My Top 10 Eminem Songs

Eminem has been one of my favorite artists for a very long time. This list is just my 10 personal favorites, and the links to the videos that accompany them.

#10: When I'm Gone

#9: No Love

#8: Mockingbird

#7: Bad Guy

#6: Without Me

#5: The Real Slim Shady

#4: Stan

#3: Till I Collapse

#2: Cleanin Out My Closet

#1: Lose Yourself

Ted 2

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In some ways, Ted 2 suffers because it's not as good as the first movie. It's also an improvement over Seth MacFarlane's previous A Million Ways to Die in the West (which I also happened to enjoy despite its noticeable problems). For the record, I still think Ted 2 is an enjoyable enough comedy, and one of the better comedy sequels out there. Once again, Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane have great comedic timing and chemistry together as John Bennett and Ted respectively. Amanda Seyfried steps in as Mila Kunis's replacement, playing a lawyer who is trying to help Ted be seen as a human in the eyes of the law. Seyfried handles the comedy really well, acting as the straight woman, while still having her goofy moments. The plot feels a little jumbled (a problem that seems to occur in a lot of Seth MacFarlane's work, as though he struggles with trying to figure out exactly what he wants the main plot of the movie to be). The Hasbro subplot really didn't need to be included in the movie, and feels as though it was only added so that Giovanni Ribisi could be in the movie, and his storyline just felt rehashed from the first movie. Jokes don't always land, but when they hit, they really work for me. Is Ted 2 a masterpiece that's going to stand the test of time, and be compared to the likes of The Dark Knight, The Empire Strikes Back, or The Godfather Part II? No, but I don't think that was the goal it was aiming for. It works as a movie that you can just turn on and watch at your own leisure.

8 / 10  

The Veil

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In The Veil, Sarah Hope (American Horror Story’s Lily Rabe) is the last survivor of a cult. Documentary filmmaker Maggie Price (Jessica Alba) comes across something that hints at documented footage that was never revealed. Along the way, secrets, demons, and the monsters within will all be unleashed when the documentary crew takes Sarah back to the place where everything happened. Lily Rabe is a talented actress and does a pretty good job as the character of Sarah. She manages to come off as distant, aloof, and clearly haunted by the events of her past. Even though Jessica Alba still seems to barely be able to say her lines, she does have enough charm here to make her character somewhat likable, and she’s clearly trying. By far, the standout performer here is Thomas Jane, bringing just the right amount of charisma needed to play the film’s villainous Jim Jones-like cult leader. Unfortunately, this movie does suffer from some of the most annoying cliches plaguing modern horror movies. Firstly, most of the main characters are unlikable and forgettable. Hell, one of the characters, named Ed, disappears early on in the movie, and I was just like who the fuck is Ed? Literally five minutes after I was told their names, I’d pretty much forgotten them. So, yeah, that just about says everything that you need to know about the characters in the movie. The second problem this movie shares in common with all of the other modern horror films is the use of lazy, unnecessary jump scares. However, the twenty minutes or so are actually really good, but they don’t quite make up for the rest of the movie’s boring, plodding pace. Overall, a couple of good performances, and a decent climax just aren’t enough to save this movie. 

4 / 10 

The 5th Wave

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The 5th Wave is the latest in the long line of young adult books being adapted into a movie and it stars Chloe Grace Moretz as a teenage girl trying to find her younger brother in the middle of an alien invasion. The way the invasion works is they attack in waves. The first wave is a power outage. The second one is tsunamis and earthquakes. The third wave is a virus. The fourth wave is an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style assimilation. The fifth and final wave is a group of people who the aliens have trained, annihilating what’s left of the human race. First things first, let me get into what I liked about the movie. The acting, for the most part, is pretty solid, better than most young adult adaptations. Chloe Grace Moretz, in particular is really good, managing to do her best with the material she’s given, especially because she has the daunting task of carrying the movie on her shoulders. Actor Liev Schreiber does good with his performance despite the fact that the character serves no other purpose than to spew out exposition. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the guy she meets in the woods about halfway through the movie. Actor Alex Roe delivers his awkward dialogue fumbling through a very stilted performance, and has the charm and charisma of a cardboard box. The plot is interesting enough, but isn’t executed particularly well, mostly because this movie is poorly written. The pacing is a bit off. The movie’s opening is really strong, but then the movie really slows down for awhile afterwards, while building a boring, forced, cliched “romance” involving a talented and charismatic actress and some guy with no demonstrable talent. Despite this movie having some glaring problems, I actually did end up enjoying it as a guilty pleasure. 

6 / 10 

The Big Short

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A movie about the housing market crash between 2005 and 2008 could have easily been a bore, but co-writer and director Adam McKay (yes, the man who did the Anchorman movies) managed to look at the situation in a different way, injecting a little humor in the situation, and dumbing it down just enough for those people who can easily lost in the shuffle, and, along with co-writer Charles Randolph make the dialogue interesting enough, and get actors like Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, and Ryan Gosling who can make the dialogue work, that the movie as a whole is also able to work. There are hints of dramatic moments that I think work really well, especially for Steve Carrell and Christian Bale. There are also a couple cameos in the movie that I think work better than they really should. Another thing I want to compliment is the soundtrack. It may seem like such a small thing, but the way songs like Sweet Child O Mine by Guns N’ Roses, Feel Good, Inc. by Gorillaz, and Master of Puppets by Metallica are interjected into the movie feel natural. On the more negative side of things, The Big Short is 130 minutes long, and there are several places where the movie looked like it was going to end, but didn’t and just kind of kept going. Even though I think a good ten or fifteen minutes could’ve been cut out of the movie, I still think it was pretty good, and I would recommend watching it at least once. 

9 / 10      

The Revenant

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The Revenant follows fur trader Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the early 1800s. It tells the story of Glass’s search for revenge after he is mauled by a bear and later left for dead and has his son murdered in front of him, helpless to do anything, by fellow fur trader Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). The film overall, is excellent. DiCaprio and Hardy are both fantastic in their performances. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, and only natural lighting was used for the film. The violence is brutal, and I love the final fight between Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. The fight between these two is brutal and bloody, and they are both going for the kill without it ever reaching an unrealistic extreme. The scene with the bear was realistic enough, it actually reached a point where it was kind of hard to watch. Take note, this is coming from a guy who can easily sit through the likes of Saw, Seven, and Dredd and I would hardly flinch. Alejandro Inarritu made a pretty solid flick with 2014’s Birdman, and here, he does it again. Almost everything in the movie works. In terms of flaws, I really only have one. One of the subplots in the movie didn’t feel as though it was all that important in the grand scheme of things, at least for me. This is a great movie, and I do recommend seeing it should you ever get the chance. 

9 / 10  

Top 50 Favorite TV Shows (30 - 21)

#30: Beetlejuice: Beetlejuice is a little dark, and a little twisted. Basically, it follows my sense of humor. It carries some of the horror-comedy elements of the movie it was based on. The one major difference is the changing of the Lydia and Betelgeuse characters into a friendship. I really think this television show was a hidden gem that I recommend checking out. 

    

#29: Futurama: Of the two shows that Matt Groening has created, while The Simpsons is the more iconic of the two, I personally think Futurama is a little bit funnier. The humor is darker and a little more adult. Each of the characters is very distinct in their traits. My personal favorites are Bender, the Professor, and Zoidberg. Good news everyone, this is a funny show. 

   

#28: Malcolm in the Middle: I have to admit, it's kind of interesting watching Bryan Cranston in Malcolm in the Middle after associating him mostly with his work things like Breaking Bad, Drive, and Godzilla. In this show, he shows he's pretty damn funny as the eccentric, goofy family patriarch. But, I do also think the entire show is funny, and I like that it offers the perspective of the middle child, and the great comedic opportunities that can arise from that .
    

#27: That 70s Show: The reason I have That 70s Show a little higher than Malcolm in the Middle is because I'm more familiar with it. The characters stand out for me. Are they generally simple? Yes, but that's where I think these particular characters succeed. The actors all generally work off each other well, and actually do feel like they are friends. Yes, the show lost some steam later on. To be fair, almost all shows do that when they go on long enough, but that doesn't detract too much for me. 

  

#26: Monk: Have I said that I like mysteries? I like mysteries. Monk is one of those shows that puts the rare comedic spin on the mystery / procedural genre. The show follows Adrian Monk, a private detective with OCD, who provides most of the show's comedy, all the while suffering a tragedy.
  

#25: The Blacklist: The Blacklist follows career criminal Raymond Reddington, who willingly walks into the FBI, and turns himself in with the promise of giving them the names and identities off a list he has compiled of the most dangerous criminals the FBI's never heard of. The only catch is, the only person he'll talk to is a rookie profiler. From there, secrets are exposed, and questions surface. 
  

#24: NCIS: The mystery aspect aside, what I love about NCIS is the characters. This team acts as something of a surrogate dysfunctional family, with the actors genuinely brining this to life with what I feel is pretty solid chemistry. 

#23: Robot Chicken: Robot Chicken comes from the slightly demented mind of the hilarious Seth Green. The Adult Swim staple has grown such a following because the humor and parodies are so bizarre, they're hilarious. Two favorites that stick out to me are one where the gang from Scooby-Doo go to Camp Crystal Lake and get massacred by Jason Voorhees, and one where the group from Saved by the Bell are put into a situation from a Saw movie. 
     

#22: Goosebumps: Goosebumps is on the list as my de facto guilty pleasure show. It's nostalgic for me, and I still have fun with it, even if I can go back to it, and realize the effects and acting really don't hold up. I think everybody's got that one show that they love, even if they can acknowledge that it's not the best, and Goosebumps is mine. 
  

#21: Supernatural: I still love Supernatural, even if I do think it's starting to waver in quality. The early episodes feel sort of like The X-Files, where our two protagonists travel around in '67 Chevy Impala, hunting things that go bump in the night. It can be scary. It can be funny. It can be dramatic.