Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Gravity (PG-13):
This is probably one of the more stressful movies you'll see this year. We saw it at the Greenbrier, which means that the screen was slightly bigger than watching in the living room, but more like a high school assembly than a true movie theater showing. I enjoyed how self-contained and spartan it was, especially in the context of the fact that most of the movie is CGI. They overused the suspenseful music -- possibly to counter the fact that there is no noise in space -- but I felt like silence might even have been a better tension-builder in many places. Rebecca did not like this movie.

Final Grade: B+

American Hustle (R):
This was an enjoyable character-driven film starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Amy Adam's cleavage. It plays like a heist film, except that it's very easy to follow. After a fairly slow start, it kept my interest all of the way to the end.

Final Grade: B+

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls:
All of the thoughts I recorded in my First Impressions post last month still hold true. I'm still regularly playing this game and having a ton of fun exploding things for loot. There's a surprising amount of replayable content for an expansion pack, and all of the original problems with Diablo III have been resolved in positive ways. At this point, the primary (but minor) annoyance is just the UI -- I wish that skill assignment were easier, tooltips were more exact, and it were easier to compare gear in intelligent ways.

Final Grade: A

Conair GMT10CSB Cordless/Rechargeable Beard and Mustache Trimmer :
This trimmer is serviceable for its primary task, but has too many oddball adjustment settings that sometimes slip out of place. There's barely enough charge for 3 - 4 trimmings, which means it spends a lot of time plugged in. This adds to the clutter if your bathroom counter surface is already small.

Final Grade: C