Posts categorized “Of the Month”

Link of the Month:
Don Hertzfeldt’s BitterFilms.com
Does the name Don Hertzfeldt sound familiar to you? It probably should. By the time he was 23 he’d already been nominated for an Academy Award and been included in the top 100 most influential animators of all time, and at 33 (just a couple of years ago) he’d won a lifetime achievement award. His deceptively simple stick-figure-animation films are shockingly funny and disturbing and profound. And they’re only available through him personally. I urge you to watch as many of them as you can (or can stomach).

DVD & Game of the Month:
Super Mario 3D Land
This 3D Mario game eschews the more open-world, mission-based gameplay of previous 3D Mario games like Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy. Instead, it takes a simple pose: what if you took the straight-ahead, level-based gameplay of New Super Mario Bros., but made it 3D? The result is a fascinating and very fun.

TV Show of the Month:
Stephen Fry in America
In 2008 Stephen Fry took a tiny, black, British taxi and drove it through all 48 lower states (then flew to Alaska and Hawaii). It is a very charming, witty, dry, and lovely travelogue in six hour-long episodes from the perspective of a very charming, witty, dry, and lovely British gentleman. True, some states get a bit of a short shrift (Ohio and Idaho come instantly to mind), and Florida doesn’t come out so well. But Mr. Fry stops in some delightfully unexpected places as well. In the end it seems a delightful but somehow all too brief visit from our darling neighbor from across the pond.

Link of the Month:
SomaFM
My favorite internet radio website, I’m particularly fond of the “Lush” and “Indie Pop Rocks!” stations. SomaFM is different in that each station actually has a programming director-slash-DJ who personally picks all the songs and when they play; it isn’t just some database of songs put on shuffle. And because the focus is on the indie and the unusual, you’re not going to hear very many of the songs that you’ll hear on real FM radio. I started listening to them because of their excellent Christmas station, and I’ve stayed on for the long haul now. Since it’s user-supported there are no commercial breaks (other than the occasional station ID break). It’s a great way to discover new and exciting musics.

DVD & Game of the Month:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Nintendo has their Zelda formula down. Do you like the other Zelda games? Then you will probably like this one. The addition of the Wii Motion Plus makes it so that the fights require more skill than just button mashing; Link’s sword now mimics the Wiimote in your hand. It has a different feel than many of the other games, with a different set of friendly races you encounter and an overworld that consists of (sadly under-utilized) flying mechanics. Several standard Zelda tropes are given interesting spins. Listen, it’s a Zelda game, okay? Play it; you’ll like it.

TV Show of the Month:
Krazy Times With a “K” — The Complete Series
Okay, so the show is actually called NewsRadio, not Krazy Times With a “K” — but one time (back when the show was on the air) Dave Foley was interviewed by Conan O’Brien and they refused to call it anything but Krazy Times With a “K.” Anyhoo, NewsRadio is one of my very favorite 90s sitcoms, with characters who just get legitimately crazier and crazier as the seasons go on until by the end it’s more like a sneak peek inside an hilarious insane asylum than it is a traditional sitcom. I laugh a lot, at Bill’s increasingly nightmarish childhood (“Good times… good times…”) and Dave’s ever-increasing number of bizarre and unpopular skills he used to practice (like tap dancing, knife throwing, and playing Stargate: Defender), and of course Matthew’s masterful physical comedy. Good times… good times…

Link of the Month:
My Christmas Wish List
Merry Shameless Christmas to Me!

Album of the Month:
A Very She & Him Christmas
She & Him, aka Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, have come out with a very simple, minimalist Christmas album. The vocal reverb is turned up, and the instruments are kept to a minimum. Sometimes it’s just a ukulele; sometimes just a guitar that sounds like it’s straight outta the 1950s. There are only a couple of songs that bring in a full band (one even has backing vocals). The result is a soothing, somewhat spacey and dreamy set of Christmas standards. I like it.

TV Special the Month:
A Muppet Family Christmas
A great 1987 Christmas special that combines the Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and even Muppet Babies (appearing as puppets) in one glorious, nostalgic feast of warm feelings and happy times. Problems with the rights to some songs have caused the “official” video & DVD releases of this movie to be edited all to Hell, but right now you can watch the unedited version on YouTube… before it gets taken down!

Link of the Month:
Retro Game Master on Kotaku
My new favorite thing on the internet, Retro Game Master (GameCenter CX as it is originally known in Japan) is a show about watching a man, Arino “The Kacho,” play video games. That’s it. At the beginning of the episode he’s given a video game he’s never played before, and he tries his damnedest to beat it. You wouldn’t think watching that for an hour would be at all entertaining, but you’d be so very wrong. Here’s the thing: Arino is not very good at video games. He’s not really an expert. So it’s fascinating to watch him struggle and figure out how to do things. Secondly, Arino is the very definition of affable. He is just so easily charismatic and likeable that you get drawn into his struggle and each small victory on the way to beating a game becomes your small victory, and each defeat becomes your defeat. Arino also is so good-natured about the whole affair; he never gets angry when things don’t go his way, he just makes a little self-effacing jokes and little sighs. No matter how bad things get for him, he never allows it to bring him down. And that’s what in the end is worth watching.

Album of the Month:
Brite Futures: Dark Past
Brite Futures used to be known as “Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head.” They changed their name for obvious reasons. This is their second album, and it seems like a straight-ahead extension of their first, Glistening Pleasure. And I mean that in a good way. This album is just pure, giddy fun. It’s excellently-crafted disco-pop-synth-rock straight out of the ’70s and ’80s. But all of the songs are from a slightly skewed point of view or are about subject matters that are just slightly… off. They’re funny, but they’re sung with such earnestness that the tongue is planted firmly in the cheek, like Flight of the Concords, Jonathan Coulton, and Tenacious D. I love it.

Movie of the Month:
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
A fascinating documentary portrait of a man who is so driven to make people have a good time that he just cannot stop. At all. And it’s so frikkin’ hilarious. It’s like Conan is a man who knows his purpose in life, and every instant wherein he is not fulfilling his purpose to his utmost feels wasted to him. Throughout the course of this film he routinely wrings himself dry onstage to the point of utter exhaustion, then goes backstage and greets fans and fellow celebrities with just as much (if not more) gusto. It’s like a never-ending fountain of manic entertainment. He periodically complains about it, but he never actually intentionally snubs anyone (even in one terribly awkward exchange with a racist young man). You get the sense that Conan O’Brien is the kind of man who would run across no-man’s land in WWI just to get to a soldier on the other side and make him laugh. It’s a good thing he’s so funny.

Link of the Month:
Urban Threads
While I don’t like their name (“Hey, let’s add the word ‘urban’ to our company’s name to make it sound hip end exciting to the youthful demographic” – they might have well as added a “Z” to the end of “Threads” instead of an “S”), I do like that Urban Threads is taking embroidery out of the realm of the 55-plus-year-old ladies and putting into the hands of artist who actually make legitimately cool stuff. Urban Threads specializes in quirky, spooky, and steampunk designs (they collectively refer to it as “stitchpunk”), all of which are perfect for Halloween costumes and decor.

Game of the Month:
Barrr
An incredibly addictive game wherein you run a pirate bar and have to manage your flow of customers (all pirates) as they drink beer at a bar, get a tattoo from an adorable redhead, play some darts, need to pee, and play some video games or some Rock Band. The art style is incredibly kawaii, and Pirates are kinda Halloween-ish, right? Available for Android devices.

Movie of the Month:
Trollhunter
A surprisingly engaging “found footage” horror movie in the vein of Blair Witch and Cloverfield, about a group of enterprising journalism students who hope to track down and interview a bear poacher in Norway. They quickly discover that bears aren’t what he’s actually hunting. A great use of a low budget and some very effective CGI as the group encounters increasingly dangerous categories of trolls, with some amusing discussions of troll physiology and behavior along the way. There’s a wonderful scene where this badass trollhunter sits down to eat breakfast in a diner in a sweater vest and glasses and you realize that he just looks like someone’s kindly grandfather or uncle. I really appreciated how quickly the movie got into the business of getting the trolls right up there on the screen in plain sight and dealing with them instead of keeping them a shadowy secret until a big climactic reveal at the end.

Link of the Month:
Comic Book Resources
It’s weird; I have a strangely encyclopedic knowledge of comic books, especially from the Marvel universe. Here’s where I go to get all my comic book news.

Album of the Month:
Leeni: The Only Now
Sometimes I think I’d like to meet Leeni, but then I think I might inadvertently creep her out because (1) I also make chiptune music, (2) I also play the ukulele, (3) I also do improv comedy. I’m like a guy version of her except I can’t sing. Fortunately she can. In this album, her third full release as a chiptune musician, her silky, ethereal, dreamy vocals are smoother than ever, and her chiptune compositions (with some added enhancements) are intricate and lovely. There were a dozen amazing albums that came out in the past few weeks, but Leeni ends up winning this month.

TV of the Month:
Community: The Complete Second Season
Still the funniest TV show currently on the air. The 2nd season did not perhaps have as strong of an overall arc as the first season. There were storylines that seemed like they were gonna be important or go somewhere that ultimately ended up fizzling or going somewhere it didn’t quite seem like they belonged. But this season still has some of the best episodes of any TV series ever (yes, I will go on record with that), the highlight perhaps being the D&D episode. Just unbelievably creative television making by everyone involved. It’s inspiring and a bit depressing because I know no matter how hard I tried I’d never be able to make a TV show this good.

Link of the Month:
Project Rooftop
As Project Runway is to fashion, Project Rooftop is to Superhero fashion. This site is dedicated to imagining redesigns of comic book uniforms and outfits. It has news on all new costumes worn by comic book superheroes, and it also takes submissions come from all over (you can submit stuff yourself if you want). It’s shockingly engaging to read and look at.

Album of the Month:
Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount: Is There Room For Me?
*Contented sigh* The 2nd album from the Seattle superstars is every bit the masterpiece that their first one was. Another album funded through a grassroots Kickstarter campaign that exceeded what it asked for, this album is destined to be my album of the year. Just like their last album.

Game of the Month:
The Humble Indie Bundle
Not just one game, the Humble Indie Bundle is a periodic release of a handful of the best video games from independent game makers. You can get some games that are really unique, and best of all it’s name your price for the whole set! Pay what you think they’re worth or what you can afford. This is a great way to get exposed to some games you wouldn’t otherwise ever know about.