MOVIE: Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Wreck-It RalphYear: 2012Rating: PGLength: 101 minutes / 1.68 hours One year after the release of the book Ready Player One, Disney also jumped onto the video game setting with Wreck-It Ralph (2012). Both have an astonishing number of licensed characters, even if they're relegated to cameo status most of the time. The larger difference between the two is that Wreck-It Ralph examines the virtual world from the villain's perspective. Redeemable villains have been all the rage for some time, so providing video games as a space to contextualize the concepts of destiny and cultural expectations was a perfect fit. Plot-wise, I enjoyed the video game universe Wreck-It Ralph created—even if there are undoubtedly some plot holes if you take it too seriously. I felt the Sugar Rush section of the film was a little long, but only because it had to deal with an entire other subplot with Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). Sure, feeling like you don't belong because you're a glitch parallels...
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VIDEO GAME: Sonic Dash (2013)

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Sonic DashYear: 2013Rating: ETime Played: 50+ hours It's interesting how most video game franchises that started on consoles have trouble breaking into the mobile gaming sphere. Sonic Dash is probably the most successful because it capitalizes on one cornerstone of mobile gaming: the endless runner. Who better to star in an endless runner game than a character known specifically for running? The problem is that , while the game is fun for a while, it becomes repetitive and stale the further you get into it. I first started playing this game as Sonic Dash+ on Apple Arcade. This version has no ads, which is perhaps its greatest selling point, as it feels that half my time on the free-to-play version is spent watching ads to get free consumables (rings, red rings, character cards, etc.). And mobile game ads have gotten no better as time goes by. Still, the amount of regular updates the game receives is just frequent enough to keep me...
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MOVIE: Robot Dreams (2023)

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Robot Dreams Year: 2023 Rating: PG-13 Length: 103 minutes / 1.72 hours I first heard of Robot Dreams (2023) when it was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. When I looked into it, I learned that there is no spoken dialogue in this film. This creative decision is always intriguing to me (almost as much as the one-shot technique) because it requires emphasizing body language and other "show, don't tell" techniques in filmmaking. For this reason alone, I wanted to see it. What I got out of it was a somewhat philosophical treatise on relationships. While the animation in Robot Dreams is crisp, it's not trying to do anything extraordinary here. And while having most of the characters as animals or other non-human beings was also a creative decision, the only thing I got out of it was a few jokes tied to the characteristics of these animals. And ultimately, I think the lack of dialogue in this movie was right at the...
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BOOK: The Schumanns and Johannes Brahms (1991)

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The Schumanns and Johannes BrahmsYear: 1991Author: Eugenie SchumannLength: 217 pages In performing research for my own historical fiction book, I've read a lot of books about Clara Schumann and the Schumann family. Some of these biographies have been about Robert Schumann, and others about Clara herself. The Schumanns and Johannes Brahms was one of the more interesting books I read, as it is technically a memoir of one of Robert and Clara's children, Eugenie Schumann. As such, this memoir had a unique flavor from the biographies I had been reading. Of course, as Robert had died while Eugenie was quite young, this was a section of the memoir that was not possible to expand upon. It would have been interesting to get more of a sense of how Clara and Robert acted around their kids, but such is the tragedy of this life cut too short. Fortunately, the focus of my research was Clara Schumann, and this book had details in spades....
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MOVIE: Saturday Night (2024)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Saturday NightYear: 2024Rating: RLength: 109 minutes / 1.82 hours Say what you will about whatever era of Saturday Night Live you want to pick on, but the fact that this show has been on the air for 50 years is astonishing. Even more so when you realize how close it came to not airing on that first night at all. All the iconic moments that have become part of pop culture over its five-decade run should be placed in the context of what Lorne Michaels was trying to do with this ragtag group of comedians. Saturday Night (2024) is a look into that last hour before the very first episode aired in 1975. I appreciated the ticking-clock aspect that director Jason Reitman brought to this film to emphasize how much still had to come together to make the show work. That everything is moving in real time shows just how frenzied these last-minute preparations were for everyone. There were quite a few...
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VIDEO GAME: Tetrisphere (1997)

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TetrisphereYear: 1997Rating: KATime Played: ~10 hours When it comes to Tetris, I can appreciate how timeless the original is while also enjoying when it goes in bold new directions. If all you need to include Tetris in your game's title are the seven tetromino pieces, then games like Tetrisphere easily fit into this category. While there weren't really any "classic" Tetris releases on the Nintendo 64, my nostalgic love for Tetrisphere still keeps it in a prominent place of honor in my memory. Having played it again recently, the game hasn't aged particularly well, graphics-wise, but it's still fun. The gameplay for Tetrisphere is different from classic Tetris in that the entire playing field is already covered in tetrominos that you have to move around and eliminate to get to the center of the eponymous sphere, thus freeing one of the sphere-like robot characters. There are several game modes, including a Puzzle section where you try to win the level with limited...
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MOVIE: Hundreds of Beavers (2022)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Hundreds of BeaversYear: 2022Rating: UnratedLength: 86 minutes / 1.43 hours Low-budget films often get a bad reputation because their lack of funds becomes obvious in the finished product. There are plenty of places where the application of more money would make for a more polished result. Sets, sound, costumes, special effects—many of these things suffer when the finances don't allow for the ability to do them correctly. Or, as is the case with Hundreds of Beavers (2022), you focus on what you can do with the money you have and make creative decisions to disguise how little money it took to make. The creative choices that went into this film helped it overcome its meager budget. As a comedy, the cardboard cutout special effects used work for laughs. Even the fact that all the animals are just people in mascot costumes is goofy enough to distract from the almost childish way things were put together. Of course, dubbing all the music and...
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BOOK: A Conjuring of Light (2017)

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A Conjuring of LightYear: 2017Author: V.E. SchwabLength: 1,143 minutes / 19.05 hours While it took me some time to get to book 2 of the Shades of Magic series, that cliffhanger required me to jump into A Conjuring of Light soon after just to keep everything fresh. At the very least, once I finished this book, I'd be done with the series and could move on to something else. You'd think I'd learn from the first two books, but I didn't particularly care for this author's style, and this book kept those flaws. For a book that picked up at the exciting conclusion of A Gathering of Shadows, it certainly took its time getting started. The stakes never felt significant enough to propel the story, which was why there were so many chapters dedicated to the characters (both major and minor) just existing. And when the main characters are boring enough that there needs to be minor character filler, that's not a...
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MOVIE: Megamind (2010)

by benmweilertNo Comments
MegamindYear: 2010Rating: PGLength: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours It's odd how few superhero movies ever look at the villain's perspective. Sure, modern villains have been written to be tragic figures whose descent into evil is justified based on their background and past trauma. However, taking all the tropes of the genre and flipping them on their head can expose how ridiculous some of these heroic premises are. As a satire of the genre, Megamind (2010) is surprisingly deep considering its animated and child-like appearance. The argument of nature versus nurture (and brains versus brawn) is front and center here as two alien beings voiced by Brad Pitt and Will Ferrell arrive on Earth and are given distinctly different upbringings. But once Megamind finally defeats his heroic counterpart, he sees how he tied his identity up in his role as a villain. And in creating a new hero to fight him, Megamind learns the difference between the contrasting hero motivations of altruism versus...
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