Movies
Let's start off with with a crossword puzzle clue. What's 9 letter long and causes your IQ to drop by at least 9 points? That's right, it's...
MacGruber: Those who know me know I'm pretty much open to watching any movie and even for those that don't quite make it to my top list, I can usually find some redeeming feature. Sadly, (I'm not really sad) MacGruber just delivered nothing. From the unnecessary male nudity to the wasted plot time, it just went on and on, sometimes literally ad nauseum. Yes I'm being a little harsh, but let's step back and look at expectations versus delivery. Take for instance a movie like Harry Potter (take your pick. From the hype and previews, I expect a movie about wizarding and magic. No mater what the other merits or drawbacks, at least it delivered exactly what I expected. On the other end of the spectrum comes Macgruber. From the name, the hype, and the previews I expected a silly MacGuyver parody. Instead, there were literally 2 scenes which parodied MacGuyver (with the exception of the running theme of his refusal to use a gun), and each of those scenes were 20 seconds or less and poorly done. All that was delivered was a mind numbingly dumb plot with interspersed homo-eroticism and long segments where nothing happens. Really all I can say is poor Val Kilmer, oh how you've fallen.
Prince of Persia: Another example of delivering on expectations. Decent action, wonderful cast (Alfred Molina steals the show) and just enough game similarities to satisfy fans of the franchise. I know some will disagree, but I just think the Jerry Bruckheimer/Disney combination is a match made in heaven. From the Pirates franchise, to National Treasure, to Prince of Persia, they consistently deliver on family friendly action/adventure fun. One last note, although parts of the film were rushed, I think making it any longer would would have taken away from the movie as a whole.
Green Zone: I think I just plain like Matt Damon (even puppet versions of him). The film is chocked full of liberal propaganda, but I really expected no less. Despite its heavy left leanings, the movie was enjoyable as well as innovative in its depiction of the war in Iraq. I would have loved to have seen a little more action, especially from the special forces unit, but that's just my opinion. More objectively, the extremely dark lighting in much of the movie did detract some. It was so dark that even despite being shot on film there is an extreme amount of film noise that gets bad enough to be distracting. I think with the technology available today and 100 million dollar budget they could afford to light this and avoid the consumer video camera look.
TV
Well, fall TV is almost back and I'm ready for it, but until it actually returns here are some reviews/updates on a few viewing options.
OZ (season 1): I had heard alot about this show back when I was in school, but I never had the chance to watch it so I thought I'd give it a chance. It's not half bad although I feel like every show on HBO from that time just felt obligated to throw in extra nudity for no real purpose. The characters have a little depth and it's fun to see your alliances shift nearly by the minute as prisoners go from "good" to "bad" and back again. I am however sick of the narrator character and his inane "thought provoking" lectures. Whenever he's giving a speech that's not a character background I just fast forward.
Avoda Aravit (season 2): Season one was a barrel of laughs. Maybe that's because much of the humor was resorting tot he lowest common denominator of Palestinian stereotypes, but I enjoyed it (perhaps moreso for just that reason). The episodes ran like a typical sitcom with a little bit of character development and a short story that was resolved with a quirky and funny solution by the end of the episode. Season 2 is not quite the same. It's true there are still some laughs and certain episodes have really gotten me chortling heartily, but there just seems to be much more of a running political agenda this season. perhaps the director/writer felt he had to play it safe in season one to get public acceptance and now he's letting loose. I don't know, but I'm just not as fond of Amjad's ongoing plight of his continual dark realization that Arab Israeli citizens are not treaded as equals. I'll give it to the end of the season, but if it doesn't lighten up, that will be the last season for me.
Disney
Well, this is a kind of Disney, kind of TV post. I just watched the first episode of the old Mortal Kombat Conquest show and what do you know? Apparently it was almost entirely filmed at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida! Why do they brag on tours about random animal planet shows and a few scenes from Passenger 57, but leave out Mortal Kombat!?
"Music"
You'll notice I put music in parentheses and it's because I'm not reviewing actual music as those who know me could guess. Instead I'm reviewing other audio about music.
Great American Music - Broadway: I just finished listening to a wonderful lecture series by the Teaching Company on the history of Broadway musicals in America. It was absolutely wonderful and just really interesting. Although I would have liked a little more on recent musicals, (only 1 lecture was reserved for all of 1970 to the present,) I still loved the entire series. The professor is extremely knowledgeable and has some wonderful rare recordings. Who knew that Abraham Lincoln considered the reclaiming of the song Dixie to be the "spoils" of the Civil War? If you like musicals or Broadway it's certainly worth your while.
And, for your random factoid of the day: Although people hated Windows Vista, truly the most despised version of windows would be Windows Bob. Yes, Windows Bob was a terrible mistake in Microsoft's race against Apple. Thinking people wanted a truly user friendly computer experience they released a modified version of Windows 95 that had helpful little Bob every step of the way. Bob was kind of that annoying paper-clip from Microsoft Word, only on extreme crack -- and you couldn't close him.
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