Hike Mic: Nazi Bunker Edition vol. 4

In the 1930s, Nazi sympathizers spent $4 million ($32 million in today's dollars) building a fortified compound in the hills behind Pacific Palisades, from which Hitler, victorious in World War II, would rule over the Americas.

This July 4th, celebrate freedom by joining us for a hike into the hidden valley where the crumbling ruins of this alternate future have been reclaimed by nature. We'll eat snacks and tell jokes. We'll explore the woods and marvel at all the graffiti. 

This is an Open Mic. This is a Picnic. This is an Adventure. It's a Hike Mic! Join us, won't you?

#2,166: Dope

Love & Mercy - ★★★★☆ 
I could have watched a whole movie with re-enacted studio sessions. God only knows how much more fun this movie is for someone who really knows the album.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - ★½☆☆☆
A lot of times when I pick a documentary to watch, I pick something that addresses a topic that I'm interested in.
And: a lot of documentaries are primers to the topic they discuss.
So: they cover a breadth of information about their topic, but don't get especially deep.
But: because I'm already interested in that thing, I'm already familiar with the basics, and then I'm kind of bored with the movie.

This is not that. This is a movie for someone with a deep love of Wilco. Or maybe at least a passing familiarity.
Also: I couldn't help but wonder whether the filmmaker actually liked the band by the time this was all said and done.

Nightcrawler - ★★★★★
A lovely portrait of a sociopath. I think I understand what we're meant to think of him, but as an LA resident, I also admire his drive.

I wonder if this is the first time I've seen a Jake Gyllenhaal movie that's about the character Jake Gyllenhaal is playing.

Dope - ★★★★☆  
This is turning out to be a great year for high school movies. Probably, one of the best trailers of the year too, in that the trailer was a weird music video kind of thing and I had no idea what this movie was really about. And the movie continues to be surprising in it's form almost throughout.

The scene where a character replaces the letter c in his speech with the letter b was a lot like the Monty Python scene where a character replaces the letter c in his speech with the letter b.

Nintendo E3 2015

This year's E3 experience was much less frenetic than last year's. The Treehouse Live booth, an improved version of my after-the-fact schematics from last year, is now run by Nintendo. So instead, I helped to produce some videos for their YouTube channel. In brief:

• The Star Fox Zero reaction video you see above,*
• The 360º booth tour video I posted the other day,*
• A Super Mario Maker reaction video,*
• A recap of the Nintendo World Championships 2015,**
• A recap of Nintendo's entire E3 experience,***
• A couple of fan videos made by a guy who turned up in several of our official videos.****

I'm really glad I got to work on some more stuff for Nintendo this year. Plus, I had a little more time to wander around the show floor (as evidenced by the Yoshiller videos). I haven't played a Star Fox game since the original, but of the demos I played on various systems it was the most fun game I got to try. 

Of course the internet is always mad, but it really struck me this year how wide the gulf was between the angry, angry online opinion and the truth of actually being on the ground. This is a shot from just before the end of the last day of E3, when booths are turning to tumbleweeds:

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* editor
** co-editor
*** assistant editor
**** dude playing game demos, then suddenly cameraman

Nintendo's E3 2015 Booth Tour Video

Here's something I helped to make this week.  Watch it on your awesome smart phone. 

#2,162: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Entourage - ★★½☆☆
This is a movie beyond reviews. What review could help it or hurt it? Who was going to this movie and then read a review and thought twice? This is the Power Rangers movie - slightly more expensive, slightly fancier titles, still just a big episode of the show, and like every episode of the show, consequence-free!

I liked that there's a scene shot on my street. On a Wednesday too, since the street fair thing is in the background.

Mad Max: Fury Road - ★★★★½
We go to the movies to hide from the world and ourselves. This wasn't quite as gleeful and exciting the second time around, but there's so much going by so quickly that I think I had more time to pick up on bits of dialogue and finer details.

Movie nerd websites seem to be abuzz with details of the making of the movie. Did you know there wasn't really a miles-wide sand-and-lightning storm on the set? I don't think I want any of that. There's a lot of information about how this movie was made in the movie.

Los Angeles Plays Itself - ★★★☆☆
This feels both dated and ahead of its time. This kind of video essay would be a whole YouTube channel today. It's amazing though, that someone managed to clear all the permissions for a good quality version of this to exist.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - ★★★★☆
Another fine high school movie this year. I'm always a sucker for the trope (?) of people remaking movies on the super cheap and creative, like in Home Movies or Be Kind Rewind. Sweet and great that a moment at the end that could've been a Big Reveal only reveals... that one character is a complex and interesting person.

I think I may have seen this with the editor in the room, or at least the editor's family, since there was a big cheer from the back of the theater when his credit went by.