Science Nation Army

The editing is dizzying, but I really like the idea (and the song).

Convert dead Mormons to homosexuality

Love it.

Event Reviews @ The Temple

Forever Tango – These guys are pretty good. Buuuuuut, not amazing. The problem, I think, is that you can only watch Tango for so long. And I really like tango, it’s one of the only dances I’ve danced, so that makes you like something more. And in small pieces, the stuff they did was amazing. Crazy ass flips, cool little moves, high energy, very skilled, great dancing. I don’t want to say I didn’t like it, I did like it. But I think it’s just fundamentally hard to do one kind of dance for 2 hours and make it stay interesting. The musicians were really good. I didn’t love the singer, but it wasn’t his fault, he was skilled, I just don’t like the style much. I’m sad, I don’t think I’ll go to this one next year, I’d rather see 3 tango dances, not 10.

National Dance Company of Columbia – Oooooo, now that is bad ass. These guys were fucking fantastic. They opened with a swirly dress and guys-in-hats dance. It was very much like the Ballet Folklorico Tapatio we saw a few weeks ago. Nothing mind blowing, but nice. Then they just went nuts with this tribal dance. They had little fake statues on stage and did all this very cool dancing. Their outfits – yikes. Basically everyone was wearing thongs and bras on the women. Butts galore, was kind of arresting, but it felt very appropriate. Side note – I do have a bit of american guilt that I might just be looking at these people from another culture and finding what they do so cool. There’s a chance that it’s exploitive of the culture in a way I don’t understand. Or hell, it could not even be the culture, they could just be tricking my dumb ass. But I’ll continue on the assumption that none of that is true. They did another hat dance, then this inSANE african-inspired stuff. I normally dislike dancing that seems like people just throwing themselves around. African/tribal dance often seems like that to me, sadly. But holy hell these guys were good. It didn’t seem random, it was crazy flailing to a BEAT. It was really rather astonishing what these dancers did, I mean, that has got to hurt a lot. They all had little poofy things on their butts (even the dudes) in this one, and they could manipulate the poofs more accurately than I can my hands! It was astonishing. The second half of the night wasn’t as good, for me. There was a very cool sword dance (again, like the Tapatio folks). There was a (maybe?) samba type dance. Two weird dances, one with chicita banana type outfits, and one with outfits that looked dutch, that I didn’t like so much. They ended with a salsa that was pretty cool. They had a rapper-kindof guy singing during one song that was pretty great (I like spanish rap a lot in small doses) and another song they had us all up on our feet “dancing” (wiggling randomly) and singing along to. Overall it was a lot of fun, totally worth going to. I’ll certainly be there if they come next year.

Jonothan Coulton – JC was actually the opener for TMBG (next), but he deserves his own entry. CUZ HE’S AWESOME. He didn’t have a very long set. But he opened with code monkey, he did Still Alive (!), he did shop vac, he did the pluto song, and a few others I didn’t know. Actually I don’t know much of his music, I have to go buy it now. I just like him in principle. Also, he did Good Morning Tucson, which was awesome and I bought a t-shirt (yeah, I bought a band t-shirt, first time ever, ok?). He closed with Re: Your Brains, and I could have gone home then.

They Might Be Giants – But, then these guys came on stage. Turns out, I don’t know any TMBG songs! I mean, I know particle man, which they did. And the istanbul song, which they did. But that’s it, not a single other one. But despite that, it was, as I had hoped it would be, a really fun show. A lot of audience participation – half the crowd chanting “people”, half chanting “apes”. We (apes) lost that one, sadly. A crazy ass back-stage sock puppet show (complete with Ironman by Black Sabbath, which was great). Fun stories, fun banter, fun everything. Admittedly, the main guy, the piano guy, seemed like he didn’t really want to be there. But other than that it was a lot of fun. Super good show.

Itzhak Perlman – So this guy is the yo yo ma of violins. I say that because yo yo ma is the only other classical musician I know, not because it is a particularly apt analogy. Point is, he’s very good, very famous. Apparently getting tickets to see him for $15 was some sort of mind blowing thing. I, of course, don’t disagree for a moment that he’s amazing. Even a plebian like me who has no appreciation for what it takes to play a violin like that, can see that he’s amazing. But of course, at the end of the day he’s playing music that stirs me less than other kinds. The main course was nice, but just nothing much to me. He did a couple Hungarian Dances that I liked. The encore is where it’s at, though. Apparently that’s always true at concerts like this, I didn’t know. But the music was better, and it seemed his playing was even more amazing. He did a couple songs that were so freaking fast my brain could barely comprehend. He did the theme to Shindler’s List that was very pretty. Overall that last stuff was very cool. In the end, I can only be so excited about virtuoso playing of music that’s not my favorite, but it was certainly something to see someone so good at what they do.

The Chieftains – Hey, this was way cool! I had no idea what these guys did. I’m sure I’ve heard songs before, and I must have known it was Irish stuff. But really that’s all I knew. They are doing a 50 year anniversary tour, which is astounding, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. I like Irish music to begin with, and these guys are very good at it. Plus they bring in a lot of other influences (scottish, mexican, bluegrass) and local artists (kids irish dance troupe, some choir I didn’t know, and the 7 pipers band). The one thing I didn’t like was when the harp lady played keyboard and the flute guy played softly. That was very new agey and boring and corny. But everything else was awesome. The jams were awesome, the piping was awesome, the dancing was AWESOME. They did this canadian chair dance thing that was so fucking cool. A scottish lady did this type of singing called “Puirt a Bheul”. It’s this very rhythmic, staccato, fast singing that I guess was used in the place of instruments for dancing when instruments were banned at some time in history. It’s really cool and like nothing I’ve ever heard. All the musicians are really good at their instruments, and the music is just so much fun. Over all, from knowing nothing about these guys, this was awesome and I’m ready to buy at least a couple albums.

Lego Captain America

Um, I liked Captain America okay. But this is definitely better. They even have the Wilhem scream!

Simpsons a capella

Turns out I’m still not sick of the a capella multi-track thing. This guy has a few other covers too, including pokemon, is this guy going to steal Matt Mulholland’s thunder?

Nano Quadrotors

Holy shit. This is simultaneously the coolest and most frightening thing since the last time I said that.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Water for Elephants – I did not like this movie. From a “just a movie” point of view, I don’t think it’s that great. Of course, the dude from Twilight and the chick with the pointy chin put me in a bad frame of mind. That’s pretty unfair to him, I’ve never even seen Twilight. Even though the chick from it is in Snow White & The Huntsman, I’m super on board with that movie, so I can look past it. But he did prove me right. And so did pointy chin. The story could be kind of interesting, the framing is nice. But I can’t get over the circus thing. I don’t like circuses, for obvious reasons. And even though this movie is ostensibly against animal abuse, it’s totally okay with it as long as you aren’t actively beating the shit out of a creature. Moving around the country in a cage 2x the size of the animal itself, that’s totally okay. Just don’t hit it with a stick. I never saw Seabiscuit, for instance, because I think horse racing is fucked up, I don’t care how inspirational the story is. I think I feel the same way about this movie, I’d rather not have seen it.

50 / 50 – Well, that’s a pretty wonderful movie. It’s about a 27 year old guy who gets cancer, 50/50 chance of surviving. The movie is nothing you don’t expect it will be, which sounds like a fault. He has his problems with his family, and his girlfriend, and his friend, and all the normal parts of life. The romance in the movie is pretty predictable. But it is all the same a very funny and honest movie. There’s nothing to dislike about it, warms your little heart, and makes you laugh. One of the better movies to come out recently, for sure.

Win Win – This is a pretty good movie. It’s about a family, the husband (a lawyer) takes charge of an old man who has lost most of his senses, and then ends up in charge of this guy’s grandson as well. Lots of dramatic stuff happens, but I don’t mean in a melodramatic way. It revolves a bit around a high school wrestling team the guy coaches. You know, I say all that, and this movie sounds super boring. Just as boring as it sounds on the back of the box, which is why I wasn’t in a rush to see it. But I heard it was very good, and it was. Maybe not as good as I had heard, it’s not the best movie of 2011 or anything. Not better than 50/50. But it is very good. It is very honest and real. Nothing is overly dramatic, just slightly out of the ordinary (enough to make it interesting). And everyone does a good job, acting wise. Just a solid movie, all around.

Jane Eyre – Zzzzzzz. No seriously, I fell asleep watching this. And this is about all I need to know about it. Boring!

The Descent 2 – People seemed to like the first one, and I never understood why. It wasn’t the worst horror movie ever, but I’m not sure why it stood above the rest for so many people, it seemed pretty samey to me. This one is more of that. I do like the premise a bit. It’s at least every so slightly more creative than “woah, 4 more dumb teenagers randomly wander into the same cave! crazy!” Besides that? Kind of normal, tries to be pretty gory for the sake of it, not super impressive though.

Let Me In – I liked the original version. Not so much because it was geniusly executed (it was kind of a weird Swedish thing) but because the concept was so cool and unique. Sadly, this movie doesn’t have that benefit. It’s a remake, it’s fundamentally not unique. So it loses a lot due to that. The execution of the movie is decent, nothing bad, nothing amazing. The kids do a pretty good job. I’d be fine with only having ever seen this version, but since that’s not true, the Swedish one was good enough for me too.

Bronson – Yikes. So, I guess this guy is the most famous prisoner in England. He calls himself Charlie Bronson, and he’s a complete fucking wacko. The movie tells me he’s spent 34 years in prison, 30 of them in solitary. Largely due to the fact that if he spends more than 10 minutes in the presence of another breathing human being, he beats the living shit out of them until their breathing has ceased. Perhaps more shocking, though, is the depths to which the actor playing Bronson went to pull off this roll. The movie is basically told by him, much of it with just him talking at the camera – sometimes to an audience as if this is one man play. And this guy inhabits every bit of this insane man. It is somewhat frightening to watch, honestly, how deeply he carries this guy’s insanity. The movie itself besides that is just okay, but his performance is worth watching, even though I never want to watch it again. I’m slightly afraid of what the movie thinks of Bronson. He’s clearly nuts, but at the same time, given that he’s telling the story, he is kind of glorified. When he goes on a rampage, there’s this dramatic operatic music. It gives it almost a nobility? Kind of uncomfortable. But still should be seen.

UHF – So I had never seen this. You know, I think this kind of movie has to live in nostalgia. I’m sure it was hilarious when it came out. And I’m sure if I saw Top Secret for the first time in 2012, I’d probably think it was kind of dumb. So me seeing this for the first time now, it’s kind of lame. The skits (and it really is just a series of skits) aren’t all that hilarious. The commercial for the spatula story made me crack up for some reason. A couple weird al songs they shoehorned in were good. But besides that it was kind of meh. Sorry!

The Red Balloon – I guess this movie is very famous, I had never heard of it. But it’s only 30 min long and on Netflix, so there you go. It’s a little French movie about a boy who finds a red balloon, but the balloon is kind of alive. It moves around on its own, follows him, plays with people. It’s really kind of cute. If it was 10 minutes long and cuter, it would basically be a live action Pixar short. It really hard that feel. I’d rather it be that short, too, it does kind of drag in the middle. I guess it’s supposed to be deep, with the little boy trying to get away and the masses of humanity descending on him to take the balloon. That doesn’t really connect with me in any way. But maybe I’m just ignorant. It does have a pretty powerful penultimate moment, though. The balloon was given such personality, seeing it “act” out the end is surprisingly effective. Then the real end is kind of sickly sweet and not that touching. But still interesting enough for a 30 minute investment. Don’t go on the internet and find out that there’s supposed to be some bullshit christian allegory going on though, that’ll just ruin it for you.

Harsh Times – Um. So, Christian Bale is an ex-soldier fuck up screwing around with his fuck up friend. Kind of trying to get their lives in order, but not really, mostly fucking around and hoping they get lucky. It’s kind of hard to see the point of a movie like this, I don’t feel like I learn anything or care all that much for these assholes. It ends as it can only end. That’s about it. Note: I wrote those last two sentences when I was only 2/3 of the way through the movie. I knew it could end as it can only end, before I saw it end. That says enough, I think!

Cash Back – Meh. This movie is just a basic love story. The hook is the kid has some ability to freeze time. This is largely an excuse to go around to all the hot girls who just happen to be in his shitty supermarket at 2 in the morning, take all their clothes off, and draw pictures of them (I assume they cut out the creepy part where he touches them, because he definitely did that). That then tries to become some kind of metaphor for life, I guess. I don’t really know, but I do know that the movie is trying to be artsy. And a movie that thinks its artsy wouldn’t put a bunch of boobs in without inventing an artsy justification. The movie isn’t poorly done, it’s pretty british (main character has two emotions – talking in a monotone, and staring into the distance), but it’s ok.

Nerdcore Rising – This movie is about MC Frontalot. He’s sort of one of the big progenitors of “nerdcore” rap. I’m listening to a lot of the nerdy music these days. I’ve never been particularly into Frontalot, but I’ve not really listened to much to know if I like it. Adam WarRock is my favorite in the category, hoping to see him in Phx in a few weeks! Anyway, the movie. It’s… not great. It’s not bad, it’s just kind of an okay version of following this guy around with a camera. There’s not amazing insights into the genre or into Frontalot himself. It’s really just a tour diary, if anything. IT’s neat to see, I guess. But I feel like there’s more to do here. Maybe a movie about the rise of the genre in general would be a little more interesting than just a bunch of nerds talking about how cool Frontalot is. Or maybe we need more distance from the origins to find a story like this interesting. Not sure. But if you love Frontalot, I’m sure it’s an entertaining enough movie!

Bohemian Rhapsody Multitrack

Um, that’s pretty cool.

Chromatic Typewriter

That is GENIUS.

A Bastion Wedding

This is so awesome. I love cool indie game developers. I’d buy the game again if I could.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Sherlock Holmes 2 – This was really good! Now, the big caveat is that it’s not really a sherlock holmes story. It’s really just a cool action movie. To be clear, it is a REALLY COOL action movie. The slow mo fights are awesome as always (though I liked it better with the logical commentary, not just predicting what would happen in the future). The scene in the forest was jaw dropping. But, it is just an action movie. Gone are the twists, the intrigue, the mystery. It’s not very Holmes-ey. But, I’ve got the British TV show for that. For this movie, it was just cool.

Mission Impossible 4 – This was decent. Nothing special, I’d say. They didn’t do anything wrong. Lots of cool set pieces, cool action, cool stunts, cool gadgets, all that good MI stuff. Can’t complain. But. Kind of boring. I’m not super into the story, I’m not super invested in the people. And I’m not nearly as awesome-ized as I was with Sherlock. Oh well. That car was pretty bad ass.

Knight & Day – Wow was that bad. It’s trying painfully hard to be True Lies, but it fails really hard. You can’t force charm, even as hard as Tom Cruise tries. He seems to be phoning it in, just playing a pale imitation of ethan hunt. And Cameron Diaz, gads, she’s just awful. Always. In everything.

Going the Distance – This movie is surprisingly funny. You’d be excused in thinking it’s just some random romantic comedy. And to a large extent, it is. The plot is just normal old stuff, except this time for a long distance relationship. When they delve into that stuff it’s pretty boring, I could honestly do without all of that. But when they are being wacky it’s pretty funny. They give the two main people a banter (a combination of Sorkin and Diablo Cody, kind of?) that works most of the time. It comes out forced now and again when they are trying too hard to get the quirkiness in. But a lot of the time it works rather well. Christina Applegate is pretty funny as a hectic mom. Jason Sudakis and Charlie Day play douchey friends, who wouldn’t have a lot of character or anything interesting-ness, but those guys are funny guys, so you forgive the cliché characters and laugh at the silliness.  Overall, a good time.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams – Holy crap was this cool. How did I go 32 years without knowing about cave drawings? These aren’t just scribbles from some guys in 33 and a half BC. These are 30,000 years old. That is just astounding. There are these caves, in France, elsewhere in Europe, that for one reason or another got sealed off for a few ten thousand years. Then we find them, and there’s this amazing cave art inside. I mean, it’s not Monet, it’s just chalk drawings. But 1) I still couldn’t make drawings that good, and 2) did I mention 30,000 years old?? Just mind blowing. The film maker, Werner Herzog, is kind of annoying, and throws a complete batshit addendum on to the movie. But besides that, the movie is amazing.

Cowboys and Aliens – Ehhhhh. Seems bulletproof, right? Cowboys, great. Aliens, awesome. Energy weapons, cool. Why is this movie so lame then? It had no heart, and I don’t mean a sentimental heart, I didn’t feel any heart behind the action. It seemed so ho hum. No one stands out, the effects are fine, but nothing particular. I just don’t get it.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – This movie is actually rather good. From a storytelling stand point, it’s entertaining, interesting, cool, all that good stuff. But on top of that it connects with the older movies in all manner of interesting ways. None of which were apparent to me, but fortunately I had someone in the room who knew these things and told us when they happened, which was great. There was also a little extra on the disc about really subtle things that they stuck in to reflect the original movie. It’s really pretty cool. My only complaint about the movie is I’m pretty sure it was filmed on a Canon Elph. There is something extremely non-hollywood about the cinematography. It felt like bad TV. Like british TV. Very constrained sets, like the people were filming it in their house. I eventually got over it, but it was kind of distracting for at least half the movie. I can’t totally explain why it looked like that, I don’t know anything about filming, but whether it was the cameras, the lights, the style, whatever, something seemed kind of low budget about it. The apes were a bit off too. Sometimes, when they really put effort in, they looked astounding. But you just can’t do that for 2 hours, so sometimes they looked kind of fake. Took me out of it a little. Nonetheless, my overall impression of the movie is very positive.

Kung Fu Panda 2 – This is pretty fun. It’s just another cartoon, so there’s not too many words I can use on it. But it is definitely fun, entertaining, cool little cartoon fights. Continues to be the only context in which I’ve ever enjoyed Jack Black.

Harry Potter 7: Part 2: 2nd act: 3rd section: Scene 1: version 8: Electric Boogaloo – Okay, I’m being a jerk, but the movie is actually pretty good. I mean, it’s not amazing, but compared to 2 hours of CAMPING that made up the last movie, this thing is a god damn work of art. No more bullshit teenage drama (except one extremely awkwardly placed kiss and one obnoxious coda). Fight fight fight, cast spells, do magic, transform, summon giants, good stuff. I have no affection left for this series, I have mostly disdain. What good will the listening to Jim Dale read the 7th book earned it, the 6th and 7th movies completely destroyed. But, this was at least fun to watch.

Super 8 – This one is good enough. I was hoping it’d be better, I guess. I do like the style, set back in the 80s. Done with little budding filmmakers. It’s a much more interesting context than a bunch of 20 somethings in new york, certainly. The creature is cool, the overall arc of the plot is good enough. The kids generally do a fine job, which is saying something. Overall I’m left a little underwhelmed, though. It’s not bad, not at all, just didn’t wow me. Just good enough.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil – Maaaaaaan, this looked awesome! It’s such a genius concept, the hillbillies are the good guys, the city kids are judgemental assholes (and worse). Such an awesome idea! But every single funny moment (mostly deaths) was spoiled in the trailer. The rest is just loosely stitched together with not really enough story. There are times where I kind of laugh to myself and say that’s funny. But I’m not really laughing. I’m acknowledging that it SEEMS funny, that it OUGHT to be funny. But it just doesn’t work out. So sad. Probably my biggest disappointment in a long time.

No Strings Attached – Okay, I know this isn’t very good. But it does have Natalie Portman. But it does have Ashton Kutcher, so… yeah. But the real point is, I was having a shit night, and this movie was idiotic, but it made me laugh. Not good laughs, not smart laughs, not even laughs it would probably get on any other day. But on that day? Spot on. So I know it’s not good, it’s a 2 star movie, but it served it’s purpose. It gets a few points for that.

Battlestar Galactica RPG

Awesome. What can’t 16-bit RPG sheen make better?

Drunk History Christmas

Drunk History is back for Christmas. I feel like I’m complicit in the death of his liver, but this is awesome.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

The Muppets – Let’s be honest, this movie isn’t very good. Half the songs are nice, half aren’t really very good. I have no particular affection for the muppets (blastemy, I know), I just didn’t watch them. So the humor is not really for me. I hate to sound like a douche, but we are firmly post post modern nowadays. The self referential meta stuff doesn’t really work anymore. A couple of the jokes did, but most of them fell really flat.  Jason Segal does a rather shockingly bad job. I guess it’s not his fault, he’s given this cheesy fake role. Hell, Amy Adams is an amazing actress, and even she seemed kind of lame. And holy balls did they look uncomfortable singing into the camera. It made me feel so awkward. Singing into the camera is dumb, guys, muppets can do it because they don’t have real eyeballs. So all this is true, and yet I leave the movie with an overall positive feeling. The thing is, it’s a very sweet movie. It’s a movie about people (muppets) overcoming, embracing who they are, a guy learning to have faith in himself, all that good stuff. Even though I’ve never seen more than 5 minutes of any muppet show, the movie left me with an overall cozy feeling, which I guess is the muppets’ special power.

The Green Lantern – Seriously, who decided it was a good idea to use MS Paint to create his mask?

The Beach – This is an old one I never saw. Leonardo DiCaprio finds an isolated beach and the community that lives there. Shennanigans ensue. It’s actually pretty good. It’s a very pretty movie, it’s a pretty compelling story. I discovered only afterward that it’s a Danny Boyle movie.  He has a chance to be my favorite directory. 127 Hours was awesome, 28 weeks later genius, trainspotting if not enjoyable at least culturally important, and sunshine and slumdog are two of my favorite movies ever. I need to go watch his others (which wiki tells me are shallow grave, a life less ordinary, and millions) and findout of he sweeps it (I’m extremely nervous about cameron diaz in that middle one).

The Captains – Yikes. William Shatner made a documentary interviewing all of the captains. Genius idea right? Turns out, William Shatner is perhaps the worst documentarian in the history of cinema. Like, amazingly bad. So bad, a mockumentary would not PRETEND to be this bad. Just wow bad. That said, it’s interviews with some of the most pivotal actors of my young life. Stewart, Brooks, Mulgrew all WERE my teen years. Bakula and Pike came much later, but still. So no matter Shatner’s incredible ineptitude, I liked seeing this just to hear the stories. But let’s focus here, Shatner is a horrendous filmmaker. He is so up his own ass about what it means to play a captain. Every SINGLE question he asks them is either a) a setup for some cheesy opinion he has on what it means to play a captain, or b) a trap, he just wants to tell a story of his own. It’s organized and paced in such an insane way, Shatner thinks he is being deep, but it’s actually very shallow and weird. But still, if you have watched a few hundred hours of star trek as I have, it’s worth it.

Fame (2009) – I’ve still not seen the original of this, this one isn’t that good. I thought it was more about dance because it had a SYTYCDer in it. But it’s mostly a teen drama, with a bit of decent music, and very little dancing. Kind of lame, sorry.

The Green Lantern – Seriously, who decided that two pieces of green apple fruit roll-up would do for his mask?

The Next Three Days – This is pretty cool. Russell Crowe’s wife is imprisoned for murder (it’s unclear if she really did it) and is out of appeals. So he figures he’ll bust her out. It’s a pretty exciting thriller that seems kind of realistic through most of it. You can’t say too much about it, I guess, watching him go through the details of the breakout is just kind of cool. Sadly, at the ending it craps out and does some very silly convenient bullshit. The whole movie tries to be realistic in a cool way. But then everything just works out so specifically in the end, it’s really annoying. But still a good movie, I guess.

The Square – This is an Australian movie. It’s basically about a couple having an affair who want to make off with some money, bad things happen, things spin out of control, etc etc. I didn’t think it was too bad. Not great, not horrible, solidly in the middle. Very much a 2.5 stars movie, if only Netflix would let me do that. If forced, I suppose I’ll put it at 2 stars.

The Green Lantern – Seriously, how’d they get ahold of the Quake 1 engine to render his mask?

Monsters – You know, this is actually almost pretty good! It sounds like a horrible movie – the us/mexico border has turned into a kind of no man’s land because some aliens have crashed there. It’s this weird mix of war zone and animal sanctuary. Then a couple gets trapped there and has to get through. Sounds shitty, but it’s actually pretty cool. The movie has a bit of a low budget feel. The aliens, which are used sparsely (a good choice) actually look pretty good. There is something about the scenes that feels limited. It’s not like they have cheap sets, it’s mostly outdoors. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels small in scope. Which is too bad, because it detracts from what is otherwise a really cool idea. Still worth seeing, I think.

The Fly – Woah, this is pretty gross! I’d never seen it. I guess I didn’t really know the story, either. I think it’s a pretty good movie! All these years later, and it’s a pretty solid horror movie. Much more in the tradition of Hyde or something –a scientist turning into a monster. And yikes is it gross. I’m not saying it’s the grossest movie I’ve seen this year. But I am saying it’s up there, and given that it’s 25 year old physical effects up against modern CGI, that’s pretty cool.

Set Up – Ugh, I just watched to see how bad this is. Not puke bad, but bad. 50 cent is some criminal, gets double crossed, tries to get revenge. Bruce Willis is in it for no good reason. Some other people too. Lots of people shoot each other, nothing interesting happens. 50 cent, to his credit, is no worse than anyone else in the movie.

The Green Lantern – Seriously, where’d the producers find that roll of christmas wrapping paper to use for his mask?

Jedi Ninjas

Super cool choreography. Ending is hilarious too.

Correlation vs. Causation

Awesome.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Rango – This movie is pretty fun. There’s not really a whole lot to say about it, it’s funny, it’s cute, it’s a nice adventure. There is the slight distraction of someone in the room yelling about how the Mojave desert doesn’t have saguaro cacti. But besides that, it’s a good movie. Plus, I was doing the yelling the stars in Wall-E twinkled when they were off planet. So, half a dozen.

Captain America – Well, better than Thor, that’s for sure. The more I think about Thor the less I like it. A few good hammer swings, and the rest of the movie kind of sucked. This one isn’t amazing, it’s kind of average in a lot of respects, but it wasn’t as boring as Thor. They do a fair job of getting the Cap ethos right. I’ve never been a cap guy, he was always too clean cut and boring for me. But if you are going to do him, you have to get the underlying stuff right. He is kind of painfully noble and good. He’s very much the Marvel Superman. Both of those characters can be very boring without the proper context and are a challenge to write because of that. But that’s the character, and they did a fairly good job of sticking to that blind nobility, so that was good. Action was alright. Dude with a shield just isn’t all the spectacular, at the end of the day. As part of a team in Avengers he’ll be great, I think.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story – Against all odds, this movie is quite good. It’s about a 16 year old kid who thinks he’s suicidal because his life is so hard. He goes into the psychiatric ward of a hospital to get help. He there meets a few wacky characters, including Zack Galifinakis playing as normal as he ever has, and also including a cute girl (of course). This movie is in imminent danger at all times of being horrendously cliché, cheesy, and trite. Oh boo hoo, poor 16 year old upper middle class white kid’s life is hard. But amazingly, this movie has just the right awareness of that weakness. It, and the kid, know that his life isn’t that hard and that some people have a lot worse to deal with. But a lot of us have lives that aren’t that hard, and it’s a fair point that we should all chill the fuck out and enjoy what we have. Even me saying that sounds trite, right? But this movie has an honesty to it, aware that it’s not the oracle of truth, but still has something good to say. On the flip side, I’m not sure how I would have react to this if I watched it while depressed. There is a tendency to get wrapped up in your own “problems” and reject any external opinion. So it’s possible a movie with a message on how to enjoy life will be lost on those who need to most.

The Adjustment Bureau – This movie is pretty good too. The premise is there’s a bunch of people whose jobs are to keep everyone on “the plan”. And if you deviate (on purpose or accident) they try to correct. Then someone tries to go off plan, for love no less, drama! Sounds kind of corny, and it is kind of corny, but it’s pretty entertaining. Mostly in a popcorn way, not a mind blowing way, but still fun to watch.

Hanna – Meh. I remember seeing the ad for this so long ago and thinking it looked awesome. A teenager girl assassin? Cool! And all the imagery of this pale girl in the pale scenery was very striking. Unfortunately, the movie just doesn’t live up. Too much talking, not enough fighting. Weird story that feels slightly non-cohesive. I wish it had been great.

Season of the Witch – Okay, so, this isn’t the worst movie ever. I know, crazy. It’s not good, it’s super duper average. Nothing about it needed to exist that you couldn’t get elsewhere done better. But all that being said, there is stabby stabby and fighty fighty and things look ok and the story is whatever and Nicolas Cage doesn’t totally annoy you. So it’s fine.

The Graduate – I had never seen this. It’s…. boring as hell. This is a great movie? This won oscars? It’s sooooo slooooooow. Dennis Hoffman, I now realize, is who Michael Cera has been basing his career on. He does awkward for 2 hours. It’s kind of amusing, his first attempts at sex are pretty funny. But the rest is just snoozefest. The whole rest of it is just not that interesting. I get it’s iconic, the whole under the leg shot. In fact there’s a fair amount of interesting cinematography. POV, reflections off mirrors, other stuff. But not enough to make it a good story. And then there’s the famous wedding thing at the end, which sparked an archetype that lasts till today. But that still doesn’t make it a good movie.

The Man Who Cried – Ok, so Christina Ricci is a russian jew, forced out to Europe, trying to make it. Then something with an opera singer, she bangs Johnny Depp the Gypsy for a little while, things go belly up, and she heads off to America. There’s nothing actively wrong with the movie, just boring. Neither an interesting look into immigrant life, nor a compelling story.

Mystery Team – Yikes, this is pretty bad. I like Donald Glover in Community and all, but whooboy. I mean, I see where they are coming from. There are some very funny moments. And where the rest of the moments (read: 95% of them) fall painfully flat, I get what they were thinking. They had ideas that were funny, things that should have worked. But the execution was really bad. The artifice of their ridiculously naïve characters wears thin literally in 10 minutes. I mean it, we watched the first 10 minutes of this probably 6 months ago, and I only just now forced myself to finish it. It was better than those 10 let on, but still pretty bad. I feel bad, because I see what they meant, and why that should have made me laugh. It was just too forced and felt pretty lame, sorry.

Insidious – I thought I heard this was amazingly scary. It’s waaaay not. It’s basically just Paranormal Activity (non of the found footage bs though) plus poltergeist. Really, more of the latter than anything. It’s not offensively bad or anything, but it brings absolutely nothing new to the table.

Trust – Wow this is a rough one. It’s about a young girl who gets tricked by an old guy online into meeting him, gets raped, and then the family tries to deal with that. It’s pretty brutally forthright with the subject matter. Uncomfortably so. I mean, if you make a movie about a creepy evil bastard who tricks/forces a little girl into sex, there are some things that have to come up. Showing the girl in this bathing suit he buys her, showing flashes of him kissing her and implications of worse. It’s really icky stuff. I don’t know how the actors did it, honestly. But then all the after stuff, is pretty honest too. A helpless dad, a family that doesn’t know what to do, and a a very very very confused girl. The girl does a pretty good job of expressing what can’t really be expressed. She defends him, she hates him, she loves me, she hates herself, it’s awful. And in the end the movie makes a really surprising choice to stick to their guns and face up to the fact that things don’t always work out. That you have to move on even though the fair thing doesn’t happen. I’d almost call it brave for a movie to make such a clearly unpopular choice. You could also call it exploitative, but let’s be generous I guess. It’s a pretty tough one, I certainly never need to see it again, but it was well done.

Paranormal Activity 2 – Didn’t like the last one, which everyone universally agrees was better than this one. So, I don’t like this one. Shocker. See my comments for any found footage horror movie ever. Copy paste.

Agora – Kind of an interesting movie, set in late 300s AD in Egypt. It shows the Christians coming to power, kicking out all the rest, and generally being fuckers. The main character is a philosopher woman (who was apparently a real person) who is eventually vilified because the bible says women are for baby making only. It’s an upsetting movie, because it’s based in reality. Christians really were fuckers (just like people in power before them). The destruction of the library is maddening (though it may not be true). It’s a pretty well done movie, though it may play with truth too loosely. The woman basically pre-discovers Galileo’s research 1300 years early. That at first annoyed me, but I suppose it’s not crazy. Some other greek philosopher pre-discovered Copernicus’ heliocentric theory 1300 years early, no one listened to him. And in the intervening years, I’m sure *someone* thought of elliptical orbits, it just didn’t “catch on” or whatever. So maybe it’s not crazy town. Anyway, decent movie!

The Warrior’s Way – Ehhhhhh. This seems like a good idea. Ninjas in the old west, awesome, right? Ehhhhhh. Not well acted, certainly. Not well scripted. Production values are ok, feel a little limited. The action is decent, it’s all slow-mo 300 style fighting, which is pretty cool. Watching the main dude take out ninja after ninja is kind of awesome. A 20 minute collection of the fights in this movie would be pretty bad ass. The movie, not so much.

TiMER – Okay, not really. It’s the future, everyone can go to the doctor and get an implant that tells them how long until they meet their soulmate. But only if the soulmate also has the implant, it stays blank until then otherwise. It’s an ok idea, I guess, pretty dorky. Besides the concept, the movie just isn’t done all that well.

Objectified – This is a documentary about industrial design. It’s a little bit in love with Apple. Granted, they are known for their industrial design. Then again, because they are known for it, people assume they are the end all, which is kind of self sustaining. It’s a kind of interesting movie, just about how people think about design. It’s a bit up it’s own butt, but it is a kind of interesting insight into the minds of designers. Worth the time if you are bored and the only movies netflix has added this week are police academy 28 and the 6th season of that show with that guy from the movie in the 80s.

Red State – This movie is basically about christian wackos. It’s sort of Kevin Smith’s version of the Waco standoff. The wackos kidnap sinners and kill them, eventually the authorities come in to stop them. That’s really all there is. People do a good job and all, but if it wasn’t Kevin Smith, I don’t think it would be a very noticeable movie. It’s got kind of an freaking awesome end to the siege, though, I’ll give it that.

Video Game Reviews @ The Temple

Okay, I’m really really behind on this. Largely due to a whole pile of indie games (damn you humble bundle!!!) that are piling up in my Steam account. That effing halloween sale didn’t help either. But, let’s make some progress. I was waiting to put more in this, but now the Thanksgiving sale happened and I am overwhelmed, I’ll push this out and do the next batch later!

Alpha Protocol – So this is basically Deus Ex. I know the most recent DE just came out, but I only buy games that are 5 bucks on steam, so I’ll get to that in a year or two. This is from a year or two ago, and it’s quite good! It was pissing me off something serious at first because it wouldn’t run. FIRST big budget game I try to play on my fancy new computer, and no dice. Letting steam do the PhysX install ended up being the secret. The game itself was actually very good. It looks great, it’s decently well acted. There’s nothing amazing about the story, it’s kind of a normalish secret agent story, but it was still good. I went half stealth half hacker, which was alright. I have the feeling that the different paths aren’t all THAT different. Hacking got me into some doors and computers more easily, but that’s only barely different than shooting everything in sight. But still, it’s fun. The action is fine, set pieces are a little monotonous, but not bad. I was actually pretty happy with this.

Amnesia: Dark Descent – And we have a new winner for scariest game I’ve ever played. Silent Hill is still up there. The difference there is perhaps that I played it on console. Playing on a huge TV from across the room just isn’t the same as a computer screen a foot away with headphones on. The first night I played in the dark too. God damn did it freak me out. It’s from the same guys who made the Penumbra series, which was alright. Those games were a bit buggy, I found I could kill bad guys by throwing boxes at them repeatedly, which ruins the suspense. What is amazing about this game is how utterly helpless you are. No weapons, you can’t run very fast, and you get scared easily. You have a health meter and a “sanity meter”. The more time you spend in the dark, the more freaked out you get. Also spooky events, and being near monsters, and looking at monsters decrease the sanity bar. You can’t fight, you can only hide, or run, but that doesn’t usually work. It’s basically a puzzle game, walking around finding the right pieces to get further into the castle. But hooboy did it scare me. More than once I considered stopping, that it wasn’t worth it. I’m sure you could play this game un-scared. Don’t put headphones on, and just blunder around. If you die, oh well, reload. But if you take just one step into that immersion and really act like you don’t want to die, it scares the bejeebus out of you.

Civ 5 – Oh look, I played a civ game again. I’m pretty sure I haven’t played since Civ2. It seems basically the same to me. I’m sure Civ experts have all kinds of opinions on how things are different, but it’s the same idea. I went through once as the Japanese on the normal difficulty, winning militarily. It wasn’t super hard. I was never in danger of extinction. Sometimes I made bad choices and started a war too early. But presto chango reload from 10 turns back and that was erased. It did kind of take over my life for a week or so, as civ tends to do. I don’t know if I’ll ever play another campaign, there’s just too much stuff to try. But christ, I got it for 7.50 on sale, I can’t really complain.

Atom Zombie Smahser – Indie game, top down looking at a few city blocks, zombies over running a city, try to get in and save as many people while fighting off the zombies. That’s a single level, many levels make up a city map and you go from place to place trying to save as many people as possible. It’s actually very fun, and pretty challenging. I only went through it once and managed to win (by getting enough points before the zombies got enough points, even though they had thoroughly destroyed most of the city). I tried to play again but found I didn’t have the patience for it. But perhaps I just have too many games to play

Hammerfight – This game is SO GREAT, but I got stuck on a level and really annoyed. It’s a physics game, but you are a little flying pod with a huge weapon attached (hammer, axe, sword). The physics come in in that you have to swing your pod around with the mouse to make the weapon swing, and then move the pod at the same time so that the swinging weapon hits similarly equipped enemies. It’s really fun and works pretty well most of the time. But then I got to this one level with a boss that can kill you in one mega-blast that he generally does right away, and I stopped. I feel like I’m missing something, how does a one-shot-kill boss make any sense? Sometimes he literally does it the moment I enter the room and I have to restart the level. I don’t understand, so I gave up, sad.

Revenge of the Titans – This is basically a tower defense game, but there’s resources involved, and research in between levels to develop new weapons. It’s pretty fun, cheesy little glowey graphics. But eventually I reached a point I couldn’t beat, and gave up. There’s a lot of that going on…

The Stanley Parable – This is actually a Half-Life 2 user add-on. It’s a very quirky little story. No fighting or actions. You are a worker in a building, and everyone disappears. You try to find out what happened. There is constant narration which tells you what to do next, unless you ignore it and do something else, in which case it gets mad at you. It’s extremely clever and very humorous. There are multiple endings depending on how you play. It’s very short, a single run through takes maybe 10 minutes. Very weird, but totally worth the time.

Event Reviews @ The Temple

As I Lay Dying – We saw this at Rogue Theater, a small theater on University. It’s a nice space, a little sterile, but fine. It’s a Falkner story, I guess, which I know nothing about. It’s a depression era type thing, about a family taking their mother to be buried. It’s a pretty sad story, the moral seems to be life sucks and then you die. For the most part the actors do a decent job. The doctor kept forgetting his lines, which was irksome, but everyone else was fine. The main guy and the daughter were maybe a bit better than the rest. Some of them, particularly the mother, the youngest son, and the religious neighbor, had a hard time deciding what their accent was. It’s supposed to be southern-ish, but it was occasionally british, or maybe scottish, I think I might have heard pirate in there. The sets were very simple, but good enough. There was an extraordinarily weird performance piece in the middle with one of the men taming a horse, but the horse was acted out by one of the women. I guess it gets points for trying something different, but it didn’t work. The musicians were extremely good, and there was a little jam session before the play started that was great too. All in all certainly a worthy experience.

Faust – Well, I tried opera again. The verdict is in – I don’t like opera. I really believe it has nothing to do with the quality. The best jazz player in the world doesn’t mean much to me, I don’t like jazz. The best opera singer in the world is still singing music I don’t like. Within the context of not at all liking the art form, this one seemed good. It’s about a dude (Faust) making a deal with the devil to regain his youth, based on some old German legend. The guy playing the devil was pretty great. He had the look, the attitude, and was my favorite voice singing music I didn’t enjoy. Everyone else seemed to do fine, though the friend, Siebel, was too quiet. In general the orchestra slightly overwhelmed the singers, really. The re-imagined opera did the AWFUL bullshit thing people do nowadays of putting words on the wall. It really annoys me, this emphasis of the themes in such a lazy way. The creator defensively points out in the program that he did not take anything out of the dialogue, that the words were purely supplementary. But I still think it’s lazy, if you can’t get your point across with just the story (and people have been doing so for almost a couple hundred years now with this opera), then you are doing a shitty job. On the flip side, the modernization was not as annoying as it often is, especially the devil in the modern context. And I thought the church and the mental ward set pieces were great. The harshness of the lights in the mental ward had a real impact. And the entire church seen was fantastic. But, it’s still an opera, oh well.

Premium Blend – This was great again! We went 2 years ago with a pair of free tickets on a whim. We missed it last year to my great dismay, but we got there this time. I think it wasn’t as good as last time, but still very good. Last time there was more variety, I feel. This time was all ballet and modern, with one exception. The opening ballet was pretty impressive. There was some girl who was maybe a big deal, but I didn’t think she was that great. The main dude was very very good, though. We were in the second row and for the first time I could see how much work the ballarinos (is that a thing?) had to do. Especially since she was kind of sucking, it was all his job to guide her and correct her spins and such. And some of the lifts were pretty impressive. The second ballet piece wasn’t so great, and had some horrendous outfits. There was an extraordinarily quirky modern thing, where the 3 dancers were a punctuation mark. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was cute. There was a reeeeeeally modern thing centered on the idea of how we order at starbucks having something to do with your personality. The dancing was good, but the theme was obnoxious. And they did all this meta stuff where the dancers talked and such. It was the worst part of the show 2 years ago when they did that, and it was this time. I’d rather dancers just dance. The stand-out was this tap/jazz/swing/ballroom thing. It was soooooo great. I don’t really love tap, I appreciate it, but I don’t end up enjoying it that much. But this was just awesome. They would all tap individually, then pair up for swing/ballroom type dancing, and go back and forth, it was freaking fantastic.

Star Wars in Minecraft

Wow.