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Just for the Shell of It
I’m beginning to wonder how insulted I should be that my childhood is, for the lack a better phrase, being optioned left and right for feature-length capsules of nostalgia. On the one hand, it’s hard not to get excited about the potential of all the scenarios you played out in your head with your favorite action figures coming to life on screen; on the other, there exists the very real possibility that watching your favorite characters reimagined on screen will cheapen those memories. This year brings the most egregious, and most promising, examples of this practice, with July’s Transformers and this month’s TMNT. -
Spektral Music
Common wisdom tells us that a plethora of vocal ticks set against alternatingly opulent and cutesy orchestration doesn’t make for a successful album. But if the title of her 2004 album Soviet Kitsch is any indicator, Regina Spektor seems to have come to terms with the arrangement and made it work in her favor. The Russian-born singer-songwriter makes a strong case for that fact with her 2006 follow-up, Begin to Hope, an album that asks you to love it, warts and all. The good news for Spektor is that she makes it near impossible to refuse. -
Spoiler Alert
The best moment of the entire LOST season so far: as Locke makes the submarine explode, Kelly Anne, with perfect comic timing, shouts “you sunk my battleship!”
…and that pretty much sums up how I feel about LOST this season. The jokes we make while watching the show are more exciting than the show itself. The last few episodes have been okay, but haven’t made up for the Jack tattoo episode and Hurley’s love letter to Little Miss Sunshine.
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Puttin’ Off the Ritz
I’ve been living on the outskirts of Philadelphia for nearly 25 years (that is, my entire life) and have been writing amateur film reviews for only five or so, but, embarrassingly, I have only recently learned to take advantage of the art house Ritz Theaters chain in the city. For the longest time, I was afraid of the big, bad city and relegated my movie watching to big chains in the burbs. Even so, I feel a bit nostalgic and a bit upset to learn that the three Ritz Theaters are being sold to a national indie theater chain. -
Repeat Business
Okay, so I’m the owner of one of the most coveted, coolest gaming systems out there, the Nintendo Wii, and I’ve got a MacBook that runs Windows for all my Lego Star Wars II and Madden 2007 needs. I’ve spoiled myself a little bit when it comes to gaming entertainment, even if I consider myself anything but a gamer (I don’t ever recall having “fragged” anyone, nor do I claim to know what the hell that even means). But until recently, there was still a gaming itch I’ve been dying to scratch. The need was fulfilled this weekend when Movie Hawk cohort Pat bought himself an XBox 360 and passed his previous-generation XBox along to yours truly in exchange for a couple beers. What do I plan to do with this new-to-me system…play some Halo? Get my Knights of the Old Republic on? Get a dance pad and hit up some DDR? Not quite yet (real answer key: no, probably, maybe some day once I get the bobbleheads off my entertainment center and out of harm’s way). The very first thing I did was run to my local gaming establishment and right up to the “used” rack, where I bought EA Sports’ NCAA March Madness 2004 and began recreating my beloved Hawks’ 2003-04 perfect season.
Archive: March, 2007