I’ve never understood the Phone wars (Samsung v. Iphone) or the mobile network wars (T-Mobile v. ATT v. Verizon v. Sprint). At this point all of them are pretty much the same and do about the same thing. I think they all pretty much suck at phone calls (which is fine because I don’t call anyone), they all allow you to text, take pictures to send to Facebook and Instagram, and they all have pretty decent, close-to-lasting-all-day- batteries. Really, they all are glorified games machines for most people. Don’t even pretend you use them for work or those fancy features they show on TV.

Basically, you just want a network so you can complain about how slow it is and a phone that cuts out only when you really need it.  I have a Samsung phone and a T-Mobile plan. T-Mobile has a feature called T-Mobile Tuesdays, in which you can get discounts or free stuff. Most of it is garbage like free hats or 1 Taco if you buy 12 at Taco Bell. There is one, however, that our family looks forward to every month, which is the free rental from Redbox.

Because we have three T-Mobile phones in the house we get three codes that have to be used within the week. We all save them and then the countdown in on until next Tuesday. They often do the free rentals on weeks that have absolute garbage, so we have to really reach deep into the Redbox archives, so we’ve seen some things that we don’t really want to talk about.

This weeks binge was tight because we hardly had any time with all the school, work and sports activities. We finally decided on John Wick, even though I had already seen it, but loved it, so I was ready for another Wickathon.

Since I had seen it already, I was able to make more observations than the first time. What I realized in watching it the second time is that basically John Wick is just a grown up version of Hide and Seek. That’s right. While this movie is dense with lore about some High Table, Continental underground assassin society with a bunch of rules, it’s basically Hide and Seek.

The movie starts just after the events of John Wick 2.  John Wick brokes the rules of the game(he killed someone at the Continental, which is the safehouse for assassins) at “base” and now he is it. Every assassin in the network has to count to 10 (in the movie it is half an hour) and John has to hide the best he can. Then, when the timer is up, everyone has to find John.

The problem is because he broke the rules of tagging someone at the base, he can no longer use the base as safe anymore. So he runs all around the world, avoiding tag (he is one of the best in the world at hiding and seeking), but the odds are pretty overwhelming. So he visits his former tag buddy Hallie Berry in Casa Blanca. She owes him a favor, so she helps him visit someone who will help him, and then her dogs help him avoid getting tagged by the guys fortress.

In the meantime, this lady who is apparently in charge of punishing people for breaking the rules tells John he is it and has to tag someone else, or he’s out of the game (dead). When John says no, she calls mommy (the head of the high table) because John and Winston aren’t playing fair.

The other hilarious moment that made me realize that this was really just a grown up game of tag, was when John was being chased by a guy on a motorcycle and just as the guy is about to tag Wick, John jumps off his motorcycle and touches the steps of the Continental to show that he is safe at base, so the guy chasing him isn’t allowed to tag him.

What other movies have made you think of things like tag? What other movies remind you of a kids game but just grown up? Lemme know in the comments.

ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Grown Up Tag Ben