Video Round-Up: 25% (Kind of) Oscar Related Edition

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.
Last night many people were handed little statuettes of a naked man made of gold. This Video Round-Up has one video that is kind of related to that event because I only watched it sporadically for a total of maybe 15 minutes. Still, it's really good for SEO if you have recent big news items in the titles of your blog posts. Stay tuned next week for our Charlie Sheen Edition.

February 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.
The music onslaught of 2011 is beginning, so hold on tight! With surprises like a brand new Radiohead album out of the blue -- on top of the line-up of releases we already had -- there is a ton of great music coming out. I dug into some of these releases and found bands I'd never listened to before but will likely become some of my favorites.

Mogwai seem like a great post-rock type of band that I've all but ignored until now, Adele is a wonderfully talented woman that deserves the attention she's getting, and The Dears are another great act out of Montreal that have, until now, I've let be eclipsed by the bigger-name bands. Plus, new music from Trail of Dead, The Dirtbombs, and Bright Eyes. It was a good month for music, and March is only looking better. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's enjoy what February had to offer right now.

Sophist Radio Episode 41: You Are the Wind Beneath My Balls

After what seemed like an eternity, the game that James and Aaron have not-so-secretly been pining for is here: Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The love fest is in full swing as they do the type of fanboy gushing best reserved for nerds talking to their favorite voice actor at an amine convention. Harold manages to fall in love with a game as well, but his crush doesn't garner as much approval as he would like. Still, the good times he's had with Metroid: Other M cannot be denied. Plus, discussions of the Dragon Age 2 demo, The Old Republic, and Hazard: Journey of Life, all packed into a neat and sexy package, kinda like Bette Midler.

Insufficient Funds: A Thousand Clowns

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.
Sometimes my father-in-law likes to turn it to the Turner Classic Movies channel on weekend afternoons. I've noticed that old movies tend to have really drawn-out scenes, well beyond the attention spans of people nowadays. Actually, my father-in-law is usually asleep within the first 20 minutes of the movie, meaning it could be all generations.

I realize this makes me sound like some stupid little kid with a short attention span, but those TCM afternoons have made me wary of older movies. Still, I decided to bite on A Thousand Clowns after being inundated with praise from Jesse Thorn, host of The Sound of Young America and proprietor of MaximumFun.org. I was not disappointed.

Netflix Minute: The Parking Lot Movie

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.

Documentaries take the film medium in a direction that many other genres simply can't. By bottling up the world around us, it's up to the people behind the camera to figure out the narrative hidden beneath the surface. In other types of film, the script guides the lens from scene to scene. In documentaries, the world cradles the lens and challenges the filmmaker to make sense of it.

Many times, the chaos around us simply can't be bound by the order of a story. The slices of life possibly make the best documentaries, shifting the responsibility of interpretation from the director to the viewer. The Parking Lot Movie is one such movie, capturing the experiences of parking attendants who worked a Virginian lot at some point over the property's 20+ years of operation.

Unoriginal Soundtracks Podcast: Persona 4 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.
Persona 4 is about 100 hours long, with numerous side-stories and multi-layered characters. 24 minutes of music is too little to fully describe one of the finest Japanese role-playing games ever, but here goes...

Video Round-Up: US Holiday Edition

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.

Presidents! Precedence! Shout outs to George Washington, who helped secure freedom for former-British settlers on indefinitely borrowed lands. Did freedom ring a million years ago today? I don't know. Further shout outs to technology. And songs. Check out these videos that I've enjoyed from musicians and directors doing good work.

Insufficient Funds: Dumbo Gets Mad - Elephants At The Door

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.
To me, music that takes a backseat instead of forcing its way to the front of your attention is immensely useful. Sometimes I just need a soundtrack to a monotonous task like delivering papers or writing/editing articles, and the new Dumbo Gets Mad album, Elephants At The Door, does that perfectly.

Most of the time I require instrumental music to fill that need, because I start to pay too much attention to the singing. With Elephants At The Door it is just another instrument in the lush soundscape, rather than a distraction. Best of all? The entire album only costs you a tweet or Facebook status update.

Netflix Minute: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

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.

These days, movie directors and producers possess the ability to adopt larger than life creative personalities. Film junkies probably don't have too much trouble spotting the latest Michael Bay directed or Jerry Bruckheimer produced picture, both with a penchant for expensive special effects and ubiquitous slow motion. The challenge is getting past these tropes and seeing what a movie is truly worth regardless of who's pulling the strings, which is why I decided to ignore my preconceptions and check out Disney's adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Music Review: Boats - Cannonballs, Cannonballs

Another fruit from the fertile indie grounds of Canada, Winnipeg's Boats ' music is a mix of feel-good indie-pop and quirkiness that often strikes a great balance between the two -- even when it sometimes steps into cartoonish territory.

What controls this balance -- even more than the music itself -- is singer's Mat Klachefsky's vocal performances. Klachefsky has a knack for playing with his vocal strings in a way that gives him a strangely fitting, high-pitched androgynous voice -- although, sometimes, he also does some sort of pirate impersonation or uses his regular vocal output.

Shuffled Podcast: 4 out of 10 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 weeks episode of Shuffled turned up some of my favorite artists ever. Of course, the Gods of Shuffle didn't exactly pick the best songs to represent them, but we'll just have to roll with the punches. Inside you'll find songs from amazing artists like Faith No More, Against Me, and mc chris, plus, the music should sound much less tinny and be free of skipping this time! Sorry about that.

Sophist Radio Episode 40: What's a Kim Kardashian?

The Sophist crew kicks off its fortieth episode much like all the rest -- with some of the best video game discussion this side of the Internet. Call it "Winter Blues" or "Big-Title Fatigue", but something is zapping the energy of the show this week as the guys share their opinions on a few titles such as: Deadspace 2, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Majin and The Forsaken Kingdom. Harold lets it slip that he is playing Mass Effect 2, which leads into a small chat on his feelings about the game (Spoiler Alert: He really likes it). The guys do rebound a bit, and manage to talk about some happy things. Namely death. Harold, Aaron, and James give their thoughts on the apparent death of the music-game genre. Maybe the guys should call this episode the bummercast...or not.

Video Round-Up: Love Edition

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.
Stuck inside alone on Valentine's Day? Aww, don't cry. I've collected a bunch of stupid videos about love for you to watch! Alright, maybe this is just a painful reminder for the single people, so I'll switch gears. Snuggling up in front of the fireplace with your loved one this Valentine's Day? Keep each other entertained with this collection of stupid videos I found for you! What? You had another idea in mind? That's stupid.

Game Review: Stacking

When one thinks of puzzle/adventure games, matryoshka dolls may not immediately come to mind. Perhaps that's why one doesn't work for Tim Schafer. In our stead, lead designer Lee Petty broke ground with this unique idea in Double Fine's newest downloadable title, Stacking. The not-at-once-clear nature of this game is evidence of its ingenuity. And it is indeed ingenious.

You play as Charlie Blackmore, youngest in a poor family of chimney sweeps living in early-twentieth-century Euromerica. The father's disappearance—and subsequent separation from his siblings and mother too—sets Charlie on a quest to rescue his family. His motivation is thus, but along the way he sabotages the big bad Baron's child labor business. Using a train station as a hub world, you visit a few other locations, such as a cruise ship, looking for your lost relatives, causing mischief and solving puzzles along the way.

Insufficient Funds: Feed the King

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.
You know those Stacker machines you see in truck stop gas stations? The ones that task you with dropping blocks at an increasingly rapid pace onto the pile in order to win the real prizes dangling inside the machine. I had a friend that spent a sizable chunk of money on one of those machines to try and win a $200 gas card so that they could use it to go to New York City. He lost on the very last block he needed and their impromptu trip was a bust. If only he'd had Feed the King to help him practice.

Most of the time the Stacker machine gives you really great prizes if you win, though I came across one in a small town with a keychain coin purse and a cheap $20 camera as the big rewards. Feed the King offers you even less, but it is pretty charming. The king is hungry, and you have to stack cakes on his platter as high as you possibly can in order to satiate his hunger.

Netflix Minute Grab Bag

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.

Last week, I missed my normal mark for a weekly Netflix Minute post. I'd like to think that's because I didn't have too much to say about the prospective movie, so I consequently decided that I'd run a special version of this feature highlighting a handful of recent viewings with a bit more brevity than usual. So, join me after the jump to hear my thoughts on Christopher Nolan's Insomnia, Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island, and Joaquim Dos Santos's Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam.

Unoriginal Soundtracks Podcast: Splinter Cell 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.
Splinter Cell is all about feeling powerful without the typical video-game sources of power. Sure you've got a gun, but it's tiny; you're physically fit, but you're 5'10" and approaching retirement; you could kill an armed guard with your bare hands, but only with care and forethought. Sam Fisher got where he is because of his skill and physicality, but mostly because of his smarts -- smarts that you, the player, give him. Wait! A playlist snuck out of nowhere!

Video Round-Up: Super Bowl XLV Edition

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.

This year's batch of more than sixty commercials--all original, it seems--that aired during the most-watched television program in America were relatively enjoyable. Compared to previous years', I laughed more. (The majority of the ads were comical, which is par for the course.) I also saw 1000% more superhero movie trailers. While you won't see any Hollywood teasers here, you will find my favorite Super Bowl ads of the year.

Music Review: Articles of Faith - New Normal Catastrophe

Any album that has me throwing on a jacket, strapping on my boots, and taking a long, long drive in the cold of winter deserves some attention. It doesn’t have to be a very long drive, though, as Articles of Faith’s newest EP, New Normal Catastrophe, clocks in at just under 15 minutes. No surprise: this is hardcore punk.

Confession time: I had never heard of Articles of Faith before listening to this album. Apparently they were big in the ‘80s, and just got back together after a 25 years. Surprisingly, all of the original members of the band came together again to hammer-out New Normal Catastrophe. It’s too bad then that they took so long to make another album together; New Normal Catastrophe is fast-paced, get-you-on-your-feet music that shouldn’t be missed if you’re a fan of hardcore punk, or an old fan of Articles of Faith.

Shuffled Podcast: Speechless 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.
If you only started listening to Shuffled when the podcast started then this might be a new concept to you, but quite often I have very little to say about some of the music in my library. Whether it was put there for a Music Wrap-Up and then never returned to, or a product of some friend or relatives CD collection being ripped, I don't always get around to listening to it enough. This happened a lot this episode, so there is much more music and much less talking. It's all good music, I just didn't have anything good to say about it.

Music Review: The Aquabats - Hi-Five Soup!

Let me just start this review off by saying how incredibly stupid Hi-Five Soup! is. It is ridiculously goofy and childish, to the point that I'm embarrassed to be listening to it. But I listen to it over and over again. Why? Because it has some sort of magical power to draw in grown adults and make them feel like children again. That's a good thing, trust me.

I mean, this is the band who released a debut CD entitled "The Return of The Aquabats," so if any of this has surprised you so far than you must be a newcomer. The MC Bat Commander and crew started out their career riding the ska wave of the '90s, but following a six year gap between The Aquabats Vs. The Floating Eye of Death and Charge!! they made significant changes.