5:00 AM

I woke up at about 5 and couldn't fall back to sleep' so I'm just lying on my bed listening to a playlist I made, and the idea to make a blog post popped into my head. I feel like I should be writing in this more than I have been. Anyways, lying here at 5AM, seeing whose online on Facebook, I had a few epiphanies. Not the kind you can really explain though, just those random feelings of truth you sometimes get, almost as if something just "clicked" in your brain.
Well, back to trying to sleep.

A.B PLAYLIST
Spotify is great

Home

After about a month of being away, I'm finally back home. As much as I hate on Edgemont and how its the most boring town on earth, its kinda nice to be back.

Karma

Alright so today was a pretty clear example of Karma in my opinion. I went swimming at the beach in the morning (was greeted by a group of drunken college kids running towards the ocean with a huge raft) and afterwards got on a boat that we had rented. Pretty chill day, water ski'd a little bit, but mostly just sat down on a chair and watched stuff fly by. I started getting hungry, however, and decided it would be a good idea to stop and get a hot dog.
Now, keep in mind that I recently developed somewhat of a hot dog obsession. It's what happens when you don't eat any hot dogs for the first 15 years of your life and then have your first one in NYC. So now you could say I really really like them. Anyways, we stopped, I got out, went and got myself two hot dogs, sat down in the boat, warm sun shining on the delicious food in front of me. I dug my teeth into the hot dog and... the wire of my braces came loose. I shouted fuck, tried to eat more of the hot dog, the wire poked into the sides of my mouth, so I couldn't eat it. I had to go back to the house, clip off the wire, and then eat two  cold (but still delicious) hot dogs.  I consider this Karma's way of showing me how much of a bitch it can be.

Picture I took a few weeks back at the top of Rockefeller Center

Ambitions

After reading several success stories on the internet, I was inspired. I decided that I would start writing a blog again, get a ton of views, set up an adsense account, and make some serious dough. Unfourtanetly, I was born a little too late so I'm not able to get an adsense account, and instead will have to rely on peoples innate kindness and charitable behavior.
In other words, I probably won't make much money off this, but it could be a fun pass-time.
Please, if you enjoy reading this, comment or message me or something. Feedback is great.

All hope was (almost) lost..

I just spent the past thirty minutes trying to figure out how to set up an Adsense account, but realized that I would need to give my social security number and tax information in order to do so.
Well, fuck that.
Instead, I've implemented that handy little donation button. Even though this blog doesn't even have more than 5 followers and only 179 page hits to date, maybe, just maybe, one day it will have a large amount of viewers, some of which will donate.
Or not. One can dream though. Right?
Seriously though, if you read/are going to read stuff on here, consider donating.
Thanks

New Theme

Alright, so I just changed the template and background of the blog (anyone reading this has probably already noticed that) to reflect what kind of blog this is a little bit better. I mean I like looking at trees and grass as much as the next guy but I think it's pretty irrelevant to what I'll be talking about.

Dropped Projects

I can't tell you how many times I've started something, feeling that it would work and I would never abandon it, and then abandoned it within a week. I went through this stage where I would get a great idea for a novel, start writing, reach about 10 pages, read it and decided it was absolute crap, and then trashed it. Also happens with blogs. This blog in particular, used to be called "The Loser: Movie Reviews", as if making fun of myself would help me get more views (it can in some cases: most of Ray William Johnson's jokes are him making fun of his height).  I wrote about 20 reviews (give or take) and then just stopped because I decided it was pointless.
However, when I was in the 4th grade, me and a friend started a blog called "The Frog Blog", named after my love of frogs at the time. It actually has about 27,000 views to date, and we had a lot of fun working on it. I don't want to say that this is a re-creation of that, but I realized how fun making a blog can be.
I'm really going to make an effort to not drop this project like so many others.

Facebook

Why is Facebook so addicting?

Well, speaking in scientific terms, it's because you literally become addicted to it. You know when you log on after a while and see you have 8 notifications, then you check them and its things like "John Smith liked your photo", and you get that "good" feeling. Yeah. That's your brain releasing dopamine, the "reward" chemical. It's the same chemical that gets released when you listen to a good song, do well on a test, or snort cocaine.
I personally don't know why I use Facebook. I'd much rather talk to people in real life, and it's full of so many stupid people. Jesus Christ, just look at some of the pictures being shared.  Really makes you doubt the future of this generation. Speaking of Jesus, I don't know what it is but a really popular fad on Facebook seems to be these wife-beater wearing guido high school dropouts sharing photos saying how great god is and shit. Then all the stupid people on Facebook like and share that crap, just giving them exactly what they want: more likes. Now some people may ask "What's wrong with that?". Well there's nothing wrong with liking a picture but when thousands of people are all sharing some stupid picture like "Share for Jesus" "Ignore for Devil", and they actually believe that they are somehow getting one step closer to heaven by doing that, it's a pretty depressing indicator of how low their intelligence is.

My time on Facebook consists of me scrolling down and just observing the kind of stuff people post and write. It used to be kinda fun, but now it's just stupid picture after stupid picture.
One other thing: inside joke wall posts. I'm guilty of this as well, but it really is only done for attention.  I mean think about how much easier it would be just to message the person. A wall post is a way of showing people "I have an inside joke which means I have good friends and I am likable".  While that's kind of extreme, and the person wallposting probably isn't actively thinking that, it;s the psychology behind it.

Censorship of Ideas

When it comes to writing, one of the most helpful pieces of advice I ever received was to not censor the thoughts in your head. Couldn't be more true. In all my old blogs I would try to give my blog some sort of personality by writing using a specific style, when in reality that just made it seem like I was trying to hard. I want this blog to be pure unadulterated thought-vomit, hopefully the kind of thought-vomit that people are interested in.

I have renamed this blog "Free Time" because anyone who is reading this blog or writing on it has exactly that: "Free Time".

What makes a film boring?

I guess what I consider to make a film 'boring' is bad writing. Ever see one of those crappy action movies that comes out in the middle of the year and you only see it because there's nothing else to do? The kind of movies that take themselves way too seriously. Yeah, those usually end up being pretty bad.  Like that movie Safe House. Who the fuck is going to remember that in thirty years?  I mean the movie wasn't terrible by any means but it suffered from what I like to call taking-your-movie-too-seriously.  No one is going to find your movie interesting when its filled with suits talking in unintelligible CIA jargon. People connect with a movie when there's a character they can relate to.   Anyways,  I recently saw The Bourne Legacy with a few friends, and none of them had any idea what the story was about. I only had a vague idea of the story because I had read the Wikipedia synopsis of the first few Robert Ludlum novels, and new about Treadstone and whatnot. It also helped that I saw the previous movies. (Off topic: Pillars by Sunny Day Real Estate is a great song.) The movie had some pretty good action scenes I guess, but the chase scene at the end had some pretty shitty camerawork. Back to the main point of this post, what made The Bourne Legacy boring in some parts was the fact that a lot of the time you didn't know what the hell they were talking about. When the viewer is lost in the conversation, they react how they would in a real life situation. If you were with a group of people and they started talking about something you have no interest in, naturally you are going to either leave that group, or become distracted by something else because you don't care about the conversation at hand. The film equivalent of that is that the audience stops paying attention: they look at their watch, think about what they're going to do after the movie, or leave to get a snack.

If I ever write films when I'm older, one of the things I would focus on is making sure the audience can connect to the script.

Update to This Blog

When I first made this blog, I made it as a strictly movie-review only blog. I've decided that there's a lot more stuff I want to do then just review movies on this blog, so this is going to become a more traditional blog. I'll just talk about stuff I care about and hopefully someone else finds it interesting.

Easy-A: Loser Review

EASY A: LOSER REVIEW

Starring Emma Stone (Zombieland), this is a film about a girl in high school who starts pretending to have sex with people for cash. Ugly rumors spread around school about her, and she easily dismisses them as false because she did not actually have sex with anyone. However, she eventually becomes bothered and hurt by all the rumors, and the way she solves her problems in the movies is done pretty well. I really gave the bare minimum of a description for the plot. I really enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought it would, and it is definetly worth your money.

Emma Stone plays a likeable character named Olive who you are rooting for the entire movie, and while she is a cool character, you like her more mostly because her opposition are complete and utter assholes. The story is done in a really cool way. It starts off as "I'll only help you because you are my friend and only one time" thing but she soon starts faking sex/make outs for cash. Boys will give her an 100 dollar amazon gift card if she tells people they made out. At first she likes the attention, because before, no one ever paid attention to her, so just the fact that people know she exists makes her happy. However, some people figure out ways to make her miserable.

While this movie is not hilarious, it does have some great diolauge and a few good jokes, but it is funny in more in a clever way not in a laugh out loud funny way, yet there are some jokes that make you laugh out loud. The pacing for the movie is done well, and it is split into 4 parts. The whole movie is being narrated by Olive, and is supposed to be like a document of everything thats happened by her in her web video.

Funny and likeable characters make this movie. None of them are copy-paste characters, and a great script helps everything.

A really good film that most teenagers will like a lot and adults will appreciate.

I give it a 9.5 out of 10.

SEE IT!

SUPPORT GOOD MOVIES

-THE LOSER

Predators: Review by The Loser

PREDATORS: REVIEW

Summary: Predators is a 2010 action movie directed by Nimrod Antal. It is the 4th movie he has directed. I won't really explain the plot, only because if you are seeing this movie it is most likely because you have seen the original 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Basically a bunch of people all awake in an unknown jungle and are being hunted by something.

Pros: The cast works suprisingly better than I thought. Of course they can't replace Arnold from the first film, but Adrien Brody (The Pianist, King Kong) is great as the leading jar-headed character and I was really pleased with his performance in this film. Topher Grace (Spiderman 3) starts off likable, but soon becomes pretty annoying and his character seems like it has no other use other than to deliver useless filler dialogue. 

The action in this movie, however, is great! It's definetly the best part of the movie, and everything you would expect from the first movie is here. Remeber that scene in the first film where they fire ammunition blindly into the forest for a good 10 minutes? While not quite as entertaining or long, that scene is here. Not to mention that the Predator aliens look awesome with modern special effects, and I am REALLY happy that the predators in this movie are actually people in costumes and not crappy CGI. Their movements look as organic as ever, and they haven't made any stupid changes to the Predator's looks. The dialouge, while nothing special, is decent enough for this type of film. The film generally moves along at a good pace, and you won't get bored.  Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) also makes an appearnce, though he doesn't have that much screen time, and has that stupid- really deep to the point where you can't understand him- voice that seems to be all the rage.

Cons: Though some people might disagree with me, I thought this movie was surprisingly tame when it came to blood and gore. Sure, the predator ripped out a guy's spine (once) and stabbed people in the back plenty of times, but it just didn't seem as gory as the first one. For some people, this might be a good thing, but for me, the movie didn't really seem like a Predator movie. I guess I liked it better when all the blood was practical effects and not CGI. Other than that it didn't really feel like a Predator movie, I can't find any major flaws with this.

Bottom Line: Cool action, good cast,  nice to see the predators back in 2010.  A nice summer action flick that will leave you satisfied, but mabye a little dissapointed.

Is it funny?  Yea, and none of the jokes really fall flat. 

Watch in theaters or at home?  I would say at home, as the movie isn't in (good) 3D or anything.

OVERALL RATING: 8/10

Grindhouse: Review by The Loser

GRINDHOUSE
Before I begin the review, I would just like to clarify to those not farmilliar with Grindhouse, that it is 2 movies in 1. See, the movie is basically pretending to be an exploitation film shown in "Grindhouse" theaters during the 70's. These theaters basically were the lower class theaters that often showed cheap gory films or just downright porn. As with modern American movies, sex is considered worse than violence, so don't expect these movies to be fap-tastic or anything. Anyways, these movies were double features, which meant you got 2 movies for the price of one. As you can see above, the two movies in Grindhouse are Planet Terror, and  Death Proof.


This Review will consist of me just sharing my thoughts about both movies, instead of a formal template for the review.


PLANET TERROR:
The plot of this movie consists of some military bio-weapon gone wrong when the poisonous gas it uses is released into the air and starts mutating everyone. A group of survivors are humanities only hope.In the first ten minutes you see a man's testicles cut off and stepped on. This movie isn't for the faint of heart. Gorier than pretty much every movie I've ever seen (I might be wrong, and I have yet to see Dead-Alive) this movie really amps up the shock value and gore factor found in other films. Now, when I first saw the poster and trailer for this, I thought it looked really dumb. I remember that the lady with the gun as her leg made me think the movie was dumb, and that it would be terrible. I was really, really wrong. The trailers don't do this movie justice at all, because obviously they can't show everything that goes on in the movie.  Anyways, I really enjoyed this movie. Sure, the story doesn't make much sense, and the actors spew some REALLY dumb lines later (this is on purpose however), and some people might be turned off by the film-scratch effect. People, it's supposed to be like this! There is a reason the movie looks really low budget, it's because (as I explained at the beginning) it is almost-spoofing grindhouse films. I actually liked the whole look, and thought it brought some authenticity to the movie. This is a very, very minor nitpick, but i was wondering the whole movie why they had smartphones in this movie. To me it kind of clashed with the whole "70's movie" vibe but I didn't really mind it that much and it didn't subtract from the overall experience. I pretty much loved everything else in the movie though, and Rose McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez are AWESOME!!! Especially Rose McGowan. All in all, pure brutal gory action fun that is always entertaing and capapble of multiple re-watches.

DEATH PROOF
This is definitely a slower film, however, I like it just as much, maybe even better, than Planet Terror.  The story consists of an old, lone man, known as Stuntman Mike (excellently played by Kurt Russel.) He is a serial killer who takes teenage girls, charms them into taking a ride with him, and then brutally kills them in his "Death Proof" car. I won't spoil the rest, but basically, he messes with the wrong girls. Now, because this film's first action scene is about, like 20 or 30 minutes into the movie, some people may be turned off by all the chatter between the teenage girls. I myself, found the things they talked about somewhat funny, and also entertaining. But beware, people who don't like a lot of talking, this may be annoying for you. Even after the first action scene, there is still lots of talking to be had. Like I said before though, I liked it, and it really isn't that bad because Stuntman Mike (the bad guy) is in these scenes, and some of the things he says/does are really creepy. However, a good hour and a half into the movie (give or take) the real action starts. Oh my god, I really think this is my favorite car chase in any movie I've ever seen. Well, there really are two car chases, both just as gripping and intense. I'll just finish up by saying the ending is so awesome yet brutal at the same time, that it will make you wish the movie was longer.

All in all both these movies show off the director's key filming style's, and the fake trailers inbetween the two movies are awesome (you will see what I mean once you watch the film)

I give Grindhouse a 10/10

Planet Terror a 9.5/10
Death Proof a 9.8/10

Happy Summer
-The Loser

The First Three Saw Movies

THE FIRST THREE SAW MOVIES

Note: I know The Fail did a review on the first one

SAW 1: This is my favorite out of the first three. It didn't overdo it with the gore, while it is still bloody. But it is bloody in a more economical way than the others. The blood is only here for the story, not just for shock effect. I liked the story the most, and just when you think everything is solved, the movie throws a curveball at you. Awesome ending and cool characters. I also like the music.

SAW 2: While decent,  it definetly is not as good as the first one. It starts right off with one of Jigsaw's death traps, which seems somewhat primitive. If you're really in the mood for gore, just watch the trap scenes in this one online (they aren't even that good) and read the story online. However, if you want more than gore, the movie is still worth a watch, but the ending isin't very good, and didn't make much sense too me.

SAW 3: Better than the second, worse than the first. While it definitely amps up the gore factor, and the story is pretty good, I just did not like it as much as the first one. Pretty close to it though. Awesome ending also.  Definitely the most gruesome of the three.

SCORES


SAW: 9.5
SAW II: 8.0
SAW III: 8.7

The Karate Kid: Review by The Loser

THE KARATE KID
REVIEW BY THE LOSER




PLOT: 12 year old Dre (played by Jaden Smith) is a kid from Detroit who moves to China because of his mom's work. When he arrives, he receives massive culture shock and is bullied from a group of kids in school. He feels like he does not belong and says he hates living in China. One day, he gets back at the bullies by showering them with dirty water. They proceed to chase him through the streets and slums until they finally corner him. Finally, when Dre loses all hope, his apartment's maintenance man, Mr.Han, shows up and easily incapacitates all of the bullies. Dumbfounded that the maintenance worker is also a Kung-Fu master, Dre starts to train with the man for a Kung-Fu tournament coming up.


PROS: In the way this movie was made, I can't imagine anyone else playing Dre other than Jaden Smith. His cocky, conceited attitude is perfect for the role. I also liked how this movie was not an exact remake of the first film. Sure, the basic story template remains pretty much the same, but all the little details are different. Instead of taking place in the U.S, The Karate Kid was filmed completely in China, which I thought was great considering that a lot of movies that take place in other countries usually means being filmed in a random city in the U.S. 
The characters for the most part are likeable, though I felt that Dre's mom (Taraji P. Henson) has a little too much screentime for her own good. Jackie Chan is excellently cast as Mr. Han, and his talent shows. Dre's love interest Mei Ying, is likeable, albeit 1 dimensional. But of course, people see a movie called The Karate Kid for the fight scenes, not the characters or romances.  Those people will be pleased. Very pleased. Not only are the fight scenes in this extremely entertaining; you actually get the feeling that it is a real competition and you are rooting for someone. The sounds of punches and kicks are appropriately brutal, and the film includes some notable things form the original.


CONS: Parents bringing little kids to see this BE WARNED. The movie is surprisingly violent, especially in scenes where Dre is being punched in the gut by the bully. Children may be frightened. Other than that,  I can't think of any real bad things about the movie. 


BOTTOM LINE: A solid film from director  Harald Zwart. After seeing his other movies such as Agent Cody Banks and The Pink Panther 2, this movie seemed like it was from a completely different director. Fun movie that I recommend for everyone.


Is It Funny? Somewhat, though don't expect a laugh riot
Does it live up to the hype? Yes
Wait for DVD? No, watch it in theaters
OVERALL RATING: 9/10

SAW

this movie is about to guys that wake up in a room, completely confused how they got there. they each have no idea whats going on. they are both chained to poles across the room from eachother, larry, is much smarter then the other, adam. larry finds a tape in his pocket that tells him that if he doesn't kill adam by 6 o'clock they will both die. larry has a wife and a daughter. throughout the movie it shows flashbacks and explanations of how they got there. it also explains who jigsaw is, who is "supposedly" the man who has them locked up. they also find things in the room throughout the movie, such as ways to kill adam or things reveiling them selves to the other person, like photographs. the movie is very interesting

when i first heard about this movie, i thought it was just a load of blood and gore, with no real story. when i saw the movie, today, i was blown away at its amazing plot and excellent way of delivering information about the characters .although it had a lot of blood and gore in it it was very well made. i have all the sequels lined up on my queue for netflix. this is definetly a must- see movie.

rewatch value- 8.6

overall grade- 9.4

Toy Story 3 Review by The Loser

TOY STORY 3

Before I go into review, I just wanted to let out a quick comment.
You Will Enjoy This Movie Much More If You See The Prequels

Plot: The plot revolves around the toy's including Woody, Buzz, and the others. They desperatly try every day to get the attention of the kid who owns them, Andy. However, Andy does not play with them like he used to. He is 17 now and going off to college. Andy's mom walks into his room and tells him to sort out all his things. One group of things will go in the trash, the other group will go in the attic, and the other group will go with Andy to college. Andy gets put into the group that will go with Andy to college, and the other toys will go in the attic. However, Andy's mom thinks that Andy wants to throw away the other toy's so she puts the bag full of the toys at the curb for the garbage truck to pick up. Andy tries to get them out of the garbage bag, but the toys had already escaped and were in the trunk of the mom's car. Andy goes to the trunk and talks to them about how Andy didn't throw them away and the bags got mixed up, but the toys are still mad. Suddenly, the trunk closes and the mom takes all the toys to a daycare to donate them. The toys are the introduced to the other toys in the daycare, such as a giant bear who seems to be the leader and all his followers. At first the bear seems nice, but they later see his evil side. The rest of the movie revolves around the toys trying to get back home and escape from the daycare, where toddlers bite and chew on the toys.

PROS: Not one of those kid's movies full of burp jokes that cease to be funny once you grow a brain cell. Some of the humor in this movie is actually genuinely funny. Jokes never fall flat, (the theater I was in was full of laughing people, mostly adults) and the writing here is pretty good. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen deliver perfectly as their roles as Woody and Buzz Lightyear. One thing I have to say I really liked about this movie is that it is a good film for people of all ages. Parents going to see this with their children groaning because they think it will be another Shrek 3 will be proven wrong. For me, this movie had a great nostalgic factor (Toy Story and Toy Story 2  were among my favorite films when I was little). Scenes such as the one where Woody shows Andy's name on his shoe, just for some reason tapped my memory. Lots of little things like this just made the movie very enjoyable for me. Oh also I do not know how to stress this enough but I am so happy this movie has no burp/fart jokes.... those aren't funny in the least bit. Also, this movie seems to know how not to take jokes too far. For example, one of the jokes is that Buzz gets messed up and starts acting like an elegant Spanish speaking womanizer. The joke is done just enough that it is still funny, while not overdoing it. One last thing. This movie, actually can become pretty emotionally heavy, especially towards the end. If you cry during movies, you will during this one.

Cons: Hardly any cons. If I could nitpick one thing, it's that this movie just didn't seem to have that thing to it that the prequels did. That's probably only because I saw those when I was very little so they will always be special to me. Oh, and the scene at the landfill in this movie was a little, weird for a kids movie. ESPECIALLY when they are near the incinerator. I mean, it just seems silly quite frankly. I hated the scene with the incinerator. It was all dramatic and stuff and not just that but for little kids was probaly scary. I didn't like it at all. The movie took itself too seriously at this part.

BOTTOM LINE: A great film that will stay with you for a long time. People who have seen the first couple movies will enjoy this one a lot more. Watch it, definetly. It is proof that a movie does not need to have violence or blood or sex in it to be enjoyable.

Did it live up to the hype? Yes
Is it funny? Yes
OVERALL RATING: 10/10