This past Friday, Amazon released a slew of pilots on their Prime Instant Video service (free to Prime subscribers, who also get free 2 day shipping and a Kindle lending library among other perks) in order to compete with other subscription streaming video services, mainly Netflix.  These are only pilots but the interesting thing here is that they are letting the viewers vote which goes to series.  You can check them all out for yourself at amazonoriginals.com. Right now they only did a bunch of comedies and kids shows.  I didn’t bother with the kids shows, but I’ve now seen all the comedies and can give my first thoughts on these shows. These are going to be short reviews because they are only pilots after all, I’ve explained in the past the difficulties in judging a series by one episode, but also there’s a bunch of them to get through.  So let’s get started.

Read more on “Amazon Originals Pilots” »

I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids is comedian Jen Kirkman’s (Chelsea Lately, Drunk History) first book.  In it she talks about her struggles being a woman who chooses to not have children and how other people just cannot come to terms with this decision.  She guides us through her past in a series of stories about her family, friends, work, past relationships, and of course random strangers who insist she must want children.

Read more on “I Can Barely Take Care of Myself” »

Safety Not Guaranteed is about a lot of things.  But the very basics are that a man places an ad in a Seattle newspaper searching for a time travel partner.  The actual ad is in the poster above, and is where the movie gets it’s title.  A reporter (Johnson; New Girl) who has ulterior motives takes two interns with him to the vacation spot where he used to spend his summers as a teen and also where the P.O. Box in the ad is.  The interns are two outcasts, one our main protagonist, Darius (Aubrey Plaza; Parks & Recreation) who has been stuck since her mother’s death, along with the nerdy Arnau (Soni). After making contact with the seemingly crazy Kenneth (Duplass; The League, Zero Dark Thirty) Darius forms a strange bond with the man who just wants to go back to correct a past mistake.

Read more on “Safety Not Guaranteed” »

Glitter Kiss is a graphic novel about teenage girl Tinka.  After a secret fling falls apart she seeks out a fortune teller and winds up accidentally working some magic on the boys who wronged her.  Like turning them into girls.

Read more on “Glitter Kiss” »

Coloring for Grown-Ups is a super great idea for a gift.  It’s a traditional activity/coloring book just aimed at adults instead of kids. The pages of the soft-cover book bring you a dizzying array of activities to have fun for hours with.  I wish I could just scan a bunch of pages from this and put them here because that would sell the book better than I ever could.  This is the type of book that back in days of old you’d flip through in a book store after it caught your eye and you’d immediately buy it.

Some of the cool stuff inside includes word searches like “Evade Jury Duty!”, coloring activities like “Hooker or Hipster?”, hidden objects such as “Find 6 Things that don’t belong at Grandma’s Funeral”, and tons more like “Draw what Karen really wanted for her birthday”. There’s even mazes and “Adulthood from A to Z!”.  One of my favorite parts is the certificates you can find towards the back of the book and present to your friends. All the pages are even perforated.

This would make a great little gift for the 20-something in your life, or perhaps a new adult giving them a look ahead.  Or just buy it and keep it on the table and do it as a fun group activity.  It’s really a funny little book and I recommend picking it up.

You can get it all the usual places books are sold including the links below:

Save The Date is a romantic comedy/drama that centers around Sarah (Caplan; Mean Girls, Cloverfield) who rejects a proposal from her boyfriend (Arend) and winds up in a relationship with a guy who has a crush on her from the bookstore she is manager of (Webber).  At the same time her sister (Brie) is preparing for her wedding to Sarah’s ex’s bandmate and best friend played by Martin Starr.

Read more on “Save The Date” »

Pitch Perfect is about Beca (Kendrick; Scott Pilgrim, Up In The Air) an aspiring DJ whose forced to attend college by her father, who’s a professor and as such gets free tuition for his daughter. There she is discovered by an a cappella group in decline, The Barden Bellas, after a disgrace at their last finals appearance. She’s recruited into the strict group along with a bunch of other “characters” such as Fat Amy (Wilson; Bridesmaids, Bachelorette). It’s loosely based on the book Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin.

Read more on “Pitch Perfect” »

Butter is a political satire based on the 2008 primaries set in the world of butter carving. When reigning champ Bob Pickler (Burrell; Modern Family) is asked to step down, his wife (Garner; Juno) decides she’ll bring home the championship, especially after she finds her husband with a hooker (Wilde; House, The Change-Up).  In her way though is a determined African American little girl in foster care who’s new on the scene with a natural talent named Destiny (Shahidi).

Read more on “Butter” »

Bucko is a graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics that compiles the complete web comic of the same name written by Jeff Parker and drawn by Erika Moen. It follows the adventures of Rich, named “Bucko” by a drunken Gyp before what could be a one night stand, as he makes his way hungover to a job interview where he finds a dead body in the bathroom.  From there he, Gyp, her butch lesbian roommate, his clueless hipster roommate, and an assortment of crazy characters make their way through the city to solve the mystery.

Read more on “Bucko” »

Year Zero is the story of low-level copyright lawyer Nick Carter who is visited by 2 aliens one day.  They quickly explain to him that the entire earth is in trouble as they’ve essentially bankrupted the entire universe.  You see in 1977 the rest of the universe got it’s first taste of Earth’s music (this would become known as the “Kotter Moment” as the bit of music was the Welcome Back Kotter theme song).  They became hopelessly addicted and have been collecting all of our music since.  Until they recently learned of our strict anti-piracy and copyright laws and realized they now owe a lot of money.  All of it.  With his alien guides, Nick has to travel the universe and save the earth from certain destruction from those who are losing all their money.  He’s also got to win his dream girl.

Read more on “Year Zero” »