Twin Cities Real Estate Blog

Movie Review -- Why Not See 'Why Him?' This Holiday Season?

why him movie review

It’s no wonder why James Franco has the wrinkles of a smile burned into his star-studded face; he’s played more stoners, scoundrels, and screwballs with an insatiable grimace than anyone can count by this point, and he’s hilarious at doing so. His role as Laird Mayhew in the typical “father v. fiancée” formulaic comedy is the most recent installment to this repertoire of character-types – in fact, it is perhaps his latest and greatest addition. The strength of his performance comes not only from his surprisingly well-developed character; it also stems from how...

The Minnesota Vikings Can Still Make the Playoffs -- Here's How

Vikings Training Camp 2016 - 005

The Minnesota Vikings have a small chance of making the playoffs in 2016. The 7-7 Vikings, after starting off the season with so much promise, are barely hanging by their finger nails as far as their playoff hopes are concerned. In order for the Vikings to make it to the playoffs, the following things would have to happen. It all starts in Green Bay this Saturday against the Packers, who are currently 8-6. The Vikings would have to beat the Packers and also would have to beat the Chicago Bears the following Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium. That’s not the only thing the Vikings would have to have happen. The...

Where Does Minnesota Rank Nationally as a Caring City?

caring in Minnesota

Everyone has a need to feel like we belong. One of the most intimate ways we express this is caring for one another. We express this in multiple ways by doing things such as helping an elderly person with various tasks around their home, helping a neighbor with a project or just being a friend. In a recent article, Wallet Hub ranked the most caring cities for 2016 among the 100 most populated cities in U.S. They used several metrics such as volunteer hours per capita, percentage of sheltered homeless people and percentage of...

Movie Review -- Relevant, Grounded and Visceral, 'Rogue One' is the Prequel We Deserve

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After only a year later of coming off the high of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Gareth Edwards’ (Godzilla, Monsters) Rogue One faces the task of living up to both the original trilogy and The Force Awakens. A standalone film set in-between the prequels and the original trilogy, Rogue One is a unique project that doesn’t follow...

Where Does the Twin Cities Fall in the National Sports Cities Rankings?

Target Field - 2014 - Matthew Deery

Most of us Minnesotans follow at least one sport. We follow our favorite team(s) by several means like watching them on television, listening to them on the radio or following the team through our mobile devices. Some would rather attend a live sporting event in person to cheer on their favorite team(s). Recently, Wallet Hub published their 2016 rankings for the top sports cities in the U.S. They ranked 423 sports cities based upon several factors, including: number of sports bars, performance of the team(s) in that city and the...

TV Review -- 'Westworld' Tackles Tough Questions of a Not So Distant Future We May Soon Encounter

westworld

It’s 2016 and the dawn of sentient robotic intelligence hasn’t yet come to pass. The technology is progressing, of course, and watching stories about it is much closer to home than if you watched 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. With the dawn of Siri, Google, Amazon’s Echo and so many other robotic devices, artificial intelligence is in our pockets, our homes and our cars -- it's becoming an everyday part of our lives. Among many themes in the show, Westworld asks the questions, “What if Siri were conscious? What if the people you kill in your video games were conscious? How do we grapple with those moral implications?”...

Movie Review -- 'Man Down' is a Cliche-Ridden Mess

Man Down

After a two-year stint playing a real life crazy person, wearing paper bags on his head at red carpet events, videotaping himself viewing all his old movies live, riding on elevators with people and hitchhiking across America (plus so much more), I can only imagine Shia LeBeouf woke up one morning and realized he had bills to pay. So, he hopped on the first movie that would take him. It’s ironic, then, that he’s the one redeeming feature of Man Down -- a movie so riddled with cliches and bad writing it’s like seeing a talented LeBeouf put on a powerful performance in a Hollywood purgatory, forcing...