Mike & Razz's Blog

Hot Tub Time Machine Review

2010-04-19T14:48:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody. As Mike said before, sorry we haven’t been posting up any reviews lately. We’re quite busy with other things (like watching movies, getting laid and paid and feeding kids). Okay, maybe not all of those things, but we have been quite busy. However, all of the important times we have in our personal lives won’t keep us from posting our reviews and keeping you guys entertained by reading our awesome reviews. So without further ado, PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN OUTTA YOUR ASS!!!!!! (Just kidding).

What better way to start this review off at a random time, then to review a movie with a very random idea. That movie of course being “Hot Tub Time Machine”. Now when I first saw the trailer to this movie, I thought to myself “How the hell can a movie involving a hot tub and a time machine work?” This idea for the movie seemed very, very spontaneous, but sometimes good things can happen when crazy unexpected shit is put together.

In this film we’re brought to the attention of three friends. Adam (John Cusack), Lou (Rob Corddy) and Nick (Craig Robinson). As we watch the lives of these three characters, we see that their lives are quite miserable and sad. Adam’s girlfriend walks out on him to leave him with nothing, Nick is working at a luxurious pet shop giving colon cleansing to dogs while suspecting his wife of cheating on him with another man, and Lou is so depressed with his life that he attempts to commit suicide. With this action, they all decide that they need to take a break from their long and dreading life by visiting their old hangout place at a ski resort. Tagging along with them is Adam’s technology-obsessed nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke) who dislikes Lou for his asshole remarks and foul-mouth attitude towards him.

When they arrive at their destination, they notice that the resort is nothing like it used be when they were younger. The only cool thing that stands out among the resort is the hot tub outside of their room. The hot tub looks so awesome to them that they all decide to skinny dip in the hot tub while getting shitfaced to alcohol and other illegal drugs they brought along with them. After a crazy night of insanity within the hot tub, they notice that their surroundings are quite different. So different, that they start to see people at the ski resort dressed in throwback 80’s clothes. For a moment they assume that it’s an 80’s theme weekend at the resort, but slowly they find out that there in the actual year of 1986. Freaking out and not having a clue of what to do, they run into an unexpected maintenance man (Chevy Chase) who tells them that their hot tub is broken and at the same time hinting that he could take them back to their present time. However, he warns the four not to change anything in 1986. In other words, he tells them that everything that happened before in the past, must happen again (due to the whole space-time continuum theory). But knowing the four and what incidents that happened in their past before, we can assume that they take matters into their own hands.

This movie was surprisingly good. There’s a good amount of sex jokes and poop humor, but the script makes the comedy so clever that it works. I would describe the comedy of this film as “Fun Humor”. To me, there would be times where the joke would be funny and times where it wouldn’t. But for the jokes that wouldn’t be funny, seemed to have everyone else laughing their asses off. What really drew my attention towards the story was the chemistry that the four actors had towards each other. The communication amongst them reminded me of the four protagonists in “The Hangover”. Every actor seemed to fit their role and element perfectly and each of them made us care about them all the way through the film, even when one of them did inappropriate crap towards each other and/or anyone else. But with the good comes the bad, and the bad being just a couple of things I didn’t like. (1) Whenever a random comedic scene happened in the film, I felt that some scenes were too random and not very explainable. I know that the scene is supposed to reflect the title of the film but it still should’ve had more effort for explanation. (2) A similar situation happened around the end of the film. When it comes to a movie involving time travel, I would expect it to do clever scenes that benefit the character(s), due to a certain change that occurred in the past. I won’t say whether it does or doesn’t in this film, I’ll just say that the climax of the film went just a little too fast and it could've been better. That kinda sucks, because I didn’t feel that “Back to the Future” reminiscing whenever I watch a movie or television show that involves time travel.

But despite all of my negative opinions, this is a really fun comedy. If you enjoy “The Hangover”, “Back to the Future” and every other film that involves the 80’s, you oughta check this film out. Hell if you grew up in the 80’s and still love it (even though the culture is 3 decades old) I highly recommend you to check out this movie.

My Rating: SEE IT!!!!

Next Review: Clash of the Titans? Kick-Ass, maybe? See ya soon!!!!

Glee: Hell-o Review

2010-04-19T14:45:00.000-05:00

Tuesday was the return of Glee. It seems to take place a little bit after they won sectionals.

Finn is sorta dating Rachel and he is off his game and kinda depressed after what happened with Quinn. Schue has a talk with him and tells him that he may need to take some time out and rediscover himself. After a doors Montage of Finn being awesome, the two other cheerleaders ask him out to separate him from Rachel. In the library Rachel meets Jesse St. James, the star of vocal adrenaline. While Finn is out on his date he realizes that he wants to be with Rachel but he finds out about Jesse and tells Schue. Rachel is confronted by the glee club about her relationship and Sue also tells her that she can't give up on love. Rachel talks to Jesse and decides to keep their relationship a secret, but Jesse might be out for more than just Rachel. Finn has one final talk with Rachel and says that he won't give up on her

I can't wait to see how everything unfolds here. With Finn trying to win back Rachel, Rachel with Jesse (even though we know he's no good for her), and the Glee club trying to keep it all together.

Schue is comes to the principal where he finds out that Sue has come back after she blackmails Figgins. Schue is with Emma and they are starting to date then Emma reveals that she has never "been intimate" with a guy. Schue confronts the Vocal Adrenaline coach about Rachel's relationship but ends up making out with her. She ends up giving him the same advice he gave Finn. While Emma is setting up for a date she has a conversation with Terri. Emma talks with Will and again gives him the advice that he needs to learn how to be alone and puts their relationship on hold.

Throughout this episode, I must say I applauded Mr. Schue for how awesome of a pimp he is. I mean, he got the Emma, Vocal Adrenaline's coach, what more could you want? Too bad though it was all shot down when they both left him so that he could find himself. I can't wait to see the journey they have set for Schuester in the season to come.

I have one question that did bug me, Why is there a band ready to play in that music store? I guess those guys are just waiting for someone to come along who wants to play some music. Also I found this hilarious one liner from Finn when he learns about Jesse, "is he bigger than me" I did not expect that phrase to come from him.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed the random band there at the store. It was a good "WTF?" moment. The one thing I noticed in the episode is after Finn does his song he begins handing out high-5s, Artie raises he hand for a high-5 but Finn just passes him by. Granted this is right before a cut, so it made sense that maybe they didn't plan for that to be noticed, but I'm weird like that.

See Ya & Till Next Time,

Mike & Razz

South Park: 200

2010-04-15T15:18:00.001-05:00

Sorry I haven't done any posts for South Park but I think episode 5 is a good place to start with season 14. This one was epic even though it ends with a cliff hanger. We get to see a buttload of celebrities, the gingers, Muhammed... well sort of, and the return of the question "Who is Eric Cartman's father?"

This episode starts with Stan calling Tom Cruise a fudge packer after he sees him literally packing fudge in a fudge factory. So he gets together with all the other burned celebrities to sue South Park but it turns out all they want is Muhammed so they can become invulnerable to ridicule. This issues the return of Hennifer Lopez or Mitch Conner, turns out he didn't die after all. Mitch wants to sell Muhammed's power and gets Cartman to help once he tells him that he can tell him who his real father is. In the way of the celebrities are the ginger extremists who want Muhammed's power and threaten South Park and this triggers the Celebrities to release Barbra Streisand on the town

I can't wait to see how all this ends. I think all this throwing back was an appropriate way to celebrate the 200th episode. Also I am gonna say the first two episodes didn't really "wow" me a whole lot but 'Medicinal Fried Chicken' had a hilarious moment with all the men of the town bouncing down the streets on their Scrotums and I liked 'You have 0 Friends' for the parody on Facebook and also for that Kip Drordy kid too.

See Ya
Razz

An "A" For Being Awesome

2010-04-09T19:02:00.001-05:00

Hey guys sorry that we haven't been posting as much but with the return of South Park and the second half of Glee just around the corner we will be back. So since we haven't posted in a while I thought I would give my thoughts on this little photo I found on the web.

This is a detention slip for a kid that made a "that's what she said" joke. First of all props to this kid becuse "you need to push it in further" is one of the best opportunities to make that joke. I gotta say I wish I could be that teacher because I would not have sent him to detention, I would have just said "why don't you call it a half day kid" as I was rolling on the floor laghing at it. Also if I was this kid's parent this would be up on the fridge door. There is one thing I am asking myself though, is it really innocent when a 12 year old girl has to yell out "you need to push it in further"? Well I hope this brightened your day a little bit like it did mine.

See Ya,
Razz

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief Review

2010-03-11T22:40:00.000-06:00

This review train is just chugging along with the next review: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. WOO WOO!

In the midst of Hollywood going gaga over book to movie adaptations (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings) it seems like everyone is trying to copy off their success and this movie is both no different yet is different to all the other copycats out there. The story follows Percy Jackson, your typical teenage kid until he finds out that his mom got it on with Posideon and he's actually a demigod similar to those in Greek Mythology. Along with that we learned from the first 5mins that Zeus is missing his lightning bolt and blames Percy as the thief. Zeus gives Percy 14 days to return the bolt, or else Zeus is going God Mode all over Olympus and Earth.

Percy isn't alone in his quest to find the bolt. His best friend, protector, and Satyr - Grover and Demigod Annabeth join in him touring America to find clues as to who the lightning thief is while also saving Percy's mom from Hades. Sound familar? Like a certain boy wizard and friends? Yeah...I didn't think so....

I think my biggest problem with the whole movie was how much Greek mythology is inside the U.S. according to the movie. Medusa living in a garden shop in Maine? Olympus' entrance is the top of the Empire State Building? A secret demigod only training camp somewhere in the northeast? The gateway to Hades is under the 'H' in Hollywood? Really?

Now blame me for not reading the books but I think the movie could have explained why most of Greece's mythology decided to pack their bags and come over to the U.S. If you've read the books, please let me know.

Other than that I did enjoy the movie. Most of the actors/actresses cast were good choices. I do think that Hades could have been cast better, but only if they casted James Woods. I loved his Hades in Hercules, and is still my favorite Hades (but not my favorite Devil, that's different).

Rating: RIFF IT

Till Next Time,
Mike

The Wolfman Review

2010-03-11T21:05:00.000-06:00

Moving on to the film in line, we come across The Wolfman, a reboot of the 1941 classic. Lets see how it holds up, shall we?

The movie follows Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) as he comes home to native Britain following his brother's death. After overlooking his brother's wounds the villagers believe it to be the bear owned by the local gypsies that are passing through town. Lawrence goes to investigate only to be bitten, and cursed, by a werewolf. From then on it's a battle between the bestial side that is the werewolf and remaining both alive and sane as a man.

Now I have to say, this movie does good on its own. I think the best part from my perspective was seeing that most of the make up was actually prostetic make up and not all special effects. Most of the special effects are done while the transformation takes place and here and there while Benicio is a werewolf. In a day where 3D effects are the norm, I felt good seeing a guy covered in fake hair slashing people left and right.

Other than the throwback to prostetics, I'd have to say that Anthony Hopkins plays a great old man, though most of the time you'd think he was just like some kind of troll that lived in a mansion. That and Benicio Del Toro's mouth breathing through the film helped give me something to laugh about. I mean seriously, Del Toro's character seemed like an obessed stalker with asthma than a cursed man/wolf hybrid.

Rating: RIFF IT

Till Next Time,

Mike

Edge of Darkness Review

2010-03-11T19:19:00.001-06:00

I'm on a role or something tonight! On to the second movie, Edge of Darkness. It's the first movie that Mel Gibson has been in since the whole "Sugar tits" incident. Let's see how he's done for himself.

After picking up his daughter from the train station, Detective Thomas Craven (Gibson) takes her home to catch up on how she's been. While steping out his front door, Craven watches as a masked assailant guns down his daughter in front of his eyes. At first this seems like someone from Craven's past as a homicide detective was looking for revenge, but as Craven digs deeper he soon finds out that she really was the target. Now driven by self guilt and the loss his daughter, Craven begins his own investigation on what lead to his daughter's demise.

Now without giving too much away, I will say that this movie was well made. Most of the scenes kept a natural sense about them by having little to no background music accompanying them. You feel bad for Craven, but you also want to see him get revenge by any means possible. It has a feeling of a noir detective film, but that's not exactly what it is. The only real downside to it all is that at points it can drag and make the movie seem longer than it actually is. I will say though that if you like honest detective films where you learn with the character the facts, go see it.

If that doesn't do it for you, go see it to see Mel play a cop on the edge. Hell, he even has a line in the movie where he says, " I'm on the edge and have nothing to live for, so don't get in my way." Come on, you know you want to see that.

Rating: SEE IT

Til Next Time,

Mike

Book of Eli Review

2010-03-11T18:35:00.000-06:00

Guess who's been putting off his reviews for the blog? Yes, this guy, that's who. But it's time for me to make amends, here's number one of many reviews: Book of Eli. WARNING: There will be some slight spoilers for those who have not seen it.

The movie follows a man by the name Eli (Denzel) as he goes on a sort of pilgrimage to the west through a post apocolyptic wasteland because he was "told to" while carrying something of great importance. By who? We don't know, Eli merely says that it was told to him by a voice to go west. Along the way he has to face off against bloodthirsty raiders, cannibals, and the most evil of them all -- Gary Oldman. Gary plays the mayor of a small town that Eli makes his way through. When he finds out that Eli is the man with the rumored object of power, he goes out of his way to try and keep Eli in the city as long as possible while trying to nab the object. Too bad for Gary Oldman though, as Solara (played by Mila Kunis) helps Eli get out of his room and ultimately joins up with him to get west or die trying. Ultimately there's a huge stand off between Mayor Oldman and Eli, where we find out that the mystery object Eli has is a book that "can change the world", as Gary Oldman's character claims.

Now on to the ending. Gary Oldman gets the book from Eli after a very explosion filled shoot out. He leaves Eli and Solara for dead while he goes off to change the world, or so he thinks. When he finally gets back you find out that the magically book of power is actually a bible. Don't worry, this isn't about to become a huge religion heavy movie, so keep with me. After the stunner that the book is a bible, we get what I like to remember as a great moment in movie trolling history. Gary Oldman opens the book to find, get this, no words in it. Now, you may be asking, "How could Eli read a book with no words?" Well, the answer is great - Eli is blind and the book is in braile. Now I know this may seem like a cop out on the writing staff's part but I think Shamaylan himself couldn't have thought of something as trollfaced as this. Now the best part of this is that Eli, since gaining the bible, has memorized the entire thing. He even speaks the whole bible so that it can be written down and reprinted. Talk about an odd end, right?

Overall, the movie was good. To me it was like if they took The Road and went with action instead of drama. That and the twist ending that made say "wat." made it worth watching. If you haven't seen it, it should be coming out on DVD soon. If you can find it in a theater though, go enjoy yourself.

Rating: RIFF IT

Till Next Time,
Mike

From Paris with Love Review

2010-02-13T20:44:00.001-06:00

From Paris with Love, it is a really sappy title but it is a VIOLENT movie. This movie stars Johnathan Rhys Meyers as a French Ambassador agent named Reece and John Travolta as Wax, a loose cannon rebel-type spy for the US. When I first saw trailers for this movie I didn't even recognize Travolta, he is sporting a thick beard and no hair. Very different from other characters I have seen from him in the past.

Reece is stuck doing softball missions undercover in the French Embassy when he gets the opportunity to uncover a terrorist plot with his new partner Wax. They travel through the slums of Paris against coked up Chinese people leaving a trail of corpses, Wax's way of doing things, only to find that the real threat was under their nose the entire time.

This is your basic bang-bang shoot'em up flick but it does have a diferent feel with the setting of Paris. I really liked the twist at the end, it was pretty unexpected and turned the whole plot around. Although there were times at the begining when I felt confused, since they dropped you in the middle of Reece's life, the plot worked itself out through the course of the movie. Also something I really liked was a nod to Pulp Fiction when Wax eats a 'Royale with cheese'. Overall I would have to give this movie a RENT IT, it wasn't bad but not a cenematic masterpiece either.

See Ya,
Razz

Heroes: Brave New World Review

2010-02-09T21:37:00.000-06:00

The Season finale of heroes aired this Monday. Stupid Olympics causing Heroes to end early. Any way we saw the last of the Carnival and Samuel story to be wrapped up.

We return at Matt's house where Eli confronts Matt and tells him that Peter, Sylar and Matt are needed to stay out of Samuel's way. Sylar incopassitates Eli so they are free to go but Matt doesn't want to see Sylar go out to the world. Matt tries to turn Peter thoughts of Sylar around but lets him leave after looking inside his head. After the dynamic duo leaves Matt pushes a thought in Eli and sends him out.

I really thought that for a second Matt was going to try and pull the whole mental prison thing again but I'm glad to see he let Peter and Sylar go. Also, poor Matt in that scene having his leg broken in by the Eli gang. I'm just happy to see them not flay him like a pork loin.

Claire and Noah are still trapped underground and Noah starts to think that this is the end for him. After Noah passes out Tracy arrives and saves both of them by making a waterway escape. Once they meet Lauren on the surface they all take a chopper to go stop Samuel in NYC.

Hiro wakes up from his surgery and finds an 90 year old Charlie in the same Hospital, convenient right? After telling Hiro stories about her life he decides to go back in time to save her although Ando thinks it might mess things up more. Hiro tells Charlie he is going back to rescue her but she insists on him leaving things alone because of what would happen to her family and the life she led. Ando gets a call from Noah saying that they both must go to the Carnival to stop Samuel.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found it convenient that Charlie happened to be in the SAME hospital. Talk about your plot devices. But yeah, I honestly expected Hiro to go back to get her till her grand-daughter came in. Then I knew Hero Hiro wouldn't go back because Charlie was happy with the life she lived.

Samuel tells Emma she is going to play the Chello and just as she begins to heed Peter's warnings her body is controllled by the evil Doyle. Things start to come together when Emma starts to play and the Heroes arrive. Sylar goes to stop Emma but hits a speedbump when he meets Doyle. While Doyle is distracted Emma and Sylar take him out. Claire tries to convince the carnies that Samuel is evil but they don't believe her until HRG, Edgar and Eli tell the carnies about Samuel's attack on the carnival. As the Carnies leave Samuel starts his reign of distruction to show his power but is taken out by Peter. Samuel is then left power less once Hiro teleports them all out of the carnival.

I feel like for a final battle we were left disappointed yet again. All we got to see was Peter and Samuel play push the dirt pile. When are we gonna get to see a season finale battle that blows my mind? The closest I think we've gotten is season 2 with Adam and Peter.

At the begining of Volume 6 we see all the Heroes reccouperating from Samuel's show. Claire is asked about the show from a news crew and shows the her ability in front of the whole world.

This was a fairly good Season Finale but I think it would have been better if Hiro was left out of it. The whole time the Hiro and Charlie stuff was going on I kept thining, what is Samuel or Claire or Peter doing? This would have been better if all of that was cleared up in a previous episode and all Hiro did was Teleport the carnies. I am glad we got to see what HRG is like drunk while he was in the trailer, and he is a happy one: called it! I can't wait to see what is going to happen next season with the whole outing the specials thing, we have the possibility of mutant hunts or registration. I think next season Heroes is going to start to look a lot like the X-men.

I have to agree with Razz for the most part. I said my piece on how the season could have ended. I will say that I do expect some kind of X-men/Marvel registration thing for Heroes in the near future. The other path they could go is to bring back the Company but have them more of a public government type thing. If season 3 taught us anything, it's that just capturing them isn't going to work at all.

See Ya & Till Next Time,

Mike & Razz

Heroes: The Wall Review

2010-02-04T01:24:00.000-06:00

This week we have the second to last episode of Heroes for this season. We see what happens after Peter goes into Sylar's head and the aftermath of Samuel's Carnival hunt.

We return with Peter and Sylar both inside Sylar's head, which looks a lot like LA, who knew. They are both working to try to get out to go save Emma at the Carnival but for some reason Peter's ability won't work. After a month or so trapped they find the "wall" in Sylar's mind that is trapping them in there. They both work for days to try to destroy the wall and finally have a heart to heart talk about their pent up anger about Nathan. Peter tells Sylar he needs the anger to keep Nathan alive. Peter finally forgives Sylar and they are able to break out. On their way out to the carnival they run into Eli who is ordered by Samuel to stop them.

I liked these parts of the episode. We got sarcastic Sylar and no nonsense Peter going back in forth with banter followed by a heart felt moment that leads to a resolution to a problem that started at the beginning of the episode. Wait, I just explained a sitcom's episode....oh well. I think Peter and Sylar should get an apartment after this and have wacky hijinks. Or that could just be me....

Samuel takes Claire to her father after he tries to sway her devotion to Noah. Claire is shown Noah's memories of his past 25 years from his first wife who was killed by a TK to his first kill to him meeting Thompson and joining the company. And Claire also sees HRG threatening Gretchen to bring Claire back from the carnival. Samuel catches Lauren in the carnival and he talks to her about his plan to take the world with the power of the carnival. After an argument with Samuel Claire goes to free her father from a trailer but before they can escape Samuel buries them in the ground. Samuel then pulls up stake and goes to central park where he will reveal the carnival.

I feel like this was some good back story for Noah. Who would have thought that he would have been previously engaged and pregnant? It really shows the beginning of what is the transformation of Noah to HRG.

This episode did a lot of setting things up for next weeks finally which looks to be one of the better season finales. The Sylar and Peter stuff was kind of Corny but it is always a little bit awkward when those two have a scene together and they aren't trying to kill each other. Samuel is really getting more and more desperate which causes him to get more evil. So watch next week's episode and see what happens with the carnival.

See Ya & Til the Next Time

Mike & Razz

Community: Interpretive Dance Review

2010-01-28T10:43:00.002-06:00

This week our two stories center around Jeff, Brita, and Troy. At the beginning of the episode after a little bit of banter from the group Britta notices that Jeff has several long, brunette hairs on his coat. Jeff then tells the group that it's the same woman he intends to meet up with later, and that causes the group to almost worry that Jeff might have himself a relationship. Soon after the Annie mentions moving the study groups time from 5pm to 4:30 so that they can get in through the side door that locks at 5. Both Troy and Britta refuse, and give very vague (and poorly thought out) excuses as to why they have to have the time open.

I also like that when Pierce is late they all go to the possibility that he might be dead. We also have classic Annie being ignored when she tries to change the meeting time.

With Jeff's story we soon find out that he is in fact with someone, and that someone is Ms. Slater, his old statistics professor. After a quick (but interrupted) make out session the dean talks to them about how dangerous a student/faculty relationship is and that they need to watch out because they're on the "Hot Student/Faculty" list the dean made up. Later Ms. Slater and Jeff try to make out in the library but Jeff just knows that if they start then the rest of the gang will see them and rat them out. Ms. Slater tells him the odds are next to none, and doing what all good students go by listening to his professor, they kiss for a few seconds before Jeff looks to see --You guessed it! The rest of the gang is watching from outside. So now that the gang knows, Jeff swears them not tell. Soon after, the dean arrives and gets Ms. Slater and Jeff to go to his office after finding out about their relationship from a certain grey haired group member.

I was surprised by Ms. Slater's return to the show because I figured we were through with her after the first part of the season. But I guess when student 2 and professor 7 get together, passion ignites! It was also hilarious that the group came from the other side to catch them making out instead of watching them through the window. Jeff also has it right when he says sleeping with someone every night makes them your best friend ever. Pierce using twitter, HA!

With Brita and Troy, we soon find out that both of them are in dance classes that the rest of the group doesn't know about. When they find out about the other, they decide to tell the group by inviting them to a dance recital on Friday. Unlucky for Brita, when she tells everyone about her tap dancing, Troy leaves her to hang as soon as everyone talks about how ironic it is for Brita to be doing something so feminine.

This was hilarious and Troy was a great dancer, really funny. I agree with Troy girls have parts that jiggle so that they were meant to dance.

For the climax, we see everyone at the dance recital hoping to see Brita dance. Instead, we see Brita freeze when she notices that Jeff and Mrs. Slater holding hands and generally being boyfriend and girlfriend (which is odd to both Brita and Jeff). As Brita freezes on stage, Troy realizes that only he can help her. So doing the right thing, Troy rips off his clothes (for what is like, the third time) and saves Brita before getting alienated by the gang. Then we get a moment with Jeff and Brita where it becomes obvious that Brita does have feelings for Jeff. Poor Brita, if only she were honest to herself instead of being so up tight, but what can you do?

Jeff has a girlfriend awww... I do agree with pierce on one thing, man that was one wierd tap dance show, until Troy showed up then it actually got entertaining. Brita and Troy are great BSers to come up with that dance off the cuff. Brita gets jealous at Jeff who would have thought that? I guess we'll see where this leads down the road.

See Ya & Till Next Time,
Mike & Razz

Heroes: Art of Deception Review

2010-01-27T21:44:00.000-06:00

Ok this episode of Heroes started out really slow and was becoming one of my least favorite of the season until the twist at the Carnival. After that I could not believe what Samuel did but it made a great story.

Peter starts dreaming of Emma at the Carnival and discovers that Sylar might be the one to save her. after a failed confrontation with Angela he goes to California to find Sylar.

Parkman comes home to discover Sylar there with Janice and they start "catching up". Sylar tells Matt that he wants all his abilities gone to rediscover his humanity. After a failed attempt Sylar threatens Janice so Matt will do it. Matt finally traps Sylar in his own unconcious body and begins to brick him in the basement. Peter comes to find Sylar and goes inside his head to bring back Sylar.

This was a great moment for Parkman in my opinion. It was dark and it looked like Parkman is taking a lesson from his old man. Too bad Peter has to play hero and is now trying to get Sylar back. Douche....

Claire is debating telling Noah about Sylar and when she gets to the apartment she discovers HRG's plan to take down Samuel. Noah jumps to take action before Claire has a chance to stop his plan and sets up outside the Carnival.

Samuel talks to Lydia about his outburst at the town and Samuel tells her that he WILL win back the respect of the carnival. Claire finds Samuel and tells him that he needs to surrender himself in order to keep the rest of the carnival safe and so that she can be sure that Noah won't overreact and kill innocent people. As Samuel is about to leave shots come from Noah's hill and a lot of people get hurt including Samuel, Claire, Lauren, and Lydia who dies. Noah finds out it is an Eli clone and gets framed for the shooting after being knocked out by the real Eli. Samuel then manipulates the carnies saying he needs to remain to protect the Carnival from "villains". When Lauren cannot stop Eli she calls the emergency number to tell Tracy about the incident.

I really enjoyed this. Finding out that Samuel took a bullet just to get people on his side. It proves how much of a villain he really is in the series. I can't wait to see what he meant by "showing the world"what they really are. I assume it'll be similar to Magneto and the Brotherhood. I just hope that our "X-Men" aren't just Peter and Sylar trying to save the world.

So this was one kickass episode because of one literary device, Plot twists. Thank you sooo much! I did not see this coming, at first I thought Noah snapped but once Claire got shot I knew it was not him and it made it all the better that it was all Samuel's plan. I really liked Matt's Edgar Allen Poe-like way of dealing with Sylar by bricking his body inside a room. Also we get the return of Tracy, some one we haven't seen in a long time. By the way if you are not reading the Heroes Graphic Novel on nbc.com you should start with this week because you find out what Tracy has been up to and how she can help Noah and Claire.

I agree here. The twist with Samuel blew me away watching the Cask of Matt Parkman was enjoyable. Only a few more left, so I don't know about anyone else, but I'm excited.

See Ya & Til the Next Time

Mike & Razz

Heroes: Pass/Fail Review

2010-01-24T20:47:00.000-06:00

Hey guys sorry this is going up later than usual but I have been swamped this week. I know I liked this episode so lets just talk about Pass/Fail.

Mohinder recreates the compass so Noah can be able to find the carnival and then leaves to go back to India. I am also glad we get a definitive answer about how the compass can only work in the hands of someone with abilities. Hiro collapses from his Tumor an wakes up in a Trial for his life with many past characters such as Adam and Kaito. Adam plays the prosecuting attorney and brings up instances in Hiro's life to prove he used his powers selfishly. Hiro is proved to be guilty after Sylar is brought as a witness as proof that Hiro let him go free for Charlie's life and also Samuel's deal that lost Charlie in time. On his way to death he changes his plea to guilty realizing he was irresponsible. In the midst of death Hiro fights for his life and wins, which leads him to be healed by his mother.

I really enjoyed seeing all these dead characters come back, at least for the episode. I really enjoyed Adam as the prosecuting attorney, it just kinds of make sense for him to be in that role. I was surprised he didn't put himself as a witness to how Hiro abused his powers, but I'm ok with what I got.

We see Claire with Gretchen looking pretty down, I can see why after every thing that happened. Claire goes to study only to find Sylar there to figure out why he needs her. Surprisingly Claire is not really gung ho about helping Sylar, however he says he kidnapped Gretchen so her hand is forced. After getting nowhere with her he decides to take what he wants through using Lydia's ability, weirdest Heroes kiss anyone! Claire then stabs Sylar in the eye to finally get away from him. She finds Gretchen and the two hide from Sylar (who is closing in), they have a conversation and Claire takes what she learned from Sylar to try to repair that relationship with Gretchen. They talk about abilities and how they are excuses for your humanity and that maybe Sylar needs to purge his abilities to regain his humanity/ability to kill. Gretchen turns into Sylar and Claire leaves to find the real Gretchen and takes what she learned to heart.

I thought this was a good dynamic that Claire and Sylar had throughout their storyline. Granted, when most of their "bonding" time was done Sylar was disguised as Gretchen, they both learned something about the other. Like Sylar learned that Claire likes to follow up making out with stabbing you in the eye and Sylar likes to be a teenage girl at times.

Vanessa wakes up at the Carnival and is still kinda p/oed about being held at the carnival. We see Samuel trying to woo her again and win her over. It seems to be working for a little bit and Samuel takes her to their dream house which they dreamed about when they were younger. However she rejects Samuel saying that it is just a dream and it is his dream. This makes him heartbroken and angry/crazy, he goes out and destroys a town with a sinkhole.

It's good to see Samuel show a little more of a human side around Vanessa. I liked seeing him happy, even though it was a false happiness. I almost have to wonder if he knew that she wasn't going to go for all of what Samuel was preaching. Though seeing the new, almost heartless Samuel destroy that poor little city almost drew a tear to my eye.

I gotta say I enjoyed this episode, I can feel it gearing up for the finale. I really liked the Sylar and Claire stuff even though I am not usually a big Claire fan. Their conversation is what they both needed to hear to get themselves back on track. We see at the end the really bad, jaded Samuel, I think from now on he is going to be pure evil because it appears that any good intention he had went out the door with Vanessa. I also liked seeing the old characters in Heroes trial, we even get allusions to everyone in season 1 that Sylar killed. But I liked the fight between Adam and Hiro which ended with the same way that Hiro stabbed Sylar in Season 1. Ok here is my theory about how Sylar gets to Matt, I believe that he owns a magical teleportation device that automatically lets him travel to California any time (remember the beginning of season 3?)

I'm going to agree with Razz, at least about it feeling like the finale is upon us. With Samuel ready to bury the world under his feet for happiness and Sylar now on a quest to find his humanity through Matt, it all looks like it's going to build up to something that I hope is great.

Later & Til Next Time,

Mike & Razz

Heroes: Close To You Review

2010-01-12T21:56:00.000-06:00

Last night we got a new episode of Heroes and it seemed to fall flat but we did get a few plot points that needed to happen with Hiro, Matt, and HRG. so let's go then shall we?

The Hiro Story line is finally played out after 3 episodes of flash forwards with the rescuing of Suresh. Ando admits Hiro who is able to find out where and who Suresh is so they can break him out. They all three escape from the mental hospital with a drugged up Ando. Knowing they can't keep running from the Stormtroopers and their Ewoks forever, Ando decides to shock Hiros mind back to normal. And that works?!?

At this point I'm just happy that for the most part, Hiro is fixed. I would also like to comment that I enjoyed Mohinder in this episode. I usually am anti Mohinder mostly due to the fact I feel his character has over stayed his welcome in the series, but to see him be the voice of reason and man up some made me kind of happy.

We begin with Bennett and see him becoming obsessed with locating Samuel and the carnival. When he finds Samuels love, Vanessa he goes to California to get answers from her. This brings him to seek help from Matt who has become a stay at home dad guy/ recluse after his ordeal with Sylar. Vanessa explains how she knows Samuel and tells Bennett she can Bring Samuel to her. However Bennetts plans go awry when Samuel takes(kidnaps) Vanessa back to the carnival. Matt eventually just tells him that he has to go back and patch things up because his methods aren't working. Bennett also gets to Matt too and makes him realize that he needs to do more with his life than stay at home and make Ratatatoille. Bennett goes back to Claire and tries to patch things up which is kinda something we have already seen in past seasons. He also starts to build up his relationship with Lauren but is interuppted by the Three Muskateers teleporting in from Florida.

I don't know about you guys, but having Matt back was great. As you know from last time, I was mad at the fact we had a 2hr premier that didn't have him involved in any way. So as happy as I was to see Matt back, I was more excited to see HRG get it on with Lauren right before the Three Stooges came teleporting in. The one time that he gets some action in God knows how long, and those three come barging in.

We get several scenes with Peter begining with Lydia saying that he could become the next Joseph. I feel like this was so out in the open that something might happen with Peter and the carnival between now and the finale. He briefly meets with Emma, who is improving, her Siren Song, and starts putting together that Samuel might be involved in some bad stuff. Angela walks in on their Conversation and tells Peter that Emma was responsible for killing a lot of people. I really like Peters lecture to Angela telling her that she has to quit lying because they are the only two left. Peter takes her power and has a dream of Emma going crazy with her Chello. Which of course makes him go Buckwild on the Chello, like any sane person would do. After that I think we are pretty much done with their possible relationship.

I have to agree with Razz here on most parts. I don't think that Emma will want much to do with Peter after going rock star on her Chello like he did.

This was kind of an eh episode for me but it was saved because we got a lot of stuff accomlished with Bennett changing his strategy, mohinder being freed, peter starting to get wise to the whole situation and finally Hiro getting his mind back. So all of these things made it fairly entertaining. It was nice to see the return of Matt since he has been lost in Cali after Sylar breaks free. By the way does any one believe Ando, with no medical experience could shock Hiro's brain back to the way it was? Also since I always have to find something to nit pick, Peter says to Emma, "I'll call you later" once she leaves his apartment. Just something to think about.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that heard him say that! I thought the first time I heard it, "No way did he say that." So I replayed it and yep, he did. He really told the deaf chick he would CALL HER.

See ya & Till the next time

Mike & Razz

Heroes: Upon This Rock & Let it Bleed Review

2010-01-07T01:37:00.000-06:00

Ok so this week we had 2 episodes of heroes, what a way to come back! Since there was so much story I am going to skip the usual way of recapping and just give a quick synopsis of each character and our thoughts on the episodes.

So we find that Hiro teleported to Japan after his fallout at the carnival. And it turns out his brain was just sort of scrambled but he still knows what he is talking about as seen when he tries to tell Ando where to go find Mohinder. It was really fun to listen to all of Hiro's Sci-fi refrences including everything from Star Wars to Sherlock Holmes. Althogh one thing is confusing, why couldn't he just grab Ando and go to Mohinder? It just seems like that would've been easier.

I have a theory as to why Hiro was messed up when he talked and could only make sci-fi and comic references. As we all know by now, Hiro has a brain tumor that's messing up his ability. I think that when the other Hatian character at the carnival messed with his memories, the tumor just further messed with Hiro's mind. Other than that, I really enjoyed watching Hiro try to tell Ando about getting Mohinder out of the hospital. It took me all of 3 seconds to get the references (what can I say, the nerd is strong in me) and I enjoyed watching Ando come to terms with some of his inner nerd to decrypt Hiro's message. I agree though that the easier thing to do would just have Hiro teleport himself and Ando to Mohinder, but I guess that's too logical.

We see the return of Emma where she finally runs into Samuel. He gets her to use her ability to find a guy, Ian, who can make things grow and help build the carnie's new home. I liked getting more understanding about her ability. It seems now it is more like a hypnosis type thing along with being controlled by her emotions.

After seeing and learning more about Emma's ability, I must say it's rather cool. When she's happy, and the blues, greens, and purples show up it's almost like a type of hypnosis like Razz said. When she's angry and the red appears, it's like a sound laser or something. Which is awesome in my opinion.

Now to Claire who seemed to be the main character in both of these episodes. She finds her dads files in Samuels trailer and becomes suspicious of him, which makes everyone in the carnival out to get her. This also includes the return of the evil Doyle, the best one in my opinion. In Claire's search for answers she confronts Samuel who tells her that he was the one who killed Joseph. Claire just accepts this which makes me kind of wierded out at her that she is gullible enough to just believe the dribble that Samuel makes up, I mean seriously Claire! But when she leaves the Carnival she learned that Angela and Noah covered up Nathan's death so I can kind of see why she has trust issues.

There are times when I watched these episodes thinking, "when did I start watching "Everyone loves Claire"? I understand that we don't need to see each hero in every episode, but we just had two episodes without Matt Parkman. If it weren't for Doyle being in the episodes I would have been more mad at this Claire centered welcome back. I mean what is this, Season 2?

Sylar returns to the carnival and we get to see a showdown between Sylar and Samuel. This ended badly for Sylar which surprised me but I did like Samuels dust storm. He starts to be seduced by Lydia which I think was a ploy to get Zachary Quinto to take his shirt off for half the episode. Sylar takes Lydia's power(the peter way) and leaves her after he sees through the agenda. He makes Samuel ink him to show his true desire which turns out to be Claire.

I feel bad for Sylar in this episode. He's lost his touch because he just couldn't kill Samuel. I've never seen him stop to kill anyone, not even Elle and they were kind of a couple for a bit. Overall it was nice to see old Sylar back, but I don't like he didn't kill at least one person this episode. I mean he's INSIDE OF A CARNIVAL FULL OF SUPERS!

Noah returns to his Company man routes when he catches Darth Maul himself Edgar breaking into his house. All I have to say is Noah is a quick draw with that Tazer! Lauren calms Noah down and tells him to show Kindness when dealing with Edgar instead of torture. He gets a lot of answers from Edgar about the Carnival and Samuel but in the end Edgar wasn't able to betray the Carnival to take down Samuel. Lauren really complements Noah with his interigation style and I like those two together.

All I can say here is that it's good to see my good and faithful HRG back. Also, for a speedster, Edgar must not be that fast if HRG can turn and tazer him before he can reach him.

Peter starts becoming mopey again which as we've seen in the past usually doesn't end well. Peter leaves Nathan's visitation to go stop a gunman, one way to greive I guess. Claire gives him her ability and a shoulder to lean on which sort of brings Peter back down. I was a little bit mad that Peter got rid of the Hatian's ability because if he wants to take down Sylar that was the best ability to have. We also got a West reference(flashback from season 2) who Peter ends up getting flight from.

I think that Peter needs a new thing to do in the show. He's either the solution to the season's problems or mopey cause of some kind of angst. Why can't we just get a Peter that's chill or relaxed about things? On another note, was I the only one mad that we didn't get to see West? I mean I don't have a crush on the guy, but just a quick scene of him wouldn't have been too bad seeing as you can't even put in Nathan's ex-wife and kids you can at least put West in for a few minutes right?

These were good episodes to be seen together because Claire and Nathan's funeral really connects both of these episodes. I think I would not have liked them as much if they were separated like normal. One last comment, where were Nathan's boys and his ex-wife? I know that they were separated but you would think we would get some little cameo. Also farewell to Adrain Pasdar you were a good cast member over the past four seasons and you will be missed, now perhaps time for Glee?

I have to agree with Razz here. Granted I know I just ragged up there on how much Claire there was, but without her everything would be a little disconnected in my opinion. I also agree that they should have shown Nathan's family other than Peter and Angela. I mean, what kind of example is the mom setting if she won't let her sons go to their own father's funeral? That's just plain fucked up.

See Ya & Till the Next Time

Mike & Razz

Mike and Razz Podcast Ep. 1

2010-01-02T13:20:00.001-06:00

It's finally here! Our very first podcast!

Links:
Incredible Shrinking day
Yamcha the Scar Faced Bandit
Never Gonna Give Up Your Team Spirit
Anyway You Want It

I personally do not own the rights to any of these songs. No copyright infringement intended, all rights reserved to each specific owner.

Here is the link to the podcast in case it does not work for you:
http://www.blip.tv/file/3037490/

Invictus Review

2009-12-28T10:54:00.001-06:00

Hey everybody, long time no see. Sorry for my long absence on the website, I've been pretty busy with other stuff (that reason would probably be because of me having netflix). So today I've figured "What the hell, you guys miss me so it's only right that I review two movies." Lucky for everyone I'm here to review to movies right now, but first let me tell you guys how much of a kick-ass Christmas I had. I went out to an awesome Chinese buffet followed by a movie doubleheader with me watching Invictus and Sherlock Holmes two movies I've anticipated to watch. Then later that night I got me some MickeyDees (McDonald's) and played Uncharted 2 mulitplayer all night. A very nice Christmas (minus the presents, big dinner and visiting family scenario). Okay, enough chitchat about me and my Christmas, back to the movie reviews.

Now the first movie I watched was a new film by legendary actor/director Clint Eastwood. Now just incase anyone's forgotten or hasn't noticed Clint Eastwood directed several other films in the past. Those films being Flags of Our Father's, Million Dollar Baby and last year's Gran Torino. His films shows us that not only is Eastwood a great actor but a great director as well. With his new film new Invictus it shows us that Eastwood is an a critically acclaimed director in Hollywood.

In this true (almost biopic) film we follow the story of South African president Nelson Mandela played by Morgan Freeman. Right off the bat, not only does this film show us Mandela (Freeman) being released from prison from is 25+ year conviction, but it also shows us his early term in office as president. Once in office, Mandela does not see what he likes amongst the people of South Africa. The reason being because of the wide racism between the whites and the blacks across the country. So not only does Mandela decide to fix this problem, but he decides to execute the discrimination through the sport "Rugby" (and rugby is a mixture of football and soccer with a lot of dirt and mud). Now you guys are probably saying, "That's impossible racism can't simply disappear through a sport". Well if any of you guys seen the movie "Remember The Titans" you'll think differently from here on out. After having his goal for the country planned he goes to the captain of the South African Springboks team JacobusFrancois Pienaar (played by Matt Damon) and asks him to win the 1995 World Cup and this is pretty much the entire movie.

Now with the summary of the movie being not too hard to follow the problem is that the film is too predictable. Of course, it's based on a true story but there should've at least been some kind of surprise for this movie, especially with racism being a huge part of this film. And that's another problem, all of Clint Eastwood's films (including this one) somehow involves either racism and/or discrimination. Not that the topic is a huge issue, it's just that there's been too much of that subject shown in all of Eastwood's films and its starting to get a little tiring. I like to see a new film from Eastwood that doesn't have racism as a central plot or a noticable focal point in a film. Another problem about this movie is that there's not an antagonist in this film. I guess the audience is supposed to assume that racism is the true antagonist of this film. Which brings it back to my previous point.

Despite the movie having its flaws the most entertaining part of this film are the actors (Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon) portraying themselves as South Africans. They both deserve an Oscar Nomination for their great acting skills and they're both wonderful to watch on the silver screen. Also if you're a fan of sports you'll find the portrayal of the rugby matches enjoyable as well. I'm not a fan of rugby, but watching the rugby scenes on the big screen reminded me of watching a film about football in a theatre. With me being a huge fan of football those scenes were very enjoyable for me to watch.

Overall, this movie good, but it's not as good as Clint Eastwood's other films which are superior to this one. If you're looking for a film to watch that discusses topics about racism and discrimation and in some way an uplifting sports film, this movie is for you.

I personally enjoyed it but unfortunately it wasn't better then Eastwood's previous films. Therefore.......

My rating: RENT IT!!!

See Ya later. Up next, Sherlock Holmes.

Avatar Review

2009-12-28T00:40:00.003-06:00

Last one before our big surprise. If all goes well, it should be up some time late tomorrow or Tuesday. So lets dive into Avatar, shall we?

Avatar is James Cameron's(Titanic, The Terminator) newest film that follows paraplegic marine Jake Sully(Sam Worthington) who, after hearing of his brother's death, decides to sign up to head of the planet of Pandora to take his brother's place on a research team. When he arrives on Pandora, he meets his Avatar, a genetic mix of his DNA and the native humanoid race on Pandora. From there he enters the body of his avatar and learns about the Na'vi from Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi that rescues him from what I would call the bastard child of the animal headed monster from 9 and an iguana. While Jake learns the Na'vi way of life, Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) becomes impatient with the Na'vi and begins attacking them in an attempt to find more land to mine.

First let me say one thing: Only see this in 3D. I saw it in 3D and I can say that it really made the film look amazing. Not to say that 2D wouldn't show you the same beautiful scenes, but trust me on this one. Now on to the dissection!

As I said the movie itself looks amazing. Everything is bright to the point where even at night the forest glows like a woodland rave party. Even the various animals and even the Na'vi themselves look incredibly realistic in not just how they looks on screen, but how they move and act. The down side to all this beautiful art is that all the characters seem one dimensional. You have the humans lead by Colonel Quaritch that represent humanity and the idea of Manifest Destiny that we've become used to. The Na'vi and Neytiri represent the people that don't want to move and have done nothing wrong but according to our own agenda, we have to remove since they're savages without reason. Sound familar? I didn't think so till I remember the movies that came before this one with similar plots....

I think you got some 'splainin' to do James....

This is quite literally what made the movie almost better for me. I almost expected Neytiri to start in with "Paint With All The Colors of the Wind" as her and Jake went through the forest at night. Avatar really keeps true to both of these movies in the end though. Here's a break down of Avatar for you:

-People show up to foreign place.

-They try to take over because they want to "make things better" for the savages that lived there first but really want something valuable (gold, wood, unobtainium)

-Savages don't like it and fight back with help from one of the settlers.

-Good ending, guy and girl kiss and live forever.

-Bad ending, John Smith dies in Neytiri's arms while Robin Williams as a bat makes horrible puns about the forest.

So, with the easy to predict plot and characters that are one dimensional (though shown in 3 dimensions), is it worth it? Yes it is. The sheer beauty of the film is worth it but even if you know what's going to happen you still want to see it happen. On a final note, I will say that the 3rd act makes up for any boring moments or parts you wished would have been sped up through this almost 3 hour epic. It's like James Cameron took Michael Bay's wet dream and put it in film before Bay could.

Rating: See It

Till Next Time,
Mike

P.s. Really James Cameron? The ore they want so bad is called UNOBTAINIUM? LOLSOCLEVER I'd never figure out it's hard to get at and that's why the military has to destroy the Na'vi's home to get to it.

The Slammin' Salmon Review

2009-12-28T00:00:00.001-06:00

On to our number two review: The Slammin' Salmon. This movie is brought to you by Broken Lizard, the same people that brought us such hits as Beerfest and Super Troopers.

The story sets around a fancy restaurant called (can you guess it?) The Slammin' Salmon. It is owned by heavy weight boxing champion turned restaurant owner, Cleon "The Slammin'" Salmon (Michael Clark Duncan). He comes into the restaurant one night to tell Carl, the manager (Kevin Hefferman) that he owes a Yuzaka member $20,000 after losing a bet. Cleon tells Carl that he has till the end of the night to make the amount or else he'll break every bone in his body. To accomplish this, Carl tell the wait staff (The Broken Lizard boys featuring the sexy Cobie Smulders and April Bowlby) that at the end of the night, whoever has raised the most money for the restaurant wins a vacation to an all expenses paid 5 star resort while the loser gets knocked out by The Slammin' Salmon himself. This results in the waiters and waitresses going head to head for top bill the whole night and creating some great scenes between the desperate wait staff and the guests that come to dinner.

I have to say that the guys at Broken Lizard did it again with this movie. I would have to say that this is in the top 3 of all their movies (the other 2 being Super Troopers and Beerfest). enjoyed most of the cast and it seemed like Broken Lizard sort of grew up in this movie. They didn't seem like high school kids making any and every sex joke possible in this one. It now seems like they're community college kids with their first apartment and checking account. Saying that, you might seem sort of turned off if you like fart and penis jokes but don't worry, much like community college, there's still immaturity there.

The one thing that surprised me about this film was Michael Clark Duncan's funny. Granted I know he's going off a script, but he brings life to the character. Between mispronouncing any word with more than one syllable to being completely oblivious to things around him, he steals nearly every scene he's in. There's even a clip at the end credits (as a deleted scene) where he's yelling about how he fears nothing but the dark and says, "YOU KNOW I'M AFRAID OF THE DARK! HAVEN'T YOU SEEN THE GREEN MILE?! I'MMA SCARED OF THE DARK!"

Overall, if you like the work of Broken Lizard and can find a theater showing the movie, I'd say go catch it. There are some times when it seems like there's too many people in the scene and it's a bit muddled, but otherwise all the characters work well (or this case complete chaos) together.

Rating: RIFF IT

Till Next Time,

Mike

The Road Review

2009-12-24T19:26:00.002-06:00

I know, I know. Why haven't you updated in ages?! How come you haven't let us know where you've been? To be honest, we both got kinda lax about updating and for that I'm sorry. On the good side though, we're gonna have a special treat for you guys that will be ready right after Christmas. So until then (which is about 2 days from now), I'm going to give you a special treat of not one, not two, but THREE reviews! Here's the first of them: The Road.

The Road is a post apocalyptic tale about a man and his son just trying to survive in a world where it's kill or be killed. Playing the dad we have Viggo Mortensen and his son is played by Kodi Smit-McPhee. I will say though, this movie is not for people with clinical depression in an attempt to bring them up. The movie shows the father and son heading south in an attempt to find a glimmer of hope in this gray, dark world. Instead they meet up with murderers, cannibals, starvation, and above all else, death. Even with all of these things going on around them, the father still remains hopeful for something that will never come.

Isn't that awesome? Don't you want to take your friends to go hang out at this one? No? Well that's fine in all honesty. This movie isn't made to be seen by everyone as some happy go lucky end of the year film. The movie is saddening, yes, but it's acted out in such a way that truly makes it a great movie to see.

After some unknown event occurs on Earth it seems and probably is uninhabitable. All the plant life and animals have died, the skies are a permanent gray, and only a few people are left alive. Most people that are left are vicious, cannibalistic humans or people ready to commit suicide. From there we see how the father and son act and react towards the various people they meet with. Most of them are what the dad refers to as "bad people", but there's a scene where they meet an old man (played by Robert Duvall) who shows them that there still is some kindness left in this barren world.

We learn that the father used to be married right when the apocalypse occurred. The reason he's not anymore is that his wife committed suicide after his son was born. We also learn very quickly that the father is willing to do anything, anything to protect his son. This makes for a great dramatic as he is willing to go so far as to waste his last two bullets trying to stop people from harming his son. Ultimately though, this over protectiveness causes him to create distance between him and his son.

Overall, the movie is great to see. Despite the depressing parts of the movie, it tells a great emotional tale of of a father trying to raise his son in a world that is beyond cut throat. Also, as a side note, The Road was based off a book by the same name. The author of The Road (Cormac McCarthy) is also the author of No Country for Old Men, which is cool to know. Unlike No Country, there isn't a twist ending to The Road.

Final Verdict: See It

Till Next Time,
Mike

thanks to soundonsight.org for the picture

Community: Comparative Religion Review

2009-12-11T16:26:00.001-06:00

This week's episode of Community was a Christmas episode featuring the Spanish 1 final! Something every college student can relate to this time of year.

The episode starts with an announcement by the Dean about Christmas, except of course he doesn't want to offend anyone so he comes to the lounge as Father Winter. In the lounge abed gets into a conflict with a Mustache guy after he takes the remainder of the cookies and Jeff steps into protect him

Was it me or did anyone else notice that the Mustached Man was Anthony Michael Hall from such movies as The Breakfast Club and The Dead Zone? As soon as I figured that out every scene with him became so much funnier. On another note, I've never had a Winterdoodle, but I would love to try them if Michael Anthony Hall is willing to fight for them.

In the library Abed tells everyone about Jeff protecting him and Shirley invites everyone to her Christmas party after the final but finds out everyone in the group is a different religion. During the final Jeff is again harassed by gay mustache dude and challenges him to a fight later on in the day. I have to agree with Senor Chang, this is the best exam ever. I wish my finals were that cool!

I enjoyed finding out everyone's different religions here. I really enjoyed Pierce's religion though. I think I could get into a religion where people owe other people Energon cubes (obvious Transformers reference anyone?) and you get titles like "lvl 5 Laser Mantis".

Jeff talks to the guys about keeping the fight away from Shirley and he reveals he has never actually been in a fight. After once again running into Mustache fag they all agree to teach Jeff about fighting. While Annie and Shirley are decorating, Annie reveals that Jeff is going to get in a fight with the Mustache guy. Shirley interrupts the boy's training and says she doesn't want anything to ruin this special day (December 10?) And gives him an ultimatum, the fight or her party.

I feel like Pierce was teaching the right lessons about fighting to Jeff. You gotta play dirty to win!

At the party, everyone is there except Jeff and they all go out to find Jeff at the fight. At the fight Jeff meets the Mustache fag but tells him he is not fighting because of Shirley. So he gets kneed and Shirley sees this and tells him to fight. The entire group then joins in on the fight with mustache fag's shirtless friends. Everyone recuperates at the party and Senor Chang comes in and tells everyone they passed. Spanish 102 next semester!

That was such a great fight scene for the show. I do wonder why the A-team had to get shirtless just take on our main cast, but I guess that adds to the homo-erotic undertones that come with fighting. Also, we get to see Jeff finally become a man after Pierce "accidentally" punches him in the face.

This was a good holiday themed episode with everyone arguing about their different religions, or in Pierce's case a cult. But in any case I want to wish everyone HAPPY MERRY!!!

See Ya & Till Next Time,

Mike & Razz

Glee: Matress Review

2009-12-04T02:36:00.001-06:00

Ok so Glee was on last night and it wasn't that big of a deal...

Oh who am I kidding, OHMYGODDIDYOUSEEGLEE. Wow great episode, and not just a great glee episode I mean a great episode of any television show. Ok I'll give a quick synopsis and then we can start Gleeking out about it.

The episode starts with everyone in Glee worried about their pictures in the yearbook, even though Will tries to convince them they should be proud. Rachel Helps to change the groups out look when she helps book them a TV commercial for a local matress shop. This turns on the group when Sue says that the Glee club forfeited amature status when they accepted payment for the gig in the form of free matresses. Mr Schue takes the hit for the Glee kids by acccepting all the punishment for the incident thus keeping the Glee club on track for sectionals.

WARNING: The rest of this post will involve a very large spoiler in the Glee universe. Travel at your own risk.

Ok so down to the BIG incident in this episode, the fake pregnancy. While will is going through the drawrers looking for something he stumbles across Terry's fake stomach. Right before this I called it because there was some very ominous music coming through which made me a little uneasy. So Will confronts Terry and discovers that the pregnancy is a fraud. WILL GETS PISSED! I never saw him as a guy that would do that but man he can get angry. I tell you any time I need a guy to scare the living s*$#t out of somebody, I am skipping the Ghostbusters and calling Will Shuester. This scene was packed, the best Glee scene so far in the series. I would also like to talk about Will and Emma. Since Will's explosion on Terry, I saw that those two were kinda gravitating to each other. So maybe we can see them get together some time, I think it might end up being a spring storyline though.

Now I'll let Mike give his thoughts on Will.

I must say that this episode should have been the mid-season finale. Even though next's week episode is sectionals, there is almost no way to compare it to this week. The reason for that is the emotion that runs through the episode. The best (and highest) point is when Will finds out his wife isn't pregnant. The entire scene I was yelling things like "YES! NOW GO RUN TO CHARLIE BEFORE HIRO FINDS OUT!" and "DIVORCE HER ASS WILL! WE CAN BRO OUT AT THE BAR!" I was almost afraid that he might hit her (and is it bad I thought it might be justified?) for what she did to him. The second scene that I thought brought it back up was with Figgins, Will, and Sue. I almost expected Will to Hulk Out again on Sue and/or Figgins but he remains mostly calm throughout the scene. For Sue though, I really enjoyed how sinister and happy she was. When she yelled "IT'S OVER SCHUE!" Right in Will's face I thought two things. The first one being "My God, this woman has no regard for his life or anyone else's but her sister's." The second thought being, "I hope to God that Mr. Schue punches her. He needs to Hulk Out again - that was awesome."

I agree with Razz that this was a great moment in not just for the show. Out of all the mid-season and season finales I've seen as of recent years. Excluding Ed, Edd, & Eddy's Big Picture Show, it's probably my favorite. I can't wait to see what will happen by the end of the spring half season. Maybe Quinn will have her baby by then? Or Finn might find out it's not his and see him pull a mini Mr. Schuester. I don't know, but I'm more excited for this than Heroes. And I really want to see Heroes.

See Ya & Till Next Time,

Mike & Razz

Heroes: The Fifth Stage Review

2009-11-30T23:01:00.000-06:00

A new Heroes was on tonight and we had a great action packed episode. What I thought was a good episode worthy of the last one of the year. We even got a Peter-Sylar fight, something every fan has been clam-mering for since the end of season one.

Samuel makes Eli the multiplier his new right hand man, aka the new Edgar. Claire follows the compass she stole from Noah all the way to the carnival. Samuel meets Claire and continues trying to get her to join the carnival and she and Gretchen go around getting to see all the carnies work and use their abilities to run the day to day carnival operations. She goes back behind the scenes and runs into (drumroll) Eric Doyle! David H. Lawrence XVII probably my favorite guest star in Heroes. She sees Samuel let an unsatisfied customer take shots at him, which Claire finds really noble so she decides to stay with the carnival.

I have to agree with Razz here. Seeing Eric Doyle back (even if for a quick cameo) really made the episode up till point. In season three he was one of my favorite new characters due to both his ability and his personality. Back on the subject of the carnival, I almost liked that Samuel didn’t fight back with the angry customer, but I realize that he might have just been doing that to get Claire to join him (which worked).

Noah realizes Claire took the compass so he and Lauren, who came over for a date, work to try to find her. Noah soon reveals that he and Lauren had feelings for each other before she had herself "Hatianed". However there arguing soon stops when Eli bursts in and steals Noah's Primatech files.

I really liked seeing Eli work here. I wasn’t sure if he power was more like a starfish or projection. What I mean by that is the starfish copying would mean the clones come from his body but when they die they just got back into him (similar to Multiple Man) or projection which is what he has.

Now on to Peter, who had one of the greatest arcs in any single episode of the series. Peter is with Angela at the hospital getting drugs to fight Sylar, reminding me of Batman stocking up his Utility belt. Speaking of utility belts, he also takes the Hatian's ability so he and Sylar can fight on even terms. Peter runs into Sylar sooner than he thought when Pete gets ambushed by an unusually strong nurse. They go out fighting and Peter makes full use of his new ability. Speaking of the Hatian’s ability, I always wondered how Peter would be using it and I think he used it really well. We got to see the fight of the decade between Peter and Sylar. Although it was just fist throwing with no abilities, I just can't stop geeking out over the Sylar-Peter fight. Once Peter gets Sylar pinned down( with a nail gun) he hatianed Sylar out of the body until Nathan was left. Nathan tells Peter that he is exhausted and can't fight Sylar anymore. They have one last goodbye on top of the roof where Peter realized his abilities and Nathan jumps off just as Sylar regains control one last time.

This was by far the best thing to happen in the season yet. The fight was amazing (even without powers) and watching Nathan and Peter have one final brother to brother moment was pulling at the heart strings before you see Sylar take his place in his body for good.

Wow I thought this was a great midseason finale for Heroes. Take out everything but the Peter and Nathan stuff and we still have a great episode. I am also a little saddened by the end of Nathan but overall a good end to a character that has been with Heroes since the beginning

I agree with Razz again. What I can’t wait for is when they come back in January. At the end we saw Hiro, Ando, and Mohinder running in what looks like a rain forest of some kind so I can’t wait to see what our favorite terminally ill Japanese hero has in store for us. I do have one question though, why hasn’t Sylar just gone straight to the carnival? You think that he might have retained some memories of what happened so he’d be on Samuel’s tail for most powerful person. Once again I assume that before the season ends he’ll be back at the carnival being opted to join the family. We’ll have to see what comes of it in January.

See Ya & Till the Next Time

Mike & Razz

Ninja Assassin Review

2009-11-30T18:39:00.000-06:00

Alright everybody, this weekend I went to go see what I thought would be kind of a cool action movie, Ninja Assassin. Instead what I got was a waste of my time. To be fair I will tell you a little bit about the story, or lack there of. The story centers around a ninja named Raizo who was orphaned at a young age and trained by a clan of ninjas that focus on political assassinations. However he realizes the shortcomings of the clan and decides to leave them to focus on stopping them with the help of a german secret agent named Mika.

And before you say "well Razz that isn't much of a plot", I am really not leaving too much out without completely spoiling the entire movie for you. I didn't even understand the plot while I was sitting in the theater. In fact I didn't fully realize the whole plot until I watched the whole thing and was leaving the theater.

I saw the movie with a friend of mine and he had 5 things he believed would make the movie better:
5. Ninjas need to learn to shut the hell up. Ninja’s don’t have cool catch phrases, Ninja’s don’t say things in whisper like “traitor” or “ch ch ch ah ah ah”. They show up, they kill you, they raid your fridge, then they leave.

4. The Ask a Ninja guy. Seriously why the hell was this guy not in this movie? www.askaninja.com

3. Someone in this cast I actually had seen in a movie before other than a Godzilla movie

2. Chev Chellios from Crank. Seriously it had foul language, it had Japanese guys, it had gangs, it had guns…why the hell wasn’t he in this movie? Oh wait I know why…its because there were no…

1. Boobs. Boobs can make any movie better…unless they are crooked or are on something other than a woman.

So as you can see it comes out to be mainly just a disappointment. I will give this a rating of FUCK IT. But I am going to give this movie one saving grace, its got gore. If you are a fanatic of gore and blood it would almost be a shame for you to look the other way on this one. So if you really, really, REALLY like blood and guts in your movies I would say RENT IT but otherwise don't even bother.

See ya
Razz

Glee: Hairography Review

2009-11-26T22:00:00.001-06:00

Remember when I said how much I loved last week’s episode of Glee? Well color me wrong because “Hairography” took what I expected in the episode and made it better. It had multiple Glee clubs singing and dancing but more than that, they showed our Glee kids that they have some competition.

We start off with Mr. Schuester minding his own while on his break when Sue arrives demanding the new set list for glee club. Will denies her request, and also recalls several moments that make him suspicious that Sue might be selling his club’s secrets to the other schools. Sue plays coy to the accusations, so Mr. Schuester is off to find out from the other glee instructors just what’s going on. Cut to Mr. Schue going through heavy security just to talk with the Grace Hitchens (played by none other than famous female rapper Eve) about the possible scandal. She denies the claims, stating that she wouldn’t cheat because she’s trying to be a good role model for her female students. Embarrassed, Will asks her to visit him over at McKinley for a friendly skirmish. When the girls arrive, they perform a very sexually orientated “Bootylicious”. With everyone’s jaw hanging to the ground (mine included), we discover thanks to Rachel that they’re only good due to their “Hairography”, or use of large and stylish hair to confuse/confound the audience.

When Will visited Grace Hitchins he was kinda shown to be profiling, just because someone can cheat it doesn't mean that they will. A good lesson for Mr. Schue well that is until the end of the episode. I also thought those girls were pretty good, it was one of the better dance sequences that Glee has done.

Schuester, not being one to scare easy, is now wondering if there isn’t some magic to this “Hairography” and then creates a number based solely on using Hairography. The other story we get in this episode revolves around Mrs. Schuester and Quinn. After having some doubts, Quinn decides she wants the baby. This puts Mrs. Schue in a horrifying position – tell her husband she’s not having a baby or try and steal a baby around her due date. In my opinion, she should have come clean. I want Will to leave her already and the show isn’t helping at all. We also get to see Quinn try out Puck for daddy position with the baby by babysitting Kendra’s kids. After Quinn and Puck play “Papa Don’t Preach” to the hellions, she begins to warm up to Puck taking care of the baby.

Yea I am tired of Mrs. Schue's lying around, I am just hoping that Will finds out and hopefully she gets what's been coming to her all year long. I also liked the chemistry that Puck and Quinn had together, no wonder they made that baby. But there time together was kind of ruined at the end by Puck being...... well Puck.

For the final we get to see Haverbrook, the school for the deaf, go up against the Hairography of Glee. We see that they did a mash up of “Hair” and “Crazy in Love”, which leaves the deaf students unimpressed and even believing them to be insane. Haverbrook responds with a non Hairography rendition of “Imagine” that puts the Glee kids in their place. My biggest complaint to this part was this – why sing to a deaf group? I understand that it just made the scene more warm and fuzzy, but in reality if I was from Haverbrook doing the song, I would wonder why these other kids are now circling me mouthing words for no reason.

Well all I can say is that Haverbrook needed to be wow-ed by the awesome hairography! I am glad that Mr. Schue wised up and decided to not do the hairography and instead go with a more traditional, and better in my opinion, song. I am just putting this out there, for a deaf school those kids are really musically talented.

Now I know I just got done complaining, but to be honest I really did enjoy the episode. We FINALLY got to see the other schools and what they bring to the table that is Sectionals. If anything, for me I felt that seeing the other guys do their things should put the glee club of McKinley wanting to do their best and putting the nose to the grindstone. Maybe that’s just me though.

See Ya & Till Next Time,
Mike & Razz

I Might Be a Bit of a Slowpoke....

2009-11-25T05:32:00.000-06:00

But did anyone else know that Kevin McHale (Artie from Glee) was in a boy band? I just learned about this and took a look into it. Turns out he was in a group called NLT before hitting Glee fame. Anyway, here's some links to NLT (because all the YouTube videos have the embedded disabled) where we get to see Artie do something you won't see on Glee -- dance on his own two feet (somewhere, I think I might be going to hell for that comment, even though I mean nothing by it).

The Band's History

NLT - That Girl

NLT - Karma

NLT - She Said, I Said

Heroes: Thanksgiving Review

2009-11-24T16:18:00.000-06:00

This week's episode of Heroes was the first holiday themed episode, a Thanksgiving episode. It involved three major families setting down to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, the Bennett's, Samuel's family, and the Petrelli's

With the Bennett's we see Noah in a grocery store inviting Claire to Thanksgiving dinner so he doesn't have to be alone with Sandra and her Boyfriend, Doug. At the store he runs into his old partner, Lauren, who he invites to dinner to "reconnect". This scene kinda did what I hoped in that Lauren came back and that whole storyline with her back in "Once Upon a Time in Texas" wasn't wasted. At the dinner, which was kinda awkward really with all of these people together, Claire tells how she feels awkward with out any friends and she doesn't know where she belongs. However Noah has a surprise for her, a visit from Gretchen, to cheer her up. When Gretchen and Claire leave, they start to follow the compass to find out exactly where it goes.

I really enjoyed the night with the Bennett's. Seeing everyone dance around Primatech's other business side was fun, especially in part due to Doug trying to comprehend the situation. Speaking of Doug, is anyone else kind of weirded out by him? He seems to interested in the dogs if you ask me. But if that's what Sandra's looking for in a man, then she really doesn't know what she's missing.

At Samuel's Thanksgiving we see Hiro asking for Charlie to be returned to him, but as usual Samuel says no. Hiro runs into Lydia and she wonders that if everything is fixed then why isn't Joseph alive again. They both go back to discover what happened to Joseph and find out that Samuel was the one to kill him. After they go back to the present Lydia tells Edgar about what she saw in the past and Samuel accuses Edgar of killing Joseph in front of the family, to protect himself. Hiro saves Edgar from a surprise attack by Samuel and tells him that a Hero sometimes has to run in order to fight another day. Later Samuel confronts Hiro about what he did but Hiro stands up to him, saying that Samuel needs him. With this Samuel makes Dreadlock guy do something to him and we see Hiro go back through some scenes from earlier on this season. After this Hiro spazes out and teleports somewhere.

To be honest, I really wasn't the surprised that Samuel killed Joseph. After last week's episode where we see Samuel listening in on Joseph and Mohinder, I assumed his drunken rage would get the best of him if/when he confronted Joseph about the true contents of the film. After seeing Edgar stand up to Samuel, I must say that I can't wait to see if the rest of the carni folk won't turn too if they were to find out the truth. I guess we'll find out later in the season (or seasons).

At the Petrelli's, Angela joins Nathan and Peter at Pete's apartment. The boys confront their mother about what she did to Nathan but she says if they don't sit down and eat then she will never tell them. During dinner she tells them a recap of what has happened to Nathan over the past couple of months and tells Nathan that he is still the person he always was. At dessert Nathan tells both of them that they only see Sylar when they look at him, then suddenly Sylar manifests in the body and eats some pie! Sylar pins Angela and Peter in their chairs and decides to TK Angela's brain but Nathan's spirit arises to keep Sylar away from his family. Finally Nathan flies out the window to get away from his family. Peter swears he will go and find Nathan and kill Sylar, to get his brother back.

I loved this story just due to Sylar coming back. Though I must say Sylar, you could have shared some of the pie with Peter and Angela. There was still a full meal that Angela brought with her you could have carved into. Maybe I just feel like you kind of was a douche because if I couldn't get some pumpkin pie that was RIGHT in front of me, you couldn't have held me back. I really love pie.

This was a fairly decent episode, for a holiday episode in a one hour drama it was done really well. We got some answers about Sylar and that he is in Nathan and now both their spirits are in the body just like it was with Parkman. It appears from the trailer for next week that we will be in for a good Sylar-Peter fight scene.

To be honest, the fight should be interesting. From what we know, Peter still has the "You've got the touch! You've got a power!" ability. I'm hoping that we'll find out next week that Peter really took Nathan/Sylar's empathy power, pretty much giving him his old ability back. Maybe that's just the dream of a foolish dreamer, but that's what I do.

See Ya & Till the Next Time,

Razz & Mike

New Moon Review

2009-11-21T20:03:00.002-06:00

As a movie viewer (and now reviewer), I try to watch a little bit of everything. Good movies, bad movies, and all the movies imbetween. Which leads me to the movie I've recently seen -- Twilight Saga: New Moon. Instead of just saying "Fuck this movie and the sparkling vampires in it!", lets take a look at the movie because I just know you're dying to get the details.

This is the second installment of what will become a four movie saga. Here we find Bella Swan(Kristen Stewart), your typical teenage girl except for the fact she can't show any emotion clearly throughout the whole film. She is head over heels in love with Edward Cullen(Robert Pattinson), a vampire that sparkles in the daylight. We also get to meet No Shirt Boy - I mean Jacob Black(Taylor Lautner) the local jean short model and werewolf. The movie centers around these three going through some sort of love triangle that truly shows just how pan shallow a movie about relationships can be. Bella acts like a complete idiot after Edward breaks up with her. She becomes a total recluse and at night has night terrors that are so over the top and dramatic that even a seasoned soap opera star would call her, well, over the top.

Bella then starts falling for Jacob, who at this point has decided that the rest of the movie is better off with him being topless. She and him do such fun things as riding and crashing dirt bikes, being chased through the woods by vampires, and her constantly telling him things like, "I really like you, but I still can't get over Edward cause he's SSSSSOOOOO HOT." So basically the second act is watching teen wolf get friendzoned.

The final act has Bella racing to Edwards rescue because (thanks to Jacob really) Ed now thinks Bella is dead and can't go on living without her. After a slow-mo save/tackle by Bella, Edward is told to meet with the high council of vampires due to Bella knowing about the vampire culture. Edward is put to death for letting out the secret of vampire society, only to have Bella save him by telling the high council that she'll become a vampire herself to protect the vampire society.

To be honest, this movie was better than Twilight in my opinion. That still doesn't save the movie from the fire. To put it short, the characters are bland and emotionless all through the film. We get to see a whole cast of characters show just how little you can put into a scene and get away with it. If I wanted to watch soap opera acting on the big screen, I'd get a big screen and watch Days of Our Lives. Add that with Bella being such a good example of what a "Mary Sue" is, and you've got the movie. I can see why girls like it though. With how blank and empty Bella seems, you can pretty much put yourself in the role and probably make it work out better than where the story's going.

Final verdict for the movie is a low RENT IT. I almost wanted to say FUCK IT, but the only things that made me change was that I can see where women like this series. Other than that, don't hold your hopes up high for this one.

Till Next Time,
Mike

South Park: Pee Review

2009-11-21T18:01:00.001-06:00

Ok so this week's episode of South Park was about average for me. As you can tell from the title it was all about pee.....and minorities.

This episode starts with the guys going to Pi Pi's water park for a day of splashing fun. This gets ruined for Kyle when he makes the realization that almost everyone pees in the water. Some scientist discover a dire situation concerning the pH levels of the water at the park, it is almost all "pee" and no "H". The scientist tell the owner, Pi Pi, that if he doesn't do something soon the whole park could become overrun with pee. Of course since this is South Park that exact thing happens and the guys are left stuck inside of the park with the pee, which is not very enthusing for Kyle.

While the boys are stranded in the park the adults are trying to get them out, but they make the assumption that too much pee will make them all go crazy. With the help of the scientist, the come up with a cure for the infected people, bannannas! They show proof of this by peeing on monkeys and when the monkeys eat bannannas they seem less agitated about being peed on, who would've thunk!

The other part of the episode shows a 2012 type situation in the waterpark for cartman. However instead of being alone on the earth, he believes he is the only white person left and that minorities will take over the world. Oh racist Cartman, classic. He finds himself relieved to be outside where he meets the other guys and they are all force fed bannannas to avoid being infected

Overall I say it is an ok episode, take it or leave it. However this is the season finale for South Park which makes it kind of lackluster.

See ya,
Razz

Glee: Ballad Review

2009-11-20T21:31:00.002-06:00

Week after week Glee has always brought a level of enjoyment to me. From the musical choices to the individual stories, I'm not one to complain. This week's episode is no different. I think that this is my favorite episode by far, taken Throwdown off my number one spot. What makes this episode so good you ask? Let me tell you.

With Sectionals ever approaching, Mr. Schuester pairs off everyone in Glee so that they can perform a ballad to the other person. Everyone seems to pair off ok, until Finn gets paired with Kirk. For Kirk this is a dream come true, but for Finn he doesn't think he can "Sing a ballad to another dude." Rachel is the last to go, and due to Michael being in the hospital, puts her without a partner. Mr. Schuester says that he'll be her partner for the ballad, because what could go wrong? Rachel starts things off by singing "Endless Love" with Mr. Schue and that's where we get our first story arc in the episode. After the touching duet it seems as though Rachel has formed a crush on Mr. Schuester, much to his dismay.

With this new found love for Mr. Shoe we get one of my favorite scenes with him singing "Don't Stand So Close to Me" to Rachel, with Emma. This song was picked by Will to help let Rachel down easy and to shed light on the situation for her. At the end of the song both girls are stunned and Rachel's crush grows even stronger. Epic Fail Mr. Shoe!

The second story arc involved Quinn, Finn, and Kirk. Kirk is trying to win over Finn by helping him out with meeting Quinn's parents later that week. Finn being the ingnorant football jock type he is, just assumes that Kirk wants to help him and not try to worm his way into his jock strap. This story has quite a few touching moments to it including seeing Finn sing "I'll Stand By You" to the sonagram he has of what he thinks is his baby.

Near the end of the episode things got a little heavy. After Finn reveals to Quinn's parents that she's pregnant - through the song "(You're) Having My Baby" - things take a dark turn for the worst. In what was the darkest moment in Glee yet, we see Quinn's father saying some very hurtful things towards Quinn to the point where she's in tears. We also get to meet Suzie Peppers, the first girl to get a crush on Mr. Schue. She shows up here and there throughout the episode following Rachel around but not in a "he's my man don't you step my way" manner. Suzie actually serves as a grim future for Rachel should she keep trying to win Schuester over. This helps Rachel realize she's just gaga over Schue, and quickly goes to make up with him about her behavior.

One thing I really want to ask is, "Why did you sing that song Finn?" He couldn't sing a more obscure song that got the same point across. I mean the Fabray's are an uber-religious family, of course singing "You're Having My Baby" is gonna end up badly. However this move makes me agree with one thing Mr. Fabray said, "He does wear a helmet on the field doesn't he?"

Overall and as I've said, this is one of my favorite episodes yet. It had a total of five songs throughout it, which I think is the most yet. The only real problem I had was a scene of Mercedes and Puck talking about Quinn and Finn. Puck reveals to her that he is actually the baby's father. Mercedes than tells him that that's tough luck because Quinn has chosen Finn to father the child, and that he should just face the facts. To be honest, I expected her to act more shocked about such a twist. I could even see her telling the other Glee clubbers by "accident" so that more people would know. I'm not sure what the writers were thinking in that scene, but it didn't really work with the Mercedes I've come to know.

I agree on the whole Mercedes' thing because she acts way to calm for something this shocking. I was really expecting her to say, "for real?" and run outside and tell everyone that it's Puck's baby, but instead we got her telling Puck pull it together and sing. This might get good with her being the only one who knows but for now it was kind of dissapointing.

See Ya & Till Next Time,

Mike & Razz

Pirate Radio Review

2009-11-18T01:41:00.000-06:00

Okay guys, the review for today is "Pirate Radio" (or as it's called elsewhere "The Boat That Rocked'). First things first, this movie is inspired by true events in the U.K. where at that time (the mid-1960's) Rock & Roll was banned on the radio stations by the British government. Pretty much the only music that was allowed to be played was classical/instrumental music. However, an American DJ called "The Count" (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and a band of other English DJ breaks these rules and broadcast their radio station 24/7 from a big ass boat in the middle of the ocean. Of course with this being the only station that plays the popular songs of the 60's, people all over the U.K. notice this event and becomes attached to the radio station and their famous DJ's. But I'm not here to talk about the people listening to this station, I'm here to talk the DJ's and the crew who are on this ship together and becoming more close towards each other day by day with the power of Rock & Roll. The thing that makes this movie click is the fact that all of the characters are brought into this film in a very proper and detailed way. Everyone one of them has their own story and all of them has a reason on why they're on this boat and why they're risking being arrested for their actions. Even though this film seems like a rebellious approach, truth is, it's both a rebellious film and a romantic comedy. And these two elements are what make this film a lot of fun to watch.

This movie comes from famous British director Richard Curtis (Notting Hill, Four Weddings & a Funeral and Love Actually) and I have to say that this movie was very cool to me. I'm not really a fan of the 1960's but with the style, humor and music that was brought into this film, I have to admit that I kinda taken a different approach on how the 60’s were (especially in music). This movie will immediately appeal to people who're either a fan of music, a fan of the 60's, or just a fan of comedies where a group of people (one day) decides to take a stand in order for them to fight what they believe in (kinda like Revenge of the Nerds). There’s a tad bit of flaws in the movie (maybe 1 or 2), but with this movie being so fun and hilarious it kinda goes unnoticed and if it is noticed it's willing to be forgiven with whatever approach it took. I highly recommend anyone to see this movie and to be prepared on what wild ride you'll be going on by watching it. This movie truly shows that the power of music can bring everyone into unity.

More People?

2009-11-18T01:35:00.001-06:00

Hey everyone! Mike here with a quick update. Starting today we have a new reviewer on board with us here at the blog. He's a good friend of mine so let's give Leon our fullest attention and an open ear. Good? Good.

Our Canonverse: Episode 1

2009-11-17T22:23:00.003-06:00

Here at Mike and Razz’s blog, are slogan is “We tell you what’s good, what’s bad, and what we think should happen.” Well, we’ve gone good on reviews, but we haven’t really told you what we think should happen other than that occasional comments throughout the reviews. Well tonight after chatting for a bit, I’m happy to tell you about new segment called, Our Canonverse. This is basically what me and razz think should happen in our favorite shows regardless of the plausibility of what comes next. What better to do now than to dive right into the Canonverse.

The first idea we have to add to the Canonverse is one we discovered while talking Heroes and Glee. There seems to almost be a formula to both shows that needs to be known. The formula is as follows:

Your character gets written out of Heroes ---> Chance of being a cast member on Glee

Examples of this include Stephen Tobolowsky (Bob on Heroes; Sandy Ryerson on Glee), Jessalyn Gilsig (Meredith on Heroes; Mrs. Schuester on Glee), Jayma Mays (Charlie on Heroes; Emma on Glee), Kenneth Choi (Sam Douglas on Heroes; Dr. Wu on Glee),and Dianna Agron (Debbie Marshal on Heroes; Quinn Fabray on Glee). Now I know you might be asking who some of the characters from Heroes are, and that’s ok. We had to do a bit or research ourselves to find some of these people.

Back on topic, it’s been discussed that Adrian Pasdar might be leaving Heroes. This now makes sense because Sylar has his body back as of the last episode. What Razz and I thought is that since the theory of Heroes to Glee is in effect, he would end up on Glee. Now the question is who will he play? At first we thought a judge at Regional’s, just as a kind of cameo to please the fans. That idea was soon shot down when we came to realize something about the show that is cause for this inspiration. The rival glee group, Vocal Adrenaline, doesn’t have a group leader. This is where Adrian can shine. Allow me to set up the scene.
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After winning Regional’s, Adrian Pasdar’s character meets up with Will to talk about Nationals or whatever comes up next in Glee club. His character is similar to first season Nathan, stone cold and barely showing emotion. He begins to brag to Mr. Shoe about how superior his group of kids is because they get the best training and choreography. Think of a male version of Sue. After bragging enough to make the most ego-centric person blush, Will leaves not wanting to hear what he’s saying. We now go to Adrian on stage with a guitar. He says something similar to “Start from the top!” and starts playing the beginning to Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. As he plays and sings the song, we see that the rest of the band is actually people from Band From TV are accompanying him. That’s right. Matt Parkman on drums, House playing on piano, and everyone else from the band partaking in the scene. Scene ends and tears are shed around the world for pure awesome factor. With Sue and Adrian being so alike we also can set him up to be a long term character as Sue’s love interest. Imagine those two stone cold people, arguing and fighting and then suddenly making out. A great story line for down the road.

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And that’s what is now canon in the Glee universe, and the Canonverse, according to Razz and I. Agree with us? Disagree? Let us know in the comments.

See Ya & Till Next Time,

Mike & Razz

Heroes: Brother's Keeper Review

2009-11-17T01:02:00.000-06:00

Ok this weeks episode of Heroes was a huge episode, so lets just get right to it. Peter and Nathan are discussing his "missing carnival weekend" and discover that Angela has covered for him by saying he was on vacation. The Haitian, and I'm not calling him by his name, shows up and explains to Peter that Angela wants her mind wiped but tells him that he needs to make that decision after he sees a certain storage shed. When Nathan and Peter arrive they discover Nathans "real" body. Nathan touches it which causes the remembrance ability to act up in Nathan and he discovers Parkman might be hiding something. The Brothers Petrelli go to the Hospital where Matt is being held where, after Peter does his healing, Matt reveals that Nathan is actually in Sylars body. Sylar takes over Matt and tries to convince Nathan to touch him. After a scuffle Sylar leaves Matt's body and Peter and Nathan leave. Peter takes Nathan/Sylar's ability so he can keep up with him and follow him. Nathan discusses with Peter about how he doesn't exist, it is only Sylar with a compilation of memories under a layer of skin. My big question is where is Sylar? I mean did he go into his body or is he somewhere else. Plus what ability does Peter have now, just flying or is he an Empath again? Just a few questions I thought of.

I do have to say, I'm happy to see the Petrelli brothers working together again. Most times throughout the series they're at ends with each other. Seeing them team up is something i willing welcome. Now I also with what happened to Sylar? For someone who wanted his body back SO badly, he's not really showing it. After being in Parkman for God knows how long, I would definitely want to take my body out for a good fly and kill.

Next we saw the events of Mohinder that unfolded nine weeks ago. As he was going through his father's old Coyote Sands footage, he discovered that a boy named Samuel that was born in Coyote Sands increases his ability a thousand-fold when he is gathered around many people with abilities. This explains why Samuel is after an ever growing Family! Mohinder creates a makeshift compass, as we have seen before in this season, which leads him to the carnival. He meets Joseph who explains his brothers situation and tells him to leave and destroy the evidence of Samuel at Coyote Sands. Before he can do this, Hiro steps in to save the footage and puts a bullet-proof vest on him to keep Mohinder alive. After Samuel's attack, Hiro explains that he must use the footage to save Charlie. Mohinder disagrees which makes Hiro put him in an asylum so he can stay quiet until the present day.

When I first watched the episode and based off the tapes, I thought that anyone with an ability could multiple his/her power. Knowing that it was just Samuel definitely made me realize at least some of his evil plan. More family. More Power. Simple concept for a villain if you think about it. The only part that had me confused on the whole Hiro story was with him and Mohinder. If Hiro replaced Mohinder for a patient in an asylum, what did he do with the patient? I just imagine some mentally unstable person being sent free to run the streets he's been taken off of.

Now we got through the big part of the episode, we might as well cover Tracy and Claire. Tracy comes to Claire(or well really HRG) with a problem of her ability. After Tracy accidentally freezes Claire( which she quickly recuperates from), they have a talk and realize that Tracy's problems are psychological. The girls discuss the problems about their life and Tracy decides to join the Carnival after all.

I feel like if there was a clip of the week to show, it'd be when Noah finally gets home while the girls are talking and it shows Claire's frozen (or thawing) foot. I just thought to myself Noah's probably thinking something like, "Get the thawing foot off the table! I didn't raise you in a barn Claire!"

So all I can say is that we got a good episode here. There were a lot of answers in these scenes which made this great, besides the Claire/Tracy storyline. One complaint I have is the trailer from last week was a little too thorough which lessened the impact of the episode. Otherwise we have a top notch Heroes episode, a must watch indeed.

I agree. The clips from the trailer left us with too much and that can be bad sometimes. Luckily, they still left the big explosions in the story hidden till the episode aired. I just can't wait for next week when we see who's really in control - Nathan or Sylar.

See Ya & Til Next Time,

Razz & Mike

Community: Debate 109 Review

2009-11-15T19:30:00.000-06:00

Here we go.

This week on Community we get to see yet another problem that the forces of plot feel that only Jeff can fix. After Annie is left partnerless for the debate team, Jeff is asked to join on due to his previous "lawyer" days. He accepts, but only to get a free parking space. The debate itself was fun to watch as Jeff at first bumbled his way through the debate, only to later come back on top and win it for Greendale. The various cuts and background music make a simple debate seem more pumped up than it is, which I thought was in good taste to the show.

Something of a surprise to me was the relationship between Jeff and Annie that happened here. The formula usually calls for Britta and Jeff or Troy and Annie to take the relationship front stage, so this was new and in my opinion, good. Jeff isn't getting anywhere with Britta, and Troy doesn't even notice Annie half the time, so it's time to see a relationship that might go through.

Jeff's first try was pretty funny since he thought his charm was gonna get him through the debate, just like when he was a lawyer. We saw another E! channel refrence when Jeff was being recruited for the debate. This is a throw to Joel McCale's other show, The Soup, on E! I am liking the relationship of Jeff and Annie, it would be nice to see if the writers will take it further or if this is a one time thing.

The other main story throughout the episode involves Shirley and Abed. After watching his films entitled "Community College Chronicles" the group (and audience) realize that Abed is just redoing the past episodes with a different cast. What comes to their attention is that Abed seems to predict what's going to happen next through his videos. This worried Shirley that Abed was some sort of evil wizard, but he reassures her that he just knows how to read everyone better than they may have expected. Abed proves this point by perfectly mimicing several of the study groups members when they talk. Shirley starts crying witch again, especially when things from his most recent video begin to come true in real life. This gag throughout the episode really helped out and I always found it funny when Shirley would go to Abed for info on the future.

Abed's videos were funny and his predicting everyone's actions shows how close the study group has grown since the beginning. Shirleys reactions to Abed's videos were priceless, from the kiss to the werewolf.

What bothered me about the episode was the third, and very minor, plot. It centers around Britta getting Pierce to help her quit smoking by way of hypnotherapy. Instead of what I assumed would be Pierce messing up and getting something funny out of the hypnotism, we get Britta laying there with her eyes closed wondering when Pierce will finish up with the session. Granted, she does stop smoking due to Pierce's comments to himself while she was "hypnotized", but ultimately it was let down in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I understand the show has seven characters as a main cast, but they should take a note from a show like Heroes or The Office when it comes to storylines. Either have one to two stories going switching back and forth (Heroes) or have them tie closer together so that you see more of everyone and it just goes better together (Office). I don't worry that this will get out of hand, but hopefully it won't be done in every episode, otherwise it might seem like one storyline is being stretched too thin when it can be milk for some comedy gold.

I agree, with a big cast some storylines can get lost. Plus it really doesn't help that Joel McCale seems to be carrying the show sometimes. I like how some shows like this leave out a few characters in order to give a bigger and stronger focus on the main storylines. Even with this Community is still a great show and can't wait to see more episodes.

Til Next Time & See Ya,

Mike & Razz

Glee: Wheels Review

2009-11-13T16:27:00.006-06:00

This week's installment of Glee changed gears and focused the story on the kids more than Mr. Schuester and his baby drama. I for one welcomed this. We get to know more about each of the students lives and stories. Well, lets start off, shall we?

The show begins with Mr. Schuester speaking with Principal Figgins about getting a special bus for Glee club due to Artie needing a wheelchair accessible bus. Figgins, being the penny pinching principal we've come to know, won't give it to them and suggests they raise money for one. Mr. Schuester acts on that by getting everyone in Glee club to help out in a bake sale. While discussing the need for the bus the rest of Glee club seems to react negatively to the fact they have to work just to get Artie to come with them. This makes Mr. Schuester realize the students aren't taking Artie's feelings into consideration, so what does he do? He gets a wheelchair for each Glee club student so that they can walk a mile in his shoes (so to speak). Mr. Shoe also lets them know that for Regionals they'll be doing a whole routine with all of them in wheelchairs. On top of that, they'll be doing "Defying Gravity", a popular number from the broadway musical Wicked. Kurt wants nothing more than to do the solo for it, but Mr. Shoe gives it to Rachel. Kurt being the diva he is, calls both Rachel and Mr. Schuester out for the solo. So begins the the Diva Off!

While Artie was doing his "Dancing with Myself" routine, I realized he was rocking that wheelchair. And yes, I realize most of that was probably a stunt double, but still kudos on the choreography. I was also glad when Mr. Shoe grew a pair and told them to get in the wheelchairs, because I think that time was good for all of them.

We also get to see more of Sue and Mr. Shoe going at it. After Quinn got kicked off Cherio's, there's now an opening. Principal Figgins suggests that Sue holds open try outs to let someone take the spot, with Mr. Schuester being the other judge. Sue chooses a girl with downs syndrome out of all the potentials, and Will immediately assumes she's up to something. Sue starts training the girl in the way of the Cherio, which means Sue constantly yells at her for not being good at anything. The girl just smiles and replies with "Thanks coach!" Schuester thinks something is still up, but Sue's playing coy to the whole thing. Near the end of the episode, we find out that Sue's sister is at a mental hospital and also has downs syndrome. For me, seeing Sue being caring and seeing an emotion that wasn't rage of some variation was stunning. I highly enjoyed it.

The stuff with Sue kinda threw me off, I was stunned to find out she willingly took that girl on the squad and also gave money for new ramps at the school. I was starting to agree with Shuester that she was up to something but I was relieved at the end when it was revealed she had a sister with the same condition, I think it makes Sue a more grounded and more believable character.

Back to the Diva Off! Kurt and his dad have several talks about the solo and the fact that Kurt is an outed homosexual in high school. It's fun to see Kurt try work things with his dad. His dad obviously has no idea what to do, but still offers his support. We then see Rachel and Kurt face off in Glee club for the solo, where Kurt ends up breaking on the high F note that would make or break him. He then tells his dad about losing the solo on purpose, all so that his father can keep his cool when people make negative remarks against his son's sexuality. It was heartwarming.

I liked this part of the episode, we got more about Kurt and his dad going through dealing with the homosexuality thing, which they kind of just left off at the end of one of the previous episode. It was good to see how Kurt felt responsible for his father and broke the F on purpose so things would be easier on his dad. Especially after his dad gets a call saying Kurt is a fag, didn't know he was that into bikes! Plus I am liking Glee's style of putting appropriate styles of songs in the show. You could almost start watching the episode at the Diva off and understand the story just by the lyrics and the way it was edited with Rachel and Kurt.
Lastly (I'm sure you're tired of reading) we get to know more about Artie, who the episode somewhat revolves around. We come to the realization that he has a thing for Tina (the girl with the stuttering problem). He also opens up about how he got into the wheelchair, and how it's affected his life. We also get to see a great musical number of Artie singing Billy Idol's "Dancing By Myself". After the bake sale gets more than enough money for the bus (due to Puck making Hash cupcakes), Artie decides to use the money to get a wheelchair ramp for the auditorium. Scene goes to Tina and Artie sharing a date by racing around in their wheelchairs. Tina then gives Artie a kiss and comes clean -- she doesn't have a stutter. She started doing the stutter in sixth grade to stop from having to do reports in front of the class. Artie tells her "Well, that's good. You can be a regular person now but I'm still stuck in the wheelchair." and leaves her standing there. Way to BRO up man! DON'T LET NO HOE PUSH YOU AROUND! (and now I can have her all to MY self....yes...)

I am really getting into Puck's story line, you start to see how he still cares about Quinn and didn't just knock her up. I think they should really be together because no offense Finn is a bad baby's daddy. Plus that would leave Rachel and Finn to get together, which even in this episode you can see sexual tension between them. We see Artie takin' charge in this episode along with my favorite quote by him, "Let me be perfectly clear I still have the use of my penis."

Anyway, it was a good episode. We FINALLY got to see something other than Mr. Schuester get played by his lying wife. Once again I digress, but I enjoyed seeing more of the students being the focus of the episode.

Til Next Time & See Ya,
Mike & Razz

Dances with Smurfs

2009-11-12T18:23:00.002-06:00

Hey guys, first of all I would like to say I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with South Park the past few weeks, I'll try to keep doing it more often. This episode starts off with Cartman being picked to replace the announcement reader after the old one was brutally murdered by a guy who assumed he was a truck driver who slept with his wife. Since Cartman is the one now reading the announcements you know it won't end well. He uses the time to read the announcements to bash the school president, Wendy. Cartman even ends up getting TV's so he can have his own show, like Glenn Beck, Bill Oreilly, or any other Fox News Commentary show. He even calls Wendy out saying she wants to KILL Smurfs! OH NO! Cartman makes a special, called Dances With Smurfs, in which he goes and lives with the Smurfs and falls in love with Smurfette. He then destroys the Smurf village(as Wendy, good job on the cross-dressing by the way).

Wendy Is fed up by this and goes on The Morning Announcements to defend herself, and to keep Butters from peeing on her house. She turns the show around saying the smurfs had to be destroyed to get the Smurfberries to save the school. And it is Cartman's fault for turning against the school and siding with the Smurfs. She steals Cartman's Smurf idea by writing her own book and selling the movie rights to create James Cameron's Avatar.

I think this is a fairly good episode. I am a fan of any episode that takes Cartman from being on top to looking like an a-hole at the end. This is definitely worth the watch. By the way I discovered you can go to southparkstudios.com and buy shirts with different SP catchphrases like Awesom-o, a few from this episode, bike-curious?, towlie, they took our jobs, and many more. These would be great if you are a huge fan of the show.

See ya,
Razz

Heroes: Shadowboxing Review

2009-11-09T22:27:00.001-06:00

Since Razz pretty much wrote up the review for the episode, I'll just add my two cents after each paragraph.

This episode of Heroes was pretty good overall especially my favorite story arc, Matt/Sylar. So lets start with that part, this was the first episode where Sylar was in control of Matt's body. However Matt still retained his ability which set some road blocks up for Sylar. Even though Sylar tries to prove he is the bad guy but Matt proves he can play just as dirty by using his ability to trap Sylar and have him gunned down by the police.

Watching Matt constantly fuck with Sylar made this a great episode for me. The shoe was FINALLY on the other foot in the best way. I can only imagine Sylar getting the full body search from the security guard with the biggest hand, if you catch my drift. The whole time Matt laughing and possibly enjoying some popcorn.

Peter's story sort of fell flat but he was just playing a support for Emma to be in the spotlight and prove her heroism by saving those people in the hospital. Plus there isn't too much Peter can do with his healing especially since the ability is draining him.

If nothing else it was good to see Peter slowing down, whether or not it's due to the power's drawback. He's so caught up with this Superman complex he got that he needed to realize he can slow down and still help.

We got more backstory about Samuel which I am up for always. We found out that it was Danko that killed Samuel's brother. I keep wondering what is his endgame too, he seems evil yet looking deeper into him and his past we can sort of see a more layered person. We saw this how he was concerned for the safety of everyone when he tazed Becca. But then again he talks to Becca and tells her she will have her revenge. It is going to be good to uncover more about Samuel and what he really wants.

I agree with Razz here on all accounts. After seeing the preview with Samuel and Mohinder, I'm even more pumped for next week. We'll get to see some more old footage (I'm assuming from the old camp a la Season 3) and maybe some more about the previous generation of people with abilities. Also, we get to see Mohinder die. That alone I'm happy to wait for.

We saw more about HRG too, yet not too surprising. I mean really he killed somebody we've never seemed that before, big whoop. I think that is exactly what Claire thought too, at least she seemed like that. Claire also seemed sort of heart broken over Gretchen deciding to leave because she was scared for her life. I guess that is the end of that wierd relationship, oh well no more lesbian Claire. And the Hatian has a name now??? I really don't see the use of this, I mean really it is the fourth season. We didn't even get his name when we were in Hati last season, I'm just saying I really don't see the reason for this.

Once again I completely agree. I was sad there was no goodbye kiss between Claire and Gretchen, but hey, that's just something that'll go in my fanfic. I think one thing that needs more importance put on it is that the Hatian's name is Renee? REALLY NBC??? Let's not give the most bad ass secondary character a cool name, let's give him a woman's name. Sometimes I hate you TV.

We saw the return of Nathan in this episode too, which I was surprised about. I pretty much thought he was dead but I guess Sylar wasn't as clean of a Slate as he was thought to be. And from the looks of next weeks episode I think Nathan will be back in a big way.

I have to agree again. I like that we only have one Sylar now (kinda). Seeing Nathan back makes me wonder how things will work out if Sylar sees him wondering around in the next couple of episodes. Oh well, I guess we'll have to find out then.

See ya & til next time,

Razz & Mike

Goodnight, Sweet Childhood Memories. May You Rest Well

2009-11-09T04:37:00.003-06:00

Nov. 8th, 2009.

At 7PM Central Standard Time, we as a generation of children grown up on television lost something dear to us in what I believe was the best way possible. For those of you that watched Cartoon Network in the late 90s and early 2000s, you may remember a block of cartoons show mostly on Friday known as Cartoon Cartoons. Some of these included Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow & Chicken, Ed Edd n Eddy, and several more. Overall there were about 15 shows considered "Cartoon Cartoons." Many people who watched said shows remember them for various reasons including in show jokes and character impressions. I would say that to be growing up and watching this show, it seemed like a golden age for Cartoon Network.

Now for why the date is important. On Nov 8th, Cartoon Network (now going simply as CN), held a two day marathon of Ed Edd n Eddy leading up to the full length movie known as "Ed Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show". The movie revolves around the memorable cast of the cul-de sac chasing down the Eds after one of their many scams goes horribly awry. Without giving too much away the movie does good on bringing back everything you loved about Ed Edd n Eddy all in about 90mins. The one thing about the movie is that it references so many past episodes that you can't help but say to your friends while you're watching, "Is that Ed dressed as Lothgar from the Boo Haw Haw episode?" It's truly worth the watch, so if you can find a download of it online, I suggest getting together several Ed fans and enjoying.

Back to the main point, the movie pretty much ended the series that is Ed Edd n Eddy. With the Eds finally being put to rest, the realization that Cartoon Cartoons are over with hit me shortly after. Between the various shows getting cancelled or ending with a final season and/or movie, the final nail had been hammered in. To me the movie was like that of watching the last cast of Toonami. Seeing Tom shutting everything down and giving one final speech before jetting off to bigger and brighter things.

Knowing that something in my childhood that had lasted this long had finally ended was relieving in a way. I was a bit sad that years from now kids might ask, "What's Dexter's Lab?" or "Courage the Cowardly Dog is dumb." But with one chapter closing another opens. Cartoon Network does have some good shows on air now and if they can keep these going maybe I won't have to wince when someone mentions Total Drama Island anymore.

What I'm trying to say is, well, here's to you Cartoon Cartoons. I'll never forget you. Here's to all the good times. Stay Gold.

Til next time,
Michael

The Men Who Stare at Goats

2009-11-06T20:27:00.002-06:00

The first thing I want to say is that I'm sorry about the recent gap in the articles. We're ironing out a schedule now to get the reviews to you, the viewers. Also, I'm gonna start using a rating system on the movie reviews. The best is See It, next is Riff It, followed by Rent It, and lastly Fuck It. Now on to the review.

The Men Who Stare at Goats begins in 2003 with journalist BobWilton (Ewan McGregor) narrating about how life has seeming turned its back on him. He lost his wife to his editor, and feels as though he is now adrift at sea. Bob decides that as a journalist during war, he should head over to Iraq to help expose what's going on. There he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) who after a brief chase tells Bob that he worked for the U.S. Army's First Earth Battalion. Lyn explains that this was an army battalion that used psychic powers in the missions they were given. Bob, not wanting to miss out on a story like this, decides to follow Lyn as he goes on a mission into Iraq.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the movie. Watching George Clooney refer to the First Earth Battalion as "Jedis" and even making jokes with Ewan's character as "I can see you have a bit of Jedi in you. Trust me, us Jedi can see our own." Jeff Bridges also is a great job playing Bill Jango, the sargent of the First Earth Battalion. While in this role he seems to get back to his Big Lebowski roots as a laid back guy, and it works for him. Kevin Spacey, playing the villian of sorts, does just that. In every scene he's in, Spacey's character is an asshole to someone or everyone else in it. There are a few scenes that Spacey reminds me of him from his role in Superman Returns as Lex Luthor.

Overall I'd give this film a rating of: See It. Go if you have chance, you'll enjoy it.

Heroes: Tabula Rasa Review

2009-10-19T22:29:00.001-05:00

This is our first joint review. Razz's part will be in his red, mine in blue. Let's get started shall we?

Heroes came back with Tabula Rasa on Monday, pretty good especially the Sylar/Gabriel scenes. Rather than going through scene by scene I would rather go through it by characters since Heroes is a very character centric show.

Hiro awakens to find Peter has taken him to the hospital. Peter believes Hiro came to him in order to be saved. so peter goes off for help after taking Hiro's ability. This was also the first time in a while we actually saw peter taking someone's ability, which I've kinda missed because it is a cool effect. However Hiro does take it apon himself to help guide Emma and show her that her ability is not a curse but a gift. He also realizes that he forgot one of the most important people in his life, Charlie. After he makes Emma realize her potential for her ability he has one of his "spaz out teleports" and goes out to the Burnt Toast Diner 3 years ago to be with Charlie.

Peter leaves Hiro and meets Noah to try to find someone to help heal Hiro. They find a boy named Jeremy who has a healing touch in Georgia. They go to a house filled with death and realize that Jeremy's ability has changed to control the flow of life. When Noah tries to confront him jeremy shoots but Peter teleports in front of the blast and Noah helps to coach him to control his ability to heal peter. Peter takes his ability and goes back to NY to save Hiro. Noah chooses to stay with the boy and to actually start helping people with abilities like he promised Claire.

Sylar is at the Carnival and having mixes of personalities of himself and Nathan and to prevent this from going down the wrong path Samuel sends him off to the "house of mirrors guy" who unleashes the memories of Sylar's murders. this makes Sylar sick at himself and disgusted.

This was a good episode and showed the personalities of the characters shining through and really gave insight to Sylar,perhaps he is a good person deep down inside. Now he is truly trying not to kill and keep himself pure.

For me, I also enjoyed the episode. The one thing that got me was seeing Mark L. Young as the "Healer". If you don't know, he also played the character Randy in a movie called Sex Drive. If you haven't seen that I recommend you do. Throughtout all his scenes (especially his with Noah) I kept riffing and making jokes like "Do you have a phone number?" and other quotes of his from the movie. But I digress, it was good to see him doing something other than asking if a girl is wearing thong underpants.

One of my favorite scenes on tonight's episode was with Hiro and Emma. Emman just wants the power turned off, but Hiro tells her that there's more to having an ability. He shows her this by stopping time while a group of children are clapping. She is then free to play around with the light coming from their hands. Was it just me or did all that clapping look like the load screen for a computer with Windows Vista on it? Maybe just me. Also, when she plays with the one cloud of...sound...I guess...shouldn't that distort the sound when Hiro starts things back up? I found it funny thinking one kid is clapping but it sounds more like a duck being squashed. Maybe that's just me again.

Overall, I agree with what Razz has put. Unlike me he actually reviewed the episode, but I feel like did something. Overall, good episode and I can't wait to see what's going to happen to Hiro in the past with Charlie (again) and Noah trying to right some wrongs of the past.

Later, and til next time,
Mike & Razz

Some people call me the space cowboy...

2009-10-17T19:12:00.000-05:00

Some people call me the gangster of love, well thats what Butters Scotch is known as. South Park returned with another episode last Wednesday, which can be described as creepy. This episode involves Butters starting a Prostitution ring, or kissing company as he calls it, in South Park right under the police' noses.

Butters gets the idea for his kissing company after he pays for a kiss by a girl named Sally. Butters goes out and brings customerst Sally and a few other girls who he gets to go out and kiss boys on the playground, which he takes a 40% cut of might I add. Kyle however tells butters he is nothing but a common pimp, which this promps butters to go out to a pimp convention. Here he learns what being a pimp means and how to take care of his hos, you know what I am saying?

All this hubub about a local pimp working in South Park makes the police take action by sending one of their own in undercover as a prostitute. The under cover cop is the chief(that redheaded guy in the mustache in case you forgot) who is in a very skimpy prostitute's outfit. Ugggghh anybody? For some reason instead of busting the guys soliciting he insists on going through the acts with the tricks. Again uggghh anyone? This makes him get caught up in the world of prostitution, a wonderful place right?

This episode has some very funny momonts, like most South Park episodes. During Class Butters tries to get a few of the girls to join his company, including Wendy and Bebe. And when Mr. Garrison ask him what is wrong, Butters responds with "These girls are just giving kisses away and they don't realize they could be making some real f'n money." Also no matter how cringe worthy they are, the scenes with the prostitute chief are really funny. This episode is definately worth the 30 minutes it takes to watch it. You can see this episode and more at www.southparkstudios.com/

Later,
Razz

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-10-16T16:54:00.000-05:00

Welcome again to another one of Mike's movie reviews! This week, I went and saw Where The Wild Things Are. All I can say before I review it is that you have to keep in mind while watching this that it is a movie about a child's adventure -- not necessarily a children's movie.

The movie is very similar to the book in that it follows the adventures of Max as he sails away from home to the island the wild things live on. There he meets, befriends, and becomes the king of the wild things. From there Max, Carol, and the rest of the wild things have various adventures including building a fort where things you only want to happen in there do, having a dirt clod war, and having a wild rumpus. After all is said and done, Max sails back home and is reunited with his mother.

Now this may seem like something that would be a children's film, but trust me it almost isn't. The beginning is somewhat dark and that dark overtone will sneak in and out through the film. There's one moment where Max in class and his teacher begins talking about the solar system. No harm, right? Wrong. He talks about how one day the sun is going to die, and that when it does, it's going to take the earth out with it. The teacher then reassures them it'll be millions of years before that happens, and that they'll be dead and so will humanity more than likely. I was beginning to wonder he would go over next. Maybe realizing that no matter what you do in life, you just die anyway? Or perhaps that death is innevitable anyway? That part was probably the oddest in the movie, and there are 8ft tall monsters walking around.

This isn't to say the movie is bad. As I said, it doesn't feel to me like a children's movie with some of the tones it takes. The monsters aren't cute and cuddily like a Disney movie, they're realistic. They argue over things, get mad, and generally act realistic. When they get into fights one of the monsters usually goes out into the forest for a walk to cool down. They even begin to cry as Max leaves. That scene in general is a great. The setup for it really pulls at your heart strings, and some people in the theater where also crying as Max set sail for home.

There is one thing I'd like to address here. When Max gets home his mother hugs him and gives him a nice meal before the credits roll. If this were to have happened to me, I would have come home to an ass whoopin' like never before seen in my life. THEN I would have gotten the hug and food. After that, I would have gotten a "Don't you ever run away again." Maybe that's just family, but the general consesus was that Max should have at least gotten spanked.

All in all, the movie met and exceeded my expectations. I'd go see it again and I recommend that you go see it too. One last thing I thought was awesome, scary, and funny was a scene with Carol and Douglas. They get into a fight and Carol RIPS OFF DOUGLAS' ARM. Later you see Douglas, now with a large stick replacing his "favorite arm." I thought that was hilarious just to let you know.

Til Next Time,
Mike

Twitter

2009-10-12T17:54:00.000-05:00

Hi Everybody,
Just so you know we now have a twitter handle. You can follow our posts at http://twitter.com/mikeandrazz to recieve updates on the blog or podcast. Hope you are enjoying the posts we have been putting out and feel free to e-mail us at mikeandrazz@yahoo.com to give feedback or ideas for our blog.

See ya,
Razz

Who Ya Gonna Call?

2009-10-11T17:34:00.000-05:00

Not the Ghostbusters, thats for sure. Now you may be wondering, why am I making a Ghostbusters reference without any kind of joke? Well, I'm here to give you all my review of the very popular new horror film know as Paranormal Activity. Lets dive on in, shall we?

I'll spare you all the ending, as I don't want to spoil for you. The movie begins with seemingly average couple Katie and Micah enjoying themselves at home. Micah is showing off his new camera, which will be used to film the couple while they sleep. The reason for the night watch? Apparently things have been going on in the house that can't be explained, and since both of them are asleep when they occur Micah and Katie hope that the camera will catch the midnight shenanigans. This is your first glimpse into the horror yet to come throughout the movie. The footage fast forwards until we see a few minutes of footage where the door moves slightly closed, then opens again. Micah soon becomes interested in testing the boundaries with this ghost of sorts. Unfortunately for Micah, Katie (along with a psychic she hired to visit the house) advise him not to contact the now demonic entity. This is due to the fact that if you contact it, that said entity will want to talk.

The next several scenes are more of Micah and Katie sleeping. Theres some more door moving, but now it seems to get worse. After a couple of nights with sounds of people walking through the house, Katie wakes up one night. She then proceeds to stand for hour staring at Micah sleeping. Katie then leaves the room and about two hours later Micah finds her outside staring blankly into the dark. Some more bumps go around the house and Micah soon finds Katie back indoors, having no memory of leaving or standing around.

As if bumps in the night and a sleep walking girlfriend aren't enough to scare you, Micah finally decides (against Katie's wishes) to get a Ouija Board to talk to the entity. Katie gets pissed and they leave, luckily leaving the camera on. The next scene tells you from here on in, you will be shitting bricks. The Ouija board pointer starts randomly hitting letters by itself, with the Ouija board finally setting fire and going out in a matter of minutes. When Katie and Micah return, Katie tells Micah to throw away the Ouija board and stop recording, as it's making the entity more aggressive. Micah pulls the "I'm the man around here, I can handle this!" card, which causes more late night crazy. The best of this is a scene where Micah covers the floor in baby powder, saying "If anything is coming in here, we'll be able to see where it's going." As if the irony of what's about to happen next isn't too great already, while the couple sleeps you see odd foot prints soon covering the floor. As they both feel a mutual mind fuck about the prints, things just get worse. Katie is dragged from the bed to God knows where, due to Micah not grabbing the camera when he goes to get her. This is saying a lot, because he hardly lets the camera go from his hands when he's awake.

The ending was good. Without spoiling much, I will say that it seems the entity has been playing a mental game of chess with the couple. Unfortunately for them, this "demon" of sorts is like Gary Kasparov (the world's greatest chess player as of 2008) and they're the leader of the school's chess club.

To cut a long review short, if you like scary movies, go see this. Every time it cut to them sleeping, I was gripping my seat just waiting for the demon to do something. To be honest, that makes him/her my favorite character. For those unfamiliar to the paranormal, people generally believe that an entity draws from negative energy to makes it's presence known. This entity does a great job. Constantly waking the couple to the point where they are sleep deprived and short tempered gives it the energy to keep going til it takes over of the household. Overall, I recommend it for horror fans and people looking for a good scare. I know I won't be sleeping tonight very well.

Till the Next Time,

Mike

South Park Returns!

2009-10-11T15:12:00.000-05:00

Hola all,

South Park returned with its fall premiere last Wednesday, called Dead Celebrities. It was a very topical episode as almost all of them have been over the past few seasons. This episode started with Ike claiming that he was being haunted by celebrities who died over the past summer. It turns out that all of these celebrities are being bound to the Earth because Michael Jackson has not accepted his death. Jaco then possesses Ike and in order to save Ike's soul, the South Park gang must enter him in a beauty pageant so Michael can fulfill his dream of being a beautiful young girl. Luckily Cartman is able to bribe the judge and get Ike to win the show. This allows all the celebrities to pass on to hell where they have to wait because "Hell is a towing gate."

There were several funny parts to the episode that really make it worth the watch including Kyle and Cartman arguing over why a person would keep eating chipotle if it makes you bleed out your butt. there was a very sixth senseish beginning with Ike talking about seeing dead celebrities. I would definitely recommend this episode for any fan of South Park or fans of dead celebrities. You can watch South Park on Comedy Central on Wednesdays at 9(central) or any time at www.southparkstudios.com/

See you later,
Razz

Firs -- damnit!

2009-10-07T18:45:00.000-05:00

Hello viewing public! This is Mike, part of what is ultimately Mike and Razz. I just wanted to give an overview of such of how the blog work. Razz and myself will post reviews of everything from the latest games to movies, TV, and more. What we hope to ultimately do is have a podcast also set up on here, instead of doing the blog postings. Don't fret though, we'll still be posting, but the podcast is what we're aiming for. If you have any kind of expertise and would like to help us, you can contact us at mikeandrazz@yahoo.com

Til the next time,

Mike

FIRST!!!!!!!!

2009-10-06T21:10:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody this is a blog for Michael Nadler and Jason Rasberry. We are two guys that just wanna make our opinions known. There will be more post to come including our official podcast. if you have any questions feel free to e-mail us at: mikeandrazz@yahoo.com more to come later.