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Showing posts from July, 2013

Update: The Bounce Back Film

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When I first told you about The Bounce Back in late June, the film that Criminal Minds' Shemar Moore wants to produce, it had raised $193,692 on Indiegogo, and Shemar's goal was $500,000 . At the time of this writing, it has raised $607,135 (wow!!!) and has five days left to go in the campaign. The more money it raises, the more chance it has of being a quality film (though we know it will be anyway, since Shemar will be in it and producing it!), and you can still donate before the campaign ends. To find out more about The Bounce Back , check out these links: Indiegogo campaign page Official Facebook page Official Twitter page Film website And something that's also very cool : the campaign has broken records for the "All Time Most Funded Film in Indiegogo history" and the #4 "Most funded film of all time using crowd funding." It's also the first of its kind to use bloggers to make this happen, and I'm proud to be a part of i

CONTEST: House Party 5: Tonight's the Night, ends 8/3 - two winners

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Everyone loves an amazing house party, and House Party 5: Tonight's the Night  is now out on DVD. House Party 5 Synopsis: A pair of high school rappers have two major goals – make music and get hot girls. The best way to get both is to throw the biggest and best house party ever! The night of the party, one of the boys is grounded by his parents, so it’s up to his best friend to break him out of his house confinement and get the party started. So... what's your most outrageous real-life house party story? Check out the widget above and then enter to win via the Rafflecopter.  Two winners  will be chosen, and the contest ends Saturday, August 3rd at 11:59pm EST ; winners will be notified August 4th  and have 24 hours  to respond or an alternate winner(s) will be chosen. Prize will be sent via FedEx or USPS - no P.O. Boxes, please, and U.S. and Canada only. Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fruitvale Station

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Fruitvale Station  is based on the true story of Oscar Grant and what happened to him at the BART station in Oakland, California, on New Year's Day 2009. I had not heard of his story before, but I looked it up before seeing the movie; because of this, I knew how Oscar ( semi-spoiler)  met his untimely death, but not how the movie would portray the events leading up to it. Oscar Grant is a complicated 22-year-old. He was previously in jail for selling drugs, as we see in a flashback scene, but he eventually got out and now is trying to be a good boyfriend to Sophina (Melonie Diaz), a good father to he and Sophina's young daughter, Tatiana (Ariana Neal), and a responsible son to his mom, Wanda (Octavia Spencer). He has recently been fired from his job at a grocery store, for showing up late, and when he appeals to his manager to try and get the job back (to which the manager says no), Oscar makes an appointment to sell some drugs to a former "colleague," for some quic

The To-Do List

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The To Do List is being billed as Superbad with a female protagonist - Aubrey Plaza, who I enjoyed in Safety Not Guaranteed last year. Playing a nerd (which I'm afraid she's now being typecast into), she finds out that she's way behind as compared to her friends on the spectrum of sexual activities, and she makes a list of things she wants to "accomplish" before she leaves for college in the fall. This film will not be for everyone, as some people at my screening even walked out within the first twenty minutes, but if you're a fan of the American Pie series or like those types of movies, then you will like this one. Brandy Klark (Plaza) is just now realizing she's woefully inexperienced with guys, and vows to change that during her last summer at home. Her sister, Amber (Rachel Bilson), is engaged to a loser, but is still able to give her advice, as are her friends, Fiona and Wendy (Alia Shawcat and Sarah Steele), who support her in this endeavor. Bran

R.I.P.D.

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I had a bad feeling about R.I.P.D.  before I saw it, because usually when a studio schedules a screening the day before a film's release, it means that they think the public (and also the press) are not going to like it. Although  R.I.P.D. isn't a total wash, mostly thanks to Jeff Bridges, it's a movie that will try to suck in its audience due to its talented cast, and then leave them disappointed. Nick (Reynolds) works for the Boston Police Department, and recently he and his partner, Hayes (Kevin Bacon), have been involved in some dirty policework, including stealing some gold. He tells Hayes that he doesn't want to be included in that anymore, and Hayes shoots and kills him during a police melee in a burning building. When Nick "wakes up," he's informed that the R.I.P.D. (Rest in Peace Department) wants to recruit him; indeed, Proctor (Mary-Louise Parker) tells him that he's lucky to have this opportunity, otherwise he would have gone straight to

The Spectacular Now, in theaters August 2nd

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Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller in The Spectacular Now *I blog about books over at Books I Think You Should Read. Today's post is about a book-to-movie adaption, The Spectacular Now , that will be in theaters on August 2nd, and is a must-see movie, based on the book. Read on to see why. I'm going to confess something here: I started this blog to bring you reviews of books I read - that I personally chose to read - and then somewhere along the way I started to receive so many books I "had" to read, that when I read "for pleasure" now, I sometimes keep my reviews to myself. Sure, I'll post them on Goodreads or wherever, but not here - I'm just too busy or tired (I also do movie reviews over at Yes/No Films , my movie blog, and it's occasionally hard to juggle both). The Spectacular Now , however, is a secret that shouldn't be kept. I just read it for my book club, and it was a unique tale; it's also coming to the big screen  on Au

Red 2

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I gave Red high marks when I reviewed it back in October 2010, and sequels usually tend to not be as good as their predecessors. However, with Red 2 , you're in for a rare treat: it's just as good as the original, and might actually even be better, a feat that is hard to achieve. The entire gang returns from the original: Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, and John Malkovich, and with Catherine Zeta-Jones joining the cast as Frank's (Bruce Willis) ex-girlfriend. In this installment, the team has to work together to find a "missing portable nuclear device," and their search takes them from London to Paris to Russia and back. Helen Mirren's character also informs them that she's been hired by MI6 to kill them, even though she later ends up helping them fake their deaths and helping them find the nuclear weapon. Anthony Hopkins stars as a "mad scientist" of sorts who knows where the weapon was hidden, and who the CIA has kept locked

Girl Most Likely

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Girl Most Likely had a dismal 18% on Rotten Tomatoes when I attended a screening of it, and as of this writing is down to 13%, so I wasn't expecting it to be a fantastic movie. That being said, it took a while to get rolling but had a surprising amount of hilarious one-liners, and it was fun to see Darren Criss (of  Glee fame,   and a UM '09 alum like myself) up on the big screen. Imogene (Kristen Wiig) is devastated when her boyfriend, Peter (Brian Petsos), tells her he's going to move out of their NYC apartment. She fakes a suicide situation (note and pills spread out on the bed) and calls him, and he agrees to come over. Her friend Dara (June Diane Raphael), however, finds Imogene instead, and brings her to the hospital, where they want to release her into 72-hour care. They call the person she least wants to see: her mother, Zelda (Annette Bening), who lives in Ocean City, New Jersey, and whom Imogene hasn't seen in years. She reluctantly goes "home" wi

CONTEST: Win a 4-pack of tickets to The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, ends 7/23

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Hey, Midwest movie-goers! Enter our Giveaway to win a Family 4 Pack of Tickets to The Henry Ford Museum or Greenfield Village Michigan is full of great places to visit and one of our favorites is The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. We have teamed up together to offer you and your family the chance to visit for FREE. Be sure to enter and share with your friends. Enter to win a Family 4 Pack of Tickets Contest will run from 7/16-13- 7/23/13 a Rafflecopter giveaway Find out the fun things to do in our review of Greenfield Village .

The Way, Way Back

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The Way, Way Back is a movie that I would like to see again in the theater - not only because the theater where I saw it played the film at a low volume, but also because the movie was just that funny. It's a coming-of-age story about a boy who is forced to join his mother at her boyfriend's beach house, along with the boyfriend's daughter, and is convinced that he's going to have a miserable summer, only to find out that perhaps there is a place he belongs after all. The performances in it are fantastic, especially Sam Rockwell's, and it's a movie that a lot of people will relate to. Duncan (Liam James) is not happy that he, his mom (Toni Collette), her boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), and her boyfriend's daughter (Zoe Levin) are going to Trent's beach house for the summer. A conversation between Trent and Duncan early in the film reveals that Trent is actually kind of a mean guy, even though he thinks he has good intentions, setting the tone for Tr

Pacific Rim

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Pacific Rim looked a bit like Transformers , but it ended up being a very different type of movie: Godzilla vs. Transformers, with the world at stake. The Kaiju - picture giant sea monsters, like Godzilla but bigger - are trying to destroy Earth, and it's up for the humans, who control Transformer-like robots called the Jaegers, to finish them off. The War has been going on for many years now, but in Pacific Rim, they try to stop the Kaiju once and for all. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) is a cocky twenty-something who controls a Jaeger with his brother, Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff). The way the Jaegers work is that the two brothers sync up their brains, and one controls the left side of the gigantic robot while the other controls the right side. After a fatal accident, however, we flash-forward five years, where Jaegers are being phased out, and giant walls are being constructed instead, to keep the Kaiju out. Raleigh is now a construction worker on one of those walls, at least

Guest Post and CONTEST: Star Wars Crafting for the More Sophisticated Fan, by Tricia Slay

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*Last week, I reviewed Not So Long Ago, Not So Far Away  over on my book blog and also had a guest post by the author , as well as a giveaway . This week, here on Yes/No Films, Tricia Slay has another guest post - and see below to win a copy of the book, as well.  I don't remember a time when I wasn't slightly obsessed with the artsy craftsy side of life. One of my earliest memories is of beading Christmas ornaments well before I could read or ride a bike. Back in my junior high school days, I was convinced that I was going to grow up and become a professional artist living in a Greenwich Village loft where I would create big, colorful canvases along with my best-selling novels. Eventually, a more realistic view of life killed off that particular fantasy, but I've never stopped crafting. Tricia Slay I've also been obsessed with Star Wars for most of my life. Even though I wasn't swept up in the original Star Wars craze, I fell in love with a galaxy far, far

The Lone Ranger

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A lot of controversy surrounded The Lone Ranger when casting was announced, since Johnny Depp is in no way Native American. There are many people who grew up watching  The Lone Ranger  on TV or listening to its radio show, which actually started in Detroit, too; I am not one of those people, so I went into the movie with an open mind. The film is filled with intense action sequences as well as a good dose of humor, and it kept my attention throughout its (admittedly, rather long) two and a half-hour runtime. John Reid (Armie Hammer) returns to his small town, and his brother, Dan (James Badge Dale), invites him to ride with him and the other Texas Rangers to try to find and capture the outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner). Cavendish and his gang end up (semi-spoiler) murdering all of the Rangers, but what he didn't know is that John wasn't actually killed; Tonto (Depp) finds him and is later startled to find that John is awake. John is a "man of the law" but w

Despicable Me 2

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Despicable Me is one of my favorite childrens' movies - I love the minions, and when I reviewed it in June 2010, I gave it a very high "Yes." I was hoping that the sequel, then, would be just as hilarious, and although it was funny and still worth seeing, the original is much better, unfortunately. Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) and the girls are back in the sequel, and Gru has stopped his evil ways - in the first Despicable Me, he stole the moon (but later returned it) and is now concentrating on both being a good father and also operating his jams and jellies business, with which the minions and also Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) are helping. One day, though, a woman named Lucy (Kristen Wiig) kidnaps him - she works for the AVL, Anti-Villain League, and they need Gru's help in nabbing a bad guy. They set Gru up with a cupcake shop at the mall, so that he can scope out the suspects there, and Gru finally feels back in "his element" again; however, he's