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The Paladin takes his life in his own hands with Safety Not Guaranteed

safety-not-guaranteed

Time travel is hard; first there is the technological bits and bobs to work out and then consider the ramifications of your actions in the past and their ripple effect throughout time and space… tearing a hole in the fabric of human existence. Thankfully this movie really has nothing to do with that.

Safety Not Guaranteed is a character study. Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) is a woman adrift in her life in Seattle, working as an intern at Seattle Magazine. When Jeff Schwensen (Jake Johnson) a writer at Seattle Magazine wants to investigate a classified ad requesting a partner to travel back in time, Darius’ interest is piqued and she volunteers to go. We soon meet the man behind the ad, Kenneth Calloway (Mark Duplass) a jean jacket wearing, mulleted,  youth trapped in an adult body. Darius is drawn to him and convinces Kenneth to take her on as his partner. As the two train together, preparing themselves for the “heat” through weapons training and martial arts, the attraction is obvious. However the question lingers throughout – did Kenneth really build a time machine?

The characters in the story are pretty great, although Jeff’s character is kind of a tragic waste who you want to like but can’t because he’s a tool. Mark Duplass plays Kenneth with a strange seriousness, one part adolescent and one part adult – balancing the absurd premise with a very human motivation. Aubrey Plaza is fantastic as the husk of a woman who finds life again as she gets rapped up in Kenneth’s world.

There is swearing, drinking, and carousing in this movie (pretty much all Jake Johnson’s character Jeff), so be aware and the ending for some reason fell a little flat for me. I think it showed too much, unlike the rest of the movie where things were vague and mysterious. Some ambiguity at the end would have worked great.

Should you watch Safety Not Guaranteed? I’d say, if you like Napoleon Dynamite or Cohen Brother’s films then you’ll probably enjoy this character driven comedy. Its quirky, its not necessary laugh out loud funny, but you will giggle a little.

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Westeros Keeps Getting Crazier In Game Of Thrones Season 4!

Game-Of-Thrones

So season 4 of Game of Thrones has come to an end, and I am happy to say that unlike last year, this season went out with a bang.  Everything is different after this finale.  This is the type of episode the drives home the fact that no one is safe in Westeros, and that all the people that think they are good at playing the Game of Thrones, are not.  It was also nice to see some feaking justice in this show for once!  I am concerned that they are getting rid of all the interesting people, but at least for now they have me very excited to see what happens next.

This season as a whole has had a much better pace.  It balanced out the action and the politics very well.  They managed to cram a lot in to these ten episodes.  If they do to much more they might have to start having longer seasons (only crazy people would complain about that).  Though if the writers do that they may run out of material since George R. R. Martin hasn’t finished book six yet.  I hope the show can keep up the momentum for next year, because if so this HBO subscriber is locked in until the series is done!

 

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The Paladin serves aboard the Ark Royal

the-nelson-touch

Shmee reviewed the book Ark Royal by Christopher Nuttall back in February and he liked it. Because of that review I read it as well and also liked it. Recently I came across the sequel, The Nelson Touch (Ark Royal II) in Amazon’s Lending Library, so I was excited to read what happens next. So does The Nelson Touch have the touch?

Well, yes. It’s as well written as the first book, with good plotting, characters, and military tactics. If I had to criticize I would have to say that the ship itself lacks the character that made it interesting in the first book. It was the old warhorse that no one could bring themselves to put down; cobbled together with Chinese computers, running French software, to run British systems. It always felt ready to fall apart, but it was more intimate and interesting in that first book. In this book the ship doesn’t get much love and just becomes another ship. I also felt some of the space battles felt a little repetitive of the first book, being similar situations. However based on the world Nuttall’s built its hard for these situations to not develop as they have.

The book definitely feels like a middle book as well, with Nuttall holding the cards close to the vest in regards to the aliens – keeping the characters and the reader in the dark as to what their purpose is. I keeps me wanting to read more, but I’m going to need something more substantial in the next book or I might write an unfavorable review. There is a lot to like in the book though, for instance the Royal Marines are especially fun.

If you have Prime, I suggest picking this up from the Lending Library, but its also worth the $3.99.

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Shmee Contemplates List Of Superhero Movies

Justice-League

So the website Nikki Finke claims to have scooped DC/Warner Brothers big Comic Con announcement by getting their list of comic book movies they have in development. It goes something like this:

May 2016 – Batman v Superman
July 2016 – Shazam
Christmas 2016 – Sandman
May 2017 – Justice League
July 2017 – Wonder Woman
Christmas 2017 – Flash and Green Lantern team-up
May 2018 – Man Of Steel 2

Overall it seems like a pretty good line up, and ThePaladin and I agree that a Green Lantern/Flash team-up sounds wonderful!  The only thing that really throws me off is that they would try and do a Shazam movie two months after the Batman V. Superman flick.  I love Captain Marvel in all his or her forms, or whether he is at Marvel or DC, but it seams like an odd choice since not a lot of people know who he is anymore.  The only reason I can see for doing it is to use the Captain Marvel name before Marvel does just so they don’t have to deal with the confusion.

The other odd thing about this list is that it lacks a date for Batman.  You remember Batman right?  The guy that makes all the fat stacks for Warner Brothers.  Probably the most loved superhero of all time.  It seems like they would want to get a Batman movie up and running real quick, especially after spending all that money on Ben Afleck.

We will see if this list comes true or not in July, and if it does Nikki Finke may become the entertainment scoop blog to watch.

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Shmee Unfortunatly Watched Red 2!

cool-new-poster-for-red-2

When the movie RED was a surprise hit for Lionsgate in 2010, it surprised no one that they made a sequel RED 2 in 2013, but sadly it lacks all the fun and charm of the original.  Movies like this are why sequels get a bad rap.  It has no new ideas, and it seems like everyone is in it just to get paid.

The plot starts a little while after the first movie and Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) is getting bored now that her boyfriend Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is no longer taking her on dangerous missions.  Luckily for her their old friend Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) shows up and gets them all wrapped up in another adventure.  Which much like the first movie is them running from the CIA who wants to kill them, again, for some reason.  While on the run they will meet old friends, and have to team up with some new ones.

RED 2 is pretty much a worse version of the first one.  In RED it was fun watching old agents kicking butt and making people pay for coming after them, but to watch the same thing over again is pretty lame.  If you don’t have a new idea for a sequel you shouldn’t make it.  It is a shame too since RED has a good cast, and there is all sorts of spy stuff they could have done.  The only thing they did better in this movie are some nifty hand to hand fight scenes.

Speaking of the cast, none of them really bring any life in to their roles this time around.  They all know this is a cash grab, so they just put on their smug spy faces and get the movie done.  The only one that seems to be having any fun is Anthony Hopkins as a crazy doctor who makes weapons of mass destruction, but this is his first time around with RED, so maybe it was all still new and fresh for him.

The worst part of this movie is how forgettable it is.  I watched this movie weeks ago, but the reason I am reviewing it now is because I had forgot I watched it.  That is not a good thing for a movie.  Since they didn’t have a good script for this movie they should have just skipped it.  With this cast, had they tried a little harder they may have had a viable franchise on their hands, but it is to late for that now.  I am pretty sure this movie killed any chance for a RED 3, and after the snoozefest that was RED 2 nobody is sad about that.