Movie Review: Night of the Living Deb

Today I'm reviewin the horror comedy (which is really a weird genre isn't it) Night of the Living Deb. It stars Maria Thayer, Syd Wilder and Ray Wise.  "After a girls' night out, endearingly awkward Deb wakes up in the apartment of the most attractive guy in Portland, Maine. She's thrilled, but she can't remember much of what got her there. Pretty boy Ryan only knows it was a mistake and ushers her out the door... into a full-scale zombie apocalypse. Now, a walk of shame becomes a fight for survival as the mismatched pair discovers that the only thing scarier than trusting someone with your life... is trusting them with your heart."  I found this just looking for something to watch on Netflix.  I wasn't in the mood for straight horror (my lovely girlfriend wanted to watch Lights Out) but I was looking to laugh.  We both got what we wanted.  Now lets go watch the 2015 horror comedy!

• Well that was a pretty bad opening to a flick
• not sure if the director from Monsters Inc is the best first thing

I feel slightly bad making his comparison

• Did I just see her pooping?
• She might be the most awkward person in the world...very nice
• Did she just call her a Fraggle...nice
• The raven haired chick is a BITCH
• Goodbye to the cats?
• What is up with her shorts?
• Why does her car say Otis?  Wait...is it her car?
• Right to the zombies...with kid zombies...weird
• This idiot chick thinks it is the parade?  Really?
• Well it is filthy outside, Ryan is correct
• Do they really still make shower radios?
• That phone is pretty ancient
• Deb has a big cleft in her chin
• Okay the Coconut joke was good
• Did they just use the clapper?  AWESOME!
• These people are not quiet, its awesome
• Strangely I like this chick
• The acting is so uninspired at times in this flick it is awesome
• Ray Wise is AWESOME!

Honestly I got wrapped up in this film.  Was it Citizen Kane?  No...and that is a good thing...I hated that flick.  But honestly after Wise showed up I kind of just watched the flick which didn't make for a good review I realize.  However let me go from here.

The flick was much better then I expected and I really enjoyed the performance of Maria Thayer.  She had EXCELLENT comedy timing and I'm tempted to check out other stuff this young lady has done....so much so that I just tried to find Eagleheart and Those who Can't.  Her delivery as the bumbling female lead was fantastic.  Honestly, this movie would have been horrible without her. 

MILD SPOILERS BELOW!

With all due respect to the rest of the cast this young lady made this flick watchable!  Well that and Ray Wise...who is great in everything.

This flick was honestly picked out expecting a trainwreck but it wasn't horrible.  It could have been much worse.  I hate to knock an actor but Michael Cassidy was horrible in this flick.  He was extremely flat in his performance and his delivery.  I didn't believe that he had ANY emotion.  I honestly have more emotions on a tech call at 5:55am with a user who forgot the password they created 5 minutes before calling me!

The storyline is stupid beyond the basic idea of the water turning people into the Undead.  I mean the idea that these people were that stupid was just dumb but again Maria and Ray and Chris Marquette (who was okay as the dumb brother) saved this flick.

I give it a 6/10 only for Maria's performance.  I honestly can't say enough how great her timing was. She was perfect in this role!

So if you want to see excellent comic timing among one of the flattest performances put on film (yeah sorry Michael Cassidy [not sorry]) check this flick out.  If you want a great flick check something else out!  Until next time...abyssinia! 

Movie Review: Deepwater Horizon

Over the weekend I was finally able to go see the flick Deepwater Horizon.  It stars Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell and Douglas M. Griffin.  "A dramatization of the April 2010 disaster when the offshore drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded and created the worst oil spill in U.S. history."  As of 10/10/16 it had a rating of 7.6 on IMDB.

I'll start off by saying I agree with the rating and gave it a 8.  I really enjoyed the flick and don't have a lot of bad things I can say about it.  The biggest complaint, and this isn't a huge one, was the inclusion of Wahlberg's family.  I understand it was done to add to the drama but it didn't really add much to the flick in my opinion.  One could argue it made him feel more human but for me I felt like it was added to tug at my heart strings, which I didn't need at the end.  11 men lost their lives, and not the person that Wahlberg played, I think it would have had more impact there but I understand you also have to go with star power.

As far as everything else, I really enjoyed this flick.  The acting was fantastic, and if you look at the cast one shouldn't be surprised there.  Wahlberg is good at what he does and this is the kind of flick he is really good in.  A sarcastic tough guy.  I don't mean that as a bad thing, he is fantastic in most of his roles because he picks them wisely.  And what can someone say about Kurt Russell.  He has been doing this for what....60 years?  Something like that.  They are both amazing in what they do.  The rest of the cast was amazing as well just those two stood out along with a great subtle performance of Ethan Suplee, who usually plays the larger than life characters

Now about the topic of the film.  It was a tragedy that it happened and made worse that 11 men lost their lives.  It was the result of corporate greed, most likely.  Based on the movie it is unclear if Vidrine and Kaluza worked on their own or if they were pressured from above to get this project back on track.  

However I will say that their thinking was correct from what was shown in the movie.  I honestly believe that this was a case of people cutting corners because the facts given showed they could.  I could be wrong because I know jack and shit about it but that is my conclusion from the info shown in the flick.  I don't for one second believe that anyone would have done what they did if they knew that was going on some 3 or 5 miles below them.

Overall worth checking this flick out and I kind of wish I had gone to the Imax showing given how large it was.  Worth seeing in the theater because of the big budget explosions.  Wouldn't be the same unless you have a large screen and surround sound.  

Book Review: 900 Miles (900 Miles #1)

Today I'm reviewing the book 900 Miles (900 Miles #1) by S. Johnathan Davis 

I didn't know what to expect from this book.  I found it with a bunch of other zombies books and needed something different.  I hadn't read a zombie book for a while as I had concentrated on other books.

I say this in a good way, but it was written in a very simple straight forward way.  After reading a lot of Stephen King and other large novel authors it is nice to not to have to read a chapter to know what color the dress on a woman cross the street was.

The book itself was nothing special and standard zombie stuff, which isn't a bad thing.  It had what you find in 95% of zombie books.  Someone trying to get to a loved one.  Humans are actually the enemy.  Big cluster fights.  You know standard fare.

I could see where the author was trying to do things slightly different but at the end of the day it is hard to find an original idea when it comes to the zombie motif.  With all the movies and books a lot of it has been done before.

I think the the biggest downfall was that I didn't relate to any of the characters and I think it is because there wasn't much build up of the characters themselves.  They were just there to me.  Also the action just kept coming with no lull really.  I understand this idea however.  As someone who has tried to write a few of my own zombie stories I know that you don't want the story to be boring so you think I've got to have one battle after another after another.  Which lets be honest, is realist in a sense if this did happen, but lacks storytelling at time.

That isn't to say that I hated it.  It was right there middle of the road.  I enjoyed it for what it was but, and again this isn't meant as an insult, I wasn't going to be reading the Hobbit or IT.

If you enjoy zombie books, or are looking for quick easy enjoyable read this isn't a bad choice.  I'm going to see if I can hunt down the second one just to see where the author goes.

Book Review: Armada

I have enjoyed both of Ernest books.  Perhaps it is the nerd in me and the many nerdy references.  I am sure that is part of it.  But part of it is the writing style.  It is simple...and I don't mean that in a bad way.

Years ago I was accused of "writing like I talk" and I feel that way here as I read the story.  It felt more like a transcript of an oral story rather then a novel.  As much as I like Stephen King he often takes paragraphs to say what could have been said in two lines.

Both Ready Play One and Armada had good pacing without feeling rushed and I enjoyed the story in both.  Nothing ground breaking or anything like that but just good solid story telling.  I didn't care for the ending but no matter which directly it was taken I think I would have disliked it.

I also think I liked this book because it hit close to home.  I related to the Zach character.  As a young man, like most who lose a parent, I used to dream of my dad coming back.  Being a secret agent or in hiding from the mob or something!  Of course stuff like that rarely happens in real life but a boy can dream right?   I also have what some would call an anger issue so I understood the Zach character more then some might have.

There were issues with the story I didn't like.  The Lex character seemed a little stereotypical and a few of the other "politically correct" items seemed slightly forced/didn't add much to the story.  I guess it just kind of took me out of the story instead of showing "real people" which I think was the point.

Overall I really liked it, 4/5.  The few things above is all that stopped me from giving it 5/5.  Check this out for a quickish fun read.

Movie Review: Grizzly Man

Today I'm checking out the documentary Grizzly Man.  "A devastating and heartrending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzlies in Alaska."  I've checked this flick out before but I'm returned to it again.

• Yeah, this guy is normal
• Hey I do that too!  There is nothing like scratching your back against a tree/door jam
• How clinically insane was this guy?
• Hey stylized himself as Prince Valiant?  That explains the hair!
• He knows the language of the bear?  
• Four garbage bags of "people" 
• This pilot is right in my opinion, not real smart on Tim's part
• Why send hate mail....oh it wasn't sent to Tim I guess, just to the ecologist in general
• This fox footage is amazing, playing with the tent
• Love that he is mad about the fox stealing his hat
• I have no desire to get into the bears "world"
• Jewel Palovak is very weird looking...this is a weird scene...getting a dead mans watch
• Werner Herzog is a horrible narrator!
• Amy isn't suppose to be on camera, it wasn't her story throughout the footage
• The coroner is REALLY creepy...which isn't surprising given his job
• Why would you want to listen to that?  Why?
• Watching those bears fight just once is all it would take for me to not be out there.  Imagine what they could do to a human...There is nothing you can do to stop that....nothing
• He had a pet squirrel?
• Who goes and watched people get sentenced?  What a bunch of weird people!
• I wonder if his life had been different had he gone on medication like his doctor suggested
• The man is insane...he just binged that bears nose!
• Thank god they didn't play the audio of the attack

There you go, the man was insane.  I'm sorry if that sounds harsh but he was.  That doesn't mean he was a bad person but he was chemically imbalanced, as a person who has an imbalance myself, I can see it in people sometimes.  The irrational hatred of things or people (see the scene where he loses it on the park service).  The extreme highs and lows.  I honestly believe that if he had taken his medicine he would be alive because he would have seen he was risking his life over and over again.

That isn't to say that he wasn't dedicated to a cause and I respect those who are but he risked his life and the life.  He also gave a very poor message that wild animals aren't to be respected.  The museum employee implied that and I believe it as well.

Don't think that I am saying that he should have died because I don't believe that.  He should be alive and still fighting for the safety of bears and their homeland.  

Overall I think it is a very good film but I am sorry that he man had to lose his life to get his message out.