Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

Sure, last time I posted a book I said I'd return to some authors I've read before and try to finish up their booklogs, but I received this short book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, as a birthday gift from my girlfriend, so I figured I could check it out first. Have I mentioned Katie's love of squirrels? She's all about them. Anyway, I've heard good things about David Sedaris, mostly about Me Talk Pretty One Day. In Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, Sedaris isn't attempting anything too thought-provoking; it's about twenty short stories which feature talking animals- a sort of modern day set of fables. Sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn't. Actually, they really only worked when Sedaris was trying to bring the funny. For instance, I have no idea why Sedaris named the book after the story about a squirrel who dates a chipmunk who later breaks up with him due to family disapproval; it didn't really go anywhere and wasn't particularly memorable. On the other hand a story about an Irish setter's job impregnating the females of his breed and its strain on his marriage would be a serious drama if it somehow worked with people, but reading a dog saying "It's my job, dammit!" makes it hilarious. Reminds me of this guy. What can I say? Talking animals are cheap laughs, but they're laughs anyway. I don't think he really achieved the 'modern day fables' thing he was trying out because these aren't smart stories that tell an interesting lessor or anything, but Sedaris is still pretty funny and I'll probably check out Me Talk Pretty One Day... one day.

Breaking Bad Season 4

I have to say, I am just continually impressed by how far Breaking Bad can go to prove that it is the best show on television, and I feel pretty dumb for not keeping up after the first season. It's awesome. Season three ended with a huge bang that gave season four a pretty clear direction to take, as meth cook Walter White and his assistant Jesse arrive at a bit of a stalemate with drug kingpin Gustavo Fring- both sides want the other dead, but neither can find a way to successfully pull it off for various reasons. As Walt resorts to more desperate measures, we're left wondering how much he is actually protecting his family when he's actually done everything possible to make their lives shitty. Jesse's arc at the start of the season was just fantastic- he has to make a huge move in the season three finale, something that would break most people, and we see him as a broken man trying anything and everything to take his mind off of his actions. We also get much more backstory on Gus, including a standout mid-season episode that explains his feud with the Mexican drug cartel, explaining why he needs to gear up for war. My one gripe is that the season four finale felt very close to an appropriate series finale- unless I'm missing something, many storylines seemed to neatly tie themselves off in the last fifteen minutes or so, until a last second twist that I'm sure will come up in season five but doesn't seem like something to build a season out of. But hey, this is Breaking Bad, and the reviews for season 5 are just as great as always, so I'm sure I'll be pleasantly surprised.

The Gunslinger

I have not posted in a long time so I figured I would get around to posting today. To be honest, I finished this book about three weeks ago but I have been having a hard time deciding what I was going to say about it. This is my first Stephen King book and I have been told that it is not his best. With that in mind here goes my post on the Gunslinger the first book in the Dark Tower series.

I decided to read this book series for one simple reason. One of the Westford Fantasy Baseball division names was the Katet and I wanted to know what that meant. I asked Sweeney and he said its from the Dark Tower books and directed me towards The Gunslinger as the starting point. Well I read the Gunslinger and I never found out what the Katet was so I guess I will just keep having to read the series till I get to that part.

Another blogger already did a pretty good recap of the plot to this story so I will forego that and talk briefly about how I felt regarding this book. The book starts off very slow and I had a hard time getting into it but since others had warned me about that I decided to push through. It wasn't until the last chunk of the book that it began to pick up at all and I got somewhat of a sense as to what is going on. Near the end I decided it was something I could really get into. Mentally I went from thinking "this book is bordeline unreadable" to " I could read more of this series." It was a pretty quick swing and it really came out of nowhere. I've been told that book two is a thousand fold better than book one so that is where I am at now. For the time being I've decided to take a quick break from the series, read a couple other books and then get back to the Dark Tower series when the mood strikes me.

As a side note this is the first book I started and finished on my Kindle Fire. That's something.

Silent Hill 2

Trev posted on survival horror classic Silent Hill 2 two years ago, claiming that the game really only did one thing right- it gives you a very creepy atmosphere, as you enter into an abandoned town enveloped with fog on a search for your potentially dead wife. For him, this was the only positive as the game was bogged down by messy controls and a story-line that is completely ridiculous. While I can't exactly defend the latter, at this point I've really got no problem with tank controls anymore. Admittedly the first game I played with tank controls (where you control your character more like a car than a human) was Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil and I had a lot of trouble getting used to the controls there, but shortly after that I found things got pretty easy. Sure, you might run into a wall every now and then, but I dunno. I think that style of control gets more heat than it deserves, even though I've dumped on it in the past. Other than that the gameplay is very standard fare compared to other horror games, with lots of monster killing and puzzle solving. One noteworthy implementation was the 'puzzle difficulty level', where in addition to making combat harder you can make puzzles more difficult as well. This often came in the form of having the same puzzles, but making the hints harder to discern; no matter what difficulty level you're on you'll get the full effect of the game. Finally we come to the ridiculous story, but again I think that's kinda what I've come to expect from these games. The dialog is cheesy as all hell and nothing in the story makes any sense. Trev made the comparison to Metal Gear Solid 2, but I at least give MGS2 credit for trying too hard and simply throwing too much info out in a way that was tough to digest. With Silent Hill 2, I don't feel like I missed any subtleties or anything- the bizarre twists and turns in protagonist James Sunderland's journey to find his wife don't seem to represent anything other than a poor attempt to keep the player interested. Still though, despite all the backhanded compliments I did enjoy my time with Silent Hill 2. I think I'm just addicted to the very formulaic way these games work, as long as they manage to give me a couple good scares. Either way by the fourth game or so this series supposedly gets bad in a hurry, so we'll see how far I go with it.

The Long Walk

For those who don't know, a few years after Stephen King became a hugely popular author he tried to pull a fast one on the American public by publishing a few novels under a pseudonym and seeing what happened. He called himself 'Richard Bachman', and after he published a four or five novels the word got out that Stephen King had actually wrote those books so everyone went back and tried to catch up with his suddenly expanded body or work. Now Stephen King isn't really known as the most positive guy, but when writing as Bachman he would go to an even darker place than usual, and as such the 'Bachman books' as they were called all ended up skewing more depressing than the rest of his work. I definitely noticed this in The Long Walk, which is actually the first book he ever started writing, long before Carrie was published. At first glance The Long Walk has tinges of the recent Hunger Games craze- in a sort of present dystopia there exists a game show where 100 boys at the northern peak of Maine simply start walking South. Slowing down or stopping earns you a warning, and after three warnings if you don't start walking, you're shot in the head. There can be only one victor of the Long Walk! Horrifying, right? The boys walk at a slow pace day and night wondering what the hell they're doing there, at times getting philosophical on the nature of the walk; other times just shooting the shit as teen boys are wont to do. King was great at the whole 'show, don't tell' thing we had drilled into our brain in middle school English class by giving us just enough to see that this society is very close to our own (someone references Ron Howard!) but slightly off, with throwaway lines about events in World War II that never happened and there being an April 31st. Of course, eventually the boys start dying off in droves, leading to an ending that's predictable but still grim enough to stick with you for a while. Overall I liked it, and now I've got like 13 King books down so obviously I'll be back again.

Breaking Bad: Season 4

Although this is one of my favorite shows of all time - and this was arguably its best season - I don't have a ton to say about my experience re-watching these 13 episodes. I shared said experience with Sween though, and as a Breaking Bad Season 4 virgin, he'll likely have more to say in the near future. I just know any attempt at a description would be loaded with vague praise as I tried to tiptoe around spoilers while still alluding to tons of memorable moments and what an unbelievable amount of tension this show is capable of generating and nurturing. What more can I say? It's a truly amazing show and it has been for years. Check it out if you still haven't done so.

Max Payne 3

Why can't I just focus on finishing games I already own? Ugh... Bought this one a few weeks back along with Skyrim. I'm glad that I'm at least finishing this game. Who knows when or if I'll ever get through Skyrim - not mention its predecessor or the myriad of other games I have yet to complete. Such a waste. But allow me to suppress my shame and move along...

I remember the release of the first Max Payne way back in the early aughts. Everyone was fairly wowed by its use of "bullet-time" (The Matrix still being huge at the time) in the game play. The game is violent, dark, gritty, and just a blast to play. A few years later its sequel came out where they tried to capitalize on all the points of success from it predecessor. Weak sauce. I don't remember much about it other than it only took me a night or two to beat it and I wasn't very impressed. Now here we are... About a decade after the start of the franchise, the third game is delivered. 

The wait wasn't worth it. The game is alright. No glowing recommendations here, but it was entertaining with a fair amount of challenge. To start things off, Max is no longer in New York (where the first two games took place), he's in Rio de Janeiro.  Exiled from New York after gunning down the son to one of the city's toughest mob bosses, Max picks up work as a bodyguard for a family of rich industrialists. From square one the family is under attack by local thugs wielding big guns. It's not long before everything goes to Hell. People are kidnapped and executed leaving Max without an employer or any real reason to stick around Brazil. Only his thirst for vengeance keeps him going. He eventually discovers that this whole mess leads to corruption in Brazil's political powers where the poor of the slums are being abducted so that their organs can be harvest and sold on the international black market. Fairly bleak story, but, then again, it's just keeping with tradition. 

Another thing keeping with tradition is the game play. Still a third-person shooter, still has the bullet-time. The bullet-time becomes essential when in a jam and you need some slow motion to line up those head shots. The one noticeable difference - from what I can tell - is the increase in gore. Blood flies everywhere in this game, which isn't really that much of a shocker anymore. In fact, it's become the norm. This game tries to take it one step further by displaying the final kill at every stage in a slow, gruesome manner. The point when you kill the last opponent at a stage, the camera will follow the bullet as it makes its way for the final kill. Even though blood and gore will be sprayed all over the camera, it really has no effect. Meh...

So I'm left here not really sure where I can stand on this game. Yes, the fight scenes are still fun and the game does a great job at changing up your environments with ever new chapter you progress through. The story drifts through different flashbacks explain how/why Max had to escape New York to begin with. In a sense, you do get to play through some of the old stomping grounds. Back to my point, it was fun and entertaining, but nothing I'm going to hold onto. In fact, there's little to no replay value from what I can tell - I haven't tested out any multiplayer options, but Rockstar isn't know for their multiplayer to begin with. If your curious about this game, rent it, beat it, and be done with it. 

Now to Skyrim... Who am I kidding? I'm not going to complete that. 

Post Office

You may not believe it, but with a good portion of the authors I've backlogged, I have this bizarre and incredibly unlikely idea that I'll read every book they've written. You'd think that if I actually wanted to make this happen that I'd focus on finishing authors off before moving on to someone new, yet here I am with a guy completely new to the backlog- Charles Bukowski. Bukowski's been called the 'laureate of American lowlife' and I can't disagree. This semi-autobiographical novel takes a hard look at Bukowski's hard living, working in a post office in the '50s and '60s before he quit to become a writer. It boggles my mind that both the main character ('Chinaski') and the actual author became famous in the first place as a poet, because Bukowski is anything but poetic writing about his hungover shifts and myriad divorces. It is pretty fun however to read about how nonchalantly he responds to events that would make others stop in their tracks and reevaluate their lives. Bukowski's only got five other books, so it shouldn't be too hard to get through them at some point, but I should probably return to some old friends and make progress with previously logged authors first. Onward!

Run Lola Run

Long ago and far away, Trev posted an entry of Run Lola Run. I'll yield to his description and reaction for the most part, not because I'm lazy, but because I'd co-sign on just about everything he wrote. The movie is short, simple, and incredibly low-budget, but it's also an absolute thrill to watch. Tack on a fairly deep philosophy on fate, free will, and their mutual compatibility, and you've got yourself a real gem. It doesn't even feel dated in spite of all the techno music and '90s Euro-culture, and that's probably because it's so straightforward and minimalistic. In fact, it's essentially just a thought experiment focusing on alternate timelines; Lola needs to come up with a hundred thousand marks (pre-euro!) and get them to her boyfriend within twenty minutes, or else he's a dead man. The film covers three attempts, and minor differences in each one lead to major differences in the result. Chaos theory and the butterfly effect are certainly at play here, but the film doesn't even attempt an explanation as to why Lola gets to re-attempt the money acquisition and delivery, an omission I completely respect. Without being hampered by plot constraints and explaining "who" or "why" or "how," the film blazes through its eighty-minute run time in a way that was satisfying both on an action level and a thinking level. I give it a hearty recommendation and soon enough I'll be giving it a re-watch.

Doom

I didn't purchase the X-Box Live Arcade port of the old PC first-person shooter, Doom- my little brother did. Who knows what his motivations were, but since it was still there on the 360 just waiting to be beaten, I figured I'd add it to my backlog and got through it over the past few days. Doom is pretty short and lacks many of the amenities of other modern FPS games, but it does have a certain charm that the current crop of games lacks. Doom comes from a time before grit and maturity were expected from shooters, a time when the Duke was kicking ass and chewing bubblegum; a time when Wolfenstein was killing Hitler and his Nazi hordes (was the protagonist of those games named Wolfenstein? Eh, who cares). A few screens of text give all the story Doom needs, and the word 'bad-ass' makes several appearances. Basically, you're in Hell and you have to fight your way out. I've lamented that modern shooters just seem like a mindless race to the end of the level (lookin at you, Halo) but Doom separates itself from the pack by actually requiring some thought to get through levels. Sure, it's the most rudimentary puzzle possible- find the blue key to open the blue door, red opens red, yellow opens yellow; but now there's a reason to explore every hallway in a level and to remember things like where you've been and whether you left any enemies alive. On the other hand you've got some shitty graphics, can't look up or down, and a bizarre glitch will change your gun every time you try to look at your mini-map. I had some fleeting fun during my brief time with Doom, but while tons of bonus levels have been added to this X-Box port, I put the game down once I had beaten all of the originals. It was a nice change of pace and I'd like to see more first-person shooters take hints from it, but it's still a very old game that shows its age.

Lolita

Many people think of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita as a pretty decent reason to get a Kindle- it's regarded as a masterpiece of fiction, but still about a topic that's very taboo to this day, with pretty good reason. It's basically 'Pedophile: the Novel." I mean, you probably don't want to google the word 'Lolita' and yet here I am posting about it on the Blog. The books tells the story of Humbert Humbert (all names are changed, sometimes in wacky ways, even though the book is completely fictional), a middle aged man who had a traumatizing experience in his youth that has left him with an obsession with young girls. It'd be easy for Nabokov to make Humbert a creepy, unsympathetic character, but he ditches the creepy old man stereotype for a charismatic womanizer. Women Humbert's own age fall in love with him and he ends up marrying a few of them, but his pedophilia doesn't stop. Eventually when his second wife dies he is given custody of her daughter, 12 year old Lolita, which is basically insanity. He's so overjoyed that he doesn't even know what to do with himself, panicking and taking a several years long road trip across America with Lolita, taking up the bulk of the book. The book thankfully doesn't get graphic, but there's enough hinting about Humbert and Lolita's exploits to make things uncomfortable. That said, I'm pretty sure you'll find way worse stuff happening in Naked Lunch, but while the villains in that book are emotionless kill and rape machines, Humbert's horrible qualities in Lolita are given more subtlety, with Humbert openly asking for forgiveness during his narration. It's an interesting book about a subject that so frequently gets swept under the rug to the point where no one wants to talk about it, and while Lolita didn't really blow me away, I think it's worth a read.

The Sirens of Titan

I feel as though it's been quite some time since I've read anything that didn't have to do with Batman... not that there's anything wrong with that. But now is the time to dig back into some ol' Vonnegut - you crazy coot you. This being the third book of his that I've read of his (Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast for Champions are the first two), I've definitely grown to have an affinity for his wildly imaginative characters, settings, and plot devices. This book is no exception.

Being the second published novel of Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan is a fairly entertaining story  that focuses on the idea of fate, luck, or destiny - something along those lines. Set in the future (the 22nd century, I believe) the story follows of one man's strange journey from Earth to Mars, over to Mercury, back to Earth, then finally to the Titan moon orbiting Saturn. A lot to take in, however, it's surprisingly easy comprehend what's going on. Side note: One of Vonnegut's greatest strengths has been to tackle intangible ideas, throw them into a story, and explain it in such a simple way allowing readers to not lose focus from the main character's struggle. Each of Vonnegut's novels that I've read so far may have come off extremely convoluted had a less talented writer been seated behind the helm. The time-traveling in Slaughterhouse-Five or the author meeting his protagonist in person from Breakfast for Champions, all ideas that are really out there (especially at the time they were written), yet somehow Vonnegut just keeps things simple enough. His big mind-fuck in this novel is the "chrono-synclastic infundibulum". This is some phenomenon where a funnel or wormhole in space leads to the 4th dimension. It's never truly explain precisely what it is. All that is needed to know if that a wealthy space traveler, Winston Niles Rumfoord, is sucked into one (along with his dog Kazak), and now exists within this particle beam that stretches from our sun to the Betelgeuse constellation. When Earth passes through the beam, he and his dog are able to appear on Earth. Once Earth passes the beam, they both de-materializes back into nothingness. The only place at which he can stay in form consistently is on the moon of Titan. To make things even more trippy, Runfoord - existing in the 4th dimension - can see the past, present, and future. Because of this, many people on Earth hold him to be some sort of demi-god capable of knowing mankind's fate. However, this book doesn't focus on Rumfoord. It tells the story of Malachi Constant (the man I mentioned early who zips around from Earth to Mars and so on...). 

The story begins with Rumfoord having an exclusive meeting with Constant explaining his fate - telling him that he'll be zipping around the solar system and, one day, will bear a child with Rumfoord's own wife. Constant, an ultra-wealthy socialite, does not take the news well. Does all that he can to sever the ties with Runfoord's wife and keep to himself. However, when he learns that all of his wealth is gone (due to some unlucky happenings in the stock market) Constant's fate is finally fulfilled. 

The book explores the idea of fate, or the fact that every action we do is predetermine - perhaps directed by someone else. While we follow Constant on his journey - much of which is being channeled through Runfoord's work behind the scenes - we see the initial prophecy become fulfilled. Once Constant (along with his son and Rumfoord's wife) reach Titan, Rumfoord's permanent residence, it's finally revealed that although this all-powerful man has basically steered Constant's life - and quite possible every human's life for that matter - in a certain, pre-determined direction, he alone is not free from fate as well. A Tralfamadorian (the aliens mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five) is spaceship-wrecked on Titan as well.  Has been for eons. It's revealed that all of Rumfoord's doing has brought this alien his missing part (Constant's son has unknowingly been holding it as a good-luck charm all the way from Mars) for his spaceship so that he's able to leave. In fact, it's explained that all of mankind's greatest structures were built based on mind-control (or something?) that through a telescope on Titan communicates messages to this stranded traveler that they're working on a way to get him home. The ending focuses on this note that to the farthest extend of our understanding of the world leads up to the idea that we only exist is to serve a predetermined fate - to get this alien back on his way. This is something that Rumfoord does not stomach well as he de-materializes for the final time with the chrono-synclastic infundibulum shifting out of orbit. Leaving bitter that his life has served this simple purpose.

Much of this book seems fairly bleak. Our heroes are left exiled from Earth at the end to spend the remainder of their days on Titan. Even through they're technically a family, they don't even live together. Rumfoord's wife stays in Rumfoord's palace writing down the history fo the world till she dies of old age; Constant pretty much keeps to himself residing within the spaceship they traveled on; and their son, Chrono, runs away as a teenager to join a clan of birds on the moon (weird). The family disbands, and while there are moments that demonstrate their love for one another, they ultimately live and die alone. Constant does make it back to Earth for one last visit after reassembling the Tralfamadorian allowing him to complete his previous mission to delivery a message to a far off universe. Constant is delivered back to Earth where he almost immediately dies, but not before experiencing a pleasant hallucination brought on by the Tralfamadorian. I believe its in this hallucination that Vonnegut imparts his conclusion on his exploration of fate, or maybe the idea "what's it all for?" Constant learns of the message the Tralfamadorian is sent to delivery. This message that has shaped the lives of all of humanity. The message is simply: hello. Through all of the bleak, disheartening moments, I think Vonnegut is able to reel it all back with a touching moment of intergalactic kindness. All-in-all, not bad. Not bad at all.

Next on the chopping block: Cat's Cradle. 

Persepolis

Five years ago, I had to read Persepolis for a college course. The book was actually an interesting graphic novel, so reading it was far more enjoyable than tedious. Keith and Marissa also had to read it, and Sweeney did so about a year and a half ago for pleasure. It's a fairly autobiographical account of Marjane Satrapi and the early portion of her life. Marjane spent her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the early part of the Iran-Iraq War. As her homeland became more and more unsafe, her parents decided to send her away to a boarding school in Vienna, where she endured an entirely different type of struggle: adolescence in a foreign country. At the age of twenty or so, after experimenting with love and drugs and bottoming out in Europe, Marjane returns to a post-war Iran to find her home ruled by a fundamentalist Muslim regime. (You know the type.) She goes to college and becomes a feminist and endures a failed marriage before ultimately coming to the conclusion that there's nothing left in Iran for her. She leaves for Europe once more, this time for good. And... scene. The movie played out a whole lot like the book, but made some notable cuts tot he story. I'm not complaining; it was only 95 minutes long, and you know I love myself an easy logging. I'm still impressed by Marjane's story. Its natural three-act structure - a tumultuous childhood, an unconventional adolescence, and an enlightening return - make it a remarkable story with very apparent momentum and development. I have to say that the movie's ending felt markedly different from the book's tonally. Although both stories end with Marjane leaving for Europe for a second time, the book makes it seem like a happy and not even permanent decision. Marjane's parents wave farewell to her with smiles on their faces, and know they'll see her soon enough. The movie, however, throws in a line from the mother like, "I forbid you to ever come back to Iran," and Marjane's frown-filled arrival in Europe is met with bittersweet music. So while the book's ending felt kind of happy - "Iran may be a shitty place, but look at the very fulfilling life and promising future this smart and well-rounded woman has" - the movie's took on an entirely different (and depressing) note - "all this girl wanted was to be able to come home again, but her country was so terrible that she never had a shot at making it work." I'd recommend the movie, but not quite as much as I'd recommend the book. I mean, it's a graphic novel - just give it a shot.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Heading into Scott Pilgrim on DVD two years after its release, I cautiously had no idea what to expect. I was as unfamiliar with the source material as anyone, but knew that the movie was a surreal fast-paced blend of martial arts, teen romance, and gamer pop culture. The potential ceiling was pretty high, but I couldn't ignore the possibility that such a quirky combination of elements could wear thin fast and really irritate me. Fortunately, although it took me two nights to get through, Scott Pilgrim definitely left me pleased with my decision to purchase and watch it. The film never gets anywhere close to a point where it tries to acknowledge how cute or hip or crazy its being, and I think that, more than anything else, is what allowed me to just kind of enjoy how cute and hip and crazy it was being. Some critics didn't like Michael Cera's somewhat apathetic performance as the lead but I think he was a perfect choice for the hopeless hero, providing the right balance of unassuming modesty and youthful immaturity to a character that would have been easy to screw up had he been portrayed with either too much bravado or too much melancholy. The rest of the cast was fleshed out pretty nicely too, with a myriad of recognizable faces showing up from time to time in minor roles. The story was about as vanilla as they come, but in a way that at least felt inspired by the simplicity of most video game plots. Of course, the movie's bread and butter is its rapid fire style, loaded with jump cuts and tiny flourishes that you'll miss if you blink. All in all, I enjoyed this a great deal and I hope that after tanking in theaters it can find an audience on DVD.

Twin Peaks: Season One

As Stan recently pointed out, David Lynch is a guy who can get weird. That's his whole specialty, and was the main reason I was excited to get into his controversial short-lived t.v. series Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks is a small Washington town where seemingly everyone has some secrets to hide, especially high school homecoming queen Laura Palmer, who is found murdered in the pilot episode. Laura's death resembles another unsolved crime elsewhere in Washington, so the FBI is called in in the form of the show's greatest character- special agent Dale Cooper. Cooper's opening scene has him start to play the classic "This is my case so the police answer to me now" crap, only to turn it on its head and become a wacky, lovable character who's pretty easy to root for. His unorthodox methods of trying to solve the case using his subconscious fit right in with the David Lynch aesthetic, including a bizarre hallucination that became the iconic scene of the series. Nearly every scene with Cooper kept me satisfied, unfortunately almost every other one left me disappointed. The rest of the actors on the show seemed pretty terrible and as bad as the soap opera parody that they watch. I guess after watching Mulholland Drive I was hoping for more supernatural mystique and unreliable narrators, shit like that, but instead I got what feels like a boring, by-the-numbers mystery. I do have to give the first credit for ending with a very ballsy twist even though I'm worried about where the show is going to go in the next season. I've heard others describe the second season as bizarre and unwatchable, so I'm actually still pretty excited.

Dragon Warrior 3

The Dragon Warrior series showed decent progress from I to II and that has only continued in Dragon Warrior III which takes almost every element of gameplay to the next level- the world is much bigger, there's more varieties in enemies and locations, the puzzles are more engaging. Still though, there are some holdovers that make this a very obviously old-school RPG, and thus not particularly fun by today's standards. Dragon Warrior III was released in 1988 and at that point story wasn't really important to RPGs yet- characters don't really 'develop' because they're completely created by the player, and can be swapped in and out for other create-a-characters at any point. DW III also came with a basic job system where you can pick what kind of abilities you want your guys to learn as they gain experience, but it's difficult to change classes, which left me with no dedicated healer until nearly the end of the game. This only exacerbated the grind-y nature of the game- for each enemy you kill you earn a decent amount of money, but experience is woefully underrepresented. Getting all of your characters to gain a level in Final Fantasy may take 10 minutes or so, but in Dragon Warrior III it's more like 20-30, even with relatively speedy battles. This isn't a game that will hold your attention and I needed to play through it while watching tv as well, but then again I've had decent fun with the first three Dragon Warrior's so far. Maybe it was just nice to bust out my Game Boy Color for one last run before it's likely retirement- there can't be any more Game Boy games I need to play, right?

South Park: Season 15

This season of South Park is notable for representing both the creative nadir of the show and also a very satisfying return to form, and it contained what will likely go down as one of the series' all time unique and memorable episodes. I've lamented before that Season 14's second half felt pretty uninspired, and Season 15 continued that unfortunate trend right out of the gate. The first six episodes were just terrible. Here are brief descriptions of each one:

• Apple's products and policies are lampooned with an episode-long Human Centipede reference.
• The Germans, sick of being considered unfunny, engineer a perfect joke-telling robot who intends to destroy all human life.
• The Princess of Canada has been kidnapped, leading Ike and three other Canadians to save her. Meanwhile, Mr. Mackey directs the kindergartners in a play about tooth decay, getting more and more infuriated at their incompetence with every scene. Seriously, the entire B-plot consisted of the same dead horse being beaten over and over again, harder and harder each time.
• Cartman has a tiny penis.
• The NCAA's business model (student athletes do all the work that makes billions of dollars but get paid nothing) gets ripped by South Park by means of the "Crack Baby Athletic Association." Also, Slash isn't real, and is in fact a Santa-like figure made up for the amusement of children. (Alright, fine - this one was actually pretty good.)
• A Japanese guy starts a sushi restaurant right next to City Wok, whose Chinese owner is livid that people can't tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese people. The B-story is that Butters' parents see him playing by himself in the yard and think he has multiple personality disorder.

Very few references to current events, very little screen time for the four main kids, and far too many jokes and gags that just fell flat right out of the gate and never got better. Now, the dip in quality is explainable and forgivable given that the showrunners were busy making The Book of Mormon, the most acclaimed musical in ten year. I don't only say that in hindsight; I was saying so while dealing with the aforementioned stretch of bad episodes, and so were tons of other fans. In fact, public opinion just over a year ago regarding South Park could be summarized as, "I know they're really busy, but I hope the show doesn't stay this shitty for much longer." Then, showing a full sense of self-awareness, South Park totally flipped the script with a (half-)season finale centered on Stan suddenly becoming a cynical asshole. Everything Stan used to like, he suddenly found himself hating. All of a sudden, everything around him looked and sounded like shit - literally. The episode wasn't just funny; it carried a certain sense of anger, or at least frustration, throughout it's twenty-two minutes. And then in the final act, Stan's parents, who had been fighting all episode, get a divorce. His mom says something to the effect of, "I can't just keep doing this same old routine week in and week out. I'm tired of this." The episode ended with an unexpectedly touching montage (over Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide") played entirely straight rather than for laughs. When the episode ended, the reaction from fans and critics alike was swift and confused. Some figured that the divorce was meant to be a metaphor for Matt and Trey's relationship, wondering if it had been overstressed after so many years and projects. Others focused specifically on the line from Stan's mom about being too tired to deal with the same old crap week after week, and saw that as a confession from Matt and Trey that South Park had gotten old and frustrating for them after fifteen years. The episode title itself - "You're Getting Old" - gave wings to this idea. Stan's cynicism was taken by many to represent the fans' growing dissatisfaction with the show. All of this detective work led several people to come to the conclusion that, holy shit you guys, South Park had just given us all a gigantic middle finger and ended itself right out of the blue. There was even a consensus reaction to this rumor, with people saying things like, "well that's exactly how those two counter-cultural duded would want to go out! Good for them."

Of course, all of this was an overreaction based on a collection of assumptions and specific inferences. Sure enough, when fall came, South Park was scheduled to return. Several people wondered if, given the serious down note the last run had ended on, the series would return with a very drastic tonal change. After fifteen years, maybe some mature and nuanced storytelling was in order. Instead, the show returned with an episode called "Ass Burgers." The premise? Cartman tries to fake having Asperger's, misunderstanding it to be a disease that causes your ass to, umm, have burgers. He spends a majority of the episode walking around with hamburgers in his pants. Wow. Maturity and tonal changes be damned, that was just classic South Park. The latter half of the season would keep up the tempo, featuring topical references and legitimately funny ideas. An inversion of the Mexican immigration crisis. Jerry Sandusky. Musicals as a means for men to get women to give blow jobs. A fervently agnostic foster family. The "Occupy" movement and the extent to which it was overblown by the media. WikiLeaks. The long overdue return of Lemmiwinks and his companions. The only real dud in the season's second half was an episode that mocked both the movie Thor and the History Channel's propensity to bullshit alien conspiracy theory programming, but admittedly I never saw Thor and couldn't care less about the History Channel's newly found disregard for actual history.

All in all, it was a roller coaster of a season. Just a really subpar first six, followed by a potential game-changing episode, and then a pleasant but unexpected run of quality South Park episodes. The show is alive and well after 15 seasons and over 200 episodes, and that's really just remarkable when you think about it.

Lawrence of Arabia

Lengthy movies and iconic movies both merit long posts. This one, which is three hours and forty-seven minutes long and considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made, warrants plenty of reaction from me. I see no way around it; we're rambling our way through this one with a gigantic, sprawling paragraph, folks. First, a summary of sorts. The plot itself is relatively simple. It's World War I and the British forces in Cairo are struggling to deal with the Ottoman Empire's army and how best to attack it. A young and eccentric officer - Lawrence - whose quirky personality has him accused of insolence time after time has spent a lot of time in the Arabian desert and knows a thing or two about the Arab tribes living there. He's dispatched to the East to do a little recon on the Arab revolt against the Turks. Lawrence befriends a number of these guys through his charisma and bravery, and winds up persuading various tribes to stop fighting one another and start focusing their aggression toward the ruling Ottoman regime. Soon, Lawrence and company are launching guerrilla attacks on Turkish trains and caravans and such. War takes its toll on Lawrence, and he becomes jaded not only by bloodshed and violence but also by his own identity crisis - is he a British officer, an Arabian chieftain, or something else entirely? Eventually Lawrence's motley crew of Arabs has overtaken enough Turkish cities for the British troops to say, "we'll take it from here." They thank and congratulate Lawrence and promote him to corporal before immediately ordering him home. He looks like a lost man at this point. Many years later (but, at the beginning of the film) he dies in a motorcycle accident and few people at his memorial service can accurately recall or describe him. That's the whole plot. It takes nearly four hours to get through all of this, in typical "classical Hollywood epic" fashion. For a movie that takes place during a war, it's surprisingly light on action. For a movie that seems to be a biopic of sorts, it's surprisingly lacking in character depth or development. Lawrence is a quirky guy when the movie begins, and he's a quirky and slightly shell-shocked guy when it ends. Along the way, there really aren't a ton of other memorable characters. The movie plays out in a fairly dry manner, almost like a stage play, but then, I guess that's how movies tended to work fifty years ago. Seriously though, almost every shot in the movie is static. It's tough to fairly criticize cinematography more than twice my age, but in the present day the movie certainly feels quite dated in a number of ways. This is fine. A "classic" is often defined by the period in which it first appeared, after all. Still, I can't pretend I wasn't largely bored by this slow-moving dinosaur. Solid acting, a great score, and beautiful scenes may have put Lawrence of Arabia on the map in 1962, but I imagine this thing, if released today, would be reviled as a terrible bomb. Of course, what feels stale and boring today was apparently innovative as all hell in 1962. And I can kind of see why, I guess. The wide open shots of camels walking through the desert must have looked impressive on the big screen, along with the iconic shot of the guy riding up on a camel on the horizon, shrouded by heat waves. The film is also void of any romance subplot - void of any women at all, in fact - and did not feature a single movie star. (Peter O'Toole and Alec Guinness became famous because of this film, and not before it.) It was shot on location in the Middle East for the most part, rather than in American studio backlots. I give the movie props for all those things. I just didn't find it very entertaining. Other nitpicks? The video was a tiny bit blurry in the way that any video from a long time ago is, but for the most part it was clear and crisp and beautiful. The audio, on the other hand, suffered from, I dunno, being really old, I guess, to the point where the dialogue was barely audible. I've had this problem with old movies before, and am used to watching them with subtitles turned on. Really though, why is pre-'80s movie audio so terrible in general? Can someone who knows more about the history of the film industry (Trev?) enlighten me? In summary, I'd say that although I respect and appreciate the legacy of classic cinema, I really see no reason for anyone to watch Lawrence of Arabia at this point in time. It's a shame and all, but I guess I kind of saw this coming all along. The same will probably be true for Ben-Hur, another historical epic from fifty years ago that I've got in my backlog.

Love the One You're With

Oh hey, look! a Marissa post! It's been a while. Woops. I bought Steve the Game of Thrones books for his birthday in May and for some odd reason he wouldn't let me read them before him. So I read this first! I have read a lot of Emily Griffin before. I have read the pastel yellow, blue, and pink  books she has written. I have not yet read the purple. I gotta get on that!

The green book I read here is about a girl. Fun! The girl's best friend is her roommate from college. She's super rich and from the South. And her brother is super nice and studying to be a lawyer. She totally marries him in true chick book fashion. But before him was that one guy. That guy that she can't forget about. It was a different sort of love and it didn't end well. So you know she hooks up with and marries her roommates brother and lives happily ever after in New York. That is until she sees that long lost love, remembers her forgotten dreams of photography, and is forced to pack up shop and move to the South with her hubby. Oh boy, this is a case of grass is always greener on the other side. Don't worry though. She eventually (after some minor cheating) realizes that the "one she's with" is the right life for her.

And that's that. Quick read. Not much substance. Boring book cover.

Metal Gear Solid

So one of the oldest games on my backlog is Metal Gear Solid 2, a game that everyone was raving about ten years ago but that I had great difficulty finding enjoyable. I never got more than an hour into the game and haven't touched it in a long, long time. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that I was simply playing it wrong. In the Metal Gear games, you're meant to sneak around and infiltrate buildings and rooms within buildings, lurking in the shadows and creating diversions within your environment. My mistake was in treating Metal Gear Solid 2 too much like a standard third-person shooter, trying to blow past enemies while spraying off a bunch of bullets from the hip. At any rate, even though I never learned to love the game, I respected it enough to buy its sequel many years later for fifteen bucks or so. And when I bought my PS3, it came with a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4. It was clear that I'd need to play through this entire series after all, so in 2010 I went all the way back to the beginning and bought this game. (I feel no need to play through Metal Gear or Metal Gear 2, this game's 8-bit precursors that are as old as I am, at this point in time. That may change.) I went in fearful that the clunky PlayStation graphics and pre-Half-Life story-telling devices would make the game dated as hell. Those worries would prove to be misguided, though, as I absolutely loved my experience with Metal Gear Solid. I never knew the game had such an over-the-top plot or such an obvious sense of humor. And while I did know the game was about sneaking around in the shadows, I had no idea how fun it would be to do so. Even if I somehow still can't get into Metal Gear Solid 2, it's good to know that the time and money spent here were spent well. That's all I've got for now, but expect more posts on this series from me in the coming months.

The Town

It's only natural to compare The Town with 2007's Gone Baby Gone. Both were crime dramas set in Boston and directed by Ben Affleck that were based on pre-existing fictional stories. Actually, it's easy enough to compare both movies to several other recent films in the emerging "Boston crime drama" subgenre. In a way, The Town felt like a combination of many of those movies, borrowing - probably unintentionally, but still noticeably - memorable elements from several contemporary classics. From The Departed, there were gangsters dressed as cops, there was a shootout with a very high body count at the film's climax, and there was a talent-laden big name cast. From The Boondock Saints, there was a heavily-enforced theme of the loyalty and brotherhood that comes from growing up in blue collar Irish neighborhoods in the city. The generally dark tone, particularly with regard to apathetic parents doing a shitty job raising their children, was reminiscent of both Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River, and there's a romance element that bears striking resemblance to the one in Good Will Hunting. (Admittedly, that last one isn't a crime drama, but it's a Boston-based Ben Affleck movie all the same.) Throw in the expected over-the-top accents and sports references - yeah, there's an obligatory Fenway Park scene - and at the end of the day the movie kind of lacks its own identity. It seems, quite simply, like an archetypal "Boston crime drama," which is exactly what it is. None of this is to say that The Town wasn't any good. It was. It ran a bit long at two and a half hours, but for the most part it held my attention, particularly in the second half, when many other too-long movies start to feel stale. I never came to appreciate or relate to two of the four members of the crew the movie focuses on, but I guess I didn't have to; the dynamic between Affleck, the group's conscientious and lately reluctant leader, and Renner, the hotheaded wild card, was strong enough to bear the weight of the film's brotherhood and camaraderie themes. Elsewhere, Jon Hamm and Blake Lively turned in fine performances even if those particular casting decisions didn't make a whole lot of sense beyond getting some big names onto the movie poster. All things considered, this was a well-made movie, but a non-essential one. Chances are pretty good that you'll walk away from it satisfied, but you also probably won't feel profoundly moved or entertained. I wouldn't say that if you've seen one Boston crime drama you've seen them all, but I'd actually invert that claim here and say that if you've seen them all, you've seen this one. Affleck's work behind the camera is admirable, but if you're only going to watch one movie he directed, stick with Gone Baby Gone.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 3

So Sons of Anarchy's third season seems to be a divisive one. Actually maybe more of a uniting one, as most people didn't like it at all. Not me! I really enjoyed it. As Stan mentioned in his post, perhaps it wasn't as frustrating when you have access to the entire season and can fly through it in a day- early on you know that the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club is going to Canada and Ireland, but just because it took a while to get there didn't mean I wasn't thoroughly entertained along the way. The kidnapping that occurred in the second season finale seemed a little out of nowhere and made me roll my eyes when I watched it, but it gave some direction to a show that often doesn't have much of it. Also it allowed the main character Jax to go completely berserk in his own special way. And while that story arc does finish up before the end of the season, a few loose threads are taken care of in the finale that topped the kidnapping storyline and provided probably the best season finale, possibly the best episode of the show so far. Stan's told me that season 4 builds off of this strong conclusion until a disappointing finale, so we'll see how that goes. Sons of Anarchy still doesn't seem to rank among the best shows on television to me, but it's still a very entertaining show unlike anything else out there.

L.A. Confidential

Ah, back from vacation... giving me the necessary time to take a good chunk out of my back-logging. Let's examine item number one: L.A. Confidential.

Back in college at LMU there was one film school graduate alum that got his name thrown around quite a bit a due to his success and recognition within the industry. This would be Brian Helgeland (a UMass Dartmouth undergrad no less). As a fairly prominent writer/director, his greatest claim to fame would probably the writing credit he got for this film... of which he won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. I acquired this film from a friend waaay back in school. Never once watching it - or returning it - till this past week. (I actually just watched it; didn't return.)

The film is outstanding. For those out there that have played L.A. Noire, the game's aesthetics, characters, and soundtrack pull heavily from this guy. Of course, L.A. Confidential borrows from all the standard noirs - that gritty, stylized look and feel of crime mysteries of the 40's and 50's - but let's move on. Based from James Ellroy's acclaimed novel (I still have on my back-blog his memoir: My Dark Places), this film's plot is fairly simple yet still convoluted. We have the typically corrupt police unit. Most everyone in the LAPD is skimming bribe money or what-have-you off the top, letting the big crooks slide by while prosecuting minorities or divvying out some good ol' police brutality. Then we have the new guy who plays strictly by the books. On the other end, we have the bruiser cop. Although still somewhat of a morally sound, he always break the rules with his violent temper. After a string of mysterious murders (one of the victims being an ex-cop recently retired - former partner to hot-head mentioned earlier) these two guys set off to uncover the hidden truths of these crimes that eventually lead to some shocking realizations of the city's own governing bodies. Even with this simple set-up, there becomes to be so many new characters (each with their own sub-plots) that it becomes easy to lose track of who's who. By the end of the film, however, simplicity returns as most of the characters find their way out of the story - one way or another - allowing the audience to just focus on our two tough cops.  

Along with an outstanding cast (Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce, Kim Basinger, Kevin Spacey, and Danny DeVito) that can really delivery on their performances, this film has some brutal action/shoot-out scenes despite it being a drama. One in particular is at the movie's climax. The two lead cops (finally teaming up together) are trapped in an abandoned motel on the outskirts of the city surrounded by armed men. They pull a "Last Stand at the Alamo" and hold their ground to stay alive. Honestly upwards of the top 15 gun fights on film - maybe not by it's execution alone, but that suspense at knowing it's them against the city keeps you glued to your seat. (For reference: I'm not sure about my number one shoot-out scene... guessing that might be The Matrix's lobby scene or the climax to The Wild Bunch - Any suggestions on what could be better?) 

Through and through,  this is a solid movie. Anyone at least interested in some great dialogue and an intriguing murder mystery with some gritty violence should give this one a go. It's definitely getting my hyped up for Gangster Squad coming out next month. About time we got another hardboiled slab of crime fiction.

Entourage: Season 8

Let me start things off with a bit of self-plagiarism. Last December, while ranking the final season of Entourage 40th out of 40 when it came to TV shows in 2011, I wrote:

For years, I've been waiting for Entourage to finish up so that I could finally stop watching it. Because for years, Entourage has been complete dogshit. It started out as a mostly silly and occasionally funny show about a fictional Hollywood A-lister and his loyal bros. And slowly but surely, the humor stopped, and the writers began to write Entourage as if we were supposed to try to care about the silly gang of absurdly wealthy D-bags and their minute personal problems. Vince is rich beyond belief for such an untalented actor, but will he ever find love? Drama has ridden his little brother's coat tails from minor fame to total fortune, but will he ever have a breakout role of his own? Turtle smokes a lot of weed in Vince's mansion all day, but will he ever get to realize his dream of starting his own tequila company? Ari is a total asshole to everybody he knows, but... wait, why are we supposed to care about Ari again? The guy who'd be a super-villain in any other TV show, we're supposed to feel bad for him when his wife demands a divorce? There's so much to hate about every character in Entourage, and there's been less and less to like each passing year. The series finale was unbelievably indecisive about just what values these bros have at the end of the day and what their goals are going forward. It was supposed to be emotionally touching, but it featured at least two main characters lying blatantly and profusely to loved ones. And where was the closure to those lies? I understand there's still a movie being planned, and that we may see repercussions for these lies (and rash decisions made by others) before all is said and done, but the episode ended without even a hint that bad things could be in store for the guy who promised his bride-to-be that he hadn't slept with her stepmother (when he had done so on multiple occasions) or the guy who promised his daughter he'd spend that night with her and then promptly set off for a week's vacation without her instead. This show ran for eight full seasons and yet accomplished nothing at all. It wasn't a sharp or cynical look into the "hidden" crap that goes on in Hollywood. It wasn't a moving example of loyal friends and undying brotherhood. It was just a show about sex and drugs and truckloads of money. It was "lifestyle porn," and like any other porn, there was very little substance of any sort beyond the superficial glean.

I've just re-watched the eight episodes that inspired that very negative review, and I've got a bit more to say about just how vapid and empty the proceedings were. Let's explore this on a character-by-character basis. Spoilers follow, but if you haven't seen the final season of Entourage at this point, it's safe to say you never will. (Especially after reading this post.)

Vince:

The season begins with Vince in rehab after he bottomed out doing coke and dating porn stars last season. He gets out of rehab, but thinks everyone is overreacting to his addiction problems. By the third episode, he's hanging out at cocaine-inclusive parties and smoking weed. In the fourth episode, he has to cheat to pass a drug test to avoid jail time and the loss of an upcoming movie role. His crew, initially upset with him for relapsing so soon after weeks in rehab, has a good laugh while throwing a rubber penis around and imagining that some other guy will get convicted for a crime based on a false positive drug test. Vince drinks and smokes for the rest of the season without anyone ever mentioning the whole addiction subplot ever again. In the fifth episode, an attractive journalist interviews him. In the sixth episode, Vince reads the printed interview and decides that his interviewer has got him pegged all wrong; even though Vince has banged every cocktail waitress and aspiring actress in Hollywood, he's not a womanizer at all. He's got a real soft spot for women. To prove this, he spends the seventh episode of the season getting his ex-girlfriends and buddies to vouch for him to the interviewer, and it turns into a strange courtship of sorts. Then in the eighth episode - the series finale, and just three episodes after Vince meets the interviewer - the two have decided to get married! Vinny Chase, who has been an unpredictable bachelor for 95 episodes of television, decides once and for all to commit to a woman he barely knows in the 96th and final episode. And even though the series is over, you just know that the marriage lasts, and that two will live happily ever after. Because that's how Entourage works. Rash decisions, bad decisions, indecision - it all works out in the end because if it didn't then the show wouldn't be much fun to watch. The moral of Vince's story (and pretty much of the series in general)? When you've got enough money you can basically just do whatever the fuck you want whenever the fuck you want for whatever reason you want. Inspiring! ...No?

Eric:

E, the "good guy" in the entourage with a level head and a sense of integrity, is dealing with a break-up with Sloan, the love of his lifetime. He decides to have sex with her ex-stepmother multiple times. Then he gets all pissed at Sloan for finding a new boyfriend and calls her a slut and rubs it in her face that he's been seeing her ex-stepmother. Then he learns that Sloan is pregnant with his child. Then he decides he needs to win her back, but she's understandably upset about his affair with her ex-stepmother, and this throws a wrench into E's familial plans. So E lies. He just straight up lies, telling Sloan that he never had sex with her ex-stepmother, even though he did. He gets his friends to cover for him, and they all lie to Sloan as well. Sloan remits and the series ends with E and Sloan ready to begin a family together - based, of course, on a total and complete lie. The moral of E's story? It's okay to lie about your sexual history to your future wife as long as your bros can share in the process of creating and perpetuating that lie.

Drama:

Since the series debuted, Johnny Drama has been a has-been actor looking to recapture his former fame and glory. He begins the season as the lead voice actor for an animated sitcom in the vein of The Simpsons which is testing very well. He then decides he should hold out for more money, even before the series has debuted and even though, since it is an animated program, he can be replaced with extreme ease at a moment's notice. Somehow, for some reason, the studio caves to his demands. But - poor Johnny - the studio is now too pissed off at him to make that made-for-TV movie they were doing for him as a charity project. But even that works itself out when brother Vince pays the studio off to make the movie after all. The moral of Drama's story? Humility and gratitude be damned, petulant and unreasonable salary demands will always be met with no repercussions whatsoever.

Turtle:

After Vince gets out of rehab, Turtle "can't handle all the stress" and smokes a joint in the kitchen. This starts a fire which burns Vince's mansion down. Later, the tequila company Turtle has helped create decides to move on without his services. So does his girlfriend. Presumably this is when we're supposed to feel bad for Turtle, who - again - is still doing irresponsible shit like burning down mansions with cigarette butts. Turtle then sells all of his severance stock in the tequila company against just about everyone's advice. The company then goes public and Turtle realizes he would have made $4 million had he held onto his stock. Okay - now I do kind of feel bad for Turtle. Except, surprise! It turns out Vince bought the stock Turtle sold, and now Vince is giving the earnings back to Turtle. Why not, right? The moral of Turtle's story? You can achieve millionaire status and delusions of success no matter how irresponsible and stupid you are as long as your best friend is an incredibly patient and generous A-list celebrity.

Ari and his wife:

World class chauvinist, feminizer, and asshole Ari Gold is having marriage troubles. In fact, his wife of nineteen years wants to divorce him because he works too much and always puts his family second. His kids start to feel abandoned as well - potentially because their father no longer lives with them and all on account of their mother's stipulations. Ari will have to sell a piece of his company in order to cover the alimony he will owe his soon-to-be ex-wife, even though he has created the company and his riches by working as hard as he did, which is what his wife claims to be divorcing him over anyway. At the eleventh hour, Ari winds up caving to his wife's every demand, quitting his job and pledging to spend more time with his children. In fact, in what is clearly meant to be the emotional climax of the series finale, the moment that's meant to show how far at least one character has come over these past eight years as a human being, Ari promises his daughter that he'll see her perform in a play or something that night, and wouldn't miss her performance for the world... only to then jet off to Europe with his romantically rekindled wife literally hours later without even considering the broken promise. The moral of Mrs. Ari's story? Being rich and beautiful gives you the power - nay, the right - to manipulate your hard-working husband into giving up his entire lifestyle for you. The moral of Ari's story? You can have a life-altering revelation that at the end of the day, family comes first, but it's still okay to break promises to your estranged children in order to take a spontaneous vacation without them.

And those are the various notes on which Entourage chose to end. No character has any redeeming qualities left. No plot had any semblance of clever storytelling. And throughout it all, you couldn't shake the feeling that the guys making the show felt like they were putting the finishing touches on a very important and very special story. I'm not angry. I'm not even disappointed. In fact, I'm almost kind of awe-struck that a reputable channel like HBO managed to air this uninteresting and thematically barren lifestyle porn for eight whole years, long after it had run out of anything meaningful to say about its characters or the Hollywood environment in which the show takes place. I mean, consider the legacy HBO has built over the past decade with shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Deadwood, and Game of Thrones. Now consider that there were more episodes of Entourage than there were of any other HBO show ever. In fact, right now, the series holds the record for the most episodes aired by any premium network in history. (Weeds will surpass it in a few weeks, but that's another problematic long-winded series that;ll get its own post another time.) Bottom line, Entourage outstayed its own meaningfulness by several years, and was never even a great show to begin with; it's no surprise that the final season was as shallow and meaningless as it was. And that's why, again, I'm not angry or upset or disappointed in the least. The show didn't really deserve a great ending, nor did any of its characters deserve memorable conclusions to the development arcs they never had.

I'll leave you with a link to this YouTube video of the show's final scene with a slight user edit at the very end. It's actually more meaningful and poignant than the real ending. Enjoy.

Back-Blogged Turns Three

I'll keep this short, because damn am I tired. But yeah, our little community/project/mission is three years old now. How are we looking? It's complicated.

PERSONALLY:

	Books	Movies	TV Sets	Video Games	TOTAL
Aug 1, 2009	29	31	11	77	148
Aug 1, 2010	42	11	5	66	124
Aug 1, 2011	32	7	23	61	123
Aug 1, 2012	30	9	19	51	109

My record speaks for itself. When the blog began I had 148 items in my backlog. A year later I was down 24 items to 124 overall. The following year I was down by just one, to 123. And in the past year I've netted 14 loggings, giving me 109 left overall. In three years, I've lost 39 backlog items, which puts me on pace to finish this little mission of mine about eight years from now. Naturally, I'd like to do better. And I can. The hardest part will be the video games, but I've been chipping away at those pretty diligently. The real key will be reading the books at a faster clip, something I've drastically improved upon in these past few months. Overall, I had an okay Year 3. It was better than Year 2, but really, it had to be. Let's see if I can't improve even more in Year 4.

OVERALL:

It appears that interest is flagging. We've got eight contributors now, but only three have really been active whatsoever as of late. Marissa has made two posts in the past five months. Dee has made one. Webber has made two. Keith hasn't posted in three months. Brian hasn't posted in close to a year. That leaves Trevor and the original pair of Sweeney and me still regularly contributing to this blog, and none of us are doing so with the same frequency as, say, two or three years ago. But I don't blame us. Life happens. When this project began, Sween and I were 22 and 21 years old, respectively. I had a year of college left. Sween was single. There was free time aplenty. Now we're very much in our mid-twenties and a lot of our priorities and free time allocation have changed. This stuff happens. In fact, part of the reason I want to finish all of my unfinished games, movies, and books sooner rather than later is because I know that the older I get, the harder (and less important) it'll be for me to find the time and energy to finish some of these things. Logging is a young man's game, I guess, and the fact that we've all slowed down a bit is only natural. (Having said that, I'd love to do better.)

And that's all I've got for now. Good year and good night.