You Should Be Watching: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

One fun thing I plan to do from time to time, is offer up a suggestion of something that I personally think you should be watching.  And by “you” I mean ALL of “you.”

To kick things off, I offer up one of the best shows on TV right now: the consistently funny and thought-provoking Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

There really isn’t a show on the air right now that manages to both entertain and inform, week in and week out. Each week, John Oliver updates the world (via both his HBO show, and the incredibly viral segments later posted online) on events from across the globe, from international news regarding a country few people have ever heard of, to biting commentary on the most famous domestic stories currently happening.

Even that paragraph completely sells the show short, as Oliver has shown himself adept at balancing both ratings-boosting topics like current political climate or the military actions of Russia and North Korea, with lesser known topics like net neutrality and standardized testing. His ability to make all of these topics both relatable and entertaining has shown how creative the show really is.

If you want to just get a quick taste of the show’s brilliance, check out any number of their segments available through the Last Week Tonight YouTube Channel. For instance, one of my personal favorites, Oliver’s takedown of FIFA and the World Cup:

If you’re not watching yet, do yourself a favor and start now. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver airs Sundays at 11:oopm ET on HBO, or anytime through the HBOGO app or On-Demand with HBONow.

The Movie Hop app makes planning your movie day easier than ever.

Like many of you, I’m an extreme movie nerd.  Having a wife and two kids occasionally puts a halt in my movie marathoning activities, but luckily I’ve slowly turned them into movie geeks as well.  Planning out an all day marathon comes with a certain level of difficulty, unless some blessed theater (much love, Alamo) schedules a themed marathon. But for most of us, we tend to plan marathons around whatever movies are out that we want to see, which doesn’t lend itself to a themed day of movies. Thus, many of us were left to use the internet/apps/etc to plan out how to squeeze in a day’s worth of movies easily. Thankfully, it appears there may be an easier solution with a new Android app called, The Movie Hop.

“I started this app because I love movies and I’d spend lots of time at the theater,” says the app’s creator. “My cousin and I would always go movie hopping and it became a tradition. Since he passed away, it’s been one of those things that I hold close to my heart because it’s something we did together. He would always make me do the scheduling cause I was better at it, spending almost 30 minutes sometimes coming up with a plan at the movies. So this is where the idea for the app came from. Basically, it makes it easier. I don’t movie hop often, but I now have this tool to make it simple for me when I do.”

The basics of the app are pretty simple: The Movie Hop makes planning a day at the movies easy, by saving you time and effort when planning to watch multiple movies. Enter which movies you want to watch (up to 5) and The Movie Hop calculates for you all possible movie combinations, giving you the option to choose from the one that works best for you. Each combination conveniently includes the total wait time between movies and total time spent at the theater. The full list of features includes:

– Hop up to five movies
– Plan two days in advance
– Multiple movie combinations
– Share movie plans with friends
– Wait time and total time at the movies
– Support for all zip codes and theaters in the USA
– Up to date movies and movie times
– Ad-free

Simply enter your zip code and the time you want to be at the theater. Next, choose from the list of theaters nearby and select up to 5 movies you want to see. Once you select your movies, The Movie Hop calculates which movie combinations are available to you. All that’s left for you to do is decide which combination is best for you, based on start and end times, wait times between movies, and total time spent at the theater.

Since I’m a hardcore IOS user (plans for an Apple Store version are in the works), I’m not able to test out the app, so I’m going to let a few of you take a crack at it.  Head over to the Geek Commander page on Facebook, where we’re giving away 5 free credits to download the app for free on your Android device.  If you end up downloading the app and testing it out, we’d love to hear what you think.

Click here to download the app from the Android store.