Welcome to the Monkey House

For the first time in at least six years, my backlog is entirely Vonnegut-free. This was a collection of stories he had published in the '50s and '60s in order to finance his true passion of writing novels. There were 25 in total and they varied enormously both in quality and genre. In fact, the entire collection feels like a decent sampling of Vonnegut's career. There were endearing old coots and boorish plain salesmen; there were stories set in outer space, in dystopian futures, and in quiet little towns with nothing going on; there were love stories and sci-fi stories and subtle stories and ridiculous stories. I don't know what else to say!

This wasn't Vonnegut's best work, but upon completing it I can't help but reflect over the last six years of the Back-Blogged. I fell in love with this man's writing with Slaughterhouse-Five, then after a lengthy hiatus I barreled through the rest of his fourteen novels in a matter of two years or so, ignoring a few but enjoying most. This marks the fourth straight summer in which I've tackled a collection of his short stories, and although more collections do exist, I think they hit the point of diminishing returns a little while back. I could always try out some of his essays and editorials. Time will tell.

I guess my main point here is one of personal evolution and change. Six years ago, I was 22 and Kurt Vonnegut was my favorite author, living or dead. And that makes plenty of sense. There's just something so appealing about his work when you compare it to most mandatory reading from high school and college. And yet 18 Vonnegut books later, at 28, I can't help but feel like I've moved "past" that era of my life a little bit. Does that make sense? Is it smug, and vain? I've just read so much else these last six years - stuff that digs a little deeper into the human experience, stuff that evokes a dreamlike state, stuff that comes from the perspective of someone other than a put-upon straight white man - and while I'm glad to have read all that Kurt Vonnegut over the last six years, I don't think I can safely call him my favorite author anymore. (Who is? Couldn't tell you! So absent another option, sure, why not.)

Anyway, this concludes my time with Kurt Vonnegut, at least for the foreseeable future, and as such it sort of concludes a literary era in my own life. So it goes! (Sorry. Had to.)

Bravely Second: End Layer

Two years ago, of this game's predecessor, I wrote:

Bravely Default had everything you could want in an old-fashioned JRPG and it seemed to do everything right, right up to a certain point. New spins that the game put on the genre allowed for features like "summon friends," where you could call on people you had tagged with to help you out in battle. (Thanks, Webber and B-Town!) You could raise or lower - even turn off entirely - the random encounter rate, depending on if you wanted to grind for experience or just complete a fetch quest quickly. A weapon-producing mini-game even made it a benefit to close your 3DS in sleep mode without pressing pause or going to the home screen. The story was generic as hell - four heroes need to reawaken four elemental crystals in order to save the world - but the characters were fleshed out and fully realized and the world was varied and interesting enough to overshadow the mundanities of the plot.

All of that applies here as well. And this game has also added some interesting features that made grinding into a low-risk high-reward gamble. ("How many consecutive battles can you win in one turn? Here are exponentially increasing experience multipliers.") I rarely buy new games at launch, especially for full price, but I was all over this one a week after it dropped. I'd just wrapped up a rough semester at school, and on my first day of "summer vacation" (working 9-5 again - "adulting," I think the kids call it) I settled down on the couch with this game, a pizza, and a six-pack of beer. I plowed through eight or nine hours, tacking on another six before the weekend was up. And in these fifteen hours, I knew I'd only barely scratched the surface of Bravely Second, a fifty-hour game with tons of side quests, and I didn't even care. I loved it. I was in my happy place. Marissa even asked me, somewhere around hour seven, "Is this really all you wanted to do all day? It just seems kind of like a waste of the first day of summer!" She wasn't wrong! But, you know, such is the life of a JRPG fan - even one as casual and lapsed as I am.

Anyway, this game was great. Somewhere around the thirtieth or fortieth hour, I lost patience (I always eventually do - who am I, Stevie?) and decided to just barrel through the rest of the way. I was substantially over-leveled and overpowered thanks to the grind-friendly tweaks this game made, and I can't look back and reflect on this one and think, "wow, that was an instant classic and an all time great game," but any and all fans of JRPGs - particularly the older Final Fantasy games and their ilk - should be encouraged to check this series out. They're long games, no question, but they just feel so effortless and pleasant to play.

Avatar The Last Airbender: The Complete Series

I've been hearing about this show from Sheridan for years now. Praising how good it was. Then again... he watches anime so we don't have to. (See what I did there?)

But that's what this is. It's Nickelodeon's homegrown anime. Other than having some nostalgia for all the old Nicktoons of the 90's (Ren & Stimpy, Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, etc.), there's nothing really appealing about returning to that juvenile cartoon world now as I near my 30's. (I'm letting that sink in for a moment. Oh, God. 30! Keep the existential dread at bay, Trevor. Keep it out. Smile. Smile. Don't let the world see you cry. Aaaand, we're good.) As a full grown, it just doesn't seem right to watch a cartoon that not explicit designed for adults.

Thanks to Zoë, I was forced into watching the show, and... it's actually good. Like pretty fucking good! 

Seriously. After I got through the first of three seasons, I was hooked into this story of the world's savior (the Avatar) who emerges from a century long (frozen in ice) slumber to find that an evil nation bent on world domination has wreaked havoc on the whole planet. Sending both nature and humanity into complete disarray. 

You know what, rather than spelling out the show, just watch the opening sequence. 

So, there ya go. It's a world of "magic," of sorts. A world where some people have the ability to bend one of four elements. And the Avatar has the power to learn and control all four elements with the purpose of keeping the world's powers in complete balance.

And that's the story, the child reincarnated form of the Avatar is rescued by two other kids, and those three end up embarking on a journey to save the world from the evil fire nation leader -- excellently voiced by Mark Hamill. 

It's a good story and great world building. 

While I wholeheartedly recommend this show, keep in mind it starts a little soft. And by that I mean it's very kiddish. After all, it is a kid's show. So, don't run away if after two episodes you yet to see the vast magnitude of this story. It takes it time, but it gets there.

As the episodes carry one, you development a true attachment to the characters who increasingly become more complex and dynamic. The story itself grows darker and more intense as the fate of all the world's people lay in jeopardy. (And when I say dark... Well, just think what a water-bender -- a person capable of manipulating water anyway they please -- could do you. A human body. Who's blood mainly consists of water. Get the picture?) And the series finishes off in quite an epic finale as our heroes face a vast army bent enslaving all of humanity or scorch them from the face of the world.

Like I said, it's worth the watch at only three seasons long.

If you remember, this was also adapted into a live-action feature film from M. Night Shyamalan that's rocking a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sadly it seems they couldn't capture the same energy the cartoon carries. (I say this having never seen the film, and likely never will.)

Considering this seems to be a relatively light year in terms of TV to watch, if you're looking for something new (or old, depending on how you look at it) to get into. This is definitely worth your time.

Stan's TV Dump: July/August 2016

It turns out summer is a great time for catching up on old shows - and for streaming new ones!

Unreal: Season 1

The gist behind Unreal is that it's a show about a reality show - a Bachelor-style elimination-based dating show. At the center of Unreal are two women, producers on the show, who are just the worst people in the world. But they're also very good at their jobs! Their jobs, of course, are to manipulate  the female contestants on the reality show (and to a lesser extent, the male suitors) into having cat fights and opening up emotionally and just having entertaining breakdowns in general. A lot of critics really liked this, but it was just alright in my book. Once you get past the initial shock of "holy shit, is this really what it's like behind the scenes at The Bachelor?" there's not a ton more to it. It's fine! It's just not great. Marissa seems to disagree with me. She's probably right, but I can live with that.

Orange Is the New Black: Season 4

Lots of people seemed sort of down on Season 3, so when I heard that Season 4 was the best one yet, I figured I wouldn't hold my breath. But, yes, Season 4 was great. Then again, so were Seasons 1-3. Or at least Season 1 and Season 3. Recently a friend of mine asked if Orange Is the New Black was "a guy show," as in a show guys enjoyed. She caught me off guard - of course it is, right? - and after a season like this one I can't imagine otherwise.

Great Minds with Dan Harmon: Season 1

Forget where I even heard about this one but it's a YouTube series (made by the History Channel) wherein Dan Harmon and his buddy Spencer bring historical figures forward through time to the modern day. This was nothing special, but hey, it's got Harmon's humor all over it. And more than anything, I'm surprised the History Channel produced this thing! It's got language and nudity and such. Felt much more like Adult Swim. If you're curious, episodes are like ten minutes long.

HarmonQuest: Season 1

Hey, more Dan Harmon! What can I say? In a year without either Rick and Morty or Community I kind of missed the guy. (Now, I've had my fill.) This is a show in which Dan and his friends do a little D&D-like session in front of a live audience with a rotating fourth celebrity member. The best episode, hands down, was Aubrey Plaza's. Most were at least decent, but one or two were totally forgettable. Anyway, this is worth a quick binge. I saw it on Seeso, which offers a one-month free trial, which, oh yeah, shit, I need to go cancel that before I start getting billed.

BoJack Horseman: Season 3

It's pretty common these days for ostensible dramas to be pretty funny and lighthearted and for so-called comedies to delve into emotional gravitas and bum you out a little. But man, no show seems as capable of splitting the difference as BoJack Horseman, which explores existential depression while filling every episode with about a hundred jokes - and at the end of the day it's still a pretty sharp satire of Hollywod and show business. I loved this show last summer and I loved it again this time around. So good! So good!

Mr. Robot: Season 1

Hey, it's the Occupy Wall Street version of Fight Club with strong Dexter vibes! This was plenty good, but you probably already knew that.

Stranger Things: Season 1

Stranger Things is the type of show that's addicting and excellent while you're watching it, but that starts to fall apart pretty quickly when you pull at the seams of its plot. That's not meant to be an indictment - the show is an homage to Steven Spielberg and Stephen King and 1980s adventures in general, and it ends up being everything it could have wanted to be and more. I'm hoping for a second season, but I also want that second season to have nothing to do with this cast or setting whatsoever. Leave well enough alone, you know?

Shameless: Season 1

Shameless has always been on the far-back burner for me, a show I'd get around to at some point, time pending. But Keith got all caught up pretty recently and urged me to do so as well. Through one season, eh, I get the appeal, but I'm not sure this is one I'll stick with for another six seasons. It's an hour-long comedy about a poor-as-all-hell family headed by William H. Macy as a charming but undeniable fuck-up. Hour-long programming is tough for me to get into if it isn't, you know, pulling me in, and Shameless just didn't pull me in.

Unreal: Season 2

Yeah - caught up on Season 1 in time for Season 2 (just like with Mr. Robot) but it turns out I didn't really have to rush. Season 1 was better, and if you scroll up, you'll remember I didn't even love that one to begin with. This time around, we had a black bachelor! (I was rolling my eyes at how faux-forward that felt in 2016 before I looked it up and - no, The Bachelor has never had a black bachelor. In something like fifteen years.) Anyway the black bachelor gave the show an excuse to roll around in topical issues and debates like "is the Confederate flag inherently racist?" and Black Lives Matter (insofar as when black people get shot by police, the white showrunner might have a breakdown). This still had its moments, but I can't imagine I'm back for Season 3 unless there are some great early reviews. Something tells me there won't be...

Angie Tribeca: Season 2

Let's go back a few months and see what I had to say about Season 1, shall we? Ahem... "I liked this show, and I'll be back for Season 2. But, man - this is a TOUGH binge. The bread and butter here are ridiculously stupid puns, visual gags, and blatant trope lampshading. Watching one episode will make you shake your head and roll your eyes more than anything else out there." That's still accurate! I can't say for certain whether or not I'll be back for Season 3. That said, I love that such a spoof-laden goof of a show exists in 2016 and 2017. It's been too long!

Superstore: Season 1
"Good enough" at first and "pretty good" by season's end. It'll probably never be great, but them's the breaks for comedies on the broadcast networks these days. Read more about what I think over at gametimebro.com!

Take My Wife: Season 1
I came to Seeso for the HarmonQuest but stayed for... well, I didn't stay past the one month trial period. But here's Take My Wife, a show on the streaming service I found super easy to get into and get through. It stars real life couple Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher, playing only-very-slightly-fictionalized versions of themselves. They're comics! In Los Angeles. And women. And gay! Six quick episodes here. I liked what I saw. The show is actually more about the fact that they're women than it's about the fact that they're gay. which I thought was a nice touch. Between this and Lady Dynamite it's been a great year for new comedies made by and about female comedians.

Thingstarter: Season 1
This was just okay. If nothing else, it scratched my Nathan For You itch. The premise is that a fictional Kickstarter-esque company is committed to prototyping, testing, and pitching whatever dumb ideas America votes for. (This includes products like "Terra Firma," a mattress made out of dirt for the super-paleo market, and "AmIRacist," a social media app where users earn points by doing "not racist" things like dating minorities.) The season was only six episodes long, and even still the product pitches grew old fast. The best part was that the show, while scripted, solicited real life feedback on all these dumb products from subject matter experts and enthusiastic focus groups.

Bajillion Dollar Properties: Season 1

Alright, last one from Seeso. This was a real estate reality show parody that I can only imagine owes some of its inspiration to the likes of Property Brothers. (I wouldn't know - haven't seen it.) Mostly it just felt like an excuse to gather a bunch of familiar comedians and have them say and do absurd shit to one another. I definitely got my share of laughs from this one, but man, talk about utterly stupid shows...

Another Period: Season 2

I actually had no intention of continuing this one beyond last year's effort, but in the real dead of summer with nothing else on, I mean, why not? This was stupid as hell, and if anything the second season was slighter and sillier than the first - it felt a lot like they couldn't get all the actors back in the same place at the same time. Oh well - who cares? This was still enjoyable more often than not, and I just may be back for Season 3 if it appears during a similarly dead portion of the TV calendar next year.

Erased: Season 1

No idea how I feel about this one. I've never watched an entire anime before, and with Keith and Danielle getting into this one in addition to Stevie and Kevin, I figured this would be a fine place to start. (The 12-episode length didn't hurt its case.) I thought as far as anime goes, this was a good one. Then again I've got no real reference point. I'm also not sure how into anime I can really get. The older I get, the less patience I have for subtitles (which is a real shame - so many great foreign films, and now TV shows as well). As far as Erased goes, I thought it was a well-told story that dabbled with time travel and whether or not you can ever change the past. Nothing special, nothing unique, but still an enjoyable slog. Yes, a slog. This took me five months to finish! Alright, maybe I didn't like it all that much, considering.

The Night Of: Season 1

An excellent HBO limited series that came out of nowhere. Just eight episodes long. This one's about a Pakistani-American college kid who gets caught up in the wrong place (a murder scene!) at the wrong time (before, during, and after the murder!) and ends up in Rikers and on trial for first-degree murder. Whoa! His attorney is a two-bit ambulance chaser with crippling eczema and his prison friend is Omar. (From The Wire. Bodie plays a minor role too. My two favorites!) The pilot was, no joke, one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. Gripping, tense, realistic, just brilliant. The seven episodes that followed were flawed but still overall pretty great. This feels about as good (and unrepeatable) as the first season of True Detective. Probably better. Check it out.

Damn, that's too much, man!

Dead Space 3

Recently I've been looking through some old games seeing if any titles pique my interest. Here's one I bought just before I got the Xbox One, quickly forgetting I even made this purchase. 

Dead Space has always been a fun series for me. It's a survival-horror game... only in SPACE! But unlike most of its other rivals in this genre, Dead Space doesn't rely on clunky controls and a weak antagonist to make you feel vulnerable against the spooky evil that surrounds you. Instead it does the opposite. It gives you powerful weapons and freeze-time magic (the game calls it "stasis control") to overpower your enemies. Plus your character needs to frequently curb-stomps monsters, exploding their heads, which is always a delight. 

So, yeah... the third installment of this franchise definitely ups this whole "action" element making me feel like I'm John McClane only instead of being trapped in the Nakatomi Tower, I'm blowing shit up in space. SPACE!

Dead Space 3 does share one common element with that of its survival-horror brethren: the overly complex story.

We're only three games deep and I feel like it's even more complicated that the Resident Evil series -- that's a presumptuous statement considering I don't really know what the fuck is going on in either series. Nevertheless... the story is confusing. All that's really needed to be known is that there are these alien-zombie monsters call necromorphs, and you need to kill them before they kill you. 

Other items that I think are worth praising are the graphics and the music score. I suppose people wouldn't expect anything less from a Triple-A title that has the budget to exploit the Xbox360's graphics and hire the London Symphony Philharmonic to help bring this blockbuster gaming experience to life. 

Dead Space 3. A fun game that I would happily return to every few years or so when it rears its ugly head, but if its sequels popped up more frequently it could easily wear out its welcome.  

Family Guy: Season 13

Every now and again, I realize I'm just watching way too much television. It's become a full-blown hobby in recent years and with so much out there (and most of it widely available for streaming) it's almost easier to keep adding shows to my watchlist than it is to remove them.

Family Guy is a show I removed from my rotation a long, long time ago. You could argue I'm just watching it on a one-to-two-year delay, and that's true. But there's still a distinction in my mind, as I'm never quite actively keeping up with Family Guy.

This is sort of a paradox. I've dropped plenty of shows from my watchlist before, and in a few cases I've even binged my way back to being caught up. But for the most part, once I'm done, I'm done - like most other people. But Family Guy somehow compels me to keep trucking through its history, no matter how dismissive I am of the idea of watching it live. It's almost as if the act of setting a DVR series recording for Family Guy is a badge of honor the show doesn't deserve. Because, hey, this show sucks. It really does. I'm not sure if it was ever any good, or if I just thought it was when I was half my present age (yowza, this has been on for a while). Did the show get worse? Did the rest of TV get better? I don't know, and really, I don't care. I'm not trying to figure out the trajectory of this show's quality. Not today, at least. I just want to pop in and say, hey, yeah, another season of Family Guy down, and why the hell am I still doing this?

Trev's Movie Dump: June - July 2016

Oh, yeah... I was writing a post and forgot about it. What else is new? 

Green Room

Anton Yelchin, you will be missed. 

This was a fucking great -- yet brilliantly simple -- movie about a punk band that plays a shitty show at a neo-nazi rally (not by choice; more because they need money to get home), and there they accidentally witness these skinheads murder someone. Of course, after something like that, you know shit's about to go down. However, this film keeps to story mostly contained. For nearly the whole movie the band is at a standoff will the neo-nazis as they remain trapped in their green room holding a nazi hostage as they attempt to negotiate their escape. 

While Yelchin (the band leader and the main protagonist of the film) gives a fantastic performance, there's definitely some other great talents in this film. We've got Arrested Development's  Alia Shawkat doing a great job as a fellow bandmate, but the scene stealer definitely goes to the leader of this nazi party... Patrick Stewart. 

This film originally caught my eye when it circled through Sundance. Now that I've seen it, it certainly deserves the praise it's received from critics. Check it out if you have the chance. 

Star Trek Beyond

Anton Yelchin... My heart weeps again for you. 

Here's you run-of-the-mill Hollywood blockbuster. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Not that this film will go down in the history books as an amazing piece of cinematic art, but it was fun. Kirk and the gang get marooned on an uncharted planet with an unknown evil and have to team up to fight the enemy and save themselves. 

It's important to note that Simon Pegg scribed this Star Trek story. And I think he did a fine job. It reminds me a bit of Star Trek: First Contact where the gang finds themselves out of their elements and without their ship having to improvise with what's around them to save the day. 

Oh, and if you were ever wondering why the first trailer was cut to the Beastie Boys' Sabatogue, well there's a good reason for that. It might be in the movie. And there might be a callout to it where someone remarks, "Ugh, are they playing classical music?"

Yup, that joke made it in. 

Finding Dory

Pixar has done it again. Did we need another Finding Nemo movie? No. Am I gad we got one? Absolutely.

I had a lot of fun with this film. While I'm kind of lost on where it stands against it's predecessor -- perhaps I need to watch Finding Nemo again, it's been a while -- it definitely has the power to stand on its own two legs. 

Watching the film, I did keep getting visions of Modern Family for some reason. Then I realized that the two major additions to the cast are Ed O'Neill and Ty Burrell. But the cast holds the film together for another chapter in this adorably cooky, undersea world.

Question: Does this hold up to Disney's other major animated summer film, Zootopia? I'm gonna have to give it to Zootopia on this one. While Finding Dory is certainly worth everyone's time, Zootopia is a beast (pun intended) that's hard to dethrone. 

Ghostbusters (2016)

Speaking about movies we didn't need...

Ugh... I so wanted to love this movie. Instead, I only kind of liked it. No, this wasn't a bomb on any level. I didn't walk away from despising it like some other films this summer (*cough* Batman v Superman *cough*), but I did envision a few things they could have done better. 

Now I have no criticism on the cast. They're all great and have excellent chemistry together (something I would demand a Ghostbusters movie to have -- plus who knew Chris Hemsworth was so funny?). But the big thing that stands out to me was that Sony (in true Sony form) chose to reboot the franchise and not make this a sequel already building off what's been laid down. In the process of rebooting, they ended up with a story about some disgruntled dude who's figured out how to unleash angry ghosts onto the world in a world where no one really believes in ghost except for our heroes. Most times the film felt trite and seemed to rely heavily on a bunch of flashy CGI ghost in the third act fight sequence to really sell the film. (I do have to admit, Kate McKinnon's part in the final battle is pretty great. Just wish there was more to praise in the final act than just that.)

In short, the film is more of an example of "style over substance." However, I think there was a story here that was ripe for picking and somehow got overlooked. Here's my take...

The world has reverted back into a mindset where no one believes in ghosts. In fact the Ghostbuster as a whole met a very unhappy ending after the second film. A new mayor stepped into power in the 90's and discredited all the work the Ghostbusters had done convincing the general population that they were a big hoax. Nearly thirty years have passed and no one has heard from them since.

We open on the long lost daughter to Venkman (played by Wiig). She's worked her whole life to distance herself from her father's "work" and establish herself as a bonafide particle physicist. Despite trying to distance herself from her father's past, there are those out there who still "believe" that ghosts are real. Meet Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon -- bonafide ghost hunters/ghost bloggers who's obsessions have led them to track down Wiig and interview her about her father. Unfortunately, timing couldn't be worse as Wiig is set to start her next big move in her career that will once and for all distance herself from her father... joining forces with an illustrious Columbia school particle physicists (have this be a stern, no nonsense man... think Idris Elba) as they explore the potential in harnessing the power of dark energy.

McCarthy and McKinnon are escorted off the college building before the school's pivotal dark energy experiment can begin -- but the two manage to sneak off into the college's library recognizing it's importance to the Ghostbuster's previous line of work (where they made their first ghost sighting in the 80's). 

Wiig watches as Elba commences the dark energy experiment. Almost instantly everything goes wrong and a giant particle explosion sends a wave of ghostly blue electricity throughout the building, expanding through the campus, eventually the blast radius sweeps across the whole city. 

Wiig regains consciousness to see Elba severely injured as campus security and faculty jump in to rush him to the hospital. 

Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of the library, McCarthy and McKinnon geek out on being someplace relevant to their heroes, the Ghostbusters. Right then, the blue particle wave sweeps through the library startling the two girls. Suddenly, McKinnon's paranormal activity equipment begins to beeping uncontrollably. Next thing you know, McCarthy and McKinnon turn around standing face-to-face with a paranormal figure -- a ghost! Before they can make a move, the ghost lets out a scream and chases them out of the basement.

McCarthy and McKinnon reconvene on the campus quad (both terrified and overjoyed at what they just saw). From the distance they see Wiig escorting an unconscious Elba as he's loaded into an ambulance. They rush to Wiig exuberantly trying to explain what they just saw, but what with the recent disaster and all, she has no time for their shenanigans and accompanies Elba off in the ambulance. McCarthy and McKinnon try to follow but the EMT (Leslie Jones) stops them cold before driving off to the hospital.

At the hospital, Jones wheels Elba into a patient room for his injuries. Wiig stands beside her mentor's side as McCarthy and McKinnon (who've followed the ambulance) burst into the hospital making a ruckus, still overly excited about their ghost sighting. Wiig finally becomes fed up with the two of them and gets into a loud verbal confrontation once and for all telling them there's no such thing as ghosts. Just as Jones tries to break things up and regain order in the hospital room, the power cuts. McKinnon's paranormal equipment starts ringing again.  

Everyone shuts up as McKinnon and McCarthy change attention and quickly look to follow the source of the paranormal readout. Wiig and Jones both follow after hearing that McKinnon's detector is slightly nuclear-powered and they're waving it around a crowded hospital.

McKinnon leads everyone down into the morgue. It's silent and eerie. Jones catches up to them insistent that they all leave the hospital immediately just when ghost-like body crawls out of one of the freezers where the cadavers are kept -- it looks to be some sort of mad-doctor looking ghoul. Dumbfounded, no one knows how to react. Snapping back to, McKinnon and McCarthy pull out of their duffle bag and reveal a working prototype of the original Proton-Pack. They charge up and let loose on the ghost managing to protect themselves while scaring the ghost off from the premises. 

Now that Wiig has finally seen the ghosts, she agrees to hear the others out. Hypothesizing that maybe the dark energy experiment could have caused a rift to allow this phenomenon to occur, McCarthy and McKinnon coerce Wiig into leading them to her father's shop (the old Ghostbuster HQ) in hopes of finding some answers. Without a car to drive them, Jones offers up her ambulance to escort them. 

Just as they all leave the hospital, Elba comes to. A doctor leans in to check on him. Holds up his fingers trying to get a response. Nothing. Then asks him, "Sir, do you remember who you are?" Elba slowly and softly speaks, "I am the one who serves Gozer. I am Zuul." 

Suddenly Elba grabs the doctor by the throat and whips him across the room. Several other staff and security members join in to restrain Elba, but to no help. After the room is clear, Elba walks out into the street causing the street lights he passes to pop and explode. His eyes focus on the power lines. Something intrigues him about the electricity and he marches on following its source. 

Meanwhile, Jones' ambulance pulls up to the iconic fire station that is Ghostubuster's HQ. The team steps inside to see the place in relative shambles. In the back we hear commotion to reveal Stantz and Winston running around tinkering with their own science experiments. (Clearly they've recognized the particle wave that's washed over the city and are trying to make sense of it.) They quickly brush off their visitors saying they don't do interviews nor do they track down ghosts anymore. Wiig identifies herself as Venkman's daughter and Stantz's eyes grow bright as he makes the connection and greets them warmly. McKinnon and McCarthy freak out like they're meeting the Beetles, followed by an energetic conversation as they share with Stantz and Winston their own ghost-busting equipment. 

As everyone mingles with one another, the front door opens and in steps Venkman absently going about his business before he looks up to see Wiig -- this is the first time he and his daughter have made eye contact for the in years. An awkward lull takes over the room before Jones' radio breaks the silence. They get word of Elba's attack.

The team decides they need to go track Elba down to see if he's alright and what's going on. The girls look for support from the old men, but they refuse to help. It's just not what they do anymore. 

This leads into the second act, where the bulk of it follows the girls they track down Elba's wave of destruction (coincidentally has them visiting every major power source in the city) as they try and figure out what the hell is going on since the dark energy explosion. And encountering the occasional ghost here and there along the way. 

Finally the team discovers that Elba is somehow absorbing the city's power for his own nefarious needs -- which they don't know yet what that is. The only things that does register a concern is that the next major power source is located at Ghostbuster's HQ. It's the giant storage container imprisoning all the ghosts they captured over the years. 

Note: I know the container was shutdown by the EPA in Ghostbusters (1984) releasing all the ghosts inside, but in this world they had a few years back on the job (up through Ghostbusters II) to recapture everything before they quit for good. 

Cut to the Venkman, Stantz, and Winston hanging back at HQ studying all the ghost-sightings popping up all over the city, when Elba comes-a-knocking. Immediately Elba recognizes this is not like the rest of the power sources. He senses the spirits within the area. Spirits thriving off the storage container's power field. 

Elba storms in to get what he wants. To the best of their abilities, the Ghostbusters try to fend him off -- even suiting up their old equipment in the process. They put up a good fight, but Elba manages to overcome them. 

Elba makes his way to the container, ready to unleash the power just when the girls all arrive. They scream at Elba to stop, McKinnon even using one of her own gizmos to push him back. Elba stumbles away from the machine angrier than ever. He opens a loose electrical conduit, grabbing the live wires, and sends a surge of electrical energy straight at the girls. At the last second, Venkman leaps in front of the blast taking the brunt of the hit in his gut. 

The girls are saved, but Venkman's body lays on the floor... motionless. 

With everyone defeated, Elba marches up to the ghost container and shuts it off, unleashing all the spirits contained within. He laughs and mutters, "the great Gozer may finally return," before strutting out the front door. 

In the wake of Elba's disaster, Jones immediately runs over to Venkman checking on his vitals. He's slipping, and slipping fast. They need to get him to a hospital. 

Before they run Venkman to the ambulance, Stantz explains how disastrous it will be for the city if they Elba call up Gozer. They mention how they've met with the likes of Gozer before and it could mean the end of NYC if they don't stop it. They give the girls the rundown that Elba is likely headed to the top of a building downtown (the epicenter for paranormal activity in the first movie) to summon the demi-god. 

The girls agree to stop Gozer if Stantz and Winston take Venkman to the hospital. In the process, Jones hands the ambulance over to Winston... and Winston hands the keys to the Echo-One to Jones. Allowed access to all of the Ghostbusters' equipment, the girls finally suit up in the jumpsuits, each now dawning their own Proton-Pack. 

Wiig shares a moment with her father (finally they're starting to bond) as he's loaded into the ambulance before both parties depart headed in separate directions. 

The new Ghostbusters drive through the city as the recently freed ghosts run rampant tearing NY apart. The girls make their way to the building that stands at the nexus to all the activity and prepare to ascend to the roof. (Slight nod to the first film that the elevators are out and the girls have to take the stairs -- McCarthy bitching the whole way up.)

They finally arrive on the roof to see Elba opening a portal (similar to what was triggered during the first dark energy experiment --  only much, much bigger). The girls try and stop Elba, but they're too late. The portal successfully opens, zapping Elba in the process. (This action frees Elba from Zuul's possession.) Then out from the portal, Gozer steps forth. 

Cut back to the hospital as Winston and Stantz come careening in with Venkman, bleeding half to death. Despite the hospital being nuts with injured people, they get the attention of an doctor and Venkman gets pulled into the OR. Just as the doctor begins to start surgery on Venkman, the mad-scientist looking ghost from the first act appears and starts tearing up room. 

Stantz and Winston look to one another on how they're suppose to stop this guy -- then they catch a glimpse at a radiation symbol for the x-ray room. 

Back at the skyscraper roof. The Ghostbusters square off with Gozer as the demi-god poses the same question to them as it did with the previous Ghostbusters: "Chose the weapon of your destruction." The girls all look at one another. Give a smile and without even responding, they let loose on Gozer. 

Proton beams fly everywhere and they zap Gozer all across the roof. They keep the battle up with no sign of winning -- Gozer is too fast. Then Wiig spots Elba waking up, free of possession. He remarks that he can close the portal if he tinkers with one of their Proton-Packs -- changing it into a make-shift dark energy bomb. Elba tells Wiig that they'll need to detonate it from within the portal with Gozer inside.

At the hospital, the devious looking ghost hovers over Venkman (who doesn't look to good despite still cracking wise at the apparition). Suddenly, Stantz appears with a crash cart converted to send out (very inaccurate) streams of electricity. It doesn't stop the ghoul, but it certainly pisses him off. The ghoul takes off chasing after Stantz. Running down the hall, Stantz leads the goul into an x-ray room where Winston is waiting. As soon as Stantz in clear, Winston lets loose the radiation trapping the ghost and destroying it. 

Stantz and Winston rush back to the ER to see the doctors back at work on Venkman. They look to the heart monitor, it's flat. They're too late. Venkman has died. 

On the rooftop, the girls seem to be losing their fight with Gozer. Finally McKinnon has had enough. From her duffle bag she pulls out one of her personal contraptions -- a Proton-Cannon. She sets it up and launches a shot at Gozer. Dead hit. It sends Gozer flying back into the portal. 

With no time to spare, Wiig (tied off with a rope around her waist) jumps into the portal with the dark energy bomb. The girls hold onto her as she travels into the void. 

In the void, Wiig sees a massive, never-ending sea of the paranormal all swarming around her. She forces herself to focused on the mission and activates the dark energy bomb. She releases the weapon into the darkness of the void and yanks on the rope to be pulled back. The girls start pulling her. Wiig ascend up to the portal out of the void until Gozer reaches out from the dark and latches onto her foot. Gozer begins to pull Wiig down. There's no escape. 

Suddenly, the ghost of Peter Venkman appears holding his hand out for Wiig. Wiig can't believe it. She's seeing the ghost of her father. Venkman kisses her forehead goodbye before leaping down on Gozer and breaking the demi-god's grip on Wiig. 

Wiig is finally pulled free just as the dark energy bomb detonates shutting the portal behind her -- the consequence also stops the paranormal power running throughout the city. Everyone on the rooftop revels in their victory before Wiig gets up and rushes off to the hospital. 

Wiig gets to the hospital and is directed to her father's room. She enters the room to see it's empty. Looks like he's passed away. Suddenly we hear a toilet flush and Venkman saunters out of the bathroom -- a nearby nurse curses Venkman for walking about after recently recovering from his near death experience -- was dead on the OR table for a two minutes. Tears well up in Wiig's eyes as she goes to hug her father who doesn't seem to have any memory his spirit having helped save his daughter.

A few weeks after the dark energy incident, the girls gather back at Ghostbusters HQ -- having to fight through a swarm of media hovering outside. Inside, Stantz explains that their phones have been ringing off the hook since the incident. Ghosts are still out there, and the city is going to need help. 

Suddenly the phone rings. Venkman eyes the girls, "Go ahead. Answer the call."

The final shot is of the girls riding out of HQ in the Ecto-One, siren blaring, zooming pass the media as they barrel down the city street to respond to the call. 

So, yeah... Borrowing from what worked in other films (and what worked in this film), this is something more like what I would have wanted to see. I think I'm just really into the idea of seeing the torch being handed down from one generation to the next. And what's even more infuriating is that all of the original actors make cameos in this film -- Bill Murray actually has a bit of a legitimate role -- but they're all playing other characters. I just... I don't agree with what they did at all. And the box office numbers tell me most other people likely have similar feelings. (For Christ's sake, they lost opening weekend in the box office to a CGI film of talking pets.) 

That aside, it's doubtful we'll see another sequel with this new cast and it's a shame. There was a lot of great talent on that screen. Just some shitty execution. 

Never Alone

I bought this at a steep discount right after I got my PS4. Gotta build up that library, right?

It wasn't great. Never Alone is a "puzzle-platformer" without any real puzzles and where the platforming elements were a bit slow and frustrating. You play as an Iñupiaq girl who gets lost in a blizzard and has to traverse some amount of Northern Alaska in order to stop the snow and save the village. Her companion is a little white fox. The game takes maybe three or four hours, is never challenging (just annoying), and is a real quick way to snag some trophies and achievements if you're into that sort of thing.

I will say, it looked beautiful. And sounded beautiful, and felt authentic to the Iñupiaq people, several of whom were the ones who created the game in the first place. Never Alone also had an interesting "hidden collectible" system in that you could find several owls in each level that gave you a two or three minute peek at different aspects of Iñupiaq culture. That's right, this was an educational game! I approve.

This one's entirely skippable - there are just too many great games out there to seek out this one in particular - but if you ever have that itch, hey, there are worse ways to kill a few hours.

How Not to Be Wrong

Please pardon the obnoxious title! If it matters, the author himself makes fun of it in the book's first chapter.

This one's a pop science book that tries to do for mathematical reasoning what Freakonomics did for economical reasoning. I think Ellenberg somewhat succeeds. The book doesn't feel particularly approachable by the kind of people who don't already understand some basic fundamentals of math, but then Ellenberg spends a lot of time going over some of those basic fundamentals while zipping through a few more advanced things that could use longer explanations. Here are some of my biggest takeaways, in bullet form. I'm not sure if these were necessarily meant to be the biggest takeaways, but that's the thing about pop science books - everyone can get something different out of them!

• There's a difference between being good at calculation and being good at math. Being able to divide two numbers in your head or on paper is a skill, but it's just a calculation; anyone with access to a computer can get a precise answer in no time. On the other hand, understanding when to use different mathematical operations and inferences and models to understand the real world is a different skill altogether.
• Don't use proportions or percentages when the answers might be negative. Say you're running a shop that sells coffee and pastries and sandwiches. You're making money on the coffee and the pastries but losing money on the sandwiches. If those figures sum, respectively, to +$100, +$100, and -$50 a week then you've made $150. And it might be tempting to say that the coffee, which netted you +$100 of that +$150, is responsible for 67% of your profit. Ditto the pastries. But how can the coffee and the pastries both be responsible for the majority of your profit? It's a technically accurate statement, but a misleading and useless one. You could also say that the coffee did twice as well as the sandwiches and pastries combined. Ellenberg warns us to be careful of political ads that say, for instance, "The Governor of Wisconsin was responsible for half of the jobs created in the country last year." This might be technically true, but ten or twenty other states might be able to make the same claim. Some may even be able to say they are responsible for more than 100% of the jobs created in a given timeframe, which would at least sound fishier and less intuitive. Be careful out there with negative percentages!
• Do not confuse high probability for certainty. There's an xkcd comic Ellenberg even includes in his book to illustrate this point. Say you're 95% confident that a study has shown a correlation between two things. To a layman, this sounds like a certainty. But improbable things happen all the time! This means that if there are a hundred studies conducted, each with a 95% confidence, then we'd expect five of them to be, you know, wrong. Ellenberg includes an interesting analysis of Nate Silver's famous correct prediction of all 50 states in the 2012 Presidential Election. He says that while Silver correctly predicted the outcome in every state, Silver's own uncertainties his predictions (like "Florida: 67% Obama, 33% Romney") meant Silver should have expected to get close to three states wrong. In a way, the fact that Silver nailed all fifty states suggests that his models were off; if his probabilities had been accurate, he (probably) shouldn't have had a perfect showing. It's counterintuitive but true!
• Don't confuse correlation for causation. This one's a pretty old maxim and it's easy to understand when you notice correlations between things like hand size and foot size. People with bigger hands tend to have bigger feet, but do big feet cause big hands, or do big hands cause big feet? Neither, of course; both are caused by other factors - mostly genetics. Chinese foot-binding didn't cause women to have tiny hands, after all. But it's easy to start mistaking correlation for causation when it comes to things like, say, HDL and heart disease. Years of data have shown that people with higher HDL (good cholesterol) are less likely to suffer from heart disease, and it's natural to assume that boosting your HDL will in turn boost your immunity to heart disease. Except, that's not the case. When people are given drugs or other treatments to boost their HDL levels, they don't end up any less likely to suffer from heart disease. The implication is that there's an unseen variable at play here that tends to cause both low HDL levels and a higher risk of heart disease in some people, and higher HDL and lower risk in others. But that doesn't mean boosting your HDL by artificial means will prevent heart disease anymore than it means losing your feet would stunt the growth of your hands.

There was plenty else, but like I said, these were my main takeaways. If I suddenly remember any others in the coming days and feel compelled to write about them, hey, there's always the comment section.

Seven Years of Prosperity

Damn y'all, it's our seventh anniversary! Holy smokes. Here's my own update:

Another year, another middling result. Netting thirteen loggings is a great step forward, but that weird 2013-2014 fuck-up is still a dark mark on my progress. If every year were like this last year, I'd be done in... [math]... eight and a half years! Of course, not every year will be like this year, since this year I spent eight months as a full time student and since sooner or later I'll probably be a dad gum father or something. I started this blog when I was 21. Will it end up being a testament to how I spent my twenties? Hey, time will tell.

Good night and God bless!