The Bad News Bears

Wow. This movie is so racist. It's crazy. Well, Tanner is really racist. This movie is just a bystander who does nothing about it! But anyway, this is thoroughly enjoyable. From the swearing to the bullying, this all feels like the 70s. None of this shit would fly anymore. The star player smokes and rides a motorcycle without a helmet despite being 11. Their shortstop utters every racial slur in the book. The coach is drunk the entire movie. If he doesn't have a beer in his hand, he is blowing the smoke from his cigar into the face of innocent children! But behind all that, this movie has a lot of heart and one hell of a catchy name. There are sequels and even a remake, but none of 'em are quite as good as the original. If you haven't seen it, I suggest it. You can't help but smile.

Home Alone

Wow. I love this movie. Christmas movies are damn fun and this one might be the most fun of them all! I mean, it is called the Family Fun Edition after all. Anyway, Kevin McCallister was my hero growing up. I dreamed of a day in which I would get the opportunity to take on home invaders just like he did. Perhaps this movie wasn't aiming to put real life children in danger, but it quite possibly could have. Now, that dream has morphed into my crippling fear of home invasions. But, it's all worth it just to have this movie in my life. I love Culkin's one-liners and Pesci and Stern are so great as the bumbling idiots aka The Wet Bandits. I'm sure you have all seen it, but if you haven't seen it in a while, go check it out. It holds up. Buzz's girlfriend. Woof!

Elf

I feel like I've gone a few years between viewing on this one, but apparently not. I'm not sure why exactly, but I imagine it has to do with that brief period of time in which Will Ferrell was so over exposed with shitty movie after shitty movie that I just wanted nothing to do with him. He's reigned it back a little bit, and he's growing on me again. Anyway, this movie is awesome. It's one of the few newer Christmas movies that I believe we will be showing to our kids like our parents show us Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, etc. It's just freaking heartwarming beyond belief. It's so damn entertaining. It's a great message. And it's just so damn quotable. Who doesn't like this movie? Merry Christmas!

Blackfish

I remember really wanting to see this documentary when I first heard about it. Probably just because I think they chose a great title for it. Also, I just fucking love documentaries. They're usually just under 90 minutes and pretty engaging. This one was no exception. It follows the captive life of Tilikum, a 12,000 pound Orca Whale all leading up to the day that he killed one of his trainers at Sea World. This doc certainly had an agenda, which was basically that keeping these whales in captivity is very, very wrong. And that the longer we keep whales in captivity, the more trainers will die. I think it's a pretty easy story to tell with which most will agree, and this story was told pretty well, but it was so incredibly biased that it took away from the message. The story is told through interviewing 5 trainers who used to work at Sea World. However, after doing some quick research, it looks like only 3 of the 5 had any interaction with Tilikum and only 1 actually worked with him in shows. Also, none of these trainers are apologetic in the least, but instead make excuses as to why they share no guilt in keeping these whales in captivity. It's all about the big bad Sea World. I get the sense that all these trainers have a profound sense of guilt, but they all made the decision to paint Sea World in such a negative light that they can clear their consciences for good. Anyway, none of them seem that credible. But whatever, like I said, this was a pretty easy story to tell that is very interesting. If you like documentaries, check this one out.

Two random observations:

None of the 5 trainers interviewed call these whales Orca Whales. All of them call 'em Killer Whales. Is "Killer Whale" acceptable again?

Tilikum was a male who Sea World kept despite his violent nature because his sperm was so valuable. They "milked" him every day. His name could be interpreted as "'til I cum."

Shadow of the Colossus

Here's another classic from a PlayStation console more than one generation ago- Shadow of the Colossus. I had never heard of this game until I watched the 2007 Adam Sandler flick Reign Over Me- if you don't remember it was one of Sandler's few dramatic roles, where he plays a guy whose whole family died in 9/11 and he basically turned into a shut-in for years until an old friend tries to help him out of his stupor. The game plays heavily into the movie- at first it appears to be just another form of escapism for Sandler, like so many video games are to so many people, but as the movie progresses Sandler and his old friend bond over the game and you find out the basic plot and gameplay and it actually seems to be a very appropriate choice when it would have been pretty easy to just have Sandler get addicted to, like, World of Warcraft or something. In Shadow of the Colossus a man brings a dead woman onto sacred grounds and it's clear that he will stop at nothing to see her alive again, similar to Sandler and his family in the movie, but of course in the game there's a possibility of this actually happening- the boy, Wander, is told that if he makes a great sacrifice and slays 16 colossi throughout the sacred land his girl may live again. And so this makes up the entirety of Shadow of the Colossus's gameplay- much like how it was very easy to sum up the action in Team Ico's previous game, Ico, the same goes here. Wander will ride his horse across the land with nothing to do but reach his destination, at which point he needs to figure out a way to start climbing onto a giant Colossus and finally attack its weak points enough to kill it. The boss fights are all surprisingly unique considering how few actions can be taken in the game. Unlike Ico there is a small HUD, which kinda annoyed me because I loved Ico's extreme minimalism, but it made sense here. Unlike Ico, Wander can be killed by his surroundings and the colossi so he needs a health bar, and since the colossi will try to shake him off, he gets a little strength bar too, which forces Wander to act quickly whenever hanging on and stabbing a colossi- he'll eventually have to let go and fall to the ground. Still though, that's the entirety of the game- few cutscenes, no smaller enemies, a couple really quick platforming parts. Team Ico's refusal to conform to the status quo is the reason why they always get brought up in the "games as art" debate and the minimalism here combined with the melancholy that pervades the whole game (these colossi are rarely aggressive and the game really wants you to feel like an asshole for killing them all) is what allowed the game to make for such a good fit in a movie that covers a topic as heavy as post-9/11 depression. It's got all the great style of Ico with a much better game, and I was a huge fan. If you haven't played Shadow of the Colossus yet, do it soon.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

It's been a while since my last Castlevania game, so I figured it was about time I played the best one of all. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night came out in 1997 on the original PlayStation to not much fanfare, but over the years grew to become a major cult hit and now finds itself placed on many top-all-time-games lists and available as a port on Xbox Live Arcade. It shed the series' emphasis on linear levels for more exploration-based gameplay, following in the footsteps of the Metroid series. While the game is pretty great, the fact that it's successors follow so closely to its core gameplay probably kept me from being blown away by it- there's not much here that I hadn't already mostly seen in Harmony of Dissonance or Aria of Sorrow, games which long-time fans of the Castlevania series surely find inferior for not improving on the established formula. So yeah if you're looking for a somewhat retro gaming experience or looking to play through one of the highest-praised games of all time then give Symphony of the Night a shot, but you can get a pretty similar experience trying out one of the series' many more recent releases on the GBA and DS.

Sherlock Season 2

This show is just really engaging. The mysteries are cool and the main characters are great. This season was better than last as episodes 1 and 3 were just really awesome. The Hounds of Baskerville might have been my least favorite episode of the whole series, however. This season benefited from one main villain who gave it a more cohesive feel. Anyway, this show is definitely worth the 9 hours I invested in it. Moving on.

The Christmas Toy

Wow! This movie reminds me of my childhood. Rugby the Tiger doesn't understand Christmas and thinks he will get opened every year to be his owner's favorite toy. The rest of the toys are tasked with convincing him that he is old news. From there, we get a plot that seems to be very similar to Toy Story. This came 9 years earlier so I feel like Pixar has some explaining to do. Anyway, I've never watched a Jim Henson movie that I didn't find charming, and this is no exception. I will definitely be showing this to my kids, but I'll never watch it on my own again. Is it sad that I watched this by myself?

Christmas Vacation

I watch two movies every Christmas. This and Braveheart. There is no reason to own this blu-ray when it looks like shit and plays 100 times on TV. This movie is really funny, but it's better just because my dad cries from laughing so hard. It's silly. It's slapstick. It's great. Randy Quaid and Chevy Chase are fucking incredible in this.

Moneyball

My dad liked this movie a lot. My mom said it was boring but interesting. If you like baseball, it's tough not to find something to like about this movie. But in the end, it's a lot of talking. A LOT. Brad Pitt is good in the role, I guess. I really liked Jonah Hill in it. Unfortunately for this movie, the A's didn't deliver and the ending of this movie was anticlimactic. Rather than watching the A's celebrate, we got a little side not that the Red Sox won in 2004 using the same strategies. Whatever. Moving on.