MOVIE: Free Guy (2021)

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Free Guy Year: 2021 Rating: PG-13 Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours This pandemic has messed with my sense of time. I could have sworn that Free Guy (2021) had already come out, but it had just been endlessly delayed until this year. As someone who enjoys video games, I was hesitant to watch this movie because it could be filled with too many references that would immediately date it. Fortunately, I was surprised by the few glimpses of a deeper plot hidden behind Free Guy's goofy exterior. Of course, Ryan Reynolds makes this movie work with his best PG-13 Deadpool impression. Within the first three minutes of this film, I thought to myself, "Oh, this is just The LEGO Movie (2014)." A non-player character (NPC) named Guy (Ryan Reynolds) breaks out of the mundanity of his existence to go on a great video game adventure. It wasn't until much later in the film that I realized the major plot points of The Truman Show...
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VIDEO GAME: Flower (2009)

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Flower Year: 2009 Rating: E Time Played: 2 hours Video games are truly a unique form of interactive art. While many of the medium’s detractors will point to the excessive violence present in many triple-A titles, many counter-examples show how peaceful the medium can be. Take indie developer, Thatgamecompany, for instance. The beautiful narrative format they used in Journey had me in tears by the end, and the only things I could do in that game were move, jump, and make a sound with my character. One of their previous works, Flower, goes so far as to remove jumping and interacting from the equation. In Flower, you play as a single flower petal that activates other flowers that add additional flower petals to the player’s entourage. A level system breaks up the narrative a little and allows me to see if there were secret areas I had not yet found in each portion of the game. These standard video game conventions—along with defeating the “big...
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MOVIE: Over the Moon (2020)

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Over the Moon Year: 2020 Rating: PG Length: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours Over the Moon (2020) snuck under my radar until it was nominated for Best Animated Feature. At that point, I figured I had to check it out. I appreciate that there is enough room in the entertainment industry for CGI animated films not made by Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks, or *shudder* Illumination. Over the Moon is certainly unique, even if it's geared toward Asian cultures that I know little about. And perhaps that's my issue with this film: I'm not its target audience. While Disney wrote the book on adapting Euro-centric fairy tales into animated films, there are plenty of other cultures in this world that have their own rich lore from which we can extract interesting stories. However, because I haven't grown up hearing these stories, their adaptations seem strange to me when they're in a modern context like Over the Moon. What's worse is that some elements I know about Chinese culture...
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BOOK: The Three-Body Problem (2006)

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The Three-Body Problem Year: 2006 Author: Liu Cixin Length: 806 minutes / 13.43 hours A few years ago, someone suggested that I read the Remembrance of Earth's Past series, so of course, I added it to my Overdrive wish list so I could eventually listen to the audiobook. I'm usually down to read some hard sci-fi since it's a niche genre I enjoy. I was intrigued that this book came from China because I don't usually think of hard sci-fi when I think of that country. In fact, I hardly think of literature that wasn't written hundreds of years ago. It's been about five months since I read this book, so this review is a long time coming. I still vaguely know what this book was about and what science was explored within its prose, but that's about it. Nothing stuck with me other than the sense that it was a bit of an Ender's Game ripoff. I would have liked to connect with the...
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MOVIE: The Suicide Squad (2021)

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The Suicide Squad Year: 2021 Rating: R Length: 132 minutes / 2.20 hours I don't mind superhero films. I think they're fun and flashy, and I can turn my mind off for an hour or two. What I do mind is endless reboots of franchises. The fact that I saw three separate Spider-Man reboots in 15 years accentuates my point. Now, I understand that The Suicide Squad (2021) is allegedly a sequel to Suicide Squad (2016). Still, it felt more like a reboot since Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) were the only recurring characters. And, let's be honest, they can't cast Harley Quinn with anyone other than Margot Robbie now. For those who thought that having a great director like James Gunn on board would make this film better than its predecessor, you're partly right. Sure, there's a bit of his style of humor that is on display. Still, it's essentially the same plot as the previous...
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VIDEO GAME: Mario’s Super Picross (1995)

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Mario’s Super Picross Year: 1995 Rating: Not Rated Time Played: 3,898 minutes / 64.97 hours It’s a little odd to me that Picross (or Nonograms) never took off as a puzzle genre outside of Japan. Sudoku and (my personal favorite) Kakuro eventually found popularity in the United States in the 2000s. This was likely due to the ease with which these puzzles could be printed. While Nonograms have the novelty of producing a pixelated two-tone image, they sometimes take up to 30 minutes to solve (especially for the more detailed puzzles). Pokémon Picross introduced me to Picross games, and it has the advantage of a stylus and touchscreen. The Japanese-only release of Mario’s Super Picross does not have this advantage. Mario’s Super Picross became available on the Super Nintendo Virtual Console for the Switch, which is what allowed me to finally play this game. While the controls take a little getting used to, this game’s one novelty is the little animations that play when solving...
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MOVIE: The Social Dilemma (2020)

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The Social Dilemma Year: 2020 Rating: PG-13 Length: 94 minutes / 1.57 hours I joined Facebook in 2005. Before that, I was on MySpace. As someone who started heavily using the internet when the concept of social media started taking off, I honestly feel that I managed to avoid a lot of its pitfalls. My introverted self loved getting updates on people's lives without having to cultivate all those relationships intentionally. Of course, the system only works if people post updates of their lives. What The Social Dilemma (2020) brings to light is that programs meant to keep us connected have since been tainted by dangerous technology that keeps us coming back for more and getting little in return. While The Social Dilemma is inherently about how damaging social media can be, the greater lesson here is how artificial intelligence was created to handle these enormous datasets. Unfortunately, because these AIs were created to maximize ad revenue, they break us down to our psychological building...
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BOOK: A World Out of Time (1976)

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A World Out of Time Year: 1976 Author: Larry Niven Length: 474 minutes / 7.90 hours I’m starting to realize that science fiction in the 1970s might need to stay there. While there was a lot of progress in the genre past the golden era of the 1950s, many of these books are unfortunate snapshots of a time that has not aged well. Similar to Ringworld, I found A World Out of Time to rely heavily on the sexism that runs rampant through 1970s sci-fi. Additionally, while the hard science presented in this book was generally plausible, the way it was presented was so dry and dense as to make it more of a Ph.D. thesis than an entertaining read. On the plus side, A World Out of Time explores many scientific ideas that were well ahead of its time. Aside from the normal sci-fi tropes of mind implants and artificial intelligence, this book also deals with climate change in a way that hasn’t been...
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MOVIE: Mr. Right (2015)

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Mr. Right Year: 2015 Rating: R Length: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours When Mr. Right (2015) came out, it looked like a fun little action rom-com film. I was interested in seeing it because I had found Sam Rockwell's performances in Iron Man 2 (2010) and Seven Psychopaths (2012) to be quite engaging. Plus, Anna Kendrick is cute in a "doesn't really smile" kind of way. For whatever reason, I never got around to seeing Mr. Right when it was released six years ago. After finally sitting down and watching it on Netflix, I'm kind of glad I saved the money. It was clear to me almost from the start that Rockwell was phoning it in on this movie. Sure, he was charismatic as an assassin who kills the people who hire him to kill other people. The fact that he doesn't lie about his lifestyle to Martha (Anna Kendrick) made him amusing if only for the fact that after the third or fourth time,...
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