Pay the Ghost (feat. Nicolas Cage)

Honestly I expected more from the promise of this supernatural horror with Sarah Wayne from the Walking Dead. I don't think it's a bad movie. It was made well, and the aim was right. It's just, for a scary movie, not scary at all. Super boring.

Pay the Ghost tells the story of Mike Lawford, a college professor who's busy trying to get his tenure. His wife and son don't like this about him, and he misses Halloween. But there's a carnival, which Mike takes little Charlie to. So it's not so bad. But Charlie disappears. And every Halloween extra kids disappear, and it's cause of a ghost.

Time jumps ahead a full year, where most of the film is spent watching Mike and (wife) Kristen deal with the loss of their son, trying to figure out what happened to him. But there's no new element of danger. They're just trying to find their kid. Worst case scenario, after a whole year, Charlie remains missing. The worst is over before we get to the bulk of the film.

They really blew it with this one.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Pig
6. Birdy
7. Wild at Heart
8. Joe
9. National Treasure
10. Guarding Tess
11. Snake Eyes
12. Dog Eat Dog
13. Color Out of Space
14. Mom and Dad
15. World Trade Center
16. Peggy Sue Got Married
17. Zandalee
18. Prisoners of the Ghostland
19. City of Angels
20. Willy's Wonderland
21. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
22. Bangkok Dangerous
23. Drive Angry
24. Army of One
25. Lord of War
26. Gone in 60 Seconds
27. Matchstick Men
28. Vampire's Kiss
29. Con Air
30. Face/Off
31. Trapped in Paradise
32. The Boy in Blue
33. Honeymoon in Vegas
34. Deadfall
35. Amos and Andrew
36. Moonstruck
37. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
38. Knowing
39. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
40. Bringing Out the Dead
41. The Family Man
42. Stolen
43. It Could Happen to You
44. 8mm
45. The Frozen Ground
46. Left Behind

47. Pay the Ghost

48. Primal
49. Grand Isle
50. Looking Glass
51. Arsenal
52. Between Worlds
53. Ghost Rider
54. Trespass
55. The Humanity Bureau
56. Next
57. The Weather Man
58. 211
59. Fire Birds
60. The Croods

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

From an author who specializes in making fantasy novels based on (mostely eastern) european fairy tales, I'm going to assume this is not her best work. While the premise and ending are satisfying enough, it felt like she was struggling to get her word counts up enough to make the grade. Instead of filling her sentences with tedious adverbs, she makes up medieval-style idioms whenever possible, a technique which might aid in the illusion of a fleshed-out fantasy world, but fails.

Most of the characters in this story serve little purpose aside from elongating the story, told by teen girl, Agnieszka, from a quiet village near the corrupted Wood. Every ten years, an ancient but young-looking wizard comes to the village and takes a girl to live with him for ten years, where the corruption of the wood will be cleansed from her. And Agnieszka is the chosen one, but why? She's not good in any conventional sense, but it turns out she's very special and the things that make her special also make her especially adept at magic.

This old wizard, while over a hundred years old and abusive, becomes her love interest. The kingdom royals insist on fighting back against the corrupt woods instead of nurturing it. In fact, the queen of Polnya had been captured by one of the Woods' heart trees. Prince Merek wants to rescue his mother, which most advise against, and the controversey draws Agnieszka and the Dragon to court, where it's further affirmed that our heroine is a village girl instead of a courtly heiress. But she's especially gifted in magic, sourced from books and spells. And there are a lot of pages put into the casting of spells, like intimate songs cast by the Dragon and our heroine.

There are metaphors upon metaphors for the state of said spells, and the activity of their casting. Irrelevant details pile every page, leaving me exasperated in my search for the actual story. With an apparently boundless magic system, I never knew what to expect or what to hope for, and our age old wizard could never manage to make a wise or logical decision in resolving conflicts. In a world where only teenage girls have the gift of common sense, this is a true fantasy.

While this book has almost nothing to offer me, I can see why others might enjoy it, people who identify with our protagonist. It can be immersive and exciting if you don't think too much about it. But I found the whole thing to be tedious and lacking in substance.

Goodfella's Pizzeria of Bloomington Indiana

"A slice of New York City," touts the huge box, which required me to enter my house and kitchen backwards. Less than a block from Nick's English Hut, sits this little shop, serving $3.50 slices from a 22" pie. For $8, you can add a fountain drink and a giant breadstick, which is itself more bread than any person should have at once. The ratio for Goodfella's Pizza is 2cr/1.5ce/1.5ch.

Their crust gets a 4 out of 5. It's chewy but not rubbery and crusty but not dry. There's not a lot going on in the flavor department, but that's fine. It has a nice coating of burnt flour on the bottom, common for a huge, east coast pizza. But the crust is too dense for anything from New York, and while you'd be inclined to eat a slice folded in half, to eat it like that would be exhausting. There's just too much dough here for its intended style.

Their sauce gets a 3 out of 5. It tastes like the good tamatoes, cooked down to proper thickness, but there's something lacking. For style, I'll give Goodfella's a Bloomington 3 out of 5. If this joint were on the east coast, with any level of tourism, it wouldn't even make the map. It doesn't even succeed at emulating the style it's going for, which would already prevent it from standing out in any capacity. Aside from that, $3.50 for a slice made of 75% flour is far too much to ask. But while this style of pizza can be found in most shopping malls, it's still rare for our neck of southern Indiana.

For overall quality, Goodfella's gets a Bloomington 5 out of 5, nuff said. This leaves our fellas of goodness with an overall score of 75%, perhaps above the national average.

Nick's English Hut of Bloomington Indiana

To be honest, I'd never have thought to check this place out if they didn't come up when googling "Pizza Near Me", requiring me to try it because, who knows, it could be a hidden gem. On the Kirkwood strip toward campus, this sports pub is mostly a place for bros and fatherly alumni to take their kids for a burger while they're in town for homecoming or whatever. But I could be wrong since I've never been on a Saturday night.

The interior is crowded but cozy, and to pick up my to go order, I found myself vying for eye contact with the bartender to announce my intent to pick up a pizza. A situation only tolerable after large beer or two, which I'd not had. My $15, 14-inch pizza (not including a $2, giant order of red sauce) came in a no-frills white box, with an encouragingly substantial heft. The ratios for said pizza are 3cr/2ce/3ch.

The crust gets a 2 out of 5. It's chewy and pizza-like, but fairly dense, and flavorless. Justine suspects it was precooked, like a store bought crust. It's possible, but either way the dough needs more yeast. The sauce gets a 1 out of 5. While fairly thin, I couldn't taste any tomato. All I could taste was parsley and lots of it, stems and all.

For style, I guess they get a 2. Nick's has pizza, but it's not their thing. Serving the standard fair of a sport's pub, I'm sure something else on their menu is especially good, and I have to suspicions about what that is. For overall quality, their pizza gets a Bloomington 4. You can't blame a good cook for a bad recipe. I was very disappointed, considering how good the pie looked. But it hardly tasted like pizza. So all in all, Nicks gets a firm 45%. Sorry guy. If you're going to serve the worst pizza in town, you should be charging way less.

Stolen (feat. Nicolas Cage)

Stolen tells the story of bank robber Will Montgomery, played by Nicolas Cage. He gets busted while his accomplices run free, and to prevent a harsher sentence, Will burns the money. After all, he has a beloved daughter, and doesn't want to miss out on her entire upbringing. Fast forward 8 years and daughter Alison, played by Sami Gayle, is less than forgiving. Neither are Will's accomplices, who along with some FBI members, think the money's hidden somewhere.

In fact one of such accomplices has grown bitter enough to fake his own death and kidnap sweet, adorable Alison, for a ransom of ten million dollars. So Will has to come up with the money, but how? All he knows how to do is rob banks? To make matters worse, it's Fat Tuesday in New Orleans. So the premise is pretty all right, but nothing is especially well executed in this film. And I have a hard time rooting for a protagonist who thinks with his trigger finger. The action is all right, directed by Con-Air's Simon West, whose craft hasn't grown much since the 90s.

There are no surprises whatsover, and it feels like the only demographic for this film are guys who like seeing cute teenage girls drugged and locked in trunks of cards. Sami Gayle's performance, while often overdone, feels like the only thing in this movie that isn't phoned in. Cage is all right, doing his action and all, but he doesn't do anything new or special. Even if you're part of the specific demographic, Stolen's a tough sell.

Also, I'm going to tweak this list. Primal is ranked too high. Left Behind and Knowing are both ranked too low. Even the flawed logic in The Family Man has a small impact on its general enjoyability.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Pig
6. Birdy
7. Wild at Heart
8. Joe
9. National Treasure
10. Guarding Tess
11. Snake Eyes
12. Dog Eat Dog
13. Color Out of Space
14. Mom and Dad
15. World Trade Center
16. Peggy Sue Got Married
17. Zandalee
18. Prisoners of the Ghostland
19. City of Angels
20. Willy's Wonderland
21. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
22. Bangkok Dangerous
23. Drive Angry
24. Army of One
25. Lord of War
26. Gone in 60 Seconds
27. Matchstick Men
28. Vampire's Kiss
29. Con Air
30. Face/Off
31. Trapped in Paradise
32. The Boy in Blue
33. Honeymoon in Vegas
34. Deadfall
35. Amos and Andrew
36. Moonstruck
37. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
38. Knowing
39. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
40. Bringing Out the Dead
41. The Family Man

42. Stolen

43. It Could Happen to You
44. 8mm
45. The Frozen Ground
46. Left Behind
47. Primal
48. Grand Isle
49. Looking Glass
50. Arsenal
51. Between Worlds
52. Ghost Rider
53. Trespass
54. The Humanity Bureau
55. Next
56. The Weather Man
57. 211
58. Fire Birds
59. The Croods