Well, recently I’ve been trying to learn how to use SASS for styling Web pages and have kind of fallen in love with it. So here is my first go at it in the form of a new site template. Not much has changed visually, but, trust me, there have been a ton of changes behind the scenes. I will post more about this and the trials of retrofitting a Drupal theme for SASS sometime in the near future. In the meantime, look at the neat comments buttons I made!
Another great 60’s girl group compilation from Ace Records. I think I like the Italian girl singers CD a tad bit more, but this is pretty great. Of course there are songs written by Serge Gainsbourg including the classic, “Laisser tomber les filles” (sung by France Gall). A solid compilation and a great introduction to yé yé.
Well, the book wasn’t great, but at least it was a new twist on the zombie genre. The movie is just terrible. The book was a meticulous telling of the logistics of fighting zombies on a global scale. The film just follows Brad Pitt from place to place where he doesn’t do much of anything. And, once again, sigh… fast zombies. I mean really fast zombies. The hordes just become a digital fluid dynamics simulation that is utterly unthreatening and just silly looking.
This movie was essentially one continuous car chase, but, as terrible as that sounds, it works perfectly. Back when I was 13, I was just the right age when Beyond Thunderdome came out and I loved it. I was not soured on the Mad Max brand and waiting for some sequel to redeem the series. So, for me, Fury Road isn’t so much a return to form as it is just another ramping up in quality. What makes this movie so excellent is the unrelenting sense of danger. As I often paraphrase from Joe Bob Briggs: in this film, anyone can die at any moment. Add to that a ton of practical effects, a solid story, and incredible art direction and you have one of the best movies in recent years (decades even). Just don’t go in with a nitpicky sci-fi fan attitude. Nothing makes practical sense. Just go with it, nerd.
The story of a finely attired gringo mercenary who falls in with a group of banditos in a scheme to steal weapons and support the revolution. Definitely not the most exciting spaghetti western I have seen (what, no gun duels!). Klaus Kinsky is tragically underused and the leads are fairly wooden. It’s mostly a heavy-handed attempt at lefty political nonsense… rich Americans are evil. We get it.
This Tom Cruise action film is basically Groundhog’s Day meets Starship Troopers. Since Groundhog’s Day there must have been half-a-dozen rip-offs on various TV shows and made for Disney Channel movies (even the excellent Run Lola Run was essentially the same concept). It’s an idea that just works no matter how crappy the vehicle. Edge of Tomorrow does it better than most by constantly building on the characters and plot, and ramping up the stakes as the timeline resets itself. I found myself sucked into watching it again a few days later which is a rarity for me. The last quarter of the movie doesn’t quite live up to the build up, but the rest of the movie is surprisingly good.
Despite an exciting opening, the second book in this series is not as good as the first. The stakes aren’t as high and it feels like a lot of set up for the next book.
The Witcher is a flawed but ultimately satisfying role playing game that puts you in the role of monster killing mutant named Geralt. In some aspects the game is a bit more hardcore than other recent RPGs. You need to pay close attention to dialogue as clues are not spoon-fed to you and the almighty quest arrow is somewhat deceiving. The first half of the game feels more like an adventure game in which you are talking to NPCs and running back-and-forth across the map to advance. I eventually got the hang of the way quests worked and was able enjoy the game much more about one-third the way through.
While story and questing are complicated, fighting and building your character have been simplified. Combat involved a timing-based system of clicks and weapon swapping. You only have two real weapon choices and five magic spells. While others may scoff at this simple system, I rather enjoyed it. It’s not the mindless clicking of Diablo and not the thinky strategic multi-character battles of a Baldur’s Gate style game. Relaxed but engaging.
The big story arc is a basic one in which you are to recover a stolen goods, but, along the way, you get entangled in politics, romance and lending the occasional helping hand. The side quests eventually tie in nicely with the main story, although I never quite felt like the main baddies were that much of a menace. Oh, and as for the “romance” aspect, that consists of bedding anything with a pair of polygonal boobs in exchange for a racy trading card. Classy stuff.
Not much to say about this one other that it’s a joke game. The gag is that in order to gain required abilities you need to purchase downloadable content. These abilities include moving to the left (as seen in the above screen grab) and colored text. The game itself is a simple platformer where your real goal is to collect coins and eventually get to the final (and only) bad guy. The game can be finished in less than a half hour so if you can get it for less than a dollar, have some time to kill and a low threshold for what you think passes for humor, go nuts.
The Back from the Grave series seeks to uncover raw sixties garage rock that has a punk-rock sensibility. It’s been well over a decade since the last release and it definitely feels like the bottom of the barrel is being scraped here. There are no clear stand outs, although I tend to like the more novelty tinged tracks of earlier comps. That said, this is a solid, albeit forgettable, collection of garage rock that more than makes up for it with some great packaging recounting the stories of tracking down the records featured.
