Reasons to Survive for Week of November 21st – Muppets! Thanksgiving! Black Friday!

We have no choice but to survive this week. Not only does Black Friday lure us forward with its enticing sales of things that we do not need, but there’s also the promise of THANKSGIVING FOOD (at least for celebrating Americans)! So let’s be thankful to have survived this far… while Geekscape provides a few reasons more…

Tuesday the 22nd

Shane O’Hare – Thankful for Nintendo Cosplayers

As a master PC gamer, a great man returns to this week. Some said the true rude crude dude of PC gaming was Duke, but they all forgot about Sam. Serious Same 3: BFE. Featuring 16 Player coop. Thats right, 16 players. My first experience with Same was a copy of SS2 one Christmas morning. The first bad guy I faced was a headless human running at me screaming, holding 2 Looney Tune style bombs. I knew I had a game on my hands that would not let me down…and it didn’t With the semi disappointing release of Duke I am worried Sam may be just another M. Night style experience, but the content has provided so far makes me very very hopeful.

Joshua Jackson – Thankful for Sweaty Guys Jumping on Each Other

Hopefully by now, I’ll have much of the Zelda out of my system to move on to some other games. Other games like WWE 12, which has vastly improved over the last couple of uninspired WWE games based on the demos I’ve gotten to play. With so much to customize, (like the ability to eliminate brands and even bring back WCW,) it’s heaven for a wrestling fan like myself. Plus, CM Punk just won the title tonight so it’s time to celebrate bitches!

Wednesday the 23rd

Matt Kelly – Thankful for His Resemblance to Animal

M-U-P-P-E-T-S THE MUPPETS!

Will this movie be my favorite movie of 2011? It’s very possible. Will this be the most upsetting and offensive thing ever as a Muppet Fan? Not likely, I’ve watched Muppet’s Wizard of Oz. I’ve been revisiting the muppets all week watchin the Muppet Movie, Great Muppet Caper, Muppets Take Manhattan and all 3 Seasons (available on DVD so far) of the Muppet Show in preperation. This is one of two movies I couldn’t want to see this year (the other being Harry Potter 7.2). Fuck Thanksgiving, that holiday means one thing to me… the Muppets are fucking here to stay.

Joshua Jackson – Thankful for DDR

The Muppets. I can’t say I was ever a huge fan growing up, (I was more into Muppet Babies than the actual Muppet Show,) but now that I’m older I have much more appreciation for their legacy. Experiencing a new Muppets film will give me a chance to experience something I’ve missed out on in the past, but from the previews and impressions I’ve seen and heard, this will be a great place to start.

Devin Ashby – Thankful for William Bibbiani

I already awkwardly reviewed the new Muppet movie earlier this week, but yeah, it’s basically completely amazing. I don’t have anything negative to say about it at all, except that I’m slightly disappointed Paul Williams wasn’t asked to do the soundtrack (although the filmmakers did work in a pretty nice performance of “Rainbow Connection” near the end, which was nice). It’s legitimately a very strong entry in the franchise, not just a respectable revival attempt. Probably my third favorite Muppet movie ever, in fact, after Muppet Christmas Carol and the original Muppet Movie. I saw The Muppets for free at a press screening, but I’m planning to go again on opening weekend, partly because I hope it does well at the box office, and partly because it’s just seriously that good.

A Dangerous Method in Theaters! David Cronenberg is one of my five favorite directors of all time (at least) and even though I love his early genre films, his recent move away from horror definitely hasn’t dulled his bite. Even if Cronenberg wasn’t directing, the subject of early psychoanalysis is something I’ve been really interested in and excited about for a long time, especially the conflict between Freud and Jung, which is legendary, and has assumed a kind of looming, archetypical significance for a lot of people (Freud, essentially, believed all our darker impulses should be repressed and subliminated; Jung believed they needed to be expressed in some capacity, in order to be overcome). Cronenberg’s interest in sexuality and sexual deviation was one of the things that drew me to his work originally, and I’m really excited to see how he chooses to approach it in a historical, dramatic context (although the huge gaping stomach-vaginas and living tumescent growths of his previous sexual explorations will for sure be missed). Plus there’s a couple scenes where Kiera Knightly takes her top off and gets spanked by Michael Fassbender. You can’t lose.

HUGO similarly opening in theaters. So this movie is clearly happening in part because Harry Potter is finally over with and people are bummed out, but it also looks like it might legitimately be pretty good, so fuck it. Martin Scorsese is a little hit-and-miss lately, but I’m choosing to be optimistic about this film because apparently it’s about Georges Melies, and that sounds interesting. It’s nice to see that huge, operatic fantasy movies for kids are coming back into vogue, and I hope it’s a trend that continues. I’m also excited because Hugo involves automatons, which are AWESOME because they’re basically robots, except that they’re really old and fucking creepy as hell (I know about automatons mostly from that Ken Russell movie Gothic, where Mary and Percy Shelley have an orgy and drink too much absinthe, and then they start hallucinating about evil aborted fetuses coming to kill them, and then there’s an automaton who plays piano and does a belly dance.) PLUS: Ben Kingsley.

Jonathan London – Thankful for Geekscapists (Otherwise he’d be talking to himself in a dark room)

The Descendants in limited release. Alexander Payne’s new movie (he directed Election, Sideways and About Schmidt) follows George Clooney trying to raise his kids after his wife suffers a catastrophic injury. It may not be the most exciting theme for a movie, but just look at what Payne did with stories about old age, high school elections and a bachelor’s last trip through wine country. There’s also a lot of talk about George Clooney’s performance being an award winner so I’m excited to see how this movie plays.

Friday the 25th

Russell Sherman – Thankful for his Neighbors to the South

Black Friday! In Canada we don’t have Black Friday but we do get to hear the stories of the deaths and the fights that break out from the less civilized Black Friday shoppers.  Us nerds we have Cyber Monday to shop so on this day let us sit back and watch the fights that break out over that last pair of pants or that punch bowl.

Saturday the 26th

Molly Mahan – Thankful for Short Men

Lord of the Rings Trilogy at the Aero Theatre
After nomming all the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pie on Thanksgiving Thursdayand the nonstop shopping on Black Friday, you’ll probably be in the mood to take a little 12 hour break on Saturday to watch some hobbits take care of business against the Dark Lord of Mordor, am I right? Well, if you are in the Los Angeles area, you can do just that with about 400 fellow nerds on the big screen! Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring’s original release, the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica be playing the totality of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in 35mm, beginning at 1PM, for a single $15 ticket! 632 glorious minutes of high fantasy entertainment: if that’s not a reason to live through this week, I don’t know what is.