Occupants (2015)

Occupants

For anyone like me who take interest in the concept of parallel worlds, director Russell Emanuel embraces the found footage sub-genre while also dodging the gimmicky trappings in favor of a much more intelligent genre title involving the scientific idea. “Occupants” explores the theory of parallel realities, and how it’s theorized our lives can align with alternate versions of ourselves. Much like “Paranormal Activity,” Emanuel sets his film primarily in one setting, but the similarities end there. Emanuel has his finger on the pulse of science fiction, exploring a realm where every movement is intricate and our characters begin to dabble in the God Complex resulting in some absolutely horrendous consequences.

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The Tall Man (2012)

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Pascal Laugier’s “The Tall Man” is one dry heave of a drama that paints itself as a horror movie. Worse more it pretends to be a take on “The Slender Man” when really it’s just one heaping helping of melodrama about kidnapped kids and altruistic nurses taking their love for them one step too far. It’s a shame, too, since the opening montage isn’t only creepy, but seems to be setting us up for one hell of an eerie and haunting horror film built on a scary premise. I wanted to invest time in the film once the initial hook runs its course. It’s just sad that the film itself never lives up to any of its promise.

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“Grease: Live!”, and Five Observations About The Show

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Like many people that likely watched “Grease Live,” I’m a huge fan of 1978’s “Grease.” I’ve seen it at least a thousand times and watch it every single time it’s on television. So naturally fans like me would go in to “Grease Live” comparing it to the 1978 movie, consciously and sub-consciously. It was a risky venture giving us a live broadcast of “Grease,” but FOX took a gamble, and a wise one by getting in on the live musical broadcast gimmick, starting off with one of the most entertaining musicals of all time. “Grease Live” is pretty much the same as we always knew it, seemingly taking bits and pieces from the 1978 movie and including numbers from the original musical. Surely enough while I was worried about what I was getting in to, a lot of my reservations about casting, and production were absolutely destroyed with what was a pretty damn fun, three hour broadcast.

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“The Action Elite” Raves About “The Genesis Exiles”

Genesis

The bad asses at “The Action Elite,” one of the most popular online havens for action buffs around, covering everything from movies, TV shows and books, took the time out review my new novel “The Genesis Exiles.”

From the website that’s had the privilege to interview folks like Keanu Reeves, Michael Jai White, and Wesley Snipes, I am thrilled to say that they rated “The Genesis Exiles” with a four out of five stars, branding it as “Explosive!” And that’s not a recommendation I take with a grain of salt.

“The Action Elite” knows the action genre well, and gave “The Genesis Exiles” a fair, honest, and thankfully rave review. Here are some choice excerpts from the review from The Action Elite webmaster Eoin Friel:

“I’m pleased to say that it’s genuinely thrilling and action-packed with well developed characters who we care about…”

“Vasquez Jr. has an immediately appealing writing style and when penning the action scenes there is an energy to them which shows that he was just as excited writing them as we are reading them…”

“This would make for an excellent movie or even TV series as the characters are so engaging that you want to spend more time with them…”

Read the full review here, and don’t hesitate to buy “The Genesis Exiles”! It’s now available on paperback, and Kindle!

Thanks to “The Action Elite” for taking time out of their busy schedule to review “The Genesis Exiles.”

Teen Witch (1989)

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“Teen Witch” is one of the last relics of the eighties that isn’t just a fantasy for teen girls based around the joy of superficiality and empty popularity, but something of a cheesy comedy that absolutely embraces its idiocy time and time again. The unapologetic cheesiness and truly awful values of “Teen Witch” is often so bad, and yet so damn charming to endure. You almost have to admire it for building up to an anti-climax that boasts about how great it is to have the guy of your dreams, even if he’s as deep as a Koi pond. Dorian Walker’s film also dares to embrace the hip hop genre with a trio of young white men from the suburbs. Thank goodness for Larry Weir.

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