June 2020 - Media Binge

In June of 2020, I played the following:

7 Wonders Duel (3)	Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig (2)	Great Western Trail (2)	Potion Explosion (2)	Relics of Rajavihara (2)	7 Wonders (1)
Animal Kingdoms (1)	Azul: Summer Pavilion (1)	Century: A New World (1)	Century: Eastern Wonders (1)	Century: Spice Road (1)	Champions of Midgard (1)
The Downfall of Pompeii (1)	Kingdomino (1)	Love Letter (1)	Mansions of Madness: Second Edition (1)	Medium (1)	Quodd Heroes (1)
Star Realms (1)	Stone Age (1)	The Taverns of Tiefenthal (1)	Terraforming Mars (1)	That's Pretty Clever (1)

This Month's Winners

Relics of Rajavihara - Honorable Mention I had the pleasure of receiving a prototype copy of this game as part of a review I intended to write for a website that has since lost all but a few of its reviewers. As such, I have played all 50 levels of this game and absolutely loved it! Relics of Rajavihara is a solo puzzle game that gets progressively more challenging with each level that you complete. New game components are unlocked on each of the 5 floors and those components introduce new movement and interaction mechanisms that create a very stimulating experience! Move crates, ice blocks, and puddles of water around tombs; climb immovable stones and extinguish fires as you attempt to collect precious gems and stop your nemesis from getting the best of you! This is an excellent visual-spatial puzzle game that should be coming to kickstarter very soon!

Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig - 3rd Place This game is unique in that it actually represents a "mash up" of two other board games, Between Two Cities and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. This game is elegantly designed and simple to teach. In this game, you are drafting tiles, representing rooms in your castles, that you will secretly choose to add to one of two castles in front of you (those castles shared by you and your neighbors). Rooms have various icons that correspond to one of many scoring effects listed on the tiles. You must work together with each of your neighbors to place tiles in ways that score you the most points, being careful not to neglect either of your castles. This is very important because, at the end of the game, you will be scoring for each castle and then claiming the lower of the two scores as your personal, final score. The player with the highest score wins! This game introducing simple but clever mechanisms that encourage semi-cooperative play, secret scoring bonuses, and a ton of replay value. Scoring can be tricky but the scoring pad provided makes it painless.

Stone Age - 2nd Place Stone Age is a modern class board game that perfectly illustrates the "worker placement" mechanism in which each player takes turns claiming spaces on the board, placing one of their "workers" and gaining the benefit of the action space. Turns can feel very tense as you wrestle with decisions on where to place your worker. Do I claim a free tool tile to help improve my rolls later on or you I claim a card that will give me extra food!?!? Choosing one space will inevitably leave the other open for your opponents to snatch up before your turn comes around again. This is what makes worker placement games so great. Stone Age has some excellent end-game scoring mechanisms that make it a little difficult to know who is winning but, honestly, I much prefer that over watching one player run away with the win.

Great Western Trail - 1st Place This game is a bit overwhelming to look at when you get it to the table and it takes about 90-120 minutes to play (depending on player count). One of the greatest things about GWT is the manner in which the board and its available locations change as the game progresses. Each player has their own collection of building tiles that, over the course of the game, they can place along the trail for their traveler to visit and gain benefits. As you make your way up the trail, you will hire individuals that will help you build buildings, improve the reach of your shipping endeavors, and strengthen your ability to wrangle cattle. You will also build up a deck of cattle cards that, among other things, provide you with money each time you reach the end of the trail. This is one of our favorite mid-to-heavy weight euro-style games as there are a ton of strategies still to explore!

In June of 2020, I watched the following:

Kevin Hart: Irresponsible I absolutely love Kevin Hart. His movies and stand-up are equally entertaining but the thing I find most incredible about Kevin is his efforts to inspire younger generations. I've seen a few of Kevin's stand-up specials but this one is the most memorable. Kevin makes great use of vocal effects and background music. Kevin makes one joke repeatedly with slight variations. A lesser comedian would have beaten the joke to death but Kevin's delivery and high-energy delivery makes this special my favorite in a long time.

Tom Segura: Mostly Stories I've been following Tom Segura via his various podcasts (e.g., Your Mom's House and Two Bears, One Cave). Listening to him talk day-to-day, I absolutely love his personality and find his stand-up to be very close aligned to his off-stage persona. Tom's style of comedy is definitely not politically correct but I kind of love how comedians like him are able to address sensitive subject matter in a way that feels so terrible that you have to laugh.

Chris D'Elia: No Pain I thought I had recently discovered Chris through Joe Rogan's podcast on Youtube but in actuality, I remembered his face from a Netflix show called Alone Together. I find Chris pretty funny and his standup special No Pain is a decent watch.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer This movie is not for everyone but then again, most of Yorgos Lanthimos' films (e.g., The Lobster, The Favourite, and Dogtooth) likely appeal to a very small demographic. This film serves as a modern adaptation of Greek myth in which Agamemnon accidentally kills one of Artemis' sacred deers and is told he must kill his own daughter if he wants his army to ever reach the city of Troy. In the film, Colin Farrell plays a surgeon named Steven who feels responsible for the death of a young man's father after a failed surgery he conducted under the influence of alcohol. The young man, names Martin (played by Barry Keoghan) starts visiting Steven with greater frequency and in more intrusive fashions. After some time, Steven's children begin suffering from an unexplainable form of paralysis that Martin quickly explains will progress into starvation, bleeding of the eyes, and death unless Steven willingly sacrifices one of them first. The film subtly suggests some evidence the awkwardly portrayed Martin's divine power. However, even after finishing the film, I wondered if it all wasn't some elaborate deception on the part of his children that went horribly wrong. This is a bleak, slow-burn of a film that left me wanting to know more. There are clever moments in the film that I did not catch at first, even when the characters explicitly state that their gestures are meant to be metaphorical. If this all sounds like your cup of tea, check it out! For a bit lighter (but still darkly comedic) film from the director, I recommend The Lobster; a film about people who sign up for a retreat where they must find a life partner or submit to a process in which they are transformed into an animal of their choice. Yup... it's great.

Rainman Twins I caught this 50-minute documentary on Amazon Prime and really enjoyed meeting Flo and Kay Lyman, a pair of savant, twin sisters with autism spectrum disorders. These women were adorable and the story of their early years was quite sad. It was very interesting to learn about how children with similar symptoms were stigmatized with their conditions serving as a negative reflection of their mother's parenting style. Because of this, the Lyman sisters weren't identified until later in life. This documentary provides a brief glimpse into their incredible memory and peculiar pastimes. Not one I'd recommend but I still enjoyed it.

Adventures in Babysitting My wife loves this movie. I have no personal attachment to it but definitely appreciated the fact that she had no idea "Thor" was played by Vincent D'Onofrio!

Come to Daddy The trailer for this movie was very misleading in the best way possible. You think you are going to see a man reconnecting with his father after almost 2 decades apart only to discover that there is something deeply wrong with his father. This is true in a sense but what ends up transpiring makes this film a crazy, dark comedy with just the right amount of campy violence and twists to make it a memorable film worth recommending.

Prometheus I've recently seen talk of Ridley Scott's next Alien installment and it got me wanting to revisit some of the films I haven't seen in some time. I've always thought Prometheus was an ambitious promise to the fans of a larger Alien universe with new, horrifying creatures to discover. The film has some cringeworthy moments but overall, I love where Ridley was taking the story. I only wish he had stuck to his original plan when it came time to make Alien Covenant.

Alien Resurrection  This film is likely the most widely disliked in the Alien franchise and with good reason. As I watched the opening credits for this film, I discovered something I had never known about the film. It was written by Joss Whedon!?! Joss has gone on to write for a few films I really enjoy (e.g., The Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers). I had always assumed that Alien Resurrection was disliked because of director, Jean Pierre Jeunet's stylistic choices but now I think it may have been a perfect storm of Jeunet's whimsical, artistic flare and Whedon's campy, comedic tones that made this film such a hot mess. The movie has some excellent visuals, including a scene with underwater xenomorphs (give me a xenoshark damnit!). Overall, this film isn't one I'd say is a "must see" but, given my love for the franchise, I can't tell you not to watch it either. I will recommend some of Jean Pierre Jeunet's other films, such as: Amelie, Delicatessen, Micmacs, and The City of the Lost Children.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure My wife insisted that we watch these movies after hearing about the upcoming release of a third film in the Bill & Ted saga, Bill & Ted Face the Music. I had admitted to her that I had never watched either of the first two films in their entirety (or at least remembered doing so). This film had an excellent premise (no pun intended) but I can't say I loved it. I may have enjoyed this more as a kid but, in the same way I feel that I've outgrown the humor of Jay & Silent Bob, I think I'm officially over stoner comedy (implied or otherwise).

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey I realize now that almost 80% of what I remember about Bill & Ted came from this movie. Watching it immediately after the first film made me nervous for the third film, primarily because of Keanu Reeve's performance. In this movie, Reeves seems to be doing an impression of his own character (with 1000x more scenery chewing). The premise of this film is all over the place as well. It was as if there were several ideas for where to take Bill & Ted next and they just threw everything into the pot and stirred vigorously. You have evil robots, a trip to hell, alien scientists (i.e. nightmare fuel) that morph into a giant alien scientist (i.e. buff nightmare fuel), etc. After finishing this film, I turned to my wife and said, "I don't know that this warranted a 3rd installment." Having said that, the premise for the next film, Bill & Ted Face the Music, is clever and I think that this pandemic is going to drive people to the theater for just about anything so... I'm sure B&TFTM will do just fine (commercially).

Valley Girl Our local theater is currently offering $1 tickets to films and my wife insisted that we go see this one. I knew nothing about it other than that it features musical numbers. Last time I was dragged to a musical, it was La La Land and I left pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, this film is not that one. As we entered the theater, I laughed as I noticed that our theater was the only one without a movie poster. I said, "That can't be a good sign." I was right. This film is a paint-by-numbers, less successful version of the same story played out in Rock of Ages. The musical numbers were appropriate for the time period, the dance numbers were... extra. The best part of the film was actress, Mae Whitman. Unfortunately, she is underutilized in this film. Don't rush out to see this one.

The Hunt This was the 2nd film we've been to since the pandemic (you just can't beat $1 tickets and empty theaters!). I had heard mixed reviews of the film so I wasn't super optimistic about it. However, this film was so much fun and does a great job of subverting your expectations and making light of the opposing views of both, liberal and conservative characters. The fight scenes are great. The violence and gore are plentiful. Check this one out if you have the stomach for it!

Tangerine I watched this under the assumption that Steven Soderbergh had directed it with a cellphone. I was only half correct. This film was written and directed by Sean Baker who later brought us the excellent film, The Florida Project. Baker seems to have a knack for creating intimate stories that center around marginalized individuals within environments we don't typically see. I knew nothing about the premise of Tangerine prior to watching so I was surprised to find that it centers on two transgender prostitutes on Christmas Eve. The film connects a few subplots between characters in the film with an almost frantic pace, similar to films like Good Time and Uncut Gems. I can't recommend this film to most people. However, the fact that it was shot for approximately $100k and grossed over $700k at the box office just goes to show you that filmmaking is increasingly more accessible if you have a unique idea.

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn Aubrey Plaza, Jemaine Clement, Craig Robinson, and Emile Hirsch deserved a better ensemble film than this hot garbage. The entire plot of the film is a mystery to me. Aubrey Plaza plays the wife to Emile Hirsch (doing his best Jack Black impression). Plaza runs away with Jemaine Clement (hired by Plaza's brother to retrieve money stolen by Hirsch). Plaza and Clement hide out in a hotel where Robinson's selective-mute, performer (of some kind) is preparing for a special performance. You don't know what Robinson's act consists of until the end of the film. Plaza seems to have history with Robinson and that is the primary reason for her sticking around the hotel. The movie ends with Robinson playing a few songs where he sings, tells stories, and plays drumsticks on a rubber drum pad. I was so confused with what I was seeing that I assumed the entire film was a passion project for a mutual friend of the actors involved. If I had more than 2 thumbs down to give this, I would.

Good Luck My wife was given this film by a coworker for some reason. We watched it. The attitudes towards disabilities in this film are extremely dated and would never be acceptable in today's social climate. The story is absurd and I still can't understand why we were encouraged to watch it but... we did.

You're Next This is one of my favorite horror films. An excellent home-invasion film with excellent chemistry between all characters. The violence is inventive and fun. Think Home Alone meets The Strangers with an awesome 80's synth score. Check out this film!!

The Guest This is another one of my favorite films to watch around Halloween. It's not technically a horror film, more of a thriller. Dan Stevens does a great job in this film. The soundtrack is also very good. The premise is a little silly but it works. Check this one out as well!

Uncut Gems I'm not much of a fan when it comes to Adam Sandler. However, I like his dramatic performance in Punch-Drunk Love and I really enjoyed the Safdie brothers' Good Time. Uncut Gems got a lot of attention last year so I had high hopes for it. Unfortunately, I found the film to be a bit too chaotic. Sandler does a great job with his character, I just didn't like the character. The film is 80% shouting with not much of a story to keep me invested. How many times can you watch someone place terrible, life-altering wagers in an effort to score big. Sandler's character just keeps digging a deeper hole for himself. Just not one I enjoyed watching.

In June of 2020, I read... nothing. Ooops!