Primos

GRodRaven — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:24:56 +0000

Hace mucho tiempo que no os cuento de una película española, pues aquí la tenéis. My probable butchering of the Castilian language aside, I had been recommended this movie from Spain, “Primos” sometime early last year and haven’t been able to get to it and see it until recently. One of the best things about having my cousin Vicente come visit from Spain is that he always brings an external hard drive filled to capacity with movies, television series, and games from his home country and/or dubbed in Castilian. This story is my best attempt at a segway into telling you about the movie “Primos” which, in case you didn’t know, is the spanish word for “cousins.” This movie starts off in the heart of the action, or more specifically, in the heart of the hilarity. As Diego addresses the people in the church on his wedding day explaining to the guests in great detail why and how his fiancé decided to call off the wedding at the last minute and leave him at the alter. Understandably distraught and speechless, he is left alone in the church with only his two cousins Julián and José Miguel who try to get Diego to look at the bright side and to move forward with his life. After reminiscing about their summer vacations in their home town, Diego, now drunk and disoriented, proclaims that they must all return to their hometown to look for “the girl that got away,” his former girlfriend, Martina.

This absolutely hilarious movie is, to me, “The Hangover” of Spain. You have the smart ass character, the nervous character who suffers from horrible anxiety and doesn’t realize how hilarious he is, and a supporting cast that brings this heartwarming and funny tale to life. Find it, look it up, and watch”Primos.”

Business Cards By Gabriel Arronte

GRodRaven — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:39:34 +0000

One of the things that every filmmaker and really any professional should have is a business card. It might sound a little outdated or old fashioned in the twenty-first century but I personally believe that every little bit helps especially when it comes to trying to sell yourself and/or land a job. When I was doing my Master’s, everyone on the bus would hand out business cards like tic tacs. They are a great ice-breaker, especially in impromptu meetings so you should remember to always have them with you because you never know when a business opportunity will present itself to you.

That being said, I want to personally thank my good friend Gabriel Arronte for hooking me up with the designing of my business card. He works as a graphic designer and web designer in Atlanta, GA. Once he has his website ready, I’ll be sure to share it with all of you. In the mean time, you can click on the link to his Facebook and Twitter.

“The Broken Silence” Trailer

GRodRaven — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:13:30 +0000

It’s finally here! The trailer of the film I wrote “The Broken Silence.” Check out the trailer and tell me what you think. Expect the film to release sometime in March 2012. Thank you to all who donated to our Kickstart account in helping us make this possible.

Happy 2012

GRodRaven — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:52:47 +0000

I would be remise if I didn’t write a regular post first off wishing all of my readers a very happy and healthy 2012. Here we (pretty much everyone) go again proclaiming our newfound and sudden inspiration with a laundry list of resolutions, ideas, and inspirations to accomplish throughout the year. (Most of which we’ll probably forget by the end of January.) Lose weight, be a better person, take a trip, etc.

I’m no exception to being a victim of the moment either. I want to get in better shape, I want to find a job so I can finally be a real adult; buy a car, move out of the house, be 100% financially independent. (Right now I’m pretty close to that, but still.) I have so much stuff to hang up on the walls, and I’m tired of having it piled up behind my door.

I WILL NOT even entertain the Mayan prediction about the end of the world presumed to be on December 20, 2012. I will however bring up the wonders of 2012. The London Summer Olympics, a new presidential election in the United States. (I will not express my political opinions or social position regarding politics, so don’t ask.)

You know I have to talk about movies I’m waiting for this year: mainly “The Dark Knight Rises”, “The Expendables 2″, and “The Avengers” to name just a few that I know about already. Obviously there will be many more reviews and posts from me in 2012 as well.

To all my readers once again, Happy New Year and all the best to you in the new year.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

GRodRaven — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 03:21:21 +0000

The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are timeless classics. Everyone knows that most of the time when a movie is adapted based on a novel, or at least with characters based on a novel, most of the time it’s not going to be as good. This is especially true when the original author has been dead for over eighty years. So once again Guy Ritchie takes the reigns to make the sequel to his very successful original from three short years ago. This time around, Holmes goes up against Professor Moriarty whose mind is just as brilliant as it is evil. Now that you have a grasp on the story, let’s talk details because as you know, when it comes to Sherlock Holmes, it’s all about the details…
The movie begins with Holmes in one of his ridiculous disguises trying to obtain information about Professor James Moriarty. When Holmes is confronted by several thugs, there is an immediate familiar digital effect of the bullet-time assessment of the fight scene before it happens like in the first film. However, in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows none of the fight scenes go the way Holmes anticipates.

With many returning favorites from the first film and the addition of Noomi Rapace (The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo) playing a gypsy with lots of juicy secrets, and Stephen Fry as Sherlock Holme’s brother, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is an extremely entertaining movie with an emotional story, some hilarious dialogue, and one of the best action sequences I’ve seen in 2011. You should see this movie. It’s elementary…

More Voices and Impersonations

GRodRaven — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:15:46 +0000

I’m sorry this took so long but here is the second video of some of my other impersonations and voices. Comment away.

Here’s the first video in case you haven’t seen it or don’t remember. Note: Ignore the old web address and logo mentioned in the first video; it no longer exists. Thanks!!

The Sitter

GRodRaven — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:11:47 +0000

We’ve all done it. Growing up, one of our first taste of “real responsibility” is babysitting. Especially if you have a large family filled with younger siblings and cousins like I do, you’re going to be doing a lot of this during your teenage years. If you really like it, you can study Elementary education or child psychology when you grow up and make a career out of it. (Of course I’m oversimplifying.) But none of that is the case in the movie “The Sitter.” In the movie, we first meet Noah Griffith, (played by Jonah Hill) as a character he’s pretty much been typecast for so far in his career: a twenty-something lovable loser with his heart in the right place.

When his mother asks him to babysit his neighbor’s kids so that all the adults can go to a formal gala, Griffith reluctantly agrees. The way the children are introduced was a little on the nose and cliché. First you have a well-dressed, awkward, teenager with self-esteem issues. Then there’s a pre-teen girl who wants nothing more to be a celebrity and live that life obsessed with makeup and the latest trends. And then there’s the adopted South American who barely speaks English and can’t seem to stop blowing up toilets.

When Griffith’s supposed girlfriend calls him asking for cocaine and to join him at a party, he reluctantly agrees. He steals his neighbor’s minivan and takes the kids to multiple stops throughout New York City. Everything up to this point in the movie was fairly predictable with lackluster jokes… then a few surprises I didn’t see coming including J.B. Smoove and Sam Rockwell as a coke dealer with a gay scrawny bodyguard stuck in the 1980′s and a meth lab prepared by bodybuilders. The characters of the children are fleshed out and are actually interesting, intriguing, and original in their own rite. Along the way, Griffith also conveniently runs into old classmates that help move the story.

The Sitter is a better movie than I thought it would be. Very entertaining with an AMAZING soundtrack that everyone will recognize including Method Man, Slick Rick, The 2 Live Crew, and The Sugarhill Gang. If you like Jonah Hill especially, hire a sitter (because it’s not for kids) and watch The Sitter.

Colorblind Test Fail

GRodRaven — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:09:48 +0000

Do you see a number or symbol or something in the image on the right? If you can’t, then congratulations you’re colorblind. Like me! Despite the fact that there are so many choices to assist people with blindness or partial blindness like corrective lenses, contacts, and even lazer surgery, there still isn’t anything to treat colorblindness. Let me repeat that: There is NOTHING available out there to help correct colorblindness. Colorblindness has many different variations, extremes, and even causes. I honestly don’t even know which kind of colorblind I am. I know that I have it because of genetics. Throughout my life I’ve been teased and questioned regarding how I can’t see colors. A few months ago I was on a bike trail in The Florida Everglades with a friend. We rode fifteen miles and reached the end of the trail as the sun was about to set. As you can imagine, the view was breathtaking. Alas I wasn’t able to see the sunset the way it’s meant to be seen. My friend had mentioned all these colors that blended out onto the horizon like God mixing paints on a palette as He prepares to turn the sky into night time… I couldn’t see it the way he was seeing it. You can see all the different colorblind types and causes here.

Here’s the best way I can describe what being colorblind is like… for me. I am unable to distinguish shades of colors so a lot of colors look the same to me and I can’t distinguish them. Blue and purple, same thing; pink and grey, same thing; orange and green, same thing and so on. Look at a traffic light. From top to bottom it’s red, yellow, green. The way I see it, from top to bottom, I see it as orange, green, and white. Whenever I’m driving late at night and certain intersections have flashing lights, I treat all those like four-way stops and do so not only as a precaution, but because I can’t tell the difference while I’m driving half the time.

Doubt

GRodRaven — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:32:59 +0000

Just like my review on Ready Player One was posted in the midst of the passing of Steve Jobs, so too is my review on the film Doubt coming at a time in the midst of two of the biggest child sex abuse scandals possibly in the history of the NCAA with accusations against coaches of Penn State and Syracuse University. Nevertheless thousands of nearly identical accusations have been brought to light by the Catholic Church since the late 1900′s. But I digress yet again as I always do.

Doubt takes place at a Catholic school in New York City in the 1960′s. When the school accepts it’s first African American student, the parish’s popular priest is suspected of having inappropriate contact and an inappropriate relationship with the student. The speculation is made only by the head nun who operates solely from mere suspicion without any concrete proof or evidence.

This movie was nominated for five Oscars. Four of those nominations were for each of the principal actors which include a stellar cast of Philip Seymoure Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. The other nomination was for best adapted screenplay. The movie was directed, written, and even the original story was originally written by John Patrick Shanley. This movie didn’t win any of the Oscars it was nominated for, but nevertheless, it is a gripping story with beyond superb acting. The interesting thing about this movie was that there weren’t really that many scenes. Really. Several scenes ran very long and it almost felt like a Tarantino movie because of the “talking heads” but the dialogue was so gripping I didn’t mind. The cinematography was beautiful and assisted a great deal with the story-telling and hinted with character development.

An amazing movie. A controversial topic. A powerful cast. Watch this movie!

Online Dating (and the psycho-social centrifuge it spins us through)

GRodRaven — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:01:24 +0000

Everyone wants to feel loved, right? We all want meaningful relationships in our lives. We want to be happy, feel fulfilled, etc. It’s even medically proven that being in a loving relationship throughout our lives will help us live longer. So how does one find that one special person? What steps does a person take to ensure or at least have the odds on their side that the will not only meet someone, but that that someone will be perfectly compatible for them?

In the good old days people relied on their friends who displayed certain levels of uncomfortable gittyness or annoyance and tried to set you up on a blind date. Friends tried to sell you on the notion that they suddenly had this “outside friend” for years that you’ve never met or heard of that would be perfect for you. All of the sudden they’re the best real estate agent in the world, only the “real estate” is this mystery person. Now depending on your mood, personality type, or level of desperation, you succumb to your friend’s flattery and before you know it you’re sitting in an overpriced restaurant with a stranger constantly checking that the fire exits haven’t been relocated since you last checked twelve seconds before. That’s all changed now…

Instead of friends with the legal human-trafficking complex, there’s online dating and the sales pitch to ensure us that online dating is now something that is sophisticated and isn’t used only by pedophiles and weirdos is that 1 in 5 relationships now begin with online dating. (Thank you match.com for that bit of information.) But why do people do it? Why use online dating? It’s a slippery slope because at first glance you might think, “Is this person so pathetic that he doesn’t have friends to set him up with someone?” Or “Is this person so socially awkward that he relies on a computer to give him a false temporary sense of intimacy and companionship?” To that I say… it’s true, some people on these sites are like that. But if you’re honest with yourself and with whoever it is that checks out your profile and start a correspondence with, it can be satisfying.

There are so many dating sites to choose from nowadays and if you’re new to the whole online dating scene, it may be a little overwhelming and you wouldn’t be sure where to start. Some are free and some you pay for and some you overpay for. And price isn’t the only thing that separates them. Take the paying ones first. Match.com and e-Harmony are among the most popular. Match.com has an affordable rate of $35 a month and e-Harmony has a rate of $60 a month. Also on Match.com, you’re free to explore the sites of other members and contact them on your own. On e-Harmony you can’t; you’re forced to depend on the site itself to set you up with someone that it thinks is the compatible match for you.

Most of the free websites work exactly the same as Match.com. You create your own profile and you can be as persistant as you want in seeing other people’s profiles, contacting them, and they can see your page. Now the way all these sites actually determine who you might be interested in dating is by answering questions about yourself, taking personality tests, and putting together your personal profile that puts your best foot forward. Online dating isn’t for everyone but if you’re honest with yourself and put your best foot forward, it could be very rewarding. It’s very high risk/high reward.

I’ve been doing online dating for quite some time and I’ve had my share of successes and failures from it. I’ve attempted the long-distance thing and the local thing. And without getting into details of placing blame on myself or others for the relationships that didn’t work out, I’ve had lots of shall-we-say “interesting encounters.” But like all other experiences in life, there are good memories and there are bad ones. Just take it all in stride.