I Am Number Four - Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Dianna Agron

The Gist 

I Am Number Four
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Number One died when he was nine.  Number Two died when he was twelve.  Number Three just died.  Number Four has the scars to prove it.  After seeing a vision of Number Three being killed, Number Four and his protector Henri relocate from Florida to Paradise.  Paradise, Ohio. Trying to fit in as the new student in a small town is hard enough, and being an alien makes the whole thing close to unbearable.  Taking the name John Smith, Number Four finds a friend and a first love.  But the Mogadorians are closing in, and everyone around him is at risk of being killed, including himself.  Three are dead.  He is Number Four.

What We Think

Reviewed by Living Destiny

Run Time: 109 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

I saw this movie in theaters when it came out a while ago.  And at the time I found it pretty good.  Not stellar material, but it was entertaining.  Then I read the book.  And then I watched the movie again.  Kablam.  Enlightenment.  This movie was bad.  NOT.  GOOD.   Seriously it was all flash and no substance.  There were whole elements to the plot that weren't explained at all.  Just mentioned in passing.  Like, 'hey there's this super sick box that's all mysterious but that's all you get to know!'  Fail.  Major fail.  BUT you can't base the thoughts on a movie around how close it is to the book it was based off of.  That doesn't seem fair.  So this is me trying to go from a non-biased standpoint.


The acting was sub-par.  Alex Pettyfer is not a good actor.  I think the whole thing with him is that he's so stunningly attractive.  His good looks blind people.  However, after about a half an hour, even his hot-ness fails to distract from the fact that his acting is centered around brooding and looking into the distance.  That was awesome rhyming, I should be a rapper or something.  Anyway.  As the main character, he should be noticeably excellent.  He wasn't.  Boo.  Also, Timothy Olyphant wasn't very good, and he generally does well.  I don't know what the deal was here, but his character wasn't very likable.  Maybe that's how he was trying to portray it, but as Henry he was cold and uncaring, and I didn't enjoy that.  It seemed like he was always angry and didn't want to be with Number Four.  That annoyed me.  On a more positive note, Dianna Agron did a pretty good job as Sarah.  It wasn't anything phenomenal, but she was good.  I liked her character, and she...I don't even know what to write, but she did well.  RRRAR I dunno.  The one character I really really liked was Sam.  Callan McAuliffe is this 16 year old Australian kid who - so far - has been in nothing I've ever heard of.  He's currently filming some cool stuff, and I would say I Am Number Four was sort of his breakout role.  For that, I am pleased with this movie.  He was Sam.  Not just he played it well, he was Sam.  He made me laugh, and be sad (I DO NOT CRY), and he made me freak out a little - partially from the intensity of some scenes, partially because he is wicked cute.  I legitimately just spent five minutes going through all of his pictures on imdb.  He's way more attractive than Alex Pettyfer.  Wasting time staring at Callan McAuliffe.  Focus.  So, he's an up-and-coming actor who did an outstanding job in this movie, and hopefully we see him in new movies soon because he's fantastic.  Wow I just got so distracted.  What am I writing about?  


The special effects in this movie were pretty cool.  It's a movie about an alien battle, so the special effects need to be good, or else it kind of falls flat.  They worked.  There were big storms and lots of fire and telekinesis stuff, and it all looks really...well i guess not 'real' since it's supposed to be alien, but it looked believable at least.  Plus there were these big beasty things...good stuff right there.  Nothing says alien fight like big beasties, and they looked all mean and scary.  Oh my gosh, what am I, four?  Whatever.  The makeup was also done very well.  While Number Four, the main character, didn't look any different from a human, there was a breed of alien that looked very different.  They were super pale and had gills and it was pretty creepy, but the makeup was so great!  Makeup always fascinates me.  How a good makeup artist can transform someone into a totally different person or creature with so little tools, only face paints and such.  It's dazzling, really.  


But a movie can't be carried by its special effects and makeup.  A plot is required to make a movie function, and this movie was lacking so many details...well it was kind of choppy.  It fell flat, in its script and its acting. There was nothing to hold your attention, and it was missing too much and explained too little.  Nope, it didn't do it for me.  What a gross phrase that is.  Ew.  But it's true.  No me gusta this movie.  I won't say you shouldn't see it, but...I guess it's good the first time around.  Sort of?  Eh.  Sure, see it once.  If only for Callan McAuliffe and Dianna Agron.  Yupp.  I'm done now.  


Real Teen Rating ~ C: If there's nothing else to see...

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Boy Bands

Reviewed by Living Destiny

I know, I know.  Boy bands.  How lame is that?  A group of guys in tight pants and wife beaters who sing cheesy songs and have corny, over-exaggerated dance moves.  What a bunch of losers.  And yet.  There is a certain magic about boy bands.  It doesn't matter if I think to myself, 'wow that's dumb'.  As soon as I see or hear a boy band in action I start to smile or dance or sing along, and the little 10 year old me comes out and jumps up and down.  Previous to yesterday, I hadn't listened to a real boy band in years.  But spirit week hit last week, and one of the acts in the talent show was five boys lip synching (and dancing like pros) to a backstreet boys song.  Bam!  I was back into the spirit all right - the spirit of the tween population.  I was laughing, of course, but there was a part of me that was thinking 'that's pretty hot, I totally love this'.  Being in a boy band just instantly makes you more attractive.  I don't know what it is, but it's true.  Even if you aren't the most attractive guy in the world, as was the case for some of these talent show boys, you step on stage and start up and you're cute.  Maybe all the guys just pool their collective looks and all come out looking better, or maybe it's the how joyful and into it they always look, but it happens, and then there are crowds of screaming girls.  And they all stay a little more attractive than they were before, even after the band inevitably breaks up.  I know those five guys will never look the same to me again.  Somehow, the boy band trend died out in the late 90's in favor of solo artists, and now we have singers like Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, and Greyson Chance who attract all the screaming girls.  That's great and everything, but I'm secretly hoping for a boy band come back.  >> I just looked up boy bands on wikipedia.  There are so many from my era that I've never even heard of!  I'm shocked.  Now I need to look them all up! <<  Yea side note!  But seriously.  I want my boy bands back.  There's something youthful about them, something that makes me feel like a kid again.  Maybe it's just because I grew up with them, but they make me carefree and I just about fall in love with every guy who has ever been in a boy band.  Whether it's Nick Carter, Justin Timberlake, Donnie Wahlberg, or Dylan from the talent show, anyone becomes infinitely cooler by being in something as 'lame' as a boy band.  Judge me if you will, but I love boy bands, and they should come back to popularity because they are the most attractive thing in music since Frank Sinatra (and my friends will tell you, I have a serious love affair with Frank Sinatra. He's my off-limits Apples to Apples card, and that means something).  Plus, there's nothing more fun than dancing around your house singing lyrics like "Tell me why, Ain't nothing but a heartache, Tell me why, Ain't nothing but a mistake, Tell me why, I never want to hear you say, I want it that waaaaaaaaaaaaay"!

Real Teen Rating ~ yessssssssss <3 lovelovelove!

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Room - Emma Donoghue

* National Bestseller
* A New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year


The Gist

Room
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Five year old Jack has never been out of Room - the small space he's been enclosed in his entire life. All he knows is what's in Room; a toilet, a rug, a small TV, a potted plant, a trash bin, a stove, a bed with a blanket, a table, and a wardrobe. Jack doesn't know there's such thing as Outside. The pictures, the people, the shows he sees on TV are all fake, and made just for him and his mother. No one else exists. Except for Old Nick - the mysterious man who comes in Room the same time every night.  Whenever Old Nick comes in - unlocks the door and locks it behind him - Jack's mother hides him in the wardrobe and won't let him come out until Old Nick is gone. Despite this, Jack is content in Room. But his mother's not. And she's determined to get them both out.

What We Think

Reviewed by Dream Catcher
Number of Pages: 336
I read this for school summer reading. I was glad to. I'd been meaning to read this book for ages. Ever since all the hullabaloo started about how great it was. And after reading it...eh. I don't particularly understand why everyone was so thrilled with it. Frankly, I found it disturbing that the whole thing was narrated by a five year old. Yeah. Little Jack was telling us the whole thing. Horrifying? Yup. But I'll get more into that later. Let's start the reviewing, shall we?
Let's start with something easy. Like characters. Jack. I don't know exactly how to judge him. He was so little and obnoxious. I didn't like his character at all. He was annoying. All he ever did was whine or yell or ask weird questions. Eh. Maybe that's just because he was a little kid, but it was so annoying to read. His mother wasn't any better, honestly. All SHE ever did was lie to the kid and annoy me. Ugh. Sigh. None of the other characters are all that important. And the ones that WERE sort of important I can't really talk about because that would give things away. So...that's characters for you. Wow. That is probably the shortest paragraph on characters I've ever written. You're all probably cheering.
Plot next. I found the beginning to be extremely slow and boring. Nothing really happened except for Jack watching his beloved Dora on TV and the mom telling "make-believe" stories of the outside world. About half way through the book things started to get a little more interesting, but by that point it was too little, too late for me. I think the author needs to improve on her pacing.
Cover and title are great. Perfect for the book, really. A crayon-written title is ingenious. It really makes the book seem as if it was written by a five year old - cover and all. The title is great, too, mostly because of how foreboding it sounds. Right? Room. It explains exactly what the book's about and it has a nice ring to it. Everything a title could ever need. Hooray.
Lastly I'll mention something about the writing style itself. This was the most impressive part of the book. Emma Donoghue made it sound like a five year old was narrating it. Which is really crazy. Not many people could do that, and of the people that could, even fewer would have the patience to. This is a sign of a good writer, and I have to give her props on that. It made the whole story seem a lot more real (and pretty disturbing. A five year old talking about living in a box. Creepy!) than if it had been written from a different point of view. This aspect of the book is why it's getting a semi-decent grade. It would be much lower if she'd been even a little off on the voice of her narrator.
So, basically, I wouldn't recommend this book. I don't really understand what all the hype is about. I don't get why it won so many awards or got so much attention. For summer reading, it's not the worst book I've ever read. But if I had known what it was going to be like beforehand, I wouldn't have even picked it up at the bookstore. I would have left it on its little pedestal for some unfortunate person to pick up and read. I honestly don't think it was worth the read. Others feel differently. I know the North Star thought it was good. But not me. Too boring, too bland, and too annoying. A waste my precious summer hours, if you ask me. 


Real Teen Rating ~ C - : Read it if you're bored.

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The Lying Game- ABC Family

The Gist
Sutton Mercer and Emma Becker have just found out that they are identical twins. They were seperated at birth but Sutton ended up in a high society Californian community, Emma ended up in the foster system, with a horrible foster mother and perverted older brother. Sutton wants to find her birth mother in L.A but can't tell her parents about and Emma runs away from her foster home and jail. They set up a plan where Emma takes Sutton's place in highly sophisticated life while Sutton goes to find their birth mother. Emma doesn't know anything about Sutton except that she dislikes her home life and she is rich. This puts Emma in a difficult position, she ends up juggling secrets and friends that she has never met before.

What We Think
Reviewed by ShoreWhisperer
Number of Seasons: 1
The advertising for this show made it look very intense and it is. I really enjoy this new show. It always leaves you hanging. There are so many loose ends that you never know what the next week is going to reveal. I guess ABC family is big on reusing things though because this is a series based on the book series by Sara Shepard who consequently wrote Pretty Little Liars, their best reviewed show (ironic? I think not). Also, Ethan the charming bad boy was also in their new series Switched at Birth as the older charming bad boy. Personally I think he is better shown off in The Lying Game, but that is my personal opinion. The show in general is just so eccentric and non realistic that its appealing. Its that weird thing where if a show is just a little bit realistic the rest of it can be complete fantasy but it still feels realistic. This show is using that to it's advantage.

The actual plot of the twins being split and all the drama would never really happen but they put in the drama of teenagers and high schoolers and homeless kids and magically it's realistic. I caught up in this show. I can't wait to watch this show every monday. It actually makes my mondays bareable. During my classes while I am about to fall asleep I think just six more hours till The Lying Game, which is what I am guessing they want to be doing.

Acting wise, it's not too too bad. Alexandra Chando is remarkable as both Emma and Sutton. Blair Redford is charming and steals the hearts of many as Ethan and Allie Gonino also stands out. She plays Laurel and she plays it perfectly. I really enjoy watching her. I don't particularly like Kristen Prout in the role of Char. I think that this show has potential for being very big and popular just like Pretty Little Liars. It's coming along with every episode, and I really love watching this show (I think that I have said that already). Also, like most ABC family show they don't relate to both sexes. This is mainly watched by teenage girls although guys could watch it, that isn't their biggest viewer. They need more variety in their shows because all that they show is mostly for teenage girls and their mothers. They need more shows like Kyle XY again. This is not a criticism on the show though, it's not the show that it doesn't intrigue boys. The show itself is going to be good and it is getting better every episode.

Real Teen Rating ~ B : Check it out...

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Zookeeper- Kevin James, Rosario Dawson

The Gist

Zookeeper
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Griffin Keyes is a zookeeper at the Franklin Park Zoo. He was dumped by a girl he wanted to marry and years later still can't get over and is more comfortable dealing with animals than with people, especially women. The animals of the zoo know his problem and since they are the masters of mating, give him a hand in his quest of getting his girl back. He befriends the secluded, lonely gorilla in the process who ends up as his best friend.

What We Think
Reviewed by ShoreWhisperer
Run Time: 102 Minutes
Rating: PG
This movie is possibly the most unoriginal movie. When I saw this movie trailer I immediatly though "Hitch" and"Night at the Museum". Then when you get to the actual movie and you see the Happy Gilmore bumper that means that Adam Sandler had some part in the making of the movie. Well I didn't actually think that this was going to be a good movie. . . I will say that it lived up to my expectations. Like all Adam Sandler movies it had crude and physically humor that is at some points unnecessary.

I feel bad for Kevin James some times because he plays the hopeless, awkward fat single guy every single time he is in some rom-com or kids movie. He doesn't play it that well even. He should ultimatly keep playing the guy he was on King of Queens because that was funny.

Not to anyone's surprise Adam Sandler was in the movie and to no surprise he played the monkey who constantly made the potty jokes and cracked all the inuendos in the movie. He was the "comic relief" in a movie that didn't need any comic relief because it was already a comedy. Not only was Adam Sandler act in the movie, he wrote and produced the movie which means that the all the humor was childish and filled with secret jokes for the parents that are bringing their kids to see the movie. Rosario Dawson is such a good actor. I liked her character :Kate because she was normal and didn't do anything insanely stupid, the one funny scene in the movie- when they were on the circus ribbons- was actually comical and I really laughed at it.

One thing I don't like in movies is talking animals, especially when it's not an animated movie. Night at the Museum pulled it off somehow but this movie was just a little weird. There were way to many famous people: Cher, Sylvester Stallone, Adam Sandler, Nick Nolte. It really was unnecessary, I couldn't get over it. Somehow they think that the more names you can put on the billboard the better the movie will be. That is not true however. You can't really make a movie as predictable as this good. The only reason this movie is getting a D instead of an F is because of Rosario Dawson is the saving grace of this movie and I really liked her performance in this movie. Otherwise, this movie was trying to hard to get a laugh, was way to predictable, and was so unoriginal that I could point out places in the movie where the practically the same thing happened in another movie.

Real Teen Rating~ D- : I wouldn't bother at all

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