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A Sickening Reminder

A little birdie told me that Tobiidynavox had gotten a little airtime on a certain TV series - my least favorite sitcom - Speechless. Seriously? I'm not trying to burst anyone 's bubble but as the leading company in augmentative communicators, why do they need the exposure? Even though it's on a smaller scale, this is like Apple having a slot for their Mac on the hit movie Steve Jobs. A study conducted by the Journal of Management and Marketing Media, "While product placement is riskier than conventional advertising, it is becoming a common practice to place products and brands into mainstream media including films, broadcast and cable television programs, computer and video games, blogs, music videos/DVDs, magazines, books, comics, Broadway musicals and plays, radio, Internet, and mobile phones." The entertainment industry is the Fountain of Youth for companies of the products. Naturally, the more an episode is aired, the more exposure the product gets; the mo...

Fantastic Beasts - Harry Potter in Disguise?

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Since the conclusion of the seemingly endless Harry Potter saga, director David Yates' resume has thinned as he slid quickly off the Hollywood grid. Going for a comeback, Yates made an attempt to reinvent Tarzan, which grossed $347.2 million in box offices worldwide, deviating from the wizard assembly line, proving that he was not a one-trick  pony. Meanwhile,  J.K. Rowling, unable to steer clear from her fetish for magic, published a novel - eerily similar to the series that put her on the map. she title it  Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. Don't   be deceived by the incredibly love name. It's not related to Harry Potter - although, film-wise - the two could be twins. This spin-off frames the adventures of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as he delves in New York's secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school. In the briefcase he carries, magical creatures mischievously rummage about, sometimes fa...

Speechless Ep. 3 Bonfire

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Strike three!  I am not going to get started it on the title. I have exempted the dashes because they have overused that joke. Good news: we've gotten pass Maya's compulsion to smother JJ. He meets some cool friends and hears about a bonfire everyone is going to but JJ can't go due to the inaccessible condition of the  outside venue. Predictably,  Maya embarrasses her son by requesting the social gathering be canceled, straining JJ's bonds between him and his classmates. Soon, the students speak out against JJ. But when Maya realizes she was wrong, the two stage a fake prank to encourage his classmates to have a change of heart. Meanwhile, Jimmy helps Ray settle into the new home. Once again, JJ comes across as a burden because he's in a wheelchair. It's human nature to feel self-conscious, especially if you are the new kid. Here, the show had a choice. once again, we see Maya meddling. When I was in grade school, I would talk to my OI teacher (which is no...

Still Life With Crows

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Medicine Creek, Kansas is a quaint town where Main Street spans the length of two blocks and everyone knows everyone. Townsfolk are content with their quiet lives - which is why they were stunned when word spreads that a murder has happened, drawing FBI Agent Pendergast to the dreary town. within 24 hours, reporters flock to the little town, in the August heat, where Pendergast confirms that the deceased were - in fact - killed. Soon, neighbors begin to disappear - and reappear - as counter-top pieces.with eighteen year-old misfit Corrrie Swason, Pendergast digs up secrets swirling around the cursed community from its buried past - the Ghost Warrior Massacre of 1853 - and the truth about  Medicine Creek's biggest enigma, coming face to face with unfathomable evil lurking beneath the surface. Childs' masterful storytelling and shady characters drive the story forward, slowly building the suspense in his page-turner which should soon join the classics, like Frankenstein and...

Speechless Ep. 2 - New AidE

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Okay, they've got to stop with spelling out the titles of the episodes . We get it, JJ speaks through an augmentative communicator. This joke was cute the first go-around, not so much the second. In this episode , JJ (Micah Fowler) gets a new aide, but his overbearing mother isn't too keen on the new sidekick. Of course, the personal assistant makes some mistakes, including getting into the van and driving away without JJ (the funniest scene in the episode). Maya's fears about allowing Kenneth to be J.J.'s full-time aide is confirmed when J.J. chooses to skip out on a physical therapy appointment to watch cheerleaders in practice as they pander to him; Jimmy shows Dylan how to be un-neighborly. Irritatingly predictable, Maya finds out about J.J.'s extracurricular activities and scolds Kenneth for allowing this to happen. Predictably, the mother and son have a fight about who Kenneth should obey - a very quiet one , at that. I have to admit, I sympathized with J...

Speechless Pilot

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There are more than 1 billion individuals  in the world have some form of disability,, making up about 15% of the world's population. Between 110-190 million people have very significant difficulties in functioning. People with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed than non-disabled people  (according to The World Bank ). apparently, this finally hit some LA producer, jarring him or her to make a TV series. Great! At last some recognition. Or , at least the idea was great.         Don't get me wrong. Micah Fowler has potential as the supposed main charecter but appeareduce to be outshined by the overbearing Minnie Driver , who plays the role of Maya DiMeo - the caring mother who constantly interjects into her children's lives. Here, the producers were spot-on. But, then again, so were the producers of Modern Family. Now for the elephant in the room - the van! Maya pedals around in a mother of a van, handicap accessible fo...

Jason Bourne

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A decade has passed since Jason Bourne turned his back on the CIA. Trying to draw Bourne out of hiding, CIA director Robert Dewy (Tommy Lee Jones) assigns an assassin to kill Bourne. On the run with rogue  employee at the Treadstone Paris safehouse,  Nikki Parsons (Julia Stiles).  Much like The Bourne Supremacy, the termination goes awry and the Dewy's hitman ends up shooting Parsons instead of Bourne which paints a bulls-eye on Dewy's back.  It seems as though the actions taken by the CIA swirl around a network hack "worse than Snowden." - a sign that Paul Greengrass has what I call  Filmmakers Block  - the Hollywood version of  Writer's Block  - blowing a lot of hot-aired action sequences to compensate for the crumbling, over-used plot. I thought,  this isn't the Greengrass-Damon creation that is Bourne. Jason Bourne is not a cliché.  Unfortunately, I was wrong. I was baffled! Then, I figured it out.  Action flicks...