Review: Choose

ME: This looks like a good one..
TIM: What's it about..
ME: A girl finds her parents hog tied and is told she has 60 seconds to choose who gets killed.. her mother or her father. If she can't decide then he kills both.
TIM: I would choose neither. That's horrible!!!!
ME: ... and that's why it's a "horror" film? Duh?
TIM: Good point.

Ok..

That brief synopsis is only what occurs in the first five minutes of the movie...

Even BEFORE the credits!

Not sure how this one missed my radar.. and with Kevin Pollack and Bruce Dern you wouldn't think it would have gone straight to video.

It shouldn't have...

This is THE BEST psychological thiller / horror movie that I've seen in a long time .. better then "Case 39" and "My Soul To Take" .. maybe even combined.

Smartly written.. not cheesy... not unbelievable.

And that's probably the scariest thing about this movie.

This mad man (he isn't necessarily a "killer" because he doesn't actually kill his victims) gives his victims a choice.. I'm not going to give anything away so let's say he makes them choose between A or B .. Black or White.. Apples or Oranges ...

For each victim, either choice is devastating so it basically becomes the lesser of to evils..

And everything.. everything ties in.. no loose strings.. no questions left unanswered.. everything fits right down to the last second of the film..

If I tell you anymore it's going to feel like I'm giving something away and this movie is too good to go into it knowing "something".

So my  lips are sealed.. you'll have to watch it for yourself and let me know what you thought.

Wrap Up: Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills Season 1

So we've come to the end of Bravo TV's Real Housewives of Beverly Hill's first season.

Quite a ride, I think.

Personally, this has been my favorite group of house wives with Atlanta coming a close second. I guess their seemingly over-abundance of bank has levied out the need to flip tables and dress their kids in over the top concoctions of fabric (are you listening, Teresa?).

So here's the wrap up:

ADRIENNE MALOOF-NASSIF

I'm sure you already know that Adrienne is the only daughter in the Maloof dynasty of everything entertainment .. casino, sports teams, movies.. even skateboarding for pete's sake.

Bet you didn't know her middle name is Maude.

Shhh!! That's our little secret.

Anyway, Adrienne's tag line is ".. money is what I have, not who I am" .. or something like that. And you could say that everybody with the net worth that she has says the same thing but I happen to think Adrienne means it.

Very little drama centered around her.. which is why she probably didn't get the same air time that the other wive's had .. she took the girls to a basketball game.. took the girls to the casino that her family owns in Vegas, played around with her twin sons  and made them lunch.. I mean, had the CHEF make them lunch.. attended functions and bickered with her husband, Dr. Paul Nassif.

Dr. Paul really should be the 7th house wife. I love love love him! At first you think he's a little dim witted lap dog but believe me, he holds his own.

Adrienne is the eye of the hurricane, however. With all the in fighting between the other girls, Adrienne was the voice of reason .. got involved when she needed to.. stayed out of it when necessary .. again, which is why she didn't get a lot of air time.

TAYLOR ARMSTRONG

If Dr. Paul is the 7th Housewife, then Taylor's lips .. okay, her whole MOUTH.. should be the 8th.

Taylor has issues bigger then her mouth, though.

See.. Taylor's married to Russell.

Russell has a mistress by the name of Blackberry. He is not to be confused with Kelsey Grammer who also has a mistress.. only Kel's is flesh and blood. Well, blood-less actually but more on that later.

I think Taylor was perfectly fine with Russell's mistress.. especially after having their daughter Kennedy. After all, Kennedy meant that Taylor would life in the lifestyle she has become accustomed to.. at least until Kennedy becomes 18.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Sephora.. Taylor started wanting to be a REAL wife.. with a REAL husband and a REAL marriage.

All the things money can't buy.

Only Russell likes having a trophy wife hanging on to his short stuff. And it was soo obvious during the season that he could care less about Taylor's thoughts and views and their lack of communication.

Case in point? Kennedy's so over the top birthday party. Taylor didn't think twice about buying her 5 (?) year old daughter a diamond pendant and transforming their grounds into an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party.. because actually, all that stuff was for her.. the former poor, abused Oklahoman who dared to reach for the stars and make her way to California to be discovered and.. oh.. um.. err... heh.. excuse me. Got carried away there.

But Taylor does things for Kennedy that satisfied the void in herself and Russell just does what he wants to like buy the kid a puppy, which sent Taylor on a freak out.

This season also spot lighted one of her beloved charities.. the 1736 Family Crisis Center. The episode where she speaks about the abuse she suffered as a child was probably the one that turned my opinion of her around.

I began to understand why she made the choices she's made and you started to see light in her eyes go out a little when Russell would be completely oblivious to her feelings or wants. Like constantly being on the opposite side of a room from her at a party .. women notice these things.

And I think the reason why Taylor was so quick to ruffle Camille's feathers in New York is because Taylor looking at Camille is like Taylor looking in the mirror. She knows where it's going for her.

One last thing.. so why is the focal point of Taylor's website a chandelier?

LISA VANDERPUMP TODD

When I grow up, I want to be Lisa.

Love, love, love her!

Of all the housewives, Lisa is the most accomplished.. probably the richest  in her own right.. and is just down right normal.

This women has her stuff together.. says what she means and means what she says in this straight from the hip way that you just have to love. She's also funny as hell!

Her and her husband Ken also have big hearts and a penchant for strays. Not only did they adopt a little boy (big heart) but they also took on Cedric (the stray).

When not focusing on Lisa's attempts to keep the gals from imploding, her story line revolved around Cedric.. the 30-something, French born "house guest" who sponged off her good nature.

Cedric.. with the sobby sobby past of being born of rape and abandoned by his prostitute mother in a phone booth at age 7.. came into their lives almost two decades ago and never left. Ken wants him gone.. Lisa tries to explain that living their house doesn't mean he left their hearts.. Cedric plays the abandonment card.. not working.

What's the poor man to do? Leave the comforts of a million room mansion where he doesn't have to do a damn thing and like.. I dunno.. WORK? Support himself? Latch on to Lance Bass again? The HORRORS!!

Come on, now. Even the Todd's OWN kids are out and about making lives for themselves. Give me a break, Cedric .. and please refrain from wearing the neon green and purple banana hammock again.

KIM RICHARDS

Poor Kim.. she's like this fragile little bird that fell from it's nest and into a pond of Prozac.

Or maybe needs it.

There is definitely something up with this chick.. bad nerves? Pills needing to be tweeked?

Didn't know until the finale where her sister called her out on her booze consumption and we were informed that her family stuck her in rehab.. where she promptly signed herself out the following week.

But it was obvious that Kim's hay days were looooong behind her and that she was a really tiny fish in a pool full of sharks. She didn't know how to relate... didn't know how to blend.. She would have been perfectly happy staying at home surrounded by her gaggle of kids instead of venturing past her doorstep.

There's a name for that, isn't there?

So being the naive freshmen, she opened her mouth when she shouldn't have and kept it shut when it needed to be opened.. like defending her sister in New York.

I also think she holds A LOT of resentment for being the bread winning child actress who thinks she should still be respected more then she is.

The finale also burst like a super nova when her sister let loose on how her husband has been helping support Kim financially and IT. STOPS. RIGHT. NOW... cut to camera 3 where Kim is huddled in the corner of the limo hysterical.

Interesting.

KYLE RICHARDS UMANSKY

There's a reason why Kyle and Lisa Vanderpump are besties.. nationality and age aside, they're exactly the same.

Although she says she was a child star, she wasn't anywhere near the level of her sister Kim.

Sorry Kyle, but the truth is the truth.

But I don't think Kyle would mind because her life centers around her family. Incredibly hunky husband Mauricio Umansky and four daughters. She's very hands on.. living for her kids.

Her pride and emotion when eldest daughter Farrah graduated from college show just who Kyle really is.

She's also a spitfire who doesn't back down when she knows she's right..

This season really centered around her and her on going feud with Camille Grammer. And BELIEVE me.. it was on going with a lot of rings in the ripple. Oh.. and the strange dynamic of her relationship with her sister Kim and the pressure she feels trying to live up to their dying mother's request to take care of her.

<< cue scene of dying mother >>

That was bad. Sorry.

If there's one thing you can expect Kyle to do is stick up for herself and defend her family.. even against family. It was interesting.. and I'm sure the story isn't going to end there with these two.

CAMILLE GRAMMER

Oh Camille, the patron saint of blindsided wives.

And I do say that respect.

I'll be honest.. didn't care for her. I thought she was uppity and bougie and held herself too high.

But I think after the last few episodes, everyone's opinion of her has changed.

She "Little Girl Lost" .. another feeder fish not equipped to handle the shark pool. Like Kim, she's socially inept. She may know how to walk down a red carpet and field questions from reporters but I don't think she knows how to develop relationships other then the people sitting in her inner circle.

A lot of info on their marriage has come out recently and it seems as if she was held in a golden cage being cared for by a douche bag and then disposed of with the cage liner.

Yes, I just did just call Kelsey Grammer a douche bag. I'd call him worse.. believe me!

It's also obvious that he pushed her into doing the series to give him the opportunity to start building another cage for his mistress.

Although some of the things Camille did and said initially made think that perhaps some silicone was leaking in her brain, I get it now. I get HER now .. and I feel bad for her. I do.

The 2 part reunion show airs on Bravo beginning January 27th ..

Review: The Fourth Kind

Whoa.

That's the first word that comes to mind after watching this movie.

And when I mean "Whoa" .. I mean WHHHOOOOAAAAAA.....

Let me just state up front and for the record that when it comes to UFO's and aliens and abductions and stuff .. I leave that to Tim. He watches all those documentaries on cable and spends hours looking at YouTube footage.

I let him entertain himself while I watch Project Runway or the Real Housewives and when he gets over-excited by something and JUST. HAS. TO. SHOW. ME .. I nod in the right places and give the right adjectives to appease him.

Ok. After watching this movie, I think I'm going to take him a little more seriously.

This is the true story of Dr. Abigail Tyler of Nome, Alaska.

Dr. Tyler and her husband, Will,  were both psychologists, raising their son and daughter in Nome and treating a variety of patient's that all appear to have a common thread... all were having their sleep disturbed in the middle of the night and all were experiencing an unusual sighting of an owl.

That's all I'm going to tell you because you MUST watch this movie.. and the reason being is that everything that happened in Dr. Tyler's life was already documented on her own video tapes of patients.. police video tapes.. police audio tapes.. and the movie uses this real footage spliced into the very movie itself.

Because of this, the majority of the script was already written.. the rest was filled in using actual journal accounts and reports.

I've never seen anything like this before... ever.. and when I tell you it had me on the edge of my seat and seeing the actual footage had my chin on my knees.. let me tell you, that NEVER happens.. especially a movie  about alien abduction.

Milla Jovovich plays Dr. Abigail Tyler and at the beginning of the movie, she addresses the audience as herself and says that what we're going to see is disturbing .. it is. No doubt about it. Disturbing with a capital D.

She also says that we need to draw our own conclusions..

What this movie and tell me what YOU thought about it.. I'm really curious.

Good Eats: Peanut Butter Tandy Take Cake

I'm betting most of y'all don't know what's pictured at the left, do you?

You're loss.

Pictured is the heaven that is a TastyKake Peanut Butter Tandy Take (or Kandy Kake for those that feel stupid saying Tandy Take)

You won't find these anywhere other then Philadelphia and it's surrounding areas and believe me, once you've had them, you're going to be hooked.

It's a shame that TastyKake .. after building a new multi-million dollar facility filed for bankruptcy but that's what happens when you jump up your prices.

At any rate, the other night we thought about making something for dessert. I'm not a big cake eater.. or sweet eater for that matter.. but the rest of the house would DIE without chocolate so I figured I'd be kind. Looking over the stuff I had in the house already, I discovered that I had all the makings of the Tandy Take.

Basically, I used white cake mix but added whole eggs instead of just egg whites to the recipe.

While that was baking, I used half a jar of peanut butter, some 10x sugar and butter to whip up the peanut butter filling.

Fortunately, I have a Kitchen Aid so I was able to just throw everything in the bowl and let the machine do the hard work.

You can use a hand mixer but I really wouldn't recommend trying to do it manually.

But at any rate, you want to get it to a point where the peanut filling is light, airy and spreadable.

Like a mousse, almost.

Realize too that the more air gets into the mixture the lighter in color it's going to be.

It's still going to have an awesome peanut butter flavor but I tell you that just in case you are into the concept.

Nobody cares how anything "looks" in my house.. much to the chagrin of Uber-Chef Tim .. you can basically through things in a trough and they'll eat it!

At any rate..

I put the mixture in the fridge for about 20  minutes just to firm it up a little bit. I was leery about putting a very soft filling on a maybe not so cooled down enough cake. So the little bit of chill gave the mixture enough bite to hold up to spreading.

Once the 2 9" round cakes were cool, I flipped them out of the pans and spread the peanut butter mixture .. careful to use it as a leveler so that the top tier of the cake would be level.

Ok.. so I watch too much Food Channel Network. Even though no one else would notice, I still wanted it to be nice!!

Lastly, I took a container of chocolate frosting and warmed it up in the microwave at 30 second intervals until it was soft enough to pour but not too soft that the cake would absorb it all. You'll know what I mean if you try it.

Once I poured it, I stuck the cake in the fridge to let the icing firm up a little bit and get hard.

The picture on the left is the finished product .. I wanted to take a picture of it once I had cleaned up the edges and transferred it to a cake plate but it didn't last that long..

I don't think it lasted the night, to be honest with you.

As a non-cake eating person I thought it was delicious and as close to a Tandy Take as they come.

If you make it, let me know how you did .. if you need more concise measurements well, I'm sure you can find it online. I didn't measure anything other then what the box cake mix asked for.

Review: Teen Mom 2

You know this show, right?

MTV takes the best of the best .. or worst of the worst.. teen mother's from their 16 and Pregnant series and focus' on their lives after their babies are born.

I'm actually inclined to believe that they pick the one's with the most potential for drama (Um, hello? Amber Portwood?) because what's a show without ratings and what makes good ratings?

Right.

So let's meet this seasons's moms:

Leah with twins Aleeah and Arianna
(sorry, don't know which is which in the pic)

LEAH

So Leah and Robbie break up and on the rebound, hooks up with Corey. One month later, she's pregnant with twins. Corey, bless his heart, stands rightbyherside but being young and immature Leah kept wanting to get back with Robbie.

Robbie was like TWINS? HELL NO!!

Leah finally realizes that men don't get no better then Corey and wants him back but the damage is already done and he's moved on .. kinda.. sorta..

Is anyone else disturbed that Leah only flat irons part of her hair?

Sorry.. I digress!

I'll admit that by the end of Leah's 16 and Pregnant episode I felt bad for her. There was something redeeming about her knowing that Corey really did love her.. was sticking by her and his kids.. and had some sense and maturity about her.

We already know that Leah and Corey get married :: oops! Sorry! You mean you DIDN'T know? :: and that there may be something medically wrong with one of their twins so this season, we'll get to follow their road of both relationship bliss smothered by the devastation parents feel with their child is sick.

My fingers are crossed for these two.

And not to be superficial but Corey is cuter then cute!

Chelsea with daughter Aubree

CHELSEA

Out of all the moms, I thought Chelsea had the most support and normalcy at home. Her parents are divorced but they seem to be void of issues and psychotic-ness. Plus, it doesn't appear as though her friends deserted her after she had Aubree.

The baby's daddy, on the other hand, is a douche bag. He's done everything from call Chelsea a "stretch marked bitch" to calling Aubree "a mistake" .. and everything in between.

If he thought that being on the show was going to bring him opportunities or glory, he's as dumb as he looks.

While I do find that Chelsea's father is a font of wisdom "... you liked the idea of being with him" .. I certainly question his judgment of allowing his 18 year old daughter and 9 month old granddaughter moving into their own place that he's financing. But I guess the show wouldn't be a show with a functional family handling the situation in a mature way.

At any rate.. this season expect to see Chelsea's struggle living on her own (well, with a friend) and the previews of the season show that maybe Chelsea didn't learn what she needed to learn about Adam.

Kailyn and baby Isaac
I smudged out the baby's King of Douchebag father
because I really, REALLY can't stomach him

KAILYN

If Chelsea's family is the picture of stability, Kailyn's is the polar opposite.

I really feel for this kid .. and not because she doesn't live far from me.. I feel for her because this is a kid that really doesn't have anywhere to go and no one to help her with anything.

Except the King of the Douchebag's parents.. who absolutely have their grandson at the top of their priority list.

Kailyn's mother is more interested in her current man and every hope that this kid had that her biological father would some how step up to the plate after years of no contact were dashed on a visit where he barely did anything except get up and open the front door to her. So is it no wonder that this girl was looking for love in on the wrong places?

For as supportive as his parent's are, the King of Douchebags is anything but. He's spoiled, verbally abuse and worse.. knows that Kailyn not only has no one ELSE to go to but his parents but no WHERE to go. And believe, me exploits that at every turn.

The King of Douchebags tells Kailyn that he's done with her and when she asks where she's suppose to go, he says, ".. your mother's I guess." knowing that that isn't likely. When she told her mother that the King of Douchebags broke up with her, the mother is sympathetic but never offers to either help her or give her and the baby a place to stay.

Like I said, I feel for this kid.

This season, there's even more trouble with the King of the Douchebags and what appears to be some type of domestic violence that brings the cops to the house. Something tells me that Kailyn won't be living in that house long...

Jenelle and baby Jace

JANELLE

You know, every article I ever read about reality shows says the same thing.. you get so used to cameras being around that you don't even realize they're there anymore.

That HAS to be true because what other excuse would Jenelle have for acting the way she did in the season opener?

I mean.. really. Do you NOT know ANYTHING about Amber Portwood and her current legal issues, Janelle?

Janelle is a bitch. No two ways about it. She lives with her single mother who has some weird ass speech impediment that makes her sound goofy. Come to think of it, she may have something wrong with her hearing that makes her sound that way.

Great. Now I feel horrible for getting annoyed with her speech impediment!

Anyway.. it's obvious that her mother has lost control of Jenelle a long, long time ago because if she hadn't, she wouldn't tolerate the way her daughter speaks to her. When she got pregnant, her mother told her the partying was going to have to stop and that she wasn't going to put up with Janelle, her attitude and her partying.

Yea. Right.

So baby Jace is born and what does Janelle do? Not care for her child, that's for sure. You don't give a baby a bath.. put him to sleep and then take off for the night with your friends. But that's exactly what she's doing and that's exactly what is getting under her mother's skin.

From what's been shown so far in the opener, Janelle's mother is almost caring for the baby full time and because Janelle hasn't shown any level of maturity up until then, she has little confidence in Janelle's ability to care for her child.

Which doesn't sit well with Janelle.

There was a lot of verbal abuse and some physical abuse against the mother in the opener which concluded in her mother filing for custody of Jace.

It's obvious that this little girl lost is into more then just downing the occasional long neck.

Seems as though Janelle's anger and bravado is a little chemically fueled if you ask me.

Janelle has recently been arrested for breaking and entering into an abandoned house and for having about an ounce of weed in her possession.

Nice role model for Jace, Mama...

This season expect to see Janelle continue to act out and really need to get her ass kicked by someone who can knock some sense into her. This girl needs it.

Hopefully we won't see baby Jace starring in an episode of INMATES in 20 years!

So there you have it.. I'm not sure if I'm going to commit to doing weekly recaps or not. This isn't something I make a habit of watching but do catch up on the episodes On Demand if I'm up late enough and television is boring enough so you never know. It just may be that compelling!!

Review: Season Of The Witch

There's only one type of character that Nicolas Cage does well.. the quirky-almost-anti-hero.

Think Valley Girl, National Treasure and even The Sorcerer's Apprentice for that matter.

There's really nothing new here.

Cage and Ron Perlman (remember him for the Beauty and the Beast tv show ages ago?) play a pair of Templar Knights who kind of figure out that the wars they are fighting are not necessarily for God.. but for their commander who doesn't give a hoot what God says.

So they beat feet and high tail back to where ever it is they high tail it back to.

What they don't realize is that England has been hit with the Black Plague and the king of whatever village they were in tells them that he has this witch down in the dungeon and if they would just take her to the Abbey, the monks there have the VERY. LAST. SORCERER'S. BOOK that would break the plague spell and kill the witch.

So that's the story and you already know that since this is a Nicolas Cage movie, all kinds of mayhem will ensue and getting to the Abbey doesn't mean that anything is going to go down the way the King says it will and the movie will end the way almost all of Nicolas Cage's movies will end.

There really isn't any surprises here. At all.

Was it a good movie? It was ok .. it's been done better.. it's been done worse. I happen to love all things set in the medieval age so I may be slightly biased.. and, you know, it's not like Nic Cage was wrongly cast. But it has the feeling of ".. wow! I owe the IRS a loooooooooooot of money so let me spend a few weeks making some bank" 


I wouldn't spend the money to go see this during prime hours.. in fact, it's kind of a perfect movie to use those almost expired gift tickets you got back on your birthday when there really isn't anything you really really want to see (!!) ... or wait for it on cable.

Review: Hereafter

Matt Damon is George.

George works in a factory.. eats alone every night.. is taking a cooking class.. and has a brother Billy who sees him as a money making tool.

Why?

Well, seems as though George has a very high fever as a child which in some convoluted way, left him psychic.

Yea, he talks to dead people.

Only George doesn't like talking to dead people so he refuses to do it..  he thinks that making a living talking to the dead isn't really living.

Um. Ok.

Then there's Molly, a French television news reporter who had a near death experience when caught in a tsunami. Molly doesn't have her "news edge" any longer so she is told to take a few weeks off to write a book (really? HUH?).. What does she write about? Yea.. the hereafter.

Marcus is a little London boy who's twin brother dies after being hit by a car. Since his mother is some screwed up junkie, England's version of CPS puts him in foster care. He spends his time searching the internet and going to fake psychics to talk to his brother one last time.

Do you see where this is going?

Yea.. but um.. it never got there.

At 122 minutes long, NOTHING happens in this movie until the last 10 minutes.. which really should have been the FIRST ten minutes. I really didn't believe that there could be a movie that was more boring that Buried but this one surpasses it.

And note to the film maker? If you're going to have the parts centered around Molly spoken in French and subtitled English then you better make damn sure the movie is compelling enough to keep the audience awake so that they'll actually READ the subtitles.

I was soooo bored out of my mind that reading them almost put me to sleep. Rather, brought me closer to sleep.

There was absolutely no freakin' point to this movie and not only wouldn't I recommend it.. I'd even go so far as to suggest you use the DVD version to scrape dried food from your microwave!