Month: January 2012

Heck yes. Straight to video, Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption. This is clearly the movie you have been looking for.

In fact, here is a real piece of “Trivia” on IMDB about it, and possibly the best trivia I have ever read for a movie:

This film is a sequel to the second film The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior. So this is a sequel of a prequel The Scorpion King, which is a prequel to The Mummy Returns, which is a sequel to The Mummy which is a remake of 1932’s The Mummy.

Get all of that? I linked to the links they provided. So don’t worry, I didn’t miss one.

The last picture on page 1 for SK3 is this, and the first one of the actual main characters. Go figure.

I wish I could say the guy on the left (Bostin Christopher) is there for comic relief. I mean. He is. But to me it seems that everyone is there for comic relief. I don’t think I single character is really that serious in the movie. Not campy, like a lot of The Mummy’s characters, but mostly just dumb. The main guy is played by Victor Webster, and for some reason he is a mercenary.

Ron Perlman! A king of some blah place hires them to go and fuck up another guys place. That other guy being Billy Zane with hair. Probably a Tyrant. Also is getting the Book of the Dead to cast some spells, get some ghost warriors, and become a god. Something like that. And they have to stop him!

Ron Perlman just wants the area to rule though. So he also might be bad.

He also has crazy hair!

So, this movie is a mess. Not only does it never grasp your attention (since everything seems like a Joke, despite the “Serious tone”) but it is also boring (Reader: “Didn’t you imply that with never grasping your attention?” No. No I did not). Plot is stupid, no one acts good, and not even funny.

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME RON PERLMAN? YOU CAN DO GREAT THINGS. YOU WERE HELLBOY!

But he must have money problems or something. Because he seems to take every movie that comes his way.

Or maybe he is just bored, and realizes life is short, why not make some (a lot of) shitty movies?

Well Fuck.

That is kind of what I said after watching this movie. I mean. What did I just see? Is it super deep? Is it very dumb and predictable? I don’t even know!

Here is a very patriotic picture of the disk?

Beginning of Removal starts off weird. Billy Burke is naked and bloody, and there is a dead woman in his shower. Also, he then kills himself when Mark Kelly(I will call Cole) shows up on the scene. He is a floor/rug cleaner.

Shortly after that we find out that Cole is kind of crazy. He has hallucinations in his head. He went therapy, but his wife doesn’t feel safe and she wants him to have more. But he says screw that, he is good, too expensive.

ONE YEAR LATER.

Cole is still a cleaner. After working his third double in a row, he is forced to go to a rich guys mansion, just to do an estimate. Rich guy, Oz Perkins, however says that he will give him $5000 extra, in cash if he cleans it all that night. By himself. Sketch, yes. Especially once you find out that no one has seen the rich guys wife in weeks.

Hmm.

And really. That is all you are going to get. A lot of things happen in that night. Including surprise rooms. Possible hallucinations, possible crazy people. Who is to say really?

I just found out the naked dead guy also plays Bella‘s dad.

So there really isn’t much to say. I had a hard time deciding if I liked it or not. I also had a hard time figuring out what happened. Thankfully I talked it out with my mom (Yeah!) and have concluded on what I think happened in the movie. So there is that. Some may argue the movie doesn’t really end either. But I am not sure at all.

So I say it is worth the one watch. Preferably with someone else cause you will probably want to try and find out what other people thought about it. But then again, there is always me.

“Inspirational sports movies” has got to be one of my favorite categories of movies. They are usually long, have drama, and sports! And they hopefully make you feel good at the end. Also preferably with nice quotes during locker room moments, you can you steal their good words later when you are playing a non important Intramural game or maybe even a video game.

Jeez, I pretty much like most of the ones I have seen too. I did not like We Are Marshall, Gridiron Gang, or Miracle though (even as a huge hockey fan). Seemed like they were just copies of other things I had already seen, don’t care if they were “true stories” either.

Moneyball is another “True Story”, based on the Oakland As of 10 years ago going for a title, with little money, and a different way of evaluating players. I’d say the biggest problem with it is that it is so soon, and MLB, so even if I hate baseball, I know enough to know that the team hasn’t done squat after when this movie takes place. So very disappointing in that regard!

But hey! Those movies didn’t have a serious Jonah Hill.

Shit. But each one of them had an action star as the head coach. Oh, what? Philip Seymour Hoffman is the coach/manager, but Brad Pitt is the GM? Thank god.

So Pitt is the GM, and just saw his team lose in a best of 5 series after going up 2-0. Shame. They are losing their star first baseman. With no real payroll available to find one guy as a suitable replacement. Even though trades are attempted, including with the Indians. Pitt sees Jonah Hill in the corner, and thinks he is secretly calling the shots, so he finds him, talks to him, and buys him from the Indians to be his assistant GM (a huge upgrade). He is a Yale graduate in Economics, and think the best solution to replacing the first baseman is to bring in three different guys, undervalued. None of which play first base.

Chris Pratt plays the catcher, who no one wants, and has to change position. He also has a smaller role than I would have expected, but does a nice job of being “Serious”. Stephen Bishop plays David Justice, a “washed up” athlete who the Yankees cut, and therefore the As can afford.

Of course since this is based on a true story, all the trades / transactions that happened in the movie, actually happened, and it isn’t just a team of misfits, like The Replacements or Major League. But the movie is about the first attempt to try and rebuild a team through this new method of evaluation, and their quest for the world series.

Chris Pratt’s character may be important.

Overall I thought the movie was very well down. I think people argue on whether or not Pitt acted good, or acted at all. They try to show his character to have a lot of past demons, based on his own dealings as a MLB player when he was younger. I thought he did a good job, like most of the leads. I think the manager character was probably way too stubborn in all of the talks with the GM, but hey, what do I know?

Movie is over two hours, and has a touching ending too, and I think is interesting enough. Don’t even have to understand much baseball to get it. Hitting percentage is probably the easiest thing to grasp, and one of the things talked about most.

But I might have enjoyed a fictionalized movie about this more, just to have a better outcome.

I know what you are thinking. “This is just some dumb Romantic Comedy. What’s Your Number? What is with movies that ask questions in the title!?” Or something like that. But probably not. Probably just never heard of the movie. That is the simpler guess!

But hey, it also has enough T&A for the fellas and the ladies, so even if you are shallow you are covered.

Covered. Like a hand towel.

Anna Faris is a dirty dirty whore. Or at least that is what she thinks of herself after reading in some magazine that at most, most women sleep with 10 guys. Women who sleep with 20 or more have a high percentage of living alone! Shit! She has slept with 19 guys, more than all of her friends. The self esteem issues she faces even drives her to get a boob job (Oh wait. No, that was real life). Doesn’t help that she seems to change everything about herself when she meets a guy too, instead of being herself (Ending moral alert).

Her sister is getting married (Ari Graynor) and so she gets the great idea to try and see if any of her ex-boyfriends are awesome now, and try to reconnect with him. That way she doesn’t push the number over the “limit”. With the help of her equally (or more) promiscuous neighbor Chris Evans, she sets off to find the people on her list, to see if she can save herself!

Its amazing how many famous people she ended up seducing/dating/spending one night with. Including Zachary Quinto, Joel McHale, Andy Samberg, and Chris Pratt (which is a great side story), and even Aziz Ansari (Who we only get to hear on the phone, but its obvious it is him).

Also, Alcohol is involved in a lot of her decisions.

I won’t say how it ends, because you know how it ends. But I actually guessed it would end a slightly different way than how it actually did, so bam, I got owned.

I think Anna Faris spent a lot of work trying to make sure the movie was funny (and might have done it because she wanted to be in Bridesmaids but didn’t make a cut? I cant remember). Something about woman power. But I did laugh a bunch, mostly at stupid stuff, but I found it funny. Not at all close to any sort of typical RomCom. Of course one disadvantage is that if you hate her voice, you will hear it a lot, and it will suck. But she is a mostly likable star, and has good chemistry with Evans (who is a bit less Douchey than he normally appears).

But hey. Slackers rejoice. And I will rate this as I feel fit!

Killer Elite is based on a “True story”. Or an alleged true story. The Feather Men, a novel that came out in 1991 by some “British Adventurer” telling the story of a group of killers called The Clinic. That is all Wiki told me however, and I don’t think I heard “The Clinic” at all mentioned in the movie. Not even sure who they are supposed to be?

But if I had to pick one person to be a Feather Man? I’d pick him.

So some Mercenaries are in Mexico in 1980, killing some people. Jason Statham, Robert De Niro, and two other guys. Statham retires to Australia, but is force to come back a year later when De Niro is captured! According to “The Agent” (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who I will always call Mr. Eko) he accepted a 6 million dollar mission, but failed is going to get executed. Somehow, the only way to save him is to finish his mission.

He has to find three former Special Air Service (British shit, SAS) members, record their confessions, and then kill them but make it look like an accident. Shit. Thats hard stuff. So he gets the other two guys and they try and do that. Them for the money, him to save De Niro. The actual feathermen are a secret society of former operatives, that look out after their own, lead by Clive Owen. They are gonna try and stop them too.

Oh yeah, an Yvonne Stahovski is the girlfriend of Statham (or Sarah from Chuck) but she isn’t in the movie that much, really.

But there is lots of everyone else.

So although a lot of the tactics / assassinations, and “plot twists” were interesting, I think the biggest problem was just the ability to really understand what was going on. Name dropping stuff like SAS at the beginning, and going very quick to set up the plot made it harder for me to figure out what was going on. All I really know is that he had to kill these 3 dudes, or else. I mean, hey, that can be enough for you to go. But there was lot of military British stuff, that I just could not understand. Especially since this all takes place in the early 80s.

But other than that. It was more or less well paced.

To understand the important of 1911, is to understand China. I guess. You know how much they apparently love number symbolism, with the 2008 Olympics. THis movie was theatrically releases in 2011, 100 years after the events of the movie. It also happens to be Jackie Chan’s 100th acting appearance. Coincidence? Or Jackie Chan?

Often considered to be the Chinese Chuck Norris.

This movie is about the 1911 Revolution in China, which overthrew the last Dynasty (Qing) and lead to the creation of the Republilc of China. I think Dynasties existed for about the last 2000 years before that, so this was a big change indeed. Dynasties, however, are why there are so many historical Chinese movies from way in the past, full of war. So Dynasties, great for entertainment, bad for “freedom”.

Anyways. There are tons of characters in the movie. In fact, during it, a person will often start talking and on the side it will display their name and title, even if they are only shown once/have one line. If you are watching this movie with subtitles, it can be very distracting. Often instead of showing actual events, giant subtitles will pop up in the middle of the film, (usually when no one is talking thankfully) to explain what happened. Blah blah group got killed, blah blah happened, etc. This happens a LOT.

It was already a movie I was reading, so reading more wasnt the problem. Just seemed to take me away from the action. In American films usually that type of thing is only done at the end, to explain what happens next/after the movie. Not during the movie that they dont want to show. Just seems weird, like it could have been done way better.

Thanks to his goal of making it factually correct, I guess, Chan doesn’t fill it up with silly martial arts either. There is zero of that, but a few gun fights.

But that becomes the bigger problem. Boredom. It seems like a long history lesson on this event that, while important (maybe), just isn’t that interesting. A lot of the fighting was done with politics and arguing, and getting monetary allies. That is all. That could be entertaining, but it wasn’t in this movie. Bingbing Li played the other main role in this movie, but it didn’t seem to be particularly great, her role. There was a lot of scenes filled with people just yelling things at each other, as if their emotion went from dull to AHHH and no in between.

Here is a picture of Bingbing, you’re welcome!

Despite just watching a movie on it, and actually liking History (I majored in it), I cannot say I know anything more about the 1911 revolution than I did before. Well. I now know it was the Qing dynasty that was last? But uhh, that is about it. So I feel like having retained zero knowledge of the actual events seems to be another fault of the storytelling.

Hopefully Chan will get over his period piece obsession, and do something modern, if only to break up these films.

Dumb titles aside, Sinners and Saints does what…well, a lot of movies seem to be doing since Katrina. Apparently a post-Katrina New Orleans is a gritty, bad place to live. Or maybe the gangs are bad there, and the cops are the most dedicated (for not moving?) that they all warrant movies, fictionalizing the neighborhoods.

Even pre-Katrina though, I have found New Orleans “Area” to be yucky. So I hate seeing the same area, just “worse looking” on my movies. Thats all I will say on that!

Hey look, violence!

I am feeling lazy, so here is the plot from IMDB!

In the gritty New Orleans underbelly, beleaguered Detective Sean Riley (Johnny Strong) is trying to cope with the death of his young son and his failed marriage. Facing a probable suspension from the department, Riley is teamed with a young homicide Detective, Will Ganz (Kevin Phillips), to help solve a series of brutal murders that have plunged the city into a major gang war. The two quickly realize there is something much bigger and far more sinister going on than either could have ever imagined.

There is also Costas Mandylor, playing another cop dude, and Method Man, playing a gangster with a disfigured face. I looked very hard for a picture of it, but alas, the internet does not giveth.

I want to describe the brutal murders though. Usually they involve strapping someone to a chair, dousing them in gasoline, and of course, setting them on fire. They keep finding people burned and dead in chairs! That is fucked up. And messy. NO is crazy.

I can’t help but think this is the work of Drew Brees!

The film I only found kind of interesting. The low budget of it really took away from the story from me. Tried to make it seem even grittier than it needed to be. Not a good feeling.

Or I don’t love it from my distaste of the area. One or the other.

Where The Wild Things Are is a “classic children’s book” about nothing at all, really. Just a wild kid, who gets punished, and has a lot of imagination. That is about it. Pretty simple!

And man, his imagination is quite the party.

But theres more. Before he wears the wolf costume, and goes to wild land, Max (played by Max Records) is weird at shit. Starts snowball fights and cries when he loses. Then he bites his mom (Catherine Keener) and gets grounded. Then somehow, WILD LAND.

Lot of weird wild things, mostly looking like the books. And they all seem childish too. The “main one” was voiced by James Gandolfini.

So plot? Eventually Max becomes king, just by saying he is King mostly, and by lying. And he is bad at it. Eventually he is lonely and goes home. The end.

This movie is kind of fucked up. Not at all a kids movie. Kids might like it just because “Ooh, wild people!” in costumes doing stuff. But the kid in the movie is pretty damn near insane. He seemed psychotic to me. He is horrible at home, from what we see, and he is more horrible when he has no one to tell him what not to do. He even seems to laugh at the pain he ends up causing to the wild things.

The wild things are also screwy, they all are just depressed individuals. I am not sure what the movie is going for, but it is not a good feeling, that is for sure. It is very deep, and uncomfortable, and I hated it as it happened.

There is pain in his eyes.

By all means I may have missed the point, but this is definitely not a movie I was hoping to see a giant deeper meaning behind. The only reason I expect a better story from something like Transformers is that they have had series (namely Beast Wars) where about halfway through the first season, the writing in the show kicked it up a huge notch and became a work of art. But this went from kids book to movie, 50~ years later almost.

Just felt odd the whole time, and I did not have a good experience.

Obviously I have a wide arrange of movies readily available to me, and this is one of the first I had the chance to see. I passed it up though, at the time, because I wasn’t yet set in the “Watch everything always, damn it!” mind set. It just looked like it would be dumb, and cheesy. The Warrior’s Way is a nice title, but for a movie like this? Yuck!

Actual scene from movie.

Dong-gun Jang (who will be Yang, from here on out) comes to a small town in the west, pretty empty, pretty much just a circus. He is a member of an assassin group, and wants to be the best swordsman in the entire world. But in doing so, he must defeat every member of an opposing clan, and when he gets to the last member, a baby, he cannot do it. He is outcasted from his own clan, and goes on the run.

At the carnie-town, he meats the mayor (Tony Cox), the local drunk (Geoffrey Rush), and a ill tempered woman (Kate Bosworth). After some time, (and training of some townspeople), The “Colonel” (Danny Huston) comes back to torture the town. He frequently raids them, and kills as he pleases.

Blah blah blah, he helps them fight back, gain the courage they once had. Eventually the assassins also attack, which makes the fight more fair for the town (as the two groups fight), while Yang tries to kill evurrybuddy up in this joint (minus the carnies). Redemption is eventually had. If you want a stupidly long plot summary, for some reason they wrote a book about this movie on Wikipedia.

Awww, look at the baby.

Alright, so the plot is pretty bad. The acting, not the best either. I am pretty sure the entire movie was filmed in front of a green screen too, similar to 300. Nothing seems real, and I think that takes away from the experience of really getting into the movie.

But the fighting. OH MAN THE FIGHTING. The action scenes in this movie are the only thing saving it. Yes, a lot of it becomes “CGI fighting scenes”, but they spent a lot of work on them. Probably all of their work on them. Even the small skirmishes were visually entertaining in the movie.

I am not saying this makes it a great movie, by all means no. But usually a “2 out of 4” means it is okay, or worthy of only one watch (as you probably wont want to see it again). This is more so the “one and done” method, not the decent method. I’d say watch it cheaply if you can for the fight scenes, with a bunch of people. You will go “ooh” and “aah” like trained seals.

The Roommate tries to capture that niche audience of people who have ever had a roommate. Which I would guess is a lot of people. It takes the sentence “You think your roommate is bad, well check out this bitch!” and runs with it.

Oh god, she is so crazy!

So Minka Kelly goes to college! Yeah! Far from home. Has a dead older sister too. That is important. Her roommate isn’t there when she moves in, so she goes out to party, with other hall mates, like Aly Michalka, a drunk slut, and meets Cam Gigandet, a fray boy in a band.

When she gets back, she hits a bag, and bam! Leighton Meester is all chirpy and whats up! Wooo! So Leighton seems to be needy, and lonely. She wants to hang out a lot, and doesn’t approve of Minka doing bad things. In fact, they made up a social networking thing for their laptops, just to show that she was crazy by already making her roommate in the “best friend” spot.

I feel like that is enough of the plot. Eventually crazier and bad things happen, until (spoiler?) the roommate is killed and they can all go on with their lives.

Here are some things I dislike. Its rating is again PG-13, so although everyone can be promiscuous, and slutty, nothing is shown, so its like a tease the whole film.

Also shit like this. And 2 or 3 shower scenes. What?!

But this movie advocates something also that is horrible, and so you shouldn’t watch it. In the movie we find out that Leighton DOES have a disease/disorder whatever, making her all weird. In fact, apparently it is curable, if she takes pills she will be fine. We learn all of this. It is assumed she never takes the pills though, and that is the problem.

ASSUMED. But also once the discovery of the pills comes up, it is NEVER talked about again. Not even taking the roommate aside, especially if Leighton is fond of Minka, and going “Hey look, lets take the pills” and being there for her, or something. They never tell her to do anything with them. Instead after they find out, more weird stuff happens, so Minka leaves the room for good, causing Leighton to flip out and go real crazy, until she dies.

This movie condones killing people with disorders, even if a cure is readily available.

That is all.