#2,323: Rogue One

The Edge of Seventeen - ★★★★☆
Although I might not relate to the direct experiences of the characters, this movie seems more true to what high school feels like than other, more buzzed about high school films.

De Palma - ★★★★☆
So much fun. Makes me want to go watch every De Palma movie. 

Manchester by the Sea - ★★☆☆☆
Whatever. Take all the acting prizes you can carry. I didn't fall asleep, but that doesn't mean I wasn't bored.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - ★★★☆☆
I guess this is my favorite Gareth Edwards movie? I guess I get the pick now; all of his movies are about characters at the periphery of some actual story that we only glimpse in passing. The 8th grader Star Wars geek in me finds a lot of the little details interesting and nods along at the references, but the modern-day movie going part of me is still kind of suspicious. Star Wars seems like this big open space, and if you're going to commit to doing a series of in-universe movies that are outside of the Skywalkers-and-company, how do you end up picking such safe (re: boring) subjects? Why are you making more prequels? I don't want to see each sentence of the opening crawl blown out to 2 hours. I really, really don't want to see Han Solo pranking the dean. For one thing, you're Star Wars, every extra has a name and back story, and fans will lap up anything you put in front of them. For another, you're produced by the studio that brought us Guardians of the Galaxy. Even though it's the worst MCU movie, at least it's bold!

And this huge media push to tell us this is the 'first stand alone Star Wars movie'? You are full of jokes.

Set List: Tiny American Flags

Set List at the Pack is brought to you by Tiny American Flags!

Now available in Small and Extra Small!

There are those who would criticize the oft-repeated '4 gallons of horchata' joke text as lazy, or so I would imagine, since nobody ever talks to me about these. I would, in my imagination, defend it as one of the funniest possible things to be included as a pack-in promotional item with any product at any time. 

Escape Room Reviews: The Zen Room

Company: 60 Out
Room: Zen Room
Date Played: 1/22/17
Player Count: 4
Success:  Success!

Premise: You are in your happy zen place, assuming you're someone who likes escape games. Now to put everything right and get back to the world. Or something. The real premise is 'what if everything in the room was white?'

Immersion: Well, everything in the room WAS white. Or as white as can be after X amount of grubby handed players have come through. 9/10 on that front. 

Highlights: Some of the interactions in this room are very satisfying. Several required good teamwork, even though we spent probably half the game split up and working on separate problems. As always, 60 Out makes the best magical objects.

Lowlights: This room falls prey to what might be 60 Out's biggest weakness: room design that amounts to just lining the walls with gadget stations. I mean, you get to check out a bunch of gadgets, so that's good, but it doesn't look like anything. It's less of a simulation and more like a midway. Best case, some stations serve multiple purposes. One of them, I have no idea how it helped us, if it did. 

And Finally:  This is as close as I've seen to an Escape Room-themed escape room. (Which, btw, I totally want to play. Open the second room and... it's the first room again!) and tries to bring to life an idea that fascinated me in middle school, if you could paint everything in a room in subtle shades so that when you walked in and turned on the light, you saw nothing.  Anyway, out of 17 games played, I'm going to try slotting this one in at #5.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.60out.com/rooms/zen-room 
(Visit within 3 days of a player's birthday for a free ticket!)

#2,319: Moana

As sometimes happens, increased work loads have resulted in lower quality reviews for you, the concerned moviegoer. Management regrets the inconvenience.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - ★★½☆☆
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - ★★★☆☆ 
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - ★★½☆☆

On the whole, these weren't as bad as people make them sound, which is pretty good for 9 hours of prequels. We somehow spent days and days watching these, and I don't really recall where one stops and another one starts. I think I liked the sort of political intrigue side plot Gandalf was working more than the story about The Hobbit though. 

Some time passed between viewing and catching up to these in my quick reviews, so saying anything more about them would probably just be guessing. I recall being delighted at remembering a couple of things from reading the book in grade school, a lot of fan servicey cameos and guest stars turning up, one scene with the dragon being pretty good, Stephen Fry being quite distracting, and that even while watching the movie I was unable to definitively list all five of the Five Armies. 

Moana - ★★★½☆
The best parts of this movie are the parts with Moana. The middle chunk with Maui is a little boring.

(It's kind of interesting how the zeitgeist works - I think I could have told you that Lin-Manuel Miranda was behind these lyrics without seeing the credits or anything - they sound like him, as far as I'm concerned, even though I haven't seen any Hamilton and don't really have any basis to know that about him. Maybe he re-used some rhymes from The Force Awakens...)

Set List: High Precision Ball Bearings

Set List at the Pack is brought to you by: High Precision Ball Bearings! So round! So precise! Rolling so smooth you won't believe it! 

It's okay.  The audience didn't like it much either.