#2,300: Tickled

Queen of Katwe - ★★★☆☆
Happily, Queen of Katwe is a movie with a family-friendly subject, not a kids movie about a kid who becomes a superstar.

It's a little bit too long, but interesting that they can do a climatic final chess match without explaining to the audience what's really going on in the game.

The Girl on the Train - ★★★☆☆
Better than I was led to believe by the film's reviewers, or indeed, the film's advertisers. The deliberately confusing opening did a lot to keep me interested and engaged. Sure, you can work out whodunnit before the movie tells you, but I can't remember the last time I caught a movie like this in the theater. Gone Girl seems like a lazy comparison.

Kung Fu Elliot - ★★½☆☆
The easy note is to call this Canadian Movie. Feels like it falls more on the mock-doc side of the fence, not least because some of the notes land so perfectly. But, as I often wonder in these situations, does it matter?

I might prefer a version that reveals the story as the filmmakers experienced it. It seems like a weird choice to combine journalism with a big, pull-the-rug-out-from-under-you reveal. I bet that's a big contributor to audiences feeling mistrustful of the film.

Tickled - ★½☆☆☆
Despite how much I heard about tickled, I was still shocked by how boring it is. 15 years ago it might've seemed fresh, but now it seems like nobody involved has ever used the internet before. This would've been better off as a 15-minute segment on Reply All.

Set List: Opinion Polling

Well, there's good news and bad news.  The show is doing extremely well (not sure how that ISIS flag got in there), but Jason, he's not so popular at all, (especially not since the March Incident!) according to this image that looks just like something someone might find in google image search.  

As for that last slide, well, the important thing to remember here is that these are online polls. We did not have the budget for the highest-quality polling services, and I don't even get a discount with the Quinnipiac polling institute.

Escape Room Reviews: Occam's Apartment

Company: Evil Genius Escape Rooms
Room: Occam’s Apartment
Date Played: 9/18/16
Player Count: 2, just enough!
Success:  Success!

Premise: Bill Occam was dead. They said it was open-shut: textbook suicide. While you didn’t agree, you just wanted to put this nasty chapter behind you. Just clean out his apartment and move on with your life.

Immersion: At the moment you're immersed in it, it's wonderful. It's a ratty old apartment. Your friend was a bit of a paranoid, and it's not absurd to think he might have been locking up some of his secrets. The music is light and a perfect accent to the goings-on, and there are several scenes contained within that feel very cinematic and exciting.

Highlights: For two people, there's a lot to do in here.  Even though on paper the room is fairly straightforward, there's a lot of exploring to do in order to get started. It's mostly traditional locks, but not an excessive amount of them. Progress generally felt earned and satisfying.

The music is really well-used.  I noticed at least a couple of tracks that almost blend in to the background, and they weren't movie scores I recognized. 

Our host did a fantastic job, and the in-game hint system - our deceased friend's secret contact - was far and away the best example I've experienced of the GM offering hints or comments that we didn't ask for but didn't let the air out of our tires. 

Lowlights: I randomly opened a complicated puzzle by accident while exploring, and we couldn't follow up on its contents because we didn't have the other requisite items - I'm sure this is more of an 'oh no!' moment for the GM than it's any real problem for me though. 

The apartment does not have its own bathroom, and therefore: no razor.

There was a disposable item in the apartment which I kind of wish I'd kept instead of leaving behind. 

And Finally:   After several encounters with lackluster games, we were starting to feel ready to take a break from room escapes for a bit, and we only happened on this one because of their opening-week sale. It was quite the stroke of luck for us! I liked the game, the space, the hosts (and not just because one of them said he recognized me as a stand-up – I got to wondering afterward though, if saying "hey, don't I recognize you from something" is just good customer service here in LA...) 

Knowing how new the place was, I felt bad anytime I accidentally or thoughtlessly let something drop to the floor or get treated roughly.  The room contains some paper items that I'm sure they're going to have to replace regularly, but I commend the owners for going that route instead of less-immersive laminated slabs. 

Out of 11 escape rooms played, I'm really happy to call this one #1, and I'm looking forward to the planned continuations of the story in their upcoming rooms. I both want to make friends with the owners and also never make friends with them so I can enjoy their future rooms as a complete fan of their work.

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.evilgeniusescaperooms.com/our-rooms/

Please enjoy the following joke:

I'm kind of caught up on movies right now, but it's Monday, so here's a thing.  We were talking about Norm the other day, and I got to watching Norm after that, and his whole set here is pretty good, as are a lot of his talk show appearances, but check out Norm telling a David Letterman joke in his final set on that program. Man!

Set List: The Big Board

Will Hines and Rick Wood are leading the pack right now, but they have each appeared on the program twice.  Jason, of course, has appeared on the show eleven times, but he only gets one prompt each week. 

I don't remember the audience booing Brandie so much, but the numbers don't lie.  Maybe it was one audience member booing quietly!