Enslaved

Red Dead Redemption appealed to me on many levels, I loved the mechanics and the setting, but mostly it was the fact that I got to pretend to be a cowboy. I knew what I was doing, I knew what I was getting myself into. It was sort of like playing Cowboys and Indians when I was kid, these kids were the bad guys, these kids were the good guys. It was an appeal to my childhood and fondness for spaghetti westerns, albeit in the most violent way possible.
I bring that up as an example of the many different ways in which a game can hook someone. RDR gave me a cowboy hat and a six-shooter and let me do pretty much anything I wanted to with it. Enslaved on the other hand took me on a journey and it was proof positive that theres still something beautiful that can be done with the guided single-player experience.
Was it linear? Hell yes. Was the combat simplified? Absolutely. But it wasn't about leveling up and fighting evil robots, it was about developing your relationship with Trip until the point that you didn't need a slaves headband to be tied to her anymore. You wanted to help her see her mission through.
The affection that Monkey develops for Trip felt real. He saw her as this silly girl that was as fragile as a flower. Until her naïveté revealed itself as genuine fear. She wasn't a fragile flower that could be broken by single mechanical footstep, but someone who had no idea what she was doing or where her life was headed, much the same as Monkey himself. Where Monkey masks his fear with his acrobatic ability and proficiency for robot murder, Trip masks it in her unending optimism. Even in the face of utter despair and loss, she picks her self up and refocuses on her next mission.
The only complaint I could have about this game, is that it wasn't longer. I never felt like this wasn't worth my $60 dollars. I just wanted to play it more, which isn't something I could say about many games. It never overstayed its welcome, even though I kind of wanted it to.

Superman on film

I was never a big fan of the Richard Donner Superman films. I'm sorry, I just wasn't. They were mostly well done, but they haven't aged well (not to mention Gene Hackman's truly odd portrayal of Lex Luthor.) Despite that, I'm quite fond of Superman Returns. Sure it is flawed, but most movies are. Its biggest issue for me being that it tied itself so closely to the Donner-verse, going so far as making Kevin Spacey (a brilliant choice for the role) basically ape Gene Hackmans character that was tired when it was first put to film.
I've got high hopes for Zach Snyders Superman. He gave fanboys exactly what they needed with Watchmen and  I think that he can do it again with Superman. I want him to be careful with the material, but not too careful. For all the wonder, magic and fun that the Donner film had it still never achieved the sense of scale, power and might that Singer's Superman had. I'm hoping the Snyder can combine the two version, or make his own independent of what came before. Because Superman is a wonderful character that really does deserve a second chance at cinematic brilliance.

Sometimes I wish I could turn off my Design Nerd sensibilities...

By all indications the new Irrational developed Bioshock game looks pretty great and has more potential to be great than any other game of recent memory. So it is with a heavy heart that I admit something about the announcement bothered me: I could be wrong, but I think the font they used for the word "Bioshock" in the Bioshock Infinite logo is Helvetica.

What an nerdy thing to call out. Sorry, I can't turn it off. Its not disappointing and it doesn't make me mad, I just noticed it. It stands out even more because the first Bioshock had such an incredible sense of place and time and I think they're use of period typefaces really worked (for me at least) in selling the world of Rapture.

Helvetica was developed in 1957 by the Haas Typefoundry, a full 45 years after the game in question is set. A more accurate font might have been Akzidenz Grotesk, to non-type nerds the difference is negligible. But to type-nerds like myself, it means the world.

I'm glad at least that they didn't use Arial.

Iron Man 2

Marvel Studios gave you exactly what you wanted. You wanted a movie franchise that tied into something larger, in this case, The Avengers. In that respect, Iron Man 2 was a wonderful film. In comparison to other non-superhero or comic book movies, maybe it wasn't the best, certainly not as good as the first Iron Man to be sure.
There were probably too many characters to keep track of, and probably too many plot points as well. But it worked. Why? Because its the first for reals attempt at a comic book movie.
I always appreciated Ang Lee's Hulk for it's action-in-frames approach. He wanted to make it feel like you were watching a comic book come to life. But I think he missed the point. The frames aren't really the secret sauce of why we like comic books or why we like movies made from comic books. That secret sauce is pretty simple: dangling plot threads.
I stopped reading comics regularly after Civil War for the simple reason that the need to constantly leave the story open ended just left me frustrated. The best comics wrap themselves up after they tell their story, then they move on. But the stakes that were set in forth with Civil War were immediately undone by whatever the fuck the next event was. They needed to set up the next thing, thus giving valuable plotting to a story we didn't really give a shit about. "Oh guys, Hulk is coming back. That should be fun." Turns out, nowhere near as fun as Civil War.
Iron Man 2 gave us exactly what we asked for. It established the universe in which future Marvel movies will be set, and as a result had an ultimately underwhelming climax that removed the stakes, in an effort to leave enough room as possible to establish the next story. In essence, it did exactly what Marvel comics have been doing for decades.

Jeff Mangum vs. Mount Eerie, but not really

Did you ever go to a show and when whatever band it is plays your favorite song, you get kind of mad because it doesn't sound exactly like the version you've heard a million times. Maybe they change one line, or they play the guitar a bit differently, and it kind of throws you off. Its sort of like having someone show you a picture of your wife, but with the eyes a different color or maybe a little freckle is missing. Its not bad, it just throws you off for a second. I'm totally that way with Wooly Mammoths Absence by Mount Eerie, in that I really only like one version of that song (from the 7 new songs mini LP) even though its popped up a million different places and on a couple bootlegs.

I spent the last half hour watching youtube video of a Jeff Mangum performance at the knitting factory in NYC from 1998 and I am amazed and how much the live songs hes playing sound like the album I've listened to more than I can remember. I almost think they overdubbed it or something, but then again, maybe that dude is like a human tape player, he just plays the same thing over and over and over and there's only one entirely perfect version of it in his head and that's the one he plays.

I can't decide which approach I prefer. I love the organic nature of Mount Eerie's performances but as a fella who loves to be able to control and manipulate things in a specific order in a specific way, I'm tending toward the Jeff Mangum approach.