I think every Friday I’ll try to post a list of the best and worst stuff that has crossed my various screens during the week. I’m calling it Jams and Slams because that’s the stupidest name I could think of.
This Week’s Jams:
- Adventure Time. I saw the pilot for this cartoon a while back, thought it was cute, and promptly forgot about it. Then I caught an episode earlier this week and completely fell in love with it. It’s a cartoon kids will like because Jake the Dog and Finn the Human are brave, cute, and have silly, romping adventures in a magical world filled with oddball characters. Adults can enjoy it because it’s funny and a bit dark: Finn is the only human left on earth after an apocalypse (clues to which are scattered around the episodes), and the supporting cast of characters are often psychotic and dangerous. The best thing about just signing on to this show is that Cartoon Network reruns a handful of episodes per day, so your DVR can quickly be chock full of them.
- Breaking Bad and Inside Men. Breaking Bad has returned for its final season, comprised of eight episodes this year and eight more next year. Walter White is now the full-on bad guy, less the loving family man and more the merciless Heisenberg. Inside Men is a four episode series broadcast on BBC America (the final, slightly disappointing episode aired this week), about a milquetoast money manager who plans and executes a multimillion dollar heist. Both shows have something in common: a wimpy dweeb reaches deep down inside himself and finds the cold, calculating heart of a master criminal.
- Spelunky for X-Box 360. I’ve played my share of Spelunky on PC, the completely unforgiving platform adventure, and I’m pretty amazed at how the X-Box 360 version turned out. Dare I even say it: it’s better than the original. Unfortunately, I’m still terrible at it. Tom Francis, our ambassador to Spelunky, has written regularly and enjoyably about both versions.
- 40 More of the Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings. The original list of 40 is one of my favorite internet things ever, and I’m thrilled to see 40 more have been added. A brutal and hilarious takedown of one of the most successful (and bafflingly so) comic book artists.
- Steam’s Summer Sale. Steam is once again selling ALL OF THE THINGS. And so, you will be reading about me playing Train Simulator sometime soon. Lucky you.
This Week’s Slams:
- Conan The Barbarian (2011): Wow. I figured this film could go one of two ways: fun to watch because it’s fun, or fun to watch because it’s crap. Somehow, it’s just no fun at all because it’s astoundingly boring. I made two stabs at watching it on two different nights and fell asleep both times.
- The Trailer for Looper. I’m sort of obsessed with the idea of this film. As I understand it, the mafia uses time travel to send their enemies into the past to have them killed, which seems needlessly complex and potentially disastrous. If you must use time travel to whack people, why not at least kill them first and then send their dead bodies back to dinosaur times? Also, why do it at all? Don’t they have rolled-up carpets and woodchippers in the future? But my main question is, why cover Joseph Gordon-Levitt with distracting amounts of makeup and prosthetics to make him look like a young Bruce Willis, when even with distracting amounts of makeup and prosthetics he doesn’t look anything like Bruce Willis? And, if you’re going to cover Joseph Gordon-Levitt with distracting amount of makeup and prosthetics anyway, why not just make him look like Old Joseph Gordon-Levitt and have him play both versions of himself? The mind reels.
- Pornographic Classics: Due to the phenomenal success of Fifty Shades of Grey, some classic novels like Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea are being retrofitted and re-released with explicit sex scenes. The publisher asks, “You didn’t really think that these much-loved characters only held hands and pecked cheeks, did you?” No, I fully assumed Sherlock Holmes was humping Dr. Watson, and I was right.