I am a sucker for media. Apart from living too much of my life connected to the interwebby, I love movies, music and computer games and I am constantly on the look out for good stuff. My helper in this task is Metacritic.
Handily broken into entertainment categories, Metacritic accumulates critiques from various sources, scores them, and spits out an average rating. It also allows “real people” to add a review; the result being a handy overview of what is probably good and that which is almost certainly crap. Looking at the latest movies, for example, I shall not be going to see “Gamer” (“A futuristic vomitorium of bosoms and bullets.” - New York Times); but I would like to see “Rembrandt’s J’accuse” (“The filmmaker uncovers a foul, lurid, corrupt, and perversely compelling conspiracy–which is to say, he successfully turns The Night Watch into a Peter Greenaway film.” - Village Voice).
Trouble is, whereas “Gamer” is already gracing the cinemas of Pattaya, there is not the slightest change that “Rembrandt’s J’accuse” will make it here. But when it comes out on DVD, it will appear in the Metacritic DVD section, and then it will be Torrent time. She who must be obeyed flatly refused to go and watch the Sam Raimi horror/comedy “Drag me to hell” at the cinema, because of the horror bit. So I waited till it appeared in the DVD section, trotted off to Torrents, and have now watched it (alone). Scary fun.
The TV section only covers American TV; but I have to sadly admit that American TV rules the world nowadays (much of HBO’s output is an example), so I keep an eye open. Right now there is the Monty Python documentary which needs some downloading.
The music section is also American oriented, and some really weird stuff bubbles up to the top. Third rated album of 2009 is Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective. No Ripcord magazine said “MPP had aura to burn long before most of us heard it, but now those of us who have heard it and do love it know that this music will not be content to stand idle on the margins of tuneless hype. Time may very well lend Merriweather Post Pavilion a legend extraordinary enough to faithfully capture its myriad treasures.” I didn’t actually understand that review, but I had to try the music. It was awful. I should have listened to a comment by a normal person who said “What utter trash. I’d rather listen to some Swedish gangsta rap performed by punked out cows.” That I understand; and agree with.
The games reviews come neatly packaged by format so I can concentrate on Xbox and PC offerings. Yesterday I discovered Machinarium in the PC section. Downloaded the demo which I was pleased to find was also available for the Mac and was soon parting with $20 for the full game.
What joy. It’s charming, funny and stuffed full of challenging puzzles, many of which I have failed to crack. I am currently carrying around a pot plant and an electrocuted robot cat (in the game, not real life) for which there is no obvious purpose. But a few brain stretching hours and progress might be made.
Get it here.
Comments 🔗
2009-10-24| genuinej saysIt’s all g(r)eek to me.