The Year Of Spectacular Men (2018)

I had to take some time off from checking out a Zoey Deutch (Vincent N Roxxy) film, but after taking some time off I was ready to jump back in. The film I decided to check out is one big family affair as the film The Year Of Spectacular Men was written and stars Madelyn Deutch (Outcast) and it features and was directed by Lea Thompson (Back To The Future) who is their mother (in real life and in the film). Madelyn plays Izzy Klein, a young woman who has just finished college, but can't seem to keep a relationship going. After her boyfriend in New York breaks up with her, she decides to move to LA to be closer to her older sister Sabrina (Zoey) while trying to navigate through life and all of it's challenges including men, finding a job, and more. The film also stars Cameron Monaghan (Vampire Academy) as Ross, Brandon T. Jackson (Tropic Thunder) as Logan, Zach Roerig (As The World Turns) as Mikey,  Nicholas Braun (The Stanford Prison Experiment) as Charlie, Jesse Bradford (Bring It On) as Aaron,  Avan Jogia (Zombieland: Double Tap) as Sebastian, Melissa Bolona (Acts Of Violence) as Amythyst Stone, D.W. Moffett (How to Get Away with Murder) as Teacher, and Troy Evans (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) as Sketch.

It's a rare occasion when I choose a film and I don't end up enjoying it because I try picking based on what the story is about and what people have said about it. When it came to this film I had no idea that Zoey was the supporting actress, but in the end it didn't matter because this was a really good film. I thought it was actually an enjoyable film to watch and while I must admit that it is a chick flick, I think this may be one that men can enjoy as well. Madelyn who I had no idea was Zoey's sister actually did a fantastic job both in writing the film and in acting because she played a super quirky kind of girl very well in the film. I love how Zoey played the sister who becomes an actress and is entangled in the Hollywood life. There is one point in which they keep referencing a film that she worked on with Zac Efron in which the tabloids want a scoop on her relationship with him. I wonder if that was a poke at what she went through after filming Dirty Grandpa in which she co-starred alongside him in? Throughout the whole film, Madelyn looked like she was the royal screw up when it came to relationships, but by the end of the film she seemed to be the one with her sanity intact. I thought it was a really good film that is available to watch on HULU right now as we speak and I think you should check it out. I am going to give the film an B+ for a final grade.

Vampire Academy (2014)

Back in the last decade, The Twilight Movies sort of ruined what it meant to be a vampire by making it too romantic. Unfortunately, if it wasn't for the fact that today's film starred my celebrity crush in Zoey Deutch (Set It Up), I probably wouldn't have chosen to watch Vampire Academy for today. The film was released in 2014 and it was directed by Mark Waters (Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past) and it stars Zoey as Rose Hathaway, a Dhampir who is a half human, half vampire who is sworn to protect the Moroi, a race of vampires who learn to live very discreetly in our world. Unfortunately, there is the race of vampires that Rose is sworn to protect against and that is the bloodthirsty vampires called Strigoi and she will be put to the test when someone tries to sabotage her Moroi's place in the kingdom. The film also stars Lucy Fry (Bright) as Lissa Dragomir, Danila Kozlovsky (Hardcore Henry) as Dimitri Belikov, Gabriel Byrne (End Of Days) as Victor Dashkov, Olga Kurylenko (Quantum Of Solace) as Headmistress Kirova, Sarah Hyland (Modern Family) as Natalie, Cameron Monaghan (Gotham) as Mason, Ashley Charles (Jimi: All Is by My Side) as Jesse, Claire Foy (The Girl In The Spider's Web) as Ms. Karp, Dominic Sherwood (Don't Sleep) as Christian Ozera, and Joely Richardson (Color Out of Space) as Queen Tatiana.

So, I am going to say right now that this is probably the worst Zoey Deutch film I have ever watched and probably one of the worst Vampire films I have ever seen. Let's just put it this way, the film was way too much Mean Girls and not enough Heathers as the poster suggested that it was written by. The worst thing about it or I should say one of the worst things about it is the fact that it tried to be as cool as the Twilight films and that in of itself is a bad idea to begin with. I think the only good thing about the film itself was Zoey Deutch, but even that was a tiny bit of a stretch. one minute , the main princess is all innocent and then she becomes the bad bitch on campus, but as soon as he friends ankle breaks she becomes the goodie two shoes all over again, but with a little more guts. I don't even want to talk about the action sequences in this film, but even that is as awful as the idea of Vampires trying to be Harry Potter. This film was just all over the place and the creepy dynamic of Zoey's character with her instructor was just a little weird as it should have been handled as just a school girl crush. The only redeeming factor was the explanation of how one becomes a Strigoi which honestly sounds like a faction in the Russian Mob. I honestly could not wait for this film to come to an end when it was all said and done because my patience with the writing and the action was at it's wits end. That is why this film is getting a D for a final grade as I am filing it in the burn at once category.