This is Where I Leave You

Now the story of a wealthy family who lost their father and the one son who just caught his wife cheating, it's Arrested.....I mean it is This is Where I Leave You.
This film surprised me, i thought it looked good when it came out last year but never saw it until now, it is a charming and honest film about relationships, family & your past. Jason Bateman as Judd does his usual straight man act but in this one he is split between a possibility of getting back with his cheating wife, Quinn and the girl from his home town, Penny, played by my love Rose Byrne, who is such a charming & cute character i just wanted to eat her......up, so adorable. Judd's ex, Annie is married to his brother Paul, and the two of them are having problems getting pregnant. Their younger brother Phillip is a spunky, tail chasing fuck up, but has the films best moments, he is also dating his old shrink whom is dating Tracy, a woman about 10/15 years older than him. Their sister Wendy is in a troubled marriage and she is rekindling a past relationship with Horry, a man that was in a bad car accident and left him slightly altered. All the characters are likable, even the ones that are semi douchey, the events are rather honest and some characters don't wind up having happy endings. Check it out, it is on HBO GO.

Dope is Dope

Well it is still early in the year, but the Sundance favorite Dope, is easily at the top of my list for best film of the year(thus far). This is the story of three geeks, they skateboard, love 90's hip hop & fashion, play old school video games, listen to indie rock, play in a punk band & watch Game of Thrones. They get bullied at school, they get mugged, robbed and treated like shit, until they meet Dom, he is a neighborhood drug dealer and is using Malcom(the trio's spiritual leader) to talk to Nakia in an attempt to swoon her to his birthday party, the trio goes, drugs appear, guns start a blazing and Dom puts a shit ton of Molly in Malcom's backpack. The next day a rival of Doms are on Malcom's tail is thus a fish is out of water and the trio(Malcom along with Jin & Diggy) are on the run from some hard hitters looking to get medieval on  their ass. Malcom hooks up with a big time dealer, or well his kids, but this man, AJ, shares more links with Malcom then anticipated. This is a Breaking Bad version of a coming of age film. Malcom must man up through out the flick, gain respect, and use with mind to show not only criminals but high society that he is more than just a poor kid from the hood. The cast is fantastic, everyone plays their parts perfectly, the film's progression has a perfect pace and you feel high tension and numerous moments for the safety of our three main characters. The cinematography & direction are amazing, i hope it gets notice at the Oscars but i am sure it will not, the Spirit Awards is another story. This feels like the type of indie film i fell in love with in my teens, it's raw and has tons of heart. I pretty much loved this flick, and the messages are not heavy handed, they are just presented as they should be, don't judge & just be cool towards others, this film needs to be seen, i usually say fuck all to the masses, but i say let this film be the little indie that could! It's funny & intense at the same time, go check it out!

Game of Thrones season 5.

So early in 2014 i saw a clip of a show with a great long take, True Detective, so i got my buddy's HBO GO so i could watch the brilliance, of course i wanted to catch up on True Blood and Bored to Death but one show had me intrigued, Game of Thrones. All i knew was it was a violent fantasy with tons of sex & lots of pissed off fans from death scenes, it was but so much more. This show is well acted, well produced, well shot & has gorgeous CGI. I didn't read the books, i have read the first two since but they're not my bag, this show however....well i proudly wear my GoT shirt, so there is that!
The show was nuts, the characters were various shades of grey and the battles were great, when deaths happened they hit you hard. So i watched season 4 as it aired and i felt like i belonged finally. I finally had to go through GoT withdraws over the summer, fall, winter(is coming), and patiently await spring. This season started off super slow but the last half really picked up steam and ran home with it!
So here is a quick rundown of this season, Tyrion started off the season headed to Dorne before being abducted by Jorah whom was banished by Daenerys, and Jorah assumes this will put him back in her good graces for Tyrions family taking down hers. Tyrion & Jorah had great chemistry and foes/friends, and one they get back with Daenerys the battle scene is amazing. Tyrion's brother Jamie set off with Tyrions former right hand man Bronn, to get Jamie's niece/daughter back from the Martell's whom Tyrion's sister Cersei assumes will kill her daughter in an act of revenge for the death of Oberyn last season. Jamie & Bronn get into a tussle with quite a few of the Martell's/Sandsnakes and finally work out a deal to leave, until  Cersei's prediction comes true, Cersei meanwhile is locked up by a religious cult this seaons and slut shameed this season, but hopefully the cunt will get what she has coming(no pun intended). Stannis Baratheon strikes a deal with Jon Snow to take down the Boltons with the help of the Wildlings, an epic battle with the Whitewalkers takes place, but Stannis lets greed get to him, sacrifices his own daughter and loses his life to Brienne. Brienne was tracking down Sansa that was married off to Ramsy Bolton, and by time the show ends, her fate is unknown, as is Theon's after they jumped to escape the Bolton army, Now back to Jon Snow, after helping the Wildlings, the Nights Watch decide to stab him to death, i guess winter came & snow fell. Arya Stark went on her mission of becoming a faceless man, got tortured, cleaned bodies, then murdered Meryn Trant number one on her kill list, and by the end of the episode is going blind. She show has lots of characters, some live, some die, some you celebrate, some you mourn.
As for the finale, i loved it, i thought Arya's kill was one of the best scenes the show has had, i thought the seeds being planted for Tyrion next season was well done, Jon Snow's death was unexpected and a huge loss, the Dothraki's returning to Daenerys was pretty cool Cersei is obviously plotting to get a bunch of folks killed next season. Sansa & Theon's jump will lead people guessing all year as to whether they died or lived.Jamie watching his daughter die will lead to some interesting aspects for him. Brienne taking out Stannis was well deserved and wrote his character off after having everyone go from loving him to hating him in a span of a week. Now we just need to know what is up with Littlefinger and what the rest of the Stark boys are up to.

Silicon Valley

Sitcoms are an odd bunch, you either get really stupid network shows or you get really smart network shows, Two in a Half Men is the former, Parks & Rec being the latter, Then you get a show that is deemed the nerd sitcom to end all.....the Big Bang Theory.....well most nerds i know hate the show and prefer stuff like Parks & Rec, shows with wit. The anti Big Bang Theory of sorts is Community, is deals with the nerdiest shit but is exist in a realm of fiction(though BBT does too, just made to look legit, ugh). In recent years cable has taken off, It's Always Sunny did wonders and then HBO started doing well with shows like Bored to Death, a brilliant sitcom. So what do you get when you take the director of Office Space, Mike Judge and give him a sitcom, on HBO with lose language and a great staff of writers to expand upon the tech side of Office Space, you get the show that Big Bang Theory wishes it was, you get Silicon Valley.
The characters on here are relateable, they aren't nerd cliches & stereotypes, the humor is blunt, rude, sexual but done in one of the wittiest & smartest ways. The plots may not reach everyone, as no, we are all not computer experts, but fuck me if this show doesn't make it acceptable and without talking down to the audience. This show never does, they will speak 1337 and if you don't get it, oh well, if you do, you'll love it, for those of us that just love great comedy, well we do not need to worry about not getting every tech reference as the laughs pour in all the time.
The first season was brilliant, the second blew it away, all the actors are top notch, Thomas Middleditch plays the awkward CEO of the upstart Pied Piper, Richard Hendricks, to a T. T......well i have to bring up the shows MVP, TJ Miller's Erlich Bachman the brash, cocky & foul entrepreneur that runs Pied Piper out of his house. Martin mothafuck Starr is brilliant as the dry humored satanic programmer Gilfoyle that always bickers with whom we can only assume is his best friend, fellow programmer Dinesh played by a guy that is everywhere right now, Kumail Nanjiani, rounding out the cast is the Office's most underrated actor Zach Woods as Jared, the companies CFO, a guy that is more awkward than Richard yet is oblivious to alot of his quirks as well as the fact he is the groups target & punching bag.
It looks as if it might sweep at this years Emmy Awards, and rightfully so, this show is brilliant & needs to be watched!

Jurassic Park Series Ranked

So with Jurassic World now in theatres, it is time to look upon the Jurassic Park franchise.

1. Jurassic Park
This is a great film, i first saw it when i was like 5, and remember being in awe. Awe works for the film, it has that sense of Spielberg wonderment, something the other films lacked. If you love dinosaurs chances are you love this film, if you were an aspiring filmmaker in 1993 or you were a wee lad like i was, chances are you reflect upon this fondly, and rightfully so, great characters, great effects, well built tension, it is an amazing film.

2. Jurassic World
This film pretty much never mentions 2 & 3, and well it is better paced & more fun than both of those films. It is full of references to the original, the cast seems to be having fun and the dinosaurs seem like a spectacle again.

3/4(tied). The Lost World
I liked this alot as a kid, rewatched it about 5 years ago and was unimpressed, rewatching it now, i mean it still holds up in some areas but it lacks so much of the original, it feels forced at times. I know the book was rushed, so it makes sense this film has that feel.

3/4(tied) JP 3
You know this film may be stupid, character flaws(unitentional), plot holes, and a cluster fuck, but truth be told this is alot of fun. It may not as well shot as The Lost World but i think it is more fun.

Insidious Trilogy

So 4 years ago James Wan blew me away with Insidious, i didn't think  I was going to love it but i did, his three previous films i liked but that was about it. Four years later, bada boom, we have a third, different director but still one of the creators!

1. Insidious
This film is a modern Poltergeist, it was great and it wasn't afraid to get a lil weird, Darth Maul working in an industrial field, ghost kids dancing, Tiny Tim's Tiptoe Through the Tulips, some aspects even reminded me of Suspiria. The cast was great and the scares were creepy!

2. Insidious Chapter 2
They pulled the old Evil Dead 2 with this one of amping up the crazy, the further was weirder, and Patrick Wilson being possessed was easily Jack Torrance. Sure the film is not as good as the first, but come one Wan was working on the Conjuring at the same time so ease up on it.

3. Insidious Chapter 3
This one wasn't bad but it wasn't good. The best parts are the returning characters of Elise, Tucker & Specs, the scares relied too heavily on jump scares and it didn't work, the humor was really hit & miss.

It has been said more films will continue, i say pick up where Chapter 2 ended, Elise as a ghost helping Tucker & Specs do their thing.

Community Six Seasons and a....?

Community i fell in love with the day it began, but the show i fell in love with, become something entirely different by the end of the season.....and in seasons after it took on a new life as the most absurd, meta, geek cool, and innovative sitcoms on television. We are introduced to a group of characters, the conniving lawyer Jeff, the cool chick Britta, the overachiever Annie, the jock Troy, the nerd(Abed), the Christian single mother Shirley, and the old entrepreneur Pierce. Supporting players included the odd dean, Dean Pelton(or just Dean), and the dickish spanish teacher Chang. It dealt with various college themes such as odd classes, life on campus and even 80's inspired tropes like jocks & bullies, however it was aware of it self....and the 80's inspired   tropes became the shows bread & butter....well until they decided to make some episodes that paid tribute to Beastmaster & Goodfellas, they knew their audience and then they gave us it's great running gag....paintball.
This show has paid tribute to the Hunger Games, My Dinner With Andre, Aliens, zombie films, John Woo Films, Die Hard, Escape From NY, Pitch Black, The Human Centipede, The Shawshank Redemption, Apocalypse Now, stop motion animation, Predator, The Breakfast Club(many times), spaghetti westerns, Good Will Hunting, Pulp Ficton, Law & Order, The Warriors, The Karate Kid, Gi Joe, video games, among others
Paintball episodes featured many of these, paintball launched this show into a new realm, it was a high concept, it referenced cool flicks and the characters became a tad more rounded, the following year the show knew what it was, embraced it and made episodes focused on Dungeons & Dragons, when the time came to do the next paintball episode it felt like an event. The following season had episodes built as pbs documentaries, anthology horror episodes that put modern Treehouse of Horror to shame, an 8 bit episode, and an episode full of flashbacks.
The show had alot of heat between Dan Harmon(the creator) and Chevy Chase(Pierce) Harmon was even fired after season 3, many loathe the fourth season but it gave us some decent episodes taking place in haunted mansions, comic conventions, and featuring an episode of puppets. Luckily Harmon returned on the fifth season and it went bonkers, robots, Nicholas Cage, Lava Games, canisters of semen, old west vhs games with Vince Gilligan, a GI JOE cartoon, and a pretty decent finale had the show not been renewed. By time season six started some characters such as Troy & Shirley were gone, new characters such as Frankie a consultant and Elroy(an old and semi out of touch it guy) yet the show went for broke when it came to the episodes, giant virtual simulations, fake spin offs, possible season seven ideas, more paintball, incest, filmmaking, terrorist threats, gay issues, and moving on in life.
The show is absurd but it has heart, it knows when to be funny(95% of the time on the show) and when to be serious, it has legit emotion and you care about the characters, they don't exist on any form of reality but they are more realistic than characters found on the Big Bang Theory or Two & a Half Men. The characters evolved, Jeff became a super narcissist yet knew how to lead, Britta became the ultra liberal but fucked shit up, Annie became pushy, Troy & Abed In the Morning(best friendship on tv), Shirley became a relatable character for people with a religious yet caring mother, Pierce became a villain(as did Chang) and the Dean became the most over the top character one could find. Yet their flaws made them, Jeff realizes he loves the group, Britta hold her self back and mellows out, Annie becmae the beta but kept everyone together, Troy & Abed became geek gods, Shirley was love, Change was acceptance, Dean above all was possibly the shows heart. Heart was all over this show, and if you watched it you laughed, you cried, you gained memories, being a Community fan is a special handshake, the fans molded the show, the fans kept the show going, we revived the show a few times, we brought back the creator we helped streaming a cult show a possibility,  this show loved the fans and the fans loved it. #sixseasonsandamovie and if i never get a movie, i am happy with six seasons, hell i was happy with five seasons, hell i was just happy with the show but if we ever get the movie, it will make me giddy and i will laugh & cry all over again. If you haven;t watched the show, do it, it might be my favorite sitcom ever(only behind Spaced). Thank you Dan Harmon, thanks to the cast & writers/directors, thanks to everyone involved. This show is my show and I will always love it!