnegut's entire life. And throughout the whole thing, I kept coming away with one idea- Kurt was kinda a dick. That's an idea that Shields keeps coming back to, namely the important differences between Kurt Vonnegut the person and Kurt Vonnegut the, um, narrator. Because it's so easy to confuse the philosophies of the protagonists in his books with the man himself. Although many of his books feel pretty cynical, I always felt there were undertones of positivity, or at least an idea of "just enjoy life and be good to eachother." This is the guy whose only lesson to teach to infants is "God damn it, you've got to be kind" (God Bless You Mr. Rosewater), and yet when you look at his real life you see a miserable man who frequently berated children, had affairs, threw hissyfits about his critics, and broke friendships in pursuit of money. Oh well. I've still got a few more books of his to read and many other collections if I feel like getting to them, and I'll certainly have to read them with this new info at the forefront of my imagination. Maybe the man himself wasn't perfect, not even close, but at least some of his books feel like they are.

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

You wake up in a room from a drug-induced spell. Water is gushing in through a window. You must escape! Now you meet eight other strangers. You're all trapped on a ship together. Someone codenamed Jigsaw Zero has put you there. The ship is going to sink in nine hours. You must work together to progress through various rooms in the ship, solving puzzles along the way, and ultimately escaping. Each of you is wearing a bracelet with a different digit, from one through nine. There are nine doors on the ship numbered one through nine. For any group of three to five people to advance through these doors, the digital root of the sums of their bracelet numbers must match the number on the door. So, for example, the people with the numbers 4, 5, and 6 can pass through the door labeled with a 6, because 4+5+6=15, and 1+5=6. Similarly, if People 1 and 2 want to pass through Door 6, they'll need one to three more people to join them whose digital root is 3. (This can be accomplished by joining up with Person 3, with People 5 and 7, with People 5, 7, and 9, and with a number of other potential combinations.) Different doors lead to different paths, but most doors come in pairs or trios so that separate sets of people can advance through at once. After all, the final door - Door 9 - can only accommodate three to five people. So, should all nine people make it there, at least three will need to stay behind... Can you play the game a few steps in advance? Can you figure out who you'll need to take with you, and how (or if) you can ensure your place among the people who will be leaving the ship? It may not be as easy as it sounds - after all, wearing each numbered bracelet is a human being with some very human emotions. Maybe the person you trust the most isn't wearing the right number to join you through a door. Maybe a certain number you require in your party is being worn by someone you just don't trust at all. Anyway, all of this sounds intriguing (or at least it did to me, and the concept was enough for me to buy the game) but can it really hold up for an entire game? It turns out it doesn't need to. The game quickly becomes so much deeper and more complicated than just being a series of math problems and door-passing. But, all the same, the answer to the "does it hold up?" question is a resounding yes. Absolutely, yes. Consider the following two facts. One: I've got sixty or more video games in my backlog, and rarely these days do I do more than the bare minimum required to "beat" a game before checking it off of my list and moving on. Two: the last four days have been Christmas-filled for me, as I've enjoyed three different family gatherings (and one night alone with my girlfriend) with festivities and gift exchanging and general holiday revelry. Now then, with those two facts in mind, get ready for this one: I've cobbled together some twelve or fifteen hours of game time in the past five days, beating 999 three times and finishing every puzzle the game has to offer me. I've read dozens of discussion board posts regarding the story and I've stayed awake until ungodly hours in the morning playing the game with my DS alternating between plugged in and unplugged, easily draining multiple battery cycles per session. I have dreamt about this game when I've been able to catch a few winks and I have rarely stopped thinking about it since completing it late last night. In short, it was an amazingly addictive and compelling game. And it was actually hardly a game at all. 999 has been described as a "visual novel," which is to say that it's essentially a story told with tons of dialogue and narrative and a few character sprites superimposed against a few different backgrounds throughout the story. The actual gameplay is limited to several "escape the room" type games - you know, the kind in which you explore your surroundings, combine items into more useful items, and find clues regarding how to proceed to the next room - that take anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour to do. There are 18 of these in total, but you can only do seven or eight or so per playthrough. At certain points in the story, you'll be given choices about which path to take next. It's sort of like a "choose your own adventure" book in that regard, but there are only six possible ultimate endings: four "bad" ones, one "normal" one, and one very extensive "true" ending that can only be achieved after playing through and getting the "normal" one. But while the "true" ending provides the greatest sense of closure, the other endings (or more specifically, the paths that take you to the other endings) provide exclusive bits of backstory and character development, and are just as "worth" getting - or interesting, at least - as the true one. 999 is best enjoyed as the sum of all of its potential narrative arcs, for certain, and hits the right balance of stability and uniqueness without growing redundant on multiple playthroughs. And the game is entirely story-based and story-dependent. If you crunch the numbers (three playthroughs, seven or eight puzzles per playthrough, fifteen minutes or so per puzzle on average, fifteen total hours) it becomes clear that I spent the majority of my time (probably more than two thirds of it, even) just scrolling through text and character interactions. This experience really was more like that of a novel than of a video game, and I can see why that just wouldn't fly with some people. But damn, did I love it. It was a murder mystery, a love story, a psychological experiment, an ensemble character piece, and a sci-fi conspiracy theory all at once. And it managed to do a great job at being each of these things; there was no romantic superficial coating thrown on to spice things up, nor were any of the characters ultimately left without a deep and rich history that intertwined with the histories of others. Some major plot devices included the sinking of the Titanic, telepathy, numeral systems with non-decimal bases, and - in a wink to Kurt Vonnegut that I thoroughly appreciated - "ice-9" (ice that won't melt until it hits 96 degrees Fahrenheit). Now, I'll admit, the story wasn't absolutely flawless. The "true" ending involved a time-travelling paradox that I really wish it hadn't, and one or two revelations from the falling action seemed to violate occurrences I'd seen in different playthroughs. But no story is above the realm of criticism, and I should reiterate that these were two very minor beefs that I came up with after an otherwise totally impressive and enthralling piece of work. A spiritual sequel to 999 is due out in Japan on the 3DS in a few months, and if it ever comes to America (and if I ever get a 3DS) you can bet your ass I'll be dumping another fifteen hours into that one. In the meantime, I'll suffice it to just badger certain friends of mine into checking out this game. After all, 999 was capable of sandwiching my Christmas celebration with my captivated attention like no other game (or book) ever has. It's something very special, and immediately finds itself among my nonexistent "top ten" list of most satisfying loggings of the year.

A Christmas Carol

What can I say? 'Tis the season. This was my third Charles Dickens effort. The first one was Great Expectations, which was school-enforced reading that I didn't really enjoy. The second one was A Tale of Two Cities, a book I read on my own accord that I thought was beautiful and moving, but still didn't love. My issue with both novels, the former more than the latter, was Dickens' excessive use of words in general. When you're an author who gets paid by the word, it turns out, you have quite an incentive to say as little as possible in as many words as possible. Anyway, that's been my major gripe with Dickens going back as long as I've been reading him. But I was looking forward to A Christmas Carol for two key reasons. One, since it's only 80 pages long, Dickens was only going to be able to be so loquacious in his narrative. And, two, since I was fairly familiar with the characters and the story going in, having seen or read an adaptation or two in my day, I figured even the ramblier moments would be easier to deal with. And they were. And the book was just fine, actually, and maybe even somewhat enjoyable. It was the same old story I'm sure you're all well aware of, and nothing more. Still, it feels nice to have it checked off my backlog list. Merry Christmas everyone.

The Sopranos: Season 4

Once again, it has taken me three months to finish a season of The Sopranos. But, once again, I've enjoyed it very much. This was an especially bold season of the show; it was by far the lightest on typical "mob material" yet, and instead relied on the audience being familiar enough with (and invested in) the characters to care about plenty of their personal demons. This isn't something the show has been a stranger to in the past, but while the previous three seasons have featured numerous betrayals and deaths, this one did everything it could, for the most part, not to pull triggers and bury bodies. In lieu of this, we see Christopher struggle with a heroin addiction, watch Tony and Carmela's marriage fall apart, and witness Junior debase himself by faking dementia as a trial-dodging tactic. I said three months ago when recapping Season 3 that I thought I had finally figured out that the big overall theme of The Sopranos was one of decadence and decline. And I stand by that statement one season later. Most of the main characters in this show have had it pretty good for a while now, and yet it's impossible to shake the feeling that most of them are headed for death or at least personal disaster, both collectively and as individuals. I'm looking forward to Season 5, which most fans agree is the most dramatic and plot-thickened (though not necessarily best) season of them all. I'm interested to see where a lot of these guys will end up. Rock bottom? A lake bottom? If my current track record holds true, it'll be three months before I finish the next season. Let's hope I can do what I did with The Wire and turn up the tempo toward the homestretch.

Toy Story 3

When I saw Toy Story 3 a year and a half ago in theaters, I was very, very pleased. It seemed like a perfect Pixar movie, a film that dealt with a wide range of emotions and themes from the human experience, but one that did so with G-rated content and anthropomorphic toys. And perhaps more impressively, it was far and away an all-around better movie than either of its two predecessors, which were each damn good flicks in their own right. When I slid the disc into my PS3 earlier tonight, I was initially worried that it wouldn't impress me so much on a second time around. After all, WALL·E had started out as my new favorite Pixar movie but by the time I went back and watched it again earlier this year on Blu-ray I couldn't resist noting a slight datedness. But no. Toy Story 3 held up just fine. It didn't feel quite as funny, since I wasn't in the theater surrounded by a living laugh track, and it wasn't quite as tense or emotionally touching due to my familiarity with the content this time around. But while watching certain scenes, especially at the end of the film, I was reminded of my initial reaction to those scenes. And I recalled how much they affected me the first time around, and that only further cemented the legacy of Toy Story 3 in my mind as one of the best and greatest animated movies I've ever seen. (If you were to ask me for just one absolute best, it's probably Toy Story 3. The question is whether or not it warrants discussion as one of the best movies, period. Its "Best Picture" nomination suggests that it does.) I'm assuming that most people reading this have in fact already seen Toy Story 3, so there's really no need for me to try to sell it to anyone, but all the same... check out Toy Story 3 if you've yet to do so.

From the Earth to the Moon

I've never gone wrong with an HBO miniseries before, but going into this one I knew it would at least test that untarnished record. Twelve hours of dramatization of the Apollo program? Even to a minor space geek like me, that sounded like a whole lot of time to spend on very little variety of content. How could that possibly not get old? The first episode was fairly impressive and packed with a rundown of the early part of the space race. By the sixth one, Apollo 11 had successfully landed on the moon. And that still left six more episodes of... repeat visits to the moon. I'll admit, it did get old. But I give credit to the miniseries for managing to frame each episode in a different way and from a different context. After the Apollo 11 episode dealt with the historical importance of that crew and their mission, the Apollo 12 one is fairly light in tone and focuses on an overwhelmed and appreciative young astronaut who enjoys every minute he spends on the moon. Future episodes specifically focused on things like the importance of collecting the right kinds of moon rocks and the public pressure the wives of all the astronauts had to face back at home. Out of respect for the movie Apollo 13, this miniseries didn't even use its Apollo 13 episode to focus on those astronauts at all, but instead on the people on the ground in Houston and the media's fast and frantic reaction to the crisis. It was a bold move and even though I didn't appreciate it - come on, show me the men whose lives are in danger! - I respect the gutsy decision all the same. Ultimately this was a fairly niche miniseries that I can only recommend to space nerds and aeronautics buffs (I certainly work with a few of them - also, looking at you, Sween) but it was a well-made and enjoyable program nonetheless. And I expected nothing less from HBO.

Time After Time

With our film industry supersaturated with remakes and reboots, I always hoped that a project would be picked up that no one would know the source material to. It would actually be - somewhat - fresh content. Although I think there are some projects that fit that bill (anyone remember the TV show 21 Jump Street? It's a Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum movie to be re-released this summer), they're rare to say the least... and generally based off either shitty content or material too good/iconic to be remade (did Burton really need to redo Willy Wonka?). However, this is a film that I truly believe deserves a face lift.

Let me just give you a low-down on the premise here and ask yourself if you would see this - I'm assuming no one has seen this 1979 sci-fi flick. Alright, we open to London in the late 1800's where a prostitute has just been murdered by Jack the Ripper. Jack flees before the cops can arrive, and their search for him begins. Switch over to the home of H.G. Wells as he converses with all his highly educated colleges. He unveils to them his latest invention: the Time Machine. Just then police rap at the door believing Jack the Ripper to have fled to this house (I hope you see where this is going). Wells notices his friend, John Leslie Stevenson, is missing. He jogs downstairs into his lab to find his Time Machine missing! Luckily, Wells installed a safety switch that brings the machine back to its point of departure. Once it has returned Wells learns that his "friend" has traveled into the future (our present day). Now it's up to H.G. Wells to travel into the future to track down Jack the Ripper before he can strike again.

No doubt about it. I would drop $$$ to see this guy.

Of course, this film was made in the 70's and is extremely dated by our standards. I mean, the special effects of the Time Machine zipping through time is just... ugh. But inject at least $70 million into it budget and tack on some A-list stars (plus Bruce Campbell as Jack the Ripper... yeah, he could probably do a British accent) and you've got a movie people might respect.

The only glaring problem this movie has dealt with the fundamentals of time travel. I believe the original film adaptation for Well's actual novel illustrated how he believe a time machine to work. Essentially, the Time Machine would say in place as the world around him sped through time. Only in this movie, after Wells blasts 100 years into the future, he finds himself in an H.G. Wells museum exhibit in San Francisco. Apparently it looks as though his office and Time Machine just went untouched all this time even though it's already demonstrated earlier that when using the machine you disappear from those around you (Well's maid watches him depart and is astonished when the machine vanishes before her eyes). I mean, I'll suspend my disbelief here I guess.

The other big problem was Well's attitude with the future. In the beginning of the film he raves about striving for a Utopian society and believes the future would have hopefully achieved that. Once in San Fran, he's disappointed by the violence and sexuality on television and the general seedy, crime-ridden atmosphere the city holds. Really? Cars are not impressive? How about the advancement in communication - why didn't his mind blow when he saw a television? Instead, it depicts his astonishment with fast food. Yes, I guess that's something to take away from the future, right? McDick's is where it's at.

This film is a little too dated for me to give any recommendations on - I only finished it because I have my all-day couch marathon on Sunday - but maybe we'll see it re-released someday... IN THE FUTURE!

Philadelphia

Earlier this year I watched the six-hour HBO miniseries Angels in America, in which the most dominant theme was the despair caused by AIDS in the 1980s, specifically to the gay community. This two-hour movie, made (and probably set) during the early '90s, managed to hit on most of the same subject matter while at the same time more finely focusing itself on one man's struggles in particular. The movie is about a wrongful termination suit in which a gay man with AIDS is fired by his company. Tom Hanks plays this man and Denzel Washington plays his homophobic lawyer. It's an interesting struggle for both men - Hanks must fight an uphill battle, while dying, against a jury made of people from a largely AIDS-fearing society. And Denzel must overcome his own prejudices and personal beliefs in order to successfully defend Hanks and win the case. It ended up being a more moving and effective movie than I had imagined it would be, and for that I give it praise and props.

The Hangover: Part II

During my all day marathon of being a couch potato this past Sunday, I threw on The Hangover: Part II. Why? Listen, I’ve already agreed to not move from my living room all day, so clearly logic was not something running through my head at the time or else my brain would have stopped me from paying to see the same damn movie twice. Yes – for all of those who have yet to see this one – this movie is precisely the same as the last one only with the addition of happy little monkey.

Now, unless you were living under a rock this summer then you probably saw this blockbuster’s trailer. It summarizes the premise thusly: This time around, the Wolf Pack is in Thailand celebrating Ed Helms’ wedding and the gang – while trying to keep things quiet – accidentally go off too hard and wake up in Bangkok a mess with no recollection of what’s happened the night before. Oh, and is there anyone missing this time around? You betcha. The bride’s 16-year-old brother is nowhere to be found except for his severed finger. Now everyone is in a scuffle to find out where this guy is and if they can make it to the wedding in time.

Let’s just say this. The movie did very little to encourage any laughs. In fact, the funniest part of the whole thing are the credits where we see all those raunchy photos of the night in questions. (Yes! Just like in the prequel!) It's just such a replication of the first film, it's astonishing. Now, I know all scripts in Hollywood go through dozens upon dozens of rewrites before they head into production (and then even during), but, in all seriousness, this guy could have been cracked out over a long weekend. There's literally nothing new except for the location, which barely plays a role in the movie itself. Many times while the characters are in search of their friend, people warn them that if they don't find him soon then "Bangkok has him" giving the impression the city has a whole seedy underworld of its own that we'll be introduced to later. But, no. Nothing outside a reckless bar fight and visiting a Buddhist temple (I hope I'm right assuming the temple was Buddhist... Thailand? Buddhism? Yeah, I think those go together) reflects city at all. With that being the only seed for originality in this movie, they blew it.

All that aside, I have to express the worst part of this movie. The one little scene that made me freak out because it was so unbelievably impossible. End of the movie. The guys find the brother-in-law (trapped in an elevator overnight during a power outage) and are racing back to the wedding on a speed boat. Right when the strict, uptight father of the bride is clearing out the guests and canceling the wedding, our heroes barreling in on their boat to save the day. To provide a little context for this character (the father) he hates Ed Helms because he thinks he's a wuss, and loves his son who he's risen to be a master cello player and a teenage MD student at Stanford. Right, so Helms jumps off the boats and immediately goes into this whole spiel about how he's a badass and he loves this guy's daughter and if he doesn't respect that then he can go fuck himself. Now, mind you he's just looked over his beat-up son and seen one of his ring fingers is missing. (NOTE: You're not going to be a very successful doctor or musician when missing an appendage. Especially a fucking finger!) However, the father puts all this aside and gives Helms this smirk meaning "you're all right, fella." WTF! I'm sorry, but I can't believe that guy (an ultra-wealthy Thai businessman) wouldn't have just hired some hitmen to take him out in 12 hours time - he basically fucked over his son's life and is now in possession of his daughter to ruin for all eternity. I would like to believe this is the case, stopping all chances of a third movie, but I'm pretty sure I've already heard buzz for a Part III in the works. Ugh.

Slaughterhouse-Five

I do believe I'm the fourth person on this blog to post Vonnegut. This is the first book I have read by him. What I said earlier about Steve and his movie recommendations, I do not echo in his book recommendations. We prefer slightly different styles of books. For instance, Catch 22, his favorite book, I have struggled over and over to get through. The style of writing is too rambling and detailed to draw me in. Unfortunately, I thought Slaughterhouse-Five was very much like this. I do most of my reading before bed, and thus a book has to be pretty enthralling to not put me to sleep. This one took me probably a month total to read in 5-10 page increments. Which, if you have read the book, will understand why that made me enjoy the book even less. It is so hard to remember what was going on in the book when the plot line changes so rapidly. He's a dentist. He's with his wife. He's dead. He's at war. He's in space. It's hard for a girl to keep all this straight. I personally do not love this style of writing. It doesn't draw me in, and it confuses me when I don't read it in large chunks at a time. Steve kept saying just wait until the end, but I didn't think the end got any more exciting. My favorite portions of the books were the times he spent on Tralfamadore. According to them we have something like four addition sexes beside male and female. So it goes.

Love and Other Drugs

I don’t have much to same about this romantic comedy because, well, it’s a romantic comedy. It had romance. It had humor. It has it’s fair share of serious situations to further the plot. This one is slightly different than your run of the mill romantic comedy because it was largely about Parkinson’s disease. Jake Gyllenhaal’s character was a smart med school drop out who is a brilliant salesman. He is also brilliant in bed and got fired from his job for sleeping with the boss’ girlfriend. He movies to Illinois and begins work for Pfizer as a pharmaceutical sales rep. Through his job he meets Anne Hathaway’s character, who is a free spirit that has Parkinson’s. Well, they begin a relationship. Jake Gyllenhaal struggles before Prozac is released, but then he becomes one of the top sales guys in the company. Gyllenhaal falls in love with Hathaway but can’t get over the fact that she is sick and does everything in his power to try to bring her to doctor’s that can help. She can’t deal with it and they break up. Then they get back together and live happily. I actually don’t remember if they stay together. According to Wikipedia, Gyllenhaal quits Pfizer and finishes med school. Oh well, I guess it didn’t make that much of an impression. By the way, Anne Hathaway is naked a lot in this movie.

The Last of the Mohicans

Steve generally doesn’t steer me wrong when it comes to movies. Braveheart? Good. Star Wars? Good Back to the Future? Good. The Patriot? Good. So why was I so unwilling to watch Last of the Mohicans? I don’t know. But boy did I resist. Well, I finally watched it after having filled my stomach with Little Q Hot Pot. And you know what? It was good! (Surprise!) This movie is about the French and Indian War. It follows a duo of Mohicans accompanied by Daniel Day-Lewis, an adopted Mohican. First off, I thought Daniel Day-Lewis was Javiar Bardem for some reason. So, I don’t really know who he is. Who cares though? He’s the mean! These are peace loving Native Americans, and they don’t want to get involved in the war. They save a lady and her sister and accompany them back to a fort. Magua attacked them. I hate Magua. Like immediately. He was so hateable. Anywho, shockingly the man and the woman fall in love. There is also a bit of secret love on the side between the sister and Native American son. Crazy Magua attacks the woman and her sister because of a grudge against their father. He vows to kill them both. The end of this movie is so epic. I don’t even want to try to explain it. It ends with an epic dialogue-less scene, and boy did I cry. Those three Mohicans though? Definitely some of my all time favorite movie groups.

Bridesmaids

Helllllo the female version of the Hangover. And no, I don’t just mean it’s a female based comedy. I mean, it’s the way overhyped movie of the year that I didn’t see when it first came out. People hyped up this movie so hard. It was this chick flick looking movie that turned into a comedy hit overnight. Well, I finally saw it after it came out on DVD. And you know what? It wasn’t that awesome! Yes, it was funny. No, it wasn’t anywhere near as funny as people made it out to be. Molly from Mike and Molly, funny but overrated with a small role. The main character with SNL roots? Doesn’t even get to be that funny because she is too busy being depressed / overshadowed the entire time. Helen Harris III? The base of a lot of jokes but mostly because the character was just bitchy / over the top. I enjoyed the movie but I feel the need to rip into it because of how much everyone loved it. The only part I genuinely laughed out loud during? The bridesmaid dress scene in the bathroom.

Parks and Recreation Season 2

Ooops! I have been a bad back-blogger. My log of back-logs has gotten out of control. I am just the worst at timely posting. Anywho, here’s what I can remember of my past three months worth of time.

Parks and Rec! If you remember my first (late) Parks and Rec blog, I had started talking about Season 2 by mistake. Well this one is reallllly season 2. And it has Louie CK! Who I never liked until watching this show. Here’s some funny episodes I remember I enjoyed from Season 2 (besides everything):

“Practice Date” – A great episode with a great Jerry punchline

“Ron and Tammy” – Roncentric episodes are usually funny. This one is great because it involves Tammy.

“Hunting Trip” – A trip to Ron’s hunting cabin with the boys goes horribly wrong.

“Leslie’s House” – Where Leslie horribly abuses her Parks and Rec status

“Woman of the Year” – Spoiler Alert: It’s Ron. Enough Said.

“Summer Catalog” – I love the beginning of television relationships and Andy and April have some cute moments in this one.

“The Master Plan” – This one is only awesome because I have already seen most of season 3 and <3 Ben.

I don’t know how to write these things anymore. Yes I enjoyed the show. No I don’t have much to say about. And No, I wouldn’t have had much to say about it even if I wrote this two months ago on time.

American Gods

The talent of Neil Gaiman is something I never underestimate. Having written one of my favorite graphic novel series, The Sandman, one of my favorite animated movies, Coraline, even of my favorite episodes of Dr Who and that is why I was surprised when I had trouble reading what is often regarded as Gaiman's best work American Gods. Imagine that all the gods you ever learned about were real. This is the world that the main character, Shadow,finds himself in. God's of old clash with the gods of new. The gods are presented in a very real and very human way, more like Harry Potter and less like Percy Jackson.

This book was a very hard read for me. I started it in high school and have started it at least 4 more times since then. Even this most recent attempt, and ultimate success, was plagues by constant start and stops. I read this book in small chunks over the last 5 months. Now that I have completed it I am surprised it took me so long to complete. Overall it was a great book but it starts out very slowly and culminates very thoroughly. It took a long time for Gaiman to introduce all the puzzle pieces and ultimately bring them all together in the end in a way that make sense.

God of War III

The second installment of the God of War franchise ends with one of the biggest cockteases in the history of gaming. Spoiler alert! After a fight with Zeus ends in a stalemate, Kratos gains the help of the mythic titans. We see Kratos riding on Gaia's enormous back as the titans themselves are storming Mt. Olympus, setting the stage for an epic battle to end all battles. And then the game ends. I can't imagine what it was like playing God of War II when it first came out and not knowing when I'd ever be able to storm Olympus myself. Well, God of War III is that epic battle in its entirety. From its sensational opening battle against Poseidon and his beasts of the sea to the finale when Kratos finally reaches the top, God of War III is solely the ascent of Kratos, during which he kills nearly every god and goddess left after the first two games. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed in this installment, it just takes everything great about the first two games and makes it better. This is simply a must-own for any PS3 owner (over 18 of course).

Weeds: Season 6

Even though I've seen every season, Weeds is not a show I'd consider one of my favorites, and never really has been. But this sixth season was actually very, very good. The series focuses on the Botwin family, and specifically on its matriarch, Nancy, a suburban soccer mom who turned into a drug dealer in order to support her family after the death of her husband. The first three seasons were based in a fictional Los Angeles suburb. The next two were far more Mexican in nature, and spent roughly equal time on either side of the border. Then, after a cliffhanger to end Season 5, Season 6 begins with the Botwins fleeing their former lives, assuming fake identities and everything. I really enjoyed it, and I think the trimmed cast and barebones "just keep moving and don't get noticed" themes gave it new energy and life. Unfortunately, Season 7 kind of blew. The Botwins settled back down in New York and, remaining in one place all season, fell back into the uninteresting hijinks and illegal activities that had made the series grow so stale prior to this season in the first place. Oh well. Weeds has now been renewed for at least an eighth season and at this point seems sillier and less interesting than ever. So it was nice to go back and watch Season 6 all over again and be reminded that at its best this show is quite capable of creating sadistic comedy while still legitimately eliciting emotion - a true "dramedy" if such a thing really exists. It definitely seems like this was the peak for Weeds, but it's also pretty cool that a show that had grown stale by Season 3 managed to come back so strong as late as Season 6.

Casino Royale

First of all, this is my first foray into backlogging and I hope that my rambling is up to par. That being said I have undertaken a reread of some books that I felt needed revisiting. First on the docket are the original Ian Fleming novels, I just finished Casino Royale.

James Bond is not the man you think he is based on the movies, but in the novel he is so much more. He’s been a soldier, collecting a noticeable facial scar from WWII and this career and honorable discharge has led him into a career in the Secret Service. He lives for drinking and smoking - yes, but only his double band special blend cigarettes. He is a Cold War man’s man in the way that his clothes are tailored and he treats women the same way he treats card games- as sport and diversion.

Casino Royale tracks Bond through the sleepy seaside town of Royale-les-Eaux on his mission to gain intelligence on known SMERSH agent Le Chiffre. What snagged me initially about this was that SMERSH is based off a real Soviet Agency created by Stalin, and its real name translates as something like “Death To Spies”. This is old school East vs. West espionage. In essence the film of the same name did justice, with the card games and the cool handler Vesper Lynd. It never even occurs to Bond that a woman could be as efficient and ruthless as him, and he winds up vulnerable for the first time in his professional career.

As a lead in to a series this book is dynamite. It’s an easy read, the card games are enthralling and the language makes you feel as though you’re privy to cold war ciphers and plots. It is also without a doubt the making of the man named James Bond- we see why he treats the job and women the way he does and how much of it is farce.

Cars 2

Sween... finally got what you were hinting at on gchat today. Yes, I did forget I had started a post quite some time ago and just never got around to finishing it. But all of that ends.... TONIGHT!

So, Cars 2. With entertainment juggernaut that is Pixar, you really would have hoped for something better here. I've got to admit, I never truly wanted to see this movie (I think I started it on a plane or something?), but I felt obligated in someway to Pixar. They've just performed so remarkably in the past I didn't think it was possible for them to come out with a shitty flick... but they did.

Alright, it wasn't that bad. It definitely rises above a Michael Bay abortion or The Smurfs (it's sad to think I work at a company responsible for that), but not by much. The fact is that all of Pixar's movies are, in essence, movies for children; however, this was the first film by them I felt only a kid could enjoy. Never-the-less, I watched it for the sake of the blog.

This film still has Owen Wilson and Daniel Lawrence Whitney (I'm not going to try and remember the character names... I know there's IMDB, but I'm too damn lazy!) palling around as the odd friendship between a racing car and a hick tow truck. The racing car is about compete in this worldwide racing circuit and brings his socially-inept friend along for the ride. It doesn't take long for the truck embarrasses him and is banished from the racing crew. While on route home, the truck is mistaken as a secret agent (after being given some special package) and begins a mission following a group of Lemons' (shitty cars) plot to sabotage the racing circuit. I won't bore you with the rest of the details. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks from here on out.

Now, it's not that the plot is bad or anything. In fact, most of Pixar's movies have very simple story lines, which is usually looked upon favorably. This movie just fails to have the same charm and splendor that I've received from the others. Instead I just noticed a lot more bathroom jokes - literally (tow truck gets locked in a Japanese bathroom stall and cant figure out the computer controls for the toilet... haaaaalarious). Maybe I'm just being pessimistic - which is totally possible - but this film bored the Hell out of me. The one shimmering gem to this masterpiece was Bruce Campbell, who plays an American agent that gets wiped out within 10 minutes of meeting him. Sad, but a fitting Bruce role.

All-in-all, this movie is totally worth the 10 minutes of Bruce Campbell (voiceover) time it serves. Actually, if you want really satisfying Bruce Campbell voiceover work check out Sunny with a Chance of Meatballs (actually, do that... movie's hysterical) or any of the Spiderman video games. You can't go wrong with BC.

The Double

Between the last two books I read and the last two Saramago books I'd read, I've been in a bit of an unimpressive book rut. Hell, each Saramago book I've read has been worse than the last. Stan gave a harsh review to what I thought was his best book I've read, Blindness. And I still had... 8 more books of his to read? Oh shit. Luckily, The Double reminded me of why I bought the Saramago collection in the first place- while it does have long meandering sentences and lack of proper punctuation that Mr. Saramago is known for, I found it to be a taut thriller that kept me coming back for more. As usual, the book is about watching normal people react to a bizarre situation- in this case, history teacher Tertuliana Maximo Afonso, a middle aged high school teacher, discovers his exact double as an extra in a movie. After some research and stalking, it is determined that at all times the two men look and sound completely alike, and have at all points in their lives, right down to scars and facial hair. Rather than devolving into Parent Trap-esque farce, both Afonso and the actor meet up and are forced to reexamine their entire lives- everything is shaken up by finding out that they are not unique snowflakes, but two men cast from the exact same mold. From here out The Double does something no other Saramago books have done- it becomes plot heavy, tense, and twists in some unexpected directions, culminating in an open ended but satisfying conclusion. Am I chomping at the bit to read the next book in this collection of 12? Not exactly, but it's nice to have that renewed sense of enjoyment.

Nine Stories

Well, that's two in a row the underwhelmed me. Unlike One Hundred Years of Solitude, however, I went into J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories collection with low expectations after the painstaking read that was Seymour- An Introduction, but luckily Nine Stories had more hits than misses. Unfortunately not many of the short stories were particularly interesting to blog about. Salinger enjoys writing argumentative dialog between two characters, and that trope appears in the nine short stories fairly often. But while some of these interactions provided interesting characterization (A Perfect Day for Bananafish) or philosophical debate (Teddy), some just went nowhere at all (Down at the Dinghy) or were just mindless prattling between unlikable characters (Just Before the War with the Eskimos). The lows aren't too low, but the highs aren't all that high either. No wonder Salinger's really only known for The Catcher in the Rye.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

I've read longer books than Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, but few have matched the grand scale of his epic novel. The book begins with the founding of a fictional Columbian utopia called "Macondo" by Buendia family patriarch, Jose Arcadio. From here the book spans 100 years and seven generations (time expands or contracts in Macondo based seemingly on Marquez's whim) chronicling the important events in the rise and fall of Macondo, specifically focusing on the Buendia family. The Buendias are creative people for the most part, but not in the naming of children, so dozens of characters share a small handful of names- there are something like 20 different 'Aureliano's, requiring the reader to pay close attention to context or face terrible confusion. At the heart of the plot are ideas on family, sex, and sometimes sex with family- despite plenty of other families settling in Macando with the Buendias, they just can't seem to stop inbreeding, despite an age gap of generations. Marquez doesn't stop there though, touching upon more universal themes like war, politics, and religion as well. One Hundred Years of Solitude was certainly an ambitious undertaking for Marquez, which is why I'm puzzled that I was left kinda underwhelmed. A story of this magnitude feels like a huge gamble that could either fall flat on its face or be considered one of the greatest books of all time- it falls into the latter category for most people, but it just didn't leave much of an impression on me. Oh well.