Heads of State – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2025 film Heads of State.

Story

The perfect meld of comedy and action with a story that keeps you guessing and never condescends.

Score: 1

Characters

This movie would have been interesting with one well fleshed out character but in a film with this much action it’s rare to get three mains and a half dozen others with realistic motivations and nuanced backstories.

The three main characters not only hold the film together, they make it both entertaining and interesting.

Score: 1

Dialogue

A lot of the dialogue is hammy but done in an intentional way. The trailer shows a lot of these lines without the buildup which made seeing the whole thing more interesting.

There are a few lines that really stand out because of their delivery. The British PM is complaining about how bad a day they’re having in the middle of the banter and the American President replies with something along the lines of tell that to all the people who died. It’s an exchange that starts out funny but reminds both the characters and the audience about the stakes of the movie. It also shows the kindness of the president and helps to build character.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The movie avoids the sin of shaky-cam and uses some extraordinary pans. The cinematography matched the tone and the events in the film, leaning into the comic book action when needed and then the more dignified when it became more serious.

The song choices were perfect, really focussing on what was going on and not just going for the feeling of a scene. The score was good and its use was fantastic.

Score: 1

Fun

Witty banter, silly fights, a hopeful message, and lots of social commentary. It was lots of fun. The whole family liked it.

Score: 1

Overall

A film that balances humour, action, and hope in a way that I wish more did. This is a movie that believes humanity can be great but only if we work together, without being preachy or ignoring our faults. It’s cheesy, funny, and the three leads are fantastically charismatic.

Final Score: 5 Stars out of 5*

*A 5 star review doesn’t mean the movie was perfect nor that it is perfect for everyone but it is a movie I believe is as close to perfect as possible.

Price Increase for JenEric Coffee

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Dear Coffee Lovers,

In 2017, we started buying coffee from U-Roast-it. They are a fabulous company and they managed to only raise their prices around 30% in the past 8 years,. That’s amazing and has let us keep our prices steady. Coffee in general has doubled in price in the past 8 years.

I talked to the owner and they told me that they will be pulling out of selling bulk green beans. Its closest competitor is selling beans at nearly 50% more right now.

Other things have gone up. The price of tables has steadily climbed and now most of them are requiring insurance as well, which is an extra cost.

Basically, the past few years we’ve broken even on our big events after you count in all costs. Unfortunately, that’s not sustainable.

That’s why we’ll be increasing prices starting September 1st. The old prices are still in effect until then, so take advantage while you can.

The new prices will become:

Regular

  • Small (2oz) = $5
  • Medium (4oz) = $10
  • Large (8oz) = $18
  • Extra Large (1lbs) = $30

Decaf

  • Medium (4oz) = $12
  • Large (8oz) = $20
  • Extra Large (1lbs) = $34

Thank you for your understanding,

Éric

The Scarlet Thread Irregulars (Serial Story) — Chapter 7

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Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Wednesday the 11th of October, 2006 – Shields Crossing, Ontario

Cartoon physics would have had them flying hood over tailpipe, but real world physics still seemed to be in effect. Popeye punched right through the hood of the van and his arm got stuck.

“Get out!” I shouted and everyone jumped out of the van. I was glad I got the extra insurance on the rental. It’s a no-brainer when fighting Aether-creatures.

Popeye picked up the van and tossed it into the forest with a crash of trees. “The boss wants to talk with ya,” he said.

“Ga Bort!” I shouted and pushed my will against him. He was an Aether-creature but he’d been made by a wizard, which meant he had some defences against us sending him back to the Aether.

The others understood and started to help. He was a strong construct, pun intended, and he was able to resist five trained knights. I was starting to feel my will weaken when I heard Sylvie shout, “Glannchient!” and her will was added to the pressure of ours. With an audible pop and sploosh, Popeye became an equal weight of Aethergoo. 

“Good job, group. Anyone’s cell working?” I asked as mine only reflected my face and wouldn’t turn on. 

Each of them said no until Sylvie. “Mine is fine. My fiancée made it. It’s water proof, magic proof, and can actually stop a bullet.” She stared blankly at the phone and then asked, “Who do I call? Normally with this kind of thing, I call you.”

I laughed and said, “Let’s just look at how far we are from town.” The thing about Ontario is once you start driving, if you’re not familiar with the area, distances and time become useless. It should be a twenty minute drive to our hotel from where we started but how far we’d gone and how that translates to distance is a magic beyond me.

She pulled up the DT Maps app and it showed we were a ten minute walk from our hotel on the edge of town. With the night having finally covered the world, we trudged back to civilization.

“Did the devil send Popeye?” Sylvie asked.

“I doubt it,” Grant replied. “He felt too put together to be a random Aether-creature but he also was too weak to be made by the Devil himself.”

“That was weak?” Sylvie’s eyes looked like they were going to fall out.

“Unfortunately, he was a well-made Aether-creature but he wasn’t sapient. Which means he shouldn’t have been able to fight back. Unless he was created by a wizard. Probably expecting him to face one or two Gatekeepers, not six.” I patted her shoulder. 

“Who then?”

“Same person who placed the Adlats and summoned the House of the Rising Sun,” I replied.

Looking expectant, Sylvie asked, “Who?”

“I have no clue.”

We walked in silence and as we approached the hotel I smirked and said, “Glannchient? Really? Every language in existence and you choose High-Pakahan?”

“Oh, leave me alone, it’s the only thing I could think of. At least it means, ‘to banish’. You literally say, ‘go away’.”

“Nerd,” I teased.

“Dork,” she rebutted.

We were all exhausted and the world didn’t seem to be imploding yet, so we separated into our hotel rooms. Ursula and Robin always stayed together. Robin and Grant had a hate-flirt relationship going and It was better to put them with an older and more level headed person. Clifford had taken to tutoring the younger man, whether he liked it or not, in business and real art.

I snored, so I got my own room. Also, I was in charge and didn’t want to deal with their bickering all night and day. Sylvie joined me in my room since she didn’t have one. She’d expected to go home by nightfall.

I managed to take off my coat and shoes but I fell asleep before I could do anything else. It had been a long day. 

The smell of coffee and grease woke me up. “Aarrggg,” I said.

Snickering, Sylvie said, “Articulate. I can really hear the Oxford accent there. This is why you get all the girls.”

I glared at her and took the breakfast and coffee she was offering. When I was finished, I looked at her and said, “How do you look perfectly put together? It’s…” I looked at my watch. “Six?” 

“I’m not new to the road life, cuz. My mom dragged us across the country. I learned how to look military clean before I was six. What’s your excuse?”

“My excuse is that I used more energy yesterday than I ever have and it was just a bunch of near misses. I have no idea what or who we’re up against.” I didn’t like admitting it.

Silvie made a face as she sipped from her cup, “The Dancing Goat has really spoiled cheap coffee for me.” She paused and asked, “Don’t you, I mean, we, have a chain of command?”

“Each knight is apprenticed to someone until they’re ready. Then they wander the world trying to help the helpless and all that. Once they’ve completed a few quests, they apply to be posted somewhere and the council posts them where they are most needed.”

She swore, “That sounds like a military version of a pyramid scheme. Who decides the council?”

“They’re appointed when their swords turn to gold,” I replied.

“Hum… Who gives the swords?”

I shrugged. “There are a lot of ideas but no one really knows.”

She summoned her sword and I nodded. It took Clifford a week before he could do it consistently.

Looking at the long thin blade, she asked, “Why is it rainbow coloured.” She was right, the metal looked like it was forged in multicoloured waves.

“Rainbow is associated with knights that are ideologically linked with protecting freedom.”

Dismissing the sword, she said, “We’re colour coded?”

“Not really. Council members are gold, freedom knights are rainbow, and most other knights are silver.”

“And what about you? What colour is your blade?” she asked. She might have seen it but it was in a stressful situation.

I summoned the blade. It was pure black with dark grey swirls that glowed a gentle light. “It’s black. It’s for the knights that have sins to atone for basically, I’m on divine probation.”

Read Chapter 8 (August)

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:

Now You See Me 2 – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2016 film Now You See Me 2.

Story

The movie spends too much time recapping and dealing with the events of the first movie. Once we get to the actual story, it goes out of it’s way to humble the protagonists. Several scenes feel like they were written before they had a story and just wanted to do something cool.

Score: 0.5

Characters

There’s a little more development of characters but not much. I like that they didn’t just replace the woman in the group with someone who did the exact same things.

Overall, it feels like the few lessons for the characters there are, are too short, and the growth doesn’t feel deserved.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

Witty and quippy and just as good as the first.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

Several parts of the movie feel disconnected. The entire heist in the vault is overly long and ridiculously overdone. If it had been on stage it would make sense, but otherwise it feels like they are playing to an audience that didn’t exist.

The music is the same but just a little different to make it unique.

Score: 1

Fun.

The movie was a lot of fun. We had issues with the DVD which wasn’t great, but besides that it was a good movie and everyone loved it. There were some ambiguities that frustrated me though, and the twist at the end didn’t have much impact.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A fun sequel that isn’t as good as the first, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Final Score: 3.5 Stars out of 5

Nostalgia and going home

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

I grew up in a small town and a lot of the experience went into The Copper Tarnish. Fourteen years ago, I went home for my brother’s graduation. I wrote a piece about it then and it still rings true.

Childhood Home

Originally posted on Facebook July 27th, 2011

It changed. All of it changed. Somehow, without my knowledge, or permission, my childhood home changed.

I had never truly understood the meaning of, “You can never go home again”. Now I think I get it. It’s not that you aren’t capable of returning to childhood homes but that it will never be the same.

Almost ten years have passed since I had last seen the little blue house where I grew up. It seemed smaller, so did my little town. The houses seemed older and the trees shorter. Everything was the same but felt different.

I brought my wife to see it, to see all six streets of it, that small northern village. She’s a big city girl, and she marvelled as I gave her the sentimental tour. I showed her where the old convenience store was; the one my mother and I rented a Nintendo. That first gaming system started my mother’s love of video games.

I pointed out the old tavern. When I was very young, they had a vending machine that effectively microwaved French fries. They were the best fries, not because they tasted good but because they came from a machine and that was cool.

I showed her what was left of the grocery store. Once it seemed larger then life. I remember getting caught stealing sour gum. The clerk gave me a firm talking-to and I never did it again. Later, I worked with them folding envelopes and working with Excel. My first real summer job.

Moving on, I showed her the small white two-story building which hosts the bank. My mother had lived in the apartment above it when she worked as a waitress.

I showed her the new convenience store. I worked there part time in my last year of high school. The money was okay but the free vhs rentals were amazing. I watched more movies that year than I had my whole life.

I pointed out the old blue house. Not really that old, I remember my mother’s excitement as we would drive by as it was being built. She would say, “Let’s go visit our hole.” It still has the flowering crab apple tree that she planted twenty years ago when we moved in. I worked hard pruning and cleaning that tree. Picking the small bitter apples.

We drove up the steep road where my cousin and I would sit on our skateboards and fly down it. It was a monolithic hill. It really wasn’t. Somehow, over time, it had levelled itself out.

We passed the small white church and the still large baseball field. Turned around in the old school yard. All the play structures I remembered were gone, replaced with plastic, safe versions.

Of all the memories the old school brought back, it wasn’t the pranks, old friends, or bastard teachers that I remembered, it was my first kiss. I was in high school and she was visiting me for the day. My brother was home with his girlfriend and her son. The small blue house felt small and we escaped for a walk.

It was dark, maybe seven at night, and we walked to the old school. I was determined to kiss her, I had been paralyzed with fear for too long. I can’t remember why kissing terrified me but it had and now after almost a month of going steady, I was determined to kiss her. We went around to the old gym doors and there, under the orange glow of a light, I made my move. The kiss was sweet, soft and wonderful. I didn’t marry her and we ended badly but that moment was wonderful.

My wife and I drove down the last road in our tour. Both sets of grandparents lived on this road when I was young; they even lived across the street from each other.

That was the tour, it seemed so sad to me that such a big part of my life was suddenly so small. How could a place that felt so wrong feel so right? So many of my memories and experiences came from there and I love the place, but it’s not my home anymore. It has lost some intangible quality that made it my place in the world.

After some time thinking about it I realize: it isn’t smaller, it didn’t change, I did.

I have now lived in Ottawa for almost 23 years but that place, for good or bad, is always with me.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

I’m on vacation

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

Last Saturday we had our book launches and birthday party. It was a lot of fun. I’d like to thank those that came: it really meant the world to see you at our first in-person launch since the pandemic started.

The launch was great, but with every event comes stress. I also made a mistake with my meds that meant I went without any of my migraine meds for the weekend. Between the two things, I’m really wiped out. Thankfully I’d taken this week off for my vacation.

I had BIG plans for my vacation but mostly I’ve rested and played some video games.

The event plus the pills really showed me how much the accommodations plus medication have been helping me. It’s frustrating that a little slip and something I was excited for can make me feel so out of it and sad. It’s a form of Con-drop. Basically, the adrenaline plus happy chemicals are so elevated that your brain can’t keep up and actually has a deficit for a little while. For those of us with brains that don’t like producing those chemicals (like people with ADHD) it can really be hard to bounce back.

So don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay, I just need time.

Now, I’m off to enjoy the last day of my vacation.

Image borrowed from Sean Celaya.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric