Still patiently awaiting for Super Mario Bros 2 to become available in the NES Direct realm. It was supposed to drop today. 

This was a solid ‘down the middle’ episode for me. Part of me loved the concept of how each of the Belcher kids’ personalities come out during their time with the ‘choose your own adventure’ style movie recap. That said, at least for me, the biggest laughs for Bob’s Burgers come when it’s most grounded in reality. Any…

One of the most amusing things I’ve witnessed on the pop culture end was how much The Greatest Showman sort of took off on the word of mouth end. It was reasonably hyped (I think I even saw some tie-ins during a few NBA games), but overall, it should have been lumped in with the “other” holiday movies.

Deerhunter is one of those bands where I will buy anything of theirs that comes out. Looking forward to picking this one up in what usually is a pretty barren month of releases. 

True - and no one can quite nail the line “I swear to f***ing god” like Ruthie can. 

I agree. I will not argue with a metalhead about Converge or Deafheaven’s Sunbather. They have been routinely touted as “best of genre” style bands and releases. I will just willfully say “I totally respect the consensus, I just don’t get it.” I think it’s one of the reasons Baroness’ first two records stuck with me -…

You had me with The Field. I’m hoping Singularity will grow on me, but it didn’t grip me nearly as much as Immunity, which still has a safe spot in my Top 10 albums of the decade list. Skee Mask and Yves Tumor were fixtures on my repeat listen list this year. 

It was so weird seeing her at a performance hall that’s usually reserved for symphonies, as opposed to a rock music venue, where I saw her crowd surf a few years ago. The later show was a transformative rock experience, this latest one was just as powerful, but it was far more of a performance piece, marrying art with…

I didn’t go to that many shows this year, sadly. But the one that sticks out was Beck. I’ve seen him a few times, and while I wasn’t too jazzed about his last album, he continually shows what a consummate performer and musician he is. Just a stellar show all around. 

And this is where those sticky labels come into play. It’s definitely one of the main contenders for ‘Album of the Year.’ It’s just... is to metal to be hardcore or punk? Is it too rock to be either? Regardless, it absolutely slays. 

I will say this as MHW - the online community, for the most part, is very fun, accommodating, and helpful. I just feel guilty as hell, because when there’s a challenging hunt, and you have 3 other players joining, I don’t want to be the one where 2 of the three ‘faints’ (e.g. the monster KOs you) is wasted on me.

Monster Hunter:World broke me in two. Much like the Dark Souls game, it may have been my work schedule, but I could only take five or so 30-minute battles, only to have me get KO’d by the sometimes wonky gaming controls (and my own clumsiness). As a contrast, and I know it couldn’t be a more different game, but Red…

No, as a 40-something metalhead I get it. There’s nothing worse than picking up what appears to be a great metal album by a newer band. And for about 2 minutes, it hits all those metal sweet spots - the punishing riffs, the massive dynamics, and the pulverizing percussion. You grin and nod on.

It’s a shame that Firepower wasn’t included in this list. It definitely fits the definition of “metal.” On this plus side, it’s good enough to be mentioned as one of the best albums of the year, so I’m holding out hope it gets mentioned in the “big” list. 

Given that the title was Addams Family Values, I didn’t find this surprising in the least. It may have been less successful financially, but there were so many classic lines in this sequel. And given that it came about a decade before gay conversion therapy became widely covered (see the summer camp subplot), it…

Looks like they updated their ‘What to Watch When You Want to Rage Watch Something’ queue with the addition of Wild Wild West.

Peter Parker - if only because he checked off all the boxes of my pre-teen/teen years:

I was very lucky: Prince’s Purple Rain.

Great point - I was just saying that asexuality is an orientation as well. But overall, I just want a good story to justify a sequel, and not a crass cash grab.

In terms of quality and spectacle, and box office heft, 2008 deserves to be mentioned in the discussion of “what was the best year for summer movies”: Wall-E, The Dark Knight, and Iron Man is a helluva combination.