Month: January 2012

The Double is another surprise movie I didn’t know I was going to watch. But hey, apparently it was about to come out, so why not watch it. While watching it took me forever to figure it out.

I think it just refers to a Double Agent. Because one of the good or bad guys happens to be one. But which one??

This guy in jail looks pretty shady.

I have been told the trailer gives away one of the major plot points. After only about 30 minutes, you will already know about the killer.

Movie begins with Richard Gere at a little league game, even though he has no children playing in it. After a certain age (and are retired), that no longer is deemed creepy, but charming. But when he gets home, bam, Martin Sheen, head of the CIA is waiting for him. I pretended he was the POTUS for the film though. No idea why.

Turns out a senator got his throat slashed. This throat slashing imitates a bunch of killings that occurred 20 years prior! Gere claims that the killer, Cassius, is dead, and it is just a copycat. But Topher Grace, young FBI operate claims other wise! Dude wrote his thesis on the Cassius killer and knows everything possible about him. Well, except for motives.

Apparently the cuts are the same way. Aka start from the middle of the neck and work their way to the sides, not from one side to the other.

Early on Cassius is actually discovered, but bringing him down is another option. Why did Cassius do these killings? Why is Topher Graces wife (Odette Annable) so trusting and hot, while working at a library? Why does each operative want to bring him down? How many people could possibly have ulterior motives?

Is this the most efficient way to stand for them to talk?

Much like Trespass, this film falls into the hole of too many twists. Pretty much no one in the film is what you expect them to be. Knowing that you might think “Hey, that is exciting. I HATE trusting fictional characters anyways!” Well too bad. The very large plot holes are way more distracting than the pretty bad plot.

The ending feels like a cop out, and the last twists just don’t make any sense. So much so that when you watch the ending your only way of walking out from this will disappointment.

For some reason I thought From Paris With Love was a remake. Maybe I’ve just heard the phrase before. Maybe the trailers back then just looked so ridiculous that I figured it couldn’t be original? Not really sure.

Sexy time?

Movie begins with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as some lame guy working for the US Embassy in Paris. That is in France! He wants to be an “Agent” of some sorts, and he does some secret mission. After successfully bugging an office, he finally gets the promotion he has been looking for. At the expense of a romantic night with his girlfriend (/fiance), Kasia Smutniak though, a local French girl.

Unfortunately first he must successfully help a different mission succeed, and he is only getting the shot because it is a time sensitive mission, and they are out of agents. Step one, he must help the american Agent clear customs at the Paris airport. That is of course the bald and extremely eccentric John Travolta.

The mission starts out as an investigation of a drug cartel that may have lead to the death of the niece of the US Secretary of Defense, but really being about Pakstani terrorists planning to attack the US ambassadors during a summit.

He also kicks some ass in slow mo.

In terms of action, this movie has pretty good action and plenty of it. Plot however could use a lot more work. I feel like with a lot of action movies, near the end, it seems less actiony, more seriousy, and I tend to care less what starts to happen. This took a lot longer in the film, though the changing of the missions was a bit difficult to keep track of at first. Thankfully it was confusing for the main character too, who never seemed to understand what Travolta was about to do. Loose cannon and what not.

Overall, way more interesting than I originally gave it credit for. Travolta can pretty much do whatever role he likes too.

In Time is a movie with a great science fiction plot, but going more the yay action movie route. This disappointed me, I will tell you up front. I think this movie could have been a LOT better had it focused more on some of the cool aspects of the world. Only thing we really know is that it is the future and somehow, the time stuff happened.

What time stuff? When people get 25 in this world, they stop aging physically…somehow. At that point they have a year on their time that counts down, they can accumulate the time, or spend it. No currency, people just spending and selling their own time. So some people who were born into wealth have thousands to millions of years available, so they can live forever. And stay young to boot.

Which is why this should make you uncomfortable. This is a rich guys mother in law, wife, and daughter, in that order.

Justin Timberlake is your everyday average guy. Living with his mom, because his dad died long ago, he is working with other people at the factories in a lesser time zone. His friend, Johnny Galecki (who they don’t even try to make look 25) is also struggling. Him and his mom, Olivia Wilde, are living day to day. That is until…

Some hot shot with a century of time hangs around the bar! JT saves him and, while he is asleep, the mysterious guy gives him most of his 100 years, except for the last 5 minutes. When he walks away to die, they assume it is JT’s fault. They being the time keepers, aka the police, and especially Cillian Murphy, who has been doing this for over 50 years.

Eventually, after some plot points, and questionable actions, JT decides its time to go all the way up to the big times. The best Time Zone. He is good at gambling, so he wins himself a lot more years. He also gets to meet Vincent Kartheiser, who is kind of the richest man ever, apparently. He also meets his daughter, Amanda Seyfried, if you know what I mean. It takes awhile to recognize that it is Seyfried too. In case you didn’t know, the chick on the right in the earlier picture is her.

So yeah. More stuff happens. Run from the law. Down with the man. Destroying the society. More people die. Questionable ending. And done!

Also running. Lots and lots of running.

I really wanted this movie to be awesome, but I had some issues with it. One was the lack of any real information to how this society could be formed. It also seems pretty unstable. For some reasons these people in the poor areas are just going to keep having kids, despite the fact that they will be pushing them into a life of poverty that they cannot climb out of, and early death, so to speak. So eventually the “workers” should all die out, and pretty quickly, leaving only the rich and no way for their society to work.

Also, the motives of JT were questionable. After an early “oh man, sad!” event, movie watchers couldn’t even dwell on the sadness. Because the next scene was already happening. The evidence the timekeepers have that makes them initially question JT is crap, because it also shows his innocence. Then every once in awhile, I didn’t know what was going on. The final “running scene” which also involved a very unwarranted death of a character, was confusing because we had no reason what they were running too.

Unless they were just running into confusion. So I think a lot of the film could have been better, but as it is, pretty disappointed.

You can really learn a lot about the world with movies. Not the bull crap happy ending stuff, and many other lines. But simple things! Like expressions. I never heard of a Dear John Letter before (or I might have in Serious Moonlight, but can’t remember). Those are letters telling your lover your breaking up with them, usually for some other lover. That adds more meaning to this movie title (Dear John, no shit). I think about that expression and I think “Man…people do dear john texts now. Even less effort.”.

“Now if only knew how to read…”

Let me just say that this is my favorite Nicholas Sparks movie based off one of his books. That being said, I still have only seen two, this one and The Last Song. Which I hated. So it didn’t have much to beat. The Notebook I own just…haven’t gotten around to watching it yet.

Channing Tatum starts off the movie being in the army and getting shot. He is narrating at this point, and tells of a story of him going to the US Mint when he was a child. He had a fascination for coins as a kid, and became a collector. Flash back time!

John starts off at a beach, meets Amanda Seyfried. She is in Wilmington, NC (whaaat) where he lives for spring break. In that small break, they “fall in love”. She even loves his dad (Richard Jenkins), who seems kind of crazy and invested most of their money into coins. Kind of obsessively.

A lot of this movie takes place a long time ago, like late 90s, early 2000s. Once she goes back to school they decide to write letters to each other. Once he goes back into the army the letters keep coming, albeit at a lesser pace. John feels a sense of duty to remain in the army after the 9/11 attacks, and constantly reenlists, but possibly just to escape his home life. He also gets mad at Amanda for suggesting his dad has Autism, just was never treated as such because back then, what was Autism? Just weirdness.

Eventually she sends him a Dear John letter, breaking up with him for someone else she grew to love. Fuck that shit. He re-enlists again, despite getting shot. After some more years of not talking, he finds out that his dad had a stroke and is in serious condition.

Can he forgive his dad for the years of awkward growing up in poverty, due to his obsession? Will he ever find Seyfried again (and you know, win her back despite the fact that she is married)? When will he ever leave the army? What the hell is up with all these coins?

“They’re mine! Mine I tells ya! (Hiss!)”

What surprised me about this movie is the layers. It is not very simple and obvious, like The Last Song (which also was pretty cheesy). It has a lot more serious stuff going on, and not everything is as peachy. The plot lines between JOhn and Seyfried, John and home (with his dad), John in the army, all interweave pretty snazzylike, and I thought that was great of writer.

Obviously the acting wasn’t that great. I think Tatum needs to learn how to make his big face show more emotion. Seyfried could have probably been any girl in this movie. Half of her lines were just narrating the letters they sent. Jenkins was great as “old man who is dying and confused and autistic” though. But ehh. Everything else could have been better.

The Thing! Because prequels or sequels that share an identical name to the the movie they are supposed to be connected with is apparently okay. The reason I hated that movie was because as far as I knew, it wasn’t billed as a sequel, but a remake. But then it was actually a sequel. Fuck that.

The Thing has taken a different approach. I new the whole time this thing was a prequel of the 1982 movie. Great. No false hopes then!

Here is a non descriptive picture of the movie.

Movie opens up in the arctic. Norwegian people are being Norwegian, it is 1982, and they are looking for a signal / spacecraft thing. But they die I guess. It is also assumed that you have seen that other Thing, so all the mystery and stuff is thrown out of the window in this movie. The viewers know. So fuck it. They turn that into a slasher flick kind of thing.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is brought to the arctic as a paleontologist or something. Why? Because Ulrich Thomsen found a life form, and for some reason picked her, damn it. Tissue samples, something new! Shit pops out and scares the shit out of Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

Oh well, lets all look for it! People end up dying, no one knows what is going on. Through like a couple of random clues, and some science, Mary pulls a Jeff Goldbloom out of her ass and figures out that “that thing!” can infect people and replicate the cells, and imitate a human or whatever perfectly. It wants to spread the disease, so it will infect others, but you know, while not trying to die itself.

Also involved are Eric Christian Olsen, who is actually wearing a shirt and playing a “scientist”, and Joel Edgerton, who is some sort of helicopter pilot.

Yes! Kill it with fire! Burn! Burn! Burn!

Here’s a fun fact. I never saw the 1982 movie. But I might. Yes, might. I might do it mostly because of this movie. But you know, I don’t like scary shit. But we will see. Apparently a lot of people who like the 1982 movie don’t like this version, because they are way different. Well, if it gets the “original” more exposure, then well done.

Despite the mostly cardboard characters (like Norwegian 1 and 2 and 3), I thought the CGI was kind of weak. I also mentioned the plot was kind of bad, especially in figuring out how the thing works. Just ridiculous. I feel ridiculous even typing that.

But even though I didn’t see the original or get any of their clues, I appreciate the hard work that went in to try and make it a real prequel. Lot of set up for the 1982 movie, and that was nice. The ending to this one was kind of meh though.

Apparently if I watched some of the trailers for The Big Year, you still wouldn’t really know what it is about. I will tell you right now. BIRDING. Or Bird Watching, if you want to be lame about it. Yes. The art of looking at birds and feeling good about yourself.

Mort importantly, A Big Year in the birding world is a competition to see who can see the most birds in a single calendar year. The competition can be state / province based, lower 48 states, or the biggest area of all states except Hawaii, and a bunch of other territories around the US. I didn’t learn these until I wiki’d that shit.

Can you tell who each of these three big actors are by just this picture alone?

So the story tells of three different “birders” who are attempting the big year. Owen Wilson plays an expert birder. In 2003 he reached a new record for A Big Year, reaching 723, putting him into instant celebrity status. Well, pseudo celebrity. Dude can find a bird like no other. He hasn’t attempted another big year since, but this year he is just going to do it for a few months, set the pace, make sure no one is getting close to his record. But will his dedication and drive break apart another marriage?

Steve Martin is a CEO who is retiring finally. Super rich, he wants to try a big year, full support with his wife, JoBeth Williams. But his job constantly is bugging him to return to the game, to fix problems, to even take another job. Joel McHale and Kevin Pollak are the corporate D-bags who continue to harass him throughout the year, warning him that after retirement, comes death.

Jack Black is the narrator and also attempting for the first time. He has trained to recognize any bird by a few notes only. He isn’t rich though, kind of poor, disapproving dad, and working a full time job to help pay for this during the year. But he is inspired to finally do something with his life. If he could also woo over Rashida Jones (who can do hundreds of bird noises on her own (I think in real life too?)), double win. Bird love. All that shit.

The movie shows the three men and their journey across America, just doing the things they love. They don’t travel together, but they run into each other enough to build a rivalry. Of course they don’t want others to know they are doing a big year, will make them no longer help them out. The movie probably sounds super boring. Bird watching. Wtf?

But look, there is some action!

Of course this whole thing is based on the honor system. Don’t have to take pictures, because hearing the bird counts as well. So it sounds like cheating may happen, and obviously it is dealt with in the movie. Not to mention Jim Parsons of Big Bang Theory slinks about in the movie as well.

But overall? The story was definitely done pretty nicely. By the end, you don’t hate Owen’s character like you’d expect. Everyone has their own appeal and their own “happy ending” so to speak. Had some chuckles, and hey, good for the whole family.

Dream House? I never saw a preview for this movie. Just new it was “thriller/horror” based, had james bond, and the poster involved two girls wearing outfits that looked like wall paper.

Alright. Sounds like nothing new, but lets see what happens!

Something religious, maybe?

Daniel Craig is a writer, but he is done with that shit! He wants to move with his wife (Rachel Weisz) and two kids to a non city area, and write! Oh yeah, he isn’t done with writing, just wants to help raise his family better. Suburbs are good for that. Write novels at home and stuff.

Well, his daughters start to see things. A man in a window? And there is someone they sometimes see outside? Turns out five years prior, a MURDER happened in their house. The wife and kids were killed by the dad who was taken to a mental institution. After further research, he was released not too long ago! He tries to get more information out his neighbors, Naomi Watts and her husband Marton Csokas, but they seem uneasy, and unwilling to help.

At this point have you figured the whole movie out yet?

Well yeah that is true. But then there is more. After all “Dream House”. The things that happen in the house, how much of it is real, and how much of it is fake? Thankfully every question is answered in the movie. Whether or not you accept the answers as good enough is the bigger question.

There goes the wallpaper clothes. Is that supposed to be scary? Just seems like they’re poor.

The movie is only about 90 minutes and can easily be broken up into about three parts. The first part is the boring set up, possible weird stuff going on, without anything actually being scary. Second part is the investigation and realization. Third part is the confusion of what is real, what is fake, and the wondering of why any of it matters. The ending of the movie is a complete mess. Confusion is what they were going for, but even when you should know what is going on, you will be confused because of poor design.

So what am I left with? A thriller that isn’t thrilling, and a lame conclusion / obvious plot line (that they try really hard to muck up). Blah.

I decided to watch this movie ahead of schedule in honor of this. Unfortunately, it is all a lie and a tease for a car commercial. Join me in never buying whatever car it happens to be. WHY PLAY WITH OUR EMOTIONS, WHY?

Wait, what is the movie called again? I think I found her.

Finding Amanda, despite being the name of the movie, is actually not that hard of a task. He finds her pretty quickly. Who is he?

Matthew Broderick plays a “succesful comedy writer” for a “hit TV show”. But his stuff hasn’t been as good lately. He also used to be addicted to smoking and alcohol. But that is all behind him. Gambling is his thing now. He is seeing therapy for it, and cant carry around a checkbook or a credit/debit card, despite it being his money. His wife Maura Tierney would be upset, you see, if he wasted it all.

So after another argument (damn Horse races!) he decides he can prove that he is over gambling. He is going to Las Vegas to find their niece Amanda, Brittany Snow, who is hooking. He will find her, convince her to go into the rehab that they already paid for and he wont gamble at all. But thats a lie. He gambles a shit ton before even looking for her.

Besides, how bad could her life be? She has a nice home, living with her boyfriend Peter Facinelli, and makes bank. Sure, creepy people, might have been raped when she was younger, and rude people. That part might not be good. Broderick also has to worry about Steve Coogan, one of the head guys in the in the casino/hotel he is staying at, who helped loan him some money to get him on his feet. But he is getting very angry.

So can Broderick convince his niece to go into rehab? Can he change his lying ways to his own wife, or will he strike it big first. Also, will anyone believe that Amanda is his actual niece when they are hanging out in Vegas?

Nope

So I gave this a dark comedy, because it wasn’t really laugh out loud funny. What you get to see is the tailspin of Broderick’s character as he is going through a huge mid-life crisis. It reminds me of the role he played in Election, but this time his downfall is pretty much his own fault and not of some young girl. The beginning started off pretty slow, but it really started hitting its stride once he found Amanda. The ending was pretty great, and makes sense overall.

Kind of also sends a positive message. What you’d expect in a movie about hookin’ and gamblin’.

POWER!

Good word to have in a movie title. Adventures Of Power? Sounds EPIC. Oh, the main character is named Power? I see what they did there. Okay. Less Epic though.

Needs more explosions.

Power is played by Ari Gold, and …wait. Ari Gold? Like, Entourage big shot, foul mouthed Ari Gold? No, that guys name is Jeremy Piven. So there actually IS an Ari Gold out there? That seems weird to me. Ari Gold is a stand up comic apparently, and also wrote and directed this movie. Alright. Maybe its a fake name? Lets assume so and move on. Just in case, I will only call him Power.

Anyways, Power lives in Lode, NM, where they get that copper. His dad (Michael McKean) is leading a strike! So times are tough, he has to live with his aunt (Jane Lynch, hippie) because of the whole no income thing. Unfortunately for the dad, Power (who has always been poor) is addicted to the horrible activity of…air drumming. It embarrasses him, and the whole town laughs at him, except for one Mexican boy who believes him.

Power decides one day to leave the town, because there is nothing for him here! There is a big air drumming competition in NYC, but he needs a team, and finds himself in Newark (After some illegal Mexican air drumming tournaments). Somehow he impresses people with his skills, and finds a team (a low member, but a team nonetheless). His dream is the win the tournament, and give his part of the earnings to his dad to help the strike team last until they can have their demands rightfully met!

While this happens, he also falls in lough with a kind of deaf girl (Shoshannah Stern, who if you ever seen a kind of deaf girl on a show/movie, it is probably her). She can feel the music, but not hear it, and with his air drumming, she can really start to “understand it”.

Unfortunately a “real drummer” has entered the tournament, and is likely to win it just by being a celebrity. Cowby Dallas Houston is played by Adrian Grenier wh…wait. Wait again. Adrian Grenier? The “main” famous Vincent Chase character from Entourage? That’s odd.. Um. Kind of freaking out. I guess its just another coincidence.

Well, the first round of the tournament is weird, but they make it to stage 2, where the entire team has to work together to play the entire drum set, each being a different drum/cymbol. They show three teams do that, and they are pretty damn epic. The final round is the endurance challenge, in which Power goes head to head against Dallas and some Chick.

Where ACCURACY matters.

Can he beat a real drummer? Did you know that air drumming is actually more difficult than real drumming? After all, with real drumming, you only have to push the sticks down, they will bounce off the drums. But air drumming you have to bounce the sticks off of AIR. That’s up and down!

The biggest problem with this movie is excepting the its reality. In this world. Air drumming is a thing, that can be shunned. It is way more popular than normal, and kind of underground, but not illegal. Unfortunately a lot of the training in Newark, the middle third of the movie, wasn’t that interesting. Beginning and ending way more interesting. Final tournament definitely epic.

But one that you might love a lot more if inebriated.

The Messenger is a movie by those Oscilliscope people. If you know anything about bad DVD cases (And Blu-Ray) you know these are some of the worst. Complicated fold out mazes, and in the middle you put the disk in a sleeve. Gross. And different. I hate different. Also some of their other movies I have loathed (Meek’s Cutoff), thought were Okay (Howl) or thought they were wildly original (Rare Exports).

Don’t act too surprised. Yes that last paragraph sentence was pointless.

Ben Foster (Who you may remember as that annoying character in Six Feet Under or the lame character in the Worst X-men Movie) is in the army. But he got injured in the war! He is young and only has a few months left on his original enlistment, where he plans on probably leaving. But hey, since he is back home, time to get back with his old fling Jena Malone!

Oh. She found someone else during it and is getting married. Well shit. Oh well, he is leaving the army soon. Not like they will put him in a high pressure job like killing people right?

Right! Its the opposite! He gets assigned to the Casualty Notification Unity for his area. Aka the guys who get to go to the house and tell someone their loved one died in combat. Well. Damn.

Not his ideal position. He has to work with Woody Harrelson who has been doing it for a long time and is in the AA. Easy enough rules to follow. No contact with the people they are talking to. Have to make sure the word killed or deceased are used, to avoid confusion, and can only speak with the assigned person. No neighbors, no friends. No dawdling/waiting. No midnight calls. Etc.

So by now you will realize, man, this is going to be a sad movie. And it definitely is. We get to see them make quite a few calls to quite a few different types of family members, spouses, parents, etc. We get to experience their reaction to all of the civilian reactions. One visit they go to is Steve Buscemi, who does not take that news well. They also meet Samantha Morton, who is now a single mother. And for some reason (probably losing his ex), Ben Foster seems to develop feelings for.

If you think that is fucked up, that is because it is. Starting to like someone after telling them their husband died? Yeahhh. No way it works out.

But hey, free temporary taxi is part of the service?

Besides the sad, its obviously pretty emotional. Just watching the reactions from the parents and loved ones at the news, and en route to receiving the news is probably worth the price of admission. Receiving the news sucks, but being the guy to tell the news can’t be the best job in the world, and this movie gives an interesting perspective that is pretty widely overlooked.

Foster is the main guy, but I think Harrelson’s performance overshadows him. You can tell that the years of the job have really wore the character down, along with the guilt that other people put their lives on the line, while he is the guy who tells others, his life never in danger himself. Surprisingly very well done piece. Glad I bought it, too bad the Blu-Ray case sucks.