Posts tagged as reviews
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- Thursday, June 13, 2013:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Shadows by Lenka: Lenka's third album is billed as "lullabies for adults", which is exactly what was delivered. The music has lost much of the playful quality that I enjoyed in previous albums, and replaced it with a hazy, washed out sound that's mellow and comfortable, but not always interesting. The advertising blurb states that this album was inspired by Lenka's marriage and pregnancy, and it's true that it's the musical equivalent of a contented mom. Final Grade : C+ Regular Expressions Cookbook by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan: Regular expressions are in one of those knowl... - Thursday, May 30, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Magic Hour by the Scissor Sisters: This is a pleasant, 70s-and-80s-tinged album of light pop with a good mix of dance-y, beat-y, and mellow(-y) songs. The album as a whole isn't particularly cohesive, but there's a strong ratio of catchy to forgettable songs. Final Grade : B+ Marie Callendar's Chicken Pot Pie : After a childhood full of Banquet Chicken Pot Pies for dinner (2 cooked at 325 for 42 minutes), I had abandoned hope of ever finding a pot pie that tastes good out of the microwave. However, Marie Callendar must have used all of our flying car R&D money to investigate t... - Thursday, May 23, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Django Unchained (R): This movie was okay . If you're a diehard Tarantino fan, you'll find plenty to like here, but to me it felt like a weaker remake of Inglorious Basterds , made only for the sake of giving Samuel L. Jackson screen time to ham it up, and to give a bunch of white actors the juvenile excuse to be able to scream the n-word a lot. Still better than Kill Bill . Final Grade : C+ The Last Days of Leviathan by Dirt Poor Robins: This album isn't quite as poppy as The Cage , but is also less-distractingly Evanescence-inspir... - Thursday, May 16, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Justified, Season Three (free on Amazon Prime): The third season of Justified remains pretty strong, although the continued influx of LOST refugees in bit parts is a little distracting. I also didn't appreciate the character of Limehouse as much, since I kept getting distracted by his former roles as Bubba Gump and the annoying guy from 24 . However, the characterizations across the board continue to be strong, and it remains a tight ensemble show. Towards the end, the plot got a little too complex for complexity's sake (almost like a heist movie), but the season as a whole had a satisfying arc tying everything toge... - Thursday, May 09, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Silver Linings Playbook (R): I felt like this movie was oddly paced, which leaves me torn on how to rate it. The first half did a very good job building up the characters in a fairly realistic way and getting me invested. However, when Jennifer Lawrence's character lays out her price for helping to deliver a letter, it seems incredibly contrived and breaks the spell. Had the movie started closer to this point in the plot, it would have been any cheesy 80s movie, complete with montages. It's still worth a watch though, and hopefully we can see some more DeNiro/Cooper pairings in the future. Final Grade : B- ... - Thursday, May 02, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Staples Hyken Technical Mesh Task Chair : This was the chair I selected to replace the Costco bargain bin chair I'd had for ten years. The hardest part of adapting was to eliminate old sitting habits and force myself to sit upright for the first few days. The mesh is quite comfortable, and the construction of the chair is sturdy enough. After a month of sitting, I've found that my acute back pain, generally focused around specific vertebrae, has now distributed itself evenly across my whole back. Following a long sitting session for my Olympic sitting training, I'm most likely to have normal shoulder stiffness, which can be easily resolv... - Thursday, April 25, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Zero Dark Thirty (R): I don't really understand why this obligatory Bin Laden movie received so much hype. It was, by far, more boring than any given episode of Homeland but thankfully less boring than Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy . The movie felt like a paint-by-numbers book with only binary digits: it set out to tell the story of catching Bin Laden, and then proceeded to do exactly that for 2.5 hours, no more and no less. Characters had no motivation outside of pushing the plot forward, and the lack of subplots or fleshed out characters just highlighted how boring the main plot actually was. Final ... - Thursday, April 11, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Wreck-It Ralph (PG): This animated movie from Disney is kind of like Toy Story for the video game audience. After hours, video game characters can travel down the power cords to mingle with others, and hilarity ensues when a video game bad guy abandons his own game to become a good guy in another. It might be a little too niche to find mass appeal, but it's well done with very fitting voice actors. You'll find it most charming if you grew up on video games. Final Grade : B Parks and Recreation, Season Three : This is an abbreviated season (but still free on Amazon Pr... - Thursday, April 04, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Parks and Recreation, Season 2 : Parks and Rec improves drastically over its abbreviated first season, no longer feeling like a poor man's Office . Characters are fleshed out to be more than caricatures, and Amy Poehler is rewritten to be more naively optimistic than stupid. Rebecca has found a new favourite funny TV character in Ron Swanson. Final Grade : B Backatown by Trombone Shorty: This album is a collection of brassy funk infused with hip-hop and soul characteristics. The benefit of funk is an unmatched groove, and the downside of funk is that a few songs are a... - Thursday, March 28, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. This is 40 (R): This Judd Apatow movie is a quasi-sequel, in that it takes some side characters from the movie, Knocked Up and continues their story, but none of the other characters from the original movie make an appearance. There are a few humorous scenes and some well-deserved trash-talking about LOST , but the 2 1/4 hour running time feels more like 3 hours. It kind of feels like they left all of the deleted scenes in from the get-go. Final Grade : C- Jeff who lives at home (R): This indie film starring Jason Segal and Ed Helms as two dysfunction... - Thursday, March 21, 2013:
Review Day: Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm Starcraft II has become the Hobbit of video gaming, strung out into an unnecessary trilogy to net a few extra bucks for Activision Blizzard. I reviewed the first part two years ago and still agree with my review: a fun single-player campaign with an awful multiplayer interface and forgettable storyline. Starcraft II Part 2: The Serpent Isle Heart of the Swarm was released last Tuesday, surrounded by buzz equating it to Empire Strikes Back . This tells me nothing since I found the entire Star Wars trilogy to be rather dull, but apparently the comparison means that it's a little darker in tone than the first game (and will be followed by some d... - Thursday, March 14, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Playing at the World by Jon Peterson: When the subtitle of a book is "A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventure From Chess to Role Playing Games", you should probably know what you're getting into. I asked for this book for Christmas, because I still have never played a game of Dungeons and Dragons, and thought it would be an interesting historical survey. Unfortunately, this history of simulating is not a history of stimulating. It's not so much a survey as it is an exhaustive detailed record of every single thing that has ever happened. It's taken me three months to get through the first two hundred pages and I th... - Thursday, March 07, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Skyfall : Obviously I'm not the target market for James Bond movies, because the only other one I've seen in its entirety was Goldeneye . If you're invested in the Bond mythology, there's a lot to like here. If not, you've got two hours and twenty-two minutes of meandering plot stitching together a few great action sequences and explosions. Final Grade : C Justified, Season Two : The second season of this Kentucky hillbilly show improves upon the first. It replaces some of its quaint charm with more gritty action, but still keeps a fine balance of humor and drama. A ... - Monday, February 25, 2013:
Weekend Wrap-up: Luma Theater of Light In lieu of the usual holiday party at a local hotel bar, my company did something a little different on Saturday night, apparently stressed out that they would have to top the awesome Air and Space Museum gala they held last summer. The evening's entertainment was "Luma Theater" at the Strathmore in Bethesda, with our free tickets normally running over $30. The show was disappointing, starting from the forty minutes we sat on the road outside the venue while Obama's motorcade departed from the previous event, denying us the mingling and libation time that would have greatly improved the Luma portion of the evening. After arriving in our free seats at the back of the theater, we became inured to a two hour show inv... - Thursday, February 21, 2013:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Think Python by Allen B. Downey: This is the book I'm using to learn Python. It's written for a beginning CS major and is well below my level, but is pretty good pedagogically and does as much (if not more) to teach CS fundamentals as it does Python. The part I like, and the reason I picked it, is the inclusion of exercises to try at home. More programming books should include these. Final Grade : B+ Grow Up and Blow Away by Metric: This album walks the fine line between weird and catchy, and often pops up on my "Bird and the Bee" Pandora station. I enjoyed about half of the song... - Thursday, February 14, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Alice in Wonderland (PG): Rebecca actually liked this movie more than I did, and the whole time I was watching it, the only word that came to mind was "obligatory". I guess when you have Tim Burton try to apply his weirdness to a franchise that's already inherently weird, the weirdness cancels out. The graphics and style are vivid and well-done, of course, but they never exceed expectations. I did enjoy the animation of the Cheshire Cat, but it was annoying to turn up the volume every time Johnny Depp mumbled through his lines while being EXCITINGLY FRESH AND ZANY. A couple related dance sequences near the end also broke the fourth wall d... - Thursday, January 31, 2013:
Review Day: Dishonored There are no major spoilers in this review. The fact that Dishonored tops so many 2012 Game of the Year lists leaves me mildly incredulous, not unlike the year that Lost in Translation was up for Best Picture. The game is not bad by any stretch of the definition: I appreciate that it's not an assembly line sequel, and that it squeezes five pounds of potential into a three pound bag. Ultimately though, it's just kind of boring. Dishonored is a revival of the first-person stealth genre, in which you spend 10 minutes hiding behind a crate waiting for a guard to change positions, only to reload your last save game when another guard somehow man... - Thursday, January 24, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Rango (PG): This is a non-Pixar animated movie about a lizard in the desert. It's a bleeding heart homage to Westerns, but isn't quite as good when evaluated as its own movie. The animation is top-notch, but unfortunately that is a given for any good animated movie these days. If I were a younger kid, I'd be bored almost immediately. As a kid in a man's body, I was nearly bored on a few occasions. Final Grade : C Limitless (PG-13): Limitless is a quick thriller about a man who discovers a drug that maximizes the potential of his brain. It holds together nicely a... - Thursday, January 17, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Anthology by Return to Forever: This is a "best of" 2-CD set featuring hits from Chick Corea's jazz fusion group in the late 70s. I enjoy a lot of Corea's earlier work, and this is a fun, slightly cerebral, set of fusion tunes for the car. None of them are weird enough to dislike, but none of them are funky enough for mainstream enjoyment. Worth it for jazz history's sake only. Final Grade : B- Liberal Arts (PG-13): This is an indie film from the HIMYM actor who plays Ted Mosby, about a 35-year-old who returns to his college campus. The main character is essentially Ted M... - Thursday, January 10, 2013:
Review Day: Borderlands 2 There are no major spoilers in this review. Borderlands 2 is a hybrid game which manages to successfully inject action RPG elements and loot-whoring into a first-person shooter playstyle. I picked up the PC version in a half-price sale over Thanksgiving without any previous knowledge of its prequel or what it was about. As of last night, I had devoted about 90 hours to this game (which is more than Terraria but less than Skyrim) and have not lost interest. There are four classes to start with, each with three possible skill trees (similar to WoW), and points are assigned in the "skill shelf" way of Torchlight 2 (where you need 5 points to pick a skill on the next level, but t... - Thursday, January 03, 2013:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel : This movie about seven elderly Brits choosing to spend their retirement in India was better than expected, but it also might be because my expectations for any movie set in India are so negatively low after The Darjeeling Limited . Great performances from well-known actors, a predictable plot, and a light-hearted feeling make this a movie I enjoyed watching, but will probably have no recollection of in two years time. Final Grade : B- Chuck, Season Five : The final season of Chuck is only 13 episodes long, and (with noth... - Thursday, December 20, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Safety Not Guaranteed (R): This is a light, understated comedy starring the actress from Parks and Recreation , Audrey Plaza. It tells the tale of local reporters investigating a man who thinks he can time travel, and is an indie film (in the sense that it cuts in as many random shots of the landscape as it does the protagonists). Its parts are better than its whole, but I got a few chuckles out of it. Final Grade : B- Culture Vultures by Orson: I enjoyed Orson's CD, Bright Idea , a surprising amount for a British band performing American rock. This one ... - Thursday, November 29, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Hot Cakes by The Darkness: I was always disappointed by the fact that The Darkness imploded into cocaine after only two albums, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that they'd recently gotten back together and released a third. This album is better than the first and almost as good as the second (One Way Ticket To Hell And Back), although there aren't any obvious hits in the mix. It's more of the same, which is great when that's exactly what you like. Final Grade : B Argo : Ben Affleck is definitely better behind the camera than in front of it, and this movie set during the... - Thursday, November 08, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Parks and Recreation, Season One : The first season of this show is only about six episodes long, and comes off as a poor man's money-grab for The Office popularity. Luckily, like The Office , it improves dramatically in the second season. This season is not worth watching unless you must watch every show for completionist's sake, or you're bored and looking at the free shows available on Amazon Prime. I fell into the latter category, and after watching it, I still can't tolerate Amy Poehler for more than a few minutes at a time. Final Grade : D I Suck At Girls ... - Thursday, November 01, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Pines by A Fine Frenzy: A Fine Frenzy's third album is an "imaginative fable about a pining tree who is given the unheard-of chance (for a conifer) to make a life of her own choosing" , and the amount that that line intrigues you is probably directly proportional to the enjoyment you'll get out of it. Since she wrote one of my all-time favourite songs , I'm willing to cut her some slack, but I just can't get into this album at all -- I appreciate it without enjoying it. The music is mostly meterless, and sometimes almost ambient, and does kind of sound like tree music. However, there are no hooks or beautiful melodie... - Thursday, October 25, 2012:
Review Day: Torchlight 2 There are no spoilers in this review. I can't argue against the fact that I enjoyed the first 100 hours or so of Diablo 3 , but ultimately, even rose-colored glasses of nostalgia couldn't conceal the lack of longevity in the game's design. The series went from "fast-paced clickfest to get better loot" in D2 to "increasingly difficult arcade game where you amass gold to buy the best loot at the Auction House" in D3. When loot itself is not the point, but only a means to get farther along in a nonsensical storyline, it's just not worth the grind. And, killing monsters to earn gold to trade for a weapon will never be as rewarding as finding that weapon in the course of the game -- if I wanted t... - Thursday, October 18, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Seven Languages in Seven Weeks by Bruce Tate: I picked up this programming language survey book in an attempt to work some software engineering back into my daily routine. It's a decent mix of code samples, directed explorations, and exercises for Ruby, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell. There's not enough material to become fluent in any particular language, but that's not the point of a survey text. The most useful sections summarize the strengths and weaknesses of each language in the context of the other languages, and the least useful sections anthopomorphizes each language as a character from a famous movie, in a h... - Thursday, October 11, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. My Name Is Earl, Season 1 : This is an older sitcom about a petty criminal who decides to make up for all of the bad things he's done in his life. The "checking things off the list" approach lends itself well to individual episodes and the show sometimes has a surprising amount of feel-good in it for what's essentially a trailer-trash comedy. Free on Amazon Prime, and worth every penny. Final Grade : B+ Kick-Ass (R): This is a fun, different take on super-hero movies, featuring a normal guy that isn't very good at being a super-hero. It's unabashedly violent, and is notable ... - Thursday, September 27, 2012:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Mr. Universe, Jim Gaffigan : This is the newest stand-up routine from Jim Gaffigan. I enjoyed it and laughed throughout, but didn't enjoy it as much as the original "Beyond the Pale" routine featuring hot pockets. I felt like the topics he chose for this one just weren't quite as interesting. Final Grade : B- The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination by Philip H. Melanson, Ph.D: One of my favorite coffee table books is It's a Conspiracy! , which contains Bathroom-Reader-styled summaries of major conspiracy theories in US history. This RFK book was referenced, and I chose to read ... - Thursday, September 20, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Weirdo by Donald Glover: This is an hour-long stand-up routine by the Community star with the fun Twitter handle of "donglover". He has an engaging, storytelling style of humor, and definitely had enough material for the full hour. His act sometimes struck me as a far raunchier version of Bill Cosby, though nowhere near as raunchy as Dave Attell. Final Grade : B Breaking Bad, Season Two : My Season One review of this show can be summarized as "great, intense, and very grim". Season Two is "great, intense, and not quite as grim", but it's still not going to be on ... - Thursday, September 13, 2012:
First Impressions: Guild Wars 2 There are no spoilers in this review. Between 2004 and 2011, I played World of Warcraft off and on for nearly five years. A badge that could be worn with either honor or shame, or an awkward marble cake swirl of both, I probably devoted more time to playing this game than I did to getting through grad school, practicing my trumpet, or wooing potential wives combined. I always had a great time, but eventually reached the point where all of the fun had been squeezed out of it, crushed like grapes at a winery with a costly monthly fee. It's from this perspective that I picked up Guild Wars 2 last week, since every reviewer was messianically proclaiming that it was like WoW, ... - Thursday, September 06, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in this review. Clockers by Richard Price: This urban crime drama was the last of my "throwaway beach" reading materials. It's an easy, engrossing read with vivid descriptions and nicely-crafted dialogue, solid B material. Unfortunately the book is old enough that the Kindle edition seems to be an optical scan of a paperback. As a result, there are numerous typos, strange capitalization, and odd punctuation from where the scanning process couldn't quite interpret the written page -- this is prevalent enough to be distracting from the story. For example, a "clocker" is a street-level drug dealer. Half of the time, you'll correctly read "clocke... - Thursday, August 30, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon: This was the 3rd of 4 books I read on our OBX beach trip. It's much more effective, and tightly edited, than The Corner , although both books do an equally effective job of convincing me not to move into downtown Baltimore. The book jumps around between characters a fair amount, so it takes a little time to get them all straight. Fans of the true crime genre will enjoy it, although the story focuses more on the detectives themselves, rather than the crimes they investigate. Final Grade : A- Dexter, Season... - Thursday, August 23, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Planet Earth : It can't be denied that Planet Earth has some beautiful footage and a top-notch production quality. However, something is missing that makes this DVD set more boring than entertaining (we actually found that the best use of it was to watch an episode just before bedtime so we would fall asleep on the couch to the soothing imagery). It's beautiful on the outside, but lacks any depth, and bounces from biome to biome like a biologist with ADD, passing up many chances to provide any interesting details. We also quickly tired of the reuse of footage of a single polar bear that seemed to appear in all of the episodes, probably... - Thursday, August 16, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Seasons One - Four : My mom has been trying to get me to watch this series for years, so I took in the first four during some treadmilling / photo-albuming multitasking this year. It's cute, with witty dialogue and one-liners, but feels a little too dated for me to get into. Apart from some really good standalone episodes, it's high on teenage angst and starts to feel repetitive by the third season. Ultimately, I looked at the three seasons I had left and the four I had just watched and decided that it wasn't worth continuing when there are better things to watch. Final Grade : C+ ... - Thursday, August 09, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Wanderlust (PG-13): This is a by-the-numbers romantic comedy featuring Paul Rudd being Paul Rudd. It has a few laughs but is mostly forgettable. One of the funnier scenes, showing Paul Rudd talking dirty to a mirror for several minutes seems more like an outtake than part of the narrative. Final Grade : C- lovestrong. by Christina Perri: The "Jar of Hearts" song that plays on every radio station really isn't that good of a song, but somehow manages to get stuck in my head all of the time. There are a couple other good songs on this album, but Christina Perri suffers from a ti... - Thursday, July 26, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Official Book of Ultima by Shay Addams: This book documents the history and motivations behind the creator of the Ultima computer game series, Richard Garriott and Origin Systems, and was released in the early 90s before video game history was even a thing. I remember reading this book cover to cover, sometimes rereading continuously, in my youth, but it managed to find its way into a library donation box around the time I went to college. I picked it up again for nostalgia's sake after reading The Fat Man's book . It has aged surprisingly well, although your enjoyment of the material is directly dependent on how many Ultim... - Thursday, July 05, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Red (R): This movie really only exists to show Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Hellen Mirren, and John Malkovich blowing stuff up, as old Retired Extremely Dangerous spies. If you expect anything more than that, you'll be dissapointed. It's stylishly put together but won't change your life. Final Grade : B Love, Save the Empty by Erin McCarley: A Pandora recommendation from my Lenka station, this album has a good mix of styles and a soft-timbred vocalist. It didn't become an instant favorite, but it's an enjoyable listen. Final Grade : B+ &n... - Thursday, June 21, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Treme, Season Two : The second season of Treme is more of the same -- if you liked the first season even a little bit, you'll like this one just as much. It's now a year after Hurricane Katrina, and this season follows the lives of the various characters established in the first season, with a minimum of Crash-esque path crossing. It's still a show of character development rather than plots, although there are flashes of inspiration where the writers were obviously trying to channel The Wire . There's still a few too many musical interludes, but I enjoyed the musical styles explored here more than the first season's. &n... - Thursday, June 07, 2012:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Our Idiot Brother (PG-13): This is a pleasant, understated Paul Rudd comedy, good for a few laughs. The title is misleading, and suggests the type of movie that Will Ferrell would star in and poop all over, but Rudd and his co-stars manage to give the proceedings a little dignity. The wrap-up is a little too neat and sudden, but again, this is not supposed to be Oscar-worthy material. Final Grade : B- Coupling: The Complete Series : This is the British series that led to Friends in the US, with slightly more intelligence, frank sex talk, and British accents. The first thr... - Thursday, May 31, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Hunger Games (PG-13): We watched this movie in the theatre last Sunday, bringing the total number of theatre visits for 2012 to 2, and bringing the total number of theatre visits since 2008 to 2. This is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book by the same name (which is also the best of the book trilogy). Well-cast, well-paced, and filled with actors like Stanley Tucci, who is obviously having a great time with his role. The only problem with this movie is that the ultimate winner of the Hunger Games is "shaky cam". All but a handful of scenes in this movie are filmed in a handheld manner. While this is an effective way... - Thursday, May 24, 2012:
Review Day: Diablo 3 There are no major spoilers in this review. Overview At its heart, Diablo 3 is a manifestation of the slot machine principle: you run around killing monsters by clicking on them, and get showered in gold, gems, and magical loot. Occasionally, an amazing piece of armor or a weapon will drop, powering you up for harder fights and ensuring that you want to keep playing in search of better loot. Diablo 2, the ultimate time-wasting game released 12 years ago, was a huge success and attaches high expectations and baggage on its sequel, but this new game stands strong on its own. There are parts which could have been done much better, but nothing that takes away from the sheer fun a... - Thursday, May 17, 2012:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Laser Game: Khet 2.0 : This game has been on our shelf for a few months now, but we've only played it a few times. It's a very neat concept, similar to chess with lasers. There are a handful of different game pieces, each with very simple movement rules, and at the end of each turn, you push a button to fire a real laser across the board. Some pieces are defenders, and can survive a frontal laser, but not one from the sides or back, while other pieces have mirrors which reflect the laser at a 90 degree angle. The goal is to kill your opponent's king with the laser. Playing the game requires a change of mindset from normal board ... - Thursday, May 10, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Cougar Town, Season One : This series mixes the setup of Friends with the heart of Scrubs . It starts off as a show about a woman in her forties dating younger men, but in the span of the first six episodes, it's almost as if the writers realize how little there was to milk from that premise: it morphs into more of an ensemble comedy about friends living on a cul de sac. Plenty of solid laughs, and worth a viewing. Final Grade : B+ Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol : My review of the third MI movie pegged it as a movie version of Alias ... - Thursday, May 03, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Terminator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season Two : This season of TSCC (free on Amazon Prime) suffered from 24-Syndrome: No TV show is interesting enough to stretch a plot over twenty episodes. The first season was a fun throwaway show, but this one dragged on without momentum. One episode about two-thirds of the way through was told completely through dream sequences, and it has been clinically proven that dream sequences always reduce the quality of a TV show by 50% (see also, The Sopranos and LOST). The final episode mixed things up very nicely and provided some interesting hooks for a follow-on season, but the show was thankfull... - Thursday, April 26, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (R): On the surface, this movie sounded right up my alley -- spies, intrigue, mole hunts, and British accents. Unfortunately, it now holds a place of honor on the list of movies I've fallen asleep in (the other being Kill Bill Part 2). There's nothing inherently wrong with this movie. It's just a very slow burn without any reason to care about the conflict or resolution. Final Grade : D Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto by David Kushner: I've never actually played a video game in the GTA series because I tend to get bored in sandbox game... - Thursday, April 19, 2012:
Review Day: Rayman Origins (Wii) There are no spoilers in this review. Rayman Origins is a 2D platformer released late last year on multiple gaming devices. It is probably the closest experience you'll ever have to starring in your own Looney Tunes cartoon. Take the "anything goes because of a stoned Japanese game developer" vibe found in Wario Ware: Smooth Moves , polish and refine it to Disney-esque (and kid-friendly) levels, and you'll have a template for this game. The gameplay is standard fare: maneuver through cleverly-designed worlds, collecting coins (lums) and dodging or smacking enemies. Thankfully, there are no Wii motion controls required, which automatically bumps this up over any Mar... - Thursday, March 29, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season One : This is one of the free Amazon Prime shows that I've been watching recently. I wasn't expecting to like it, because there's really a finite set of things you can do in the Terminator universe before you start repeating yourself (T3 and T4 were completely unnecessary). However, after the first episode which is painfully derivative, the show manages to carve itself a nice niche with interesting stories to tell and less of a need to adhere to any kind of Terminator bible. From a "going along for the ride" perspective, this is an enjoyable show to watch. Final Grade ... - Thursday, March 22, 2012:
Review Day: HP Folio 13 Ultrabook First Impressions Not counting our "travel around the world and let it get stolen because it was cheaper than a trip to Costco" netbook, my Dell XPS M1530 was the only laptop I've ever owned. I purchased it back in 2008 when my primary needs were being able to play World of Warcraft and being able to work at the coffee table while watching a trashy TV show on DVD. The XPS fit those criteria perfectly with the downside of having a 90 minute battery life (because of the gaming graphics card) and a tendency to overheat and shut down. As long as I was content to be tethered to the power cord on a well-ventilated surface, I was fine with its 15" screen and 6.5 pound weight. The XPS was also a tank,... - Thursday, March 15, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Beginners (R): This movie, starring Ewan McGregor, perfectly fits the mold of a quirky, indie flick, and if you're in the mood for such a flick, you'll enjoy this one. The movie tells the tale of a middle-aged man learning to connect more with his life after the death of his father (Christopher Plummer in his Oscar-winning role). It dragged a bit in a few places, but was otherwise a cute, unassuming story. Final Grade : B- Tower Heist : This movie is just barely a heist movie, and really only serves to give Eddie Murphy a chance to act like Eddie Murphy, while Ben Stiller acts ... - Thursday, March 08, 2012:
Review Day: Horizon T202 Treadmill Back when Anna lived here seven years ago, she got a recumbent exercise bike, which we hoped would be the solution for exercising while watching TV (mainly the episodes of 24 where Kim fights mountain lions). The problem with exercise bikes, though, is that you can just stop pedaling. Over time, the bike transformed from a place to burn calories while watching TV to a place to sit with a beer while watching TV -- not unlike a couch with pedals. Fast forward to 2012, where there is now a $700 treadmill by our basement TV which makes exercising an easy habit to get into. I set myself an initial goal of walking/jogging/running for 2 hours a week, and have ended up doing far more without any prodding. This... - Thursday, March 01, 2012:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Breville EW30XL Electric Gourmet Wok : This was a parental Christmas gift, and it lives up to the level of quality shown by my favorite Breville toaster oven. The wok heats up quickly and evenly, and there are all sorts of easy meals you can make with it. We've gone about half and half on slavishly following recipes versus just throwing a bunch of junk in, and it usually turns out pretty well. There was an initial investment curve in getting all the goofy oils and spices that you'd never otherwise use, but they last forever once you have them. Cleaning after oil-based cooking is usually the worst, but this wok comes apart along various seams, an... - Thursday, February 23, 2012:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Office, Season Seven : This season was painful, almost as painful as the first. After hitting a high point around season four or so, season seven is pretty pointless. One thing that annoys me for no good reason in shows is when people make up random songs in a sitcom (Andy here or Marshall on HIMYM). This season was such a drag that when we got to the menu screen for an episode called "Andy's Play" the thought of listening to Andy singing crap actually kept me from watching any further for at least two months. I finally barreled through the rest of the season, which regained some focus towards the end but ultimately puttered out. Also, guest... - Thursday, February 09, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Better Off Ted, Season One : This sitcom dates back a few years, and I remember occasionally catching it on TV and enjoying it, but never making time to seek it out. Ted is a manager at a scientific inventions company, Viridian Dynamics. It's a fun poke at corporate bureaucracy and doesn't require much investment, and is currently streaming freely (like pee) on Amazon Prime. Final Grade : B+ Kitchen Confidential, Season One : Rebecca was reading the book of the same title earlier this year, and I recalled this short-lived Bradley Cooper sitcom from the limbo period between mo... - Thursday, February 02, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Midnight in Paris (PG-13): In this slightly-fantasy-based movie, a writer visits Paris with his unsympathetic future family and yearns to experience the city as it was at the turn of the century. It was pleasant enough, but if you don't like Owen Wilson, he'll annoy the pants off of you in this role. I don't really understand why this movie is up for a Best Picture Oscar, especially since the soundtrack consists of one song played over and over again. Rebecca liked it much more than I though. Final Grade : C+ Songs for a Sinking Ship by April Smith: Another Pandora recommenda... - Thursday, January 26, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in this review. Taller Children by Elizabeth and the Catapult: This short album is a collection of lighter songs. The lead singer reminds me of a KT Tunstall with an American accent. The song Race You was driving me crazy with familiarity until I realized that it had been featured in an adult diaper commercial a few years back. The up-tempo songs are a little better than the slow ones -- ballads are universally boring though. Final Grade : B+ Super 8 : You can tell when people were born by seeing if they think this movie is about a motel. This J.J. Abrams feature is a lovingly-cra... - Thursday, January 19, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Alcatraz (Pilot Episode): If J.J. Abrams were really serious about distancing Alcatraz from LOST, he would have hired a different composer. There's nothing wrong with Michael Giacchino's score, other than the fact that he's reused it several hundred times now -- three note violin motives don't build suspense, they just irritate everyone. This sci-fi show is about prisoners in Alcatraz who all mysteriously disappeared in 1963 and are returning now without any signs of aging. In other words, it's LOST meets The 4400 meets Fringe with Hurley thrown in. I gave the pilot a chance, but the whole time I was watching, it felt like a paint-by-nu... - Thursday, January 05, 2012:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Drama by Bitter:Sweet: This is the follow-up album to Bitter:Sweet's first album , featuring the same mix of electronica, horn sections, and sultry vocals. The mood is slightly brighter and more playful, making for a nice contrast when I merge them on a blank CD into a super-album. Oddly, the vocalist seems to have developed a much more noticeable lisp since the first album. Final Grade : B Malcolm in the Middle, Season Two : I'm watching old episodes of Malcolm on Amazon Prime, and I think it's stood the test of time pretty well. It even survives the immediate pu... - Thursday, December 29, 2011:
First Impressions: Legenda of Zelda: Skyward Sword There are no spoilers in this review. I play Zelda games in order to run around fighting things while solving spatial puzzles. It's a franchise, which means I expect some level of deja vu between games, but it seems like most of the recent iterations in the series are focusing on the wrong aspects the game rather than refining the right ones. In fact, most of my pet peeves from Twilight Princess still have not been repaired. I'm about five hours into the game right now, having just reached the first dungeon, and here are my thoughts: Motion controls are still tacked on for the sake of legitimizing the Wii. This game even requires an extra accessory to make your Wiimot... - Thursday, December 22, 2011:
Review Day: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Thank goodness Skyrim came out, because I was sick of digging holes in Terraria but just couldn't stop myself. This big-budget role-playing game is easily the most fun I've had with a game in years. It is flawed, but the game generates a lot of good will against these flaws through its fun factor. I've now played through the game about one and a half times, once as a sneaky mage that could steal all of your jewels and then surprise you with a fireball, and then once as a pure thief/archer character. I am obsessive about mapping in these games, and on my first pass through, I decided to explore every inch of the map and beat every ... - Thursday, December 08, 2011:
Review Day: Kindle Fire I am not the primary Fire user in our household -- my main job is to abuse the free Amazon Prime trial by watching old episodes of ALF -- but I thought I would give a few impressions as part of that small demographic of people who are tech-savvy but see no point in a tablet over a laptop (and first bought a cell phone in September 2010). The first thing to note is that this isn't a true tablet, so much as a portal into the Amazon universe of content. Every review out there that tries to compare it to an iPad is missing the point: the Fire does a few things very well at a very low sales price, but can't compete with a true tablet in any sense. Think of it as a Kindle with bonus features, not a dumbed down i... - Thursday, December 01, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Bad Teacher (R): This movie tells the tale of a bad teacher who tries to win a teaching award so she can afford breast implants. It's hard to do dark comedy successful, and Cameron Diaz is no Billy Bob Thornton. Jason Segel plays every other Jason Segel role he's ever done, and if I see him in too many more movies, he's going on my Seth Rogen overexposure list. Save some time and rewatch Bad Santa again. Final Grade : C- Horrible Bosses (R): This comedy is a step up from others we've watched recently. It channels the vibe of The Hangover from start to ... - Thursday, November 17, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Mating Game by Bitter:Sweet: A few songs on this album were classily recommended to me by Pandora -- it consists of sultry female vocals set against strings and brass. Highlights include "The Mating Game" and "Dirty Laundry", but the entire album is pretty good. The timbres are evocative, and only one song, "Our Remains", sounds like it should be blaring over the loudspeakers at DSW. Final Grade : A- The Corner : This six-hour HBO miniseries is based on the book with the same name. On the bright side, this is one of the most solid book adaptations I... - Thursday, November 10, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Wire, Season Five : The fifth and final season of The Wire goes out on a high note, tying every aspect of the previous seasons together (even the second season which, to date, has seemed more like a prologue to the third season). At times it feels a little more sensationally dramatic than previous seasons, but this works well since one of the season's themes is media sensationalism. I would definitely recommend the complete series without hesitation. Final Grade : A- Waltz for Koop by Koop: Koop Islands was a fun, quirky jazz CD with some fresh sounds. This album is ... - Thursday, November 03, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Town (R): This Ben Affleck film is a heist movie where the heists actually take a backseat to the characters. I found it entertaining but not game-changing, probably because I have no sentimental tie to the town of Boston. This applies to pretty much any film where reviewers say "the setting is so well-done that it's one of the characters!" Final Grade : C+ Home Improvement: 20th Anniversary Set : This complete boxed set comes in a toolbox that contains a functional tape measure. Cute, but of limited utility when I already own three. Although this was one of the few shows I watche... - Thursday, October 13, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Wire, Season Three : This season brings the action back from the docks to the inner city, and wraps up several storylines that were started way back in the first season. I enjoyed it more than the second season, and about as much as the first. Final Grade : B+ The Wire, Season Four : The most impressive thing about season four is how many young actors they managed to find that both look and act like eighth graders -- usually there's either a Glee/Breakfast Club syndrome, or you get a bunch of youngsters who can't act at all. Season Four tackles the Baltimore public school system,... - Thursday, October 06, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. UML Distilled by Martin Fowler: Unified Modeling Language is the specification that allows you to model your complex code designs through diagrams, for the illiterate in your audience. The full specification is heavier than I am, but Fowler successfully pares it down in this book to 200 pages of "the parts he finds most useful". This is more than sufficient for an overview, and his perspectives are very sensible. Fowler sees the power of UML as way to relate a design through whiteboard diagrams, and not as a rigid blueprint for generating code, and his successful distillation makes a dry topic pretty bearable. Final Grade... - Thursday, September 29, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews because nothing has a plot. Record Collection by Mark Ronson: Mark Ronson's previous pastiche album had a funk-horns-hip-hop sound culminating with Ol' Dirty Bastard rapping to Britney Spears' Toxic. This new album is full of original works, and has more of a synth sound to it. Songs like The Bike Song are insanely catchy and well-constructed, even though there isn't much substance behind them. I may end up liking this album better than "Version", which got old because of how awful the sax and trumpet players sounded. Final Grade : B+ Two by Lenka: Lenka's second album d... - Thursday, September 22, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger games trilogy is another set of "dystopian future" books which, at times, reminded me of Ender's Game with more believable characterizations. In this future, the populations of the once rebellious Districts must send two children to compete in a yearly Survivor-like game, a game which the authoritarian Capitol broadcasts for the entertainment of its pamepered elite. The hardest part of writing good science fiction or fantasy is to introduce the world of the story without obviously introducing it. The setting is conveyed here very naturally with a minimum of exposition, although th... - Thursday, September 08, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reivews. Bastion : This is an indie action-RPG game available on Steam, played from a top-down third-person perspective. The gimmick here is that a crusty old narrator tells the story as you play, giving it an Old Western feel. The music is top-notch, and the game itself is light and enjoyable. The way that skills are allocated makes it fun to experiment with different builds without getting locked into anything, and the optional mini-games are tough, but not essential for enjoying the game. The only downside is the sometimes-flaky control scheme that leaves you falling off the edge pretty often or blocking when you were trying to dod... - Thursday, September 01, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: This story is a loving homage to the culture of the 1980s, wrapped in a an intriguing setting of a dystopian future. In the year 2044, the Earth is in pretty bad shape, and most of the populace find escape in a free online game that's a cross between Second Life and World of Warcraft. The millionaire creator of the game has willed his fortunes to whichever gamer can solve his treasure hunt within the game, which requires an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from War Games to Voltron. The protagonist is pitted against a corporation who wants control of the game and isn't afraid to throw mill... - Thursday, August 11, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Transformation by Carol Berg: This was Book One of the "throwaway fantasy series" I bought for Beach Week. It employs many of the standard fantasy tropes like desert kingdoms and invading demons, but is far more character-centric than one might expect from reading the editorial summary (hints of Janny Wurts, but much easier to blaze through). This book works as well if read by itself. Final Grade : A Revelation by Carol Berg: After finishing Book One in a day and a half, I quickly downloaded Book Two. All three were at a pleasant price point of $7.99, which is much more apt t... - Thursday, August 04, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Outer Mark by Just Jack: This is Just Jack's first album, and though it's good, there aren't any stand-out songs. The material is a little too similar to The Streets (albeit The Streets with a hint of intelligence), and the CD gets additional negative points for ending with two remixes of the same song. The song itself is mildly entertaining, but no one wants to hear it three times on a single play. I'd recommend sticking with All-Night Cinema and branching back to Overtones if you want his good tracks. Final Grade : C+ Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing ... - Thursday, July 21, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Office, Season Five : The first half of this season was so-so, with silly devices to keep geographically remote characters still involved in the the plot. The Super Bowl episode started strong with Dwight's fire drill (and I watched 2:45 - 2:52 at least twenty times, laughing every time) but then got weird and petered out, as The Office does when any given episode is longer than twenty minutes. The last half of the season is much better, probably because shifts in the plot allow the action to play out in new situations. Final Grade : B The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo&nb... - Thursday, July 14, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference by Michael Kay: This is the definitive reference tome for XSLT and XPath. Though it is comprehensive, it's not good for learning, and will put you to sleep if you approach it in a cover-to-cover way. The information is definitely thorough and solid, although it seems like the author plugs his own open source libraries quite a lot -- I feel like there's no real need to plug your solution so much if it's the ONLY one out there that does the job. The book gets bonus points for being hardcover and over 1000 pages, because you get a flexor workout as you carry it around the house, intending to read it.&nbs... - Thursday, June 16, 2011:
Review Day: Lost Cities Lost Cities is a rare two-player game that's actually designed for two players. There are only two pages of rules, and setup involves shuffling the playing deck, meaning that this is a very easy game to dive into for a couple quick rounds. In spite of the very simple rule set, gameplay is surprisingly deep, and there are many controllable layers of strategy. The exploration motif is really just a backdrop for a Skip-Bo-like card game. There are five coloured suits of cards, representing five expeditions you can launch. You play cards in ascending order from your hand and try to get the sum of your cards (2 through 10) as high as possible before the game ends (each expedition needs 20 points to break e... - Thursday, June 02, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Overtones by Just Jack: This CD is an earlier release than All Night Cinema , and is just as good in a different way. The music has less going on melodically and harmonically, veering more towards laid back British rap over catchy beats. It has the first song of his I heard, Starz in Their Eyes , along with a handful of songs that are catchy enough to get stuck in your brain, like Glory Days , which is a perfect ambient background song for tooling down the Fairfax County Parkway in my 2001 Honda Accord with the windows down. Final Grade : A- Terminator Salvation... - Thursday, May 26, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Portal 2 : All of the thoughts from my Portal 2: First Impressions post are still accurate -- this was a great game and much longer than expected. There's a few issues with pacing in the middle third of the game and some of the plot twists are blatantly telegraphed, but I laughed a lot and never hit a puzzle that I couldn't eventually beat after taking a break. This is a game that's very good in short doses -- if you try to play it all the way through in one sitting, it might get a little tedious. Final Grade : A- the internet is a playground by David Thorne: The new ... - Thursday, May 05, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. In the Plex by Steven Levy: I enjoy Levy's articles in WIRED and his previous book, Hackers so I picked up the Kindle edition of this book, even though I was a little Googled out after reading The Google Way . This book is better in every way -- it's less of a theoretical explanation for profit and success, and more a history / behind-the-scenes look at everything Google has done. The chatty, easy-to-read quality of Levy's prose makes it an easy read, and the fact that the book is organized by "types of inventions" rather than a continuous timeline does a nice job of tying everything together. I never got bored reading th... - Wednesday, April 20, 2011:
First Impressions: Portal 2 There are no spoilers in this review. I was slow to the party in discovering the original Portal , but it's one of the few games I would wholeheartedly recommend to ANY gamer. The review I gave it in 2009 was: The highly logical, entertaining puzzle game is wrapped in sardonic narration that ultimately reveals a crafty little storyline around the entire experience. It will only take a few hours to beat, but it's worth the time of anyone who likes puzzles and doesn't get dizzy in first-person games. Portal 2 came out yesterday, and I downloaded it off of Steam for the high price of $49 -- like the various Blizzard franchises, I had enoug... - Thursday, April 14, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Weeds, Season Six : The sixth season of Weeds is told in the form of a road trip. This injects some freshness and interesting side characters into the mix, but backfires by showing just how boring and used up the main characters have become. There are occasional moments worth laughing about, but overall, the show has just become an excuse to insert gratuitous nudity and sex. Of course, there's nothing wrong with this, but it's not enough to carry the show. Final Grade : C- Designing With the Mind in Mind by Jeff Johnson: User interface books are a dime a dozen, and many of them, like the ... - Thursday, March 24, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Office, Season Three : The third season of The Office introduces the characters from the Stamford branch to keep things fresh. There is a tendency to overuse Ed Helms, who's really only funny in small doses, but the pairing of his character with that of Dwight Schrute makes for some good comedy. As usual, the deleted scenes are almost as good as the final cuts, and some episodes have nearly as many deleted scenes as actual run time. Final Grade : B+ Hi, How Are You Today? by Ashley MacIsaac: I first heard Sleepy Maggie on XM last year around St. Patrick's Day, and pi... - Thursday, March 17, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen: I reviewed the prequel to this book, Design Patterns in Ruby back in 2008, but still have not learned how to program in Ruby. I know enough to survive in a foreign Ruby country where I could decipher the signs to find the bathroom, but not enough to speak fluently to the natives. In spite of this lack of knowledge, I was able to understand and enjoy this follow-up book, even though it's a little more Ruby-centric. As I said in my Amazon review , "Russ has a knack for distilling concepts to their simplest, understandable form while maintaining a breezy, friendly writing style that invites reade... - Thursday, March 03, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Guild, Season Four : The story in this season of The Guild grows organically from its focus around online gaming and manages to shift around several of the character relationships to support ensuing hilarity. This season (about an hour and twenty minutes) is just as good as previous seasons, although I would have to watch them all again to really pick out a favourite. Final Grade : B+ The Office, Season One : When The Office first came out, I stopped watching it after about four episodes. People always looked at me incredulously when I said I didn't like it, but rewatchin... - Thursday, February 24, 2011:
Review Day: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm There are no spoilers in this review, although you may not understand many of the words that are coming out of my mouth. I've been an off-and-on player of World of Warcraft since it launched, way back in 2004 . I stopped for a couple years in 2006 when the first expansion pack killed the PvP brackets, started again, and then stopped right before my wedding (unrelated, of course) for what I thought would be the last time. With my 2009 cancellation, I didn't think there would ever be a compelling reason for me to start playing again, and even deleted all of the game files. So, coming into the third expansion pack, Cataclysm , the only reason I reactivated my account w... - Thursday, February 10, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Kids Are All Right (R): I like to call this type of movie a "terrarium" movie (and have been doing so for minutes now) -- the plot (a family with two moms is thrown into chaos when their sperm donor reappears) is much less important than the family dynamics and character studies, as if the writer just wanted to mix some interesting ingredients together to watch what happens. The movie's not bad or good, it just IS. It's also better than Gosford Park. Final Grade : C+ The Google Way by Bernard Girard (Kindle Edition): This is an easy-to-digest look at how Google was able t... - Thursday, February 03, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Tiger Suit by KT Tunstall: KT's third major album is a very different flavour from her previous ones -- there's more emphasis on synthesized effects and repetitive rhythms and less focus on acoustics. This CD didn't grab me on the first few listens, but it's grown on me over the past few weeks. It's a pretty mellow offering without any big hits, perfect for background music. Final Grade : B Despicable Me : This non-Pixar animated film is no Toy Story, but it's light enjoyable fare about a has-been villain who tries to steal the moon but gets sidetracked by fatherhood. I found his ye... - Thursday, January 27, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews, except that the restaurant was lame. Breville BOV650XL Compact 4-Slice Smart Oven : I never thought I would become a toaster oven snob but after a succession of cheap Black and Decker ovens with an assortment of issues (stopped working after three months, had no completion bell, turned the left bagel black and refroze the right bagel) I asked for this classy oven for Christmas. Using and programming it are iPod-simple, and every single bagel and toast entree I've made has come out perfectly, even in the often-failing case where you toast something else while the oven is still warm. Besides breaded objects, we've also made a chocolate cake, a sma... - Thursday, January 13, 2011:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Inception : I was initially biased against this movie, based on the ridiculous trailers featuring Leo proclaiming, "I can get inside your mind!" while obligatory CGI was obligatory. The fact that the trailer premiered during the awful LOST finale didn't help its case. The movie adheres to the Moulin Rouge school of cinematography, where the first fifteen minutes are full of quick cuts and nonsensical actions before they calm the eff down and start explaining at a slower pace. At the end of the movie, I was pleasantly surprised with how coherent and followable everything was. This is no Memento -- although the subject... - Thursday, January 06, 2011:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Western Digital My Book 3.0 (1TB) : I bought this external drive to do automated backups of the various machines on my home network, and it performed just fine for a while. In the immediate aftermath of the motherboard failure on my main desktop, my first action was to disconnect the external drive and send it to the Presidential bunker for safekeeping. I removed the USB cable for the first time, and the connector popped right off, rendering it useless. Luckily, I was able to MacGyver it apart and hook it up as an internal drive to save the data, but the soldering craftsmanship was obviously subpar and I've since read of many other people having... - Thursday, December 23, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Toy Story 3 : I always preferred the Toy Story franchise to the Shrek franchise, and number 3 doesn't disappoint. It hits all the right notes, blending the humourous with the touching, even if the giant zombie baby doll is too creepy for redemption. The only problem was with our local Blockbuster (if five miles away can still be called local) who decided to rent a disc containing none of the special features. Netflix Instant is probably soon to be in our future. Final Grade : A Iron Man 2 : This movie was pretty forgettable, in spite of the incredible make-up job that makes Terre... - Thursday, December 02, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Fringe, Season 1 : This X-Files-esque show from J.J. Abrams leaves something to be desired. As a set of standalone episodes with a new gory conundrum of the week, it's entertaining with a solid cast of supporting characters (even if the main one is very dull). The overarching story moves far too slowly though, and doesn't really give much incentive to "get to the next episode". There were a few brief sparkles of plot motion around episode nine where it looked like things were going to get interesting, but the show quickly reverted back to Law and Order with more disfigured bodies until the decent season finale. I would watch the next seaso... - Thursday, October 21, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Defamation of Strickland Banks by Plan B: I first heard She Said on XM, one of the last songs I wrote down before cancelling the service. This album is the work of a British rapper (British rappers are always funny) and tells a complete story through a mix of rap and soul. She Said is easily the best song on the album, but all of them are pleasant enough to listen to. The timbre of his falsetto gets a little old after a while, and none of the other songs really have a memorable hook, probably because telling a continuous tale is somewhat at odds with developing catchy choruses. Final Grade : B &nbs... - Thursday, October 07, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Version by Mark Ronson: This CD contains covers of several popular songs by alternate bands, wrapped together with Mark Ronson's "horns and funk" style. Some of the covers are even catchier than the originals. This CD is a must-listen, if for no other reason than to hear a cover of Britney Spear's Toxic featuring American rapper, Ol' Dirty Bastard (lyrics Not Safe for Work). Final Grade : A Lost, Season Six : I've been rewatching the sixth season on DVD while digging various mines in Minecraft, and find it to be a lot of wasted potential. After watching... - Thursday, September 30, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Dexter, Season Four : The fourth season of Dexter is better than the third, but not quite as good as the second. This season finds Dexter juggling too many responsibilities and masks, and brings back some of the inherent awkwardness in Dexter's social interactions (unlike last season where he seemed more like a normal guy struggling to be a serial killer). The character of Harry as an inner monologue is a little overused this season, especially one episode where he inserts little sidekick narrations throughout, such as "Where'd he go?" and "Let's go that way!" but the story is well-wrapped from start to finish. John Lithgow is extraordinarily cr... - Tuesday, September 28, 2010:
Mine Day Instead of composing a Museday and improving the world of serious music with 30 seconds of music that doesn't sound like fornicating porcupines, I got caught up in playing the alpha version of Minecraft and looked up four hours later. Minecraft is an open-world, indie, sandbox game which is essentially a "digging holes at the beach" simulator. Dig in the dirt or attack a tree to gather supplies like wood and rocks, and then craft them into tools like picks and shovels to mine in the mountains. Each block you mine can then be placed, Lego-style, anywhere on the (infinitely generated) world. Craft a sword and attack a cow to get leather, then craft some armor. Combine coal and sticks together to ma... - Thursday, September 16, 2010:
Review Day: Starcraft II There are no spoilers in this review. The original Starcraft from the late 90s was Kelley Corbett's drug of choice after his discovery of beer and before his discovery of World of Warcraft. Starcraft II is essentially an evolved extension of the original -- easier on the eyes with new units and interfaces, but without anything incredibly innovative added to the mix. In this case, it's a decision that works, and anyone who liked the original will probably find something to like here (unless they have passed away in the intervening decade). Starcraft is a real-time strategy game, where you build and control a number of units from a top-down perspective and order them around to reach variou... - Thursday, September 09, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Observe and Report : I have mixed feelings about this movie. It was not the type of movie I expected to be watching (kind of like having a sip of beer and finding out that it's fruity) but it never fully embraced the dark comedy style it was shooting for -- sometimes it felt like it wanted to be a dark movie without losing the audience expecting to see another Paul Blart: Mall Cop (who are going to hate it anyhow). Parts were good, but this movie was nowhere near as successful at being both dark AND funny as Bad Santa . Final Grade : C+ More Joel on Software by J... - Thursday, September 02, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Couples Retreat : This movie was probably just an excuse for Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn to run around together some more -- it's hit-or-miss with not quite enough ensuing hilarity. The movie also can't decide whether it's a comedy or a drama, and doesn't do a good job of switching between the two tracks. Overall, it's uneven but passable enough entertainment for a hurricane evening. The main downside to this movie was learning that Blockbuster has reimplemented real late fees for their movies ($1 a day after the five-day rental period) in addition to the fake "you bought it" late fee they already had. Final Grade : C-... - Thursday, August 26, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson: The second book in The Girl trilogy, I enjoyed this one more than the first, because the mysteries of the plot were more related to the main characters -- like many good books, this one deepens the concepts of the first book, rather than spreading in breadth. It's a little slow to start, notably the nine million pages about shopping at IKEA, but this makes a pivotal scene that much more jolting, and the book doesn't lose any energy from there to the end. Final Grade : A- Sherlock Holmes : There was a choice between this and... - Thursday, August 19, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Mika: This Mika CD closely resembles the first, Life in Cartoon Motion , filled with rambunctious pure pop and cheesy falsetto, so if you liked the first, this is more of the same. A few tunes sound too much like the first CD's songs, and there are no stand out singles so far, but it's a solid CD. Final Grade : B The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson: I vacillated like a flagellum on whether or not to read this book, based on the reviews that said it was great by the end, but took a long, long time to get there. The book IS very ... - Thursday, July 29, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Under and Alone by William Queen: Reasonably priced at $6, this was the last Kindle book I read on our Washington-California vacation, and tells the tail of an ATF agent who goes undercover with a criminal biker gang for two years. It's a fast-moving page turner, even though some of the details seem more fictional than true. It also made me look shifty-eyed at all of the California bikers we'd pass daily around Santa Cruz and its environs. Final Grade : B+ Neti Pot : I've had some throat and nose congestion problems ever since my bout with strep throat last October, so I thought I'd... - Thursday, July 22, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card: This is the second book in the neverending selection of novels from the Ender's Game universe, but I found that I enjoyed it more than the more plot-driven "Shadow" series which I read a few months ago. The connection to the Ender universe was almost unnecessary, and I think the book would have been just as strong with alternate characters involved. Reading this also helped to make sense of the final chapter of Ender's Game which I found to be jarring and tone-shifted. It actually turns out to be more like a first chapter to this book. $8 was a good price for this e-book. &n... - Thursday, July 08, 2010:
Review Day: Kindle 2 We had talked about getting a Kindle quite often in the past, but the impetus behind our purchase ended up being the price drop to $189, effectively labeling it as a gadget you wouldn't be scared to bring everywhere with you -- one that would be disappointing to lose or break, but not one that would sit at home uselessly in a protective case. I picked the standard Kindle over the Kindle DX because of better portability -- if I wanted a paper-sized screen, I'd just read on the netbook or the laptop. I stayed within the Amazon family because I'm comfortable and invested in the Amazon framework, and because no one really wants to own a device that can be called "The Nookie Reader". As you become more f... - Thursday, July 01, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Anatomy of Motive: The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker: I know that John Douglas likes to toot his own horn, but there's a difference between a subtitle and a tagline -- and this Troost-like tagline really belongs on the back cover. This was the first book I purchased on my Kindle, mostly because the Kindle Store is really annoying to BROWSE through when you don't know what you want to read (picture the URI! Zone when it had frames and a custom back button, but with irrelevant search results), so I just started doing searches on author names from m... - Thursday, June 24, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Big Short by Michael Lewis: This book on the 2008 mortgage crisis had some potential, but never fully drew me in. The author falls into the trap that Michael Crichton faced in some of his later books: jumping between a gaggle of main characters that rarely interact with each other, resulting in a set of disjunct vignettes and names on a page. By about 2/3rds through the book, I was just reading to finish it -- the writing is good, and the explanations of the more obtuse concepts are as clear as they could be, but it just didn't make me want to read it. Final Grade : C- Lost on Planet Chin... - Thursday, June 10, 2010:
Review Day: Super Mario Galaxy 2 Mario Galaxy 2 is a great game which really feels like a massive expansion pack to the original, rather than anything new or innovative. If you liked the first game at all, this game is more in the same vein, and you'll like it just as much. As I write this review, I'm 110 stars in, and on the secret levels after the (unexpectedly boring) final boss fight. There's very little new graphically, and the gameplay is familiar -- deepened from the first game but not broadened. All 3D console games suffer from horribly implemented cameras, but the "planet gravity" style of this series tends to minimize the innumerable deaths you might blame on the camera. Difficulty walks the line between annoying and frustrating very we... - Thursday, May 27, 2010:
Review Day: LOST There are no spoilers from the finale in this review, although I do mention details from earlier episodes. In the end, the LOST finale was about as good as it could have been. The writers opted for moving the needle towards a "warm and fuzzy" satisfying ending, rather than some sort of Sopranos brain-freeze, but the ending they chose left far too many major questions unanswered in an attempt to give all the characters a happy send-off. The closing scenes, which tug at the heart strings during a first viewing, become increasing irritating as you start to think about how irrelevant earlier plot points become in their wake. In my opinion as a highly paid television critic (and despite the... - Thursday, May 20, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. JUnit Recipes: Practical Methods for Programmer Testing by J. B. Rainsberger: The BURI is still out on the penchant for publishing companies to put unrelated animals and lithographs on the covers of their technical books, but I'm leaning towards the side of "utterly retarded design decision". Thankfully, I did not need any warrior skills to benefit from this book, which is a tip-oriented cookbook of common approaches and patterns for unit testing. It's not as cover-to-cover readable as, for example, a book in the Pragmatic Programmer series, but the information is concise and jokes are thankfully relegated to footnotes. Final Gra... - Thursday, April 29, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? by Thomas Kohnstamm: Billed as something of an exposé of what really goes into writing a Lonely Planet travel guide, this is really more of a passably entertaining story about a guy running around Brazil doing and selling drugs. Kohnstamm's no Troost, but then again, my exposure to travel literature is limited to the books that Rebecca has finished and left lying around. Final Grade : C- Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card: I only read this book last week and can now barely remember any of it -- it's that forgettable, and also suffers from "l... - Thursday, April 22, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. A Curious Thing by Amy MacDonald: As a sophomore follow-up to This is the Life , this is a very safe album. It feels more like a side B than a new effort, and the toe-tapping infectiousness of the first album is replaced with a mellower Coldplay style of running eighth notes with one chord per bar. In spite of a few overly trite sets of lyrics, it's harmless and pleasant, but not as catchy as the first album. Final Grade : B- New Boots by Wallis Bird: On the other side of the spectrum, this follow-up album to Spoons is daring, and an organ... - Thursday, April 15, 2010:
List Day: 5 CDs that Grow on You Like a soul patch on a beatnik, these five CDs grow on you. I enjoy them more now than I did when I first listened to them, and have them in regular rotation in my static-marred car CD player. The links will take you to the Amazon MP3 pages for a sampling. The Trick to Life by The Hoosiers: I originally described The Hooisers with " They steal from every source available and end up like the lead singer of The Darkness mixed with a less-quirky Mika mixed with a less annoying Hives, mixed with a more upbeat Keane, mixed with any number of 80s new wave bands. " and this all still holds true. This album is very much an ALBUM, with the songs working together as an artis... - Thursday, April 08, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Weeds: Season Five : I was surprisingly bored during this season, and often had to rewind after getting distracted with the multitasking laptop that always accompanies me when I watch shows. The show just kind of meanders through the season without much sense of direction (see also, marching band drunks in a halftime show). It was funny enough, but a little stale. Final Grade : C+ Up in the Air : This movie felt longer than it was, but I was entertained. The number of cameos was a little distracting. A good night of entertainment, but it's not actually going to change your life, ... - Thursday, March 18, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. 24, Season Seven : The seventh season of 24 is EASILY the best season to date, surpassing both the fourth and fifth seasons which had previously been the high points. A new setting (DC), fresh perspective, and new characters that aren't all petty office backstabbers kept me watching to the end. The last four episodes are mostly unnecessary, and the finale kind of peters out, but this season is eminently watchable (in spite of geographic inconsistencies like the scuba tunnels crisscrossing DC, or the Metro station in "the Adams Morgan district"). Although we've seen much of it before, this season somehow manages to feel fresh (see als... - Thursday, March 11, 2010:
Review Day: Muse in Concert Before flitting off to Puerto Rico on our $230 direct flights out of Dulles last week, we went to the Muse concert at the Patriot Center with Ben (of Ben and Anna). Here are my thoughts on that concert. Seating : Because we were unsure about what it would take to get a good standing spot in General Admission, we lined up in the cold around 5:30 for the 8:00 concert (others had arrived at 9 AM). This put us about halfway back in the line, and we ended up getting good spots about 6 rows back from the front for the cost of frozen toes and three hours of being bored. Since Muse spent most of their concert on giant pedestals in the sky, being in the very front would have been overkill (and horrible on t... - Thursday, February 25, 2010:
Review Day for Chicks There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Invention of Lying : This Ricky Gervais comedy tells the story of a man who learns how to lie in a world without falsehood. It's not that the people in this alternate reality can't lie -- it's that they have absolutely no word for, or understanding of, the concept of lying. However, it's hard to portray someone who doesn't understand lying without coming off as slightly dunceful, so all of the townsfolk, especially Jennifer Garner as the love interest, are an uneasy mix of naive and stupid. The movie idea is fun, but Gervais really doesn't do much with it, so there are a few moments of inspiration (like the scene in the previews where he i... - Thursday, February 18, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Inglorious Basterds : I liked Reservoir Dogs , but otherwise remain ambivalent to all of Quentin Tarantino's output (including the occasional places where he's being quirky in front of the camera and calling it acting). Pulp Fiction was mostly retarded, and not in the "heartlessly mocking people with disabilities" way, but in the "this is just plain stupid" way. I also fell asleep halfway through the second part of Kill Bill . With my backstory firmly in place, I was surprised to find that I liked Inglorious Basterds , which is an alternate reality take on pieces of World War II. Despite being 2.5 hours... - Thursday, February 11, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. The Big Lebowski : This movie had some funny scenes, but was about as cohesive as a week-old band-aid. I enjoyed John Goodman's one-note character for the first four scenes, but grew weary of the shtick for the next twenty. I must not be the target audience for Coen Brothers movies, since I also didn't like No Country for Old Men, O Brother Where Art Thou?, or Burn After Reading. Weird for the sake of weird is just a waste of my time. Final Grade : C- District 9 : For a movie with aliens in it, this could be one of the most understated yet effective science-fiction movies in recent h... - Thursday, February 04, 2010:
Review Day There may be minor spoilers from Tuesday's episode of LOST in these reviews The list of things to review was particularly slim today -- I'm guessing the government-mandated season of buying crap for Christmas is finally winding down. LOST: Season Six Premiere : I feel like I've reached the point where I'm waiting for LOST to end, rather than anxiously wanting to see what comes next. This two-hour episode had a decent mix of answers and questions, but wasn't particularly satisfying. It also had one of the same problems as the fifth season -- the introduction of too many new characters that we have no investment in. By the time "Big Trouble in Little China" arrived on scree... - Thursday, January 28, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. LOST, Season Five : I hated the fifth season finale when it aired last year, but of course that wouldn't stop me from rewatching the season in preparation for next week's LOST Steak Night. Ultimately, it's the sixth and final season that will make or break the fifth season, but on its own, it's still not that good. The writers packed on too many dense layers of additional complexity when they really should have spent more time streamlining the plot and focusing towards a conclusion. Then, after incorporating the idea of "flashes", it felt like the writers weren't sure if we'd get the concept, and spent several episodes bashing it... - Thursday, January 21, 2010:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton: This was a completed manuscript discovered after Michael Crichton's death, and it's passably good -- enough to keep you reading, but not worth a reread. One of Crichton's strongest facets is the way he mixes interesting research into his fiction (although some books like State of Fear teeter over the edge of research into preaching), but this book doesn't have as much of that. It's essentially a road trip movie script with pirates in it, but there's nothing wrong with pirates, and it'll get you through your next airplane ride. Final Grade : C+ ... - Thursday, January 07, 2010:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog : This succinct musical by Joss Whedon (about the length of an episode of 24 ) was originally posted as a series of short web episodes, and tells the tale of Dr. Horrible's attempts to join the Evil League of Evil. It sometimes teeters on the line dividing funny from lame, but it's short and mostly clever. You can't go wrong with a Neil Patrick Harris vehicle, and it's also fun to watch Nathan Fillion (of Firefly) as Captain Hammer. Final Grade : B- Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf: This book, written by a former D&D addict tu... - Thursday, December 17, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. New Super Mario Brothers Wii : Mario and Luigi and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a very safe Mario outing. It's really the DS game from a couple years ago translated for the big screen with a few minor embellishments, so if you liked that, or Super Mario World on the SNES, you'll like this one. The game IS difficult though -- a mix of challenging and frustrating, with very little learning curve. There will be occasions of good old-fashioned controller-throwing, but it never gets so frustrating that you give up altogether. The only MAJOR problem with the game is the introduction of motion controls: shaking the remote ... - Thursday, December 10, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Coraline : Written in the vein of Nightmare Before Christmas , this stop-motion movie is highly imaginative, and has even more unsettling imagery (and a more cohesive plot) than the previous movie. This is definitely not one for kids, unless you want them to have nightmares. Final Grade : B+ Burn Notice - Season Two : The second season of Burn Notice continues the template set up by the first, with a little more emphasis on the ongoing plot rather than the "case of the day". This was still an enjoyable watch, but lost some of the novelty of the first season. There was neve... - Wednesday, November 25, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Lost Songs by Ellie Lawson: This is Ellie Lawson's second album, which I didn't like as much as Philosophy Tree . It's only downloadable, which makes it quite cheap, and gains BUPoints (which are redeemable for bacon) by being longer than an hour. On the other hand, while all of the songs are "solid", there are no amazing hooks or gems to be found. You can hear samples here . I like tracks 3 and 4, despite the horrible misspelling. Final Grade : B- Dollhouse - Season One : I liked Firefly, but never really cared for Buffy, so I went into Joss Whedon's n... - Thursday, November 19, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Soul Circus by George Pelecanos: Every good condo has a drawer full of retarded books, and about halfway through our honeymoon I had to choose between this story about drug gangs in Anacostia or a book about geriatric diamond thieves who have been tracked by the Mob to their retirement home. Overall, this book was an easy read, although it bashes you over the head with a side message about how black children in D.C. never have a chance. Throw in a few gunfights and a Grisham-like writing style and you have a few hours of passable entertainment. Final Grade : C Invasive Procedures by Ors... - Thursday, November 05, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story : This is the latest game in the Mario RPG series, which includes Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time -- two of my favourite games. Bowser's Inside Story brings nothing new to the mix, but it's well-done and fun to play. Mario and Luigi accidentally get inhaled by Bowser, and spend the game running around his insides playing mini-games while Bowser travels around the overland map. Bowser's innards are not literally represented, so you don't have to play any minigames in his colon. Improvements over the old games include being able to practice your special moves in... - Thursday, October 29, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Lessons to Be Learned by Gabriella Cilmi: I picked up this CD on the strength of the single, "Sweet About Me". This is another case of a young singer (17) with a far more polished voice than you would ever expect, similiar to Joss Stone. Her songs are a mix of pop and blues, with a nice balance of ballads to hooks. The main complaint I have is that it's only 36 minutes long -- I can hold my breath for longer than that. You can listen to samples here . Final Grade : B How I Met Your Mother, Season Four : While researching this review, I realized that I never reviewed sea... - Thursday, October 01, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in this review. Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson: Though there may have been some catchy tunes on her second CD, Be OK , the horrible rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" killed any interest I had in listening to it. This is her third CD, and it's definitely on par with Girls and Boys although no one song jumps out at me as a favourite. A few towards the middle are annoying repetitive though. You can listen to samples here . Final Grade : B Resistance by Muse: It's been three years since Muse's last CD , and in that time they've gotten less... - Thursday, September 24, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Burn Notice: Season One This show is kind of like Alias-light. Michael Westin is a spy who has been burned by his agency and dumped in Miami with no explanation. Over the season, he tracks down the people who burned him while solving odd jobs on the side. The main plot progresses slowly but steadily, and you can easily miss a couple episodes without getting confused -- the plot really just sets the stage for "cases of the week", fun spy stuff, and Macguyveresque lessons about how you can fashion a bomb from a drinking straw and a gecko. Because this is a USA show (like The 4400), it is over-the-top cheesy, but that adds to its charm.... - Thursday, September 17, 2009:
Review Day: Half-Life 2 There are no spoilers in this review. Continuing my trend of playing and reviewing five-year-old games from The Orange Box , I finished Half-Life 2 over the weekend. The original Half-Life (released eleven years ago) was often billed as the greatest game of its time for its storyline, ambience, and immersion, but I was completely underwhelmed by it. Most of that game was spent beating up bugs with a crowbar while walking in a straight line from scripted scene to scripted scene, culminating in a finale that explained absolutely nothing. This is the gaming equivalent of watching Gosford Park . Half-Life 2 is better than its predeces... - Thursday, September 10, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Breaking Bad, Season One : This is one of those critically acclaimed experiments that's actually really good, but fails to find an audience, like the game, Grim Fandango , or one of Doobie's tuba recitals. Bryan Cranston, the dad from Malcolm in the Middle , stars as a high school chemistry teacher who starts cooking crystal meth to support his family after he learns he has terminal cancer. Everything about this show bleeds "good" from the acting to the plots -- the problem is that the dramatic parts do "unrelentingly grim" so well that it can be hard to watch. The first season is seven episodes long (because of last year's... - Thursday, September 03, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Mort by Terry Pratchett: In this fourth Terry Pratchett novel, Death becomes disillusioned with eternity and takes on an apprentice, Mort, to fill in for him while he tries various other occupations like short-order cook. However, when Mort saves a girl whose time was up, he accidentally turned the entire universe on its ear. Book 4 was as good as Book 3, and works well as a humorous, harmless diversion. I purchased the first four books up front, and based on them, I probably wouldn't read anymore unless I had a beach vacation coming up. Final Grade : B+ Dexter, Season Three : Dexter ... - Thursday, August 06, 2009:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Weeds (Season Four) : In the fourth season of Weeds, Nancy Botwin moves her family south to the Mexican border because of the events that occurred in the previous season finale. This was probably intended to get some fresh settings into the story, but some of the main characters that don't really fit into the new setting end up there anyhow and the writers go to convoluted lengths just to keep around familiar faces. The stories are amusing with more of the focus on character antics over family drama, although there seems to be a lot more unnecessary sex and nakedness for the pure sake of being an edgy Showtime show. Final Gr... - Thursday, July 30, 2009:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett: With 38 Discworld books published, some of the later ones are bound to be better than the earlier ones, but I like to approach bodies of work from the beginning. This fantasy parody tells the tale of Twoflower, Discworld's first tourist, who accidentally causes the city to burn down after introducing the populace to the concept of fire insurance. A fun read, with artful use of the English language. Final Grade : B The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett: Book #2 is really the second half of the previous story, and picks up right where... - Thursday, June 25, 2009:
Capsule Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews, although I do mention that Jurassic Park had dinosaurs. Combinations by Eisley: This is Eisley's sophomore effort, and there's definitely improvement here. The vocalist sisters still sing a little too much, in terms of voice to instrumental balance, but they now have more technique and vocal chops. A few of the tracks make them sound like less annoying versions of the Cranberries, and a few others try to be hardcore, but fail because of the light quality of their voices. You can listen to samples here -- the first three on the album are particularly catchy. Final Grade : B S... - Thursday, June 18, 2009:
Review Day: Prison Break Season 4 There are no major spoilers in this review. The second season of Prison Break ended in a way that needlessly prolonged the show, but also allowed it to get back to the basics that made the first season so intense. In my review of the third season , I mentioned that I was generally happy with where the show went and how it set things up for the fourth, and final, season. "Prison Break" is just the branding -- this time around, the characters spend more time breaking INTO things than out, but the end result is still implausibly exciting. Every episode is filled with convoluted double crosses and power plays, and more testosterone than Jack and Locke see in a year. Th... - Thursday, May 14, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. 200 Cigarettes (R): A 1999 indie flick with a massive ensemble cast including Ben Affleck, Paul Rudd, Dave Chapelle, Kate Hudson, and more, telling various stories about the characters' attempts to get to a New Year's Eve party in 1981. Other than the fact that they all end up at the same party, the stories don't really overlap, and some are more interesting than others. The funniest part of the movie is actually the credits voiceover, where Dave Chapelle narrates the Polaroids from the party and calls Elvis Costello a necrophiliac. I wouldn't seek this movie out, but I didn't mind watching it. Courtney Love is weird-looking. F... - Thursday, April 30, 2009:
Mini Review Day There are no spoilers in this review. Battlestar Galactica: Season One : This show has a relatively huge following, and the entire series recently ended, so I figured it'd be a good candidate for a new show to watch. The first season opens with a three hour miniseries pilot and then about a dozen more episodes. I've never really gotten into space shows -- I could care less about Star Wars or Star Trek, so I may not be the target audience. However, I thought that this show was reasonably entertaining, although sometimes it felt like something intangible was missing. Firefly was several orders of magnitude better, but this series would be good enough... - Thursday, April 16, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Slumdog Millionaire (R): Rebecca and I watched this a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it a lot, she more than I. I felt like it was a perfectly agreeable movie, but a little too overhyped for what it was. The movie tells the story of a poor Indian fellow who ends up doing amazingly well on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Suspected of being a cheater, he tells the stories behind how he knew each answer through flashback. Final Grade : B+ Traveling Light by Courtney Jaye: This was a Pandora recommendation, and features a strong singer with catchy slightly-countr... - Thursday, April 02, 2009:
Review Day: Pandora.com Pandora.com is a free Internet radio station that learns what sorts of music you like over time, and tailors future songs to those guidelines. Starting up with Pandora is simple: you give it the name of a band or a song that you enjoy and, through the Music Genome Project's research, it will play other songs that are similar in some way. You can choose to "like" or "dislike" a song at any time, and this choice is remembered for the future. The reasons for its musical selections are as varied as "songs by the same band" to "songs with fast string accompaniments and triple meters". When I first started out, I tried to put all the bands I liked into a single station, which confused Pandora into thinking... - Thursday, March 19, 2009:
Review Day Learning the vi and Vim Editors : vi is one of the basic text editors on the Linux operating system. I've used it for over a decade now, but learned it hodge-podge from quick tutorials and little tricks taught by other users, so I figured my productivity might improve if I actually sat down and learned it in an organized fashion. This book is clear, concise, and contains examples that are easy to play-along-at-home with. There are a few unnecessary chapters at the end, involving extensions to vi that I'll probably never use, but overall it's a decent reference text. Final Grade : B+ Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor: Regina Sp... - Wednesday, March 11, 2009:
Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. This is the Life : Amy MacDonald is a Scottish singer with a rich, commanding tone that's completely opposite of singers like Lily Allen or Nina Perrson. Her songs aren't going to change the world, but they're upbeat and mellow -- I don't dislike any of the songs, although two of them suffer from a little too much repetition (#4 and #10). You can listen to online samples here -- my favourites would be #1, #2, and #7. Final Grade : B+ Trick to Life : The Hooisers are my latest band obsession. They steal from every source available and end up like the lead singer of The Darkn... - Thursday, February 19, 2009:
Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. Scrubs, Season Seven : Last year's writers' strike pooped on this show a fair amount, and only 11 episodes appear on the DVD. However, that can't take all of the blame for this lame season. I felt the fifth and sixth seasons were already running low on ideas but still enjoyed watching them because it was Scrubs -- an inclination I did NOT feel this season. With the primary characters exhausted for storylines, the focus turns to secondary characters who were funny in bit parts, but tedious with extra exposure. The order of the shows makes no sense either -- the season finale was written to appear two or three episodes earlier (before a major ... - Thursday, February 05, 2009:
Review Day: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull there is nothing worth spoiling in this movie This movie did not need to be made. I never had a compelling urge to watch it, but after borrowing it for free from my parents and leaving it on my shelf, unwatched, for two months, I finally put it on in the background while I worked on my Wiki. I'm still not exactly sure what the plot of this movie was, because it jumps from inexplicable situation to inexplicable situation like a Choose Your Own Adventure book without page numbers. What I walked away with was that Indy stumbles across a crystal skull while searching for an old colleague, but only because said colleague had left it there (akin to finding the Holy Grail on the ... - Thursday, January 29, 2009:
Review Day: Wrath of the Lich King Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK), the second expansion pack to World of Warcraft , was released last November, just under two years after the first pack, The Burning Crusade. It increases the maximum level from 70 to 80, adds a new playable class and a continent full of fresh quests and exploration. I picked up the game a week before Thanksgiving and have been experiencing it at a leisurely pace, not unlike Kathy's trek to her dissertation. I decided to hold off on my review until I had completed every single quest I possibly could (except for those taking place in dungeons that require more than one person). Exploration WotLK introduces the continent of Northrend, a snowy vista with Nors... - Thursday, January 22, 2009:
Review Day there are no spoilers in these reviews How I Met Your Mother, Season One : This is one of Rebecca's favourite shows, and we started watching it over Christmas after finding it bundled very inexpensively at Costco. I see it as something of a Friends for the 2000s -- young, hip professionals in New York involved in zany hijacks and ensuing hilarity. There's a broad mix of humour for every viewer, and missing one episode won't ever get you lost on the plot. Overall, a good "don't-have-to-think-too-hard" funny show. Final Grade: B+ Weeds, Season Three : The third season of Weeds was better than the second, but not quite as go... - Thursday, January 15, 2009:
Capsule Review Day There may be spoilers for the third season of LOST below. LOST, Season Four : As the first season where the number of remaining episodes was set in stone, LOST really regained its momentum. Not a lot happened in the first season, but it was new and intriguing. By the time the third season had rolled around, there still wasn't a lot happening, and things had started to drag. By turning the whole flashback storytelling device on its head and giving us glimpses of what happens in the future when some people have escaped, the story once again feels like it's worth watching. The only negative is the introduction of an entire slew of new characters -- though good, they take time ... - Thursday, December 18, 2008:
Review Day: The Sequel Why have I watched so many movies this month? Tropic Thunder : This satiric skewering of the movie industry is also funny enough to be enjoyed by an average joe who know's nothing about movies. It starts with faux advertisements and previews (which just might be the best part), like Scorcher VI , and Alpa Chino's Booty Sweat energy drink (audio not safe for work). Highlights include Robert Downey Jr. pretending to be a black guy and Tom Cruise dancing his way through the closing credits. Jack Black costars, but his performance registers very low on the "I'm Jack Black, Look At Me Act" scale of annoyingness. Final Grade : A- &nb... - Wednesday, December 17, 2008:
Review Day Wall-E : The latest Pixar movie tells the store of a solitary robot who cares for the Earth thousands of years in the future, after humans have abandoned it to garbage. He falls in love with a "female" scouting robot and eventually stumbles upon the fate of mankind. Pixar did a great job imbuing the inanimate robots with human qualities, although they're actually MORE interesting before they start speaking English. There are a few live-action humans in the movie, but they're constrained to video tapes and old films, which works well. Because much of the movie has no dialogue, the humour is at a more visually abstract level, which means that kids probably won't enjoy it as much. Overall, as good as you'd expec... - Thursday, December 04, 2008:
Review Day: CDs Galore Set the Mood , David Jordan: I purchased this import album based on the strength of the UK hit single, "Sun Goes Down". David Jordan does have talent that goes beyond looking like an angsty Wallace Fennell, and the songs on the CD are catchy, if more at home on an episode of American Idol than anywhere else. The tunes are forgettable but fun, and the only noticeable shortcoming is when Jordan tries to sing below his vocal range and ends up sounding like a character from Sesame Street. Final Grade : B- Sun Goes Down (300KB MP3) Love Song (340KB MP3) Best Of , The Cardigans: All too often, greatest h... - Thursday, November 06, 2008:
Capsule Review Day Mitch Hedberg: Do You Believe in Gosh? : "If you're a fish and you want to be a fish stick, you have to have very good posture. You can't be a slouchy fish or you will be a fish clump." This 40-minute CD is a live recording of one of the last shows before Mitch Hedberg's death. It's very much a work in progress -- a few jokes are hilarious, and others would have become hilarious after a bit more practice and timing. Mitch's delivery is much more confident than Strategic Grill Locations , but this CD isn't nearly as amazing as mitch all together , which is really the only CD you need to understand why people think he's funny. (Like buying things online, it's all about t... - Thursday, October 30, 2008:
Review Day: World of Goo World of Goo is one of those games with a ridiculously simple conceit that ends up sucking you in and being more challenging than you thought possible. This is the kind of game you might stumble upon at work as a Flash applet and waste the remainder of your afternoon trying to solve (Be forewarned, Fantastic Contraption addicts). The goal of each puzzle is to build a tower of goo balls to a suction pipe in the sky (a certain number of goo balls must enter the pipe to pass the level). You can pick up a goo ball and drop it anywhere on the screen -- if it's close enough to other goo balls, a sticky little network is formed. However, the goo balls obey the laws of physics, so placing too many on one side of your crea... - Thursday, October 09, 2008:
Capsule Review Day Iron Man : I'm usually not a big fan of superhero movies -- most examples of this genre require you to have a pre-existing knowledge of the story from comic books and are packed with lamely ridiculous special effects and character development (It's clobberin' time!). However, I liked Iron Man a lot, even though (as a "superhero origin" story) it ended just as it was getting started. It felt more like a good movie with superhero elements than a good superhero movie, which is just fine in my book. I also liked the literal quotation of "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath in the end credits. Final Grade : A Baby Mama : Predictable, with a couple big laughs as... - Thursday, September 18, 2008:
Capsule Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. No Country For Old Men : It might just be that I am an uncultured swine, but I felt like this movie was greatly overhyped (I also wasn't a big fan of O Brother Where Art Thou? , another Coen Brothers film). The movie started out well, a good mix of artsiness and suspense, but it goes downhill in the second hour. I think the defining moment of the film for me was the point where a critical event in the plot happens... offscreen. The remainder of the movie just seems to meander towards an unresolved conclusion. Final Grade : B- Dexter, Season Two : I watched this season of Dexter in about two d... - Thursday, August 21, 2008:
Review Day: Prison Break Season 3 There are no spoilers from this season in this review, although older seasons are described. The first thing non-viewers generally ask when they hear that Prison Break has a third season is how these characters could possibly still be stuck in prison. Season One told the tale of an engineer, Michael Scofield, who intentionally gets arrested so he can break his innocent brother on death row out of jail. Season Two was the cross-country chase of the fugitives, and Season Three finds Scofield and some of his compatriots back in a Panamanian prison where the prisoners are so violent that the guards just maintain the perimeter, letting lawlessness reign inside. The plot is ridiculous, and the setting... - Wednesday, July 30, 2008:
Review Day Charlie Wilson's War : A fictionalized true-story drama about Representative Charlie Wilson's committee involvement in the Soviet-Afghan conflict of 1980. Manages to be fast-paced without needing action or suspense, mainly because of the snappy dialogue. Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman are great, as always, and Julia Roberts costars as "Julia Roberts with blonde hair". The wit of the dialogue makes this a fun (and brief) movie choice even if you don't give a rat's ass about politics or the Cold War. Final Grade: B+ The Bank Job : Although this is a British heist movie, it's nowhere near as convoluted as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or &nbs... - Thursday, June 19, 2008:
Capsule Review Day Bucket List : Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are simultaneously diagnosed with terminal cancer and decide to have one last trip to do everything they never did. Does a good job of mixing the sentimentality with steady doses of humour and only drags a little bit. The actor who plays Jack from Will and Grace puts in a surprisingly good performance as Jack Nicholson's assistant, and proves that there's occasionally life after television. Final Grade: B+ Aspects of Love : A remastered edition of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that flopped. With the exception of one extended scene, there's nothing new in the recording, although it probably does sound a litt... - Wednesday, June 11, 2008:
Review Day: HAARP H.A.A.R.P. is the latest release from Muse -- a CD/DVD set from a live concert at Wembly Stadium in the UK. I'm usually not a fan of live CDs and I was disappointed with their previous live album, Hullbaloo Soundtrack, which was full of audience noise, rougher less crowd-pleasing B-sides, and an imbalanced mix of vocals under the guitars. This time, however, I was pleasantly surprised. The CD offers 70 minutes of hits from all four of their major albums (favouring the most recent ones), and the DVD is a well-edited hour-and-a-half extract of the concert in 5.1 surround sound (including everything that's on the CD plus 6 more songs). The whole package can be found for $14 retail or as little as $9 on... - Thursday, June 05, 2008:
Review Day: Mario Kart Wii In my lifetime, I have played at least seven million games, some of them great and some of them horrible. Despite this, the number of games with enough appeal and lasting power to still be played over a year later can be counted on one hand, even if I were involved in a tragic industrial wood chipper incident: World of Warcraft, DOOM, Starcraft, and Super Mario Kart for the SNES. (Diablo II would be the runner-up finger that ended up in the mulch). I played Super Mario Kart for years as a kid, and it was one of the only games I was actually good at for quite some time, but was greatly disappointed with the version for the N64. Because of this background, Mario Kart Wii had a massive sense of nostalgia to live up to.&n... - Thursday, May 22, 2008:
Review Day: The 4400 There are no spoilers in this review. There are some shows that reach the point in their run where, no matter how good they were, it's obvious they should end. No one really wanted to see Veronica Mars become an FBI Agent, and when Verne Troyer guest starred on Boston Public as a "tiny person who hides in a locker and gives students exam answers" , it was time to move it to Friday night and eventually cancel it. The 4400 was recently cancelled after a four season run, and it was definitely not ready to go. This show received much less attention than the hit show that stole a bunch of its ideas, Heroes . It aired on the USA network every summer, and its sm... - Thursday, May 08, 2008:
Review Day Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay : The only people that will go see this movie are the people who saw and enjoyed the first movie, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle , and it does a pretty good job of providing exactly what you'd expect. The number of gross-out jokes is higher and the continuity is lower, but overall it's good for an hour and a half of laughs. Wait for the video. Final Grade: B The Darjeeling Limited : I should have been warned by the fact that this was made by the same creator as Life Aquatic and Royal Tenebaums , but we forged ahead and rented it anyhow. It has Owen Wilson in it, so at th... - Thursday, March 27, 2008:
Review Day Professor Layton and the Curious Village : This DS game is a hybrid of brain teasers and old fashion point-and-click adventure. The adventure portion is absolutely horrible, with too much dialogue and too many cutscenes. In addition, the game has the bad habit of recapping everything that's happened whenever you turn it on -- particularly annoying if you only play in short bursts of ten or fifteen minutes. The puzzles are more fun -- they're a mix of over one hundred logic puzzles, riddles, spatial reasoning puzzles, and trick questions. This game would have been much better with an option to just do the puzzles and ignore the story. A partial solution is implemented (if you skip over puzzles during any chapter, you c... - Thursday, March 13, 2008:
Review Day Egg Cooker : This little device was a gift from my mom, advertised as being able to consistently create soft and hard-boiled eggs in the microwave. Hard-boiled eggs are easy enough on the stove -- you just boil an egg and forget about it for awhile. The real test for this device was soft-boiled eggs which, in the hands of a stove charlatan, can either be too runny or too cooked. Setup was simple, although the instructions did not include my microwave wattage, so I had to guess. The first test of two eggs failed: one egg exploded in the microwave and the other was barely cooked at all. The second test was only slightly better: one egg shattered but didn't explode, and the other came out perfectly. With ... - Thursday, March 06, 2008:
Review Day: Girls and Boys Girls and Boys is a CD by Ingrid Michaelson, whose music has appeared on XM Radio, Grey's Anatomy, and Old Navy commercials. It's a mix of styles from KT Tunstall to Jem to a non-annoying version of Vanessa Carlton, and was one of several mini-presents Rebecca left me when she went to Guatemala last month. I ended up liking the CD so much that I downloaded the whole thing online to support the artist through Amazon's sleek MP3 store. Music on the CD runs a gamut of emotions and is always pleasant to listen to even if you (like me) don't really listen to the lyrics. I had this CD looping in my car for about a week before loaning it to Anna, and only ever got tired of one song, December Baby , bec... - Monday, February 25, 2008:
Weekend Wrap-Up Though the rest of the area scoffed at the wintry mix that descended with all the subtlety of a tourist on a Metro escalator, my neighbourhood was slicked over in a thick sheaf of ice of Thursday night. Rather than deal with the driving, I just worked from home on Friday, getting things done with a cat in my lap and a forty mouse in my hand. In the evening, I hit up the local Blockbuster and rented a trifecta of movies. Over a pizza dinner, I watched We Own the Night , which was decent, and had a few suspenseful parts. Overall though, it felt like a poor man's Departed (Markie Mark's appearance in both didn't help things). I'm not a big Joaquin fan, and he slurred his lines so much ... - Thursday, February 21, 2008:
Capsule Review Day: TV Shows (Part II of II) there are no major spoilers in these reviews Here is part two of my TV Shows Reviews update. The first part was posted last Thursday . Heroes (Sci-Fi): Everyday people realize they have extraordinary abilities and try to save the world. Season Pro's Con's Grade 1 Neat comic stylings with fun characters and mysteries. Nikki's stories get old. Sometimes they refilm scenes in recaps and change the dialogue for no good reason. Finale shows th... - Thursday, February 14, 2008:
Capsule Review Day: TV Shows (Part I of II) there are no major spoilers in these reviews In a format blatantly stolen from the Sunday Source, you can find my thoughts on every full season of TV show I own or have watched. Use this if you're looking for something new to watch in these cold winter months, and let me know if you want to borrow something! Have another show to recommend? Use the Comments section! 24 (Thriller): Counter-terrorist agent, Jack Bauer, saves the world in a continuous twenty-four hour span. High in intensity and mindless entertainment if you can stomach a few horrible actors and more inter-office backstabbing than a high school girls' clique. I've watched five of the six available ... - Thursday, February 07, 2008:
Review Day there are no spoilers in these reviews LOST, Season 3 : The show stumbled a bit in this season, treading water on several plots, and spending too much time on tangents like The Others rather than the core mysteries of the island. Despite that, several of its standalone episodes were best-of-series quality, like Desmond in the ring shop. It almost feels like they could have compressed season two and three into a single season and not lost much. The one thing that the LOST writers do very well is to make great season finales, and this one is no exception. If you initially liked LOST but felt it was going nowhere, it's definitely worth it to muddle through season three to get to the... - Thursday, January 10, 2008:
Review Day Veronica Mars, Season Three : The third season has less Dawson's Creek teen melodrama than the previous seasons but doesn't skimp on the witty quips and interesting detective stories the series is known for. The casting is pretty strong (thankfully there's no sign of Duncan Kane) although the new additions are mostly useless and they could have used more Wallace. Episodes here are more standalone than they used to be, which mostly works although the story starts to drag a bit after the first two "mini-arcs". It ends strongly, with a great season finale that unfortunately became the series finale as well. I'm torn on all the cliffhangers opened up in the final episode -- they would have made for an intriguin... - Thursday, December 20, 2007:
Review Day Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End : Weighing in at 2 hours and 48 minutes, this movie is too long and has a plot that's more complex than it needed to be. If the trilogy were rewritten to trim the plot fat and about an hour of playing time, this would have the potential be a classic trilogy like Back to the Future . The unnecessary bloat just makes me feel like it should have been a single movie (see also, The Matrix). Final Rating : B- First Snow : This is another sufficiently artsy movie with Guy Pearce. From the initial voice-over, it feels like a spiritual successor to Memento , but the plot is much more straightforwar... - Thursday, December 06, 2007:
Review Day: Avenue Q What do you do with a B.A. in English, What is my life going to be? Four years of college and plenty of knowledge, Have earned me this useless degree. I can't pay the bills yet, 'Cause I have no skills yet, The world is a big scary place. After the "Avenue Q theme and opening sequence" play on two massive television screens that drop down from the ceiling, this is the first song of the evening, sung by the fresh-faced puppet, Princeton, who has just graduated from college and realized that he has no idea what he wants to do with his life. He moves onto Avenue Q (because the rent on Avenue A through P is too expensive), and meets a Sesame-Street-like collection of neighbours, b... - Thursday, November 29, 2007:
Review Day Blades of Glory : If you add up all the true laughs in this movie and then round to the nearest ten, I'm pretty sure the answer is right around zero. Another movie that proves that Will Ferrell is very, very funny, except when he isn't. D+ Ratatouille : This was a pretty fun cartoon movie, but not as universal or enjoyable as any of the other movies in the Pixar stable. It didn't help that the two main characters are a rat and a human who cannot have a conversation (even though the rat seems to have a firm grasp on the nuances of English, which seems to be the official language of Paris). The animated movie, Car Wash , with Will Smith reminds me of this movie -- mildly ente... - Thursday, November 15, 2007:
Review Day: Drastic Fantastic KT Tunstall's new CD, Drastic Fantastic , was released in September. Since her first CD, Eye to the Telescope , was one of my favourites, and stayed in my car CD player for months on end, I finally got around to picking it up. The CD arrived two weeks ago, and I also purchased the album as MP3s for $8.99 because I'm a yuppy and like supporting artists. This particular CD is more acoustic and poppy than the original, but less acoustic than her aptly-named Acoustic Extravaganza . Weighing in at 39 minutes, it's a little on the short side, but the quality is quite high. Though the first couple listen-throughs were unimpressive, it quickly grew to be almost as catchy and ... - Thursday, November 01, 2007:
Review Day: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee We went to see this "play with music" at the National Theatre last Saturday following a nice meal at the inexpensive Chef Geoff's around the corner. The 100 minute show is a parody of your typical televised spelling bee, with zany characters such as the antisocial nerd from TJ, the crazy home-schooled boy named Leaf, the perfect Asian who knows six languages, and the Boy Scout who gets an unfortunate erection in front of the audience. There are no sweeping themes or French revolutions, but in this case, it's fine. The show never tries to be more than a nonstop barrage of one-liners and funny quips. Many of the quips are obviously improvised, since four of the contestants are randomly picked from the audience at show t... - Thursday, September 20, 2007:
Review Day / Caption Day One of the many fine gifts I received for my birthday was the New Yorker Cartoon Caption game from Rebecca, where players try to make up captions for pre-existing cartoons (not unlike the URI! Zone Caption Contest, but with negligible cash prizes). You don't always have to be the funniest or cleverest cartoon to win, because you also get points for guessing who wrote which caption (and sometimes the funniest ones are the most nonsensical ones from the people who couldn't think of anything). Here are some of the funnier answers from a recent round of the game. " It's my turn to pay, and I ain't fuckin' around! " - Kathy " Those humans and their bestial... - Thursday, September 06, 2007:
Review Day: Super Paper Mario Follow-Up A little over four months ago, I posted a review of Super Paper Mario for the Wii , giving it 3 of 5 stars and calling it a little tedious but showing enough signs of improvement for me to continue playing. Now that I've played it in fits and starts since then, I feel compelled to update the rating I gave it originally (so all two readers with Wii's can avoid it and save their money for my birthday present). When we last left the game, I had just finished Chapter One (of eight) and the game was starting to feel more like its beloved prequel. Sadly though, it hit its high point around Chapter Three, and turned into a textbook exercise in tedium. If I were to write a Museday Tues... - Thursday, August 30, 2007:
Musical Musings / Review Day Amazon Marketplace has been the catalyst to kick start my long dormant CD-buying habits. In the past I averaged maybe five CDs per year, but the ability to get brand new CDs (still shrink-wrapped) for $3 to $6 each drives my clicky yuppy fingers wild. At this price, CDs with a musical prowess roughly equivalent to an undergraduate student trumpet recital recorded from the Green Room are much easier to dismiss without regrets. Night on My Side by Gemma Hayes I'd only heard a couple songs by Gemma Hayes when I bought this CD, but I really liked the timbre of her voice -- kind of like a Sia with less laryngitis. It turned out to be a major disappointment, with unmemorable tracks and several of those anno... - Thursday, August 23, 2007:
Movie Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews You, Me, and Dupree This movie had a few funny moments, but it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a buddy comedy or a relationship drama. It also couldn't decide whether the story was about the betterment of the title character, Dupree, who's a single layabout, or the issues of the newly married couple he shacks up with. Matt Dillon is slightly less annoying than normal here, and Michael Douglas has a fun supporting role as the overbearing father-in-law. Good for a rainy day, or when there aren't any other movies on the shelf. Final Grade : C+ Pan's Labyrinth A story about a litt... - Thursday, August 02, 2007:
Review Day: Philosophy Tree I generally keep a stash of CDs in the car for those occasions when I'm not in the mood for anything on XM Radio (or when Ted Kelly is reciting the complete UPOP Station Slogan on-air for the fifth time in five minutes in case we've forgotten that we're listening to the Pop Heard Around the World, With Global Hits from Coast to Coast in America and on Worldspace Shut The Hell Up and Play the Damn Songs Amen). One way to determine the strength of an album is to put it in this car stash and see how long it takes before I get so sick of it that it must be rotated out. So far, the four longest-surviving albums in my Car Challenge are: Absolution - Muse, Long Gone Before Daylight - The Cardigans, &n... - Wednesday, July 25, 2007:
Review Day: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows There are NO spoilers from ANY Harry Potter book in this review, though I mention some minor plot points from Books 4 and 6. By now, everyone knows that the final book in the Harry Potter series was released last Saturday -- this release had more hype than the Matrix, Star Wars 1, Knut the polar bear, the baby panda bear, and Bob Barker's retirement combined. I picked up my copy on Saturday morning at an eerily empty Target which had rows and rows of unsold books, and read it off and on through the camping trip that followed, finishing it between other responsibilities on Monday. I once knew a guy at work who had deathly hallows -- as soon as he appeared at your office door waving and ready to t... - Thursday, June 28, 2007:
Capsule Review Day There are no major spoilers in these reviews. The 4400 Season 3 : The third season of this show was just as strong as the first two, and showed a definitely overarching storyline that makes me excited for the fourth season. The only misstep was the returning character of Isabelle. Whether it was the part or the actress, she was annoying in the beginning and stupidly-evil in the end (à la Melissa George's eyebrows in Alias ). One of the things I really like about this series is that each season is only twelve or thirteen episodes long, so something important happens in every episode (unlike the LOST episodes, "Jack gets a tattoo" and "Hurley drives a van"). Disc Two had some ... - Thursday, June 14, 2007:
Musical Musings Last weekend, we went to hear Rebecca Berlin at a local Starbucks which was not much larger than I am (and not nearly as good-looking, of course). She rotated sets with her sister, and played a few songs together as well. Overall, it was a strong performance, despite the fact that Starbucks never turned off their piped-in background music. I bought a copy of her demo CD, which you might enjoy if you're into coffeehousey singy music -- her voice isn't perfectly polished, but it's pretty damn good for a young'n. Rebecca Berlin - California (1:20 MP3) Rebecca Berlin - Monochrome (1:10 MP3) New on my playlist this month: Charlat... - Thursday, May 17, 2007:
Review Day: Six Feet Under there are no plot spoilers in this review, although the format of the final scene is discussed Six Feet Under is a five-season, sixty-three episode HBO show and Mike "I hate movies and pop culture" Catania's favourite series of all time. With such effusive praise, I figured I would give it a watch to see what all the fuss was about. HBO shows (like The Sopranos ) are generally so expensive that I would normally wait for my parents to get it and then steal it from them, but luckily Amazon had a package deal containing all the episodes and two soundtrack CDs for about six cents per minute. That (plus Mike's offer to buy it off of me if I hated it) convinced me to pick it up. Plus, I am... - Tuesday, April 24, 2007:
Review Day: Super Paper Mario Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was almost flawless, and when I reviewed it in 2004 it was one of my "must-have" game for anyone owning a GameCube. About two weeks ago, the latest game in the Paper Mario series was released on the Wii, and I've now played it enough to talk about my first impressions. Was it worth the wait? Read on to find the heart-stopping answer to this mind-bendingly suspenseful question (and also tips on how to run your car on consommé in the face of rising oil prices). The conceit of this series is that all the main characters are flat two-dimensional sprites made of paper, living in a three-dimensional world. In previous games, this made for some neat artis... - Thursday, March 29, 2007:
Musical Musings I picked up three new CDs this month. The first is Acoustic Extravaganza by KT Tunstall, and contains a batch of new acoustic works, as well as some new renditions of her old stuff. The best song on on the CD is Girl and the Ghost which seems to capture her style to a fine point. Also notable is her reworking of Universe and You as a quieter, more intimate piece. It's very rare that I like an acoustic recording of a song after hearing the "full" version, but I think I like this one just as much as the original -- it also highlights how little the power of her voice depends on the surrounding orchestration. Girl and the Ghost (516KB MP3) Universe and Yo... - Thursday, March 08, 2007:
Capsule Review Day There are no spoilers in these reviews. Half Nelson : An artsy film about an addict history teacher trying to teach dialectics at his inner city school. Interesting and strong enough to warrant Gosling's Best Actor nomination, but forgettable overall. Rated R, probably for drug use, sexuality and the death of a kitty from old age. Final Grade : C+ Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (GBA): A classic Zelda-game that plays like the kindred spirit of A Link to the Past (SNES). This is as close to an old-fashioned Zelda experience as you can get, and it's still quite playable on the DS. Where the original game used the Ligh... - Wednesday, February 21, 2007:
Musical Musings It's been ten months since my last Musical Musings column which may be the blink of an eye on the geological scale, but is an eternity on the celebrity marriages scale (this scale is much more scientific and applicable in everyday life. Incidentally, ever since Rob confessed that "everyday" versus "every day" was his pet peeve, I have been careful to use the appropriate terminology). I'm currently listening to A Camp , a solo album by Nina Persson of The Cardigans. Despite the ambiguous title, the CD is an interesting piece of work -- a mix of country-tinged ballads and hard-rock creations. Though jarring at first, the change actually makes sense with the change in Persson's voice (she can... - Wednesday, February 14, 2007:
Untitled Post In the spirit of Valentine's Day, we are now selling frozen turkey hearts to interested visitors. The first ten to act will also receive other assorted giblets, like the liver and gizzard. Please make checks payable to The URI! Zone (refrigerated shipping extra). And now, on with the show! Capsule Review Day (there are no spoilers in these reviews) Idiocracy After some initial hype, this movie seems to have skipped the theatres completely, probably because of the premise that corporate entities like Costco and Carl Jr.'s have taken over the world five hundred years in the future. Written by Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead... - Tuesday, February 06, 2007:
List Review Day: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super Nintendo is still flawless -- one of the greatest games ever made. Every other game in the series is a delicate balance of caveats with BU the Reviewer saying, "It's great, but ...". See if you can match these statements with the Zelda game they describe before we get to the main review (this is called review foreplay in the "biz"). It's great, but a good 80% of the game is spent sailing on an empty ocean, vast and boring like Iowa. Then you sail into archipelagos shaped like dice and get shot at and die. It's great, but all the monsters in the last half of the game are floating eyeballs that move in parab... - Thursday, January 25, 2007:
Review Day -- Wario Ware: Smooth Moves Overview This is, without a doubt, the craziest game I have ever played. Sure, Milon's Secret Castle had a boy in pajamas with an umbrella shooting bubbles at dragons, and Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist required you to collect a horse's fart in a paper bag, but neither one can hold a candle to the latest game in the Wario Ware series. The developers were obviously in an altered state of mind when they created this. Gameplay By now, everyone is familiar with the concept of the "mini-game", a small simple contest that forms the basis for games like Mario Party, or add optional fun things to do in games like Zelda. Wario Ware takes this concept one step furth... - Thursday, January 11, 2007:
Capsule Review Day Little Miss Sunshine This is the latest independent film that no one's ever heard of but everyone talks about. It's the story of a dysfunctional family's road trip to California so their daughter can enter the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. It manages to be sentimental without sappiness and has the rare virtue of having a child actor who can act without being annoying. The movie reeled me in and the closing sequence was perfect, although the highly touted alternate endings were useless. There's a reason they weren't the main endings -- so leave them on the cutting room floor. Final Opinion : 3 of 4 stars. Child beauty pageants are creepy. Wii Sports T... - Monday, December 11, 2006:
Capsule Review Day Next by Michael Crichton I picked this one up in hardback on my Saturday morning jaunt to Costco. It's your typical Crichton scientific thriller, exhaustively researched and blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction. This time around, he dives into genetics, gene therapy, and the controversies surrounding the patenting of cells as well as stem-cell research. What I Liked : Crichton doesn't write amazing characters or evocative text, but he has that unerring instinct for pushing the narrative forward and keeping the reader interested in what happens on the next page. I always learn a bit whenever I read one of his books. What I Didn't Like : There's no real "mai... - Wednesday, November 08, 2006:
Review Day - Alias: The Movie There are no plot spoilers in this review, but I do mention a few plot devices and places that explode. This summer blockbuster finally came out on video last week, starring post-Scientology Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, the mild-mannered Department of Transportation employee who's really a secret agent and a member of the Impossible Mission Force. The movie was directed by J.J. Abrams, written by his two favourite Alias writers (Kurtzman & Orci), cast by the Ailias casting director, edited by two Alias film editors, with the Alias production designer doing whatever those do, and with music by the Alias guy (Michael Giacchino). Greg Gunberg (a.k.a. Agent Weiss, a.k.a. JJ's kindergarten friend) even gets a ... - Monday, October 16, 2006:
Capsule Review Day Medium Energy - Todd Barry : This is a stand-up routine of a comedian I heard on XM Comedy. The material itself isn't that funny, especially on repeated listenings -- it's his manner of presentation, in a slow, Steve-Wright type of monotone with a little profanity mixed in. The funniest part of the album is several tracks where he talks about various MTV shows, and the rest is hit or miss. It was only $9 so I can't complain. Final Rating: B- Skanks for the Memories - Dave Attell : Dave Attell is a very funny guy if you are not easily offended by foul language and coarse topics.I laughed out loud several times while listening to this CD -- here's a "clean" sample that's still qui... - Thursday, September 14, 2006:
Capsule Review Day: TV Shows on DVD There are no spoilers in these reviews. Veronica Mars - Season Two : Veronica Mars is like Buffy the Vampire Slayer without any supernatural elements -- a detective story set against the backdrop of high school. Each episode is a mini mystery overlayed by an ongoing mystery spanning an entire season. I was thoroughly if suprisingly entertained with the first season, so I had high expectations for the second season. It was still entertaining, but sacrificed the well-constructed character relationships that made the first season so good, moving the emphasis to plot instead. It's as if the writers felt like they had to outdo the old mystery of Lilly Kane's death, and worked so hard that they f... - Wednesday, August 30, 2006:
Discography Day It's a peculiarity of my personality that I generally will pick the longer CD over the shorter, possibly better one. It's a throwback from the days when I had to make every CD purchase count, and the CD player only held one disc at a time. Subconsciously I must believe that there's a higher chance of finding good music if there's more to choose from. The same applies to musical groups -- if I find a group I really like, I'll collect as much of their discography as possible (see also, the complete works of the Hi-Lo's and twenty-odd CDs of the Stan Kenton Orchestra). There aren't many groups that I like well enough to justify shelling out the $15 per CD when I could be using that money to pay one third of the cable bill so I can ... - Wednesday, August 23, 2006:
Capsule Review Day Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA) : One good thing about having a Gameboy DS is that it plays all the original Game Boy Advance games, which opens up a whole arena of games I never played when they were topical three and four years ago. Superstar Saga is the prequel to Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time which I loved and is an action/role-playing game like Paper Mario . It's definitely fun, but it's not as exciting as its sequel, probably because it's so similar and not quite as well executed. One problem I have is that around halfway through the game, the overworld map just opens up and you can go pretty much everywhere. I prefer games where you're constrained to a sma... - Thursday, August 17, 2006:
Movie Review: Brick There are no spoilers in this review. Brick is a very strange movie. It's one of those indie films that saw critical success, but didn't really make much of a splash when it was in theatres. The core of the story is a new spin on Film Noir, with a hard-boiled detective, a salty dame, and all the usually twists, turns, and deceits. What's different here is that the genre is applied to a high-school setting, with young actors filling the roles of each of the stereotypes. All the characters talk in a very strange patois of detective slang and high school slang, and the actors are quite skilled at talking without moving their lips. By mid-movie, we had caved and turned subtitles on (whic... - Thursday, August 03, 2006:
Review Day: Black Holes and Revelations A few weeks back, Muse released their fifth album, Black Holes and Revelations , which quickly became their second album to reach number one on the U.K. charts. I first discovered Muse in August 2004 when Butterflies and Hurricanes played on my XM Radio somewhere on the road between Philip Barbie's wedding and the Outer Banks, and I was immediately struck by how musical their music is, despite their hard rock stylings and occasional foray into the use of noise as a musical instrument. The first CD, Showbiz was a rough, noisy first stab with a few catchy tracks. The second, Origin of Symmetry sacrificed the idea of catchy singles for a cohesive concept album with a... - Monday, June 05, 2006:
Capsule Review Day Cardigans: First Band on the Moon When I hear a band I like, I tend to want to listen to the entire body of their work. First Band on the Moon is their second CD, released in 1996 when I was still a senior in high school, and has the only song people know in the U.S., "Lovefool". The Cardigans try to maintain their whimsical sound while adding heavier beats and more serious, artistic lyrics. Overall, it's successful but I prefer the music on the first CD to this one. You can definitely hear the evolution of their sound and the improvements in Nina Persson's voice though. Prognosis: Skip it unless you're a diehard fan or you pirate music. Arr! Makin' Bacon ... - Thursday, May 18, 2006:
First Impressions: New Super Mario Brothers Title : This game easily has the most uninventive, boring title in the history of titles, but I guess none of the Mario games excels in this area. Does it have a plumber playing tennis? Call it MARIO TENNIS! Even so, they could have just called it Super Mario DS or something equally as functional. What are they going to do when the next game comes out? The New New Brothers? It sounds like a dance troupe on Vaudeville. Music : Catchy, with a mix of new tunes, remixed old tunes, and old tunes exactly as they were in the older games. You can only do so much with nostalgia before it gets tiresome, and they walk the line pretty well. Graphics : The game is a standard ... - Wednesday, May 17, 2006:
Untitled Post The latest buzz in entertainment non-news news is the observation that seven long-running shows are finally calling it quits this season. I think it's interesting that shows which would once have gotten lavish two hour finale specials with retrospectives and balloons now creep timidly into oblivion, their stars set to appear in 1-800-COLLECT commercials in which Alf gets top billing. Alias : Of course, I'm sad to see this one go because its first two years were ridiculously good. This was one of the first shows I ever planned my week around seeing (which was probably aided by the fact that it came out when I was a reclusive grad student in Florida for the first time). Sydney Bristow's "bursting into tears"... - Wednesday, May 10, 2006:
Capsule Review Day The Tin Princess by Philip Pullman: This is a spinoff book from the Lockhart Trilogy that uses a couple well-known characters, but otherwise has nothing at all to do with the original stories. It's a definite page-turner, but doesn't have a lot of internal logic to the plot. Pullman needs to work on his endings, because this book just seems to peter out unsatisfactorily, like Ruby in the Smoke did. However, it only takes a few hours to read, and it's fun while it lasts -- just don't expect to get any life lessons from it or plan on reading it again. Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse 5000: I was always one of those computer-using fools that stuck with the original Microsoft mouse that c... - Wednesday, April 26, 2006:
Capsule Review Day LOST: TV Soundtrack by Michael Giacchino Written by the guy who wrote the soundtrack to The Incredibles and Alias , there's nothing amazing or underwhelming about this CD -- it's just a solid television score in an age where it's just as easy to overdub a scene with a throwaway Blink 182 song. Giacchino must have done something right, because I could picture the images from Season One of the show in my head as the various songs and motives popped up. The ensemble is interesting too -- a studio orchestra, ten trombones, four harps, three guitars, and three percussionists, who spend most of the CD performing on custom instruments created from the wreckage of the crashed airplane from the pil... - Thursday, April 06, 2006:
Musical Musings I'm liking The Cardigans, especially the syrupy nature of the lead singer's vocals, as heard on Erase/Rewind (469KB MP3). I also like the vocal acrobatics and the sheer musical audacity of The Darkness, as heard on One Way Ticket to Hell (511KB MP3). They do camp in a good way. Three worst songs I've heard on the radio this week: Gwen Stefani - Crash (346KB MP3) She's obviously forgotten what a melody is and her beat sounds like the kid in marching band who didn't have enough rhythm to play the snare drum so they got the triangle. If the movie, Crash , had used this for a theme song, you never would have seen them in the running ... - Wednesday, March 22, 2006:
BU's Thoughts While Watching Harry Potter 4: Harry Potter and the Temple of Doom Thank God, finally a DVD that features no unskippable movie trailers for movies that came out last year or that horribly retarded "Downloading IS BAD: Rated I for Illegal" trailer with the ridiculously atrocious electronic musician's nightmare for a soundtrack. Do people NOT in college seriously devote much of their lives to downloading movies off the Internet? For me, four bucks and the huge television with multiple speakers easily trumps finding a tiny torrent in Yugoslavia so I can watch the same movie in a 320x200 window at my desk. The first twenty minutes of this movie were completely useless and served only to remind people that the studio had some stock Quidditch footage left on the cutting room floor from pre... - Thursday, March 09, 2006:
Movie Day Kathy came over on Tuesday night for Totino's Pizza, Booty, and movies -- an ancient tradition originally started in Tallahassee in 2002 when Booty was crazy and ran around in circles throughout the movies. The Pledge was this week's pick because Kathy found it on the shelf, so it was $4.50 cheaper than going to Blockbuster. It's a Sean Penn directed film starring Jack Nicholson that came out in 2001, even though I'd never heard of it before. The movie had great acting, including Jack who is always good despite every role being "Jack playing Person X" instead of just "Person X". It starts out as a crime drama and ends up as a character study, but it's just slightly disjointed. As the ending faded out, it felt like we... - Wednesday, March 08, 2006:
Package Day Redux Two weeks ago, I posted about my latest Amazon bundle of treats and toys . Today I will post short reviews of all the goodies, so you can better spend your tax refunds on useless middle-class garbage. The Complete Ramona Quimby Series : The Ramona books came in two boxed sets of four books each, although they were obviously packaged as an afterthought, since some of the books have different cover styles. Whoever decided to box them up did a horrible job with the order -- the fourth book in the series is missing from the first boxed set, so you really have to buy both sets to read them all in order. The stories were as comforting and nostalgic as I thought they would be, and it only took an... - Monday, February 13, 2006:
24 Snowstorms are inherently positive surprises when travel is not involved. Besides the obvious perks, such as snow being pleasant to look at from indoors and fun to build forts in outside, and the snow-related foodstuffs like hot chocolate and yellow snow, you are finally allowed to use the excuse of "being snowbound" to become a worthless, unproductive member of society without any pangs of guilt while your neighbourhood is festooned with icicles. Anna and I started watching the second season of 24 back in May of last year when she worked as an indentured servant in my house, and after doing that whole "getting married and moving in with some other guy" routine, our regular viewing dropped off to nothing... - Monday, February 06, 2006:
Movie Monday Back in Florida, I used to go to Blockbuster and rent a bunch of movies and then watch them all back-to-back over particularly slow weekends. Since it'd been awhile since I last did this, and since there were actually a few movies I was interested in seeing this month, I decided to make this weekend a movie weekend. Wedding Crashers : I was probably the last person in the United States to see this movie, which was buzzworthy last summer. I thought it was pretty good, if a little long-winded. The movie started out much funnier than it ended up, and you definitely need to be a Vince Vaughn fan (or at least be able to stand him for two hours). It was nice to see Bradley Cooper getting some movie work sinc... - Tuesday, January 31, 2006:
Untitled Post I can assert with virtual confidence that I am no longer a spreader of disease and my cough has gone away for good, so they can finally remove me from the terrorist deck of playing cards where I was third in command of the clubs suit (Queen of Clubs was the girl that licks everything from the anti-smoking ad and King was Mike's Futon of Death). It only took three weeks for the cough to stop, fast enough for me to enter February with a healthy, clean outlook, but not so fast that it didn't annoy me during my weekend plans o' fun. After the past returned to haunt me in the form of prepackaged frozen pizzas on Saturday, I took a trip out to Fake Alexandria, which is the area of Fairfax County south of the Beltway also k... - Monday, January 30, 2006:
Untitled Post Within twenty-four hours of mentioning Celeste Cheese Pizza-For-One's in my Friday Fragments column last week, I rediscovered them at Sam's Club. Normally, Sam's Club is something of a poor man's Costco -- its only redeeming features are its larger selection of TV DVDs, and the flour-shelled Beef & Cheese Chimichangas in the Frozen Foods aisle. The only reason I was there on Saturday was to pass the twenty minutes until the Best Buy across the street opened up. With a box of Chimichangas under my arm, I happened to glance across the aisle to see the pizzas sold in a bulk box of eight. The box looked just like it did in the eighties, with slightly darker earth tones. When I opened up two boxes for lunch that day, I discovered... - Tuesday, January 17, 2006:
Capsule Review Day: Les Miserables Today I will hit the high points of Sunday's show in as few words as possible, since my Florida readers hate when I talk about musicals. In some places, I've linked to MP3s of what I think are the "best performers in that role",taken from my Les Mis Week in 2002 . Jean Valjean: Randal Keith : The only returning cast member. Excellent, possibly even better than before. Effortlessly hit the highs, the lows, the louds, and the softs. Javert: Robert Hunt : Tried too hard to be evil when the character is just an authority figure. Good voice, okay actor. Pissed me off all the time by changing the rhythm of the lyrics. The composer wrote those eighth notes for a ... - Thursday, January 12, 2006:
Musical Musings Keane grows on me more everytime I listen to their music. A friend from work introduced me to them last summer and I thought they were kind of annoying at first, but they're not so bad after repeated listenings. I would like the song, Bedshaped , more if they didn't use that horrible Game-Boy-sounding choir sample in the middle of the song (207KB MP3) -- it's more unfortunate than the tubular bells in Natalie Imbruglia's Counting Down the Days . That choir sample turns an otherwise good pop song into a tape I might have brought to one of my undergrad composition lessons recorded on my Ensoniq Soundscape. I haven't talked about contemporary composition in years. I haven't had any deep... - Tuesday, January 10, 2006:
Review Day: Fire Emblem Overview Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is one of those hybrid games released with little hype that doesn't sell well because it's too hard to categorize. At its core, it's a turn-based tactical combat game with some semblance of role-playing elements like leveling up characters, numeric stats, and an overarching dramatic storyline. The game consists of 28 levels in which you maneuver your army across the battlefield like chess pieces, striving to accomplish various goals such as routing the enemy, seizing a location, or staying alive for ten turns. The story (which is a notch higher than the usual RPG dross) plays out through non-interactive cut scenes between levels, and a whole lot of text. If you ... - Tuesday, December 06, 2005:
Untitled Post We went to see the movie version of RENT last night and ended up being the only people in the theatre. Apparently everyone was hiding in their basements with a surplus of corn flakes, milk, and toilet paper in anticipation of the first winter storm catastrophe of the season (because in the event of a blizzard, you should immediately begin making Hummel figurines out of paper maché so you have something to trade for food when the snow melts and people return above ground for the first time in twenty years to repopulate the Earth). Ultimately, the snow ended up being pretty in the air and slushy on the ground, and I only spun out fourteen times on the way home. Going into the movie, I was someone who k... - Monday, October 24, 2005:
Untitled Post Last Thursday night, we went to see the movie, Serenity , the big-screen adaptation of the cancelled TV series, Firefly . As a fan of the show, I thought the movie was pretty much perfect -- bringing most of the abruptly-ended storylines to a satisfying close. It didn't make the normal big-screen mistake of trying to overdo the story with a big budget (see The X-Files for a good example of bad excesses), and really was just a new episode in the continuing storyline. This movie is best seen if you've watched the TV show (and there's only half a season's worth of episodes so it's easy to play catch up). Though the first few minutes do a good job of introducing all the characters, their relationshi... - Thursday, October 20, 2005:
Musical Motives I like Muse's Sing For Absolution (807KB MP3) more every time I hear it. It's easy to intend for a song to have an ear-catching haunting sound, but pulling it off is pretty difficult. Another song that I think pulls this off successfully is Train's Ordinary . The end of this excerpt from Skindred's The Fear strongly reminds me of a similar sound from an 80s rock song, but I can't place it. Any ideas? (147KB MP3) It was announced that Sharon Stone recently co-wrote a song for a Hurricane Katrina album . It must be nice to have so much money and fame that you can just decide to do stuff like that out of the blue. When I am independently wealthy... - Tuesday, October 04, 2005:
Untitled Post It's fun getting packages in the mail, and since I do all my non-impulse shopping online, I get quite a few. I try to limit my Amazon purchases to one a month or so, and just let things pile up in my shopping cart until they reach a critical mass (This also lets me have a grace period when I decide that I don't want to purchase Girls Gone Wild: Boise Edition after all). My most recent Amazon shipment came on Friday, and contained the following: The Mikado : Gilbert and Sullivan My friend, Jason, is playing 2nd trumpet in the orchestra for this show in November and had a conflict, so I'm subbing in for him on one night. It should be fun -- it will give me a chance to do some dedicate... - Thursday, September 29, 2005:
Musical Motives I haven't had a musical post in a couple weeks, so this is an attempt to fill the musical void in your life. When given the choice between going to a live concert and buying the CD, I would much rather buy the CD. I want the perfection and the clarity of the recording, and I think listening to that outweighs any added energy the performance gets from being live. Live energy may be good in an improvised jazz solo, but for pop music all you get are uneven performances played too loud. Musicals are different, because the live performance gives you a visual element missing from the recording, and there are no drunk fans trying to sing along. Les Miserables is back at the National Theatre this winter -- I may o... - Wednesday, September 14, 2005:
Untitled Post My day got off to a surreal start when I got in the car and the radio blinked on to the sounds of "Bob the Builder sings Mambo No. 5 " . I'll have to see if it's a one-time thing or if it's going to turn into another Crazy Frog phenomenon like the theme from Beverly Hills Cop. My top three choices for more songs in the Bob the Builder line would be Usher/Ludacris/Lil Jon's Yeah , Spice Girl's Wannabe , and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci . This is my last day as a twenty-five year old. I'll be taking Friday, the day after my birthday, off but there will still be a Friday Fragments column -- never worry! For today, here are some capsule reviews (they are called c... - Tuesday, August 30, 2005:
Looking Forward to Being Attacked Looking Forward to Being Attacked is a light-hearted self-defense manual for women, written by Police Lieutenant Jim Bullard in 1977. The book is in black and white with about 90 pages, and can still be found on Amazon (God bless Amazon). The goal of the manual is to change the mindset of women as victims, providing them with simple self-defense techniques to thwart would-be attackers, molesters, and burglars. For example, if you are accosted by your local supermarket butcher at the golf course and he's wearing a John Deere hat, there are a few easy tricks you can use to keep him from mugging you from behind. Simply grab the arm that's choking you, take a step forward to the le... - Thursday, August 25, 2005:
Musical Motives I give my last music presentation at work today, on the history and sounds of Jazz. Doing three presentations in a row was a lot of fun, but I'm glad it's all over so I can go back to doing nothing with my afternoons. I have the bad habit of signing up for too much stuff when I'm in a slow, bored period, and then wishing I were bored again when I'm insanely busy. While recording samples for my presentation, I rediscovered just how much I enjoy a jazz chart that cooks. I don't really like combo jazz at all (the kind of jazz that evokes a small ensemble in a smoky room playing inaccessible melodies for their own amusement), but the sound of a solid big band chart is easily my favourite type of music, edging out a... - Thursday, August 04, 2005:
Untitled Post I'm giving Jem's Finally Woken CD a solid three-stars. For the sake of interaction, I will let you, the reader, decide what the maximum number of stars should be. As I mentioned in an old post, Jem's music is like a mix between Dido, Butterfly Boucher, and Tali. All her tracks have catchy beats and interesting vamps, and she has one of those high wafty voices that is only annoying 25% of the time. The major problem with the CD is that all the songs have very interesting ideas but don't really follow through on turning them into hit songs. Each song has a point which just cries out for a new melody or some change of pace, but instead, a previously-heard section is just recycled. The songs would even... - Monday, July 25, 2005:
Untitled Post Today is the day of my oft-anticipated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory review, although I'm sure that most of you are just happy that the review will push Friday's Arachnid Sex ads below the fold. There are generally three majority opinions concerning the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory : The movie has been elevated to a state of deified perfection because you saw it every week as a kid. Any new version is automatically blasphemy of the highest order. (I had a friend at Tech whose away message was always "Oompa loompa dippity doo, I've got another puzzle for you"). The movie was good enough, but no better than any other kids movie made in the 1970s. ... - Wednesday, July 20, 2005:
Untitled Post The new Dave Matthews CD, Stand Up is a forgettable disappointment. I was a big fan of his original CDs, and I thought that Everyday was pretty successful at being a mainstream crossover, but this newest offering isn't good for anything but "background music for chilling" (Add ocean sounds and you could probably turn it into a fine New Age offering). The mission statement of the CD seems to be: Create a forgettable vamp that repeats every four bars and sing about something arhythmically while your band plays a fifth-grade arrangement as backup. Occasionally throw in a random mix of nonmelodic sounds on a separate track that has nothing to do with anything and call it an "Intro... - Monday, July 18, 2005:
Untitled Post There are no spoilers for Book 6 in today's review. The latest Harry Potter book is surprisingly better than I expected it to be. I found the first three books to be cute but formulaic (Suspiciously evil wizard turns out to be not so bad, but benign friendly wizard was up to no good!!). The fourth and fifth tried too hard to be of epic proportions and ended up as Spellbooks of Oral Diarrhea. Now, with the end in sight and all the pieces falling into place, the sixth book has a much tighter storyline and a pace that doesn't drag along so much. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the first book where the significance of the title isn't really revealed until the end, and it's more of a fo... - Wednesday, July 13, 2005:
Untitled Post Visitors seem to crawl out of the woodwork whenever I talk about music, so today's post will consist of random whimsies about the music in my mind and on my playlist. A faux 70s pad sound can turn a mediocre song into a catchy one, like Black and White Town (325KB MP3) by the Doves. You can forgive a lot in a song when it sounds a little retro . I'm a sucker for that Chase credit card commercial featuring Five for Fighting's 100 Years . It's so shamelessly over-the-top sentimental that it works. This doesn't mean I'll get a new credit card though. I think Love Machine (580KB MP3) by Girls Aloud is ... - Wednesday, June 29, 2005:
Untitled Post With their new album, X & Y , Coldplay has chosen to stick with what works rather than be adventuresome, and for the most part, it succeeds. The CD has twelve tracks and a hidden one dedicated to their hero, Johnny Cash. To me, Coldplay has always been about the sound first, and then the lyrics second. They excel at creating a mood using just a wash of sound (a technique that most people who dislike their music find boring and repetitive) and use Chris Martin's vocals as a solid hook. A few of the songs on this CD have already started appearing on the radio, like Speed of Sound and Fix Me . Almost all of them are very strong alone, but they don't necessarily function well as an album. Becaus... - Tuesday, June 21, 2005:
Untitled Post A couple weeks back, Anna and I went to see the movie, Crash , an independent movie with quite a few well-known stars. The movie makes heavy use of coincidence to explore all the aspects of prejudice and racism and I liked it quite a bit. Ultimately it's not as deep as it intends to be, but it's definitely worth a watch. All the roles were well-filled (including Ludacris in his first movie role), although Brendan Fraser didn't really have a lot to do (and perhaps that was a good thing). Happy Birthday Liz Benyo and Daniel Bethancourt! $24,000 in Chinese food Time bomb alert: That baby will EXPLODE. - Wednesday, June 08, 2005:
Untitled Post Traitor's Knot the book which has been delayed since last November finally began shipping last week, so I took a trip out to Border's "We play the worst new age piano music ever" Bookstore but didn't find any copies. I did come away with three new CDs though: Dave Matthews' Stand Up , Coldplay's X & Y , and Jem's Finally Woken . My initial impressions: Stand Up is more of the same, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a fairly mellow Dave Matthews album with nothing as edgy as his original offerings from the late 90s. X & Y contains the infamous single, Speed of Sound which was to become the first song to open at #1 in the UK since the ... - Thursday, May 26, 2005:
Untitled Post The Lost finale was quite good, but I don't think they gave enough answers for the old questions before introducing new ones. Whoever voted for Arzt kicking the bucket got their wish, as he managed to explode himself with nitroglycerin while teaching the other survivors how dangerous it is. The Alias finale was partly satisfying and partly disappointing. I will reveal the cliffhanger in this post, so stop reading now if you tape the show to watch later. Alias has always been a family drama first, which just happens to be set with spies as a backdrop. The element that separated it from other spy shows and movies was the presence of the 15th century prophet, Milo Rambaldi, whose works and prophe... - Tuesday, May 17, 2005:
Untitled Post It's time for two more capsule reviews of recently rentable movies. Darkness with Lena Olin and Anna Paquin is a horror movie that's got a passable amount of "creepy", but at the expense of "scary" or even "plot". It employs a lot of standard horror devices which seem relevant but aren't, and an ending which tries to be different and generally succeeds. You won't miss anything if you miss this movie. I Heart Huckabees is a weird movie. It's interesting, has decent performances, and is easy enough to watch, but it's not really a movie I would recommend to a friend. At times, its "deep" themes seem to be satires of satires of itself, as if the writers felt they were being clever at turning serio... - Thursday, May 05, 2005:
Untitled Post Two recent movies that I've seen are Ocean's Twelve and Sideways . The first used up its entire plot budget on paying the stars, so it wasn't as well-crafted as the original. It had plenty of style and was a fun diversion though. The Twelve in the title is something of a misnomer since there are fewer than five fleshed out characters, so it really should have been called Three with Ocean's Sounds . Sideways was a good, quiet, well-done film with a few funny bits. If you know nothing about wine, you might even learn a few things. There really haven't been any superb non-animated movies in quite some time -- movies on par with Memento , L.A. Confidential&nb... - Monday, March 21, 2005:
Untitled Post I've been listening to Origin of Symmetry , an import album by Muse, and as usual, I think it's really good. The first half is more promising than the last half, and there are no "hit" songs on it, but it's a real album (something you don't find often these days). One of the things I like about Muse is that their music is accessible and hard-hitting while still remaining artistic and musical. Also, their songs are more heavy-handed than angry and they get some neat effects out of their instruments. This album is definitely more "noisy" than my favourite album, Absolution , but it uses noise to the fullest effect. Songs are tied together thematically and sometimes through shared ostin... - Wednesday, March 16, 2005:
Untitled Post Last night we watched The Incredibles , which was an all-around excellent movie. The story was cliched enough to be humorous in parody while still having the obligatory kids' message. The graphics were especially good, even better than Finding Nemo , and water and hair were particularly well done. Besides all of that, it was funny, creative, and had a great score. The DVD set is 2-disc, and comes with tons of features, most of which we haven't seen yet. The outtakes are stupid and not up to par with outtakes on other animated movies, but some of the other stuff is pretty interesting. Of the "new" generation of animated movies, this one ranks up pretty high on my list of favorites, with the Shrek... - Monday, February 21, 2005:
Untitled Post Shark Tale had some funny moments, but was mostly inane. It was definitely no Finding Nemo . The Oscars are coming up soon, and it will easily lose the Animated Feature category to either one of the other competitors. I guess this means it's time for my annual Oscar picks news posts, even though most of the movies I've seen recently are definitely not of Oscar quality. Paris Hilton's phone hacked and posted online - Friday, February 18, 2005:
Untitled Post I finally watched Donnie Darko last night, the cult favourite that was released to little fanfare a few years ago and rereleased this week as a Director's Cut. It was a very interesting "figure it out yourself" movie and I see what was going on in it, but it would probably take me several more viewings to really understand the plot completely (if that's possible). Check it out if you like psychological thrillers and metaphysical topics like space-time paradoxes. Man fined for imitating a car Where not to leave your laundered cash - Tuesday, February 15, 2005:
Untitled Post Garden State was a good movie. Without a Paddle was predictably funny but a little slow and annoying. We've also started watching the second season of 24 which is off to a pretty good start. In other news, I've broken 260 gold in Warcraft auctions. Don't you like the Roo Poo Platter? Tax considered on stupid Maryland SUVs. No word yet on stupid Maryland drivers. - Thursday, February 03, 2005:
Untitled Post I've only heard two songs by the UK group, Kaiser Chiefs but they both suffer from the same disappointing lost potential. The group has a great sound and writes good intriguing verses, but they really suck at choruses, which are so repetitive that they make listening to the whole songs a chore. Here is Exhibit A of catchy verse, from Oh My God : Catchy Verse (MP3) And here is Exhibit B: the self-defeating repetitive chorus which makes the song annoying: Annoying Chorus (MP3) Simple choruses are great for singalongs, but surely someone could have come up with ABAB or ABAC rather than AAAA. The second song of theirs... - Wednesday, February 02, 2005:
Untitled Post We watched The Forgotten with Julianne Moore this weekend. Though it had a few genuinely startling moments, it was not a spectacular movie. Good for a watch, but not particularly memorable after all is said and done. The DVD also has an alternate ending, half of which is better than the original ending, and half of which is utterly ridiculous. McDonald's outsources drive-thru Excuses for Jackson jury duty - Thursday, January 13, 2005:
Untitled Post A few months ago, I listened to First of the Gang to Die by Morrissey and thought it was catchy with a very unique lead voice, even though it was kind of a stupid song. Based on that, I picked up two Morrissey CDs out of a bargain bin, You are the Quarry and The Best of Morrissey . After listening to these, I can say that Morrissey is the king of pretentious, unmemorable music. He wastes his great voice on pointless anti-establishment songs with lyrics like these: America your head's too big, Because America, Your belly's too big And I love you, I just wish you'd stay where you is In America, The land of the free, they said, And of opportunity, In a just... - Monday, January 10, 2005:
Untitled Post The server was down on Friday night, so I couldn't update anything. Instead I took the time to do some housekeeping in the News section and tidy up the pictures and entries. I also went through some old news posts to kill broken links (most of them on CNN) but that got boring around October 2004. On Saturday afternoon, I read Michael Crichton's State of Fear , his latest techno-thriller. It's his first book where you can really tell that he has an opinion on things, and contains a ton of interesting information on global warming and weather crises. The book tries hard not to preach, but occasionally it does. He does reasonably well merging the "hope Hollywood makes this into a movie" aspect with the more c... - Friday, December 31, 2004:
Untitled Post We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night, which was surprisingly good and original for a Jim Carrey movie, and lacking his trademark Robin-Williams-I-want-to-be-in-dramas overacting. The movie is interesting to follow and piece together, though you're going to hate it if movies like Memento gave you a headache. Happy New Year! - Thursday, December 30, 2004:
Untitled Post Today's CD review will be of Muse's second album, Showbiz . The feel of this album is very different from their fourth album ( Absolution , previously mentioned), but the style is unmistakably Muse. This album is a bit more edgy than Absolution and makes more use of noise as a musical element. The tunes are catchy though not always memorable, and the falsetto is actually very powerful, especially at the end of the song Showbiz . Their non-edgy stuff works well too, though sometimes they sound too much like a frat rock band . Here are a few samples for your listening pleasure. As usual the sound quality has been greater reduced for downloading: ... - Wednesday, December 29, 2004:
Untitled Post Two of my recent CDs are Paul Weller's Wild Wood and the Scissor Sisters' self-titled CD. The Weller CD, I picked up because I liked the retro 70s feel of his single The Bottle (see the entry from Sep. 20, 2004). It has a very mellow laid-back groove to it, and is great background for relaxing and/or "chilling". I liked Paul Weller when he was fronting The Jam, but his solo stuff is great, even if it has a totally different feel . 5th Season (234KB MP3) I got the Scissor Sisters CD because a lot of their songs get air time on XM. Their music is a blend of campy pop, dance, and the pretentiousness of 80s rock . Take ... - Tuesday, December 28, 2004:
Untitled Post John Grisham's The Last Juror finally came out in paperback so I picked it up and read it two Sundays ago. As previously noted, I never buy his books in hardback anymore since they only take a few hours to read through. Recently Grisham has had trouble deciding whether he wants to be a passable trashy law fiction writer or a passable trashy historical fictional narrative writer. He's dabbled in both, generally unsuccessfully since people who like one of his styles will hate the other. This book is another hybrid which fails on both levels. The title and the book summary set it up to be another courtroom thriller but it turns into a small-town snoozer with a minimum of sensible resolution (the last juror r... - Monday, December 06, 2004:
Untitled Post A game that taken up much of my miniscule spare time collection is Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door . It's the best Cube game since Metroid Prime, and probably my favourite Mario game (even though it's not an action game). Paper Mario is a lightweight role-playing / adventure / action game with the odd conceit that everyone is a 2D paper sprite living in a 3D world. It keeps switching up the style of game throughout, so it doesn't get old, and it's very accessible even if you hate role-playing games. Two things in particular stand out about it: the music and the translation. The music is not your standard Nintendo music, though many of the themes are based on themes from earlier games. It's ... - Monday, October 25, 2004:
Untitled Post I'd forgotten all about posting CD thoughts until I got a reminder email this morning. I like all three CDs I bought on the 12th. Smile is good but the only word I can use to describe it is "meandering". It's very artful and cohesive, but spends far too much time playing with tempos and styles to be as catchy as Pet Sounds . After listening to it several times, not much about it sticks in my head, and it's not one that I'd listen to regularly or burn tracks off of. I like the Dido CD, Life for Rent , simply because it's easy to listen to and Dido has one of the few pleasant female voices in recent years. You can put it on in the background for hours on end while workin and it's pretty good... - Monday, October 18, 2004:
Untitled Post We went and saw Team America: World Police this weekend. It was a fairly on-target satire/parody with a few pretty insightful comments. The funniest part of the movie has to do with the fact that the closing credits theme song has a chorus shouting "F*ck yeah!" over and over, and the movie was playing right next to the entrance, so all the kids there for Shark Tale indubitably got an earful as we filed out. The true hidden evil of gay union: incest Smelly kitty litter blamed for arson How exactly do you have phone sex against your will? - Thursday, October 14, 2004:
Untitled Post Muse's Absolution is a pretty good CD. Its style is a mix of overdramatic 80s rock opera, Romantic era chord progressions, and a slight hint of heavy metal. I'm not a big fan of heavy metal or square wave distortion, but Muse dabbles just enough in it that it's not obnoxious (except for one song). For a sample of Muse, see my September 20 news update. Bush is really a robot Ukrainian teen fights the Rise of the Machines? It's an inappropriate use of city equipment, obviously - Wednesday, October 06, 2004:
Untitled Post I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 last night, Moore's one-two punch against George Bush. My feelings on it were mixed -- the Bush-bashing parts were stupid because making fun of George Bush happens every day and Bush is far too easy a target to really give it any significance. The underlying conspiracy theories were not fully fleshed out, and it seemed like Moore failed to use his movie to support his theories, ending up with a bunch of vague scandalous plot segues instead. About halfway through the movie though, Moore runs out of steam with the Bush bashinig and it becomes a documentary about the war in Iraq, from the perspectives of troops and families of the troops. It's in these parts, where both George Bush ... - Wednesday, September 29, 2004:
Untitled Post Last night's movie was Mean Girls which turned out to be pretty funny and surprisingly intelligent for a SNL-spawned movie. It had a pretty good take on high school life and all the backstabbing that goes on around it. Part Two of the pilot for Lost is on tonight. Don't miss the show that actually made ABC win in the ratings for the first time in eleventy years last week. The URI! Zone as you see it is approaching its one year anniversary. There's easily been over 6500 visitors not including me in this past year. That means that in the eight years of this site's life, there's probably been more than 50,000 visits. What a waste of time. - Tuesday, September 28, 2004:
Untitled Post We watched Jersey Girl last night -- the latest Kevin Smith movie with Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, and George Carlin. Surprisingly it's actually a pretty good down-to-earth movie and nothing like his previous fare. That means lots of people will hate it, but I thought it was worth a watch. Track Martha Stewart like a UPS Package Town overrun with old people on scooters - Tuesday, August 17, 2004:
Untitled Post One of the books I finished long ago but never got around to reviewing was The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and Dave Thomas (presumably not of Wendy's fame). The book is a language-agnostic best practices book that's written in just the right tone to get its points across (not too jokey and not too dry). It's pretty short, but does a great job at distilling information to the essentials. This, along with Effective Java by Josh Bloch and Refactoring by Martin Fowler, would be a book I'd recommend keeping around to flip through sporadically. "If I see 'em, I'll shoot 'em," he said. "They're gone. I'll tell 'em I had a flashback." Buy... - Tuesday, July 27, 2004:
Untitled Post On Sunday night, we finally watched Master and Commander: The Far Side of Title Verbosity , which started slowly and got a little better as time passed. It wasn't a bad movie, just not really Oscar-worthy. If you want a movie with pirates, go watch Pirates of the Caribbean . If you want a movie with Russell Crowe, go watch A Beautiful Mind . I had another work-related barbeque on Monday night. The weather held up just long enough to cook a bunch of hamburgers, and it's been gloomy and rainy ever since. Transit officials said they were surprised by how many cards they have sold [since the officials made them almost a mandatory requirement for using Metro]... - Thursday, July 22, 2004:
Untitled Post We watched Starsky and Hutch last night -- a pretty funny movie. It was well-made and not over the top. Bite-sized snacks are never as good as they should be. They have so much wasted potential -- you expect something that tastes better than normal size, because the area of good taste is greatly reduced while the flavorful materials are kept constant. In practice, the snacks are more shoddily constructed, have more crumbs, and skimp on the parts that taste good. Appleton man injured while making obscene gestures at trains World's smallest cat - Thursday, July 01, 2004:
Untitled Post Bad Santa is the most bitterly cynical movie I've seen in a long time. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, and John Ritter, it tells the story of a foul-mouthed alcoholic and his midget friend who works as a mall Santa each year, and then robs the mall on Christmas Eve. I thought it was great but you may not if you have any piety for the holiday season. There are no deep meaningful messages or parables, but there are some incredibly funny scenes. If you too are cynical, you will like this movie. Mega Man Anniversary Collection is on sale at Target for $26 through Saturday. It contains the first 8 Mega Man games from the 80s and 90s, and is a great port although you can't remap the rather ... - Wednesday, June 30, 2004:
Untitled Post I watched Secret Window with Johnny Depp this weekend. It was definitely worth a rental, and doesn't show all its cards right away. Check it out. I taught a class yesterday on Java operators as part of the Java Certification series going on at work. It seemed to go over pretty well. I'll be teaching another one in August as well. Protesters are completely missing the meaning of this campaign Boy Scouts sued over fire People in Hawaii can't drive An ingenious approach to preventing information sharing - Friday, May 21, 2004:
Untitled Post We saw Shrek 2 on opening night. Though not as cohesive a movie as the first, it was still very funny and hit all the right notes. The animation and graphics were improved, but for every bumpy bitmapped surface with warts, there was a scene where the models didn't quite gel as being in the same environment (such as a cat on Shrek's shoulder that looked like it was cut and pasted Southpark style). One of the characters in the movie, the Fairy God Mother, had a business called FGM, Inc. Weapons from Mordor caught by airport security Woman calls police three times to buy crack Woman tries to gas unwanted houseguests - Friday, May 07, 2004:
Untitled Post Yesterday's web update was written in the style of Mike Catania (ha ha). Two hundred and thirty-six episodes later and Friends is finally off the air. Not quite though, since NBC plans to air reruns of all the recent Friends episodes and Friends-related news shows throughout Sweeps Month. They also made tons of money by shorting the final season by six episodes and then filling those timeslots with reruns tagged as "fan favourites". They should have ended the series in a completely unexpected manner. For example, the friends are sitting in their apartment chatting it up when a plane crashes into the building because the pilot was involved in a freak tuna fish mishap. Fade to black with no expl... - Wednesday, May 05, 2004:
Untitled Post I wrote an update yesterday but now I can't find out where it disappeared to. I've watched a couple movies since Sunday -- The Cooler with William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin, and Big Fish with Ewan McGregor. The first was pretty good and I liked the second one a lot. Most symbolic feel good movies don't tug at any heartstrings, but this is one that I would watch again. The style is patently Tim Burton, and all the actors are perfect for their roles. Plus, I always like Elfman scores, even though they start to sound the same. We're giving a demo of some of our stuff at a technical exchange this afternoon. I got in today at 5 so it looks like it will be a long day. Creativ... - Friday, April 16, 2004:
Untitled Post Kill Bill, Vol. 1 was the movie of choice last night. It was occasionally entertaining but mostly stupid, and reeked of overwrought Tarantino. It's apparent that he was given free reign on editing with the movie split into two parts, since he obviously didn't cut a single drawn out scene from the mix. I bet he could have easily cut this into a better, well-paced movie the length of a Lord of the Rings segment. The movie had some good tunes, as is typical of Tarantino, but for every good one there was one with annoyingly inane lyrics or obnoxious whistling and grating sound effects. For the record, I liked Reservoir Dogs but didn't much care for Pulp Fiction . I'm also glad Tarantino... - Tuesday, April 13, 2004:
Untitled Post I finally finished To Ride Hell's Chasm after several extended interruptions towards the end. It's a very good book, though not my favourite Wurts book. I'll definitely read it again in the future. For an accessible entry point into Wurts' writing, try Master of Whitestorm . I'm trying out Filezilla for an FTP client, after having used WS_FTP 95 since 1996. I'll let you know what I think about it. Yesterday's notable search terms: There were no interesting search terms yesterday, so here are some representative terms I encounter on a daily basis: Storm Warnings, One Art, Oedipus Complex, How do I germinate beans? How do I germinate beans underwater? How do I germina... - Thursday, April 08, 2004:
Untitled Post Last night's movie was The House of Sand and Fog with Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley -- highly recommended. The movie does a good job of showing all its characters as multidimensional and walks the fine line of melodrama without getting sappy. The James Horner score is actually understated and works pretty well in context too. We also saw Gothika on Sunday. It was a little creepy but mostly stupid, and way too easy to figure out. Still better than Cold Creek Manor though. Yesterday's notable search terms: smelly pants story, marsalis haydn cadenza, klangfarbenmelodie berg webern schoenberg play theatre, lettermaze Two year ... - Friday, March 26, 2004:
Untitled Post We saw Cold Creek Manor last night. In length, it was the Bad Boys II of suspense movies, and in suspense, it was the Adventures of Milo and Otis . The purported ghost story spends an hour and half setting back story and building tension, then squanders the last half hour on a paint-by-numbers ending with no twists, no ghosts, and several plot holes. The climactic battle is a hand to hand fight between a guy with a hammer and a guy with a stepladder. Skip it. I finished reading Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems by David Agans. It's a brief, easy-to-read book that doesn't bring much new information to the... - Thursday, March 25, 2004:
Untitled Post Last night I watched Dirty Pretty Things , starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as a Nigerian immigrant and Audrey Tautou as not Amélie. It's a decent thriller, and was nominated for an Original Screenplay Oscar this year. I've added a couple new pictures of my new office to the Uri! Pictures and a couple house pictures (including one of the American Dream desk) to the House Pictures. Yesterday's notable search terms: pentachlorophenol year it was discovered, michigan tenth grade biology book, the urizone has you, ada holland "Backyard Wrestling Babes" was not a high-class venture Attacker tells blind man, "Watch where yo... - Monday, March 15, 2004:
Untitled Post We watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico last night, a tired retread of ground already covered in El Mariachi and Desperado . The only notable parts of the movie were Enrico Iglesias trying to be a badass and Johnny Depp reprising the role he had in Pirates of the Caribbean , but as a CIA agent. Yesterday's notable search terms: worm beech, scriabin mystic chord, bricks in empire state building pepsi, jeered by the minor demons Dinosaur on the run - Monday, March 01, 2004:
Untitled Post This year, I managed to correctly guess eight of the twenty-four Oscar categories. That's improvement, but not quite as good as my beginner's luck first year. Instead of watching a single minute of the ceremony, I watched the movie, Matchstick Men with Nicholas Cage. Good movie, and definitely recommended. Some people have requested a list of movies to watch that I think are good, so off the top of my head: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller/Con Men/Twists: Catch Me If You Can, Confidence, Conspiracy Theory, Das Experiment, LA Confidential, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Memento, Ocean's 11, Panic Room, Phone Booth, Reservoir Dogs, Runaway Jury, A Simple Plan, Sixth Sense, Score, 2 Day... - Friday, February 13, 2004:
Untitled Post I reread some Janny Wurts these past few weeks, specifically the bulk of the third book in the Wars of Light and Shadows series. The third book is peculiar because it's being published in four hardback chunks (otherwise the bindings would break). I read the first three chunks, Fugitive Prince , Grand Conspiracy , and Peril's Gate in rapid succession, which comes to about two thousand pages of incredibly arranged prose. You really have to apply yourself to read this series but the end result is well worth the effort. Many people find the text tedious and overdramatic, but it's really just a completely different style of writing from what most authors (fantasy in particular) churn out. I guess it'... - Sunday, February 08, 2004:
Untitled Post I watched Lost in Translation this afternoon, a quiet, steady-paced movie that's not intended for impatient people. I thought it was interesting and good enough, but not the masterpiece that everyone lauds it to be. Yesterday's notable search terms: http://www.urizone.net/olio/arthur.htm, toll plazas in virginia, passacaglia shostakovich macbeth, nate shafroth, complex larry sonny Courier banned for a worser font I'm a boy and I'm superior Blow your mind with a look at your beer - Sunday, February 01, 2004:
Untitled Post We left Northern Virginia yesterday around 9:30 to go see Miss Saigon. After driving around the uselessly twisty portion of 495 above DC, and paying some of our booty on tolls through Maryland, we arrived in Wilmington, Delaware, a small pocket of urban blight that looks just like a real city, but only four blocks across. After six miles of suburb driving in search of a national chain for lunch, we finally stopped at Arby's (being the only choice besides Dunkin' Donuts and one McDonald's). The show took place at the DuPont Hotel/Theatre at 2 PM, and was filled with the usual mix of high-class old folks and sleek yuppies. The production itself was quite good, especially considering its roots as a gargantuan epic. The ... - Monday, January 05, 2004:
Untitled Post We watched 25th Hour last night -- a good movie that I'd never heard of before. Starring Ed Norton, the pacing is methodical and thoughtful but the writing was catchy enough to keep things interesting. I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean a few weeks back, and it was actually a good movie. Easily the best movie ever made about a theme park ride as well. Yesterday's notable search terms: microwave popcorn comparisons, drug trafficking Brazil mining company, Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Mind Power : How to Use the Other 90 % of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts, Peter Harmatuk Britney Spears to annul weekend marriage ... - Friday, January 02, 2004:
Untitled Post We watched Bad Boys II last night. Fun action but about an hour too long (estimated running time: 147 minutes). There's just no need for that -- run your ninety minutes, blow something up, and fade to black. Florida Kathy is in town this weekend, so I'm going up to Rockville tonight for merriment and good times. Yesterday's search terms: transposing key for alto sax, A-Team theme chords, religion in netherland, the groundhog by eberhart, most difficult trumpet, army appropriation act Johnson, THE ART OF LOSING ISN'T HARD TO MASTER, a Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen what he saying about the institution of marriage, tenessee williams a streetcar named desire, cool emotations, fanfare fo... - Wednesday, December 31, 2003:
Untitled Post I picked up the new paperback copy of John Grisham's King of Torts while stocking my monthly supply of work snacks at Costco yesterday. I'm not sure whether I liked it or not yet -- it wasn't his best but it wasn't his worst. The plot was a little meandering and the jacket blurb ended up being the setup for the storyline, rather than the storyline itself. Grisham still has a hard time giving any character believable motivations but he provides an entertaining few hours of reading. Yesterday's search terms: loneliness khachaturian melody, notation sharp one bar, absolute music composers, Ethan Haimo, worst first lines, Liz Benyo, sea turtles reading comprehension, murders of kids in norfol... - Monday, December 22, 2003:
Untitled Post We're at Ernie this week. Better watch your back. I went to see the hemorrhoids-inducing Return of the King on Saturday, and generally it was a great movie. It lives up to the reputation of the first two movies, although you should be warned that it makes no attempt at all to catch viewers up on the storyline. As I've said before, I'm not a fan of the books, but the movies are able to stand on their own as solid material. Because the special effects were so uniformly excellent, there were at least two rough, unfinished scenes that were laughably noticeable (for example, watch the scene where a party of horsemen flee with the Black Gate behind them that just screams "green screen"). My only com... - Friday, December 19, 2003:
Untitled Post One of the games I've played this month is the GameCube version of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time . It's got great graphics, fluid animations, and a surprisingly forgiving control system that makes it easy to pick up. It's almost as much fun to watch as it is to play. The only drawbacks to date: the voice samples sound like they were compressed to 1Hz mono and often can't be heard over the score, and combat sometimes gets tedious because it's easy but takes a while. The exploration / puzzle aspects of the game, however, do a good job of matching up to the older PoP games for the PC. I'm 33% of the way through right now, according to the save-game, but I think I've hit a game-stopping bug that prevents a d... - Wednesday, December 17, 2003:
Untitled Post I finished watching the fourth season of The Sopranos last night. Though the season as a whole wasn't as brilliant as the first two seasons, it had some of the best episodes to date, and really deserved the 13 Emmy nominations it got this year. The volume was turned down on gratuitous violence, but the plots and subplots felt much more cohesive than the third season. While I liked parts of the third season, I felt overall that the story arc was too meandering, and too many subplots (like the Russian interior decorator) were abandoned without resolution. If you're a Sopranos fan at all, you won't go wrong by watching this season, especially the great finale. Joe Pantoliano deserves his supporti... - Thursday, December 11, 2003:
Untitled Post Catching up on my movie backlog, I've seen Daredevil , Old School , The Pianist , and the super-duper extended edition of The Two Towers . The first was stupid, the second was predictably okay, and the third was good but not a movie I'd want to see more than once. I'm not a LotR fan, so I can't watch the movies more than once a year without getting impatient. However, this extended edition of the second movie adds enough material to alter the entire viewing experience. Because the director was under contract to stay within three hours for commercial releases, this (nearly four hour) DVD edition is a better reflection of his original vision, and events are much better explained this tim... - Tuesday, December 09, 2003:
Untitled Post For those jaded souls who aren't already shocked and awed about my recent listening choices, here's another. I've recently been listening to the music of the French pop star, Alizée. Despite its sometimes annoying tendency to double as dance music, europop is fun to listen to because it's patently harmless, upbeat, and easy on the ears. Alizée arrived on the scene three years ago and easily has a better voice than any Britney Spears clone the US recording industry could produce. Plus, the lyrics of her songs have a poetic, almost campy, flavour to them which reminds me a lot of music from the 80s. I've included a sample clip and lyrics from the song, À Contre Courant , in case yo... - Friday, November 28, 2003:
Untitled Post I just finished Refactoring by Martin Fowler. Although it has a hefty $50 price tag, it's chock full of useful, practical information, and I would rate it as a must-have like Joshua Bloch's Effective Java . It's also easier to read as a non-reference book than the standard Design Patterns by the Gang of Four. If you're a programmer by day, this is definitely a book that should be on your shelf. Speaking of computer books, I read The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World by Chris Duncan a month ago, but never got all the way to the end. Though it had some good information on working in real-world business environments, the tone of the book was oppress... - Thursday, November 20, 2003:
Untitled Post I picked up the new paperback edition of Prey by Michael Crichton yesterday, despite being in the middle of two other books at the moment. The book is on par with some of his earlier works, and I read it cover to cover in about six hours last night. The theme of technology abused by humans going out of control is back in full force and Crichton does a good job of balancing between the thriller aspects and the interesting sidebar stories about current events (although there's a little more academic info, since nanotechnology isn't as easy to "get" as cloned dinosaurs). Plus, it relates to computer science. Here's the overly melodramatic teaser: In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wr... - Tuesday, November 18, 2003:
Untitled Post Terminator 3 is a pretty good movie. It doesn't take itself too seriously and has less of a wow factor, but is action-packed and over quickly. It's one of those movies where you go in knowing exactly what to expect, so it's enjoyable within your expectations. Hanging corpse admired as sculpture Southern drawl defeats voice recognition programs - Wednesday, November 12, 2003:
Untitled Post Finding Nemo is a really funny movie, and ranks up there with the other Disney/Pixar animated features. If you are completely lacking a sense of humour, it's also notable for its insane cartilage and water effects, and its use of colour is justification for buying a DVD player. Watch it. In other news, Disney is halting all its traditional cel-shading work in favour of 3D computer animation . The Mouse that ate Public Domain Naked Sushi - Thursday, November 06, 2003:
Untitled Post The general consensus on the latest Matrix movie seems to be that of horrible disappointment. Online reviews tend to rate it even lower than the second movie of the trilogy (if that's even possible) and agree that there should only have been a single movie. Without having seen the third movie, I'm of the opinion that the first movie was mildly interesting with good special effects, but far too pretentious for its own good. The second was incoherent filler that should never have been picked up off the cutting room floor. Any movie where Keanu Reeves plays a futuristic Jesus figure has to be treated with some level of skepticism. In the picture above, you can see a variation on one of his acting techniques,... - Monday, November 03, 2003:
Untitled Post I watched two movies this weekend, The Life of David Gale , and Runaway Jury . The first was good but predictable. Kate Winslet gets on my nerves for some intangible reason, but wasn't bad in this movie. Runaway Jury was great, and even better than the Grisham book it was based on. John Cusack is another actor who gets on my nerves but he was good in his role. Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman were excellent, this being the first movie they've ever been in together. The Hokies obliterated #2 Miami on Saturday night, 31 - 7. With only two undefeated conference teams left, it's a toss-up as to who the BCS computers will pick for the Sugar Bowl if someone else loses. I've upda... - Sunday, October 12, 2003:
Untitled Post This has got to be the stupidest packaging idea ever. You open the full-sized box to reveal a minibox, fully sealed and shrink-wrapped. You open that to reveal a wafer thin cardboard CD case that could easily fit through a hairline fault. I saw School of Rock last night, and it was actually pretty funny -- much funnier than it could have been, and a lot less annoying than it could have been. Another good movie I've seen recently: Confidence with Edward Burns and Dustin Hoffman. Con-man movies always follow the same basic concept, but they're still fun to figure out as they go. Alias , tonight. - Monday, April 28, 2003:
Untitled Post During my whirlwind musical explorations, I discovered the British group, Coldplay, and liked their stuff enough to buy their two CDs, Parachutes , and Rush of Blood to the Head . They have a very laid-back and tastefully clean sound that I enjoy listening to. A couple of good numbers you might like listening to: Yellow, Shiver, Clocks, and God Put a Smile on Your Face. Also the song, Scientist, isn't spectacular, but it's got a very artsy video. If you've got a fast enough connection, you can watch it here (WMV 15.7MB). I met with Dr. Spencer this morning to go over the details of the MFIT project and he gave it his stamp of approval. From there I wandered around campus turning in keys ... - Saturday, April 05, 2003:
Untitled Post The movie Catch Me If You Can was playing at the dollar theatre last night. Check it out if you have the time -- it's a light-hearted, slightly over-the-top movie about a check forger based on a true story. Both Hanks and DiCaprio do a decent job in their roles and the movie doesn't feel as long as it actually is. Today is work day. And maybe clean the apartment day. And maybe take a nap on the couch with Booty after I post these new pictures of her day. Porn for Geologists How much did FSU know about its QB's alleged betting? My political compass - Thursday, March 13, 2003:
Untitled Post We watched two movies last night, Joy Ride , and The Ring . The latter was billed as the scariest movie of all time and did have its moments, but ultimately didn't live up to all the hype (kind of like Blair Witch Project). The first was a fun enough thriller/road-trip movie for a couple hours of entertainment. In case of nuclear radiation, stand directly behind your door, but do not open the door, even if the radiation knocks. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome MOAB tested 100 miles west of Marsh Sands Beach - Wednesday, March 05, 2003:
Untitled Post The chicken nuggets pictured before you are easily the most repulsive chicken nuggets on the face of the planet. They look nothing like the cover art, and although the first bite sets up positive comparisons to the texture of McDonald's nuggets, it all goes downhill from there. The remaining bites will lead you to believe that some evil scientist used his atom ray to liquefy the insides of a chicken and then squeezed it wholesale into vaguely breaded pockets like some macabre icing applicator. The aftertaste is even better -- if I had to give it a fragrance name for enterprising perfume makers, I would be torn between "homeless man's crotch" and "mucous of doom". Today is the first day of my Spring Break... - Sunday, February 23, 2003:
Untitled Post Another book I read over Christmas was Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live . Truthfully, I've never seen a current episode of SNL that didn't suck, but back in the days when Comedy Central had no shows and aired SNL constantly, many of the early classics were often shown. The book is simply a compendium of unedited blurbs from actors and writers of the show, listed roughly in chronological order. The stories told are very interesting, but the book really doesn't function as a good timeline of the show. It's like the interviews and dialogues fill in all the holes around a timeline which everyone should supposably be familiar with. Still, the stories are a good behind the scenes glimpse of ... - Saturday, February 22, 2003:
Untitled Post I never post anything particularly thought-provoking on weekends, so I thought I'd continue the trend and throw up some more reviews. I read The Summons by John Grisham over Christmas break. John Grisham only writes potboilers these days, but he's like the McDonald's of the literary world: a good choice when you know exactly what you want and how it should taste, even if it's not the best food ever. The Summons is a good page-turner that actually strays a bit from his usual "shoot-and/or-chase-the-lawyer" plots. It keeps you involved although it won't take more than one day tops to get to the end. Unlike The Partner , the threads of the plot are actually resolved in an agreeable way by the end... - Monday, February 10, 2003:
Untitled Post I watched two movies this weekend, Monster's Ball and Bourne Identity . The first didn't do a great job of getting its point across, and was filled with multiple plot-convenient coincidences, although the acting was good. The second had its fun points but was very quiet for an action movie, and occasionally the actors didn't seem quite sure of their motivations. I had the first two of four meetings about my thesis preliminary draft today. It looks like things should be smooth sailing from here on out, since the only points that were discussed involved formatting and clearing up performance notes. True Anagrams : The United States Bureau of Fisheries >> I... - Friday, February 07, 2003:
Untitled Post Having futzed around with my new GameCube for a couple weeks now, I thought I'd post a review or two. I picked up Luigi's Mansion as a rental last week -- it was the flagship offering when the GameCube was released last year. The game is a perfect distraction that effectively shows off the graphics of the GameCube. Though the sound is weak (there's little music, and characters talk in the gibberish-style popularized by Gobliiins a decade ago), the visuals and animations are extremely well-done. The game is essentially a side-scrolling puzzle game which involves being a ghostbuster in a haunted mansion. By fixing the camera to a specific perspective, the game manages to avoid the horrible camera problems that plagued... - Wednesday, February 05, 2003:
Practica Musica Sucks Practica Musica is easily the most poorly-designed software I've ever used. In general, it seems that software designed by or for musicians tends to be unintuitive or slipshod (consider early versions of Finale), but here it's especially unacceptable since the program is billed as educational software. PM's interface actually interferes with the learning process and more often than not it prevents students from translating what they want to answer into an expected canned response. Even on the instructors' end, the class report scheme (coupled with a Quit menu option than seems to mean different things at different times) makes more work than it should. We used MacGamut when I was an undergrad, and while it may not... - Monday, February 03, 2003:
Untitled Post I watched the movie Signs this weekend, which was "okay" but not spectacular. The pacing was almost as slow as Unbreakable and the pay-off was rather silly, though the movie was classic Shyamalan. Good for a couple hours of entertainment. Last night's Alias was good. Ethan Hawke guest starred and fought his clone, and Christian Slater will be guest starring next week. Watch it more and maybe I'll stop gushing over it every week. Waste hours of your life. I'm on level 40. CNN has good lead as to cause of shuttle crash We need this in Tallahassee - Tuesday, January 21, 2003:
Untitled Post If you use Listen and Sing in your sightsinging class, you should know that the Beethoven's monopoly ran out of books again, and don't plan on making another immediate order this semester. This is after they decided not to order any at all at the beginning of the term, and after I contacted them and specifically told them how many students would be in need of it. I'm all for helping the local businessmen, but if you're going to exercise a monopoly on textbooks and use unfair trade practices against other bookstores in town, you've got to be prepared to actually serve the customer and offer some incentive for repeat business. I finally told all my students who got screwed a second time to cancel their orders and orde... - Monday, January 20, 2003:
Untitled Post As I continue to clear out my holiday backlog, I thought I'd post about two DVDs I got for Christmas. The first, The Back to the Future Trilogy , is pretty self-explanatory. If you were a normal kid growing up in the 80s, chances are good that you enjoyed this trilogy. Besides the three movies with remastered effects and sound, the DVDs contain lots of extras including interviews, behind-the-scenes effects work, and deleted scenes. I loved the movies when I was a kid and forgot how well all three films tied together as a cohesive trilogy. Definitely worth the purchase if you were ever a fan. I also received the first season of Malcolm in the Middle , one of the new generation of sitcoms that's ... - Sunday, January 19, 2003:
Untitled Post I only saw three new movies over the Christmas holiday but all of them were reasonably good. First, I ended up going to The Two Towers on opening night. While the movie was pretty good, it wasn't worth the hassle of going on the first day. The story was probably harder to follow for new viewers, but had a lot more accessible jokes and slapstick moments (it's far too easy to make dwarves the butt of jokes). Contrary to the first movie, a lot of modified from the book for this one, with several major events being saved for the final chapter of the trilogy. Still, it worked just fine for me since I didn't like the books anyhow. Finally, the movie was just too damn long, but if you're going to go all out, you may as wel... - Monday, December 16, 2002:
Untitled Post C:\VIRGINIA> The production of Les Miserables at the National Theatre was extremely well done, and no one on the cast was particularly disagreeable. In particular, the Eponine was easily the best Eponine I've heard so far and the Javert was almost as good as Philip Quast. Valjean, Fantine, Marius, and Enjolras were excellent but not quite as good as my preconceived images of the characters. The only character that didn't really shine was Cosette, but in her defense it's hard to do anything with a character role that isn't much more than a prop. The staging and set changes were interesting, from the revolving stage to the Transformer-esque barricade. Sometimes the ancillary action of extras would d... - Tuesday, November 19, 2002:
Untitled Post There was a good episode of Boston Public on last night that touched on the economy of becoming a music major. The shows are always good when they pursue musical subplots, and they even gave the choir director a baton so she doesn't look like a total retard when conducting the orchestra. However, they closed off one of the last remaining first season characters in this episode, so future quality is up in the air. That character was probably the favourite of the show for many viewers. In other entertainment news, Alias is still getting fairly low ratings, probably because ABC insists on leading into it with kiddie movies like Peter Pan and Beauty and the Beast. If they could get more adults to just sit down and ... - Saturday, November 09, 2002:
Untitled Post We went and saw the Eminem vehicle, 8 Mile , last night and it was surprisingly good. Eminem has a great stage presence, and never made me wince with his acting. It was interesting to see what kind of audience the movie drew, and we probably shared the theatre with half the high-school population of Tallahassee. - Saturday, October 12, 2002:
Untitled Post Part V of V Chorus and Orchestra : The Broadway recording is done with a reduced orchestral set, using synthesizers as if it were a standard pit. The full orchestrations of the other two recordings give the music a lusher, more believable quality that's also more enjoyable. The Complete recording is the cleanest of the three, which lets you hear every note of the score as it was meant to be heard, but the impact of the live performance on the Tenth Anniversary recording can't be beat for excitement (even though it's a little sloppier than the other two). At the End of the Day, Broadway (MP3, 572KB) At the End of the Day, Complete (MP3, 571KB) At the End of t... - Friday, October 11, 2002:
Untitled Post Part IV of V None of today's characters are major enough to hurt the musical through bad casting, but a good choice always adds a little extra oomph to the recording. Gavroche : All three actors of Gavroche are about equal in their roles. The Complete recording's Gavroche (Ross McCall) has the most believable accent, but makes his death scene ridiculously protracted, gasping for air after every syllable. Young Cosette : The Broadway actress is the most believable as a singing tot, but Marissa Dunlop (C) has the prettiest rendition of the character's only song. Hannah Chick (T) does a decent enough job but stumbles a few times (probably because it was live). &n... - Thursday, October 10, 2002:
Untitled Post Part III of V Marius : David Bryant (B) would make a good Marius in Les Misérables: The Muppet Edition . Otherwise, there's nothing particularly memorable about his performance. Michael Ball (C, T) does a great job in turning the role into a believable character, where it was falt and boring on paper. His performance on the Complete recording is slightly better and less wavery than the later Tenth Anniversary recording. On the latter, he sounds more like he did in Webber's Aspects of Love . David Bryant, Broadway (MP3, 316KB) Michael Ball, Complete (MP3, 281KB) Eponine : Frances Ruffelle (B) is my favourite ... - Wednesday, October 09, 2002:
Untitled Post Part II of V Inspector Javert : In my opinion, Javert is more crucial to the success of this musical than Valjean. You can't have a game of cat and mouse without a compelling cat; try imagining The Fugitive with Keanu Reeves in Tommy Lee Jones' role. With this in mind, there is no doubt that the best Javert actor is Philip Quast (C, T), whose voice and demeanor illustrate the character's obsession with the letter of the law over the intent of the law. Some of the most compelling scenes on the recordings are the result of Quast's exceptional work showing Javert's conflict between anger and remorse. Terrance Mann (B) is good enough, but his delivery is weak, and he often sounds like ... - Tuesday, October 08, 2002:
Untitled Post To break the monotony, I'm going to spend a few days doing a review/comparison of three major recordings of the musical, Les Miserables by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg. I'll be looking at the Broadway Cast recording (B), the Complete Symphonic recording (C), and the Tenth Anniversary recording (T) only, since I haven't gotten around to buying the London Cast recording yet. If the mere thought of musicals makes your pores explode, you can come back on Sunday, as I should be finished by then. I myself wasn't even remotely interested in musicals until about six years ago when a close friend listened to them tirelessly. As I've mentioned before, I'm more interested in those where the music is pa... - Saturday, October 05, 2002:
Untitled Post I watched two movies yesterday that had been on my list to see for quite some time: Panic Room and Vanilla Sky . The first was a suspense movie from this summer which was really well done. I thought it'd be hard to stage a suspenseful story around a single room, but this movie managed to pull it off with flying colours. I didn't care for Vanilla Sky as much, although I know some people back home who really liked it. It tried too hard to be clever, and ended up as a muddled mix of Total Recall and Fight Club . - Thursday, October 03, 2002:
Untitled Post I finished off the 3rd season of The Sopranos yesterday. Overall, I thought it was a good season and had its moments, but it wasn't quite as good as the previous seasons. There was no overarching plot tying this season together, and the writers often started developing a character or story before dropping it without resolution. Also, one of the actors passed away before this season began, so to prevent a plot hole, there is a requisite 'last scene' early in the season where digital remixes of old footage allow that character to have one final chat with Tony Soprano before death. It's pretty horrible. They should have just shown that character from the back the whole time; it would have been more believable. &nb... - Saturday, September 28, 2002:
Untitled Post Tonight's movie was Amélie , the foreign film in last year's Oscars that no one knew anything about besides its 'spectacular cinematography'. I liked the movie; it was imbued with a flight of whimsy that you often find in French movies, and although the sprawl of the plot seemed rambling, everything came together eventually. Depending on the weather tomorrow, I may head down to Panacea for some early morning pictures. I haven't been down that way since I got back to Tallahassee and it'd be nice to 'commune with nature for a spell'. The Alias season premiere is tomorrow night. - Thursday, September 26, 2002:
Untitled Post I recently picked up the latest Dave Matthews CD, Busted Stuff , which is a revamped collection of the discarded songs that preceded Everyday . The music is perfectly agreeable, and there's plenty of catchy vamps, but in my opinion, it still doesn't quite measure up to the earlier recordings. It was definitely better than Everyday , which I thought was just a catchy collection of faux pop charts that didn't have much thought go into them. The CD also comes with a free DVD of something Matthews-related, but I haven't gotten around to watching it. - Saturday, September 21, 2002:
Untitled Post We saw the movie, One Hour Photo , last night and it was pretty good. Robin Williams effectively played another creepy protagonist, even better than he did in Insomnia . I guess this will end the debate on whether he is capable of acting beyond Patch Adams and the guy from What Dreams May Come . The cinematography in the movie was especially well-done, although I thought that the ending was a little out of place. Kids use PlayStation for high-tech homework - Sunday, September 08, 2002:
Untitled Post We watched the classic movie, Citizen Kane last night. Even though it's obviously dated and everyone already knows the answer to the big question without knowing the plot of the movie, it was still a good movie. The cinematography was especially good, considering the era it was done in, and many of the generic little things stand out more when you realize that this movie was their innovator. I have my first composition lesson tomorrow afternoon, so I'll be bringing in the starting threads of my thesis. I think this will be a pretty good semester for writing. - Sunday, April 14, 2002:
Untitled Post Yesterday I read Grisham's The Brethren , so I'm now caught up on all the Grisham books I missed from my years as an undergrad. The book was surprisingly good, and a little deeper than most of his recent work has been. Grisham uses the device of two disparate stories eventually joining together, which is a nice change of pace from his usual narrative style. This one's definitely worth a read. There's a Composers' Concert tonight, on which I'll be performing the third edition of Badinage with Rob. It's not really a "new" work per se, but it's always good to have the opportunity for quality recordings of older works. I'm considering putting my other trumpet work, Scarabus on a concer... - Friday, April 05, 2002:
Untitled Post Steve Reich: WORKS 1965 - 1995, Part V of V Disc nine of the set contains excerpts from his theatre piece, The Cave which was for a mix of performers, prerecorded voices, and video clips. I really didn't care for the audio portions that I heard -- perhaps the boring sameness of some of the samples is helped by the visuals in the actual production. Disc ten contained Proverb , Nagoya Marimbas , and City Life , the last one being his most recently recorded work in the set. Proverb was an interesting vocal work that didn't rely on electronic sampling, but I didn't enjoy it as much as The Desert Music . I found City Life to ... - Thursday, April 04, 2002:
Untitled Post Steve Reich: WORKS 1965 - 1995, Part IV of V The next two discs of the Reich set include New York Counterpoint , Sextet , The Four Sections , Different Trains , Electric Counterpoint , and Three Movements . As a large orchestral work, I found Three Movements interesting, just to see how Reich handles such large forces. I found New York Counterpoint to be pleasant enough, with the final movement being an interesting application of jazz idioms. All of the other works besides Different Trains were interesting but didn't evoke any strong feelings. Different Trains was probably my favourite w... - Wednesday, April 03, 2002:
Untitled Post Steve Reich: WORKS 1965 - 1995, Part III of V The fourth and fifth discs of the Reich set contain Music for Eighteen Musicians , Eight Lines , and Tehillim . These works didn't really inspire positive or negative reactions in me. There was nothing innovative or wowing, but at the same time, I didn't dislike them at all. The only minor note I made was that the ensemble's makeup on Music for Eighteen Musicians grew wearisome towards the last quarter of the work (which is seventy minutes long). Disc six was The Desert Music (1984) for amplified chorus and orchestra. The work is a text setting of poetry by William Carlos Williams, and ... - Tuesday, April 02, 2002:
Untitled Post Steve Reich: WORKS 1965 - 1995, Part II of V Disc two of the set is the hour-long work, Drumming (1971), which seems to be an extended elaboration on a single rhythmic cell in four continuous movements. This was another piece that I found interesting, but not particularly enjoyable. One of the problems I have with works like this is just the sheer magnitude of length involved in going from beginning to end. This grand extension is really necessary for the intricacies of rhythm and pitch to reveal themselves to the listeners, but they have to be willing maintain their concentration for that long of a period. Most of my own work tends to be extremely concise (and usually too concise). As I write, I tr... - Monday, April 01, 2002:
Untitled Post Steve Reich: WORKS 1965 - 1995, Part I of V I listened to the entire 10-disc set of CDs over the span of a couple days last week, and felt they were interesting enough to do a disc by disc review of various works. I've had no previous exposure to any of his music, and the thoughts below are my instinctual feelings based on one or two listenings -- definitely not serious criticisms or analyses by any stretch of the imagination. Disc One includes four early works, Come Out , Piano Phase , It's Gonna Rain , and Four Organs . Come Out (1966) and It's Gonna Rain (1965), were both interesting experiments, but I wouldn't be quick to label ... - Thursday, March 28, 2002:
Untitled Post After a couple months of starting and stopping, I finally finished The Muse that Sings over Spring Break. The book itself isn't so long; I just wanted to read it slowly to absorb everything. The book is a collection of interviews rewritten in prose form, from a wide assortment of living composers on their creative process and thoughts about composition. From its forty dollar price tag, you can tell that it's a niche market affair, and non-composers probably will not appreciate it as much as composers. I found the book to be very interesting, if not informative. Most of the process ideas presented are so personal that it would be worthless to attempt to mimic them, but it's inspiring to see how other peop... - Saturday, March 02, 2002:
Untitled Post I finally got around to watching the Final Fantasy movie this morning and it was definitely impressive. The story is a generic sci-fi plot that develops through the addition of plot-holes, and the music, though played by the London Symphony Orchestra, is fairly uninspired, but the visuals alone are worth the price of admission. Final Fantasy is the first movie to attempt computer-rendered humans, and the results are very lifelike and fluid. One of the biggest problems with computer renderings is the suspension of disbelief from problems such as weight and the accurate representation of physics and particle effects. The movie does such a good job at its presentation that I often forgot I was watching a computer-anima... - Thursday, February 28, 2002:
Untitled Post This week's Movie Night™ feature was Moulin Rouge , which was a very good and interesting movie. The combination of classical musical sensibilities and pop music had the potential to be horribly campy, but it was very well-executed. The only big flaw in the movie was the singing of Ewan McGregor, who apparently felt that belting out all of the lyrics at the decibel level of a lawnmower would make him more of a heartthrob. Nicole Kidman had a surprisingly good voice though, and helped to temper the edge of Ewan's voice. My cable is still on the fritz. Comcast seems to have lowered the signal strength so it's no longer strong enough to be split between the TV and my computer. I bought a signal amplifie... - Monday, February 18, 2002:
Untitled Post The pedagogy test this morning was nothing unexpected. Actually, the questions on the test were probably more straightforward than any class discussion we've had all year. I'll probably start working on my "Concerto form" presentation sometime soon -- the presentation date is about a month from now. This past week was a pretty listless one. It was one of those weeks where I didn't have the motivation to do anything for more than a few minutes at a time. It's something that happens a couple times a year for me, and usually just takes a renewed interest in some major project to get me back out of it. Alternately I go buy a game and play until deadlines can no longer be safely pushed off. I got a new CD las... - Friday, January 25, 2002:
Untitled Post We went and saw A Beautiful Mind the other night, wich turned out to be a really well-done movie. It stumbled into "feel-good" mode right at the end, but the rest of the movie was rendered extremely effectively. I haven't seen many movies since last summer, but there really haven't been many worth seeing. At some point I'll have to see Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings , just because of all the hype. I also want to catch Final Fantasy sometime, just for the technical aspects of it. I finally finished printing out the Finale manual yesterday -- it now resides in a pair of two inch binders on my shelf. I'm also about two hundred pages into Peril's Gate , which is jus... - Saturday, January 19, 2002:
Untitled Post I've added two more CDs to my list of reviews, both movie soundtracks this time. Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favourite Danny Elfman scores and is a really cohesive, unified affair, although it does go a little overboard with its predictable rhyming couplet scheme. Danny Elfman actually sings the lead role of Jack Skellington on the soundtrack and in the movie, which is also worth your time. I also like the music from Conspiracy Theory , even though it's entirely predictable and somewhat clichéd. It works well against the screenplay even if people don't consider it to be a serious musical work. I had pedagogy yesterday. We don't learn anything by doing undergraduate ear training drill... - Saturday, January 12, 2002:
Untitled Post The Jam Miami CD which came out at the end of last year is really good. It's a series of live performances of Latin jazz in the Miami scene, with names like Arturo Sandoval and Chick Corea. There's a fair amount of gratuitous high notes on the part of Sandoval, but he's never played as tastelessly as Maynard Ferguson. The CD has some solid charts and performances, and some of the solo work is really excellent. I'm a big fan of through-composed jazz, so it's pretty rare that I find a combo setting or solo-saturated recording enjoyable. Of the small group recordings I've listened to, the only two that I really liked were Chick Corea's early fusion work and the Lennie Niehaus saxophone octet. Most other combos get caug... - Thursday, September 13, 2001:
Untitled Post Yesterday afternoon, I watched Memento for the third time, and it still has my vote for my favourite movie ever. If you've never seen it, this is one movie that you should definitely watch before you die, regardless of what kind of movies you enjoy. I also finished reading Gene Lees' book on arrangers, which was well worth the effort. There's some wonderful material included, especially in the thoughts of Mel Powell, who eventually "left" the jazz world and became head of the composition department at Yale after Hindemith.
