Monthly Archives: July 2015

Trainwreck Review

Movie Reviews

trainwreck

Just last week I had a conversation with my friend Jason (of Jay and Ross Talk Shit) about the “chick flick” genre. My argument was that it was the only genre actually defined by being “bad.” If a film involves a female protagonist finding the man of her dreams, almost losing him, and winning him over at the end, but the characters are awful, it’s a “chick flick.” But if you make the same movie with interesting, funny, and relatable characters, then it’s a “romantic comedy,” but not a “chick flick.”

Case in point: Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer’s new film, Trainwreck. Despite Schumer’s reputation for progressive and ground-breaking comedy sketches, Trainwreck absolutely follows a standard romantic comedy arc. However, because Schumer’s script always takes care to treat its characters as actual human beings with understandable worldviews, and because it is frequently hilarious, nobody would dare slap it with the dreaded “chick flick” label.

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The Nielson System is dead. Long Live Subscription-Based Programming!

Television

Hannibal S3

If all your knowledge of television came from internet speculation and hype, Hannibal might seem like one of the most popular shows on TV. There are countless forums, reviews, and think-pieces revolving around the show, an unlikely brilliant re-imagining of a played out franchise (I wrote my piece during season one, which you can find here).

And yet, if you look at the Nielson ratings, Hannibal is one of the least-popular shows on network television. It has survived for three seasons almost entirely because it is a co-production with international production company Gaumont. However, this year, Hannibal slipped to a 0.4 rating and NBC finally cancelled the series. Shortly after, NBC added insult to injury and, apparently at the request of advertisers, moved the remaining episodes of the show to Saturday where it could do no harm.

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Unknown Hosts 7/15/2015

Past Unknown Hosts Episodes

Our Unknown Hosts show for the week of July 12th-July 18th 2015! This week, we cover several topics in the world of games and comic book adaptations! Topics and timecodes are below, along with links to where you can find the Comic Con trailers online!

0:17 – RIP Satoru Iwata
2:45 – The Good, The Bad, and The Kappa
—2:51 – Performance Enhancing Drugs in E-Sports
—9:44 – The Witcher 3’s 30 Hours of Expansion Content
—15:50 – Ben Affleck to Star in, Direct, and Co-Write Stand-Alone Batman Film
23:21 – Batman: Arkham Knight Video Review
27:42 – Good Bad Kappa on Comic Con Trailers!
—28:13 – Fear the Walking Dead (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDxew…)
—33:33 – Heroes Reborn (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FLHB…)
—40:40 – Warcraft (http://io9.com/weve-just-seen-the-fir…)
—45:34 – Ash vs The Evil Dead (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unnLg…)
—50:06 – Batman v Superman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WWzg…)
—1:03:34 – Suicide Squad
1:21:15 – Plugs

Rectify Season 3 Premiere Episodes Review

Television Reviews

rectify

(The following review covers the first two episodes of Rectify’s third season, and contains spoilers. The premiere aired on July 9th, and the second episode is set to premiere on July 16th. Both episodes are available to watch for free, with no cable subscription, at sundance.tv)

Rectify has never played by the same rules that most televised dramas abide by. Its first season, consisting of only six episodes, was largely averse to plot progression. Instead, the show was more interested in how the release of Daniel Holden, a man convicted of raping and murdering his girlfriend at the age of 19, would affect his family and community. It was certainly a slow burn, but there was an attention to character that is rarely matched in any medium, and the slow reveal of Daniel’s character gave the show the sense of growth that it would otherwise be missing.

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Batman: Arkham Knight Review

Video Game Reviews

(This review is based on the PS4 release of Arkham Knight. I initially purchased the PC version, but the port is so bad that Warner Brothers had it pulled from retailers)

Of all the games releasing this year, Arkham Knight was probably my most anticipated. The Arkham series was one of my favorites of the last console generation, a franchise that expanded greatly between its first and second release. Arkham Asylum was a terrific take on the “Metroid-vania” gameplay genre, set in a gorgeous and original version of Arkham Asylum. The level design was superb and both primary gameplay types, combat and “predator rooms,” were rock-solid.

Two years later, Rocksteady released Arkham City, which took the core gameplay components of its predecessor and worked them into an open-world scenario. The result was terrific, with Rocksteady incorporating a “grapnel boost” into Batman’s grapnel gun that, combined with his ability to glide, created a zippy and satisfying way of exploring the city. Warner Bros. followed this up with Arkham Origins two years after, which was more of a step sideways than forward. Few were bothered by this, though; Origins was created by Warner Bros. Games Montreal while Rocksteady prepared their next-gen Batman game, so it was pretty clearly a stop-gap release. The hope was that the next true evolution in the Arkham series would come with Rocksteady’s follow-up.

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