Movie Monday - The World's End

Yes, I know I didn't post at all last week.  I managed to get sick.  And I mean pretty sick.  As in I was running a 103 degree fever for over 3 days.  So I pretty much just slept for 3 days.  So sorry I was out of commission. But I did manage to see The World's End the Friday before I got sick with Ivy.

The World's End is about a bunch of old high school friends in England who get back together to attempt an epic pub crawl they did as young men in their hometown.  Gary played by Simon Pegg is the aging addict ring leader who rounds up his old school mates who are rather relucant to do this all again.  Gary pretty much cons all his old buddies into heading to their hometown and start their pub crawl.  About 2 or 3 pubs in the old friends along with Sam played by Rosamund Pike (the sister of one of the friends and an old flame of Gary's) discover that their hometown has been take over by alien robots who bleed blue ...... um lube.  Ok anyway they continue on with the pub crawl because if they don't they will be figured out and turned into robots too.  Their mission is to make it to the last pub on the list The World's End.  So as not to spoil the whole movie I will stop there because you don't need to know anymore for this review and it's always good to let the movie actaully tell you the whole story. 

I enjoyed the movie while I was watching it.  I laughed a lot and enjoyed Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Andy.  Once I left I though it seemed more and more silly.  This was way more my kind of movie than Ivy's.  I am a sci fi nerd so this appealed to me more than her and I love Simon Pegg.  It was a fun watch while your in the moment but forgetable.

My rating is 2 1/2 pop corn puckets out of 5.

Movie Monday - The Way Way Back

Did you all notice the cheesy popcorn bucket graphics for my movie ratings last week???  Anyone, anyone?  Oh well if you didn't well it's not earth shattering or anything but it adds a nice visual for the ratings at the end of the review (so stick around and make sure you see it).  Anyway back to the matter at hand The Way Way Back.

The Way Way Back follows a shy, nerdy 14 year old kid named Duncan played by Liam James on a summer trip to the beach with his mom and her boyfriend and his daughter.  The boyfriend Trent played by Steve Carell is a smile wearing asshole, so when he's being an asshole it doesn't quite feel as nasty but it actually feels worse later.  Trent is an asshole to Duncan but never really in front of Duncan's mom Pam played by Toni Collette.  Duncan is naturally having issues fitting in with Trent's daughter who is older and all her friends so Duncan stumbles into and unlikely friendship with Owen played by Sam Rockwell the manager of a aging water park.  That is really the plot right there with some twists thrown in and finally the shy boy comes into his own.  Sam Rockwell makes this movie along with Allison Janney who plays the hysterical drunken neighbor.  I was also impressed at how well Steve Carell plays an asshole, which is against his usual character type.  This movie was funny, sweet and a little sad all at the same time.  Ivy and I both really liked The Way Way Back.  I would even go so far to say it's one of the best movies I've seen this summer.  It's not really typical summer movie fare but I liked the break from the action packed box office stuff that's out.  I am giving The Way Way Back 4 1/2 out of 5 popcorn buckets!

Movie Monday - Jobs

Let me first warn you I am an Apple fanatic (check here for a little more background).  So I am extremely biased.  I love Apple always have and they the ONLY computers I will ever own.  I wish I could say use as well but I am forced to use PCs at work.  OK back to the movie, I saw the movie Jobs with Ivy.

Jobs is the condensed history of Steve Jobs one of the founders of Apple Computer.  We meet Steve Jobs played by Ashton Kutcher in the early 70's as a young man who has dropped out of college but still attends classes and aspires to do something great while getting high.  We learn pretty quickly that Steve Jobs is really kind of an asshole but an asshole who has a dream.  While working at Atari he recruits his friends Steve Wozniak played by Josh Gad to help him out and learns that he is building a personal computer in his house.  Jobs loves the idea so much he takes the idea and runs with it. He recruits a bunch of other misfits and nerds to help him build the computers in his parents garage.  Thus the founding of Apple Computers.  Big money then comes in thanks to Mark Markklua played by Dermot Mulroney and Apple starts to become what we know and love.  Jobs is a visionary but again also an asshole and this is made abundantly clear over and over.  Because of this he is eventually ousted out as CEO of Apple which affected him deeply.  He is eventually brought back to Apple after the company gets into trouble and it's stock falls sharply.  Being the visionary he is Jobs turns the company around with the reinvention of the cute little colored Macs and then the iPod.

 I truly enjoyed the movie.  I knew the basic history of Apple because I am such an Apple nerd but this got more in depth and gave a better picture of who Steve Jobs was.  I also thought Ashton Kutcher did a really good job playing Jobs.  But I do have a huge bias so take that into account.  Ivy who is still a relative Apple newbie liked it as well.  My rating is 4 pop corn buckets out of 5.