shake and bake
As much as his movies are always way too long, and as much of a part of the hype machine as he's quickly becoming, I have to salute Judd Apatow's quest to rearrange Hollywood comedy so that all of the most awesome actors are the ones nabbing high-profile starring roles. Michael Cera (Superbad) and Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) certainly haven't been a bad start, and now he's finally shoving John C. Reilly from the perennial periphery into the spotlight with the upcoming Walk Hard. I can't deny it - I'm stoked. And with the Coen Brothers once again appearing to tread the path of non-shittiness with No Country for Old Men, I'm actually looking forward to a fall movie season for the first time in a while.
I finally gave in and picked up a Nintendo DS a couple weeks ago in anticipation of the new Zelda game, Phantom Hourglass. The game is basically Nintendo saying "Look what our new toy can do!" in the form of a traditional Zelda title, with lots of drawing on the touch screen and blowing into the microphone and yelling at non-player characters and other bells and whistles. But as much as these hardware functionalities are all gimmicks, I haven't felt this physically caught up in a game since Jake busted down my door triumphantly holding his brand-new copy of Guitar Hero above his head. The game has some tedious segments, but they're exclusively design-related; as far as introducing a whole new mode of gameplay, it's a total success.