iTunes Festival London 2014 Comments

Paolo Nutini at House of Blues, San Diego

Surprisingly enough I often have problems coming up with what to review each week or so. Sometimes it is because I am mainly playing a game I have already commented on in the past or reading book 6 in a series of 10 and reviewing it might be a little difficult. Today's post comes from one of those weeks where I have things I could write about but nothing "feels" important enough to share. Except that this week the family and I have been "watching" (read playing and skipping forward 2 -3 minutes to get through the parts we don't care about) the iTunes Festival that ran in London at the Roundhouse for the month of September. The festival, which has run for several years, is hosted by Apple and has different artists performing every night for the month of September (there is also a second iTunes Festival that ran earlier in the year in Austin, TX as well this year). Tickets to the show are free to those who can get one to be there for a show live.

This year's list of performers is a broad spectrum of musical genres and generations with everything from electronic/club music to classical and rock and pop and alternative in between. Seriously, we're talking Placido Domingo, Tony Bennett mixed in with Maroon 5, Robert Plant, Lenny Kravitz, Jessie J and Deadmau5, David Guetta and 5 Seconds of Summer not to mention Pharrell Williams, Mary J. Blige and a whole hoard of newer acts opening each night. Great thing for you is that for the month and a little time afterward you can watch any of the shows for free through iTunes or on an Apple TV.

For the last few years, we have cherry picked the few acts that we cared about and fast forwarded through the usually 60 - 90 minute shows to get to the songs we really were interested in seeing. The best parts are often when the bands are interacting with the audience rather than the performances. This year we gave a listen to a few of the acts and I am summarizing them here:

David Guetta and Calvin Harris - I am not much into the club DJ type music, can take it or leave it. However, both of these guys have songs that I do like (Titanium and Summer, respectively). Those were the songs that I was looking for when watching and both were there, of course. In between you have pounding base and strobing light shows. Being at the performances of either would probably be like going to a giant night club, which if that is your thing you would probably have really liked it.

Lenny Kravitz - Lenny has a great catalogue of excellent rock songs and he was belting them out. It was surprising to find out that this was the first gig that he had played with the latest configuration of his backup band because they sounded really good and worked well together. Certainly worth giving a listen to and he definitely made a couple songs into massive jam sessions that are fun (but easier to handle when you can move things along a bit with the clicker).

Blondie - Debbie Harry and the band were fantastic. Hard to believe that she is 69 years old when she is out there playing hit after hit. Almost every other song I turned to my wife and said, hey I forgot Blondie sang that one. For several songs, even after all these years, her vocals were almost identical to how I remember them on the radio. Worth checking out.

Paolo Nutini - The girls in our house have been fans of Paolo for a couple years now and they like a couple songs on his latest album as well. We had actually bought tickets to see him live at the House of Blues in San Diego in September, which happened to be a week or so after he performed at the iTunes Festival. Paolo puts on a soul/blues-vibe infused concert, which we watched live in San Diego and then went back to see if the iTunes performance was the same. Other than the sound and power of the performance being much better live than through the TV, Paolo ran through the same set list for both shows. If you can't get to a live show yourself, the iTunes Festival replay isn't a bad way to go.

Paolo Nutini

All-in-all, being able to see interesting shows from the comfortable confines of my living room without having to go to a festival and mosh around with 100s of people all lifting their phones to take pictures/video is pretty nice. You give up a bit in the audio quality, but maybe that would be better if you watch it on your computer with headphones. Hey and you can even move past the songs you don't care about and try out some bands you may otherwise have never had a chance to hear about. For free, you can't beat that. iTunes Festival gets 4 Mick Happies.

RIP Saturday Morning Cartoons on Broadcast TV

Blackstar

For those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, there were four things we looked forward to each week. 1) Going outside to play with our friends, 2) morning cartoons, 3) afternoon cartoons and 4) Saturday morning cartoons. It seems that somewhere over the years as Saturdays have become filled with shuttling kids off to sports games and College Football or Golf or other events to show on TV, cartoons have become less and less important. I don't have any way to watch broadcast TV, so I haven't been able to watch this change as it happened. That's why it was such a surprise to see this post by Cory Doctorow regarding the CW being the last broadcast network to do away with the Saturday morning schedule. Yes, there are still kids shows on here and there, but gone is the four or five hour block of fun that our parents probably hated to see us sitting in front of each Saturday.

Back in the day, there were so many shows that I enjoyed seeing. I didn't get a chance to watch every Saturday, but I was happy when I did get to catch an episode here and there. Yes, they were probably just there to get me to convince my parents to go and buy some toy or other but I didn't care. Nowadays, there are entire networks devoted to kids shows all day long, but back then we had morning, afternoon and Saturday morning. Plus all of the shows were "free" - at least if you didn't mind watching commercials - and you didn't need a cable subscription to watch. Here are a few of the shows and characters that I would have never known if it wasn't for networks running Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Thudarr the Barbarian - a classic of post-apocalyptic adventure where Thundarr and his friends Princess Ariel and Ookla the Mok. It is a bit cheesy and has a sort of Color-forms over a static background feel but it was awesome. Don't believe me, take a look.

Thundarr the Barbarian

Dungeons & Dragons - Anyone who was pre- or early teens in 1983 - 1985 and liked fantasy probably saw this one. A group of kids on an amusement park ride are transported into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. It was cheesy and too little kid friendly over all, but it was so cool to see D&D on TV. Here's a clip and a link to the script pdf for the unproduced final episode of the show.

Dungeons & Dragons

Super Friends - Of course Saturday morning was littered with Super Heros of all kinds. Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and untold others all had their slots in the morning lineup, but one of the best was the Super Friends. Yes, the Wonder Twins and their pet monkey were also cheesy, but I can't count how many times my wife and I have said, "Wonder Twin powers activate!". Add in Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and even Aquaman and we are going to have a good time.

Super Friends

Wonder Twin Powers Activate

There were of course many many other shows, some included the many versions of Scooby Doo, others were all new like Blackstar. You also had Bugs Bunny Show/Road Runner Show. In between cartoons we also got edu-ma-cated with probably one of the best shows ever, Schoolhouse Rock!. No matter what you think about TV rotting your brain, it didn't, it doesn't and cartoons should be part of everyone's childhood. Yes, I know that looking back they are all dated and nostalgia has elevated them to a status they might not deserve if looked at for the first time today, but they were all Awesome or Rad or Cool and no one can take that away from me.

Conjunction Junction

I'm Just A Bill

Sherlock v Elementary

In the past, I have posted reviews of the BBC show Sherlock and the CBS american Sherlock Holmes adaptation, Elementary, all based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original works. Recently we have been re-watching (mainlining one episode a night of) Sherlock with our daughter (who I think is a Benedict Cumberbatch fan) and the differences between the two versions of the Sherlock Holmes/Watson stories have been interesting to note. Therefore, I give you this set of ramblings about what makes the two shows so intriguingly different.

For those who don't know, Sherlock, starts with Dr. John Watson dealing with his experiences as a doctor in military service when he decides to share a flat with Sherlock Holmes. Watson is then pulled into Sherlock's job as the world's only consulting detective. The show is presented in three ~90 minute episodes per season. Elementary, on the other hand, begins with Dr. Joan Watson becoming the live-in sobriety companion for Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant recovering addict, who consults with the NYC police department. Elementary is presented in the standard american police procedural/crime drama format of 22 episodes a season each ~44 minutes in length.

To get the easy comparisons out of the way, Dr. Watson, is obviously different in each adaptation due to the gender chosen, but their differences go much deeper. In Sherlock, John is a man with a military past and is solid, dependable and able to deal with the physical aspects of being Sherlock Holmes' partner in crime-solving. John is also more of a chronicler of Sherlock's cases through his blog whereas Joan is more of a cerebral partner to Sherlock in the American version. Joan, over the course of the series begins to train almost as Sherlock's protege, becoming a bit of a detective in her own right. That isn't to say that John doesn't also show insight and deductive skills, but his relationship with Sherlock is more as a suffering friend, conscience and chronicler than companion and trainee.

Sherlock himself is also different in many ways. The BBC Sherlock Holmes seems to be a younger Holmes. He is still making his name and beginning to deal with the notoriety that comes from his skill and capabilities. The CBS Sherlock seems older, weathered, he has a past and demons that he is dealing with. We are told but very rarely shown that the CBS Sherlock we find is after his days supporting Scotland Yard and Detective Inspector Lestrade. Both Sherlocks have keen deductive minds and we see both training their minds and bodies on numerous topics. Both have minds that store in numerous facts that they can access as needed. Another interesting difference is how that capability is shown in the two shows. For the BBC Sherlock, we get to see how his mind operates through the use of on-screen text and cutting edits in the video helping us "see" what he is picking up from his observations. The CBS version does similar things but less overtly. Given the longer format of the BBC episodes you are also given more explanation in some instances on how Sherlock comes to his conclusions.

Both shows also have different takes on the other classic characters of the show such as Holmes' brother Mycroft, Irene Adler and, of course, Moriarty. My wife and I both think that the CBS version's take on Adler and Moriarty is more novel and possibly more interesting, however, Andrew Scott's portrayal of the uber-villian is outstanding. Even Detective Inspector Lestrade is quite different between the shows and interesting in both cases. Finally, there is the format of the show itself. By having longer run episodes, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and team are able to craft more dense and intricate stories for the BBC show than you see with the American one. However, you may get slightly less on-screen evolution of the characters. The CBS show seems to be more linear in its timeline with less gaps than are seen on BBC.

If you like crime dramas or layered mysteries or a good police procedural, you can't go wrong with either show. The BBC show is available on-demand through Netflix and is fantastic story-telling. The CBS show is about to return for its third season and we have already purchased our season pass off iTunes to ensure it is available to us (without commercials) the day after it airs. Same characters, same pairing of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, very different takes and characterization. Watch both and enjoy.

Spellfall - Puzzle RPG Review

I like a nice match-3 game with RPG elements. Dr. WHO, Puzzle Quest, 10000000, Hexic all have sucked copious amounts of my waiting time over the years. Take a little move the pieces to make color, item matches and see things blow up and add some battle trappings and power-ups and we are going to have a good time. That made it very easy for Spellfall™ - Puzzle RPG (Spellfall) from Backflip Studios - free on iTunes - to jump right onto my iPad mini.

Spellfall is set in a fantasy world where spellfall has started and monsters are pouring out to take over the land and only duskwalkers (like you) can cast the spells needed to stop them. You cast spells by matching elements on the game board by swapping elements (fire, water, air, electricity, plant) or collect coins. String together more than 3 tiles and you can get powered up elements that can change all the tiles around them when matched. There are also glowing tiles that when matched will give you a special attack. The element structure also comes into play since monsters may be weak to one element or another. You get a certain number of moves before the monster will attack. Monster attacks will lower your hit points, run out and you lose the battle.

In addition to the basic mechanics of swapping and matching tiles, you have equipment you can bring into each battle - armor and weapon - that can also have runes equipped that will give you further power-ups. Equip a heal rune and you can power it up by matching water tiles allowing you to eventually cast a heal and recover hit points in the middle of a battle. You can only have one active rune at a time, so its best to switch to the one you want to power before you make a move on the board.

Being free to play, the main timer in Spellfall is your hit points. If you are low, you can just wait a while and they will recover. Luckily this is not an all at once type recovery and you can choose how long to wait before proceeding to the next battle. You can also spend some of the coins you earn to heal quickly. Coins are pretty easy to come by as you can get them in your battles as well as from areas of the world you have already cleared of monsters. I am only a few areas (about 50 battles) into the game but I am always hovering about 10,000 coins. Coins are also used to buy equipment (which comes in different rarities - of course) and runes from the store - you unlock new items in the store by defeating monsters (one per battle). The inventory rotates so things are constantly entering and leaving the store.

There is a lot of customization you can make to your equipment depending on the runes and items you equip. During battles you also earn experience and rune points that help level you and your runes up. The further along you get into the game, you will run into monsters too tough for you. If so, you can always go back and redo battles you had previously completed to get more experience. The longer the game goes on, monsters can retake areas you have already cleared. Re-clearing them will be harder but give better rewards.

You can play through Spellfall just mindlessly matching tiles, but the real benefit is through deciding the right equipment for the monster you are fighting and carefully deciding which rune to have active before you move. The way Spellfall is monetized is the typical - spend money to get more equipment or to retry a battle ($0.99 per) if you lost. Some items are outrageously expensive (see the $79.99 price per Claideahm sword), but I recommend you avoid them as the one I have doesn't seem to make that much of a difference in battles. To help you get items without spending cash, the game also offers you a mystery box containing one item for free per day. There are also rewards for login in each day - get 20 days in a row and get a Claideahm sword.

Spellfall is a fun match-3 with RPG elements. A lot of work has been put into adding depth in the strategy of equipping your character and choosing which load out to use against each monster. There are also 3 save slots in the game in case you want to run different games on the same device. While not quite at the level of some of the games I mentioned at the start of this review, Spellfall gets 3.5 Mick Happies.

Weekend Movie Round-Up

Pretty much every weekend you will find my family with butts firmly planted on couch or chair with the dog watching TV. Netflix delivers 1 - 3 new videos for us to watch or we rent something from iTunes or dive into our own collection of DVDs. What better way to spend some time than with the whole family doing something we (typically) enjoy while having a bit of popcorn or frozen yogurt dessert. This weekend has been no exception with 3 new (to us) movies from Netflix and one from our own library. Here are some quick reviews of each.

From the Rough - We started with Pierre Bagley's bio-pic about Catana Starks, the first woman to coach a college men's golf team. The setting is Tennessee State University where the administration has just decided to start a golf program. Coach Starks takes over and has to search far and wide for members of her fledgling team. This is a typical feel-good sports movie with a scrappy coach working hard, running into major challenges mid-way through the movie, and then…(well you know). Tajari P. Henson is very convincing as Coach Starks and our favorite character was Roger played by the great (and unfortunately, late) Michael Clarke Duncan. If you want a sports movie that hits all the right notes, you can't go wrong with From the Rough, it gets 4 Mick Happies. Side note, my family usually won't watch sports-based movies with me but they watched this one and enjoyed it.

Draft Day - To follow one sports movie with another, I was on my own. Draft Day stars Kevin Costner as the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns, Sonny Weaver Jr., on the fictional 2014 NFL Draft Day. Joining Costner are Jennifer Garner as his co-worker and girlfriend and Dennis Leary as the Browns Head Coach. In this movie, we are given a glimpse into the high-pressure behind the scenes work at an NFL franchise on one of the biggest days of the year. It is hard to know if what is portrayed on screen is accurate to what goes on in real life, but what you get in Draft Day is compelling and will keep you interested all the way through. Weaver is tasked with making "a splash" to help put fans in seats or it may cost him his job. We get to go along for the ride as Costner deftly plays a man who is on the edge of losing it on the biggest day of his GM career. By the end of the movie, both my wife and daughter had joined me to see how things wrapped up and asked questions to be caught up on what they missed. There are many many ESPN cameos and interesting characters. Draft Day was an excellent movie and never seemed to have a slow point. Draft Day gets 4.5 Mick Happies.

Moms' Night Out - We followed up the sports movies with a comedy about stressed moms and incompetent dads thinking that would be fun. The Andrew and Jon Erwin directed film includes some familiar actors/actresses/celebrities including Patricia Heaton (who we liked from Everybody Loves Raymond), Sean Astin and Trace Adkins. Sarah Drew plays the lead, Allyson, who is losing her mind trying to deal with 3 kids and needs a break. What follows is a car crash of a night as Allyson and two friends try to get a little down time. The movie started off well and hit many of the right notes with some sharp (and accurate) portrayal of the modern stay-at-home overworked mom. It then proceeds to be less fun as the film progresses with the husbands being nearly useless - it's bad with the men without kids are the ones with the most common sense. Trace Adkins is fun as Bones, a tattoo artist the ladies run into. Another quibble with the film is that it is a bit over the top with the presentation of Christian values - I am completely okay with faith-based films, but this one tends to get a little preachy at times and wastes screen time that could have been used for more laughs or wrapping up minor plot points. Overall, Moms' Night Out was the weakest of the films this weekend at 2 Mick Happies.

Hackers - Last but not least, my wife wanted to end on a proven good movie after Moms' Night Out didn't quite leave us happy. Hackers is the classic 1995 film written by Rafael Moreu, directed by Iain Softley and starring none other than Jonny Lee Miller and Angeline Jolie (both looking very much like teenagers - or at least early 20-somethings). The film also has Jesse Bradford and Matthew Lillard along with Lorraine Bracco and Marc Anthony (yep, that one). This is the fictional story of some high school hackers who get into some trouble when they tap into the wrong company's computer and have to fight the company and the FBI to save themselves. Miller plays a hacker who 7 years previously had been indicted for crashing over 1,500 computer systems with a virus. Jolie plays his present day nemesis and, of course, erstwhile love interest. As I said before, this is a classic. There is chain-smoking teenagers, weird outfits, edgy computer geekery, a laughable visualization of the interior of a computer system and generally a lot of fun. Including one of our favorite lines ever about Spandex. You can't go wrong with a movie that has a character named Cereal Killer who proclaims "Look at that pooper". Hackers is a must see if you haven't already and gets 5 Mick Happies. If only 1995 was really like that.

Path of Exile: Forsaken Masters First Impressions and Beyond League Tips

The folks at Grinding Gear Games have done a fantastic job with their free-to-play (except your time) action RPG, Path of Exile. They are consistently tweaking things and have recently released their second expansion, Forsaken Masters. Like their last expansion, Sacrifice of the Vaal, Forsaken Masters (FM) adds new content and changes the overall game in some fundamental ways. FM adds the idea that there are 7 Exiled Masters running around Wraeclast that the player can encounter and can undertake missions to help. The missions might be to recover something, protect something, kill something, etc.

Completing missions will give you favor with that master and get enough and they will level up (up to level 8). At level 3, you will unlock a hideout for your character that is basically your own town area to use as a home-base. Okay, great, Path of Exile now has player homes. However, the key here is that each Master also comes with their own inventory of goods you can buy and can help you modify your existing equipment to add additional "affixes" to make them better. All great. It should be noted that the Master missions are not easy and do require you to play in different ways than you may have in the past (you can't just tank your way through all of them).

Alongside the release of FM, Path of Exile has also added two new challenge leagues, Beyond and Rampage. Rampage is a standard league (you die and can resurrect and keep progressing) where as you string kills together you get more and more outrageous effects. Beyond is the new hardcore league (you die and your journey is done - character transfers to the standard league) where if you kill a large number of monsters in close proximity to each other, a portal may open that brings 4 over-powered demons through to Wraeclast. This mechanic adds a big challenge as the portal could open at any time (often at the least advantageous time for you). I can easily see the Beyond portal mechanic making its way into the regular Path of Exile game after the Beyond league ends. So Beyond is hardcore and has demons popping out all over the place - how can a newbie (which I pretty much am as well) survive and compete?

Well I have a couple suggestions:

• Play multiple characters. I have found it good to run a character through most of Act I (up to or after killing Brutus). Then start another character and run them to the same point. This means if you die trying to kill Merveil you will not have to start over from the very beginning. 
• Plan ahead. Save items that look decent for characters at or below your current level but are best for a different build/character class. This will make it easier to level up your 2nd and 3rd characters. For instance I found Meginord's Girdle unique with my 2nd character and built a Marauder around it and a rare staff I had in my stash - that character is now my highest level one in Beyond after only a few hours playing.
• If you tend to go face-first into fights and tank your way through, load up on life and resistances early. The Marauder I mentioned is currently running over 800 life at level 24 (which is good for me) and helps keep me alive when I have to wade in with heavy strikes.
• Don't be afraid to run away and come back later (or just leave). You don't have to kill everything on screen and in some cases it's best if you don't try. Especially in some of the Haku missions as they are best if you just speed run to the spirit and high-tail it out of there.

I still have a lot to learn and am worried whether or not I can actually get myself out of normal difficulty with any of my Beyond league characters, but I am having a great time trying. If you haven't played Path of Exile or have not been back in a while, now is a good time to give it another shot. The Forsaken Masters expansion gets 5 Mick Happies. See you in Wraeclast.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

I know I read the short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, by James Thurber sometime during middle or high school. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It is the story of a man taking a shopping trip with his wife but who continuously gets distracted with vivid fantasies where he is involved in or doing amazing things. I think if you asked my wife, she would say I am a lot like Walter in that I am often lost in a book or game. In 2013, Ben Stiller starred in the latest adaptation of the story based on a screenplay by Steve Conrad.

I am a bit hit or miss with Ben Stiller movies. I have really enjoyed movies like Along Came Polly, the first Night at the Museum and Mystery Men while others have fallen flat for me. I was interested in seeing how The Secret Life of Walter Mitty would turn out as the trailers had me thinking that the special effects might be way over the top. Luckily for us all, the actual movie was much better than I was expecting.

In the story, Walter Mitty (Stiller), works at Life magazine managing photograph negatives and has been tasked with prepping the cover shot for the final issue. Unlike the original short story, this Walter Mitty is single and love lorn, quiet and reserved but just as prone to daydreams. This is where the over-the-top special effects come in as we are whisked between Walter's real life and his imaginary one. Enter a really horrible take-over manager at the magazine who chooses to pick on Walter when he is found staring blankly off in his own dream world. What follows is the search for the negative and Walter's own character arc from dreamer to doer.

The character arc for Walter is one of the best parts of the movie, followed by his interactions with Patton Oswalt's character, Todd. Kristen Wiig also plays his co-worker and potential love interest and is very subdued and good in the role. Another good part of the film is the smooth transition Walter takes from dreaming to doing that at first leaves you wondering is he dreaming this or is it really happening. Some of the early dream sequences are almost laughably overdone, but then subtly things change and you are left with a somewhat poignant, possibly predictable story of Walter's journey. If you haven't checked this movie out, you should go ahead and rent it right now. I give The Secret Life of Walter Mitty 4 Mick Happies. Now I am off to my fantasy land or in other words, Path of Exile.