Out and About in LA: FALL Corgi Beach Day 2016

A few months ago the “SoCal Corgi Beach Day” group held their annual summer event in Long Beach. While not owning a Corgi myself I decided to go down to Long Beach and cover the event. What I didn’t realize is that the group decides to do the same event TWICE a year. This time the Fall portion of the event took place way down south of LA in Huntington Beach. So while most of you are handling the start of the cold spell in your region I will personally go to see some dogs frolics on the beach. So enjoy me “winning” with the highlights:

Out and About in LA: Redondo Beach

Last week you saw my many adventures, and many pictures, of Manhattan Beach. This week I decided to venture further South by hitting up Redondo Beach. Now Redondo, as far as I can tell, is immensely  bigger and is a much better beach than Manhattan. No offense to the people of Manhattan Beach but there just isn’t enough variety like Redondo. Anyways, with my new friend in Brian we both walked a good portion of the beach for your (and our) enjoyment.

Out and About in LA: Manhattan Beach

If there is one thing Los Angeles has an abundance of is beaches. (Shockingly a source involving water that ISN’T being depleted). I’ve been to Venice (twice), to Santa Monica, and been around the Pacific Coast Highway. What’s amazing about all of these places is how they are so vastly different from one another. One of my goals for my time here in LA is to visit all of the beaches and in time that will happen. For now though we are taking it one day as a time and today I look at Manhattan Beach.

Out and About in LA: Pacific Coast Highway

So the other day, well okay months ago, I went to Santa Monica. I noticed the beauty of the area but also the infamous route known as the Pacific Coast Highway (also known as Highway 1). Now this massive piece of road goes through the majority of California and, for now anyways, I do not have time to drive the whole thing. But I thought to give a taste of what the highway is like from one major beach to as far as an hour drive. So if you are a fan of the beach, or of travelogues, or if you are even in the East Coast being miserable with the cold I say: Enjoy.

Out and About in Santa Monica

It may come as a surprise to many but there are many beaches of Los Angeles I have yet to travel to. Malibu, Hermosa, Long Beach; almost any you can think of sans Venice I haven’t crossed. So on my day off from work I decided to visit one of these shores everyone gushes about. I went to the second closest beach to me: Santa Monica. Let me tell you something before you see these photos: Santa Monica Beach is gorgeous. Go to Venice for the interesting pieces of humanity but walk further to Santa Monica to enjoy the gorgeous scenery. I’m not even a beach guy and I wanna keep coming back to this place. So enjoy the beauty that is:

Moving Out West: Final Round

6:30am-8:00am: Well we’re here! Had to stay at a hotel but now we can start getting situated with my new digs. First stop: Walmart….Yes I realize I drove 3,000 miles just to hit a Walmart.

Against the Sun (Review)

If there is one thing the public loves it is a good survival story. Put any number of people in an ‘against the odds’ kind of plot and you already hooked the viewer. Especially if we have a story set during any time of war because if there is one thing Americans love is war stories. Type the words ‘World War II’ & ‘Survival’ and you will get tons of media that recounts some brutal situations soldiers got in to. Brian Falk’s Against the Sun is yet another entry and honestly, like the characters involved, it more than likely will be lost in sea.

Against the Sun quickly gets the ball rolling as we witness the plight of three Navy airman (Jake Abel, Garret Dillahunt, and Tom Felton) lost adrift in the middle of the Pacific. While this is based off a true story it certainly does not help this feels like any other lost at sea tale. We go from start to finish with the typical plot points from an arrogant leader, to trying to find food, to the evitable storm that plagues these men. While these three look the part, there is nothing here to make these men memorable or distinguishable. Brian Falk and co-writer Mark David Keegan definitely respect the real survivors but because their tale is pretty typical they do not add any dimension to make us care.

Two people that do try and add something to this picture are Cinematographer Petr Cikhart and Editor Sean Albertson. For a good spell this film is shot amazingly well and Cikhart’s history as a documentarian certainly helps. The day scenes have some beautiful, sweeping shots of the ocean and Cikhart does some innovative things like filming underwater to get some unique angles. Albertson then does some magic by cutting pretty quickly so looking at only three men the entire length is not too boring. It is always difficult to make a film with one setting interesting but to give credit where credit is due Against the Sun is visually appealing.

Actually Against the Sun is visually appealing to a point. A good two thirds through this and the budget seemed to drop dramatically as poor CGI and green screen is used throughout. Let’s put it this way: The sharks from Jaws 3D look more realistic than this film’s. Try as he can, Cikhart can only do so much when the film goes for the cheap so late. That and it must be said that the night scenes involved are infuriatingly dark. It is one way to be realistic but considering we cannot see some key plot moments because of the non-existing lighting maybe it would not have hurt to have some kind of light on these guys.

Unfortunately Against the Sun is one of the more frustrating, true stories to be made. No matter how beautiful this film can look there are countless things that continues to stall it. The characters are not interesting, the writing is too predictable, and the CGI is SyFy Channel level bad. If you are into survival stories or even a WWII fanatic this might be for you. But with so many damn options available you can watch, read, listen, or even play much better stories than this.