Directions for Solving the Library's Escape Room

You find yourself in a locked room. Two bookcases are along one wall. A door is across from them. The door has a dozen locks, all different and all requiring a code, key, or fingerprint. The door is solid as the walls. In the corner, you hear the hiss of air from a vent.

    To escape this room, do the following:

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Rampage (2018) felt too self aware that it was a big animal fight club movie

Look, I'm gonna say it so nobody else has to: people like to watch animals fight. Man vs Man is the most common of our movie going experiences, but the wide world out there in real life pits man against beast, chicken versus chicken, dog versus dog, and tortoise versus hare. With Rampage, we see a full acknowledgement of this with The Rock versus Flying Porcupine Wolf, Warthog Alligator, and Big Ape.

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A Quiet Place (2018) makes a loud impression. See what I did? Fun with antonyms

I'll admit it, I laughed out loud at the opening to this flick. It's in the trailer, sort of, so spoiler alert or whatever but when that kid got ate I put out a nice loud "ha!" I'm not saying I'm not damaged, I'm just saying that shit was funny after a dozen trailers of build up. It's nice to be surprised once in awhile.

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Game of Thrones, Season 2, Episode 1 "The North Remembers"

Season 2 of Game of Thrones started out without its main engine, yet revved along quite nice from the start. Ned Stark was the centerpiece of season one, sticking right there on the box art, but this season we are all about five kings warring for crowns. And whatever the hell they make Dany do. This episode showed most of our main characters making power plays, focusing their efforts on goals mighty and meek.

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Death of Stalin (2017) will make you cackle if you have the patience to believe that it will make you cackle

Historic dramas have always been money in the bank. Get some well known actor, cover him in old looking stuff, and tell a fake story involving true people. Drama ensues because that's what people make. Get two or more people together and they shit themselves with drama. Historic comedies, though, are super rare because nobody wants to make people important enough to talk about into a bunch of raging assholes, aka real people. Death of Stalin doesn't mind so much.

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Dog Day Afternoon (1975) might be the best non-heist movie of all time

A group of criminals with a plan find themselves in problem solving mode when everything goes wrong. That's the definition of most heist movies. The leads are charismatic, the side characters are quirky, and the plot often leads with a slow clap. That's how they did it, you say, and walk from the theater thinking if only you could be that cool. Dog Day Afternoon is what would happen if you actually did try a heist.

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Game of Thrones, Season 1, Episode 10 "Fire and Blood" makes damn sure you'll swear an oath to come back next season

It's really hard to keep a group of friends together, you know? You hang out all summer, working hard at that chicken finger job, and when school starts you all pledge to do it again next year. But really, look around. You're all a bunch of dipshits with no honor and your oaths mean nothing, unlike this episode of Game of Thrones where everyone's honor is held high and oaths mean everything.

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Muppets Most Wanted (2014) goes on a trip and doesn't really go anywhere

When the Muppets came back with the big movie that won music awards and had Amy Adams in it, I had a hell of a lot of hope. They were my touchstone from childhood that over the years kinda became that thing I used to like. When Jason Segel and the crew came back, they filled it with heart and joy that I remembered from before Henson left us. Then those creative people left and we got the corporate mandated Muppets Most Wanted.

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The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) really kinda scared me in an old fun way

Horror often gets its balls cut off. Many of the entries in the genre are just this side of comedy, relegated even to jokes like the Chuckie scene in Ready Player One. True horror, the existential dread of life, seems to have been pushed aside in favor of jump scares and cheering when teenagers get hacked apart. Few movies contemplate a horror like the Autopsy of Jane Doe.

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The Party (2018) is a quiet little frantic British… don't make me "dramedy"

Most stories are about secrets being uncovered. They have an engine, something that drives the story that might be a secret all its own, but at the end of the day audiences are a bunch of nosy bastards who want to know all a character's secrets. Get enough characters together and a lot of hidden blood will be spilt.

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