4.5 Razors

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
  • IMDb: link

Me and Earl and the Dying GirlAdapting her own novel, writer Jesse Andrews offers us a look into a year of life of lonely high school senior Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) who has spent his entire high school experience with the sole goal of not pissing anyone off. Acquaintances with several of his classmates, but friend to none, Greg’s only outlet outside the carefully constructed web of calm (that happens to be the exact opposite of his home life) are the movies he makes with Earl (RJ Cyler), a longtime friend (even if Greg refuses to refer to him that way).

Greg’s carefully crafted world is shattered when his mother (Connie Britton) forces him to spend time with a classmate who has contracted Leukemia. At first spending time with Rachel (Olivia Cooke) only to placate his mother, Greg quickly begins to enjoy their time together, even if doing so slowly destroys his world as the aloof teen who has avoided both conflict and making any real choices in his life is put in situations where neither can be avoided.

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The Big Short

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Big Short
  • IMDb: link

The Big ShortBased on the non-fiction book of the same name by Michael Lewis, The Big Short chronicles a small group of individuals who made money betting against the housing market after recognizing a basic flaw in the mortgage system that would inevitably cause the bubble to eventually burst.

Director Adam McKay assembles an ensemble cast (Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Jeremy Strong, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, and Brad Pitt) led by Steve Carell of those whose discovery of an amazing level of fraud in the housing market allowed them the opportunity to forecast the upcoming financial turmoil that those in the industry did their best to hide even after it became obvious what was going on. Our characters are neither heroes nor villains, just those amazed at the level of incompetence and deception perpetrated on the American public which they find a way to take financial advantage of by betting against those obscene loans ever being paid off.

The story is both fascinating and nauseating as it becomes clear to not only our characters but also the audience the insanity mortgage lenders and brokers were getting away with.

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The Librarians and the Point of Salvation

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Librarians – And the Point of Salvation
  • wiki: link

“Okay, I’m not buying that a computer overload traps us in a video game.”

The Librarians and the Point of Salvation

DARPA‘s use of an Atlantean stone to boost their quantum computer’s power creates a “quantum overload thing” turning those trapped in the secret lab into “rage people.” The situation also gets Eve (Rebecca Romijn), Cassandra (Lindy Booth), Ezekiel (John Harlan Kim) and Stone (Christian Kane) all trapped with a time-loop where only Ezekiel is aware of the group’s previous missteps. Knowing what is happening forces the slacker to take the lead for once and prove himself worthy of the name Librarian (even if by the end of the episode he won’t remember any of it).

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Spotlight

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Spotlight
  • IMDb: link

SpotlightIn a true ensemble Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d’Arcy James star as The Boston Globe investigative group (bolstered by characters played by John Slattery and Liev Schreiber) that pulled on the thread of a single story involving a Catholic priest’s sexual abuse of a child to uncover a story with staggering ramifications for the entire Boston community. Based on true events, writer/director Tom McCarthy‘s film follows the investigation as it uncovers a conspiracy of silence involving dozens of priests and hundreds of victims in the Boston area alone.

A bit of a throwback to the types of old school newspaper movies Hollywood has gotten out of the habit of making in recent years (at least memorable ones), Spotlight takes us on a year-long journey with the “Spotlight” team as, under orders from the paper’s new editor (Schreiber), they discover a story far bigger than anyone thought possible. Knowledge of the events doesn’t detract from the story McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer set out to tell. The revelations are still shocking more than a decade after the story saw print in early 2002.

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The Flash – Running to Stand Still

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Flash – Running to Stand Still
  • wiki: link

The Flash - Running to Stand Still

Following the two-part cross-over with Arrow, The Flash ends the first-half of its Second Season with a trio of returning villains. The Weather Wizard (Liam McIntyre) returns to Central City to break both Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) and the original Trickster (Mark Hamill) out of jail in hopes of a team-up to take down the Scarlet Speedster once and for all. While Cold bows out, but not before warning Barry (Grant Gustin) of what’s coming, the other two villains use the Christmas holiday to their advantage and are nearly able to defeat the Flash.

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