Lies and Illusions featuring Christian Slater+Cuba Gooding jr

The snippet that Comcast provides didn't reveal exactly just how low budget and straight to DVD it must have been. While the plot-line wasn't exactly perfect, probable, or believable, the popular movies often don't fit into those categories either. It seemed extremely low budget and cheesy feel for a 2009 flick and while watching a rated R movie on television eliminates a lot of the feel sometimes, I can't let the producers off the hook that easy.

The real problem was the absolutely PATHETIC, EMBARRASSING, AND LAUGHABLE attempt to insert "real" action/adventure drama we so often look forward to seeing. I don't know whether it was filmed during a weekend that the SAG was on strike or stunt doubles were all busy shooting Fast and Furious 126 I believe, you know the newest one where they now are in monster trucks???

Regardless of the excuse the scenes were just terrible and really REALLY, that hard to watch. Venture to your television or the bargain bin at Walmart at your own risk my friends!!! I WARNED YA!

"TED" -Starring Mark Wahlberg and a magical talking, toking, joking, stroking, teddy bear....

You know when you catch the preview of a new movie coming out and it looks hilarious? The kind of movie that catches your attention by showing you ALL of the funny scenes in the preview and when you sit down to watch the actual movie you realize that you've already done as much laughing as your going to do....Unfortunately, that description fits this movie to the letter. 

Disappointing to say the least, and def not Marky Mark's best work. On a scale of 1-10 i'd have to rate this movie a 3 and that's probably being generous. 

Here's how it breaks down....the typical unpopular child with parents to match buy kid a stuffed teddy bear for Christmas  Kid is happy to FINALLY have a "friend" who doesn't know what a dork he is and can't "unfriend" him on facebook, block his "tweets", ignore his phone calls and texts etc. He wishes that the bear could be his real friend forever and when he wakes up sure enough the bear is a real walking, talking, hugging teddy bear. 

Although the bear becomes famous for a few short lived days/weeks/months he keeps his word and stays true to his "Thunder Buddy" for life. The problem occurs once the kid becomes a 35 year old man, in a serious long term relationship. Faced with the possibility of losing the love of his life he makes the decision to separate from his buddy in the name of LOVE. The real question is....did he make the right decision???

Safe House Movie Review

On the front cover of the DVD for Safe House it says "An adrenaline rush from start to finish" -Greg Katzman, UGO.com.....That may be the understatement of the decade. Aside from the opening scene that has young CIA agent, Matt Weston(Ryan Reynolds)  eating a parting lunch with his beautiful girlfriend which will unfortunately be the last happy moment they share together...and the last time that Matt Weston could be called anything but a Veteran CIA operative.


The movie looked like something that i'd def be interested in based on the story-line along with leading actor Denzel Washington playing a once again incredibly complex character and NAILS IT. I really think this is one of his best jobs. It's just amazing how Washington adapts from Drug Kingpin, CIA Rogue Operative, Bodyguard, Corrupt Police Officer, EX Soldier and more while seamlessly changing demeanor's as though a normal man would switch jackets.


Safe House has instantly moved into one of my All-Time movie favorites Top 10 list, possibly even Top 5. I'm going to have to sit down and see if I dare shift anything out of my top shelf. Suspenseful, gripping, fast moving, unpredictable, heart stopping are words i'd say fit perfectly. For now i'm going to say it will most likely be somewhere around 8 or 9 for me but I reserve judgement until it settles in.


Joshua's 10 star movie grading gives Safe House a more then solid 8.5


Enjoy.

The Blind Side Movie Review

I was impressed with the overall story-line of the movie and since it's based on the real life events of Michael Oher I was really hoping that they stayed as true to reality as possible. I didn't need some over the top wrinkle to add some "flash" because that takes away from credibility. The writers made it through. Well, actually they didn't. They made it about 80% of the way through the movie before they scraped together this unrealistic scene.


After growing frustrated with the NCAA's questions about his recruitment Michael stormed out of the office meeting, confronted his "new mom" and somewhat (pardon the pun) blindsided her with the question of "why did you do it", "was it for me or was it for you all along" thing and walked off. Later that night somehow he ends up back on the "other" side of town where he grew up and when faced with the difficult decision of waiting for his mom alone outside or entering the drug den (good vs evil) he makes the one bad choice of his life and it turns into a mix of a Snoop Dogg video, a clip of Scarface and backyard brawls 2. I won't spoil the rest. My point is it transitioned awkwardly to where they needed but they could have done a much better job without losing the sincerity of the entire movie.





All in all I really enjoyed the movie though. It conveys a great message of perseverance and hard work can make anything happen. Obviously this unbelievable story is something that's a 1 in a million type of thing but hey better then 1 in a trillion right?


I'm going to rank it a 7/10 on my just created tonight grading scale which will be patented shortly(so don't get any ideas Siskal and Ebert! what the heck is a scale that only goes up to 4? There is a HUGE difference between a 3 and a 4 i'd think, ya gotta get some more stars guys)