MoveMe.com: Product Review

You swore to yourself to never get married. And then you did.

You swore to yourself that your one-bedroom apartment would be enough. And then it wasn’t.

You swore to yourself that you’d never, ever, move away from the city—even to try and find a bigger place. But then you did.

Now what?

You’ve got a tiny apartment full of stuff that needs getting gone; you’ve got a much bigger house that stands empty; you need to get from Point A to Point B. But moving—the moving process—just sounds like such a headache: the packing, the moving, the driving, the shipping, and (above all) the having to constantly worry that some boneheaded mover is going to drop that vase your grandmother gave you. It’s all just so draining.

And then in steps www.moveme.com. And everything is easier.

First off: they’re not just a traditional moving service—it’s more like they collect useful information for anyone who’s looking to move and needs answers to their big questions of When, How, Who. They’ve got useful links to find stuff on removal companies, moving companies, and other tips and tricks for the first-time mover. It helps, too, that the site is tastefully arranged, with as many different options (a search bar, various tabs, and a helpline) presented with minimal clutter. From the homepage forward, the user is pulled in to exploring to their heart’s content until they know everything there is to know about moving, or until they feel completely
comfortable with the process—whichever comes first.

“MoveMe.com: The site that makes moving simple.” That’s a simple endorsement, but a truthful one. Sticking to the old adage that information is power, the UK-based site is powerful indeed, and is more than willing to offer up that power to any-and-all confused users. Click around for a few minutes or a few hours as the need dictates; prepare for an upcoming move that’s weeks off, or do it the night before. Need a removal company? Need ten removal companies? They’ll find it for you, no problem.

So you swore to yourself you’d never, ever, find an easy way to move all of your junk.

And then you did.

Glow-Sticks.Org: Product Review

The night’s just starting: you’ve just gotten all dressed up and you’re about to head out to a party at a friend’s house. Now, this particular friend had specifically told you not to head to the clubs—that their house, on this night, would have the most intense party around: all the best dancing, the best music, and the best drinks. How could you resist? So here you are ready to head out while the moon is still high and the hour is not sufficiently late for you to pass out on someone’s couch. You’re ready to go…but something is missing. You’ve dodged the clubs for what is supposed to be the most intense, life-changing, mind-shattering night of your life, and there is something a bit off about it. What do you need?

Glow sticks.

Www.glow-sticks.org offers exactly what you need. They’ve got everything—from flashing rave horns to flashing whistles to even flashing sunglasses—that will help light up your nightlife. (No pun intended…ok, a bit of a pun intended.) The vendor’s online boutique is well-designed, without too many tabs or scroll-down menus to bog down the Average Joe just looking for a cool favor to take out to his rave. The site even has a cool flash graphic across the top of every page that, along with its hot-pink font, keeps you in the party mood even when you’re not partying.

So flash-back: you’re standing there in the doorway of your friend’s house. You spent hours preparing for this night—this night that you’ve been told over and over again would be super-fantastic. And yet here you stand, staring, knowing something is wrong. Now, insert a glow-stick, as if from the heavens (come on now, humor me folks), into your hand. And it all clicks into place, doesn’t it? Thanks to glow-sticks.org, your night just got a whole lot better.

Peloop: Product Review

I’ve discussed some sensitive subjects before on this blog: I’ve praised or reviled films about illicit affairs, murder, torture, fornication, cruelty, sadism, abuse, and sexuality perversity. And yet there is one thing I’ve never discussed: penis enlargement. Well, now I’m going to—and I hope you stick around for the conversation. It seems a bit unorthodox, but in my drive to categorize and quantify all facets of media under the sun occasionally product reviews will enter my sphere. I’ve posted a few already, and now I’m posting another: it’s for peloop.com. It’s a website that offers guaranteed effective male enhancement. It won’t let you down.

Now I know exactly what you’re thinking: you’re thinking two things. One: “Why on Earth is this guy writing about this on his blog and why am I reading it?” And two: “Why should I care? I don’t need this.” And now I have an answer to both. One: you’re reading me because I’m compulsively addictive and delightful. And two: you don’t need need this—penis enlargement—but you’re curious. It presents opportunity. You’ve always felt a bit underwhelmed. They say it doesn’t matter, but who knows for sure? And besides, with all that’s going around, who would care if you went in for a little help?

It’s not as expensive as you’d think, and it’s easy, too. Which is why I’m here now, extolling the virtues of peloop.com. It’s male enhancement for everybody that always thought they either didn’t want to consider the option, or thought it was too weird to be worth the effort. News flash: it’s not. In fact, the website even has customer testimonials backing up their claim to success. And now, here I am doing the same. And if you can’t trust people these days…well then, you can’t trust me, right? And I’m always worth trusting.

Perry's: Product Review

The advantages of owning a computer and a high-speed connection never really cease to amaze me. Beyond the fact that the Internet can provide an endless stream of entertaining videos and music and television (because who actually uses a television anymore anyway?), as well as 24/7 commentary on just about any and every issue, the web also gives you the power to shop, and shop, and shop—and it’s biggest charm (at least for me anyway) is also perhaps its most obvious: no personal contact. There are no lines, no annoying customers to work around, or meddlesome salesmen to coax away from your carefully browsing person—no, none of that. Just you and the things you may want to buy. (There is, of course, that other great benefit of online shopping: pretty great prices.)

Because, as has become apparent, shopping of any kind that doesn’t actually take place in a store is pretty appealing to most people, there are now stores online for everything: books, music, clothing, erotic DVDs…whatever. Even vehicles—especially vehicles (how great is it to be able to pick out that new sports car and not have to shake hands with the oily dealer?), and when it comes to buying vehicles online, http://www.perrys.co.uk/new-cars is the place to be.

Beyond the fact that the website is totally user-friendly—it offers a handy interface on the home page that immediately lets a prospective buyer pull up any car by price range, model, etc.—it also offers helpful tips and insight through its blog: http://www.blog.perrys.cok.uk. They highlight award-winning cars, like the Vauxhall Insignia, as well as great vehicles on a budget, like the Vauxhall Corsa, and even focuses on humanitarian efforts of those occasionally-pesky salesmen (as with this story about a Vauxhall dealer).

All-in-all, Perry’s provides both accessibility and assistance for the first-time car-buyer, as well as the experienced pro—all with nary a hassle in sight. Gotta love the Internet.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist: A-

Filled with Lower-East Side indie music, characters who shuttle back and forth in a stale-banana colored Yugo, and that old "meet cute" device, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is nonetheless completely, utterly, and excitingly modern. Told in the course of one night, the film is enchanting in its fresh take on all the old tricks—romantic conventions aren't so much trashed as merely discarded in favor for deeper, more vividly domestic (and thereby more sincere) views of our characters. Nick & Norah is a trip, a joy ride, a plug-in-and-let-go existential experience that is, I'm entirely too certain, one of those rarest of cinematic treasures: the once-in-a-decade-or-two romantic comedy that is so clever and bright and new as to not just represent those feelings on screen, but also the feelings of an entire era. What's important, though, isn't how well everything fits into the old, if high-standard, mold. What matters is how refreshingly un- it all can be; the details of courtship and love and life in this city-that-never-sleeps are fleshed out with the deftest of touches, and so their world we visit is also subtly but continually opened up—blossoming right before our eyes.

The boy: Nick (Michael Cera, who's quickly becoming the quietest of indie triumphs). He's a senior in high school, from the suburbs of Jersey, and the only straight member in a very hardcore rock band: The Jerk-Offs. Plus, his girl—Tris (Alexis Dziena)—just kinda, sorta, broke up with him…a while ago. He can't quite get over it (and is, in fact, still sending her mixes from his wounded heart). And then his friends/band-mates, Dev (Rafi Gavron) and Thom (Aaron Yoo), pull out into NYC night-life to play a gig…

The girl: Norah (Kat Dennings). She, too, is a senior (maybe attending Brown in the fall, maybe getting a job), but she's from Englewood, Jewish, and apparently has more influence in the club scene than just about anyone save Jesus. That's why she happens to be in a club one night with her friend Caroline (Ari Gaynor, who—if she's not the heart—is the comedic engine continually at work in the background, churning out consistent laughs) when Nick's band takes the stage…and Nick sees Tris…and Norah needs someone to pose as her boyfriend.

The meet-cute: you already saw coming. But it's the sole conventional element in a staging that prepares us not in the slightest for a very period ("period" being The Now) narrative, filled with subplots about looking for your drunk-buddies, supporting your "uni-boob" with the correct bra, and finding clues as to the location of the super-secret show by the super-cult band Where's Fluffy? Once Nick and Norah have become acquainted, they're far from gaga over the other. (For one, he still finds every moment an opportunity to pump Norah about her frenemy's feelings over the break-up.) But we watch them find that connection, and—as directed by Peter Sollett from a wisely urban script by Lorene Scafaria based on the titular novel—the search is done in just the perfect way: through shared smiles, jokes that went bad half-way through (but it's the attempt that matters, anyway), and moments shared in the oddest of places, made homely and yours through the sheer power of being there. In short, Nick and Norah find each other in Nick & Norah as if they were every teenager in the world, crammed into two symbolic bodies—flirting and bantering and letting silence flow out awkwardly in perfect imitation of the real thing, so as to make it real. There's derivation in the concept, but triumph in its staging.

"I just want to hold your hand," Dev tells Nick, in one of the many inspired moments in the movie, and that same easy-going whimsy of love and lust and everything-in-between just sort of happening carries over to the treatment of the film's every character. Dev and Thom (and the no-name beefy pick-up that starts tagging along with them after The Jerk-Offs' first gig) are gay, but their no one's flamboyant anything, just as Norah is Jewish—but you'd only know it when she brings up one of her favorite philosophies from said religion (which lets Nick put his own funky little, completely sincere spin on it). This is the New York City of the new millennium, and it belongs to these people, the movie tells us, who find life and love in the moments when no one is looking, and everything just comes rushing up to meet you. Say "Hello" and dive right in.

30 Rock: The Complete First Season: B+

The Rural Juror; "Muffin Top"; dating your distant cousin (accidently); "Vice President of East Coast Television-and-Microwave Programming"; Fat Bitch I & II; The Black Crusaders—this is 30 Rock: Tina Fey's irreducibly insane, incandescently clever show-within-a-show sitcom. Such moments as those above are the reason her show first hit the radar, why it won over critics and (small but fanatical) audiences alike; and it's obvious why: 30 Rock has an admirable spirit of loony iconoclasm, it's a stalwart of left-brain/right-brain/no-brain bubbly wit. Built like the drunken, one-night-stand bastard of Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (but far more entertaining) and fleshed out by mind-bogglingly quick zings between the Smart and the Dumb, the High and the Low, Fey's brain-child is a bit like doping up on laughing gas for thirty-minute intervals—the drug hits quick and stays, sizzling pleasantly in the back of your head, driving you to laugh spontaneously, constantly.

That's not to say everything works. A lot doesn't. Or didn't—see, the opening four episodes of Rock seem counterintuitive to what should be happening: they sink steadily downward, becoming almost impishly ridiculous; hollow and quirky: Scrubs Zero. The "Pilot" is more the tasteful precursor, though it too has some bumps. And then "The Aftermath," "Blind Date," and "Jack the Writer" become increasingly, almost imperceptibly, difficult. One can see, in Fey's writing and producing, the thread-bare work of her vision. And then the uptick, and stuff starts shifting for the better.

Leaving objectivity at the door, the concept is this: Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is the creator and head-writer of The Girlie Show, a mildly-hot sketch show on NBC with a crackpot star (Jane Krakowski). In comes a new executive, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), who recruits fallen-movie-star Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) to boosts the show's ratings. Lemon, already a frazzled career-woman in the greatest of clichéd traditions, now has to contend with her paranoid best-friend being replaced with a loose cannon…and the new boss who really wants to mentor her.

For several reasons, this would never happen. Like, in a million-billion-'till the end of time years never. But with a loopy conceit comes an even loopier product—and 30 Rock delivers pretty uniformly. The punch-lines are written as confessions; the action is sliced up into an ironic mélange; and the cast is such a phenomenal support (excluding Mr. Baldwin, who we'll get to in a moment) as to make even the weakest moments fresh. Even "The Head and the Hair" is infectiously goofy. And "Up All Night," "Cleveland," and "The Fighting Irish" are about all the necessary prove of Rock's crystallization as a comedy fount.

…Now: Alec Baldwin. Frequent-SNL host, movie star, Baldwin Brother—but funny, funny, man? Yes, yes, a 1,000 times yes. Delivering his lines a silken purr, squaring his physical presence into a box of imposing dexterity, and centering even those jokes that fly off the screen, the actor isn't just the heart of the show, but also its breakout show. He does something almost transcendent, and he does it in the context of a lesser, if very loose and very witty show. He makes the impossible possible, and turns the alt-NYC of Fey's world not just into a fanciful place, but also a state-of-mind: where sketch shows can have the name "Girlie" in their title and still air; where NBC is just a subsidiary of the Sheindhart Wig Company; and where in Cleveland, everyone's a model.

Eagle Eye: C

It's 2008—so why do movies like this keep getting made? We live in an age of hyper-awareness and literacy; and yet, when confronted with the possibility of creating a thriller gussied up as an allegory for our modern-1984 times, director DJ Caruso makes…this? This—Eagle Eye—that is like some dusty-retro relic from yesteryear, dug up and cleaned with spit-shine, then plopped before us as an audience and beamed directly onto our retinas—its mediocrity made "relevant" for a culture now long past being fooled by the old as the new. It's the kind of movie where the enemy is (spoiler!) a giant supercomputer; where the heroes are struggling, pretty, Americans With Issues who still find time to spark some sexual chemistry; and where the government always seems to get in its own way until—everyone together now—the maverick of the bunch realizes the hero is in the right. Sheesh, what is this: Tron?

It isn't as though Eagle Eye is entirely incompetent; and it's in no way not quite a thrill ride. In fact, the first 45-minutes are about as engaging as one could have hoped for. Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) is down on his luck, his brother just died, when he begins to receive mysterious phone calls, shipments of terrorist contraband, and money. Soon the FBI is involved, and he's running for his life—the omnipotent Voice on the other end of the line always directing him. Rachel (Michelle Monahan) is in a similar predicament, except that on her end, it's her son the Voice is holding hostage.

What's going on? Who is this "they"? And why are on Earth are such nice-looking young people like Jerry and Rachel being put through so much insanity?

Sad news: the propulsion of the first act runs dry quick, as answers become apparent (the most stultifying of which I've already revealed for you). And without that source of fuel, first you realize how banal the script is. And then you realize how completely and incompetently absurd is the craft presented to you as coherence and entertainment. Yes, stuff blows up and people are thrilled and scared and put in life-or-death situations. But why, exactly? Anyone?

I didn't think so.

Written by John Glenn & Travis Wright, and then Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott, Eagle Eye is a hollow trifle—a curio of pop entertainment that seems to have wandered in from a far dustier set. Reportedly, the idea was conceived by executive-producer Steven Spielberg, but in whatever iteration he may have originally seen it, none remains. There is, instead, cliché after disconnected cliché. Even the extraordinarily well-cast actors—among whom, as no one should be shocked to learn, Mr. LaBeouf is the stand-out (his funeral sequence early on is the sole moment that actually reaches out and grabs you)—struggle and stumble under the weight of so much bull. And Mr. Caruso…well, after being given the bigger-budgetary reins after last year's Disturbia, he seems mostly content to let stuff get larger and more impossible, until it all spirals out of control—an '80s plot, meets '90s star-power, layered thick with '00 Michael Bay technical sensibilities. Welcome to the future, folks.

Choke: C+

Choke is not a Chuck Palahniuk movie. It’s based on one of his books; but that’s the closest the film ever comes to touching, in an audiovisual format, the scabrous sort of satire that Palahniuk pioneered years ago. And worse, even with expert brow-wriggling and –mugging by Sam Rockwell, the complexity and unremitting pain of the original’s prose has all but been steamrolled—rib-tickled into a frenetic comedy of the absurd.

Take a step back, though: let’s pretend then that you hadn’t read the cult classic that inspired first-time writer-director Clark Gregg’s project. Now, re-watch the film; let’s argue, for the sake of argument, that the source material—of knowledge of the novel’s premier devastation—taints the movie adapted from it. And…Go.

Anything? Really? Nothing? Oh.

Turns outs that Choke isn’t lightweight because of the book; it just so happens that previous information can highlight how dark it could have been. After all, when you’re dealing with the self-help-self-destruct story of sex addict Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) who runs a restaurant con in which he “chokes” on food in order to be saved (the savior, accordingly feeling connected to Victor, continues to send him money thereafter) and help pay his demented mother’s (Anjelica Huston, looking for all that she tries like the wrong woman in the wrong part) medical bills, well, you’ve got some pretty dark stuff. Dark and riotous—at least in the hands of a skilled, fleet humorist: someone who isn’t afraid to push a joke into tragedy, to stun laughter back down into your throat. Chuck Palahniuk was such a man. And more, he could find—and went looking for—the mania at the root of Victor’s very very very twisted life. He didn’t always succeed, but he created an indelible satiric vision in the process. Gregg has no such luck.

Blame, perhaps, his lack of experience. The veteran actor has only made one movie: this one. And before its production, it’s reported that he worked on the script for six years. Six—you think somewhere in that time he may have grown a little nervous, taken a step back and restructured the uncomfortable into the tamely insane? That said, don’t mistake me; Choke is insane, a bit, and it’ll make you giggle with some of its more finely-crafted sequences (the best part of the whole movie, and its one, ironically, that was almost wholly intact from the source material, is the fake-rape), but it has no weight, no dimension, no darkness or heft. It’s the equivalent of cotton candy comedy: a tastefully sour delight wrapped around a barely-there chewy center. Call it Chuck Palahniuk Lite.

Subliminal Tapes: Product Review

We’ve all been there—you’ve got a problem, a bad habit, say, or a nagging character flaw that you just can’t fix. It could be anything: you’re just the tiniest bit overweight; you’ve still got that weird spider phobia; you feel like your soul-mate is out there, but that you just aren’t doing everything you can to find that person—like you’re being held back. There is a solution. Refreshingly, helpfully, someone has come forward with a product that doesn’t just help…it helps you help you. At www.subliminal-tapes-self-improvement, there are a wide variety of options available, and each of them produces results.

“It’s not magic. It’s not bunk. It’s simply mind over matter,” goes the bold claim on the first page that greets you when you click on over. The statement is bold, but refreshing in its truth. In every subliminal tape, there comes packaged with it the power to change your life. And, after use, change it you will. This stuff delivers.

Shopping is no hassle—the website is cleanly and helpfully organized and arrayed—and your tastes are all catered to. Want custom support? You’ve got it? Feel like this stuff is just for you…but don’t have anything but an iPod? That’s what subliminal mp3s are for. Most importantly: if you ever get hesitant—worried this can’t be true, that you’re too special, too you, to have the product work any magic—have no fear; along with their catalog and order information, the website also has links to their testimonials, words from people who made a conscious choice to get help in helping themselves. And they’re better for it.

One last thing: there’s a guarantee. That’s right. Even after all the customer-friendly stuff they’ve got at your fingertips, there’s still a guarantee. So it’s no risk to try it. Go ahead—what’s to lose? At the very least, the subliminal CDs do nothing more than lull you to sleep. But I’m willing to bet that doesn’t happen… In fact, I’d guarantee it.

The Nines: B+

The Nines has, in reality, little to do with math—save for the omnipresence of its titular number. It is, however, framed by an elegant geometric structure: the narrative being told by three successive short films, each unspooling and spilling into each other as if, instead, they were three concentric circles. This is a movie masquerading as a "tiny" drama with exponentially grand ambitions; a metaphysic puzzle that tickles your heart and brain the bigger, more complex, and more numerous the pieces get. Rarely does meta-filmmaking like this get more authentically, or more hypnotically, engrossing.

Drawing from TMZ, his own life, Lost, and his own life some more, writer-director John August creates a bold and confident cocktail of adrenaline and mystery—a 99-minute (get it: 99 minutes…ooh, creepy) drama about three different men played by one man, stuck between six different women, played by just two. The man is Ryan Reynolds (y'know: Van Wilder? No? Well, ok, but he's talented. Really) and he plays, one after the other, an actor under house arrest, a hot-shot young writer-producer, and a stranded videogame designer. The women are Melissa McCarthy and Hope Davis and who they play never really strays—though, once, McCarthy does place herself…and it's as nifty as it sounds—Davis is always a manipulator with an agenda perfectly hidden by an even-more-perfectly manicured persona, while McCarthy is always Reynolds muse or rescuer or voice of reason. Sitting on his shoulders, metaphorically, the latter is the angel, and the former is the devil with blonde bangs.

…Except that August is a far trickier auteur than he lets on. In each of the short films (starting with "The Prisoner," and then "Reality Television," and then finally "Knowing") the director toys and tricks his audience with fleet ingenuity—imbuing his otherwise middle-of-the-road dialogue with a tone of creeping horror and revelation. Objectively, though, not each of the three slices of his larger head-scratching pie is created equal. "The Prisoner" is alluring but scattered; full of wacked-out images that aren't nearly as entrancing as one originally perceives. "Reality Television," though, is a 30-minute little kick of behind-the-stages fun. In telling of how Gavin (that'd be Reynolds, with Tina Fey-glasses) struggles and manipulates in an attempt to get his show on the air—the big issue is his star: Melissa McCarthy, playing Melissa McCarthy—The Nines gets a much-needed jolt of droll incisiveness, while still ending with a kicker of an image that haunts you all the way down to the third act.

"Knowing" is ostensibly the pilot Gavin made in the second act (and it feels, cleverly, like prime-time television all the way down to its high-class color palette), about a man who loses his family. At this point in the overall scheme, though, the perspective is flipped. No one really is who they seem—least of all our hero. And that sort of instability suits the movie in general, especially when August finally gets his big reveal…and earns his every gasp of shock and surprise. Let me just say: it goes big. I mean big. Like, cosmically big. But, pleasurably, too, can I say it's not a stretch. And it works.

Nothing this intimate could be this good without a great cast; and in most sense, Reynolds and his women (with, on occasion, Elle Fanning as a mute little girl. Who. Knows. Too. Much) are. McCarthy flips through the channels of her brain—bubbly, vulnerable, sincere, funny—with charming dexterity. And Davis gives characteristic shades of gray to a femme fatale who, in the end, is always who she seemed. Reynolds, though, is the real treat. On the surface, he's a National Lampoon's frat boy matured into an A-list hunk, but he exploits his charm to find a gritty callow desperation beneath it. As the maestro floating above them all, John August coolly pulls and tugs on their puppet strings—making for a thrilling show. Ultimately, the pleasure in The Nines bubbles down to its small-scale jabs and quicksilver changes, the beauty of its craft, whether than the occasional opaqueness of its presentation. This is one puzzle that's devilishly accessible—an exercise in illusion that gives way, time after time, to more illusion until, finally, the real thing. And, truly, it is.