In Defense Of The Awkward Moment

Closing Time -- LAST POST

Hey Folks,

For a variety of reasons, this blog has moved over to Blogger.  You can find it here:

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Cheers,

Stephen

MOVIE REVIEWS: Mission Impossible: Fallout & Equalizer 2

(Trilobyte - Joey Goddard)

I have no way to sugar-coat the fact that I’ve been slacking on my blog posts, and I’m afraid that’s not going to get much better.  I’m reviewing two movies in a moment and neither of the reviews will be long.  Neither of them has to be though, so...there’s that.

 

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT

Here’s the very short version:  If you enjoyed the other Mission: Impossible movies, you should not only see this movie, but pay close attention.  A wise and well-coiffed man compared this movie to Skyfall, and after watching it, I couldn’t agree with him more.  Tom Cruise’s movies have always been bite-sized and episodic, but lacking any real continuity.  Yes, there are a few exceptions, but for the most part, they can all be viewed apart from one another with little consequence.  ‘Fallout’ changes all of that, for the better.  Plus, this movie is pretty much what Tom Cruise excels at in terms of entertainment.  Like Tom Cruise?  Watch it.  Like the M:I movies?  Watch it twice.  Like watching Tom Cruise get the crap beaten out of him?  Yeah, still watch it.  Only people who absolutely hate Tom Cruise should avoid this one.

 

THE EQUALIZER 2

This is an entertaining movie for most of the reasons that the first one was entertaining, but still inferior.  Denzel surprised us in the first movie by how efficient, brutal, and creative he was with his ass-kickings.  The third act of the first ‘Equalizer’ was a happy playland for everyone who ever dreamed of making a last stand in a hardware store.  The other fight scenes were well-shot and weapons were made out of whatever material happened to be in the room, further elevating Denzel’s book-worm bad-ass.  The second movie lacks fun set-pieces and creative combat, and suffers from unremarkable character development and a VERY loosey-goosey story.  The only thing that redeems it is Denzel’s acting, the rather excellent lines he’s given to recite, and the sheer novelty of the oh-so-predictable comeuppance that he doles out.  

 

AAAAND I’m spent.

FOOD REVIEW; Raising Cane’s Chicken

(Old Friends - Darrin Korb)

Chicken is, by default, the ‘other’ thing you can buy at a fast food joint. You can get a truck-load of things, or you can buy a chicken sandwich.  There are exceptions, of course.  Chicken Joints like KFC, Popeyes, Go Chicken Go, and Church’s can be found just about anywhere.  For an ‘other’, it certainly seems to be ubiquitous.

 Lately though, several people have tried to elevate ‘other’ into something more mainstream on the menu.  Chicken Strip places like Zaxby’s, Strips, and Slim Chicken’s seem to be popping up everywhere.  There’s one name that’s spoken with reverence though.  It’s a name that’s polarizing, and it represents a chicken joint that you either absolutely love or have no idea what the fuss is about.

Cane’s.

Is it truly a cut above?

 

THE SHORT VERSION:

Well...yes, but I’m not really sure how they’ve pulled it off.

 

THE LONG VERSION:

If you want gizzards, you go to GoChickenGo and get gizzards.  With G-Sauce.  If you want spicy chicken strips,  you go to Popeye’s.  Those aren’t questions, they’re facts.  Because I KNOW they’re facts, I was a little worried when I walked into Cane’s for the first time.  That’s when I discovered the first rather odd thing about their menu:

There’s really...only one thing on it.  Chicken strips.  No pieces, no gizzards, no spicy, no nuggets.  Just...strips.  Oh, sure, you can get sides, but those are limited to fries, toast, and slaw, but that’s really it.  I found this to be ballsy of them.  That ONE THING on the menu better be damn good if it’s all you’re serving.  Turns out, they sort of are.  Which is a little odd, because I can’t really figure out why. 

Cane’s chicken strips are different right out of the chute, and they don’t stop being different until they’re all gone.  For starterss, the pieces of chicken that they bread are HUGE.  You don’t really appreciate how big they are at first glance either, because of another thing about Cane’s strips that’s odd:  The breading.

Chicken strips are heavily breaded.  This is a true-ism of fast food.  I’ve worked in fast food and I’ve eaten my share of chicken strips over the years — hell, I’ve probably eaten YOUR fair share too.  Cane’s strips aren’t heavily breaded at all.  It’s only a light coating of breading, thin and crisp, except for the last one at the bottom of the basket.  It’s a little moist on one side, which would be gross, except that somehow, they don’t feel...oily either.  Sure, you’re going to end up with grease on your hands, but not overwhelmingly so.  I’m not sure how they do that and still end up with a finished product like the one they serve, but...there you go.  Take your first bite of chicken and you’ll notice that it’s moist and tender, and HOT.  None of this Luke-warm stuff that you usually get.  That aside, you won’t taste much beyond...chicken.  And that’s when the worry will start to set in.  Is Cane’s just another generic chicken place with a ton of Louisiana fanboys following in its wake?

Maybe?  See, Cane’s got its start down in Louisiana, which explains their purportedly famous Cane’s Sauce, which is...really the next really odd thing about the whole experience.  See, if you taste the Cane’s sauce, it will only confuse you.  Your tongue is telling you that the sauce has wonderful, complex flavors, but you can’t hear any of that over the roaring voice in your mind screaming, “BLACK PEPPER!!!!!”  There’s clearly more to the sauce, but the only thing you’ll ever come away from a taste being able to identify is the damn pepper.  Lovely.  The Cajuns have managed to create a liquid form of pepper.  Huzzah.  And that’s when you really start to get worried, because the two biggest things that people harp about at Cane’s are the chicken tenders and the sauce, and they’re both kind of... off.

Then one of the employees politely reminds you to dip the chicken INTO the Cane’s sauce.  So you do, and you take a bite, and it blows the back of your fucking head off.

It’s equal parts amazing and frightening when you recover enough of your mental facilities to contemplate it.  Cane’s has somehow taken two very one-dimensional foods and figured out how to combine them to form the culinary equivalent of an Yngwie Malmsteen solo.  That’s like combining two forms of plain yogurt and ending up with C4.  It shouldn’t be possible, but it is, and like any kind of explosive, you just want more of it in your life.

Yes, yes, the toast is also absolutely incredible, and the fries aren’t bad either, and it’s also startlingly affordable next to some of the other Strip joints out there — I’m looking at you Zaxby’s.  Coleslaw is the devil’s condiment, and I didn’t try it.  Their tea is also some of the best tea I’ve ever had at a restaurant, sit-down or otherwise.

So there you have it.  Cane’s Chicken. It’s good.  It shouldn’t be, but it is.  I should want to know why.  I should want to know what dark, eldritch horror they prayed to in order to accomplish what they have.  Unfortunately, the part of my brain responsible for such contemplation was a casualty of the first bite, and I sort of...never looked back after that.

You’ve been warned, Mitch.  You’ve been warned.

 

 

PRODUCT REVIEW: Apple AirPods

(Heart-Shaped Box - Ramin Djawadi)

Apple has a long and storied history of shaking up various industries when they choose to get involved.  Success or failure, Apple's involvement rarely leaves the landscape unchanged in their passing.  A year and a half ago, they jumped into the wireless headphone arena when they released the Apple AirPods.  The faithful swooned, as they always so, but everyone else was skeptical in the extreme, and some of the reports of questionable functionality that surfaced later indicated that AirPods might very well have been one of Apple's 'misses'.

A year and a half has passed and the smoke on the battlefield has cleared, so I elected to give them a try.

Should you?

 

 

THE SHORTISH VERSION:

If you have an iPhone and spent a lot of time on calls or listening to music in your office, at home, or on the go, YES.   Otherwise...maybe not.

 

 

THE LONG VERSION:

 

I am an audiophile.  I'm not trained up on frequencies, loss, delay, speaker action time, or dynamic equalizing, mind you.  What I am is someone who really enjoys music and has extremely good hearing, so I appreciate it when music sounds good.  I've bought and used many different kinds of headphones and earphones over the years in the pursuit of good audio at a fair price.  My current stable includes a set of wired Sennheisers for studio work when I'm doing Voice Over work, a set of Plantronics Backbeat Pro BT headphones for travel, and, until recently, a set of vanilla Samsung earbuds that came with some smartphone that I had awhile back.  Lastly, I have a set of M-POW Magneto BT earphones.  Each of these headsets have their strengths and weaknesses:

• The Sennheisers sound great, but there's that annoying wire to contend with, and now that Apple has gone courageous, I can't use them with my iPhone without also having to carry an adapter around with me.  Plus, I can't use them for phone calls.
• The Plantronics BackBeat Pro headphones also sound incredible, but they're big and heavy, so I only break them out when I'm going to be in one place for a long time, like a long plane or car ride.  I can use these for phone calls, and they sound wonderful when I do, but if I want to use them with more than one device, there's the headache of Bluetooth pairing to deal with.  Their battery life is excellent, but they charge with a MicroUSB cable, which is a standard I don't use anymore because...Apple.
• The Samsung earbuds are portable and I can make calls with them, but they're very sensitive to movement and their audio quality is sub-par compared to my other rigs.
• The Magneto headphones work well enough.  Their sound is better than my Samsung buds, if still on the weak side. but they take forever to power on and their charge only lasts for a few hours before I have to plug them in with a Micro USB cable, which I don't typically use anymore.  Additionally, while they're feather-light, you can't exactly wad them up and put them in a pocket without pulling out a tangled mess later.

So why AirPods?  The answer is 'Accessibility'.  See, when iOS 12 drops, Apple is adding AirPods to the list of compatible BT devices that can be used with their Live Listen feature, which is INSANELY COOL if you have a hearing impairment.  I don't, but I work on behalf of customers that do, so I wanted to check them out.

I was completely unprepared to fall in love with them, but fall I did.  Hard.

If you're not familiar with what AirPods are or how they look, there's a whole lot of Internet out there that you can fix that with, so I won't bother describing them in general.  "But Steve," you cry, "Why didn't you do an unboxing?"

Good question.  The answer?  There's not much to unbox.  They come in a white box that's typical of everything that comes out of Cupertino these days.  The packaging is simple and efficient.  Open box, remove AirPod case.  The pods themselves are already in the case.  Apple does do you a solid by giving you another lightning cable to charge them with, which is nice.  

Let's address a few things right away:

• BUILD QUALITY:  For the most part, the AirPods themselves feel robust.  The plastic they're made out of doesn't feel hugely robust, but they're so light that I'm not overly scared of dropping them.  The case, on the other hand, scares me for a few reasons.  The top of the case itself feels flimsy compared to the rest of the case, which is significantly heavier due to the battery inside of it.  I wouldn't want to drop this thing, especially on concrete.  Ware yourself.
• BATTERY LIFE: This is one of the major selling points of the AirPod system.  With a full charge, Apple says you can get 5 hours of listen time and 2 hours of talk time out of your AirPods, and I'd believe every last word of that based on the hard use I've put them through over the last few days.  That might not seem like a lot compared to other BT headphone solutions, but that's also where the case comes in.  The battery in the case can very quickly provide several additional full charges to the AirPods.  Apple says that you'll get up to 24 hours of listen time and 11 hours of talk time between the batteries in the AirPods and the battery in the case.  I'd believe that too.  I used them pretty hard over the course of three days and was only at half power in my case by the end of it all.  Apple says that 15 minutes in the case gets you 3 hours of listening time and 1 hour of talk time.  I'd believe that too.
• AUDIO QUALITY: There are a lot of folks out there that are banging on the AirPods for their poor audio quality, and I'll be honest, I'm not sure what they're on about.  No, the audio isn't as robust as my Plantronics Over-The-Ear cans, but those are huge, and have room for much more complex audio equipment.  The sound that you get out of the AirPods is impressive.  The only flaws I've found are that their bass response isn't that tight, so really bass-heavy music will distort a little when you get loud.  Getting them loud takes turning them up quite a bit.  My other headphones are MUCH louder, but these are more than loud enough for all but the noisiest environments.
• FIT:  Apple has taken a lot of heat in the past for the fit of their EarPods, and rightfully so.  A lot of folks don't like the way they fit and complain that they slip out of their ears too easily due to the slick plastic that they use.  Be warned:  AirPods are shaped almost exactly the same, and appear to be made of the same plastic.  That said, because you don't have wires jiggling them around, I find that they stay in place very well if you're using them casually.  People who run or cycle might have problems with them, especially once the sweat really kicks in, but for every day use around the house or the office, I had no problems at all.   Walking around Costco, I had to nudge them back in a time or two, but nothing that was annoying.  I have that problem with every pair of earbuds that I use.  (For those who DO want to use their AirPods for more active situations, there are silicon attachments you can get to lock them more securely in place.  Fair warning though, if you get those, you won't be able to close them in their case without removing them.  Quid Pro Quo.)  Because of this semi-loose fit, you won't get the noise isolation that you might get from other earbuds with felt or foam coverings.  Again though, I think they're just fine.

Based on the merits I disclosed above, these things would be worth the purchase price.  Apple is the king of adding additional features onto already good products, however, and AirPods are no exception:

• AUTO-PAIRING: I cannot, cannot, CANNOT express how wonderful the pairing mechanism for the AirPods is.  There's none of the usual rigamarole that you have to deal with most Bluetooth devices.  You simply take the AirPod case out of the box they come in, hold the box in your hand, and pick your phone up with your other hand.  Then flip the top of the AirPod case open.  BOOM.  That's it.  You automatically get a little pop-up on your phone's screen saying that it knows there are AirPods nearby.  You tap the 'Connect' button, and that's it.  Done.  Stuff them in your ears and go.
• PLATFORM PAIRING: There are lots of things to hate about Apple's 'Walled Garden' ecosystem, but there are occasionally advantages to it, and this is one of them.  If your iPhone is connected to an Apple ID, any other device with your Apple ID attached to it is also pre-paired.  Your Mac and iPad will already be paired, so all you have to do is flip over to your Bluetooth Menu and you'll find your AirPods there.  Just click connect, and voila!  THIS IS HUGE for those of us who move equipment between devices.
• DOUBLE-TAP: If you're hooked up to an iPhone or iPad, you can go into the Bluetooth Settings for your AirPods and assign Double Tap actions to them, such as triggering Siri or controlling your music playback.  This sounds like a gimmick until you realize that you don't have to take your phone out of your pocket to trigger Siri, answer or end calls, or control other aspects of your phone.  Ye Gods.
• SHEER PORTABILITY: There was a certain kind of genius in providing an easy-to-use case that is also a charging station.  Stuff the AirPods into their case so you don't worry about them rolling around in your pocket or bag and getting lint in the earpieces, and the case itself isn't prohibitively large, so you don't mind it in your pocket.  This makes you want to take them EVERYWHERE with you, and I absolutely do.
• CROSS-PLATFORM FUNCTIONALITY: Yes, you can pair them with Android devices.  You lose some of the enhanced features, but the battery life and portability stay the same, and that was a stroke of brilliance on Apple's part.  Building tech that works REALLY WELL on Apple devices but can be used on other devices as well is a wonderful revenue generator.  That sounds dull and corporate, but it's the truth.

This is one of those pieces of technology that perfectly exemplifies Apple's expressed design philosophy of doing something well, and giving something more as well.  On its own, this is a great product, but the added features and functionality built into them makes them well worth the $160 price point.  My recommendation is to get a pair from a store like Best Buy and take advantage of their 2 Week Return Policy.  I promise you, you will know immediately if you love them or hate them, and if you're an avid Apple product user, I suspect very strongly that you'll love them.

I know I do, and I haven't even gotten to use them for the reasons why I bought them yet.

 

MOVIE REVIEW: Solo - A Star Wars Story

(Here They Come - John Williams)

When Disney bought Lucasfilm, no one was under any illusion about what was going to happen to Star Wars.  Disney would abruptly drop the entire shebang into its giant marketing meat grinder and proceed to milk it for every last penny that it could under the guise of giving fans what they wanted.  And why not?  That's precisely what they've done with the Marvel movies and the results have been unquestionably positive.

...Then again, Marvel has less skin in the game than Star Wars, even after these last ten years of movie excellence, and their track record with the franchise has been what could charitably be called 'Hit And Miss'.

Can Han Solo, the greatest smuggler in the galaxy, put the ship back on course?

 

...There's no short answer to this, and the long answer is heavily riddled with spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie, PLEASE stop reading.  Much of the movie's potential for enjoyment is lost if you know some of this, and I'd rather not be responsible for sucking the joy out of Star Wars for someone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still here?  Alright, you've been warned, and warned for good reason, because quite frankly...

I wasn't impressed.  At all.  You see, 'Solo' was worse than a bad movie; it was unremarkable, with a few pieces of excellence here and there.  I'll break it down:

 

STORY

If you've seen the trailers for this movie, and anyone who watches TV, surfs the internet, or has been to a movie theater in the last six months probably has, the story is already all but told.  You know you're about to watch a film about Han Solo coming of age, meeting Lando, meeting Chewie, and getting the Falcon.  Just about everything else is an unremarkable addition to those points.  There are a few stand-out moments in the story, however, and here are a few of them:

• The entire sequence from the Kessel Run is pretty hot shit, and also probably the most gorgeous space footage in the entire Star Wars franchise.  Fans of the old EU might flip out a little about The Maw though.
• The Droid Rebellion is cute and amusing.
• The reveal during the last five minutes of the film might make you pee a little if you've been following current Star Wars shows.

Beyond those moments, the story is uninspired and unsurprising.

 

CHARACTERS

• Han Solo: I understand the appeal to a Young Han Solo movie, but there's one very big problem with it.  We already know what Young Han looks like, acts like, and ... yeah.  Alden Ehrenreich just cannot stack up anywhere near Harrison Ford.  There's no comparison.  At no point in the movie did I go, "Yeah, he's getting it now."  Ford was smoother, more confident, and didn't radiate the massive volume of 'Wet Behind The Ears' that Ehrenreich does for the entire film.  He was never Han for me.
• Lando:  If Han missed the mark, Lando hits it on almost every attempt.  Donald Glover channels Billy Dee Williams almost frighteningly well in this film and just about every scene with him in it is amazing specifically because of Lando.
• Chewie:  ...It's Chewie.  Chewie wins, because that's what wookies do.
• L3-37:  I bet most of you won't even know this Droid's full name by the time the credits roll.  I'm not going to go into it here, but there is no universe where Lando rolls with this droid as a co-pilot.  Someone tried to make another memorable Droid and missed.
• Beckett:  Woody Harrelson is very hit and miss for me, but he was actually rather enjoyable here, and responsible for one of the only 'Oh.  That happened.' moments in the entire film at the very end.
• Val: That doesn't look like anything to me.

 

A/V

I have to specifically call out a few things about the audio and video in this movie because Star Wars has such distinct A/V and it's a huge part of the whole thing.

• The Millennium Falcon is one of the most iconic ships in the Star Wars universe and it's done perfectly here.  Everything sounds so incredible, even when it's all polished up.  It almost made me cry during several parts of the film.
• The entire Kessel Run sequence is amazing, and possibly the best space scene in the entire franchise.  The graphics, the ships, the audio, the musical pieces that played, every part of it was magnificent.  If this movie gave me nothing else, I would be happy with this.
• Han's blaster makes one of the most distinct sounds in the entire franchise, and like lightsabers, someone felt the need to FUCK WITH IT.  Cut that shit out!
• The little alien, Rio?  He was amazing.
• There's a long and storied history of creating random, pointless, and obnoxious music in Cantina-esque scenes in Star Wars.  Excepting the original Cantina Song, the rest of it is pretty much awful.

 

In closing, 'Solo' suffers from a weak and predictable story, a lead that never succeeds in channeling his predecessor, and just enough fan service to keep it from being a complete waste.  This is, without question, a rental.

And now, we get to the random thoughts:

• I'm not sure if it's Qi'ra that's bland and uncompelling or if it's Emilia Clarke.  I'm not sure that it matters.
• It's clear that someone was trying to write another Droid like K2-SO for this movie by giving L3-37 a vibrant personality.  Unfortunately, they completely failed to understand why K2 was such an incredible character.  L3-37 was so heavily anthropomorphized that you were never really allowed to see her as a droid.  She was just a really quirky woman that was completely uncomplimentary to Lando's character and style.  Yes, she was entertaining and amusing, but her death is emotionless and it's responsible for the one part of the movie where I felt that Donald Glover was asked to do something un-Landoish.  K2 was incredible because he was SO VERY MUCH a droid that was being forced to interface with humans.  What he was is never called into question in Rogue One, and his death is legitimately emotional.
• There's a lot of Han's story that we already know, and that ruins much of this movie's plot because of it:
  - We KNOW that Han ends up with Leia, so we KNOW that something must happen to Qi'ra and we're never invested in their relationship because of it.
  - We KNOW that Han ends up with the Falson, so there's no tension in the Sabacc game.
  - We KNOW that Han and Chewie end up hanging out together for a really long time, so there's never any tension in the scenes where Chewie's life is supposedly in danger or when Chewie runs off to save the other wookies.
• I'm sorry, but in what universe does an angry wookie beat the shit out of you repeatedly and you not die?  Han Solo is a dead man several times over.  The End, Roll Credits.
• What is the point in having Han speak Woookie???
• I don't even remember the name of the goofy little girl with the 'I'm a rogue criminal mastermind when I wear this metal disco rooster helmet' helmet was, but her addition to the story was so fucking non-sequitor....
• Gonk Droid Power.
• It's super cool that they got Starkiller to voice the hooded guy at the end of the movie.  People who have been following Rebels and the Force Unleashed games will get a kick out of that.  

The more I think about this film, the grumpier I get.  With Episodes 7 and 8, I could at least let my mind go to sleep and enjoy the films as I did when I was young, but this movie is...not that way.

MOVIE REVIEW: Deadpool 2

 

(In My Time Of Dying - It Might Get Loud OST)

One little letter has been the bane of movie makers' existences since the MPAA put it into place.  It's kept audiences and earning potentials smaller than they might otherwise be, and has attached a sometimes unfair stigma to some of cinema's greatest movies.  What letter, you ask?

R.

While R-Rated movies enjoyed something akin to success back in the '80s and early '90s, the movement to censor and shield underage audiences from source-proclaimed 'inappropriate' content soon made the R-Rating a death sentence.  People stopped considering the movie itself and immediately dismissed it without consideration.

Then, an unlikely hero stepped into the light and saved us all.  Except he doesn't like being called a hero.  He likes being called 'Captain'.  Except that doesn't really work, so everyone just calls him Deadpool.

Released in February of 2016, Deadpool quickly went onto becoming the highest-grossing R-Rated movie opening in history, and followed that up with becoming the highest-grossing R-Rated movie ever.  Many attributed its success to the passion that Ryan Reynolds and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick brought to the project.  This was aided somewhat by the Deadpool test footage leaking around a year before the movie was actually released.  Fan response was so huge that the film was green-lit and the rest is raunchy, bloody, face-hurtingly hilarious history.

Then the credits rolled and the stinger at the end promised not only a sequel, but one with Cable in it, a dream for Deadpool fans.  Aaaaand then the stories started breaking on the internet about creative conflict surrounding the sequel, about how they were talking about taking it in different directions than the first film.

Fast-forward around two years and Deadpool 2 -- that's DP2 to you -- has finally arrived.  Could the Merc With A Mouth actually pull off the masterful success of the first movie again?

 

THE SHORT VERSION:

Yup.  Always bet on Red.  

 

 

THE LONG VERSION:

First, can we all agree that the first Deadpool wasn't a children's movie and NOT take our kids to see Deadpool 2?  Please?

 

Okay, now that's out of the way, it should be known that the long version isn't going to be much longer than the short one.  Ryan Reynolds crushed it again.  DP2 is amazing for all of the reasons that the original was.  Somehow, Reynolds and the DP creative team found out exactly where to stand on the ragged edge of incredible humor without going across the line, and they just tap-dance on that edge for two whole hours.  As someone who appreciates incredible writing, that is just awe-inspiring for me.

I legitimately don't want to spoil any of the story for you simply because it takes away from the massive enjoyment of the movie that you'll get.  Suffice it to say that the film opens with a bang and doesn't really let up until the end.  There are a few missteps, but for the most part, DP2 is every bit the comedy action masterpiece that the first film was.

 

Here are a few stand-out 'Good' And 'Bad' things about the film, and these ARE spoiler-y, so you've been warned:

• The humor in this movie is so culturally aware that the fourth wall breaks are absolutely insane.  Some of the loudest laughs in the film come from riffing off of other things that have happened within the last year and it makes the movie so much more potent because of it.
• There are several lines in the trailer that never make it into the movie.  This would be frustrating, except that the lines the movie uses as replacements are also absolutely hilarious.
• There's a 'Blink And You'll Miss It' line when Wade is fighting the movie's literal Big Bad and it very nearly made me do a spit-take in the theater.
• There's a scene in the movie where Wade refuses to die.  Repeatedly.  That may have been one of the only overcooked scenes in the film.
• Domino steals nearly every scene in the movie that she's in.
• I didn't think it was possible to find a male, teenage version of Rebel Wilson, but they did it.
• I'm gonna say it:  Josh Brolin is a discount Ron Perlman.  I watched Infinity War and DP2 back to back, and both times, I thought, "Gosh, this would have been so much better with Ron Perlman..."  It's not that Brolin did a bad job, per se, I just sort of...wanted Ron Perlman.  I can hear Perlman voicing every one of Brolin's lines.  Better.
• I wonder who wrote the part of the script where Wade gets an extra pointless make-out scene with Vanessa.  I wonder how much he was paid to write that. ;)
• The mid-credits Stingers may have been the best part of the movie.
• Always remember to tip your cab driver.
• WHO DOES THAT TO TERRY CREWS?!
• Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and Alan Tudyk are all in this movie and you missed it.  I mean...I missed it, so I'm assuming you missed it.

MOVIE REVIEW: Avengers - Infinity War

(Avengers Theme - Alan Silvestri)

Ten years.

Since the first stinger at the end of Iron Man way back in 2018, we've been waiting for everyone in the MCU to get into the same pool together, and its taken Marvel ten years to do that.  In that decade, they've introduced us to a massive cast of characters, some more compelling than others, but every one of them memorable for some reason or another.  For those playing at home, let's recap:

• Iron Man
• War Machine
• Captain America
• The Winter Soldier
• Falcon
• The Black Widow
• Nick Fury
• The Incredible Hulk
• Thor
• Loki
• Black Panther
• The Guardians Of The Galaxy
• Dr. Strange
• Vision
• Scarlet Witch
• Hawkeye
• Spider-Man
• Ant-Man

And those are just the big hero names.  (Yes, I know that Loki is a stretch.)  Those players stretch across nearly 20 movies and have stretched into any number of television shows beyond that.

Ten years.  Now, Avengers - Infinity War is here, and there's really one one question anyone is asking:

Was it worth the wait:

 

THE SHORT VERSION

Yes.  As if you had any doubt.

 

 

THE LONG VERSION - HERE THERE BE MILD SPOILERS!

...Seriously, I'm gonna knock this shit out of the park in a second, so if you haven't been to see the movie, this is your last warning.

 

 

 

Still here?  On your head be it.

Infinity War is a long movie, and that's good, because there's a lot of stuff to cram into it.  Truth be told, they could easily have made it longer and the movie wouldn't have suffered for it.  We've been waiting a very long time to get all of these people together in one place, and the story that the Russo brothers, directors for the film, are telling is well worth the two and a half hour running time.  Since we're talking about that story, let's cover the four basic storylines that the movie is tracking:

• STORYLINE 1: Iron Man, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Star Lord, Drax, Gamora, and Mantis are all trying to keep Thanos from getting his hand on the Reality, Soul, and Time stones.
• STORYLINE 2: Groot, Rocket, and Thor are trying to forge a new weapon that could be used to defeat Thanos.
• STORYLINE 3: Captain America, Falcon, War Machine, Black Widow, Bruce Banner, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, and the rest of Wakanda are trying to keep Thanos from getting his hand on the Mind stone.
• STORYLINE 4: Thanos is, you guessed it, trying to get his hands on all of the Infinity Stones.

The movie bounces around between these three storylines in a manner that would be supremely irritating if it were't for the fact that each storyline is hugely entertaining, so you don't mind being passed around.  George R. R. Martin, take note, this is how you do this sort of thing.  Nothing goes strictly to plan in any of these storylines, and every one of them ends up somewhere different than you might be thinking.  This is awesome.  To say more would really be to ruin the film, and we're not to that part of the article yet.

The audio and video are insanely good, as is typically the case in Marvel films.  You'll want to go see this one on the biggest screen that you can, and you'll want to go see it more than once because there's so damned much happening that you're likely to miss snippets of conversation.  Admittedly, some of this is due to the fact that the audio mix in the film is a little off-balance in a few places, especially in the first third of the film, so there are things that are a bit hard to hear.

Now, of course...we have to talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

When I mentioned earlier that there was only one question left on everyone's mind, I may have been understating things a little.  There were actually two questions left on everyone's mind, and the second question had something to do with, "Who will survive this movie?"   The answer to that question, without outright spoiling things is, 'Not nearly as many as I thought were gonna'.  I found myself shocked and surprised several times during the film.  It pulls no punches whatsoever with character deaths, and it makes its intentions very well known within the first 10 minutes of the film.  There were audible 'Oh, fuck ME' moments all over this film.

There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself.  What's wrong with the film is something that I like to refer to as 'Penn's Gambit'.  See, there's this show on television called 'Penn And Teller: Fool Us'.  The show revolves around magicians coming onto a stage in front of Penn and Teller, arguably the most skilled team of magicians currently practicing in Hollywood, and trying to perform magic tricks so good that neither Penn nor Teller can figure out how it was done.  In the show, Penn Jillette explains, "There is this theory on magic that I believe very much which is, once one thing is seen to be phony, the whole thing crumbles, and it crumbles completely, so it needs to be perfect, or not at all."

And that, right there, is the biggest problem with Infinity War.

A LOT OF PEOPLE DIE IN THIS MOVIE.  

Unfortunately, Marvel has not been shy at all about telling you that there will be additional movies with certain people in them.  Because of this, when those people die in Infinity War, their deaths hold no lasting gravity whatsoever.   Yes, the moments in the movie are shocking, but there is no lasting emotional impact beyond that.  You know, somehow, that those people will return, because Marvel has already told you it will happen.  Once you make that connection, you drift out of the 'zone' of the movie and start trying to figure out how the MCU is going to Superman those heroes back to life.  This simple thing keeps Infinity War from being an absolute masterpiece and forces it to settle for being a very, very good movie instead.

That'll just have to be good enough.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're still reading, I'm going to get into some specifics now that are far more spoilery, so...yeah.

• The Guardians Of The Galaxy are, next to Ant-Man, the weakest link of the MCU BY FAR in my opinion.  This is no more evident than when you hold them up against the other heroes in the MCU, which you are allowed to do with frequency in Infinity War.  They were entertaining movies on their own, but no one from that cast can stand toe to toe with any of the other core heroes.  There's this scene where Star Lord and Thor are arguing, and Star Lord puffs himself up to try and look better to everyone else on his ship.  Every single interaction where the Guardians are concerned feels like this.  They're not as smart as the other heroes.  They're not as mature.  They're children.
• And while we're talking about how much less the Guardians are, let me bag on Peter Quill for a moment.  Let's talk about how much of a useless, petulant child he is.  He can't be an adult with Thor.  He can't be an adult with Tony.   For one brief moment, he realizes the horrible necessity of killing Gamora during the first part of the film, and it's a brutal, powerful moment.  He fails to continue to use this intellect later when, on the brink of victory against Thanos, he can't keep this shit together long enough to finish the job.  As an aside, did anyone else see the excellent symmetry in Tony Stark trying to convince Quill to keep his shit in check in the face of his beloved's killer?  Civil War, anyone?
• Literally everything about Iron Man's armor was excellent.  I want to go back and watch the movie in slow motion just so I can bask in the excellence of every last frame of him doing cool shit in that armor.  My only complaint is the fact that we didn't get to see nearly enough of it in action.  You can't put Iron Man in a movie with BAD-ASS new armor and not allow us to glut ourselves upon it, Marvel.  That's just mean.
• Literally everything about the Iron Spider suit was also excellent.  See the above comment about glutting ourselves.  Especially the legs.  Also, Peter Parker's knowledge of old movies is amazing, and whoever writes his character is a national treasure.
• This movie really, really makes me want Dr. Strange 2.   I could watch Dr. Strange and Wong interface with each other all day. It's amazing.  Also, Wong is invited to Tony's wedding, which made me laugh out loud in the theater.
• Pretty much every aspect of the Thor storyline in this film is delicious.  Thor has evolved more than any other character in the MCU with the very, very possible exception of Stark, and Infinity War is yet another stage of his evolution.  When he arrives in Wakanda, I almost stood up in my chair and screamed.  Also, as I mentioned before, Thor just makes Rocket and Groot look better.  They are both better for being in his presence.
• I know I'm supposed to give a shit about Wanda and Vision, but I'm afraid I don't.  I care about the Vision's struggles to learn more about himself, to grow into something more, but their relationship doesn't matter to me at all.  It was never allowed to mature in front of me, therefor I found myself far less invested in it than I should have been.
• Wanda Maximoff is a useless, magic-juggling fence-sitter.  She can't decide if she's going to become a bad-ass or sit in the corner and whine about her life.  Her indecision is responsible for a lot of horrible shit in three different movies now.  This would be less of an issue if the MCU didn't go out of its way to wrap so much of the movies around her.  Yes, the other heroes have hangups too, but every one of them is handled better than Wanda.
• Not nearly enough time with Bruce and Nat.  That is all.
• Bucky is useless and a pointless addition to this film.  My only regret is that he will not stay dead.
• Steve Rogers' beard deserves its own billing.  Damn.  Bucky's child-beard can bring Steve's beard coffee when it needs it.  And possibly a bagel.
• The Dora Milaje are still bad, bad women.  Okoye has successfully out Wonder Woman'd Wonder Woman for two movies in a row.  Anyone wondering how to make women look smart, powerful, and capable without rubbing any of it in your face needs to take notes.
• There was no Ant-Man in this movie, which is part of the reason why it was so very good.
• There was no Hawkeye in this movie, which made me very sad.  Sorry, but after Age Of Ultron, I really took a shining to him.
• If Quicksilver somehow gets brought back to life as a result of Avengers 4, I will revolt.
• Bruce Banner and the Hulk are a self-contained buddy cop movie, and I love it.
• PETER FUCKING DINKLAGE IS STILL MY SPIRIT ANIMAL.
• Winston Duke makes T'Challa look like a child.  I want a M'Baku movie, please.
• I nearly shit my pants when the Red Skull popped up, and then was quietly sad when I realized that Hugo Weaving wasn't voicing him anymore.  Come on, Marvel.  If you're gonna ring our collective bells with this shit, go all the way.
• I knew Captain Marvel was coming, but the tie-in with the stinger was awesome.
• Anyone else raise an eyebrow about the bit where Thanos knows Tony Stark??

I need to see this movie at least two more times to unpack everything.  A TON of shit happens in this movie.

 

FOOD REVIEW: Bay Boy Specialty Sandwiches

(I Robot - The Alan Parsons Project)

Sandwiches in this city, I swear.  Seems like everyone wants to open up a sandwich shop because they think they've got a unique and compelling way of putting meat and cheese between two slices of bread.  Without getting into the boutique shops, you've got Subway, Mr. Goodcents, Schlotzky's, Quiznos, Potbelly, Whichwich, Jimmy Johns, Firehouse Subs, and a whole host of coffee chains that serve more food than they do coffee.  You've got to drive past several of these shops in order to get to anything else, which makes getting to anything else far less likely.

That means that the folks running Bay Boy must be completely out of their minds, or really, REALLY confident.

Or, you know, both.

Whichever way you look at it, Bay Boy Specialty Sandwiches opened its doors this morning at 11am.  I was on hand for their grand opening -- I know the guy that built their website -- and put their food to the only test that matters.

My Face.

Did it pass?

 

THE SHORT VERSION:

OH MY GOD, YES.

 

THE LONG VERSION:

If you're an Overland Park native, you've got to go a little out of your way to find the quaint little neighborhood that Bay Boy is located in.  They're over in the West Plaza area in Kansas City, MO.  47th and Holly, to be precise.  Given that most of the venues I report on are here in OP, you might be raising your eyebrows a little about the prospect of going that far out of your way for 'a sandwich'.

Trust me, it's worth it.  It's so very, very worth it.

First, banish your preconceptions about how most sandwiches look and taste.  You're not getting a sandwich when you go to Bay Boy.  You're getting cuisine that someone has crafted for you in a kitchen, not a conveyer belt.  Your food might take a little longer to arrive at your table than you're used to, but that's because it's not being thrown together by a semi-disinterested franchise employee.  It's being -made-, from scratch, and as soon as it gets to your table, you'll understand how absolutely worth it the wait was.

My weapon of choice was The Jeffe, an amazing spin on a Cubano sandwich.  For me, the excellence began with their bread.  I have no idea how they do it, I just know that it was freshly made.  It was still cooling on the rack when I walked in with the opening crowd, and was still piping hot when my food arrived.  Calling it a sandwich roll seems a huge betrayal.  Sources online refer to it as a Dutch Crunch roll.  I simply call it ambrosia.  You can get a good picture of this bad boy on their website.  That's not a doctored photo, people.  That's real food made by folks that know their craft.

Betwixt the bread came pastrami, beef, what I think was pepperjack cheese, pickles, and some form of culinary wizardry that I can't properly describe.  The meat was hot, fresh, moist, and not at all greasy.  Better still, there was a mountain of it, and it wasn't greasy.  I tempted fate and went in there with a nice shirt on, but I needn't have worried.  The sandwich was perfectly contained.  All of the condiment was spread across the entire entree.  Every bite contained all of the favors that it should have, served at a temperature that was just barely cool enough to eat and still hot enough that the flavors were explosive.  No drips, no grease, no mess, no slop.  Just a perfectly contained, perfectly constructed, perfectly delicious meal.

Calling their food 'Sandwich' feels like it betrays the food itself.  Either way, you can't have any of mine because I perished it immediately.  Go get your own!  It's worth the drive.  It's worth the wait.  Anyone interested in truly good food needs to get down to the Bay.

PRODUCT REVIEW: SNES Classic

 

(I Robot - The Alan Parsons Project)

Ahh, nostalgia, you fickle bitch.

There's very little that compels someone to act with their heart instead of their head as reliably as nostalgia.  When we see something that we have fond memories of, it rarely occurs to us that those memories are imperfect, and marred by the emotions we've attached to them.  Companies everywhere in the entertainment industry are banking on this as reboots are shamelessly announced and 'retro' trends ride the waves of social media.

I'm looking at you, 'Ready, Player One'.

Nintendo is famous in the video game industry for treading heavily on nostalgia to increase game sales.  In their defense, it should be pointed out that their most hallowed franchises are typically handled with kid gloves.  Nintendo shows its wisdom here, as even their rebooted and re-treaded games in worlds like Mario, Zelda, and Metroid are typically done extremely well.  Nintendo's oldest game worlds remain gold standards in how their respective genres should be handled.  In this fashion, while Nintendo has leveraged nostalgia to great effect, they have not betrayed their customers with false promises.

Then 2016 came, and with it, rumors about little miracle consoles that promised to re-deliver even more sweet, sweet nostalgia in a way that only Nintendo could.  One by one, the NES and SNES Classic consoles were unleashed upon the world, but with a twist:

For the first time, and for reasons no one could possibly fathom, both consoles were released in extremely limited quantities.  Scalping commenced immediately.  Prices inflated to the point of hilarity.  Through it all, Nintendo swore that they would release additional units.  They begged for their fans' patience.

And they never delivered.

Time passed, and through equal parts miracle and friendship -- Thanks, Mikey! -- I've found my way into my very own SNES Classic.

Was it worth the wait?

 

THE SHORT VERSION:

Uh...sort of....maybe?

 

THE LONG VERSION:

As a child of the '80s, I was weaned on systems like the Atari 2600, the NES, and the SNES.  The hours poured into each console were many, much to the consternation of my mother.  For me, and for my memories, it was all time well-spent.  

For those who don't understand what the SNES Classic is, here's a primer.

Reactions to this console ranged from, "Oh, that's cool!" to "...What a waste.  I can do all of that for free on my PC using an emulator and ROMs." to "ZOMGWFTBBQ! I MUST HAVE!"  I was rather firmly in the third camp, in spite of having done the emulator thing numerous times in the past understanding how the emulator situation could be achieved in a completely legal fashion.  For me, there was something extra special about playing a Nintendo product using a Nintendo controller.

Plus, you know, it came with Final Fantasy III, the best Final Fantasy game yet conceived.  

Now I have one, thanks to the efforts of an amazing friend of mine, and there are a few things I'd like to sound off on, starting with the box it comes in.

When you heft one of these things in its box, the first thing that pops into your head might very well be, "Gosh, this feels...cheap."  I say this because it's what popped into MY head.  As soon as I had it in my hands, I immediately opened the box and had my friend -- who already owned one -- verify that all of its contents were present and intact.  The cardboard that the box is made out of feels cheap and thin.  It doesn't feel like a quality Nintendo product should.  If you're sitting there right now muttering, "What does quality boxing feel like, exactly?" the answer is, Apple products.  That's what quality boxing feels like.  Perhaps overly so.  

Unfortunately, when I got the box home and unpacked it on my dining room table, my fears weren't exactly massaged away.  Every physical console feels cheap.  It doesn't feel like a game system.  It feels like a child's toy.  It feels fragile.

• The console itself should be remarkable from the standpoint that it's managed to cram 20 games into a physical box that's only about as large as an actual SNES cartridge.  That should be cool, but two very big things stop it from being so.  The first is that anyone who understands how big game ROMs are knows that you could get all of the gubbins for storage and controller functionality onto a Raspberry Pi board that takes up about half the space, and that said storage could easily hold EVERY SNES GAME EVER MADE.  I know this is possible because I've seen it done by the one of the most badass engineers I've ever met named Jennifer Stanton.  The second is that the plastic that the console is made out of feels thin, rough, and low quality.  I know people who could have 3D-printed me something that feels higher quality than this.  (I'm looking at you, Aaron.)  The switches feel cheap and fragile as well, and I found myself handling them with great timidity.
• The controllers look like SNES controllers, but they're a bit smaller and made of the same cheap, rough plastic that the console itself is swathed in.  The buttons feel cheap too, like the switches they've been fitted with won't stand up to the punishment of a marathon gaming session.  They don't feel robust, like the old controller buttons did.  They don't sit tightly in the controller either, there's a tiny amount of wiggle and rattle.  The controllers don't feel...quality.  They don't feel like Nintendo.

That's maybe the biggest concern that I had about this whole console.  Nintendo has a reputation for building robust consoles, and this just feels...like an afterthought.

Then I turned it on, and my fears increased even more.

The interface is easy enough to use, if somewhat clunky, and Nintendo has incorporated their own take on Save States, allowing you to temporarily travel back in time when you make little mistakes in games.  Alas, they don't actually tell you how it works, so there'll be some guesswork unless you break out the Googles.  I didn't have time for the Googles.  I went straight for Super Mario World.

I was GOOD at this game back in the '90s.  I was good at it when I played it on an emulator back in the '00s

I am, apparently, horrible at it now.  Either that, or there's something deeply, seriously flawed with the port of the game that's baked into this little console.  Mario is supposed to be crisp and razor sharp, and this just...wasn't.  The controls felt sloppy, and button presses didn't always register when I thought they should have.  

And then I felt it:  The first chill of the post-nostalgia crash.  Is it possible that Super Mario World just...wasn't that sharp of a game, and I don't remember it?  I quickly bashed through the first island in the game, accustoming myself to the awkward timing of the game, and then switched out to Donkey Kong Country.  What did I find?  Razor-sharp platforming, thank God.  Donkey Kong Country was exactly how I remembered it.  So was Street Fighter II. (I'm still crap at Street Fighter, by the way.)

This was equal parts relief and disappointment for me.  I was worried that something was wrong with my controller or my console.  Turns out, I'm either just really mis-remembering how Mario played, or this is a bad port.    That's really alarming, because out of every game on this console, MARIO SHOULD BE PERFECT.  It's not.  That makes me fear for some of the other rapid-fire titles on this console.  It will be less of an issue for slower games like Secret Of Mana and FF3, but for the shooters like Super Metroid... 

Time will tell.

Either way, the damage has been done.  I expected a product with far more polish and shine on it from Nintendo.  I really wanted the Classic consoles to be something other than a shameless cash grab from the company that's probably the last 'Good Guy' of gaming.  Alas, that doesn't appear to be the case here.  I'll look into the games more closely as time passes and write about them when I can, but for anyone attempting to perform Herculean labors to obtain a new one...there's a wonderful used market out there.  Buy carefully, and avail yourself of the lower price tag.  This is a cool little gadget, but I'm afraid it doesn't live up to the hype at all.  Nostalgia indeed...

 

MOVIE REVIEW: Ready, Player One

(Toccata - Mannheim Steamroller)

Ernest Cline's 2011 love note to video games and '80s culture is not without its fair share of both praise and criticism, but no one has argued about the scope of the book itself.  It's absolutely vast.  You can check out my review of the book here.

TL;DR?  I loved it for what it was, and forgave it its trespasses into tropehood.

Then, in 2017, trailers for the movie started to land on the internet.  People who had already read the book got very, very excited.

Then they got very, very scared, because the book covered a lot of ground that would be hard to cover on the silver screen.

Now, seven years after the book's release, the movie has finally arrived.  Should you take up Anorak's challenge and become a Gunter?

 

THE SHORT VERSION: 

Yes.

 

THE LONG VERSION:

I don't care for the way that most movies disclose themselves so greatly in trailers.  Very little is left to the imagination by the time the movie is launched, and Ready, Player One was no exception.  In this case, however, I'm rather glad that happened, because it showed me one of the great truths to the movie and kept me from absolutely hating it.  That truth is this:

This movie is not a love note to '80s video games and '80s culture.  It's just a love note to video games in general...and sort of forgets about culture.

One of the things that made the book so incredible was that those of us who grew up in that era felt like the book had been written for us.  Back then, we were outsides, pariahs.  Apart.  RP1 the movie rolls right over the top of that and gives the movie to gamers everywhere, and while I can understand why Spielberg and Cline chose to do that, it still feels like a bit of a betrayal.  At the risk of sounding...bitter, modern gamers didn't have to endure anything for their hobby.  They were simply born into an era when it was acceptable and popular.

That aside, if you go into the movie with the understanding that it's no longer targeted at the '80s, it's an extremely enjoyable movie.  I'll hit on the high level stuff really quick:

• STORY: The story remains the same at a very high level.  There's a contest to win control of the OASIS, along with a crap-ton of money, and you have to solve riddles and find three keys in order to win.  Parzival is present, as are Art3mis, Eich, Shoto, and Daisho.  The evil IOI corporation is also present, competing against them.  The OASIS remains a giant, go-anywhere, do-anything sandbox.  Aaaaand....that's sort of it.  If you've read the books, put away your preconceptions about the rest of the story.
• A/V:  The movie is gorgeous, and a masterclass in what can be done with CGI, Cinematography, and...well, movies.  Spielberg's fingerprints are all over this one.
• CHARACTERS: Wade, Samantha, and Eich are all well-fleshed out.  Virtually everyone else is a throwaway, with the exception of James Halladay, who smells quite strongly of Garth Algar.  His performance is masterful on several levels, and a little too-close-to-home for some of us.  Also, TJ Miller needs to retire from film and live off of his Deadpool earnings.

I have only three major complaints about this movie, two of which are spoiler-y:

 

 

 

• There is SO MUCH going on.  Too much, most of the time.  It's easy to get lost in all of the fan service and visual easter eggs.  I'm really looking forward to the YouTube clips where people point out all of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it stuff in this movie.  Unfortunately, it's hugely distracting on the fly, and most of it is wasted.  You could watch this movie several times and still not catch half of what's going on.
• The extent to which Ogg is cut out of the story is frustrating as hell.
• ADVENTURE for the Atari 2600 does NOT work the way it's shown in the movie.  At all.  Period.  I've been chided by friends that I saw the movie with about this already, but it really pisses me off.  This is a movie about video games, made for gamers, with call-backs to a lot of great stuff.  Knowing this, you can't cock up one of the key moments in the film and not expect anyone to notice.  The Magic Dot isn't where the movie depicts it, for starters.  It's in a different part of the catacombs completely, and you can't get to it without the bridge.  You can't even get TO the Dot on the easier gameplay modes.

That aside, if you want to watch a gorgeous CGI porn-fest with clever dialogue and lots of call-backs to the video games you love, Ready, Player One delivers in spades.  Maybe that's the most impressive thing about the movie.  They changed it a LOT from the book, and it's still very enjoyable.  Mindless, but enjoyable.