BOOK: Humble Pi (2019)

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Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths ErrorsYear: 2019Author: Matt ParkerLength: 314 pages Growing up, I was never the type of kid who complained to my math teacher with the common saying, "When am I going to use this in real life?" Instead, I was always trying to find the weird and fantastical things that made math interesting. Unfortunately, many people get to adulthood and work on important engineering projects having probably asked that "real life" question at some point in their past. Humble Pi is a collection of many such stories of when math goes wrong in real life. I can appreciate how Parker formatted this book to poke fun at some of the common math errors that have led to real-world situations. Things like the page numbers counting backward, the chapter numbers being poorly rounded, or that there are 314 pages in a book with "Pi" in the title are not lost on me. I had heard of many of these...
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MOVIE: Renfield (2023)

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RenfieldYear: 2023Rating: RLength: 93 minutes / 1.55 hours Sometimes, a movie comes along that has a fun concept and delivers on it. Renfield (2023) asks, “What if Dracula’s servant realizes his boss is toxic?” With all the modern progress that’s been made in worker’s rights, this ridiculous combination is just hilarious enough to work. There’s a lot of lore surrounding Dracula, so a story that’s set in the present time plays the contrasts for laughs. That this movie is even canonically connected to Dracula (1931) makes it feel like a heartfelt sequel to its almost 100-year-old predecessor. The two actors who make this movie work are none other than Nicholas Cage (Dracula) and Nicholas Hoult (Renfield). Cage basically (and almost literally) gnaws on the scenery as he’s allowed to ham it up as the iconic monster. Hoult has shown he has great acting talent in recent movies like The Favourite (2018) and The Menu (2022). Renfield shows he knows how to play...
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VIDEO GAME: Portal 2 (2011)

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Portal 2 Year: 2011 Rating: E10+ Time Played: 8.5 hours While Portal felt like an innovative leap in gameplay, its bare-bones test chambers left a little to be desired for the variety of puzzles. Fortunately, four years after the release of Portal, Valve released the masterpiece that is Portal 2. Everything about the original game was taken into consideration and improved significantly. The environment was chock-full of lore, the gameplay added interesting mechanics with the addition of the gels, and the characters were funnier than ever. Even playing through this game over a decade after my first time still felt fresh and entertaining. Exploring the different areas of Aperture Laboratories (in various levels of decay) brought a much-needed ambiance to the series that was merely enhanced by the narrations of Cave Johnson (J.K. Simmons). That the game acts as a sort of prequel and sequel to the original merely emphasizes how well-considered its story is and how much lore can be crammed into a physics-based...
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VIDEO GAME: Portal (2007)

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Portal Year: 2007 Rating: T Time Played: 3 hours When it comes to video game mechanics, it feels like most of the foundational concepts were born in the early years and merely perfected over time. The endless puzzle possibilities of Tetris. The platforming of Super Mario Bros. The first-person-shooter perspective of Doom. It still amazes me that a game made in 2007 could combine these foundational elements of video games into something truly original. Portal is more than its gameplay, though, which is part of what makes its story so iconic—enough to be part of some of the earliest memes. While the length of this game makes it feel more like a tech demo, the gradual reveal of the game's story adds some heft to its impact. As the player slowly uncovers the reality of their situation and the insanity of the expertly written GLaDOS, the portal mechanics become less about solving puzzles and more about trying to survive. That the one-sided banter of the...
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VIDEO GAME: The Stanley Parable (2011)

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The Stanley Parable Year: 2011 Rating: NR Time Played: ~2 hours The Stanley Parable is one of those odd video games that defies definition. Is it a walking simulator? Is it a choose-your-own-adventure? Is it a meta examination of itself? In the end, it truly is a combination of all three, but it's also so much more than that. While most video games have an objective you're trying to accomplish, The Stanley Parable is content with giving you the illusion of free will, then smirking as everything unravels in hilarious fashion. On my first playthrough of The Stanley Parable, I let the narrator guide me all the way to the end of the story. It was an uplifting ending that the narrator's voice prescribed, seeing as he told me what to do the whole time. However, there were no end credits after reaching this ending. Teleported back to the start of my journey, I progressed through this liminal space again, except now I knew what...
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VIDEO GAME: Job Simulator (2016)

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Job SimulatorYear: 2016Rating: E10+Time Played: ~2.5 hours While I didn't know it at the time, one of the first Virtual Reality games I ever encountered was none other than Job Simulator. Many years later, I bought this game for my Oculus Quest and immediately understood the appeal. Sure, the graphics aren't top-notch, but that's not the point of Job Simulator. If anything, it's an easy introduction into the world of VR that allows the user to play around in a variety of "job" environments. The comedy in this game is quite amusing; however, its replay value is fairly limited. Set in the far future, Job Simulator pokes fun at several professions, including Auto Mechanic, Gourmet Chef, Store Clerk, and Office Worker. Anyone who has experienced any of these jobs will likely get a chuckle out of its tongue-in-cheek satire. As a single-player game, it only takes a few hours to complete all four campaigns. And while the tasks are the same on...
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MOVIE: The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)

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The Mitchells vs. the MachinesYear: 2021Rating: PGLength: 113 minutes / 1.88 hours After Sony Pictures Animation released the visually stunning, Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), I awaited their next project with great interest. Eventually, they put out a trailer for a movie titled Connected, which seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. Then the pandemic hit. Netflix grabbed the rights, renamed the film, and released The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021). Ultimately, it was a fun movie, even if it followed many tropes of the family road trip. Visually, I'm finding the new style of 3-D animated movies that look closer to the traditional 2-D animated films to be an intriguing middle ground. There are benefits from both styles, and this movie takes advantage of them. Ultimately, though, I think this kind of movie knows its demographic is millennials and does its best to pander to some of our absurd humor (like a fantastic scene with Furbies) as we...
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MOVIE: Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)

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Bill & Ted Face the Music Year: 2020 Rating: PG-13 Length: 91 minutes / 1.52 hours One thing I hate about trilogies is that sometimes movies don't need to be trilogies. If everything has been covered in the previous two movies (or even the first movie), the only reason for any additional films in the franchise seems to be for the sole purpose of making money. What's worse is franchises that release their third movie long enough after the first two that it's more of a nostalgia trip/reboot than anything that adds significantly to the lore. What's perhaps most disappointing about Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) is how I had high hopes for it. Granted, my nostalgia for Excellent Adventure (1989) and Bogus Journey (1991) mean that I hoped there would be a significant shift in Face the Music that would explore something new that might have developed in the last 30 years. Instead, Face the Music treads all the same territory from...
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MOVIE: To Be or Not To Be (1942)

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To Be or Not To Be Year: 1942 Rating: Passed Length: 99 minutes / 1.65 hours I don't know about you, but I've found that World War II movies were released closer to the end of the war have a certain amount of emphasis that has seemed to fade with time. In fact, I'd almost wager that the comedies produced during the war are some of the most poignant films I've ever seen on the subject. Sure, making fun of Nazis is easy when you're not affected by them—but when the threat is still real, there's an amount of satire that can both entertain and thrill. Much like Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) that came before it, To Be or Not To Be (1942) works off a bit of mistaken identity and farse to make the jokes that much funnier. The comedy in this film is expertly carried by a young Jack Benny—who manages to gnaw on every piece of scenery in every shot...
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MOVIE: Mean Girls (2004)

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Mean Girls Year: 2004 Rating: PG-13 Length: 97 minutes / 1.61 hours With the theaters opening back up again, I took advantage of a few “comeback classics” showings to see a movie that I had missed the first time it came around: Mean Girls (2004). I’m familiar with the numerous memes that this movie spawned, so it was a little weird seeing these little references in their original context. Of course, I’m also not necessarily the target demographic for this movie, as I am not (and have not been) a high school girl. Sure, it gave me an appreciation of the cutthroat and somewhat petty social hierarchy involved with female relationships in high school—in the sense that I didn’t have to put up with it. I can appreciate the ability of Mean Girls to create a situation where the audience learns about this “wild” world of high school by introducing a homeschooled student into the jungle that is the teenage learning environment. The fact that...
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MOVIE: Parasite (2019)

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Parasite Year: 2019 Rating: R Length: 132 minutes / 2.20 hours If you haven’t discovered South Korean cinema yet, Parasite (2019) is a fantastic introduction for the uninitiated. Director Bong Joon-ho has been hard at work over the last 20 years, helping craft films that are thoughtful and horrifying. Movies like The Host (2006) and Snowpiercer (2013) give a sense of his artistic style. Parasite merely takes his ability to shed light on class conflict and molds it into a masterpiece that’s half heist-comedy, half horror-drama, and all suspense. If it weren’t for the somewhat lackluster ending, I’d give this film the full five stars it deserves. At the base of Parasite is a conflict between the impoverished and the rich. This theme could be easily applied to any country with a wide income disparity, which is probably why it works so well in the United States as well as in South Korea. To survive in these environments, the poor must do their best to...
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BOOK: How to Traumatize Your Children (2007)

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How to Traumatize Your Children: 7 Proven Methods to Help You Screw Up Your Kids Deliberately and with Skill Year: 2007 Author: Knock Knock Length: 144 pages A friend of mine loaned me this book to help prepare me for the joys of parenting by using a slightly humorous slant on the standard parenting books that hand out helpful advice for parents to be. While I chuckled at some of the pages as I flipped through the book, once I sat down to read it, I almost immediately became depressed. Sure, How to Traumatize Your Children is tongue-in-cheek, but that only lasts through the first few chapters. Overall, it’s virtually a traumatizing look into actual bad parenting instead of a comedic take on it. The moment that it hit me how real these “methods” are was when I started to realize many parents inadvertently use them to their children’s disadvantage. From my own experience, and observing the experiences of others, this book presents each one of these methods in...
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MOVIE: Vice (2018)

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Vice Year: 2018 Rating: R Length: 132 minutes / 2.20 hours It’s a little weird to me how a director like Adam McKay has gone from directing movies like Anchorman (2004) and Talladega Nights (2006) to entertaining exposés like The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). Sure, I can see how his comedy background could lead to the razor-sharp wit used to educate the movie-going public about the 2008 mortgage crisis and the former vice president, respectively. It’s evident the Academy likes his new style as well, as both The Big Short and Vice were nominated for Best Picture. While I liked The Big Short a lot, Vice certainly had its moments. I’ll give props to Christian Bale for his ability to mimic Dick Cheney’s mannerisms in this role. Sam Rockwell was also pretty great as George W. Bush, but I couldn’t get past Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld. I also appreciated the tongue-in-cheek “false ending” in Vice, as it was probably one of the funniest moments in the film. Just like how learning about the mortgage crisis was...
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BOOK: Dreadfully Ever After (2011)

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Dreadfully Ever After Year: 2011 Author: Steve Hockensmith Length: 287 pages While the original Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a combination most people never knew they needed, apparently making it into a trilogy was the next logical conclusion. Combined with the prequel, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Dreadfully Ever After puts the series to rest with a sequel that seems to re-hash a lot of similar ideas presented in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but with enough connection to the prequel and at least one or two original ideas that helped to round out the characters. These new ideas were logical extrapolations from the events that concluded Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so they weren’t necessarily shocking, but still entertaining to pull the thread nonetheless. I think, overall, I prefer the prequel and sequel to the original Austen/monster mashup. It probably helped that both were written by the same author, who was essentially writing fan fiction based on the idea that this romantic classic could be combined with the undead. Dawn...
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BOOK: Sideways (2004)

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Sideways Year: 2004 Author: Rex Pickett Length: 665 minutes / 11.08 hours When I got into this book, the only things I knew about it were that it was about wine and it was made into a movie of the same name by Alexander Payne. Unfortunately, unlike a good wine, this book doesn’t seem to have aged well. Maybe people were able to put up with buddy comedy sex romps back in the early 2000’s, but the social climate has changed considerably since then. I doubt a book like this would be written today, at least without some outcry from people who find the women in it to be inherently objectified. Most of my issue with this book comes down to the characters. I’ll give the author credit for creating individuals that made me react to them so vehemently. The problem is that I hated these characters. I hated Jack for being so sex-crazed that he felt obligated to satiate his urges mere days before...
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MOVIE: (500) Days of Summer (2009)

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(500) Days of Summer Year: 2009 Rating: PG-13 Length: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours I’ll be the first to admit that I’m biased when it comes to this film. In 2009, I experienced my first ever relationship. I also experienced a breakup from said relationship in the same year. Consequently, I can relate to the main character, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and his rise and fall brought about by Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Like Tom, I too held the romantic belief of “the one,” based mostly on the movies, books, TV shows, and music that touted this magical someone who would fill the hole in our souls. What (500) Days of Summer emphasizes is certainly closer to reality: not every story has a happy ending. As for the way the movie is presented, I must applaud the ingenious and artful direction of Marc Webb, this being his directorial debut after years of working on music videos. His previous experience certainly comes through in the music chosen for...
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MOVIE: Ant-Man (2015)

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Ant-Man Year: 2015 Rating: PG-13 Length: 117 minutes / 1.95 hours In the never-ending array of superheroes feeding into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to support such franchises like Captain America and The Avengers, it can be difficult to make some of the B-tier and C-tier heroes seem interesting enough to devote a whole movie to them. To ensure each movie feels different from its predecessors, certain unique attributes must be applied. Whether it’s the sci-fi-themed Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) or the mind-bending visuals of Doctor Strange (2016), each film requires a gimmick to make it work. For Ant-Man (2015), it’s comedy. If you approach Ant-Man as a standard superhero film, you’re likely to be disappointed. There are almost too many off-hand references to much of the MCU to make anyone not familiar with the vast array of movies lost and confused. Plus, the hero’s “origin story” in Ant-Man is almost par for the course. However, if you watch this film with the understanding that it’s more similar to comedy/caper/heist films than a superhero film, you’re likely...
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MOVIE: The Princess Bride (1987)

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The Princess Bride Year: 1987 Rating: PG Length: 98 minutes / 1.63 hours The Princess Bride (1987) is a movie that defies genres. It’s an adventure film with swashbuckling pirates. It’s a fantasy film with giants and six-fingered men. It’s a comedy with numerous quotable lines. It’s a family film about storytelling. It’s all these things, and more, which is part of its appeal (even if it makes the whole movie difficult to classify or market). The real trick with The Princess Bride is that it is subtle with its self-awareness. While other films may go so far self-aware that they’d break the fourth wall (a la Deadpool (2016)), The Princess Bride manages to poke fun at these classic genres with a knowing wink to the audience. Of course, this is part of its appeal. Many self-aware films make overt references to other big-hitters in their genre, thus relying on the audience who has done their homework to understand the joke. In The Princess Bride, there are no references to The Lord of the...
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BOOK: A Horse Walks into a Bar (2014)

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A Horse Walks into a Bar Year: 2014 Author: David Grossman Length: 350 minutes / 5.83 hours Somewhere along the line, I saw that this book won the Man Booker International Prize this year and put it on my “to read” list on Overdrive. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, other than perhaps a little bit of comedy, considering the title is a basic setup for a joke’s punchline. In that sense, the book delivered on that premise by being about a stand-up comedian in a nightclub giving his routine to the audience. I did not expect, however, the deeper subtext about the character and his relation to the narrator. It’s in this subtext where we find the meat of this story. It has often been said that “Sometimes all you can do is laugh to keep yourself from crying.” A Horse Walks into a Bar epitomizes this statement by blending serious subjects like cancer, death, and the Holocaust with a smattering of jokes, physical comedy,...
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MOVIE: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

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Tucker and Dale vs. Evil Year: 2010 Rating: R Length: 89 minutes / 1.48 hours I'm not really a fan of the horror genre. Mostly, I feel the plots are contrived, the characters are downright idiotic, and the violence is over-the-top. Of course, when I heard about Tucker and Dale vs. Evil years ago, I said, "pass." The friend who suggested I see it assured me that it wasn't like all the other horror films. The fact is, it is exactly like all the other horror films, but it is self-aware of this fact. Because the film is self-aware, it recognizes every single horror genre trope and makes fun of it. As time went by, more people suggested I see this film, so I finally caved during a slow weekend at home. Being the self-aware film that it is, the plot is simple and the production values are limited, at best. What really makes the film enjoyable to watch is the fact that the whole...
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BOOK: Modern Romance (2015)

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Modern Romance Year: 2015 Author: Aziz Ansari Length: 374 minutes / 6.23 hours I was honestly surprised by this book. As has been the case with most comedians and the books they have written, I expected this to be a bit of an autobiography in the veins of Bossypants , Yes Please , The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy , and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Instead, I was presented with a book filled with data, analysis, and information about how modern relationships work when compared with the relationships of past generations. Having gone through some of this “Modern Romance” myself, I could certainly relate to the information being presented, nodding my head in agreement as things I noticed suddenly had explanations pinned to them. But it wasn’t that the book was not an autobiography that surprised me, it was the humorous way that Aziz Ansari managed to present this subject matter, while also maintaining high scientific rigor. If I were...
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MOVIE: Get Smart (2008)

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Get Smart Year: 2008 Rating: PG-13 Length: 110 minutes / 1.83 hours While film adaptations of television shows aren't new, Get Smart (2008) was certainly in the era when the idea to do so had become popular (even if we're still trying to forget Bewitched (2005)). What's nice about Get Smart is that it falls into that "self-aware" category, mainly because the source material (i.e. the 1960's TV show of the same name) was already self-aware when it came to the "spy" genre made popular by James Bond. Of course, it's no wonder that the king of parody, Mel Brooks was involved in both the TV show and this film adaptation. Of course, while the humor was more bathroom-oriented than witty, many of Carell's lines played off of the amusing nature of taking everything literally. Also, the bumbling nature of his new field agent character, Maxwell Smart, was certainly entertaining (as it is clearly Carell's forté), even if it was abandoned at times to advance the plot through...
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MOVIE: Road to Morocco (1942)

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Road to Morocco Year: 1942 Rating: Not Rated Length: 82 minutes / 1.37 hours It’s unfortunate that many people who might be familiar with this film only know it through the homage done on Family Guy. The unfortunate part of this is that most wouldn’t recognize the origin of the bit and go watch the reference material, which is much funnier than Family Guy could make it. Buddy films have been around for a long time, so it’s nice to see how one of the founding films of this comedy sub-genre succeeded at it. The success of a Buddy film comes from the talent of its two main characters. In this case, Orville "Turkey" Jackson (Bob Hope) is the lovably dim partner to Jeff Peters (Bing Crosby), the snarky singer and brains of the operation. Those who might be looking for a pure slapstick comedy are bound to be slightly disappointed, because the gold of this film is in its repartee. Verbal jabs, wordplay, and double entendre...
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