The Monthly Legend of Korra Review: And so it begins!
Welcome everyone! This is AttheBuzzershow.com’s monthly review/summary of what’s happened in The Legend of Korra! Every month I’ll be looking back on the adventures of Korra and her fellow Fire Ferrets as they struggle to keep peace in Republic City. If you haven’t been keeping up with the show, then what are you waiting for!? Swing by Nick.com and give them a look see! [Please note that at the time of writing this episode 4 still wasn’t available on their official website.] Or do what I do and watch them through iTunes! This month I’ll be covering the episodes “Welcome to Republic City“, “A Leaf in the Wind“, “The Revelation” and “The Voice in the Night“.
As this monthly review will be touching on characters and events that have already happened in the show, Spoilers will abound. You’ve been warned… Continue reading “The Monthly Legend of Korra Review: And so it begins!”
Watch Me Make Endings Better (Spoilers)
Frequent show contributor and At the Buzzer movie review Gary Sundt and I are working on a few scripts to break our way into Hollywood (admittedly, Gary is doing a better job than I). I need this to happen, because right now I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who knows how to write a good ending.
Good endings aren’t hard. All you need to do is find the right blend of the ENDING TRIFECTA (patented by me). The ending trifecta is composed of resolution, satisfaction, and artistic closure. Like the perfect recipe, you need a little of each to really have a great ending. If you resolve everything by explaining what happens to every character, but the resolution is that every character is killed in a horrible fashion, this satisfies the resolution and artistic closure of your ending, but offers no fan satisfaction (unless the fans hated your characters). Likewise, if you attempt to satisfy your fans by offering a cookie cutter happy ending, you might sacrifice true character and event resolution, as well as the final exploration of your artistic themes.
It’s a tough balance. Except it’s not. Watch me cover some universally maligned endings and demonstrate how they easily could have been made better. Continue reading “Watch Me Make Endings Better (Spoilers)”
At the Buzzer (04/26/12)
Episode 41: Gym Class Zeroes — The guys welcome back special guest Jason Hagerty, discuss the finer points of a night club for pre-teens, and explain their imaginary celebrity status in Buzz Questions. Also, Chris plans a movie scene with Scarlett … Continue reading At the Buzzer (04/26/12)
Holidaze
Did everyone have a good holiday?
What? You mean you didn’t get the great holiday of Earth Day off of work? Well, good thing that Arbor Day is coming up, we’ll get to take some time to celebrate that right? Oh, you don’t know what day that actually is (I didn’t either, it’s the last Friday in April).
When I say the word holiday, usually people think of Christmas, or Thanksgiving. But there are all sorts of weird holidays out there that most people don’t observe, or even know exist. I think that I’m going to use this space to educate America about our lesser known holidays. Who knows? You might just find that new holiday to love and embrace. Continue reading “Holidaze”
Going the Distance 025: Might As Well Jump
This is an ollllllld submission by Nick Fiala that actually ran in the newspaper. You’ll notice he was still a senior in college at the time. So adorable. In Going the Distance, our main character, “You,” has to manage to make his way to delicious cake. Sounds simple, right? But there are deadly spikes to deal with, and a host of other problems that appear each time. Let’s just say You fails more often than You succeeds. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a quest if You could just get cake whenever You wanted, would it? For more background … Continue reading Going the Distance 025: Might As Well Jump
The Return of Golf and Other Thoughts
Shaun and I were down in Phoenix over the weekend and some of the usual hijinks ensued. We played golf in the scorching heat (seriously, why in the hell is it 105 degrees in mid-April?), and have the videos to prove it. As always, you can subscribe to our Youtube channel to get the latest updates on when things like this are put up.
We also were part of a farewell party for our news girl, Molly. No, she’s not leaving the show (despite all the content she’s made us lose). She’s going overseas for a year to help teach kids English through song and dance. Supposedly everyone was going to be swimming at this party, but Shaun and I were tricked and ended up being the only ones. I also set a modern-day record for most giant Hebrew National hot dogs eaten before swimming.
Finally, we went to the Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses concert on Saturday night. Definitely worth the money. Even though the balcony seats weren’t spectacular, they still provided a perfectly good view of the proceedings. One of the neat touches was a monitor by the conductor’s stand that allowed the conductor to sync the timing of the orchestra with videos that were playing on a giant screen in the background. It allowed the sound and video to work together to tell something like a small story and really added to the experience.
Anyway, busy weekend, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about it on this week’s show. In the meantime, here are those golf videos.
Games you shouldn’t miss: Alice & Alice: Madness Returns
For those of you who know me pretty well, you won’t be surprised about today’s topic. American McGee’s Alice and its sequel Alice: Madness Returns are two games that, upon my discovery of them, quickly turned me not only into a die-hard fan of the games themselves, but of Alice in Wonderland as a whole. With the exception of MMOs and long RPGs like the Mass Effect and Persona games, no other game series has eaten more of my time. And it’s the only game I’ve decided to play through a third time. Trust me, folks, that doesn’t happen often. Most games are lucky if they can make me play them twice.
So what is it about American McGee’s unique take on Alice’s adventures that has captured me so? Well, I’ll tell you. Hope you’re ready for a trip down the rabbit hole! Continue reading “Games you shouldn’t miss: Alice & Alice: Madness Returns”
Rack Focus Review: Tiny Furniture
Graduating from college comes with an overwhelming ennui that leads graduates to believe we are being utterly underutilized in a society that can’t appreciate our over-education. We’re entitled to everything because, after all, we know everything there is to know about life. Tiny Furniture, which won best narrative feature at SXSW 2010, is about learning that we actually don’t know anything except nobody else (including our successful friends and parents) knows anything either.
Dunham is Aura, a recent graduate from a prestigious liberal arts college who returns home to live in her mother’s shwanky loft in Tribeca, New York. She hates living at home, as it contains her artsy mother (Laurie Simmons) and her obnoxious younger sister (Grace Dunham), but knows the arrangement is only until she gets an apartment with her best college friend (Merritt Wever). Until then, it’s job hunting and catching up with peers, who all seem to have their lives on the road to being sorted out. Surrounded by the young, artistic and sardonic, Aura is forced to ponder whether she should be creating, reading, meeting people, or joining the work force regimen. In the meantime, she’d much rather sulk. Her only apparent modicum of comfort comes from Charlotte (Jemima Kirke), a childhood friend with a maybe-British accent who concerns herself with none of these details. Continue reading “Rack Focus Review: Tiny Furniture”
Time Traveling Socks: Please Save the Environment
If I could invent anything, it would definitely be time-control socks. I’ve given this some thought. No such thing, you say? Ridiculous. A hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus said the earth was flat. Now look where we are. One democratic nation, united under cheeseburgers and Lee Greenwood’s I’m Proud to Be an American. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you? Exactly. Forge your own path. Seize the day.
Now that I’ve broken you down with my argument, I need to explain the idea of the continuum altering footwear. Somewhere, somehow, someone has invented these socks, and it’s up to me to find them. It’s my destiny. Continue reading “Time Traveling Socks: Please Save the Environment”
At the Buzzer (04/19/12)
Episode 40: Dinner with Marty’s Kids — The guys talk about booby-trapped speed bumps, figure out the best items you could steal from a movie, and lay down the law in top-three lists in Buzzcut. Also, Chris plots to steal Dave’s … Continue reading At the Buzzer (04/19/12)
