The Counselor=Horrendous

I watched a recent release called The Counselor yesterday, and it was terrible.  Just another example of Hollywood honchos loading a movie full of A-list celebrities and completely forgetting about things like a plot that makes sense, powerful scenes and at least some decent acting.  This movie's plot had so many holes and unfinished story lines that by the end of the movie I literally took nothing from it.  Nothing about this movie made sense, you never even saw the "bad guys" who everyone was so scared of, and Cameron Diaz has become a terrible actress.  I remember when she was one of the most highly paid Hollywood actresses and for a good reason.  It's sad to see someone whose career and acting ability have spiraled, but wow was she terrible in this movie.  I can't believe moviefone gave this movie three stars, I'll give it half a star for making it to theaters.  Don't waste your time seeing this horrible drudgery of a movie.  I'm only posting the trailer to further ingrain memories of this movie into your mind, so you won't watch it by mistake.

Must Read Rework

A couple of friends recently recommended the book Rework, and it's been an excellent read thus far.  Rework was written by a couple of guys who have been really successful in a small software company, and have achieved success by going against many of the common beliefs about achieving success in the business world.  Lots of extremely successful business people such as Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks endorse this book as a must read.  I'm personally not a huge fan of the guy when he's court-side, but he's a great businessman.  This book is excellent for anyone involved in business or who's looking to start a business, but it's also applicable to everyday life.  Even if you have no intentions of starting a business, much of the advice in this book can be applied to your personal or professional life to achieve the optimal level of efficiency and success.  I'll just give one example: In Rework, the authors oppose 100 task to-do-lists (TDLs as I like to call them)  but instead to only make lists with 5-10 things, and to tackle each list one at a time.  I employed this strategy over the past couple of days, putting the most high priority things first, and so far I've seen excellent results in my motivation and productivity.  Keep in mind, this is just one example of one piece of advice that was covered on a page and a half, and this is a book full of great pieces of advice.  This is a quick read with about as much useful knowledge as I've seen in a book.  You won't regret reading Rework, trust me.

Image courtesy of Google images

Another Pleasant Surprise at the Cinema

Why don't Americans call movie theaters cinemas? It's one word, concise, and universally recognizable, yet Americans have to do things differently, just like their refusal to adopt the metric system.  Anyway, I was at the cinema last night to see Robocop, and I must say that it exceeded my expectations.  I originally agreed to see this movie as a compromise with my girlfriend (She agreed to go see the second Hobbit movie if I would see Robocop).  Needless to say, my expectations were low, but this movie had a decent story line and some nice action sequences.  The actors played their roles very well, and what I liked most was the thought provoking nature of the movie on the issue of the use of robots and machines in our current military operations and in society as a whole.  Will this movie win an Academy Award? Of course not, but if you want some entertainment at the cinema, and you enjoy action movies that are more than just pretty girls and special effects, go see Robocop, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Wolf of Wall Street was a Big Disappointment

After all the hype that I heard from everyone about The Wolf of Wall Street,  I was quite disappointed.  This movie had no business being three hours long and there were a number of scenes that could have obviously been cut, and really played no part to the overall message of the film.  I'm very surprised because Martin Scorsese usually makes excellent movies, especially when teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio (Who did an excellent job in his role of Jordan Belfort).  Maybe all of the people who saw the movie before me were mesmerized by the beautiful blonde women and all of the naked bodies, which of course are nice, but overall the character development was lacking. I couldn't stand the second male lead's character played by Jonah Hill, and a number of other characters were introduced, some with promise, and some without, and their stories were never expanded.  I couldn't wait for this movie to end, and as a result I wouldn't recommend spending three hours of your time watching it.  I liked the grand message of the film (which I won't divulge publicly, but I'd be glad to discuss it privately; I hate spoilers), but the execution was poor.  I'm only putting up the trailer to see if I had taken a closer look, I would have understood that this movie would be bad before I went to see it.