Swiped – Netlfix review

If I don’t like something I won’t review it. I won’t recommend it and I won’t watch the rest of it. But, unbeknownst to me I stumbled upon a cursed movie. A movie so bad that I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I must share it with you and implore you to watch it whenever you get the chance. You’ll laugh yourself sore.

Swiped, starring teen heartthrob Noah Centineo is the WORST movie I have ever watched. It narrowly pips The Dark is Rising (2007), a movie me and my 13-year old friends walked out of. Just to clarify, I was 13 at the time too, I just wanted to give some context. I messed up. I don’t hang out with 13 year olds.
The reason it pips that to the post of biggest piece of shit movie I’ve ever seen is because I watched the whole thing. We walked out of The Seeker and had no regrets. But this time, me and my brother couldn’t take our eyes off of this absolute trainwreck.

This teen rom-com-dram tells the story of James, a talented by socially awkward coder who starts his first year of college. His roommate is ladies man Lance who, with his two friends whose names I’ve forgotten, recruit James to create an app for them that will blow all other dating apps out of the water. The quartet become wildly successful but James doesn’t agree with the ethics so keeps his involvement quiet. He becomes even more disillusioned when he knows his Mom is using the app and deletes the data, trying to help women realise that they don’t need apps for love. They need to trust themselves.

Christian Hutcherson, Nathan Gamble, Noah Centineo, and Shelby Wulfert in Swiped (2018) — Hannah reading, which is unusual for her

I think I realised that this movie was going to be trash when James asks his love interest, Hannah, what she is reading. Now, this is just after she told him she wants him to leave her alone but he follows her down the hall, asking her about her book. Hannah finally responds and tells him that she’s reading Pride and Prejudice. “Oh, Jane Austen,” James replies with no emotion because he’s a terrible actor.
“Oh, my God, you know Jane Austen?”. He’s a fucking first year college student in North America, Hannah, yes he knows who Jane Austen is.
Now, James and Hannah are badly written characters (Hannah literally goes around reading all the time and even in scenes that she is participating in and conversing in, every time someone talks to her she rips her head out of the book with a look of vague surprise as if she wasn’t aware where she was), but the whole cast is just horrible. Noah Centineo didn’t seem bad in To All the Boys I loved Before, and I actually liked that movie but in this one, despite being the best actor, he’s still the worst somehow. Maybe its because I know he can do better. Maybe I’m just disappointed.
Also, the actor who plays James, the main character, looks exactly like an old friend from secondary school and I’d just laugh and laugh every time he came on screen. This movie didn’t stand a chance.

Kendall Ryan Sanders and Noah Centineo in Swiped (2018)

There were so many laughably bad scenes dotted throughout the movie. The extras and background actors were abysmal, but the main characters were always worse.
I’ve already mentioned Hannah’s need to read but one scene in particular had me howling. So, just after deleting all the data for the dating app, James seeks refuge in the girl’s sorority house (first mention in the entire movie that they are all in the same sorority by the way, and this is with about 20 minutes left). Hannah greets him at the door, lets him in, introduces him to all the girls and intently listens to the start of James’s speech about women empowerment. The camera pans to James for the rest of his speech, he sees the other girls nodding and then ask Hannah what she thinks. Hannah is now reading and pulls her head away from the book, as if she wasn’t aware James was talking. Its almost as if she wasn’t in the scene just before and stumbled in to the living room while being engrossed in the same Jane Austen novel from the start of the year.

Another scene that made no sense was the one in which James’ sister, who has been extremely horrible to him all movie long and most probably his entire life, says she’ll miss him a little bit when he goes back to college. She hugs him and looks lovingly at him. This is off the back of constantly telling him he has no friends and will be a loser forever. She even cuts short his mother’s goodbye to him at the start of the college year because she had a party to go to. I just don’t even know about this film.

If you want to have a bit of fun with this movie, have a look out for Hannah reading in every scene she’s in. It’s almost Waldoesque. Pause the movie and if there’s a character studying or with a book, that’s our stereotypical studious love-interest who the main character doesn’t really have a hope with but will end up with anyways.

Another gem of a scene is when Lance reveals to the world that James is the actual creator of the dating app in an attempt to do something. They never actually say what their intention is. It is very odd. I assume it is to stop him getting friendly with the girls which the guys feel they have ownership over. That must be it.
Anyways, the whole world knows that James is the master coder who created Jungle (sorry, I never mentioned the name of the app. The awfulness of this movie consumes me). James’ Computer Science teacher, upon hearing the news, whips her glasses off her face, staring into the distance, perplexed by the news. It’s phenomenal acting, akin to the scene where Chaz Palminteri drops his coffee cup as Keyser Soze limps off into the distance.

Kendall Ryan Sanders and Kristen Johnston in Swiped — Keyser Soze and Dave Kujan

Also, Lance is the biggest piece of shit in the movie but is given a redemption arc. He outs James as the creator of Jungle to destroy him and tries to force him to work for him when he doesn’t want to anymore. After trying to destroy James and never apologising for it, he decides he wants to treat one of the girls better and asks her on a date. She agrees and he immediately makes a joke about their marriage. Like, run sis, he’s gonna use and abuse you. He’s in love with Lara Jean and everyone knows it!

One thing I do feel bad about in this movie is that as the directors name came up on the screen at the very end I flipped the bird on each hand and yelled ‘F**k you Director Fishman’, and me and my brother laughed and laughed. Just then, an in memorian sign to her parents popped up on the screen and I just deflated. As shit as the movie was and as shit as the production value was, it is still someone’s work that is up on Netlfix and I should respect that.

0/10.

Pet Sematary

For decades now, audiences around the world have been mesmerised, terrorised and astounded by adaptations of Stephen King’s works. The prolific author has seen many of his novels make the big screen. The Shining, Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption, to name but a few, are all classics and examples of how well a book can be transferred onto the big screen.
JetÃ© Laurence in Pet Sematary (2019)

Some of King’s more dark and terrifying pieces have found new audiences over the past few years. It was a hit worldwide and a sequel is now being filmed. Like Pet Sematary, it was a remake of a well received take on the horror master’s work. I saw the latter over the weekend and can inform you now that it is as terrifying as the trailer makes it out to be. As King himslef said, it is the one work that kept him up at night. And that’s saying something ya freak!

Pet Sematary opens with the Creed family on the way to their new home in Ludlow. Louis Creed, played by Jason Clarke, is moving to the countryside with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), daughter Ellie (Jetee Laurence), son Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoje), and cat Church. Trying to escape the frantic city life of Boston, the Creed’s have bought a lovely house with 50 acres of woods attached. In an attempt to work better schedules and reconnect with his kids, Louis takes the day shift at the University health centre where nosebleeds and sprained ankles are the port of call.
Rachel and Ellie discover a graveyard for pets located within their property. They meet Jud (John Lithgow), an older neighnour who seems to know more about the pet cemetery than he’s letting on.
After a shocking death at the univerity, Church being knocked down and terrifying nightmares, Jud shows Louis a place where the living don’t dare to journey and the dead don’t care to stay.

Jason Clarke in Pet Sematary (2019)

Jason Clarke blurs the line between rational professional and unhinged father in this terrifying film. His performance of a man slwoly unravelling while attemting to hold onto his beliefs and what is right was a pleasure to see.
Amy Seimetz was equally as powerful in her role as a guilt ridden wife with a terrible secret. It was in her scenes where she relives her terrible nights alone with her sister that had me fully back in the seat with my eyes almost covered.
The star of the show was young Jetee Laurence. She turns seamlessly from angelic daughter to demonic satan-child at the blink of an eye. I hope she isn’t typecast in the future because she was fanatstic. Terrifying, but great.

I do wish that the film explored the relationship between Rachel and her latte sister. It was terrifying but didn’t finish its journey. The filmmakers teased a horrifying reveal towards the end but left it at that. Just a reveal.
Although I was extremely scared throughout and still don’t know how i manged to eat popcorn while simultaneously, it hasn’t kept me awake at night like I thought it would. I was on edge for a few hours but I’ve moved on. I’ve grown as a person it seems and don’t put too much stock in horror movies anymore. In saying that, give me a romcom anyday.

4/5.

Resolutions

It’s that time of the year again, the hazy and confusing end/start to the year where people try to transition from eating and drinking whatever they want to imposing strict and unforgiving rules on their lives. People want to give up their aul sins but also want to enjoy themselves. This often leads to several New Year Resolutions that more often than not are given up by the second week of January. Some remain pipe dreams forever, being given up on before the year commences. Fitness goals are attempted almost too eagerly at the beginning, leaving one burnt out and fed up with the whole process. Some people try and quit their vices cold turkey, such as smoking, drinking or eating crap. The beginning of the year can be a stressful time with lost loved ones, kids going back to school and work only around the corner, so maybe cutting down on the fags in the morning would be a better approach. I can’t really talk because I’m in the process of stopping smoking cold-turkey, so I’ll let ye know how it goes!

I read an article online recently about how new year’s resolutions are all bullshit and we shouldn’t subscribe to this ideal of making ourselves into the ideal version of ourselves overnight. I can understand the argument and agree to a certain extent but still, that’s very generalised. Most people make their resolutions because it helps them throughout the year. Even if they don’t succeed in all or any of their attempts at least they can look back and say they started with great intentions.
I myself have never really made any resolutions. I wait until Lent like a good Catholic boy and then give up on everything I enjoy! However, this year, I’m going to make a list of things I should really give up on, mostly including drinking and smoking, and mostly because there’s some funny stories associated with these two vices that are ripe for posting. So rest your hungover head, read my resolutions for the year of Our Lord 2019 and don’t worry if you don’t keep yours, because there is always next time.

New Years Resolutions 2019: A Fool’s Errand

Cut down on the binge drinking. By all means, go out and throw back eight pints and a few Tully Dews, maybe a few shots of Sambucca followed by a Vodka Red Bull to level it out every once in a while but not twice a week. O.K., three times a week.
Slow down on the smoking. I don’t smoke much really but sure look, no harm to stop smoking fags. Ah, but they’re so nice with a coffee, or after a meal, or after a few pints….we’ll see how it goes.
Get back in shape. Not in terrible shape but I could stand to shed a few pounds and get back to full fitness. See above resolution.
Start enjoying sport again, and not just enjoying a game because I can’t wait for the few too many pints afterwards.
Read more. I made a fairly good effort this/last year and read some fantastic books but I’m gonna try for a book a week next/this year.
Don’t punch holes in any more walls. It happened once, everyone had a good laugh because I was still drunk from the night before but if it keeps happening that’ll become my thing. Then people won’t invite me over, I’ll lose all my friends, become homeless and die with no walls around me! A harsh but a fair truth.
DO NOT LOSE ANY MORE PHONES!!!! If I lose a phone this year then I am never buying a phone again. I’m going off the grid and I will write my blogs on pieces of paper that I will then set alight and release them into the night sky!
Try a job that has a set Monday to Friday, eight hour schedule. Hang on, didn’t I have that one summer in an office and was bored beyond belief? Wasn’t I so excited to finish? Do I secretly enjoy working odd hours and having some week days to myself? I’ll have to revisit this one around Lent.
Write more. Up the effort for the blog, try and get some articles published in papers and get prepared for college. Just become more disciplined and have a schedule, not just the odd post every once in a while.
Text people back lol.

Despite the number of resolutions it has been an exceptional year. I would go as far as to say it has been the best year of my life so far, or one of them. The drink flowed, the craic was great and I traveled to some places in the States I’ll never forget. I’ve made some lifelong friends in New York and will more than likely be back in the next few years. Although I missed home, birthdays and holidays, I’ve kept a positive outlook on things and look forward to all that 2019 holds for me, my family and friends. Thanks to everyone for reading the blog and the kind words. Here’s to a fantastic year! Don’t @ me.