Oh So Geeky

Photo Credit: Brooklyn / Fox Searchlight Pictures Brooklyn sets itself apart by bringing a focus to immigration with an uplifting coming-of-age journey. Life is moving too fast and not fast enough for Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) whose gifted with the opportunity to migrate to the United States from her small Ireland town. Leaving her mother and sister behind to forge a new life across the pond, she tries to ward off homesickness while charting a difference course with a charming acquaintance Tony (Emery Cohen). Finding kindness from strangers, love and her own maturity as a young woman, Lacy's story is about homesickness and coming into one's own. As a booming city and skyscrapers replace cobbled streets and small-town businesses, she acclimates to her surroundings and acquaintances. The story is wonderfully remarkable in how delicate and endearing her tale explores as immigration in the 1950s was no easy feat. The film is a touching love letter for those young hopefu...

As far back as I can remember, Leonardo DiCaprio has been one of my favorite movie stars. The tall tale of his fans' adoration is an extraordinarily common one: young girl watches Titanic (or Romeo and Juliet ), falls in love, and continuously cries out for the subsequent snubs he's received with every Academy Awards ceremony. Rewind back to my 1997 where every friend, friend of friend, and relative took me to see Titanic - a film  about  two fictional passengers from opposite social classes who fall in in love on the fated ocean liner.  The chemistry between the film's stars Kate Winslet and DiCaprio radiated on-screen making it easy for the world to fall head over heels.  As I grew up, most movies of my teenagerdom fell to the wayside except for Titanic . Its intricate production was filed into my fandom archives under "I Will Defend This Movie Until My Last Breath". And, DiCaprio remained a hardcore favorite. Pinpointing the exact origin of my love for...

It's that time of year again for the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences to award one of eight nominated films for Best Picture:  The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, Spotlight.  The header above was inspired by the official theme of the ceremony this year: dreaming in gold. In continuing another collection of artwork from around the web, here's a selection of posters nominated for the coveted Best Picture.

Photo Credit: The Walking Dead / Gene Page Last week of The Walking Dead took us on an unforgettable ride as Rick and his family squared off against walkers treading into Alexandria. They lost some valuable members and Carl suffered a tremendous injury. A major reprieve is on the horizon for everyone reading - this is fairly one of the most light-hearted episodes in a long time. Perhaps for the history of the show? Below includes spoilers of the series so far. You've been warned but hope you enjoy!

Photo Credit: How To Be Single / Warner Bros Pictures February is a go-to month for Hollywood to release movies about love and relationships. Taking a break from the Nicholas Sparks' norm, and truly awesome Pride and Prejudice and Zombies adaptation , was a more modern comedy  How To Be Single starring Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, and Leslie Mann. Putting her long-term relationship on pause to ensure no part of her own identity is left untapped Alice (Dakota Johnson) explores the freedom of being single. Helping her navigate a new world of flirtation and one-night-stands is a workaholic sister Meg (Leslie Mann) recognizing her desire for motherhood, and Robin (Rebel Wilson), a non-stop partying and unfiltered coworker. How To Be Single  is more funny than romantic, and the credit goes to its leading ladies. Johnson had a tremendous breakthrough last year  50 Shades of Grey , and she's steadily establishing herself as a versatile and nat...

Photo Credit: The Walking Dead / Gene Page The previous mid-season finale of The Walking Dead left us with Deanna's death and our group's safety hanging in the balance. A hoard of zombies broke through one of the community's shattered walls. We had subtle and not-so-subtle ideas about where the returning episode would tread. I don't think anyone expected for No Way Out to be regarded as one of the best episodes in a longtime, as well as one that is best for the series. An action-packed premiere left us wanting so much more! Beware of spoilers - if you haven't seen this yet!

Coming off of the heartwarming monster-of-the-week episode Mulder and Scully Meet the Were Monster, the X-Files took a somber turn with its latest episode. Director and writer Glen Moran combined an unknown force known as the Trash Man, and a solid focus towards Scully with her mother and as a mother. In Home Again, the agents are sent to Philadelphia to investigate a serial killer connected to the homeless. Stuck between the streets and the city laws, dozens of homeless men and women were being shuffled around the city like cattle - until the local officials are mysteriously killed by a mystery assailant who swoops in and out of a garbage truck. Just as the case gets underway Scully is called back to Washington D.C. where her mother suffered a fatal heart attack. Left stricken at her beside, Scully tries to stay strong as her mother mysteriously calls out for her long-distant son Charlie - whom she hadn't had contact in many years. Trying to focus at the task of hand, Scully...

One of my favorite summer reads used to be Nicholas Sparks' books. I say used to because when he was served with a lawsuit in 2014 claiming racist and homophobic  behavior, my hobby was somewhat buzzkilled. It was hard to separate the claims from what he was writing. Not only that, but every adaptation following  The Notebook sizzles out into the Blandlands. A lot of people will say his books are virtually the same and I'd agree: they are all about pretty people who are shot with a love-at-first-sight arrow by a North Carolinian cupid. Two people spend two hours or 300 pages in love with each other and don't face the obstacle challenging their true love until the third act. Despite reading the same thing over and over again, there were adaptations I looked forward to - Safe Haven , Nights in Rodanthe , Dear John . Yet every time, something fell flat - either the direction, the acting, the script, or all three. When I heard last year that  The Choice  was goi...

2009 took a turn for the unexpected for the publishing industry: a mash-up of classic literature and supernatural sprang up in every book genre. Author Seth Grahame-Smith mixed Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with zombies, which was followed by Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and  Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters . When I initially saw the parody novels in bookstores, I didn't know what to think - was it a joke? were classics so uninteresting they had to be remade? Fast forward five years I couldn't wait for this movie, and now I'm jumping on the book as soon as possible. It is a truth universally acknowledged that Hollywood has done its fair share of Pride and Prejudice adaptations. In its most recent version the Regency era is an alternative world where England is coming under siege by zombies. A class system breaks out between the wealthy who can afford to learn defense skills, and those who cannot, as well as humans and zombies. Out in the open countrys...

We've hit the halfway mark with the X-Files revival! It's so hard to believe that we're nearly two episodes until the season ten finale already. The third episode really lays on the charm and kitsch with a brand new monster-of-the-week episode: Mulder and Scully Meet the Were Monster . Hold up in his office, Mulder is questioning his middle-agedness. Nearly all of the cases he and Scully investigated, or runs that excited him the most about the possibilities of the world, have been solved - either through technology, a weather phenomenon, or hoaxes. It's safe to assume that the sails have been knocked out for him, and he immediately realizes the childish naivete he had all those years ago. Until Scully springs a new case on them: it's got monsters in it. Well, a monster to be exact. Out in the middle of a small Oregon town (where everyone nearly seems to high off their rocker), a series of animal attacks on humans brings the agents out to investigate. Mulder b...