Ingrid Goes West

Warning: There are some spoilers in the following review. 

Three parts comically sad.

Four parts raw.

Two parts aesthetically pleasing.

Eight parts hitting the nail on the head.

A hundred parts incredibly well casted and acted.

Okay, Ingrid Goes West apparently has a lot of parts.

Back in August of 2017 when it was released, a big part of me wanted to see it immediately in theaters. I'm a sucker for Elizabeth Olsen, and an even bigger sucker for Aubrey Plaza, so putting the two of them together in a somewhat twisted looking movie about social media seemed like a no-brainer.

But I was nervous. I had watched the trailer about two dozen times, and build it up in my head and didn't want to be disappointed if it wasn't all I had made it up to be.

Fact, it did not disappoint.

At all.

The film wastes no time in showing you Ingrid Thorburn (Plaza), the main character's unhinged and obsessive personality, with the opening scene depicting her insanely stalking a girl's social media account, whom you later learn Thorburn has never even met.

When things don't work out so well with Thorburn's first "victim," she does what all basic white girls with no life on Instagram do - she finds someone new to obsess over and borderline worship. Her new god is Taylor Sloane (Olsen), an Insta-famous "influencer" from LA.

What follows is an absolute crazy train ride of almost perfect moments for Thorburn, almost real friendships, almost catastrophic consequences, and almost total breakdowns.

What hit me the hardest about Ingrid Goes West is its brutal clarity about the nature of our social media infatuation.

Not only do we see how destructive Ingrid's decisions are because of her Insta-mania, we also see the other side of things from Sloane's pretend-perfect life.

Sure, on Instagram, Sloane seems to have it all: A perfect, handsome husband; a perfect, care-free career; a perfect, unending supply of friends. But the longer Thorburn hangs around Sloane, the more we as a viewer see these perfect things come crashing down because no one, no matter how perfect their pictures, has a perfect life.

Or even a "normal" life.

What I loved the most about Ingrid Goes West is its uncomfortable honesty of how we sometimes can't see the actual good things right in front of us because we're distracted by "pretty" things.

There is a moment in the film where Thorburn meets an actual, genuine, if albeit messed up person named Dan Pinto (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) who, after some slight setbacks, seems to sincerely care about her and wants to be in her life. And for a few shining moments, Thorburn actually notices Pinto for exactly who he is and seems to actually want him in her life, too.

One of the sweetest (and also weirdest) moments in the whole film is during a date between Pinto and Thorburn where they are both honest to the point of embarrassment about who they really are. I say sweetest and weirdest because the best moment is oddly during foreplay when Thorburn dresses up as a sexy Catwoman and repeats the phrase, "Gotham needs you right now," before Pinto (who desperately wants to be Batman in his real life) and Thorburn hook up. While it may not sound like a particularly sweet scene, the moment is filled with raw honesty and desire to make another person happy despite how it may make you look silly.

Despite Thorburn's attraction to Pinto and desire to be in a real relationship with someone, the film leaves you with a very clear ending and message that "pretty" things often win over real things.

What I appreciated about Ingrid Goes West was its ability to show you things, but never spend too long in them, or never just handing you a perfectly wrapped package. There were definitely some things left up to the viewer to decide.

One of the best ways they did this was through Thorburn's mental state. While there are glimpses into her mental instability, even going so far as to show us near the beginning of the film that Thorburn spent time in a mental institution, the film never explicitly tells you that Thorburn is mentally unstable. Sure, you assume that something is going on to provoke such strong obsessions and reckless behavior, but the film in my opinion leaves it up to the viewer to decide if this girl needs to spend more time in a mental institute, or just delete her Instagram app.

Another way the film didn't paint you a complete picture was with Sloane's husband Ezra (Wyatt Russell). Writers David Branson Smith and Matt Spicer did an excellent job of showing you that Ezra and Sloane's relationship is not what it appears to be on Instagram, and even gave you a glimpse into Ezra's unhappiness and unease, but not linger on this. Yes, we needed to understand this in order to learn more about Sloane, but ultimately, Ezra's storyline is not what the movie is about, and the writers seemed to get this and know exactly how much they needed to share about his life.

As a writer myself, I know how difficult it is to only share the details necessary to the main story and not get off on a whole rabbit trail of side character's lives. Sure, it would be great if we could have 10 hour movies and 18 million page books that delve into 37 different character's lives, but realistically, you have to decide as a writer what is necessary for your plot, and what can remain a mystery to your reader. Smith and Spicer did a perfect job of this in Ezra's character.

Ingrid Goes West is certainly not for everyone. It is insanely quirky, ridiculously odd, radically over the top, and most assuredly does not tie a bow at the end and leave you with warm and fuzzy feelings. It has far too much cursing (IMDB states that there are 52 uses of the f word in the film), we see a naked butt or two, and it makes you want to delete all your social media accounts for fear you're addicted or for fear someone will stalk and hunt you down.

But the acting is on point (seriously, someone give Aubrey Plaza an award for her crazy eyes), the ultimate takeaway is something that society desperately needs to hear, the scenery and coloring is exactly what you want in a movie about LA, and did I mention Aubrey Plaza's wonderful crazy eyes?

Never Let Me Go

I am a writer by (wanna be) trade, mostly because I feel things so strongly and can feel I will explode if I don't give the feelings a venue to come out, and writing has been gracious enough to me to be that venue.

Because I write under emotion, I am always looking for things to stir up emotions in me; happiness, sadness, empathy, anger even. Any strong emotion, no matter the kind, will make me want to write.

It's taken me a long time, as in roughly 28 years, to really figure how my emotions and writing correlate, or at least it's taken me 28 years to figure out a healthy way to seek out emotion and then allow that emotion to flood out into words written down.

This is a long and personal introduction to a movie review I know, but I felt it necessary to explain before I start Never Let Me Go.

I first saw this movie years ago, not long after it first came out. Back then, I didn't know how to properly use my emotions to write, or maybe I didn't properly know how to emotion. In any case, I felt a lot of emotions strongly about this film, and decided to label my emotions as anger and declare that this movie was rubbish.

On a whim, with an afternoon to myself today, I found Never Let Me Go again on Netflix and decided to see if I still hated it six years later.

I would have written this review two hours ago, but I've been too busy writing a short story because this movie, this beautifully haunting piece of work, made me feel so many emotions I had no choice but to write.

Never Let Me Go, starring Kiera Knightley, Andrew Garfield, and Carey Mulligan, is a dystopian story focused on three characters as they struggle to gain clarity and control over their lives. The story is set in a world where medical science has allowed for people to live well over 100 years old, but at the price of creating clones who will give up their bodies (called Completing) in order that others might live.

The story focuses on Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Kiera Knightley), and Tommy (Andrew Garfield), all three clones who are set to become donors and Complete (die) in their 20's. The three meet at a boarding school for clones and form a friendship. When Ruth sees a budding romance forming between Kathy and Tommy, she steps in and claims Tommy as her own, creating a permanent strife against Kathy. However, the three remain close friends, and eventually graduate from the school and go to live in a farm cottage with several other clones.

While living at the cottages, the three's friendship begins to unravel, with it becoming more and more apparent that all three know that Tommy and Kathy should truly be together, and Ruth is simply in the way.

The first two acts of the film primarily focuses on the love triangle between Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy, but the viewer does catch glimpses of the dystopian world, and the ever-looming donation and Completeness is present. However, it's the third act that really dives into the troublesome rules of this world.

It is an attribute to both the writers and directors of the film (and book that it was based on) and the actors that the viewer so strongly wants these characters to find happiness. The majority of the fourth and final act of the film gives hope to the viewer that at least some of the characters might find happiness, but the poignancy of the film wins over, and by the last scene of the film, the viewer is left with a desire to never let our world get so convoluted as this fictitious world.

The reason the film hit so strongly to this viewer is because while the story is incredibly sad, it is also incredibly unsettling. This idea of our human existence being extended but at the devastating cost of others who are "less human" than us, clones of us, hits hard because of the realization that while we are not sacrificing clones to survive, we do sacrifice others for our existence, whether that be through cheating others to be more comfortable in our lives, looking the other way as others suffer and die, or any of the other ways some thrive at the cost of other's poverty and heartache.

The film ends with this truly poignant line by one of the characters, which is the essence of the entire film: "What I'm not sure about is if our lives [the clones' lives] have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all Complete [die]. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."

All right, enough sadness.

As shown by the quote above, the film has some incredibly thought-provoking lines and ideas. For example, the idea pictured to the right that art reveals your soul is beautiful.

While at the boarding school, one teacher tells the children, "You have to know who you are, and what you are. It's the only way to lead decent lives."

There are other incredible lines and ideas in the film, but I don't want to give the whole thing away. I just want to give enough to tease you so you'll go enjoy this wonderful film.

Another amazing element to the film is how incredibly-casted the film is, not just with the brilliant Mulligan, Knightley, and Garfield, but with the young children as well. Not only are the children amazing actors, they so resemble the adult actors in both mannerisms and looks is it astounding.

Finally, Rachel Portman truly shines as composer for this film; the music is hauntingly beautiful and perfect throughout the entire film.

Because I need to do my due diligence and write a complete review, I will say that this is not a movie to watch with kids, and you probably want to keep the remote nearby, or perhaps a blindfold, for a scene or two. One scene in particular shows two people engaged in energetic sex (thankfully the scene only lasts about 20 seconds), and another scene shows one character flipping through a pornographic magazine (the character is looking for something and is not looking at the magazine for sexual reasons, so the scene is also brief). In another scene, we hear two characters having sex, but again, this scene is brief.

While I definitely could have done without the sex scenes, the film shines as a masterpiece in all other elements.

Never Let Me Go is a 2010 film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's book, with the screenplay written by Alex Garland. The film was directed by Mark Romanek and is rated R for some sexuality and nudity.

Dunkirk

"You're weekend sailors, not the bloody Navy. You should be at home."
"There's no hiding from this, son. We have a job to do."

While Christopher Nolan's newest film Dunkirk is light on the dialogue, this one particular conversation stood out above all the rest, and rang true as the theme of Nolan's film.

The film follows a handful of soldiers and non-military as they attempt to simply survive the monstrosities of 1940's war. Throughout the story, we meet men such as Tommy (played by Fionn Whitehead), Gibson (played by Aneurin Barnard), and Alex (played by Harry Styles), three far too young soldiers who are struggling to just survive; Mr. Dawson (played by Mark Rylance), an incredibly brave father who puts his life at risk to smuggle soldiers across the channel; George (played by Barry Keoghan), who inadvertently becomes entwined with the Dawsons and proves to be braver than any soldier; Farrier (played by Tom Hardy), a pilot who, along with his sidekick (played by Jack Lowden), keeps the air enemy-free to give the soldiers on the sand a fighting chance at surviving; Bolton (played by Kenneth Branagh), a commander who will do anything to bring his men home; and one soldier (known only as the Shivering Soldier on IMDB, played by Cillian Murphy) whose shell-shocked spirit heartbreakingly proves just how horrible the aftermath of war can be.

Nolan's story-telling brilliance shines bright as he chooses to not write your typical "fictional characters" for his narrative; he instead throws the viewer into the middle of the story with no warning. As a viewer, I was at first taken aback to be thrust into a tale without even knowing the characters' names or histories (I honestly had to look up character names on IMDB before writing this, as names are rarely uttered in the film) but it took only a few minutes to be enraptured by the film. I didn't need to know these characters' names or their lives before that moment because it felt as if I was witnessing real war with real humans, and Nolan presented me with enough realness to feel raw emotion and be completely unhinged for 106 minutes.

Nolan also does not in any way hold the viewer's hand or guide them gently through a story. Instead, he shows us what I imagine human interaction is like during war - you don't have time for pleasantries or the slow buildup of friendship or even the chance to learn each other's names. You know those next to you are your brothers, and that has to just be enough.

The film does not shy away or shield the viewer from the horrors of war, especially the true events that took place at Dunkirk. However, Nolan and his team are masters at their craft, and while the viewer does experience the brutality of war, we are not forced to linger longer than we should. The film depicts war as history, not as entertainment.

Even with the mercy of this film only being PG-13, Dunkirk is not an easy film to watch. As a viewer, you are uncomfortable and emotional less than five minutes in, but the truth in the film is worth any discomfort I as a viewer felt. This is my history as a human, and I need to feel this way and see these things every once and awhile. Not all the time, but sometimes. We need to be shown our depravity so we can learn never to be that way again. And we need to be shown true heroism so we can strive for that.

Dunkirk proved to me just how powerful a Christopher Nolan film can be. I have been a fan of Nolan's since The Dark Knight trilogy, and I only allow myself to watch Interstellar a few times a year because of how profoundly it affects me every time. While Dunkirk is vastly different than any previous Nolan film I have seen, Nolan does in his work for this film what he always does for me - he makes me want to be more. Nolan constantly inspires me to use my own talents to the fullest, to explore and dig for everything that I can. Seeing him put out the very best film he possibly can time after time after time makes me want to pursue my passion as he does.

My one complaint about Dunkirk is that it left me wanting more. But this is typical Nolan for me. I want to watch a 50 hour director's cut of Dunkirk that digs into the individual characters and shows me how they got to where they were, what happened to them after the war, everything. While I don't need this to ache for these men in Dunkirk, Nolan writes about such captivating people that I long to know more.

The Girl On The Train

The first movie I ever saw Emily Blunt in was The Devil Wears Prada. I remember thinking that Anne Hathaway's storyline was intriguing and entertaining and yeah yeah yeah, but can we see more of Emily Blunt's character? I wanted to watch a whole movie of just Emily Blunt in all of her glory. 

Ten years later, I feel I got my wish. 

The Girl On The Train follows seemingly unconnected storylines as each character narrates their unhappiness and their deepest desires throughout multiple points of time in their lives. 

The title character Rachel, played by Emily Blunt, tells us of her commute to and from the city, and how she daydreams over snippets of others' lives she sees from the train. She weaves her wants and dreams into these people she sees from her seat, focusing in on one couple whose house she passes every day on the train. She imagines what kind of life the couple lives, how much they must love each other, how their love plays out. She imagines and she drinks, wishing it was her own life. 

The woman seen from the train, Megan, played by Haley Bennett, reveals to the viewer her apathy in her life, which seems to be leading her down a path of self-destruction. She speaks of abandoning the life she's built, and we watch in frustration as she seems incapable of being content. 

Through these two women's stories, we also meet Anna, played by Rebecca Ferguson, and Tom, played by Justin Theroux, whose at first seemingly happy marriage is instead built on deceit and restlessness. And finally, we meet Scott, played by Luke Evans, a brooding, almost too devoted husband to Megan, whose passion and desire in his marriage emanate warning and a hesitation to completely trust him as a viewer more than anything else. 

While extremely dark in nature, the film does provide for an exceptional soundtrack by Danny Elfman, giving the viewer a perfect blend of hauntingly beautiful and wonderfully suspenseful. The film is also extremely well shot, as Taylor does a remarkable job of allowing us to feel the things the characters are feeling through use of camera angles and shots. And finally, the choice to set the film in New York allowed for beautiful scenery as Rachel rides the train. 

Rated R for "violence, sexual content, language and nudity," it seems as if director Tate Taylor soaked this rating for all it's worth. There is definitely no lack of sensuality when it comes to Megan's character, as we see much more of Haley Bennett's (granted) gorgeous figure than necessary; while it is fleeting, there is one scene where absolutely nothing of Bennett's body is left to the imagination. In the interest of giving away any spoilers, the murder of one character is exceptionally disturbing and brutal, more so than necessary. 

One thing that is surprising about the film's rating is its lack of mentioning alcoholism, a notable theme throughout the entire film. 

While some viewers might walk away from the movie remembering the steamy scenes or twist ending, this viewer walked away satisfied with the display of redemption and second chances the film conveyed. It can be easy to make light of drinking as a coping mechanism, but The Girl On The Trail did not hesitate to show us how detrimental an alcohol addiction can be, and how difficult it can be to break these kinds of habits - but how worthwhile it is to fight and break free. 

Emily Blunt was not afraid to get down and dirty in her role as Rachel, playing an alcoholic divorcee with such conviction and dedication I was left wanting to both give Blunt every and all awards possible for her role, and also ask her if she is okay and to maybe take a holiday some place relaxing after playing a character such as Rachel. Blunt's performance most definitely blew away her co-stars, although for certain co-stars such as Justin Theroux, that seemed fairly easy to do. In complete contrast to Blunt's amazing performance, the majority of Theroux's performance was flat and unbelievable, which is disappointing, especially because his character had the potential to be rich and complex. 

While I would recommend The Girl On The Train, I would perhaps recommend waiting and renting it so that some of the more steamy or brutal moments can be fast-forwarded. 

The Shallows

[Note: After re-reading my previous review, I realized there is simply no fun in revealing all the spoilers by making you read the entire synopsis. I promise to keep all spoilers and endings for your viewing eyes only from now on. Enjoy this review, spoiler free!]

First let me say that I don't do horror movies. 

I can handle a little psychological thriller (think Hanna or Primal Fear or The Sixth Sense) and even enjoy these kinds of movies, but you can count me out of a horror movie night. 

So when I was determined to see The Shallows in theaters, I surprised even myself. 

Perhaps it was the lure of gorgeous Blake Lively. Perhaps the intriguing Cast Away type premise. Or perhaps I just felt I needed to witness the Jaws of my generation on the big screen. 

In any case, I found myself sitting in a middle row of my local $2.50 theater with a bag full of popcorn, ready and willing to be terrified by a shark. 

And terrified I most definitely was. 

The movie begins in the most terrifying of ways: A little boy finds a washed up camera that contains footage of several people getting eaten by a shark. 

The movie then goes back in time to reveal the events leading up to this discovery. Blake Lively stars as Nancy, a medical school dropout seeking a secret island her mother had once visited. Through a phone call that Nancy has with her father and brother, we learn of the tragic details that has lead Nancy to this discovery, and realize that her character is more complex than at first appeared. 

After gearing up for a day of surfing, Nancy takes to the waters, making some new (human) friends along the way. Even though she is warned by her newfound friends to leave the waters well before nightfall, Nancy makes the decision to go back to the waves just once more before she leaves for the night. It is then that she discovers a rather grotesque whale carcass floating in the water. Without thinking, Nancy swims right up to it, and by doing so, swims directly into a shark's feeding ground. While she tries to quickly swim back to shore, Nancy is bit by the shark in her leg, causing her to be unable to swim to shore. She instead takes refuge on a nearby rock as the shark circles around her. 

What follows is an intense 60-minute battle of survival as Nancy has to not only fight and outsmart the ever-nearby shark, but also use her medical knowledge of how best to care for her wounded leg. 

When first hearing the premise of The Shallows, I was mostly curious to know how the writers could possibly keep the viewer interested for 84 minutes, as the majority of the movie is just a girl on a rock trying to escape a shark. How could that possibly be entertaining for almost an hour and half? 

Not only was I interested and on the edge of my seat the entire movie, I left wanting even more. 

Writer Anthony Jaswinski did a fantastic job of providing just enough storyline and background to keep writers and English majors satisfied, but also left plenty of time for shark-butt-kicking action. Jaswinski was also smart in his character decisions, such as making Nancy an educated medical student so that it was believable when she doctored her own leg, or having us understand right off the bat that this was a girl who could hold her own so that again it was believable when she made quick, intelligent decisions while fighting the shark. However, Jaswinski also brought in emotional elements, allowing the viewer to see Nancy as a girl who was hurting because of her past and explaining her strong desire to live. 

That said, there were a few moments where I questioned Jaswinski's writing choices, as several moments seemed thrown in more for shock value than anything else. For instance, there was an especially disturbing scene where a man gets attacked by the shark, the shark literally cuts him in half, and the man not only lives for several seconds after being cut in half, but one half of him tries to crawl away. While the actual act of the man being attacked is thankfully not shown (the camera instead focuses on Nancy's face as she witnesses this act), we do see him try to crawl away, which is by far the most unsettling and unnecessary scene in the entire film. 

There are also a few disturbing scenes dealing with the after effects of Nancy's shark bite, including one scene where she gives herself stitches to try and stop the blood flow, and another scene where she rips her wet suite to make a tourniquet for her leg. Finally, the scene where Nancy finds the whale carcass is also disturbing, as she has to at one point crawl onto the carcass to avoid being eaten by the shark.

The scenes of several individuals dying horrible deaths in the jaws of the shark and the injury scenes with Nancy definitely pushed the PG-13 boundary for me. However, despite these few graphic scenes, the movie was extremely well-written and orchestrated, with numerous scenes filled with interesting camera angles and impressive cinematography, and an excellent score composed by Marco Beltrami. 

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, The Shallows gets a 7 out of 10 stars from this viewer. 

Café Society

With a 1930's swing in its step and colors that feel as vibrant as the characters are not, Café Society will at first peak your curiosity, only to leave you with the desire to slap nearly every character hard enough to knock the 'settling for a mediocre life' mentality out of them. 

Directed and written and narrated by Woody Allen, the film follows the life of Bobby Dorfman (played by Jesse Eisenberg), nephew of the great Phil Stern (played by Steve Carell), movie agent extraordinaire. Dorfman is a shy, awkward kid who dreams of a grand life in the big city of Hollywood. What befalls him instead is getting mixed up in an awkward, uncomfortable love triangle between his uncle, himself, and his uncle's secretary Vonnie (played by Kristen Stewart). While Vonnie is aware that she is seeing uncle and nephew, neither Stern nor Dorfman know that they are the other man in Vonnie's life. 

When they both accidentally discover that they are both lovers of Vonnie, Dorfman and Stern give Vonnie an ultimatum, forcing her to choose one. Inevitably, she chooses Stern, and a defeated Dorfman abandons his dreams of fame and fortune in Hollywood and instead returns home to New York to work with his brother Ben (played by Corey Stoll). By night, Ben runs a nightclub, but by day, he's an infamous gangster, unbeknownst to Dorfman or the rest of his family. 

With Dorfman's help, Ben's nightclub gains notoriety and excessive popularity, allowing Dorfman to mingle with the upper class, including beautiful Veronica Hayes (played by Blake Lively). Dorfman seems to instantaneously fall for Hayes' charm and looks, as the audience quickly catches the irony that her name is Veronica, just like Vonnie's full name. After a somewhat brief romance, Hayes reveals that she's pregnant, and she and Dorfman begin a marriage together to raise their child. 

While Dorfman's life seems full of bliss, Ben's life takes a toll for the worse when he decides to help his sister Evelyn (played by Sari Lennick) with her unruly neighbor Joe (played by Brendan Burke) by killing him instead of just talking to him, as Evelyn asks. While Ben has been able to keep his gangster dealings a secret up to this point, he is caught and sent to prison over Joe's death, and eventually electrocuted for the murder. 

In the meantime, Dorfman gets a surprise visit from his uncle Stern and Vonnie at his nightclub. While Stern and Vonnie seem happy and content in their new marriage, Vonnie still can't help but flirt with Dorfman, and Dorfman reciprocates, despite his happy marriage with Hayes. Dorfman and Vonnie agree to meet later and spend the next day together, which ends with them kissing on a New York bridge. However, that is as far as their relationship goes, and both return, somewhat reluctantly, to their spouses. Even though the day spent together was in secret, Hayes approaches Dorfman later to ask if he has cheated on her with Vonnie, as she had a dream that he did. Dorfman of course assures her that he did not, and Hayes seems appeased. 

The film ends with Dorfman and Hayes, and Vonnie and Stern at separate New Year's Eve parties, both Dorfman and Vonnie nostalgic over their old romance. 

While Woody Allen's film starts out with ample promise and excitement, both quickly drizzle into melancholy and lost dreams. The characters seem to accept their fate without a word, but still clearly long for something better, making the audience also long for something better. The redeeming quality of the movie is the time period Woody Allen was smart enough to set the story in; the 1930's setting provides terrific music, fashion, and an overall colorful feel to the story, but even the vibrancy of the time can't make up for the lack-luster and somewhat depressing tale. 

The Beginning

If you had asked me junior year of college where I would be in five years, I would have probably told you some cockamamie answer. I was naive and dumb junior year.

But somehow writing would have been involved in that cockamamie answer, and that's the one thing I wasn't dumb about junior year; I knew I loved to write.

I graduated college four years ago, and still have yet to actually do anything in my vocation that really involves writing.

Don't get me wrong, I've learned to accept and (most days) be relatively happy in my current vocation. And while the majority of my job is writing e-mails in a customer service-type setting, that's not the kind of writing I thought I'd be doing post-graduation.

I still cling to the hope that one day, I'll find myself in a job that allows me to really write like I want. But that's not today, so instead of moping about it, I choose to be proactive.

Thus this new blog was born.

When I was a kid, I thought I was real cool so I started a fake newspaper and sent it to all my friends and family. Basically, it was me doing things like writing movie reviews or sharing my weird dreams or bribing my friends into writing guest columns for me. My favorite part though was always the movie reviews.

I guess this is my sophisticated adult self following in my kid self's footsteps. But I think I'll just stick to film reviews this time.

If you know me at all, you know that I watch way too many movies.

Like. Way too many. So many that I have a budget every month just for going to the movies.

So here's me combining two things that I love in the hopes that it takes the edge off of my writing itch.

I'm not promising any regularity (for the three people who will follow this blog...) or type of movies that I'll review, but I can promise this: There will be reviews. At some point. Of like. Movies.

Yeah. So enjoy and stuff.