#at least Dustin Milligan is here

[spn-rewatch-ventzone]

The Ghostfacers episode is so wild. I complete forgot about the gay subplot.

I'm gonna spend the rest of my night thinking about "Ed, you got to go be gay for that poor, dead intern."

[adamwatchesmovies]

Repeaters (2010)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Repeaters had potential. There’s no rule dictating the Groundhog Day motif must be used for comedic stories. Or maybe there should be, considering what we got here instead.

Kyle (Dustin Milligan), Sonia (Amanda Crew), and Michael (Richard de Klerk) are recovering drug addicts at a rehab facility. The next step in their journey is to apologize to those they have hurt. After failing to do so, the trio wakes up the next morning and realize it’s the same day as yesterday. What’s causing this, and how can they leave this time loop?

For the first bit, “Repeaters” proceeds as you would expect. The characters test the limits of the time loop, explore every bit of their "prison" and figure out how to best enjoy it. They take it a little far by taking revenge upon people who have wronged them in what you’d describe as needlessly petty and cruel, but these movies are always about characters changing as “time” passes, so that’s fine. Then, Michael starts taking it to a supervillain level. He’s going around murdering people and raping teenagers. Resetting time loop or not, it feels wrong. You brand him as an irredeemeable monster right away. So the story will be about Kyle and Sonia finding a way to stop him, right? If it wasn't, this would be a dreadful experience... right?

Repeaters has a massive hurdle to overcome because you don’t like the characters. They’re not good people and worse, they’re dumb. It’s another movie where the people in it have never seen any movies because anyone with half a brain would handle this situation better than Kyle does. He makes amateur mistakes over and over, and it takes him FOREVER to smarten up. At least he’s given something to do. Sonia is ultimately useless. She’s just there to be threatened and while she has her own story arc, it’s unconvincing, and lame.

And then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Repeaters pulls a fast one on you. The picture’s final act comes out of nowhere and you don't believe that sequence of events for a second. Your face is wracked in an expression of disbelief, wondering if writer Arne Olsen and director Carl Bessai really expect us to swallow this preposterous turn of events. Then the film mercilessly ends. "Well, it was bad but at least it’s over." Oh but then it isn’t. Five seconds before the end credits, it throws us yet another curveball, a twist which makes absolutely no sense, undoes much of what happened previously and leaves you with a worse taste in your mouth than the one you had before.

Repeaters is a total write-off. While some ideas might be extracted from it to make a better movie, they’re buried under too much garbage to make the effort worth it. This picture gets worse the longer you watch. (April 19, 2019)

[constantlyirksome]

Schitt’s Creek 6x08 Review: I’m sad and everything hurts.

Things in Schitt’s Creek are, as Moira would say, shooting forward at a rapid velocity, as everyone in the Rose family barrels ahead with their plans for the future, this episode felt like we really were entering the endgame for the series, with new hotels, a wedding, and a breakup lead us to the show's finale. This review is going to talk about the three storylines from least to most emotionally devastating so stay tuned.

Johnny and Moira had it the easiest this week, officially opening Rosebud Motel 2.0, a glamorous if slightly dated motel that makes the original look pretty crappy, and Moira thinks this too! Wanting more from her life, experiencing the highs of The Crows press, she wants to live a little more luxuriously. Honestly by season six I expected them to at least move into a shitty house by now so I think Moira AT least deserves this little glow up. I still believe she is one of the characters who continue to picture her future OUTSIDE of Schitt’s Creek. They were of course foiled by the Schitt’s, hoping to use the new hotel as a shag pad, driving the Rose’s out in disgust. I think this is just a little taste of how Moira may start to act towards the end of the season.

Meanwhile, David, with the help of his lovely life partner, is grappling with living larger than is possible given their income and where they live. I believe David will stay in town, based on Patrick’s words. In regards to their wedding, David again shoots a little far. He gives his groom to be a terrible fake tan, which sounds funny, and it is (“I look like a cheese puff,”) but it also sort of follows the pattern of David not fully listening to Patrick. He’s not a bad partner, by far, David has grown so, so much with Patrick, but he still has some of his mother’s self-absorption. It’s like he is trying to become more and more comfortable within this life he’s created, but he still longs to be “a rich person who has just woken up after fainting on a dusty couch.” I truly believe he can learn to be happy with less, and however the wedding turns out, I think it’ll be very indicative of where David and Patrick are headed to in their lives.

Speaking of growth, Alexis (without a doubt the winner of the shows “Most Improved” award) makes a devastating but incredibly smart decision that will ultimately be a good thing. When gorgeous, sun-kissed, ripped Ted returns for the weekend from the Galapagos (sp?) you know something is about to go down. Although they are a perfect couple there has been some foreshadowing that their relationship is in trouble. I could have never been prepared for the emotional devastation caused by Annie Murphy and Dustin Milligan would inflict with their final scene at the diner. They know their aspirations are huge and don’t match, they can’t be in the same place and truly be happy. The cliché “if you love something, let it go,” is apt here. In order for Alexis to become independent and renowned as a publicist, she needs to focus, to let go of all the romantic stories and adventures that make up “A Little Bit Alexis”. I hope hope hope Ted and Alexis find each other again in the future because they are so perfect, and like Ted don’t believe they’ll ever find a better match.

[birdy-lady]

Schitt’s Creek is five seasons into a run that rivals — and at times even beats out — The Good Place’s deft ability to be both wickedly funny and deeply morally grounded. Most people have still never seen it.

But please don’t waste any time or energy apologizing if you’ve never watched, or if you’re a bandwagoner — the majority of its fans seem to have discovered the Canadian Broadcasting Company-PopTV co-produced series over the last year via Netflix, where it’s easy to binge through the first four years of 22-minute episodes in a weekend. (Season 5 is currently available on the Pop TV app and iTunes.)

It’s a kind of bizarro-world Arrested Development, with a premise that could even be narrated by Ron Howard: the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, moved to the middle of nowhere, and finally found out how to love each other. Except unlike the bitter, often mean-spirited Bluths, in Schitt’s Creek, the Rose family — Johnny (Eugene Levy), Moira (Catherine O’Hara), David (Dan Levy), and Alexis (Annie Murphy) — chooses, if at times reluctantly, to at least try to be better people, no matter how bewildering a struggle that presents.

Like its characters, Schitt’s Creek has gotten better season over season, leaning into each dramatic curve while keeping a steady hand on the comedic wheel. There’s a smattering of accolades starting to pile up — Adweek called it “the little show that could,” and on Monday, MTV viewers handed showrunner, co-creator, and costar Dan Levy a surprise win for Best Comedic Performance at its Movie & TV Awards, where the show was also nominated for Best Series (a popular vote it lost, not surprisingly, to Game of Thrones). The Television Critics Association threw some much-deserved fuel on the fire Wednesday with a nod for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy Series and a second for O’Hara’s performance. When I started writing this piece there were zero articles demanding that Schitt’s Creek get an Emmy and by now there are at least, like, four.

And yet the idea that Schitt’s Creek might somehow not score an Emmy nomination makes me feel so… dramatic… that I’ve basically been running around town as if I’m presenting an hour-long PowerPoint outlining the cultural, business, and even ethical case for why it deserves your attention. Even if you’re not a voting member of the Television Academy — but especially if you are. (Full disclosure: I am, though as a member of the Interactive Peer Group I’m only eligible to nominate series for the big category prizes, not acting or writing or directing.)

Here’s the short version:

Slide 1: Give Dan Levy an Emmy for writing. Schitt’s slices through the usual sitcom fat of misdirections and MacGuffins in favor of sincere, emotionally honest moments.

In “The Hike,” the penultimate fifth season episode, every one of the main characters shows us how much they’ve changed, even if they didn’t want to and aren’t sure what it means. After a fraught, foible-filled hike up a mountain, David’s boyfriend, Patrick (Noah Reid), proposes. By the time they’ve reached the vista — where, Patrick reveals, he often came while trying to sort out his confusing feelings for his business partner — Levy’s script has shown us over and over that these two men know and trust each other better than either could have ever predicted.

Meanwhile, David’s sister, Alexis, admits she has some reluctance about joining her veterinarian beau, Ted (Dustin Milligan), for a lengthy work trip. “I’ve had have this, like, nagging feeling that as soon as I get there I’m going to start thinking about my family,” Alexis says. Ted, always supportive, tells her that doesn’t sound insane, and Alexis is sure she’s just failed to explain the situation. “Like, I will physically be there,” she says, “but I will be thinking about them here.” Ted confirms this is called missing someone, “and it’s a totally normal feeling.”

The show refuses to rely on the standard return to square one at the end of every episode; instead these characters are markedly different than when they started. After five seasons, they’re all dangerously close to having lived up their actual potential as good people.                 

Slide 2: Give Catherine O’Hara an Emmy for playing the now-iconic Moira Rose, the former soap star whose onetime escape from a small town similar to Schitt’s Creek has left her determined to help her family recover some of their former glory— ideally very far away. Maybe even as far as Bosnia, where she’s filmed an attempt at a big comeback in The Crows Have Eyes 3: The Crowening.

(Note: O’Hara has actually already got an Emmy, for writing on SCTV back in 1982, but please let that very long gap filled with other outstanding work inspire you to give her a second one rather than assume she’s all set.) This weird little show sold out a dozen dates of a live tour in the last few years, and there is a certain deep satisfaction in hearing thousands of people cheer O’Hara in a standing ovation simply for walking on stage.

Slide 3: Give Dan Levy an Emmy for acting, too. It’s not a one-man show, but five seasons in, Levy has made a compelling case for himself as the auteur break-out of the family. He’s got some great scene partners — Annie Murphy is particularly sharp and in the position of being most easily dismissed despite having crafted Alexis’ flighty, famous-name-dropping schtick with precision. But on a show that distributes its A and B plots with a carefully even hand, David stands out in every episode. Levy’s wincing-or-crying-or-laughing face in any given split-second is a goddamned wonderland of feels.

Slide 4: Just take a huge risk and throw in an Outstanding Comedy Series nomination already. If Pop TV, a cable network whose previous incarnations were best known for having run channel listings, is now in the midst of Peak TV making one of the best comedies of the decade, you can surely take a big swing yourself.

That’s it, that’s my pitch. Go watch this short, brilliant, unicorn of a show and then tell anyone you know who can help it have an awards-winning beginning to its sixth and final season that they should do what’s good for the world and help more people find their way to Schitt’s Creek.

[holisticfansstuff]

Save Dirk Gently

@bbcamerica @leemajdoub @netflix @neil-gaiman @osrictumbles

I simply don’t get why a show this good isn’t more popular. Most people I ask, they say they’ve never heard of it. I wouldn’t have heard of it if I hadn’t read the books and already on the look out for a show based on them. Like, whoever was in charge of promoting DGHDA…what on Earth were they doing?

[darringauthier]

Demonic (2015)

Genre: Horror

Who’s In It: Frank Grillo, Maria Bello, Dustin Milligan, Cody Horn, Scott Mechlowicz

Who Directed It: Will Canon

Plot:  A police officer and a psychologist investigate the deaths of five people who were killed while trying to summon ghosts.

Running Time: 83 Minutes

IMDB Score: 5.3

Why I Watched It: It’s a horror film and I’m a big Fran Grillo fan and I also like Maria Bello

Random Thoughts: This sat on the shelf for awhile, it was produced by James Wan.  Also just a heads up Frank Grillo and Maria Bello get top billing but they’re really not the leads it’s standard PG-13 teenagers and ghosts story.

What I Liked: Frank Grillo and Maria Bello we’re both good, Bello really doesn’t have much to do but I would totally watch them team up for their own horror movie or even a cop show.  They had good chemistry.

I will say the film tried to have a couple of twists, one was decent but by the time it came I really stopped caring.

What I Didn’t Like:Pure and simple this is just the same old same old haunted house ghost plot with kids going in to investigate what really happened to this famous haunted house.  The teen or 20 something characters are all stock and really none of them are fleshed out or the least bit interesting, we of course get the geek, the weird hot girl, a love triangle and of course lot’s of backstory connecting one of them to the house. 

The acting isn’t great from the younger cast but again granted they’re working with cliches, but they’re mostly bland there is much a difference when Grillo and Bello are on screen cause they have presence but really all there doing is trying to solve what happened, oh didn’t I tell you the film is told in flashbacks.  Trust me there isn’t a ghost/haunted house cliche this movie doesn’t wheel out.

So we have two plots,the story in flashbacks, and then Grillo being a cop and Bello a shrink trying to piece together what happened with the help of the survivor and yes we know who’s made it from the beginning and hell yes that drains any tension they might have had as we go through the flash blacks to see how they died.

There is nothing new here, nothing not even one small nugget, it’s cut and paste film making.  They had two good actors but they have very little do and even their characters aren’t that interesting, we don’t even find out if they were dating or married or something in between.  The biggest flaw is the film is not scary not even a good/bad jump scare, there is almost no tension in this film and to the point it’s boring as hell.  Only good think to say about the film is that it’s just over 80 minutes, clearly this got cut down and I’m willing to bet Grillo and Bello’s scenes are on the cutting room floor somewhere.  Why make an adult horror film when you can just throw in stock teenage victims.

Final Thoughts: A boring horror film with no scares and sadly they wasted two good actors.

Rating: 3/10

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

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[adamwatchesmovies]

Extract (2009)

Extract is a misstep from the usually bankable Mike Judge. We're talking about a total loss, but the movie is filled with so many stupid characters that it doesn’t hit home the way Office Space did - a film it can easily be compared to.

Joel (Jason Bateman) owns a successful extract company and is planning on selling the business and retiring. Unfortunately, little things in his life are eating away at his happiness. First, his unavoidable, nosy, and kind-of-aggressive-but-only-because-he’s-too-dumb-to-know-any-better neighbor Nathan (David Koechner). Next is his wife, whom he loves but is never in the mood for sex, Suzie (Kristen Wiig). Add these to a freak work accident that's left one of his employees with only one testicle - he'll probably sue - and Cindy (Mila Kunis) a sexy con artist who threatens everything and Joel is barely holding it together.

Stupid characters can make for great comedy but Extract goes about it the wrong way. Joel is attracted to Cindy (Can you blame him? I've seen Black Swan). Of course, being married, he doesn't want to cheat on his wife so, through an extreme contrivance, he decides to hire a too-dumb-to-live gigolo (Dustin Milligan) to seduce her. Once Cindy cheats on him, he won’t feel bad about cheating in return. It's preposterous. The workers at the extract plant, the gigolo, the lawyers hired by the injured workers, Joel's drug-obsessed best friend (Ben Affleck). Everyone is just so dumb it feels like the film's set in another dimension. If at least the protagonist was normal and bewildered by everything happening around him, but that isn’t the case. Joel isn’t a victim of circumstances, every time he falls down, it's his fault; he fails to communicate with people, doesn’t act like a normal human and makes endless bad decisions.

Before discussing the positive aspects, I want to discuss Cindy, Mila Kunis’ character. She’s kind of fun. She'll use anything to get the best out of everyone else, be it sex appeal, feigning emotion or her sweet-natured appearance. She also doesn’t belong. Con artists can be heroes or villains depending on their surroundings. If the people being duped are crooked, selfish or otherwise unpleasant, you're happy to see them swindled. Here, I don’t know what role she's supposed to serve. She’s like an adult walking around tricking children out of their rare Pokemon cards: darkly funny at first, but the longer it goes on, the more your interest wanes. Her role doesn’t add up to much in the end.

There are loads of talented actors in Extract and they do well with the material they’re given. It’s the story that lets them down. I didn’t laugh often, but when I did, it was hard. The subplots are enjoyable, with the dumb gigolo serving as a prime example of an idea whose execution is successful despite everything. There are some good one-liners, particularly between J.K. Simmons and Jason Bateman or between David Koechner, Christen Wiig, and Jason Bateman.

Extract is nowhere near the winner it could have been, but if you’re a Mike Judge fan it’s worth a rental. You can mentally pick out the best bits and store them in your memory, right next to your favorite gags from King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head and Idiocracy. (On DVD, July 12, 2014)

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply

[olympusreads]

Arian Reeves/Ares who looks like Dominic Sherwood is looking for HIMEROS/an older brother.

They would like them to look like Max Irons/Dustin Milligan/Chris Evans/any suitable fc. You do need to contact the player before applying. Extra Information: The shining star of the family, the Reeves man who got it all together, or at least seems to have it together. They have a strained relationship and have since they were kids. Their childhood wasn’t easy, and they reacted to it very differently. You can find out more about that here and here. For information on how I view Ares/Himeros relationship, check out this post.            

Navigation | Guidelines | Wanted | All Roles | Apply