Episode 87 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 87: The Anti-Drug. We start of the show talking about Pepper Potts Day. 

Episode 86 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 86: Raging Bullwinkle. We start of the show talking about the meaning of Christmas. 

Episode 85 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 85: Keep Frozen.  We start off the show talking about buying tickets for Lady Gaga and WWE Smackdown! and we use the hashtag #TheCheesiest.

Episode 84 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 84: The One Where Shaq Plays a Genie.  We talk about Lady Gaga and use the hashtag #DoThat.

Episode 83 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 83: The Givings of Pod.  We start off the show talking about Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and use the #pairofducks.

Episode 82 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 82: PringleMania.  We start of the show talking about Anthony's adventures at the Selena Gomez concert and talks about selfies and photobombs.

Episode 81 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 81: No Episode Title.  We start off the show talking about Anthony's purchase of Miley Cyrus tickets.

Episode 80 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 80: The Dork World.  We start off the show celebrating 80 years of being a podcast as we talk about our origins in 1933

Episode 79 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 79: What You See Is What You Lick.  We start off the show talking about Halloween.

Episode 78 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 78: #SpookyPodcast.  We start off the show talking about Halloween.

Episode 77 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 77: Pizza Bonerrrr.  We start of the show with Anthony seeing Shrek the Musical and Brent seeing the MirmanHodgmanSchaal Sandwich to Go comedy show.

Episode 76 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 76: Ponza Rotta Bang Bang.  We start off the show talking about Anthony's trip to Chicago and Brent's trip to see the Comedy Bang Bang podcast recorded live.

Episode 75 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 75: Falling Birdies.

Episode 74 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 74: Oh Yah!  Anthony talks about his adventures at Wizard World Ohio, meeting Alex Newell, his new podcast Ant On.  Brent talks about seeing WWE Smackdown! and going to Brew City Wrestling.

Episode 73 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 73: Piggyback Rides, Sucka! We start off the show talking about Nerdy Minds Magazine.

Episode 72 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 72: Ranch & Gravy's Mornin' Preachin'.  Brent starts off the show talking about seeing Mumford & Sons in concert.

Episode 71 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 71: AB Instruments: City of Convos.  We start off the show talking about this brand spanking new month called September. 

Movie Review: The Place Beyond the Pines

Our buddy and guest on the most recent AB Convo Extra: Wizard World Chicago episode, Jim Lewko sent in the following review of The Place Beyond the Pines:

No Spoilers

Dear Reader,

Please set aside several hours of your life that you don't mind ever getting back.

"The Place Beyond The Pines" started off great, a climactic scene happened towards what I thought was the end of the movie (should have ended soon after). Instead the movie continues on as though the person who wrote it was describing it on-the-fly without really having an ending in mind (like you may do with a bedtime story).

By the end of this movie I and my wife felt as though we had sat thru an entire season of some Drama show... and the payoff was bland.

If you do want to watch this movie, I suggest watching it in pieces over several days.

Hope this helps!

----------------------------------------

I discussed this movie way back on Episode 56 of the podcast and I had a similar but more positive response to it. I'm interested to give it another watch sometime soon at home and see if I feel the same way. Have you checked out The Place Beyond the Pines? What did you think of it? Let us know! You can e-mail us your reaction to this movie or any other movie at abconvo27@hotmail.com.

Episode 70 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 70: Split Lag Moonsault. 

Episode 69 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 69: Triple Encrusted Sexy Secrets. 

Episode 68 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 68: The Loose Caboose.  Anthony starts off the show talking about going to the state fair and seeing Weird Al Yankovic in concert.

Episode 67 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 67: Make It Work.  Brent starts off the show talking about meeting Jerry "The King" Lawler.

Episode 66 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 66: Sleepy LaBeef.  We start off the show talking about a very special birthday and Anthony saw Twinderella the Musical.

Episode 65 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 65: What? We start off the show talking about our appearance on the Q&A with Q&A and the passing of Glee star Cory Monteith.

Episode 64 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 64: Full on Banana. 

Weekend Box Office June 28-30

Monsters University took first place at the box office again this weekend, which is great to see.  The Heat opened up the weekend as the highest grossing new movie beating out White House Down. 

Should be a good battle this weekend at the box office with Despicable Me 2 opening up against The Lone Ranger (by the makers of Pirates of the Caribbean, which made huge bank).

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	1	Monsters University	BV	$46,180,000	-44.0%	4,004	-	$11,533	$171,006,000	-	2
2	N	The Heat	Fox	$40,000,000	-	3,181	-	$12,575	$40,000,000	$43	1
3	2	World War Z	Par.	$29,800,000	-55.1%	3,607	-	$8,262	$123,722,000	$190	2
4	N	White House Down	Sony	$25,700,000	-	3,222	-	$7,976	$25,700,000	$150	1
5	3	Man of Steel	WB	$20,820,000	-49.6%	4,131	-76	$5,040	$248,660,000	$225	3
6	4	This is the End	Sony	$8,700,000	-34.5%	2,710	-345	$3,210	$74,681,000	$32	3
7	5	Now You See Me	LG/S	$5,500,000	-30.2%	2,564	-259	$2,145	$104,681,000	$75	5
8	6	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$2,410,000	-51.1%	1,550	-867	$1,555	$233,313,000	$160	6
9	9	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$2,040,000	-35.6%	1,035	-530	$1,971	$220,501,000	$190	7
10	8	The Internship	Fox	$1,425,000	-58.1%	1,008	-908	$1,414	$41,705,000	$58	4

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the numbers and table!

Episode 63 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 63: Smells Like Pod Spirit.  We start off the show talking about meeting "Weird Al" Yankovic. Anthony also saw She & Him in concert, while Brent went to Summerfest to see The Mowgli's and Imagine Dragons.

Episode 62 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 62: Vanilla Creme Balls.  We start off the show talking about a birthday of one of our heroes.

Box Office Estimates June 14-June 16, 2013

Man of Steel had a super opening this weekend, destroying the June opening weekend box office numbers like it was Metropolis after making $116 million opening weekend in addition to the $12 million it made Thursday night.  The previous record was $110 million set by Toy Story 3 in 2010.  This is the End had a pretty disappionting opening weekend only making $20 million and $33 million for the week.  I don't understand why more people didn't go to This is the End, it's easily the funniest movie of the summer so far, and it made about half of what The Hangover Part III made opening weekend, which is a travesty.  Also, I'm pretty shocked that Now You See Me stood tall at 3rd place again this week, nice to see a clever and fun movie like this doing well.

Next weekend is shaping up to be a big one as well with Pixar's Monsters University bringing in the family crowd and Brad Pitt's World War Z bringing in the zombie/geek crowd.

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	N	Man of Steel	WB	$116,619,362	-	4,207	-	$27,720	$128,681,486	$225	1
2	N	This is the End	Sony	$20,719,162	-	3,055	-	$6,782	$33,027,297	$32	1
3	3	Now You See Me	LG/S	$11,016,473	-42.1%	3,082	+62	$3,574	$80,705,956	$75	3
4	2	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$9,583,330	-51.2%	3,375	-396	$2,840	$219,723,955	$160	4
5	1	The Purge	Uni.	$8,317,995	-75.6%	2,591	+55	$3,210	$51,962,845	$3	2
6	4	The Internship	Fox	$7,148,551	-58.7%	3,399	+33	$2,103	$31,099,912	$58	2
7	5	Epic	Fox	$6,284,905	-47.1%	3,151	-443	$1,995	$95,713,528	$100	4
8	6	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$6,256,254	-45.2%	2,331	-821	$2,684	$211,086,948	$190	5
9	7	After Earth	Sony	$4,052,042	-62.2%	2,432	-969	$1,666	$54,516,057	$130	3
10	9	Iron Man 3	BV	$2,956,855	-48.6%	1,649	-702	$1,793	$399,659,094	$200	7

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Episode 61 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 61: Pre-Wripped For Your Pleasure.  We start off the show talking about Wicked and some people that have today as a birthday.

Movie Review: SNITCH

Do you smell what the Snitch is cooking?  Snitch was the first of The Rock's 6,000 movies to be released in the calendar year of 2013. Along with these movies, The Rock won the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble in January, lost it to John Cena at Wrestlemania in April (in a match where he suffered a hernia), and yet still had time to film another 45,000 movies to be released in 2014.  I'm not quite sure how the most electrifying man in all of Hollywood has time for it, but I'm truly glad he does.  There's just something about Dwayne Johnson, that even if the movie doesn't look good, I'm still excited to see it.  Which led me to check out Snitch when it was released on video.



I'm not normally one to talk about DVD/Blu-Ray cover art, but this one is terrible.  First off, Dwayne Johnson's head looks like it's hella-crooked.  Then they put like the smallest picture they could find of a semi running into and flipping over a car on a bland gray canvas.  Granted the actual movie poster is the same sort of idea, but Dwayne's head isn't nearly as jacked as it is on the DVD and the color compliments things better. 

You ever feel like you're entering a vortex when watching a movie?  Where there's no possible way that you've seen the movie before but at the same time, it's felt like you've watched 100 different versions of it.  That's Snitch.  So basically The Rock is playing John Matthews (which is an absolutely terrible name), who's son's is in high school and just getting ready to enter college.  The son's friend wants to have some drugs mailed to his house and he'll come and get them, since he's worried about his place being raided.  The drugs show up but they've been tracked and the DEA raids the house and arrests the son. In order to prevent his son from getting the minimum of a 10 year sentence, thus ruining pretty much his life, John Matthews goes undercover for the DEA and tries to lay the smack down on all the drug cartels candy asses.

I was a little underwhelmed to be honest.  I kept waiting for this to become exciting and action packed and it never got there. As much as that has become stereotypical Dwayne Johnson, it should have been a more straightforward action/revenge film instead. By going the thriller route and having a focus much more on the DEA trying to shut down the drug trade instead, it just felt bogged down. If you like Dwayne Johnson, it's worth checking out as he gives a good performance, just wish it was a little bit more fun along the way.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Box Office June 7-June 9, 2013

This was really the first weekend of the summer without a projected blockbuster style movie and surprisingly The Purge took home the box office crown this week bringing in over $36 million. While the new Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson movie The Internship could only muster 4th place in it's opening weekend, in what you have to believe is a very disappointing start for the comedy that had a $58 million budget.  In independent box office news, Much Ado About Nothing easily had the best per screen average bringing in $183,000 while only playing at 5 venues, very positive sign for Joss Whedon's pet project.

Things are going to heat up at the box office this weekend with Man of Steel opening up and early projections are hopeful it will cross the $100 million mark opening weekend.  Also the very hilarious This is the End hitting the big screens on Wednesday.

1	N	The Purge	Uni.	$36,379,000	-	2,536	-	$14,345	$36,379,000	$3	1
2	1	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$19,760,000	-43.8%	3,771	+85	$5,240	$202,946,000	$160	3
3	2	Now You See Me	LG/S	$19,500,000	-33.6%	3,020	+95	$6,457	$61,374,000	$75	2
4	N	The Internship	Fox	$18,100,000	-	3,366	-	$5,377	$18,100,000	$58	1
5	5	Epic	Fox	$12,100,000	-27.2%	3,594	-300	$3,367	$84,155,000	$100	3
6	4	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$11,700,000	-30.3%	3,152	-433	$3,712	$200,140,000	$190	4
7	3	After Earth	Sony	$11,200,000	-59.3%	3,401	-	$3,293	$46,592,000	$130	2
8	6	The Hangover Part III	WB	$7,380,000	-55.0%	3,242	-323	$2,276	$102,374,000	$103	3
9	7	Iron Man 3	BV	$5,787,000	-31.5%	2,351	-544	$2,462	$394,316,000	$200	6
10	8	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$4,230,000	-35.1%	2,160	-475	$1,958	$136,175,000	$105	5

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Episode 60 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 60: Podcast in a Cup.  We start off the show talking about Darren Criss, who Anthony saw in concert this week.

It's Not Fair...

"It's not fair..." were the immortal words uttered by my wife last night after receiving some normally very happy but under the circumstances depressing news last night when finding out another couple we knew were pregnant.  I'll try my best to disguise who this couple is considering I don't think it's "facebook official" yet, but needless to say it was quite the dickpunch to find out that this couple who weren't openly trying to have a child, were.

I really haven't written or talked much about this situation but, it's time to open up a little bit.  We have been trying to conceive for almost 2 years now. However, about a year ago Julie was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome.  The Mayo Clinic describes this as "a common hormonal disorder among women of reproductive age. Infrequent or prolonged menstrual periods can occur in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. In women past adolescence, difficulty becoming pregnant or unexplained weight gain may be the first sign."

Needless to say, PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrom) has been a PIOA (pain in our ass).  With a condition like this, it's not easy to get treatment in Kewaskum, or sadly anywhere else in the nearby area and we have instead had to the Good Hope Aurora Clinic in Milwaukee, which is a decent 45 minute haul.  Not only that, but because of the time sensitive nature of these appointments, most occur on weekdays, where Julie would have to try to cram them between her split shift at work and because she doesn't drive, I've used some vacation days as well as taking extended lunch breaks to take her to these appointments (as well as the graciousness of her parents to make the much longer trip from Beloit to take her when I can't).  After adding in all of the prescriptions, co-pays, blood draw fees, and various other tests we are well into four figures already and we haven't even gotten to the expensive part yet.

So while we were on our way home from seeing a pre-screening of The Kings of Summer, Julie noticed a missed call.  She called this person back and I could immediately tell that something was wrong, as she began speaking very monosyllabically. After hanging up the phone, that was when the waterworks started and she told me the news.  I was stunned.  I knew becoming pregnant means so much to her and this only gets more frustrating every time she finds out that another friend of hers got knocked up.  It started with one high school friend who accidentally got pregnant for the second time, followed by a close college friend who had an oopsies moment of her own.

Since we became engaged, she became online friends with other people having August 2010 weddings on The Knot website, where she would discuss different wedding ideas, etc.  After the weddings were done they formed a group on Facebook talking about their married life, which lead to a lot of the discussing and trying to become pregnant as well.  As more people said that they were going to attempt to get pregnant after Julie had previously announced it and "struggled" for 2 or 3 months before getting the good news, Julie became more and more frustrated as she began getting lapped.

The one good thing that developed out of this community was a good friendship with a Canadian girl named Jodie.  Jodie has also been trying for several years to become pregnant but has also faced a lot of issues.  As bad as Julie and I have had it, my heart really goes out to Jodie and her husband, as our small drive to Milwaukee is nothing compared to their flights to Toronto.  She's also had to undergo much harsher and more expensive treatment including invetro fertilization two months ago. Just when everything seemed to finally work, she flew in for a check-up and got the worst news you could imagine, she lost the baby.  My heart absolutely goes out to Jodie and her husband for all the hardships that they have encountered and hope that things get better for them soon.

Sometimes we live in a cruel world.  On the most recent season of Mike & Molly, they spent the entire season having a frustrating time attempting to have their first child, but (SPOILER ALERT), of course at the end of the season, Molly announced that she was going to be having her baby.  Unfortunately, we do not live in a sitcom world where things have a happy ending.  Most of our time is spent mid-season during these frustrating periods of our lives.   Julie is currently trying a new medication and has a follow-up appointment tomorrow, hopefully we will get some good news and have our sitcom ending soon enough.

Box Office Estimates May 31-June 2, 2013

This weekend was expected to be the calmest since Iron Man 3 came out and it certainly was.  While After Earth wasn't projected to make a lot of money, the box office of $27 million opening weekend was certainly a surprise as it was the lowest Will Smith summer movie opening of all time.  Fast and Furious 6 led the box office for the second week in a row with another $34 million for $170 million domestic gross so far. Probably the biggest surprise was that Fast and Furious dropped 64.5% and all of the other carryover movies in the top 8 all dropped over 50% this weekend.  Also, making the top 10 despite only opening in 161 theaters is the new Bollywood movie Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani.

Next weekend, The Internship and The Purge open up.  The Internship has a good chance of opening strong, but it's been a while since Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have been big summer draws.  The Purge being an R-rated horror movie will probably do fine, since it's been a while since the last horror film (Evil Dead in early April).

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	1	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$34,538,000	-64.5%	3,686	+28	$9,370	$170,377,000	$160	2
2	N	Now You See Me	LG/S	$28,050,000	-	2,925	-	$9,590	$28,050,000	$75	1
3	N	After Earth	Sony	$27,000,000	-	3,401	-	$7,939	$27,000,000	$130	1
5	3	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$16,400,000	-56.0%	3,585	-322	$4,575	$181,156,000	$190	3
4	4	Epic	Fox	$16,400,000	-51.1%	3,894	+12	$4,212	$65,161,000	$100	2
6	2	The Hangover Part III	WB	$15,930,000	-61.8%	3,565	+10	$4,468	$88,086,000	$103	2
7	5	Iron Man 3	BV	$8,006,000	-58.6%	2,895	-529	$2,765	$384,751,000	$200	5
8	6	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$6,265,000	-53.7%	2,635	-455	$2,378	$128,256,000	$105	4
9	N	Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani	Eros	$1,651,000	-	161	-	$10,255	$1,651,000	-	1
10	7	Mud	RAtt.	$1,226,000	-36.8%	581	-131	$2,110	$16,866,000	-	6

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Episode 59 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 59: The Fresh Pod of Bel-Air.  We start off the show talking about Wicked, which Anthony saw this week.

Movie Reviews From Jim

As you should be aware, we love hearing what you guys have to say about the pop culture items you enjoy or didn't enjoy.  Our friend Jim sent us an e-mail reviewing two movies that he recently watched.  As always, feel free to send us an e-mail at abconvo27@hotmail.com and we'll feature it on the site, if you want us to.

Hey ABconvo Guys,
 
Sat through two movies this week and figured I'd let others know what
I thought.
 
--> Tomorrow You're Gone
(Stephen Dorff, Michelle Monaghan, Willem Dafoe)

 Story:
Charlie Rankin (Stephen Dorff), recently released from prison, seeks
vengeance for his jail-house mentor William "The Buddha" Pettigrew
(Willem Dafoe). Along the way, he meets the ethereal, yet streetwise,
Florence Jane. They embark on a unlikely road trip, careening towards
an unlikely redemption and uncertain resolution.
 
Great Actors but the story is boring, choppy, and there are questions
that are never answered.
 
Example:
Charlie is released from prison after many years and has a hot woman,
Florence, hanging all over him (she wants sex super bad).  He
constantly shrugs it off and has flashbacks that lead to nowhere.
Then later in the movie he just decides to sleep with her for no real
reason. So, why is a guy deprived of women in prison not able to sleep
with her through almost the whole movie? We don't know, nor do we get
an answer. I thought the flashbacks might lead to something like his
mother being raped or killed.  Or maybe he was gay but as viewers we
were unaware of it.  Pointless, except to take up several minutes
throughout the movie and add nothign to the already weak storyline.
 
Skip This Movie!!
 
--> Jack Reacher
(Tom Cruise) 

 Story:
A homicide investigator digs deeper into a case involving a trained
military sniper who shot five random victims.
 
This movie turned out to be pretty action packed and kept me guessing
on motives of the gunman.  I also enjoyed the small parts in the movie
by an old gun range owner played by, Robert Duvall.
The only thing I might change about the movie is the fact that they
show the gunman early on, instead of leaving it a total secret till we
know for sure who he is.
 
I probably won't buy this movie on blu-ray but might buy it if I can
pick it up cheap on DVD.
 
If you are the type of person that likes and/or doesn't mind gun
violence, then Watch This Movie!!
 
- JimJam

Movie Review: AFTER EARTH

The king of summer is back, Will Smith brings his big summer movie credibility to team up with his son Jaden in hopes of launching his movie career to the next level in After Earth.  This movie was very quietly directed and co-written by M. Night Shyamalan, which is unlike his previous movies where his name was above the title.  At this point, sadly, the Shyamalan name is more harm than good.



Set 1000 years after the Earth becomes inhabitable, humans now live on a planet named Nova Prime.  Little did the humans know when they took over this planet there was an alien species, that fed on people's fear, that were trying to kill the humans.  Cypher Raige (Will Smith) figures out the way of defeating the aliens called "ghosting" which is not having any fear and therefore becoming invisible to the alien. Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) is working hard to enter the Rangers where his father becomes a hero, but while physically capable is not ready mentally.  Cypher decides that it's time to become a father, so he embarks on one last mission (it's always the last mission!) this time bringing Kitai along.  While transporting one of these alien creatures to take it to another planet for training, they navigate through an unexpected asteroid field, suffer major battle damage to the ship and crash-land on the nearest planet, which just happens to be, wait for it, Earth.

Of course everyone on the spaceship is killed except for Kitai and Cypher, who is badly damaged and can't leave the chair he's sitting in.  Cypher sends Kitai on a mission to find the tail end of the ship that broke off while crashing towards Earth, which is 100 kilometers away so he can get supplies and a beacon to signal a rescue team.  Of course they had all of this stuff on the front end of the ship but all that stuff was apparently sold in the future version of the dollar store because it's all cheap junk that breaks on impact. This Earth is full of animals that have somehow evolved to absolutely hate humans, even though they haven't seen them over the past 1000 years.  From there, Cypher has to guide Kitai through the forest and a ton of very unlikely scenarios to guide him towards the tail end of the ship.

What an absolute piece of garbage.  Quite frankly, this is as lazy as movie making gets.  There was not one thing that happened in the movie that was not cookie cutter, color by numbers predictable.  For a director that has made his career over having interesting twists in his movie, Shyamalan plays everything far too safe here.  Because Will Smith is basically hospitalized the entire movie, he never gets to really show the charismatic qualities that make him one of the biggest actors in Hollywood, yet without him this movie would much worse.  Jaden Smith delivers probably the worst performance I've seen by the star of a summer movie.  Both Will and Jaden speak in some weird accent that sounds like British meets Indian. Jaden is almost incomprehensible at some points, especially the beginning when he's trying to explain the fall of mankind on Earth.  Jaden tries to keep up with this terrible accent the entire movie and it never gets any better, while Will for the most part goes in and mostly out of it.

As for the good, After Earth was visually solid but not spectacular, the CG didn't look bad but wasn't that believable or impressive either.  For the most part the pacing of the movie was pretty decent as well, except for some of the flashbacks and exposition scenes that occur while Kitai is off on his adventure.  Clocking in somewhere around the 100 minute mark, the movie isn't nearly as long and painful as it could have been.  This is also more of a kid's movie than they market it to be and in that way it's kind of Shyamalan's successor to The Last Airbender.  Except for some graphic imagery, I'm almost surprised this didn't get a PG rating.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Graduation Time

It's an exciting time of the year for all graduates to move on to the next phase in their lives. I graduated from college 5 years ago, and it feels like it was yesterday.  The best part of graduating is the commencement speaker, most schools have former graduates come back to the campus and give a motivational speech about the lessons they learned outside of the school.  The possibilities for who this speaker could be are endless and sometimes they can be really freaking cool.  My favorite videos this year come from Wesleyan University where 1987 graduate Joss Whedon spoke and Georgetown where writer/actress Brit Marling talks about meeting her filmmaking partners Mike Cahill (Another Earth) and Zal Batmanglij (Sound of My Voice, The East).  Whedon and Marling deliver tremendous speeches and I can't recommend enough to check these out.





While you're here, you might as well check out my favorite college commencement speech of all time, Conan O'Brien speaking in front of the 2011 Dartmouth College graduating class.

Movie Review: THE INTOUCHABLES

I'm not one to normally watch foreign films, or as Kevin Smith likes to call them, "readers." It's not anything against them, it's just hard to focus on the screen that hard for 2 hours, especially at home. However, I usually try to watch a few every year that sound interesting to me. The one that really stood out the most from last year's release schedule was The Intouchables. 

The Intouchables is the story of a paraplegic man, Philippe (Francois Cluzet), who needs to hire a new caretaker, that's when Driss (Omar Sy) enters his life.  Omar just shows up for the interview so that he can get a signature that he applied for a job so he can get his government benefits. However, Philippe sees something in Driss and hires him on to be his caretaker. From there it's just a touching and hilarious ride to see how both of these individuals affect each others lives.

This movie completely blew me away. Not only was the story amazingly compelling but there were quite a few legitimate laugh-out-loud moments. The performances those two gave were brilliant, especially Omar Sy who has a great career ahead of him, including that he's going to be playing Bishop in the new X-Men: Days of Future Past movie.  Even if you aren't a fan of "readers," give this one a chance it's refreshingly honest and a terrific story.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Movie Review: VAMPS

Opting to go the Video-On-Demand route instead of being released in theaters is the vampire rom-com, Vamps.  This is the latest movie from Amy Heckerling, the director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writer/director of Clueless.  Heckerling re-unites with her Clueless star Alicia Silverstone in a very Cher-esque vampire role along with Krysten Ritter (Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23).



Vamps is the tale of two single female vampires, Goody (Silverstone) who's been a vampire for over 200 years and her friend Stacy (Ritter) who's only been a vampire since the 1980's.  It follows their lives of going to the clubs and vampire awareness meetings at night and sleeping during the day.  During this time, Goody accidentally runs into old boyfriend Danny (Richard Lewis, Curb Your Enthusiasm), whose wife is near death and is astonished at how Goody looks 40 years later.  Stacy, meanwhile, develops a relationship with a young male named Joey Van Helsing (Dan Stevens), whose dad is THE Van Helsing (Wallace Shawn, The Princess Bride), not Hugh Jackman.

 While this movie looked and felt like more like a made for TV movie, Vamps was a surpringsly good time.  The casting was very good and had a lot of recognizable faces as the supporting cast in here, including Sigourney Weaver as their "stem" vampire, Cisserus, and Malcolm McDowell as Vlad Tepish.  Vamps could have used a higher budget as you can tell many corners are cut, especially in make-up and the CGI, especially that used in the final fight scene is hilariously atrocious.  While it's not over the top funny, there are some decent chuckles to be found.  Vamps is not nearly as good as Clueless but that's okay, it's still a fun romp that makes for an enjoyable movie experience at home.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Movie Review: DARK SKIES

Dark Skies was released in theaters in February and is available on Blu-Ray/DVD today. This movie stars Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton (not the baseball player) with a small but important appearance by J.K. Simmons.  Dark Skies was written and directed by Scott Stewart (not to be confused with ESPN anchor Stewart Scott), who previously made such movies as Legion and Priest.




This movie is advertised (poorly) as being from the producers of Paranormal Activity and Insidious. It seems like every horror movie is advertised with some sort of tie-in with Paranormal Activity, much the same way that 2 years ago  every movie was by somebody who made Saw.  Overall, it's not a horror movie in the way those movies are as it's much more a psychological thriller.   

Dark Skies tells the story of a suburban family that begins to have a bunch of strange things happen at their house, from all of the home security sensors being at the same time to all of the pictures on the mantle just disappearing.  The problem escalates as the family members begin to be affected by having hallucinations and starring off in a daze like a possessed individual from the Paranormal Activity movies. 

 This was an interesting movie that never reached the heights that it could have.  Dark Skies wasn't scary enough to be a horror movie, but not smart enough to be a thriller.  The performances from the cast are very good, especially the always exceptional Keri Russell, who is the fuel for this movie and keeps it from becoming a colossal failure.  While it doesn't trudge any new ground and there have been better movies of the same ilk done before, Dark Skies doesn't drag and is captivating enough to make it worth checking out.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5