Reviews of books, movies, music, and maybe even games.
I was in a terrible mood yesterday. Mostly it was a bad mental health day, which is sad because it was also our 21st wedding anniversary, but Sandra and I managed to have a nice day in spite of my metabolically induced crushing despair.
Right before bed I decided to do some reading, and I started back in on my brother Randy’s book, Mugging Leprechauns is Totally Legal.
I fell asleep with a smile on my face. That book is like magic.
“Yet Another Zombie Defense Game,” normally $1.99, was on sale for $0.67. I bought a copy for me and had way more mindless fun than if I’d stuck 75 cents in an arcade game. So I bought three more copies and gifted them to my zombie-killing kids. Then my boys and I played together for about an hour and a half.
It’s a top-down, 3rd-person shooter with arrow keys for movement and the mouse for aiming, firing, and switching weapons. It’s played on a super-simple board — pavement with a single street lamp in the center. The zombies spawn at the edges and rush inward.
Survive the night and the next day you can shop for better weapons, ammo, etc.
Mindless, yes, but I had a great time with my sons. Yes, I’m in for more than just sixty-seven cents now. I’m in for $2.68 plus tax, but I stand by that subject line.
I am, in a word, amazed.
Guardians of the Galaxy accomplished what The Avengers accomplished, and it did it without requiring four movies of character development. The filmmakers delivered an ensemble superhero space-opera, gave us five fully fleshed-out characters, and had us laughing and cheering (and stoically holding back tears) through the whole film.
This is one of those films I want to watch again, only with a notebook. I want to to study it and figure out how they did what they did. Lots of it was brilliant writing, but the actors sold those parts to me, and the director, the editors, and the huge crew of technical wizards sold me the whole universe, and a really rollicking story.
I had a blast. So yes, it takes my #1 slot for the year, and I don’t expect it to be displaced.
My eleven-year-old son also heartily recommends it. He said, and I quote, “this is the best movie,” jaw agape, at least twice during the film. He was cheering for the characters in the final scenes. I had to shush him, because he was starting to cheer louder than the other people in the theater.
[UPDATE:] As was pointed out to me on the Twitter, and I quote:
@ajchid: You liked the hilarious space opera about a group of heroic ruffians from diverse, morally ambiguous backgrounds? Hmm…
If you’re at this website reading this review because you read Schlock Mercenary, and you think that movies its creator enjoys might also tickle your fancy, there is a reasonable chance that you will love Guardians of the Galaxy because it scratches your “I want a Schlock Mercenary movie” itch. Assuming you have such an itch.
I don’t see Schlock Mercenary in Guardians of the Galaxy, but that’s the same me being able to immediately recognize my house in a neighborhood full of similarly-built houses — Schlock Mercenary is where I live, and Guardians of the Galaxy is a place where Marvel Studios invited me over for a party.
(Oh, yeah. Sergeant Schlock can totally be described as a blobby cross between Groot and Rocket, with “I want to eat that” substituted for “I want to steal that.”)
Two of this this weekend’s new releases are based on popular mythology. One of them takes its chosen myth completely seriously, doubling down on it all the way to the end, and never leaving anybody convinced. The other one throws stones at its myth for pretty much the whole movie, but at the end you really want to believe. Continue reading Lucy and Hercules