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The Dead Zone (1983)
The Dead Zone (1983)
1983 | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Christopher Walken (0 more)
A bit slow at times (0 more)
Contains spoilers, click to show
I love this film so much because it was one of the first things I ever saw Christopher Walken in and with it being that it's also a Stephen King book, it's win/win.

Looking at it now after watching a vast variety of his movies, it's nice to see him play a sympathetic character, a bit of a loser even.


The film is slow in places but stick with it. The meeting between Johnny and Martin Sheen's character is literally to die for!!!
  
Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb
Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb
D.R. Martin | 2012 | Children, Paranormal, Young Adult (YA)
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
[Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb] by [D.R. Martin] was an incredible adventure. In the classic sense of serial adventures from the 1940's the young cub photographer, who happens to see ghosts and is 12 yrs old, has to save the world from a horrible new bomb. Along with his sister, Melanie and other friends, they travel the world to solve the mystery and stop destruction.

As a teacher who just spent the past three weeks teaching about the making of the atomic bomb this book seemed to parallel that with a 'ghostly' twist. (I know bad pun.) I will be looking forward to reading book two. Also did I mention besides ghosts there are zombies. Highly recommended.
  
Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
2018 | Action, Adventure, Comedy
My very first experience with the incredibly talented Rowan Atkinson was when I saw a silly Mr. Bean short that was played before the Beauty and the Beast movie. This was way back in 1991 and yet you wouldn’t believe that he’s aged at all during that time. Johnny English Strikes Again is the third movie in the Johnny English franchise, and is another James Bond inspired spoof where our never aging super spy once again tries to outwit a maniacal super genius hell bent on taking over the world.

The movie starts with Johnny English as a geography teacher at a private school in the heart of England. What makes this a light-hearted and perfect entrance to the movie is that instead of teaching geography lessons, he’s teaching the kids how to become spies. Not only does this result in some very chuckle worthy scenes but it also shows us that Johnny still yearns to be back in the field even though he’s an exceptional teacher to the young spies-in-training. As fate would have it, a hacker has released the identities of all MI-7 agents around the world, so the only hope that England has is to call back retired agents. Reluctantly, Johnny is given the job and of course the hijinks start before he even heads out on his mission. In a very cute and refreshing twist on the usual high-tech spy movies, Johnny prefers his spy gear old school, so he turns down the smart phone and hybrid vehicle and instead requests a gun and picks out an old gas-guzzling Aston Martin V8. It was a very clever way to show that his mission wasn’t going to be anything like how Ethan Hunt would handle things.

This leads us to the plot of the movie. Johnny’s mission, with the help of his faithful sidekick Bough (Ben Miller), is to track down the signal where the hacker has been carrying out his attacks and thwart them before the G12 summit takes place. His first stop is to the south of France, where he encounters an alluring Russian spy named Ophelia (Olga Kurylenko) who is clearly working against him. What follows is a slapstick tale of numerous follies as the unlikely trio dance, drive, and crash their way to saving the world.

As you might expect Johnny English forgoes the crudeness and lewd jokes that are popular in comedic films these days and brings back a much more wholesome family friendly comedy. There is no cursing to speak of, no real violence, and except for the last scene it barely rates in the PG category at all. It harkens back to the late 80’s and early 90’s with similar spoof movies like The Naked Gun, where silly dialog and accident-prone heroes are what leads to the laughter. It’s a film that certainly does not take itself seriously and expects the same from the viewing audience. Some of the humor in the movie may elicit a groan from being that bad…but it’s usually so bad that it becomes funny. I found myself laughing a lot more than I expected to and I wasn’t the only one in the theater laughing.

To truly enjoy Johnny English, you have to know what to expect going into it. I can’t imagine there will be many (particularly those who have seen the previous films) that will have particularly high expectations, and that’s where it shines. It may not win any comedy film awards or be the best movie you’ve ever seen but you’ll go away happy. If you enjoyed the previous films, you will certainly enjoy this film as it’s not a huge diversion from the formula and provides the same sort of silly gags throughout. It certainly won’t appeal to everyone and that’s okay, but if you think you might enjoy it even a little, it’s definitely worth a look.
  
Global a Go-Go by Joe Strummer / Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
Global a Go-Go by Joe Strummer / Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
2001 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I remember hearing Johnny Appleseed and being like, ‘Yo! This is another level.’ It’s got like this Caribbean rhythm, acoustic guitars and simple harmonies, and him talking about everything from ’49 Buicks – which I knew everything about – to Martin Luther King tand even the old folklore of Johnny Appleseed. I really related to everything he was saying. When he asks in the song ‘Do you hear what I’m saying?’ I was like ‘Yeah dude, I do hear what you’re saying.’ There’s that question that he poses, too: ‘Is what was once true now no longer so?’ I still carry that line around with me today. That song shaped another facet of me as well, because it showed me that you could still play music with punk energy but you don’t have to play punk songs. It showed me that you could be political and social and talk about relationships or whatever, and still have the forcefulness of punk rock without playing aggressive music. And I don’t have no time to spike my hair up. That’s more show to me. At the time I was like, ‘I can only afford one shirt. Why the hell would I rip it up? If I rip it up and it rains then I’m gonna get wet.’ I’ve always tried to stay in that thing that it’s not about what you look like: it’s about what you do. You have to believe it and you have to mean it."

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