Movie Review: Zack and Miri Make a Porno

First let me say that this movie does have a lot of nudity and sex. Okay moving on, Zack and Miri stars Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and Elizabeth Banks (40-Year Old Virgin and Role Models). Who play basically a common-law couple who live together but don't actually admit to liking each other, or wanting to be a couple, only friends who've known each other since elementary school.

Zack and Miri are coming upon hard times, losing their utilities and working at low paying jobs. They get inspiration at a high school reunion to make a porno film. Using money from their friend played by Craig Robinson (Daryl on The Office). They begin to reach out and make sets, gather other actors and actually make their "dream" become a reality.

Now the movie actually does have a good moral and has something to say about relationships and love. That said, the movie features Seth Rogen's Knocked Up style, down to Earth humour. He's the every-man if you will. Overall Kevin Smith does a great job on direction and the movie is quite funny. Definetly worth it if you give it a chance.

Acting: 8.5/10
Story: 8.5/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Rated: 18-A (ONT) R (USA)

P.S. Go Canada for using the original movie poster, none of that U.S. B.S.

Movie Review: Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Kevin James is easily one of my favourite comedic actors. I loved King of Queens, it was hilarious. He has a certain charm that other actors in his genre don't in my opinion.

Paul Blart is a mall cop. He patrols around the mall "helping" people, but wants to be a police officer but can't due to a condition he has. He also has a crush on mall worker Amy (played by Jayma Mays, best known for Red Eye and various T.V. roles such as House and Heroes). His family consists of his daughter and mother who want him to begin dating again (his wife left him after getting married).

It's Black Friday and robbers take over the mall and Paul has to defeat them. So basically it's a spoof off of the original Die Hard movies.

The movie is pretty witty and funny. There were some twists that I actually didn't see coming so that was surprising from a movie like this.

Acting: 8/10
Story: 8.5/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Rated: PG (ONT) PG (USA)

P.S. Jayma Mays is hot!

Movie Review: Milk

Milk is based around the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician. It basically goes through his life in San Francisco, his ups and downs as well as his personal relationships.

A major character in the story is Dan White, who kills Milk in real life and in the movie. Basically there are disagreements between them and White goes crazy.

In the end though the movie almost makes you sympathize with White, because at times, Milk sort of comes off as an ass. I'm not trying to justify White but that's just the vibe the movie gave me anyway.

Overall Sean Penn is amazing as Milk, Josh Brolin plays White and does a great job. James Franco of Spiderman fame also does a good job. Overall the acting is really well done. I also enjoy the atmosphere. I don't know how but both Milk and Pursuit of Happyness do a really good job of San Fran from the past.

Acting: 9/10
Story: 8.5/10
Atmosphere: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
Rated: 14-A (ONT) R (USA)

P.S. This is the first biography movie I think I've reviewed, and was kind of difficult, because everything happened, so there's not much to really elaborate on.

Movie Review: Gran Torino

Gran Torino has to have been my favourite movie of 2008, although there's a lot of contenders. Clint Eastwood is astounding. He's both menacing yet heartfelt and funny. Not to mention bad ass!

The basic plot is that Eastwood is Walt Kowalski, an elderly war veteran who just lost his wife. He feels disconnected from the rest of his family, dislikes Father Janovich (played by Christopher Carley who's great), the local vicar (or priest whatever) and basically hates everyone.

This include his neighbors who are Hmong. Their son Thao (Bee Lang) and daughter Sue Vang Lor (Ahney Her) are harassed by their cousin, who basically leads a local gang. They try and recruit Thao by getting him to steal Walt's Gran Torino, Thao's a bit of a weakling but Walt intervenes. Walt then takes Thao under his wing.

Sue is great as Thao's no nonsense sister who doesn't put up with Walt's sterotyping. The atmosphere was great capturing Detroit in the rough times it's going through. The ending is very satisfying and there's a ton of great humour.

Acting: 9.5/10
Story: 9.5/10
Atmosphere: 9/10
Overall: 9.5/10
Rated: 14-A (ONT) R (USA)

P.S. I definitely recommend listening to the them song for the movie "Gran Torino" by Jamie Cullum, it's below, Clint Eastwood sings for the first minute or so.

Glenn Sacks nails the War

For years now I have known that the war in Afghanistan is bs. But this blog post by Glenn Sacks nails it. We shouldn't be there.

Crazyest Most Vivid Dream Ever

So I'm on a "vacation" similar to Curacao with my whole family. This time though it's in the Petrolia/sarnia area. I can't remember most of the dream so I'll get to the vivid part. We're on a bus going down a hill. I'm looking at a bunch of storm drains gushing out water, which I remember from something in a memory I have. Then I look ahead. We're going to fast. Our tires screech on the wet pavement, it's pouring out and we slide over and into a river. The water fills the bug lightening fast. I'm at the back and get pushed out either via the door or window. I see a bunch of people out too as I watch the bus sink to the river bottom. I go back to the surface and take my memory out of the camera, my sisters are already up there. Sarah gives Jen her camera and I follow suit placing my camera on the edge by the water with the memory chip on top of it. I dive again to look for anyone needing help. At first I think I'm not going to get very deep, but my breath sort of evens out. I find my cousin Ben, I examine him first to see if he needs help, then take him to the surface. I bring him into some house and put him onto a table and blow some air on him to resesitate him. I talk to him on MSN (while he's in front of me?) and we go to see the others. My grandpa says, have you seen grandma (jokingly because my grandma is right there). Everyones around the table talking. It ends and I wake up. Very vivid, especially the bus going into the river.

To Tweet or not to Tweet? That is the question.

Recently I came across this blog entry by John Derringer, a radio show host I listen to frequently. The article is about Twitter and how it's bad. Of course recently I started my on twitter account, so I'm going to try to analyze how and why twitter is relevant.

John says that twitter is for IM (instant messaging) and networking for social groups. But I disagree, in fact I'd say it would be a terrible use of twitter.
Twitter is a combination of pretty much every big internet social development of the past 5 years (except maybe Flickr and other photo sites). You have Facebook, which really started the "What are you doing?" thing. A dab of blogs and personal sites. IM or commenting. E-Mail and finally Messenger services such as MSN or Yahoo!. I think probably the most promising use of twitter is for news, much like RSS feeds.

Self-Importance? Not really, it's more just for fun. A time filler if you will. I post crap up for no reason, like "Watching T.V." I don't think anyone gives two sh!$s about it. Sure I like it when I get a follower but it's not an obsession (Most are just selling crap anyway). Now this is kind of hypocritical of a guy who has his own radio show and is complaining about this in his BLOG. What's the difference between a blog, or vlog (youtube channel) and posting on twitter. Nothing really.

People need to be more open. And I was one of those people before, back two years ago, I detested Facebook. "What a waste of time!" I thought, and now I'm glad I have facebook. So to the haters in the comments, you'll probably have twitter in a few years. (In fact I think I felt the same way about twitter too!)

Ironically, I found the Q107, John's station, already has a twitter and I'm now following it. As Chuck Berry would say "Goes to show you never can tell".

P.S. The title was pretty clever eh?