The Favorite- when the loser is really the winner

Alright so this is not my normal cup of tea, but it is best picture season and it was one of the few favorites (okay i promise not to do that too many times, can't guarantee it won't happen again) that  I haven't seen and I am almost certainly not watching Roma anytime soon.

Now to the movie Emma Stone plays a British lady who lost her place in society and is looking to earn it back at Queen Anne's court. Queen Anna basically does whatever the last person to talk to her tells her to do, which her closest adviser Sarah (Racheal Weisz) takes advantage of as she does most of the governing.

Here you can get caught up in the goverance and what a bad queen Anne is but that's not the point of the movie. Stone and Weisz have a great on screen chemistry and you can feel the tension and emotion growing in them as the movie progresses. As Stone starts to woo the queen, Weisz tries to win her friend back. Using ever trick in the book the two compete for the davor of the queen and the power that comes with that.

Stone at times steals the screen with how fun her performance is. It carrys an emotional range from serious and calculated to the more fun and free flowing. Weisz also turns in a strong performance and was a joy to watch.

Now the catch of the movie is that why both Stone and Weisz are competing for the queen's affection the real winner is the one that gets away from the queen. She is certified crazy and an emotional wreck. They was a time when she was dancing and going off with her head while using her arm as a saw with her dance partner. I thought that was foreshadowing some Alice in Wonderland Queen of hearts action but spoiler alert, there was no beheading, unfortunately.

Overall the movie was "artistic" and makes sense why it is a best picture nominee. I just wasn't super into but I am sure lots of other people would be.

3 out of 5 stars but again not my favorite genre.

The upside- upset people can have friends too

Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston team up in this odd pairing story of unlikely friends. Based on the true story of a rich Italian and his caregiver but with the setting changed to New York. Hart character is an ex con who needs a job, but more importantly has the real problem of being self centered and unable to take responsibility for his actions. It creates a good opportunity for Cranston character who is a quadriplegic and needs someone to care for him since he can't more his arm or legs. Phil (Cranston) has run out of reasons to live and picks Hart because well there is almost no chance he can do the job.
The two of them have many funny interactions and the movie as a whole is a lot funnier than I expected. The acting is great but that is expected from talent like Cranston and Kidman. Hart kills the scences with Cranston, and Kidman but when he has to carry the scene things fall a bit flat. Fortunately, he kills the comedy and you can overlook those other shortcomings. The movie isn't the greatest of all time or even this month but it is uplifting so it has it's role.
Funny movie that wouldn't expect so 3 out of 5 stars because the hot dog scene is at least worth one star.

BBQ Review- Whole Hog Cafe- Cherry Hill

Went out to the Cherry Hill location to try some Whole Hog Cafe. Now the interesting thing about this restaurant is that the building is really plain, it is just gray cement and does not look like it should be a resturant but once you step inside it is exactly what you would expect a BBQ restaurant to look like.  It is counter service, order at the counter and take your seat and the cashier will bring out your food to you. The owner is the winner of world championship for the whole hog in 2002, hence the name and has several runner ups for the ribs.

I walked in and was prepared to order the Hog platter, which is 2 meats and 3 ribs, but noticed that they had added burnt ends to the menu from last time I was there and if you read my KC blog post you will know how much I enjoyed burnt ends. Well I stuck with the big three of brisket, pulled pork and the ribs, but will definitely be going back to try the burnt ends so keep an eye out for the update when that happens. 

As you can see above I got the mac and cheese and cheesy corn as my sides to go along with the ribs, brisket and pulled pork. Starting with the pulled pork which I matched with the number 5 sauce which is there sweet sauce, don't worry I'll give you the breakdown later. The pulled pork has a nice bark to it and the meat has a good flavor to it even without the sauce.  The pulled pork is served with no sauce on it so it is a completely blank palette to showcase the sauces that they offer. Now, the only issue that I have with the pulled pork here is that it runs on the dry side so the sauce is basically a necessity to enjoy the full course of pork. This would be a major problem when you get the pulled pork sandwich. Fortunately, there are enough sauces that you can sufficiently wet the pork to make it tolerable. If you do not sauce on your meat I recommend another item on the menu. 

The second meat was brisket. Alright so this is not to the level of some of the KC brisket but it still pretty solid. This brisket has a brown sugar rub on it which you can taste it when you eat the brisket dry. The nice thing about the brisket is that you can eat it without the sauce and you get blast of flavor. The meat is not dry but it is not nearly as tender as the KC brisket that you can eat with only a fork. Here you have to pick a knife as well to cut off a piece.  There is a good amount of fat on each piece that gives it a great amount of flavor. 

I dipped my brisket in the number 1 sauce which is there mild sauce, or basically the average BBQ sauce that most restaurants have. I think it compliments the sweetness of the brown sugar rub that is used on the brisket. Overall the brisket is a solid choice and when I stop in for lunch during the work week I get the brisket sandwich, which the issue with the sandwiches is the bun is a bit to big for the amount of meat that they put on the sandwich. It still is a good choice when you can't risk getting sauce on your shirt. 

Now for the main attraction at whole hog; the ribs. 

 The ribs here are babyback still instead of St. Louis Spare Ribs. That means it is a bit less meat per bone but the meat is normally tender and falls off bone, where the St. Louis Ribs it is more common to find a drier rib. Here at whole hog the rib pulls apart almost with no effort at all, just a slight pull.

The sauce on this one I think is the number 1 sauce as well but I am not entirely sure. It doesn't taste or look like the other ones so by process of elimination I think it is the 1 sauce. The ribs also have a brown sugar rub on them which gives them a sweet touch but it is not overpowering. It is easy to tell why this place was able to do so well in competition, enough though there is always a drop in quality from competition to commercial production, these ribs are excellent. Every so often they have a special with the rib meat where they put it on a sandwich and on those days I recommend that and toss the bun. (The sandwich meals are a pretty good deal, drink sandwich, coleslaw and a side for around $12) 

Now the sauces:

 I am going to be honest I don't like mustard based sauces so I did not try the #6 sauce. None of the sauces here are going to rock your world and it is unlikely that you are going to walk out buying one of the sauce but they get the job down and there is something that works for all ranges of people. My personal favorite is #5 but I have a major sweet tooth. 

Quick note about the sweet tea, it is not that sweet here, it's not that it is bad it is just that for the taste I rather stick to the plain old regular tea. It's not bad just not super sweet. 

Whole Hog Cafe is a nice BBQ restaurant that has excellent ribs. It's a place where you can stop in and grab a BBQ sandwich for a quick lunch or a quality dinner if you have some more time. If the urge to have some ribs hits you this is one of the places to go. 

I really look forward to going back to try the burnt ends. 

Overall Ratings

Ribs: 4.5 

Brisket 4

Pulled Pork 3

Sides 2.5 

Second Act- it's okay to lie but not really

We are going to get to the movie but I want to comment real quick on the 52 ounce icee that you can get at the movie theaters and why you should never get one. There are only two possible outcomes when you get a 52 ouncer: 1. you drink so fast that you have give yourself a brain freeze and you just cause yourself pain; 2. you drink it at a proper pace but the bottom of it melts/ gets hard and you can't get it through the straw anymore so you should have just stuck with the 32 ounce one. If there was a way so that it did not become impossible to drink at the end go ahead drink the 52 oz. one, also please let me know what your secret is. (also so much sugar that sitting still during the movie might be a bit tough or the crash will make driving home interesting.

Now to the reason you clicked on the movie review, Second Act is a fun movie that has it's high points and several lulls. The movie is based around the concept that a women, Maya, (Jenifer Lopez) is the assistant manager at a grocery store and the opportunity to become manager comes around. Unfortunately for Maya, she does not have a college degree and is not qualified for the position since the minimum requirement is a college degree. The store hires some MBA idiot, who the movie makes clear has no street smarts and therefore has no idea to run the store and just comes up with stupid ideas.

Maya goes to her 40th birthday and complains about the lack of opportunity for people who do not have a degree and how street smarts should count for something. As a person with 20 years of formal education (not counting pre-school) I did not like the way they were portraying the importance and value of higher education in the beginning of the movie. It turned out to be okay because the movie is not about the value of education but about the damage that lying can cause. Maya friend's son creates a profile for Maya that makes her super accomplished and a major company offers her a consulting job. The movie takes us through her adventure as she takes on this new job putting her street smarts and gut feelings to the test.

Enough with the plot that's not why you watch movies like this. There are several running gags in the movie that are pretty funny. I like Leah Remini character gag about curing after her youngest son, probably 7, starts curing all the time. She starts saying s-word or f-word, instead of the word. The way her character is established the first time she says f-word it is very funny. The best part of the movie is really the interactions between Lopez, Remini, and her other two friends.


Yeah, it wouldn't be fair if I didn't also mention there is a lost child through adoption and reunited story line that feels a bit shoe horned in that makes the movie a bit messy. It is not the best story in the world and makes the movie feel completely unrealistic at times but you know there are some really funny parts and the point of going to a movie like this is not see a master class of story telling but to get some laughs and distract yourself for a few hours. So go enjoy the movie and don't worry about the plot just take in the humor and remember who cares that everything seems to just fall unrealistically into place. It's a movie don't overthink it.

3 out of 5 stars

Should the Sixers trade JJ

I keep on seeing this idea that the Sixers should trade Ben Simmons and well that may be a indicator of low intelligence it did get me thinking about another player on the team that they could consider trading. JJ Redick the 3 point shooting specialist, who makes $12.5 million for this year. (Yes I know that the JJ has essentially a no-trade clause because of early bird rights so this us ultimate  purely a hypothetical) JJ is an extremely important part of the Sixers offense as he is the only pure shooter of the sixers starters, a five man group that ranks as on of the best in the NBA, but he is having one of his worst seasons from the behind the arc in his career and cannot cover any one which can cause issues when the sixers have to go to the bench and do not match him with above average defensive players like Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Jimmy Butler. 

If JJ could be traded there are only two types of trade that would make sense from a Sixers perspective. A trade where his 12.5 million salary is used to match up with a higher paid player, like Otto Porter or Bradley Beal. The issue with these trades is that from the Sixers perspective Wilson Chandler would be the better player to send off and the Wizards, or other rebuilding team are not going to want JJ so it would need to be a 3 team trade.

The other type of trade is moving JJ to a "contender" for a few young players that would fit into the Sixers bench. The team that appears to need shooting more than anyone, outside of maybe the sixers, is the Lakers. It would fulfill the destiny of JJ to play with Lebron and take the Kover role for the twilight of his career. Now looking down the Lakers roster what would the Sixers want. Well the first option would be Ball and Ingram, if the two former number 2 picks continue to show that they cannot work with Lebron would they consider shipping the duo out of town for a player that fits perfectly with Lebron, yes they would but that player is not JJ so unless Ingram starts joining Ball in the airballing layup line the Lakers are looking to turn these pieces into a bigger prize like Anthony Davis
(http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ya7ffp6j) 

The other option for the Sixers Lakers would be a deal of Redick for Caldwell-Pope and Hart. The philly fans be all over this because it would bring the Villanova product back to Philadelphia and provide the team with two wing players that could defend. Both Lakers players shoot over 36% from behind the arc but neither are on JJ's level of threat from three. KCP like JJ is a free agent at the end of the year and Hart is on contract of under 2 million for next year so the trade would not be a major impact either teams ability to go after free agents in the off season. 
http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y89zqff6 

Now would this trade fix the Sixers bench problem possibly due to the increased amount of players that can actually play defense but it would would hurt from a spacing point of view because neither has the ability JJ has to hit shots on the move or off the dribble. It would also create an issue for the Sixers offense as the Redick Embiid DHO is such a large part of it. Would Brown move Butler into JJ's role in the offense or would they change things completely. 

The Lakers would prefer to include Ball in the trade instead of Hart which would mean the Sixers would need to send more salary back which would make the trade impossible.

Now there is no way that this trade would ever happen because of JJ's early bird rights but if people are willing to consider trading Ben maybe the sixers should also consider trading JJ. 

Escape Room - Now I never get my friends to got to one with me!

Aright so to start off if you are trying to convince a group of friends to go to an escape room with you do not take them to see this movie. Do not do it, it will just become another excuse for your friends to not go.

Now to the movie. Normally movies that based off a concept like an escape room, (you know the ones where there is a popular thing and they make a movie based off that thing, kinda like battleship) are not that great. Normally there is a poor plot and it comes off as half thought out and more of a cash grab. Well Escape Room is not one of those movies. it's more of the take something popular and turn it scary cash grab movies, which I have no problem with. Escape Room reminded me of the Saw movie where the group of people are locked in together and if they work together they could all survive. This movie doesn't design rooms that have hard to solve puzzles, instead it focuses on creating puzzles that force tension between the characters. The first few rooms it does an excellent job of creating a tension between the participants as they figure out how to move from room to room.

Unfortunately, the movie makes a left turn as it is entering its final act, more for the purpose of setting up future movies, than the story telling purposes I think, which takes away from the overall feel of the movie.  It falls into the trap like most horror movies, including Saw 5, of killing characters off one by one and it becomes a predicable who is going to die next type of deal.  The movie introduces a reason for why the participants were selected and it was a lot better when you thought these were just random people.  Does the first 75 minutes or so provide enough entertainment that the collapse of the last half won't matter, well if you enjoy horror/suspense movies you will probably enjoy this one and if they are not your thing this is not the movie to change your mind.

I think the best way to describe this movie is to say it is saw 5 without the Karmer/Hoffman backstory and way less gore. The puzzles are not going to stump the audiance even if you are not paying attention but that was not the point of the movie. Would it have been better if the puzzles were harder and the focus was not killing off characters to set up the ending and instead focused on them working to keep most of the original group alive. Yeah, maybe but it is easy to follow an already established formula and make it work.

3.5 Stars out of 5 . If Jigsaw was a billionaire this is what his traps would look like!

BirdBox- The unofficial A quiet place sequel

I think I would have enjoyed this movie more if A quiet place had not already done the sense can kill you so you have to live this certain way. In this one it is without sight, and in a quiet place it was about not making a sound. This movie does a good job of keeping the monster hidden and off the picture, unlike a quiet place. The way the timeline jumps back and forth you know the results of some of the characters before the ending since there is a 5 year jump in the story telling, but then again I am a fan of the dual timeline that takes place.

It tries to answer some of the how did this happen as well as how do people survive in this situation. The problem with the movie at least for me is a lot of the movie is based on stupid decisions that the character make. Some of them are understandable others are dumb and really do not make sense with what the situation is or what the established character is or all the characters are just dumb. It makes me wonder how it was possible that all the people with sight survived as long as they did. There would be so many issues that would come up, well I guess being in California the weather would be less of an issue for the forging to other houses for more food but isn't it going to run out. 

I don't know the movie never captured me. It felt like it was lacking. Something was making the people kill themselves when they saw it. It is monster that just does not connect with me. Why do the crazy people not kill themselves when they see it. It does some brain control. I felt like the twist were obvious and there was no get moment of suspense. 

I don't know what I was expecting, but I didn't get it here.

2 out of 5 stars/