Month: April 2012

Another Biased review? Probably.

I actually thought Goon would be pretty stupid though. (Another thought that biased this review). But I mean, its a hockey movie. Of course I am going to watch it. It is “based on true events” too, apparently, or at least the life of Doug Smith. For those that don’t know, a “Goon” on a hockey team is a player who doesn’t play much, is there to protect the star players, and fight when necessary. Often considered to be the worst kind of role, and one that is being mostly phased out by players who can actually skate and score.

Also it comes with the possibility for injuries.

Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) is a bouncer, and not a very smart man. His family is, and his brother is gay! But at a local hockey game, when him and his friend (Jay Baruchel, radio talk show host) are harassing a guy who just went to the penalty box, the guy gets mad and comes into the audience to fight back. When Glatt punches him out, he makes local headlines, and even gets a call from the minor team coach (Kim Coates) to come for a tryout.

Because he can kick some ass, and not feel too much pain, he gets a spot. Skating can come later. After all, the team at that point is 1-9 in the season. So why not? Well his first game he kicks some guys ass. Then the next game. But he makes some mistakes like not returning to the bench and letting the other team score. But he is trying hard and a nice guy.

On the team they also have veteran captain who is only good for pre game speeches (Richard Clarkin), the talented should be NHLer who got concussed and has never been the same (Marc-Andre Grondin). Eventually Glatt learns to skate and play better, becoming the heart of his team as they try and make the playoffs.

Also theres the plot of him finding “True love” with Alison Pill, who sleeps around a lot and is terrible for him, but he really likes. Not to mention the actual “tough guy” in their sport, who is retiring soon, and he probably will have to fight in the last game of the season, Ross Rhea (Liev Schrieber).

You don’t want to fuck with someone with that sort of facial hair.

Turns out, I really loved this movie. It was funny when it needed to be. But even more so it was kind of sweet, and mostly intense.

Every time he was on the ice, something crazy was going to happen. Whether it be a fight, a bad play, an unlikely goal, what have you. There was a good chance SOMEONE was about to be in a lot of pain, most notably the last two games he played in the movie. I cringed and yelled at what occurred, even covering my face, but I was loving it at the same time.

Sean William Scott is used to playing various levels of the “idiot” role, and I first noted that they weren’t at all identical in the movie American Loser. Well this is definitely another layer of that. Because this character is no where close to being an asshole, and it is easy to see how most people would love to just know a person like him, loyal and shit. Willing to punch someone else in the face for you. Almost like a bit of Forrest Gump, if you know, Forrest Gump was just a bit more violent.

I didn’t mean to watch this movie today, but when I was halfway to work I realized I didn’t bring any of the three I had meant to watch. So I had a quick “Oh no! Boredom!” moment, but thankfully I do have access to someone’s netflix. I went randomly through my list of movies I own that I didn’t watch and Flakes was on instant stream.

Problem solved. But if I was cooler, I’d have found a movie I don’t own and haven’t seen. My bad!

But as it stands, my ability to slack is over my ability to be efficient.

Speaking of slackers, this is another movie about a slacker. I feel like that’s all I watch now. Neal (Aaron Stanford) is going no where with life. He has a hot girlfriend in Zooey Deschanel though. But he is the manager and main worker at a store called Flakes, which is like a bar, but instead of alcohol they server cereal, all day every day. Such a wide selection too, and some rare cereals. Can add fruit if you want, and change up the milk kind. Pretty rad idea. But not the biggest money maker.

But when some suit (Keir O’Donnell) opens up a shop next door, with a similar name and same concept, just MORE, it could mean trouble. Especially since thanks to fights and not hiring Zooey, she goes to work with the new store. After all, if she can shut down the origial Flakes, her boyfriend can finally stop wasting all his time, and finish his damn album.

The movie is basically the battle of the cereal shops, in New Orleans. Christopher Lloyd plays the seemingly crazy owner of the business, and Frank Wood a very dedicated customer who also can find hard to find / discontinued cereals.

MOAR CEREAL

For whatever reason, I found this movie quite enjoyable. Not the most compelling tale at all, something probably done many times before, and even a bit too slow paced, but I thought it all worked given the circumstances. My plotline sets it up for a different type of movie. Sure they battle at the beginning. Business tactics, but mostly apathy and assume their side will win. Well the wrong side wins about halfway through the movie, leaving our “heroes” jobless from their own pseudo-creation.

So we get to see them try other jobs and going to their conquerors, and seeing if a lack of Flakes really changes their outlook at all.

Sometimes you need a story that has a happy ending, even if it comes through unconventional ways.

I bought The Good Night because of the cover. It was dramatic enough to make me intrigued. Definitely followed a formulaic approach though.

Look at them. All on the sides. Looking at us. Looking for love.

Turns out this is a movie about lucid dreaming. So that’s what the title is about! Sleeping and dreams. Because that shit happens at night.

Martin Freeman is “happily” married to his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow. And by happily, I of course mean stale. He is also having problems sleeping, in that they seem way too real to him making him wake up a lot.

He continues to see this vision of a girl (Penelope Cruz) who he can understand perfectly even when she doesn’t speak. But he never finishes these dreams before the good stuff happens, so he wants to figure out how to control his dreams. He ends up meeting Danny DeVito‘s character, an expert on Lucid dreaming and begins to take control of the dreams. But not enough, he still sometimes encounters dream monsters, which usually take the form of a group of Brazilian men.

This obsession with his sleep and his inability to get enough of it drives a wedge in his marriage. Doesn’t help that his best friend, Simon Pegg, is going through a divorce at the same time. Makes breaking up seem like a natural thing.

Oh yeah, and he has found the real woman who has hijacked his dreams. Turns out she is a famous model, and he probably saw her in a magazine before. So yeah.

Will he let his dreams conquer his real life (and love life)? And can the literal woman of his dreams live up to her hype?

There isn’t really many good action shots to pick from for this picture. So here is something even better, Devito in a bed.

I will label this as another just weird and different movie. When dealing with dreams, you unfortunately get the main character dreaming a lot. When you are in a dream, weird things can happen, and you might not know you are in a dream. So things tended to happen unexpectedly, and honestly, I am not sure if half the things in the movie happened, that I think happened.

There was one moment near the end where I kind of screamed a bit, just because it definitely was unexpected. And it was real at the same time. The ending overall is kind of sad, yet sweet at the same time. Appropriate, and horrible. Gave it a neat package without being expected.

But the ending was also better than the middle and beginning, unfortunately. Where I found myself bored a lot. But hey, points for originality and a nice ending.

Barry Munday is not played by Jason Sudeikis.

No he is played by Patrick Wilson.

That is the first thing I noticed about the film. Just saying, the cover made it look very Sudeikis-ish. But thats all my fault anyways.

Remember. Patrick Wilson, not Jason Sudeikis.

Clearly I didn’t look hard enough. At all.

Barry Munday is some sort of pervert. He loves sex and the ladies, has a girlfriend, but cheats on her. Doesn’t like her anyways. So he hits on women constantly. Unfortunately, when he hits on one (maybe too young) girl in a movie theater (played by Mae Whitman, from Parenthood), the dad walkins in with a trumpet, all mad, and smashes his testicles.

Now all of his desires he once had in his life are gone. He can still have sex, sure, he isn’t packing any bullets, and it all seems a bit more pointless now. Worse is he has no idea how to tell anyone. But then he gets a letter from a lawyer, saying a woman he slept with months ago is now pregnant, and he is the father.

But he doesn’t remember ever sleeping with her. Ginger (Judy Greer) is an unfortunate looking woman, but overcome with the realization that he can no longer continue the Munday line, he realizes this birth is a miracle, and he has to change his lifestyle around to match the new circumstances.

But he also has to deal with her angry father (Malcolm McDowell\), her slutty sister (Chloe Sevigny), and help his boss land a big new deal (Billy Dee Williams).

Sexy time!

So wait a minute. Patrick Wilson played a sex crazed slacker, who lost hits nuts, and tries to become a family man with his last chance at a child? I still don’t get why that isn’t Jason Sudeikis.

Definitely not a normal laugh out loud comedy, a more awkward based one, but still decent. Somehow I found it heartfelt, you know, despite being such a horrible concept. Definitely hard to explain. I enjoyed it, but you know, didn’t love it.

I did find Greer’s character annoying. But again, that was the goal. She was just a sheltered individual, who was now pregnant. Hated that shit.

You have to be in a very specific mood to watch this movie. A nice chill mood.

I love this title, We Bought A Zoo. It probably got a lot of slack from it, but I think it is great. After all, now I know what the whole movie is about. Bad for people who want to be surprised, since its hard to not know the title. But it is also based off of a true story (Kind of), so that gives it more appeal too.

Everyone knows when you need to jump start a career, you do a family film and work with animals (that hopefully don’t talk).

Matt Damon plays an adventurer and writer. He goes around the world, tries new things, and interviews great people. Seems pretty silly. Brings home money, but his wife handles most of it. But then she dies. Unexpectedly. Leaving him to figure out what to do with his two kids (Colin Ford and Maggie Elizabeth Jones). But his son has now been expelled from school and they need a change so they look for a new house.

They find a great house! But it comes with a stipulation…they have to take the zoo that used to be there too and work on its upkeep. It is currently owned by the state, and if nothing happens soon, they will be shipped away and some put down. Due to his daughters peer pressure and his ability to just do stupid things without worrying about the consequences, he signs the dotted line, despite his brothers (Thomas Haden Church, an accountant) desires not to.

Their goal is to get the place back up to par before July, to earn most of the profits during the summer, their best months. Lot of work and money must go into it though to pass the inspection. Scarlett Johansson plays the head zookeeper, and now lives with her mom after a quick divorce (whats that, two single leads?). Her niece is homeschooled and works at the shop (Elle Fanning), and the head animal handler is Angus Macfadyen, a very angry man indeed.

BFFS. Also does Matt Damon look fake in this picture?

I love easy plots. Family buys a zoo after mom dies. Work to make zoo a better place for the community. Succeed? Of course. People don’t make true stories based off of failures.

The title is uttered mostly from the daughter, overall probably about six times. I think the real story didn’t have the guys wife die until years after they bought the zoo (a process that also took years). But that makes this story more complicated if it lasts years and has the wife constantly around. The ending I thought was really sweet, and thanks to that tear jerking music, well, you know.

The movie is kind of like a very family friendly modern version of Field Of Dreams, but not really.

While I thought it was a decent film, I wouldn’t describe any of it to be top notch acting. It was very predictable, but still acceptably heart warming. Honestly they made such a big deal out of how far away it was from “civilization” I thought there was no way they’d have any guests after the first week. The real one I am sure still exists, but I feel like the movie one was probably set up to fail. But no worries, if it fails Scarlett Johansson’s character can come move in with me.

I have written before about Holiday or make believe character movies, and how I hate it when they contradict with the real world that they are presumably set in. I am looking at you The Tooth Fairy.

Despite everyone knowing there is no Easter Bunny in the real real world, Hop does a pretty good job of not contradicting itself. Mostly. So I will give it a point for that. I do not recall a single adult uttering “Easter Bunny? Preposterous!” and slamming their first down. Because clearly if one existed, people wouldn’t question it, because there’d be damn easter eggs everywhere that they didn’t hide. Must. Stop. Rant.

Because I have a way more important topic to rant about.

The Easter Bunny, or E.B. (Russell Brand) doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to be a drummer in Hollywood. His dad, the current easter bunny (Hugh Laurie…who is named E.B.’s dad. What??) So a few days before Easter, he escapes from their hideout (On the Easter Island, of course), where they make all the candy and eggs for Easter (because that is a thing people think Easter Bunnies do?). He escapes to LA where he gets HIT BY A CAR!

Driven by James Marsden, who is a slacker living at home with his folks. His family (dad of Gary Cole, younger(?) sister of Kaley Cuoco) thinks he needs to get a real job. And move out. I was confused, because it seemed like Kaley still lived at home possibly. Eventually Marsden agrees to help the bunny out, despite causing problems, and get him an audition for David Hasselhoff (On Hoff Knows Talent) to be a big star!

Oh yeah, and the factory for Easter is fueled by an army of “chicks”, whereas the second in command (Hank Azaria) has dreams of being the “Easter Bunny”. Despite the fact that E.B. has no interest in being the head honcho, the dad is stubborn, and laughs away all of the suggestions from the chick to become the next guy in charge. Instead he sends the Pink Berets (highly trained bunnies) to capture his son.

There is also a subplot of James figuring out what he wants to do with his life, become the first human Easter Bunny.

Now this picture should make a lot more sense.

I seriously am about to spoil some thing. I cant figure out how to hide it so I will just say it. Yes, at the end they stop the chick and save the day. E.B. and James agree to be co-Easter Bunnies, more fun for the two.

So uhh. James gets to live his dream, and E.B. gave up his?

But more importantly, WHAT THE FUCK KIDS MOVIE? This is a horrible main plotline. Horrible horrible. Just typing this seems silly, but clearly this movie is anti-chick. These chicks, who must live in Neverland because they never go to Chickens, have to work in a factory all year (like Santa Elves) making candy apparently? There is only like 5 bunnies in the whole place from what I seen, the head honcho, his son, and his body guard unit (who never spoke. They should have spoke). And they don’t do shit but once a day, if that.

But for the head bunny to call the chick more or less dumb for wanting to advance to the head master position was horrible. It made it seem like a Kingdom, and not a business. It gave the message that those born as chicks can never advance to any higher sort of existance, but must stay there and work. Sure later, when he did take over (after he forced it) he replaced candy with worms and stuff (because Bunnies like candy, so of course a chick would put in food they like? Another dumb correlation). But by then he was probably just pissed off at how much of an asshole the dad was being.

Especially as one character noted it made more since for a chick/chicken to be handing out eggs than a bunny. AND NOT TO MENTION that at the end JAMES MARSDEN, A HUMAN, gets to be an Easter Bunny, when all the other chicks get put back in their rightful place.

Again. What. The. Fuck. These type of matters shouldn’t be brushed aside either because it is just a kids movie. This is the same shit they tried to sell us in Cars/Cars 2.

I bought Post Grad on Blu-Ray and immediately felt guilty. There was no way this movie was going to be one of the better movies out there. No way at all.

Not saying it would have been bad. But I was going to expect a lot of cliches and stereotypes. Also Alexis Bledel‘s eyes were staring at me, and kind of just made me buy it.

So…Blue….

Alexis Bledel has graduated college! She is a savvy technological young person, with the world open to her. Although she didn’t get valedictorian (Because her college has a valedictorian? ) she wants to work at a publishing house and find the next great american novel. Small dreams I guess. But hey, she is a college graduate, so it should be easy?

Nah. Because who cares about Bachelor’s degrees? Masters is where that shit is out, and she just doesn’t know it yet. What she also doesn’t realize is her best guy friend clearly wants her, Zach Gilford (Hey, he was in The River Why).

She is also living with her family, her dad (Michael Keaton), mom (Jane Lynch), and grandmother (Carol Burnett), so needless to say she has a very successful family. Or her dad is a con artist maybe? Suitcase salesman kind of?

She also has a “hot neighbor” played by Rodrigo Santoro, who you may remember (hate?) as that guy Paulo from Lost.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the plot yet though. So she wants a job. Can’t get one she wants. Keeps going through other jobs. Keeps ignoring her clearly “true love” best friend. Finally gets dream job. Gives up dream job to move to her true love, realizing that a man is more important than the career she has dreamed of her whole life.

What? Oh yeah, spoilers. Seriously. That is how it ended. Also she has competition with that valedictorian (Catherine Reitman) who plays a way too fake individual, that doesn’t make any sense.

PLUS he is a musician. Come on girl. Give up your dreams.

I don’t even know how to end this. Clearly I am mad at the ending. It is super cliched, and horrible. It was her life dream, and she was like, “lolololjk”. Having a man going to law school way more important than your overall goals.

The fake characters bugged me, and the plot was stupid. That is all.

Here is something I won’t do with The Sitter. I won’t complain about it being similar to Adventures In Babysitting. That seems to be a big complaint. After all, there cannot be more than two movies about babysitting in a 20some year span. That would be crazy. Just like there is only one cop show every 20 years.

Can’t even compare their directors, as The Sitter was directed by the guy who did Pineapple Express, so he is already established. The guy who directed Adventures In Babysitting was doing his first movie ever, and only went on to direct some Harry Potters, Home Alone, Rent, and Percy Jackson. Holy shit, that guy is awesome.

I guess it makes sense that his name is Chris Columbus too, given his ground breaking movies.

Jonah Hill is a bum. Well, kind of. He lives with his mom, after kind of taking a break from college, and has no job or anything going on. He’d rather sit around all day than do anything productive. Or you know, hang out with his “girlfriend”, Ari Graynor, who lets him go down on her! And that is about all they do. Shit.

But when his mom’s future love life is in jeopardy because her friends can’t find a sitter, he reluctantly volunteers. Afterall, he just has to sit in the house and get paid. Just three kids too. The oldest, Slater (Max Records), seems to be bad socially, the daughter, Blithe (Landry Bender), who is going through some wanna be celebrity party phase, and their adopted son, Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), who sets off firecrackers and has a bad attitude.

But his girlfriend calls up, asking him to come out and party, and bring her some cocaine (for her friend, not her), and then they can have real sex! Well, time to grab the kids and go! Anything dealing with drugs is probably bad, so when he tries to get the stuff from her friend Karl (Sam Rockwell, who yes, dances in this movie) things go from bad to worse.

Race relations, people with guns, diamond stealing, bathrooms exploding, Bat Mitzvah crashing, and you know, meeting old friends in the form of an old college buddy who just wants to hang out and watch a cool geologic storm with him (hint, true love, played by Kylie Bunbury).

This is also the last movie to feature “Fat Jonah Hill”.

There is a rumor that formerly fat people can’t be funny. That isn’t true, we found that out with 21 Jump Street. But it should be noted that fat people aren’t always funny. This movie being a big example of it.

Was there some funny moments? Sure, but they were few and far between. It was also entirely predictable, and well, just lame. Sequences of the movie didn’t even make sense, one notable part involving a pull over from the police. They didn’t even try to explain that event later in the movie, was just stupid.

Most of the humor derives around Jonah Hill cursing at or around kids, and them possibly doing it back. Hell, even Sam Rockwell’s character wasn’t that funny. I think the best character was the gay roller blading assistant. Name is maybe Julio. Maybe.

I saw a preview for Charlie Bartlett years ago and wasn’t really sure what to think of it. Like most previews, I didn’t actively chase after it and soon forgot about it. Years later, I see the cover and go…OH YEAH. Surprised at the actors involved too, since this thing came out in 2007, at least a year before most of these people got big (or got big..again).

I think we all know who I am talking about here.

Charlie Bartlett is played by Anton Yelchin, who didn’t make it super big yet with Star Trek / The Beaver / Fright Night. He is a rich kid, but his mom is depressed and his dad is in jail for tax evasion. He also keeps getting kicked out of private schools for some reason or another.

But now, he is going to public school. Not only that, but going to a school where Robert Downey Jr. is the principal (Not yet re-famous from Tropic Thunder / Iron Man / Sherlock Holmes ). He has problems making friends, except for one mentally challenged boy he rides the bus with. In fact the school bully Murphy (Tyler Hilton who was in…uhh nothing. Okay he isn’t too big…yet?) already kicked his ass.

But once Charlie realizes he could probably make money and some cash by selling people his extra pills that his psychiatrist has given him, he convinces Murph to team up with him and set up shop in the Boys bathroom. He becomes a psychiatrist himself. Afterall, he has been to enough his whole life, so he feels like he knows what should be said. If they need help, he goes to a new psychiatrist and takes on their problems to get different pill subscriptions. Needless to say, this makes him quite popular. So much that Susan (Kat Dennings, not yet in Thor / Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist / 2 Broke Girls ), the rebellious principals daughter, gets to liking him too.

But a drug ring in this school, that already has sketch privacy issues in the first place, and dating Susan? RBJ does not like this, and plans to expel Charlie once he catches him doing…something bad.

While the whole time, Charlie is only doing this stuff to try and fit in and make friends, not planning on becoming an activist leader for student rights, or rocking the boat too much. After all, he is just a kid.

Who will listen to your problems like a Priest. Kind of.

Turns out I should have watched this film earlier, because it was a very enjoyable experience. The plot felt loose the whole movie, yet it flowed naturally. The acting from the main two was top notch, and touching at times. I wasn’t ever sure if Charlie was being very manipulative, or actually unaware of the effects he was having on the lives of others. One of the final scenes, between Yelchin and RDJ was very powerful and awesome at the same time. Didn’t even rely on special effects or action, just the talking felt completely real, making it great.

The movie was definitely funny when it needed to be and serious when it mattered the most. Parts felt forced, sure, which caused some of my “is he manipulative or not?” confusion, but really at the end, he was just a kid who wanted to fit in for once.

When I first saw the previews for Inception I thought “Meh”. That is a hard meh too, not one of those soft cat mehs. Just seemed silly. Kind of reminded me of Dark City, in a strange, not at all like Dark City way.

The only reason I went to see it was because of all the hype from my friends, who tend to hype the same things all the time. But still, had a free afternoon, and people to go with. Sure I was kind of tired, but I mean, theres no way I could fall asleep during a movie in a theater right?

Spoilers: I may have incepted Inception.

Movie begins with dreams inside of dreams. That is a common motif. Leonardo DiCaprio is the head thief, because of his beady eyes. The Cobra Commander also is on the team, and helps make sure all the nuts and bolts work, and designs how that shit will go down. They also later get Juno, an architect student, to help build the maze dream-scapes. Confused yet? Good

These bitches pretty much, using a special technology, go into peoples dreams and convince them to give up their secrets. So they steal things, more or less, from their own consciousness. Bank codes, safe codes, what have you. Sometimes they have to go dream within a dream within a dream to get shit done. But the deeper you go affects how time moves. So it moves super slow in the real life compared to how fast the dreams are going.

They have to get some shit from Cillian Murphy, for lots of cash. Sure, Leo has some family problems at home. He lost his wife, Marion Cotillard, in a dream Limbo place, and has to resort to having Michael Caine watch his children while he is out doing illegal things.

“Oh, err, umm. I found them this way?”

Either I didn’t get this movie, and I am a dumb, or this movie is a shit sandwich in a basket. One of the two.

Offering immoral behavior, and invading the last known sanctuary of a man, aka his mind, this film should probably have been rated NC-17 for penetration that deep.

None of the characters seemed believable, especially that old asian guy. Whats up with him?

I think people just liked it because of the supposed mysterious ending at the end. Bitch please, that top was going to spin forever.

Possibly the worst movie I saw in 2010, which is a surprise, because I actually watched Jonah Hex too.