Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Wooden Leather by Nappy Roots:
This is a middle-of-the-road album -- not as good as Watermelon, Chicken, and Gritz, but better than the albums that came after it. It's a little over-long with filler songs, but I like having too much music over too little. The rapper that sounds like Waluigi is still in the group at this point, adding comically refreshing timbres to the mix.

Final Grade: B-

Don Jon (R):
This is a short, fun movie about a guy whose porn addiction prevents him from having real relationships, written, directed by, and starring Joseph Gordon Levitt. It has a few unnecessary tangents, but is well-acted and over before it gets tedious. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B

The Following:
This FOX show starring Kevin Bacon as a former FBI agent tracking a cult of serial killers with an obsession for Edgar Allen Poe starts with a lot of potential, but doesn't really take it anywhere. The plot only progresses through the obvious mistakes of the protagonists ("Let's split up and search!"), and when they actually get something right, the mastermind has usually already outsmarted them by several moves. Interesting characters die too quickly, while the boring ones stick around forever, wallowing in a pig sty of irrelevant flashbacks. I have two episodes left in the first season of this show, but no overwhelming drive to burn through them -- it's good as a treadmill show, but not amazing (yet still a better story than Under the Dome). Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: C+

24: Live Another Day Premiere:
Though the setting has been updated for current events with drones and Edward Snowden, all of the classic 24 elements are still on display: black market technology doohickeys, backstabbing office politics, and agents who refuse to believe the main characters. With this season trimmed down to 12 episodes, one can only hope that the other elements (good people turning out to be bad, and office romances) will be nixed. In spite of her run on Chuck, I had trouble believing that Yvonne Strahovski was an expert CIA agent -- she came off more as an analyst in a giant sweater. Overall, the first two hours showed promise, but not enough that I'm willing to watch it with commercials.

Final Grade: B