Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

My Name Is Earl, Season 1:
This is an older sitcom about a petty criminal who decides to make up for all of the bad things he's done in his life. The "checking things off the list" approach lends itself well to individual episodes and the show sometimes has a surprising amount of feel-good in it for what's essentially a trailer-trash comedy. Free on Amazon Prime, and worth every penny.

Final Grade: B+

Kick-Ass (R):
This is a fun, different take on super-hero movies, featuring a normal guy that isn't very good at being a super-hero. It's unabashedly violent, and is notable for featuring the little girl from Hugo as a swearing, destructive sidekick, Hit-Girl, as well as a surprisingly low-key Nicholas Cage who isn't overacting about bees.

Final Grade: B

How I Met Your Mother, Season 7:
This show needs to end now. Season seven retreads plenty of old ground and has a few worthy laughs, but whenever it tries the Scrubs approach of injecting some seriousness, it just ends up with "depressing" instead. It doesn't help that so much of the future has been foreshadowed now that there is no reason to get emotionally invested in any particular new relationship between characters -- we've already been told that they don't work out.

Final Grade: C

2nd Law by Muse:
You can read my full review of this album over on Amazon.com. In a nutshell, it was disappointing. The music was spastically all over the place with less of a focus on thematic coherency and more focus on filling up the CD. There are a few decent tunes towards the beginning of the CD, but the last half is forgettable.

Final Grade: C+