Review: The Hangover Part II

Weeeeeeeeee

Whatever.

That was my initial reaction to seeing The Hangover: Part II, the highly anticipated sequel to one of the better comedy flicks in recent memory. Whatever. Thanks to the vast success of the first Hangover movie, the sequel was pretty much immediately announced by noted raunchy filmmaker, Todd Phillips. Soon the trailers and posters and other hype machines began coming around. The Wolfpack was returning to the big screen, and soon enough every bro and ho was updating their Facebook status with eager anticipation of the new movie.

I give most of the blame for this ridiculous over-hype machine to the young people of Generation Y, AKA the Bros Icing Bros Generation (we deserve it. We’re the worst). The common motif with the Bros Icing Bros Generation is to embrace only a choice few pieces of entertainment and run with the damn things for as long as they exist, no matter how obviously stupid they eventually boil down to. The short list of prime Bros Icing Bros entertainment is relatively short, but it more than answers everything you need to know about how truly committed people can be once the general population decides something deserves to be called the best thing since sliced bread.

• Twilight
• The Hangover
• Glee
• Jersey Shore

That’s just the few things that I can come up with off the top of my head, but the pattern is already well-defined. Granted, the first Hangover movie was very funny, but most of that praise came from the fact that it took some relatively unknown actors, threw them into an inappropriate movie, and then kept on giving the audience new lewd shit to gasp and laugh about. It was fresh, but the freshness pretty much died as soon as the sequel was announced. It was only a matter of time before that became clear to a lot of snooty film critics.

Review: ‘The Starter’ by Scott Sigler

And just like that, I’m out of Scott Sigler stuff to read until his next book is released sometime this summer, or at least that’s what Wikipedia (“Oh my God! Ten years!”) says about the third and final installment of Sigler’s Infected series. Less than three weeks after breezing through Sigler’s first sci-fi sports story, The Rookie, I immediately picked up the 2010 sequel on my Kindle. Despite working on Angela’s Ashes for school and looking around town for a copy of the science fiction survival guide for Emily’s book club (I’ve already read World War Z, so I have plenty of time), I still zipped through The Starter in less than a week. It’s amazing how the Kindle’s percent meter makes me finish books faster.

The Starter stays true to the first installment of the series, giving the reader a story filled with lots of action, intrigue, and tongue-in-cheek humor. What’s more is that the book actually seems to focus more on drama going on off the field than the actual football games this time around. What’s more is that the book as a whole, in the end, feels almost like an expansion pack for a video game than a full-fledged sequel to a novel. That said, there are still plenty reasons to enjoy The Starter, and I’ll detail it all after the jump.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of The Walking Dead: Vatos

 

If only I knew what ‘Puto’ meant…

Oh God. This is officially the best show on television for me now. I didn’t seem to believe it was possible, but AMC’s newest hit show managed to top itself in almost every way with episode 4. In fact, at least for me, yesterday’s episode was quite possibly the best thing I’ve seen on TV all year. It simply had everything, and while that’s what a lot of people say about Mad Men, well, Mad Men doesn’t have zombies. Click the jump to get a recap of all the great stuff about the best new show on television. I can’t believe there are only two episodes left this season.

[Obligatory spoiler warning: Yes, there are spoilers.]

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of The Walking Dead: Tell It to the Frogs

No surprise to you readers by now, The Walking Dead continued to impress me with it’s newest episode, ‘Tell It to the Frogs’. The halfway point of AMC’s fledgling series was far lighter on zombie content than the first two episodes, but all of that didn’t matter to me, as the show finally proved what I’ve been raving about all along: This show isn’t just a lot of zombie violence, and it focuses more on the demons of the people than the monsters themselves. In fact, none of the characters have been eaten or bitten by a zombie yet, we’re halfway through Season One, and it’s still the best zombie thing to hit the screens in years. Not too shabby.

Click the jump to read all the best, worst (Which is more like “meh”), and most brutal parts of my favorite show on cable.

[And if you haven’t figured it out by now, yes, this contains spoilers. Don’t whine to me if you haven’t watched this yet.]