Mr HIV by I.b. Freeman (Smokkee's first book review!)

Hello WORLD! Here's my first book review and I'm proud to say that it is a very fine first effort from an up & coming writer I'm sure you'll be hearing more about in the near future (in one aspect or another) I.B. Freeman. I'm also happy to mention he's a friend of mine as well! Even if he was my worse enemy, I'd still say BUY THIS BOOK!! and I'll explain why after I give you a brief description of the book. But before THAT, one last brief message: HIV is out there so get tested!
The story is pretty straight forward. The story revolves around Darren Wade, a young African American who, SPOILER ALERT HERE! contracts the HIV virus. Kidding about the spoiler; if you didn't know the main character had "the monster"(what one character descibes the virus as), then obviously you didn't read the title of the book. Giving anything else a way would be considered spoiling, although it can't be that far of a stretch to guess where this is going. Then again, most of the previews I've read give away the main focal point of the story. The backcover does as well. But knowing what direction you're heading and where you actually end up is not necessarily the same thing, now is it? This book does a couple of 360s here & there and then lowers the boom. I'd better stop here before I go into anymore details.
Now I'm about to talk about DETAILS! LOL! Before I do that, I'd like to mention here that I read this book, which is 300+ pages,in 1 day and a few times more after that. Back to the details: I'll admit I had a small problem with the storytelling at first because of details but then I came to realize maybe this was done intentionally. You see, other than Darren and his doting mother are the only two characters you get a complete picture of throughout the entire book, and even they seem a little like composite characters. At first, this did not sit well with me. I mean the characters kept changing on me. At a few points, Darren kept reminding me of different people I've met over the course of my life but it wasn't until Darren started reminding me of a few friends I still have around me now that I started to get the way this book was written. I'm mean this book goes lite on the character's details and heavy on other details, REAL heavy in some cases. In detail, this book covers various illness and sicknesses associated with HIV as well as enough of the concoctions of life-extending drugs that you got a pretty clear idea what names you see should be looking for on them medicine bottles & packages if you go searching through a sex partner's medicine cabinet (SPOILER ALERT: This actually happens in the book, too!). By the time I realized that I DID know most of the characters & they were MEANT to be like composite characters, I was already hooked. I think Mr. Freeman wrote this book with this intention; maybe you are suppose to recognize these characters as friends or maybe even yourself because these people ARE your friends....or even you! That's why I STRONGLY suggest you get this book. A sidenote: this book is graphic but not too dirty, too dirty meaning like maybe a story by Zane. I say children from ages 12 and up should be required to read this book, even with the graphical descriptions; I'm sure in this day and age the school lot talk is probably more advanced than I remember and we had some of the rawest mouths THEN! There are people in this WORLD like Darren out here and people like Darren who don't even know they're like Darren because they haven't gotten tested yet. Sad but true... Hell, I just got tested back in January and I'm seriously thinking about getting tested again today when I go in for my checkup. Actually I was getting another test anyway.
By the way, the ONLY people I don't recommend this book to is a hypochondriac; there would be no joy for them by the end of the book, it's that many details about the aforementioned illnesses.
Everybody else, BUY THIS BOOK! Oh, yeah, AND GET TESTED!!!

NOW PLAYING:Brooklyn's Finest, Shutter Island, The Bounty Hunter

Hello, World!!! If you're planning to go out this week, you're in luck. I just saw 3 great but completely different movies, all of which take tired formulas and flip them into so much more. Let's start with my favorite of the three, Martin Scorsese's Gothic-like thriller SHUTTER ISLAND. This movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall sent to investigate a missing person from a mental hospital on Shutter Island (didn't see that coming did you?). He is assisted on this investigation by Us Marshall Chuck Aule, played by rising actor Mark Ruffalo. From the beginning it seems our two Marshalls are in over their heads, getting no answers and more questions than they care to admit. The head runarounder (yall know I make up words I go along), Dr Cawley is played by that great actor Sir Ben Kingsley in his usually "Stop calling me Ghandi" malice. it worked great in that crime thriller SEXY BEAST but it works better here. This movie starts off in standard enough procedure that you can almost see where it goes until the second act when....no more information will be given on this here. What info I can give up is this movie will demand a second viewing, possibly a third, and no matter how many times you view it, the ending is so up in the air you may not want to figure out what it all means. Leo is Leo of course, but Mark Ruffalo paces the action as well with his loyal sidekick role and you already know how great an actor Sir Ben is. I'm mostly impressed with how Mr Scorsese takes a tire genre and breathes a new life into it to the point that although there is minimum violence in this movie, it still will haunt you. This is DEFINITELY worth a few viewings(4.5)
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Next, I saw BROOKLYN's FINEST. Man, was I going to light into this movie!! It start's off as a rip off of damn near EVERY police flick cliche you can think of, from DEEP COVER to DONNIE BRASCO. Let's see, you got a suicide cop (Richard Gere ala LETHAL WEAPONS Marty Riggs) who just happen to be nearing his retirement (ala LETHAL WEAPONS Roger Murtaugh). You got "Tango" (played by Don Cheadle), an undercover cop who is starting to become to entranced with his undercover side ala DEEP COVER & IN 2 DEEP for that matter. We got a druggie cop ala BAD LIEUTENANT played by Ethan Hawke as crooked as if he was going for the Denzel role from TRAINING DAY. Wesley Snipes gangsta Caz switches between a Nino Brown type to CARLITO's WAY trying to reform type gangsta with a scary ease. You know, I can keep going with the cliches but thankfully I don't have to. Once this movie set up the cliches, it does it's best to break them down and by the end of the movie, the cliches have been smashed and mashed together. What the torn undercover cop does at the end I haven't seen before. Ditto for the retiring cop. This movie does start slow but if you invest the time in it, you'll be rewarded with a new experience at the end. At the end is the main point here; I'm not sure a lot of people will sit through til then. Worth at least one viewing. (3.0)******************************
Lastly, I saw THE BOUNTY HUNTER. World, you gotta know before I continue this review that I NEVER been a fan of "romantic comedies". Even the term "romantic comedy" makes me wanna run out of the theater. I mean think about it; any time a couple falls in love, isn't that romance? Isn't a comedy a movie where you probably laughed at some point during viewing? You know how many movies can fit this criteria? Movies ranging from THE WATERBOY to MENACE II SOCIETY all fit the bill. Anyway, that's just my take. Now moving on to the review, I liked this movie. Surprise. Trust me, nobody is more surprised than ME! Between Gerald Butler and Jennifer Anniston, I think I only liked maybe 4 out of their dozen or so movies (off the top, I'd mention DERAILED, THE GOOD GIRL, 300, & I'm reaching for a forth movie... ROCK N ROLLA, maybe? IDK!) I just KNEW I would hated this movie but I didn't. But Instead of dumbing down the plot, the plot got more interesting to the point it kept me interested. Maybe this is because the plot isn't one of the mindless plots most comedies get stuck with in today's movies. BTW: If one more homeowner falls head over hills for his maid, I'm screaming like a newborn baby. The premise of this movie started simple enough and there isn't much I'll say after this: Gerald Butler is Milo Boyd, THE BOUNTY HUNTER and his target is Nicole Hurley, who just happens to be THE BOUNTY HUNTER's ex wife. That's all I need top tell ya about this movie. Thsi is one of those movies that either you like or you don't. I thought I wouldn't like it and I was pleasantly surprised that I did. It has been one of the few times I was glad I was wrong all year. Still giving it just a 2.5, because I can't stand romantic comedies, whatever that phrase means.***********************************************************************

SHUTTER ISLAND (4.5)
BROOKLYN's FINEST (3.0)
THE BOUNTY HUNTER (2.5)

The Return's delay?

Hello, World!!!! Did you miss me? Yeah? REALLY??! That's too bad for 3 reasons. Reason 1)This was just to let you know that I'm still around this isn't even a full blog update but the next on.... Reason 2)I will be running THREE blogs from here on out, the third and newest will be Smokkee's World Debt-Free. It will chronicle me try to raise my credit score so that I can..... Reason 3)NO!!!! Not yet ready to explain this one...Let's just say miss me now because you won't have a chance to any time soon after these next few months. I TRULY AM WORLD APPROVED NOW!!! Thanks for your approval, World! I will not let you down!

The Hangover plus really funny movies.

I finally got a chance to see "The Hangover" starring Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms after all the hoopla on how funny it is. It's funny that I don't listen to hoopla. That's about all that's funny about watching this sick, poor excuse for a comedy. I'm trying to figure out what the greatest film critic ever, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times, saw in this movie; this is probably the most baffling 3 1/2 stars I ever seen him give out. The plot should have made a funny movie. It revolves around 2 friends, Phil (Bradley Cooper)& Stu (Ed Helms) who plan a bachelor road trip for their soon to be married friend Doug (Justin Bartha). Tagging along for the ride is Doug's soon to be brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis, who probably should have had a bigger role). After arriving and taking an unknown drug thinking it was Ecstasy, the friends lose track of the night and Doug, resulting in back tracking the events of the previous night. While the events themselves, including a run in with former boxing heavyweight champ Mike Tyson and a Asian gangster(or something else maybe)played by Ken Jeong, are funny I find the main characters aren't likable in the least. Maybe Alan would be a better friend for Doug, at least he has a personality. Phil and Stu are just throwbacks to characters who are what they do. Especially Phil, who at the end of the movie, doesn't even get the valuable lesson most fools learn, although I will admit he seemed pretty well ground except for in the squad car. Look, this movie might not have been my cup of tea as far as comedy is concerned but there are a few times I genuinely laughed so who knows what the next person will think. I was trying to figure out if I lost my sense of humor or not because of the lack of times I laughed. Go figure.
I did happen to like how Stu at least learned a little something about himself at the end though. I also liked the Asian gangster scenes. This is ironic because the next movie I saw, "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard" directed by Neal Brennan (best known as Dave Chappelle's "Chappelle's Show" writer and director & "Half Baked" co-writer), features both Helms & Jeong and this movie is hilarious! I don't know how this movie slipped under my radar. It features one of the most Chicagoan-est (OK, I make up words. Sue me!) actor I've ever seen: Jeremy Piven. It's just something about Piven's charisma that just seems so familiar to me; maybe because I see it almost everyday. Chicagoan's have a cockiness about themselves that just can not be described or matched. For example, an extreme excample would be Kanye West, who is almost too Chicago to be real right now. The brashness he displays is real, albeit over the top lately, but genuine nonetheless. Back to "The Goods", this movie is preposterous and Kanye West-level over the top, but I laughed from beginning to end. The story? IDK if it even makes a bit of difference if you knew it or not. It invovles a family owned car lot trying to unload 210 cars over a 3-day holiday weekend. Jeremy Piven and "entourage" (wink,wink) are some Car Salespeople for hire and WTF else do you need to know about this movie? Car Salespeople for hire?!?! Whatever. This movie is as funny as it is preposterous and I have know problem with that. BTW: Will Farrell turns in some of the most hilarious cameos I've seen in a few years. His scenes alone made me laugh more than I did through the whole "Hangover". If you need a laugh, check this movie out. Watch "The Hangover" too if only to see how to mismanage comedic talent.

The Hangover:1.5 The Hangover (R-Rated Single-Disc Edition)

The Goods:Live Hard,Sell Hard:4.0 The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard