We Don't Walk Slow

Unstoppable Review

This movie was for $4.95 on demand so CK4 and I watched it. Mainly because I’ve seen most of the free movies I want to see and watching something new has it’s allure. If you aren’t familiar with this movie it stars Denzel Washington and Rosario Dawson a few other B listers who accidentally put a train in full throttle. If you couldn’t guess, it becomes Unstoppable. The unattended train foils some potential solutions until you guessed it, Denzel saves the day with his renegade behavior. Sort of reminded me of Taking of Pelham 123 just because a train and Denzel were involved. Ck4 came out of it saying it was a really great movie but that’s because he’s wowed by special effects and life threatening situations that he could never dream of being in. I was entertained but to say it was a truly good movie is giving it way too much credit. The side plot were dumb and the main plot was obvious to make the movie anything special.

I think people have a tendency to be way to heavily favored to one side or the other. Meaning that people either love it or hate it and these type of people skew ratings because they are not real with what they are watching. I would like to outline a rating system that has a much more practical use. Nothing gets a 10 because it’s nearly impossible to be perfect. On the opposite end, things rarely deserve 1’s. When you are handing out numbers for how attractive females are you can’t be throwing out perfect 10’s because the number begins to lose meaning. Also, instead of calling girls 1’s you just bump them up to 4.5’s so everyone wins. You can get a good idea of how people judge things just by hearing their review of one movie and then watching for yourself. When JC, who generally falls asleep halfway through movies, tells me the 4th Kind (A thriller involving an ongoing unsolved mystery in Alaska, where one town has seen an extraordinary number of unexplained disappearances during the past 40 years and there are accusations of a federal cover up) is a really good movie and I should watch it, I know I’m probably not dealing with someone who has the same tastes as myself in what a good movie is.

That’s why it amazes me that Denzel takes on some of these roles because you can just tell it’s all about the money and not how good the role is. I read in Wikipedia that he wanted to walk away from the movie because they wanted him to reduce his pay from 20 million to 16. Seriously, you greedy SOB. The movie isn’t going to win you any awards and you just take the role because. When I saw a preview of Liam Neeson’s new movie I thought to myself, “didn’t he just do this movie in Taken?” Taken was such a terrible role for such a good actor that he only takes it for the money. Literally, there is no plot but him hunting down his daughter and acting like a bad ass. Now he picks another one of the same exact role. This is no Star Wars or Schindler’s list, just an F U pay me. Generally when actors choose these roles, there’s no way they are putting together an Academy Award performance. Just some food for thought when reviewing movies.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T03:32:02-04:00February 23rd, 2011|Movies|0 Comments

Raiders of the Lost Ark

I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time tonight and was intrigued. To say it’s a 4 star movie might be giving it a bit too much credit but it’s a decent story although incredibly unrealistic. I suppose the subtleties of the plot are well thought out like the monkey eating the fruit before Indiana and the girl showing her drinking prowess which really didn’t come into play at all. Some scenes are hilariously unrealistic like him passing under the truck but all in all it was entertaining. I have the other two DVR’d so I’ll watch them in due time. Now I finally get the crate scene at the end which is parodied off of many times. I must say that Harrison Ford may be one of my favorite actors. There’s just no reason not to like him.

Also let’s pat myself on the back for the Sixers pick to extend a nice run of sports bets. They almost blew it at the end as I only watched the 4th quarter. When you bet on games it makes the game watchable but the only thing that ever matters is the last few minutes. Sure blowouts happen and you feel like a genius when you are on the right side but more often than not the bookies have decent spreads that make the games interesting. Clutch foul shooting helped the Sixers win this game and to cover for 6 out of 6 games.

Nothing else new and just looking forward to the holiday season.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T17:39:44-04:00December 15th, 2010|Movies|0 Comments

The Sting

I’ve been feeling kind of lousy lately and the blog is in the backseat. I don’t really have much going on either which doesn’t help in new topics. Ck4 said no one cares about fantasy football so I’ll omit that from future entries. I can’t tell if anyone likes when I write about things I watch on TV. The sports tales seem boring. I sort of feel like no one really cares about anything. I understand why most people don’t have blogs. It’s basically because they have nothing of any interest that people would like to read about. I’m approaching my 400th post and my readership is a 1 or 2 hundred people a month. This isn’t bragging either it’s just this hasn’t become a nationwide phenomena. I get nothing out of it and people get free entertainment that they like to complain about why what I’m doing isn’t good. I just have reached the why bother point which comes from time to time. It’s usually just a phase and I know it passes. I do have to expect this though with a blog that isn’t oriented to anything in particular but to my life. People who visit have to specifically know me or else it’s just randomness. Unless it’s celebrities or porn, it’s difficult to create a site people care about. No real point to this post other than posting what I’m feeling.

In Role Models Sean William Scott says Michael Ian-Plantz looks like Marvin Hamlisch and the reply is “Who the fuck is Marvin Hamlisch?” — “He wrote the music for The Sting” — “Good movie.” So I decided to watch the Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. I was pretty impressed with a film from the 70’s. It was entertaining throughout and even with the ancient wipes it held my interest. I’d recommend it over most movies out there today. The plot is better than most and at times it seems slow but I liked it. I think Paul Newman is a badass by the way. I also don’t know why the females are so ugly 40 years ago. Honestly just all girls in the movie were dogs.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T03:32:30-04:00November 10th, 2010|Movies|6 Comments

Crying Movies – Reponse to Sam

I typically find it a pretty wussy move to cry during a movie. Just to give a couple thoughts to Sam’s post because I find it a pretty interesting topic. Sam’s list included Forrest Gump, Hardball?, Radio? March of the Penguins, Click and the 6th Sense. I’ve seen 3 of the 6 and will admit that the 6th Sense almost brought a tear to my eye at the exact spot Sam described. I felt no sympathy towards Jenny in Forrest Gump and didn’t mind that the whore bit the dust. Sam, Click, seriously? First off, the movie was awful and awful movies don’t deserve emotional attachment. Plus it’s Adam Sandler. I can’t comment on movies I haven’t seen but I haven’t cried at a Disney / Pixar flick since I was 10. The Lion King comes to mind when Mustafa was doing his slow motion falling and I felt bad for Simba.

Now to give you a movie that comes to mind as a movie that I think deserves crying. Schindler’s List. I remember watching this recently and during the end scene when the older versions of the characters are walking through the graveyards, I found that pretty moving. This was honestly one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and if you haven’t, you are missing out. Also, I believe that crying at a movie of one German man saving hundreds of Jews from execution should have more merit and be acceptable, compared to tiny, 2lb 3oz, little baby animated penguins dying… Armageddon is also a tear jerker when Bruce Willis bites the bullet for Ben Affleck and saves the day. I actually found that pretty sad because it was unselfishness of the dad towards his daughter and acts like this are usually more emotional. I will add more as I come to think of them.

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-28T15:54:00-04:00September 22nd, 2010|Movies|4 Comments

Twilight

This is going to be a different entry. It’s 2:14 and I’m deciding to write a blog entry. I went out with Jkash to Mad River and I was in control all of the night. I even paid a taxi driver 10 bucks because it could potentially cost me 3k. Mad River was decent and we got some reasonably good deals on drinks. Jkash wound up finding some female at 1 or so and I decided to bounce because I was trying to not make any mistakes and came back here. I finished watching the first Twilight movie and I was pretty satisfied. I feel like there is a lot of hate justified to this series but after watching the movie I thought it was pretty entertaining. If I didn’t know there were sequels after watching the first movies I would have totally felt ripped off. I know I completely missed the boat on this series but that was because it seemed like such a homo series. However, I asked the Jtrain what he thought of Twilight and this 19 year old male answered that he thought it was really good. Unprovoked I got a straight answer and I will also concur with this opinion. I thought the prolonged kiss with Edward was well played and how they drew it out with him spending time with her (yeah right). The fight scene was pretty hokey and it sort of came out of left field which I thought was weak but I thought Kristen Stewart was fine for the role and I had little problem with any other acting. I even thought the dialogue was really good.

When I hear Sam say that he thought Adventueland was really good and then for it to be confirmed by Palmisano (a Princeton undergraduate) I just have to make sure I have my head screwed on. When I asked Sam what he liked about the movie he couldn’t give a good answer and Palm said that he liked the romantic love interest. I completely disagree with the assessment as I thought the entire movie was bland and I couldn’t connect on any levels with the characters. The Ryan Reynolds part was out there and the Kim P (I can’t remember exactly) was just plain dumb and meaningless. It was just not a good movie. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Twilight was interesting and I thought the movie was well done in pretty much every sense. When Edward and Bella are on that tree spending time together and she says something cheesy and he response with something cheesy, I thought it was a job well done on setting the mood. Now don’t’ get me wrong here, I thought the prom dancing scene was reasonable for a series with sequels but the ending was borderline terrible. Watch the show True Blood and then you’ll know how to end an episode. Seriously that show does it every single week. If I don’t get Hbo this week in OCMD, first thing I’ll do is OnDemand True Blood. I still have to watch Treme before I head off but I plan to do that at 9am tomorrow before I head out. I’m also sure that I’ll take some heat for this flaming post but I’m not ashamed to admit what I think. I think the show Glee is good and I also find the Twilight series entertaining. Sorry.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T17:21:39-04:00June 26th, 2010|Movies|0 Comments

Movies and Such

I’ve watched 2 movies that I actually enjoyed. Considering I don’t think I’ve been to the movie theater since Superbad, I pretty much just bottom feed the on demand like a prawn. If you understand that reference you can probably guess that one of the movies I recently watched was district 9. As much as I find these alien movies kind of off the wall, I was pretty intrigued the whole way through. My only question was that if the aliens had all this amazing technology, why weren’t they using it? I’ll assume the answer is because the humans wouldn’t let them? The ending was also a bit peculiar but all in all I was entertained by the movie even though I don’t think the story was spectacular. I also watched Fargo which was very entertaining. I sometimes just scan the old demand looking for movies that I’ve heard were good but never got a chance to see and this was one. The info on it had it labeled as an uproariously funny comedy but I think someone either got confused or was pulling a fast one. It was entertaining throughout though and I would recommend it. They had two actors who were married and they way they acted together made me think that “that is how a marriage is supposed to be.” They were actually nice to each other and legitimately liked one another which is far too uncommon nowadays. It’s really slim pickings on demand though and I’m going to have to start finding new means of entertainment.

I just want to throw a couple random thoughts out there. I don’t really understand the concept of walking for exercise. Now obviously it’s better than doing nothing but I know that when I walk a golf course I don’t really think of it as exercise. I guess I just think people should put forth some effort when they are exercising or else it’s … not.

Pooping in Port-a-potties has to be one of the grossest things out there. I can’t bring myself to do so. It stinks to high hell and the fact that other peoples feces are sitting directly beneath me grosses me out. I would hold it in 99% of the situations where I would ever have to shit in a portapotty. I will however take a piss if there are a ton of people around and I couldn’t find somewhere to go outside.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T17:19:05-04:00June 4th, 2010|Movies|0 Comments

Taking of Pelham 123 and Comment #1 on my last post.

I like commenting back to people in the comment box when they comment on my post but in this case I’m going to devote a whole post to the last comment. Yes I was mistaken on Taking back Pelham 123 but this is because it’s a completely forgettable movie. First off, how can any movie be good when I’m focusing more to see how many time Travolta says “motherfucker” than what is actually transpiring in the movie. Why does Ryder need 2 million physical dollars when he just made 300 million in the market. Let me carry this bag around so it can slow me down. And what kind of a police brigade was bringing the money to the subway? They must have caused at least 4 crashes and were completely reckless. Ryder’s fascination with Garber was just unusual to the point of absurdity. Another flaw is when the sniper had Ramos in his sights, he was literally there for 15 minutes before he accidentally shot him and what’s even more spectacular is that the mouse makes him jump and he pulls the trigger and the weapon still automatically aligns with the guys head. The ending was hilarious with Ryder just stopping because some train conductor pointed a gun at him from 50 feet away. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m fairly confident that if I kept running he wouldn’t have a chance in hell to hit me. To sum this long- winded rant up, there was no connection with the characters that at any point in the movie if someone would have died, I would have cared. If they did something twisted like Ryder and Garber were working together it would have been more entertaining but I just left the movie thinking that I just had my time wasted with a bore of a story. I also want to point out that I will give most movies a chance. I can sit through practically everything (besides 5th element, sorry evan) and I’m looking for movies that make me relate to characters and then care about the choices they are making. Finally, I know I’m right about my take on this movie because when Wagon is also agreeing that this is a really good movie, and he’s on the same level as Jordan. He didn’t realize that Memento was working backwards after 45 minutes of watching it. He also would prefer Marley and Me to Starwars. For the sake of argument, I’m well aware people have different tastes and I’m not always right so just understand that I take a side when I do these.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T03:43:43-04:00March 15th, 2010|Movies|0 Comments

Movie & TV Review

This first sentence will direct you to the bottom of this post of a link that is a must click.

I’m going to 180 from my Disney broads post, but I have to admit, personifying Disney characters is a funny post. I was the one who made the first comment on my post so I don’t think anyone took it too literally. I’m just trying to dig myself out of a hole to anyone who read that post and thinks I’m messed up in the head. Something to take out of it though is that strange shit does run through my brain and I really don’t have to many limits on what I’m willing to comment on.

Now to two movies that I watched recently, 7 pounds and funny people. I’ll start with the former as it was suggested by Evan Cohen who tends to maybe give movies a bit too much credit. I just read the Wikipedia page on this movie and it claims mostly poor reviews. However, I sat through the entire movie, giving it its chance, and I must say it was one of the most touching movies I’ve seen. I can see why people would call it terrible and boring, but I found the good nature of Will Smith’s character to be enjoyable to watch. There is really no action throughout the entire movie and I wouldn’t say it was very exciting either. At the end when Rosario Dawson and Woody Harrelson hug, knowing how fortunate they were to have Will Smith’s character in their lives, I was really moved. I sound and feel like a complete homo writing this but I don’t watch too many movies of this type and I really thought it was pretty good. I was entertained for two hours and wasn’t disappointed by the ending, which is more than I can say about this next movie.

Funny People was moderately funny and the ending was really awful. Adam Sandler played a weird role for him. He wasn’t one of his goofy characters but was actually real. His lines weren’t meant to be funny but were meant as a real person playing a real role. It was sort of bizarre actually. Seth Rogan lost some weight and they harp on it with a few jokes but he looks sort of skinny and unfunny. Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman were good for a few laughs and I thought the girl had a funny/good vibe to her character. I’m really sick of Leslie Mann. I guess guys think she’s attractive but I really don’t see it. I don’t think she’s very funny and she’s one of the main girls in all Apatow’s movies which is becoming too much. The movie is 2 and a half hours which is way too long considering nothing really ever happens. A couple funny parts, no good themes or lessons, moderately entertaining, poor ending. One star movie and a wasted 5 bucks. I like James Taylor.

Onto TV. I’m not really going to spoil either of these next two shows. Dexter is just awesome. Arthur has been really developed throughout the whole season. I like how he has a behind the scenes persona as well as the normal life. I sort of think the Rita-family life is getting stale and the LaGuerta-Angel thing bores me. Everything with Dexter and Arthur is spot on though. I can’t wait for the next episode.

The other show I watch is Californication. The upcoming episode is the season finale. I don’t really see this season coming to as big of a climax as there was in the first season. I actually am having problems remembering what finished in the 2nd season. I thought these last couple episodes have actually been dragging a bit. When he had all the girls in his apt with Rick Springfield, that was just pure genius. Runkle and Marcy in the bathroom was a quality scene but the Hank and Karen stuff is mediocre for lack of a better word. It’s ok, but wild man Hank Moody steals the show.

It’s 1:25am now and I have to get up at 6:45 to get to work. I’ve been getting up before 7, 4 out of the last 5 days and I’ve just been tired. I’ve been getting back from work and going to sleep only to wake up and not fall back asleep till now. I miss college days of staying up late and not having to get up till I wanted to. It’s so cliche but you don’t know you have it good until you don’t have it anymore. Our first basketball game is tomorrow which will be interesting. I haven’t shot a ball since the summer and many people can attest, I couldn’t shoot so well then. We’ll have to see

A final sentence. I’m the best Clue player in this house and will accept any challengers. I also think I’m the best at gin but not as strongly as I feel about Clue.

I also have to show this movie created by my roommate, Evan. He is a deranged individual. Enjoy. Fancy Pants Nance

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T17:00:13-04:00December 8th, 2009|Movies, Tv|0 Comments

Footloose

For some reason I get a kick out of watching movies from 20 years ago that people claim are good movies. Movies like Sixteen Candles, the Breakfast Club, and Say Anything come to mind. These aren’t flashy movies but every time I watch one I always think “wow”, movies in the 80’s are so much better than movies today. This is a plain jane movie about an out of town kid who brings “dancing” to a straight shooting small town. I finally can appreciate Bret’s dance from Flight of the Conchords (below). 80’s movies had plots with meaning. The soundtrack actually made me like the song Hurt’s So Good by John Mellancamp. Plus any movie with Foreigner songs is OK by me. Kevin Bacon uses a ridiculous jump kick straight out of a Jackie Chan movie. The fight scene is absurd but that’s what makes it awesome. When I think of the movies today like Transformers and GI Joe, I just can’t find any reason to watch these. A bodacious plot, ridiculous explosions, wild effects, all just to keep kids with ADD entertained. There’s no substance. Whereas I just watched Chris Penn learn how to dance and how to play chicken in a tractor. I’m aware that I’m coming off like a complete faggot saying I thought Footloose is a better movie than practically any new movie I’ve seen in a while but there’s just something in my brain that says, “you just watched a good movie.”

On a side note I also watched Burn After Reading and Role Models. Now I know these aren’t even in the same genre as Footloose but I’ll give my opinion anyhow. Burn After Reading is an OK movie, two star at best. The characters are well acted and the story runs together nicely but there’s no real connection to any of the characters. It’s not like you want Ren to open up Rev Shaw’s thinking. I’m asking myself throughout the movie “am I being entertained?” If I have to ask the question, most likely I’m not. John Malkovich was a good actor in the movie however. It’s like “what is going to happen next?” I don’t really care.

Role Models had some good lines. I actually like Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott. I can tolerate both of them. Rudd’s dryness is comical and well played. Stiffler’s over the top comedy I still find funny. Ronnie or whatever the kids name was was funny too. The plot is stupid as to be expected and there is no point whatsoever where you are like “this is a good movie.” Funny and entertaining, but not a good movie. Movies like this can never get more than 2 stars, 1 star most likely.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T16:43:18-04:00August 27th, 2009|Movies|0 Comments