Holiday Reviews
Apr. 20th, 2014 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThere was a time when I'd go abroad for two weeks and come back having watched five or six films and read nearly as many books.
Apparently, I spent my time on this trip on things other than consuming media!
I did watch a couple of films on the flight out, though, and I did read one book. Plus, we played a few new games, too.
The Butler:
Good, but a bit long and a bit dour. Plus, up until the very end, Forrest Whitaker seemed to be the only one who actually got any older. The casting of the various presidents was really interesting, and I thought the contrast of approach between Cecil and his son was well drawn. It was a bit dry, though, and it all went by quite quickly - just snapshots over the 80-odd years, really - so it was difficult to get a sense of the weight and importance of it all.
Thor: The Dark World:
A good contrast with the above, though not necessarily a good film, per se. It pretty much reflected its hero in tone and content - a big, dumb blond of a movie. It was all very attractive to look at, and it moved along at a fair clip, but there wasn't much in the way of actual substance, and it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Plus, it had one of the dullest, most lacking in personality, bad guys I've ever come across. I loved the Captain America cameo (sort of), though, and Loki was good value, as ever.
Looking for Alaska by John Green:
The man has a good turn of phrase, but he certainly likes his melodramatic teenage tragedy! He also has a weird tendency to inexplicably change tense in the narrative, which I find very annoying - though I suspect there was a reason behind it that I didn't get. The story and the characters pulled me in, though, and I liked the existential zen of the conclusion. But it didn't fully engage my emotions the way The Fault In Our Stars did. I'm going to read his other two books as well, but I think John Green is going to be one of those authors where I prefer the real-life stuff he does (video blogs, crash course, etc) more than his fictional work.
Lords of Waterdeep:
The major gaming success of the holiday - a worker allocation game which is fairly simple but still a lot of fun. We went to an excellent games night in a coffee shop in Mountain View, and the guy who runs it taught me how to play. As he explained the rules, I kept thinking, "Oh, that's a bit like Stone Age" or "That's like one of the aspects of Puerto Rico" or "Okay, so that's the same as Thunderstone: Advance". It's very much made up of familiar game mechanics, but it has its own charms, and I really enjoyed it. Didn't hurt that I won the first twice we played, either!
Smash Up and Sentinels of the Multiverse:
I've put these two together as they have certain similarities. In one, you have two types of units and play cards against different location cards to gain points in competition with the other players. In the other, you play a super hero, working with the other players against the environment and the villain. In both, you have your own deck of cards that do various things and you have to work out the best combinations to defeat the enemy cards in play. Both games had a certain appeal - the themes were good, and some of the cards were interesting - but they're not my favourite type of game. I won Smash Up, which was quite satisfying as I felt I played my deck quite well, but we all died in Sentinels.
Apparently, I spent my time on this trip on things other than consuming media!
I did watch a couple of films on the flight out, though, and I did read one book. Plus, we played a few new games, too.
The Butler:
Good, but a bit long and a bit dour. Plus, up until the very end, Forrest Whitaker seemed to be the only one who actually got any older. The casting of the various presidents was really interesting, and I thought the contrast of approach between Cecil and his son was well drawn. It was a bit dry, though, and it all went by quite quickly - just snapshots over the 80-odd years, really - so it was difficult to get a sense of the weight and importance of it all.
Thor: The Dark World:
A good contrast with the above, though not necessarily a good film, per se. It pretty much reflected its hero in tone and content - a big, dumb blond of a movie. It was all very attractive to look at, and it moved along at a fair clip, but there wasn't much in the way of actual substance, and it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Plus, it had one of the dullest, most lacking in personality, bad guys I've ever come across. I loved the Captain America cameo (sort of), though, and Loki was good value, as ever.
Looking for Alaska by John Green:
The man has a good turn of phrase, but he certainly likes his melodramatic teenage tragedy! He also has a weird tendency to inexplicably change tense in the narrative, which I find very annoying - though I suspect there was a reason behind it that I didn't get. The story and the characters pulled me in, though, and I liked the existential zen of the conclusion. But it didn't fully engage my emotions the way The Fault In Our Stars did. I'm going to read his other two books as well, but I think John Green is going to be one of those authors where I prefer the real-life stuff he does (video blogs, crash course, etc) more than his fictional work.
Lords of Waterdeep:
The major gaming success of the holiday - a worker allocation game which is fairly simple but still a lot of fun. We went to an excellent games night in a coffee shop in Mountain View, and the guy who runs it taught me how to play. As he explained the rules, I kept thinking, "Oh, that's a bit like Stone Age" or "That's like one of the aspects of Puerto Rico" or "Okay, so that's the same as Thunderstone: Advance". It's very much made up of familiar game mechanics, but it has its own charms, and I really enjoyed it. Didn't hurt that I won the first twice we played, either!
Smash Up and Sentinels of the Multiverse:
I've put these two together as they have certain similarities. In one, you have two types of units and play cards against different location cards to gain points in competition with the other players. In the other, you play a super hero, working with the other players against the environment and the villain. In both, you have your own deck of cards that do various things and you have to work out the best combinations to defeat the enemy cards in play. Both games had a certain appeal - the themes were good, and some of the cards were interesting - but they're not my favourite type of game. I won Smash Up, which was quite satisfying as I felt I played my deck quite well, but we all died in Sentinels.
