Wednesday, August 10, 2011

I'm back, back again...

Okay so I picked up a 3DS (Cosmo Black) yesterday (Thanks Wal-Mart for the early price drop!) which allows me to get the new MSRP $169.99, plus the "Nintendo Ambassador" goodies (10 NES/10 GBA free Virtual Console games) for the early adopters. :) Now I'm in a quandary though.

Nintendo announced today that the Flame Red is coming alongside the September 9th Star Fox release in the U.S. Is 20 free games better than the snazzy new red color? Decisions, decisions.


Went to the drive-in a couple weeks back and saw Captain America, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Super 8 (that trifecta ran until a little after 4am). The stand out was Captain America I went in with low expectations (Thor didn't really WOW me), but was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I'm now really stoked for Josh Whedon's Avengers movie next year. ***1/2
Last up was Super 8 which I had high hopes for. A period (1979) monster movie that fell into the same rut as Cloverfield these are monster movies without monsters. At least in Super 8 we have something that resembles a 'story', but the monster is covered by quick glimpse shots until the end of the movie. I liked it more than Cloverfield, but not as much as I hoped. **1/2

Transformers was okay, not a fan of the girlfriend change out and 'Witwicky' saves the day is getting tired. The action though was top notch giant explosions, and giant robots what more could you want? ***

I caught both The Change-Up, and 30 Minutes or Less at sneaks last week. Out of the two Change Up was definitely better, while at it's raunchy core it may not be politically correct, but gag inducing it made me laugh. A lot. It's a simple Freaky Friday, 18 Again!, and Hot Chick body switch movie. Married family guy with job, 3 kids, and mortgage wishes he had his slacker friend's carefree, sleep around, no job, pot smoking lifestyle, and vice versa. Boom! Pee in a magic fountain and halarity ensues. ****

On the other hand, 30 Minutes just never got going. I had seen the previews and thought it looked pretty good, pizza delivery guy gets jacked by to costumed 'criminal masterminds' who force him to rob a bank and halarity ensues. Ummm, no. While I didn't mind the pizza guy (Jessie Eisenberg) and his friend (Aziz Ansari) the 'criminal masterminds' (Danny McBride, Nick Swardson) never clicked. It seemed like the setup took forever, then bank robbery/conclusion/done. It's only 83 minutes long and 5 of that is probably the opening/closing credits so there wasn't a lot of story added in. Underwhelming. **1/2

A friend wants to see Cowboys & Aliens or Rise of Planet of the Apes today. I'm leaning towards Rise because the word-of-mouth for Cowboys is pretty lackluster.

I've been watching quite a few summer TV series including Falling Skies, Nine Lives of Chloe King, Switched at Birth, Alphas, Teen Wolf and Necessary Roughness as well as returning shows like The Closer, Rizzoli & Isles, The Glades, Covert Affairs, and Haven most of which are ending the season soon (or already Falling Skies). Those were the ones that I stayed with all the way, but there were some that didn't make it very far. Wilfred, Outcasts, Suits, 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show, The Hot Zone, and Sand Masters got anywhere from a single viewing up to three episodes and then fizzled out.

I've also become somewhat addicted to Auction Hunters, and Storage Wars even though I know they're 'staged' I enjoy them enough that I've caught most all of the episodes (thanks A&E, and Spike for re-airing the crap out of them!) of both shows, and watch the new ones now when they air.