Back in Action – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2025 film Back in Action.

Story

It hits every beat of a spy movie and does a great job with the family drama. The story is a pile of tropes thrown together and avoids risk with the obvious set-up for a sequel.

Score: 0.5

Characters

Excellent acting and characters that are a lot of fun. Diaz and Fox have chemistry both as a couple and as a battle couple. The kids are well picked, and Glenn Close is an inspired choice to play Diaz’s mother.

Score: 1

Dialogue

Snappy and more than a few quips. It has a lot of humour and heart in the dialogue, although sometimes it felt like filler.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The visuals were great and the fight choreography was excellent.

The music sounded like someone trying to combine every spy movie’s soundtracks together. It was good but a little over-done.

Score: 0.5

Fun

This was a lot of fun but the “key” being still useful 15 years later felt like a stretch. The whole Mcguffin was a little over the top. It also could have been done better for the demonstration. Use it to take over Air Force One, or make the alarms at the tower of London sing showtunes. Lot of wasted potential.

That been said, the kids and the family liked it and we all hope for the the inevitable sequel.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A charismatic and excellent cast makes up for a hum-drum spy story. The heart is the family and that’s very well done.

Final Score: 3 Stars out of 5

JenEric Coffee is as Canadian as we can get

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Hello Coffee Lovers,

As much as I applaud the movement to buy Canadian, there are certain limitations when it comes to producing coffee.

We roast, flavour, pack, and sell all from our home in Ottawa.

Green Beans

Any coffee company that tells you they are 100% Canadian is lying. Canada doesn’t produce any coffee beans.

We here at JenEric Coffee order our beans through two Canadian resellers: U-Roast-It and Green Coffee Co.

We always buy high grown and fair trade beans from Sumatra, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, or Honduras.

Roasting

All our beans are roasted in the back yard on our custom built BBQ roaster (it’s only for coffee). The BBQ is Broil-Mate (Canadian company but made in China) and the roasting parts were from RK Drums (US company but the only one that made this when we were buying 8 years ago).

Flavouring

We use Lorann Flavouring, which is unfortunately an American company. We have tried other flavouring, but it’s the best out there for smaller bottles. We do purchase from The Vanilla Food Company, a Canadian reseller.

Packaging

Once we’ve worked our way through our current stock of bags, we’ll be buying new ones from Pouch Makers Canada.

Labels

We used to get all our labels printed at Vista Print Canada, which is the Canadian branch of a Dutch Company.

We’ve recently bought a Lien sticker machine so that we can produce them in-house instead. The company is from Shanghai.

We create our own designs and if we ever have the extra cash, we’d get a Canadian designer.

Websites

This blog and everything attached to it is hosted by the fantastic CanSpace. The servers and service are all in Canada.

For our Store JenEric Coffee and Crochet we use Square, which is American but has a free tier which is really nice. We’re looking into an alternative but don’t really want to add extra costs. Also, Square is really easy to use and works extremely well.

Overall

The products from JenEric Coffee are processed and put together in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We’re trying our best to have mostly Canadian parts but it’s not easy.

I hope this has helped you understand the process a little better.

May your coffee be stronger than your fatigue,

Éric

On the Edge

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Dear Friends, Family, and Fans;

The past decade has been a confusing and scary one for me. I have a very definite sense of justice and I’m often confused when others don’t. The fact that people like Rowling, Trump, or Woody Allen can still have successful careers is baffling to me.

It’s a source of great stress, especially when I see people defending hate. Two years ago when the convoy debacle happened, I got into an argument with a family member. They believed that the convoy was fighting for righteous reasons. I disagreed but could accept that. When I pointed out that two of the organizers had ties to hate groups, they said it didn’t matter because they were fighting for their right to not wear a mask. I still can’t understand that position.

How can you ignore, or forgive, the hateful part of someone just because you agree with something they are doing or saying?

The whole concept has me on edge. Every day in the news, there’s a new, hate-filled event and it’s exhausting and nerve-wracking.

More than ever, I feel like the world is on the edge of something truly terrible happening. I worry that I’ll be looking back at this time and thinking it was the good old days. “Remember when we could afford to drink coffee and we could chat with people around the world?”

I’m trying my best to take joy wherever I can, but it feels selfish and like I’m ignoring the world.

I wish I could do more than just avoiding supporting the cruel and speaking out. I wish I could do something bigger. Unfortunately, that attitude isn’t helpful. If everyone does small acts of kindness, we can start to make a difference. Individual snowflakes are powerless but when they get together they can paralyze a city.

Do what you can, I’ll do what I can, and together we can hopefully start an avalanche of kindness to combat all the hate.

Also… VOTE!

Vote like your life depends on it, because it’s becoming clear that the US is a warning, not an aberration.

There are good people out there and we need to remember that there is still hope.

Take care of each other!

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star  – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2021 film The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star.

Story

Taking a completely different approach from the previous movies and making this one a heist movie was a great idea. It made the whole thing feel fresh without losing the Christmassy and romance vibes.

Score: 1

Characters

The new love interest for the third look-alike is nuanced and the history between them feels real. There’s a lot of slapstick with the minions and I felt like we didn’t see enough of the original look-alikes.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

Some excellent double meanings and wonderful quips.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

Like the first two, filming on location made the whole thing pop and feel more three dimensional than a traditional Christmas movie. The little amount of CG was well done.

The music was catchy and fun.

Score: 1

Fun

I love heist movies, as does the entire family, and this didn’t disappoint. It had all the right pieces to meld the romance, holiday, and heist drama.

Score: 1

Overall

Now with a heist, this movie once again shows how good an actor Vanessa Hudgens is, while bringing in new elements and keeping the franchise fresh. If you liked the first two, you’ll love this one.

Final Score: 4.5 Stars out of 5

The return of Everdome and Parasomnia

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

Before being published, I thought books lasted forever. Afterall, I can still go out and by a copy of Oliver Twist, The Scarlet Pimpernel, or Pride and Prejudice.

Unfortunately, the average lifespan of a book is 5-10 years. Most books don’t sell more than 500 copies in their entire life.

Two of my novels, Everdome and Parasomnia, haven’t been performing that well, and I’ve decided to buy the rights back from the publisher. They did a great job with the books, but it’s time I try to get them in more readers hands.

Everdome
Parasomnia

What happens now?

Once the rights and files have been completely returned to me, I will republish them with some minor changes. I’m calling this a “Second Printing”.

Part of the buying of rights back was also buying out Renaissances stock. I’m going be selling those at cons and on our website. In a few months, I’ll do a full update, maybe add a short story to the back, and re-release them. Everdome will be getting a new cover to make it match more with Winging It, which partially takes place in the world.

This is new and exciting, but also kinda terrifying.

More news to come. Thank you for reading.

Éric

Winging It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Cover Art by Pinkpiggy93
49th Shelf Crushing It
Indigo Books Crushing It
Archambault Crushing It
Amazon Crushing It
Rakuten Kobo Crushing It
Apple Books Crushing It

That annoying itch

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Hello my Friends, Family, and Fans;

It’s been a wild few weeks. Lots of good news, like my book coming out in June, and more to come. Stay tuned.

Since early January, I’ve been listening/reading the first four Elizabeth books in preparation for writing the fifth and sixth. It’s fascinating to see what I did and how the characters grow. There’s a lot of threads and stories that I’d forgotten and have written down to tie up.

I’m also really enjoying the books; they’re a lot of fun, and I’m surprised at my own wording and stories. It’s nice to remember enough to be proud of what I’ve written. It’s hard sometimes to sell your own books because it’s hard not to be hyper critical. At least, it is for me.

Unfortunately, when I don’t have a current writing project, I feel uncomfortable. It’s like an itch that I can’t get rid of in any other way. I’m feeling that big time. I’ve written a lot of loose plot points and story ideas but I just can’t wait to get that sweet sweet writing dopamine. It’s like a runner’s high but when you’ve had a good writing session.

The Mystery of the Dancing Lights by Éric Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version

Hopefully, I’ll get to it by the end of the month and get some words down.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Shadowbox Ornament: Winging It

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I got the idea to make shadowbox out of the cover image of our books, and I thought it would be fun for you to have access as well!

Also – first promo for Winging It!

Template Download

Materials:
Paper (or cardstock)
Colour printer
Scissors
Exacto knife
Cutting board
Tape (or glue)
Patience

Instructions:

  1. Print the template provided (PDF download above)
  2. Cut out the pieces using scissors
  3. Cut out the greyed out background with the Exacto knife
  4. Tape (or glue) the parts together.
Winging It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Cover Art by Pinkpiggy93
49th Shelf Crushing It
Indigo Books Crushing It
Archambault Crushing It
Amazon Crushing It
Rakuten Kobo Crushing It
Apple Books Crushing It