Modern Family: Season 5

This is my fifth post on this show in four years, and my last one basically said, "eh, it's still alright." So this time around let's rank the characters from least tolerable to most enjoyable.

11. Alex (Ariel Winter)

Early on in the show's run, it was cute that the middle child - who was then ten years old - was uptight and angst-ridden and super school-focused. Cute little nerdy kid and all. But now that the character is a high school junior, she's just turned angry and sulky and unpleasant. When a child is the smartest person in the room, it can be adorable. Once that child turns into a grumpy teen, it's just not funny. It's one note and it's grating. The actress, frankly, doesn't help.

10. Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson)

He's the redheaded gay guy, if you're wondering. And he's always been one of my least favorite characters. Generally he's just kind of prissy and unpleasant. No disrespect to the actor, who does what he can with what he's given.

9. Luke (Nolan Gould)

I'll also chalk this one up to the age-old problem of children on long-running sitcoms. A dimwitted eight-year-old is a great supporting character who can make for a nice change of pace in a show whose humor has often been manic. When that kid turns into a deep-voiced slow-talking high-schooler, he becomes both a stereotype and an afterthought.

8. Jay (Ed O'Neill)

You guys remember Al Bundy, right? Anyway, Jay is a man's man with a beautiful young Colombian wife and a gay son he struggles to connect with and a son-in-law he doesn't really enjoy and an adopted kid whose softness drives him up a wall. He's the George, Sr. of this show, and nothing more.

7. Cam (Eric Stonestreet)

He's the larger and more flamboyant half of the gay couple. He's more melodramatic but less all-around shitty than his husband is. I'd have ranked him a lot higher if half of his plots didn't stem from domestic squabbles with Mitchell.

6. Manny (Rico Rodriguez)

The fat Colombian kid has always been an old man in a boy's body, and as such, his character has survived the actor's transition into puberty much better than his counterparts on the show. He's still good for a quip now and again.

5. Claire (Julie Bowen)

She's grown on me. Formerly one of my least favorite characters, she always seemed to get stuck playing the role of the uptight super-mom, acting as a foil to her laid back husband. This year, Claire was often funny and charming and endearing. What's more, not once did I groan or cringe when she was on screen. Kudos to Julie Bowen.

4. Haley (Sarah Hyland)

This has always been a character the writers have had a firm grasp on, and while her younger siblings kind of stopped being interesting on their way into their teenage years, Haley has flourished in the last two seasons or so now that she's out of high school and staring the real world - or at least community college - in the face.

3. Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons)

Yes, somehow, the little Vietnamese baby who was nothing more than a prop in Seasons 1 and 2 has emerged as one of this show's best characters. She probably only gets like three lines an episode, but she's got the highest batting average in the lineup. She's dark, she's witty, she's subtle, and the writers have really figured out how to make one of their biggest liabilities from the first few years of the series into a constant source of gems. I just hope Modern Family doesn't last long enough for Lily to become a teenager and get ruined in the process.

2. Gloria (Sofia Vergara)

It's probably fair to call Sofia Vergara a one-note actress who makes her millions, or however much these actors are getting paid, with the same old formula week in and week out - energetic, high-volume, thickly-accented fast talking with a small dose of physical comedy thrown in for good measure. Yes, most weeks Gloria just kind of stomps around and waves her arms and screams and has large breasts, but honestly, that's good enough to be the second best part of this show.

1. Phil (Ty Burrell)

Phil is the Michael Scott of Modern Family, if we're talking exclusively about the happy and likable Michael Scott from the end of The Office's run. He's fun-loving, he's energetic, he's "dad humor" incarnate, and Ty Burrell just makes it work week after week.

Lastly, some parting thoughts.

• There wasn't nearly enough Dylan this year! Dylan has to be my favorite recurring character on this show.
• Having said that, Adam DeVine had a significant guest role and occupied a similar space, so maybe Dylan wasn't needed this year after all. By the way, holy crap, is there anything Adam DeVine isn't doing these days? In 2013 alone he was in Workaholics, Arrested Development, Modern Family, and Community. I love the guy, but enough is enough! Actually, that's not fair - he played a much more subdued version of his typical role here on an ABC family sitcom. Which makes perfect sense, really.
• This show's biggest underrated strength continues to be its ability to gently work in pop culture references and trope subversions. It's never overt like Community or South Park, but I do get a good chuckle from a well-designed wink at the audience.
• On the other hand, the biggest weakness is still the treacly way the writers tend to wrap up so many episodes. There are episodes that deserve to end with heartfelt montages, for sure, but the recurring gimmick just feels ham-fisted in there most of the time.

Orange is the New Black: Season 1

Katie and I are seemingly two of the last people to get into Orange is the New Black, but that's okay- here we are, just a season behind everyone else at this point and hungry for more. For any who haven't given this show a shot, I'll just make myself another voice in the crowd of people who says it's great and you should watch it. It's also really easy to get into- the first few minutes hook you right in and I enjoyed the whole season. I guess to add something to this post that isn't just boring praise, I'll comment on Keith's post from this past July, where he really laid into the main character Piper. First claim- she sucks. This is debatable, but I do agree many of the other characters in this ensemble cast are more interesting. Still though, a naive girl who barely even realized she was committing a crime makes for a relatable character at the center of it all. Second claim- she's selfish. Yeah, I'll agree with this, at least at the start of the show, but at least she shows a lot of growth over the season. Third claim though, she refuses to admit what she did was wrong? Disagreed! She's clearly not happy about the fact that she's been thrown into prison for a crime she was unaware she was committing, whose statute of limitations is nearly through, which didn't hurt anyone, and which she clearly wouldn't repeat, but she owns up to it. In one of the middle episodes of the season Piper's mother is visiting her and tells her that Piper doesn't belong here; Piper disagrees and says it's her own fault she's here and she's no different from any of the other prisoners. Growth! Piper's experience help her to mature throughout the season, even if the last scene of the season has Piper make seemingly her worst decision of all... but hey, I'll find out when I start into season two, which is probably very soon.

Fringe (Season 1)

The triumphant return of Trevor starts off with Fringe -- a show that's basically the X-Files; only instead of fighting against aliens from space and the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night, these characters are battling against an alternate selves from a different universe... and, of course, the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. 

Now, this is a J.J. Abrams vessel (but what isn't nowadays?), so chances are it's going to start off great. And it does. The first season is entertaining as whole and completely satisfies my hunger for a sci-fi/crime-procedural where a hole has been left in my heart ever since X-Files took a bow and left the stage years ago. I kind of feel this is a sub-genre that seldom gets touched upon, which is sad because I'm easily bias towards them. I was even rooting for The Lone Gunmen (an X-Files spin-off) that lasted all of 13-episodes.

It had potential, Fox! If you only gave it a chance! The Three Stooges uncovering conspiracy theories? 

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES!

But, I digress...

The way this show really stands on its own legs is grounding their wild stories firmly in hard science -- this is compared to Mulder's "hunches" -- with the introduction Dr. Walter Bishop, a certified mad scientist. We start with tough-as-nails, female FBI agent Olivia Dunham who needs Walter's help in solving a case. Only problem: he's been locked away for over a decade in a mental institution after blowing up his lab assistant. Oh, and he's clearly crazy. Yup. Crazy as a bat. So, Dunham needs the help of his only son, Peter Bishop -- a suave, international jack-of-all-trades sorts. The estranged father and son reunite under uneasy terms, and the trio set off to solve the FBI's strange, unsolved cases... The X-Files! Er... Wait! The Fringe Division. Yeah... Totally not the same. One only had two people working in it. This one has like 20 people. Twelve at the least. 

Totally not the same. 

In all fairness, the show is entertaining. Each episode's main mystery is fun and exciting. Then the B-storyline that weaves through the whole season always keeps you asking questions. (Unlike Lost, I was receiving satisfying answers at a reasonable rate.) I won't try and confuse myself or you with the nitty-gritty of it all, but let's say it involves men with alopecia wearing black suits while predicting tragedies; an alternate dimension where a parallel (shittier-looking) Earth exists; and Spock. Yes, Spock.

I would say if the new fall season of television starts to piddle out and you're looking for something new to watch, give it a shot. As for me, might be a while till I start season 2. 

Don't worry, Pacey... I wont forget about you!

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 9

Somewhere in the middle of Season 9, Always Sunny aired its hundredth episode. That's crazy! Lots of shows get to 100 episodes, but how many basic cable sitcoms do so? And even more so, who would have ever thought, watching the first season of Always Sunny in all its understated, low-budget, DeVito-free glory, that it would still be on the air ten years and a hundred episodes later? The show has had its ups and downs - pretty tough to go this long and never falter, really - but it's been remarkably consistent, all things considered. And this season - Season 9 - was actually one of the most consistently good seasons I can recall for a number of years. There's no need to rehash it on an episode by episode basis, but there were a few gems and no duds in this collection.

Actually, I can't think of another comedy that lasted for a hundred episodes whose floor is higher than Always Sunny's. I guess I'd have to allow Parks and Recreation, but that show's first season was pretty rough around the edges, and plenty of people just hated it. Granted, plenty of people aren't impressed by Always Sunny, either. I dunno, guys. Chime in. I'm not asking for the highest highs here, but what hundred-plus-episode sitcom, at its worst, has been better than Always Sunny? This is a matter of taste, obviously, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts all the same.

From Dust

Keith recently talked me into getting an XBox One, and while I'm enjoying it so far, it did have one notable cost- I had to trade in my XBox 360. Only four games were left on my XBox backlog, and since I knew time was running short I had to figure out which game to play before I let it all go. The first easy cut was Alone In the Dark, a modern remake of an old game mostly known these days for being turned into a terrible Uwe Boll movie starring Tara Reid as an archaeologist. I love me some survival horror, but I have my limits, and since this one was sent in that package from Trevor back in the day, I had little personal motivation to beat it- I didn't buy it for myself, right? So, no more Alone In the Dark in the backlog. The second game I decided not to play was Perfect Dark Zero. I had some interest in playing it for series' completion's sake, but Keith has assured me that it isn't very good and this was also a game that I didn't purchase for myself. It's out. My final two XBox games were both bought on Live Arcade; Castlevania: Harmony of Despair and From Dust. Castlevania seemed like the obvious winner- I've enjoyed the three Castlevania games I've played so far and they're usually not too long, so I thought I may as well play that one too. But! The game was just plain frustrating in its first few minutes, unlike every other Castlevania game I've played. It's focused on multi-player, but no one is playing online since the game came out years ago and wasn't all that popular in the first place. Also the game is played completely zoomed out, allowing you to see the entire level/castle you're playing through, but seemingly had no way to zoom in on just the room your character was in. What was the point of that? I spent a few minutes looking for the solution before saying "fuck it" and giving up. There goes a third game, just purged from my backlog! I had one game left to play: From Dust.

 

I'm not even really sure why I bought this game; I thought there were good reviews at the time of its release but looking back it seems opinions on From Dust were mediocre. It was cheap though, and to its credit was a very different experience than any game I've logged. I think it played like a combination of Lemmings and Sim-City. Basically you play as a god whose primary action in the game is to change the shape of the environment to help the tribe that worships you to survive and prosper- you suck up material in the environment in one place and drop it down in another. Each level will require you to guide your little guys to three or four locations where they can set up villages, but the environment constantly gets in the way. For instance, if a village is settled, trees will start flourishing on the dirt around it as far as the dirt goes, but if any of these trees gets too close to a lava flume it can light on fire, which will slowly make its way back to the village and burn it down. You can put out a fire with water, but if you use too much you can flood the town. You can also suck up water to allow your worshippers access to new areas, or suck up dirt to place between islands to build a bridge. The best part of the game is how open-ended its solutions are- the game might be guiding you to an interesting solution to get your guys from one place to another, but if you'd rather brute force things like moving an entire lake drop by drop, you can do that too. Is your town getting hit by rogue tidal waves? You can tear it all down, drop a ton of lava on the ground, let it harden into rock, and presto- your town can now be settled at a higher elevation, far from the natural disasters at sea level. Still though, there were too many imperfections to keep me from really enjoying the game. The big one is AI- you don't directly control any of the villagers, but just tell them "walk to this point", and they will decide their own path, which frequently made no sense to me and wasted time. Another frequent annoyance was that the presence of the tiniest bit of water near your town's area would stop you from being able to settle there in the first place, requiring a bit of a pixel hunt as you try to suck up small drops of water to get them out of the way. I appreciate the novelty of the game and it was nice to switch things up after so many RPGs, first-person shooters, and third person action/adventure games, but there was a lack of polish that keeps me from wanting more from the genre any time soon.

Fire Emblem Awakening

Partly out of anticipation for the new Super Smash Bros. game, I've spent the last month or so on Fire Emblem Awakening. It's the first game in the series I've tackled, and based on the outrageous prices of used copies of all the earlier games in the series and (so far) the lack of any compilations or digital download options, it might be my last!

The game was a turn-based tactical RPG that I immediately compared to Final Fantasy Tactics. I understand the genre and common gameplay elements are far older than either series, but Tactics has been one of my favorite video games of all time for fifteen years now, so please understand why I'm judging Fire Emblem almost exclusively based on how it compares.

Honestly? I liked it, but something felt like it was missing. Perhaps this is because I played on the easiest setting and turned "perma-death" off - more on this later - but my party was just absolutely juggernauting everything in its path by the final third of the game or so. It's weird - I spent a lot of time early on playing every possible side quest and doing every possible battle, and once they became a total breeze, I just kind of steamrolled through the rest of the main story.

I understand that by turning "perma-death" off - the default mode in Fire Emblem is for all party member deaths to be permanent, forcing you to play a much, much more conservative game - I robbed myself of a much more hardcore and emotionally charged experience. Compare this post, after all, to the one I wrote up for Valkyria Chronicles - a game with "perma-death" that can't be turned off - just earlier this year:

No, the loss that stung the most was Alex, the aforementioned shocktrooper, who died somewhere in front of the enemy's castle toward the end of the game. Alex was a brash and carefree seventeen-year-old kid who dreamt of flying through the skies after the war. His dying words, alone in the cold night, were, "The sky looks... so close... I can... almost touch it..." Fuckin' A, Alex. You were missed.

Maybe if my Fire Emblem Awakening troops had suffered some actual losses, this game would have resonated more with me. I did come to greatly appreciate the likes of Ricken, Lon'qu, Cordelia, Tharja, and - of course - Donnel, and they each came with fleshed out personalities and everything, but I never gave two shits when one of them fell in battle because I knew it didn't really mean anything. My own fault, I guess!

There are a few other gripes I had with the combat system and general gameplay, but I did appreciate the generally larger scope of the battles in this game compared to Final Fantasy Tactics; it's pretty awesome to send 15 units out onto a 30 by 30 grid to take on 20 or more enemies with constant reinforcements.

In the end, this was a game I liked, but wanted to love. Now bring on Super Smash Bros. for 3DS already.

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

And with this game, I've completed all of my PS2 games. It's bittersweet. I don't think I've played any console more than I played PS2. Smackdown and Timesplitters were two of my best friends. Anyway, this has been a long time in the making as I initially purchased this back in 2003. It looks its age. I forget how bad PS2 games looked, even when "upscaled" on the PS3. The good thing is that after an hour or so I didn't really notice.

Though this is called Return of the King, it really starts at the tail end of The Two Towers. There are three paths you can play: The Gandalf path, the Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli path, and the Samwise path. You fight in all the battles from the movie with a few twists and turns. It all leads to the final boss, Gollum. You fight him as Frodo. It's cool in a way because like the movie, everyone is just working so Frodo can finally rid himself of the ring. However, it's a little weird in the fact that you have been leveling up your characters the whole time only to have to use a level 1 Frodo against the final boss. Still, it's a very fitting end to a game that does its source material justice. On a side note, they do a good job of between-level story updates. Gandalf narrates. The footage itself is pretty terrible though due to compression. This game is on a standard dvd after all.

Anyway, my memory of this game was that you just mashed x. I guess that lets me know how bad I was at games back then. There are actually a ton of combos. You purchase them as you earn more XP and you characters become more powerful. In turn, as you do more combos, you earn XP more easily and your character levels up faster. It's a cool system that's actually pretty rewarding considering this is a game based on a movie. The biggest issue with that is that you can't replay missions after beating them until you go through every level once and beat the game. So, in essence, you can't grind in order to level up your player. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that and ignored upgrading my arrows. This bit me in the ass later on making some levels super difficult. In this day and age, they definitely would have allowed replaying the levels. Another weird thing is that co-op and one player games are completely separate. You cannot advance in one player and then move back to co-op. I beat the entire game on one player and would have to start over to do co-op. This, again, isn't something you see today. These are minor complaints in what is otherwise a great game. It's much better than I expected. If you are ever feeling nostalgic for LOTR, this isn't a terrible way to spend 6-10 hours. It's hard, but worth it.

I've beaten a game for five straight weeks. Let's see if I can make it six next week.

Orphan

I initially saw this movie in the theaters with my mom. We are both fans of stupid horror movies. Based on the trailers, this fit the bill. However, this movie is a LOT better than I expected. It's simple. It's creepy. Oh so creepy. Esther is an orphan from Russia who doesn't seem to get along with the other orphans despite coming off as the perfect child. She paints, she plays the piano, she minds her manners. But she has a few secrets that her adopted family discover over the course of the film. If you are looking for a good horror movie, look no further. I can't stress enough how creepy this is. SO FUCKING CREEPY.

The Descendants

A man's wife is in a coma and it's time to take her off life support. A man's wife has been cheating on him and he's actively trying to find the other man she came to love. A man is in the midst of an enormous business deal in which he's on the brink of selling an enormous family estate of undeveloped land to eager buyers. On their own, each of these plots would make for a run-of-the-mill movie. Combine them, though, and make it so that the man is played by George Clooney, and set the whole thing in Hawaii, and you can consider me intrigued.

I liked this movie a lot. It was well-paced and confident in its tone and its characters. Clooney was great, doing his "calm under pressure" dry humor thing while his unfaithful wife was dying in a hospital and his in-laws were giving him hell for it. The Hawaiian setting and music gave everything some added levity. Toss in some game performances from Beau Bridges, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, and - most of all - Shailene Woodley, and you've got yourself a real doozy of a film.

A few months ago, in my post on The Artist, I lamented how generally terrible 2011 was for movies, but admitted I couldn't think of a more "Best Picture"-worthy candidate than that movie. I liked Drive a whole lot more, but that was never going to win the most prestigious award in film. The Descendants, on the other hand, was nominated. Two and a half years later, I say it deserved the win.

Trev, you had said in a comment on the same post that you disliked Alexander Payne and had therefore avoided this movie. You know more about movies than I ever will, but I have to say I really liked this one, for whatever it's worth to you.

Intrusion

Intrusion 2 was part of a bundle of games I bought on Steam at some point, and after looking into it I found out that the first game of the series was available to play for free online, so here I am playing Intrusion for series completion's sake, and logging it even though it's just a browser game. And honestly, I didn't like it much. It played a lot like Capsized, a game that I trashed in my review of it, but really I think side-scrolling shooters that have to be played with a keyboard just aren't for me. A bullet-hell game where I barely feel in control of my character is just not something I'm interested in playing in for very long, so like an asshole I just blatantly cheated. I found another site that would let me play the game but a few extra key-presses would give me extra guns, ammo, and lives, making the whole thing much faster even if all of the challenge was gone. I knew early on that this just wouldn't be a game I'd enjoy, so I made a judgement call. Okay? Let's move on.

Jacob's Ladder

I keep falling behind on writing these movie recaps. Maybe it's because most of what I've watched recently has been decent, but not spectacular. That kinda underrates Jacob's Ladder, a psychological horror movie from the early nineties that actually has a bit in common with another movie I recently watched, The Game; mainly the question of how much of what's happening on screen is 'really' happening. Basically you have Tim Robbins playing Vietnam veteran Jacob, just trying to get by working for the post office in New York and putting the horrors of his past and the war behind him. They do catch back up to him quickly though, and Jacob suddenly finds his city full of grotesque monsters out to kill him. Where are these hallucinations coming from? The movie is intercut with flashbacks to Jacob and his platoon in Vietnam- what really happened to them, and how is it affecting Jacob in the present-day? Is he going insane? Or is there something bigger at play here?

 

Jacob's Ladder is a scary movie, and one that can be pretty tough to watch at times as his hallucinations grow longer, more frequent and more hellish. It was apparently a big influence on the Silent Hill franchise of video games, which I didn't pick up on while watching but in retrospect seems pretty obvious. It all leads up to a bit of an obvious twist ending, but maybe I'm just jaded because big twists feel like they're in every other movie these days. Still though, I thought it was a very good movie even if the ending feels a little messy. One last notable thing I wanted to point out- while Jacob was played by Tim Robbins, none of the other main characters were played by people I had heard of. But the bit parts? Jacob's Ladder was just loaded with "that guys" and "that girls". Pre-Home Alone Macauley Culkin! Kyle Gass! Lewis Black! Ving Rhames! S. Epatha Merkerson! Eriq La Salle! There were so many "wait a minute, do I know them?" moments as all of these actors went on to some big breakout roles in the years following.

Captain America: The First Avenger

I was skeptical of this movie when I saw it in theaters. Based on the previews, it looked a little cheesy to me. I loved Iron Man because it brought Iron Man to life in a (somewhat) believable way. This, on the other hand, looked somewhat ridiculous. And yes, it was somewhat ridiculous. But, like Guardians of the Galaxy, this movie had a ton of heart. Steve Rogers is a protagonist that’s easy to love. He’s a puny guy who can never back down from a fight. Any and all injustice must be answered, even if it’s in a losing effort. Speaking of losing, this guy never gets any ladies. Of course, after some super serum, he’s a super soldier with everything he needs to thwart injustice and land the ladies. But, because we got to see him before all that, he remains relatable. It doesn’t hurt that he’s fighting Nazis! The second half of the movie isn’t quite as enjoyable because it reverts back to commonplace super hero movie fight scenes. It ends somewhat tragically, allowing it all to feel a little more meaningful than you might expect. All in all, I like this movie a lot. Captain America: Winter Soldier (the sequel) is objectively better in almost every way, but I have a soft spot for this one because of the pre-serum Steve Rogers.  

The League: Season 5

Sooner or later, a group-of-friends comedy based on fantasy football is going to run out of new ways to make jokes about fantasy football. That The League has made it through five seasons and is now beginning a sixth is actually kind of shocking and impressive. Like most comedies, this show is best when binge-watched; there's really not enough content on a weekly basis to make it memorable or transcendent in any way, and "hanging out" with the characters for several hours at a time in two or three separate sittings is more rewarding than checking in with them on a weekly basis for half an hour. The hits and misses all blend together that way.

The most notable thing about the fifth season of The League was, bar none, a weird format-breaking episode that followed Rafi and Dirty Randy's ill-advised quest for vigilantism to Los Angeles. Rafi is a supporting character only seen in every other episode or so, and Dirty Randy, played by Seth Rogen, is a friend of his that pops in maybe once a season. To see The League devote an entire episode to the two of them being ridiculous, without any references at all to fantasy football, was surprising. That episode may have been the moment the show jumped the shark. It also may have been the series' best episode to date. Maybe both - why pretend both options are mutually exclusive?

Dragon Quest VI

I've noted that as I play through the Dragon Quest series, each game has been better than the last. This was easy to note with the first few installments as developers at the time were just starting to figure out what works and what doesn't in role-playing video games- going from a party of one in Dragon Warrior, to a party of three in Dragon Warrior II, to eventually a party where you could recruit enemies in Dragon Quest V; or the evolution of a character's inventory and menus becoming easier to manage; or the movement from a strictly linear storyline to something more open-ended with side-quests and optional levels.By the time Dragon Quest IV rolled around, the basic formula seemed to be perfected, and as such there doesn't feel like many big differences between 4, 5 and 6. The gimmick in Dragon Quest VI is some well-worn territory- parallel worlds, with two separate world maps featuring two versions of most towns- is one a dream world? Or do they both exist simultaneously with no awareness of each other? The reliance on that cliched plot point and a messy story that mostly ended like 30% of the way through the game are the only reason why I didn't like Dragon Quest VI as much as the previous installment. The gameplay all checks out and is fun aside from a little too much grinding for the final boss, but that's just RPGs in general I guess. Still though, that's six Dragon Quest games down, and while I don't regret playing through the series, not one game has really blown me away. Japan apparently loves the shit out of the Dragon Quest series, but it's not nearly as popular in the US, and this is affecting my backlog. My next game, Dragon Quest VII was released for the PS1 and the cheapest, crappiest copies available still cost like $40 on Amazon; it was also remade for the 3DS in Japan, but there's been no announcement of it coming stateside. So, my progress through the series may be halted for a long time. Farewell for now, Dragon Quest!

Top Gun

I'll be the third guy here to post this movie and admit that I've never seen it before! Trev gave it an overview and honed in on the homoeroticism angles the movie has left behind as a legacy. Keith just skewered it up and down. Fear not! I've got a fresh take of my own on this film, even if I doubt it's a fresh take at all, given how clearly and vividly it jumped out at me, and given that this movie is already thirty(!) years old.

Ready? Maverick is a total dick. And Iceman is the real hero here. Consider the obvious. Iceman is a top-ranked student revered by his peers and his teachers alike. His biggest offense is just that he's leery and wary of Maverick, the showboating newcomer with no respect for rules or the chain of command. Maverick meanwhile demands all kinds of respect and attention from the people around him despite going out of his way to be immature, dangerous, and generally not a team player. This is a military movie, after all, and who would you rather fly with - Maverick or Iceman? And it's not even like Iceman is boring or shitty or not fun to be around. That's Maverick! Compare the way the two of them act throughout the movie if you don't believe it. When the movie ends and Iceman - the winner of the Top Gun contest and clearly the class's best pilot - finally acknowledges Maverick as a great pilot in his own right, Maverick one ups him like an asshole. "You can be my wingman anytime." Hey, good for him! "Bullshit! You can be mine!" What a petulant little shit bag...

Nintendo Land

I've had my fair share of fun with this game and friends. There's a lot of content here. My problem with this game is that so much of the content is simplistic and unenjoyable. I didn't have too much fun with any of them. I never really got into trying to beat a high score or complete a certain "attraction." My favorite was Zelda. I hated the Octopus Dance attraction. I dunno. I wanted to like this. This was the new game that was supposed to show what the Wii U could do and it mostly proved the gamepad to be a gimmick. I got a silver trophy on all the 1-player attractions so I'll call this one beaten. What a relief. For fun, I thought I'd give analyze the attractions in the same way Steve did in his post.

Least enjoyable game I am most skilled at: Takamaru's Ninja Castle

Most enjoyable game I am least skilled at: Donkey Kong's Crash Course

Best solo adventure: The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest

Best cooperative adventure: The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest

Most intuitive control scheme: The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest

Clumsiest control scheme: Octopus Dance

Most replay value: Mario Chase

Least replay value: Takamaru's Ninja Castle

Most stressful game: Animal Crossing: Sweet Day

Most relaxing game: Captain Falcon's Twister Race

Overall most essential game: Luigi's Ghost Mansion

Overall least essential game: Metroid Blast

MLB 12: The Show

Well, this game has been weighing on me for a while. I bought it back in 2012 along with the Vita version because of the cross-save functionality. I thought being able to play my season on the go as well as on the PS3 was a novelty I could not pass up. It was pretty cool. But I found this game to be somewhat hard and it didn't really keep my attention. I did spend enough time with it to create all the fantasy teams from 2012 and I did play about 10 games. This morning I woke up, updated the my fantasy roster (while leaving the other teams stuck in 2012) and began a season. I was not going to spend a ton of time on this so I made it a 14-game season with 1 inning games. Man, lots of pressure. Every pitch could end the game. It was actually pretty exciting. Anyway, I played 5 games that season and simulated the rest. My Athletics won the West, Colin's Twins won the Central and Stan's Rays won the East. Kristina's Tigers took the Wildcard. Anyway, Kristina's Tigers tried their best but could not bring me down. Stan's Rays failed to get a W off me in the ALCS. And then I took on the Mets in the WS with Lucas Duda hitting in the three hole (this is the result of all the fantasy teams being in the AL). I took the Mets down easily and won the World Series. I would have figured there would be an awesome animation of the players holding up the trophy. I wanted Edwin Encarnacion to get that, even if it was just in a video game. But alas, the animation was the same as every other game. It was disappointing.

Gameplay is good, but it didn't feel quite as good as MVP baseball. Moreover, this game is super hard. The pitches come in really fast and I couldn't even make contact for the most part. The good thing is that this game has sliders. You can control pitch speed from the option menu before starting the game. You can increase the rate of contact for humans and computers separately. Basically, I was able to make this game much easier. Though it still felt somewhat difficult, it was a lot better. I think this game does a pretty good job at baseball (much better than anything other than MVP). Still, my time with baseball video games is probably over.

Gangs of New York

According to Martin Scorsese, the idea for Gangs of New York came when the director first realized that the first real wave of immigrants to come to New York wasn't full of Italians at the dawn of the twentieth century, but of Irishmen a good fifty years earlier. I'll admit, I didn't really consider this either, given all the Italian culture (and stereotypes) in New York, and given that when you think of Irish immigrants you're more apt to think of Boston. Anyway, yeah, New York was totally crawling with Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century, and this is a movie more or less about the conflicts between those immigrants and the "native" New Yorkers whose families had been there for centuries.

It was a movie set during and informed by the American Civil War, yet in no way was it a Civil War movie. I liked that. It seems like the Civil War is at the absolute center of American history in the 1800s - what led up to it, how it played out, and what the aftermath was like - but there was obviously way more going on all over the country than a North-South conflict or an abolitionist movement. This movie explores part of that "way more" and it educated me on a period and a conflict I knew very little about.

Also, you've got Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, John C. Reilly, and (briefly) Liam Neeson here. Just excellent work. Cameron Diaz? She is also an actor and was also in this.

This wasn't my favorite movie, as it did drag a bit in the middle and never fully captivated me, but it had my attention and it did almost everything very well and it held up 12 years later. The ending montage was one of the coolest parts. All movie long I had been thinking, "this just doesn't feel like New York." But of course, New York only really became New York once all that infrastructure popped up in the 20th century. The movie ends with a lingering shot on two graves in a cemetery as, through the years, the modern New York skyline begins to pop into view off in the distance.

1Q84

After just loving the first three Murakami books I've read, I was excited to finally jump into a fourth this summer- the lengthy 1Q84. It's a novel told in three parts totalling around 1000 pages, detailing the seemingly separate stories of a man and a woman living in Tokyo in the eighties- he, Tengo, an aspiring novelist taking who becomes a reluctant ghost-writer, trying to turn a sloppy teenager's fantasy story into a best-seller; she, Aomame, an assassin working for an elderly woman, seeking to rid the world of particularly abusive men. The chapters here alternate between focusing on Tengo and Aomame, and as you may have guessed we learn the two of them, without knowing eachother, are deeply linked as their stories eventually begin to intersect without the two meeting. Of course it wouldn't be a Murakami novel unless things started to get trippy and surreal, and that's all over 1Q84. Over the course of the book it becomes more apparent to our main characters that they have crossed into some sort of parallel universe where the Earth has two moons, among other smaller changes. You see, apparently the Japanese pronounciation for the letter "Q" is a lot like the pronounciation for "9", so the book's title is a pun for the year the book takes place, only slightly off in this parallel universe. Pretty clever!

 

So how was it? Unfortunately, this was easily my least favorite book of his. The alternating chapters which initially drew me in eventually became kind of annoying- information was often repeated several times as each character finds out more about what's going on, and the forced perspective switches really messed with the pace of the book. In part three a third character is introduced with his own chapters, and while he eventually grew more interesting, his chapters really slowed the pace of the book to a crawl for a while. Content-wise this is mostly an interesting story, but the surreal elements Murakami specializes in didn't work too well here. In previous novels Murakami has featured dream worlds and hallucinations, and given them meaning and the gravity they deserve. Here it just feels like he was throwing a bunch of malarkey out there and I just couldn't suspend my disbelief. I won't let this sour me on Murakami though- the AV Club just gave an excellent review to his latest novel, so I'll pick that up soon.

 

One more thing though- I've been posting that gag bingo chart joking about how Murakami keeps featuring the same images and settings in his novels but 1Q84 was the biggest offender by far. Let's see if it scores a Bingo, shall we?

Mysterious Woman- No. There's a teen girl I'd describe as mysterious, and Aomame might be mysterious to others but she's the main character so I don't think she counts. The rest of the women in the book aren't really mysterious.

 

Ear Fetish- No, and I haven't seen this in any books yet.

 

Dried-Up Well- No, this one was pretty clearly about a previous book of his.

 

Something Vanishing- Ding ding ding! Yes. Several people and things vanish over the course of 1Q84.

 

Feeling of Being Followed- Yes, several times, and the feeling is usually correct.

 

Unexpected Phone Call- Yes, and Murakami even makes a big deal about how Tengo can seemingly sense who is calling him by how the phone rings.

 

Cats- Yes, although only in a fictional story in the book.

 

Old Jazz Record- Yes, repeatedly.

 

Urban Ennui- Not really. Tengo lives the more boring life but he seems happy with it. 1Q84 takes place, like many Murakami books, in Tokyo.

 

Supernatural Powers- Yes, several characters seem to exhibit supernatural powers

 

Running- No running!

 

Secret Passageway- Yes, literally how the book begins.

 

Train Station- Yes, repeatedly- Tengo in particular takes several train trips, even though there's little focus on the stations.

 

Historical Flashback- Close. There's a lengthy passage from Anton Chekhov's travel diary from 1893, but it's not a flashback.

 

Precocious Teenager- Yes, the teenager whose story Tengo re-writes.

 

Cooking- Yes, although you could say a lot of authors focus too much on this (GRRM?)

 

Speaking to Cats- No, although it's really close!

 

Parallel Worlds- YUP.

 

Weird Sex- YUP. REPEATEDLY.

 

Chip Kidd Cover- Yes. I didn't know what this was, but he's a guy who designs a lot of cool looking book covers, including many of Murakami's.

 

Tokyo At Night- Yes, Tokyo is the main setting.

 

Unusual Name- Yes, 'Aomame' is literally what the Bingo card lists as its example unusual name. I think it translates to "Sweet Pea".

 

Faceless Villain- No.

 

Vanishing Cats- No, unless you want to get figurative.

Almost! Just needed some urban ennui!

The Dark Knight Rises

I'm glad I saw this one again. To quickly recap my thoughts on Nolan's Batman trilogy, I was never as impressed by Batman Begins as so many others seemed to be, but I absolutely loved The Dark Knight. I think this was largely due to the first movie being an origin story of sorts, featuring a villain, whereas the second movie was more of a character study on Heath Ledger's Joker, which happened to feature a superhero. Don't get me wrong - Christian Bale has been great as Bruce Wayne (and less so as Batman, but whatever) - it's just that in a hundred-million-dollar PG-13 comic book movie, the good guy is never going to be as interesting as the bad guy. Tom Hardy's Bane was never going to be as captivating as Ledger's Joker, but the character was interesting enough in his own right. The plot was compelling and new supporting characters like Catwoman and Robin (combined use of these two names in the movie: once) rounded out an already strong array of personalities and gave the final film in the trilogy quite a deep ensemble. Tack on the idea that Nolan was willing to explore deeper themes and that he repeatedly tries to explore human nature in his movies - as much as you can explore it in a PG-13 summer blockbuster, I guess - and you've got yourself a really good movie. Flawed, yes, but still very good.

Which is why, again, I'm glad I gave this film another viewing. Memories aren't perfect, and mine tends to be a little cynical at times, and when I popped this DVD in last night, all I could look forward to doing was shaking my head at all the plot holes and implausibilities and gaffes and continuity issues and structural concerns and poor pacing decisions. There were plenty of those, to be sure, and people way more concerned with slandering this movie than I ever was have filled the Internet with lists of plot holes and dumb contrivances and such. I won't waste my time or yours, dear reader, by ranting here. Instead I will only offer a slight tweak that may have made the movie, in my humble opinion, just so much better. Ready?

Just get rid of the whole transition between Acts 2 and 3 where Batman is stuck in the pit in Middle-East-istan. Seriously. The inclusion of that pit-climbing "montage" adds nothing to the story and the pit prison itself is the source of almost half of the issues people had with the pacing and the structure. You've already shown Bruce Wayne struggling as ex-Batman. Just have him go back into hiding after getting his ass kicked by Bane that first time, instead of spending five months stranded in an ethnic hellhole across the world. It would have added way more to his arc if he was hiding in Wayne Manor watching Gotham burn around him. Catwoman goes back to him and gives him a stern talking to. Or Robin. Or both. Maybe Alfred - he was gone for the entire movie, after all! It's just way more sensible, Nolan!

Also, that Talia twist at the end? Pointless. In fact that whole character was pointless. Commit to Bane, Nolan!

My two cents. The Dark Knight Rises was good - very good - but until I gave it a second viewing, all I could remember were its flaws.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 5

I'm fairly certain most blog readers either don't care about this show or have seen through the fifth season, so the following post is just laden with spoilers. You've been warned!

The groan-inducing ending to what had otherwise been a fantastic fourth season was a real tipping point for Sons of Anarchy. By leaving Clay Morrow alive and revealing that the club's cartel partners were actually undercover CIA agents, the show had grabbed a pot that had been building to a boil all season long and just kind of took it off the stove as it had started to simmer. Season 4's big loss was Season 5's small gain, however, as one of the most compelling plots this time around was Jax's ability or lack thereof to lead his club while Clay stewed on the sidelines.

Elsewhere? This was just a messy slew of "big moments" with no thematic linkage. Opie was brutally murdered when a few members of the club went to prison for a few episodes. Gemma got stoned and ran her SUV off the road, severely injuring her two grandkids. Tara spent the season neither shitting nor getting off the pot, unable to commit to getting the hell out of Dodge with or without Jax, and then ultimately she got arrested in the season finale. So did Clay. Boyd from Justified showed up to play a transexual for one episode. Jimmy Smits joined the cast as Nero, and spent the year nailing Gemma and supporting SAMCRO with a prostitution ring side business. Three new members of the club turned out to be home invaders and they meet a pretty quick demise about midway through the year. Otto murders a nurse in prison and then bits his own tongue off to avoid testifying about any of it. Donal Logue arrives late in the season to avenge that nurse, who was his sister. Joel McHale shows up at some point to sleep with Gemma and then rob her blind and then get the living shit kicked out of him. The season kicks off with Tig watching his daughter get burned alive and ends with him shooting the man responsible for it - Michael, from Lost - in the head.

That may have been the biggest disappointment of the season. Sons has never gone all in on casting big names or even established character actors for their yearly "big bads," but Harold Perrineau just felt like a horrible casting call in all kinds of ways. No disrespect to the actor himself; I think he did just fine with the material he was given. But given every black actor out there - take the entire cast of The Wire for starters - this show had to opt for the guy notorious for screaming, "Waaalt!" for a few years on network television.

Having said all of that... this was an enjoyable and fairly entertaining season of television. Sprawling plot messes aside, it was able to cram a whole lot of action and tension and character scheming into thirteen episodes. And unlike the colossal ball drop that ended Season 4, Season 5 wrapped itself up with a neat little bow. Instead of trailing off with a big fat ellipsis or two, this season ended with appropriate periods, commas, and question marks. No exclamation points, really, but that's okay; Season 5 never promised them the way Season 4 did, and thus its conclusion was far more gratifying.

I'll get to Season 6 soon enough, I'm sure. That one... that one just kind of sucked. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.