Year of Critique

Yoshi's Island Nintendo Critique:  One thing I need to preface before I go into my review of Yoshi's Island is that I am not the biggest fan of pure platformers. I've played a multitude of other Mario titles in the past, not one to completion. Part of the fun in doing a "Year of Critique" though is stepping outside your comfort zone, and that I managed to do. For its time, Yoshi's Island is likely an impressive game but I don't think it totally holds up when looked at through a modern lens. I know this game is beloved, so let me do my best to explain.          First, let me say that I have absolutely no nostalgic ties to this game. I never played it as a kid, and only watched other kids my age play it a few times total. It's a game I always wanted to play, but I never had an SNES so I obviously never got a chance to get around to it. For this reason I can't accurately judge the game as if it were in a timeless bubble and I don...

The Revenant Alejandro González Iñárritu Review: I absolutely adore Leonardo DiCaprio. Inception, Django Unchained and The Wolf of Wall Street are among some of my favorite movies and Leo's performance in all of them, in my opinion, is top notch. This movie though, this movie right here is the one that won Leo an Oscar. I've been dying to see it for a while now, but a lack of funds kept me from seeing it in theaters, and a dwindling interest in film as a whole kept me from getting around to it entirely. Now that I've seen it though, I feel safe in saying that this is Leonardo DiCaprio's best performance to date.          Does that mean it's my favorite movie I've seen with Leonardo DiCaprio in it? No, not really. In fact I would say that I like it less than all of the movies I listed above, but of stand alone performances, this is Leo's best. Don't get me wrong, this is a quality film, but it wasn't totally up my alley. The Revenant i...

The Creatures in Lady Walton's Garden Clogs (2010) Review: Within the setting in which I listened to " The Creatures in Lady Walton's Garden " it was definitely a pleasure. It compounded my enjoyment reading The Lord of the Rings very well, serving as a wonderful backdrop to the journey through fantastical wilderness. It's hard to describe exactly why, but this album feels very Celtic in tone and theme. The bells, string and wind instruments, and subdued drum beat all come together to generate a sound that makes you feel more like you are out exploring an enchanted forest than sitting in your bed reading. When I listened to this album on its own though, I definitely did not enjoy it quite as much as I did when I put it on in the background to service other things I was doing.          That's not to say I didn't like the album, I really like some of the individual tracks and the cohesiveness of the album as a whole, it's just not somethin...

Hello Everyone! March is over,  April is here , bring me the April Picks! For anyone who doesn't know, I decided to be selfish and read all of the Lord of The Rings books this year over the course of a three month span. Because of this I am shaping my themes for the months around the themes of each Lord of the Ring book. Last month's theme was nature , this months's theme... War . Book: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Author: J. R. R. Tolkien Why I chose this book: Since as I have said before I am reading this whole series over the course of three months I didn't really have too many options on this one. I spent a while deliberating but in the end I decided this is undeniably the best image to choose for the book of the month picture. Okay let's talk a bit about picking the theme of  war . To anyone who doesn't know, war is a huge part of this particular book as it exists in relation to the series as a whole. It is as well a war that obviously ...