Jon's Best of Netflix 2010

If you're at all familiar with my weekly Netflix Minute feature, you probably know that I love watching films on Netflix's Instant View service. I started writing these articles as a way to let people know a little more about the diamonds in the rough on a service they might not even know they have. However, Instant View has come a long way since the summer of 2010, offering plenty of genuinely excellent movie and television experiences without too much looking. As a result, I thought I'd highlight some of the titles that have truly made Netflix one of my favorite things of the past year.

Shuffled: Growing Up With Music Edition

Every other Wednesday I hit the shuffle button on my 90 gigabytes of music and post the results. I might have to justify some of the stuff in my library, but hopefully it will help inform you of new music -- Or at least be entertaining.

This edition of Shuffled reveals some of my history with music. How extremely late to the party I was, why I was that late to the party, and how punk came to be my first musical love. I've come to the conclusion that the blurbs I write in Shuffled should be about my personal experiences and stories I have surrounding the music in my library. There are a few stories in here you might find funny, but I also hope they tell you a little bit more about all the music I hold in the highest regard. Now, forget this serious crap and be entertained by the music and stories within!

Movie Review: Burlesque

I'm not exactly an expert on burlesque shows but this is what I think I understand: the shows involve an artful and entertaining striptease -- a carefully choreographed routine designed to tease and titillate. Routines also sometimes involve satirical or slapstick comedy. When I saw previews for Burlesque and saw that it was starring both Cher and Christina Aguilera, I was pretty sure that the "art form" would have some liberties taken with it. As portrayed in the movie, this burlesque looks like the 1940's version of MTV. Flashing lights, loud music, ill-conceived lip synching and plenty of scantily-clad women who neither strip nor tease.

Music Wrap-Up Special: The Best Music of 2010

The Music Wrap-Up is a monthly summary of my favorite and other notable new releases. Having trouble keeping up with all the new music? Need some music suggestions? Then the Music Wrap-Up is for you. And please support these musicians as that's the reason I'm featuring them in the first place.

The Music Wrap-Up forces me to keep up with new music every month so that I can share it with you. Without it I'd probably miss a lot of great albums. Some of the music I listen to a handful of times, pick out the songs I like the most, write them up in that month's Wrap-Up, and then never return to the CD again. Not because I disliked them, just because they didn't stick with me for some reason.

Other releases though, those stick with me all year long and well into the future. There's no doubt that if I'm still listening to it at the end of the year, it was one of my favorite albums of the year. So I've collected all that I hold most dear in this special edition of the Music Wrap-Up. While I never put anything in the other Wrap-Ups that I don't recommend, I extra recommend all of these releases. Seriously, buy these.

Video Round-Up: Best of 2010 Edition, Part 1

Video Round-Up is a weekly post collecting an assortment of videos from around the web. Whether they be music videos, creative viral marketing, just plain cool, or just plain ridiculous, they will all be found on Video Round-Up.

As part of Cerebral Pop's end of the year content, Chris and I are going to take a look back at some of our favorite videos that we featured in the Video Round-Up in 2010. If you watched them already, consider it a fond look back. If not, then they're new to you! Also, it provides us an opportunity to write about videos each other picked out, so you'll have new descriptions to read! Yay!

Sophist Radio Episode 36: Conad the Dildonian

In another jammed-packed episode, the Sophist Radio crew share their thoughts on Rock Band 3, which leads into a spirited dissuasion of the death and possible rebirth of the music-game genre. The relative ease of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and games such as Professor Layton, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and Corporation Inc. are also discussed. Along the way, the guys manage to rename one of the hosts and decry the very idea of homeopathic medicine. Wrapping things up is a hearty discussion of games that would translate well into movies -- obviously, everyone's favorite video-game-movie director Uwe Boll is not on the table.

Netflix Minute: The Girlfriend Experience

Netflix Minute is a weekly feature highlighting a title from Netflix's catalog of instant view films. If you want to spend a night snuggled up with a bag of popcorn and don't want to drive to the video store, this is for you.

Steven Soderbergh is a pretty prolific director. He knows what he wants to do and he gets it done. With a large stable of solid, popular actors clearly willing to work on his projects, Soderbergh dominates the mainstream at will while still commanding relative unknowns in small films you may have never heard of. In the case of The Girlfriend Experience, he caught a little flak for blurring the line between the two, seemingly casting an adult film actress as a means to sensationalize what would otherwise be an art-house project.

I Punish Myself (in Games)

For the last three weeks, I have spent the majority of my game time playing Super Meat Boy, Trials HD, and 'Splosion Man. If you're unfamiliar with any of them, know that they are all 2D quasi-difficult-to-screaming-brutal XBLA games that test players' patience and provide a deceptively harmless question at their foundations: Can you just make it to the end?

If you play these games, you won't remain deceived for long. You soon realize that the early tutorial levels have only the loosest connection to the developers' intentions when they made the games: you learn the controls there, but, immediately after, the level design ramps up in complexity, sinister trickery, nearly impassable sequences, and high death counts. My muffled screams of frustration playing these games might indicate that I do indeed punish myself in games. But why?

November Music Wrap-Up

The Music Wrap-Up is a monthly summary of my favorite and other notable new releases. Having trouble keeping up with all the new music? Need some music suggestions? Then the Music Wrap-Up is for you. And please support these musicians as that's the reason I'm featuring them in the first place.

As we approach the end of the year, we grow ever closer to the always awesome spring music-release season. But until then there's still some good stuff coming out. From well worn but classic performers like Elvis Costello and Brian Eno, to pop punk mainstays like The Queers and Smoke or Fire. It's a slim month, and December will be even slimmer, but you should probably be spending it with family, right? For now, though, sneak away for a little bit and enjoy the music of November.

Unoriginal Soundtracks Podcast: Fallout New Vegas Edition

Every other Wednesday I share a playlist of songs tangentially related to a single game or series. Songs about alien sex for Mass Effect, songs about world leaders for Civilization, and so on. Searching for random terms on Spotify is a great way to discover new music and rediscover old classics.

Songs about destruction, betrayal, and the ghosts of Las Vegas make up this episode of Unoriginal Soundtracks. The end of the world and an unscheduled stop in Nevada makes the premise of Fallout: New Vegas.