So today my kids had school cancelled due to the snowstorm....yesterday. Thats a whole seperate blog. All this crap about being safe. The day of the storm, I get but today the roads are a tad icy and we cant move forward? what the hell? I rather send my kids to school today rather than have them trapped in elementary school prison in June when its nice out. They dont even learn anything at the end of the year anyway. Whats the point of going? snow days should be a gift from the gods. You get one you never make it up. Whats the point? if some kid has 180 days of 2nd grade vs. 175 days is that going to impact their life? Everyone eventually morphs into a moron anyway whos thinks their expereinces and opinons mean more than anyone else, so WTF are we doing here?
Anyway thats my rant, the lego batman movie was really good. I think I laughed more than my kids. Will Arnet was Batman's voice and Zach Galifianakis was the voice of the Joker, and that alone made the movie for me. Go see if it you have a snow day that shouldnt be a snow day in your area, otherwise it will probably be on demand in 8 weeks, so you can watch it then.
Netflix has done three Marvel Comics shows so far and Luke Cage is the thrird. Iron Fist comes out this weekend, so I had to get caught up and watch Luke Cage. If you watched Jessica Jones, you'll know that Luke Cage was her bartender boyfriend in a few episodes. Also Rosario Dawson (SO HOT!!!!!!!!, WANT TO TOUCH THE HINEY!:)) returns in the series in her role as the nurse that is always treating these superhero for their wounds. The action is awesome, the acting is great, the characters are great, the women are good looking and the storyline is great. You will not be disappointed watching this show. After watching all these shows on Netflix and HBO, I have no idea how regular television stays afloat? Why would anyone watch the Big Bang Theory when there are so many other options available?
Frontier is a Canadian show that Netflix owns the rights too. I gave this a try since I just decided to click on it randomly, it was one of those "recommended"shows for netflix. The show takes place in the late 1700's Northern Canada and is about the fur trade. The British basically own the whole trade, but they are competing with the French, the Natives, the Scots and also at the end of the series an American investor is starting to threaten the British trade. I know that sounds boring, but it's very well acted and you end up rooting for characters so thats why I loved it. Also its only 6 episodes so you can get thru the 1st season in a week. Some of the episodes can be a tad violent, so if you have a weak stomach, then I do not recommend the show. My best analogy is if you like the movie "the Patriot" you'll like this show.
This movie fucking sucked. Do yourself and do not watch it. Just donate the $5.99 to the Jimmy Fund or March of Dimes. Humanity will be better off because of that decision and you will not have wasted 120 minutes of your life. Honestly this one is on me, because usually Academy Award movies usually suck, but I figure this one would be one of the exceptions to the rule. I mean just LOOK at that poster! How could this movie be bad? Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whittaker, that's a great cast. However I did not know that instead of explosions and battles with aliens, all the movie did is show the humans try to talk to the aliens for 2 straight hours. I dont even know what the whole point of it was. Honestly my mental toughness got me to the ending of this movie.
And I know its just a movie, but can you imagine in real life if this happened? Trump would blow them out of the sky before they even landed. There'd be no negotations. Radical Alien Terrorism would be eliminated before it even began. And honestly I wouldnt blame, us humans cant even find ways to get along and if you add aliens to the mix, forget about it. They land here and start taking our jobs and make us their slaves, its just game over for the human race.
I'll try to end on a high note here, with the best alien movie of all time. Trump had a decent speech last night, but it was childs play compared to Bill Pullman. I still get chills every time I listen to this and he's not even a real president.
I really dont have to explain the storyline behind Deepwater Horizon because unless you live in a cave you already know the story of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Honestly that makes the movie instense, because the whole time you are just waiting, knowing the oil rig is going to explode. This is a movie that you watch for the special effects and dont really give a shit about the acting. However the acting in the movie is pretty good. John Malkovich steals the show as the greedy oil executive. Kurt Russel is good as the guy who is trying to explain to Malkovich that he is operating an unsafe oil rig,but Malkovich continues to blow him off. They are behind schedule for christ sakes! Marky Mark just runs around the oil rig the whole time as the thing is being destroyed. Thats basically all he brings to the table.
I would not really say its a guy movie like Terminator, because this movie is a true story, and when they roll the credits at the end, remebering the 11 guys who died in the blast it's hard not to shed a tear. Also you start to question why we are drilling in the middle of the ocean to begin with?? Not to sound like bernie sanders here, but is it really worth it? I would think the cost alone must be insane to drill out there, but apparently its not because I beleive we still want to go out there and drill. You would think in North Dakota and Texas we have enough of this stuff? Either way, hard not to respect the guys that leave their familes for weeks at a time to do this type of job so we can have gas for our cars and oil for our homes.
Captain Fantastic is about a man who raise six kids off the grid. Viggo Mortensen is the main character and he is up for an Accademy Award for best actor for the film, so thats the reason I wanted to watch it. I also heard and read decent reviews so I gave it a shot. It reminded me a lot of Little Miss Sunshine. So if you hate that movie, don't bother watching this flick, if you like that movie, I know you will like this flick.
Mortensen is great in the film, but he plays this super left wing guy who teaches his kid to read Norm Chomsky and teaches them not to trust "the man". So when it comes to that storyline I always have to ask myself did Hollywood just nominate him because of the storyline? It's sad you have to ask yourself that, but I can help myself to question it. He's still good, but is he that good? hmm.
All in all the movie has a good story. He moves his family off the grid after his wife becames mentally ill and when he finds out she committed suicide, he takes his family from Oregon to Arizona to attend her funeral. Of course the wifes family hates him and from there I will not ruin the rest of the movie you.
This is going to be more of a public service announcement and not a TV review. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT watch this show. It's horrible and will give you nightmares. Tell me I'm a wuss, I dont care, the show sucked. I had to buckle down and finish it because I wanted to see what happened at the end and still did not get the answers I wanted. I wasted 8 hours of life watching this turd. Please do not do the same.
Original Angel is what OA means. In the beginning the show follows a girl from early childhood to her current age, which is around 30. She was born in Russia and her mother died during childbirth and her father was involved with the Russian mob. The mob tries to kill OA as a child but she survies. The father sends her to America, because as a result of the accident she goes blind. Eventually the father is killed by the mob back in Russia and OA ends up living in a Russian whorehouse with her aunt.
You can see now how FUCKING happy this show is.
From there, an older couple, probably in their 60's adopts OA as a child, I'm guessing she was about 8 or 10. So she leaves the whorehouse and the older couple raise her. She is blind but gifted and for some odd reason plays the violin at a subway for fun I supposed. One day she is tricked by some guy to some to her house and he keeps her captive with 3 other people in a cage.
JUST GETTING HAPPIER!!!!!!!!!!!
Turns one the guy, named HAP is doing expierements on these people. He's basically a mad scientist trying to find out if there is life after death. So every day he gasses one of his hostages and drowns them in this weird device. But they don't die. They always come back to life, because he's always recording a near death experience. This happens to the hostages over and over again for 7 years. Below is a pic of this device. These are the scenes that gave me endless nightmares.
At one point, OA cries to escape and HAP catches her and hits her over the end with the end of a rifle. Miracleously OA gets her sight back! Because, why not right.
So now the hostages bascially figure out they are being drowned every night and they determine they are all angels. They do these weird hand movements to revive one of their hostage friends and somehow now they are invincible. So the OA, now that she is free after being captive for seven years teaches 4 other random high school kids and a high school teacher how to be an angel by doing these weird hand movements. I dont know something like that.
So as you can tell this show is so much FUN! So the ending of the show is at the high school cafeteria and a kid with an AR-15 starts shooting from outside the cafeteria and then walks in the cafeteria and starts just shooting people. All the kids are hidden under the lunch tables and the 4 kids and the teacher get up and do those wierd hand movements and one of the cafeteria workers tackles the shooter and the situation is done.
And then we never find out what happens to other hostages and the mad scientist. I guess you need to stayed tuned for season 2 to find out about that, but I rather brushes my teeth with bacon grease and chew on shattered glass then watch another second of this show. Overall if you like having nightmares and being depressed, this is the show for you!!!!!!!
Grade: D- ( Phylis from the Office is in this show, she saves it from getting an F)
Lemony's Snickets A series of Unfortunate Events is an eight episode series on Netflix. Since I have two daughters they wanted to watch it with me, so I got dragged into it. Honestly with all the garbage that Disney and Nickolodean shits out for kids to watch, this was a fresh change of pace. It's a kids/family show that is not unbearable to watch. What an amazing concept! The show reminds me of the most recent Charlie and the Chocoloate Factory movie combined with the 1980's movie Labyrinth. The setting is odd and the characters are so weird. Basically if you watch this show and you dont have kids, you need to be checked into a clinic, or you just dropped a bunch of LSD and want to go on some strange trip. All this being said my kids loved it and it was nice to actually watch a show togehter as a family that was decent and entertaining. I think Netflix could really be on to something with these type of family shows, because like I said, the crap that Disney churnes out is disgusting. My 7 year old watches "jesse" and "the thundermans" and honest to god it is the worst pile of shit ever created. Trump needs to find the assholes who write this crap and deport them to Libya. It's terrible and rots my kids brains. So if those type of shows are your competition if you put out a decent product like Lemony Snickets, you raise the bar. Lets hope for the sake of humanity and parents everywhere it keeps up.
Travelers is a Canadian TV show that is now on Netflix. Netflix claims its their own series, however it was on some network in Canada and now we Americans have the utter joy of watching it. The show is a sci-fi show about people from the future who travel to the past to try to prevent some disaster we dont know about. The people time travel by taking over someone's body..,. or a host. They basically only travel by conscience and not themselves. They take over someones body right before they die and then work together on a mission to try to prevent world chaos. I know thats a lot, and it is a little odd, but I could not stop watching. I was hell bent on how far in the future these people come from and what type of world ending disaster they are trying to stop. Also they are always refering to being sent back by "the director" and the show has not told us who "the director" is. So you have all these questions you want answered, which got me to continue wathcing. All in all its a decent show but not great. Entertaining if you like sci-fi, otherwise watch something else. I would say if you like Orphan Black, which is another Canadian sci-fi show, Those crazy Canucks have a thing for science fiction I guess, then give this a whirl.
Jim Gaffigan is known as the king of clean comedy, meaning he does not drop any F bombs or talk about anything grotesque during his act. Basically he is the opposite of Bill Burr, but just as damn funny. Personally I think Bill Burr is the best, but Gaffigan is right behind him. They both talk about everyday life things that happen to everyone, and you connect to both of them like you are talking to a friend at the bar. The lastest special is called "Cinco" because it is his 5th comedy special. If you have not watched his other specials, be sure to do so because you will not be disappointed. Most of them are on Netflix, and you dont need to watch them in any order since they all age well.
In this special he talks about going on summer vacation, the speed of technology, still having a landline, being a fat guy, growing up in the Midwest and going out to eat at a steak house. I was laughing so hard the entire time I'm sure I forgot a lot of things, but you will not be disappointed. Honestly I woke up this morning and my stomach hurt from laughing so much.
The Crown is a Netflix series thats is going to follow the life of Queen Elizabeth over six 10 episode seasons. The first season occurs between 1947 and 1955. It starts with the Queen getting married, when she was still a princess and it ends with Winston Churchill stepping down as prime minister and handing his position to his foriegn secretary Anthony Eden. The 10 episode series cost $130 million dollars!, and it has been a hit, so I expect more and more companies, like HBO and Amazon throwing more money into orginal programing in order to keep up with Netflix.
At first I would think all the British accents would drive me nuts, but when you watch the show you end up having favorite characters and characters you despise, which makes it a good show. Also the actresses who play Queen Elizabeth and Princess Maragret are not bad looking at all, so that definetly helps. John Lithgow was awesome as Winston Churchill. He as well as the actress who plays the Queen (Claire Foy) were both nominated for Golden Globes, and she won it, and I expect both to be nominated again come Emmy time.
I think people will not give this show a try because it has a snobby Hollywood vibe to it, but it really is good. I think if you like Game of Thrones, you'll like this show. It doesnt have the action and fantsy like Thrones, but this is a storytelling series of the English Royal Family. As the series goes on other actors will have to play the characters, since of course they will be getting older, so that will be interesting to see how that plays out. As for season 2 the actors who play Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip will be back for season 2, after that some other actors will take over. All in all, I'm all in on The Crown.
I realized I am a litte late, like over a year on this Netflix comedy special, but who cares, maybe you havent seen it. If not please do. If you do not laugh during this 60 minute comedy special, please leave the country and join ISIS, because you clearly hate fun and you hate America. I know John Mulaney was supposed to be the next big thing, but his show did not take off, and I thought we would just be a nobody, but I gave this comedy special a shot the other night and it was great. He talks about getting married, growing up in Chicago, buying a house, The Back to the Future movie, pot becoming legal, meeting Bill Clinton and buying a house. A very diverse range of topics, but what is impressive is he changes topics so quickly you are still belly laughing from the last topic. My personal favorite was his bit on buying a house. It's funny because its true.
Hell or High Water is available now on demand. This movie came out in late August in theaters, but at the time I never heard of it. I usually rent my movies through Amazon Fire, but I know its availabe on Verizon Fios on demand, and I'm guessing Comcast has it too. I always go with Fire over Verizon, because for some reason the rentals are 50 cents cheaper and you get it for two days instead of one day. That is useful if you are old like me and fall asleep sometimes during a movie late at night.
The move is about two brothers who are robbing a branch of banks in West Texas in order to pay off a loan from the same bank in order to keep their family ranch. One of the brothers, played by Ben Foster is a complete nutcase. He's and ex-convict who is completely insane. The other brother played by Chris Pine, is the Robin Hood character of the story. He is just in on this crusade to get enough cash to pay off the bank loan. Jeff Bridges is the Texas Ranger trying to catch these two robbers. There robberies are so unusual that they only take loose cash and not marked bills, so the whole time he knows something odd is happening.
This move is up for a bunch of awards, and you can tell why, because it has a very artsy feel throughout the movie. The beginning is intense, then it slows down a little with some artsy fartsy crap in the middle, but the ending is incredible. The last 40 minutes has a ton of action. You will not be disappointed. It reminded me of "No Country for Old Men" but this movie was better than that. Its a guy movie with a sprinkle of the drama.
Hip Hop Evolution is a four part documentary series on Netflix. It was orignally made in Canada, but you dont really need to do that. The guy who is the narrator is a Canadian rapper named Shad. Who knew they listened to rap up there? I thought it was all hockey and snow. All in all, it's like a history class in hip hop. The first two episodes explain how the whole hip hop scene started in New York City and the last two episodes explain the explosion of hip hop on both the East Coast and West Coast.
In episode one you hear a lot of names of guys you have never heard of before. Names like Kool Herc, Coke La Rock, DJ Hollywood and Mellie Mel. The only group I heard of was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. If you dont know that name then just listen to this song.
The song is so damn cheesy now, but back in 1982 it was bananas. Seeing all the guys in the documentary now is also quite funny. It reminded me of the Dave Chappelle Show episode of "Player Haters Ball". Just a bunch of old washed up rappers reminiscing about the past. Just take a look at this guy; Mellie Mel, the lead MC of the Furious Five.
Episode two stays on the same path describing how Hip Hop went from a local sound to actually having it's first radio hit. The first radio hit of course was Sugarhill gang, Rappers Delight.
At this point everyone thought rap was just a dumb fad and anyone could do it. The documentary shows people mocking it on SNL and even Rodney Dangerfield mocking rap. Basically the mainstream never thought rap would be more than a one hit wonder.
Epsiode three is when the documentary, for me anyway, takes a turn from being a hip hop history class, to one of enjoying nostaglia. This episode focuses on how Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin started Def Jam Records. LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys and Run-DMC are talked about and then it ends with talking about Public Enemy. Just a murder's row of great hip hop groups. The episode basically shows how popular hip hop had become. It was no longer a fad, it was here to stay. It was so popular that Run DMC got a sneaker deal with Adidas, because the group had made their white and black stripe shoes popular.
Episde four is the concluding episode of the series and focuses on west coast rap. Ice T and Ice Cube are in the documentary to talk about the rise of rap on the west coast and the formation of NWA. If you have already seen the "Straight outta Compton" movie, this part will be very familar, but the documentary gives a lot of good old school footage of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre before NWA was even formed. Dr. Dre used to actually wear a doctors mask when using the turntables. It's pretty funny to see that, but I really cant laugh at it now since the guy is worth a billion dollars.
One part of this episode that brought back memories was when Tipper Gore was going in front of Congress asking for "Parental Advisory" stickers on rap albums. Looking back I think that made the music even more popular than it would of been. Gangsta Rap in the 90's was going to be a hit, but those Parental Advisory warning stickers gave it more publiclity and made young kids like myself back then want to listen to the music. I basicaly thought, well if thats so bad, I got to hear what they say on it. I mean Run DMC and Beastie Boys were hits, but Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog were superstars. They still are to this day.
If you like music this is a must watch. A fun, entertaining documentary.
