The Strange Review: The Gift

Good Gravy was this a damn good movie! I happened on this little gem when I caught the trailer when trying to watch a video on Youtube and two things stuck out to me: 1) Jason Bateman was FINALLY in a serious drama and I've ALWAYS said Jason Bateman would be AWESOME in a serious drama (Newsflash, he kicks ALL kinds of ass in this) and 2) From what I gleamed from the trailer this was gonna be one of those REAL thrillers, a real slow burn that when it gets there IT F*CKIN' GETS THERE! Well, this movie F*CKIN' GETS THERE and it gets there HARD! Quick summary, Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall plays Simon & Robyn Callum, a couple who just moved to Los Angeles to start over and because of Simon's new job. While out buying stuff for the house, Simon runs into Gordon a.k.a Gordo played by the film's writer and director Joel Edgerton.

Upon meeting Gordo, Simon has no clue who he is, but starts to remember, with some coaxing that Gordo is someone Simon knew back in high school. Gordo is a kind of social awkward guy and he starts bringing gifts over to Simon's house and showing up uninvited. After awhile, it becomes clear that there's more to the story than just a few gifts. That's ALL I can say without spoiling anything! Honestly, this is the kind of movie I adore! Once again another CHARACTER driven story that doesn't require big budgets and CGI, NOPE, just great characters and a good story. Everyone brings their A Game here and it shows.  Jason Bateman, who normally plays the social awkward guy is AMAZING here. This whole movie is GREAT from start to finish. Honestly, if you like slow burning thrillers that don't turn into sh*t by the 3rd act, you'll LOVE this. Can't recommend it enough! Okay, on to some spoilers!

The Strange Review: Coherence

The term "indie movie" gets thrown around a lot, but no one can quite explain what exactly constitutes an "indie movie". After all, many a movie with small budgets and unknown actors manage to break into the mainstream: "The Blair Witch Project", "Paranormal Activity", "The Babadook", "It Follows" the list goes on and on, and while those films may have gotten where they are by excellent word of mouth, a realistic mystique or an endorsement from an established Hollywood mucky-muck, this film has none of that going for it. You'd think that'd hurt it but "Coherence", at least to me captures the full essence of what people mean when they say "indie movie". No, it's not dealing with themes of sexuality, no it's not a coming of age story like so many indie movies are and no, it's not a horror movie.

"Coherence" is a down-to-earth sci-fi/mystery film that manages to do SO much with so VERY little. The driving force of this movie isn't action sequences or well known actors (bare in mind the only "well known" actor in this film is Nicholas Brendon, and if you didn't have to Google him, then understand that you're in the minority) the driving force of this film is the characters. I came across "Coherence" completely by accident on IMDB of all places. I can't exactly explain how I came across it, but I did and just from a brief synopsis of the plot "Friends at a dinner party endure strange occurrences during a meteor shower", I knew I had to learn more. I went into this movie as cold as I possibly could and enjoyed every minute it. If you haven't seen "Coherence" I REALLY suggest you check it out, it's slow burning but it's all for a reason and you won't be disappointed if you're looking for a good sci-fi/mystery that doesn't get bogged down in science jargon that it can't tell a good story. To say more would be to give spoilers so I won't, go see "Coherence" now! After the break I WILL be talking spoilers!

STRANGE LOG: 9-12-2015

Yeah it's been a minute, so allow me to enlighten you all on what's been going on here lately and what's been up. So as many of you may or may not know, I've moved from Michigan to Washington (the state, not D.C.). I've finally managed to get a job and the summer was BRUTAL for me as I was working full-time, but now that the school year has begun I'm back to working part-time and while I still get home late, I'm not SUPER tired and frustrated. Anyways, enough about me, let's dive into the updates.

Pretty Little Liars S06E10 "Game Over, Charles" Review

Here we go, here we go...the moment we've all been waiting for, the moment I. Marlene King has advertised, "The 100% No Fooling, Undeniable REVEAL OF "A" a.k.a Charles DiLaurentis. So today is July. 17th and at the moment I'm writing this we're 3 episodes away from this episode but I'm writing my thoughts now so that you all can see the train of thought I have going into this. Whether or not we want to believe Shana as the "A" of Seasons Three & Four is another story completely (which will never make much sense, unless Charles befriended Shana, but even then,,,) but Charles has been "A" for Season Five & Six and has managed to capture The Liars and hold them for 3 weeks in a bunker. Needless to say Charles is the most accomplished "A".

This has been advertised as "the summer of answers" and we're coming up on a MAJOR doozie, the most important questions of the series, Who and Why? And the 2nd most important question, "Will any of this make sense?" I'm highly dubious on that question. Is Charles a character we've known and have seen before or is he a completely new character that the writers will have to introduce? I can't think of an episode in this series that has been more important than this one, but with this revelation comes a different series of questions, just what will Season 7 look like? Will The Liars befriend Charles as they did Mona or will someone take "The Game" from Charles? What does this all mean and I hope by the end of this review I'll have some idea of how some of those questions will be answered. And with all that out of the way, let's dive into "Game Over, Charles"...

The Strange Review: It Follows

So a few weeks ago, my wife and I had the pleasure to sit down and watch the much ballyhooed new cult classic "It Follows". I've heard Chris Stuckman and Jeremy Jahns review this film and they both claimed that despite not being scared, they enjoyed it. There's something to be said when a reviewers declare a movie to be the "Scariest film ever!" and other hyperbolic things like that. I'm gonna come right out and say it, much like "The Babadook", "It Follows" didn't scare me AT ALL, not in the slightest bit. That's not me being macho or putting on a facade, the film just wasn't scary and declaring this to be a scary movie in my humble opinion is mismarketing, it's actually a Thriller.

For those of you who don't know, "It Follows" tells the story of Jamie (or Jay, as she's called in the film) who is cursed to be followed by "It". "It" can take the shape of anyone and will do anything It needs to get close to It's victims. "It Follows" Jay as she tries to escape this curse.

This paragraph will be no spoiler as there is no way to talk about the film in depth without spoiling it. "It Follows" gets some brownie points for being filmed in my home town of Detroit, Michigan and actually making a reference to it in the film, but ultimately, it's not scary and my overall thoughts on the film is "It's not bad." and that's not entirely good. Saying "It's not bad." for me is like going to a restaurant, ordering a turkey sandwich and getting ham sandwich instead; Sure, the ham sandwich will do the same thing as the turkey sandwich, but it ain't what you ordered. This isn't to be entirely negative either, parts of the film worked, just the parts that REALLY needed to work unfortunately didn't. So if you're interested in an interesting movie that won't exactly scare you but entertain you for awhile, "It Follows" is entertaining, but nothing else really. And now for the REAL meat and potatoes...

Pretty Little Liars S06E09 "Last Dance" Review

The penultimate episode before all is revealed and we find The Liars barred from prom and breadcrumbs laid down for the 2nd half of this season which will leap 5 years after the reveal of "A" which will be an episode titled "Of Late I Think Of Rosewood". Not a lot happened in this episode but enough happened to warrant a review. So let's dive in.

STRANGE LOG:7-31-2015

So before I head off to work I figured now would be a good time to sit down and talk to ya'll for awhile so I can explain what's coming down the pike for me, the blog, my Youtube channel and what's been going on. Check it out after the break.