The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

I don’t know where to even begin with Turbo Kid !  I didn’t know what I was expecting and it’s hard to put together what I received!  But I’ll try! Turbo Kid takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where civility is all but a distant memory.  It is a time when resources are far too few, requiring the processing and dispensing of human parts to create water.  We follow a young kid, only known to us as the Kid, as he faces insurmountable odds in an effort to take down a tyrannical warlord hell-bent on destroying humanity.  But the Kid isn’t alone!  Armed with a Mega Man type blaster, he’s joined by a quirky and mysterious young girl named Apple and an Indiana Jones-like alpha male hero named Frederic.  But are the trio enough to stop an army of spear-wielding, shoulder-pads wearing, bike riding hooligans? Turbo Kid is a love letter to the 80s.  It’s so clear from the opening music number that we’re gonna get something 80s inspired....

Funny Girl is the latest novel from Nick Hornby, released originally in 2014.  It pains me to say, but I had to put a Nick Hornby book down before I finished it.  I know.  Tragic.  I only read a third of the book, so it’s only fair to write a third of a review. Funny Girl takes place in the mid-60s and follows Barbara, a young girl from Blackpool, England.  She is apparently a babe, having won the local beauty contest.  However, she resigns from being the beauty queen (champion?) as it would mean staying in Blackpool for another year, shaking hands and kissing babies.  No, she has bigger dreams of becoming a TV star, like her idol Lucille Ball.  Her first step is to move to London where she lands a job at a department store.  It’s here where she schmoozes and networks with married men who take her on dates and who are also intertwined with the entertainment industry.  It’s not long before she lands auditions and in one case, ...

Knock, Knock is the latest effort from cult favourite director, Eli Roth.  It’s also the first outing by Keanu Reeves since 2014’s much lauded John Wick, an action packed fan favourite. Knock, Knock is about an architect named Evan Webber (Reeves); a happily married man with two kids.  On one particular weekend, the wife and kids go away to the beach house while Evan stays behind to catch up on work.  The first night is a stormy evening with what appears to be a torrential downpour.  That night, two unexpected young females show up at Evan’s door.  Drenched from head to toe, the buxom young lasses claim that they got lost looking for a house party in the neighbourhood.  Evan let’s them in to dry off and use his tablet to find the right address.  Due to the stormy night, it wouldn’t be 45 minutes until a cab arrives to pick them up.  And that provides 45 minutes for them to seduce him.  What seemed like fun and games the previous n...

(Note: this review is for novel and not the film which was just released.  Mild spoilers within if you haven’t read or seen the movie.) Andy Weir’s The Martian is my kind of book!  It’s the kind of stuff that makes me appreciate being part nerd (and I do mean nerd and not geek).  The book appealed to the engineering side of my nerdiness. The Martian is about a group of space explorers who land on Mars to further develop colonization efforts.  After a massive sandstorm, one of the explorers, a botanist and engineer named Mark Watney becomes separated from his team after colliding with debris.  Fearing his death, and perhaps their own, the remainder of the team blast off quickly from Mars in an effort to return to Earth.  However, what they don’t know is that Mark is actually alive.  Armed with limited resources, and his botany and engineering skills, Watney must stay alive for what he estimates is four years before he can be rescued by...

Sicario is a very big punch to the gut.  But one that hits you in a good way. Sicario , as the opening moments of the movie tells us, is the Spanish word for ‘hitman’.  The movie follows FBI agent, Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), one who specializes in cases dealing with kidnappings.  In the opening scene, her team invades a house tipped off to be holding hostages somewhere in Arizona.  Instead of hostages, they find dead bodies strewn up along the house walls – victims of a Mexican drug cartel.  It’s a scene none of them are expecting, and we can tell this, because they all discharge to the front yard to vomit.  Following this case, Kate is summoned to an FBI office where she is transferred and recruited to be part of a team lead by a Department of Defense consultant named Matt (Josh Brolin).  His casual demeanor throws her off and she is unsure of what she’s getting into.  Matt’s scope of work is a bit grander than what Kate is used to....

Deathgasm is the latest Kiwi produced horror flick to hit stateside.  It tells the story of a group of teenaged metalheads (in a band called Deathgasm) who discover the ancient lyrics and staff music from a legendary yet reclusive metalhead named Rikki Daggers.  One evening during band practice, they perform the ancient music, metalcore style.  Unbeknownst to them, the music puts them into a trance like state inviting demons to possess all people nearby.  Death, blood and guts ensue as the demons ravage the quaint neighbourhood.  It’s up to Deathgasm to stop the demon takeover. Deathgasm is not good by any traditional or conventional sense.  However, if you’re heading into the movie knowing that it’s a horror movie about a bunch of teenage metalheads and demon possession, then you need not look further, because Deathgasm delivers on that front.  It’s a niche genre that the niche audience will enjoy; bystanders need not go further.  The ...

Released earlier this year,  Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town is the latest effort by acclaimed author Jon Krakauer, who's written such renown titles as Into the Wild , Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven .  The book deals with real stories and accounts of rape and sexual assaults in the college town of Missoula in Montana, USA during the 2000s to 2013.  Missoula is described as not only a college town, but one that is in love with the college’s football team.  The town loves its football team.  There is a strong sense of spirit and camaraderie, amongst the football enthusiasts.  Which makes the book all the more distressing as he recants multiple stories of rape, specifically involving those in the college football team. Krakauer tells a number of stories of rape in Missoula, however, the crux of the book focuses primarily on two cases: one of Allison Huguet and another in Cecilia Washburn.  These are ...