Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys

Rating 6 out of 10

There have been several movies this summer released with the aim toward the younger crowd.  22 Jump Street comes to mind.  I hated it yet my kids thought it was hilarious.  This movie is aimed toward the older crowd.  In fact when I saw this in the South Florida theater I was the youngest by probably ten years.

Jerseys Boys is a movie based on the long running play based on the life of singer Frankie Valli. This movie starts back in the 1950s before Grease was the word. Growing up in a rough part of New Jersey Valli had a velvet voice that the big mob bosses loved.  While his friends were going to jail he would be protected and kept from harms way.  When he did make it big he finds fame carries a price tag on your family.

Director Clint Eastwood surprisingly takes this movie in a low budget feel direction.  I don't know if he was trying to make it look like the play  He also went with a mostly unknown cast.  Christopher Walken is the only actor I had heard of.

I would say if you know and enjoy songs like Big Girls Don't Cry, Walk Like a Man, My Eyes Adore You and December 1963 you will enjoy this movie.  I saw the play several years ago and thought it was great.  I like the music too.

I was entertained.

Transformers 4

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Rating 8 out of 10

I saw the first three Transformers movies.  It's not that I didn't like them as much as didn't completely get them.  Having missed out on the Transformers cartoon stage I was never able to tell the good robots from the bad ones.  When they would start fighting I would never remember which one I was supposed to be cheering for. Action was always pretty good and effects first rate.

I really had no plan to see the latest Transformers movie.  I do like Mark Wahlberg so I thought I would give it a try.  In my opinion I feel this is the best of the lot.

I don't remember how Transformers 3 ended.  Here we start off in the future.  Years after a battle in Chicago where the robots went nuts and while we defeated them much of Chicago was destroyed.  Transformers for some reason are outlawed and being hunted down by the CIA.

Wahlberg plays a hapless inventor on the verge of losing his house that he and his super hot blonde daughter (newcomer Nicola Peltz) live in.  He comes across a beat up old big truck that he buys to fix up and sell for a profit.  That truck turns out to be the missing Optimus Prime.  That's when their trouble starts.

Of course to no ones surprise the world is on the verge of being destroyed by the evil robots and the only hope is the cars that turn into robots with the help of Wahlberg and his daughter.  Intricate plots are not the selling point to these movies.

I was pleasantly surprised and definitely entertained.  I thought this was by far the best of the four Transformers movie.  Maybe at nearly three hours run time it was maybe thirty minutes longer than it needed to be.  Still if you liked any of the first three movies I think you will be happy with this one.

Think Like a Man Too

Think Like a Man Too

Rating 6 out of 10

Two years ago I was talked into renting the movie Think Like a Man.  I just didn't look like my type of movie.  I was wrong.  It was VERY funny.  Had a nice plot to it and likable characters.  I know Kevin Hart had been in other movies but this movie launched him into the high real estate he is today (last year he is said to have made $40 million).  Hart was very funny and stole the show.

Now the same group of friends are in Vegas for a wedding.  What could go wrong there?  Of course, everything.  The problem with Too is it was kinda funny, had very little plot and likable characters.  Clearly someone at the top realized Hart stole the first movie and decided to center the second movie around him and let him go crazy.  He still has some funny parts, but just feels like he has to try too hard.

The movie is still entertaining.  If you liked the first one you will enjoy this one.  Maybe not as much.  I would say this would make a good rental.

22 Jump Street

22 Jump Street

Rating 1 out of 10

Clearly I am not in the demographic of people this movie was made for.   I did not like 21 Jump Street and am no fan of Jonah Hill (to put it nicely).  I rented the first one and turned it off after thirty minutes because it looked so stupid.  I saw this movie on Fathers Day under protest because my movie buddy and cycle riding partner Ted Daniels wanted to see it.

In this version police officers Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are wanting to be taken serious and cops when they are forced to go back undercover.  Instead of working in a local high school this time the duo are sent into a fictional college to bust a dreaded drug dealer that is pushing a new drug that is killing people.

I find it very hard to believe this movie had any type of written script before they started.  To me it seemed like they had a brief outline and told the actors to improv whatever they thought was funny no matter how stupid or unbelievable it was.  Makes no difference that local police can't go into Mexico during Spring Break and arrest drug dealers or even a muscular bicep like Tatums when shot with a 9mm slug will give you more than a band aid ouchie.  The most unbelievable part of the movie  is probably that a bozo like Hill would land a girlfriend with one of the hottest gals in the college.

I really can't remember when I felt a movie was such a complete waste of good film stock as this one.  Fifteen minutes in I was looking at my phone for another movie in the theater I could go to.  Unfortunately it was a small theater with nothing playing I could go to.  I may see a movie that takes over my Worst Ten list of 2014 from 22 Jump Street but I sure hope not.

The Grand Seduction

The Grand Seduction

Rating 6.5 out of 10

I saw this small Canadian made movie on my cycle trip across Canada while rained out in the Northern city of Sydney.  I had never heard of it and figure it may never play in America.  I  do like the main actors and it looked cute enough.  That's exactly what we got.  It's a a cute movie that is fairly well acted and kept me entertained.

The movie is about a once proud and bustling small fishing village in coastal Canada that has fallen on hard times.  Fishing is now gone and there is no real way of making a living.  Most of the young folks have fled to bigger cities while the older people have resulted in collecting welfare to stay alive.  When a big oil company wants to build a plant in their harbor that would bring many jobs to the community the one stipulation is they must have a local doctor.  The acting Mayor ( Brendan Gleeson- Mostly known as Mel Gibson's sidekick in my favorite movie Braveheart) sets out to find a doctor that will stay there.  When they have a big city hot shot doctor ( Pretty boy Canadian Taylor Kitsch)  fall in their laps the town sets out to convince him this is the place he wants to stay.  Even if it means taking up the game of Cricket and doing their best to make the town look better than it is.

The movie has a feel of the better movie Doc Hollywood but is still entertaining.  Some of the old character actors are likable and even tho the movie is predictable I think it's worth a rental at Red Box when it comes out.

Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow

Rating 7.5 out of 10

Welcome to the Summer Action movie time.  This is not a movie you will see released around Thanksgiving and I'm fine with that.  I would call Edge of Tomorrow a mix between Groundhog Day and Matrix III.  Both movies I liked and director Doug Liman (He directed the first two Bourne movies and Bragalina's Mr and Mrs Smith) does a good job mixing the two and not making the repeat day after day become monotonous.

Tom Cruise is Major William Cage several years in the future.  As in most movies based in the future aliens are trying to take over earth and exterminate all living humans and as with this movie they are usually just a day or sometimes moments away from taking over if our hero does not save the day.   Major Cage tho is no super soldier trained to kill all the alien robots (that look like the aliens in Matrix III).  He is just a public relations guy that mostly works with the military leaders on how to sell the war to the general public.  When he ticks off the wrong general he sees his rank dropped to private and put on the front line which means almost certain death in the D-Day type assault.

Only when he is dropped into battle just before he dies he kills a funky looking blue alien robot.  He finds himself waking up again the day before in the same place in time.  Turns out the blue robot was a special robot made by the aliens to control time travel. When the aliens lose a battle he could turn back time thus learning what they did wrong and knowing how to win the next time.  It's blue "blood" spills on Cage thus giving him the power to do just that.  It takes Cage a while to figure out how to use his new power.  Mostly when helped by super soldier Rita (the always lovely Emily Blunt).

Just as in Groundhog Day the day after day repeat is handled in a way that keeps the story moving and you don't actually feel like you are watching the same thing over and over and over.  First Major Cage has to become a soldier with Rita's training.  Then he has to figure out how to get to the main mother ship and destroy it and all others.

Good cast and as I said the story flows along to keep it interesting.  The action and effects are first rate and fun to watch on the oversized screen like I saw at my local NCG theater.  My main gripe is early on director Liman brings one of my big pet peeves with him from the Bourne movies.  The dreaded shaky cam.  Happily about thirty minutes into the movie he figures out where the loose screw was on the camera and is able to hold it still.  The shaky cam is not really a factor after that.

I thought the acting was good and was entertained.  I would probably go see this movie again.

Shrinkage by Bryan Bishop - Book review

Shrinkage: Manhood, Marriage and the Tumor That Tried to Kill Me

I became a fan of Adam Carolla and his podcasts through his very funny books (In Fifty Years We will all be Chicks) a few years ago.  If you are new to podcasts they are like little radio shows that have been recorded and uploaded to iTunes or you can usually get them from their websites.  I download and put them on my iPhone to listen while I exercise or drive time.  They make my day go faster with a little humor or my sports or flying podcasts.

What does this have to do with this book?  The author, Bryan Bishop, is a sidekick on the Carolla podcast.  He is in charge of funny and timely sound effects.  He pipes in with comments from time to time and also gives movie reviews that I usually agree with.  On the show he is known as Bald Bryan as he lost his hair as a teenager.  He is a funny and likable guy.  He also has a brain tumor.

As he turned 30 his life was taking off.  Work was going well and mostly he has found the love of his life in Christy.  He knew right away she was the one.  Not long after they are engaged he starts noticing little things going wrong.  Body parts going numb, vision getting worse, ect.   Thinking it was no big deal they go to the doctor who tells him he has a brain tumor and six months to live.  What a shock of course.  Luckily they get another opinion with a specialist who gives them far more hope and the fight begins.

The crazy part of this book is it's full of laughs as well as tears.  Bryan is a great writer and tells the story in a I am so glad to be alive way rather than why did I have to go through all this.  He digs deep and tells things that I'm sure were hard to part with.  I laughed alot.  He talks of wishing he had danced with a secret admirer when he was 13.  It was a period of his life when he was not used to getting attention from females.  That period he describes as "from now until birth".  When he tells of a super hot nurse that has to give him a shower with his wife in the room and Christy gives him a look like this is the closest you will ever come to a three way.

He talks of his wedding and honeymoon as his symptoms are getting worse.  His dread of attending his brothers wedding and fear of ruining the special occasion for him.  The embarrassment of having his dad dress him for his brothers wedding. (Well I made it 28 years without you having to dress me!).

His wife Christy is a saint.  She had become unemployed and took great care of her fiancé and then husband all the time while knowing his time could clearly be very limited.  There is a crazy story where she loses the diamond out of her engagement ring at the hospital for one of Bryans treatments and their frantic search for it.  This was not just a shiny stone to them.  It was a piece of Bryan that could be the last thing she would have from him.  Made my eyes water as high paid doctors stopped what they were doing and went on a mission to find the stone.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.  Especially if you have gone through any type of cancer scare or lost someone to the dreaded disease.  This book has a happy ending as he has made it five years and is now doing great.  I enjoyed it alot.