When Harry Met Sally...

I bought this on the cheap a few months ago, mostly because I'd never seen it and wondered if it was really the classic that I'd always been led to believe it was. My biggest fear was that it'd be way too much of a chick flick and I'd be gritting my teeth or rolling my eyes at various points. But I'm happy to say that I thought the movie was entertaining and enjoyable in spite of its status as an archetypal modern romantic comedy. Billy Crystal was at his best, rather than his My Giant worst, and his Harry reminded me of Jerry Seinfeld (the character, not the actor) with a little more compassion and a little less hubris. A perfect alternative rom-com lead! I've never had an opinion on Meg Ryan either way, but she was pretty great here. And perhaps I never should have doubted this movie at all since Rob Reiner was in the midst of his best days as a director in 1989, amid a stretch that included This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, and A Few Good Men. There were definitely a few lines and moments that felt far more "cheesy" than either funny or genuine, but I suppose that's what comes with the "love conquers all" territory of the genre. In the end I'd have to say that it was much better than I was expecting it to be, and I'm happy to have seen it. But it'll still be a little while before I try out Pretty Woman or Sleepless in Seattle.

There's Something About Mary

I think this movie was overrated from the get-go for me. Or at least over-hyped. It came out when I was just ten years old (yet doesn't feel dated in the least, strangely enough). It was rated R (which, also strangely enough, hardly seems warranted in hindsight). I just think I was in the midst of that small window, age-wise, when "raunchy" meant "awesome." Friends called it the funniest movie they'd ever seen, but probably because they were ten or twelve years old and thought that semen was hilarious. I was probably also convinced, in that awkward peer-pressure-driven way, that Cameron Diaz was one of the hottest women alive. After all, if the movie was about one woman who a lot of different men wanted to have, she must have been smokin' hot, right? And in the twelve years since the film's debut, I've obviously come to realize that part of the humor is derived from the very opposite truth: that Cameron Diaz is (although by no means ugly) definitely not some kind of sex-oozing beauty. But back in that confusing era of pre-adolescence, I first saw the movie under the impression that Cameron Diaz (and thus the Mary character) was one of the hottest women on the planet and also that the jokes revolving around ear semen and old lady boobs were the funniest things ever put into a movie. So perhaps you can understand why and how this movie has never even come close to living up to my original expectations. Anyway, I hadn't seen the movie in at least five years before last night, and hadn't seen it all the way through in close to ten years, and I hoped that with the advantage of context and hindsight, I could finally give There's Somethign About Mary a fair and honest judgment. And it definitely is a pretty funny movie. I definitely think some of the jokes and quotes have been parodied and copied to death in the past twelve years, and so a lot of the jokes probably still fell flatter for me than they would have had I been unaware of their existence beforehand. But I'd still call the movie worth seeing if, for some reason, you've never seen it before. (Marissa, I'm talking to you. Directly!) But I'm probably mostly recommending that due to the iconic status of the movie; if it hadn't been so popular or parodied, I'd probably say something more along the lines of, "It definitely had it's moments. See if you can find it on Netflix or something." So even with a wiser and more finely-tuned eye for comedy, I really don't find this movie that much better than I did ten years ago. I liked different parts for different reasons, but ultimately, it can't be considered even one of the top ten or so comedies of my lifetime. But Matt Dillon was awesome, Ben Stiller was tolerable, and even Chris Elliott had his moments. Oh, and the cameo by a young Brett Favre only made me hate that guy even more. I'm glad his streak is over, but how many ESPN retrospectives do we still have to sit through during Monday Night Football?

Shadow Complex

A few months ago, Stan raved about this XBox downloadable title- Shadow Complex. Having heard of it before, my interest was piqued, but as I have so many times before, I put it off until the time was just right. The game was short- 5 hours maybe? But I managed to stretch it out over the course of a few weeks. It follows the style of Metroid games, but doesn't copy so much as pay homage to the long-standing Nintendo series. It's a 2-D shooter set in present-day California, where a man hiking with his girlfriend stumbles upon an underground terrorist base, and immediately takes action. And really, for the entirety of the game, that action never lets up. While Metroid games will have a lot of slow back-tracking and puzzle-solving to determine where to go next, Shadow Complex is a little lighter on these elements and tries to cram as much action as possible into every second of gameplay. That's not to say these puzzles don't exist- the ones I needed to do to get through the game were pretty simple but if I had more time to spend playing this I would have loved to run around throughout the base and find all of the hidden upgrades. I'd say by the time I finished, I explored less than half of the total area of the base. Maybe someday I'll return to it. I really had no complaints at all about the game- the voice acting, the story, the controls, the graphics; all were top-notch and especially surprising considering this wasn't a disc release. The game was impressive on all levels and has me interested in the more moderately-received Undertow, Chair Entertainment's first XBLA game. But not enough to put it on my wishlist, that thing's crowded enough.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 1

As always seems to be the case for me, I'm about two years late to jump on the bandwagon of a critically acclaimed cable drama. Sons of Anarchy has now aired three seasons on FX, and after this first one impressed me as much as it did, I think I'll absolutely make it a point to catch up on the other two in time for Season 4's debut next fall. It feels like lately I've struggled somewhat when it comes to Back-Blogged posts, unsure of whether my intention is to summarize, pontificate, or give some kind of sales pitch. But here, I think I can do all three without rambling too much. First of all, I liked this season a lot, but I liked it more and more as I watched it more and more. That's both common and a good thing. The more immersed I was in the world of motorcycle outlaws, the deeper and more meaningful their turmoils became for me, and the more I saw of each character, the more I could relate and empathize with each. The show is set in the fictional California town of Charming and centers around the "Sons of Anarchy," a motorcycle gang specializing in the trafficking of illegal arms. The main character is Jax, a kid in his late twenties, whose father was the original president of the club. Said father has died, and Jax's uncle, Clay, has stepped right into his older borther's role as both club president and Jax's father figure, even going so far as to marry Jax's widowed mother! Now, I may not have been an English major, but even I could catch the Shakespearean vibes right off the bat. So at first I was pretty concerned about how low the ceiling could be for Hamlet with motorcycles. But luckily, the show has been a whole lot more than Hamlet with motorcycles, and I think that's largely due to the great writing and talented ensemble cast. You can often watch a show or movie and recognize an actor from a show or movie you've seen before, but still have no idea who the actor himself is. As in, "Hey, that's (character X) from (movie or TV show Y)! What's his name again?" That happened to me eight or nine times with Sons of Anarchy. Aside from the very recognizable Katey Sagal, there were Rachel from Mad Men, Lloyd from Undeclared, Charlie Utter from Deadwood, Gary Bertier from Remember the Titans, Chili from The OC, Morrison from Braveheart, and some other actors I recognized from shows like House and Prison Break. It's an absolutely stellar array of no-name acting talent and it goes a long way in making this show one of the better dramas I've seen in recent memory. I'm eager and ready for Season 2 to drop down in price enough to justify a purchase. But I'm also in no rush, knowing that Season 3 probably won't be available until August or September. In the mean time, there's a little series called The Wire that I owe it to myself to continue watching.

Final Fantasy III

Earlier this year I started into the epically-long Final Fantasy series, and this is assuredly the last one I'll be able to finish this year- Final Fantasy III, my fifth game in the series. Stan recently beat it as well, and while I don't remember exactly what he highlighted there, he probably mentioned one of the most noteworthy things about the game- how long it took to come to USA. It finally did a few years ago in a nice port on the DS, which is how I played it. It's not too different from your average Final Fantasy game in how it plays, but I'll give you a quick rundown on the main likes and dislikes I've got. First, what the game did well. It's a great update! The graphics look nice, and the controls are all pretty solid- the transition to the DS didn't hurt the game at all. If you want, you can play with odd stylus controls, but I never bothered and neither will anyone else I suppose. The music was as good as any other Final Fantasy game I've played. The combat is pretty basic, but that's to be expected from one of the first games of the series. The game always hovered nicely in between frustrating and broken, so the challenge was never that hard (also I grinded a shit-load before reaching the final boss). And finally, the idea of a job system is something I liked. Want to have a team full of bare-knuckle brawlers? Maybe half summoners and half healers? 20 different jobs means all sort of variety and everyone who plays the game will likely have a different party at the end depending on how they like to play. Now for the dislikes- the job system was set up kinda poorly. I never really felt like I had a good understanding of the significance of the job level. In addition, the later in the game you get, every time you switch jobs you need to fight severely underpowered for 10+ fights. That only encouraged me to stick with the jobs I already had equipped unless I absolutely had to switch. The game's plot just wasn't very good as well. It wasn't as bad as the first Final Fantasy, but the plot was pretty disappointing. It never felt like there was any direction to the game either. The environments were huge, but without a walkthrough I would have been completely lost and gave up a long time ago. But walkthroughs were used, as well as glitches and loopholes to speed up an otherwise boring game. While my post may make the advantages sound like they outweigh the disadvantages, I can assure you they didn't. The game was overall pretty boring and I wouldn't recommend it unless you were trying to get through the entire series. Which hopefully I will! Just don't expect another beaten Final Fantasy game 'til next year.

Breaking Bad Season 1

So what can I say about Breaking Bad season 1? Well, it’s pretty awesome. Five or six years ago, I didn’t watch much tv. I ‘m trying to think if I actually followed any tv shows while in high school. I watched the Simpson’s sometimes. And the OC. That’s really all I can think of. Then I started driving Tristan to school, and he was like “blab la bla watch Lost!” So I did. And it was pretty awesome, up until, well, it wasn’t. And while Lost was going through it’s phase of patheticness, Breaking Bad came alive. Now I’m at college with Tristan and I hear “bla bla bla watch Breaking Bad”. Then it started winning awards. Then Steve bought it. Then I watched it.

And it’s so good! On so many levels! The general plot line of the show which plays out over the first two episodes is the main character Walt gets lung cancer and wants to support his family so he starts cooking meth. This show does so much more than that. You really get to know the characters. Walt’s struggle with cancer is very real and very emotional. The process of starting to cook meth is entirely foreign to him so he gets a partner, and they experience a lot of crap that comes along with being a drug dealer.

I can’t recommend it enough. The show is good on so many levels. It’s a great drama. It has a very realistic pace, but it is more exciting than, say Mad Men, because there is a more action packed plot (ex dealing drugs). The acting, especially by Walt, is phenomenal, nothing like Walking Dead. I’ve seen 4 seasons of Mad Men, 1.5 of Breaking Bad, and 1 of the Walking Dead. I consider this the best of the three.

Also, I just remembered! Something Breaking Bad likes to do is start the episode with a preview of how that episode or a future episode will end. It’s a great technique. The scenes are usually very different than what you would expect the characters to do. They are usually puzzling. It makes you very excited for the episode.

Every Thursday AMC will be showing an episode of Breaking Bad from start to finish up until Season 4 airs. Watch it! DVR it! Tivo it! Record it with a VHS! I implore you to!

P.S. I posted this less than a week after finishing it. I'm getting better.

Parks and Recreation: Season 2

I've probably said more than enough good things about Parks and Recreation. Almost a year ago, I made a post about the first season (when this second season was half over) promising that the show didn't suck. Now, I can promise that it is pretty excellent. "It only gets better" is a very cliche saying, but it pretty accurately describes the quality trajectory of Parks thus far. To recap, the pilot was weak, the first season was hit-or-miss, and its finale was its best episode. This second season came out of the gate stronger than ever, built slowly and steadily, and by midseason was my favorite broadcast network comedy. The final ten episodes or so - and the final two, especially - really may have exceeded any stretch The Office ever had. And now I eagerly await the series' triumphant return in January. I'm cautious and guarded; I've seen too many shows shit the bed after breakout seasons to blindly believe that Season 3 will automatically be fantastic. But early reports from critics who got to screen the first six episodes of Season 3 say that the upward trend continues and the series achieves new heights. Awesome. I guess this post was really more of a promotional piece for Season 3 (which debuts Thursday, January 20th, at 9:30) than anything else, but I'm okay with that. Great show. Great second season. Great expectations for what lies ahead.

Rock Band 3

I don't need to waste my time or yours by giving a lengthy post about Rock Band 3. In short, it was just like all of the other Rock Band games out there except that this time you can play the keyboard. That's really cool, especially on "pro mode," which sort of teaches you how to actually play an actual piano. Pro mode also exists for guitar, bass, and drums, but on drums it only changes a few drum hits to cymbal hits. I've yet to play pro bass or pro guitar (and probably never will) because pro-mode-capable guitar controllers cost something like $150, and that just isn't a sum of money I'm willing to part with for an extra challenge. And that's kind of funny, because if you add up all the money I've spent on Rock Band games, controllers, and songs through the years, you're easily over $750 and possibly close to $1000. I'd rather not even think about that though. Anyway, Rock Band 3 definitely represents the best offering yet from the series and it was a marked improvement over Rock Band 2 (which was a slight improvement over Rock Band, which was a huge improvement over the Guitar Hero games; the music sim genre is evolving, and it's evolving fast). But I think at the end of the day (well, lifetime) I won't have logged nearly as many hours on Rock Band 3 as I did on previous games in the series. I've always had a love-hate relationship with these games (I mean, have I told you how much money I've poured into my relationship with them?) but at this point I think it's become much more of an apathy. I'll still play the game again, no doubt. But probably only if my friends demand it. Regardless, it's nice to be able to call this one beaten. Until now, I hadn't posted anything yet in December, and quite frankly, that just isn't right.

The Stranger

This movie represents the last movie I have watched in my collection. I cannot remember any of it as I watched it in early August. However, I assure you that Steve Austin is a badass in it. He kills no less than 20 people. I won't say this is a good movie, but I didn't feel like I wasted my time watching it either. Beyond that, I cannot comment. This is more of a post saying that I am going to get back into the back-logging game.

November 2010 Recap

Blech. What happened? November was our least productive month in a whole year! And after adding a seventh logger to our crew (welcome again, Brian) we should have no excuses for such a slow and sorry month. And yet, I'm alright with the fact that it was our worst month in a year. I'm alright with that because November 2010 still beat November 2009 pretty soundly. Logging may or may not be cyclical and pattern-based, but if it is, then we should have come into the month with no expectations at all. Even if it was only Sweeney and I logging back then, we only managed a paltry 16 posts. What is it about November that says "don't read books or watch DVDs or play video games?" I'm not sure. Maybe Thanksgiving? Maybe, contrary to popular belief that darkness makes for good indoor time, it's the end of Daylight Savings Time? The world may never know. But December is here now, so I expect better things; last December there were 150% as many loggings (24) as there were last November (16). I'm not saying we should expect 35 loggings this month, but I would hope that 30 is attainable, especially given all the time we'll all invariably have off. Hell, why not go for 40?

But then, why shoot for quantity (X number of posts) when it's equally impressive to complete a smaller amount of larger endeavors? Perhaps this has been a flaw as well. By aiming to finish off dozens of shorter books, movies, and games, we leave the beasts of our backlogs. And that is why this month my goals will pertain to lengthier items. But first, how did I do on my November goals? I finished 12 things and unintentionally made it a nice 4-4-4 split between DVDs, games, and books. But what matters more is that my scant one purchase on the month made for a "logress" (logging progress) of +11. Excellent! December brings Christmas, and Christmas brings backlog reinforcements, but I must say I've done pretty well in the past two months (after doing horribly for most of the March through September stretch). I still have something like 120 games, books, and movies to get through, but if I can make strides of +11 every month (and I can't) then I'll be done in a year's time (but I won't be). My one "blemish" in November was my failure to finish Season 1 of Sons of Anarchy. I'm definitely on my way though, through four and a half of thirteen hour-long episodes.

So let Sons' Season 1 be first on my list of December-specific logging goals. And let another goal be another season of The Wire. After all, I said I'd be looking to knock off lengthy items this month. Speaking of which, on the book front, put me down for Ben-Hur. It's the longest work of fiction remaining on my backlog (600+ pages) and if ever there was a month to read a story about Jesus, it'd be December. (Or maybe the running joke could be that I'll start the book now and finish it by Easter? We'll see...) And when it comes to video games, I can promise to finish off both Rock Band 3 and Ico, but neither of those is a lengthy game. Perhaps it's time for me to finally get back to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, a 30 to 50 hour game that I'm probably 15 or 20 hours deep into. Cool.

I usually end by asking my fellow loggers if they've got anything specific to log. But this time around I'm going to spice things up and risk controversy by issuing some challenges instead. I mean, we had a pretty weak month, and the six loggers besides me combined for just 11 posts. Maybe everyone else needs some motivation. So at the risk of coming off like a douche, I'll say...

Sweeney: I guess I've got nothing specific to ask of you, since I know your lower monthly totals are a result of tackling longer games than I typically do. Perhaps you'd care to join me in "endless novel" land and take a stab at Ulysses?

Webber: Five posts this month. You went from four in August to three in September to two in October to one in November. Bounce back, baby. Bounce back big.

Marissa: A post every week. You seem to have a tendency to read or watch a bunch of things and then go rapid fire at the end of the month in posting about them all. If you post about things as you finish them, you'll be much better off. And who wants to spend New Years' Eve posting to this silly blog?

Trevor: You're pretty consistent and I like the wide array of things you're logging - books, movies, games, TV shows - so I've got nothing specific for you, either. Just keep doing what you're doing and shoot for five posts if you want to.

Keith: Anything. Any post will do. A comment left on someone else's post would even be nice. We miss you, man!

Brian: Let's get some games posted, huh? Your Backloggery page says you've finished two games in the past two months. you're better than that!

Of course, anyone can fire a challenge right back at me. There's no saying I'll accept it, but we'll see. Also, feel free to state your own December goals in the comments section. Merry logging and blogging, everyone!