MOVIE: Nickel Boys (2024)

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Nickel BoysYear: 2024Rating: PG-13Length: 140 minutes / 2.33 hours Every once in a while, a movie comes along that does something so creatively that you wonder why it hadn’t been done that way before. For me, Nickel Boys (2024) was way more immersive than anything that 3D cinema had done in decades, simply because the filmmakers shot it from a first-person perspective. In making the movie this way, I felt more connected to the characters, which made their plight that much more impactful. After all, you can talk about racism and you can see the effects of racism, but until you experience it, it’s just not the same. The neat thing about this first-person perspective is that it didn’t feel too much like a gimmick (like Hardcore Henry (2015) did). Sure, maybe they could have filmed it in such a way that people with virtual reality headsets could experience these things in an even more visceral format. But the humanity of seeing...
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VIDEO GAME: Dinner with an Owl (2021)

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Dinner with an OwlYear: 2021Rating: N/ATime Played: 0.5 hours Dinner with an Owl feels like one of those throwback games from the era when adventure games just started having point-and-click capability and good enough sound cards to do voice acting. Of course, the length of this game is more on the side of a demo than a full game. If anything, it shows that small or solo teams of developers can release games of all sorts these days. It’s functional, even if there isn’t a lot of it to experience. One aspect of point-and-click games I always found frustrating was how many different things you had to click to find the right item to progress the story. Dinner with an Owl is peculiar in that you can’t interact with much. Again, it’s a simple game that doesn’t get bogged down in the extras that don’t add to the narrative. This also means the interaction options with the characters are fairly limited as...
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MOVIE: Atlantis – Milo’s Return (2003)

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Atlantis: Milo's ReturnYear: 2003Rating: GLength: 70 minutes / 1.17 hours Back before movies went straight to streaming instead of having a theatrical release, Disney leaned into “Direct-to-Video” sequels of some of their famous films. While this was mostly something that happened during the VHS era of the 1990s, Atlantis: Milo’s Return (2003) certainly seems to fit that bill. The real problem with these slapdash sequels is the quality, but Milo’s Return is even worse than that in the sense that it’s not even a movie as much as it is three TV episodes in a trench-coat. The ‘80s and ‘90s were full of Saturday morning cartoon tie-ins to big movies. Even if movies like Ghostbusters (1984) and RoboCop (1987) weren’t appropriate for children, they still pumped out TV shows for kids to watch. This made more sense for Disney, with shows from their ‘90s renaissance being the perfect match for kids to watch at home on TV. But when Atlantis: The Lost...
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BOOK: The Suitcase Clone (2022)

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The Suitcase CloneYear: 2022Author: Robin SloanLength: 78 pages Much like Ajax Penumbra 1969 helped fill in some of the lore for Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan expounded on his book Sourdough with The Suitcase Clone. This short story doesn’t necessarily share any of the main characters from Sourdough, but it gives some insight about the mysterious “creature” that’s in the sourdough while also providing an interesting look into intellectual property theft when it comes to specific wines—which itself is reason enough to read this short story. Sloan takes a somewhat unorthodox approach to the point of view here, which took some getting used to. His language bordered on being too flowery, and it lost me as to what was happening at least a few times. But in terms of straight vibes, The Suitcase Clone successfully gives off that eerie, otherworldly feeling that helps add to the mystery of this almost microorganism entity. Reading this story is what I would imagine taking...
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MOVIE: The Brutalist (2024)

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The Brutalist Year: 2024 Rating: R Length: 216 minutes / 3.60 hours Conceptually, I enjoyed the idea of The Brutalist (2024). There are few biopics about architects, let alone ones of this specific style, so manufacturing a story that feeds from common tropes in the biopic format felt like an interesting way to showcase this unique artistic architecture. Of course, because the life of Laszlo (Adrien Brody) wasn’t real, The Brutalist leans into other metaphors that were uncomfortable to watch and ended up somewhat ruining the film for me. The problem with a main character like Laszlo is that it doesn’t take long for him to do things that make him unlikable. Sure, one could argue the PSTD from surviving the Holocaust would cause him to act out in these ways just so he could maintain any semblance of control of his life. Unfortunately, the control he seeks is partly the reason for his demise, as it is through drugs and alcohol. Not that this...
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VIDEO GAME: Minit (2018)

by benmweilertNo Comments
MinitYear: 2018Rating: ETime Played: 3+ hours I love it when simple games take common aspects of gaming and explore them as a key gameplay mechanic. For most games, a timer doesn’t necessarily force me to play in a certain way. Sure, I might not spend a ton of time exploring if I know there’s a time limit to get through the level. But what if you’re only given one minute before your character dies? How much can you do in that time? That’s the premise behind Minit. With a gameplay loop that resets every minute, you start to realize just how much you can do in 60 seconds. The strategy in a game like Minit is finding ways to move faster or using the knowledge you gained in one life to get through a section in less time. Like a time loop (or micro-roguelike). Of course, this limitation also makes exploration difficult when you get stuck. If you only have a minute...
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MOVIE: Atlantis – The Lost Empire (2001)

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Atlantis: The Lost Empire Year: 2001 Rating: PG Length: 96 minutes / 1.60 hours I can appreciate that Disney was trying to do new and interesting things at the beginning of the millennium. There seemed to be a trend of more male-focused movies with Treasure Planet (2002) and Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). That these were leaning into science fiction instead of fantasy was also a nice change of pace. Of course, in this era of Disney trying to find its identity in a post-Toy Story (1995) world, I can see why movies like Atlantis have since (ironically) been forgotten. While Treasure Planet was an adaptation of Treasure Island, Atlantis was an original story. Granted, some of the key elements felt like Stargate (1994), but that’s mostly because ancient tech stories have similar story beats and characters. The 1910s aesthetic and archetypes of the explorers was something new to Disney animation and were in a brown-coded contrast to the blue world of Atlantis. Of course,...
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BOOK: Clara Schumann – The Artist and the Woman (2001)

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Clara Schumann: The Artist and the WomanYear: 2001Author: Nancy B. ReichLength: 385 pages For a talented woman like Clara Schumann, she usually played a major role in biographies of her husband, Robert, or their mutual friend, Johannes Brahms. This was not the case in Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, which took the complex life of this virtuosic pianist and made all its parts focus on Clara. If anyone ever wants to learn about the fascinating life of this woman, this is the book to read. While the biography of Clara’s daughter, Eugenie, had lots of useful, intimate information about Clara’s later life, this book fully explores all phases of Clara’s life. From her time under her father to the drama of Robert’s courtship and the eventual life as a widow who still had to support a sizable family, this book breaks down each of these life moments in a thorough way that helps tell her story. Of course, her life...
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MOVIE: Anora (2024)

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Anora Year: 2024 Rating: R Length: 139 minutes / 2.32 hours When I first watched Anora (2024) in theaters, I had heard a lot of buzz about how good it was. This was shortly before it was nominated for Best Picture, and I agreed it was a strong contender to win (which it did). There were three ways I thought the Best Picture could go, and Anora was the film that aligned best with modern cinema, with more independent artists in full control of their work. That it is also a striking (and hilarious) examination of the difference between the working class and the owning class is a bonus. The first act of Anora felt obnoxious as it introduced the titular character and this Russian oligarch’s son who wanted to buy this stripper’s time for an extended binge of hedonism. However, once reality hits the situation and the movie pivots, the unlikely group of people searching for this runaway son provides some of the funniest...
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