Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

This is 40 (R):
This Judd Apatow movie is a quasi-sequel, in that it takes some side characters from the movie, Knocked Up and continues their story, but none of the other characters from the original movie make an appearance. There are a few humorous scenes and some well-deserved trash-talking about LOST, but the 2 1/4 hour running time feels more like 3 hours. It kind of feels like they left all of the deleted scenes in from the get-go.

Final Grade: C-

Jeff who lives at home (R):
This indie film starring Jason Segal and Ed Helms as two dysfunctional brothers is actually a bit more low-key and charming than you might expect. It will not change your life, and you probably won't remember it after a couple weeks, but it's free on Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: C+

Oh Myyy! by George Takei:
This incredibly short (completable in a couple hours) Kindle-only book tells about George Takei's transition from aged actor to social media star on Facebook and Twitter. It's a pleasant read, but sometimes has an identity crisis between biography, humor essay collection, or how-to manual for growing your online presence as a famous person. The humor is hindered by relying on incredibly small screenshots from the Internet, surrounded by enough margins to resemble a high school book report with a page requirement. Since you can't get this as a print book, the fact that you can't read half of the jokes gets old pretty quickly.

Final Grade: C-

The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll:
This is the true tale of a hapless system administrator who started out tracking down a 75-cent discrepancy in a university computer and ended up on an obsessive pursuit of hackers. The build in suspense is very well-done, and his occasional tangents into too much technical detail are minimal enough that even a non-computer-oriented reader could probably follow along. It peters out towards the end (because catching a hacker in real life is nothing like the movies), but was definitely worth a read.

Final Grade: B+