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.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Rating 6.5 out of 10

I have been a big fan of the X-Men movies since the first one almost a dozen years ago.  I had high expectations for this Xmen movie.  Probably too high.  I thought this movie was okay but not great.  It's one where most of the action is shown in the two minute trailer.

The movie starts in the future where the government made mutant killing robots have gone rogue.  Besides killing mutants they have started killing humans too.  You know what that means.  Re-runs of the Good Wife will no longer be on the air.  How do we stop these unstoppable robots?  Professor X and Magneto (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen) know the starting point was when the creator (Game of Thrones Peter Dinklage) was killed by Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) thus creating fear by the President to green light production of the robots.  The plan is to have mutant Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) send someone back in time and stop her.  The only mutant that can withstand the trip is Wolverine (the never aging Hugh Jackman).

Wolverine is sent back to the 70's where President Nixon was in charge and of course everyone wore huge bell bottom jeans and big floppy pimp hats.  Mystique doesn't go down easy.

As I said there wasn't enough action for me.  They highlight many of the mutants and give you a sliver of their powers. Even the main star, Wolverine, is under-used.

This is a decent movie but not nearly as good as it should have been.

Godzilla

Godzilla

Rating 7 out of 10

I am old enough to remember the crummy black and white poorly dubbed Godzilla movies from Japan.  Unfortunately I also remember the 1998 version with Matthew Broderick.  This version is far better.  Of course CGI effects are much better now than in 1998 as is this story line.

This Godzilla movie starts fifteen years in the past.  Joe Brody(Bryan Cranston)  is an American overseeing a nuclear power plant in Japan when a terrible creature is awaken.  This creature by chance eats radiation and is determined to destroy everything in it's path to get more.  Okay, I didn't say it was a great story line.

This is a good, not great movie.  I found it entertaining.  The action and effects were good.  If you watch the preview for this movie and think it's one you would want to see you will most likely enjoy it too.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Rating 6 out of 10

I may not be the best to review this since I didn't really care for the first one of these Spider-Man reboot movies.  One thing I don't care for is director Marc Webb feeling the need to re-tell the whole long story of how Peter Parker has these crazy powers.  After three earlier movies can't he assume we kinda know the tale?  With Spidey 2 we get much more of that along with long setups for each of the bad guys too.  When I go see a superhero movie I want to see the good guy battling it out with the bad guys.

The movie starts with our web slinging hero (Andrew Garfield)  saving the day when a group of bad guys steal an armored car transporting some sort of nuclear waste through downtown New York City (I'm sure that is a normal route).  As he takes care of business he realizes he is late for his own college graduation and once again weighs the problems of keeping the world safe and his relationship with his girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone).

Most of the next ninety plus minutes is dedicated to us seeing how much Peter loves Stacy and introducing in great detail our two bad guys, Electro (Jamie Foxx) and Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) A little more than two hours in to the movie we get our big show down.

This is not a bad movie.  Just a mostly boring one for an action movie.  I think I'll skip Spider-Man 3.

Brick Mansions

Brick Mansions

Rating 4 out of 10

A couple times a year I see a movie that I hate to admit here that I saw.  Think I'll just skip that review.  You really expected THAT movie to be good I'm sure people will ask.  Well, not really.  I didn't expect this movie to be good.  I had already been warned by my son inlaw how bad it was.  I can tolerate a bad movie if it has actors I like and lots of action to distract how bad the script is.  Heck I saw both of the Expendable movies and eagerly away the next one this summer!  I liked Paul Walker and this was the last movie he completed before his death.

In downtown Detroit there is a section that has become so bad the police have given up trying.  The city just builds a 40 foot wall around the area of tall brick buildings and let the animals take care of them selves.  There is on man in Brick Mansions that wants to try to clean it up.  He fights the drug dealers in what sure seems to be a losing battle.  He is Lino (David Belle) who is one of those guys who somehow jumps off buildings and crawls up walls without ever getting hurt. Very cool.

When Mansion thugs steal a H-bomb from an armored car (because we transport those things around all the time) the only good cop in Detroit (Paul Walker)  is recruited to join Lino to go in and find/disarm the bomb and avenge the death of his police captain father who was murdered there years ago.  It plays out as stupid as it sounds.

The action is decent.  Mostly when David Belle does his jumping around although it is full of the dreaded shaky cam that I can't stand. This movie killed a couple hours on a rainy day out of town.  Sadly that time could have been better spent playing in the rain.