WRECK-IT RALPH: Reviewed by Ebert & Armond

Roger Ebert is the world’s most respected film critic. Armond White is its least. See what happens when they hang out every week here at At The Buzzer with Gary Sundt’s new web comic-movie review hybrid, “Ebert & Armond: At The Movies”.

Check out my fancy Tumblr (http://ebertandarmond.tumblr.com) and Twitter @gsundt for more comics, additional content, and random whatnot!

THIS IS 40: Reviewed by Ebert & Armond

Reblogged from At the Buzzer:

Roger Ebert is the world’s most respected film critic. Armond White is its least. See what happens when they hang out every week here at At The Buzzer with Gary Sundt’s new web comic-movie review hybrid, “Ebert & Armond: At The Movies”.

Check out my fancy Tumblr and Twitter for more comics, additional content, and random whatnot!

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A different kind of review for Judd Apatow's "This Is 40"

Review: This American Life Live! (2012)

Reblogged from At the Buzzer:

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A theater buzzing with intellectuals and hipsters was what I expected and promptly received when I attended This American Life Live! You Can’t Do That On The Radio, a live performance of the ever-popular radio program and podcast series beamed to roughly 600 movie theaters around the country on May 8, 2012. If you listen to the show, the only thing that kept you from Thursday’s program was either lack of proximity to a not-sold-out movie theater or the $20 required to pay the hefty ticket price.

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As Posted on AtTheBuzzerShow.com on May 12, 2012

Rack Focus: The Dictator

Reblogged from At the Buzzer:

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Director Larry Charles and co-writer/star Sacha Baron Cohen once again have something social to slice at. Like their Borat and Brüno, The Dictator is aggressive while ever-making sure to be hilarious, playful and brief. And while this is a much safer movie than the duo has made previously — and ultimately less good than the aforementioned titles — I imagine this is easier for masses to digest than, say, …

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As Posted on AtTheBuzzerShow.com on May 22, 2012

Rack Focus: Men in Black III

Reblogged from At the Buzzer:

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Men in Black III (MIB3) will likely play as a pleasant distraction only for those who don’t generally pay attention to what they’re watching. J (Will Smith) and Retro K (Josh Brolin) stumble from adventure to adventure on the road to the film’s conclusion at the Cape Canaveral launch of Apollo 11, underutilizing nearly every potential element of it’s fun time-traveling premise beyond by a well-played but ultimately throwaway cameo from Bill Hader as Andy Warhol.

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As Posted on AtTheBuzzerShow.com on May 26, 2012

On Pizza Hut, Cavemen, and the Wii U

At E3, Nintendo has discovered… FIRE! Wait, you’re saying we already had fire? Dammit.

As Posted on AtTheBuzzerShow.com on June 6, 2012

by Gary Sundt

I don’t know much about modern console gaming. I really don’t care about Call of Duty or Fallout 3 or Halo beyond the record-breaking sales reported in Variety. In fact, you can count me among those consumers stolen away by the iPhone, because I can have a bunch of sweet games — plus my email and my web browser and my music and my movies and my Savage Love App — in one device.

Consider that last sentence, and then consider I am the exact kind of consumer that Nintendo has railed against Apple for stealing. Then consider my disappointment over the spec announcements for the Wii U at this year’s E3 event, and consider once more that I’m the exact kind of consumer Nintendo doesn’t want alienate any further.

The Wii U sucks. There. I said it. I’m probably not the first, but there it is. And any cool game they can add or any social media platform they can devise won’t change it. The problem is the idea is so completely dated that it’s backwards. In a sense, the Wii U is the cousin-humping South of the gaming industry.

The Wii U is supposed to be Nintendo’s tablet, which was an announcement good enough to make me pay attention. I love Nintendo-style games because of their clever innovations while maintaining fantastic simplicity and vibrant color schemes — like the Pixar of the gaming industry. They make games that I want to play, but merely don’t have the time because I’m always on the go. All I’ve wanted is Mario Galaxy on a train, Zelda on a plane. A tablet that combines everything an iPad or Android tablet can do, but with joysticks and D-pads for awesome gaming I can play at home on my TV or while waiting at the doctor’s office, is the sort of wet dream that could bring me, the convenience-seeking consumer, back to the console fold.

But then there’s the bomb: The Wii U requires you to be attached to a console. This means that is isn”t a tablet at all, really. It’s just another console that requires me to sit at home.

But oh! You say is has a high definition screen? So does the iPad. You say it can run Hulu and Netflix? So does the iPad. In a sense, the Wii U does what an iPad already can do, but you can now take your favorite mushroom-stomping plumbers with you while taking a twosie (just in case of a clog).

This sort of news is equivalent to somebody shouting, “Hey, we have pizza!” Excited, you head over and they say, “Well, we gotta go to Pizza Hut to get it.” And even though you have to travel and even though it will be Pizza Hut, you are still excited to be eating pizza. But then on the way, everyone around you agrees that the buffet will be the best bet due to the number of people in the group, and you consider that the pizza will be stale from sitting under a hot lamp all afternoon. But it’s still f***ing pizza, right?

Then you arrive, and all they have is salad. Nobody actually wants salad at a Pizza Hut. Not even vegans want salad at a Pizza Hut.

That’s what the Wii U is like. Don’t give me the ability to move my gameplay from TV to tablet if I have to put one tablet down and pick up another, more superior tablet when I’m leaving the house. It’s 2012, and we’re frankly better than that.

But maybe the tech isn’t there yet. Maybe I, like so many other non-gamers, are just ill-informed as to what will actually be a revolution for gaming. Like cavemen cursing the rain because it makes us wet, not knowing that it’s actually pretty nifty when we give it a chance.

But then I think about Nintendo’s concern over the loss of customers to Apple, and then I start to wonder if they are really the cavemen here. Painting the walls with bubbly long-tongued dinosaurs and hot chicks in awesome armor, they think their adventures should be limited to the cave. Meanwhile, the rest of us have iPhones and iPads.

I’m sure Sony or Microsoft will figure out the brilliance behind a proper gaming tablet with a disc drive (to ensure that high quality image) that can be thrown up on a TV when the consumer gets home. But I’ll hardly care. I want Super Smash Bros. I want GoldenEye007. I want my Nintendo. And I want it while sitting in a park, surrounding by singing birds and f***ing cherubs playing harps.

“Get Hufflepuffed” — A Pottermore Review

The rumors are true. An official Sorting Hat exists, and any discerning internet traveler may be sorted into one of Hogwart School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s four reputable houses. There is celebration and derision throughout the webiverse, and a more-than-occasional worry the Sorting Hat is mis-sorting people. “But I’m a Slytherin! How can I get Hufflepuffed??” People haven’t referred to it as “Hufflepuffed”, but they should.