Tasting Notes – Part 5

Yet another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don’t really warrant a full post. So here’s what I’ve been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

  • Fringe – I posted about the first couple seasons a while ago, but I’ve recently caught up with Season 3 and most of Season 4. To my mind, the show really came into its own in Season 3. What started out as unfocused and aimless has very slowly evolved into a tight, well-plotted series in season 3. I’m not sure I’d call it great, but Season 3 was a lot of fun. There are some ridiculous things about the series as a whole, and that’s still there, but it all seemed to be worked out in the third season. Season 4, on the other hand, seems to have taken a few steps backward. It’s actually very disorienting. Everything from the first three seasons is now unclear and less important. This was probably their intention, but I’m not entirely sure I like it. I mean, we’ve spent three seasons getting to know these characters, and now we’re in yet another alternate universe with the same characters, but they’re all slightly different. I’m not ready to give up on the show or anything, but it seems like the show is back on its unfocused track…
  • Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Terriers – This is an interesting series. It was cancelled after the first season… and while I can see why (the film is almost incessantly anti-mainstream, often finishing off episodes on a down note), I did still enjoy watching the series.

Movies

  • The Secret World of Arrietty – Solid Studio Ghibli film. Not perfect, but well worth a watch and very different than typical American animated fare. Here’s my question – what’s with the title? It’s so weird and unapproachable, whereas the source material, a book called The Borrowers, seems much more appropriate and marketable. This just makes no sense to me. (I suppose one could also quibble about the term “borrowers” since that implies that the goods will be returned, which doesn’t happen either. There’s actually an interesting discussion to be had here about what constitutes theft/stealing in the world set up in this book/movie.)
  • Act of Valor – A very… strange movie. I don’t quite know what to make of this. It stars actual, active-duty Navy SEALs and… they are clearly not actors. Any scenes with dialogue are a little on the painful side, and it doesn’t help that they keep talking about their families and how they can’t wait to get back to their family and isn’t being a father great? I’d give a spoiler warning for what happens here, but it’s pretty damn obvious from, oh, the first 5 minutes in the movie what’s going to happen at the end. All that being said, the action sequences are very well done and seemingly authentic, though there are a number of scenes shot to resemble a FPS video game. For the first time ever, I think it actually works in this movie, though it’s still a little strange to see movies and video games blending together like that.
  • Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Gambit – Classic heist film starring a very young Michael Caine as a burglar who hires Shirley MacLaine to help rob one of the richest men in the world. Caine’s got a great plan, but of course, things rarely go as planned. Or does it? Tons of twists and turns in this one; very entertaining and satisfying. Highly recommended. (Update: Well, shit, Netflix apparently took it off Instant Streaming… and they don’t even have a DVD for the thing. It is on Amazon Instant though…)

Video Games

  • Shadow of the Colossus – I finished Ico a while ago and I loved it. I’ve since moved on to the other Team Ico game, Shadow of the Colossus. I’ve actually played this before, but I never finished it. The HD remix that’s available on the PS3 now is actually quite nice, though the game still seems a bit stunted to me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got great production design and an interesting structure (basically 16 boss fights and that’s it), but some of the puzzles (i.e. how to defeat each Colossus) are a bit too obtuse, and once you figure them out, it can still be a huge pain to actually defeat your opponent. It just seems like sometimes the game is giving you busy-work just for the sake of doing so… That being said, I’m determined to actually finish the game off, and I am kinda looking forward to the next Team Ico game, which should be coming out sometime this year.
  • Upcoming Video Gamery: Mass Effect 3 came in the mail this week, and I’m greatly looking forward to it. It took me a while to get into part 2, but once I got there, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I’m a little intrigued by the fact that my character/team from the second game can be transferred to this third game. Not sure how dynamic that makes things, but I guess we’ll find out.
  • Other Video Gamery: I’ve played a little Soul Calibur V, and fighting games remain inscrutable for me. I can get some of the basics down, but once I get into the more advanced maneuvers/enemies, I fall apart pretty quickly, and the game doesn’t seem to do a very good job teaching you the more advanced aspects of combat. At this point, I have more fun creating custom characters than actually fighting. I also got a copy of Resistance 3, which is just another FPS with aliens and guns and big explosions and stuff. What can I say, I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.

Books

  • Of the eleven books posted in my last Book Queue, I’ve read 5. I’ve only got two books left in Lois McMaster Bujold’s excellent Vorkosigan Saga, and I’ve posted about some of the other books I’ve read.
  • I’m currently finishing off Shamus Young’s Witch Watch, and I’m enjoying it quite a bit.
  • I may end up finishing off the Vorkosigan books next, but I’m also quite looking forward to famous security wonk Bruce Schneier’s latest book, Liars & Outliers. It promises to be informative and level-headed look at “trust” from a security professional’s standpoint.

The Finer Things

  • I’ve had lots of great beer recently, but I’ll just link over to my beer blog rather than repeat myself here. I’ve been updating that blog much more often than I ever thought I would, and it’s been a lot of fun. Check it out!
  • I think I’ll be posting on Sunday about my next Homebrew. I had originally planned to make it an “Earl Grey” beer, but it turns out that food-grade Bergamot oil is somewhat hard to come by (most of what you can find is made for external use). I may still end up getting some flavor from a few teabags of Earl Grey, but it will probably be less prominent than originally planned. Again, more details to come.

And that’s all for now…