Shmee.Me

May 28, 2013May 28, 2013

Shmee tries Salmon Fishing in the Yemen!

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a 2011 film by Lasse Hallström (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape). It was nominated for the Best Picture Golden Globe. I don’t watch a lot of romantic comedies, but it was a nice change of pace. It was not without issues however.

The movie starts off with the British fisheries office getting a question from a Yemeni sheikh (Amr Waked) about planting salmon in the Yemen river, which of course the fisheries office says is impossible due to the heat, but when the UK needs a feel good middle east story they tell them to at least try, so Doctor Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) teams up with the sheikh’s account manager Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) to try and make it happen.

This movie mostly works because of how likable Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt are. They make a perfect on screen couple and you just want them to get together, but here comes my nitpick with the story, Ewan’s character is married, but the movie makes you happy that he is leaving his wife behind even though she hasn’t done anything wrong, so it makes the romance leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The cinematography is wonderful in the movie. With the vast Scotland and desert shots, and then all the wildlife imagery is fantastic. It just makes this movie all the more visually inviting. Lasse Hallström knows how to shoot a movie.

Like I said this movie works mostly due to how much you like the two leads, and the entire movie is so warm it is like curling up with a warm blanket, but it is shame the way they handle Dr. Jones wife it makes the whole movie feel a bit off.

May 27, 2013

The Return of Arrested Development!

After a long hiatus the Bluths are back on TV, well the internet anyway since their show is now on Netflix. Did the show manage to recapture the humor and wit of the show’s original run? I think it did.

The Bluth’s have all gone their separate ways after the events of the third season, and they are all now trying to put their own lives back together. Each character has their own episode or two explaining what they have been up too, and all the shows take place during roughly the same time period, and explains how they end up on a pier for a party known as Quattro de Cinco, and as the different stories intertwine it shows how different seemingly random things that happen each character are caused by a different character.

It is good to see all the characters back and being the losers we have all come to know and love. They are all still funny, and now that they are pretty much fending for themselves they are having a hard time navigating life. The actors have their roles down pat, so there is no need to worry that they changed anyone.

The writers did not seem to skip a beat. They throw so much funny stuff at you it is impossible not to laugh at the family. They also managed to work in almost every side character from the show in to this new series somehow.

So if you have not watched it yet, I would recommend that you do. It is a lot of fun, and I hope the Netflix picks up the fifth season.

May 26, 2013September 9, 2013

Happy Arrested Development Day!

Happy Arrested Development Day! Just in case you aren’t aware this is the day that the new season of Arrested Development comes out! If you don’t know what Arrested Development is than lucky for you it is free and streaming on Netflix! I recommend it. It is a very funny show. It is about man (Jason Bateman) who must try and save his formerly rich and very corrupt family from living on the streets, and he is mostly successful.

May 25, 2013May 25, 2013

Shmee Visits Mumford & Sons at Holland Park!

I am going to start off by saying Mumford and Sons puts on an amazing show. They rocked Holland Park in Surrey B.C. for a good hour and forty minutes, but I will get back to that.

The venue Holland Park is great place to watch a show. The area has cheap parking nearby at the shopping center and the Sky Train station as long as you get there when gates open. It is open and there is space to move around, plus they have a ton of good food vendors. The biggest downside is that the stage is not tall enough or they need to dig out the stage area, so it is easy to have a large person or a girl on someone’s shoulders block your view. but it does handle the 25,000 guests well.

The first band the Mystery Jets went on just an hour after the gates opened, so we were still milling around and getting food during their show, but it was good. They have a very 70’s rock feel, and play and sing well.

The next band or singer I should say Michael Kiwanuka has a good soul voice, and was great to hear. I will be on the lookout for his stuff in the future. My only problem with his show is that he needs to pick his set list better because he started off with some great crowd moving tunes, but then went really slow and soulful, which was good, but sucked the life out of the crowd.

That brings us to main event. Mumford & Sons put on amazing show from beginning to end. They played all the songs off their last two albums, and the order they put them in really kept the crowd in to it. They sound better live than they do on their CDs. It was great! Their set design was sweet with cool light rigs and the sound guys did a fantastic job, so atta’boys all around. If you ever get the chance to see them live, do it! You will not be disappointed.

It was a great night and a lot of fun, but a word of advice. If you are ever thinking it is midnight so it should be ok to take the Peace Arch crossing, DON’T! It took two hours because they only had one lane open, and with the new red light turn your car off policy it felt even longer.

May 24, 2013June 24, 2013

The Mother of All MST3Ks: Manos: The Hands of Fate!

“Manos” The Hands of Fate is considered among the worst movies of all time. Most lists have it as number two below the classic Plan 9 from Outer Space, but you could defiantly make a case for Manos as number one. Though number two may be a good descriptor for the movie. It was written, directed, and stared in by Insurance and Manure salesman Harold P. Warren in 1966, but it was almost completely forgotten until MST3K found it, and it is one of their best episodes.

The movie starts with a young family on their way to a vacation at Valley Lodge, but they get lost and end up in the desert, so they ask to stay with the creepiest looking hillbilly of all time named Torgo, but at first he doesn’t want to let them because The Master doesn’t like dogs or kids (even though The Master has a dog), but he relents and lets them stay. What will happen when The Master finds out?

You know your in for a good movie when the movie starts off with like fifteen minutes of camera out the window driving shots, and the characters have to beg to stay with a creepy guy who works for a person he calls “Master”.

Everything is bad about this movie. There is no script and the “actors” have to repeat the dialog to fill time, and to call it dialog is an insult to writers everywhere. The sets are someone’s small living room, and a place in the desert with pillars where The Master and his Wives live.

I hope Warren was a good Manure and Insurance salesmen because he was an awful director. He never framed his shots, and anytime he showed the “actors'” faces they were bad close ups it is like he had never seen a movie before and he was making up something new as he went along.

It is safe to say the Joel and the Bots had a field day with this movie. Every seen has so much to make fun of, and the movie is so strangely bad that you can take your eyes off of it much like a train crash.

“Manos” The Hands of Fate is so bad that I think everyone should watch it at least once it will make you appreciate how good most movies are. This is streaming on Amazon Prime so there is no reason not to see it, other then fact it is really bad.