MOVIE: Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

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Ocean's ElevenYear: 2001Rating: PG-13Length: 116 minutes / 1.93 hours While I usually agree with people who say that remakes are worse than the originals, Ocean's Eleven (2001) is an exception. Not only did it bring the same amount of star power that made the original stand out, but it had a heist that was much more entertaining and compelling than its predecessor. Having re-watched it recently, I found it still stands up over 20 years later, even if it's starting to show its early-2000 edges. I still think it's a classic that works because of its complexity and scale. It's impressive how there are so many big names in this movie, yet they all have their room to shine. There's a reason many of them are still making great movies today, and their talent is on full display here. And perhaps the collective charisma of this all-star cast makes the heist they pull off so thrilling. Sure, I already knew how they...
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VIDEO GAME: Golden Sun (2001)

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Golden Sun Year: 2001 Rating: E Time Played: ~22 hours After the initial rise in popularity of Role-Playing Games (RPGs) in the 1990s, there was a bit of a lull in the genre. Square had established itself with hits like the Final Fantasy series and Chrono Trigger, and Game Freak had slightly reinvented the genre with Pokémon. With some of the “golden era” games from this genre coming from the Super Nintendo, it made sense to see the next notable RPG come in the form of Golden Sun on the similarly powerful Game Boy Advance. Using some tropes of the genre, Golden Sun felt original in its combat and class structure. The introduction of the Djinn mechanic made Golden Sun a blast to play. As pseudo-onetime spells, the Djinn were fun to find in the Overworld and powerful to use in battle. I wasn’t necessarily a fan of how they’d randomly seem to change the class of the characters. The elemental mixtures sometimes made it...
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BOOK: Grave Peril (2001)

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Grave Peril Year: 2001 Author: Jim Butcher Length: 378 pages The third book in the Dresden Files, Grave Peril continues the adventures of Chicago’s resident wizard as he takes on ghosts, godmothers, and ghoulish vampires. While it’s definitely an improvement from Fool Moon, Grave Peril still has some of the misogynistic flaws of the series’ titular character. On the plus side, we finally get to delve into deeper lore for the series. And we get Michael. He’s the best new character in this series and by far my favorite for many reasons—mainly because how he does things differently than Dresden. I’ll admit that it took me a while to get through this book, which felt odd considering the action was superb, the writing was proficient, and the story was thrilling. For some reason, I didn’t feel the motivation to continue reading and went weeks between picking it up and continuing. I think if I had read it all as quickly as possible, then it might...
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VIDEO GAME: Oracle of Ages (2001)

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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages Year: 2001 Rating: E Time Played: ~30 hours As the second half of the “Oracle” games in the Zelda franchise, Oracle of Ages takes more of its cues from the wildly popular Ocarina of Time than its sister game, Oracle of Seasons, did. While Oracle of Seasons had a fairly unique mechanic (albeit not fully realized), Oracle of Ages had the benefit of its Nintendo 64 predecessor to help craft some of the puzzle-solving that needed to happen throughout its gameplay. And even if I played through using a linked account, giving me quite a few advantages—Oracle of Ages still suffers from some of the Game Boy Zelda titles' limitations. Even if the story in Oracle of Ages isn’t that strong compared to the Nintendo 64 games, it’s at least more fleshed out in terms of characters and their motivations when compared to Oracle of Seasons. The end boss wasn’t nearly as difficult in this game, but at...
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VIDEO GAME: Oracle of Seasons (2001)

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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons Year: 2001 Rating: E Time Played: ~30 hours When video games started splitting off into “two-part” versions in the mid-90s, my brother and I would always split who got which game. As a result, I realized that I had never played The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, as I had the Oracle of Ages version. After finishing Link’s Awakening DX, I decided to remedy this situation. While it was evident that this game used a lot of the same assets from Link’s Awakening, there was also ample evidence that the Zelda games on the Nintendo 64 influenced these handheld games. The base mechanic of Oracle of Seasons uses the four different seasons to solve a variety of puzzles in the over-world to progress to each of the eight dungeons. While this sticks to the core Zelda formula, this game's unfortunate aspect is how lackluster the story is. This was weird because of how the Nintendo 64 titles...
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BOOK: Fool Moon (2001)

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Fool MoonYear: 2001Author: Jim ButcherLength: 607 minutes / 10.12 hours I haven’t read a lot of the urban fantasy genre, but series like Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files is what I’ve come to expect. There’s a certain amount of logic that goes into combining fantasy elements into modern settings, and—if done well—can bring a story to life. Fool Moon (a delicious play on words, if I do say so myself) continues to take the noir twist from Storm Front and applies Harry Dresden’s magical skills against werewolf foes. Perhaps Storm Front wowed me with the concept of a detective magician so much that I thought Fool Moon was slightly weaker in comparison. For starters, I felt there were too many factions to keep track of in this book. Half the time, I was trying to remember if the werewolves in question were the good guys or the bad guys. Granted, the ambiguity of the factions’ intent helped drive the plot, but they all...
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BOOK: Mortal Engines (2001)

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Mortal Engines Year: 2001 Author: Philip Reeve Length: 541 minutes / 9.02 hours In yet another case of watching a movie first before reading the books, I finally got around to reading Mortal Engines after absolutely loving the 2018 movie. While I understand middle-grade or Young Adult readers are the intended audiences, it left me wanting in its presentation. Sure, most of the elements that made it into the film were there (with some less-than-necessary parts being cut from the screenplay for obvious reasons), but the way it was written felt a bit too flowery for my tastes. In fact, the engineer in me would have loved a lot more world-building than I got in this short volume. I did still appreciate the post-apocalyptic steampunk world of Mortal Engines—if for no other reason than its ridiculous premise. The idea that whole cities would transform into moving monstrosities that devour lesser towns in a “predator and prey” relationship is such an intriguing notion that I had to give...
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BOOK: Artemis Fowl (2001)

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Artemis Fowl Year: 2001 Author: Eoin Colfer Length: 281 pages With the movie adaptation of this book coming out in a few months, I figured the premise of Artemis Fowl looked interesting enough that I’d want to read it before seeing the film. After all, a child genius going up against fantasy forces sounded like it would be entertaining. Overall, this was true. Granted, this book starts one of those classic Young Adult series that’s actually meant for children, so I can forgive a bit of its bathroom humor—but only to a point. Still, I found the fusion of modern technology and fantasy elements to be the strength of this book. Much in the vein of the science fantasy genre, Artemis Fowl uses scientific principles and concepts to explain the numerous phenomena connected to creatures like fairies, dwarves, and trolls. It only makes sense that these creatures would evolve technologically along with humanity. Being able to explain how these creatures could remain undetected for thousands of years was nearly...
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