The Water Cooler: ‘Big Brother’ Season 19, ‘The Secret History of

Welcome to The Water Cooler, a weekly feature where the /Film staff is free to go off-topic and talk about everything except the movies and TV shows they normally write about. In this edition: Ethan Anderton is watching Big Brother season 19 and enjoying the hell out of it, Peter Sciretta played Escape From 100 Million B.C., Ben Pearson is listening to an exceptional Hollywood history podcast, Hoai-Train Bui is trying out YouTube fitness videos, and Jacob Hall is having way too much fun with a quality flashlight.

Ethan Anderton is Watching Big Brother Season 19, Deal With It

Listen, we all have our vices. Mine just happens to be a reality show now on its 19th season. However, I haven’t been watching this show from the beginning. There was a girl I dated who happened to be a big fan, so I got caught up in Big Brother during the 15th season and just couldn’t give it up. The show is genuinely fun and it’s quite addicting.

This season has been an interesting one so far after just a few episodes, including the surprising disappearance of one contestant who just couldn’t deal with the stress of the game due to some tragic experiences from her past. There’s also all the various temptations the cast are getting every episode, each with their own twist that keeps changing the game at every turn. I realize that this all may sound silly and melodramatic, and it is, but that’s part of what makes the game so fun. Yes, it’s absolutely a little sleazy as a bunch of attractive people in their 20s and 30s try to deceive each other, partake in physical challenges and generally make fools of themselves, but it’s also quite entertaining.

If you’re judging me, just know that I accept your judgment and I don’t care. This is the only reality show that I watch, it’s undoubtedly a guilty pleasure, and I love it. For anyone out there who may be watching as well, I think Cody is boring as hell, Josh is a trainwreck who needs to go home, Jessica is a deceptive vixen, Mark is my favorite guy on the show, Kevin looks like Sean Penn, Cameron didn’t deserve to go out on opening night and Elena is definitely this season’s crush for me.

Peter Sciretta Played Escape From 100 Million B.C.

Over the Independence Day weekend, I got together with friends for a tabletop game day. We played a few different board games, but I wanted to talk about Escape From 100 Million B.C., designed by Kevin Wilson (Descent, Arkham Horror, Game of Thrones) and released by IDW Games. I was attracted the to game because of its time-travel theme. As some of you know, I’m a bit of a time-travel fanatic and Back to the Future is my favorite film of all time. In this cooperative game, you play stranded time travelers hurrying to reassemble your ship because a nearby volcano is about to blow. Pieces of the time travel device and your equipment have been dispersed all over the island, which is, of course, inhabited by dinosaurs.

So it’s a fun puzzle with dice chucking as you need to avoid the inhabitants of the world while trying to create as few changes as possible to the space time continuum. If you kill a dinosaur, that causes paradox. If you leave weapon or even snicker bar wrapper behind, that can cause a paradox. And there are also open time rifts that will occasionally spew castaways from other eras into your game. Some of these people are random, while others are famous historic figures that I won’t spoil here. So not only do you have to worry about piecing the parts of the time travel machine back together, but you must recover as much of your equipment as possible and return any time travel castaways to their original eras before they get eaten by a dinosaur.

It’s probably one of the most thematic cooperative games I’ve played. If I have one complaint, it’s that the board art looks very bland. It’s sad that a company that publishes some great looking comics couldn’t have gotten the game board to look a little better. If only the stuff inside the box could look as epic and cool as that box cover! The components, which include a bunch of standees, also look a little cheap compared to other games released today. But the game itself is very solid and a lot of fun – I’d highly recommend it. The game is available on Amazon for under $ 50.

Hoai-Tran Bui is Trying to Get in Shape

We’re in the swing of summer, which is probably late to start thinking about getting a “beach body.” And I’ve honestly never felt the need to hit the gym or maintain my weight — mostly because the gym is the worst and I am lucky enough to have been relatively skinny most of my life. But I’ve been seeing the signs for a while that I should probably try to get in shape — first I saw an incredibly pregnant lady walk out of the fitness center at my office last week, then I was invited to a 4th of July party on Tuesday that seemed to be exclusively populated by rock climbers with rock hard abs. Seriously, I had never seen that many abs in one place before. I also tend to get winded going up most flights of stairs, so that was probably the first sign.

I’m 25 now, which I’m told is the age that most people stop relying on their youth to stay in shape, and start paying attention to their health. I believe that. I still hate the gym too much to try to go there every day, plus I have a packed schedule that only really allows me maybe two hours of free time a day. So I’ve been incessantly researching short, easy workouts to do at home — as computer screen addicts do — and actually found some good options. There’s a “scientific 7-minute workout,” published by the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health and Fitness Journal, which is a high-intensity routine without any equipment that is supposedly the equivalent to 20 minutes at the gym. And fortunately for me, there are tons of YouTube videos that time and guide you along this workout routine. So I threw one on my TV, dug out my old college yoga mat, and tried it out. And it wasn’t bad.

This, and some short yoga routines I also found on YouTube, may be the extent of my exercising for now, but hey it’s a good first step. More than getting in shape, I want to be healthy and maybe not get winded going up the stairs.