Month: December 2011

Hey look. Random indie movie! Not only that, but it is a coming of age story! Those are fun. And it is about a girl boarding school, not a boys boarding school? One named Tanner Hall? Outstanding! Oh and the previews before the movie are for Daydream Nation and Happythankyoumoreplease? I liked those movies! What could go wrong!

Oh. The plot and characters and boringness.

Also, all the pictures easy to find on google were lame.

Alright, we have a movie starring four girls! Two of them used to be friends as children, the other two just became friends thanks to you know, living there. We have Georgia King and Rooney Mara as the main two, but also Brie Larson and Amy Ferguson. Each girl has their own personality and boarding school girl stereotype. Of course one is super depressed, a cutter, and talks about stuff like it for attention. Another is more or less normal, but just angsty. Then there is the sexually confused one, who is never sure who she likes, man or woman. (The school has one boy student, the headmistresses son). And finally the hot for teacher student, picking on the fact that the teacher totally wants her. That teacher being Chris Kattan.

What? That guy has been missing for like, 5 years it feels like. Then he pops in randomly in some indie movie as a horny teacher? I think his role is more of a comic relief thing, but ehh. It is weird.

So, the problem with all of the character types is that they stay as types throughout the movie. No one really changes. In fact, nothing much actually happens either. Sure. They show rebellion. They sneak out of school to go to a fair, what rebels. They have lives. But ehh. Ehhh. It doesn’t bring anything really new to the “genre”, so it was just disappointing.

Wait a minute. Does every coming of age boarding school movie have a shot of everyone sitting/standing in a row?

As an added suck, it is kind of hard to tell how much time passes in the movie. Especially near the end. Just a boring, pointless movie.

Jennifer’s Body is listed in the Comedy section at Blockbuster. I think that statement is enough to show how the general public perceives this “supposed to be horror but also kinda not ish” movie.

But this movie is brought to us by the same girl who wrote Juno! It must be good! But if the same level of writing was used in both movies, it is clear what made Juno work was the actors and actresses involved, not the script.

Both movies cater to a different fetish group though.

In Jennifer’s Body, we have two friends, Megan Fox as Jennifer, and Amanda Seyfried as ‘Needy’. Dumb nick name, probably alludes to something. They used to be best friends, from the “sandboxes” of yore, and in high school, they still get along great. You know, despite the huge slutty cheerleader-ness of Jennifer, and the dorky whatever-ness of Needy. Needy has a steady boyfriend though, in Johnny Simmons, and is taking it slow.

But they go to the only bar in town to see some indie band play a gig, named Low Shoulder, with the frontman being played by Adam Brody. I have been told he was trying to imitate the lead singer of The Killers with his performance, but I really couldn’t say! Anyways, a FIRE happens, and a person dies in it at the bar! Next thing Needy knows, Jennifer has disappeared with the band, and has no idea whats going on. Then later she appears at her door, all being creepy and covered in blood!

Egads!

Then some people die in the school, namely boys. Who is doing it? Well, Jennifer is. Because she is some demon now, and only Needy seems to realize it. It is like the girl she used to know, is no longer there, but what has remained is Jennifer’s…body. Oh yeah, if you want to see both JK Simmons in his ugliest and worst role ever, this would be a great thing to pick up.

In a movie that has gore, death, Megan Fox acting, this is still the grossest thing.

So, somehow, according to the writer, this is a movie about women empowerment. But I get absolutely nothing like that. All I see is a movie trying to use T&A to sell tickets/dvds, with a pretty dumb and badly acted plot. Oddly enough, one of the reasons Megan Fox didn’t like working in Transformers is because she thought she was being exploited for her looks. Huh. Then she did this movie? Glad you have your priorities straight.

I need Amanda Seyfried to get out of these dumb teen movies right away. She was funny in Mean Girls, and was one of the stars in Mamma Mia!, but then she did this and Red Riding Hood? Stop it right now Amanda.

I have also heard this referred to as “Twilight for Boys” in the good way. What?? That would be assuming that guys only care about “hot” looking womens in their movies, nothing more. Clearly this is just offensive to guys (which may be pro women empowerment? Who knows.

As I noted (bitched about?) in the review for Mr. Popper’s Penguins, lately Jim Carrey’s movies have not been up to the same level of quality I have come to expect of him. Almost like after Eternal Sunshine, he stopped trying.

Well, I Love You, Phillip Morris is the exception to that rule.

Somehow, with the title and cover and everything, I didn’t know this was a “gay movie”.

This movie is based on the true life story of Steven Jay Russell, and book based off of his life, played by Jim Carrey. Steven was just a normal man, living in Virginia Beach as a police officer. He had a wife! Leslie Mann, and played in the local church band. But when he gets into a car accident and nearly dies, he realizes he has been living a lie. He is a gay man, and needs to live like one!

So he does that. Moves. Gets a gay man, does gay things. Even does some con artist stuff to get lots of money! But that puts him in jail. Where he meets Phillip Morris, played by Ewan McGregor! Steven Jay Russell is famous, not for the being gay thing, but for escaping from prison. Multiple times. And this movie goes over it!

Yes, what an interesting man. Finding true love in prison, escaping it on more than one occasion, and being a con man in order to become rich all the time.

You can’t make this shit up, folks.

Or this.

This movie is great guys. Not only hilarious, but the acting done by all the parties involved is great. Sure, it is sometimes kind of campy, but it is worth it. Hard to believe breaking out of prison was actually that easy. Oh the things people do for a bootycall.

If you ever saw a preview of Life As We Know It, you probably assumed it was the “unofficial sequel” to Knocked Up. Even has the same main chick in Katherine Heigl. But instead of the story of the accidental pregnancy to birth, we instead get the first few years post birth. Done and done. I guess they realized that though too, and made the plot a lot different than the previews would have you believe.

Or Seth Rogen was probably too busy doing The Green Hornet, or something. So they had to change shit.

So what happens instead? Well, Heigl and Josh Duhamel are on a blind date with each other, both set up by their best friends (who happen to be dating). They don’t even leave the driveway, before they leave, hating each others guts. Wooo, matchmaking.

But in the opening credits, you find that unfortunately they have to spend a lot more time together. Especially because their friends, Hayes MacArthur and Christina Hendricks (of Mad Men), are now married and have a child! Damn it. Even a cool new suburban house. Now that they are godparents, and both single, they just can’t stop running into each other. But what is next might be spoilers? But it is necessary to explain the plot.

OH NO CAR CRASH. Dead parents. Baby was at home! Oh guess who were put in the will to take care of the baby and get the house? Yep. Our main two stars.

Now these two people, who don’t love each other, have to raise a kid together, in the same house, in order to help honor their friends spirits. Also, Josh Lucas is lurking his pediatrician head into the mix, to try and get some of that Heigl too.

Hilarious baby hijinks time!

The movie deals with their relationship over time, until of course, they realize they like each other. But that is probably more the living together/dead friends/baby thing, than actual love. But who am I to judge? What makes this movie work is the great chemistry between Duhamel and Heigl, they are pretty great in this movie. What doesn’t let it work is everything else. The plot? It is okay. Everything that occurs is predictable. The cast of neighbor characters, although plentiful, don’t seem to add much for me. Nor does any of the drama associated with either of their jobs and future goals.

At its heart, it is more romcom than comedy, and technically all that really should matter is the chemistry between the stars. If that is all you need, then go ahead and love it. But I was hoping for a bit more to it. Despite the long time that passes in the movie, I am left feeling not enough happened.

Gamer reminds me of Surrogates, in that both featured a way to control another “person” in a different environment. In Surrogates, everyone had one, and they weren’t real people. In Gamer, they can control actual human beings! Why? For games of course.

Which is what I imagine Sims 4 will be like.

But seriously. Michael C. Hall plays some rich genius, who used nanotechnology to replicate cells inside of a human brain, meaning that they can work like normal, but robot like! And with it, he developed a technology so these people can be controlled. Slavery? Probably. His first game, Society, pretty much was the sims, but where people used their characters to injure themselves on purpose, do nasty things, or run around naked. Because what else would you do? Then he made the game Slayers, featuring death row inmates! A real shooting game, that everyone volunteers for, because if you survive 30 rounds you can go home free. Woo!

Gerald Butler plays Kable and he has already survived 27 games! Can he make the final 3? Well, thankfully his controller, Logan Lerman, is a pretty damn good gamer. But what’s that? There is also a “Terrorist group” calling themselves Humanz, lead by Ludacris, who think Hall is just going to eventually make it so everyone can be controlled by him. Oh, and also Amber Valletta plays Butler’s wife, but she is stuck in Society too.

Shits crazy, yo.

So, this will be remembered as that shitty film with Gerard Butler in it, probably. Well, shitty action movie at least. Don’t want to get in the way of his rom-coms. But you know what this movie does randomly have? A song and dance scene with Michael C. Hall, and a fight! I even found it on youtube, but can’t embed it, but you will do yourself a favor to watch at least the first half of this clip.

Bet you didn’t know that Dexter like’d to boogie.

So, even if that was the only enjoyable thing, that’d bump this movie up to a one automatically. Sure there is some other interesting stuff. But not much. A lot of the “gaming” action too seemed especially boring, which was weird. But eh, can only do much with FPSs, I guess.

The general rule of thumb is that movies based off of video games are bad. It is very hard to think of a good example. Technically Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children can count, but that isn’t live action. The only reason I like DOA: Dead or Alive is because its funny (to make fun of or watch with others).

So the stakes for Max Payne to be an awesome movie aren’t looking good, before even popping the DVD/Blu-Ray in.

Is he looking at the camera, not where he is shooting?

Max Payne stars Mark Wahlberg as the title character. Dude is a cop. His wife and child were killed. That pisses him off. Rightfully so. So he spends the next few years trying to find the killer. Once he does? He is going to give him maximum amounts of pain.

Also there is Mila Kunis as someone called Mona Sax. What a yucky name!

This movie is a disaster. Kind of CGI heavy, and I guess going for a noir-y feel. The plot is very hard to discern, actually. Was a very messy movie in that regards. Just know its a tale about vengeance, and you will get the overall message.

That guns are all you need to be successful!

Seriously though. I know it sounds like I made up my mind before watching, but this movie was dreadful. Acting was shit, plot was shit, action wasn’t interesting, bad special effects. I don’t know the plot of the Max Payne games, but if the plot is at all similar, I can understand how it would work as a game. Just not a movie. Please skip this trash.

Oooh. A foreign film. Not just any foreign film. A film from Switzerland, and spoken in German! This is a nice change up, given that all my other foreign films (but 1, Spanish) have been in an Asian language, and I actually know some German to better my experience. I especially liked that some of the subtitles weren’t translated, like when it popped up with the date, or how much time has passed. But since I understood it, I was like “OH MAN! I CAN READ MONTHS!”

Because of that, here is a non-relevant picture from the movie, that actually might not have happened.

Cargo is a sci-fi film, which means you know there might be some philosophical crazy stuff going on. It is in the 2200s, Earth is now inhabitable. Rhea is found as perfect new place to live, you know, before they can live, but it is expensive to get there. Anna-Katharina Schwabroh, who plays Laura Portmann, wants to go to Rhea. Her sister went there a few years ago and loves it. So she signs up to be a doctor on a cargo ship that is going to a random satellite station. The trip is 8 years, four years there and back, and after it she will have enough to go to Rhea!

Also it is pretty cool, that the ship of like, 5 crew members only are awake for 8.5 months. Only needs one person to run it, its pretty much on auto-pilot. So the rest of the time they sleep and don’t age, wicked cool. But there is also a space police dude on board named Samuel Decker, played by Martin Rapold, due to the higher number of space pirates out there, and he wakes up on a more frequent basis, for whatever reason.

During the last leg of the trip, Portmann is in charge and thinks she is hearing weird noises in the cargo, and think someone else is there. She wakes up the captain before the rest, to help investigate with Decker the disturbance. But then the captain dies. Shit. What is going on!?

So then in the last 2~ months of their journey they have to find out who is on their ship extra, if anyone? Why is their cargo weird? Where are they actually going? WILL PORTMANN EVER SEE HER SISTER AGAIN?

“It is awfully lonely on this ship…”

The movie was interesting, definitely. But nothing really surprised me that much. A lot of it seemed obvious. There were moments when weird stuff went on, that I wasn’t afraid of just because I didn’t know how the ship worked. When the cargo bays started moving, a couple people freaked out, but like Portmann, I was like “okay? just move a bit. and safe!”. So a bit of thrill of the thriller was left out for me. I think there also could have been more in it. I was confused by some of the characters motivations, so maybe a bit back story on some of the people would have been nice.

It is a decent sci-fi thriller, but not the best.

The Debt is a remake of an Israeli movie made a few years before it. This is Americanized though, and therefore cooler. I haven’t done much into the kinda spy based thriller drama movies, so this is a good start. Especially because it isn’t probably known at all, at least not the major actors involved.

The Debt also has two main storylines that take place 30 years apart. So, except for the doctor, the three leads who are Israeli spies are played by two people each. But as I liked the 1960s portion of the movie a bit more, I will just link the younger ones.

Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington are sent to East Berlin in the mid-60s to capture a Nazi war criminal. This doctor, played by Jesper Christensen, is accused of being the “Surgeon of Birkenau” and doing a lot of bad experiments on patients there. Genetic tests, what ever. So their mission is to capture him, and bring him back to Israel so he can be tried. Noble goal indeed!

Given that this is the past, I assume all trials looked like this.

The girl goes undercover as someone needing advice on giving birth. Eventually they succeed in capturing the doctor, but due to complications, they are unable to safetly carry out part 2 of their plan to get him out of East Germany, and are forced to hold him capture. This begins a psychological like battle between the spies and the doctor, whom cannot be killed because it wouldn’t be fair.

Thirty years after these events, having lied about the events, the secrets that occurred may finally be coming up. They have to try and stop the truth from coming out to save face, and make sure Israel doesn’t look like it has bush league spies.

This plot outline is too vague to give the story justice, but it is defintely a well crafted story. The acting is very good, and hell, its a spy film that doesn’t rely on gadgets or people just being stronger than everyone else. Just seems like normally trained people, trying to make best of a hard situation. I think the ending personally was a bit of a letdown, but what can you do.

Definitely give this movie a shot if you are into that sort of stuff. It has a bunch of German subtitles in it as well, in case you are anti-german.

“Herr Doktor! Ich habe nicht sprochen die Aushwitz und blieberin.”

The Hangover, critically, was one of the higher rated comedies by critics for a long time. So much that people would continue to compare all new comedies to it and think the other comedies are “lame” if they are too similar. I even heard someone say that Horrible Bosses was too similar to it, just because it had three male leads. What?

So does that mean people will hate The Hangover Part II, if it is too similar to the Hangover, despite the fact that as a sequel it should be similar?

Yes.

In the Hangover, four guys go to celebrate in Las Vegas for a bachelors party, and wake up the next morning, can’t remember anything (damn secret druggings!), and have lost the groom. Two days before the wedding. They have to use clues to try and figure out what they did the night before, to hopefully find their friend, and deal with all the other problems they caused.

In the Hangover part II, five guys are in Thailand to meet the brides family, accidentally end up celebrating all night (damn secret druggings!), wake up the next morning, one guy is back at the hotel, the brother of the bride is lost. They have to use clues to try and figure out what they did the night before, to hopefully find their friend, and deal with all the other problems they caused.

Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifanakis return in their post hangover and confused state, and also features a return cameo of Ken Jeong (obviously!). Also, this introduces Mason Lee, as Teddy, the brother of the bride.

I definitely think a second “hangover” movie should have a similar plot to the first. I don’t want the same cast in the same roles doing a different type of adventure. That wouldn’t be “Hangover” based! People wouldn’t complain that Nightmare On Elm Street 2 has the same-ish plot as the first one. So it should be able to fit those standards. But what is it as funny as the first one?

No.

Although I did find it amusing, it was definitely not as good as the first. It had more penises, that is for sure, but what else would you expect with transsexuals? It also introduced a monkey, which takes the place of a baby I guess. I did like that Ed Helms took more of a lead from Bradley Cooper, especially by the end, even though his world was crashing down all around him (being the groom this time). I think the beginning was believable enough for his character too, avoiding a bachelor party (bachelor brunch!) so nothing bad happens. But Thailand is too crazy for them.

As another random note, I was mad to not see Liam Neeson in the movie. After all, Mel Gibson was booted from a cameo role due to his controversies, Liam brought in. But because of re shooting, they had to redo that role again as a different guy for the tattoo artist.

So yeah. Its an okay movie on its own. I don’t think you really need the first, but the first helps. It definitely wasn’t as good, too much of the plot focused on getting the codes to get Teddy, I thought. Took away from more potential laughs that they could have had in Thailand.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins, another old story/book turned movie. I can’t say I remember anything about the book, but I am sure I have read it once in my life. It was probably a ridiculous concept book, that was turned into a ridiculous concept movie. I can tell you that the comedy present in the film is not the caliber Ace Ventura stuff you used to expect from a Jim Carrey movie, because once you go “talking out of your ass”, it is hard to top that. But there are enough decent scenes involving PENGUINS for you to at least enjoy yourself.

You can top “ass talk” if you go gay, however. What?

Obviously Popper is Jim, and he plays some sort of real estate buyer. I guess he works for a company that buys properties that owe money, and then sells them for higher if they are fixed, or gets rid of the buildings for new and exciting things! When he was a kid, his dad used to go on adventured, and never had time for him. He did communicate with him over some weird crazy “radio” thing. Silly technology.

But now he is divorced with two kids! He is feeling like a distant father himself, no good. His kids don’t seem to care, the older being played by Madeline Carroll, who was also in Cafe and Flipped. While he is trying to spend time from kids, he gets a package from his dad (from his will) and inside is a penguin? What?? Shenanigans! This isn’t good. He eventually gets five more boxes, and thats where all the zany adventures start.

Angela Lansbury plays the old lady who owns the last plot of land his company needs. Clark Gregg is the zookeeper originally called to take away the penguins, but later becomes the villain. Ophelia Lovibond is Popper’s assistant, Pippi, and I only mention her because she talks with a lot of P words, very properly, and looks way too much like Lexi Belle for a kids movie.

It’d be inappropriate to show pictures of Lexi Belle here, jerks. Instead, dancing penguins!

As I said, the humor is okay. Most of it is just “awww” based, dealing with penguins in public. I would rather the penguins not be named after adjectives, and wish they didn’t do a penguin that just happens to fart all the time. Come on movie, rise above that. Also, less Sidney Crosby jerseys would have been preferable. Only one scene really bugged me, in the art gallery. In which it showed a whole lot people seemingly being fine with standing in water that suddenly appeared at their feet, and all “what the fuck!” only when penguins were coming down as well. No one likes wet shoes, people.

But yeah, the plots ridiculous, but any penguin lover will like it. It also preaches good family values overall, and doing the right thing. Well, eventually doing the right then. First there might be some bribery.