Day: October 2, 2011

There comes a moment in every mans life where he realizes he is now criminally insane. Mel Gibson had one of these moments.

Mel Gibson’s moment is pictured above.

Oh wait sorry, that is actually a movie. He is acting about having a nervous breakdown. My bad!

The Beaver is a movie I definitely had false pretenses about. Didn’t know what to expect, thought it would be something silly about a family and a talking beaver that joins their lives. Nope. It is about a depressed man, who leaves his family, and ends up using a beaver puppet to communicate with the world. Communication was something quite hard for him, bad for the CEO of a giant toy company. Thankfully there is, The Beaver.

But yeah. This movie is also about depression. And depression is srs bzns. I didn’t know it was directed by Jodie Foster (who also played the wife). This is the only big directing project she has done according to IMDB, with the other three things being pre 1996.

The Beaver also helps with sexy time.

The Beaver is actually a very intelligent movie, of a depressed man trying to deal with his problems. Even if he thinks he is getting better, the people closest to him can see he is only getting worse. This film is more than about Gibson being depressed, but equally about his family in coping with Gibson, and how his son is seemingly going down the same path. I was shocked at how good this movie actually was. I will probably buy it (okay just did).

The box for this movie is pretty cool. Jackie Chan, some other asian guy, and Little Big Solider. What is this about? What does it MEAN?

It means awesome good shit.

Well I will tell you.

First I think this was a pet project movie for Jackie Chan for some time. It is definitely a Chinese movie, as guess what, it is subtitled. I personally watched it Dubbed, because I don’t care. (I am not sure if Jackie Chan did his own dubbing). The story is one of the many Ancient China stories that are abundant in the world, and of which I know nothing about. This takes place in BC China, when there is warlords, fighting, big clans, armies, and more. Such a small story too in the large history, as the Writer, he clearly made this movie for him.

He plays a farmer who was enlisted to join his warlord clans army. Accidentally in his first fight he ends up capturing the opposing sides General. If a general is brought back (normally dead) to the warlord, the soldier is granted amnesty from the war, is given a large plot of land, and left alone if they want forever. All Jackie Chan wants to do is farm. Raise a family. The other main actor who plays the general also does very well. The fight scenes that featured them two were fantastically made. As you are aware, a lot of Asian martial arts movies nowadays have these artsy and stylistic fight scenes. The way they use the surroundings. The barn fight and “stick fight” were some of my favorites.

The ending I didn’t see coming, (but all my friends who know their Feudal Chinese history probably do! Yes, all zero of you) and thought it sad. Oh well. Can’t change the past.*

The movie was also beautiful on Blu-Ray. I assume there was very little used in CGI, and that the areas where filming took place just look that awesome. It is hard to imagine China as a beautiful place, mostly because I am brainwashed to assume it is just communism and other bad things. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Not the best part of Asia, as this took place in San Francisco. It is, however, the best part of San Francisco.

4 out of 4.

* – Allegedly

I was told I needed to watch this movie when I revealed Source Code. Same director, and he did Moon before Source Code. Had a LOT less budget, many less actors, and was independently released.

“Independently released? Well I approve!”

This was a great sci-fi movie. Thankfully, by reading the back cover, you really have no idea what the movie is about. For the sake of everything, don’t try and figure out what it is about before watching it. Don’t watch the trailer. Here is a synopsis that will not ruin it for you:

Moon: Sam Rockwell is on the moon alone. He is there to harvest moon stuff, and send it back to earth, as a new and awesome energy source. He has a robot companion (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Then some weird shit happens.

There ya go! So once the “Weird shit” starts to happen, I continued to make guesses “Oh the ending will be blahdyblahblah” and then 10 minutes later, said guess happens. This just leaves me dumbfounded. Why would that happen so soon? “Oh!” I says to myself. “Well. Maybe this is going to be lead to this?”.

I think I did that like, three times. Until I was wrong and got an overall ending sequence I wasn’t guessing. Hooray for not knowing what will happen! The simplisticness of the movie makes it work, with only really two main characters. Sam Rockwell with a beard is cool, but I kept finding it odd his characters name was Sam Bell. What is he, trying to turn into Bill Paxton now? Either way, this does what a good sci-fi movie should do. Question humanity. And other philosophical things. (The other acceptable good sci-fi movie is of course the one that is secretly political).

Whoa whoa. Only Bill Paxton can be Bill Paxton. If you aren’t Bill Paxton, you can’t be Bill Paxton. And I am Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton.

3 out of 4.

Barney’s Version is a movie I had never heard of, but apparently it was nominated for an Academy Award AND starred Paul Giamatti? At the same time?

This is my subtle way of implying Hell has frozen over.

Of course after watching, I saw that it was actually only nominated for Best Makeup. Whoops. It lost to The Wolfman.

That is a shitty category anyways. The fact that Curious Case of Benjamin Button beat out Hellboy II is a sham! (Yes, I have opinions on who should win Best Makeup).

Regardless, this was a pretty good movie. Calling a comedy, I don’t agree with. Paul makes a bunch of jokes, and some situations occur, but overall I thought of it as a drama. Especially when you realized WHY this movie is called Barney’s Version, and what is actually going on.

The ending was pretty sad. I had some tears. It is a story of a man who falls in love with three women throughout his life. It also explores the relationship with his best friend, also leading to some very interesting moments. The story is told out of order, but that also has a reason.

And it not just because of alcohol.

The movie is actually based off of a book. I don’t know of anyone who has read the book. So it probably sucks. The best part of this movie is that it takes place in Canada, which means, you guessed it, there are hockey related scenes in it. He is from Montreal in the movie, and in one great scene, he is rushing into the streets to catch a woman before she hops on a train….and traffic is backed up because the Habs have won a playoff game. Good stuff.

Clearly any movie with a hockey scene is a good movie too. Good, not as well known, pick up.

This movie starts off with a good concept (“Good”? I mean, at least it is interesting. Why not have a world where lying isn’t possible!).

The first part of this movie was definitely enjoyable. Once Ricky Gervais accidentally figures out how to lie, he doesn’t know how to explain it. He tries to explain it. But no one gets it. What a crazy world. Louis CK plays his friend too, who at least sticks with him throughout all this. Despite not understanding, he is fine freeloading, like any good friend. Once Ricky finds out he can lie, he becomes wealthy, he becomes a big shot movie writer, and everyone likes him.

Yet for some reason Jennifer Garner doesn’t want to fuck him. After all, he has pug nosed fat genes. Regardless of how interesting he seems, she can’t imagine how shitty their children would look. Rob Lowe of course is the example of the perfect human.

Yuck! Look at those hideous beasts! How dare they share an elevator with THE Jennifer Garner.

Anyways, despite being enjoyable, the first 20 ish minutes before the lie, it is pretty repetitive. Thankfully, they handle first and foremost that using it for sex is bad. Or at least way too awkward. Either way, after the main character gets all he wants and there is still half a movie left to go, it just becomes sad. Like. I didn’t find 4/5 of the movie to actually be a comedy, overall just kind of depressing. Sure it took him forever to get with Jennifer Garner, but the route was just blah. He gets into religion, and being more famous than he wants. But holy crap. This was just a sad movie. It had a happy ending? But who cares. I was depressed. Not even a comedy.

Also as a note, and I am sure you were thinking, is they quickly handle the “Oh man, what if he rapes women with this power” situation. That is the first thing he (And most males?) would probably try to do, sleep with a hot chick. Thankfully Ricky finds the situation weird because of how easy it works and decides to never do anything like that again.

“No, I definitely would not have been weirded out with the power to rape anyone and it be okay.”

1 out of 4.

When I heard of this movie, I thought “Hey, that sounds like a stupid movie. An Island with crazy and murderous people? Like an Asylum? That doesn’t make sense. Especially if it was in the past. We (As Americans) wouldn’t use our taxes to keep this facility running. We would so just kill them”.

Or at least just lobotomize them and slowly introduce them back to society.

Which is why I never watched it until now. I can’t remember, but I think Shutter Island is the name of the island, not a camera reference.

But I did like it more than I thought I would. After watching it once, I would assume that the second viewing is better than the first, knowing how everything will turn out. I cannot speak for a 3rd or more viewing however. Maybe just one more viewing, but other than that I don’t know. After that would be the M. Night Shamamalanana effect, kind of making it eh.

I actually correctly guessed the ending too, but not as detailed as it ended up being. I expected it in a much more cheesy fashion, going for the quick “oh shit” and that was it, but thankfully it was a lot more developed. I am not actually sure if Leonardo is a good actor, or just good at playing not in the present actors. Titanic. Man in the Iron Mask. Gangs of New York. This movie. All non present. He could just be a period piece dude. (Ignoring Inception and The Departed).

Also I didn’t realize it was Mark Ruffalo until the very end. Good he makes another appearance, where he does not unleash his hulk rage out on the crazy people aggressors.

Ruffalo STARE!!

3 out of 4.

(Short)
Victorian British things and I don’t get along too well.

“Not my fault. I’m renaissance.”

This I have heard is the best film adaption of Jane Eyre ever. Go with that. I was bored by the story. I liked the doorknob scene early on, but it all went downhill for me after that.

Jeez. This movie has a lot of problems, which go way deeper than no more Anne Hathaway.

Of which this site is more than happy to fix.

It seems like it took all the parts I disliked from the first movie and turned it into this sequel. The first movie had the awesome interview scenes for 2/3 of the film, and some nice witty dialogue. The end, where they went all special agents to stop a squirrel? Pretty dumb. I laughed a bunch in the first one. This one had no laughter (minus the Troll scene).

The jokes fell flat, basing them almost all on stereotypes. The order of the old ladies or whatever wasn’t interesting. Cartoon old ladies never are. I didn’t want any Granny in this movie, but we got tons of Grannies. The first movie had a lot more of the woodcutter, and that is also why it excelled. The animation sort of reminded me of a video game the whole time I watched it and not in the good way. David Alan Grier as a troll made me laugh though.

But seriously. The ending of the film didn’t even make sense didn’t even make sense. No reason to think the rules of their universe/the snacks would work that way. That was dumb.

Why do they think Hayden Panettiere is a good replacement for Anne, I will never know. But at least Patrick Warburton, who does the wolf voice, still has an awesome voice. Probably the best part of the sequel (and the troll).

Pictured: Awesome (or Moss) the Troll.

0 out of 4.

This review will be a guest review, done by the post it notes my parents left me before I watched the film.

It reads. “OMG! It is one of those watching ones, not action.” (Meaning it is a drama, not an action movie).

Quick synopsis: The Conspirator is about the assassination of Lincoln, and the trials afterwards. Mostly the trial of the mother of a friend of Booth. Shows how corrupt the law was (true story).

Their rating system, two thumbs up is as high as it can get. No mutants here (If you ignore that the lawyer, James McAvoy, went on to be Xavier in X-Men: First Class), so I will agree.

This movie is a ‘chick flick’ with Kate Hudson, the young wife from Big Love, Some guy in a lot of Soaps, and Jim from the Office.

Holy clickable links, Batman!

I obviously wasn’t expecting much from this film to begin, but all of my laughs ended up being from JohnK, as his character seemed like it was acting identically like Jim, with just a little bit less looking at the camera. The story itself is bad morally. So much cheating and lies and not telling people whats going on (different from lies).

You see, girl likes boy. Boy is getting married to other girl. Boy used to like first girl. They girl 1 and boy decide to hook up anyway. Hahaha. Something Borrowed. It’s that wedding thing, but what is being borrowed is a husband!

All the lies that went back and forth was just awkward. I was frustrated with the people. It doesn’t help that based off of the characters characteristics (what?) the wrong choice seems to have been made at the end which is also just frustrating. But yeah. Everyone is flawed in promiscuity, except one character, who I guess is flawed in his anger (probably just represents how the viewers would be acting).

Also, roughly every other scene it seems like people were drinking and or drunk. Ah yes, Alcohol, the catalyst for shy white people to make bad decisions.