My First Screenr video

I made a short screencast that gives the low-down on 3 big upcoming summer movies. Hope you enjoy!

Summer Movie Attendance

I created a spreadsheet that lists all of the big movies that are coming out this summer and added a 1 by the movies I'm going to attend. Feel free to visit it and add a 1 to the number by the movie you plan on seeing too!

Book Review: LinkedIn for Dummies, 2nd Edition by Joel Elad

 Before I picked up LinkedIn for Dummies, I really had no idea what LinkedIn was all about. I knew it was growing into something big because I had started to see its name more and more around the internet. I honestly thought that it was just another social networking site. While it is a networking site, it is nothing like Facebook or MySpace. It is a place to build your professional profile and get your resume out to possibly millions of other people who are willing to hire you based on your job history and skills or wanting to form a business partnership with you.

If you don't know anything about LinkedIn or you already have an account, but you're not sure where to go from there, LinkedIn for Dummies is a great guide to help you along the way. The book starts off with a brief history of the website and shows the reader step-by-step how to create an account, build a profile, find people, grow a network, find a job and so much more. I'll have to admit that some parts of the book were a bit slow for me when going through basic things, such as signing up for an account and searching for people. But when it came to building a profile, I found the author's way of breaking down each section extremely helpful because he gives the reader a good idea of the kind of information that should be entered regarding eduction, skills and job history, as to attract the eye of the right person, such as an employer. Of course, I'm sort of looking at this in a one-sided way because I don't own a business or have a reason to hire someone for anything, but this is also a great way for employers to find employees for their business. Or maybe someone were to need a website built, they could search for someone with the proper coding skills to do that for them on LinkedIn. This book covers the website from any angle that you would want to use it for. There is even a chapter on how to use LinkedIn to increase business sales.

All-in-all, I liked this book. I walked away with a full grasp on what LinkedIn was all about, what it was used for and how I could use it for my benefit. I think one of the most beneficial parts of the book is that there are pictures, TONS of pictures, that help guide you with everything the author is teaching you how to do. There is no way anyone could possibly get lost or confused. Something that I found to be kind of a downfall is that the author paints this image that anyone can use LinkedIn by just jumping in and getting started. And while it is true that it's quite easy to get an account started, this site relies heavily on getting a network built and gaining connections. The network connections are built in three degrees: first-degree connections, second-degree network members and third-degree network members. First-degree connections are people that you know personally, whether they may be friends, family, people you went to school with and so on. Second-degree connections are basically the friends of your first-degree connections. And then your third-degree connections are friends of your second-degree connections. So by the time you get to the third-degree, you may have quite a large network going and that's what you want. What my problem is is that I don't know anyone on LinkedIn at all. When the author shows the picture examples of his account, he has quite a large number of connections and it seems like he expects the reader to have some connections on LinkedIn already. Of course, the book goes over how to invite people to join LinkedIn and so on, but I don't think I'd be able to find people willing to join. There is the option of searching for random people and starting a network that way, but it seems less effective to me. So what I'm really getting at here is that I think this website is a great tool to help someone professionally, but I think it would help greatly if the person already knew at least one person on there. If you happen to be that person, then I recommend this book to you. Anyone who wants to use LinkedIn or who is already using it could benefit from this book because it probably covers things that you probably didn't even know about yet.  

Photos From My Theater

I've created a little slideshow of pictures from the movie theater that I work at that you can view here. They are just a few things from the past and present. The first photo is a display of Thor's hammer from the upcoming movie Thor, which is due out on May 6th. It's probably the coolest display to put together, but not the easiest. It took about 6 hours between me and two other people to get it done. The most frustrating part was that not all the pieces were sized right, so it doesn't look so great up close, which is a shame. The next photo is of the Tangled display that we had around the holidays. Now that was by far the most complicated one I've ever built. That one was an all day ordeal. It was made up of five big, wavy parts that didn't want to stay together most of the time. The third photo is of Donkey from Shrek 4. There was a chain that hung all the way across the lobby with all the characters from the movie, which was out last summer. The last photo is a little different. It is something from the projection booth. It is a little device that cleans film. Instead of lacing up a movie normally, we would lace it through this unit. Both sides of the film get clean by running between the two spools of white material. We usually only use this if we've had a film for several months because they tend to acquire a good amount of dust, which will then scratch the film.

And that's it. Hope you enjoy the photos!

Movie Wiki

It's sad to say that there aren't many good movie wikis out there. Upon searching for some, I came across Entertainment Wiki. While it contains an array of wiki categories, such as books, tv, comics and people, it also has one for movies. When I clicked on Movies, it brought me to an alphabetized list of movies. Most of the movies that I clicked on brought me to a page that gave links to other wikis for that movie. Most of the links are for other wikis that are also located on Wikia. I clicked on a few of these Wikia links and they were pretty informative. Anyone can edit the movie list and add a movie that isn't yet on there. Or they can contribute to a movie that is already listed. Some people have even contributed their own "Top 10" lists of movies they liked or didn't like.

While it would be more ideal for the movie section to be a one-stop-shop for movie information, it's still a great site, especially for people who already have their own movie wiki and want to promote it to others. Either way, it's the best movie wiki I could find. Here is the link to the Entertainment Wiki site: http://entertainment.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_Entertainment

Sucker Punch

When I first saw the trailer for Sucker Punch, I was really excited for it. It looked like a really fun, action-fantasy sort of movie. The main character is a girl named Babydoll (Emily Browning). The movie starts off with her mother dying. Her and her younger sister are left with their stepfather, who appears to be sexually abusive and really pissed off that their mother left them everything in her will. When the stepfather comes after Babydoll, she claws him in the face and he locks her in her room. She watches through the keyhole as he then proceeds to her sister's room to molest her. Babydoll climbs out of her window, gets back into the house, finds a gun and instead of shooting her stepfather, she accidentally kills her sister. Her stepfather then takes her to the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane, where she is to be lobotomized so she won't remember anything when the cops come asking questions. Here is where the film can get confusing because Babydoll imagines that she is in a brothel. Instead of trying to escape from a lobotomy, she is a virgin, trying to escape before the "High Roller" comes to pay big money to have sex with her. She meets four other "dancers", Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone) and Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). Whenever Babydoll is forced to dance, the scene changes to a war in Japan that the girls are fighting in. She needs to retrieve 5 things to escape: a map, fire, a knife, a key and the last one is a mystery. Every time the girls go to get one of these items, it becomes a battle in Japan.

I wasn't really sure what to think of this movie when I walked out of it. I was so excited to see it and I guess you could say that I was pretty disappointed. The storyline was just terrible. I definitely did not like the ending. I haven't seen Emily Browning in any other movie but this one and I have to say that she has only one facial expression, which is this timid/worried look. So whenever she would do something bold, it would take me by surprise. The action scenes were good, but highly unrealistic. These girls would land on the ground and the ground would crack beneath them, as if they weighed 5 tons. And who prances into war so scantily clad? I mean, I guess whoever made this movie was going for the sexy-girls-kicking-ass thing and maybe it would have worked if the movie had a better storyline, but not this time around.

Red Riding Hood

Here is another classic tale retold, but this one is perhaps a bit darker. Classic Little Red Riding Hood is the story of a little girl in a red hooded cloak who walks through the woods by herself to deliver food to her sick grandmother. A wolf meets her on the way, who wants to eat her. The girl tells the wolf where she is going and when she gets to her grandmother's house, the wolf is there, dressed in grandmother's clothing, ready to eat little red riding hood.

Here is the modern day version: Little Red Riding Hood is not so little anymore, making her just Red Riding Hood or Valerie (Amanda Seyfried). She lives in a village called Daggerhorn with her father, Cesaire (Billy Burke) , and mother, Suzette (Virginia Madsen) , and sister, Lucy. She is in love with a woodcutter named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents have decided that she is to marry Henry (Max Irons), the son of a wealthy blacksmith. When Peter informs Valerie of this, they decide to run away together when the village siren goes off, alerting everyone that the wolf has claimed another life. The wolf comes to the village once a month and is left an offering of an animal tied up outside to keep it from killing people. After this recent death, the villagers take off to go find the wolf and kill it. They kill a wolf and bring its head back to the village. Then in comes Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), a famous witch hunter. He informs the villagers that they have killed a wolf, but not the werewolf because his own wife was a werewolf. Therefore, if they had killed the correct wolf, it would've turned back into its human form. The villagers still believe that they have killed the right wolf and continue to celebrate until the werewolf comes and attacks the village that night. Now everyone is in fear over which one of the villagers is the werewolf.

I was honestly pretty skeptical of this movie when I first saw the trailer. My first thought was that it wasn't going to be good because Catherine Hardwicke directed it and in my opinion, she did a terrible job on Twilight. Then one day, I read that Leonardo DiCaprio was one of the producers and it peaked my interest because he's been in some good flicks lately. Overall, it was a good movie, but I'm not going to be running out to buy it later on. It's one of those sort of mystery movies where you watch it because you want to know what happens and who the bad guy is, but after finding out, it's kind of pointless to watch again. It is certainly a different twist on this old folktale, so if you're interested in finding out who the werewolf is, by all means, go ahead and see it. I can almost guarantee that you won't figure out who it is until they reveal it at the end. It's pretty unpredictable.

The Adjustment Bureau

I believe that there is an art to making movie trailers. If they are made just right, with the perfect music and perfect transitions, they can hook anyone and build up the anticipation to see the movie. I've seen the trailer for The Adjustment Bureau hundreds of times and have never gotten tired of seeing it because it's just so beautifully done. I finally had the opportunity to watch it the other night. David Norris (Matt Damon) is a politician running for Senator in New York. When he loses his lead in the race, he goes into the men's bathroom of the place where he is to give a speech to practice his lines. There, he meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a dancer who is hiding from security because she crashed a wedding upstairs. After talking to her, she inspires him to give a different, more honest and care-free speech that gains him much popularity and puts him in the running for the next race. This seems to be the work of the Adjustment Bureau because David's plan in life is to be president one day. They made an adjustment to have David meet Elise because they knew she would inspire him to give the speech that put him back on track. But apparently this is where his interactions with Elise are to end because when the two meet up by chance later, the Adjustment Bureau does everything they can to keep the two apart, causing these two to have to fight to be together.

This is sort of a sci-fi, romantic thriller. It toys with the idea that everyone has their own plan, created by God and no one really has free will. Even though it's nothing real, it kind of boggles your mind and really makes you think. I enjoyed this movie. It has a couple of twists that keeps the viewer wondering and the ending isn't predictable. My only problem with the movie was that it was all building to this climactic scene and then it just ends so abruptly. Don't get me wrong, I did like the outcome of it all but I expected a little bit more than that. But I still really did like this movie and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Beastly

In accidentally coming into work 2 1/2 hours early yesterday, I got the unexpected pleasure of watching Beastly. I'll be honest in saying that I was really skeptical about this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. I found it to be a beautiful, modern day telling of Beauty and the Beast. Now, I actually haven't seen Beauty and the Beast since I was a child so I only remember bits and pieces. But the similarities are there and they can be related back to the classic Disney movie. The movie follows a high school student, Kyle (Alex Pettyfer), who is obsessed with his good looks and money. He's a snob and treats everyone like they are inferior to him. He goes too far in publicly embarrassing Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen), who everyone calls a witch, but in fact, really is a witch. She places a curse on him that turns him beast-like, one could say. She tells him he has until next Spring to find someone to say "I love you" or he stays that way forever. He starts to notice Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens), a pretty but not-so-popular girl from school and really takes a liking to her because she's one of the only people who sees him for who he is on the inside.

I really enjoyed this movie and I'd say that I would place it high up on my list of favorite romance movies. While I haven't been a huge fan of Vanessa Hudgens, I think she fit the role she played perfectly. Mary-Kate Olsen has been off the grid for a while, but I think she was fantastic in this. As for newcomer Alex Pettyfer, I think he has a lot of potential. The whole mood of this movie was just so saddening and heartwarming at the same time. I recommend this as a great chick flick!

Black Swan

In the spirit of the Academy Awards, I figured I'd review a movie that has received quite a bit of attention and many awards. Black Swan is a dark film about a ballerina, Nina, who lands the role of the white swan in Swan Lake. She also wants the role of the black swan, but has to compete with a newcomer, Lily, for the part. While Lily is a free-spirited, seductive person, Nina is more of a timid perfectionist. While trying to perfect the part of the black swan, Nina's dark side starts to come out and she starts to change. From the beginning of the film, you can tell that Nina puts quite a bit of pressure on herself to achieve perfection. Her mother, Erica, who was a former ballerina, does not help by putting Nina on a pedestal as a perfect, good daughter. 


The film itself is very well done. The cinematography was great. It has a few little unexpected twists. It feels raw and authentic, for a psychological thriller. Natalie Portman really showed off her acting skills in this film. If you appreciate independent films of an artsy nature, then I would say this is a good choice for you.

A Little Introduction

Movies are a beautiful thing. They are the best way to escape the real world, the best vacation from your mind. I could spend hours and hours talking about movies--the actors, the dialogue, the plot, the ending. I love to overanalyze them more than anything. Not everyone I know likes to, though, but I'm sure there are many people out there in the world who do and I hope to hear feedback on my reviews and opinions through posting on here. I'm a projectionist at a movie theater, so I probably get to see more movies than most people do. I'll even watch movies that don't necessarily look like they're worth paying for and sometimes I'll actually enjoy them. I hope to give good recommendations, also, to people who aren't sure of what they want to see. So let the reviews begin! I'll have a chance to hit the movies tomorrow and have my first review up within a few days.