Month: November 2012

Happy November 6th, 2012! It is Election Day in America, so I went the obvious route and picked The Campaign to review. I don’t even have a clever intro to say before I talk about the movie, so fuck it, lets just go into it.

Just gotta warm my tongue muscles first.

In the 14th District of North Carolina, life is simple. Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is running for his fifth term as congressman for the Democratic party and is unopposed. I guess people really like him. Sure he is a filthy man, and doesn’t do much, but who cares. Unfortunately, his popularity takes a drastic turn down when he leaves a very explicit sexual message for a woman he is cheating on his wife (Katherine LaNasa) with. His campaign manager (Jason Sudeikis) tries to put a positive spin on it all, but nothing really seems to work.

This spells for trouble in Capitol Hill, namely with the Motch brothers (John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd) who are working on a new plan with China and need all the support they can get. Seems like now is the best time to replace Brady with someone new, that the public will love. Unfortunately their only available contact in the area is Marty Huggins (Zach Galifiankis), the son no one talks about. Wanting to make his dad proud, he is happy to run and make his area of North Carolina better.

He just didn’t know it involved changing everything about himself, his wife (Sarah Baker) and kids, from the mysterious campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott).

But more importantly, once both men are in the race, how low will they go to discredit the other, just for a chance to help start Project: Insourcing?

Will they be able to stop all this family shit and man up?

Having lived in North Carolina, I was happy to notice a lot more subtle jokes than one would have expected. Like the 14th District of North Carolina, that doesn’t even exist! NC had 13 districts, not sure if they did that for legal reasons, or for the joke, but I will so go for the joke.

Cutting right to the chase, this movie did make me laugh. I giggled quite often. But I think the movie went the easy route with most of the jokes, and could have made a stronger movie overall, tackling bigger issues, while also keeping a lot of the jokes. The DVD for this movie came out about a week ago, all of the timing makes since. They wanted this movie because of the presidential election. Yet they didn’t really say anything important about it.

Sure, the basic message of money buying elections is probably true. Minor jokes on the Romney/Obama campaigns, and other parallels like John Edwards. But overall it just seemed to be missing a lot more.

I would suggest seeing the movie once, it will probably make you laugh. I just don’t think it will pack as big of a punch in multiple viewings.

When I first heard about The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, I just assumed it was some indie high school coming of age comedy, that would appeal only to hipsters and hippies. Technically my assumption was not wrong. I was wrong to use the word only, because after seeing this movie, I can see how this movie would appeal to everyone.

There are many factors that can be attributed to the broad appeal, including this broad.

Set in the 1990s, Perks is the story of a boy named Charlie (Logan Lerman) who is the youngest child in his family and about to start his first day of high school. His older brother is now off to college, and his older sister (Nina Dobrev) wants nothing to do with him at school. She is also busy going through a vegetarian phase with a pacifist boyfriend (Nicholas Braun).

Charlie’s one chance of fitting in rested on the shoulders of the school quarterback (Johnny Simmons) who used to be good friends with his older brother, but still, no dice. Heck, it looks like his only friend will be Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd), his freshman English teacher.

But then something wonderful happens. He meets strange people. Namely an eccentric senior Patrick (Ezra Miller) who is willing to talk to him, and his step sister Sam (Emma Watson) who begin to introduce him to a world based on non-pop music, and unconventional fun. However, the closer he gets to his older friends, the more they get to learn about how troubled his past actually is and how deep his madness goes.

Sorry, I made that sound like a horror film. This also features Mae Whitman as one of his new group of friends, and Melanie Lynskey as his influential aunt.

How to be awesome at parties. Find couch, sit, and wait.

The first thing I noticed about this movie is that I knew practically everyone in it. In fact, I’d say some of my favorite young actors have rolls in this movie. Everyone know who Emma Watson is and her famous franchise. I’d say Logan Lerman is pretty well known, as both Percy Jackson, 3:10 to Yuma, and Three Musketeers. But Ezra Miller? Well he was Kevin in We Need to Talk About Kevin, a very upsetting movie and novel. Nicholas Braun has been in Sky High and Red State. If they would have just thrown in a Michael Angarano I might have died from good young actor overload.

But you don’t care about past performances, you care about right now. Well their acting in this movie is definitely top notch. I was surprised at how drawn into the story I became, wanting to know the personal histories of every fictional character. The movie was very relatable, but don’t worry, the events in the film never happened with me. The feelings of longing, love, and loneliness are universal emotions that everyone can say they had their share of in high school.

While watching this movie I can personally attest to crying at least four times in the theater. It draws you in and doesn’t let you go for the entire 102 minute run time. There were probably eighteen people in the theater when I saw it, yet when the credits hit only three were able to get up right away and leave. I’d like to assume the rest of us were just trying to compose ourselves before going back out in public. It wasn’t an entirely sad movie though; half of the tears probably occurred thanks to scenes being overly beautiful.

I felt so strongly about this movie that this is the first time I actually want to read the book that the movie is based on. If you like this movie, I would also recommend It’s Kind of A Funny Story, also dealing with high school depression, but in a much lighter tone.

What is a Heckler?

Someone who is a dick at a live event basically. A person who disrupts the show, calling out over the performer. Whether it be positive or negative, a heckler it be, yet generally it is negative.

People hate Hecklers, but man, some of the best comedy from stand up comedians come from attacking Hecklers.

But they don’t like it. That is what the movie Heckler is trying to say.

And 80 minutes of this guy.

Made by Jamie Kennedy, Heckler wants people to know that Hecklers suck and they are literally Hitlers. You will see ton of comedians bashing hecklers and giving nice reasons why.

But I lied when I said it was 80 minutes on the subject. I will still overestimate the time that topic got, and give it about 40. The last half? Well, it is more a general attack on mean people everywhere. By mean people everywhere, Jamie Kennedy of course is referring to critics/bloggers.

Oh shit! I am one of them!

Jamie Kennedy believes that Hecklers and Movie Critics are basically the same thing, maybe with the latter being worse. He actually goes around to people who reviewed his movie, Son of the Mask, badly. He does raise a valid point when he tries to figure out from them why they felt the need to attack his actual person in the review, which no one has a good answer for. But at that point it is uncomfortable.

I am not saying I disagree with what is said. Movie reviews should stick to the movie. It is fine to actually critique things, hell even make fun of things for a laugh. But you know, don’t then say the person is a giant dildo. Or whatever.

But Jamie Kennedy does it in the most dildo way possible, I don’t even care. It’s not the viewer’s fault that so many people disliked Son of the Mask. It’s just the normal reaction to a pisspoor movie.

Good news everyone. There are only 13 tagged actors for this movie, and one of them is actually a woman. Crazy, right? Obviously, The Expendables 2 is a sequel to The Expendables, which I forever have disliked because it came out the same day as Scott Pilgrim.

Insert dead horse joke.

The crew is basically the same before. Lead by Stallone, second in command Statham, but also still with Couture, Lundgren, Crews, and Li. Too bad Jet Li leaves in the beginning of the movie, to come back later. Yes, he is pointless.

But they do have a young guy, Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) who is former military sniper, and good at what he does.

Bruce Willis is mad because of events from the first film, but he is willing to forgive the team, if they go and retrieve some data from a downed plane far away. Easy enough. He is making them bring along a woman too, Maggie (Nan Yu) who definitely won’t be there as a romantic interest either.

But turns out the simple mission isn’t very simple. Shit hits the fan, and people might die. A different military group, lead by Vilain(Jean-Claude Van Damme…and yes Vilain? What?) and his lackey Hector (Scott Adkins) decides to steal the package and get away pretty cleanly. But what they stole, for their secretive reason, can actually put an end to the world as we know it.

The Expendables crew will have navigate unfamiliar territory, versus basically an army, and a pretty short clock to do it in. For those disappointed with Bruce and Arnold from the last movie, don’t worry, they do more shit. But also, Chuck Norris, because the internet loves him. Before you ask, basically, Chuck Norris was a walking Chuck Norris joke in is 2ish scenes he was in.

The triumvirate of power, right in front of your eyes folks.

I think it is acceptable enough to compare this to the first one right? Well I thought the first one was boring. It had a lot of action, but I don’t think I really understood everything going on, in between explosions and fisticuffs.

The second one? Well, I understood the plot! There is that. I also found the action scenes to be a bit better overall. I would say the first scene of the movie, a compound break in was a bit confusing due to the vehicles. The airport scene was a bit over the top, because it made no sense to have a basic flood of enemies continuously appear for them to mow down from all angles.

Interesting action movie? That is a rarity in my case. When the death happened, I actually felt upset. The final fight scene that you know exists between JCVD and Stallone was pretty epic.

But at the same time, a lot of features ended up annoying me. Having Jet Li in for one scene felt like a waste. Couture, Crews, and Lundren were all underused as well. The girl love story was a nice pointless addition, that felt forced. And basically anything involving planes, really.

So I am sure they are planning another one, which I will watch, but won’t really need to see the previous ones again.

I will admit, I tried to watch Winter’s Bone before and found myself lost have thirty minutes. But that is only because I was multi tasking it up, and didn’t really pay attention to it. Bad movie reviewer, bad! Which is why I stopped watching it.

And then, you know, kept putting it off. But hey, look, I did it. Get off my back, world.

“And after this, I will teach you how to use a bow and arrow. It could save your life!”

Yay meth! Meth, the best drug ever. Developed all across America, either in giant underground factories, or in small mountain towns where the law has no reach. Well, this ain’t Breaking Bad, so you can figure out where this takes place.

Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17yr old girl, with two younger siblings, and a mother who just ain’t there in the head. She has a daddy too, but he hasn’t been seen in a few weeks. He was arrested for cooking Meth, released on a bond, but now he has gone up and maybe R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

But that can’t be! Their family ain’t no cowards. Something else must up. But time is a runnin’ out. If he doesn’t show up for his court date, they will lose the bond, and apparently the house. Shit, they are already poor enough.

So she sets off on a mini-journey investigating the whereabouts of he pa, including her meth addicted uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes), up to the local crime boss and his army of women soldiers (Sheryl Lee).

“No, don’t volunteer yourself to go to the games for your younger siblings! Don’t do it!”

Winter’s Bone is definitely a lot better if you actually paying attention to what is going on. The thing you should probably realize is that this movie is a lot slower than other modern movies, so ADD people, stay away.

As Ree began to unravel her father’s disappearance, things got more and more weird. Unfortunately, not weird enough for my jaded self. Once she actually discovers the truth about her dad, and where he is, and how to get him back home? That part is a bit fucked up.

I also thought the acting was really well done. I just don’t think enough happened in the story for me. Part of the ending seemed like a bit of a cop out for me as well, problems got solved in a…rather easy way for my liking.

It was a pretty fine movie, just not my favorite. One I probably don’t have to see again anytime soon either.