Captain Corelli's Mandolin (feat. Nicolas Cage)

Of Cage's extensive filmography, I might have been most dreading Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Despite being long, it looked boring, a historical romance for the World War 2 era. Apprently the book of Captain Corelli's Mandolin was more about the war and less about the romance.

Cage plays Captain Corelli, and Italian officer deployed to occupy a little Greek island, home to Penelope Cruz's character whose husband (played by Christian Bale) had a hard time fighting the Germans. But Captain Corelli and his fun-loving, drinking, and singing band of Italians are not Nazis. In fact, they have no interest in fighting anyone. But the treacherous Germans are unhappy when the singing Captain's troops try to withdraw.

So this wartime story stretches a lot to fit the beats for a romance. But I don't think it's a bad movie. I just think it goes on for too long. But even that, I can forgive because there's a lot of story. It wouldn't have bode well to turn the tragically violent war moments into a montage. So it feels like they tried to make two movies into one in attempts to broaden appeal, but the result is kind of a drag.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Pig
6. Birdy
7. Wild at Heart
8. Joe
9. National Treasure
10. Guarding Tess
11. Snake Eyes
12. Dog Eat Dog
13. Color Out of Space
14. Mom and Dad
15. World Trade Center
16. Peggy Sue Got Married
17. Zandalee
18. Prisoners of the Ghostland
19. City of Angels
20. Willy's Wonderland

21. Captain Corelli's Mandolin

22. Bangkok Dangerous
23. Drive Angry
24. Army of One
25. Lord of War
26. Gone in 60 Seconds
27. Matchstick Men
28. Vampire's Kiss
29. Con Air
30. Face/Off
31. The Boy in Blue
32. Honeymoon in Vegas
33. Amos and Andrew
34. Moonstruck
35. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
36. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
37. Bringing Out the Dead
38. The Family Man
39. Knowing
40. The Frozen Ground
41. It Could Happen to You
42. 8mm
43. Grand Isle
44. Looking Glass
45. Arsenal
46. Between Worlds
47. Left Behind
48. Ghost Rider
49. The Humanity Bureau
50. Next
51. The Weather Man
52. 211
53. The Croods

Frank's Pizza of Silvis Illinois

I chose this joint because it's also a small chain, figuring it would also be quad-cities style. But it wasn't. At best, it was normal pizza. The interior of the joint is great, with a factory level kitchen, and the decor of a 70s cafeteria. There's also a liquor bar, which isn't that weird for Illinois, where you can sell liquor pretty much anywhere. But its presence suggests this place used to be a real urban hangout.

My diet coke was served to me in a can, with a cup of ice. A non-disposable plastic plate was also brought to me before I'd even ordered. Despite my intention to order a cheese pizza, I wanted to try pretty much everything on the menu. Who doesn't love mini corn dogs or the mere fantasy of a tenderloin marinara? You can also order a quart of salad dressing. It's on the menu, so it must be an incredible salad dressing. I wanted it. I could eat here every day, if only the pizza, which they're named for, had lived up to its honor.

Back to a more neutral ground, The ratio of this pizza is 2cr/2ce/3ch. Now for the dirty. Their crust gets a 2 out of 5. Excess dust at the bottom amplified my thirst, which I couldn't adequately slake with a nursed can of soda. Both crusty and soggy, the center of the pie was unable to hold itself together. The sauce also gets a 2 out of 5. It was too watery. The flavor was fine, but there wasn't much of it. I think if plain, canned tomato sauce is going to be the base of your pizza sauce, then it needs to be cooked down. But still, it suffers from a lack of pulp. The flavor of the sauce was fine, but there was not enough to it.

For style, I'll give Franks a 4. Despite my disinterest in their pizza, everything else that came out of the kitchen was looking awesome. And if I'd known their deal with the diet coke, I'd have ordered an iced tea. No problem. Frank's is still my kind of zero-frills kind of joint. But onto overall quality, Franks gets a 2 out of 5, giving us a total of 50%.

Grand Isle (feat. Nicolas Cage)

I think we can all agree that Nicolas Cage is known for his mass of bad movies. Grand Isle is kind of bad, but how bad? I could pick which of his other movies is most similar and decide which I liked better. But is that fair? Do I give this movie points for having Kelsey Grammer (in a minor role), using a Louisiana accent? I guess the film gets a few points for that. It's one of Cage's bad movies, and everyone gets to do whatever they want. It's like an audition with a payday.

Grand Isle is about a young veteran who gets caught in a hurricane while, hard up for cash, fixing a fence for an old (alcoholic) veteran, played by Cage. The old veteran's wife owns their old Louisiana house, and she has a bunch of voodoo stuff. There's a good deal of infidelity and murdurous plots between the couple, but none of those things are as bad as their dark secret.

So you keep watching to figure out what that dark secret is. But in Grand Isle, everything goes to hell.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Pig
6. Birdy
7. Wild at Heart
8. Joe
9. National Treasure
10. Guarding Tess
11. Snake Eyes
12. Dog Eat Dog
13. Color Out of Space
14. Mom and Dad
15. World Trade Center
16. Peggy Sue Got Married
17. Zandalee
18. Prisoners of the Ghostland
19. City of Angels
20. Willy's Wonderland
21. Bangkok Dangerous
22. Drive Angry
23. Army of One
24. Lord of War
25. Gone in 60 Seconds
26. Matchstick Men
27. Vampire's Kiss
28. Con Air
29. Face/Off
30. The Boy in Blue
31. Honeymoon in Vegas
32. Amos and Andrew
33. Moonstruck
34. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
35. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
36. Bringing Out the Dead
37. The Family Man
38. Knowing
39. The Frozen Ground
40. It Could Happen to You
41. 8mm

42. Grand Isle

43. Looking Glass
44. Arsenal
45. Between Worlds
46. Left Behind
47. Ghost Rider
48. The Humanity Bureau
49. Next
50. The Weather Man
51. 211
52. The Croods

Miwashiba's LiEat

On the Steam platform, I do follow a few curators since I have a strong preference for Cute games. The reviews for this super cheap RPG were Overwhelmingly Positive, so I thought I'd try it out. LiEat runs in some uncommon, low resolution like 800x600, and it only runs in a window that can't be resized. Since this game uses pixel art, I figured this scaling issue was an artistic choice, to honor the game's aesthetic or something. But I was wrong.

When pixel art was the norm for modern games, developers would often do all they could to make the most of their set limitations. And with LiEat, all I see is laziness. Despite the top-down sprites and nicely colored, but lifeless map tiles, there's no conformity for scaling and pixel size. In menus, instead of drawing more detailed portraits for our heroes, the developer just stretched the faces of the tiny people walking around.

But they make up for that with dialogue portraits, like they're from a highly decorative manga. That being said, I'm not often sure what I'm looking at in them. Speaking of dialogue, I think they used far too many ellipses. Maybe that's normal talk for the hardcore weebs who are more likely to enjoy this game than people who want to play something fun.

LiEat is the story of a tiny girl who is actually a dragon who eats lies. Looking like a tiny human girl, she's carted around to different places by her abusing caretaker to solve mysteries. So the play is much more like a mystery visual novel, than it is an RPG. The RPG elements only exist to demonstrate that a fight is happens in the story. The battles aren't hard enough to count for anything, and there are only a couple enemy graphics. And they don't animate. They just flicker into a different 24-bit palette when you hit them with the same sound effect you hear when your man-friend slaps you.

So you spend most of the game going into every room and talking to every person until you trigger the next event in the story, which requires you to once again go into every room and talk to every person. There aren't a lot of good clues given, and there's no real reward to progression, because you just keep doing the same stuff.

The music in the game is all right. I guess it fits the vibe of the whole thing, with nicely voiced strings and piano. It doesn't annoy me, but I'm not going to pay an extra $4 to download it. I know I'm being kind of hard on this game, but I'm baffled by the otherwise positive reviews.

Style: 3/5 - Substance: 1/5 - Music: 2/5 - Fun: 1/5

Happy Joe's Pizza of Eldridge, IA

I might be extremely biased about Happy Joe's Pizza, since it's probably my favorite small chain. They do it all right, putting genuine effort into making all of their joints special. They even have a mascot, a spotty, dalmationy kind of dog. They have a game room with ski ball. No real arcade machines, but that's all right. Also, each Happy Joe's has a model train that runs along the parameter of the dining room, and if it takes a certain alternating path, you get prizes like coupons for free ice cream. And I love model trains.

Pizzas are ordered at the counter and brought to your table, if you decide against the buffet. There's also a hard-serve ice cream stand. Their toppings are cut small, so each bite of your pizza will have maximum flavor. And while their options are growing, Happy Joe's regular cheese pizza hasn't changed since I started eating it, 30+ years ago. It's just sad that I don't get to eat it more than once every few years.

I remember staying with my grandparents in Kewanee, IL for christmas through new years. It was new years eve 1997 or 1998, and we hadn't yet gotten a Happy Joe's Pizza, which was to me the best part about visiting Kewanee. My mom said I could order a pizza if it meant that much to me. So I ordered a large cheese pizza. And I know it was late at night, and I know I was just a little kid who'd made the call. But the pizza never came. Life goes on.

Let's talk about the pizza I got today. For ratios, I'll rate this pizza at a 2.5cr/2ce/2.5ch. Their crust is chewy, and bubbly. But the bubbles aren't so big they hinder the overall enjoyment of the pie. As you can see, there are even bubbles on the bottom of the crispy-chewy crust. This high-gluten, thorougly kneaded dough is similar to that of Gatti's and other buffet joints, leaving a really decadent, doughy center. There's not a lot in the flavor of the dough, but I really love the texture, and for this particular pizza, I couldn't imagine a better crust. So the crust gets a 5 out of 5.

The sauce is thick, suggesting a certain amount of tomato paste. But that's fine with me. It still soaks nicely into the crust, and has a rich, delicious taste. It's got garlic and herbs, but not more than it needs. I'll give this sauce a 5 out of 5. For style, for reasons given, Happy Joe's gets a 5 out of 5. Everything about this place says, "We're Happy Joes and we're happy about it." I was really tempted to take home my pizza's tra, just as a keepsake. But I couldn't bring myself to steal from Joe!

Lastly, for overall quality, I give Happy Joe's a 5 out of 5. I love how they sprinkle a little cheddar in with their mozzarella, giving the cheese a little more of a greasy tang, leaving your mouth feeling wonderful and delicious. I love to eat this pizza both hot and cold. Since this is my favorite regional chain, I can't give Happy Joe's less than 100%.

Meredosia's Killer of Dead

I made this game, and for those who don't know, I've been messing around with this kind of thing for a while. Meredosia is the handle I'm using for game work. This project was done for a halloween game jam, and it's my first time showing a battle system I made up. It's simple and fun, I think. Check it out.

Harris Pizza #5 of Bettendorf, IA

You might consider Harris Pizza the origin of the quad-cities style, and it's not much different from Saint Guiseppe's. It has a ratio of 2cr/2ce/2ch. Since the style of sausage (crumbled, under the cheese, spicy, with fennel seed) is such a landmark for this style of pizza, I decided to give it a shot, even though sausage isn't good for leaving overnight while you camp in your car. The 12" pie was $12 whether I got a topping or not, so it seemed like a good idea.

Their crust is crusty, and I realized it's more like sourdough, really, than pizza dough. It was all right. I'll give it a 3 out of 5. Their sauce is thinner than Saint Giuseppe's, but there's definitely more in the flavor department. It did soak through a particularly weak section of the dough. I'll give their sauce a 3 out of 5.

For style, I guess Harris gets a 4. There were a lot of cool things on the menu, like burgers, fried pickles (and other fried things), and taco pizza. I really would have liked some unlimited diet pepsis in their dining room, but it was closed. I wish I'd known before I passed-up Harris Pizza #4. I thought I'd read while waiting for my pizza, but one of the two people in the back was trying really hard to be funny while also expressing his crankiness. It's funny how people have a special kitchen personality. He made a few remarks about how my pizza looked like shit, to which his coworker insisted it was a good pizza, looking good. Even I had to inspect the pie before taking it with me, and it looked good.

So for overall quality, Harris Pizza gets a 4 out of 5. The cheese could have been melted more, but oh well. With a 70%, Harris measures right up to my other quad-cities style pizza. Though I'd give this an extra 1% because everything about it was slightly better than what I got at Saint Giuseppe's.

Unnamed PJ Comic #3