Month: February 2013

Documentaries, schmokumentaries.

But hey, Netflix has them, and sometimes they should be watched. Should Waiting For Superman be watched? We. Shall. See.

Ah. Hitlerman. Just who we wanted.
Wait. Superman? Like the regular boring one? Fineeeee.

Fun fact, this movie is about the failing American Public School System.

I watched it during the middle of the day, while I was prepping a lecture at a public university. I have found out that I am the problem with the American Public School System, and I apologize profusely.

Wait wait wait. This is talking about Elementary Schools, Middle Schools, High Schools. Never mind, I take back my apology.

Basically, tenure is a thing now in high schools, that teachers get basically right away from unions. Leads to bad teacher, hard to get rid of bad teachers, and schools that don’t care. Some amazing schools exist, but the only way to get into them (to make them fair) is a random lottery, versus money. So uhh, that sucks. Kids get sad, and we need to know about it.

Actual picture from documentary, generic stock photo, or something I took 8 years ago?

Well, this is one of those awareness documentaries. They let you know that something sucks, show it to you over and over again, and then that is it. Tell me to continue the cause? What? I ain’t got time for any causes.

The last 30 minutes (roughly) is watching many different lottery processes, and watching a majority of the kids look sad and cry and stuff. This isn’t regular guilting, this is extreme guilting. Whatever, its a fine message. I just hate that it doesn’t do anything about it. Awareness is not a worthwhile enough reason to do something. Shit, I think I got a little bit more out of the subject from Won’t Back Down than I did from this.

Dwayne Johnson has a movie a month for the next few months. Seriously. Look it up. February, Snitch. March, GI Joe 2. April, Pain & Gain. May, Fast and the Furious 6.

Holy crap, that is a lot of rocks!

But what makes Snitch different? Well, in the ads for Snitch, I only saw that “Dwayne Johnson” was starring in it. That means it was not “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson” like you see most of the time. Pretty crazy right? Has he finally made the switch (minus those other three movies?) Probably not. But I will respect that and not defile him with the nickname in this review.

Because The Rock would kick my ass if I defiled him.

John Matthews (Mr. Johnson) runs a construction company, built it himself, hells yeah. But he is divorced, because this is what drives plot. His ex Sylvie (Melina Kanakaredes) was able to keep the son Jason (Rafi Gavron) in the divorce, because John drove around a lot as a truck driver for his job. Damn, sucks. He has a new family though, a wife (Nadine Velazquez, solid solid upgrade) and a daughter there as well, but still wants to be in his sons life. He is about to go to college!

But his son does a dumb thing. He agrees to let his friend ship him a package of high quality drugs to his place, so he can pick it up later. Little did he know, that his friend got caught, and just snitched on Jason to reduce his own sentence. Jason didn’t want to help sell them, but agreed to help his friend, and now it looks like it was his idea! Sucks to suck. With federal minimum sentencing laws, he is looking up to 10 years in jail, despite the first time offense and no solid evidence. Unless he can snitch out someone else. The problem is, he doesn’t know any other drug dealers, and he is not willing to set up a friend.

Good morals, bad situation.

John wants to do anything to help his son. He is able to get the district attorney (or some equivalent title thing…Susan Sarandon) to reduce his son’s sentence if he helps set up an arrest himself. He just needs the help of one of his workers who used to be in on the drug game (Jon Bernthal) to get him started. Also featuring Barry Pepper as head of the local DEA thing and Michael Kenneth Williams as a big drug dealer guy.

By now you realize that if I see weird facial hair, I am going to post the weird facial hair.

First off, fuck this based on a true story nonsense. This time it is based on the fact that federal minimum sentencing is real, and it causes people to rat out other people maybe not actually involved. That is it. Go die, true story message. Die hard.

Snitch tries to go in two different directions, an action movie, and a drama where the father wants to do anything to help his son (like John Q, I guess. But more action). Part of the problem is that the action really isn’t there. The ads show lots of action, but that is mostly one and a half scenes of the movie, so I would definitely call action a stretch.

So that means we have a drama, folks.

A drama that isn’t that bad, but ehh, not to great either. Mr. Johnson actually great. Most of the supporting characters are so-so. The fact that this movie is just a strange way of saying that mandatory minimum sentences are bad, is kind of silly. They could have done it a lot better making it a more realistic picture, instead of the small action sideplot near the end.

Mr. Johnson did do great, as I said, but it would have been a better role for a frail guy. That is all. We are so ingrained in seeing Mr. Johnson as an action star, I can’t imagine him getting beaten up in this movie, or overcoming any difficulties by the end. Because he is Dwayne ‘The Friggan Dwayne Johnson’ Johnson.

I remember seeing the cover for The Collector when I worked at a Blockbuster and thinking I would never touch it with a 10 ft pole. But then something else happened. I saw a trailer for The Collection, thought it seemed familiar, and thought it looked interesting, if not a bloody mess. Well, turns out it is a sequel to The Collector (shocking, I know). Too bad local theaters never got the sequel to show, so I am stuck waiting for the dvd release, which also means plenty of time to watch the original.

Which is now.

Hooray!

Well I guess that is a unique look for a bad guy. I guess.

Arkin (Josh Stewart) is a crook. He has crook friends too, but not a crook family. He just needs money to help them get by and survive! So he hears about this house that the family has left for vacation, and they got a pretty good jewel in their safe. He takes the one last job, steals the gem, makes bank, and boom, he can stop being a crook.

But who would have thought that this Collector (Juan Fernandez) would have turned it into his own house of horrors at the same time? Go figure. So a quick in and out thievery turns into a locked in the house, try to escape, avoid the plethora of traps and other currently being tortured individuals. Hooray! You know, while he is also actively looking for anyone who might have come to fuck up his strange torture plans.

Here are some other people I’ve seen before in this movie, Madeline Zima, Andrea Roth, and Michael Reilly Burke.

I won’t even do a dramatic question thing to end this plot, its pretty simple.

I was going to make a joke about his character from No Ordinary Family, but given its ratings, I know no one would get it.

But pretty simple can be a good thing. The beginning of The Collector was a little bit slow, but I think the build up was worth it. The traps seemed intelligent and well put together, no crazy Rube Goldberg contraption. We just have a stranger entering these traps when he is already set up and torturing some house people, that is all.

The traps however felt inconsistent. I am surprised his initial trip into the house / to the safe upstairs he found himself trap free, but after that, was surrounded by them in literally every room. Like they magically appeared. Really that is my biggest problem with the movie. Inconsistencies with traps. I know the Collector wasn’t just placing them still, maybe just a few resets. The Collector also had no problem running around the house avoiding his stuff. The ‘bear trap’ trap just came out of no where, despite the floor being covered with them.

There is some “torture porn” in here, but not much. Most of it is based on the trap aspect and a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did like that The Collector never said anything, had a mask on, yet still conveyed enough personality without going into a long and dumb back story. What I don’t understand is how (from the ending), the sequel makes any sense.

If you have never heard of Anna Karenina, then you might have your finger far from the pulse of the Russian Literature community. So you might be like me.

“But this is Tolstoy!” all two of you yell in anguish. Yeah, well, he is dead now, so how great can he have been?

This is not the first time a movie has been made from the book, no, it is the thirteenth time. Of the previous 12, I of course have seen zero of them, so this Joe Wright adaption shall be my first.

I think this is a literal example of a crowd being taken aback by something amazing.

There is a lot of plot going on in Anna Karenina. Maybe even too much. I am even surprise they can fit so much story in these movies. I have the basic gist of the story, but I cannot fill in a lot of the details on my own.

Anna Karenina (Keira Knightley) is a Russian aristocrat and in the spot light, married to Karenin (Jude Law). It is an okay life, she is rich and all, the sister of an eccentric Prince Stiva (Matthew Macfadyen) who is married to princess Dolly (Kelly Macdonald).

But something is missing. Passion is missing.

Passion is what she feels when she meets the Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson), and then embarks on an affair, that will lead to divorce, hearsay, gossip, sexytimes, and a life filled with love. But with love, comes great sorrow.

Many other characters and players in this, but going over all their plots would literally kill me. But hey, Domhnall Gleeson is in this movie, so is Olivia Williams.

That woman in the top right is shunning SO HARD right now.

Here is a fact that I realized watching this movie, that is both unfortunate and wonderful. I don’t think someone watching this would consider it a straight adaption of the story and novel. Sure the setting is there, the character and plots are the same, but there is more than that going on in the movie from the visuals. It is not that I began to question if scenes were actually happening, but just they way they were presented were strange. Almost a giant metaphor, I think that they were trying to say that when you are an aristocrat, you must always put on a performance/show or else you might lose your prestige.

Alright, did that paragraph confuse you? I am sorry. It is just hard to describe.

But I think a problem with this movie is that I didn’t know the story or its many sub plotlines, and I quickly got lost in the flashy colors and grand scenes. I am not sure of half the things that happened, because the filmmakers probably assumed I knew about it. After all, wickedly famous novel, many movie adaptations? Well I am sorry, but I couldn’t get it to work.

The acting however was very well done, and I would say I loved the costumes and cinematography. The final message sucks and reminds me a bit of Gone With The Wind but I guess that is life. I just wish it was a bit easier to follow.

Yeah! Oscars! Woo!

Okay, most people know I don’t care about awards shows. My enthusiasm is all a sham to fit in. I usually don’t agree with the Best Picture and many other categories. I guess I don’t think like the academy, so I disagree on a lot of their choices. After all, snubs a plenty, am I right?

Half of the time it is just a lot of pretentious stuff going on too. But this year, this year is different. Have I ever seen an Oscar short before? Who is to say! Maybe accidentally? Maybe before a Pixar movie before it won? But I really don’t know. But I am exited to see them all this year for the first time ever, and see if this is a category I ever have to pay attention to in the future.

Asad
South Africa. 18 minutes.

Well shit, this short is acted entirely by Somalian refugees, and takes place in Somalia. Wasn’t filmed there of course, because that country is a wreck. In this story, Asad is a boy who is too small to be a pirate and hijack other boats. He wants to of course, that is all that is happening. There is an old man who wants him to be a fisherman instead, but he can’t catch fish worth shit. Most of his friends go on a hijacking mission, leaving him alone to fend off some rival villagers who have more guns than him, while also looking for anyway to feed his family.

Well shit…again. Basically, this short is a giant “Holy fuck, Somalia is bad right now!” That is the message and thats all. Not saying there should be any more of a message, but it is relatively simple. I think this one ends at an odd time after a strange punchline. Ending it on a light note is an interesting tactic, but for me personally, I feel like this short film is too short. Finish the dang story, assholes!

“Don’t worry Asad. Just activate your fish shield!”

2 out of 4.

Buzkashi Boys
Afghanistan. 28 minutes.

Oh snap, my alarms are going off. The pretentious alert! It is literally on fire! Ahhh! Watch out! I mean, just knowing where this film comes from should be enough of an alarm. The main characters in this film are two boys – one a street urchin, the other the only child to a blacksmith. They are friends, despite the blacksmith disapproving of the bastard child. Fucking beggars, man. They have one dream in common! They want to grow up to be Buzkashi champions.

What is that? Technically, it could be a made up sport. I frankly don’t even want to look it up. But basically it is a giant circle jerk of people on horses, trying to be the team/player who successfully takes a goat carcass around a pole and across a line first. Yep. This is the longest short too, but they do a good job of not making the sport look interesting. But yeah, they want to be champions! Except one is poor, and the other is pretty weak (despite having a pretty much guaranteed future as a blacksmith). Kids right?

Yeah, then an event happens. Hope is lost. Dreams are crushed…kind of. And I am bored.

Cheer up asshole. You could be in Somalia right now instead.

1 out of 4.

Curfew
USA. 19 Minutes.

Hey hey hey. An American Short. That means no subtitles! That will be one bonus point to you (not really unfair, since you don’t know the point scale in my head).

Richie isn’t having a good life. That is why it opens with him in a bathtub, wrists cut and bleeding out. Very messy. But when his sister calls him, he reluctantly answers, only to hear her bitching and moaning about needing someone to watch her daughter for awhile, even though she really doesn’t want it to be him. I wonder why she doesn’t trust him? After all, he seems like a stand up guy so far. He agrees, and has a night of watching a quizzical girl who never really knew her uncle. Oh the shenanigans!

Finally, something a bit more interesting. It is strange to imagine something less than 20 minutes having suspense in it, but Curfew pulls it off nicely. Why is the mom freaking out all the time? What did Richie do in the past that upset the family so much? Is this mini adventure enough to turn anyone’s life around? I had questions, and you know what, it actually answers them too. A complete story, in a tiny package. Excellent, and somewhat funny.

“Hey what’d you do to your wrists?” “Eat your fries, bitch.”

3 out of 4.

Death Of A Shadow
Belgium. 20 minutes.

Hey, even Sci-Fi can make an appearance in this category, nice. In this…world, we see a young man with a strange camera. He watches a mugging take place, but can only see the shadows of the individuals. Once a guy gets killed, he takes his picture an moves on. Oh shit, he hung up the photo of the gallary, just of the shadow itself. Well, that explains the title. He has to take pictures of 10,000 shadows before he is set free, right after death. Preferably interesting deaths. What determines where, when and who? A machine! He can even pick their death too, how sweet. Only 2 from 10k before he hits freedom, what a good time to start finding himself in love with another woman he has seen on missions. Surely that won’t affect his job performance.

I know you are thinking you know the ending already, but you may be wrong. Death Of A Shadow is set up beautifully, everything from the set, to the cinematography, to the details on the screen. You can tell a lot of work went into this picture despite its time frame. I think it was a beautiful story, and can’t even think of any good jokes.

Although maybe it was inspired by an R.L. Stine book?

4 out of 4.

Henry
Canada. 22 minutes.

Hey, a Canadian movie. That means I can understand this one too!…Fuck, its from Montreal. Ugh, okay.

Henry is an older gentleman, prepping for a big musical concert with the love of his life, his wife. They are both musicians, and met during World War II, him with a piano, her with a violin. Love at first sight, they got married and lived a long and wonderful life together, even having a daughter of their own who also became interested in music! Life sure is swell for old Henry.

Or is it? Why is he suddenly being held against his will, and constantly put to sleep when he asks simple questions about wanting to get back home to his family, about the upcoming concert? Has he been kidnapped? ARE THEY TERRORISTS?

A little part of me is probably yelling out “No! This is a type of short you hoped to not have to see! Old people with old problems!” Well, Old people are people too it turns out, and Henry was extremely sad. Again, it is not hard to figure out what is going on early into this short, and even if you see it coming, it will be hard not to feel extremely sad. Heck, probably one of the shortest times it took me to almost cry to something. A really great short and the film I think will take the category.

Don’t you dare look at me with that tone of voice, Henry.

4 out of 4.

Yeah, animated shorts! I expect big things from these, as the only ones I have ever really seen before all came before Pixar movies. But here is something they all have in common. They are all dialogue-less. Each one. Why? I don’t know. I complained out loud, someone said “But they are shorts!” Who gives a fuck. Short just means a shorter story, it doesn’t mean avoid dialogue. Come on guys, lets not be snooty here.

Adam and Dog
15 minutes.

I know what you are thinking, and yes it is true. Adam refers to the Bible Adam, and dog refers to a dog. The genesis story is boring now, apples and snakes and nakedness. But what about the point of view of a dog? Dog is just running around this vast forest and landscape, discovering new animals and wanting to play, but they won’t play back. Not until he finds man. A very naked man, who throws a stick and, by golly, dog goes and fetches it. He wants to play always! But eventually man finds a naked woman, and kind of doesn’t care about dog anymore. Poor dog, I will play with you.

The animation style I really enjoyed here, feeling minimalistic in my eyes, but yet still with enough detail to really draw you into the world. I am also finding it really hard to talk about a 7 minute film. Fuck it, just watch it Here.

No, dog, not that. Get the stick made of wood.

3 out of 4.

Fresh Guacamole
2 minutes.

What in the fuck is this? 2 minutes? Rounded up? The fuck?

This is literally just a stop motion comercial or something, about a guy making guacamole. When he cuts up an item, different objects pop out, and that is it. Seriously. Here is a similar film the guy did called Western Spaghetti, because I couldn’t find this version online.

I mean, what the hell else is there to say? Sure its nifty and all, but I think it could just stay on youtube.

It could be an anti war and gaming metaphor, or it could just be drugs.

1 out of 4.

Head Over Heels
10 minutes.

No dialogue three is up, and it presents to us a strange world/house. An older couple live in this house, and it is floating through the sky. The woman, however, lives on the ceiling and the man right side up on the floor. Very odd situation, but clearly another giant metaphor. Their marriage is in shambles, and they cannot see eye to eye anymore. Even when the man thinks back to the old times and tries to rekindle their relationship, he only makes it worse and their house goes crashing to the ground. Now he is on the ceiling and she is on the floor, but even more exciting is she now has land to walk on outside of the house. But if he tries to leave, he will just float up out of the house and presumably die!

Fuck. Hopefully his wife doesn’t leave him on his own, all upside down lost and confused. I had a video link to show you for this one as well, but youtube is a fierce and fickle mistress, and already took it down. But trust me when I say this stop motion film is entirely cute and fucking fantastic. I went into this thinking that a different short would be my go to bet, but really I don’t know if it will be this short or the last one. I love the story, and thinks it packs quite a punch.

Much like he will punch her in the face once she gets close enough. Just kidding. Maybe.

4 out of 4.

Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”
5 Minutes.

You may remember this film from the beginning of Ice Age: Continental Drift. No? Oh, that’s because no one watched that movie. Either way, this was definitely a thing, and involves Maggie having a short day in day care. Just watch it Here. Takes a little bit of time.

Although an interesting tale of her bleak and desolate four minutes in a daycare setting, I can’t help but just ask…why? Why do we need this? This could have worked easily as its own subplot of an episode. Can any animated TV Series start making tiny episodes and qualify for this category? Heck, at 21 minutes, why can’t an actual cartoon show qualify? This is just part of the same larger Simpsons canon, so I don’t see it deserving of an animated short award. But to be fair, it was probably better than Ice Age 4.

Who doesn’t love pi?

2 out of 4.

Paperman
7 minutes

Last one! Paperman premiered at the beginning of Wreck-It Ralph, also nominated for an award of course. Again, just fucking watch it. Only 7 minutes in length, on Hulu even, Here.

There is something different about the animation style here. It isn’t a 3D CGI fest, but clearly an updated version of your standard 2d film. Set in black and white, it is a small an magical tale about a couple of lovebirds and paper. Heck, it has everything. Hope, triumph, love, anguish, and the impossible. All in 7 minutes. This was my favorite to win the award, and fuck it, I still think it takes the cake. It is too cute not to, and although Head Over Heels is more personal, I just can’t stop smiling when I see this short.

I just hope neither of them bust out a pair of scissors.
4 out of 4.

I think Henry will win the Best Live Action Short, and Paperman will win Best Animated Short. But I also suggest checking out Head Over Heels, Death Of A Shadow, Curfew, and Adam and Dog. About an hour and a half of your life.

Well look at that, about the length of a movie.

Supernatural Teen Romance is a genre now, in case you missed it. Yes, it existed before Twilight, but Twilight really made it take off in a big way. I think it even has its own sections in book stores now. Unfortunately, that means everything will then be compared to Twilight if it has supernatural romance in it, which is of course silly. Twilight is a straight up Drama Romance, while something like Warm Bodies is a Comedy Romance (but not a RomCom).

Beautiful Creatures seems to fall somewhere in between the two.

Don’t be so scared guy, it is just a witch dinner.

This film takes place in Gatlin, South Carolina, which means two things – Southern Accents, and the Bible Belt. This town is the location of a small civil war battle, but that is the only thing it has to its name, so the town celebrates the reenactment every year. Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) loves to read and learn, separating him from most of the locals. Of course when a girl from a recluse family moves back to town, they all assume she is a devil worshiper and bad news.

Ethan doesn’t care, she reads books too, so she is perfect. Who cares if Lena (Alice Englert) actually ends up being a witch? A witch who doesn’t know if she will be good or evil until her 16th birthday, you know, when all female witches have it chosen for them, based on their “True self”. Why just the women and not men? Not sure, sexism probably. Can he handle a woman with powers, and her family (Uncle = Jeremy Irons, Cousin = Emmy Rossum, and mother) forcing her in different directions?

Also featuring Thomas Mann as normal best friend, Emma Thompson as his super religious mother, and Viola Davis as his guardian/librarian friend. After all, a story needs normal people in as well, or else we have nothing to make fun of!

I think he looks like an older Eddie Munster. Does that add to the supernatural feel?

Beautiful Creatures is of course based on the novel, and from what I can tell, if you like the novel, you might hate this movie! Like all great book to film transitions, things change, and frankly I don’t care how different it is from the book, because I like what I saw.

The main two leads are relatively new to the movie scene and I haven’t seen them in anything personally, but I loved them both. Alden made me laugh almost every time he talked, and not just because of his strong accent combined with “smart people” words. Alice and Alden had great chemistry together, and despite being a quick teen romance, I found it believable.

The movie had its issues of course, sometimes it felt like it had B-movie special effects, and it definitely was predictable at parts. I am confused at why they cast Kyle Gallner as the brother, who looks far too much like Robert Pattinson. That is just asking for more Twilight comparisons.

More impressively, the “dinner scene” was done almost entirely without CGI, a rarity in movies these days, and pretty dang impressive in general. I say give it a chance, and try not to get lost in the paper thin religious towns people.

I am a bit disappointed in you, random CGI/animated movies. Why the obsession with famous people to voice your characters? If they are actually voice acting, you shouldn’t understand their normal acting voice. But alas, we must fill them up with as many big names as possible, because hey, its cheaper when its just voice acting, so why not?

I am just disappointed that I have to tag so many dang people in this movie. Shit, most of my plot is introducing the characters.

Basically, before I watch Escape From Planet Earth I just hope it is a lot closer to Escape from L.A. than Mars Needs Moms. But I guess I think that for most movies.

Finally, it looks like someone is thinking of the children.

In this movie universe, we have aliens! All different sorts, all speaking English, and all on planets of only one type. Earth is so weird. Not to mention deadly. When ever Aliens go there, they tend to never return. Seems like a big damper on the Earth thing, but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Like if you are Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser), Occupation: Hero. He saves shit, didn’t you see above? He saved those babies! That somehow got on that planet with things that eat babies! Well, Scorch gets a mission to Earth, hearing of a distress signal. So he goes over, but because of having a fight with his “nerd” brother Gary (Rob Corddry), he gets captured and everyone flips his shit. His news reporting lover (Sofia Vergara) is shocked. Yes, I just wanted to throw that tag in now.

Either way, because his son is a little dickhead, and his wife Kira (Sarah Jessica Parker) is nagging about how thinking is overrated, he decides to not think, and just go and rescue his brother. Bitches, man.

Needless to say, something fishy is up. General Shanker (William Shatner) ends up capturing him too.
Puts him to work, with some other smart aliens (George Lopez, Craig Robinson, Jane Lynch). No big deal, just building the biggest weapon in the universe to “Destroy asteroids” with. Hey, he said if they build it, they can go home. Pretty great!

Hopefully everything works out at the end, and they can…Escape From Planet Earth. Fingers crossed for these poor, brave aliens. Ricky Gervais is also “James Bing” a smart computer (not even subtle guys), and Jessica Alba as the head of head of mission control?

Well, these ones don’t look enslaved. I guess that is good!

Quick! Quick! Listen to this song. Maybe listen to it three times. Remix one of them a little bit. That is what the soundtrack felt like, as I could only hear this song and some woman song smack dab in the middle. They are the only two songs played during the credits too, which claimed many more songs happened in the movie, but I definitely didn’t hear them.

“Alright, so I guess it is cheesy and childish then?” You betcha. Like a lot. Like, the jokes are people falling down or running into things.

Hey, I laughed a few times. There were some subtle jokes, or things being yelled off screen, but that was about the extent of the humor.

Instead we have a mostly “lower level” comedy, without much of anything for adults to find enjoyable when they watch with the kids. Of the other aliens, the only one that I found not annoying was the Slug, and he didn’t really get much character development besides “gross, sticky!”. The main arguments of the characters involved whether or not someone was fired or quit (when it was clearly quit. Especially since I doubt the other individual even could fire him if he wanted). The plot twists (if we call them that) were obvious about 10 minutes into the movie. The child is stupid and has bad ideas.

Heck, the film basically deglorifies intelligence. Everyone was mad at the main guy for trying to think things through before acting? Fuck that, life isn’t a race people. Thinking of course helps save the day, but they are too busy nerd joking to care.

Yet despite all this, still not as bad as Mars Needs Moms.

I…CAN’T THINK OF A GOOD INTRO FOR THIS MOVIE.
Blah blah, Nicholas Sparks, blah blah Valentine’s Day, blah blah, bow chicka bow wow.

Safe Haven.

Aww yeah. Kiss her. Right on the mouth. There you go. This is what we paid for.

Safe Haven of course opens with Katie (Julianne Hough) having her hands covered in blood. Wait, what? Okay, that is different.

She is running from the law, apparently. Dyes her hair blonde, gets on a bus to Atlanta, and barely makes it out in time. That detective Tierney (David Lyons) is super frustrated, probably because he just let a murderer or something go home free.

But on the way there, she decides to stop in the city of Southport, North Carolina, which is nothing like Boston. Yeah, that is a good place to hide away, small town, nice beach, everything is cheap there. In fact, getting a nice secluded house was also pretty dang easy, and a job. Well done, Katie. Well done. She only has one neighbor, the boring and seemingly needy Jo (Cobie Smulders) who always wants to hang out at Katie’s house and hook her up, while bitching about being stuck in NC.

Either way, she feels safe in this (I guess you could call it) haven that she has found, and starts getting a little bit interested in the local clerk Alex (Josh Duhamel). He has two young kids, had a wife, but she died of that cancer thing. Bad times. But his (uncle? Old friend who also works at the shop? Red West?) convinces him he too must move on, and they do that romance thing.

I’d say more, but that ruins the surprises.

Trying to figure out why the cop is a giant douche bag is half of the fun!

Real quick, two fun things.

One, this was filmed on location in Southport, NC. Basically every thing he said about it was true, down to their festivals. Even the phone area code, well done Sparky. But it isn’t too impressive, since he has filmed multiple films there already, even if not based in it.

Two, in terms of chemistry, Duhamel and Hough have got it. It seemed and felt real, unlike a few other movies I have seen of his. Like, high quality. They were great together.

The issues of the film come, as expected, from the plot and characters in it. I explained my frustration with Jo. Like, zero depth to her character, and she felt awkward the whole movie. I cared zero about Jo, just that she seemed weird.

The cop on her case, until we find out more, is just a drunk asshole, who keeps breaking the law to find her location. It doesn’t make sense early on, and gives us zero time to actually assume she did something wrong, because we are too busy hating the cop the entire film.

And lastly. HOLY FUCK THAT ENDING. NO. NO NO NO. NOOOOO. WHAT?! Come on Sparks. You were sailing. Good stuff was happening. Then you throw, THAT at us? Do you hate your fans? That ending is just, so bad. I wish I could tell you without feeling like an asshat. If you want spoilers, you can request them (and probably read a wiki outline or something on them faster).

Overall, I would say the majority of the story ended up being one of my favorite stories by Sparks, but uhh. Certain elements kind of kill it for me. Like a lot.

Die Hard, Die Hard, Die Hard.

Such a strange film series when you think about it. How many others have the main character balding naturally through the series, and look nothing like he really did in the first? It is so strange, yet so real, and thus it is awkward.

But did anyone really like the fourth Die Hard? To me, it felt pretty weird, and put me off. I liked it more than Die Hard 2, but not on the tier of Die Hard 1 / Die Hard 3. Did I tag them all? Well, not Die Hard 5 yet. Oh snap, done.

Either way, time to see what is good and bad about the next installment. Maybe even see if they lied to us about movie scenes with the trailer?

And now my website shows more of this scene than the actual theatrical release.

John McClane (Bruce Willis). Still a cop. Has had a rough relationship with his son. Why? Because of vague “always at work, no time for family” stuff. His daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is fine with it. Just not his son, Jack (Jai Courtney).

But he finally finds him after three years, apparently in Russia. In Prison. For murder. Well, guess John has to use some vacation time to go figure out what the hell is up.

Oh snap, he is actually some sort of Spy and undercover?! Trying to extract Komarov (Sebastian Koch) and his daughter (Yuliya Snigir) from the country, to get valuable information on one of their new leaders Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov) who might be willing to start World War 3? Yes, I am aware of the run-on sentence.

Why does John have to show up and fuck everything up? It is like he is looking for trouble. Also featuring Radivoje Bukvic as a tap dancing hit man.

Warning – This was my favorite scene, despite its awkwardness and strange ending.

I can’t not compare the movies, damn it. First things first, this Die Hard is about 30 minutes shorter than the previous Die Hards. That is 25% less movie! Previous Die Hards have had pretty intense plots, some with big political intigue and pretty awesome one liners, with great action as well. So does this one?

Well, first off it isn’t Hard enough. There is one death that feels pretty great, but everything else was a lot tamer. As I eluded to above, the trailer made it seem like the main woman would get down into her skivies for a scene, and in the actual movie it cuts away when the zipper goes down a few inches only. Not even cleavage. I am not trying to sound pervy, but they put a long version of the scene in the trailer literally to attract more males. That was its purpose. Yet it wasn’t in the movie? That is pretty strong levels of deception there.

So no sex, no great violence, heck, even the cursing felt tamer.

But the positives? For the first time, in a long time, it felt like an actual “non stop action” movie. Outside of the “plot-y” beginning, basically once it started, it kept going the whole film. I think my main issue is it really didnt feel like a Die Hard film to me. They basically made him invincible in this film, surviving many crashes without too big of a problem, and having the stupidest fall (that a person can run from) I have ever really seen. Remember in the first film, when he had issues because of no shoes? If this John McClane was there, he would have taken the C4 himself down the elevator shaft.

I think the actual best part about this movie, is that we will get a fifth verse to this amazing song about the franchise.

Hooray hooray! I have finally got a chance to see Amour, the last movie I needed to see for all the Best Picture nominees this year. BEFORE the award, not several months after.

Plus, it is a foreign film, from Austria, in French!

I must be growing up. I am an adult now, watching adult movies, in adult speeds.

Adults watch their form of adults (old people) do things, right?

Amour means love, but you knew that. Bitches love amour, and surely if it is about old people, we will get to see a wonderful, blossoming relationship despite their limiting factors. Crap. It could also go the other way. The super sad way.

Studies have shown that old people have a higher chance of dying soon, than say, teenagers. Are we going to see the end of a life, and how sad it is to lose someone you love? Especially if you lose them very very slowly? I should move the above picture ahead a few seconds just to check.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Look at how sad she is! Fuck, we are in a drama folks! Prepare the ship! Tears are incoming!

Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) have lived long and prosperous lives. They love music, and have helped musicians with sponsorships (Alexandre Tharaud). They are rich, for whatever reason, and live in luxury. They have a beautiful daughter, Eva (Isabelle Huppert), who is married with kids off in another part of Europe, and life is sweet.

But one morning, during a normal breakfast, Anne becomes unresponsive, just staring out into space, unable to respond to any sort of stimuli from her husband. Eventually she snaps out of it, but it still puts him into quite a scare and he takes her to the doctor. Something is blocking something else in her brain, and if they don’t take care of it, it could happen again but worse.

Well, the surgery goes wrong. A 5% chance, but now Anne finds it hard to walk, and she is forced to live in her own home, bound by a wheelchair. She might get better, or it might get worse. But you already know which way it is going to go.

She starts to move much slower, eventually half of her body gets paralyzed, and she becomes entirely bed ridden. The pain is unbearable, it causes her to scream out in pain throughout the day. She. Wants. To. Die.

But Georges can’t just let her kill herself, can he? The love of his life?

Oh no! It just keeps zooming! I can’t stop, we have crashed straight into sad land!

Whew. That is all I can really say, just whew. I can also say that this film is perfect. I often dislike films for not being realistic enough, in terms of character actions and dialogue, but this one might be on the other extreme side of the scale. /Too real/ and not enough, I guess…entertainment? Even when I go to a drama, and even if it is sad and I cry my eyes out, I still expect to be entertained by the story.

But Amour doesn’t really let me do that. The scenes in this movie are quite long, so the acting was clearly there. But they are too long. They are too slow. Many minutes of watching the husband try and feed his halfway paralyzed wife. Despite feeling the feels that were given to me on the screen, I was still combating sleep the first half of the movie. It was just far too incredibly slow, perhaps perfectly mimicking the slow death of a loved one.

But again, the acting is incredible. If the Oscars are based on talent, I think Emmanuelle Riva wins the best Actress award. The things she did in that movie were incredible and honestly no one else came close to her sort of delivery.