Month: January 2012

Extraordinary is one of my favorite words. Especially if you say it for real, and not the shortened way (Extrordinary). Extra. Ordinary. That means beyond ordinary. It means AWESOME.

Well, for Extraordinary Measures, I figured it would be about spies or secrets or government or something. I mean. Look at the cast! Nope. It is a feel good movie about curing diseases. Damn it!

Well, at least we might get some hxc science.

Brendan Fraser plays high up not CEO but business guy who does something. What does he do? Not important. He leaves that job in the movie. But it has nice health insurance. That is good, because out of 3 children, the last two have Pompe disease. Which means something, but just picture kids in electrical wheelchairs, with a fatal disease that means they probably wont make it to 10.

But when the doctor tells him that his two children will both probably die within a year, him and his wife, Keri Russell, freak out. But Brendan freaks out more, leaves working during an “important meeting” and flies out to Nebraska to find Harrison Ford, MD. Ford is a better theorist than he is a scientist, and he believes he knows how to help cure Pompe disease. But he’d need money, and it will take awhile. Brendan says he an get him that money in a month (half a million dollars!).

Well, he only gets $90k. But that is way better than expected. So Ford, grumpy old Ford, says they will have to start their own business and lab, get money from investors, to work on this. But he needs a CEO to do it, and even though there are plenty more people qualified than Brendan, none of them would have the same drive that he has (You know. Trying to save TWO kids). So he quits his job on a gamble. Alan Ruck (who has one scene) tells him it is crazy, but you know one, you have to be crazy sometimes.

So the movie tells of the tale of them trying to get funds, trying to rush science, and do whatever it takes, even if it means their pride have to take a bashing, to find and develop a cure. For added guilt, Coutney B. Vance is a friend of theirs, who also has two children with the disease.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Alive.”

So, this is a feel good movie, based off of the real story. So here are some spoilers. Yes, they find a “cure”. Or at least one one that if administered to infants can get rid of it, but one given to older children can get rid of the dying thing (not the whole, cant walk and etc thing). Yes, the children are still alive today (Posted Jan 26, 2012, for anyone reading this in the 2030s or whenever in the future). Yes, pharmaceutical companies are bitches. Also, no cows were harmed in this movie.

I wasn’t sure if Ford was the best choice to play scientists looking to start his own biotech company. Because he just seems super old. But hey, its Fords movie, so he will be a big role if he wants to! Fraser didn’t entirely mess up the movie either. His goofiness was appropriate, and it seemed like he really cared for these fake, not really Pompe looking kids of his. But everything is expected, and really, nothing too different about this movie and other extraordinary measure like movies.

Brotherhood. Are you in or out? That is the tagline. I didn’t even notice that the “e” in brotherhood was the greek E. But hey. Frat related movie. Not gang related. My bad.

Well, technically you can probably call fraternities gangs. Right?

Lou Taylor Pucci plays Kevin, pictured above. He is a normal white privileged member of society. So of course he wants to be in a frat! Well first he has to pass initiation. They take a van full of initiates on the road, in a dark van. Their goal? To stop at different gas stations, give them a gun and a ski mask, and have them steal $19.10 from the store. That being the year they were founded. Well the first two go off without a hitch.

Trevor Morgan, or Adam Buckley (the only character with a last name. You know what that means) even does it successfully. Because there is another frat guy at the door stopping them and giving them the change. You know, they are just testing to see how willing they are to go with it!

Well as you can see above. Something goes wrong. They go to the wrong store, so a hold up actually happens. The clerk (Arlen Escarpeta) doesn’t like this, and shoots back. He also knew Adam from high school. Adam and Frank (Jon Foster) try and stop it before things go badly, but they don’t. Someone gets shot. Oh well, cover up time.

This happens in the first 5-6 minutes of the film. What occurs after that is a serious of actions that just escalate further. They obviously don’t want to go to the cops/hospital, because they are in the wrong here. But will their other frat shenanigans accidentally push this issue a lot further?

Yes. Yes it will.

From fires, to car accidents, to police, to kidnapping, to trunks, to rape, to actual robbery, to beer. Pretty much everything keeps going wrong. Adam Buckley from the start doesn’t care about the consequences, he wants to help Kevin. Frank, the fratleader, wants to do everything else. Can Adam turn his back on his frat, to do the right thing? Maybe.

I liked this movie a lot more than I thought. It was pretty damn intense from the first robbery scene on. Some may argue that the main characters are kind of dumb. I like to assume they are mostly kind of drunk, and young college students. Of course they are dumb. Thinking mostly of themselves. There is elements of “Action” in the movie, but the dramatic parts take the cake. Once the final scene happens, you can tell collectively everyone gave up the lies. They knew they were fucked. It was great.

Hooray! Another Super CGI movie based on a kids book. Only remotely of course. At least this kids book had a real plot, so making a movie made sense, unlike some others.

Fingers crossed that Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is more than just a random kids movie!

Although it might be his goal, dude should watch out. Burger might cram itself right in that mouth.

Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is a scientist in Swallow Island, or something like that. But no one likes his inventions, think they all suck! Like Spray on Shoes. But he also just makes a mess. Well, while he was a kid the local sardine can factory went out of business, meaning the town lost its prosperity. They then had to pretty much eat only sardines because of no tourists. His dad (James Caan) doesn’t really approve, show little emotion, and has the most killer moustache / unibrow combo ever.

Well no worries! The mayor (Bruce Campbell) and the Sardine factory mascot (Andy Samberg) are opening up Sardineland to get tourists and prosperity back. But after a tussle between Flint the local police guy (Mr. T), his new invention that turns water into food (kind of sick of sardines) blasts off into atmosphere…and destroys most of Sardineland. Unfortunately this is all also reported on a national weather news channel, by Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), so they are a laughing stock agian.

But eventually, burgers rain from the sky. Everyone is happy! They taste so good! But can it be repeated?

Yes. It can. 3 meals a day (or more), and everyone can be happy! Not the dad though. Thinks it is wasteful. Oh well, scientist becomes the talk of the day. They change the town to ChewandSwallow (from the book) and people even start to like his monkey (Neil Patrick Harris). Blah blah, eventually bad things happen, have to fix, learn lessons, also junk food is bad.

But the coolest person in the movie is this guy, Joe Towne. He is in almost every scene (small town?) and pretty hilarious. Voiced by Will Forte, and he deserves his own spin off.

So the plot was predictable, more or less. Morals and what not. The first half was a bit better than the second half (which seemed “too long” post disaster). But the dialogue was killer. A lot of the lines in the movie are hilarious. A movie parents wont also mind watching. At one point when he makes it snow “ice cream” and has admitted he has never been in a snowball fight. So once he figures it out? A great scene of him destroying so many kids right in the face. Hilarious.

I laughed a lot more than I expected. Not just at Flint’s inability to be social, but they made fun of a lot of things, including normal disaster movie tropes. Also, cutscenes when he was doing “Science!” were very well done indeed.

Chloe was “voted” to be my next review, so the last thing I would hope to do is piss off my readers. Even though everyone who voted for this probably already saw it, and thus don’t really need a review on it. People are probably doing this to judge me, and make sure I think like they think! Ahh! Pressure!

Oh yes. Sorry. Back on topic.

Movie begins with Liam Neeson, being all college professor like. Apparently the kids love him, cause he is a swell guy. He has to deny going out to dinner with a few of the students, because it is his birthday, and he must fly home! But he misses his flight. Which is bad because his wife, Julianne Moore, had a big party planned for him. Oh well, its not like he was cheating on her right? Right?

Right?

Well out at dinner the next day, she runs into Amanda Seyfried, who is a call girl (named Chloe!!) of some sort. After a few other “moments”, Julianne is convinced Liam is cheating on her and has a thing for younger girls. After all, when men get older they get handsomer, and women just get “old”. So she hires Chloe to bump into Liam at a breakfast area, and see if he does anything. Well he does. He talks with her for a bit.

This enrages Julianne so she sends her off to do it again, to make sure. But not go too far with it! Well too far happens. Sexy time might happen. But the descriptions are pretty hot? Julianne both hates it, but gets turned on by it. Whaat. Good thing they don’t have a son or something, that would make all of this more awkward. Oh wait, Max Thieriot plays their teen angsty son, discovering sex for himself.

Don’t let that scarf fool you. He is cool, because he plays hockey in the movie.

So, there’s a lot of talk about sex, and actions involving sex in this movie. Also a lot more Julianna Moore boobage than I expected (which was actually nothing). All of the Seyfried boobage, except maybe once, was stunt doubled. Obviously if you hate sex, or talk about sex, you will hate this movie.

I kind of guessed where it was going, and it was pretty serious. But I didn’t expect everything that happened. The acting great for the two main female leads. Liam Neeson and the son weren’t as important to the crazy wife and the call girl. Both of which open up pretty emotionally.

The only thing I really don’t get his Neeson as a professor. I can’t tell what is going on with him. He has to fly a plane to get to his home at the beginning, so I assume he works far away. But throughout the movie he keeps having to go to class, meet with teachers, etc. And it seems like he is in walking or driving distance. I figured he could have been on a long break at first, but still having to work at break? Maybe he just flies in and out daily. Yeah. That makes more sense.

Fuck You Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

How dare you do this movie?! A lot of your rolls in your past have been great, because they are iconic or easily “make funnable”. But now, not only does everyone love him, he also does fantastic in a bunch of movies recently.

COBRAAHHHHHHHH!!

In 50/50, JGL is a journalist. In his 20s! He lives with his girlfriend, Bryce Dallas Howard, and his best friend is Seth Rogan, and Seth hates the girlfriend. OH SHIT CANCER. JGL has a rare form of cancer, in his spine. Not good.

His mom wants to move in with him and take care of him, especially since the dad has Alzheimers, but he says no, he has a ladyfriend who will take care of him. The movie then tells the tale of him coping with his disease, while also trying to live his life as if it is his last days. The characters in the movie all react differently. His mom freaks out. His dad is mostly confused. JGL claims to be calm. Seth Rogen tries to use humor to hide his emotions (saw that coming). And the girlfriend looks for other ways to vent her frustration.

JGL is also seeing a medical therapist, not yet a doctor, so she is young, in Anna Kendrick. Yay Anna Kendrick! She tries to get him to open up, despite it being one of her first patients on her own. Eventually chemotherapy is no longer an option, and a major surgery must be done near the climax of the movie.

This is probably the only scene you know about in this movie.

So, the story is inspired by true events. What does that mean? The writer actually had this cancer and based it off of his own life. Where it gets real is that Seth Rogen is kind of playing himself in this movie. Seth Rogen was really friends with the writer when he went through with this, and did the same things as his character in the movie. That’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

I think everyone did a great job with the movie too. Everyone seemed real and believable, and it was easy to get attached. It shifts between serious and comedy pretty easily, so you have to be prepared for that. By the end, when JGL finally confronts the fact that he might die during the surgery, you will probably cry. (Not to your robot readers.) Very sad, and emotional, and great.

The only thing I didn’t like is the “relationship” between JGL and his “therapist”. It made me feel uneasy, because everyone knows therapists and patients should never do things. But hey. It is a movie right?

ROBOTS FIGHTING GUYS!

This is not training. This is about to be a bloody brawl.

Seriously Robot Fighting. Review done.

Real Steel is the name of a robot fighting championship. Robots are boxers now because actual boxing is dangerous. Concussions and shit. This is also in the future. Movie begins with Hugh Jackman waking up in his own sad life. He has his own robot fighter (And used to be a boxer before it stopped) and does okay. But he is in debt, especially to Kevin Durand, and needs a get rich quick scheme.

Enter the ex-wife. But not really. She is dead. Giving him custody of his son, Dakota Goyo (Thor as a kid!). But he doesn’t want the son. Who does? The wealthy aunt and uncle, who offer Hugh 100k (half now, half after the summer) if he gives up custody and watches him during their second honeymoon. Done deal. (You can see where this is going).

He gets a new sexy robot from Japan! Voice activated! And wastes all his money again. But when they boy finds an old robot in the dump that is functional, he cleans it up and demands a fight. A smaller robot, one of the originals that was more human like. Meant for sparring and taking a lot, not fighting itself.

You see where that is going too. Can they go all the way, and be the Real Steel champions? Or will other plot lines, like Hugh owing money, or the aunt/uncle wanting the boy get in the way?

FACE!

Oh yeah. Evangeline Lilly (giving this movie at least two Lost alum) is in the movie as gym owner / helpful robot trainer / has a dad who used to train Hugh / might kiss Hugh by the end of the movie / bow chicka bow wow.

If I had to change anything, it’d probably be just the first fight scene. Robot goes head to head with a bull. I felt weird watching it, even though I know its fake. Poor bull.

I enjoyed a lot of the fights. I think they could have spent more time explaining how these controls work. They go from remote control, to voice controls, to imitation, and everything in between. Just how this stuff works would have been nice.

The ending was great, and I would watch the sequel. Overall, I’d have to say Real Steel was a very solid movie.

I still refuse to read what most movies are about before watching them (Unless its super obvious like, Batman. Kind of hard to not know what Batman is.), yet somehow I am still surprised when a movie is not at all like how I thought it would be.

Case in point #3000, Wild Cherry. Look at that cover!

Okay, this is about either a woman’s football league. Or a woman joining a male football team. And Rob Schneider looks like a coach. Comedy, moving on!

Now if I actually studied the cover, I’d notice the 69 on the Shirt. Ah, must be a teen thing. The dark haired chick clearly looks fake. And wait, Rob Schneider is a dad, not a coach. Oh damn it, this a teen sex comedy.

Tania Raymonde, from LOST, plays the starlet, and she is a senior in high school. Not only has she never had sex, but she has never even masturbated. For shame. But she is going to have sex soon! If her dad would leave.

But wait. Her friends (Kristin Cavallari and Rumer Willis), while making a documentary about people’s first time, discovered a story about “the book”. The book is a pledge thing for the guys on the football team. They believe they cannot win the big game at the end of the year, unless they are all not virgins and take away someone elses virginity. The names are assigned to them (I think? Or randomly picked?) and thei job is to tap that, before the final game.

Err alright. So the girls find out, and think that is horrible. So they play some pranks on the guys and try to make the other girls not have sex with anyone at the same time.

Do I have to explain this picture?

Soo, yeah, that is the movie in the nutshell. She also plans to move to Paris after high school to live with her aunt, and there is a side story of her dad not wanting her to leave home. But the book didn’t even make sense to me. I couldn’t tell what the big game was for, or how they somehow had one of those every year. Plotholes. Didn’t seem like a “important rivalry game” either.

Most of it wasn’t that funny. I had no idea why Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World) was in here. She was some sort of teacher, that also was a sex freak? Not sure what she was teaching.

Apparently some people call this American Pie for girls. I just call it dumb.

Mystery Team I have been waiting for awhile to watch, so as soon as I found it reasonably priced, I pounced on that shit and watched it right away.

Despite the picture, this movie is not about child predators.

The mystery team consists of Donald Glover, the master of disguise, D.C Pierson, the brains (or a guy who memorized a bunch of weird facts as a kid that no one cares about), and Dominic Dierkes, the brawn (because he has to fit some role). They founded the club called the Mystery Team when they were just kids, solving mysteries for 10 cents a case. Most of the time their cases are similar to Encyclopedia Brown in nature, but finally, when they are seniors in high school, that shit gets real.

A little girl stops by after they successful find out who was poking pies, and wants them to find out who killed her parents.

What?

Well they take it anyways, because damn it, they are real detectives. Even if her older sister (Aubrey Plaza) thinks it is the stupidest idea ever at the time, because, well look at them. This leads them on the biggest case of their lives. But is it the final case of their lives?

(That was my subtly implying will they die? Or will they just retire? Whatever.)

To get into a Gentleman’s club, you must dress like a Gentleman.

This also features Bobby Moynihan and Elle Kemper (The Office) in smaller roles, as these people were part of their internet shorts.

The movie is overly very ridiculous. But I thought it great in that regard. It is the type of movie I would love to quote to others, if I thought anyone else would know it. Some may say one liners cannot make a decent movie, and to that I say nothing. Valid point. But the characters all have great chemistry with each other. I actually choked a bit on a drink at one point, from unexpected laughter.

But then again, if you see this, you could think it is the dumbest movie ever. I say risk that chance.

The Tourist is the last of the “movies I have been avoiding unreasonably” mini theme that I just came up with. Gotta love an unplanned movie shortage!

I mean, what kind of outfit is that for boating?

Angelina Jolie is some sort of spy or agent or something. You aren’t sure. It is pretty vague beginning. Maybe she is a bad guy? But she is getting on a train, and people seem interested in what she is doing.

Typical plot line won’t do. Apparently she used to be all criminally with a lover, who owes over 700 million in back taxes. But he doesn’t want to be found, so he spends 20 million on super awesome plastic surgery. Shh. The government knows this too, so they assume Angelina Jolie will lead them to him. She is told to go on the train and find a person of “similar statue, height” and make the coppers think that that is him, so that she can meet up with him later.

So who does she pick? Johnny Depp, a math teacher on vacation (a tourist!) in Italy. He of course thinks everything is awesome. Hot woman who wants to eat with him, and lets him stay in her wtf-mazing hotel? Hot stuff. Until he wakes up the next day with 2 foreign people trying to bust in his door, and get him, because that guy also pissed off foreigners.

Turns out Jolie is also working for the man, to help bring her lover in, for her own safety.

But who is this mysterious man actually? Will Depp get something popped in his ass because of it? Is Paul Bettany really fine being in a movie where he mostly is in a “control room”?

Maybe the power of math can fix everything!

So, a weird thing happened halfway through the movie to me. I realized that I didn’t hate it yet. I also didn’t like it yet. It felt way super neutral the whole way through. I never really felt shocked by the shocking moments, but I also wasn’t mad by the disappointing shocks. I might have never felt more “2 out of 4” for a movie than this one. Seriously.

I can’t even tell if I am recommending it or not.

Watch maybe?

Hooray! A children’s movie based off a book about a little girl who is “very imaginative”! That is something that hasn’t been done before!

Her hair remains that disheveled throughout the movie. CLEARLY SHE IS TOO COOL FOR IT!

Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer seems to apply some sort of new aged valley girl speak into the title and dialogue from the main character, Judy Moody, so that half of that time no one understands her. I like to imagine that at least, and everyone just responds assuming she said something else. She loves long sentences, and rhyming words in those sentences. I guess it comes with the name?

Judy Moody is played by Jordana Beatty, a natural ginger. She is possibly the only kid outside of myself at that age who actually hated summer. Because they are bummers for her. She normally has to go live with her grandmother, and old people are lame. But not this year. She has a plan. But her friends ruin that by going on better vacations, leaving her with the one lamer friend, played by Preston Bailey. Besides that, her parents are actually going somewhere “cool” (California) and leaving her with her Stinky younger brother (Parris Mosteller). And by that, I mean apparently he likes to be called Stink. Alright.

And they are being watched by their aunt who they never met, also known as Heather Graham. Heather plays her normal free spirited roll, and is a “guerrilla artist” who is bad at driving, and somehow doesn’t help Judy have a good summer.

So the movie is about how all of her plans fail, mostly because she chose to plan them and wants to stick as close as possible to her plans, regardless of what is actually going on. She is also super mean to her younger brother, who just wants to find Big Foot. I don’t see a good reason for her to actually hate him throughout the whole movie. Besides being a poster nazi child, he always seems so happy and focused. Nothings gonna stop this kid!

Not with his Blitzkrieg powers.

So I think the problem with this movie is that it only tries to capture a child audience, and give nothing to the poor parents who have to watch it with the kids. You think a whole bunch of themes will be touched, like real friendship and family, and finding out your life is actually pretty snazzy. But instead it just feels like actual kids just running around like asshats for 90 minutes.

You won’t like Judy, she is super selfish. Wants everything to go her way, and drags her friends through the mud to do so. Just wanna give her a nice punch in the face. I guess it is pretty cool that in her imagination though, she is a CGI character and not her normal self.