Journey to the Center of the Earth (2/4 stars)

A good kid's adventure movie but haven't we seen enough of Brendan Fraser playing the same character in every movie. I watched this on DVD in 3-d. The 3-d added a bit to the movie but there were scenes that served no purpose other than to add to the 3-d effects. I didn't care for that part of it. There was one point where I actually moved my head to avoid a flying object, but the rest of the movies 3-d effects were hardly that good.

The story was interesting enough, I never saw the original so I don't know how similar it is. But I would say this is a great movie for kids to watch and maybe could even become a classic like the Goonies or Never Ending Story for that age group.

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Quarantine (1.5/4 stars) - Movie kinda sucked

Beware of this movie. I admit it, I like the idea of this movie but it just missed the mark for me. I think I may even be generous giving this movie 1.5 stars. First off, as a horror it is complete failure. At no points during this movie did I jump, get tense or feel any emotions for the characters lives. A horror should instill fear in the audience, this just made me want to smack Jennifer Carpenter to get her to shut up. Don't get me wrong, her acting wasn't bad; it was actually really good. But it was too much of a good thing and by the end I didn't want any more of her crying and shaking.

The first person camera angle thing that I loved in Cloverfield, I hated in this movie. The reason it worked in Cloverfield was because the dialog and characters kept it a little light-hearted even when times were going bad. In that movie, you could let off a chuckle at the dialog while you waited for the next event to take place. In Quarantine you just had to wait and try not to get bored.

Another thing that didn't work for this movie was the ending. They left it open with a lot of questions and no resolve. In fact, if you saw the trailer, you have already seen the entire ending. Seriously, WTF. There is no worse way of destroying a movie, than to show the audience the ending before they see the movie.

What worked with this movie was the flesh eating zombie scenes. They were pretty creepy in their own right, but because of the first person camera work they fell short.

My advice, wait until video for this one. Four of us went to the theatre to watch this, none of us ever want to see this one again.

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Yellowpages Advertising

I have placed a lot of advertising orders through the years. Most of the time the sales people you deal with may be a little aggressive but not to the point where they annoy you. I have recently found the pushiest, yet most unresponsive, advertising company yet.

AT&T Yellowpages

I started dealing with them about 6 weeks ago. I was looking to purchase a print ad in the Kansas City edition as well as an online advertisement. For this I was working with two different ad reps. One for online and one for print (I later found out that the print ad rep was supposed to handle it all).

Online Ad Placement Experience

I was told it was going to take 4 - 6 weeks to get an online search ad up and running. This is horrible, everything else in the online world is nearly instantaneous. After filling out lots of forms, signing contracts and making several phone calls things appeared to be complete. 4 weeks went by. Then I started going through the chain of command to find out what was going on. Finally, one of them helped me out and got the ad up in 24 hours. Except it wasn't my ad. It was a crappy looking banner and listed under the wrong geographic area.

I then actually had quality control call me to ask how everything was going! I told them my troubles and I got a call from my ad rep within minutes. I was assured everything would be fixed. That is where it all stopped. It has been 3 days without her returning a call, email or sending me the form that she promised.

How can a place operate with such bad customer service! The worst part is this may be better than my print ad experience with them.

Print Ad Placement Experience

From the first time I called, I knew this was going to suck. The ad representative was pushy, full of sales cliches and wouldn't send me anything in writing. She called me EVERYDAY! "Josh, I just wanted to get an update..." What the hell, I told her I would call her with any updates.

I just wanted pricing. Instead I kept getting the run around and unclear answers about the cost. She wanted me to advertise in a special issue for extra money, I simply said "Mail me that issue and I will see what it looks like". The next week she calls back and asks for my order. I tell her I never received the issue. She was embarrassed and the next day I got a St. Louis phone book in the mail. The next day she called ask asked for my order. I explained that I live in Kansas City, not St. Louis and it wasn't the "special edition" that she was trying to sell me.

After finally having my calls screened so I wouldn't have to talk to this mega-pushy sales rep. I finally told her I wasn't going to spend my 11k dollars with her this year and told her not to call me. They should have my business, but instead because of how bad the experience was we opted not even to advertise with them.

I hope other people do not have this bad of an experience with them, but if they do I really hope you don't own AT&T stock because you cannot stay in business running this bad of an operation.

Hopefully, my online ad will get online someday :P

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (1.5/4 stars)

This is a movie where I expected the worst and because of that I wasn't horribly disappointed. Don't get me wrong this movie isn't good, it just isn't utter trash either.

The writing and dialog was a very low point to this movie. I have a hard time believing that they couldn't do better. The story is based on a race of "psychlos". Give me a break, that is the dumbest name of all time. They kept saying stupid things like "We discovered a dog race, clearly this is the superior race on the planet" and calling the humans "man animals." Freaking retarded. Why would a race with this much technology and knowledge insist on being so dumb.

The acting was also bad, party because the dialog was horrible. John Travolta was terrible. Why does this alien race sound like a bunch of up tight Brits?

The only good qualities the movie had was the decent special effects and the idea behind the movie. I generally enjoyed watching it, I just couldn't fathom why they insisted on screwing it up. Like a bunch of hunters learning to fly fighter jets. Furthermore, the jets actually flew after being stuck in a hangar for 100 years. Why were the jets even there? Didn't an alien race attack us, why would we just get our asses kicked on foot when it is clear that a fighter jet can take down one of their crafts?

I also have a hard time believing that in two generations that we would forget how to write, our history, and what a city looks like when it is just a half-day walk away.

So was this movie good? No. Should you watch it? No. Will I watch it again? Unfortunately, if it is on tv it is the type of movie I would keep on. I am a glutton for punishment.

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