Movie Review – Mississippi Grind

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Mississippi Grind (2015)
Written & Directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck

mississippi-grind

Gerry is a gambler who finds himself losing more than he wins, but he earns just enough to keep himself hooked on the game. During a Texas hold ‘em at a casino in Iowa, he meets Curtis. Curtis is a fellow gambler, though not as concerned about winning as he is with the rush of the game. The two men strike up a friendship quickly, and as Curtis is shuffling off down New Orleans, Gerry convinces him to travel down the highway, following the Mississippi and gambling as they go. The goal is to make $25,000 to buy into a high stakes private game in NOLA. However, Gerry doesn’t know when to quit and always pushes against the odds.

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Book Review – The Cabin at the End of the World

The Cabin at the End of the World (2018)
Written by Paul Tremblay

cabin at the end of the world

Wen is on a summer vacation to a lake cabin in rural New Hampshire where her fathers want the family to be disconnected from the internet and their phones for a little while. She’s out collecting grasshoppers when a strange, imposingly large man shows up, introducing himself as Leonard. He seems very kind and quiet, telling her she is a great little girl and implying that he’ll be speaking with her parents very soon. Wen feels conflicted, safe at moments and then wary. Then the other emerge from the tree line, and Wen feels a strong sense of dread. Over the next two days, Wen and her dads will experience a confusing and terrifying series of events, forcing them to question the very reality of the world around them.

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Movie Review – The American President

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The American President (1995)
Written by Aaron Sorkin
Directed by Rob Reiner

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT

President Andrew Robinson is looking for support on a crime bill, having dropped the gun control pieces much the chagrin of an ideological staff member. While his people work on the crime bill, Robinson meets Sydney Ellen Wade, an environmental lobbyist with her bill to push. She accidentally insults the president to his face, and they proceed to spar with Robinson feeling very charmed by her lightly. He’s been a widower for several years, going between being president and raising his daughter. Robinson and Wade develop a mutual attraction and eventually being a relationship that becomes impossible to maintain privacy with as the media swarms. Conservative politician Senator Rumson sees this an opening for presidential election bid and begins to frame this relationship as antithetical with American family values. What throws another wrench in things is that support for the crime and environmental bills is becoming a tug of war in the Senate.

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Comic Book Review – The Final Night

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The Final Night (1996)
Written by Karl Kesel
Art by Stuart Immonen

final night 01

An alien woman named Dusk arrives on Earth with a warning: The Sun-Eater is coming. The Sun-Eater is a biological weapon that has gone rogue, consuming the core of a solar system and destroying the orbiting planets as a result. It has arrived in our system, and it will take the combined efforts of the DC superheroes plus Lex Luthor to do something about it. Helping out is a group of time-displaced Legionnaires who can recall bits and pieces of historical data about the Sun-Eater. The planet begins to freeze over as the heroes’ efforts appear to be for naught, with some of them believing these are their last days together. However, help comes in the form of a very unexpected figure and will begin a journey to redemption.

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Movie Review – A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place (2018)
Written by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski
Directed by John Krasinski

a quiet place

Humanity is near extinction in the wake of a violent species that has emerged on the planet. These creatures are blind but possess super sensitive hearing. The film focuses on the Abbott family who lives on a farm in a rural community. They have spent over a year living in this violent new reality and have adapted, sprinkling well-trod paths with sand to soften their footsteps and building a soundproof bunker under their barn. Their eldest child, Regan is deaf and due to a lack of resources her damaged cochlear implant has become useless making her very vulnerable. The matriarch Evelyn is pregnant and due in a few weeks so this becomes an issue of vital importance, the family prepping a soundproof box to hide the newborn in when they arrive. But as often happens in movies like these things begin to go wrong very quickly.

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Movie Review – Dark Places

Dark Places (2015)
Written & Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner

dark places

In 1985, a brutal murder occurred in Kinnakee, Kansas. The culprit appeared to Ben Day; the victims are his mother and two of his sisters. Little sister Libby Day survives and goes on to testify that she saw Ben committing these acts. Jump to present day, Libby has squandered the last of the money she got from her book about the events and the goodwill of people who have heard her story has dried up. She is approached by Lyle, a member of the Kill Club, a group of amateurs that takes murder cases and reopens them to try to solve them. They believe Ben is innocent though he’s never appealed his life sentence. Libby is skeptical but eventually agrees to pursue their leads and uncovers the secrets of those final days of her childhood innocence.

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Movie Review – The End of the Tour

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The End of the Tour (2015)
Written by Donald Margulies
Directed by James Ponsoldt

the end of the tour

Writer/journalist David Lipsky wakes up one morning to the news that David Foster Wallace killed himself. Wallace was a novelist who published Infinite Jest in 1996 and was a book that hit with tremendous impact on the literary world. Lipsky worked at Rolling Stone in the 90s and proposed going out to Central Illinois where he would follow the author on the last stop of his book tour. Lipsky arrives and finds Wallace to be a man not exactly comfortable with the fame his book has brought him. He seems very agreeable though considerably quiet and not having too many close friends, but lots of acquaintances. Over the course of a couple of days, Lipsky gets to know Wallace and probe into places the writer might not want to go.

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Movie Review – Ready Player One

Ready Player One (2018)
Written by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline
Directed by Steven Spielberg

READY PLAYER ONE

Wade Watts is a young man living in the Columbus stacks in the year 2045. An online virtual world called The Oasis dominates everyone’s lives providing them the ability to be whomever they wish and do whatever they want to. The deceased creator of the Oasis, James Halliday posthumously announces a contest hidden throughout this artificial reality, a search for three keys. To find the keys, you must decode the riddles Halliday has left which all seem to tie back to events in his personal life, particularly regrets. Wade befriends Kira, a fellow searcher for the keys and they take on the menace of IOI, a corporate entity devoting their resources to finding the keys. The person who solves the riddles and finds the keys will end up with ownership of the Oasis and determine its future.

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Movie Review – Slow West

Slow West (2015)
Written & Directed by John Maclean

slow west

Young Jay Cavendish has traveled from Scotland to America in pursuit of his one true love Rose Ross. Rose and her father fled their home after a crime was committed. Jay crosses paths with Silas Selleck, a bounty hunter who appears to take a fondness to the naive and earnest younger man. They begin a trek across the West to find Rose and encounter other travelers along the way. Following them are a band of fellow bounty hunters who want to catch Jay for their purposes. The journey is a quiet one with short bursts of violence, like a strange dream.

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Comic Book Review – Underworld Unleashed

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Underworld Unleashed (1995)
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Howard Porter

underworld unleashed 01

Flash rogue Abra Kadabra has gone about recruiting the villains of the DC Universe to serve under Neron, a lord of the underworld. Neron offers these villains new powers and their greatest fantasies if they only give him their souls. Suddenly Metropolis, Gotham, and other cities are beset by villains with an immense level of power. Neron eventually turns his gaze to Belle Reve, the prison for super powered criminals. The Justice Leaguer Blue Devil goes it alone deep into the bowels of Hell to stop this villain and is transformed forever. Eventually, it is up to a group of Earth’s heroes to follow his path and take on Neron.

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