Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I am very behind on my Marvel movie watching. It is hard to find the time between all the princess movies.
However, with all the rave reviews for Civil War, I felt obligated to at least try and catch up. At least I will have a glimmer of hope of seeing this one in the theater.....
So to catch up, I took Winter Soldier out of the library. It feels like the only required prequel to seeing Civil War. I'm sure seeing Age of Ultron would help, and I do want to see it, but it does not feel necessary.
I thought the first Captain America movie was the best Marvel movie out of its cycle. The Iron Man movies were great fun and Thor was epic, but Captain America was fun, epic, and more real. Steve Rodgers was somehow more human and likable than Tony Stark. I thought that was true in the comics as well. Stark, even when felled by drink or wracked with guilt, always seemed a little to entitled for my taste.
I think Winter Soldier continues the pattern. Steve Rodgers, even when faced with difficult moral choices, sticks to his, perhaps naive and outdated, moral code. Truth, honor, loyalty, freedom, justice: these are not just words to Rodgers; they are the bedrock of his world view.
It was interesting watch Rodgers adjust to a world that was more complicated. SHIELD is a spy organization and not an army. It keeps the world safe through subterfuge and managing the truth. That is not Rodger's way even if he sometimes understands that it is necessary. He do what needs to be done, but not blindly follow orders. How does that fit into an organization that does not always provide clear information to its soldiers?
Rodgers is the type of hero that will fight his best friend, if he has to, but will also fight to help that friend.
So, thumbs up.

Seven Deadly Sins

The Seven Deadly Sins is a crazy anime series being distributed by Netflix. I stumbled into it while suffering from Dardevil withdrawal and waiting for Jessica Jones.
It is supposedly a very popular manga series and in Japan there is already a second season aired. Many people consider it good. I'm on the fence about saying it is good.
I think it is interesting enough to keep watching. The plot is pretty standard: princess seeks out supposed outlaws to save the kingdom from overly sanctimonious men. The characters are also pretty stock. The good man with a dark and dangerous secret. The pure girl who doesn't know her own strength.
What makes it weird is that it is very sexualized. There are a lot of dirty jokes and borderline R rated material. It is not a kids cartoon.
While I didn't find the Seven Deadly Sins a must watch, I will likely watch the second series if it is on Netflix and I am in between good shows.

Aldnoha Zero

I have a minor anime addiction. It also happens that anime series on Netflix happen to be packaged in under thirty minute episodes that I can sneak in without much disruption.

That is how I happened upon Aldnoa.Zero. It follows all of the standard tropes of the genre and is beautifully drawn. The action is satisfying. It ticks all of the right boxes.

What made it appealing to me was that it had the feel of the proto-anime from the late 80s and early 90s. It was dark but not hopeless. There were moments of touching emotion, humor, heroism, and ultimately redemption.

The female characters were not caricatures. They all had agency and talent and heroism. I wouldn’t mind my daughter finding any of them, except for one of the princesses, as a role model.

One other thing that I found appealing was that it ended its first season in utter darkness. Before I knew there was going to be a second season, I was truly shocked at how things ended. The fact that there was a second season and the unbelievable explanations does bring it back a notch. However, it was still a bold move.

Aldnoah.Zero is still anime and does not rise above its genre. It is, however, a finely crafted piece of work.

Two Days in New York

I am a sucker for Julie Deply and I loved the chemistry she had on Wittertainment with Chris Rock. I added Two Days in New York to my Netflix cue as soon as I could. It took a while to get around to watching it, but that is mostly because I tend to watch Netflix for my boy movie fix before my rom-com fix.

Anyway, H and I were looking for a fun rom-com to while a way a Saturday night, so we opted for Two Days in New York. Overall, the plot was predictable. Cooky family from France visits New York and makes all sorts of mischief. It could have been just a terribly ordinary film.

What makes it so good is the dialog and the level of crazy. The family is totally bonkers and turns Delpy’s character into a mad woman.

There is also a subplot about selling your soul that is an interesting side show.

The acting is great. Delpy and Rock play their characters straight and with a loving understanding of who they are in time and place.

For a run of the mill rom-com, Two Days in New York is special.

Tracks

Tracks seemed like an odd movie to watch on New Years Eve. However, the good Doctors liked it and it wasn’t too long. Ultimately, it was a rewarding film. Mia Wasikowska plays the role with a subdued strength that makes you like a character who is otherwise sort of grating. I’m not sure I’d rush to see the movie a second time, but it was well worth watching.

Fenix 3

Before the whole “smart watch” craze started, Garmin and Suunto were making GPS enabled ABC watches that could hook up to a bunch of Ant+ sensors and talk to a smart phone. I started using the original Garmin fenix in 2013. It was chunky, but was not too much to wear as a daily watch. It served as a bike computer by pairing up with speed and cadence sensors. It tracked my kayaking with the GPS. It tracked family hikes. A software update made it capable of receiving notifications from my phone.

The fenix did not count steps which was a limitation. That meant I was wearing the watch and a Fitbit. The combination worked OK. I occasionally forgot to take the Fitbit off in the pool or put it on in the morning.

The Apple Watch was announced at a fortuitous time. I had just lost my Fitbit for the second time and Garmin had released the vivosmart. It was a $100 wristband that tracked steps, told time, connected to my heart rate monitor and the speed sensor on my bike, and could forward notification to my phone. It became my daily watch.

The vivosmart was cool, but hardly life changing. The longer I wore it the more useful I found it to be. Leaving my phone on silent was a nice perk. The vivosmart had a find my phone function and it could keep track of all of my exercise data. The only thing it was lacking was GPS functionality. I had an old fenix for when I needed GPS on my wrist.I began to wonder what a truly smart watch could do. The possibilities of a bigger, color screen and a full API for developing apps felt huge. It would be nice to get a quick check of the weather or have loyalty cards without pulling out my phone.When the specs for the Apple Watch were released, I was disappointed. It was beautiful, but whimpy. It wouldn’t hold up to a kayaking trip, a weekend in the woods, or a trip in the pool. It was designed for the more urban, hip set.

Then I saw that Garmin was diving into the smartwatch pool. None of them had the fancy touch screen, taptic engine, or the slick apple design. They all, however, were waterproof, GPS enabled, and could last for days on a charge. One of the models, the vivosmart, even has a reasonable price.

The fenix 3 was a no brainer. Round watches look better. It also had the best specs for the price: waterproof to scuba depths, 5 day battery life, bluetooth, wifi, along with Ant+ and GPS. It didn’t have maps, but did have navigation features. All of the new Garmin watches also came with an SDK that allowed developers to create watch faces, widgets, data fields, and apps.

I had a big REI dividend check, so the $500 price was not an issue. The price tag is on the higher end of the fitness/smart watch category. When you look at only GPS enabled fitness/smart watches, it is still on the high end of the range, but not by much. For the premium price, you do get a premium watch. The watch body is metal and it doesn’t shout fitness watch. I wear the fenix 3 everyday and get compliments on how stylish it looks.

The fenix 3 is not as slick looking as the Apple Watch, but it does have a classic men’s watch look. The materials are nice and it comes in two finishes: grey and sliver. I opted for the grey. It is big watch with a two inch diameter, but it does not overwhelm my average sized wrist. The standard band is a rubbery plastic that is comfortable. The band uses standard pins, so it is easy to swap the standard band out for one of your choosing.

The watch face can be customized to your liking as well. The default watch faces are minimalist and classy. You can choose between an analog watch face with date or a digital watch face with a number of complications. If the built in watch faces are not to your liking, there are hundreds of watch faces you can install, for free, from the Connect IQ store. I have had a Homer Simpson watch face, a Smiley watch face, a wind gauge watch face, a watch face that was just two big circles that spun around. I am currently using a simple analog face that includes a step gauge and the date. Some of the watch faces are poor. A number of faces that are just attempts to emulate luxury watches. Regardless of your taste, there is likely a watch face that fits it. If you cannot find one, you can either make one for yourself or wait a little while. New faces appear everyday.

There are three other categories of applications that can be downloaded to the watch:

• widgets are auxiliary screens that can be scrolled through from the watch face
• data fields are views into the data collected by the sensors during an activity
• applications are programs that completely takeover the watches functionality

For me, the widgets are the things I use the most. You scroll to them from the watch face and they show you easy to consume slices of information. The watch has several built in widgets for showing the data collected from the watch sensors like the temperature and the barometric pressure. I turned those off within hours of getting the watch. The ones I kept are the weather widget that pulls information from you phone to give you a quick look at the forecast, the steps widget, the calendar widget which shows the events from your phone calendar, and the notification widget that shows the notifications from the phone. The built in widgets also include one for controlling the music player on your phone and one for controlling a Virb action camera.

There are approximately a hundred custom widgets on the Connect IQ store. The widgets I use the most are the minute cast from weather channel and the sun and moon widget from Garmin.

There is only one application that I use and that is sky watch. It is a cool app that points out objects in the night sky. It uses the GPS and the other sensors to orient you. It is not super useful, but it is a fun way to show off when camping with friends.

There are two applications that I keep thinking about installing. One is a find your app that also keeps track of when your meter needs to be changed. The other lets you store bar code based cards on the watch. I don’t frequently park at meters or use a lot of cards with bar codes. If I did they would be useful.

The Connect IQ store has a ton of watch faces to choose from. I change mine frequently. They range in quality, but most look pretty good. I, personally, like the analog faces with step information on them. I do also have a sweet spot for one that is just a big yellow smily face with the time underneath it and the Homer watch face.

Like the Apple Watch, the Garmin watches can be great if the applications arrive. Sadly, the big names are not developing apps for the platform. It would be great if there was a Nest widget. I am surprised at the lack of applications for services that Garmin partners with. For example, they use My Fitness Pal to track calories, but there is no watch app or widget.

Unlike the Apple Watch, the Fenix 3 is a great watch even without cool apps. It does a great job of telling the time and tracking my activity levels. It is super durable. It has advanced fitness tracking features. It has built in navigation features. It has a battery that last for days. It has preinstalled smart features that get the job done.

Now Garmin just needs to figure out how to get the big name developers to come to their platform.

Inside Out

Heather and Kenzie insisted that I see Inside Out. They also decided we needed to own it. Despite being months behind on my Wittertainment, I knew that the good Dr. thought it was good enough to win best picture, so I didn’t put up much of a fight.
I'm not sure about it being best picture material, but it was a good movie. The animation was Pixar at its best. The story managed to work for both adults and kids. It also managed to be funny without sacrificing depth.
I found the emotions engaging, but found Joy annoying. The funny thing was that not liking Joy made the ending work better for me. It also made the movie more brilliant. At least for me at Riley's age, I was more sadness than joy. That period in life was all about finding the joy amid the turmoil.
So, best picture? Maybe. It was one of the best movies I have seen this year.