Obsessed Movie Review

Obsessed Movie Review

 

I don’t normally go to the movies to see suspense thrillers, or mystery type films, but since the wife wanted to see it, it was a good opportunity for us to enjoy a rare date with just the two of us.

 

Basically, Obsessed is an updated version of Fatal Attraction, with a couple of twists in the storylines.  If you like Fatal Attraction, Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from the Wire), Beyonce, or Ali Larter (From Heroes), then you are going to enjoy this film.  The movie basically starts off with Derek (Elba) a high powered financial advisor bumping into a temp named Lisa (Larter) on the elevator.  Although you can see the mutual attraction, Derek keeps his heart and mind on his with Shannon (Beyonce) and his child.  Lisa on the other hand is smitten, and she spends the rest of the movie attempting to convince Derek that they are in love using a number of increasingly risqué schemes to get him in the sack.  Unlike Michael Douglass from Fatal Attraction, Derek has the will power of the Gods, and is able to rebuke Lisa at every turn.  However, Derek makes the mistake and lies to his wife about what the temp is doing.  This eventually leads to a very compromising situation, which arises on a business trip and excuse me, but all hell breaks loose! Shannon, unlike most movie wives is not some soft woman that doesn’t know what to do about the situation.  Once Shannon meets up with Lisa, she lets Lisa know that she was messing with the wrong man!

 

Put it this way, when Shannon met up with Lisa in the house, the entire audience was cheering and clapping and encouraging her on.  It has been awhile since I have gone to the movies in the evening just to avoid these types of interruptions, but for this film it was fitting and refreshing.  This is what the producers of this film wanted, audience interaction.  My wife was grabbing my hand and looking at me, whispering “If you ever…!” All I could do was laugh.  Is this a good movie? Sure, it is entertaining and gets couples, boyfriends and girlfriends to look at each other and shake their fingers, and their heads with the look of “You better not ever think about doing that…. You can finish the rest. LOL!

 

This is the new Fatal Attraction of the 21^st Century, and the young people that I saw watching it today will be talking about Obsessed like we talked about Fatal Attraction.

 

Grade B

 

 

 

Saga of the Seven Suns Book Series: Hidden Empire & Forest of Stars by Kevin Anderson

I have been struggling with finding a good book series to read, while waiting for the conclusions to two of my favorite fantasy series, the Song of Fire & Ice Saga and the Wheel of Time series.  These series are so involved and detailed, that I have become spoiled with the indepth character development, intriguing worlds and story lines that the authors created.  Each book in both series are an average of 700-900 pages.  Each series has over 6 books.  I finally found a new space series that I thought would fill my needs called the Saga of the Seven Suns series, which has 7 books.  The story line for the series is pretty cool.  The humans have come across an alien race called the Ildirans who have given them technology to travel amongst the stars.  During the humans journey across the stars, they colonize a planet which has trees that allow them to communicate almost instantaneously anywhere in the galaxy.  All you need is a specially trained person to touch the tree and people and communicate their thoughts.  The humans also come across a dead civilization of an insectoid race called the Klikiss.  They discover an ancient device called the Klikiss torch, which allows them to turn gas planets like Jupiter into suns.  The adventure begins when the humans ignite a gas planet, which is orbited by four moons they want to colonize.  Unfortunately for the humans, when they turn the gas giant into a sun, they didn’t know that the gas planet was inhabited by an ancient alien race  called the Hydrogues.  When they ignited the planet, tens of millions of the Hydrogueswere killed.  After this event the Hydrogues boil out of gas planets around the galaxy attacking all “rock dwellers”, which are beings that live on regular planets with the intent of wiping them all out.  So the saga revolves around humanity’s attempts to survive this tragedy, while also trying to maintain its iron grip on the colonies it dominates around the galaxy.

Although I love the storyline and the universe the author Kevin Anderson created, his writing style is very juvenile.  He doesn’t do a very good job of describing interaction between his characters, and he has this habit starting each chapter with a different character and describing their story.  This in itself isn’t bad, because George R. Martin does this in the Song of Fire and Ice series, but there are so many characters in the Saga of the Seven Suns that it gets confusing.  The author also has a very slow writing pace, and there are pages and pages of filler that don’t move the story forward whatsoever.  His description of the action scenes are average at best, and in the beginning didn’t fill me with much excitement.  He also doesn’t even bother to give descriptions and details about the way the ships look or anything of that nature.  Despite these drawbacks, I am still drawn to his overall story and want to finish it, even though I am not all impressed with what I read so far.  I have read two of the seven books, but I haven’t been able to justify buying the rest.  I may have to see if the library has these to finish up, what started off being a very promising series.

Grade so far C-

Dragon Ball Evolution Movie Review

I admit Roshawn and I knew this movie was going to be bad before we went to see it, but being fans of the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime, we felt an obligation to go and evaluate how the film compared to the Japanese animated show.  There is no comparison to give.  This movie is horrible, so please avoid it like the plague!

 

There is nothing redeemable about this film, it is short (thankfully!), has a poor story, horrible special effects, terrible acting and they changed everything that even remotely related to the animated show.  I figured the film would be on life support based on what I saw in the movie trailers, but I didn’t think it would be dead on arrival and rotting like a week old corpse in the desert sun.

 

This is the worst movie of the year! I am glad I caught the 10:45 am show and only spent $12 bucks for three of us.

 

 

Grade: F-

 

Roshawn (Age 15 in 3 days): C-/D, but the more we talk about it the worse is thoughts get.

 

Kameron (Age 10): F-/He just said it was horrible, and is still bashing it 30 minutes after we got home.

WATCHMEN Movie Review

WATCHMEN

 

I never read the graphic novel WATCHMEN, but I have heard people rave about it for years.  For some reason, my curiosity was not enough to read the adult comic.  When I saw the trailers for the movie however, I was hooked.  In a nutshell, the WATCHMEN is a story that takes place in an alternate Earth, where Nixon is still President of the United States in 1985.  He is serving his third term, and the world is on the brink of nuclear oblivion. The heroes in this world are no longer popular and have begun to show signs of old age.  That is the set up for the film, but the story itself is rather interesting.  Someone kills a hero called the Comedian, who is not much of a hero at all.  The movie is basically an investigation about who killed the Comedian, and how it ties into the nuclear conflict that is about to be unleashed between the Americans and Soviets.  The investigator of this murder is a hero/villain named Rorschach, who kills bad guys and maims police officers who get in his way.  Along his journey we meet his old partner the Night Owl (A low budget Batman), Dr. Manhattan a supercharged blue titan, Ozymandis a rich super hero and the Silver Specter (I think that was the other ones name.)  All of these heroes in this movie are pretty interesting and very real.  As a matter of fact, I would even hesitate to call any of them heroes. Rorschach and especially the Comedian are very disturbing.  Rorschach is like a psychotic Batman. 

 

I don’t want to give away too much of the story because it is a super hero murder mystery with a touch of action.  If you plan on seeing this movie, don’t expect a super hero vs. super villain slugfest.  This movie is about investigating a murder, and solving the crime before the world ends.  The movie is a little slow at times and light on the action, but when the action arrives it is very brutal.  I can see why this movie garnered an R rating.  You are going to see bones getting split, bodies exploding, arms getting cutoff etc.  These heroes don’t take many prisoners.  This movie is also chock full of nudity and love making scenes as well.  Dr. Manhattan the blue nuclear type guy walks around naked for most of the film.  You get to see the full frontal on this dude.  This movie was definitely made with adults in mind.  That being said, the movie is good, but like I said before a little slow.

 

Grade B-

PUSH Movie Review

PUSH

 

This is not the movie Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, but PUSH the telekinetic action movie.  I am not going to waste much of your time on this review.  Push will be pushing up daisies by the end of the week.  This movie had so much promise, but it is just so bad.  The movie is marketed as an action, superhero type flick, but there isn’t much action and the story is pretty flimsy.  I like the premise, which reminds me of a book I read in high school called “The Mercy Men”, about people with telekinetic ability that are hunted down etc.  Although the idea behind this film was good, the writers just couldn’t put together a coherent storyline.  The story is about a young girl (Dakota Fanning) who meets up with the hero Nick (Chris Evans) and tells him that he has to save a woman and a brief case, (which has a secret power boosting formula in it for telekinetics). The people on this Earth have Star Wars, force like powers that Darth Vader would kill to have and govt. agency called “The Division” wants to get the formula back so they can make an army.  This is pretty much the story, which is even simple by the television show Heroes’ standards.  Not only is the story poor, but the action in this movie is rare. Most of the cool fight scenes in the movie were shown during television commercials throughout the year.  The strangest part of the movie was that the coolest fight scene involved a secondary villain who was fighting against another group of villains.  The hero of the film was a lightweight by comparison, but somehow when he fights this secondary villain, he prevails.  This film has so many flaws and holes that even I can’t give it a pass.

 

What really bothered me about this film however, was how the director had the actress, Dakota Fanning portray her character.  She is a 13 year old girl, and they have her wearing a miniskirt and walking around in grung type high knee boots, trying to look sexy with her toothpick thin legs.  Not only did they keep trying to give her subtle camera shots trying to make her look hot, they had her get drunk, so she could try to enhance her powers. (Yea that makes a lot of sense! I drink, so I can drive better! That’s the message that scene sends!) The thought that kept coming into my mind regarding Dakota was “TROLLOP”.  I thought it was just plain wrong to exploit that young girl like that.  This was definitely a blatant scheme to get young teens to buy into this weak film.  It worked to because my sons and their buddy gave the film an A+.  I tried to keep this  review  short, but I couldn’t.

 

Grade: D

Notorious Movie Review

I am a child of hip hop. In 1979, when hip hop dropped, I was 9 years old, and fully embraced the new music culture.  I was a fan of Run DMC, LL Cool J, EPMD, Big Daddy Kane and a host of other famous and infamous groups that laid down lyrical jams with pulse shaking beats. One of those rappers I loved to listen to in my pre-Christian rap days was Biggie Smalls, who later became the Notorious B.I.G. I rank Biggie up their in lyrical talent with NAS, Tupac & Jay Z.  However, when I heard there was a movie coming out about the Notorious one, I was ready to pass.  I figured it would be a low budgeted, poorly acted, horribly written excuse for a movie.  One of my students bugged me for a week telling me to go see it, but I brushed him off.  When my Dad told me he saw it however, and said that it was good, my curiosity was piqued.

So yesterday I went to see Notorious, and I have to say I was very surpised at how good this movie was.  The director, writers and actors took this movie seriously and put together a quality piece of cinema.  The film is basically a biography of Biggie Smalls’s (real name Christopher Wallace) life, and what an interesting life it was.  If you were a fan of Biggie, or you are just looking for a good movie to watch, then go see Notorious. You won’t be disappointed.  The film is rated R, so don’t take your kids, because their are quite a few adult situations.

Grade: A

Rahesha and I are getting married again!

During our 13th Wedding Anniversary, I asked Rahesha to marry me again for our 15th Wedding Anniversary.  We never had a big wedding, we were just married by the justice of the peace.  This time we would like to have a wedding that is ordained by God and in God’s house.  We aren’t going to have a big super wedding, but a wedding nevertheless.  I hope you all will have the opportuntity to witness our Renaissance (rebirth) of love!

Down on one knee!

The Shack by William P. Young

The Shack is an interesting Christian themed story of a man Mackenzie Allen Philips who suffers a great loss, which he titles the “Great Sadness”, which leads to him beginning to question his faith.  One day during a snow storm, he checks his mail and recieves at letter that just says “Meet Me at the Shack” with the signature God at the bottom.  This then begins Mack’s journey to rediscover his relationship with God, and deal with the “Great Sadness”.

This is such a powerful book, that I was fighting back tears throughout.  By the time I was done reading, I felt like I had read not just a book of fiction, but the ultimate book on the philopshophy of mans’ life with God.  This is a touching tale!  The book was so good, that I burned through all 248 pgs in less than 24 hours! The book didn’t seem like my cup of tea at first, but once I sat down yesterday and started to read, I was hooked. 

Grade: A

I passed my Principal’s Test

Finally, after a journey that started in 2003 I am nearing the end of my quest to obtain my Master’s in Education Administration and my Principal’s certification.  I just passed my Principal’s test, and now I have to complete my internship, which will begin in January.  I thank God for giving me the strength to see it through!

The Day the Earth Stood Still Movie Review

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a remake of a movie that was made in the early 50s.  I never saw the entirety of the original film, so I went into the remake with a bare bones idea of what the movie was about.  In a nutshell, an alien named Klateuu along with his cool looking robot comes to our planet to “Save the Earth”. Unfortunately, what Klateuu wants to do is save the Earth from human beings.  When Klateuu exits his space-globe to deliver his message that “humans need to end their warlike ways and embrace peace”, the humans do what they do best…they shoot him!  Then the adventure begins as the humans try to find out his motives and Klateuu tries to come up with good reasons not to destroy humanity.

 

The film itself was predictable, and I was able to figure out the side plot about the thousands of spheres that had landed on the Earth before the secretary of defense in the movie did.  Despite the threadbare story line, the movie was enjoyable especially since I saw it for $4 at the 11am viewing.  One problem I had with the film occurred when Klateuu was captured and being interrogated by a single man.  The problem was, there were no cameras recording the event, two way glass with people watching or anything.  This of course made it possible for Klateuu to escape with very little trouble.  I am sorry, but I am not leaving an alien in a room with one person without any kind of supervision or observation.  That scene was just ludicrous!

 

 

Grade B-

 

Roshawn & Kameron- 8.5: They said the movie was good, but it didn’t have enough action.