Romantics Anonymous and April 9th 2014

Romantics Anonymous

(Original post from my Media Blog)

Someone wrote that Romantics Anonymous is a cup of warm cocoa, and I think that fits it better than I could.  I can describe this movie as sappy, corny, sweet, funny, quirky, and just an overall nice movie, but somehow that can come out sounding bad?  I mean, let's get this straight, this movie is not going to make you rethink or change your life, but that's not what it set out to do.  The movie has set out hoping that you find a little of yourself in these neurotic, afraid of everything characters.  But then that could turn people away too, I certainly would have had a hard time convincing myself to watch a movie about social anxiety laden people, but it somehow does it without being annoying.  American cinema, romantic comedies especially, rely on "annoyance is funny" of which I despise.  Romantics Anonymous never felt annoying, it felt warm, and silly, and was just overall a warm cup of sappy cocoa.

There is a small cast of quirky individuals that reminds me of the kind of casts in Hedgehog and Amelie, and they all do their job very well also.  The stars make the movie though.  Angelique is played by Isabelle Carre, and she's kind of quirky like Amelie, but she has this Pam Beesly(Jenna Fischer) from The Office quality to her.  She is played well, but I feel the star performance is by Jean-Rene's actor Benoit Poelvoorde.  He is what separates this movie from the Hollywood drivel that comes out here in the states.  He's funny, and almost clown like in his mannerisms, but plays the part strait at the perfect times.

I hate to keep tossing the name Amelie around, but if you like that sort of movie, you may like this one too, though its only done in the same "tone" or "voice" as Amelie, it is definitely its own movie.  It is on Netflix as of this date.

April 9th, 2014

Looking at these battery powered mini-amps.  I know they are generally novelties and toys(with the exception of the $100+ Roland and Orange offerings), and I'm thinking I want one.  I like sitting out on my porch, especially in the Summer, and a battery powered amp would be a nice thing to have with practicing.  I hear the best things about the Dan Electro Honeytone amps, but I have to say that the Smokey Amps might be the coolest.  The Smokey amps have a powered output to them, so I could plug them into a speaker cab and actually power it.  Its that little bit of extra versatility that I like, it opens up a lot of options, making the Smokey not only a battery powered porch amp, but also a headphone amp and also could take the place of a practice "combo".

I've been watching Sips and Hat Films of the Yogscast play a game called "Murder".  In it, one person gets a gun, one person gets a knife, and the rest are bystanders.  The person with the gun has to figure out who is the one with the knife before he's able to isolate and kill the others.  It is really fun to watch and I think I have come up with a group "beer and pretzels" version.  I will write up the rules and post them soon.  I think a game similar may already exist because it feels sort of like "Werewolf".  I will have to look it up, but either way I think it would be fun to play.