Lock, Stock, and Two-handed Weapons at the Library

I took this picture last week, while doing my normal walk-around.  I'm going to have to pull a Dwight Schrute and start hiding random weapons in the library.  Maybe a nice foam shield in the reference section, a Nerf gun behind the info desk, or maybe keep a loaded Supersoaker in my cubicle.

On a related note, if you like documentaries, I would suggest watching 'Darkon' which is about LARP-ing.  I'm not into LARP, but this documentary was well-done and kept my interest.  I had to watch 'Role Models' afterwards because who can say "no" to the king, Ken Jeong.

Kiss the Ring

Celeste and Jesse Forever: a good movie that probably isn't playing at a theater near you...

I finally got my library friends together to watch "Celeste and Jesse Forever." It opened on August 5th, but only started showing at a local theater last week.   I was also a little apprehensive recommending this movie, because the previous movie we watched, "Ruby Sparks," also labelled as a "romantic-comedy" (a point I could argue about), was a let-down, we all agreed and should have been skipped. I should have followed my instinct, when I saw the trailers, it didn't click with me.  It didn't seem interesting at all, but I did give it a chance and $12.50 ಠ_ಠ

Needless to say I went in the theater with low expectations, I mean this only opened on 4 screens.  And it's not like this is a home-brewed movie with unrecognizable names: Rashida Jones (I LOVE HER), Andy Samberg, Elijah Wood, Emma Roberts.  But I had to send out a YouTube link of the trailer because most of my friends never heard of it.

We were all laughing within the first 5 minutes and thankfully it didn't fall off from there unlike other movies: when I started watching "Friends with Kids," I kept thinking to myself, "Why the hell didn't anyone tell me how funny this movie is/was!?!"  After about 30 minutes I realized why, it fell flat on its face and ultimately let me down.  Rashida and Andy play their parts well --- the funny and serious.

You know how these romantic-comedies always have their funny and bright moments but inevitably end up in that dark and serious place, some movies take a deep nosedive and some stay there too long and can never dig themselves out.  "Celeste and Jesse Forever" has its serious moments in spurts and it quickly comes back to normal so you don't end up feeling all bummed out for the characters and what they're going through.  Let me be honest, some of the humor is immature and crude, but you don't feel like it's out of character, so it's natural.  Hell, the older lady sitting in front of me with her adult son was laughing the loudest.

Walking out of the theater we all turned to each and unanimously agreed that it was a good movie.  Which was such a relief for me, because if it was another crap-fest, I would have been ridiculed until the next movie outing.  Later in the day, I ended up watching "The Five-Year Engagement," boy, am I glad that I didn't recommend watching that movie...

Ruby Sparks Minus the Spark... "This is not a love story."

Last night after work, I met up with my library friends to watch "Ruby Sparks."  To be honest, I only ended up watching it because of peer pressure.  The trailers for it did not catch my interest at all.

Looking at all of the reviews popping up, a lot of them mentioned "500 Days of Summer," a movie I really enjoyed.  So I figured, what the hell, you never know, I might actually enjoy it.  Yeah, whoever mentions the two films in the same regard should never be trusted when it comes to movie reviews or anything at all.

I was so disappointed with the movie, that I had to watch "500 Days of Summer" today.  I can see why people could mention the two.  Ruby is a wannabe of Zooey's character Summer.  They share so many similar physical qualities.  I liked Ruby a lot more than Paul Dano's main character, Calvin.  I wanted to reach out and punch Calvin through the screen so many times.  Within the first few minutes into the movie, I knew I hated him.  He doesn't come off as a likeable guy, something you kind of need in a so-called "romantic" movie.  Other small similarities: both main characters drive an old BMW and the use of French music in the soundtrack.

My second regret of last night, after wasting money on this movie, was not having a third Long Island Ice Tea before watching it.

Project-X: Superbad's younger sibling that tries too hard to impress everyone

The premise seemed interesting enough for a comedy: crazy high school party all shown from a first person view.
They seemed like they wanted to produce a carbon-copy of 'Superbad' even down to the main characters.  Don't get me wrong, that is not a bad thing at all, I think that 'Superbad' is a great comedy, but unfortunately Project-Bad tries too hard to be it's own movie.

Project-Bad

SRSLY... 3 friends: 1 extremely nerdy guy, 1 annoying guy who desperately wants to be down with the in-crowd, and 1 good guy who has a female admirer but is too awkward/shy to do anything.

With 'Superbad' you felt like you actually went to school with someone like them, they came off as real, affable in the sense that you could accept them for their quirkiness and immaturity.  In 'Project X' you just end up hating these guys, especially the guy who plays Costa aka wanna-be Jonah Hill.  

Both are vulgar, with 'Superbad' the humor comes off as natural for teenagers to talk and act that way, compared to 'Project-X' you could actually call it tastefully done.  Project-Bad uses vulgarity to get a rise and shock in the hope that the eye-rolling includes some laughs.  Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, well maybe those who liked '50 Shades' because obviously those people love garbage.

The Great Gatsby the movie, now with 100% more autotune!