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Written by Rob Schultz (human).

Los Angeles, CA USA

Filtering by Category: Life

#2,349: Get Out

May 15, 2017  /  Rob Schultz

Before I Fall - ★☆☆☆☆
This year's [sci-fi premise + high school] entry.

It's said that in Harold Ramis' vision of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character spends perhaps hundreds or thousands of years working his way to enlightenment by reliving that same day. So here's our pitch: let's take a group of teens that are meant to be pretty unlikeable at the outset, you know, so we can show what a journey they've taken? And we'll give just one of them the chance to set things right by letting her relive her day, oh, how about half a dozen times? I'm sure that'll do it.

It's goofy beyond belief, but just beginning to count the ways in print feels a little bit mean.

Sleight - ★★★☆☆
Mostly neat. A little bit fast and loose with its own rules. I'm always interested in 'magic' movies to see where they do practical tricks vs. visual effects.

(Okay, again, I want to avoid the list of nerdy nitpicks, but for real, just about everyone casually touches him on the arm at just the right spot and nobody notices anything? Even he doesn't flinch at it? Seems like a weird choice.)

The Belko Experiment - ★★½☆☆
Another B-Movie. B for Blumhouse. Everything they make is like, passable, but you wish they'd gone just a little bit further. Their whole company lives and dies by the 80/20 rule. (Which is going great for them, of course, but I'm always a little let down.)

As to the movie itself, it seems like a waste to enter this little niche of a subgenre if you don't have anything new to contribute or say or do or add. I didn't realize that James Gunn wrote it until I looked it up on Letterboxd, but that makes sense to me.

Get Out - ★★★½☆
This movie doesn't make me think that Jordan Peele "reinvented" horror or whatever, but It does make me think that he grew up watching movies made in that time when horror and sci-fi movies were about something. Get Out, like an early Romero Dead movie, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is a movie about something, and we do need more of those. It's a pretty straightforward horror flick– could've been made 30 years ago, except for if it couldn't've been made 30 years ago.

 

categories / Movies, Life, Review

Escape Room Reviews: Stuck in Time

May 10, 2017  /  Rob Schultz

Company: Cryptic Escape Rooms
Room: Stuck in Time
Date Played: 4/30/17
Player Count: 6 (2 + 4 strangers)
Success:  Success!

Premise: Your Time Travel-o-Tron shorted out, and you’re stuck in the past. Instead of becoming a wealthy ruler of all you survey, you must solve puzzles to return to the future.

Immersion: There wasn't any to speak of. Nothing seemed like it was truly of the era it was set in. Each part of the game had unnecessary anachronisms (which I can ignore for the good of the game in room escapes set in the miscellaneous past, but they stand out all the more in the room that's about time travel). 

Highlights:

  • There were a couple of cool ideas for puzzles that I haven't seen elsewhere.
  • We got along well with our team of strangers.
  • The location was pretty easy to find for an escape room business.

Lowlights:

  • Some of the tech was broken or very finicky for a newish room. It felt like we were beta testing.
  • Our tickets were more expensive than the tickets of the people who were in the room with us. (In private rooms, there is sometimes a premium for bringing a smaller group - Cryptic Escape charges this premium even though they do not have private booking.)
  • This room contains red herrings.

And Finally:   Despite the premium pricing, this is not a premium room.  The street where this company is located has several other companies, and although I haven't been to any of them, I would recommend giving them a shot first.  Out of 23 games played, I'm slotting this into the list at number 20. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.escapecryptic.com

 

categories / Escape Rooms, Life, Review