Day: October 12, 2011

Surprisingly, this chick flick / comedy thing is only rated PG. Just seems weird to see.

You Again tells the story of Kristen Bell, having a shitty time in high school and moving away to become successful. Unfortunately, after she gets a sexy new promotion, loses the glasses and acne, and is less of a nerd, she goes back home to find her brother about to marry…her high school nemesis! Oh noes! But has she changed? Why doesn’t she remember her?

How could she forget such a face?

So cue a movie of hilarity of seeing if people change, if its right to bring up the bad past of a changed person, and other high school dramatics. Jamie Lee Curtis is the mother of Bell, and Sigourney Weaver the aunt of the nemesis. Turns out those two also had a high school falling out. You again!

Overall, the movie is pretty predictable. I enjoyed it for what it was for the most part. I would have given it a solid 2 out of 4. That’s a passing grade folks. But the ending. Oh did I hate the ending. The bully was a bully to Bell all of high school, and ten years later she is still a bully to her. She has different reasons, but she maintains the bully thing despite claiming change. She only apologizes and changes once everything goes to shit. Once she has lost it all.

So at the end (spoilers) she still gets the marriage and everyone is happy. Fuck that. You don’t deserve that shit. That is just her getting to have a worryfree life, except for that one moment. She may even be a cyborg.

There is no basis for me to call her a cyborg or to use this picture.

There are other smaller cameo roles here, such as Betty White, Victor Garber, and Kristin Chenoweth. Also, crazed ex played by Kyle Bornheimer was great. But overall, that ending made it bad.

Four comic book movies came out this summer. Green Lantern (DC/WB), X-Men: First Class (Fox), Thor, and Captain America (both Marvel). Unfortunately for the Green Lantern, it has to be compared to movies of a similar type and it fails. All four movies are “origin” movies as well, so it cannot argue established characters. Well, kind of for X-men, but that is still a reboot. Even when comparing it to older films recently, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 are more interesting, along with of course Hellboy II and Dark Knight. Clearly I might just be trying to get as many links as possible in this first paragraph. If anything, Green Lantern is better than that OTHER DC movie. The one who’s name shall not be spoken.

Green Lantern is better because I can say Green Lantern without feeling sad.

Ryan Reynolds stars as the titular character, as only his second different comic book character, leaving him way behind Chris Evans. The film goes back and forth between being a universe protection, special Green Lantern Corps space army thing, and just regular earth hero. Unfortunately he doesn’t do much super stuff in the movie. He stops the overall bad guy (spoilers). He saves the chick he wants (Blake Lively) from a helicopter crash. And he kills three people who are mugging him with a green punch. Sure, flight, space travel, all that is fine, but we ex-

WAIT WHAT?

He KILLS three regular people? They didn’t even have weapons, just a outside bar fight. That is unacceptable. It doesn’t show him “kill them”. But from the force of said punch, combined with the speed they flew and what they hit (one guy THROUGH a brick wall), there is no hope for those guys.

The main, lesser villain is played by Peter Sarsgaard and is just creepy. He never seems intimidating, just gross. Tim Robbins is also in here, but he doesn’t do too good. The movie is filled with normal cliches and tropes (oh wow, one random lesson I learned earlier helped me win overall! Also, the final boss was easier than expected, despite being scary and “coming closer” throughout the movie. Also, the ugly people die). It barely touched on the fact that yellow was his weakness (instead yellow = fear, and don’t be afraid, or else your will would lose.)

This page is now protected from Ryan Reynolds.

I am told that WB said that despite the poor profit gain, they will go for a sequel anyways. They are going to make it darker and grittier too. Because clearly that’s how all Superhero movies should be.

A lot of the time lower budget movies will have less money. Almost 100% of the time that is true, actually. This is not an exception. Most of the time the grittiness from lesser cameras works against the overall appeal of the movie, but this may be one of the cases where it kind of makes it better.

I am not a fan of most action movies, especially the ones who try to think they are better than action and try to have a plot, but the plot usually fails. Overcomplication is probably the problem. Arena says screw overcomplication. Lets have some bloody fights!

Like this. But less fat people not wearing shirts.

In this world, there is an underground fighting network called Arena. It is secretly located but broadcasts over the internet. After all, the most interesting fight is the fight for survival. The organization, lead by Samuel L. Jackson, kidnaps the downfallen of society and trains them to be brutal and fight other combatants. The audience votes on if the loser should be killed, and also bets on the outcome, generating income for Mr. Jackson. No one wants to be in here, as it means certain doom. Thankfully Kellan Lutz is promised freedom if he wins ten fights in a row, including killing blows.

There are a few twists in the movie, but nothing to write home about. The endings you cannot predict, because they purposefully don’t show you any clues that would suggest it. Daniel Dae Kim is in this movie too, as a prisoner/fighter, although uncredited (at this point? Probably by request).

If you like bloody violence, the fight scenes in this movie feature a lot of blood. They fight in computer generated scenes, with real weapons, based off the surroundings. The construction site weapon choices were particularly interesting. A lot of the fights are cut short, but that is because over 10 fights with one dude to the death would be ridiculous to watch completely. Also, if you like a whole bunch of naked womens, this movie has a bunch.

It also has a few, not so subtle, references to other movies.

You could argue that this movie explores how acceptable violence is in America, and the downfall of society, but that would just be bullshit.

A long time ago I saw the Kevin James stand up special, Sweat the Small Stuff on Comedy Central. I thought to myself, man, he should be in movies. He could totally be the lead of a great comedy.

But then they gave me Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Right here he is doing way more work than expected of a real mall cop.

Movie had a lot of potential, but was probably ruined by being PG. Oh well. But then I get The Zookeeper. Damn it, another PG movie! Rating is going to be my whole basis for why this movie wasn’t as funny as it could have been .

In this movie, there are no magical properties given to Kevin James, it is just that animals can always talk and choose not to talk to humans. Fucking selfish animals. But because Kevin James might leave to pursue the woman of his dreams who also treats him badly, they decide to help him out. Because if he leaves, there will only be shitty zookeepers!

One of the first images to pop up when searching for “shitty zookeepers”.

Bring on a bunch of “hilarious” antics from Kevin James as he tries to woo her back over using time tested animal techniques. He has a hard climb, competing against Joe Rogan, so eventually he realizes being an asshole is the best way. But after morals kick in, he makes the obvious better choice of Dr. Rosario Dawson and everyone lives happily ever after. Also Ken Jeong is in this movie, and still creepy.

But really, the story is completely obvious with where it is going. Half of the animal voices sound horrible to listen too. It offers up pretty much nothing new to the family friendly talking animal movie. But also, Rosario Dawson not being his first choice is just redonkulous anyways. I did laugh at the first scene for sure though. And the ‘kick’ scene at the end.

I must say I have actually been bamboozled into watching this movie. I got excited. I didn’t look at the cover, but when I saw the tagline “Even a Serial Killer Can Win The Lottey” and found the first Lucky movie I could find, I found this. Huh. That sounds interesting. Especially if a serial killer DID win the lottery!

Oh. But I got this. Damn it, this is just a regular comedy about a serial killer who also wins the lottery! Oh well.

Colin Hanks plays the lucky man. Which I think we need to examine in itself. He plays a Serial Killer in this movie. While also playing a Serial Killer in Season 6 of Dexter. Is Colin Hanks being typecasted as a Serial Killer? Well. I guess there are worse things to be typecasted as.

Like how Flynn is typecasted as a rapist.
Typecasted by me.

He hasn’t killed many people, but one of the people he does kill has a lottery ticket which ends up winning the big bucks. All of the while, the love of his life not only lives across the street but also is his boss at work. She doesn’t give a flip about Colin, and maybe that explains why every. single. person. he. kills. is similar in height, body type, and looks to her? Maybe. I am not a psychologist.

After he makes it big, she of course falls for him. Using her charm, she naturally gets her way back into his life, so that they can marry and live in luxury! The woman is played by Ari Graynor, who I have seen in other films but never really remembered. To me she made this movie. Her fantastical crazy spirit really did it. From bitch, to fake wooing, to figuring out he is a killer, (to afraid), to crazy. All of the emotions are set to eleven, and it is apparent she is actually working that character.

The ending was kind of unexpected. In a good way. Jeffrey Tambor plays a detective looking for the dead woman killer.

Maybe what I like most is that this film asks the eternal question: Which is worse, a serial killer or a gold digger?

We all know Kanye’s answer.

2 out of 4.

This movie focuses on a about a week in the life of a West Philadelphia Café. About 96% of the movie takes place inside this cafe, through the conversations of the patrons. This is probably the most diverse cafe ever, as it has more than just hipsters.

These are the normal Cafe patrons that I am used to.

Movie magic is the only way to describe how Jennifer Love Hewitt can be a barista. Jamie Kennedy she was dating at the time, so he is also in this movie as “sketch guy”. There are tons of characters though, from guy who looks like a fat Jemaine who is flipping out about reality, to lady trying to hire people for some urban kids program, to a cop, to his drugged out cousin, to two strangers who met at a movie, to a writer who just wants to write about whats going on, to the other barista who really wants some of that Jennifer Love Hewitt.

This movie opens with tragedy, and then starts off a few days earlier so the viewer can watch the events that transpire up to the tragedy. You know, because it wants to be a non nonsensical movie. The part that intrigued me the most when I read the cover was that the last line of the synopsis mentioned something like: “…and then they even begin to question if their lives are even real.” What?

WHAT?

Is this some drama/sci-fi movie out of no where? I watched it just to find out.

Well. “Just” is a strong word.

Turns out that last line ends up being a lot more than just some smaller thing, but a big piece to the whole movie. While watching it, I was able to guess certain events would aspire. Parts are definitely cliche, and parts are just silly. The ending however is off the wall. While it is happening, you think it is just a piece of shit obvious ending. “Oh no, don’t do that!” you will say to the movie. Then it does it and you get mad. But then it goes just one step further to give a different ending than you may have expected. That is why I am giving it a higher rating. It is trying to go for something different, despite the cliches. I like trying.

Also a big shoutout to the chick from Flipped, for being in this movie as well. She’s gonna be a star!