What I’m Watching – Adam Parkzer – Parkzer.com

I watched both Paul Blart: Mall Cop movies today

Parkzer — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 04:15:16 +0000

Paul Blart: Mall Cop has always been some kind of meme on the Internet. I never really understood it because I had never seen the movies, so I decided to change that today.

I often saw references to Paul Blart in the comments of reddit posts, where it would be set up as if somebody was telling an anecdote. Then, the story would take an unexpected turn, something unrealistic would happen, then a reference to Paul Blart: Mall Cop would be made.

After watching the movies today, I sort of understand why Paul Blart is used as a meme.

To put it simply, the Paul Blart: Mall Cop movies are so stupid, unrealistic, and facepalm-inducing that they’re somewhat funny.

The main idea of the storyline is that there is an overweight man named Paul Blart who is a mall cop. He rides around on a Segway making sure that everyone in the mall is safe.

Paul is very dedicated to his job, and tries his best. Unfortunately for him, mall cops don’t really get the credit they deserve, and the mall’s security department is short of both status/reputation and resources. When he tries to make something right, he is often met with laughs.

In the first movie, Paul is on duty on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) when a hostage situation erupts, putting the lives of his crush and his daughter at risk. In the second movie, Paul is at a security convention where he discovers that a bunch of criminals are trying to steal art from a hotel.

The way the story unfolds is very silly, and anything remotely close to it would never actually happen. The movie sort of gives Paul the “invincible” persona, where he can do anything, and the bad guys are unable to just shoot him and move on with their plans.

There were some pretty decently funny parts, though, and if you accept it as a movie intended to be dumb and cheesy and watch it in that context, then I’m sure at least some people will enjoy it.

Movie Review: “We’re the Millers”

Parkzer — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 14:48:35 +0000

Last week, I watched the 2013 comedy film We’re the Millers, starring Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, and Emma Roberts. My decision to watch this movie came from its relatively high rating on IMDb, as well as its inclusion in IMDb’s most popular comedies.

The main plot features David, a drug dealer who, due to unfortunate circumstances, is ordered by his boss to travel to Mexico to pick up some marijuana and transport it across the border into the United States. David is sure that if he does this by himself, he will get caught by border patrol.

David realizes that happy families are never questioned. Although he’s single and doesn’t have a family of his own, he decides to create a fake family with others in his everyday life to portray himself as a father, rather than a drug dealer.

Upon arriving at Mexico, David has something unexpected waiting for him. However, due to improbable and humorous luck, he manages to successfully complete the job – or so he thought. David and his “family” begin running into problems that delay their trip.

One particular thing I liked about this movie is how it brings together two seemingly contradictory themes – drugs and family – into a humorous plot. Although a lot of the events are unbelievable, the movie does a great job taking some particular conflicts and somehow making them seem realistic. Overall, the comedy is witty and relateable, and it makes you realize how much of a great time you can have with your family.

Movie Review: “Now You See Me”

Parkzer — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 21:00:24 +0000

Today’s movie review is about Now You See Me, a crime mystery movie featuring Jesse Eisenberg (the same actor who played Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network), Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco, among others.

Now You See Me is about a group of four magicians with the stage name The Four Horsemen. Starting as four individual performers, they were brought together by The Eye, a legendary icon in magic history.

After coming together, the Four Horsemen successfully demonstrate never-before seen magic tricks, live in front of an audience. the finales of these performances end in robberies – once robbing a bank in another continent, and another robbing a wealthy man, then distributing all the money to the studio audience.

On the case to stop these magicians-turned-criminals are two law enforcement officials, a man from the FBi and a woman from Interpol. Although the man seems frustrated at those who get captivated with magic, the woman elects to take the smarter route and does research in an attempt to fight magic with magic.

Eventually, the crime is solved and the person believed to be behind everything is imprisoned. However, is the suspect really responsible for everything? Or was the real answer right in front of us the whole time?

This movie does a great job integrating magic into a very realistic story and plot. It also emphasizes that magic is deception, more than anything else, and it’s not the magician tricking us, but us tricking ourselves. The ultimate reveal of deception comes at the end of the movie when the answer to the movie’s mystery was right in front of us the whole time, but we just tricked ourselves into not seeing it.

I enjoyed watching this movie, and thought it had a great, well-connected plot with good event progression. This movie did a great job at wasting little time, and making every minute count towards developing the story and culminating to the final reveal. I definitely recommend Now You See Me to people who enjoy thrillers, as the story will keep you attached and constantly thinking.

Movie Review: “The Hangover, Part III”

Parkzer — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 16:12:23 +0000

Following up watching The Hangover, Part II, I decided to finish off the series by watching The Hangover, Part III.

Fortunately, the premise of the story is different from the first and second parts, and the movie does not begin with a wedding gone wrong. Instead, the plot involves Alan’s friends proposing an intervention into his life due to his unacceptable behavior. Alan agrees, and the Wolf Pack drive to drop him off at a rehabilitation facility.

However, their trip doesn’t go as planned when they are attacked due to their connection with international criminal Chow. A member of the Wolf Pack gets kidnapped, and the rest go out to hunt for Chow, who is needed for the safe return of their friend.

According to how this movie ends, it seems like this will be the last installment in the Hangover series. I think it was a good idea to end the series here, as, although I enjoyed the entire Hangover series, the quality of the story of the movies seemed to gradually decrease. Instead of coming up with genuinely attention-grabbing and compelling plot progression, the final movie felt as if it relied more on absurd and extreme moments to keep the viewers watching.

On top of that, the humor in the movie seems to have slightly degraded as well. Instead of using the clever wit found in the previous movies, it seems like now they resort more to crude humor. Of course, this is expected because the main characters are now Alan and Chow, both of whom generally don’t demonstrate brilliant wit. However, I still think that the movie could have integrated the humor in a smarter manner.

I think that this movie is somewhat undeserving of the Hangover name. Of course, because the second part of the movie was called The Hangover, Part II, it’s only logical that the sequel is Part III. However, I think the name The Hangover was a little bit too specific to be a broad movie series, and almost feel as if this movie is as successful as it was because of its ties with the original The Hangover. Regardless, the basis of the criticism is primarily because of how amazing the first movie was, and from a more neutral standpoint, The Hangover, Part III is, in my opinion, still a great movie.

A lot of the themes and the main storyline of this movie relies heavily on the fact that you have already watched the previous Hangover movies, so if you plan on watching The Hangover, Part III, I encourage you to watch the previous two movies first. Circularly, if you watched the first two movies, I recommend watching the third part, as I feel like it brings the whole story full circle.

Movie Review: “The Hangover, Part II”

Parkzer — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 14:00:57 +0000

If you’ve at all kept up with popular movies, you know that The Hangover was one of the top hits back in 2009. Two years later, the sequel to the movie, The Hangover, Part II, was released with the same cast, starring Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifinakis, and Justin Bartha as the “Wolf Pack.”

When I asked my buddies about The Hangover, Part II, although none of them explicitly stated that it was a bad movie, most of them mentioned that it was basically the whole story of The Hangover all over again, and that it wasn’t worth seeing. However, when I went on IMDb, the ratings weren’t terribly low, so I decided that it was still probably worth seeing, especially because of how much I enjoyed The Hangover.

After watching it today, I’m glad I chose to do so. This was the first movie I watched in a very long time (I just checked my website for other movie reviews and it seems to have been over two years), so I didn’t have much of a basis upon which to rate this movie. As a result, my perception of the movie might have been slightly more positive than if I had seen other great movies; regardless, I still liked the movie.

Overall, I thought it had a pretty good story progression and pace. It was able to maintain my attention and curiosity by not going too slow, but also not going too fast such that I had no time to think about what was going on. It had some good amounts of scattered humor throughout the movie, in a similar style as the first The Hangover. I also felt like this second part attempted to add more craziness to the movie, but it still doesn’t take it over the top where it becomes unbelievable or unrealistic.

My friends were right when they told me that the premise of the story is the same, and it’s The Hangover all over again. However, it doesn’t really feel like watching the same movie over again. The only time you have the thought of the story repeating itself is at the beginning where they undergo a “not again” moment, but throughout the movie, you get captivated by the storyline enough that there are no additional moments where the thought of “I remember this from last movie” comes up in your mind.

Missing Cars and Constructive Anger

Parkzer — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:51:46 +0000

What I’m Watching

A short while back, following a recommendation, I watched a movie called Dude, Where’s My Car? featuring Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott. I got the suggestion so long ago that I don’t remember who sent it to me, or where the copy of the suggestion even is. (Yes, I tried searching through GMail for “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and it found no results.)

This comedy movie is about two young males named Jesse and Chester who wake up one morning from a party and don’t remember where their car is. The problem is that their anniversaries with their girlfriends are that day, and their gifts are in their car. In a quest to find their car, Jesse and Chester retrace their steps to find out what they did last night, which may uncover some clues as to where the car is.

When on the quest, the boys soon realize that they were not up to much good once they realize they’re being chased by a transgendered prostitute for money and some odd space group for a rare, intergalactic device.

I thought that this was a silly and slightly dumb movie, but regardless, it was funny to watch. I would recommend this movie primarily for teenage males who are looking for a funny and light-mooded movie to watch.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #219: Can anger be constructive?

The easy answer to this would be that yes, anger is constructive because it shows that anger is not very constructive.

The more insightful answer would be that yes, anger can be constructive because even though someone may not be very thoughtful when angry, they still have the experience of being angry, and they can look back on that experience in the future when they want to think about how they could react better if such a circumstances were to come up again.

I’m Not Dead Either

Parkzer — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:17:13 +0000

What I’m Watching

Continuing my trend from last summer of watching movies starring Kristen Bell, I watched a 2010 movie titled You Again.

Kristen Bell plays the role of Marni, a young woman who is successful now but had a terrorizing high school career. She was the acne-faced girl with braces who everyone liked to make fun of. Years after leaving high school, she finds out that her older brother is planning on marrying the girl who bullied her the most during high school, and retaliates to help her brother find out what kind of person his future wife really is.

Although this movie wasn’t as attention-holding or thought-provoking as other movies I’ve watched, it was still a good laid-back comedy. It reminded me of the antics of high school and gave a humorous representation of both the bully and the victim’s side of the conflict. As the movie progresses, we find out that Marni isn’t the only woman who has had problems with the family of her older brother’s fiancée, which is where the title You Again comes from.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #155: If you knew you were going to die in 20 days, what would change?

Quite obviously, if I knew I was going to die in a specific short period of time, I would no longer live to prepare for the future and instead start living to prepare for my death. I would make sure that everything under my responsibility would end up having a smooth transition to someone else after my departure.

On a slightly related note, I actually don’t really like being asked what I would do if I was going to die in a specific amount of time. I’ve been asked this question so much that I already know exactly what I would do if something like this were ever to happen. In addition, thinking about this is quite an unoptimistic way to live – and that’s coming from someone who takes a relatively pessimistic approach to everything in general. I think that thinking excessively about your own death or demise will distract and impair you from achieving what you could or what you want to do.

Reading Minds for a Day

Parkzer — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:44:13 +0000

Today is the first day of my spring break, so I decided to do some more catching up on my blog. I watched a handful of movies in the past several months that I didn’t have time to blog about, but now I’m bringing back the “What I’m Watching” section of my blog so I can share my opinion on these movies.

What I’m Watching

Quite a while back when I found some free time during my day (which is surprising that I did because I always tend to be busy now), I watched an animated movie called Despicable Me.

I originally decided to watch this movie because it seemed to have built up a lot of hype after advertising a lot both on the very few television shows that I watch and on the Internet. The advertisements were successful in that they made the movie seem unique and made me want to watch it because it looked like no other movie I’ve watched before. Also, I heard that the main character was a villain rather than a hero, and that difference also made the movie more desirable to watch.

Despicable Me is about a criminal mastermind named Gru living in a massive and extremely technologically-advanced mansion. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been very successful and is about to face the consequences of his lacking performance, especially after another villain, Vector, starts rapidly gaining attention and popularity for the things that he has done. This conflict leads to a competition between Gru and Vector as they try to out-villain each other.

One of Gru’s plots involve adopting three small children from an orphanage and using them for his personal gain. However, things don’t go out quite as planned when the small children become more than Gru can handle. Situations become worse when the three girls start getting emotionally attached to Gru and begin treating him like their father.

I thought this was a funny movie that was definitely worth watching. One thing that I want to point out is that although the small yellow creatures were prevalent in the commercials for this movie, they don’t play a huge role in the movie other than being Gru’s minions. I thought this movie was unique because it focuses on a villain rather than a hero like most other movies, and that the villain still ends up putting a good twist to the movie.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #65: If you could read minds for a day, would you? Whose? What would you want to find out?

If I was provided the ability to read minds for a day, I probably would. I’m not really interested in knowing what individual people think about me, and I’m not really interested in knowing the secrets that they’re hiding from me, but I would like to have a general idea of what the general consensus is of how I am.

I would read as many minds as possible within the one day, and I would be searching for any recurring negative themes. Obviously, I’m not planning on changing myself entirely to fit the desires of those around me, but I’m still interested in finding out any negative characteristics about myself that many people notice and are bothered by.

If I do find something like that, I would think about how I might be portraying that, and alter it to the better if I think it is worth changing and will not make me less individual (meaning, I wouldn’t change something that I’m particularly known for, or something that is considered a specialty of mine).

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 18

Number of times I did my own laundry: 2

Buzzing Refrigerator

Parkzer — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 22:14:39 +0000

I’m writing this blog post from the Computer Sciences & Statistics building at my university because THERE’S THIS ANNOYING BUZZING SOUND COMING FROM BEHIND MY REFRIGERATOR AND I CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHAT IT IS.

Hey, at least it’s peaceful and quiet in this building during the weekends.

I have no idea how I’m going to fall asleep tonight, though.

The Daily Shoot Assignment of the Day

#DS370: Tungsten light can often create a warming effect, depending on your white balance. Use tungsten light in a photo today.

I’ve never used the tungsten light setting on my camera before, but apparently it’s there to turn black keyboards into blue keyboards.

What I’m Watching

It’s been a while since this section has made its last appearance, primarily because I haven’t really had the time to watch that many movies. When I do get the chance to watch a movie, I end up not having time to add this section into my blog post for that day. I decided to catch up today and write about a movie I watched closer to the beginning of November, The Social Network.

The Social Network, a movie sometimes known as the “Facebook movie,” is a movie about how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg came up with the idea of Facebook and how he carried it out for it to become a revolutionary website like it is today. There was a lot of talk about how good the movie was, and I had intended to watch it ever since it came out. The tipping point, however odd, was that I watched it for a Spanish project – we had to write a book or movie review on a work related to our major. My major being computer science, The Social Network fulfilled that requirement nicely.

Many of us know that Facebook started out as a social networking site for Harvard students, and ended up spreading throughout colleges before hitting high school students and adults all over the world. What many of us don’t know is that Facebook has a complicated history behind it involving conflicts, lawsuits, and greed. The Social Network follows Mark Zuckerburg as he struggles through all these problems, some with his close friends, in order to come out on top.

Seeing as a majority of us (not including myself) love to use Facebook for hours upon hours every day, I think it’s well worth the time to watch this movie to find out how exactly this apparently addictive website came to be. The storyline appears to be mostly factual, (I’m saying mostly instead of entirely because there were probably some comedic segments included that are irrelevant to the plot,) as for every fact that I checked against online sources (like Wikipedia), all the information matched up.

Parkzer — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:14:08 +0000

I said yesterday that I took three hours’ worth of exams. I took a calculus exam for 1.5 hours, then 15 minutes after, took a computer science exam.

The calculus one was ridiculously difficult, not because I didn’t recognize the material, but because they were worded so trickily and I kept making basic arithmetic errors that I kept discovering five minutes after making them (like seeing 4 and 2 and thinking they add up to 5).

The computer science one wasn’t exactly hard, and I always do well on everything related to computer science, but for some reason, I have a feeling that I made pathetically basic mistakes similar to the ones I made in the calculus exam. I finished the 1.5-hour exam in about an hour, and while I was leaving the testing site, everyone gave me odd looks because I finished so quickly.

Also, this is sort of random, but a local newspaper company that I work for is having issues with its YouTube account (which I currently manage), and even though I posted on the support forum five days ago asking for help, all the Google employees appear to be blatantly ignoring me. This is starting to annoy me, so if you have some spare time, please take a look at my thread and reply to it so it keeps bumping it to the top and increasing the number of replies, hopefully making it more noticeable. I have established that assistance from an employee is necessary to find a solution to my problem, but if you want to pretend like you’re helping me solve the problem, then that’s fine too.

http://google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=4a954186c22f729b

And finally, if you have a Twitter account, you should retweet this tweet:

http://twitter.com/adamparkzer/status/27516570690

What I’m Watching

Believe it or not, last week, I watched Fred: The Movie.

I know that I freely admit the fact that Fred is my least favorite YouTube star, but I heard that John Cena was in the Fred movie so I decided that it was worth watching. Fortunately, Fred is significantly older in the movie than he is in his YouTube series, so his voice is lower and is less annoying. The main idea of the movie is that Fred’s crush, Judy, used to live a few homes away, but ends up moving to a completely different place farther away. Fred is now on a mission to find Judy and “save” her, and goes through many obstacles to find her new house.

I’m having difficulty making a fair judgment of the movie because it’s so oriented towards children. I only thought it was slightly funny because of how stupid most of it was. John Cena doesn’t really have that significant of a role in the movie; he plays Fred’s dad, and only appears shortly to give Fred some advice, and later in Fred’s dream.

If you watch the Fred YouTube series, I would probably recommend this movie (assuming that you only watch Fred because you like him or his show). If you’re looking for an actual conventional movie to watch, Fred: The Movie is not something you would want to watch. However, if you have a large online presence, watching Fred: The Movie might be important as it may become common knowledge among online communities, and be a milestone for YouTubers as this is the first movie starring someone that became famous solely through YouTube.

The Daily Shoot Assignment of the Day