Northern California is quickly becoming a hotbed for craft beer. The Sacramento region alone has 50 microbreweries including Placer County’s Out of Bounds Brewing Company. Best known for its variety of IPAs Out of Bounds also makes a killer imperial oatmeal stout. But on this day, I cracked open the company’s newest release Juiced Blackberry Double IPA (8% ALC).
The company says the blackberry’s tart, flavorful characteristics provide “balance to, and compliment the huge hoppy elements of this Double IPA”. We’ll see.
THE AROMA
Despite being a Double IPA, the first thing you notice is the distinct lack of hops smell. Perhaps this is a result of the blackberry, but the brew smells more like a wheat than an IPA. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I know some people get scared off when a beer has too much hoppy aroma.
THE APPEARANCE
The beer comes in your standard 22-oz brown bottle with a purple twist on Out of Bounds most common label look. The beer itself is a redish-caramel color with no much head.
THE FLAVOR
It’s strange, a beer that boasts blackberry flavor and “huge hoppy elements” sort of lacked both. But you know what, it’s still pretty good. The only time I really noticed the berry flavor was the aftertaste which to me was more blueberry than blackberry.
OVERALL
Even though I was expecting more a bold flavor I still liked this beer. It’s a nice light summer IPA that won’t offend people who don’t like hoppy bitterness and isn’t overly fruity. I’d definitely drink it again, but it wouldn’t be the first beer that comes to mind when I want something from Out of Bounds Brewing Company.
Sadly, it’ll be years before the Star Wars lands open at Walt Disney World in Orlando and Disneyland in Anaheim.
Construction is currently underway at both parks. And, although there haven’t been any major updates, Disney has released a new image of the land just to drive Star Wars fans crazy.
The Disney Parks Blog released the image (below) Monday of what the land could look like at Disneyland once it’s completed. The image appears on the fence along Big Thunder Trail in Frontierland at the park.
If you look closely, you can pick out some really cool stuff: the Millennium Falcon, markets and landing zones. Of course, the Millennium Falcon is one of the rides featured in the land.
The 14-acre land will be the largest single-themed expansion at Disneyland, according to Disney. Also, Disney is calling this a “Star Wars-Themed” land. We still don’t know what the official name will be.
An official opening date for Star Wars Land has not been announced.
This Wednesday, Broad Green Pictures is set to release The Infiltrator, directed by Brad Furman and starring Bryan Cranston, John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt, and Diane Kruger. The film is scintillating, built on terrific duplicity, and intriguing from the first moment, when we see Cranston walk into a bowling alley. This movie also marks the first time that Cranston has played a role that taps into that duality he portrayed so well during Breaking Bad. Overall, it’s the best performance of Bryan Cranston’s film career.
The Infiltrator tells the story of U.S. Customs agent Robert Mazur. By day he’s undercover busting drug rings in the Tampa Bay Area, and by night he’s a family man with two kids. In the beginning, it seems as if Mazur has a grip on the dual life he leads and his work doesn’t get in the way of his family. However, when Mazur decides that instead of going after the drugs (like they have for all these years), that they should now start tracking the money, his job starts to morph into something he would never have anticipated.
Mazur is paired up with Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo), and they immediately launch an operation to track down the cash streams that fund the cartels. Abreu and Mazur have sort of odd couple vibe about them, but they ultimately work well together as partners. Mazur puts the word out that Bob Musella (his alias) is open for business and can launder any amount of cash the cartels provide him and invest in legitimate businesses. To gain the trust of the cartels, Mazur is given a Rolls Royce, a mansion, and an infinite amount of cash to use at his discretion. He quickly makes his way up the cartel hierarchy and after gaining the trust of the unstable Javier Ospina (a friend of Escobar’s cartel), he gains the confidence of Escobar’s chief distributor Robert Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt).
The highlight of this film is Bryan Cranston performance, layered and nuanced as Mazur. When he was Mazur, the family man, he was reminiscent of the dad from Malcolm In The Middle. When Mazur was Bob Musella, he was a simmering cauldron of intensity that was reminiscent of his days on Breaking Bad. The sheer brilliance of the film is when Mazur gets deeper into his investigation; he starts to become more and more like Bob Musella and loses who he is. This was no more evident than in the anniversary scene when Mazur is taking his wife out to dinner. He starts off as affable as he’s ever been around his wife and as the dinner progresses he becomes more and more agitated (which is something unlike Robert Mazur but very much like Bob Musella). He becomes increasingly aggressive and reaches a boiling point when one of his new associates that work for Pablo Escobar shows up. Instead of trying to talk his way out trouble he decides to cause a distraction by smashing a cake violently in the waiter’s face.
The production design in The Infiltrator is stellar and thanks in part to Crispian Sallis, previously nominated for an Academy Award for production design on Gladiator. Just as he demonstrated in his previous work, Sallis finds a way to design sets or enhance a shot that raises tension and enhances the danger Mazur fell into time and time again.
Joshua Reis’s cinematography is impeccable. Reis, whose experience is primarily in horror films, puts his experience to good use as he brings out the best in a scene, whether it’s Mazur’s mansion or the fake wedding that takes place at Innsbrook, or any of the small moments in between. Probably his best work in the film is when Mazur is taken to what looks to be a Santeria ceremony to see if he if is, in fact, being truthful (with the penalty being that he would be shot in the head). Reis manages to quickly flip shots from right at Mazur’s eye level to a shot panning of what was transpiring around him.
Brad Furman makes sure the film is paced appropriately, and that prevents the film from lagging. Furman seems to have a love for the Tampa Bay Area and chooses some of the best locations to not only enhance his narrative but showcase the area.
It’s very wise of Broadgreen to release The Infiltrator on Wednesday because it could easily get lost in all the Ghostbuster and The Secret Life Of Pets hysteria during the weekend. The Infiltrator is one of the best films this summer. Hopefully, it will find an audience.
At the time of writing this post, I have not seen the new Ghostbusters film and I am going out of my way to avoid any criticism of it. There are lots of things we can learn from this movie and the controversy surrounding it, and that is how we need to learn to talk about things without screaming at each other. There should always be a push for discussion because nothing is ever gained from screaming at each other over social media. You won’t change someone’s mind by name calling or sending death threats on Twitter. Ghostbusters has been unique to watch.
There are plenty of people that are not excited for the movie because the trailers aren’t looking good, or they don’t like the cast, but those people cannot get mad at people for assuming they are misogynists for not wanting to see Ghostbusters. First of all getting mad at someone isn’t going to help anyone, but realize that some of the loudest voices in the room are rooted in sexism. When the vile Return of Kings (a site I will not link to but know that they are “women hating” to a frightening degree) are making a lot of noise, you cannot get mad at people for seeing that and assuming that is the majority. It’s not right because it certainly isn’t but lashing out isn’t going to help anyone.
Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon Photo: Sony / Columbia
You also cannot blame people for coming to this assumption when the outcry against remakes of other classics were not nearly as loud or as hateful. If you think about it from the other point of view the Robocop re-make didn’t have this kind of vitriol thrown at it but this re-make does, and it is because the gender of the cast that has changed. The conclusion that sexism is involved is not that hard of a conclusion to come to. You might not be seeing Ghostbusters for whatever reason but getting mad at someone who thinks your dislike is rooted in sexism isn’t going to fix anything. In fact, there is a good chance that you lashing out is going to prove the point to the person you’re arguing with.
All of that being said the assumption that everyone that doesn’t want to see Ghostbusters and attacking them for it isn’t helping anyone either. A persecuted minority, in this case women, can often only see large mobs as speaking for everyone in the group. When you are getting called feminist trash on social media and receiving death threats you develop hyper vigilance. It makes you very guarded and you’re quick to see threats where there aren’t. This isn’t wrong but it is reality. There is also the reality that the trailers for Ghostbusters have not been very good; some people just don’t like remakes or for whatever reason not everyone out there who decides not to see this movie is sexist.
The hyper vigilance is something that is prevalent in all form of persecuted people from race to sex to even nerd and geek culture. The idea of being a victim is part of the identity of being a nerd but, as nerds, while as the bullied we should be the most welcoming we have been just as elitist as the bullies that beat us up. We are all very defensive because that was what we had to be when we were younger. If you liked cartoons or video games twenty years ago that was grounds for a black eye on the playground. That is not the modern day, though and we nerds and geeks need to get over this tendency to lash out at each other for differing opinions.
The point is that all sides need to understand where the other is coming from. We need to stop for a moment and think before we type that comment, send that tweet or make that video. There is nothing to be gained by anyone screaming on social media. We can agree to disagree on the quality of the movie when the time comes, but what we need to agree on is that we need to do better. The assumptions on both sides aren’t helping anyone and just perpetuate harmful stereotypes all around.
If you missed your chance at the sneak peak, don’t worry. There could be more surprises on the way. Mr. Robot‘s Twitter account promises that this is “just the beginning.”
The show’s social media accounts have been busy the last few days, with live Facebook Q&As and teasers. You might want to keep your eyes on Twitter and Facebook for the next couple of days, so you don’t miss anything.
The two-episode season two premiere of Mr. Robot airs Wednesday, July 13 at 10 ET.
Did anyone expect the internet trolls opposing Paul Feig’s ‘Ghostbusters’ to lose with dignity when positive reviews for the film started to roll in Sunday afternoon? With 52 reviews in on Rotten Tomatoes, Feig’s ‘Ghostbusters’ is sitting at 78%. More reviews will pour in after the national press screening on Tuesday.
There is this quality Reddit user Better_Butter321, asking what more he or she can do to make sure the film fails. A select few over at Reddit are trying to downvote the positive reviews on the social news networking service to make the movie look bad.
The reviews are starting to come out and much to the dismay of the haters, critics are saying that Ghostbusters is actually a good film. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film that alleged Ghostbusters purists claimed was going to be an abomination is sitting at 76% and is trending towards being certified fresh. While some might point towards the good reviews as a shocking turn of events, what I found shocking is people associated with the film are already talking about the sequel. Producer Amy Pascal even went as far as to say at the premiere
“The movie is so good people are going to demand a sequel, I have waited for this moment for a year! It’s going to be endless,”
Now some might think that this is a classic case of wishful thinking, but it could very well come down to how Ghostbusters does at the box-office. The film is facing stiff competition from The Secret Life Of Pets and Star Trek: Beyond over the next two weeks. Whether or not a sequel happens, remains to be seen.
Keep it locked on monkeysfightingrobots.com as we will have our review of Ghostbustersup on Wednesday morning.
Ghostbusters makes its long-awaited return, rebooted with a cast of hilarious new characters. Thirty years after the beloved original franchise took the world by storm, director Paul Feig brings his fresh take to the supernatural comedy, joined by some of the funniest actors working today – Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Chris Hemsworth. This summer, they’re here to save the world! The film is produced by Ivan Reitman and Amy Pascal, and written by Katie Dippold & Paul Feig, based on the 1984 film “Ghostbusters,” written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and directed by Ivan Reitman.
‘Ghostbusters’ will be released in theaters nationwide on July 15, 2016.
After an average first episode, the fear this series would be nothing more than a repeat of material already covered in other adaptations is put to rest. Despite a few flashbacks, the new series looks like it will be dedicated to telling the story of The Black Swordsman Arc. Considering after not getting new Berserk for years and when the movies were released they retold The Golden Egg Arc again, a bit of paranoia can be expected. Still, our fears have been put to rest. The new material has begun.
Guts meets up with the Holy Cross Knights, a pampered division which tries to take him in. Obviously this doesn’t go well for them. Don’t mess with the best gentlemen. Guts is way above your pay grade. Also, their captain, Lady Farnese takes an interest in Guts in the classic “Good Girl wants the Bad Boy” sort of way. It will be interesting to see where their relationship will go. It will also be interesting to see how a character who is so devout reacts to the fact there are killer demons in the world.
The animation also seems to improve in this episode. Unfortunately this is partly due to the fact this episode has more scenes in the day then the previous one. Also, the CGI seems to like to show the characters looking tougher and grittier by applying shading on them at just the right angles but looks very weird in scenes during the night. Hopefully they will figure out how to make the nighttime scenes look better without losing the characters in the gritty shading they like to do. Still, the series is picking up and from here on it looks like it will be filled with new violent content and the further adventures of Guts, the Black Swordsman.
‘The Mummy’ starring Tom Cruise is filming in London, and the first set photos of Sofia Boutella as the title character have surfaced on the internet.
‘The Mummy’ is Universal’s official launch of their new connected monster’s universe. The film is directed by Alex Kurtzman and stars Cruise as Tyler Colt, Boutella as the Mummy, Annabelle Wallis, and Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll.
The unofficial plot: An ancient queen is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia, and terrors that defy human comprehension.
Just in case you forgot about ‘Gurdains of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ director James Gunn is here to remind us that we are only 300 days away from its release. The filmmaker took to Facebook to post a new photo of Chris Pratt as Star Lord.
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ is written and directed by Gunn and stars Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Michael Rooker, Vin Diesel, Zoe Saldana, Kurt Russell, and Pom Klementieff.
The Cosmic Heroes return to the big screen on May 5, 2017.
The Infiltrator tells the story of U.S. Customs agent Robert Mazur. By day he’s undercover busting drug rings in the Tampa Bay Area, and by night he’s a family man with two kids. In the beginning, it seems as if Mazur has a grip on the dual life he leads and his work doesn’t get in the way of his family. However, when Mazur decides that instead of going after the drugs (like they have for all these years), that they should now start tracking the money, his job starts to morph into something he would never have anticipated.
