Rushmore

By sneaking this post in before midnight, I've avoided tying my personal record for all time fewest posts in a month. This is my sixth, here in June. Hey, I've been busy.

Not long ago, I went on an abbreviated Wes Anderson spree designed to go through nearly his entire filmography and culminate in Moonrise Kingdom. Ultimately I jumped into that movie a little prematurely, casting Rushmore aside for another day. Today was that day, and I can easily say that this was one of my favorite Wes Anderson movies, and perhaps my very favorite, to date. And the overwhelming reason this was so enjoyable was the main character, played by a young Jason Schwartzman. This came as somewhat of a surprise to me. I've never disliked Jason Schwartzman, but I've always felt, for an inexplicable reason, like he was the worst part about a number of movies or other roles he's been in. Maybe he just plays a certain type of character pretty well. I really can't say. Yet here, for whatever reason, he was just this charmingly endearing smarmy high school kid. In anyone else's hands, this character could have been annoying as hell, coming off as too pretentious or too awkward or any number of other flaws. Instead, Schwartzman just nails it from start to finish, bringing an earnestness and sincerity to a borderline irredeemable overachieving prep school student. I'm sure a great deal of credit is due to the writing and the editing and the very distinct Wes Anderson flavor on display throughout the movie. At any rate, I loved Rushmore, and I can easily see why it's widely considered to be Wes Anderson's best movie.

Son

I completely agree with Marissa's assessment of the middle third of this book. I skimmed it. Hard. I just didn't care. Claire's struggle to climb the mountain reminded me of Bruce Wayne's struggle to climb out of the prison in The Dark Knight Rises. Anyway, the first third of this book was very interesting because we finally got to revisit the society in which The Giver takes place. The last third of this book does a good job linking all four books together. However, this is a rather loose quadrilogy in the fact that each book is linked together far less so then in something like Harry Potter. I suspect that it was not originally intended to be a series of books, but Lowry needed to cash in. Still, these books seem to have a lot more merit to them than something like The Hunger Games. Anyway, that is it for the children's books I will be reading on my honeymoon. Overall, this quadrilogy is worth a read.

Messenger

Well I read this book in "Paradise" so it probably influences my opinion of it, but I felt it was almost as good as The Giver and far better than Gathering Blue. This book links The Giver and Gathering Blue together (finally! Upon first read, Gathering Blue barely connected to The Giver at all) and gives us more insight into Village, a place that is referenced in the first two books, but barely visited. Anyway, if you like The Giver, you will like this book. I'm about halfway through Son, the final book in this quadrilogy, and this book seems to be the second best of the bunch. Time to go swimming.

Dexter: Season 6

The sixth season of Dexter was a remarkably terrible stretch of television. I watched it live in the summer of 2011, along with the seventh season of Weeds, and the collective shittiness of both made me cancel my Showtime subscription. Two years later, after Marissa swore to me that the seventh season of Dexter was actually much better than the sixth (hey, I guess we didn't cancel Showtime after all), I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm starting that one in a few minutes, but first I had to revisit this pile. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. I mean, the episodes themselves were awful, but almost comically so. And to Dexter's credit, even though it's ostensibly a murder mystery drama, it's always had a pretty good sense of dark humor. That much stayed true even during this mess.

I could go on. I could talk about what specifically went wrong this season, but why bother? Let me just leave it at this. This season's big bad serial killer was played by Colin Hanks.

Aren't you glad he's dead now though? On to Season 7!

Sons of Anarchy Season Four

I had heard (mostly from Stan) that Sons of Anarchy's fourth season was its best yet, full of action and drama, yet it wasted all of that potential with an all-time dud of a finale. For the most part, the season lived up to exactly that description. My main criticism of the first three seasons is that for a group that takes part in so many dangerous activities, the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club of Charming California rarely seemed to have to deal with consequences. Even after committing some major, MAJOR crimes in the third season finale, the crew went to prison in between seasons for what seems like maybe 2 years tops. And we didn't even have to see them deal with prison time, like at all! You can argue that that's what happens when they've been working with the town sherriff, but sometimes it can be a bit hard to suspend disbelief that these guys all remain free and alive for so long. Anyway in the fourth season, now that that sherriff has left the force, there finally seem to be some real consequences. The Club deals with some serious tension as marriages fall apart and elder members die. Finally, things are progressing! In the lead-up to the finale, it becomes apparent that two of the main characters of the show, two of the people closest to main character Jax, are going to have to leave the club, or die. But just as things come to a head, the character who absolutely had to leave decides to stay, and the character who absolutely had to die ends up living with a weak "it's the only way to keep the club together" excuse. Lame! Well, I've got season five on my DVR (Still! From last year!) so later in the summer, probably just before season six starts up, I'll give that one a watch. 

Little Inferno

Little Inferno was another extremely cheap PC game I snagged recently in a bundle, and like Puzzle Agent before it, it was beaten in about 3 hours. The game is extremely one-note, and most of it isn't particularly fun, but again for the price I'm paying I can accept a dud every now and then that only wastes a few hours of my time. The gameplay involves staring at a fireplace, ordering items from catalogs, and burning said items. Each item you burn nets you a little more money than you spent on it, so you can build up to more expensive items as you go. The more expensive an item is, the longer you have to wait for it to 'ship' (up to like two and a half minutes for the final items), but you can ship a few items at once or force an item to express ship with coupons. You get more coupons from, you guessed it, burning things. Toss that random item (a lamp! TNT! a kitten!) into the fireplace, click on it a few times, and watch it burn. To make things go faster, you make more money and earn more coupons with combo-burns- a list of 90-ish combos are available with names that give details about what items to burn together. Still, the whole thing feels like a glorified mini-game as the only thing that kept me going was to see how it would end- there's a creepy environment that's slowly built up over the course of the game, and I admit I was interested to see what the payoff to all of that was. If you're interested, allow me to recommend... looking it up on YouTube.

Puzzle Agent

I recently joined the wonder world of Steam after hearing so much about how great the online PC gaming retailer was, and hoo boy was it worth it. I think I spent maybe ~$30 and doubled my gaming backlog thanks to their ridiculous sales. Some of the fairly new AAA titles I'll save for whenever I get a more powerful computer, so for now I'll just be posting some lighter fare and indie games. First off came Puzzle Agent, a charming little puzzle game that feels like a cross between Professor Layton and the film Fargo. You play as Nelson Tethers, the only agent in the United States Puzzle Research Department, sent on a mission to the small town of Scoggins Minnesota to determine the cause of some mysterious disappearances happening in its eraser factory. Of course the town is full of puzzle fanatics, so any time Nelson needs to press a witness for information, or even just to get around town from one place to another, he's got to solve a puzzle. I feared that like the old Professor Layton games I'd run into a few repeats of classic puzzles, and given the short game length (3 hours, 39 puzzles) there wouldn't be much new to see here; luckily almost all of the puzzles were fresh, although the game did repeat a few of its own gimmicks. Also like the Layton series, Puzzle Agent has a unique art style; in this one the characters and backgrounds look like a nice cartoony mix of crayon and watercolor. The game finished up quickly, but went out of its way to set itself up for a sequel, as most of the plot doesn't quite add up yet, so I'll get to it's sequel Puzzle Agent 2 in the coming months.

Bonfire of the Vanities

Is a white life worth more than a black life?

This is one the of the central questions purposed by Tom Wolfe's first fictional novel. In a nutshell, it's about a rich Wall Street guy who gets lost in Bronx one evening while driving a lover, who he's having an affair with, home from the airport. While lost, they are stopped at an freeway on-ramp and jumped by two kids from the projects. They get away, but not before running over one of the kids and sending him to the hospital in critical condition. The story slowly unveils the legal and social consequences of these actions and it's extremely compelling to watch it all unfold.

My only beef with this book is that Wolfe tends to ramble on about every piece of detail to every new scene or setting or character. It is poetic and great writing (plus it does its job at educating the reader of wide spread of social classes that exists in the 1980's New York), but  it does wear on me. As David Grohl explained about writing a hit song, "Don't bore us, get to the chorus!" Not sure if this says I only really enjoy reading soulless dribble, but I do find it easier to keep engaged with a story when the author doesn't sidetrack for five pages explaining the details to sun-bleached pavement besides the city's projects  or the mahogany siding to a Wall Street tycoon's Park Avenue Xanadu. It feels like Wolfe's story here could have been cut down to half of its size if this attention to detail was removed, but, then again, this detail probably carries all the information needed to understand the turmoil that exists in New York's social and economical segregation. 

By the end of the book you come to learn that the question brought up at the beginning (which life is worth more?) is really the least important aspect to consider when viewing this crazy society. Wolfe has this very bleak - almost comedic - view of New York's humanity in that no one is ever really that innocent. People are greedy, selfish, deceitful, violent, and just plain stupid at times. And, most importantly,  even a nonviolent, seemingly peaceful person can turned to a angry, dangerous beast when put into the right circumstances. 

I have two more books on my shelf from Tom Wolfe. A Man in Full and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (the second being adapted into a movie next year). Although I did like this Bonfire of the Vanities and can understand why it will forever remain a modern classic, I'm not chomping at the bit to dig into another Wolfe novel anytime soon. I'll get to these other books when I get to them... but I will get to them. 

Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition

I played Arkham Asylum on XBOX 360 and loved it. But I had a few gripes. I hated having to pause the game so much to find where I was supposed to be going and to change weapons. So when I heard that I could play Arkham City on Wii U with the gamepad always displaying the map and allowing me to access other options without having to press pause, I knew that the Wii U version was the one for me. Graphically, it is nearly identical to 360 and PS3, seems to suffer from frame rate issues. Still, it was a great experience. I was nervous about having to use the gamepad for a game I was used to using a 360 controller, but the gamepad is surprisingly comfortable to play on. This game is just as good as Arkham Asylum, if not better. It seems like if I wanted to, I could explore the city and hone my fighting skills, but I powered through the game and didn't explore much. Because of that, it felt similarly sized to Arkham Asylum, but I think it's probably much, much bigger. I could see myself going back to this game just to explore the city and try out the other characters I unlocked by beating the game (not sure how to use them though). I guess I can be Robin, Nightwing and then some classic Batmans. Anyway, I think the best thing I can say about this game is that I plan on buying Arkham Origins on Wii U because I thought the gamepad offered the best way to experience this game (even if the remote controlled batarang is nearly impossible to control).

Super Mario 3D Land

Keith absolutely loved this game, but when I went looking for his post to find some quotable lines, I came up empty. I guess this is the first time anyone has posted about Super Mario 3D Land. In short, I absolutely loved it too. It's easily the best Mario game, and probably also the best 3D platformer in general, that I've played since beating Super Mario Galaxy five and a half years ago. The game was fun, cute, enjoyable, and entertaining. No two levels were even somewhat similar, which made each and every one of them a new and enjoyable experience. And while simply beating levels wasn't challenging at all, finding the three star coins hidden in each level took enough of an added amount of effort to make the whole experience feel perfectly balanced. The game was simple and easy, but worth getting the most out of.

In fact, I'm really only halfway-finished with the game. Upon beating it, I opened up an entire second set of worlds and levels that I'm sure provide even more of a challenge. I plan to tackle each and every such level someday, but not just yet. And although I haven't "finished" playing this game by a long shot, I've definitely beaten it, and that's enough to warrant a post. Keith, where's your post at?

Joyland

Well, I'm on vacation. And as with anyone one vacation, now is the time to get some back-logging done. First up, a book I snagged at the airport. Stephen King's latest novel, Joyland.

I'll be honest (not that I would lie to any of you), but I did not enjoy this book. I am a big King fan, but with over 50 published novels (and a bunch of short stories) it's fair to say that not every one of them is going to float my boat. This is a murder-mystery story from the publisher Hard Case Crime - the name speaks to its brand image in that they specialize in producing hardboiled crime novels. (Apparently to keep with the image of those old pulp crime novels from decades ago, they don't even release these books on e-reader. Cool, huh?) This is King's second book form this publisher, the first being The Colorado Kid. (Never read the book, but the name sounds like it refers to a character in The Stand. Can anyone back me up on this?) Back to why I dislike this story.

What I was hoping for was a tale about murder, fear, the super natural... most of everything that King's writing in renown for. This book does actually have all of these elements, but I would say it only constitutes for about 20% of the story - and that's being generous. The story primarily revolves around a 21-year-old college boy from New England (shocker!) who travels down to North Carolina for his summer job working at a C-grade amusement park, Joyland - think Canobie Lake Park only back in the 60's before the Corkscrew was erected. Anyways, 80% of the story revolves around this boy losing his first major girlfriend, making new friends, a new love, and, in general, just trying to figure himself out while stationed at this shitty summer job he's actually quite fond of. The other 20% is the fun stuff. A few years earlier there was a couple who went on this haunted house ride in the amusement park and only the man left the ride. Later that night the amusement park crew found the girl's body lying off to the side of the ride with her throat slit. With rumors that the girl's ghost still haunts the ride, our hero does his best to solve the murder with the help of his friends, one of which is a dying little boy who's a medium (Stephen King using the device of a character who can cryptically speak to the dead, another shocker!). This part of the story, while not amazing, is entertaining enough. Kept my mind off a miserable flight at least. And with this novel barely reaching 300 pages it's not a huge time commitment. Make your own judgement call on whether or not you want to read this. I would say it deserves a pass as his long awaited sequel to The Shining will be released at the end of the summer. Doctor Sleep. 

However, the next book on my list looks like a bit more arduous and probably pretty weird. One of Sween's favs. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Konichiwa, bitches! I'm going Murakami. 

Looper

I had high expectations for this movie... really high. I love the cast, I love the concept. However, while with most movies I can suspend my disbelief, this movie just wasn't one of them. It's always tricky with time travel to not create contradictions and this one has a HUGE contradiction in the climax. I dunno why it bothered me so much, but it did. Anyway, it was still a fun ride while it lasted and I think this would have benefited from lower expectations on my part. You get to see JGL made up to look like a younger Bruce Willis, which was cool in its own way. It was a decent way to spend a few hours, but I do not see myself ever revisiting it. On a side note, "Rian" is a stupid way to spell that name. While we're at it, I'm not a fan of "Bryan."

Gathering Blue

Let me first discuss something about this book that bothered me. As you grow older, you gain more syllables in your name. Ann could be a "tyke" whereas Annabella could be an "elder." My problem with this system is that there just aren't that many names that lend themselves to going from 1 syllable to 2 syllables to 3 to 4. It just seems impractical. Anyway, it wasn't immediately clear to me how this links to The Giver, but it is clear that this is a similar society to the one in The Giver. However, in this society, history is remembered through songs and stitching on robes. This one was not quite as engaging because of the lack of some of the mystery associated with the first book. Still, Lowry is a talented writer. Yes, this is a kids' book, but it is still more enjoyable than almost anything else I have read in the past few years. I am eagerly jumping into the next book, The Messenger. On a side note, Lowis Lowry isn't very good at writing for characters who are supposed to sound unintelligent.

Pushmo

Well, here's a post I've been putting off for far too long. Pushmo is at the moment the 'killer app' of 3DS DSiWare (3DSiWare? 3DSWare?), but that's more of a knock on the lack of quality downloadable original 3DS games than a major compliment to Pushmo. But Pushmo is very good, a puzzle game that starts out simple and over the course of about 200 puzzles get frustratingly difficult in plenty of creative ways. The gist of it is that you play as a tiny little dude who can pull blocks out of a wall- once, twice, or three units of distance out. You do this to jump on top those pulled out blocks to pull even more blocks out, but you have to be careful- pull out the wrong block and your path may be blocked later on. Smart planning will let you push and pull and jump in the right order to reach the top, where you rescue a bunch of little kids who find themselves lost on top of a wall of blocks. Things start out very simply with one- and two-star rated diffulty puzzles- usually with a one-star you can figure out what to do before you move a single block, and a two-star will sort of 'solve itself' as pulling out the first couple blocks will lead you to a solution. Things get a little tougher for three-star difficulty puzzles, where some experimentation and maybe a restart or two will likely be required. In four star puzzles those restarts are guaranteed, as most four-stars took me at least 10 minutes to figure out. Then on the game's few five-star puzzles, a walkthrough is almost certainly needed- after spending 45+ minutes on one level shaped like a rocket ship, I just wanted it to be over. Things get more complicated in the later levels with the introduction of a few gimmicks- jump on a colored switch to immediately pull out all blocks of that color 3 units out, or climb a ladder into a hole on one end and pop out the other. Still, Pushmo works great as a 'grab and go' kinda game, where most levels can be completed in a minute or two. It's got adorable artwork, just check out the pastels in that image at the top of the post. Tons of levels exist solely for NES nostalgia as the blocks are placed in ways that make them look like sprites from Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Pushmo's also got a spiritual sequel in Crashmo which apparently looks the same but plays completely different- I've already got that one downloaded, so I'll probably get to that within a few months.

Six Feet Under: Season 5

And so it ends. Alright. It's time for me to finally talk about Six Feet Under. I think part of the reason I've struggled to come up with things to say about it over these past four months is because it's pretty different from most other shows I would consider high-quality dramas. When I think of great television, the kind that just sucks you right in and leaves you wanting more, I think of heavy serialization, thematic recurrences, and linear narratives. I mean, I love Breaking Bad, don't get me wrong, but for years now it's been clear that the show's sole story of importance when all is said and done will be the moral decay of Walter White. Mad Men is a little more ensemble-oriented, but it has a similar driving theme and a similar focused commitment. The Wire was just fucking beautiful, but it followed all the beats of a Shakespearian tragedy, where characters' fates often became clear to the audience just a few scenes in advance. I'm not complaining; this mastery of tragic irony is a big part of what makes The Wire the greatest show of all time. I'm just saying that it, along with Mad Men and Breaking Bad and every other great drama I can think of, just feels so heavily "written," if that makes sense.

Six Feet Under sort of doesn't feel that way. There's an openness to it. And that's not to say that it's poorly written, or that it feels especially realistic, but simply that it just unfolds in front of you at a pleasant pace without all these different layers of symbolism, foreshadowing, or connectivity. But now it sounds like I'm giving the impression that the show is sloppy and kind of made up on the fly, and it certainly isn't. I guess the biggest strength of Six Feet Under is its integrity to its own characters. At no point does plot come before character in this show; the characters are consistent, and instead of being used as pawns to set up plot devices, everything they do or say feels organic. I guess that's what I mean when I say the show doesn't feel heavily "written" or "scripted." In fact, it's the strength of these characters that made the show grow on me more and more with each passing season. Early on, I didn't hate these people or anything, but each of them was flawed in a way that made none of them immediately endearing. They were complicated people right off the bat, and like any real family, they took some getting used to. And yet, five seasons later, those same quirks and flaws that kept me distanced from these people at first were the source of the strangely poignant bond I felt with them.

I don't want to overstate things. No, Six Feet Under was not as good as the aforementioned dramas, and frankly it's a decent distance back on my list of the all-time greats. But it was still pretty damn good, and it only grew on me with time. The series finale is widely considered to be one of the greatest of all time, and while I can't say I agree, I also acknowledge that what didn't blow me away in 2013 after all kinds of hype still very well could have been an incredible series finale in 2005.

So then. Should you watch Six Feet Under, or is this family drama about a funeral home not worth your time? I can't say. It was worth mine, though. That much I can't deny! Good night.

Six Feet Under: Season 4

Oh gosh, I finished this season a few days ago and still haven't posted. I feel... dirty! How do the rest of you do it? Only kidding, of course. Anyway, I've never had much specific to say about Six Feet Under, but I do know that it is supposed to have one of the greatest series finales of all time. Since I imagine I'll spend a lot of the fifth season's post discussing said finale and the show's legacy overall, I just wanted to use this space to point out a ton of guest stars from this season and seasons past. There were just so many character actors who I'd look at and think, "that's the guy from that one show!" or "hey, she had a minor role in that other show!" Like, not your name brand guest stars or anything, but those recognizable yet unnamable people from all over the place. So here is a running list of recognizable guest stars that have appeared in Six Feet Under through four seasons. (Actually, through two episodes into Season 5, where I currently am.)

• Jeremy Sisto (Law & Order, Suburgatory)
• James Cromwell (Jack Bauer's dad, among many other roles)
• Rainn Wilson (pre-The Office)
• Eric Balfour (from 24! and The OC!)
• Kathy Bates (fine, a few name brand guest stars)
• Justin Theroux (Mr. Jennifer Aniston)
• Ed Begley Jr. (most recently notably Stan Sitwell from Arrested Development)
• Mena Suvari (American Beauty, American Pie, American Horror Story... a true American)
• David Hornsby (Rickety Cricket in Always Sunny)
• Catherine O'Hara (again, a few name brand guest stars)
• Adam Scott (essentially just a male Anna Kendrick)
• Jenna Fischer (also pre-The Office)
• Michael Weston (the PI from House)

And that's just who I recognized.

So long!

The Wicker Man

This movie is one of the most odd, yet engaging movies I have ever seen. Nic Cage is at his absolute Nic Cagiest in this movie that is easily one of my top 10 favorite horror movies of all time. Do yourself a favor and see this movie. PLEASE. I wanna talk to someone about this thing asap.

Sherlock: Series 2

Last post on the first series I said this show was entertaining - worth a watch if you have the time, but nothing truly incredible. I take it all back, the nothing incredible part. This show should absolutely be on your must-watch list. Following the same structure as the first series, it's still three 90-minute episodes that complete the full story arc. I feel as though both series share a similar structuring in entertainment where the first episode of the trilogy is strong, the middle a little on the weak side (at least in comparison to the series as a whole), and the closer is fucking amazing. 

Will keep this all brief. Don't want to spoil anything. You still have the great odd couple relationship with Sherlock and Watson, some baffling mysteries, and then there's Moriarty. Andrew Scott does a great job portraying this character as a true sociopath absolutely in love with Sherlock. Tired of how dull and boring the world is (how easy it is for him to defeat his enemies - which is pretty much everyone), he's infatuated with someone being smart enough to actually beat him.  And Sherlock and Moriarty's titles appropriately represent that they're dopplegangers of one another. What I mean by that is Sherlock consistently refers to himself as the world's first consulting detective and Moriarty is the world's first consulting criminal. They're basically the brains behind this whole cops & robbers game taking place on the streets of London. Seems like the show might wrap up at the end of this season (once again, not spoiling anything), but things are never as simple as they seem with this show. 

I believe production has just begun on the third series and I'm hoping they'll get the chance the air the show before the year is out. That said, get on this. After all, what else will you be watching once Game of Thrones wraps up next week?

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

The history of Mario role-playing games is an interesting one. At first, they seemed to come out at random as these quirky little stand-alone titles. There was Super Mario RPG, the isometric SNES game that started it all. Then there was Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64, which charmingly designed a world made entirely of paper and paper-like products. Next came Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, a GameBoy Advance game that introduced Luigi into the mix and focused on teamwork-oriented battles. At this point it seemed like there was no rhyme or reason to when Mario RPGs would come out or how they'd be designed. But then another Paper Mario game game out for GameCube, and another Mario & Luigi game came out for the DS, and then one more of each, respectively, for the Wii and the DS, and suddenly we had a very distinct pattern. Paper Mario was its own series, a set of RPG games for Nintendo consoles, while Mario & Luigi was a separate series on the handheld side. And then along comes Paper Mario: Sticker Star, bridging the gap back to the handheld side and just ruining the sense of continuity the parallel RPG series had hammered out over the past ten years or so.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't all that interesting. Fortunately, Paper Mario: Sticker Star was a great little game. I have to say, I had my fears early on. Anyone who's played a few RPGs knows that the general idea, a staple of the very genre, is that the more battles you fight, the stronger you get. It's a great balancing mechanic built into the gameplay. Fight a lot early on, and you'll be better prepared for tougher enemies later in the game; avoid combat whenever possible, and you'll be far too weak to survive later on. My biggest knock on Sticker Star, then, is that it lacks an experience-based leveling up system entirely. Thus, all non-necessary combat is, well, pointless. In my book, that's poor RPG design. Luckily, the game has enough charm and originality to make up for this very deep flaw, and by excelling in all other areas, it wasn't a bad game at all. The world of Sticker Star actually resembles a traditional level-based Mario game more than an open world RPG, and it is broken down into six worlds of varying numbers of levels. But each level had its own unique objectives and feel, which was pretty cool. Everything in Sticker Star was new and fresh and exciting, which helped me forget that every single battle was a waste of my time.

So yeah. Overall, a solid game full of charm and simple pleasures. This one clocked in at just a hair over twenty-five hours, which feels like ten or twelve on the DS. (I mean that in a good way.)