Joseph Gordon-Levitt Movie Reviews

You can figure that someone has made it in Hollywood when they are in just about every movie you see. Three movies in the past week have demonstrated this to me about Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Here are their mini-reviews:

The Dark Knight Rises

I have watched the previous two Christian Bale/Christopher Nolan Batman movies and enjoyed them both. This one continues the Batman’s story eight years later with us seeing an older Bruce Wayne who hasn’t been the Batman in a while. We are also introduced to a new villain: Bane. Along the way we meet an idealistic police officer, John Blake played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Selina Kyle (Catwoman) played by Anne Hathaway.

The best parts of the movie included Blake and Kyle (separately as they don’t share screen time). They really delivered on their roles and the result left me wanting an Anne Hathaway Catwoman movie and a sequel for Blake’s character. The Dark Knight Rises does run on a little long and you are annoyed with some of the plot twists as everything has to go wrong before they can start going right again. I give Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anne Hathaway four Mick Happies and The Dark Knight Rises 3.5.

Movie Trailer

Premium Rush

This is the story of a bike messenger in New York, Wilee, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who picks up a letter to deliver. The letter happens to be of interest to a particularly nasty crooked police officer that spends the movie trying to get it from Wilee. This is high adrenaline chase through New York with thrills and spills. I fast forwarded a couple of the chase scenes, but particularly liked the bicycle police office (not the crooked one) who runs across Wilee several times and tries to catch him for causing an accident. It gives some of the few comedic moments of the film.

Premium Rush is fun and will have you on the edge of your seat at times. Michael Shannon, who plays the bad guy, is particularly nasty at times (in a well acted way). Premium Rush gets 3 Mick Happies.

Movie Trailer

Looper

I like Time Travel movies. Looper is a Time Travel movie where (in the future) some people are hired by seedy underworld types to be Loopers. Loopers are assassins who kill people sent back in time from the future by organized crime bosses. Since time travel is outlawed, the Loopers eventually have to kill themselves when their future selves are sent back in time to maintain the secret that time travel is being used. The pay-off for doing it is a lot of money to live on for the next 30 years until they catch you and send you back in time to die. With me so far?

This somewhat interesting premise eventually devolves into Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character Joe meeting his future self and not closing the loop (killing him). This leads to a must kill someone in the past to save people in the future plot that is the second half of the movie. There are some interesting questions posed by the film: would you take a rich life now knowing you have to die in 30 years? If you met yourself from the future – would you care more about your current needs or listen to your future self about what is the best thing to do?

I would have liked a different plot to the second half of the movie and thus a different ending, but the movie is okay as is. Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a really good impersonation of a younger Bruce Willis including some of the right facial quirks. The movie also stars Emily Blunt. Looper gets 3 Mick Happies.

Movie Trailer

Towers of Midnight Review

With the release of A Memory of Light on January 8, 2013, I decided to re-read Towers of Midnight to prepare. Towers of Midnight is the 13^th main book in the Wheel of Time Series published by Tor and written by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. For those few who don’t know, The Wheel of Time is an epic Fantasy series that will, when finished, span 14 main books and a prequel novel. Unfortunately, Mr. Jordan passed away before completing the series and Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish it based on his notes, outlines and partially written pieces. I won’t try to bring you up to speed on the story so far or explain the series beyond that. If you want a terrific in-depth study on each book, see Leigh Butler’s re-read of the Wheel of Time at Tor.com.

Towers of Midnight (ToM) is the second book that Mr. Sanderson has completed and he does a very good job of delivering a book that is definitely part of the Wheel of Time even if some of the individual words and sections are not exactly as Robert Jordan would have written them.

When I first read ToM two years ago, I found myself impatient with some of the characters and plot lines that get a greater share of the page count. On re-reading the story, I have a better appreciation for how it all weaves together to get the characters to the right place at the right time for the final confrontation to happen. For several books leading up to book 12, The Gathering Storm, the Wheel of Time had slowed down and the story felt like it was grinding under the large weight of the scope of it all. However, within that I had the greater sense that everything was going to come to a final head well before any of the “good guys” were prepared and all of the planning and scheming they were doing was going to be for nothing.

In The Gathering Storm, all seems bleak for the forces of good and it looks like the Shadow (the forces of evil) will win. In ToM, we see that all is not lost for the Light (the good guys) and that they may actually have a shot at winning. There are a lot of great scenes in ToM, which pay off nicely on the narrative debt built up over the previous 12 books. I won’t spoil them, but many are epic, some bittersweet, a few things happen that have you wondering how they will impact the last book and as always you get a sense that the end will not be all roses for everyone. This isn’t George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice where I swear bad things will happen to everyone, but a lot of horrible things have happened over 13 books and there are bound to be more in A Memory of Light even though the events of ToM were pretty pro-good guys.

I realized the other day that I have been reading Wheel of Time books for over 20 years, longer than my daughter has been alive or I have been married. My father suggested I read Eye of the World and I didn’t recognize what he was suggesting I read until a college roommate was reading it and raving about it. For about half my life I have been reading these books and enjoying the journey. I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Jordan a couple of times (4 or 5) at book signings. Most of the time I didn’t have anything to say other than thanks for the story. The last book tour I saw him at (Crossroads of Twilight) I asked two questions:

How long would it take Lan to ride to Tarwin’s Gap?

Would Mat be able to command the Deathwatch Guards?

To both questions I got the usual answer of “Read and find out”.  At the end of ToM I know the answer to one of the two, roughly. I expect the answer to number two will come in A Memory of Light.

I recommend the Wheel of Time series. It can be long and frustrating and enjoyable. ToM is a very satisfying piece in the series and rewards the readers for sticking with the story for over 10,000 pages. Towers of Midnight gets 4 Mick Happies. It isn’t the best of the series, but it is right up there and ramps things up for an epic conclusion in A Memory of Light. Hopefully Mr. Jordan would be satisfied with how it all ends.

Note: There are many websites devoted to The Wheel of Time. One of the best is Dragonmount.com. Here is a trailer that the Dragonmount folks made for Towers of Midnight:

Butter Review

Butter is a small budget film written by Jason A. Micallef and directed by Jim Field Smith. Butter is the story of a butter sculpting competition in Iowa where a young girl in foster care competes against the overly ambitious wife of a former 15-time Iowa state butter sculpting champion.

The movie has an all-star cast including Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, Ty Burrell, Alicia Silverstone, Rob Corddry and Ashley Greene. In Butter, Jennifer Garner is looking to parley her husband’s success carving butter into political success, but is derailed when her husband stops competing. Not willing to let things go, she decides to compete herself. Laura’s (Garner) dreams of the future are challenged by newcomer, Destiny; played well by Yara Shahidi, who has a talent for sculpting butter. Many of the funniest parts of the movie involve the side plots featuring a stripper played by Olivia Wilde. Silverstone and Corddry do well as Destiny’s foster parents.

Butter shows you several amazing sculptures made out of butter (my drawing above recreates on of the funniest, “the Scarlet Letter”).  The scene that I liked the best from the film is when Rob Corddry is sitting in the parking lot about to send Destiny in to sign up for a butter competition. They get into a fantastic conversation about how to deal with being nervous by imaging what is the worst thing that could happen when Destiny walks through that door (great parenting in my book).

Be warned, this movie is R rated – mainly for what the characters say and a couple of adult situations. It is worth your time and is available on DVD (I saw it on DVD from Netflix). Definitely worth spending 90 minutes to see – especially if you like the actors listed above. I give Butter three and a half Mick Happies. Here is the trailer for you to enjoy – it will give you a good sense of how the movie goes:

Games That Should Be Remade

Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition was released this week for the PC. I don’t have the remake of Baldur’s Gate yet, but I can’t wait to be “Butt-kicking for Goodness!” on iPad soon. Looking at what Overhaul Games has done with Baldur’s Gate just makes you dream of other games that could have new life in our digital age. Here are some of my suggestions for remakes someone should get started on right now:

Diablo for Xbox (or Playstation if you prefer).  As we saw with the release of Torchlight for XBLA, the action RPG is fits perfectly into the console environment. Additionally, there is a huge market opportunity here. I imagine there are about a million people who would like up to have a re-mastered, updated and accessible Diablo on their console (and big screen tv). Until it happens, I will have to settle for Torchlight, Sacred 2 and other aRPGs that are available for Xbox.

How about releasing some of the old Strategic Simluation Inc. Gold Box D&D games? I know Baldur’s Gate was way ahead of any of the Gold box games (Pool of Radiance anyone?), but c’mon, these would be fun to have on iPad or any tablet. (Yes, I know I can get Bard’s Tale, but it would be nice to have some of the other games I played in my youth.)

More board games on iPad (or other tablets). Games like the original Dungeon! or Electronic Detective or Dark Tower would definitely be fun to have at my fingertips in a nice digital version. While we’re at it, why not more strategy war games on the iPad? Speaking of SSI, why not some of their war games like Red Lightning or Panzer General?

Last I will leave you with the idea of Railroad Tycoon 3 (or any of the Railroad Tycoon series) on your tablet with new touch interface and updated graphics. That would suck away more than a few of my hours.

Maybe I am just nostalgic for games that aren’t as good as I remember them, but I don’t think so.  Remaking classic games with updated graphics, interface, controls and in some cases sounds/music would be a win for everyone. Now if only someone would get the rights and get on it.

On a related note, I can’t wait for the release of M.U.L.E. returns and Wasteland 2.

Just saying…

Fall 2012 TV Review

My family and I don’t have regular TV in our house. We watch all of our TV online, through Netflix (DVDs or on-demand) or by purchasing the shows through iTunes. Surprisingly, that doesn’t keep us from missing out too much on what comes out each year. We have also found it cheaper to buy Season Passes than to have cable TV for more than a year now. What it does make us do is choose what we want to watch more carefully and not waste our time on crappy shows just because they are on. In this post, I will cover all of the shows we are watching and those that we have stopped.

Go On – This NBC comedy starring Matthew Perry as Ryan King is one of our favorite new shows and about the only comedy we are still watching besides the Big Bang Theory. I have watched a lot of failed Matthew Perry shows since Friends and this one finally seems to get it right. We get a sarcastic and self-centered character for Perry to play. We also get an ensemble cast of likeable weird people who are part of the grief support group that Ryan King joins when dealing with the loss of his wife. There is some out there quirkiness going on in the show, but it is consistently fun and funny. Four Mick Happies.

Elementary – The Sherlock Holmes in New York with a lady Watson show. This new procedural drama has the right mix of smart insight by Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller), banter with Dr. Watson (Lucy Liu) and everything is wrapped up in ~42 minutes. I am a big fan of the BBC Sherlock show and this is not it and is good all on its own. There is definitely room in my viewing world for both. Besides, Elementary’s Holmes seems way more edgy and at risk of drug relapse (and associated problems) than the BBC version Holmes. If you want to buy it like we do, iTunes has the Season Pass in SD for only $24.99 (about a dollar an episode). Also Four Mick Happies.

Malibu Country – Reba McEntire’s new comedy about a recently divorced woman making it on her own with her kids. We gave this one two episodes and stopped in the middle of the second. It isn’t as good and the cast isn’t as interesting as her former Reba show. Lily Tomlin is good as her mother, but that isn’t enough to carry any show or we wouldn’t be waiting for The New Normal to come out on DVD (Ellen Barkin ruled that show in the pilot). Malibu Country gets two Mick Happies.

Suburgatory – This little comedic look at up-scale suburban living us by surprise last year and we really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the delay between seasons has left us feeling that the best was behind for this show. The jokes seem the same, the characters also seem the same, but it just wasn’t as funny this time around in the first two episodes we watched. Don’t think we will be giving Suburgatory a full season pick up in our house. Two to three Mick Happies.

Revolution – The post-apocalyptic show from Eric Kripke on NBC. The show is set in a future where all forms of electricity have stopped and looks at how things might be eleven years after that event. Some of this show really scratches my dystopian future genre itch and the writers are trying to have reason behind how it happened and (if) it can be fixed, but the stories and situations are pretty far fetched. I have been watching this online from NBC.com and will probably keep watching though I find I have to really work up to finding the 45 minutes to tune in. At best three Mick Happies.

Big Bang Theory – The king of all comedies right now. We have all of the seasons on DVD or in iTunes and have been watching this one as a family. It is too bad that this season seems to be going downhill for us. We are not as amused by the typical jokes. My wife and I discussed it and where the show is losing us is:

·      Leonard and Penny – these two need to break up.

·      Penny – she needs something other than drinking and back and forth relationship with Leonard.

·      Howard – needs to grow up a bit. C’mon, man, you’re married to Bernadette (one of the more interesting characters on the show).

One of the few bright points, besides Sheldon (as always), has been the budding “bromance” between Stuart and Raj. The other is Alex, Sheldon’s new assistant. More of that, less of the 3 bullets above please. We are still watching, but just less amused. Three Mick Happies.

Grimm – This is one of our favorite shows right now. It is based on the premise that all of the Fairy Tales creatures are real and hiding amongst us. The Grimm are people who are descended from the Brothers Grimm who can see the creatures for what the really are and have traditionally hunted them. Grimm is a procedural cop show with a supernatural element and season one was good and season two (this year) is as well. We are about eight episodes in (out of 12 aired to date) and liking it. The only nit to pick here is the storyline about Juliette’s memory – if you are watching you know how annoying it is. This show has supplanted Supernatural as our supernatural weekly fix – Four Mick Happies.

Other mentions of shows we liked but aren’t watching this year:

Supernatural – The wife has seen everything up to the end of last season and I have watched most of them as well. The end of last season was a let down with where the characters ended up. Felt too much like that time when Dean went to Hell and Sam was left on Earth. Maybe we will catch this season when it hits Netflix next fall. Certainly didn’t seem worth us paying to see the week they air – we can wait if we watch at all.

Raising Hope – We have been big fans of Raising Hope since it started, but gave up after last season when they killed the pig (the new version of Jump the Shark) and brought back Hope’s mom. Haven’t watched and probably won’t until a far future date when it is the only thing available on Netflix on demand.

10000000 Review

My name is Mick Happy and for the last few weeks I have had a problem. The problem is I spend most nights (right before bed) running down the battery on my iPod playing 10000000 by Eightyeight Games. It is easy to play and frustratingly difficult to win.

The game is about you being locked in a castle and trying to get out by running through a hallway filled with doors, chests and monsters. To get past the said obstacles, you try to match 3 or more items in a typical match 3 game played on the bottom part of the screen. You can match keys, wands, stone, wood, packs or swords. Match swords and wands to damage monsters, keys to open doors/chests, wood and stone for resources and packs for special items.

Sounds easy right. Sure it is. For every obstacle you overcome you get gold or score points. Get to 10000000 score and you get your freedom. As you match items in the matching game and beat monsters, you move a little farther to the right on the screen (safety) as you get hit by monsters or take too long to make a match, you move to the left (running out of time). When you go off the screen to the left your run ends. You can then either run again or go home. Once home, you can spend your gold, stone and wood to upgrade your castle and “level up” your skills (making your matches more effective.

Each run you have a few objectives you can try (get 800 wood, defeat X monsters, etc.), which if you achieve them you get a gold or experience bonus and achieve all of them on a level and you will level up your explorer status. (The higher explorer level the more score bonus you get). Whew…that’s a lot to remember, except you don’t have to remember it as all you have to do is start a run and then match tiles as quickly as you can by moving a column up or down or a row side to side. One unique feature of 10000000 is that the screen wraps so if you need something moved you move it as far as you need to up/down or side/side none of this just swap with the tile next to it stuff here.

As you maybe can tell, I like this game. At first it was a bit maddening and a little too frenetic for me, but once I got over trying to get 10000000 each run, it became fun trying to get the little goals each run or raising my score a bit more each time. Now I have nearly maxed out everything I can in my castle and I still only have a high score of 3800000…so much farther to go. But you can bet I will still be running to get there. 10000000 is a 4 Mick Happy game. I was able to pick it up on sale through iTunes for $0.99. It is currently listed at $1.99 and would have been worth it at that price. Here is a trailer from the developer to help you decide:

Midst Toil and Tribulation Review

Midst Toil and Tribulation is the sixth and latest book in the Safehold series by David Weber. Last year I reviewed How Firm a Foundation (book five) and noted how much I have enjoyed this series so far. The new book continues the struggles of the Empire of Charis against the forces of the Church of God Awaiting on the world of Safehold.

Unlike the previous books, this books deals with the war moving toward a ground conflict on the main continent of the world. The novel deals with the difficulties of logistics and the rapid spread of technology across the world and the devastating effects of that technology when applied to war. Interspersed are some touching moments of self-realization for some of the characters and a couple of twists (one very unexpected but enjoyable).

All of the Safehold books have been heavy on the military, religious and political conflicts of the world they are set in. This book is no different. However, the pace of the series seems to bog down in Midst Toil and Tribulation and that may be a parallel for how the conflicts are changing as well. Not everything is going the main character’s way, there is less forward movement toward the ultimate goal and the numbers of characters to remember continue to grow.

Midst Toil and Tribulation is a good book and well written. You will feel for the characters in no-win situations that do their best for king and country. However, the book covers much less ground and will feel like a much smaller step than previous books in the series toward the ultimate resolution of the conflict on Safehold. Happy I read the novel, but have to give it no more than 3 Mick Happies. If you haven’t started the Safehold series yet, you may want to take them all back to back after a couple more are completed – it will be easier to keep the characters straight in the long run.