Take Me Home Tonight Review

Take Me Home Tonight is a comedy about a smart college graduate, Matt Franklin, played by Topher Grace. In the movie, Matt is uncertain what to do with his future and spends one memorable night out with his best friend, Barry, played by Dan Fogler as they chase down Matt’s high school dream girl. Take Me Home Tonight is set in Los Angeles in the late 1980s and is directed by Michael Dowse. Anna Faris also stars as Matt's sister, Wendy, and Teresa Palmer as the dream girl, Tori.

The movie is a good walk down memory lane for anyone who was in high school or college in the ‘80s. Major party, Preppies, Yuppies, Goths and drugs are all in attendance along with a seriously ‘80s-tastic soundtrack. Take Me Home Tonight hits all the right notes for a high school/college romantic-comedy that will make you think back on other films from that era like Sixteen Candles, License to Drive and Say Anything.

There are some cringe-worthy moments that may make you want to fast-forward just to stop the pain. However, they are few and if you remember the '80s like me, you will likely be singing along to the soundtrack again in no time. There is also some predictability to some of the plot points, but you won’t mind since the whole package is quite fun.

In the end, I give Take Me Home Tonight 4 Mick Happies. If you catch it on DVD, be sure to look at the special features and watch the Take Me Home Tonight music video. Challenge yourself to see how many films you can name.

Nerd Trivia Review

Nerd Trivia is a great, free Twitter-based trivia game created by Laura Massey (@lauralollipop). The game is run in seasons lasting a few weeks with questions being posed every hour from 8 am – 5 pm PDT via the Nerd Trivia Host (@NerdTrivia) on Twitter. To play, you simply follow @NerdTrivia, the host will follow you as well. Then every day, NerdTrivia will tweet a question and you can message the host directly with the answer.

The game, now in its third season, is constantly evolving. This season saw the addition of the Nerd Trivia website containing directions on how to play, a list of your answers and Achievements. The game also has prizes to win.

Nerd Trivia was a personal project for creator, Laura Massey (Gamertag: Lollip0p on Xbox Live). Ms. Massey is a programmer working for Microsoft as part of their Xbox team. You can also hear Ms. Massey talking about Nerd Trivia on the Major Nelson podcast, where she is a co-host.

I really enjoy Nerd Trivia and in a world where Twitter is mostly about sharing what you are doing right now, it is nice to have something competitive to play on a daily basis. I highly recommend following @NerdTrivia if you are active on Twitter. I give Nerd Trivia 5 Mick Happies…fun trivia, simple to play and free, what is better than that?

Source Code Review

Having the DVD of Source Code in hand, I sat down for a late night action film. The movie is written by Ben Ripley, directed by Duncan Jones, and stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an Army helicopter pilot, Colter Stevens, who wakes up disoriented on a train. Within the first several minutes of the movie, as Colter tries to figure out how he got on the train and the people around him, a bomb goes off destroying the train.

The story really begins there as we quickly learn that Colter is part of a government project that allows them to place a person’s consciousness into another person who recently died and experience the last 8 minutes of their life. What follows is a gripping action film with Colter bouncing between the train and current time trying to determine what happened on the train.

What I liked about the film were the nods to time travel and alternate realities. I am a big time travel fan and thought that the premise of going back and viewing/experiencing events of someone else’s life to be intriguing. The movie has several twists and turns and doesn’t hold off on giving you answers along the way. No holding off to the end for everything to be revealed all at once, there are twists and turns all throughout the film. In some cases, the trips back to the train had a Groundhog Day feel to me. As I don’t want to spoil the movie, I will stop there.

I liked Source Code and found that it was engaging and didn’t seem to have huge, gaping plot holes. Though that could be a result of watching it at Midnight. Overall, I give the film 4 Mick Happies. Definitely worth renting or getting from Netflix to watch at home.

A Dance With Dragons Review

George R.R. Martin at Mysterious Galaxy book signing
July 24, 2011

It is with some sadness that I review A Dance With Dragons knowing that it was only just released and I will have to wait for the next installment in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. For any long-time fans of the series, this one has been a bit of a wait, a little over 5 years, since A Feast for Crows was released. I can say that the book was worth the wait, thank you Mr. Martin.

A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in A Song of Ice and Fire, is in some ways the second half of A Feast for Crows as well as its sequel. A little over half of the book is dedicated to the characters and story lines that were relatively absent from A Feast for Crows due to decisions made by the author and his editors to help get book four out to readers back in 2005. Together they cover all the myriad of characters in A Song of Ice and Fire and extend the story along the winding path from the first scene of A Game of Thrones to the ultimately conclusion of the series.

I have only read A Song of Ice and Fire once. Rather than re-read A Feast For Crows, I went to Tor.com’s posting that lists where everybody is before A Dance With Dragons begins. This helped bring the high points for key characters into focus before I began reading the book.

I won’t go into details about the plot as this is intended to be a spoiler-free review.  If you want spoilers, you can go here. Otherwise, the thing I enjoyed in the book was the opportunity to immerse myself in a wonderfully crafted world that feels broad and rich. You get a sense of just how large the world is and the depth of the history as well. The thing about the story that will stick with me is that bad things happen to just about anyone.

All in all, I highly recommend A Song of Ice and Fire and give A Dance With Dragons 4 Mick Happies. It is a good book and a strong addition to the overall series. It doesn’t feel as complete as some of the earlier books due to the splitting of storylines with A Feast For Crows, but that is a minor issue overall. If you haven’t read any of the series, pick up A Game Of Thrones and get started. Once you are all caught up, you can wait with the rest of us for book six and look forward to season 2 of A Game of Thrones on HBO and hopefully a new Dunk and Egg novella in the meantime.

Apple TV Review

About 2 months ago, I ditched cable tv. One of the key factors in doing that was the powerful combination of Netflix streaming and the Apple TV. Apple TV is a small box that you can connect to your TV through a HDMI cable in order to stream content from select web sources or from your home computer.

The Apple TV, version 2 was released in 2010, is less than 4 inches x 4 inches and less than 1 inch tall. It comes Wi-Fi enabled or can be connected directly to the Internet using an Ethernet cable and can connect via HDMI to most high-definition TVs. It is capable of 720p video output maximum.

The Apple TV will connect to your iTunes library through the Home Sharing function allowing you to wirelessly stream any content in your library directly to your television. You can access iTunes directly from the Apple TV to stream movie or tv show rentals to your television as needed. Additionally, there are several services that can be streamed to the Apple TV such as YouTube, MLB.TV, NBA.com League Pass and Netflix.  The user interface is straightforward and once you have completed setup of the device, you can jump right in. The setup mainly consists of connecting to your home Wi-Fi network, logging into your iTunes account and logging into Netflix if you have a streaming account. Once done, you are on your way.

In my home, I have three Apple TV devices plugged in and with the 3 DVD and streaming plan with Netflix, I can be streaming different shows to each box at the same time. The ability to stream shows and movies from Netflix to any tv in the house using Apple TV has allowed me to dump my cable provider’s $100+/month services. At $99, the Apple TV will help pay for itself in just a few months in the savings on cable tv alone.

There are some drawbacks to the Apple TV to be aware of. There is no power button. To reset the box, you have to hold the down arrow and menu buttons on the remote or pull the power cord from the back of the device. This is important to know as the Apple TV will go into sleep mode (depending on the settings you choose) and sometimes will not reconnect to the wireless network upon waking. I have found that by restarting the box (by remote or power cord) always solves the problem, but it is annoying.

Based on the ease of use, relatively low cost ($99), small size, ability to stream content from my computer or Netflix and relatively few drawbacks, I give the Apple TV 4 Mick Happies.