Goosebumps (2015)

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Goosebumps inspired the hell out me as a kid. The show enthralled me and the books made me want to read; R.L Stine was one of my first idols. You’d think a big screen adaptation of his work would make my heart a flutter with cosmic levels of joy? Hell no friend! I was nervous as shit. But why? And better question, was my fear justified? Well as R.L would put it, “Readers beware, you’re in for a scare.”

We begin as with a new kid moving into a quiet suburb with his mom and the crush he inevitably forms with the pretty neighbor girl next door. Classic story, including her grouchy dad who just so happens to be the legendary writer R.L Stine ( well, Jack Black playing R.L Stine). Zach, our main character finds himself at ends with his neighbor but falling for his daughter. After discovering his identity as the famous writer, he discovers the collections of his manuscripts and all hell breaks loose when the monsters of ghouls of Stine’s books are unleashed on the town led by the most sinister of them all, Slappy the living Dummy. Can Stine and the group of teens save the town in there own story?

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the movie, but overall I can’t say I’m a fan of it. The plot is interesting and it was a cool trip down memory lane at times. The characters are pretty cliche, though Black is entertaining as Stine while not being so great as Slappy. A big problem I had was some of the creature/ monster designs were way too cartoony for me; I was hoping for some of the darker imaginings from the show. For example, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp looks pretty damn eerie and viscous in the show, where as in the movie he’s wearing basketball shorts and tattered sneakers. Slappy in the show always unnerved me where I wasn’t remotely spooked by him in the movie. The movie is predictable with a decent twist that’s hurt because I wasn’t invested by any of the characters but Stine. A lot of the humor didn’t stick with me but may with a younger audience. In the end, many will enjoy this movie and young or old, there is enjoyment to be had; the truth is I wanted something different from it but I don’t think it’s by any means terrible. It’s worth checking out, if just to form your own opinion. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bob Saget That’s What I’m Talkin’ About (2013)

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If you are anything like me you grew up watching Americas Funniest videos and Full House. Maybe you watch Fuller House on Netflix. Bob Saget was that all American dad next door. Good guy, great father clean house doesn’t curse or swear. If you want to keep that image, don’t look him up on YouTube and for the love of the gaming gods, don’t watch this stand-up. Seriously, don’t do it.

If you want to screw your world up a bit and see old Danny Tanner talk about sex, swear and all sorts of messed up stuff, this stand up is for you. Or go on you YouTube and type in Bob Saget the aristocrats. I don’t recommend doing that tho, the joke is pretty damn messed up.

The stand-up tho is quite hilarious even without the added bonus of seeing a childhood father figure say messed up stuff and is very much worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Good Kids (2016)

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Good Kids is about four kids that basically were losers in high school, never got invited to parties, studied hard, got good grades and got into good colleges. After graduation,  they decided they would have that summer they never had in school. The summer of yes as they call it. The would go out and do all the things they wanted to do. Get drunk, try drugs, have a boyfriend and get laid. Or would they?

Well it turns out they do get invited to a party, and are quite popular. It isn’t long before they are doing all of those things. The tennis pro actually becomes a male prostitute on accident. The movie is funny tho it has its ups and downs, but this movie does something a bit different. Something that can make you wonder about your days in school.

Towards the end of the movie our man and hooker Andy runs into a recently ex classmate Conch when he goes to the wrong house. After a small talk he is told, to use Conch’s words, a “hard truth” Nobody ever disliked them and they exiled themselves. The reason they weren’t invited to the parties was simple. Nobody was invited, people just showed up,that is why it was called a party. Andy being drunk has a sort of epiphany and agrees to come to the next party, where the group is made more than welcomed.

This to me is the highlight of the movie. Looking back at school, how many times have you gone places and weren’t really invited you simply knew to go? Did you ever wonder if maybe the less popular kids simply didn’t know they simply needed to show up? Or is that even a thing? I actually never got invited so I don’t personally know but it was a pretty thought-provoking. Maybe I missed out on some school experiences and friendships simply because I wasn’t aware that there were all these parties I was supposed to simply show up at and nobody told me. Regardless, the movie is pretty solid. Not the best, but interesting enough to be worth a watch. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter (2018)

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The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter is a rather odd comedy. See its the story about a man named Buck Ferguson, a professional hunter that travels the world hunting.  When it son comes to that age where he can go on his first hunt, Buck and his best friend and cameraman Don plan to film the experience. The problem is his son, Jaden is really more of the gamer talk on his cell phone type.

The story starts with Buck and Don going to pick of Jaden from his ex-wife and her new boyfriend. Jaden for some odd reason insist on bringing his guitar to go hunting and his soon to be step dad gives him an assault rifle to go hunting with. Buck of course tosses this in the back of the truck and says he can’t hunt with it because it would be overkill.

After we get to the woods they quickly find their first deer. As Jaden takes aim, his girlfriend calls and the ringtone scares it off. Buck isn’t happy about this, in fact at some point in the movie he will actually take the phone off him it pisses him off so badly. Which I understand, Jaden is kind of a jackass. He will also destroy an ATV, whine insistently, pretty much never listen and cause all sorts of annoyances.

Don it turns out is also quite the pervert and even ends up showing Jaden pictures of the orgy his wife was in, splitting a cigarette with the kid trips and bust his head open on a rock and is also generally just not a very good role model or really anything more than a camera man with some questionable morals when it comes to how he talks to children.

The movie is actually pretty interesting and it does have its funny moments. It isn’t great or all that remarkable, but its good enough to be worth watching. Plus Buck is played by Josh Brolin so you basically get to see Thanos act like an over the top obsessed dear hunter which in itself is a bit funny. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Voices (2014)

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The voices is a 2014 movie Starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Kendrick and Gemma Arterton. Ryan plays a man who hears voices, not the typical voices you and me hear tho. The type that we know are just us thinking things like grab milk at the store or hey thank god for yoga pants. No he hears his dog and cat talking to him, just like his mom thought she heard actual angels.

Ryan’s character, Jerry ( it should be noted he does the dog, cat, a deer and bunny monkey character) meets and falls for Gemma’s character, Fiona. Fiona is English and admittedly isn’t fond of Jerry and honestly isn’t very good at hiding it Jerry is just sort of slow and naive. One night after she stands him up for a date she didn’t quite want to hurt his feelings by turning him down for, she gets caught in the rain when her car won’t start. Jerry upset and driving around in the rain legitimately by chance drives by where she left her car and she flags him down and he gives her a ride.

Now they are talking and they get to talking about angels in the bibles with names, now before he can finish the 4th angel with a names actual name they hit a deer. With blood everywhere in the car and Fiona freaking out and a deer begging to be killed Jerry dispatches the suffering creature, turns to Fiona and tells her the 4th angel is Lucifer. This freaks her out and she bolts into the woods. Jerry being the naive and carry man he is, is also an idiot and chases her into the woods yelling about how he told her to do it not thinking about how insane this sounds. Yea, this ends badly. She falls, and of course he falls on top of her..with the knife. Whats an insane man to do but end her suffering? Yup that’s right we get to see Ryan Reynolds stab a chick about a dozen times whole saying sorry in the woods.

When Jerry gets home his dog,Bosco, tries to convince him to do the right thing and go to the police. It was an accident after all. His cat however, Mr. Whiskers, disagrees. This is a horrible idea and he will be locked away because he is an insane murderer. The best option is to do something with the body so nobody can find it and carry on like nothing happened. Jerry being Jerry, and because we need a movie, listened to the cat.

This is as far as I will go with the story except to say we end up with talking human heads in a refrigerator. The movie is quite demented and weird, and not at all a horror movie. It is a dark comedy at best and an interesting take on how schizophrenia affects some people. The acting as you would expect from this cast is rock solid, you never get less than 110% from them. The script is great and the concept is an interesting one. The movie however isn’t for everyone, many simply won’t care for the subject or how it is covered. The movie randomly goes from comedy to serious and back again, with Anna Kendrick as Lisa putting on one of the best scenes in the movie in the only scene we really see from a perspective that isn’t from Jerry. You also won’t get your typical Reynolds wit and charm here. He dove WAY out of his usual comfort zone, which I enjoyed and he did great, but I can see why many wouldn’t be happy with it. All in all tho an enjoyable movie, tho the ending musical number was a bit disturbing. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Father of The Year (2018)

Father of The Year is a 2018 Happy Madison production Starring David Spade and Nat Faxon. The story is about two college graduates go home and end up having a debate about who’s dad would win in a fight,and the story of what happens when their fathers decide to find the answer.

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Father of The Year is another one of those Happy Madison Production movies that people are going to watch and enjoy, but will get pretty bad reviews. I’m not kidding, when I checked it was at 53% on rotten tomatoes, Roger Ebert gave it a 1.5/4 and Allocine gave it a 3.1/5. I have seen people call it hilarious and others call it garbage. For some reason they always seem to divide people.

The story of the movie was. Two college students graduate and come home for a few weeks before they move to New York. One for work and the other to find himself. The problem is one day they get to talking about which ones dad would win in a fight. Since Ben’s dad, Wayne, is a raging alcoholic and life long color blind screw up and Larry’s dad Mardy is a science nerd that has never been in a fight in his life that gets abused by his 8-year-old son constantly the entire debate is actually quite sad. Mardy of course claims he would win and takes the question as a joke. Wayne however is insulted by the question and later gets black out drunk and goes to Larry’s house to prove he can beat up Mardy.

The resulting spectacle results in a chase thru the house and Ben and Wayne falling off the roof and crashing through the neighbors green house as if they were some sort missile.  This of course results in a prison sentence, which results in Ben losing his job.

There is also a love story involved but I don’t want to the entire movie away. The movie has its moments of being pretty funny and pretty mediocre. The movie offers nothing new and nothing fantastic or special. The best way I have heard it put is the movie isn’t bad, it just isn’t all that memorable. I don’t regret watching it, I just can’t say I would watch it again. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Jim Jefferies: This Is Me Now

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Jim Jefferies This Is Me Now is his new stand up on Netflix. Stand up comedies are hard to review because what people find funny is pretty subjective. The easiest way to explain this one is with a question. Are you a fan of Jefferies? If your answer is yes, you will enjoy this. If you said no, this isn’t going to change that. He will cover topics from being a single dad, to his first time ever doing a stand up for a birthday party or even the time he had some bottles thrown at him on stage. This one is quite hilarious and worth watching. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Goosebumps 2 trailer 1

 

What can I say, I love Goosebumps with a passion. Well, the books and TV show at least. I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie so I wasn’t completely thrilled when I saw this trailer, but it’s here. I’m interested where a sequel will go, and it looks like we’re getting the fresh start approach which could be good. I’m not excited but it’s worth a look if you liked the first.

Set It Up (2018)

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Set it up is one of the new movies from Netflix, and as such I of course sat down and watched it. I actually didn’t expect much.I can’t say why, I just didn’t. The concept was good tho. Essentially it comes down to A female sports writer isn’t very nice to her female assistant. They work long hours, she never has time, and she never gets the chance to write which is all she wants.

A important VP also has an assistant, and he also pretty much gets treated like crap,also works a ton and has no time for his beautiful model girlfriend. One night they both forget dinner,and have a chance meeting. Not much longer later on another late night, they end up having a few drinks in the office and a drunken plan jokingly takes place. One she takes a bit seriously when she misses another date.

After he almost gets dumped he also gets on board. The plan is simple, since they have their bosses entire lives planned out meticulously. They will use this to get them to hook up, so that when they are sleeping together they will have some time off to go do what they want. This of course has varying degrees of success. For example getting them stuck in an elevator goes horrible since a claustrophobic delivery guy ends up stuck with them. The Yankees game however goes well, because as well all know a Yankees game is the sexiest thing ever. Read that with heavy sarcasm.

The movie does have plenty of funny parts to it. This is actually the part that surprised me. The actors are all funny enough, but usually these types of movies just don’t end up being funny. This one however is and that made me happy. The movie isn’t great, but its fun. It is also funny. It is very much worth watching. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Evil Dead

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Before the one-liners, before the madness of Asliegh Williams killing Deadites in the middle ages, before the remake that took itself way too seriously and Ash vs Evil Dead (series) there was the gory, claymated wonder that was the classic Evil Dead. Like many wacky misadventures, Evil Dead is about a group of friends that go to a nice sweet little cabin in the woods. Things are fine until the basement door pops open and in the basement they find an old tape recorder and a peculiar book made of flesh and written in human blood- like we all do. On the recorder is a translation from a past victim of the book, who loudly recites the translated incantations, unleashing the Evil Dead on them. Malevolent spirits awaken, attacking and possessing the friends, turning them into disgusting demons. By the end, on the cusp of his sanity is the whimpy, meek, Ash but can he rise to the challenge?

I know I’m playing against the the gross opinion but I actually like the original Evil Dead best. I like the gritty filming and there is a good blend of WTF scenes that are funny actual horror. Linda, Ash’s girlfriend, creeped the hell out of me with her clownish make up and wide grin. The infamous tree rape scene holds up pretty well in my opinion and is still alarming. In the end, Evil Dead is a simple movie with a simple premise that is a damn awesome B movie I recommend checking out for the simple fact it is a fun horror movie of gore, slapstick, and some chills. May the gaming gods bring you glory, now it’s time to go to sleep:)