MOVIE: Blue Jasmine (2013)

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Blue Jasmine Year: 2013 Rating: PG-13 Length: 98 minutes / 1.63 hours After the critical success of Midnight in Paris (2011), it seems that Cate Blanchett followed in Owen Wilson’s footsteps by providing her best Woody Allen impression in Blue Jasmine (2013). Of course, this is no coincidence, considering that pretty much all of Allen’s films are distinctly in his neurotic New Yorker style. After all, he writes and directs his films, which allows him to be on the screen, even if it’s not him directly acting on it. Still, Blue Jasmine falls into that happy medium of being a commentary on society as well as an examination of the mental illness it creates. There’s plenty of dark humor present when Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) comes to stay with her poorer sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins). The culture clash of the New York elite and struggling-to-get-by is exemplified in Jasmine’s inability to adapt to a life of poverty after having lived in a life of luxury for...
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VIDEO GAME: Mega Man Star Force – Pegasus (2007)

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Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus Year: 2007 Rating: E Time Played: 17.30 hours I have fond memories of playing the Mega Man Battle Network games in high school. I liked the RPG/Action/Card mechanics of this series and always wanted more. When the pseudo-spin-off series, Mega Man Star Force, arrived on the Nintendo DS, it seemed like a good evolution of the formula. However, I resisted buying a DS for so long that eventually, I had to come back and play these games a decade after they came out. With this amount of hindsight, I don’t know if I was viewing a series I never played through nostalgia or the evolved gaming landscape of today. Since I had watched the anime based on these games, I was already familiar with the basic story and plot structure. Additionally, not much had changed since the Battle Network games, other than a slight perspective shift and some modifications to the chip system. Even with this familiarity, I found myself...
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MOVIE: Doubt (2008)

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Doubt Year: 2008 Rating: PG-13 Length: 104 minutes / 1.73 hours Years before Spotlight (2015) won the Oscar for Best Picture, Doubt (2008) took a hard look at the scandals that have been in the Catholic Church for some time and presented a gripping parable of gossip versus evidence. Aside from this central point, I found Doubt to be a fantastic movie filled with contrasts. The differences between male and female leaders in the Church only heightened the fundamental conflict between Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s characters. Add to this the hardline stance of Streep’s Sister Aloysius, who has no flexibility for rules that aren’t actually in the Bible, and the result is an incredible look into changing times. Aside from Streep and Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis also gave superb performances full of raw and heartfelt emotion. In fact, I’d recommend everyone watch this film just for the career-defining roles of these individuals. Even among these, the intense ambiguity involved with Doubt’s...
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BOOK: The Dark Talent (2016)

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The Dark Talent Year: 2016 Author: Brandon Sanderson Length: 348 minutes / 5.80 hours There’s foreshadowing; then there are five books of foreshadowing. In The Dark Talent, Brandon Sanderson starts wrapping up this amusing middle-grade series by finally reaching the part of the story that was alluded to so many books ago. While this could easily be the final book in the series, I believe there’s enough left unconcluded that another volume should be written to wrap these remaining subplots up into satisfying conclusions. By this point in the series, the Alcatraz formula has been thoroughly explored, and it almost seems to be running on autopilot*. Granted, this was after four books of character and plot development, but there’s still an amount of “been there seen that” here. I am always in awe of Brandon Sanderson’s world-building, and the Alcatraz series is no exception. Breaking into the Library of Congress was such a natural extension of the “Librarian” motif that I’m a little surprised it...
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MOVIE: The Player (1992)

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The Player Year: 1992 Rating: R Length: 124 minutes / 2.07 hours Those who are aware of Robert Altman’s other films are sure to recognize the themes that permeated his oeuvre. He always seemed to find a way to satirize something in a way that underscored how broken the system is. From the military in M*A*S*H (1970) to the music industry in Nashville (1975), Altman had a keen eye to bring the ridiculous nature of these anthropological machines into the spotlight. Clearly, his time in the movie industry helped him adapt Michael Tolkin’s novel into The Player (1992). In a weird and meta way, nothing has changed since its early-90’s release. If you’re playing the “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game at home, this film is literally a “who’s who” of actors and movie personalities (many of whom appear “as themselves”). Unfortunately, this film does suffer from its early-90’s aesthetic, often highlighting how far we’ve come in terms of fashion and technology in nearly three...
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VIDEO GAME: Mega Man ZX (2006)

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Mega Man ZX Year: 2006 Rating: E Time Played: 5.32 hours Much like how Mega Man Star Force expounded upon the Mega Man Battle Network formula, Mega Man ZX evolved the platforming and action of the Mega Man Zero series. While this meant the visual style and difficulty carried over from the Zero series, ZX added just enough modification to the player character to make it more reminiscent of the original Mega Man series. Given how I’d developed some of my skills via the Zero games, I was easily able to jump right in and start playing ZX without too much difficulty. Part of the problem with this game was the slightly “open-world” style of the overworld. I’ve been so used to playing Mega Man games that immediately transport you to the level you want to play. I’m so used to this formula that having to navigate a labyrinthine home base just to get to the next area was frustrating at times—if only for the...
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MOVIE: Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

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Once Upon a Time in AmericaYear: 1984Rating: RLength: 229 minutes / 3.82 hours Nobody doubts Sergio Leone’s talent as a director. While he’s best known for his Spaghetti Westerns, he did make a few films like Once Upon a Time in America (1984). One does wonder if Leone was given free rein with this film, as it was probably an hour longer than it needed to be and included a lot of situations that could have been cut out, or at least trimmed down. If anything, it’s clear directors like Quentin Tarantino were influenced by movies like this, considering some of the similarities between it and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019). I will admit that most of the scenes in this fractured timeline of a story were necessary. Something that was shown early in the film would inevitably come into play near the end. However, I don’t think this excuses the numerous (and gratuitous) sex scenes included in this film. With a run time of...
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