Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Friday, May 3, 2024

DVD/Movie Review: The Ring 2

 


The Ring Two is the 2005 sequel to 2002's horror/thriller, The Ring. The movie is directed by Hideo Nakata and brings back Naomi Watts and David Dorfman from the original movie. Kelly Stables takes over the role of Samara, but they do use archived footage of Daveigh Chase, who played Samara in the first movie. The movie also includes Simon Baker, Sissy Spacek, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elizabeth Perkins, Gary Cole, and Emily Van Camp. The movie is set about six months after the events of the first movie, in which Rachel (played by Naomi Watts) made a copy of the tape in order to keep her son Aiden alive. Rachel then relocates to Oregon with Aiden to start a new life. However, the tape is still out there, and through a murder at the beginning of the movie, Samara discovers their whereabouts and takes over Aiden's body. The rest of the movie revolves around Rachel trying to free Aiden from Samara's influence.

The DVD extras include a few behind-the-scenes featurettes, and the short film called Rings, which was meant to bridge the gap between the two movies. It shows the consequences of the tape's continued existence and how teenagers were forming rings to see how many of the 7 days they could hold out before making a copy for another person to watch. All in all, there is enough there that if you like to go through the extra materials you will be satisfied. The movie, as most horror/thriller movie sequels are, is not great. It does, however, bring the story to a stronger conclusion, given how the first movie was left somewhat open (although another movie has been made without Watt's involvement). The acting was about on par with the first movie, and Naomi Watts, as the movie's lead, was good at playing Rachel. The overall story was just weaker, there was far less of a puzzle to put together, and the 7-day time frame element (and thus, much of the suspense) from the first movie was missing from this one. While it is not as good as the first movie, it is still worth the time to watch if you enjoyed the first movie (or just generally like non-slasher horror movies or psychological thrillers). 


No comments: