K is For Kidnapped (A #Bizzee Pick) (#AtoZChallenge)

Hello, WORLD!! Smokkee here. And I'm adding a movie to my Bizzee Picks list today! I can't think of the last time I did that but whatever. We're adding one now.

The movie I'm adding to my list today is Secuestrados (2010, released with English subtitles as Kidnapped even though secuestrados roughly translates into abducted), a Spanish movie about a family terrorized by a group of three men who break into the home of a married couple and hold them as well as their daughter and her boyfriend, who came over to pick up the teenager for a date of some sorts, hostage. The criminal's plan is to take the father to various ATMs around their city and get the maximum amount of money that each of the ATMs allow out.  One of the bad guys accompanies the papa while the other two stays at home with the hostages, ready to shoot said hostages if a phone call from papa's kidnapper says papa deviated from the plan in any way.

That's all the plot info I'm gonna give you but I will add a few more tidbits as usual. I don't know what it is with me and films that end on the bleakest notes possible. If you've seen Funny Games, either the American version or the original, you know exactly what I mean by bleak. Funny Games had one of the bleakest endings I've ever ran across. Well, this movie sees that bleakness and raises it up a notch. Even with this somewhat mild spoiler, you have no idea where this movie goes. Another movie this puts me in the mind of is one of the best French horror movies I've ever seen, Inside because most of the action takes place within the house. Mostly though, this movie's atmosphere and tenseness throughout the film reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. A lot of stuff doesn't happen early on in the film but you'll feel like something is ABOUT to happen throughout the movie. You know violence is coming. You're just not gonna be ready for it when it arrives.

 Let me know how you enjoyed (or hated) this movie if you see it based on my thumbs up and just in case my thumbs up ain't enough, check out this trailer below.

Later, WORLD.

Smokkee Singleton

 

J is for Just Binge! (#AtoZChallenge)

Hello, WORLD!! Smokkee here. Yeah I know. The J post of the A to Z Challenge was supposed to be wrote this past Saturday. My bad. I was preoccupied with Daredevil, a new Netflix show I just knew I was going to binge watch, which I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it's dark tone. It certainly helped the show feel more like a Daredevil comic at times. My only complaint about the show itself is that Bullseye was a no-show on it. I just knew one of Daredevils biggest adversaries would make at least one appearance but I was wrong. Luckily he wasn't missed. Wilson Fisk was more than adequate as season 1's main villain and I'm sure we'll see Bullseye in season 2.

That was my only complaint about the show itself. My other complaint is that now I feel like binge watching something else... but what though? We're still months away from the next Netflix exclusive Marvel TV show AKA Jessica Jones and the show after that, Luke Cage, isn't slated to appear until 2016.

I got an idea of which series I'm going to watch. Here's a few of my favorite series you can catch in their entirety on Netflix as well as 8 shows that I haven't started yet but I might start soon based on all the good things I've been hearing about them.




First, some of my favorites:

Breaking Bad

    This show isn't too complicated to describe partially because I know you've seen it. Who hasn't at this point? Just in case you missed because you just came back from another universe, it's about a high school teacher who discovers he has cancer and how he comes to terms with his impending demise basically. I could leave it at that but I don't feel like I'd be doing the show any justice. See, I
forgot to mention that he taught chemistry and in an effort to ensure his family doesn't struggle financially after he dies, he eventually uses that extensive chemistry knowledge to start cooking crystal meth. The stellar cast, including Bryan Cranston and his Emmy Award winning performance as the teacher turned drug dealer Walter White, takes this abnormal concept and makes it completely believable.


The Walking Dead

    Here's another series I shouldn't have to describe to you but if I need to it's about a group of people who are struggling to coexist in there crazy world. Oh, and there's also zombies they have to contend with as well but the biggest threat to the survivors are themselves. 









Orange Is The New Black

    THIS is the show that had me break down and get Netflix in the first place. An engaged woman's past comes back to haunt her in the worst way: thanks to her girlfriend-at-that-time's drug dealing participation, they wind up in prison. Almost everyone involved in this show shines and it's one show were the star (Taylor Schilling as the new convict Piper Chapman) takes a backseat to almost the entire supporting cast. 


American Horror Story

    This is a horror anthology series. So far they all have starred Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Frances Conroy and Evan Peters in various roles.  Each of the first four seasons has tackled a different story including ghosts, insane asylums, witch's covens, and circus freaks respectively. While each season works on it's own as a standalone series, the best reason I'd rewatch each of them is to find out how each of these season are all connected as the show runners have stated. 


Daredevil

    It's Daredevil and it completely gets rid of the bad taste in your mouth that the Ben Affleck / Jennifer Garner adaptation surely left. Oh, and according to this article on Netflix's Daredevil, my only complaint about the show is invalid. Bullseye DID make an appearance. I just didn't catch it or a lot of other Marvel tidbits.


Marvel Agents Of SHIELD

    Since I'm on the subject... Marvel's Cinematic Universe is now one of the best film series of this decade and hopefully the three Netflix shows set to debut after Daredevil are just as good as DD. Now before DD there was two other MCU shows to catch. One was Agent Carter (which I believe is now on Hulu Plus in it's entirety) which took place during Captain America's cinematic origin and revolved around Agent Peggy Carter, who most likely would have been Mrs Captain America had he not turned into a popsicle. Fans also got to meet Howard Stark again and the real Jarvis for the first time in this series too. This show came out after Agents of SHIELD found it's footing. If you're not familiar with this show it revolves around the recently deceased SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson, the very same guy who was killed by Loki in the 1st Avenger movie, and how he managed to come back from the dead. It's way deeper than that and it seems to have HUGE implications on the future of the MCU. It's only right it returns the favor; Thor: The Dark World and especially Captain America: The Winter Soldier had just as huge an impact on this show. While season 2 is currently only on Hulu, you can catch season 1 on Netflix. 






And as far as shows I haven't watched yet:


Justified

  I'm ashamed to say I've never caught any of this series and I have no valid reason for not doing so already. For starters, it stars the always reliable Timothy Olyphant as a US Marshal named Raylan Givens. Raylan is a character from one of my favorite books, Pronto, written by one of my top five

favorite authors of all time, Elmore Leonard. If you've seen Get Shorty, Out Of Sight, or Jackie Brown, you're familiar with Leonard's work already but trust me find the books if you really want to do Leonard any justice. I'm sure all but the last and final season are on Netflix and the last season may be uploaded by the fall since the final episode aired yesterday.
  


House Of Cards.

  I've heard about this show every since it's inception. It's been Emmy nominiated. And it stars Kevin Spacey! Yet, I haven't had time to watch it yet. Or maybe it's the fact that I find politics
, both real life and fictional, extremely boring. Regardless, I'll still get around to watching this show soon.


Archer
  
 OK. I gotta admit I've seen a lot of Archer but with all that's going on, not to mention all of the
episodes I've missed, I think I better start again from the beginning. It's one of the best spy shows on TV not titled Agents Of SHIELD. Just don't hold the facts that it's a comedy and it's animated against it.


Broadchurch

    I fell in love with Fox's 10 episode murder mystery series Gracepoint from the start. At least I thought I did. What I didn't know was Gracepoint is an almost shot for shot remake of this BBC series. I love the remake but I'm more than just a bit curious about the original since most remakes fail to live up to the source material.


Black Mirror

    I've only recently discovered this anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. If you're a fan of those type of shows, this show will make a great addition to your must-watch list.



Twin Peaks
    Like Archer, I've seen a lot of these episodes. Unlike Archer, I was extremely young when I saw them so a lot of the going ons left me a bit perplexed. I loved how creepy a watch it was though and it's about time I brush up on this show anyway, since a new Twin Peaks series is already in the works. 


Sons Of Anarachy
    If you ask anybody what is the best TV show of the past 10-15 years, you'll hear either Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, The Wire, or this show more often than not. Of these five series, SOA is the only one I haven't gotten addict to yet. I may be the only person on the planet who hasn't but I have yet to see this show about a motorcycle gang and the obstacles they face. 



Well, that's it for this post. If you don't hear from me for a while, you already know what I'm up to.



Later WORLD.
Smokkee Singleton

H is for Heroes (#AtoZChallenge)

Hello WORLD!! Smokkee here, naturally. Heroes is actually too broad a summary for this post. I'm not touching on any of the comic books-to-movies/TV shows DC are currently putting out and I'm not addressing the return of the NBC TV show of the same name.

I really wanted to post this post as my M post as 'M is for MCU' for the A to Z blogging Challenge but I just couldn't wait. I'm too excited! I'm glad it's Thursday but I'm really looking forward to this upcoming Friday.
It's been a somewhat long week but that's not why I'm excited, well, not entirely. Tomorrow, Netflix debuts it's Daredevil series set in Marvel's Cinematic Universe or MCU for short. Thankfully, we're less than 24 hours away now. I was excited about this when I first heard about it, but the more info I hear about it, the more I can't wait.

I'd love to see how Daredevil will connect to it's other MCU properties like Agent Carter and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD even though a little bit of info has leaked about the Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil connection already.  And I'm wondering if this article on how Daredevil will change the MCU is as accurate as this article touching on the same topic regarding how Agent Carter changed the MCU was. Plus we know this is only the beginning of the MCU on Netflix. Hereos for Hire teammates Iron Fist and Luke Cage (aka Power Man), and Jessica Jones (aka Mrs Luke Cage in the comic books) are all slated to have Netflix shows in the near future so if Daredevil works half as well as expected, we may see more MCU shows soon. I've read an article about a show based on the Punisher, who has yet to be done right in his previous cinematic portrayals. Ghost Rider too; even though I feel Nicholas Cage was surprisingly adequate as Johnny Blaze I'd sure like to see a version of this character that's closer to it's comic book counterpart.



With that said, even as good as I expected DD to be, I doubt it'll become my new favorite MCU show. Agents Of Shield already has that title on lock and today, news just broke that this show will be getting a spinoff! It's the first show that had the MCU brand on it and while it might have started off sluggish, it sure knew how to pick up speed big time. I was interested in how they would bring Agent Phil Coulson back into the MCU since he was killed in The Avengers (I should have said spoiler alert but let's be honest: who hasn't seen The Avengers at this point? Find me somebody. Go ahead. I'll wait.) and this show thrived off of that mystery at first but the pacing was a turn off to most people.

Skye becomes Inhuman-ly powerful.

Which was a shame because those who stayed loyal to this show were rewarded with a great reason to rewatch the first season because apparently we'd missed a ton of obvious clues as far as where the show was heading. The second film in the Captain America film series, The Winter Soldier, was released in conjunction with this TV show midway through season 1 and it changed the whole dynamic of the show big time since (I won't spoil it for the people who have not seen CA: TWS but if you really want to know, click this link right here).

Since that moment, the rest of season 1 and the entirety of season 2 so far has had it's foot to the pedal in terms of action and developments. I can't think of any moment from a network TV show that was as huge as the one from season 2 featuring Agent Skye breaking out of a cocoon. Her transformation marks the first appearance of the Inhumans in the MCU. To make that tidbit even more interesting, besides a possibility that the spin off might be focused on the Inhumans, we KNOW for sure that the Inhumans have a MCU feature film due out as well and if this article is to be believed, this may happen sooner than expected. 





I've got one more post I wanted to post for my H post so I'm gonna cut this short right here. I jsut wonder if The Avengers: Age of Ultron will have a scene as powerful as the one up above. If not, I hope that Hulk Vs Iron Man is at least as entertaining as the best fight scene in the whole series so far..

On second thought, maybe I'm more excited about tomorrow because it puts me one day closer to 05/01/15. I'm ready for Ultron and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Later WORLD.

Smokkee Singleton



     

E is for Excitement (#AtoZChallenge)

Hello, WORLD! Smokkee here, once again. Once again, I can't think of an excellent E post for this A to Z Blogging Challenge so I turned back to my movie and more review blog hoping some idea would come to me.

The only thing I can think of is excitement.


Well, I am actually excited right now for a few upcoming entertainment events. For this blog post, I'll just list my top 5 reasons for excitement:

5.) I'm FINALLY going to see 'It Follows' this weekend. I've been putting it off for the past 2 weeks and I can';t wait any longer. If you have no idea what that is, watch this trailer ASAP!!

4.) Another horror movie I'm looking forward to seeing just released it's first trailer. As much as I loved the first movie, Sinister 2 looks like it's gonna be at least as good as the first one, maybe even scarier and if so, I'm fine with that. 

 4.) Daredevil is due on Netflix this Friday April 10, 2015. If you're a fan of Marvel's Cinematic Universe, this is a must watch series. And if not, watch this trailer and tell me you're still not interested.

2.) Speaking about the MCU, this is right around the corner:

1) And lastly, the day after Age of Ultron premiers on 05/01/15, this happens.

 I see me consuming a lot of popcorn in the near future. You already know I'm looking forward to it.

Later, WORLD!
Smokkee Singleton

A TO Z CHALLENGE

Hello WORLD!!!

I'm baaaaaack. Maybe for a limited time (for now), maybe not. I have been meaning to work on this blog, well, any of my blogs but I haven't seemed to been able to do so. Its not that I haven't had anything to blog about or I'm tired of writing. I'll admit I haven't been doing too much of anything with this blog in particular lately partially due to a lack of movies even worth writing about (2014 was overpopulated with flat out horrible to sub-par movies) but also due to the fact that I've still been working on my first book, which admittedly is taking me way longer to finish than I thought it would.  I'm still churning away at it. I've invested a lot of time in my characters to not see their stories through to the end. (OAN: I'm anxious to know what happens to them myself. I never thought I, as a writer, would be to keep me, as a reader, in suspense when I typically invented them and their worlds. I find that to be a pleasant surprise, one I surely didn't think was possible.)

Before I go any further here, I need to tell you a few things. One is this won't be a movie review post. I know a few movies I'd love to write a review for but all of that is coming in due time. Secondly, let me tell you what drew me back to working on my blog at this time.

I logged onto Twitter this morning and the first trending topic that caught my eye was #AtoZChallenge. If you know me you know I'm like a moth to a light bulb when it comes to challenges so I had to look into it. Based on the info I found here, it's a challenge for all bloggers to right a blog post for every letter of the alphabet, one a day every day this month except Sunday. 26 days for 26 letters of the alphabet.

So with the basic description out of the way, I'll now try to fulfill my obligation for today. Just not on this blog. My A post will actually be posted on my personal blog Smokkee's WORLD Prime since I have the perfect topic for my A post already in mind. In fact, if you look here, you'll see I've already wrote it. What I want to do on here though is add a few reviews of my favorite movies (I affectionately call them Bizzee Picks) so a lot of posts in this challenge will be for movies. Some, like my H post for sure, will be about my favorite books. 

26 days, 26 posts. I'm ready if you're ready, WORLD.

Smokkee

 

Smokkee's 2015 Oscar Picks

HELLO WORLD!!!

It's been almost a year since I last posted. Took a break for damn near a year but I'm back right on time to give you my picks for 87th Annual Academy Awards ceremony. Last year, I got 9 outta 13 of the major awards right (I only failed to pick the right Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress). Anyway, on to this years picks:

BEST WRITING OSCAR: BIRDMAN

This award could easily go to GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Easily. There's nothing trite about a Wes Anderson's film whatsoever. Every movie he makes has his style stamped all over it but aside from that , they all feel fresh and unique. BOYHOOD and NIGHTCRAWLERS nominations are not as shocking as the nomination awarded to FOXCATCHER which is based on a true story (I'm still asking how is that original again?) but truly this award is GBH's to lose. And it will lose. From the opening shot to the ambiguous ending shot, BIRDMAN felt less scripted and more ad-libbed. Even though it had a meta-type feel to it, it truly was one of the most original movies I've seen in a while.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: AMERICAN SNIPER
I'm not picking these winners based on which movies I liked. WHIPLASH was fantastic and probably my favorite movie out of this group but I can't see how this all-too-familiar movie can be beat out the rest of the movies on this list. THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING worked well too, possibly well enough to win this award.  INHERENT VICE was OK, I guess, but it doesn't inspire me to read the source material. Ditto THE IMITATION GAME. That leaves AMERICAN SNIPER which wasn't one of my favorite flicks of the year but it did have everybody talking about.

VISUAL EFFECTS: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
I would give this award to X-MEN just for that Quicksilver scene alone. Not sure why the CAPTAIN AMERICA sequel was nominated but doesn't have a chance against it's MCU brethren GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES was astonishing to watch, and the apes seemed so very human. DAWN & INTERSTELLAR have the best shots at walking away with this award, but I'm almost willing to bet Marvel's heroes win again.



SOUND EFFECTS: INTERSTELLAR.
No other movie on this list begs to be seen at IMAX. The choice here is obvious.




SOUND EDITING: INTERSTELLAR. 
Unless THE HOBBIT win another award for Peter Jackson here, INTERSTELLAR wins here too.








BEST MUSIC - ORIGINAL SONG: Glory from SELMA
I LOVED 'Everything is Awesome' from THE LEGO MOVIE. It was as addictive as last year's winner 'Let It Go'. It should win for sure; in fact, it's my official pick to win but I wouldn't be surprised if SELMA is rewarded this award instead. The song is great as is but it's so perfect for the movie, I almost can see it happening.

BEST DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson for GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Anderson is FINALLY getting his due this year.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: THE BOXTROLLS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Emma Stone, BIRDMAN

Patricia Arquette's turn in BOYHOOD is the only other nomination I see with a remote chance at winning this award. Emma Stone is almost a lock for this order. BIRDMAN was a great all around movie but if there was anybody besides the star of the movie that stood out, it was Emma.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Mark Ruffalo FOXCATCHER
This year's toughest catogory. The only reason I won't mention how good Edward Norton was in BIRDMAN is he basically played Edward Norton. JK Simmons (WHIPLASH) and Robert Duvall (THE JUDGE) each upstaged the stars of their movie's (Miles Teller and Robert Downey Jr, respectively) but what Ethan Hawke did in BOYHOOD was phenomenal. The only reason I say But Mark Ruffalo's turn as Dave Shultz will beat out Hawke is I didn't even recognize him even though I knew he was in the movie!

BEST ACTRESS: Rosamund Pike GONE GIRL

Could anybody else possibly win this award?  Maybe Julianne Moore but c'mon. How many Oscars does she need? Pike wins this award easy.


BEST ACTOR: Micheal Keaton BIRDMAN

This was supposed to be Micheal Keaton's comeback vehicle. Did it work? Absolutely. He's baaackkk. His only serious competition here is the oft nominated Bradley Cooper for AMERICAN SNIPER and the sort of surprising nom for Steve Carrell's turn in FOXCATCHER. As good as they were, I still feel this is Keaton's award to lose.



and finally, BEST PICTURE: BIRDMAN

When I first seen it last year, I was positive that GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL would not only get nominated but it would win. Then I fell in love with BIRDMAN and I got a change of heart. BOYHOOD, SELMA, and WHIPLASH all deserved their noms. I'm not sold on the idea of THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING or THE IMITATION GAME winning this award but both films are definitely better than the overrated AMERICAN SNIPER (yes I said it!), even with Bradley Cooper proving he can handle meatier, serious roles like he handles his comedic opportunities. But BIRDMAN is one of those rare films that works on every level it wanted to and some they didn't even know they were on. Not to mention that everybody carried their own weight (in more ways than one). A true standout film in a year of not many stand outs.

Want Funny? THE OTHER WOMAN Should Be Your First Choice.

B-

Hello, WORLD!!!

Yep, Smokkee here, again, after what feels like forever, right? Every since I caught pneumonia in January, I've been waiting until the weather here in Chicago started to warm up before I started attending screenings again. Finally, it has and finally I'm back to doing what I love: watching movies on the big screen.

The first appearance of Amber (Kate Upton).

I thought I was gonna kick off my 2014 prescreening with a thud. Seriously. The plot of THE OTHER WOMAN screams made-for-TV/straight-to-DVD/standard TVsitcom plot. A man's loves (his wife, his mistress, and his OTHER mistress) find out about each other and plot revenge. Nothing new, right? While I can't think of what movie or when, I'm sure this has been done before. If I'm wrong, hit me up.

From left: Kate Upton, Cameron Diaz, and Leslie Mann

Nicki Minaj plays Carly's (Cameron Diaz) Assistant.

Anyway, this movie was refreshingly funny. Not because of the star Cameron Diaz. She's here mostly as the straight woman. (SN: It's hard to believe that this is the same woman we met 20 years ago in THE MASK but she's clearly still a master of the slapstick that made her starmaking role in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY such a hit and still fresh faced to boot!) Here she plays Carly, a hot-shot lawyer who's falling for one of her clients, Mark (Game of Throne's Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) only to discover that he's already married in possible the most awkward way imaginable. Yep, she shows up at his home and meets his wife Kate (Leslie Mann). When Kate shows up at her job the next day, Carly lets the truth be known resulting in some of the most hilarious scenes in the movie. Through a series of misadventures the two women who should be enemies wind up being friends only to discover there is a third mistress Amber (Kate Upton) and maybe more mistresses they haven't discovered yet. After Carly's ego, in another funny scene, helps these three ladies connect, they decide to get revenge on Mark.

Taylor Kinney plays Kate's brother Phil.

As I said, the movie is funny. I laughed out loud, something I try my hardest not to do ever, and making me laugh does take a little work. It's not the funniest movie I've seen but it's adequate. The main reason you wanna watch this movie is Leslie Mann. The funniest character on the screen, she almost steals ever scene she's in from the straight-woman star of the show. And I was a little excited to see my hip-hop crush Nicki Minaj stretch her acting chops. She did her thing very well (and I'm not just saying that as one of her Stans) but wasn't in the movie nearly enough for my taste. Well OK, maybe that's just my personal opinion. The rest of the stars include Lady Gaga's boyfriend Taylor Kinney as Kate's down-to-earth brother Phil and Don Johnson makes an appearance as Carly's father Frank.     

Bottom line, director Nick Cassavetes does an admirable job with a cheesy premise. It didn't overstay it's welcome, it delivered laughs, but the cheesiness of the script and the aimlessness of the plotting (At times, this comedy thinks it's a drama. Go figure.) is reason enough for me not to give it a higher grade.

That's it for now, WORLD. Thanks for having me back and letting me back into your world so easy.