Songs are Sad in April 2014

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, dear readers. Before I crack open the sonic sepulcher of the Songs Are Sad Mailbag to explain to you why every last song you claim to enjoy is in fact bone-snappingly sad, allow me to address perhaps the most frequently posed query to our humble office.

That question is this: Rob, isn’t there any kind of music that you DO like? And the answer, dear readers, comes to you in three parts.

This month is probably the best installment in this series. We look at "Love Shack," and do a line-by-line reading of the horrors of "The 59th St. Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"

Next month, we'll take on whatever songs you suggest at songsaresad@thehiggsweldon.com

#1,996: The Lego Movie

All movies, all Monday!

Monster - ★★☆☆☆
I had a lot of trouble connecting to this movie. Probably because it's tough to sympathize with an unrepentant crazy murderer? It's like a sadder Citizen Ruth.

Hotel Rwanda - ★★★☆☆
An interesting story, well told, that carries the unmistakable look of an early 90's live-action Disney movie. It's a weirdly distracting look for such a serious topic, and the content of the movie makes it seem weird to criticize this part, but here we are.

Two re-watches:

RoboCop - ★★★★☆
I'm hesitant to see the new one, but (a tv-edit) of this was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Still a delight. I was struck by the efficiency of it today. It really clips along. Something to strive for in a movie these days.

Rope - ★★★★☆ I think this is a fun movie. The continuous take thing felt a little clunkier than I remember though. The camera of the time was so huge - today it would be so much easier to produce. And starring Jason Sudeikis. With maybe Tom Hanks as Jimmy Stewart.

And finally:

The LEGO Movie - ★★★☆☆
I've been wondering what the message of this movie is. It seems like the path to success was to do all the 'wrong' things. Maybe it's that everyone everywhere should become their enemies? Also, even though you're making fun of the hero's journey stuff, that doesn't mean you're not still doing it.

I read some thoughts about the movie on the internet, and all I learned is that I don't really like how much the internet churns every new thing into a bland paste each week.

In college, I had a double-decker couch. It worked out fine.

Media Monday: Dragon Warrior & True Detective

- Dragon Warrior I - ★★★☆☆
This title has a fixture in my childhood. I think I mainly watched my dad play, but maybe started and restarted games of my own. We played forever. Ridmular (sic) was so far away. We did beat it though, on the original NES. This was the GBC version, played on my phone, and I beat it in approximately 48 hours. Not 48 hours of play, but from the time I started. I had all the best gear, and I paced up in down in the Dragon Lord's front hallway to boost up two levels to 21 in order to take him out. Sure, I checked a world map online, but the original game came with a printed one. And Nintendo Power was full of 'em. My first issue even had a pull-out mini-book full of Dragon Warrior stuff… I can only assume they really changed the balance around on the remake. Or maybe I've got a lot of questions for my dad…

- Remember Me - ★★☆☆☆
Good thing: This was part of my new PS+ subscription! Bad thing: The game. It was secretly(?) a God of War clone. They really sold this on the memory remixing, and there's so little of that here. Most of the playing in memories you do is in the vein of the Mario help system: watch a ghost do something, then do that thing. It got a little better after the tutorial levels, but that's about when the reusing levels starts. Even a remix part got recycled. Also, It contains the line, "you must run down riddlehead and steal the access protocols for the conception cube. He's headed for the metal security post on the 103rd floor." but that's not really a spoiler, because it doesn't mean anything.

- Dragon Warrior II - ★★★☆☆
I was listening to some of the Indoor Kids podcast while I played this, and someone talked about how sometimes you play games to beat them and other times just to see them. I was in DWI to beat it, but I think DWII just to see it all. I brazenly turned to online help with entering the final area, when I saw no villager that happened to know the answer, I used saves to win the lotto and it didn't bother me at all. I came to see, and I did. The beginning of part 3 seems an overwhelming pile of choices, so I might not come back to the series right away. 3/5

True Detective
I liked this show. I enjoyed the mythos references. I was satisfied with the conclusion and I'm excited that the next season isn't going to be a direct sequel and I liked all that investigating. I also ended up reading a lot about it online as it was happening, and mostly it made me wish the internet wasn't quite so full of public contemplation. It's not the (inconsequential) spoilers, it's that not one of those articles enhanced my enjoyment of the show, enriched my thoughts or discussions about the show, or were even simply entertaining in their own right. They don't even really help the authors, who - yes - got me to click, but also now make me want to unsubscribe from their websites so that I don't make the same mistake of wasting my time on inane commentary the next time around.

2014 Gaming: Broken Age, Threes, and more

More of a Media Monday today, let's talk about a few of the videogames I've finished so far this year.

- Broken Age (act 1) - ★★★★☆
The art and the dialogue are terrific. I had some real gripes with the puzzle-y parts early on, when I had the right idea for something on Vella's side and wasn't allowed to do it until I collected the hints first, and Shay has a super convenient object for no discernible reason, but I got on board a little more when the worlds opened up. Felt clever about having a prediction re: the act break.

- Cook Serve Delicious! - ★★★★☆
A steam sale purchase. I had a good time with this, collected platinum star rating, and most of the achievements except, like, serve 15,000 meals, since the whole story section only took about 7,500. Tips: You can serve a cooked item while preparing something else, and nobody ever complains when you give them extra ice cream.

- Sound Shapes - ★★☆☆☆
I think I grabbed this two Christmases ago, just finished it up now to make room for new downloads since I've joined PS+. It's an okay little platformer and all, but kind of a chore to play. I finished the campaign, but I don't care about trophies enough to work on the challenge levels, and the interface for the beat-maker thing looks like a terrible way to spend an evening. Replicating drum machine beats might be more fun in an iOS game.

- Threes - ★★★★☆
I didn't find this quite as addictive as the popular opinion. It's nice to sit and fold numbers while watching TV, so i'll still play from time to time, but right now I have the highest score of anyone I know, 27,783, and whenever I have the best score in one of these things, that releases the hooks. I don't have to play it again until it turns out someone has beaten me.

#1,993: All Hail the King

Movie Monday!

Kick-Ass 2 - ★☆☆☆☆
It's easy to see how the producers tried to take a look at the first one to see what people liked about it, and expand on those elements. This movie is jam-packed with terrible scenes that prove they got the what, but not the why. Unencumbered by any hint of fun or character development, all that's left is a snoozy, repetitive plot.

Her - ★★★½☆☆
The promotional stuff I'd seen for this really looked awful. So, I liked it more than I expected. My favorite things were mostly the implied future. Future technology, future elevator decorating techniques, future public transit in LA. Glad that they eventually addressed questions that the beginning prompted.

I guess the ending was inevitable, but a little unsatisfying. I'm not sure what I would have liked better though. Maybe if Theo made a choice?

Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay - ★★★☆☆
What can you do? If it's a movie full of tricks and demos, then it should be a concert film. If it's a movie full of explanations of the man's past and methods, then it's like being told how the ice cube got on the table, and the answer to that is probably going to be, as Jonathan Creek says, "mind-numbingly banal."

This was interesting, but not TOO interesting...

Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King - ★★★½☆
We had a little marathon of all the MCU shorts, mostly punctuated by wondering why there can't be more, and why Agents of SHIELD can't hold a candle to these.

In particular, I liked how this one both undoes a little continuity damage and maybe sets us up for future flicks.