Alan's Blog

Pharmaceutical representative Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) becomes a player in the big game of male-performance-enhancement-drug sales and, along the way, finds unexpected romance with a woman (Anne Hathaway) suffering from Parkinson's disease. Based on the real-life Jamie Reidy's memoir, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, this satirical look inside the culture of Big Pharm is directed by Edward Zwick.

I thought this movie was well written and acted. This film is a comedy complete with boner jokes. It also has drama, romance and social commentary. Both Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway were outstanding and very believable as a couple.

The buzz of this film was Anne Hathaway’s nude scenes. They were very necessary to advance the story. To see a young, beautiful and vibrant woman with a debilitating disease is tragic.

I know I am going to take flak for this but I was moved by this movie. Jake Gyllenhaal wants to take care of Anne Hathaway but she loves him so much she doesn’t want him wasting his life on her. You can understand where both characters are coming from. They have great onscreen chemistry here and did the comedy and drama well. I am giving this one 4 stars.

Click here for the Netflix link in case you would like to add it to your queue.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
Film Critic Extraordinaire
Cell: (203) 500-3834
E-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

Tags: Jake · Gyllenhaal · Anne · Hathaway · Edward · Zwick

Jailed for immoral behavior in Brazil, flamboyant homosexual Luis Molina (William Hurt, who netted a Best Actor Oscar) passes the time by detailing scenes of his favorite romantic movie to fellow inmate Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia), a hard-edged political activist. Slowly, the two forge a bond based on mutual understanding and respect and their relationship evolves. Director Hector Babenco's character study earned an Oscar nod for Best Picture.

Netflix recommended this movie to me as I liked both “Body Heat” (starring William Hurt) and Cidade de Deus (City of God). I rated them both 5 stars and do recommend them. Cidade de Deus only had English subtitles for me (a true foreign film for me) but still is a great movie.

William Hurt received Best Actor for his performance. I think he overplayed “flamboyant.” I was reminded a lot of the Jack McFarland character from the show “Will and Grace.” I know when this movie was made stereotyping was more acceptable. I think in today’s culture women and gays might be more offended by this as they were implied as being weak and helpless.

Raul Julia was terrific here. I liked his performance over William Hurt’s. I wish we had more time with this character.

I would classify this movie as avant-garde. It is an interesting character study and we do see decent character development. Two men with different backgrounds killing time as the William Hurt character recounts scenes from a really bad movie. We do get to the see the movie acted out visually. I thought the movie within the movie was clever as it does some foreshadowing. It felt that both William Hurt and Raul Julia were putting on a clinic for acting. I am giving this one 3.4 stars.

I am glad to have seen this movie once. I doubt very much if I will see it again. I thought the movie was good but not great. It was a little over 2 hours and prison movies tend to depress me. I should warn that same sex relationships are discussed which may make some viewers uncomfortable.

Click here for the Netflix link in case you would like to add it to your queue.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
Film Critic Extraordinaire
Cell: (203) 500-3834
E-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

Tags: Kiss · the · Spider · Women · William · Hurt · Raul · Julia

Suspecting her husband, David (Liam Neeson), of infidelity, doctor Catherine (Julianne Moore) hires sexy escort Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to seduce him and test his faithfulness. But as Catherine checks in on Chloe's encounters with David, Chloe's reports become increasingly lurid. Soon, the relationships between all three intensify in unexpected ways. Renowned filmmaker Atom Egoyan directs this psychological drama.

I am going to start with the fun stuff first. Julianne Moore does have two topless scenes in this movie and they do look especially perky. I loved her in the shower. Her woman on woman loves scenes were hot and I did need to take a cold shower afterwards. People who have a crush on Ms. Moore may enjoy this movie with the sound off and listening to something else.

I have to say as a man who does have a little crush on Julianne Moore the movie industry needs to do a better job in telling us when her character dies early. Shame on you “Children of Men” as her character dies 20 minutes into it. I had to get that out. Her character is still alive in the beginning and ending of this film (sorry for the spoilers).

That was fun to get out and I will now post my serious movie critic comments. This is a woman’s film. Julianne Moore’s character gets excited hearing about details of her husband’s infidelity. I find this difficult to comprehend. I have had a couple girlfriends in my life and I always found it difficult to look at old pictures of them with someone else. It is difficult. This is just me.

I did not like this film. I did not understand Chloe’s motivation. The Chloe character started off well but soon it fizzled. The ending was way too convenient.

I am giving this dud two stars. As far as psychological dramas go, I think “Play Misty for Me” and “Fatal Attraction” are much better films. I do not think actress Amanda Seyfried will be in the same company as Jessica Walter and Glenn Close at Awards shows.

Click here for the Netflix link in case you would like to add it to your queue.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
The Film Movie Critic
Cell: (203) 500-3834
E-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

Tags: Liam · Neeson · Julianne · Moore · Amanda · Seyfried

I promote a few affiliate programs which I consider to be really good. NPN is one of them. One of my requirements is that is has to be global. Below is a message from Geoff, founder of the company. I have found him to be accessible.

Things are really starting to develop around our new website.

If you haven’t looked at it, there are some new videos I have put up, including some great member testimonials that I’ve already gotten great comments about.. This site is designed to sell and all of my testing has resulted in very good conversion rates – even without any sort of ‘pre-sell’. I’d recommend that you start firing some qualified traffic at it to see for yourself.

I have added a new capture page to your selection of capture pages in the same style as the website, which tested well also. This is connected to the ‘free report’ that has been responsible for thousands of NPN signups since it was first introduced. You will find your affiliate URL to this new page under ‘capture pages’ in the left menu in your backoffice. There will be more capture pages created as we go along..

Also..

There are brand new plug-n-play banners for promoting your GlobalNPN business in your backoffice (finally, I know:)! There are the standard size banners, plus some ‘blog ready’ sized banners for you to use right away. Also on the banners page there are some really cool looking ‘membership cards’ that you can use as banners as well. As always, I’d recommend sending your banner traffic to a capture page first – preferrably the new one!

Below are two of the new banners. There is a couple more.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
http://www.alzibluk.com
Cell: (203) 500-3834
E-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

Tags: New · GlobalNPN · Banners · and · Capture · Pages

Two teens try to destroy a suburban family in director Robert Altman's risqué comedy, which follows misfits O.C. Ogilvie (Daniel Jenkins) and Mark Stiggs (Neill Barry), who see red when an insurance salesman cancels the policy of O.C.'s grampa (Ray Walston). Bent on revenge, the youngsters carry out a vendetta against the loutish salesman (Paul Dooley). The high-powered cast includes Jane Curtin, Martin Mull, Dennis Hopper and Louis Nye.

I was first introduced to O.C. and Stiggs in the early 1980’s reading my brother’s National Lampoon Magazines. I admit I thought they were cool as they never worried about consequences. Although they had no redeeming social qualities, I did think they were pretty funny. My favorite was when they played Huck Finn tubing down a river. Click here for a brief history of them (caution the background music is loud so you may want to turn down your speakers).

Robert Altman was a famous director. He is probably best known for 1970’s MASH starring Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould and Tom Skerritt. His technique is having multiple things happening at once. This worked well in MASH, not so much for any other film he has directed.

I have no idea why a studio would combine these two together. This movie is horrible. It makes Mad Magazine's "Up the Academy" look like “The Godfather II." I almost turned it off as it was that dreadful (I wished I followed my gut instinct). It tries to be offensive but it just wasn’t funny. It did not capture the feel of the original characters that was introduced in National Lampoon Magazine.

There are only two things I liked (I’m being kind). One was seeing a young Cynthia Nixon (Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City) in this. I always liked her. The second was seeing Jane Curtain’s character constantly sneaking in booze (my favorite is the head of lettuce).

Robert Altman in an extra on the DVD admitted this was not a good movie and that no one was happy with the final product. He further said the best part was actually Cynthia Nixon. I am agreeing with his sentiments.

This movie is so horrendous I did not bother searching for a clip. I am giving this bomb 0.0678 stars. Click here for the Netflix link in case you would like to add it to your queue (I do not recommend this one). This movie again is awful, horrible, dreadful, vile and horrendous.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
The Film Movie Critic
Cell: (203) 500-3834
E-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

Tags: O.C. · and · Stiggs · Robert · Altman · Cynthia · Nixon