Kevin Reviews Things: iPad review (plus mini-John Calipari review)

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So I’ve had my eyes on an iPad ever since my broadcast partner Jason brought one into the booth last year.  And thanks to Kentucky’s victory over Kansas and my winnings of $375 in NCAA pools, I allowed myself to set aside a little money for purchasing one.  Thanks, John Calipari!

(While I’m at it, a quick thought…it’s been a little disappointing to see everyone crush Kentucky after their championship win.  I’m not going home and staring at my many John Calipari posters, but what is so wrong about what Kentucky’s done here?  Calipari has recruited all these one-and-done players because they’re the best players in the country, and the climate has changed.  As much as we might like it to be, NCAA basketball isn’t a senior-driven sport any more, folks.  Had Calipari decided to recruit players with a better chance of staying more than one year, Kentucky would not have won the national championship.

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Kevin Reviews Things- TV Show: Sherlock

Consider this less of a review and more of a plea.  But you have to watch Sherlock.  I’m serious.  I don’t care who you are or what your interests are – this is an absolute, stone-cold, slam-dunk must-watch.  I don’t care if you’re a fan of the classic Holmes literature or you don’t like British people or whatever.  This is as smart as TV writing gets, and it’s as good as acting gets.

Sherlock is two seasons in right now, making it extremely easy for you to catch up.  Even easier?  Each season contains just three episodes, though each is approximately 90 minutes long, making it more of a mini-series than a typical TV show.  It sets the story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the present day, meaning Holmes sends text messages rather than telegrams.  The characters are the same: Mrs. Hudson’s still the landlady, Inspector Lestrade’s the top detective at the police and Jim Moriarty is Holmes’ greatest enemy.  And what characters they are – but we’ll get to that later on in the review.

The series begins with Holmes and Watson at the beginning of their relationship, as Watson’s recently returned from the war in Afghanistan and Holmes is a still fairly unknown “consulting detective.”  

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Kevin Reviews Things: Florida

Kevin Brown reviews things for his site.  The site is aptly named KEVIN REVIEWS THINGS. We like them so much that we poach his content once a week and post it on Walk in Radio. Go check out his site. Now.

While global warming is eventually going to end all life as we know it (tough break), this has been an unseasonably nice winter.  And for that, I suppose global warming deserves a mild thank you.  (Half of a rose, maybe.)  But “warmer than usual” in New York is still coat and long-sleeves weather in early March.  And because I’m a minor league baseball announcer, I’m in Florida for the week for the Washington Nationals’ spring training.  Now that is warmer than usual.

This is, I believe, the sixth time I’ve been to Florida.  I’ve been to Disney World twice, when I was in first grade and eighth.  I’ve come down here to broadcast a Syracuse football game and a High Point basketball game, and this is my second trip to spring training.  And every minute of the first five times has been just glorious.  I’m not sure if trees actually grow in Florida or if people just put in thousands of artificial palm trees, but you can’t walk ten feet without running into one of these things.  There is nothing to see while driving down the highways except for palm trees and, occasionally, water.  And it is always 70 degrees or warmer.  I honestly do not believe there is a better place on Earth.

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Kevin Reviews Things: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Was this written before the Acadamy Awards? Yes. Are we still posting it and presenting it as new content? Also yes. But we're not just lazy, I just watched this movie and felt the EXACT same way as our resident reviewer so enjoy a nice rant about this awful movie.

I was going to review the Academy Award nominations today, but two things have stopped me.  Number One: I realized that by reviewing the Oscar nominations, I would basically have to fill in my own alternatives as a solution – otherwise, I’d be attacking things without evidence of a better idea.  Number Two, and the more important of the two things: I watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close last night, and I am ready to rant.  It was, and pardon the pun, but I can’t stop myself from doing this so I’m just going to go ahead and do it now, extremely manipulative and incredibly atrocious.  Let’s review, shall we?

The Oscar nominations for Best Picture are hardly, if ever, perfect.  This year’s nine nominations are no different – but ultimately it’s a fairly understandable roster.  Statistically speaking, most of the nominees score well over the 70% threshold on Rotten Tomatoes.  Two of them which are close to the mark are big-time crowd-pleasers in The Help and War Horse – you can certainly understand, if not necessarily agree with, their selections.

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Kevin Reviews Things: Warrior, The Movie

We here at Walk In Radio love the website Kevin Reviews Things. Particularly because once a week he allows us to be lazy and not write any blogs.  Today, Kevin provides us his look at the most underrated movie of this year, Warrior.  Enjoy. And go visit his site.

If there’s a Sports Movie Cliché Checklist, Warrior earns just about a perfect score.  Underdog looking to beat improbable odds?  Check.  Evil Russian?  Check.  Wife who doesn’t want her husband to risk their lives with a fight?  Check.  There’s a “just give me a chance” scene, a few “how much pain can one man take?” scenes, financial troubles…on paper, it sounds like a thrill-less cliche’ fest.  Don’t be fooled.  Warrior is a dynamite film, one that takes a story on a smaller scope and places it into a much more epic setting, one that will absolutely take your breath away in its thrilling conclusion.

Warrior doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and anyone with half a brain can figure out the general poltline – but it’s still best not to know much going on.  (Avoid the trailer if you haven’t seen it yet, because you’ll know the whole movie in the span of two and a half minutes.)  The basics: Warrior follows two brothers, Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy) and Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton).  There’s a reason for the different last names – the boys have had a troubled past, thanks to their alcoholic father Paddy (Nick Nolte), and Tommy’s adopted his late mother’s last name as his own.  After 14 years apart, Tommy shows up on his father’s Pittsburgh doorstep one day – but not to reconcile their relationship as father and son.  A former star wrestler, Tommy is preparing to train for Sparta, a 16-man UFC tournament in Atlantic City with a $5 million prize, and he wants his dad to train him – but only as a trainer.

Across the state in Philadelphia, Brendan’s in a happy marriage with two daughters, but he’s struggling to pay enough money to keep his house.  Brendan’s a former UFC fighter but a current physics teacher, with no plans to get back in the cage – until the bank comes calling and he’s out of options.  He begins training as well, just for some low-money underground fights, but fate, as it always does in fighter movies, has other ideas.

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