Tag: Movies

Stephen King’s Thinner (1996)

Stephen King’s Thinner is based on the novel by the same name and is the last novel released under King’s the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Released in 1996 by Paramount Pictures.

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Stephen King’s Thinner is based on the novel by the same name and is the last novel released under King’s the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story is about an over weight lawyer named Billy Halleck. Billy is what you would call less than honest.

After winning his most recent case and discovering his diet still isn’t really working he goes out to celebrate with his wife. On the ride home he is enjoying some extra driving activities with his wife and runs over an elderly gypsy lady and kills her. There of course is an investigation to determine if there is any wrong doing and the investigation is a complete sham. The investigator lies about having even done a breathalyzer test. Billy wasn’t drunk, but he still lied in court. The judge also pressures people into lying about the old woman running out of a store instead of walking.

After Billy is found to have done nothing wrong in the disgrace of a trial the husband and daughter decide to take justice into their own hands by setting a gypsy curse on Billy. This curse will make him lose weight. This doesn’t sound bad, except for the fact that he will lose weight until he dies.

At first Billy and his wife doesn’t seem to realize that anything is even wrong. Then they think maybe it is a sign of cancer. Billy is the first however to think maybe something is wrong when he notices the judge also has a skin issue and coincidentally right where the old gypsy man touched him as well. Of course he will see multiple doctors and end up at the mayo clinic, because who would believe gypsy curses are real? I mean would you think this dude could curse you?

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Seriously nobody would think this guy is going to be serious. It isn’t more than a few weeks tho before our 300 pound friend however is down to about 150 despite eating thousands of calories a day of whatever the hell he wants.

The movie itself is interesting but suffers from the same issue pretty much every King book adaptation does, you will see most reviews come down to “The book was better.” Honestly this may be true, I personally haven’t read the book. The movie itself was fun and had an interesting concept. It also played pretty much every stereotype on every person in the movie. The lawyer had no morals, the cop and judge were dirty, the gypsies were basically magical nomads that lived a long time and seemed to have no morals and are hated by everyone. Pretty standard stuff. I did enjoy the movie and the ending tho, and would happily watch the movie again. It was never scary or really all that funny, it was just interesting. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Amateur Night (2016)

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Amateur Night is the story of Guy Carter, loving husband that is unemployed that needs some money to keep the health insurance going just long enough for his wife to have the baby. So when his wife convinces this out of work architect to take a job as a delivery guy why what could possibly go wrong?

Guy Carter doesn’t know karate or carry a weapon, which is kind of unfortunate since he is delivering women. Yup, that is right, Guy is essentially delivering hookers. At first just Nikki to a mans house that turns out to be a doctor with some rather interesting taste in head ware and rope. When Guy thinks Nikki is being attacked he causes doc to hit his head. This leads to an explanation on bondage.

After this they are off to pick up two more women ,Fallon and Jaxi. As all this goes on of course guy is freaking out more and more about becoming a father, but discovers if tonight goes well he could walk away with a cool 2 grand. More than enough to keep the insurance.

As the movie goes on there will be a bachelor party plenty of dancing and implied sexual things. None of which is actually showed so don’t go getting too excited. It actually isn’t even all that important besides to explain what they do for a living.

The movie is fun but quite predictable. There will be the usual tropes of the ladies being more than what they are, one being rich and great with money and them all being friends. Guy will learn he in fact has what it takes to be a great dad with a few random surprises as well. Predictable isn’t always bad tho. While the movie won’t show you anything new or special, it is fun and entertaining and that is really all you need. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Just Before I Go (2015)

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Just Before I Go is a comedy, but it’s actually a pretty dark comedy in a way. The movie starts with a man underwater.

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This is Ted, Ted is a pretty basic guy with a pretty basic job. Most people would even call him boring. One day at his boring job he meets his wife, Penny. Penny eventually gets bored and cheats on him with her guitar teacher. In the ensuing argument she tells him he may as well be dead, and this is when he decides he really would be better off dead. First however he has some things to do.

When Ted goes home to his home town to stay with his brother and his family things get a bit weird right out the gate. The first night his nephew tells him to use the dead bolt that’s on the guest room door, which he doesn’t only to discover his sister-in-law sleep masturbates in front of house guest. His nephew is hiding the fact that he is gay, which he confided in Ted, which leads to an entirely new predicament with the family.

Ted will also confront his childhood bully and have a small romance with the girl he had a crush on from 4th grade, that happens to now be married. All this while finding a new romance with a family member of the teacher that tormented him after the death of his father.

Now if this sounds like a lot going on, it is. That isn’t to say the movie is bad, I actually rather enjoyed it. The movie did get mixed reviews however, with metacritic giving it a 24% and rotten tomatoes a 10%. IMDb does give it a 6.4/10 with 91% of google users liking it. The movie is busy, but it seems to be another case where critics don’t like it, but people do. I am in this category as well. I enjoyed it a lot.

The movie while not perfect and at times quite busy is quite funny and while has an interesting yet cliché take on suicide. The movie doesn’t shy away from certain subjects like how the gay community is treated many times in high school or by family or even how many feel about themselves because of it. It also has shows how some times bullies act a certain way because of how they are treated, but also because sometimes they themselves are just crappy people.

The movie isn’t for everyone clearly, and it does deal with some sensitive subject matter that may bother or upset some people. It is however entertaining and thought-provoking. Movies don’t always make me stop and think, but this one did. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

 

Billy Dee Williams To Return for Star Wars Episode IX

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People have long been wondering if Lando would be showing up in the Star Wars movies again, and we now finally have an answer. We don’t know how big of a role or in what capacity but it has been confirmed that Billy Dee Williams will in some capacity be in the upcoming Star Wars Episode IX movie according to Rotten Tomatoes and Gamespot.

Personally with the sudden passing of Carrie Fisher and what we will have to assume is death of Princess Leia he will most likely ne showing up as some sort of role to guide our new heroes towards where they need to go next as he is the last remaining from the original series with Han dead and Luke being whatever Luke currently is. It will be interesting to see tho, best wishes and may the gaming gods smile bring you glory.

Nosferatu (1922)

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Every so often I like to check out one of the classics from the silent film era. Nosferatu may be the original names changed for legal reasons, as this was actually a retelling of Bram Stokers Dracula, but without permission. So they changed some of the names, but just enough to make it legal. It didn’t work. Eventually all copies were ordered destroyed. Some copies clearly have survived.

The story however is lifted from Dracula with names just changed. There is a great article from horror film history  if you want to know more.

The movie itself tho is pretty cool if you are into movies that are closing in on being 100 years old.  It is one of the better ones I have seen from that time period when it comes to the actual visuals and not much of the original film is lost. The only real downside to it all is it is hard to watch from a story point of view in the sense that it is painfully obvious that you are watching Dracula, and there are better Dracula movies out there. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

How it Ends (2018)

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How it Ends is one of the new movies from Netflix so of course I checked this out. The idea is simple, Will (Theo Younger) has to go meet his girlfriends father, Tom ( Forest Whitaker. While there they get into a fight because they don’t get along and Will is asked to leave before he even asks if he can marry his daughter.

When Will wakes up the next morning after a night of drinking, Samantha (Kat Graham) wakes him up and reminds him he is late for his flight. This is when the real story kicks in. Samantha hears a noise in Seattle, gets really scared and the power goes out. Will rushes to the air port to discover the flights are all cancelled. In response to this he will return to Toms home. Tom’s wife Paula (Nicola Ari Parker) will go to her son’s house, and Tom the former Marine and Will shall go to Seattle to save Samantha.

The movie itself is interesting, but at the end of the day it is just basically a weird apocalypse survival movie. Most of the movie is simply them driving, occasionally either hiding from another person or shooting them. Then they talk, eventually the car breaks down and they hire a Native American chick to help fix the car. She comes with, they continue the trend, argue a bit and so on. The movie is rather unexciting. The movie has moments of being interesting and it does a good job of showing that the biggest issue n a survival scenario would be other people. I don’t regret watching the movie, but I can’t say I would watch it again. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

It (1990)

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The 1990 version of It has been a classic since, well since 1990. When the remake was announced people kind of lost their minds. Who could possibly play Pennywise better than Tim Curry? Well this isn’t about all that, but if you are interested we did cover that you can read more here.

Watching this movie made me remember that this wasn’t truly a movie, but a made for t.v. series. This does show by the lack of swearing and blood, something the 80’s and 90’s usually didn’t shy away from. This being made for t.v. tho, they did have to find a way to tone down what is actually a pretty violent and disturbing book. This is where they succeeded quite well.

In fact this may actually be the most successful part of the whole thing. When I was younger this movie actually was pretty freaky, but as an adult there were things that actually annoyed me more than anything. For example the constant jumping back and forth between childhood and being an adult as they introduced characters seemed completely unnecessary. It was also a 3 hour series that easily could have been two hours with much of it being feeling stretched out for no reason I can think of.

That isn’t to say the whole thing is bad, each character is played magnificently and Tim Curry still plays an amazing Pennywise the clown. I also feel comparing the two may be a bit unfair seeing as how one is made for t.v. and the other is a full-fledged movie.

At the end of the day however I have to admit, the 1990 version of It just doesn’t hold up very well for me. It’s still solid enough but it just doesn’t compare to the remake for me which I would much rather watch. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

 

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.

Real Genius (1985)

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Real Genius is one of those 80’s movies that for some reason most people I know haven’t seen, and that greatly upsets me. The story is simple. Mitch is recruited to a school for super smart people, he works with Chris the smartest person in the school turned slacker. They are tasked with a school project to build a laser. They aren’t the only two doing this but hey they are the main two.

As the story goes on we see all sorts of shenanigans, from the turning an entire section of the school into ice for a winter carnival.

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To throwing a massive party with the local beauty school.

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The movie is first and foremost, a comedy. This starts out pretty early with the scene where Mitch meets Chris, and he asks about him being prepared for gravity reversing itself and even trying to convince him the antenna on an odd remote control is in fact a penis stretcher, and offers to let him try it.

The movie does eventually take a more serious turn however, as early on you the viewer will discover the laser is actually being developed by the school for the government as a weapon to be used from space to assassinate targets. Mitch and friends eventually find this out as well, but not until the laser is finished and in the hands of the government.

They will of course go on a quest to put an end to the weapon and take revenge on the dean of the school for lying to them in the fist place, which will involve filling a house with popcorn. He hates popcorn. Regardless the movie is currently on Netflix, go check this out. The movie is amazing and has a great soundtrack. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.