Bryan Caron's Blog, page 30

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

From my understanding, Paul Blart: Mall Cop didn’t set the cinema world on fire back in 2009. It did make a ton of money (and did leaps and bounds over its counterpart, Observe and Report), but from the reaction to the film from both critics and the public, there didn’t seem to be much demand for a sequel. But money speaks louder than words in Hollywood, and since Adam Sandler (through his production company, Happy Madison) likes to keep his good friends employed, I guess Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 was inevitable. And though the premise for the follow-up is sound (having the main character leave the confines of his world to explore new territory is a staple for sequels to movies like this), adding a new chapter to a film that ran mostly flat doesn’t make for a better movie.

Kevin James, along with co-writer Nick Bakey (the duo who also wrote the original) must have thought they had a great idea in sending the adorkable mall cop, Paul Blart, to Las Vegas for a security guard convention that just coincidentally happens to fall on the same weekend criminal mastermind, Vincent (Neal McDonough), plans to steal several pieces of art from the hotel. But James sticks to the exact format he developed in the first film, and that’s where my main issue with the movie lies. As advertised, the original was marketed as a sort of goof on Die Hard — Die Hard in a mall, so to speak. However, there was so much fluff prior to the actual infiltration of the mall (and subsequent hostage taking), it’s hard to care about the results of Paul Blart’s heroics when it finally gets to that point. The same happens here — James spends so much time filling us up on appetizers, by the time the main course arrives, we can’t enjoy it the way we should. In both instances, Paul Blart’s character growth (which is essentially being forced out of his comfort zone to do what’s necessary despite his weight and insecurities) doesn’t depend on the outcome of his heroics, as most things have already been resolved before he’s forced into action. It essentially turns the “villains” and their heists moot and rather useless — much like the sequel, since Paul’s issues were resolved quite nicely at the end of the original film.

To counteract this happy ending, James resets Paul’s world by dissolving his marriage to Amy (a missing Jayma Mays) and killing off his mother (Shirley Knight) with a milk truck (HA! Get it? Because milk trucks don’t exist anymore) in the first five minutes of the movie. Paul is once again a lonely, insecure security guard, which leads to a subplot involving his daughter, Maya (Raini Rodriguez), and her acceptance into UCLA that feels somewhat manufactured. Not only does Rodriguez barely look over thirteen, but her refusal to tell him about it right away out of fear of her leaving might cause him to reach his tipping point is thrown in there to try and drum up more conflict. However, much like almost all of the conflicts in the film, this one is resolved before he discovers she’s been kidnapped by Vincent and his goons. And that’s just one example of how James mistreats his antagonists. To have McDonough wasting away in the background as Paul overcomes all of his issues without him is a real disservice to the actor and his prowess as a compelling foil. Not only that, but James misses a major opportunity to really explore how Vincent and his team go about stealing all of the artwork because he spends so much time on Paul’s weaknesses and failed attempts to be liked.

Which is odd, since it’s extremely hard not to like Kevin James. Even as the jokes miss far more than they hit (mostly because he regurgitates a lot of the jokes from the original, or they simply feel far too lazy), James emits this aura that makes it hard not to care about him or his circumstances. There is no denying that he’s a really nice person, someone you want to be friends with — the kid you want to hang out with because no matter how many mistakes they make, he’ll always come through for you in the end. He may be a doofus, but he’s our doofus, so to speak. James knows this, and he doesn’t shy away from letting us know that, utilizing every aspect of his personality in one of the better subplots of the movie.

As evidenced by dozens of films and television shows (including James’s own King of Queens), there seems to be a penchant in Hollywood for chubby guys to somehow win over (and in most cases marry) the hot chick who’s way out of their league. Paul wins the girl in the original film by being his own, likeable, teddy-bear self. Here, the girl in question, hotel manager Divina (Daniella Alonso), slowly falls in love with him, even as Paul completely brushes her off by telling her he’s not ready for a relationship. At first she thinks it’s rude of him to think she would even have the slightest interest in him, but as the movie progresses, every time she talks to him, her affection for him grows steadily deeper. This is how I would describe our relationship with Kevin James as an audience member — the more we see of him, the more we like him, which helps us rise above a lot of the flaws in his movies and keep coming back for more.

It also explains why Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 stays afloat as watchable. There are some very enticing kernels of a much better movie screaming to get out, and had James followed the structure of the film he’s emulating a little closer, there would have been more possibilities to inject all of the stories with more depth, helping to make the plot more cohesive and keep from having to rely so heavily of the oafishness of the talented, but lost, star.

My Grade: B-

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Next week, new movies include The Age of Adeline, Little Boy, and The Water Diviner. If you would like to see a review of one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Ten Ways to Tighten Your Writing & Hook the Reader

Bryan Caron:

Very insightful stuff. Great post for any writer (beginning and veteran alike).

Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:

Image via CellarDoorFilms W.A.N.A. Commons

When I used to edit for a living, I earned the moniker The Death Star because I can be a tad ruthless with prose. Today I hope to teach you guys to be a bit ruthless as well. Before we get started, I do have a quick favor to ask. Some of you may know that I practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu so I’ve taken on our dojo’s blog to see if we can try out new and fun content and am using the moniker Dojo Diva.

I posted about how hard it is to begin and the fears that can ever keep us from starting. The way others try to stop us from doing anything remarkable. I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories, so I hope you will stop by and get the discussion going.

Click the word “Comments” and a box should appear…

View original 1,899 more words

Movie Mayhem – Furious 7

Unlike the super-charged excitement surrounding this month’s biggest film (not to mention the biggest film this year to date), April’s slate of films has started with a whimper. Over the past two weeks, only two movies have opened in wide release, and in order to keep my anti-Nicholas Sparks streak alive (that’s right friends, I am lucky enough to have yet to be Notebook-ed), The Longest Ride was never an option. So unless I wanted to avoid the cineplex for two weeks straight (or go see an independent film or two that didn’t interest me in the slightest), the only other choice was Furious 7, the new addition to a franchise that has never been high on my must-see radar. I still have yet to see Tokyo Drift (although I am a big fan of Lucas Black) or Fast and Furious (which would be the fourth, for those keeping score), I only saw The Fast and the Furious (with those pesky definite articles, that would be the original) when it hit cable, and I’ve probably only seen bits and pieces of 2 Fast 2 Furious. (Bet you can’t guess which one that is!) I probably wouldn’t have gone to see Fast 5 if it hadn’t have been for my friend, but it was then that I understood something very pivotal about this franchise — it’s like a drug; once you’ve submitted yourself to its high-gloss stunt work and expanding story arc, you can’t keep from coming back for more. I went to see Fast and Furious 6 on my own accord two years ago, and even though I roll my eyes more often than not when it comes to everything about this series, I gave in to Furious 7 and its high-octane absurdness.

The franchise that ogles cars as much as it ogles women, Furious 7 changes gears as much as it changes locations. Seeking revenge for what the team did to Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) in the last film, his brother, Deckard (Jason Statham) hacks into the FBI database to seize the names of those who tried to kill him. He begins his revenge tour with agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), which then leads him to Han (Sung Kang) in Tokyo where the franchise finally catches back up to the timeline. In order to keep anyone else from dying, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) rallies his team once again to help a shady government agent, Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), find and protect Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), a computer hacker who has created The Machine… no, I mean Samaritan… no wait, excuse me — God’s Eye — which can activate and utilize any camera, cell tower and satellite in the world to track anyone anywhere in order to keep it out of the hands of a terrorist.

The plot, of course, is only an excuse to gorge on adrenalized action porn (that is, plenty of obligatory shots of hot women in short skirts, hotter cars in exotic locales, and stylized stunt choreography). But the franchise, which was once at least grounded in a modicum of realism, has completely gone of the rails by slowly pumping the characters with nitrous oxide, turning them into a team of unlikely gods. Hobbs was never the most realistic character to begin with, but by the end of this film, the producers have blatantly turned him into the Hulk of this series, which does what? Turn Dom into Captain America? Almost. But I get it; this is where the franchise has decided to go — into this weird world where a team of mismatched criminals who get a hard on for the newest and latest supreme sports car (earn that paycheck, Tyrese) can defy almost every law of physics and survive accidents, explosions, falls, jumps, fistfights and crashes that would normally have killed every character ten times over with nary a scratch to prove their heroism (or their sheer luck, depending on how you look at it).

As has been the trademark of this franchise, heroes come in all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds, ages and sexes. This outing adds three new players to the mix (four if you count Djimon Hounsou’s terrorist, which I don’t since he is once again completely wasted and underutilized as a stock villain with nothing to do but sit and bark orders), all of whom, despite their flaws, fit perfectly into this world. Emmanuel is cute as a button with just enough snark to match wits with the boys, but what she’s asked to do for her first time out borders too far on the side of ridiculous and unbelievable. Statham adds just the right amount of gravitas to the role of Shaw, but matching machismo toe-to-toe with Diesel only goes to prove why Statham has found so much success and Diesel has yet to find a footing outside of the films that made him. And finally, Russell brings old school charm to the high-tech adrenaline, but is given a send-off that doesn’t suit either the actor or the character. On the totally missed opportunity side, though it was nice to see Lucas Black make a return to the franchise, it would have been a lot more fun to have had him brought into the fold, not only replacing his mentor, Han, but also the now departed Paul Walker. (Maybe Fast 8 Furious will rectify this. Who knows?)

Speaking of Walker, the real marvel (and one reason I believe more people may be going to check this movie out) is the visual effects wizards behind the pseudo-resurrection of Walker. I’m not sure if it was the team at Weta Digital, Scanline VFX or another visual effects studio associated with the film, but the way they, along with director James Wan and his production crew, were able to seamlessly integrate Walker’s brothers and a series of visual effects techniques to complete the scenes Walker was unable to finish after his tragic death halfway into filming is truly remarkable. Other than a couple of minor points in the film, I couldn’t tell where Walker ended and the effects began. That includes matching his voice to the necessary dialogue. It all helped lead into an incredible tribute to a man who was more dedicated to this franchise than any other actor (having starred in six of the seven movies).

Filmed after Walker’s death, the loving, sentimental tribute at the end of the film not only encapsulates the end of Brian O’Conner’s journey, but highlights the recurring theme of the overall franchise, which is love and loyalty to family. The authentic emotion is evident in the actors, but none more so than Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel. They aren’t just saying goodbye to a friend who they’ll more than likely see again in the future at some sport car convention or family gathering, they are saying goodbye to a brother they well never see again. And in that bittersweet moment, we see a glimpse of what the filmmakers are capable of and why this series has found the foothold it has in its millions of fans. If only the rest of the film, and the franchise, were as authentic as that five minutes of pure, raw emotion.

My Grade: B

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Next week, new movies include Unfriended, Child 44, Monkey Kingdom and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. If you would like to see a review of one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Remember When… An Old-Fashioned Love Story

Once upon a time, romance was found in chivalry. Love came from something much more virtuous than mere sex or physical attraction; it was discovered in respect, nobility, honor and charity for one another — ideals that crossed even the most difficult of boundaries, where there could be no doubt it was meant to be. Though it may still happen today, it has become rare to witness this type of love except maybe for the idealized version showcased in entertainment. Nicholas Sparks has tapped into this idea many times, but the most beloved version of this tale, The Notebook, made it clear that true passion for love often lies in an older generation. It’s a shame, because there is something so pure about a love that transcends time and space. Dancer and choreographer Bridgette Borzillo also understands this, but where Sparks taps into this idea with a fictional narrative, Borzillo digs into the truth behind the concept for her new dance production, Remember When… An Old-Fashioned Love Story.

Remember When… An Old Fashioned Love Story at the Chandler Center for the Arts, May 8 and 9, 2015, 7:30 p.m.

Based on the remarkable true story of Borzillo’s grandparents, William and Paula Schmidt, Remember When… An Old-Fashioned Love Story delves deep into the heart of the romance these two lovers shared and the heart-breaking but inspirational road they traveled in both life and death. Beginning with the adorable meet-cute on a train, Remember When… embarks on a sentimental, emotional journey through love, family, loss and the appreciation of life itself that will have everyone looking back on their own personal experiences.

Borzillo has been a dancer and choreographer in and around Phoenix, Arizona for over seven years, having danced, taught and choreographed with 32 Flavors Dance Company, Arthur Murray Dance Studio, Scorpius Dance Theatre, and Dulce Dance Company. In order to give this loving tribute to her grandparents, Borzillo opened her very own dance company, CaZo Dance, and hired several professional dancers to bring life to her past.

The show, which includes over a dozen dances set to some amazing music, will take place at Chandler Center for the Arts in Chandler, Arizona on May 8 and 9, 2015. You may call the Chandler Center for the Arts Box Office (480-782-2680) or go online to purchase tickets for both 7:30 p.m. performances. Cost is $20 per ticket, or $18 a piece for groups of ten. You may also donate to the show to help bring it and future shows to life. For more information, or to learn about Bridgette Borzillo and CaZo Dance, go to www.cazodance.com.

If you’re nostalgic for pure romance and will be in or around the Chandler, Arizona area in May, this is one show you do not want to miss.

A remarkable true story that delves deep into the heart of the romance these two lovers shared and the heart-breaking but inspirational road they traveled in both life and death

The Championship Deals Compete

Along with the NCAA basketball tournament, the Phoenix Moirai March Madness Promotion is down to the final two champions, which will duke it out tonight for extreme supremacy. It has been a long hard fight that included a few major upsets (I think Kentucky may still be burning — I didn’t know calendars were that popular anymore!) to reach this point, but none of that matters anymore. All that matters now is which deal will take the ultimate trophy. So what deals are competing for the March Madness Promotion championship?

Free Magazine Cover design with purchase of Magazine Layout (Wisconsin)

Free Ad Copy with purchase of ½ page Ad (Duke)

Don’t forget: the winning deal will remain active for the next 14 days, which means you will have until April 19 to take advantage of the great savings offered by the champion. But anything can happen today, so don’t wait to request a quote, because you never know which team will take home the ultimate prize.

Movie Mayhem – Get Hard

Let me get this out of the way up front. I didn’t like Elf (GASP!) and here’s why — Will Ferrell. I’ve never much cared for him as a comedian or actor. There just doesn’t seem to be anything natural about him. Unlike some of the greatest comedians of all time, such as Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Johnny Carson, Gene Wilder, Lucille Ball and Charlie Chaplin (to name a few), Ferrell has a tendency to overachieve for laughs. At times it feels as if he’s willing people to find his “wild and crazy” antics funny, and at other times, he outright begs for it with forced buffoonery, something the greats never had to do. When it comes down to it, it’s all about honesty, and whether or not Ferrell is honest is beside the point — when on screen, it doesn’t feel honest; it simply feels he is acting the way he thinks people want him to act — with insufferable over-the-top insanity. The interesting thing is, this outrageous persona mostly works in Get Hard, albeit only because Kevin Hart brings honesty to an otherwise labored construction.

You know you’re in for a typical R-rated Ferrell with the opening scene, in which his character, high-end hedge fund manager James King, gets out of bed, naked as a jaybird, to workout in front of an open window where his gardener has a front-row seat. James has no shame, no filter and no balls, making him a self-appointed bigoted pansy who can’t see the truth when it’s staring him in the face. He’s clueless when it comes to the gold-digging tendencies of his new fiancee, Alissa (Alison Brie), the hatred boiling deep inside his co-workers, and the unassuming mask worn by his boss, Martin (Craig T. Nelson), all of which lead him to become the perfect patsy. Not only is James accused of fraud, but the judge decides to set an example for other white-collar, club-med prison wannabe’s by sentencing him to ten years in a maximum security prison, where someone like him is no doubt going to be bullied, beaten and raped. What’s a man to do? Hire a black guy to teach him how to survive, of course, because statistically speaking, one out of every three black men will be incarcerated at some point, so the odds are good that the black dude down the street will have the insight you need… right?

Little does James know that the black man he hires is not what he seems. In fact, Darnell (Hart) is a respectable family man who owns his own mobile car wash business and is simply trying to make a better life for his wife and daughter. Darnell has never once stepped foot in a prison, but in order to secure the $30,000 he needs to buy a new home in a high-end suburb (and subsequently send his daughter to a school that doesn’t need metal detectors at the doors), he agrees to help James with his situation.

The set-up, from top-to-bottom, is fraught with stereotypes that may offend a lot of people, and to that I say — good. A lot of comedies these days have no issues pushing the boundaries when it comes to bathroom humor and full-frontal nudity, but when it comes to political correctness issues, it becomes hands-off. Filmmakers, actors and comedians tend to spend more time these days worrying about whether or not they will offend that one person with touchy tendencies instead of letting loose and having fun. And at least Hart is having a lot of fun, regardless of what is said and done in the matters of race, class and sexual orientation.

One of the best scenes in the film involves Hart riffing on the idea of what makes up a maximum security prison. During the course of the film, Darnell transforms James’s house into a pseudo-prison, which includes turning his tennis court into a prison yard. To get a feel for what James might encounter in the yard, Darnell becomes several different people. Hart’s ability to jump back and forth in various stereotypical attitudes and personas has such an easy fluidity that borders on masterful. It’s one of those moments where you aren’t quite sure how much of it was scripted, if any at all. Whether it is or not, Hart makes it work because of how honest he makes it seem. Hopefully Ferrell was taking notes, because whether he knows it or not, there is a fine line between what can be considered offensive and what’s just done in bad taste — which, unfortunately, is in what Ferrell has become a master.

Like a lot of “edgy” comedies of late (mostly from the likes of Ferrell, Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen), Get Hard spends a lot of time reaching for laughs in situations and circumstances that are not only forced, but fall into the category of bad taste. Was I offended by James’s vain attempt at giving a man a blowjob? Not at all, but the scene wasn’t necessary to further the plot or the characters. It was included because that seems to be what comedians think people want to see and for me, it just felt dirty. Instead of spending so much time on ideas that are so short-lived and ridiculous, hoping to push the boundaries just to push the boundaries, the filmmakers should have spent more time and energy into developing the subplots so that by the third act, they didn’t feel as rushed as they do.

The first, and most important subplot, involves James’s stance of innocence and his quest to find out who framed him. This idea is hinted at a couple of times within the first two-thirds of the film, but it doesn’t become a focus until a day or so before James’s thirty-day furlough is up. If a man like James knew he was innocent, I’d think this would be his number one priority, with the prospect of getting ready for prison as his number one back-up. James is of course very naive, so putting his faith in Martin to help find the culprit is certainly believable and stays in character. However, it seems the whole idea comes up short in the end without a lot of forethought or intrigue. A secondary subplot that also deserved more nurturing was Darnell’s attempt to get James into a gang so that he would have protection inside. The scenes are done very well and there is a spark of something more there that isn’t allowed to be let go the way it should have. But regardless of these, the film is funny, mostly because of Hart’s ability to exert so much energy yet still dial it back and switch gears on a dime to perfect the more subtle nuances of his character’s emotional core. He holds the film together without relying on help from anyone else, including Ferrell, who after this, I still don’t understand at all.

My Grade: B+

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Next week, new movies include Furious 7. If you would like to see a review of this, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Here Are Your Final Four Stellar Deals

Phoenix Moirai is officially down to their final four amazing deals. Based on all of the nail-biting upsets and routine wins, number one seeds Kentucky, Wisconsin and Duke join seventh place seed Michigan State in the last remaining battles before the championship. These four teams don’t go head-to-head with each other again until Saturday, April 4, so for the next full week, enjoy great savings with these terrific deals:

25% off Wall Calendar design (#1 Seed)

Free Magazine Cover design with purchase of Magazine Layout (#1 Seed)

30% off Premiere Phoenix Wedding Video and Design Package (#7 Seed)

Free Ad Copy with purchase of ½ page Ad (#1 Seed)

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Request your quote today!

We Are Down To Our Elite Eight Deals

The NCAA tournament has found its elite eight college basketball teams, and with them, Phoenix Moirai has eight elite deals left for you. We still have plenty to offer business men and women, writers and brides, as well as those who just want something special to give your friends and family. But don’t wait to take advantage of these terrific deals; by the end of the weekend, four of them will end their long, maddening journeys.

On Saturday, Free Magazine Cover design with purchase of Magazine Layout (Wisconsin) takes on 25% off Phoenix Moirai Publishing Package (Arizona), after which, 25% off Wall Calendar design (Kentucky) tries to take out 50% off Power Point Presentation (Notre Dame).

First up on Sunday is Free Book Cover and Layout with purchase of 90-second Book Trailer (Louisville) against 30% off Premiere Phoenix Wedding Video and Design Package (Michigan State). Then, Free Ad Copy with purchase of ½ page Ad (Duke) tries to end the reign of terror that is Free Avatar with purchase of Logo (Gonzaga).

Don’t miss out! Request your quote today and save.

Movie Mayhem – The Divergent Series: Insurgent

Back in January, I may have surprised some people when Divergent slid into the number five spot on my top ten movies of 2014. It’s not necessarily because they thought the movie was awful; it just may not have been good enough to be that high on the list. But I stand by my placement, believing Divergent kicked off the series with moxie. It did an excellent job at setting up all of the characters, signaling where the series would be going next and wetting our appetites for more. Now we have more, and though I know for certain it won’t make it into my top ten list this year, The Divergent Series: Insurgent is still a very good follow-up that leads perfectly into the first installment of the last chapter in the series.

After stopping the nefarious Jeanine (Kate Winslet) from using most of the Dauntless faction to wipe out Abnegation, Tris (Shailene Woodley) and her conspirators, which include her boyfriend, Four (Theo James), her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and her frenemy Peter (Miles Teller), have taken refuge in Amity, the faction of peace and tranquility, until they can find out where the remaining Dauntless members are hiding and mount a rebellion against Erudite. They don’t stay long, though. Ex-Dauntless leaders Eric (Jai Courtney) and Max (Mekhi Phifer), now working for Jeanine at Erudite, are looking under every rock for the insurgents, and Tris may be threatening her survival as she is unable to tame the temper that’s risen to the surface over the death of not only her parents (Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn), but the friend she had to kill to save her own life — the catalyst for most of her struggles throughout the film.

Woodley does an incredible job conveying Tris’s swelling turmoil that’s eating away at her entire identity. Starting with the butchering of her hair (an incredibly transformative scene that’s criminally reduced to a simple snip and exposition), Tris spends the majority of the film waging war over her guilt, forcing her to do battle against every value a divergent embodies — bravery, intelligence, selflessness, honesty and peace — and discover the true self hidden deep within. Though she must be brave in allowing Caleb to leave her side and selfless when it comes to protecting everyone from Jeanine, it’s the struggle with honesty that becomes the most affecting.

After being forced to flee Amity, Tris and Four join the factionless, where they’re sheltered by Four’s estranged mother, Evelyn (an unrecognizable Naomi Watts), who they both thought had died many years earlier. Evelyn informs them that Dauntless has found refuge with Candor and that when they are needed, the factionless would take up arms against Jeanine and her new security force. But the leader of Candor, Jack Kang (Daniel Dae Kim), isn’t so welcome, forcing Four and Tris to subject themselves to a lie detection serum before he will believe their story about Jeanine’s power grab. With the serum, the more you resist telling the truth, the more the serum attacks the body. The way Woodley conveys both the pain of the serum as the painful regret over so many deaths, the truth of which will also hurt her best friend, Christina (Zoe Kravitz), is remarkable. Every one of her grievances is slowly tearing her apart, and if she doesn’t come to terms with what she did, those grievances will continue to eat at her until she becomes entirely unrecognizable.

That’s also small potatoes to what awaits Tris at the hands of Jeanine. Early on, we learn that the reason she so adamantly wanted to wipe out Abnegation was so she could acquire a stone device that holds an important message for all of the factions. The only problem is it takes a divergent to open. Jeanine’s quest to find the divergent who can successfully withstand the simulations and unlock all of the faction keys on the device of course leads her to Tris, and nothing will get in the way of discovering the message.

Which brings me to one of the main issues I had with this film. Supposedly, Insurgent picks up a mere five days after Tris and her merry band went rogue, however, the technology seems to have advanced by years in that same time frame. Divergent not only introduced us to ways in which everyone is tested to decide which faction they belong to, but they set up a serum that gave Jeanine full mind control over all of the Dauntless. It was an extremely elaborate plan that apparently wasn’t needed, as now they can do basically the same thing with a small pellet shot into the skin. Not only that, but all of a sudden, Erudite can now use a simple handheld device to find out which faction someone can belong to, allowing them to locate any divergent as easily as a fly in milk. Both are very clever gadgets, but they sort of negate everything that was so thoughtfully set-up in the first movie.

Insurgent is nowhere near a masterpiece; in fact, I felt this outing was a little more predictable and a lot of what happens (such as, if Tris and Four are such high-caliber fugitives, how is it that they can walk around free as birds without so much as anyone recognizing them?) is somewhat questionable. By the time it came to revealing the message encased in the box, I pretty much knew what it was going to say. However, with the actors that have been put together for the series, these revelations come across fantastic, simply by each person’s reaction to it. And with a couple of surprising deaths and some good fight choreography, the film maintains the same level of high gloss and attractiveness as Divergent, which leads to a pleasing getaway that pumps your heart with adrenaline and allows for two hours of entertainment that will once again leave you wanting more.

My Grade: A-

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Next week, new movies include Get Hard and Home. If you would like to see a review of one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Sweet Sixteen Deals

The NCAA tournament has been pared down to the best of the best, leading to the sweet sixteen, and the deals on graphic design, writing and videography services that Phoenix Moirai is offering alongside them are just as sweet! There are still plenty of fantastic discounts for writers, business men and women, entrepreneurs, bloggers, engaged couples, and anyone looking for specialty items that make great gifts for family and friends.

For writers, we have deals on publishing packages, which include book cover designs, layouts, and formatting conversions, as well as individual deals for free covers and layouts:

• Free paperback Book Layout with purchase of paperback Book Cover design (attached to Wichita State)

• 25% off Phoenix Publishing Package (attached to Arizona)

• Free Book Cover and Layout with purchase of 90-second Book Trailer (attached to Louisville)

• 20% off Basic Publishing Package (attached to Oklahoma)

For bloggers, publishers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, those who own businesses, or have a very high online presence, we have plenty of great discounts on Power Point presentations, blog posts, ad copy, magazine designs and avatars:

• 50% off Power Point Presentation (attached to Notre Dame)

• Free Magazine Cover design with purchase of Magazine Layout (attached to Wisconsin)

• 35% off Magazine or Catalog Layout design (attached to NC State)

• Free Ad Copy with purchase of ½ page Ad (attached to Duke)

• Six 1,000-word Blog Posts for the price of four (attached to Utah)

• Free Avatar with purchase of Logo (attached to Gonzaga)

For those newly engaged couples, we still have a couple of deals on video and design packages for videography and design:

• 30% off Premiere Phoenix Wedding Video and Design Package (attached to Michigan State)

• 20% off Phoenix Wedding Design Package (attached to UCLA)

For those of you looking for a unique gift for your friend’s birthday or your parents’ anniversary, we have a couple of discounts on a couple of cool items:

• 25% off Wall Calendar design (attached to Kentucky)

• 40% off Digital Illustration (attached to West Virginia)

And for everyone else out there, we still have a couple of great deals on any service we provide:

• 35% off any two services (excludes packages) (attached to North Carolina)

• Free design service with purchase of Invitation design (attached to Xavier)

All of these great deals will be available from now until at least Thursday, when the field will once again be slashed to eight and then four over the weekend. Remember, to lock in your savings, you only have to request a quote while the team the deal is attached to is still a part of the tournament. If your bracket shows one of these teams losing in the next couple of rounds, or they aren’t there at all, don’t let these sixteen sweet deals slip away. Request your quote now.