A note to everyone.

I really don’t like watching Televised programming, but a few people have gotten me back into it, but only with 3 shows. These shows are Heroes, Dollhouse and Castle.
I am also a full time student who spends all day Tues and Thurs in class, then has homework to do in between them.
And of course, work. I am only working a temp job at the moment, but that just means that i am still searching for jobs and applying as well.
And it just so happens that all 3 of my TV shows started up just last week. So with 3 hours worth of shows to watch in a week, school, work and job hunting, it will be harder and harder for me to update this blog as often as i have been lately.

I will do my best to at the very minimum get 2 reviews a week, but i am hoping for at least 4. I am sorry that this will not be updated once a day (or at least me trying to) but it is still something i am striving for.

-Bryce DeShazo

Being John Malkovich — 10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120601/

Now, when i first watched this movie (sometime when i was in high school) I loved the ever living hell out of it. It was weird, funny, inventive, and original. When i watch it now, it is no different then than it is now it is still original to this day. There is nothing else like it, and for all i know there will never be anything like it ever again.

To put it short, an out of work puppeteer (when are these ever in work?) tries to find a job, and sees an ad for a company who need a filer with quick hands. He applies and when he goes in for an interview the floor he needs is the 7 1/2 floor. confused he gets on the elevator and realizes that there is no button for the 7.5 floor, and a woman walks him through it. They have to hit the emergency stop button and pry open the door with a crowbar then the floor is literally of midget proportions. you have to crouch just to walk in it.

The movie goes on some more and then John Cusack drops a file behind a filing cabinet on accident, has to move it out of the way to get the file. When he moves it, he finds a door, goes in and gets sucked into the door and then John Cusack bascially becomes John Malkovich for 15 minutes then gets spit out by the New Jersey Turnpike.

Ya, makes sense, right? The movies weirdness and sexual tensions grow from there to a point where Malkovich goes into his own head. This is one of the best scenes in Cinema history. I will never forget it, and every once in a while me and my girlfriend will go off saying what was said in that scene. Fucking great.

I recommend this movie to EVERYONE! no joke, this is one of the best and most memorable movies i have ever seen.

Base Score = 8
+1 for one of the best scenes in Cinema history
+1 for the 7 1/2 floor
+1 for a massive amount of cameos
+1 for having characters that actually seem like they would exist in real life
=12/10

but beings as 10 is the highest score, i can only give this movie a solid 10, i just cannot find any bad things to subtract anything from it. I even tried to think of something that made me go “No, i just didn’t like this part.” or “You know, they could have done that better.” there was no bad things about this movie at all. Its a Masterpiece in my book.

Cinderella — 7

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042332/

Before i get a lot of crap from some of my friends about watching this, let me remind you that i recently got back from a vacation in Florida where we went to Disney World. Lemme tell you when you’re there you have Disney fever and you want to go back through and rewatch every Disney movie ever made. I still have that hankering and i don’t think it will be going away soon.

I honestly did not remember a lot about this Movie. I remembered a bunch of small things, and the basic outline of the story, but it has been a damn long time since i have actually seen it again. And my first thought after finishing it was to check and see how long it was, it seemed rather short. It clocked in at 74 mins, or 1 hour and 14 mins. Its soooo freaking short, yet great. This was a Disney triumph, even with it being so short.

Amazingly this had one of the most evil characters i ever remember seeing in a Disney movie, the step-mother, Lady Tremaine. She was such a fucking bitch, you wanted to kill her. Not to mention that she basically treated Cinderella like a slave, which i guess is why when she gets all magic-ified that it seems better.

My only other beef with the movie was when they were searching for the girl who got away and all they had was a glass slipper to go by. it seems like once Cinderella got out of being locked in the attic (thanks to the bitch) that it seemed like the movie ended abruptly.

All in all i liked it and I forgot how good it was, yet it seemed to have its flaws.

Base Score = 7
+1 for it being a Disney Legend
-1 for being damned short
+1 for one of the best villians ever
-1 for an abrupt ending
= 7/10

The Emperor’s New Groove 2: Kronk’s New Groove — 5

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401398/

So i thought with the first one not being that bad, i decided to try the sequel to The Emperor’s New Groove.

I could have died without seeing this one. Yes I love the hell outta Patrick Warburton, but the way this movie was put together seemed like the team who brainstormed the movie, couldn’t think of a good story, so they took 2 or 3 of Kronks storys, told them in a story like fashion and tied them all together at the end. In a way its like shoving three things in a bag, shaking it up and then trying it in a knot and saying, “See! It works!” when nothing could be further from the truth.

Amazingly enough even though this movie came out 5 years after the original, they still managed to get all of the original voice actors from the first movie. That’s amazing, really it is, that NEVER happens with animated films. ever.

In all honesty when i sat down to watch this movie, and the first segment was over i thought that was the end of the movie. and all i could think was, “Damn! that was a short movie.” i check my watch and its only been like 20-25 mins into the film. If they would have ended it there i would have accepted a short story. But no they pressed on.

But then when the movie actually ended, the total running time was 1:08. That’s an hour and 8 minutes. THAT’S NOT A MOVIE! A movie is at least an hour and a half. this was just a glorified short cartoon.

I also didn’t find this movie nearly as funny as the original, but that’s what you get when you put your story in a bag and shake it up.

All in all in the famous word of the horse from Ren and Stimpy “No sir, i don’t like it.”

Base Score = 4
+1 for Patrick Warburton
+1 for keeping all the original voice actors
-1 being way to damned short
-1 for the story bag
+1 for having more songs then the original
= 5/10

The Emperor’s New Groove — 7

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120917/

First thing off the bat, Everyone they chose for the voice acting in this movie was perfect. Absolutely perfect, i could not think of anyone else to cast better then what they chose.

I was watching this thinking the entire time through the movie that there was something missing. Songs, singing, dance. well lemme fix that, there was one song where a midget Elvis came on (you never see him again before or after that) and there was one dance scene in the beginning, but through the biggest chunk of the movie, including the ending, there was no song and dance. Something Disney is famous for, but they seemed to have just thrown in out the window with this movie.

The other thing that bothered me was that for almost the first 30 minutes it did not feel like a Disney movie. I was a little bit disappointed until the plot actually picked up some. Once the plot took over, and Kuzco and Pacha started to get along is when this movie got to me. This of course is also when Kronk (voiced by Patrick Warburton) started becoming both the comedy relief and awesomeness in one package.

There were several points in this movie that made me laugh hysterically. One of which was when Yzma and Kronk were chasing Kuzco and Pacha. It showed a view of the map, and Kuzco and Pacha were shown using a red dotted line. When it went back to showing Yzma and Kronk, there was a red dotted line on the path. Then it zoomed out and it showed that Yzma and Kronk were leaving a blue dotted line. I laughed my ass off at how it was presented.

All in all i like it, but it was definitely missing some Disney elements. If it was not a Disney movie i would have liked it more, just because it seemed like the songs and dance were missing, it took away from the feel of the movie some. It was slow near the beginning (which it should never be for a kids movie), but the rest of he movie more than made up for it.

Base Score = 6
+1 for Disney
-1 for missing songs and dance
+1 for excellent comedy
+1 for Patrick Warburton
-1 for a slow beginning

=7/10

Donnie Darko — 9, The Directors Cut — 8

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/

This is only the second time i have watched this movie. The first time i watched the regular version and i had no clue what was going on. When the movie ended all i could think was WTF?!?!?!?!?!?! screaming trying to understand what i had just seen for the last 112 minutes. It was so oddly amazing that i wanted to watch it again to figure out more, but i never did.

Then along came the Directors cut, which has an extra 20 minutes of footage and it actually explains a whole bunch of stuff, but the best part about it, is that you still have no idea why he did what he did at the end (I won’t spoil it, its worth not knowing).

All in all this movie is fantastic, I could have gone without seeing his younger sister do a dance thingy in the middle of the movie. That nearly made me gag, just because i hate that kinda thing. But with how much you have to pay attention to this movie just to understand it was amazing. I love movies that leave you wondering what the hell happened. With that in mind, the directors cut was not as good as the original.

I recommend the directors cut to people who don’t like to figure things out on their own and want their hand held though a movie. For those of you with a mind I highly recommend the original.

The scoring on this deviates a little bit from my regular scoring beings as that I am giving the original a whole solid point more because it left me thinking about the movie for a lot longer than the directors cut. That is why there are 2 scores in the title, and down below.

Base Score = 7/10
+1 for having to figure stuff out
-1 for Sparkle Magic (his little sisters crapfest)
+1 for an ending i still cannot understand
+1 for having 2 of the 3 Gyllenhaal’s in a movie. (Jake and Maggie, and yes they are also siblings in real life as well)
=9/10

Directors Cut
-1
= 8/10

.

Sorry about the lack of updates lately, i have been busy with 2 midterms coming up and job hunting, so i haven’t had a lot of time to update daily in the last few days. Hopefully this should be resolved soon and i will be back into writing reviews again.

And hopefully that will start tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,
Bryce DeShazo

Kevin Smith: Sold Out – A Threevening with Kevin Smith — 8

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1083858/

For those of you who don’t know, i love the hell outta Kevin Smith. He is the Director that has dick and fart jokes, and on top of that manages to get more then just petty laughs outta you. I usually end up quoting something of his on a weekly basis.

I love him so much that as soon as I heard that he was doing this in Dallas, i hopped on and bought my tickets to go see him.

Basically the Evening with Kevin Smith go like this. Someone asks him a question, and he goes of for an elaborate amount of time, telling you stories that seem to have nothing to do to relate with question that was asked. Then when you totally are immersed in what he is saying, he somehow answers the question and you have no idea how.

For example, this one started off with a dude asking whether or not, Kevin Smith could see himself making a kids movie. Kevin Smith goes off for an hour (no joke, literally an hour) about his dogs. And somehow in that hour of talking about his dogs he comes right around to answering the question and the guy who asked it is shocked because he realizes his question was answered, but he has no idea how, or why it took over an hour to do so.

All in all i think only 5 questions were answered in 4 hours time. Not kidding, this thing was 4 hours long and it was amazing! but in that time frame Kevin Smith only managed to answer 5 questions. I Love it.

Base Score 7/10
+1 For Kevin Smith
-1 for nearly 45 mins of him talking about his asshole.
+1 4 hours of the insanity that is Kevin Smiths mind.
= 8/10

Dragon Ball – King Piccolo Saga, ep 102-122 — 7

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088509/

So this is where the constipation scenes start. You know the ones where a character “powers up”. They just stand there making funny faces like they are massively constipated trying to push a log out the size of a polar bear. Ya that one.

This is also where the energy battles start, not the ones where 2 Kameamea Waves hit each other and they fight over which one goes through. No, just the fact that Akira Toriyama decided it would be more fun if they shoot lazerz (pewpew!) and get glowing apparations to make themselves look more powerful.

Also this is where the series ran out of human-like enemies (since they main characters all were finalists in the World Martial Arts Tournament) so what did they go with? Aliens, mother fucking aliens. How generic can you get?

So they bring in King Piccolo, a Namek (which I’m not supposed to know at this point) and he causes all types of trouble. Even with the above mentioned ‘problems’ this is also where Dragon Ball fall into the regular pattern that we are used to seeing all throughout DBZ. The pattern of Goku beats the ever living crap out of the previous enemy, or it ends in a draw, and then proceeds to find an enemy that can kill him in one hit. Then throughout the saga Goku trains and gets better. Then when he meets up with the enemy again he wins, but only after seeing his clothes ripped into shreds, and one of his eyes acting lazy.

OK, enough with the bashing, all in all i liked this Saga, this one was not as good as the previous Saga, but that’s mainly because I like tournament sagas more than any other because i like to see how they play out. There’s always intense moments in them, not to mention that you will always know who will end in the final match, but you don’t know how.

Also this Saga surprised me because at the end of the last Saga i thought i knew what the wish would be for, but i was wrong, King Piccolo actually got a wish, and he wished himself younger, which the eternal dragon granted. But after King Piccolo got his wish he destroyed the eternal dragon. I thought it couldn’t be done. I know the dragon somehow comes back though because i have seen DBZ, i also know that Roshi, Krillin, and Chiaotzu all come back, so the dragon has to be alive, or somehow they get other dragon balls and wish the eternal dragon back to life.

Also once King Piccolo was defeated, he let out another egg and spat it at the icy land area, which I’m assuming turns into Piccolo Jr (since the next Saga is called Piccolo Jr Saga) and they have to fight another Namek all over again.

All in all though I did enjoy it and i look forward to finishing off Dragon Ball with the last Saga and then take a break from any Dragon Ball for a while and watch something else, like M*A*S*H or The Twilight Zone, or anything not Dragon Ball. But i must finish the series.

Base Score = 7
-1 for “power ups”
+1 for no wave fights
-1 for knowing that certain characters will become alive again
+1 for being hard to put down after halfway through the Saga.
= 7/10

Once — 1

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/

There are very few movies that i cannot sit through and this is one of them. I even gave it a damn good chance. But i could not watch it. f’ing terrible.

Basically if you want to hear pouty musicians sing and play instruments about how much it sucks to be single, and then try to play a duet to each other in an instrument shop to try and get in each other pants while watching the guy try to fix the girls vacuum cleaner sound like an interesting movie to you, then watch it.

But lemme tell you there is not enough force in the world to get me to sit down and watch this movie. I watched it for a good 40 minutes waiting for something to compel me into actually watch this all the way through and there are NO redeeming quality’s.

The other thing that caught me off guard is that this movie got an 8.1 on IMDB which i usually use to see if a movie is good or not because for me, the IMDB ratings are as solid as they come. I relate to them easily because i usually rate as hard as they do. So i figured that this movie would be good, but damn was IMDB wrong for a change.

Don’t see this movie, don’t waste your time, go watch something else, i would almost say that a Movie Movie (ex, Disaster Movie, Scary Movie, basically any movie with the word Movie in the title in it) is better than this garbage heap.

Base Score = 1
+0 i turned it off before i finished
= 1/10