Month: April 2012

Definitely a movie that I only heard about once before, and just kind of said “eh, fuck it! Lets watch.”

Can’t say I expected much out of 4.3.2.1. Just knew it was some sort of drama/action movie, involving maybe a heist and four different girls with their own storyline.

Which, I guess, is a lot to know about it. Also a British movie. But overall, expected something average and found it to be pretty good.

Look at how unique and different they are!

Beginning scene quickly introduces us to the main characters. When they walk away from the diner, it breaks into each character separately, telling their story for the next three days (Friday-Sunday), until they meet up all again.

First, Shannon (Ophelia Lovibond) goes hoem to find her parents getting divorced. Or at least her mom is leaving them. It was all in a note, but one of her friends accidentally got it. Over her weekend she has a depressing time, no one to hang out with, and gets attacked by muggers in the street over some diamonds she supposedly has. Thinking her friends no longer like her, and other problems, she wants to commit suicide.

Cassandra (Tamsin Egerton) is going to NYC to meet her internet boyfriend. This also has a Kevin Smith cameo on the plane, out of no where and awesome. Turns out her internet boyfriend isn’t real, but a prank. Well she doesn’t like that.

Kerrys (Shanika Warren-Markland) is a lesbian! And doesn’t give shit about nobody. She watches Cassandra’s place for the weekend, is the bitch of the group, and has far too many people piss her off this weekend.

Jo (Emma Roberts) is an American, and is from a well off family. But with her father injured from work, she has to work some night shifts at a local convenience store. A manager she never seen before is up to shady things with the safe, and also other possible crimes.

I have been watching a lot of movies with Emma Roberts recently. Go figure.

Felt weird talking about the plot outline, without wanting to give them away. But how was the experience?

The first storyline I was kind of confused at what was going on. The other girls appear in each storyline, whether in person, or phone call or text, but obviously you know the least about whats going on with just the first storyline. As the story goes on, more and more holes are filled in and you know more about the characters. Get to experience the actions as each member, instead of omnipresent movie watcher.

So overall I would say it started off slow and weird, but definitely got better. Also, “Strangely enough”, each woman character after the first was pretty strong of a character. They all had to do “something” action-y, some more than others. Whether it was tying up and kicking the ass of online predators, chasing people out of a house with a sword, or beating up people at a bar.

Not only that, but the action was generally real enough. And the drama.

Ending was a bit of a let down with all the build up, but most of the stuff I just really enjoyed. Surprisingly.

Definitely another movie I bought just because of who is on the cover.

Henry Poole Is Here sounds pretty much like a meaningless title to me. I guess this Henry Poole character is some sort of new neighbor, who moves into a suburban neighborhood and parties it up, causing his neighbors ire. Maybe.

By the end maybe he will learn to not be an asshole. Maybe.

Well I was wrong. Shit is a drama, and it is serious at that.

I was dead on with the asshole commentary though.

Predicting movies is hard. I rarely turn out to be right if I have never heard of it before.

Maybe calling Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) an asshole is bad. Mostly because he is going to die. Alright, we all are, but he has a terminal illness. He decides to wait out the rest of his days by moving back to his old hometown, and getting a small house in a suburban neighborhood, where he can waste away his days with pizza and liquor. Pretty much retirement. And waiting to die.

His neighbor, an old hispanic woman (Adriana Barraza) sees a face on his outer wall in his backyard, from mold or something and claim it to be a face of Jesus. She even tries to get the priest (George Lopez!?) to make it a holy site, but he doesn’t seem any proof of it. Not until that shit starts having blood appear. And maybe healing people?

One neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell) separated from her husband, and for about a year her daughter has not spoke. But after seeing the face she has begun to speak. A miracle! No…not really. But another girl, Patience (Rachel Seiferth), an annoying cashier at the market, can see when she visits and touches the wall. She had thick glasses before. Another ehhh moment.

But eventually all of this builds up into anger. More and more people are visiting it and bothering him at his house. He meets someone he likes, but he is going to die soon. So he destroys the wall with a sledgehammer.

Then some other things happen.

Oh hey, Cheryl Hines is also in this movie as a Realtor.

When you are going to die soon, you take every opportunity to spray neighbors with a hose.

But then I hated the ending.

This is a movie that is kind of about religion and Christianity, but also about believing in believing. Despite the large faith issues associated with it, I was very into the movie for most of it. The drama was slow at times, but I thought appropriately paced for this guys point of view.

But the ending? It killed me. The last few minutes. Just seems to go against his character completely, and felt like a cop out for the directors. Everything fell into place too neatly, and I just didn’t care anymore.

A bad ending can ruin pretty much everything. But I thought the acting was pretty well done in the movie. Definitely a lot different than I expected. And once I found out it was religious (very early on) I am surprised it kept me as interested as it did.

I can say that I honestly only watched Lymelife because I saw Alec Baldwin on the cover. Of course he was wearing a suit too.

Because that is all Alec Baldwin has to do nowadays.

Well its a suit of clothing at least, right?

This movie is more about a little rich~ kid named Scott (Rory Culkin). They used to live in Queens, but have moved out to Long Island, and are kind of big on real estate. Also this is the 70s.

Apparently Lyme disease may have just started recently, or it doesn’t have a real cure or something. Can mess you up for years. One of their neighbors (Timothy Hutton) got a deer tick while hunting two years ago, and has never been the same. Kind of sick a lot. His wife (Cynthia Nixon) has to bring home the bacon on her own, and makes it all kind of weird on their daughter (Emma Roberts).

Scott kind of has a thing for her too, but she is way more popular than him. Speaking of having a thing for people, Scott’s dad (Baldwin) is having an affair with her mom. Yay! The mom doesn’t enjoy being married to a sick guy. Scott’s mom (Jill Hennessy) knows something is up, but she just seems crazy to Scott. It isn’t until Scott’s brother returns temporarily from the army (Kieran Culkin. Yes real life younger brothers to Macaulay) for her birthday does Scott realize the truth about his father.

This causes a lot of family strife amongst both groups. Even more bad things happen when they find out Mr. “I am diseased” father hasn’t been going to his job interviews, mostly enjoying the whole “stay at home and do nothing aspect” of his life. Doesn’t mean he takes kindly to cheating. Factoring in all of the parents issues makes Scotts little crush seem insignificant. Doesn’t mean he was going to stop crushing, just puts it in perspective for him.

The end of the movie is full of betrayal, families rekindling and others splitting, new love, and maybe a gunshot or two.

See them bundled? It’s because they don’t want ticks. And its cold. And they might have just had sex.

I should have told the plot in a more straightforward way. My bad. But this movie was pretty intense.

The last five minutes I was scared. A lot of comparisons are made in regards to this movie and American Beauty, but they are pretty different. I guess they kind of both talk about the American Dream and sex with a neighbor (kind of neighbor). But one is a mid life crisis, and the other is a teenage boy. Who’s dad may be going through a midlife crisis. Either way, affairs are bad, and having people with guns mad at you is bad. So in those last five minutes when I was scared, it still wasn’t that predictable.

And most importantly, I wasn’t left without an answer. The plot lines were all finished. I wouldn’t say in a nice neat little package, because of some of the implications afterwards, but definitely felt like a full movie which was good.

I thought a lot of the acting was great, especially from Hutton, Baldwin, and Nixon. Rory would later want to bang Emma in Scream 4, because all of those people are in the same movies for some reason.

I can’t say I know much about The Muppets. Pretty sure I watched more of the Muppet Babies cartoon than any actual muppet movie or show. And by pretty sure I mean 100% positive. I have seen many episodes of that cartoon, and no episodes of the old Muppets show or any Muppet movie before. Just wasn’t raised on them, my bad.

So needless to say the only preconceived notions I had on this movie was that A) a lot of people loved it and B) the title was dumb/vague.

I like that dog one myself.

In this world, I guess Muppets are just real things. I couldn’t tell if all things that were Muppets like were known as Muppets, or if only this select group of /things/ were known as the Muppets. A third option is that they are more or less identical to real people, and the people who were part of the show The Muppets are the Muppets. I think that is the real answer? Kind of weird though.

The story is about a “Guy” named Walter, who clearly is a muppet. Or at least a weird looking human. He is best friends with Jason Segel‘s character, and they are roommates for like, forever. Jason has been dating his girlfriend for 10 years, Amy Adams, and on their anniversary they are going to the magical land of Los Angeles. She also happens to be a school teacher, and I was weirded out when it was her and NOT Alyson Hannigan.

They invite Walter along too, because he is lonely, and wants to see the Muppet studios. He is obsessed with that show. Like, really obsessed. That is all he talks about. Kind of makes sense why not many friends. So of course all he wants to do is see the studio. Amy Adams main goal is to finally have alone time with her boyfriend and maybe get a proposal finally. But shit goes wrong. Turns out an “evil” man (Chris Cooper) is about to but the old studio, because there is oil underneath it. And in the original contract, they have until some time next week to buy it again for $10 million.

Walter flips a shit, and wants to try and stop him. So he finds and convinces Kermit to “Get the band back together” and that people “Still care” about them, and hopefully try and save their studio. So they get all the Muppets they can and work on getting a telethon the day before to hopefully raise enough money, with a lot of musical acts, and host Jack Black!

Also, eventually Jason stops being such a jackass, and realizes he is dating Amy Freaking Adams and does the right thing. Don’t worry.

Tons of cameos of famous people playing themselves or other weird roles, including Rashida Jones, Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman, Kristen Schaal, Donald Glover, and Emily Blunt.

Look at this noob. He is too fanboyish to be a real Muppet.

Honestly, I thought the plot was pretty weak. The ending didn’t seem to make much sense to me. Heart warming, sure, but nonsensical. I don’t want to spoil it, but feel free to ask me if you saw the movie, haha.

BUT. I did like a lot of the jokes. When they were getting all the muppets, and needed to do it in a montage? That was great. And map travel. I also enjoyed a lot of the music. The songs involving Amy Adams and Jason Segel were my favorite, but the Muppet only songs during their telethon were pretty entertaining as well. Especially the barber shop quartet.

But out of all that, it just means I might be more willing to buy* the CD, and not really care about watching the movie again. It was decent, probably a lot better for those that you know, grew up with the muppets though.

Damn it, Halle Berry.

Maybe I should blame the director who has some ocean fetish?

Either way, fuck everyone involved with this trash.

I knew the movie Dark Tide was about Halle Berry and sharks and that’s about it. Another movie that sounds to be a recipe for excitement and thrills. But it isn’t.

Berry’s character used to swim with sharks and “Study” them. No real science, just the observation part. But at some point a tragic accident happened and her mentor died in the sea. Well, this caused a lot of tension, and she broke up with her boyfriend, Oliver Martinez.

A year later she is just doing boat tours, afraid of sharks now. Her old boyfriend pops back up, and is all, heyyy lets make money. They need it badly. In comes a millionaire who wants to buy cool things for him an his son to do, Ralph Brown. Like a all rich people, he is immediately shown to be a bad guy in the film for wanting to do something cool.

She agrees, but only with cages, no free swimming with the great whites. But he says bump that, and leaves the cage anyways, making almost danger. As it gets later at night, and the waves get crazy for a storm, a lot more arguing happens, and Berry gets all “rawr” and says LETS GO BACK OUT.

So they do. And shit goes wrong. Boat capsizes. Some people die, and all around clusterfuck.

I’m sorry guys. Here is another picture of Halle Berry in a bikini top.

This movie is almost two hours long. I paused it halfway through, shocked that it was no where close to being done, and went to sleep. That is how boring it was. The beginning was also confusing, and I think they were shownig stuff out of order, or shots that had nothing to do with Halle Berry’s boat.

There are attacks in the film that happen…to other people. I guess to try and keep it interesting? Weird direction to go, since the first 80 minutes seem to be them saying that sharks aren’t dangerous to humans, but they keep showing the contrary.

The only “exciting” part happens near the end, but it is at night, so hard to tell what is going on, and most people are wearing full wet suits and not talking (under water) so hard to tell who is doing what. When the boat capsized, I had no idea who got stuck in it and drowned. Really, no idea.

But the shitty ending isn’t the worse part, it is definitely everything before it. A “serious” movie that seems to have about 5 minutes of real drama stretched throughout the film. SO. FUCKING. BORING.

I am kind of afraid to watch any movie about the ocean now, just because of how dull these movies are being made about them. This film offers nothing in terms of entertainment value for two hours of your life.

“Why the fuck are you reviewing Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus?” – Reader comment immediately.

Because I bought this and another Mega movie on Blu-Ray about a year ago, for only $5 each. Huge deal. So I said sure why not! Yes, I know this is a terribad B-movie that most people would only enjoy for the aspects of making fun of it. But hey, I figured it had to be at least a little bit entertaining, right? I mean. A mega shark. Is it bigger than a giant octopus? How big is a giant octopus? What the hell is a mega shark?

I figured maybe these questions would be answered for me, and some cool fight scenes and that’d be enough.

Lets assume this scale stays the same throughout the movie.

What’s to say about the plot? Deborah Gibson is a scientist (hahaha) and studying Whales off of Alaska or something. But during it, the military also undergoes some sonar testing, causing the whales to flip their shit and run into the nearby glacier. Also the military helicopter crashes, and hits the ice berg, causing it to break open and release the stars of the movie. Despite being natural predators of each other they apparently go their own way and fuck up shit on different sides of the Pacific ocean.

Gibson finds a shark tooth and according to an adviser/former pilot Sean Lawlor, it belongs to a species that went extinct 1.5 million years ago! A Japanese scientist comes to help investigate too, Vic Chao, thinking that it is the same thing messing up Japan. But hey, turns out two creatures. They are then all recruited by the military, Lorenzo Lamas, to stop the creatures, but prefer to capture them alive for studying, not killing.

Shit goes down, plans don’t work, and eventually they realize they have to bring the creatures together. Maybe they will kill each other, or at least one of them will be killed in their fight, and that will solve all of their problems.

The octopus has a tentacle big enough to smack a jet out of air, while the shark we can see the whole size of, has to jump up high to get the plane? Size wise, the Octopus must be enormous.

Cheesy B movie, bad science, etc. All of these exist, yes. But, what I expected from it was to see some hardcore Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus action. Not sure why, maybe because of the title.

Most of the movie has them doing nothing with each other, and military people or random civillians getting destroyed by them. Nothing too graphic either, a lot of shaky cam, just missed the action, stuff. But then when they finally do fight, it too is disappointing and kind of hard to figure out whats going on.

What I am trying to say is that in a movie with two giant sea creatures battling, I was bored. INCREDIBLY bored. Throughout the whole movie, waiting for something cool to happen.

What the hell? That shouldn’t happen in a movie like this. Its only redeeming quality should be the entertainment aspect, and it failed miserably for me on that. Fuck! I hate being bored for 90 minutes like that.

Haha! Funny People! A movie about people who are funny!

That is the assumption at least. I will let you know I’ve heard tons of bad things about this movie. Most of my friends hated it. But damn it, I loved 50/50 (which could just be the better version of this movie, not sure). I also thought It’s Kind Of A Funny Story was supposed to be similar to those two (it isn’t) but I loved it as well. So damn it, I am going to watch Funny People and see what the hell happens.

Although this is a scene from the movie, it is definitely way out of context.

Alright lets get the basics.

Seth Rogen wants to be a stand up comic, but isn’t good at it. He has some good material, but bad delivery. Also maybe too many fart jokes. He lives with Jonah Hill, who is more successful and improv like, and Jason Schwartzman, who is staring in some kids sitcom about a cool teacher. Making those ‘big’ bucks.

Adam Sandler plays a big celebrity star. He has done a lot of shitty movies, and used to just be a stand up comic guy too. Turns out he is probably going to die, to a rare disease, kind of shattering his world view. I mean, fuck. He didn’t see that coming. He doesn’t even have really any friends. Needless to say he is kind of depressed, and bombs at a comedy club, where Seth Rogen is quick to make fun of him for his act for cheap laughs.

Sandler freaking out hires Seth to write some jokes for him, and also pseudo take him under his wing for a little bit. Opportunity of a life time for him, at the end of Sandlers. He also is one of the first to know, and helps him out during it when he gets sick. Sandler slept around a lot, so he regrets having that one “slip away”, in Leslie Mann, who is now married to an Australian journalist, Eric Bana, with two kids. Rogen’s problems are just his inability to talk to women, and having a three month plan to try and score with Aubrey Plaza, a neighbor of his.

This movie does NOT end with Sandler’s death. Because the movie is more so about the trial he is on working, and having a new shot a life, after he had thought it was over. Can he fix the wrongs in his life, and get out of his celebrity funk?

Har har har! Funny people!

I think one of the biggest complaints about this movie is the length. Almost 2.5 hours long, it is very unexpected for a movie of its type. The unrated version is about 10 minutes longer (and I can’t tell which I watched. I wanted the Unrated one, but the Blu-Ray menu was confusing!). Apparently it only adds more stand up parts, which I found amusing.

Maybe another complaint is in terms of direction. I really thought it was going to end with Sandler dying. I read the back of the box afterward, and it pretty much begins with “a man getting his second shot at life”. Oh yeah, definitely made that clear with words, just not the previews. So only half of it was him dying, the second half being alive and figuring out what to do now.

Definitely an interesting way to take it, and something I didn’t see happening. I thought the movie felt very real, and I enjoyed it though. It could have definitely been better overall, and not as unforgettable as other Apatow movies. I am sure I will watch it again, just farther in the future, as it is a pretty long time commitment, but I thought it did a good job overall.

Two things I assumed from the tv ads for Contraband when I first saw them in January.

One: With Mark Wahlberg, how does this look like anything but The Italian Job 2?

Two: With a name like Contraband, why does it only remind me of something like Armored?

What’s that? I haven’t reviewed Armored yet? Then never mind. But still. The trailers made it look like some heist movie, similar to point 1. More so just a smuggling movie, and very little stealing going on.

That is real counterfeit money right there.

Mark Wahlberg doesn’t do crime anymore guys. He is clean. But…when his relative gets in some shit with a local thug, he has to do another run. Smuggling is a dangerous situation. If the US Customs office checks the items you have to dump it and usually the sides are okay. But this crazy asshole, Giovanni Ribisi, doesn’t play games like that. He wants the money or the cocaine within two weeks or else his family will pay. Marky Mark doesn’t like that when he is married to Kate Beckinsale, so he agrees to go get the money.

But first, he leaves his friend and former illegal trafficker buddy Ben Foster, to watch over his wife and family.

So he has to get a crew back together, and get on a ship to Panama, captained by germaphobe J.K. Simmons. They mess up some stuff to get themselves time, to try and transport counterfeit money. But thanks to a lack of trust at home and other shit going down, they also have to help another heist happen and possibly take on cocaine and some other merchandise too. But if the customs gets involved again, can they risk dumping the cargo a second time while their loved ones are at home alone?

Never trust a thug who also looks like a rapist.

Ben Fosters character may not be as buddy buddy as you had assumed. But I doubt you assumed that. Look at him. LOOK AT HIM. He is never a straight shooting guy. Not even in X-Men The Last Stand.

I overall found it decently entertaining. About halfway through it I thought I was almost done with the movie though, didn’t expect to have “That much more” “plot” left to it. Mostly a lot of deception. Normally bad people get killed, but in this movies case, they all pretty much get arrested in separate ways.

I don’t like how unrealistic certain things were, such as Kate’s character. She got hit in the head so damn often, and its like nothing phased her. Must have a plate there. I definitely thought certain characters should have been dead, but “somehow” they weren’t and just unconscious or some bullshit.

I will give props to Giovanni Ribisi. Normally thugs are all tough guy, smack you around. But he is small and weaselly, and gave a different element to his fear mongering. I enjoyed that part the most.

Before I review this, it might be important to remember that I am not a “real critic”. The ratings are all based on how much I liked the movie, so everythin I give is opinions.

Always good to give that reminder, before I clumsily explain why I didn’t like Public Enemies.

Short answer? I found it boring.

I am going to explain the plot probably badly too. My bad, but ehh. Whats to say really?

It is also kind of about the birth of the FBI (a lot like J. Edgar was). Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) is kicking some ass in the FBI, using finger printing and stuff. He took down Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum) afterall. So he gets a promotion and is supposed to take down John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) in the first ever America War on Crime. Have to get these Gangsters, damn it.

The movie is biographical too, I guess. But Dillinger does get caught and subsequently escapes. He goes on lots of bank robberies with some of his boys, including Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) and Homer Van Meter (Stephen Dorff).

He also gets the fancy of a girl (Marion Cotillard). But yeah. Bank robberies, some possible betrayal, and the eventual catching of John Dillinger.

Bitches love Johnny Depp.

I am not really sure why I put “short answer” as my caption below the first picture. It is about as long as my real answer. I just found this movie boring. Really boring. I started to watch it probably last October or so, but after 30 minutes, had stopped it and figured I would never try again. Same thing happened to me with The Fountain.

But this time, I thought it would be different. I had a nice night when nothing else was going on, plenty of free time. Turned off the distractions. And watched it all. And was just bored. It just did not interest me in the slightest. I have both seasons of Boardwalk Empire, and I want to watch it, but just…gangsters apparently hold zero appeal to me.

I guess that’s all I really have to say? Well acted, sure. But I don’t want to ever see it again.

Again, a movie with a thousand tags. But I will explain it very simply for you so that is all makes sense. The plot of Away We Go it turns out is pretty damn simple to understand. More time for analysis (if I choose). Hooray!

It’s about love. And finding your love’s vagina.

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are an unmarried couple, but guess what, they are having a baby. She doesn’t want to get married, but still truly believes they will be together forever. They had moved to be closer to John’s parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara) to have some sort of relative in the babies life, since her parents are dead.

But when she is 6 months in, they find out they are moving to Belgium. For two years. Making their living arrangements kind of pointless. Afraid that their lives are fucked up and bad, they agree to go on a mini vacation to different parts of the country to visit their other family memmbers and friends, to see if they would be good places to live.

First to Arizona, to see Maya’s old boss and her husband / family (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan) who seem to be drunk a lot, and not too happy with life, and her sister. Then to Madison, for a job interview, where they also meet John’s cousin and husband (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), who are way too extreme on the hippy side.

Then to Montreal, to visit their mutual friends (Melanie Lynskey and Chris Messina), who have adopted many children, due to the unfortunate nature of Melanie’s ability to have a child (multiple miscarriages). Finally, a trip to Miami, to visit John’s brother (Paul Schneider) and help him out of a bad situation.

The whole time they are traveling they are dealing with their own problems, and wondering about their own inadequacies. And by both of them, I mean Maya. Because John is way too swell of a person, and optimistic, he is constantly making things better, all while looking like a hipster.

Exhibit A.

Their final destination choice I will let remain a mystery. Because fuck you, that’s why.

I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable. I laughed a lot more than I expected, thinking it would be a lot more heavily drama-nated. But man, there was many great scenes, and it all felt incredibly real. Hopefully their love in this fictional universe of the movie carries on after the birth and throughout their whole life. You are given a nice feeling that they have found true peace and happiness with their decisions, and everything will work out for the best.

Also, a lot of vagina talk.