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. 

Showing posts with label Idris Elba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idris Elba. Show all posts

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Molly's Game

 


Molly's Game is a 2019 crime drama starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Michael Cera, and Kevin Costner. It is a semi-biographical movie telling the story of Molly Bloom (played by Jessica Chastain), a competitive skier who was injured in a skiing accident and ended up out in Los Angeles working in a bar. She would, through a series of interesting events, end up running multi-million dollar poker games involving movie stars (including, reportedly, Toby McGuire), athletes, and various members of the 1%. She ends up being arrested as the FBI attempts to get her to flip on members of her poker games who are connected to the mob. Idris Elba plays her high-priced New York lawyer, and Kevin Costner has a small role as her father.

Chastain is great in the role of Molly and plays Bloom with a great mix of cocky, bordering on arrogant, funny (albeit dark humor), and vulnerable. Her chemistry and ability to banter with Elba (in a non-romantic role) really make the movie work, so much so that even the parts that don't work as well (like trying to buy Michael Cera as a badass) are easy to overlook. The movie looks and sounds great on Blu-ray. The extras are mostly non-existent. Just what amounts to an extended TV spot for the movie. So, if you only get the physical discs when there is a lot of bonus content included, you will probably just want to stick with streaming this. That said, if you have a little more than a couple of hours to kill and are looking for a good movie to watch, this is definitely worth checking out.

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

4k-UHD/Movie Review: The Dark Tower

 


This is apparently a very loose and condensed adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower series of novels. The story is set partly in the real world (specifically, modern-day New York City) and partly in a world called Mid-World, an old-west-style parallel universe in which a gunslinger named Roland Deschain (played by Idris Elba) is trying to protect the titular Dark Tower from The Man in Black, Walter Padick (played by Matthew McConaughey). In the real world, a young boy named Jake Chambers (played by Tom Taylor) has visions of Roland and The Man in Black in Mid-World and finds a portal to Mid-World. The Man in Black wants to capture Jake in order to take his psychic power (called Shine) to destroy The Dark Tower. Then, a kind of cliched good versus evil story plays out both in New York and Mid-World.

For those who get the 4k set, as is usually the case, the UHD disc just has the movie and then the rest of the bonus features are on a second, regular, blu-ray disc. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is outstanding. Pretty much what I would describe as reference quality video with visuals that really pop. There are a handful of extras on the regular blu-ray disc including a gag reel, deleted scenes, a couple of featurettes about adapting the books to the movie, character profiles on Roland and The Man in Black, and trailers for other Sony movies. All totaled, the bonus features run about an hour, give or take.

The movie is good, but not great. I think it is probably better if you have not read the books because from what I have read, the movie is a very watered-down version of the story from the books. I have not read the books, but it seems like the main complaints are that the movie removes a lot of violence, which was done to get a PG-13 rating, and that the movie tells a pretty basic, non-nuanced story. Elba does a good job playing the character of Roland as a reluctant hero (not quite an anti-hero) and McConaughey does a good job as the bad guy of the movie. It is what I would classify as a decent action movie, but the story really should have been a series (even just a limited event series with 10, hour-long episodes) so that the entire story could be told and should have been done without being watered down. I think most people who are huge fans of the books will probably not like the movie adaptation. I think most people who are a fan of action movies, but who have not read the books, will probably like it more.