The Road (2009)

The Road
2009
Adventure
Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron

The Road is the film version of the Cormac McCarthy book of the same name. In the mood of full disclosure I must add that The Road is probably my all time favorite book (if not first, then its second), so I was very excited to see the movie version of it. This was actually the movie I was most hyped to see in 2008 but they couldn't finish the editing and soundtrack in time for Oscar season, so they delayed it almost an entire year. Then for God knows what reason, when it finally did come out it was in super limited release, like only 100 theatres in the whole US (compared to big movies that open are in about 3,000). It wasn't showing anywhere in Ohio when it first opened. And like I said, that doesn't make any sense. It was starring Viggo Mortensen who is a popular and respected actor. The book it was based on was also a huge success with a huge fanbase, I mean it was an Oprah Book of the Month selection and won a Pulitzer. I guess after a few weeks they wised up because it eventually started showing here in Columbus on one screen, which thankfully was down the street from my house. So after a year of waiting I finally got to see The Road.

The Road is a tale of what really happens after the "end of the world." A disaster, what kind is never actually said, hits the Earth killing almost every living thing in existence. What is left is a few humans fighting for survival by any means necessary. Some scavenge for the limited supplies still available while others have turned to cannibalism and eat anybody who crosses their path. I have read a ton of post apocalyptic fiction and The Road is in my opinion one of the most realistic versions of that scenario. Because if something like this did come to pass, it would be very ugly, and people would go to extremes to survive. The plot of the movie follows a man and a son walking down a long deserted highway. They are walking to the coast. What will be there? Probably nothing, but I suppose in a situation like this you need some kind of goal to keep going. The movie follows them as they make their way to coast dodging robbers, cannibals and death from the remaing humans they come across. There is very little dialogue, just like in the novel. The most striking thing about the movie really is the setting. Everything is grey and dead. There are no green plants, no birds flying around, nothing. Just ash and rubble. I was actually surprised they could film it and make it as bleek as the novel described but they succeeded in doing it. If you are curious as to where in the world could pass for such a setting, was filmed around abandoned coal mines in Pennsylvania, around Mount St. Helens, and in the remains of Katrina outside New Orleans.

It is well known by now that Viggo Mortensen is a very good actor, and he puts it fully on display here. You can see the pain in his eyes, and you believe that he is ready to kill his son if that is what will protect him the most. The boy is played by first time actor, Kodi Smith-McPhee. For someone with no professional acting experience he holds his own. The boy in the story was born after the disaster hit so he knows nothing of the world beforehand. So every remnant of society they find, whether it be a stuffed animal, or a can of pop, he views it with pure amazement. It is not easy being a kid when your dad constantly reminds you how to kill yourelf if you are going to be captured. One change made from the book to the movie is they added more flashbacks featuring the mother. In the book there are only a few pages worth, but in the movie there was about 10 minute spread through about 5 flashbacks. In the flashbacks the mother is played by Charlize Theron who is also very accomplished, and who also does a great job, even with her limited screen time. You believe her as a beautiful woman before the disaster hits, and as a suicidal depressed woman who just can't take it anymore as the after effects of the disaster being to become clear. Some people are suggesting that Robert Duvall should get nominated for an Oscar for his brief appearance and I would have no problem with that.

After thinking about it for a few days the movie and book seem to be affecting me almost the same. I liked both when I first took them in, but it was the fact that I kept thinking about both of them a lot long after they were finished, which made me appreciate how much I really loved them. If you want a heart gripping tale of a man who will do anything to protect the only thing in the world that still matters, his son, please watch The Road. I would only caution that if you are depressed, this probably won't make you feel any better, but it wasn't sad enough in my opinion to drive you to suicide or something. If you just want to watch a great movie with spectacular visuals and great performances, please watch The Road. I personaly suggest reading the novel first, but doing them in either order would be fine.

5 out of 5 Stars
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The Story of Pride and Glory

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SOME THINGS THAT ANY NORMAL PERSON WILL FIND EXTREMELY DISGUSTING

I assure you everything I say in this post is true. Videos have been taken of several of the things but I do not have access to them so I can't upload them to youtube yet.

Anyways the story starts out innocent enough. Over the summer my friends were arguing about who would stay up the latest. My friend Andy told my friend Danny that if Danny stayed up later than him he would buy his $6 ticket to a minor league baseball game. But if Andy stayed up later he would get "pride and glory." When he said that he was kind of just joking since pride and glory sounded cool. It didn't really mean anything besides that he would have the glory of staying up later. Well anyways Andy stayed up later so he got pride and glory, even though it really didn't mean anything at that point.
Well he kept braggin about how he had pride and glory so my friend Stacy gave him a really bad wedgie until he "gave" it to her. At that point Pride and Glory became a tangible thing that could be passes from one person to another. If somebody did something impressive or crazy and the person with Pride and Glory approved the new person would then be in possession of Pride and Glory.
So Andy was pissed that Pride and Glory had gone to Stacy so he wanted it back. To get it back he then ate a giant calous that had fallen off of my friends foot, who had been walking around barefoot all day. That by itself is pretty gross, but its nothing compared to what was to come.
I guess Andy got tired of having it (and more so not being able to "win" it back) because he then gave it up to my friend Brian for eating a bunch of hot peppers and not drinking any water to cool it off for 10 minutes. Someone after that point Pride and Glory really turned into Shame and Embarrassment.
Because to get it back from Brian Andy dumped an ashtray from a bar into a glass of beer and drank it. He drank beer mixed with a bunch of ashes, then swallowed a few random cigarette butts on top of it to seal the deal.
Since that was gross that kind of put Pride and Glory on the backburner for a few weeks. Until my friend David broght a girl he liked around my friends at a bar one night. Andy kept hitting on the girl all night so that pissed David off. So to get back at Andy he decided to win Pride and glory from him, since Andy really cared about having it. So to win it back David goes into the bathroom in the bar (a crappy hole in the wall dive bar) to lick the toilet seat, but Andy said that wasn't good enough. So instead they agree that David has to take a bite out of a urinal cake sitting in the urinal in this dirty bar. So he takes it out and takes a bite, and instantly pukes. Well Andy says that didn't count since he puked, so he picks the urinal cake back up and takes a huge bite and swallows it (and was sick for the whole next day), and wins Pride and Glory.
Well David having Pride and Glory really bothered Andy because he is dumb and cares about stupid stuff like this a lot. So he knew he needed to do something extreme to get it back. So they are sitting at their house and they have a weiner dog. Well the weiner dog took a poop in the house. They agree he has to eat a turd. He takes a bite and starts to throw up, so he stops and chugs a beer, then puts another turd in his mouth and begins to chew it. Well this makes David sick and he begins to puke, and runs upstairs to the bathroom, but doesn't make it really and pukes on the wall. For God knows what reason Andy decides on his own that eating the one turd wasn't enough so he eats another one, but yet that still isn't enough for him, so he walks over to the wall and licks the puke my friend had just puked all over the wall. The whole time Kevin is watching alternating between puking out the window and laughin histarically.
So that is where we are at right now. Andy has Pride and Glory for eating dog poop and licking my friends puke. Hopefully it will stop there. We think the name should be changed from Pride and Glory to Shame and Embarrassment or Stupid and Disgusting.
Yes, the people mentioned in this post are my friends. No, I do not know why.
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Book Review: Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove

Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
1992
Alternative History

Harry Turtledove is my favorite author, and Guns of the South is probably his most famous novel, but I put off reading it for awhile. Well I finally got around to reading it the other day. Harry Turtledove is most famous for his alternative history writing. Which basically means taking a true historic event and adding in stuff that didn't really happen and then continuing the story. Guns of the South is an example of alternative history fiction.

The plot of the novel is this. Towards the end of the Civil War the South is almost defeated. Then a group of strange men show up with a new repeating rifle they call "an AK-47" and supply the Confederate Army with them. The AK-47 changes the course of the war and the South wins. But where did these strange men get such an incredible gun? Well it turns out they are actually South African white supremacists from 150 years in the future who used a time machine to travel back in time to help the South win so that there will be a country in the world where whites still rule over blacks.

Sure it is a ridiculous concept, but it presents a lot of interesting scenarios. Like even if the South won, how long would they keep slavery going? Or how would people react when they found out that people from the future had come to alter their lives. One of the main characters of the book is Robert E. Lee. I am not sure how accurate portrayal is, but his character in the book is quite a thought provoking individual who I grew to like a great deal.

Overall this was another great work by Harry Turtledove. He presents a crazy scenario, but uses that to tell an interesting story with fully realized characters. I don't think the stuff he writes is for everyone, but if you wanted to read a Harry Turtledove book because you want to know who the hell I am talking about, I would probably recommend Guns of the South first because it is not part of a longer series (like many of his other books), and isn't that long of a book.

3.5 out 5 Stars
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Bill's Pizza Kitchen

I will openly admit that I am a huge cheap ass. I try to spend as little as possible every chance I can. Now that I no longer live with my parents and pay for everything myself this has taken my cheapness to new heights. One area where I save the most money is food. I don't eat much as it is but what I do eat doesn't cost much. One thing we splurged on a few times was pizza. There is a place near us that sells a extra large pizza for only $6 during the week. That is a good deal, but not good enough for me. So I decided we should make our own pizza. This may just be the best idea I ever had, because we did it, and it turned out good, really good. For the crust we used Kroger brand "Just Add Water" pizza dough mix. Sauce we just used Kroger brand pizza sauce, the cheese was Kroger brand pizza cheese, and the pepperonis were obviously Kroger brand as well. The best part is that is only costs like $2 to make a big pizza. It really wasn't too hard to make. But a tip, make sure to put some oil on the dough after you mix it and on your hands when you shape it in the pan or else it will stick to your hands like crazy. Here is a picture of our first attempt.

If it looks a little orange thats mainly due to the ligthing in our kitchen as well as my cameraphone, well that and it all the pepperoni make it a bit greasy. But that was only our first attempt and I think it looks really good considering. And more importantly it also tasted very good. After that we got confident and the ideas starting flooding in, different toppings etc. So we decided to make our own stuffed crust pizza. We doubled the dough to have enough for a crust to wrap around the cheese. And for the cheese in the crust we just put mozarella cheese sticks in it. We also opted to put the toppings below the cheese. Here is a picture of that.

To be honest, it didn't work that well. I still tasted good, but the stuffed crust was a total failure, you couldn't taste the cheese in it and it was dry. Live and learn. We also used our pizza pan this time, which has holes in the bottom to make it crispier, but the dough also started to go through those holes when forming it, so its tricky business.
I think we are just gonna do another round of pepperoni before trying something different, but I think the next specialty pizza well be a barbecue chicken. If you have never made your own pizza before, give it a try. Its easy to do, and even if you screw it up, it will only cost you a few dollars and 25 minutes.
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GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
2009
Action
Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, Channing Tatum, and a Wayans brother

I will let you all in on some personal information. GI Joe was by far my favorite show growing up as a kid. I went as GI Joe at least 3 years for Halloween. I loved the toys as well. My mom still has the info cards (back of the package of the action figures, gave their bio) from every figurine I ever had. In fact GI Joe holds the distinction of being the greatest Christmas toy I ever received, the mobil command center pictured below. It was so badass.

As nostalgic as the phrase "GI Joe" makes me feel I am able to seperate the cartoon, the toys, and Rise of Cobra the new live action movie. I did not expect the movie to capture my childhood.
For some reason I went into GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra with kind of high expectations. I didn't necessarily expect it to be a good movie, but I expected it to be a summer popcorn flick that overall would just be stupid but a lot of fun to watch. I feel like my expectations were about 75% right. There are parts of it that are a lot of fun, but most of the time it is just stupid. The action for the most part looks good (some shoddy CG work, but it fit the overtop mood of the scenes). The whole scene involving the Eiffel Tower was top notch in my opinion, other than the stupid "accelerator suits."

A few high points of the movie were Snake Eyes and Joseph Gordon Levitt. Snake Eyes was always the coolest Joe member (I almost bought a Snake Eyes backpack a few months ago) and they did a great job of showing that in the movie. Snake Eyes is badass. JGL plays Cobra Commander, though this is Rise of Cobra, he doesn't really become Cobra Commander until the end. But even before then he does a great job with the limited material he is given. He was the best possible thing next to getting this Cobra Commander to be in the movie...and thats unlikely.



To my surpsrise Sienna Miller is much hotter as a brunette than a blonde, well at least she was in this movie. But that could be because of the tight leather outfit she was wearing most of the time.

One minor problem with the movie from a storytelling perspective is that all the "good" characters are extremely boring, poorly acted, and for the most part have no character development at all, while all "bad" are interesting, and well acted. This is a minor problem because I assume the director made the movie so people would like the good guys more and cheer them on, but that didn't happen to me. After about 30 minutes I was openly rooting for Cobra to win. I mean half of the main Joe team featured in the movie have absolutely zero character development, there is the Moroccan guy with a French accent, the big buff black British dude, and the redheaded chick who is smart. That is basically everything you find out about 3 of the main good guys. While on the other hand all the bad buys have fleshed out back stories explaining how they came to be, as well as scenes explaining their actions and motives for the things being done in the movie.

Duke (played by Channing Tatum) is basically the main character of the movie, so you are suppose to root for him. There is just one problem with that, he is a huge tool that basically deserves all the bad stuff that happens to him. It is revealed early on that the main villainess, Anna, is actually his ex fiance, and that Duke served in the Army with Anna's brother Rex. Duke proposed to Anna right before they are deployed, and she makes Duke promise that he will protect her brother and bring him home safe. Of course on their mission Rex goes into a house that is bombed. When they return home Anna is of course devastated that her brother died, so how does Duke console her? He doesn't, he just ignores entirely. Anna is there at Rex's funeral and all Duke does is drive by on his Harley, take off his sunglasses, then drives away. Why in the hell should I want a character like that to find happiness again with a lost love who he completely abandoned when she needed him most? Oh later in the movie he says "I am sorry about that" which really doesn't seem good enough to me. Duke is a douche, that's all there is to it.

This is a movie you could watch with a few friends and have a blast by just pointing out flaws or making jokes about it. But this is not because it is a "so bad its good" kind of movie. Its just because some of the stuff that goes on in it is kind of stupid, and ridiculous, but I feel like the filmmakers knew that most of the time. I would say that if you have any desire at all to see this movie, rent it, if you have no interest to see it, just skip it, you won't be missing out on too much. I am not sure if Rise of Cobra made enough money to warrant a sequel, but if it did, and they get the right writer and director it could be pretty kickass.

3 out of 5 Stars

PS - There is a scene with the President in a bunker where some guy (they never show his face) jumps out and the President says "oh thats what he has planned" and thats it. Does anyone know what the hell is going on in that scene, because it is not explained or clarified at all and its annoying me. So if you know what that scene is about let me know.
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Star Trek (2009)

2009
Sci-Fi/Action

Before I even start talking about the movie I should state a disclaimer. I am a huge JJ Abrams fanboy. I fully enjoyed Cloverfield. I love Lost. I really love Fringe. So it is really not too shocking that I liked this JJ Abrams directed reboot of the Star Trek franchise.

Other than a few of the movies (VI and the one with the whales) I have never watched Star Trek before. Though since I am a nerd I was somewhat familiar with the characters and premise. So I guess this movie was aimed towards people like me since this is basically a prequel and tells how the crew of the Enterprise came to be. This movie was made for people who know nothing about Star Trek, you can come in with no prior knowledge at all and still know whats going on and have a good time.

I won't delve too much into the plot, but it basically deals with how all the characters found their way to the Enterprise and became the characters they came to be later in the series. The plot has a lot to do with time travel which is normally a pet peeve for me, but if you don't worry about time paradoxes and just enjoy the ride, it works just fine. One thing I am thankful for was that there wasn't any forced love storyline. There is a love storyline but it is not forced down your throat, it seems natural, and doesn't take up too much of the run time.

One of the high points of the movie was the cast. Some new faces, and some old, but all did a great job. There was a lot of praise for Chris Pine playing Kirk and I can agree he did a great job. He wasn't just doing a William Shatner impression which was nice, he was doing his own version of Kirk, cocky, yet with the smarts and wits to back it up. The guy from Hereos who plays Spock did a great job as well, because he is not the older Spock (Leonard Nimoy) who we meet up with in the movie (I told you there was time travel), he hasn't evolved into that Spock yet. Eric Bana, is great, and unrecognizable, as the bad guy Nero. I can also officially say that Star Trek is my new favorite Tyler Perry movie. Overall, my favorite character, the little alien helper with Simon Pegg on the ice planet, he needed more screen time.

The action in Star Trek is all well shot. There is not a ton of action in the movie, but when it arrives it is coming at such a break neck pace that you can't take your eyes off the screen. I sort of wish I would have seen it in the theatre or on Blu Ray because visually it is a pretty stunning movie to watch.

You should watch Star Trek. Don't let the idea of "trekkies" distract you. There is nothing nerdy or dorky about this movie. It is a fresh and exciting reboot of the Star Trek franchise that is a lot of fun. I am sure there will be plent of sequels for this movie to come, and I am excited to see them because JJ Abrams has established a great foundation to build the story upon.

4 out of 5 Stars
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Hey there kids

It is weird. I have had more free time in the past 2 months than I have had in several years, yet I seem to accomplish for less. I haven't been reading that much. I haven't really watched too many movies. And even though I have a lot of free time, I haven't posted anything on this blog in about 2 months. Well I plan to change that over the next few days, so check back because I hopefully will have gotten my mind working a little bit and got to typing about everything.