Month: February 2012

Take Shelter is a…well it is a weird movie. Crazy shit happens, but only kind of. Crazy people happen, but only kind of, as well.

What a nonsensical thing to say!

Ahh birds!

Michael Shannon is just a normal individual. Has a wife (Jessica Chastain) and kid (Tova Stewart), and he works in a construction company. Sure, his kid is deaf and they are trying to learn sign language, but hey.

And sure, he is having some sleepless nights. Having very vivid dreams, with birds flying in weird formations, being attacked and grabbed by strangers, dogs biting him, and other giant ass scary storms! This changes his behavior unfortunately and doesn’t tell anyone about the dreams.

He secretly does make an appointment with a psychiatrist, after doing his own researching, trying to determine if he had some form of schizophrenia. Oh, and he takes it on his own time to borrow company equipment to turn his small storm shelter for tornadoes into a larger, more secure building with lots of food and gas masks and everything!

Eventually he does has to confront these dreams and decisions with his wife, but only after also losing his job and spending a lot of their necessary money.

But when a big storm does hit, who will have the last laugh?

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Writing this review bugs me because it is one of those that I want to spoil the whole thing for. So feel free to ask me later, hah. The climax was pretty powerful, and the final scene questionable. The film is about 2 hours but moves very slow. Like super slow. That is probably what would prevent me from ever re-watching. This could have been an epic 40 minute movie, which is a weird thing to say. Sometimes the long scenes help, but other times just doesn’t feel as much.

The acting though from Michael Shannon’s character is off the charts. Watching him become more and more paranoid, yelling, having the fear of the outside world once he is in the shelter. All because of some dreams? I mean, everyone knows but him that he is being ridiculous. He has to be crazy? Right? Right?

Shea Whigham and Katy Mixon are also in this movie, supporting roles, not as important.

So although the acting is so damn good, and deserves many accolades, the overall slowness of the movie really ruins it for me.

When I saw the poster for Lars and the Real Girl years ago I assumed it had to be some sort of joke. If not a joke, then some sort of horribad movie, that was on the levels of Epic Movie and other such trash. Some comedy where they have a guy buy a sex doll, and treat her like a real person? Go bowling with her maybe? That sounds stupid.

And it would have been. If it was a straight comedy “oh look at how silly that guy is!” type of thing. Instead it treats the subject way more seriously, involving social disorders, and a whole small christian town coming together to help one person.

You know. If that bitch Bianca would stop talking so loudly in Church.

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is a weird guy. He lives in the garage of his brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer). He tends to keep to himself, goes to work, rarely talks to the cubicle-mate, goes to church, sits in the back trying to not make a sound. Never goes to the parties that people throw, or special occasions. Work, church, home. Hell, despite Emily’s best efforts, most of the time he refuses to come eat meals with them. She really wants to break him out of his shell.

Well at work he finds out about the anatomically correct love dolls. Next thing you know, he is telling his family he has a girlfriend, who flew in from Brazil, but she doesn’t speak much English, and is in a wheel chair. They are excited! Sure she can stay in one of their rooms! Sure she can come to dinner. And yeah, Bianca the love doll.

They convince him to take her to a doctor, Patricia Clarkson, who also is a psychiatrist, who lets Lars know she has to come back every week, mostly so she can talk to Lars and work this stuff out. From his social disorder, she realizes no one could convince him that she isn’t real, so she makes the family go along with it. And this spreads to the church, work, and whole town. Perhaps most upset is Kelli Garner, who plays Margo, the office worker who really liked Lars, but not that he has a woman. If she looks familiar, it is because she was in Pan-Am, but that had 12~ episodes, so she probably doesn’t look familiar.

Soon the whole town is using Bianca, and she is volunteering at more and more places, with the help of Lars. Lars begins to come out of his shell, hold better conversations with people, even when Bianca is not around. But how will he cope when Bianca’s sickness turns deadly?

“This woman has no pulse!”

Overall, I was astounded at how good this movie was. The acting was phenomenal on all parts, and it seemed to capture the essence of a small Northern/mid-west Christian town. Or at least what I imagine what those are like from the movies.

This is years before Ryan Goslings more famous performances from 2011, Crazy Stupid Love, Drive, and The Ides Of March, yet it turns out he kicked ass back then too. A lot of his acting had to come from facial tics, and the way he spoke, but the whole time you felt bad for the guy and hoped he could eventually himself become a real man.

The making of this movie started out as a joke, but ended up, well, still a joke. The Grindhouse movies that came out awhile ago came included with multiple fake trailers. I personally wanted to see the one involving a Pilgrim horror movie, about Thanksgiving. But the most popular of these was a gritty action movie called Machete, starring Danny Trejo. If you have a daily motion account, you can watch the first and arguably fake, trailer here.

But why do they call him Machete?

Machete used to be a Mexican Federale, but was betrayed on a kidnapping mission by the chief, Steven Seagal, who also had his wife and kids killed. Years later he is wandering Texas, doing small work, until Jeff Fahey gives him an offer. The Senator (Robert De Niro) is running on re-election and planning on deporting a whole mess of illegal aliens, and he wants Machete to assassinate him.

But while he has him in the scopes, he finds himself shot in the shoulder by a second sniper, who then also intentionally misses the senator. Ah! Jeff Fahey is an asshole! He set up Machete, to make it look like he, an illegal alien, tried to kill the senator who was trying to stop illegal immigration!

Well Machete escapes, and goes into hiding, into an organization lead by Michelle Rodriguez for illegal Mexicans, and with the help of Cheech Marin, a priest. While Fahey’s henchmen are trying to stop him, Jessica Alba is working as an immigration officer, trying to get to the bottom of it. Oh yeah, Lindsay Lohan plays the daughter of Fahey, whom ends up having a sexual encounter with her mom and Machete, before he kidnaps both of them.

So yeah, the movie involves trying to shed light to what Fahey/De Niro attempted, and free Machete from blame. But if he can also somehow deal with Seagall and the Mexican Cartel at the same time, why not? If anything, it probably means more killing and death.

“God has mercy. I don’t!” – Actual awesome quote.

So, I know exactly what this movie was going for. Gritty feel, fake trailer, over the top action, nakedness, whatever. It certainly tried. I just think it could have been more over the top. I don’t think it went far enough. The film obviously had a big political message attached to it, and that annoyed me. I wanted a more carefree mindless action thing, not them attempting to do a political plot. Generally when action movies only try to do a plot, it comes off worse than no plot, or a really good plot.

That is why my rating is low. I think it could have been more awesome.

Remake alert!

Did anyone even know that? Did anyone even care that The Mechanic was a 1972 film? I know I don’t. Back to the violence, please.

I am cutting my original joke, because this screen shot from the movie is hilarious.

What is a mechanic? If you answer a guy who fixes shit, that is an acceptable answer. But in the world of assassinations, it is a guy who will kill and make it look like natural causes, or an accident, or suicide. Very useful, that ability to kill and make it look okay. Right?

Jason Statham is one of those guys, of course, and the movie opens showing him do that shit. He gets paid mad monies from Donald Sutherland, one of the few people he gets missions from. Good friends they are.

UNTIL TONY GOLDWYN SHOWS UP. He gives him a new mission, to kill Sutherland! Why? Because he might have intentionally failed a mission in South Africa, and blah blah plot. So he does it. Unfortunately. At Sutherland’s funeral, Statham meets his son, Ben Foster, who has that young guy rage. So JS is all, hey lets make him a mechanic too! So he uses him as bait / to help kills, get him in the know.

Sure, there’s the fact that JS killed his dad, and made it look accidental, but that probably won’t come back to bite him in the ass, right? Right!

That chihuahua is not Photoshopped in.

Overall though, the story I just didn’t find that interesting. It went the obvious route, especially the supposed “twist” near the end. That twist is actually what was expected. Not having the twist would be a better twist. But you know, billing order and stuff, that matters. Jason Statham is the star, damn it. Acting is as you’d expect for the movie.

Action scenes were fine. But its amazing how these professionals tend to have things go wrong so often, despite all the supposed planning. I guess we have to assume that in the movie, that first success he did is how it normally goes, and that every other time in the movie happens to be not the norm, despite evidence showing the contrary.

This is the 350th movie review! For 300, I was unable to review this movie, and so instead did the High School Musicals. But since the movie is finally coming out on DVD, hooray harooh.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 is the first half of the fourth movie/book/cash grab, behind Twilight, Twilight: New Moon, and Twilight:Eclipse.

Lets start with the Anna Kendrick update!

You can argue she has 1-3 scenes in this movie. But they are all in the first 15 minutes. Technically I could say she is just in the wedding scene. In the real one, apparently as a friend who just makes dumb jokes now, and in the dream one, no lines. Kinda gave a snippet of a toast. But that is all. Only a few glances in the first 15 minutes. It was weird watching her as some needy drunk girl too, since presumably she is like 19.

Only picture I could find of her at the wedding. Scarce!

So yeah, wedding happens. Very slowly. The only news that comes out of it is that Jacob is super mad (so much that he takes his SHIRT off! and runs away in the rain). That and Bella isn’t going to go Vampire that night. They are going to enjoy the honeymoon first.

You see he is mad, because that means they are going to have sex. A dead guy and a live girl.

So that wedding takes about 20 minutes of the movie. Bella rarely smiles of course (except when she sees Jacob? weird). Then they go to mysterious Rio De Janeiro for their honeymoon, which takes up at least 25 minutes of time. Yes. Honeymoon, where literally all they do is have some rough sex, and then mostly just relaxing on the beach, having fun time. Until Bella discovers something.

That she is disgustingly fat!

Yep, somehow Edward, a dead creature, that shouldn’t have blood flow to do youknowhat, impregnated a live chick. Uh oh. Shits a problem. [Side note, randomly in the beginning real quick Edward was all, oh yeah I used to kill humans a long time ago. But only bad humans. Dexter-esque, super random].

But yeah. According to random wear wolf lore, that baby is not good. It will be powerful. And it will kill Bella coming into the world. So technically if that happens, Edward would also have broken the “Treaty” between the two groups, by killing a human in their land. Killing one with his penis. (Apparently it is gray area turning her into a vampire willingly, in terms of why that is or isn’t an act of killing).

Picture: Killing Bella With Vampire Penis

At this point half of the movie is already over. If it feels like a lot of filler, that is because it is. Also if you have paid any attention to the other movies, you will know what the characters don’t.

Hmm, the only time the Cullen family tends to add a member to their ranks is because the person is already dying. Bella is going to die giving birth. She is SUPPOSED to be turned into a vampire already, because of those hooded people (who aren’t in this movie?). CONNECTION MADE. Clearly everyone knows that Edward will just get his bite on during birth, and they will have a weird vampire human baby, and she will go vampire, and everyone is alive. Right?

Wrong. I think that is what made me the most mad during the movie. That shit was obvious. They had weeks to plan this stuff. Never crossed anyone’s mind despite it happening all the time (not usually during birth). What the fuck?

The stupidness makes Jacob mad. Also, yes, that is Bella Birth blood stuff on Edward.

So the birth is weird. Apparently the baby grows freakishly fast. Like, weeks after sex it is time to go. Edward even speaks to the baby, cause he can read thoughts. During the actual birth, which is GROSS. So gross! I kind of wanted to vomit. During that, most of the vampires try to attack to kill the baby right away. Jacob, and two other wolves, and the vampires fend them off. No one gets close, no one gets hurt. Gotta love it.

I guess Bella is allowed to not smile now. The whole dying thing.

Guess what. Post Birthing, Bella is lying there dead-ish. Then Edwards get the bright idea, “OH HEY LETS MAKE YOU A VAMPIRE! YES!”. He starts biting her all over, looking for blood I guess. Finally hits it, blood becomes corrupt or something and good to go.

Also, the Wolves stop attacking. Why? Because as far as I can tell, they have some code, where they can claim a non werewolf, to love them and be there for them, as lover, brother whatever, and the tribe cant hurt them. Yeah. Jacob falls all sorts of in love with the baby.

Wait what?

Apparently the baby will grow super quickly. But ethically or morally I am not sure if pictures like this are appropriate.

How to make bestiality worse? Throw in pedophilia.

The final scene has Bella open her eyes to the picture below. I guess its supposed to be a powerful ending, but it isn’t at all. From the first movie you knew she’d be a vampire. The second one made it official, the third one set the date. The fourth one delayed the date, and ignored that fact until the end. But yes. She is now a vampire and a mom.

Of course its just part one, so I assume part two (The final movie?) will be about the swell times they have raising a family, and ignoring the hooded people. No more conflict right? Who knows.

But seriously, this movie is the worst of the movies so far. I hated how slow everything went. The first half was entirely too slow for what amounted to get married, and honeymoon sex. The second half just had them all worried about what they’d do, when they should have known what to do and just waited. That whole thing could have been like 30 minutes. Making this movie into two was stupid in terms of movie quality.

After all, if I thought most of New Moon could have been in Twilight, I’d see no reason to split up a book.

0 out of 4.

Fireflies In The Garden is one of those movies that is finished and released to a festival in 2008, but takes over three damn years to come out on DVD. I hate those movies. Similar things happened for the movies The Joneses and Leaves Of Grass for me, prompting me to download them. Don’t worry, I bought them once they finally were released. But even if I had downloaded this one, I would for sure not buy the movie later.

Teen Angst and Hipster Glasses aside.

This movie is about a family, like so many are, and tells a story in the present and probably about 25 years in the past. The story is also mostly about Ryan Reynolds and his relationships with his parents, Willem Dafoe playing the dad, and Julia Roberts the mom. Childhood was rough. His dad was mean, belittled him a lot, and gave him unreasonable punishments. His mom didn’t like it, but she was powerless to stop it.

But in the present, he is now more successful and has a beard! He is a writer, of course, and people like it. But he has a new book coming out, a tale of a dysfunctional family and a tale of abuse. Oh man, reminds me of the plot of Peep World. On his way home, though, his mom dies in a car accident, but the dad is fine. Awkwarddd.

Ryan hates his dad, and it shows it. Lots of passive aggressive talk. His aunt of around the same age is also there, kind of awkwardly watching it go down. The aunt is played by Emily Watson, but in the past, was definitely Hayden Panettiere, who had to live with them for a month or so, making Ryan’s character have very impure thoughts.

Yeah, this picture is way weirder (creepier? awkwarder?) knowing that she is the aunt.

The movie conveys a lot of destructive behavior, throughout the movie. From catching of the fireflies (And then doing what you do to fireflies), to “fishing” (with explosives), there is a big expectation for a destructive final. But nope. It doesn’t happen. Just ends. It has an ending, the ending is just lamer than expected based off the clues of the movie. Super disappointing movie, almost makes you feel like the whole thing was pointless. I hate that feeling!

Now I know why it took three damn years, I guess. Technically the relationship conveyed between father and son is pretty powerful, and what becomes of it. But its not enough to redeem the movie for me.

Pitch for this movie: “You know how we like to have former wrestlers, or action people, do emasculating things for our entertainment! Well what about a Tutu?! But not a Ballerina…a Tooth Fairy maybe!”

Surprised actually that the whole movie isn’t just him dancing in this. For 90 minutes.

Dwayne Johnson plays a hockey player. Hells yeah! But not in the NHL, the “Lansing Ice Wolves”, a make believe team that is a feeder team to the LA Kings. He used to be good at scoring and stuff, but in one fight he knocked out some guys teeth. They started to call him the Tooth Fairy, and then he turned into a large defensemen who hits hard and fights hard.

He is dating Ashley Judd, who has two kids. Because kids don’t scare him! But he does kind of tell the daughter the Tooth Fairy isn’t real, for gambling monies. So he gets a summons.

And bam. Tooth Fairy world. Oh he is being punished for making people not believe? They use their belief to actually do magic, fly, and tooth fairy stuff? Stephen Merchant is his fairy case worker, has no wings, and Julie Andrews is the head fairy, punishing him? That’s crap. He has a couple of weeks of fairy duty, in which when beckoned, he must show, sprouts wings, costume and everything.

So he has to deal with his punishment, using a big bag of tricks to get the job done, while also trying to not screw up his love life (relationship with not his kids), and maybe get his hockey career back on track, from thug to stud, before some young wanna-be Crosby takes away all the attention he used to have.

Now assuming this movie is good, it is about getting your life back on track, and hockey, and magic. Hopefully they don’t try to ruin it with some direct to video sequel.

Oh god no.

But was it good?

I have a problem with movies that claim certain things are real, despite the characters best wisdom. If it was a kid discovering that Santa was real, that can be fine. But if it was a parent discovering that Santa was real, despite years of placing out presents pretending to be Santa…does that make sense to you? Same situation with the Tooth Fairy. They put out the money themselves, and even replaced it one The Rock took it. Clearly there was a precedence of them always placing money for teeth. Yet also there are tooth fairies that do that for real, and somehow the parents also do it?

Fuck that noise. In movie watching we call that shit nonsensical and a plot hole. I can accept a world where the tooth fairy, magic, Santa, big foot, all that exists. I cannot accept a movie where they exist, and characters actions contradict their existence.

Although there was amusing moments, for sure. Watching the Rock get the teeth was entertaining, I will give you that. But even the hockey moments, of which they are numerous, was iffy. If you know the rules of hockey, the games don’t make sense at all. Penalties on fair plays, and bad plays no calls. And they aren’t that many scenes. So that inaccuracy just seems silly, especially since they try hard to get even names of the actual Kings at the time right.

Alright. The amount of plot holes and inaccuracies just ruined it overall for me. Easy fixes too. But Billy Crystal‘s two scenes were hilarious.

Hey look, an obviously bad movie in Vampires Suck. Looks like I can use the Q&A format again!

Truth talk.

Question 1: Oh gee willikers, is this another one of those Spoof movies? Does it just spoof Twilight, or is there at least some other things to look forward to?

Heck yes it is one of those spoof movies. Spoofing on Twilight also happens to be one of the easiest things to do. Seriously. I’ve tried to make fun of it three times myself, with at least one more coming soon. But don’t worry, if you don’t want to just rewatch the first two movies, but even stupider, there are also some other references to other things.

Like Gossip Girl, Buffy, Vampire Diaries, Alice in Wonderland, and Dear John. Pretty much stuff that “Teen girls” like, or at least vampire stuff. I am sure there is more stuff that I missed, but I don’t know all of the pop culture yet. Also, none of these references last more than a few seconds / quick scene, so after them it is just straight up Twilight stuff.

Question 2: The plot is just the first two twilight movies? Really? Do that thing where you explain the plot kind of anyways.

Certainly! All the characters you expect are in this movie. Jenn Proske plays Bella, and Diedrich Bader is her dad. Matt Lanter is Edward and Chris Riggi is Jacob. Also Ken Jeong plays random high up vampire guy. So yeah, the two people you might know are playing the least important roles.

Bella moves to Oregon, is all sad, likes the mysterious Edward kid, falls in love, turns out he can’t protect her, he runs away, falls for hairy Jacob, tries to kill her self (kind of but not really), makes Jacob all sad, tries to reveal himself to others, and she stops him. He turns her into a vampire, and bitches get crazy. So pretty much the first two movies. Also some villains in there. But just all of the scenes go from angsty to stupid.

Question 3: Well that doesn’t sound swell! Does the movie have any redeeming qualities?

Oh well. Erm. No. Not really. I guess it is good that they reduce the first two movies into one film, which is what I thought they could have done with the first 2 actual Twilight movies.

And that guy.

Question 4: I think you went in knowing this movie would be bad, and thus never gave it a chance. Shenanigans!

That’s not a question!

Question 5: Your mom’s not a question.

Alright, I get that the badly edited scenes and the jokes being inconsistent with the plot are on purpose, but holy crap. Why? Can’t they be wittier like the…well everything Mel Brooks has ever done?

The Ugly Truth About Cats and [Slum]Dog Million Dollar Baby Geniuses.

Sorry, I just meant to write the review title, but it just kept flowing.

What do those movies even have in common? Practically nothing. What a nonsensical intro!

Oh! Like how every RomCom is nonsensical in that these attractive women apparently have such crazy personalities or demands that they can’t find “love” and their life is so hard. Yes! Nailed it!

Katherine Heigl plays that woman! She is consumed by her career, helping run a New program. So much work. Also, holy shit, is she in anything that is not a RomCom?

Well late one night she accidentally finds herself watching a show on a lesser network called The Ugly Truth. This is where Gerard Butler tells people why their idea of love and relationships are wrong, about how simple guys are, and whatever. Even takes in calls, and will argue with them. Heigl thinks he is wrong. So she hates him. Oh surprise, their news isn’t doing so hot so the head guy hires him to do a small segment every week. Well shit.

And he is popular and he helps the show. Thankfully the man of her dreams (Eric Winter) also moves in next door to her, and he is a doctor. But how will she get him to notice her? Oh of course, Butler will coach her through it. Blah blah, turns out he isn’t the one for her, and Butler is! Happily ever after!

They almost made a hockey reference in this scene!

So yeah, another obvious RomCom, another obvious plot. So really the only thing that can save this movie is how funny it is. Thankfully they made Gerard Butler’s “honest” character hilarious, and he will provide a bunch of blunt laughter. If you are a fan of When Harry Met Sally-esque dinner scenes, there is also a pretty big moment on that scale.

At the end of the day, this movie doesn’t add much to the R Rated RomComs. It has some laughs, but other movies definitely do it better still.

Finally, the long waited next Harold And Kumar movie, that technically no one saw coming. I mean, a Christmas movie? Have they jumped the shark? The first one is often seen as a pretty funny movie, with a sequel that is kind of lame in comparison. At least they kept the the anti-stereotype humor in the second movie, but that had enough mehh and overly outrageous moments to make it lackluster.

And they killed off Fake NPH, if only kind of.

This movie takes place six years after the events in Guantanamo Bay, and Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) don’t really talk anymore. Harold is now married to his elevator crush Maria (Paula Garces) and living in a suburban home, a wealthy job, trying for a kid, and trying to impress her Mexican family and dad (Danny Trejo). Oh yeah, and he is forced to be friends with fellow suburbanite Thomas Lennon.

Kumar is still a slacker though, living with new roommate Amir Blumenfeld, who seems obsessed with trying to deflower this woman of questionable age. He also has significantly less characters in his plot that I deem worthy of tagging. Oh well, he wants to get back with his ex, but he has to change his life a bit. Because she is pregnant. Someone mysteriously leaves a package for Harold at Kumar’s door, forcing him to visit his old friend to deliver it.

And it was a joint! Yay! And it accidentally helps burn down their epic Christmas tree, putting him in a position where Trejo might kill him, unless he can replace it before they get back from Christmas night mass. This leads to a series of adventures, involving the return of NPH, Santa, the mob, claymation, and Waffle Bot.

A dangerous, yet effective “toy”.

Obviously this movie is a parody upon itself and Christmas specials. It felt short though, despite still clocking in at 90 minutes. I know why new characters were brought in, six years, new lives, but they weren’t as good as one would hope. But the return of old characters is a nice surprise, and they do a good job of creating almost “inside jokes” that you would only get if you know a bit about the actors (namely NPH and Kal Penn).

Also a big part of the movie is the 3D element, which for most movies seem like a cheesy element, cash grab, or completely unnecessary. This is technically no different, but every 3D “Scene” seems to just be mimicking the industry in general, giving it better comedic value. I didn’t get to watch it in 3D my self, but it is definitely obvious watching the movie.

Overall, I’d say it was better than H+K2, not as good as the first movie, but still its own decent stoner parody of Christmas, 3D, and life.