Hijinks Inc.

Category: Dave Sack

  • Hijinks Movie Reviews: Away We Go

    Away We Go was recommended to me by a friend quite awhile ago. I finally got around to watching it recently, heading into it without any expectations, and I came away fairly impressed with it. Starring John Krasinski (as Burt) and Maya Rudolph (as Verona) as young adults in love, Away We Go is a tale about love, friendship, family, and the trials of growing up from a slightly older vantage point than your typical teen comedy. Instead of being in high school or college, these are two people in their early 30’s who are enjoying life and each other, but also have jobs and real life issues to deal with.

    Released in theaters on June 5, 2009, and on DVD and Blu-ray on September 29, 2009, this movie has probably recently been moved off your local Blockbuster’s wall display (does anybody still go to Blockbuster anymore?), and it’s not any sort of ground breaking comedy, so it’s the type of movie that can fall between the cracks. Here’s the quick plot description from IMDB:

    A couple who is expecting their first child travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover “home” on their own terms for the first time. (more…)

  • Hijinks Reviews: Flight Control

    Publisher: Firemint
    Platform: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad
    Cost: $0.99 [iTunes Link]
    Updated: June 22nd, 2010 for iOS 4
    Version Reviewed: 1.8

    Before I get started, I’d like to point out that Flight Control is by no means a brand new game, I wasn’t able to find an exact release date, but  it’s been out for at least a year. Although some of you may have played this game already, it’s new to me; so there you go.

    This game is one of the most simple and challenging games I’ve played on the iPod touch. It’s a simple and obvious premise. There’s planes and helicopters flying around, and you are flight control, you have to find a safe way for them to land, and they must land on the correct landing strip. (more…)

  • T.W.I.S.T. for July 4-10

    No extra fluff this week, no terrible jokes, just the big sports stories of the week. Outside of NBA free agency and the World Cup there’s just not much going on, unless you like baseball, in which case I pity your soul. Here we go:

    NBA

    The free agency period is now in full swing as most of the big names have found their homes. Dirk Nowitzki stayed in Dallas, Joe Johnson stayed in Atlanta, and Paul Pierce stayed in Boston, but Amare followed his old coach to the New York Knicks and Carlos Boozer joined the young guns in Chicago. Miami ended up reeling in all the big fish in free agency grabbing Lebron James, Chris Bosh and keeping Dwayne Wade. Now the interesting thing is finding out how the Heat can fit more players under their salary cap to fill out their roster. (more…)

  • Saturday’s Shenanigans: Recent Entertainment News

    It’s been a pretty slow week in my neck of the woods, there’s just not a lot going on in the sports or entertainment world these days. Here’s the bits and pieces I found worth sharing:

    MGM is in a heap of trouble folks, they’re in such a financial mess that they’ve officially canceled the next Bond movie, and The Hobbit becoming a reality isn’t looking so good either, as it looks like they might’ve just lost Ian McKellen.

    There’s some good and bad news for you in the casting department over at Marvel. Ed Norton won’t be back as the Hulk for the Avengers movie, which really sucks. Apparently Marvel just didn’t want to pony up the cash and decided it would be better to recast the Hulk for a 2nd time in 5 years. Norton was the one and only reason I had any interest in a Hulk movie. In other news, Kevin Bacon is set to play the villain in the upcoming X-Men First Class movie, which is a prequel to the other X-Men films.

    So after all the Team Conan and Team Jay nonsense that NBC created over the course of the last year, and then the asinine decision made to let Conan O’Brien go instead of Jay Leno, might really backfire if things don’t pick up for Leno. Comcast may replace Leno when they take over NBC Universal later this year.

    I’m not sure which is sadder, the fact that a “transient” 23 year old died in a movie theater, or the fact that the last thing he was subjected to was the latest ‘Twilight’ movie. Man, I wasn’t interested in this movie before, if it might kill me I’m definitely not seeing it!

    Join us after the jump for our newest feature of Saturday Shenanigans. (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – A Brief History of MMA, Part 1

    Typically the MMA Minute will focus on a weekend event, either in a preview or review capacity. However, this is one of the slowest months in MMA over the course of the last year or two, and we’ve already had the only notable event, UFC 116. So instead of our usual focus on a singular event, I decided to take a little turn and focus on the world of MMA, and break it down into small portions for anyone that might be interested in learning more about this increasingly popular sport.

    Now I’m not by any means some sort of MMA aficionado, but I’ve recently gone back to watch most of the UFC and Pride events (2 of the most notable organizations in the history of MMA), so I feel I am at least on stable ground to talk about the sport.

    To start off, MMA is short for Mixed Martial Arts. As usual, Wikipedia (which I used for most of this article, merging various articles and adding my two cents in between), does a great job of summing it up quickly and precisely:

    Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full contact combat sport that allows a wide variety of fighting techniques and skills, from a mixture of martial arts traditions and non-traditions, to be used in competitions. The rules allow the use of both striking as well as grappling techniques, both while standing and on the ground. Such competitions allow martial artists of different backgrounds to compete.

    Many detractors will write MMA off as some adrenaline infused showcase of brutality, there really is alot of artistry and strategy behind all the mayhem. (more…)