Happy Thanksgiving from The Spoon!

Everyone at The Spoon would like to wish you all a safe, happy, and wonderful Thanksgiving! Even if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving you can still take a moment to acknowledge all the super swell things in your life like the relief you feel after a massive potty deposit or the satisfaction of telling people the truth about the U.S. moon landing and the Holocaust.

Have a Happy Turkey Day!

The moon landing photo "The Man" wants you to see

The true sequence of events is too horrible to truly understand. Conspiracy theorists are still trying to explain what symbolic meaning Joan Rivers' decapitated head holds for the Klingons

My Mom's Review of Beowulf

My mom says, "Animated like Shrek but weirder. Like a strange fairy tale."

Like Shrek but not

No TV? No problem!

The internets is now accessible in my apartment! I still don't have cable and I learned the hard way that Time Warner won't give you a cable box until you actually have a television (who knew?) but man oh man is it nice to scroll through sports news, humor sites, [your site name here], and television shows.

Yup, even television shows!

I've missed this face

My brother showed me how to access some of my favorite shows directly from my computah. Several sites offer download-able versions of television shows and movies but in the interest of not going to jail I won't link to anything here.

Another good viewing option is to go directly to the source and check out NBC.com. Entire episodes of my favorite shows, like 30 Rock and The Office, are available with only a few commercials mixed in. I've even had a chance to catch up on Chuck, which has recaptured my attention after a couple slower episodes. I know relationship dramas are done to death, but what will happen with Chuck and Summer (err, Lou)?

Now I see why all those writers are pissed. I'd want a cut of this whole television-internets thing too.

The Large Association of Movie Blogs (LAMB)

The internets is a frighteningly large place so it's reassuring to find a map to all the movie-related goodness you want to visit. The Large Association of Movie Blogs, or NAMBLA (just kidding, it's actually LAMB), provides info and links to movie blogs much like The Spoon and Blog Cabins (whose creator, Fletch, also made LAMB). I've already checked out a few member sites, like Counting Down the Hours and Shea of the Dead, and can vouch for their quality reviews and accurate depictions of Bigfoot.

Confuse NAMBLA and LAMB at your own peril

If you have your own movie blog, I encourage you to to stop by LAMB and sign up. Finally, a way to join the cool kids without having to do drugs or kill a homeless man.

Super Mario Bros. + Electricity = Awesome

Don't ask me how they do it (Tesla coils are involved if you really want to know), but these two guys perform the Super Mario Bros. theme song off their homemade coiled contraption. Something tells me the encore will involve an unsuspecting friend and burnt testicles.

Old Movies are New to Me

Thanks to the mystical powers of computahs and the internets I’ve been able to stave off complete movie deprivation by viewing compressed video files over the past few weeks. If the government asks, they’re all backups to my $30,000 movie collection.

Smokin’ Aces
Big name performers collide in this stylish action movie that never quite achieves the kinetic frenzy it so desperately strives for. Jeremy Piven struts and hollers in his usual arrogant jerk persona but without any true humility it’s hard to sympathize with his character. Everyone from Ben Affleck, to Ryan Reynolds, to Alicia Keyes, to Andy Garcia wants Piven dead or locked up in jail. The plot is laughable but still kind of cool.

My Rating: 5/10

Chinatown
Back in 1974, Jack Nicholson was slim, handsome, and perfectly cast as a 1930s hard-nosed private eye caught up in an L.A. water supply conspiracy. Part crime procedural and part drama, this is one of those movies constantly referred to as film noir done right. Chinatown isn’t fast paced but Roman Polanski’s infamous directorial methods have produced a beautiful, dark gem of a movie.

My Rating: 9/10

Big Trouble in Little China
Compared to Chinatown, Big Trouble is on the opposite end of the genre spectrum. Pure 80s cheese reigns supreme in this campy, campy, action/comedy film. The acting seems almost purposefully bad, but that adds to the charm of the zany adventures of a truck driver’s (Kurt Russell) attempts to save young women from the black-magic wielding ghost that rules San Francisco’s Chinatown.

My Rating: 5/10

Black Hawk Down
Military anarchy and heroism take center stage amidst the U.S.’s contested involvement in Somalia in 1993. A planned military mission goes horribly awry and leaves over a hundred American soldiers in heated firefights. Young children should not watch Black Hawk Down but I heartily recommend this movie for adults. The violence can be extreme but however you interpret Ridley Scott’s message, his film is not one you will soon forget.

My Rating: 8/10

Munich
Controversial for its portrayal of the vicious feud between Israelis and Palestinians following the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist group during the 1972 Olympic Games. Munich delves beyond the Mossad’s spy games to show an agent’s (Eric Bana) – and by extension a nation’s – loss of innocence. The pacing may have been slightly off on this film, as it occasionally meanders, but on the whole it has the excellent composition and verve you expect from a Steven Spielberg production.

My Rating: 8/10