Score: 7/10
When Louis arrives on stage, he gains all of the attention in the room. An odd opening act primes the crowd for the odd act that Louis himself will be giving over the course of the night. Rather than a linear stand-up comedy show, Louis's show constantly sidetracks into derivative ideas. These derivative ideas come out as stereotypical accents and unique hand motions, to drive in every punchline. His writing seems a bit distracted, making it hard for him to connect stories together. At one point, he discusses the sexual pleasures of a rat and then tries to go into a story about him watching The Wizard of Oz with his two daughters. Yet, his delivery helps to make sure that the audience is on the same page as himself, no matter how far away he has traveled from the original joke. It takes skill to constantly be able to connect with an audience with so many different ideas going on in Louis's mind. Most of his jokes are short and to the point, simple but also clever. Clearly, Louis is comfortable on stage no matter how awkward his form of joke-telling gets.
Score: 7/10
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This week, we will look back once more at the Emmys to listen to the songs that got nominated for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics:
1. "Settle for Me" from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - This piece of music is a nice Broadway-style solo. It has a good amount of class with just a bit of drums in the background and an accompaniment by symphonic string instruments. It's got the exact tone of a jazzy big-city standard that makes you want to roam around on the streets in a tuxedo. 2. "Good People" from Empire - This song is a smooth R&B hit, with a constant drum beat and a straining male voice. Empire revolves around a record company, so most of the music is very well-written and smooth. "Good People" possesses a modernized style of class with a lot of soul behind it. 3. "A New Season" from Galavant - Hilariously written and reminiscent of Monty Python comedies, "A New Season" mocks its own renewal. I have no idea what Galavant is about, but this song makes me really want to watch the show. One of the highlights of this song is the music writer, Alan Menken. If that name sounds familiar to you, it should because he composed for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, Aladdin, and a lot of other films. 4. "Frozen Lullaby" from Garfunkel and Oates: Trying to Be Special - A few years ago, I won free tickets to see Garfunkel and Oates at The Neptune in Seattle. The experience was uncomfortable, but quite interesting with their feministic music writing. This song is a lot like their other writings, edgy and full of references to ovaries. I respect that they are clever and fighting to help women through music. The Emmy went to: 5. "Til it Happens to You" from The Hunting Ground - I'm not sure exactly how this was nominated for an Emmy considering it is a film, but I must approve the win because of the power that this song has. Lady Gaga brought the audience at the Oscars to tears with her message against rape and colleges hiding cases. The song places the listener in the shoes of a rape victim, but also reminds us that we have no idea what it is like. Overall, the piece of music is brilliant with a glorious build-up to create strength. Then, it closes with a stripped-down chorus to create an echoing presence that haunts the listener and leaves a definitive impact. Watch the nominated shows:
In 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted one of the most well-known experiments to date. The experiment involved random individuals who were hand selected to play roles as prisoners and prison guards. The experiment was supposed to last for two weeks, but ended up being cut short because of the findings that Dr. Zimbardo gathered. The Stanford Prison Experiment retells the story of Zimbardo's work in a haunting fashion. What starts off as a paid job for twenty-four male students ends up escalating into something that no one expected. The film handles the event extremely well, taking us inside of the prison simulation that ended with results that are still hard to comprehend today.
Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez (C.O.G.) takes us into the cramped space that Zimbardo created for his experiment, masterfully giving a claustrophobic portrayal to the audience. Capturing the tone of the experiment, Alvarez creates a haunting reimagining of what the "prisoners" went through after signing up. The film features performances by actors that I have barely seen on screen. All of the performances are crafted from the original experiment, giving the film a genuine cast. Billy Crudup (Watchmen, Almost Famous, Big Fish) plays the role of Dr. Zimbardo and capably puts himself in the shoes of a man whose experiment turns for the worse. A few other actors do a nice job in their respective roles are Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Suicide Squad) and Michael Angarano (Almost Famous). Miller shows us what was going on in with one of the prisoners, who felt mistreated and had a mental breakdown. On the other side of the picture, Angarano plays one of the guards who gets carried away with his role. In his role as Christopher Archer, Angarano terrifyingly takes control of the prison. This is a film that leaves the audience pondering the outcomes of the experiment. The experiment shows us that people can become power-hungry if they are placed in specific roles. There are also implications of ingroups and outgroups, where people join up with others who are in similar situations as themselves. Some of the prisoners banded together to rebel against the guards, while some chose to follow along with what the guards made them do. The guards often ganged up on the prisoners, taking the experiment to the extreme via the use of physical brutality and mental harm. The film brings us visually into an experiment that is hard to imagine from simply reading the thesis. In writing, the reader can get an idea of the experiment, but we can only truly understand what was going on through visual interpretations. The Bottom Line: The film gives the audience a fascinating peek into an experiment that had to be called off because of certain interactions among the guards and prisoners. Score: 7.5/10 Image credit: By Zahra Borhan - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49047896
Lady Gaga has captured the world's eye once again with her new song, "Perfect Illusion." I'm not going to lie, this is one of the catchiest songs I have ever heard. It's repetitive and perfect for Lady Gaga's voice. There is a key change towards the end of the song, which is fantastically hit by Lady Gaga's vocal chords. There are reports out now that she will be releasing a new album in October. If the whole album is as fun as this song, I am totally down to hear it! The new music video for the song was released yesterday as well and it is a whole lot of craziness. I really like the super-weird driving scenes where Lady Gaga moves around like a maniac. Basically every scene is just ridiculously unfocused and spastic, which works well with the song. I anticipate a great album to come with this single on it, so I will be awaiting its arrival impatiently. Get ready for Lady Gaga to be invading the radio once again with her new music once the full album comes out. One might say that all we'll hear is "Radio Gaga," but let's not go there.
Check out the music video for "Perfect Illusion": Buy/download the single on Amazon:
Let's start with the fact that I've seen Chronicle and I love Chronicle. I questioned, how bad can Fantastic Four be if it is directed by the same guy who did Chronicle? It turns out, that it is pretty bad. If I categorize this film into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it will probably sit at the very bottom of the ranked-list. At first the story starts off okay, maintaining my interest. In the first 20 minutes, I wondered why the film got so much hate from Marvel fans. But then, the rest of the movie played and it went downhill quick!
The story takes a shift into the action portion of the story. What starts off as a promising background for the four protagonists becomes a spiral into an irrelevant plot. The plot line is unlike the other Fantastic Four films, attempting to dodge the fact that the other films existed. The problem of the other Fantastic Four films wasn't the plot, rather it was the performances. The plot was not nearly as bad as this new film makes it. In this film, the characters have barely any development before the life-altering occurs. To me, the whole point of the Fantastic Four is that they are all closely related and end up struggling to reconnect after gaining their powers. None of these characters have any weight (except maybe The Thing, after all he is a giant rock). Honestly, I wouldn't have cared if they killed off any of them in the plot. The worst part, is the villain established in the last half hour of the film. The villain is terribly created and ends up bringing down the last portion of the film with unnecessary action. The villain stays true to the comics by name, but nothing else about him is relevant. Almost all of the acting feels forced and one-liners build a cheesy script that fails to work with the young actors involved. I love every other film I have seen with Miles Teller (Whiplash), Michael B. Jordan (Creed), or Kate Mara (House of Cards). Because of the poorly-written script, I got flashbacks to Spiderman 3, which has a similar soundtrack. Josh Trank brought us outstanding visual effects in Chronicle, but Fantastic Four appears to have hired the wrong guys for a superhero movie. In many of the scenes, there is clearly a green screen to portray a different dimension. The effects seem like something that I might have created in high school, with a complete lack of authenticism. With modern special effects, I will admit that I understand it takes a lot of work to create action sequences. Yet I probably could have created these types of effects in Photoshop, which I have used only two or three times. I hate to say this, but I enjoyed Batman v. Superman more than this film. The Bottom Line: Fantastic Four lacks all of the basic elements needed to create a decent superhero film. Score: 3/10 Image credit: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America - Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan & Jamie Bell, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49457311 Help me make my dreams come true...
We are so close to getting 100 Facebook likes and I am so excited to see that number flip. I have never had a Facebook page with so many likes, so thanks everyone for checking out Firstflix Reviews. I love being somewhat popular! Hopefully, Firstflix will make some money soon so that we can fund certain activities in the future. I want the site to be interactive and fun for readers/writers. I always love reading reviews of movies and would love if people sent me some guest reviews at Firstflix1@gmail.com. Or you can send them to me via DM on Facebook! I will give you credit on the site if you so desire, or I won't if you prefer to be anonymous. Reasons why I want to monetize this site: More money = more movie reviews More money = more festival reviews More money = more publicity for the site How to donate: Check out our About/Donate page to donate some money of whatever amount. For any donation $3 or over, you will get a shout-out in a post. For any donation $15 or over, I will personally send a thank you and something from my film/music collection! That's a pretty awesome deal considering I have posters, blu-ray combo packs, and a crap-ton of CDs. For now, peace out and keep on groovin' on. -Zach
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