Month: February 2013

Identity Thief came out the same day as Side Effects in theaters, yet they went the opposite route when it came to advertisements. Side Effects had barely any, and Identity Thief drowned the market with with TV spots and promos.

That’s right. So many ads, I am surprised I have enough energy to tread water still.

Run as fast as you’d like, but you cannot escape the ad train.

Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) is your normal Colorado living individual with a funny name. He is also a bit naive and a bit of a pushover, which is why no one is surprised when he gets his identity stolen by a “Diana” (Melissa McCarthy) in Winter Park, Florida!

Thanks to all of her shit, he now finds himself with a criminal record, failing to show up to a court date, and several thousands dollars of credit card debt. Hooray! It doesn’t help that he just started a new law firm with his buddy (John Cho) and when people Google his name, they only see pages of bad. The detective on his case (Morris Chestnut) can only help him if he can get Diana on his own to come back to Colorado and admit to her crimes. Clearly not too hard!

Amanda Peet plays his wife, Jon Favreau a jerk boss, T.I. and Genesis Rodriguez are hitmen after Diana, Robert Patrick a bail bondsman, and Eric Stonestreet as a rich Texan.

A rich and sexy Texan, of course.

The problem with a lot of advertisements is that each one is going to be different. The problem with that? I think only two or so scenes really felt surprising or new to me. I’ve seen the jokes, the gags, the violence, and the entire plot in their ads. I feel like that probably lessened the experience.

But lets talk about the plot. Identity theft on its own is relatively simple idea, and I am pretty sure hasn’t been done in this way before as a comedy. But the writers decided to make this movie anything but simple! She is a con artist, who was a foster child, who has made problems worse by bad dealings with local gangs, and being drunk in public. That means they are running from multiple groups while hating each others company and constantly lying about their intentions.

I think there is a fine line between annoying side character and misunderstood side character. What made Planes, Trains, and Automobiles so much better than Due Date is by humanizing the weird character and not just making them an asshole. Although they attempt to humanize Diana, I don’t think it works at all, and just see her as miserable person the whole movie.

The humor itself isn’t too well thought out. I laughed during a few scenes only, but I will note the theater as a whole seemed to laugh throughout.

Overall, I just feel bad for Jason Bateman. He kicked ass in Dodgeball and Arrested Development, but he has been on a slow decline since then.

Ah, Valentine’s Day.

Does anything mean love and sadness more than Mr. Nicholas Sparks? Shit, he has written 14 books since 2000, and probably half of them have turned into feature films. He is just writing money at this point, and probably making sure his stories can be turned into film.

In honor of that, let’s talk about The Lucky One, shall we?

Strangely enough, I am fine with him playing a soldier. Go figure.

In the War (you know which war I mean), there are people who end up dying. Dying for any number of reasons. Friendly fire. Enemy fire. Bad conditions. Who knows! But with that same train of thought, people survive for just as random reasons. Marching a step too slow. Disobeying orders. Or finding something on the ground, putting it in the pocket, and having that get shot instead.

Private Logan Thibault (Zac Efron) (No, I don’t think he is a private but they didn’t tell me) is returning home from his third Iraq tour thanks to that very thing. He found a picture of a random woman in a small frame, and it saved his life. Heck, after it saved him, it also gave him extra luck in surviving other deadly things. He really loves this random woman, but has no idea who she is, but he wants to thank her. When he gets home, he is too busy getting his PTSD on to do any real work, so he sets off around the country to find that missing woman.

And he finds her! Of course! Beth (Taylor Schilling) works at a dog obedience house with her mother (Blythe Danner) while both raising her son. She used to have a brother, but you know, he died in the war. Awkward.

So of course he gets down there, and quickly tells her that she saved his life and he wants to thank her. Right? Hells to the no. He panics, and says he is there for the job opening. Oh okay yeah, work and live in a completely different state to eventually tell her your secret. That’s not weird at all. Many movies before have told us that keeping big secrets like this always ends up positively.

Also featuring Jay R. Ferguson as a town sheriff and father of her child. Weird.

“I want you here in front of me, always, and forever…to continue to stop bullets flying in my direction.”

How does this rank in the Sparks spectrum? Well, it ain’t no Notebook. But it is better than The Last Song. But it is about another guy in the army, Dear John did that like, two movies ago. Why army again? Not to mention the entirety of most of the plot is about his inability to tell her why he traveled all this way, instead of a long journey finding the woman who saved his life.

Seriously, if it focused more on finding the woman, this movie would have been a lot better. But I guess it wouldn’t be Romancey enough if she wasn’t there most of the movie? I guess. Romance made this movie worse. I demand someone make a similar movie, focusing on the journey and finding the woman, and then it ends awkwardly as he pulls up to her doorstep or something. That is what I want.

This just doesn’t seem like romance at all to me. Type of thing is so creepy, even I can see that it is creepy.

Recently I asked my two labs what their favorite movies were. I asked everyone, about 37 students in all, and I was happy to say I had seen every single one of them already.

Except for one.

Into The Wild. I had heard of it mentioned before, but never seen it. Well, I couldn’t let my record stay at only one away, so I set off to see it immediately. Didn’t hurt that it fell in my 2007+ range of reviewable movies!

Hey uhh, that’s some nice geology you, uhh, got going on there.

Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) is not like normal boys. No, he is a free spirit, a guy who just hates the grind towards success in life, and he only just graduated college. Well, after he is finally living alone, he says fuck it. I don’t want to do this shit. I want to go out and live on the land, enjoy life for what it is and become one with nature. Damn it.

And that begins his two year journey, with the goal of moving up to the Alaskan wilderness to live on his own. But that isn’t his only goal. He also kayaks down the Colorado River all the way to Mexico, works a few odd jobs, and gets in trouble with the law. His parents (Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt) are distraught, as their boy seemingly fell off the face of the earth. He has no intention of being found either. His sister (Jena Malone) seems to understand why he did it all, but doesn’t mean she is fine with it either.

Oh, but he isn’t alone on this journey. He meets many people along the way, with different stories, theories and stations in life, and many free spirits. (These people include Brian H. Dierker, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Hal Holbrook, Kristen Stewart, and Zach Galifianakis).

No. You will ONLY get artsy looking pictures in this review, damn it.

Oh here is another fun fact. This movie was directed by Sean Penn. That fact wasn’t fun for you? My bad. But maybe mildly interesting.

This is the only movie I have seen directed by Mr. Penn, and let me a tell ya. It was pretty intense. I am kind of disappointed no one told me to watch this movie earlier, because it is such a great (and true-ish) story!

I am not the kind of guy who will ever give up things to go and discover myself. I like things, I like that they are a part of myself. Hooray capitalism and what not. If I didn’t like things, I wouldn’t have so many movies. But even I felt attached to Chris during his story. Full of ups and downs he discovered the truth about his life and did what he loved most in the world.

The movie is over 2 hours long and I didn’t notice it at all. I don’t think I have seen Emile Hirsch in any other movies, but I think his acting was just so tremendous in this movie, I am going to have to see more. The next will probably be Speed Racer, where he is the titular role, that way I can have a lesser opinion of him. Or something.

Into the Wild is definitely an overlooked movie from about 5-6 years ago, and should be a must watch for some time to come.

Have you heard about Bully? I bet you have. If you haven’t then the plan has failed.

The Weinstein brothers are famous for taking indie or art house pictures in the 90s and bringing them to the mainstream. The next most famous thing they are known for is creating Kevin Smith. The next main thing after that is the saying that the best type of advertisement is the ones you get from free. Make it so the newspapers write articles about your movie, and boom, people know about your movie.

So when it came to dealing with the MPAA over ratings issue, they were probably rolling around in glee at all the free advertisements!

For the three of you who don’t remember, initially the MPAA gave the film a rating of R due to its language, despite it all coming from actual footage of high school and middle school students using/hearing it. After a long battle, the MPAA caved and gave it a PG-13 rating. The film makers really wanted kids and teens to see this movie, to get the anti-bullying message out there. Unfortunately it still only got limited release in theater, and then 11 months later, it is released on DVD/Blu-Ray.

“If this video needs to be seen by everyone, why don’t you put it on the Internet for free?” Because fuck you, money, that’s why.

Ah yes, the bus. Danger at ever corner.

What is the documentary about though? Bullying. Oh okay. That makes sense.

It starts with the chronicling of one boys life, who eventually committed suicide from all the stress. It showed the parents grief, their anger towards the school who would seemingly do nothing about the bullying going on right in front of them.

Then it also tells the story of five other individuals. Some are just regular nerdy looking kids. One is a lesbian in a small conservative town. A girl who found a gun just to scare other bullies, and more. Heck, Iowa is represented, woot woot!

For some of the students, a guy with a camera walks around and captures some days in their life, letting you experience it as well.

And that is about it. What? You thought there would be a solution? Nope, this is awareness damn it. This is to make you feel bad.

What? This kid wasn’t picked on for his looks, but his poor choice of sports teams.

Like I just said before my bullying joke, this film wants you to feel bad, and that is about it. It has emotional scenes, people crying, people being picked on. If you were bullied, you might get sad from that memories. If you have children, you might get sad for that reason. You will probably get sad for being a human being. But in my eyes, that is all it does. It is to raise awareness that bullying is happening, and the schools aren’t doing much. Yes. But by offering no solutions other than awareness, I don’t see what it is doing at all.

Maybe it hopes bullies will see this and change their way? Maybe. But if that is all it could really hope for, you’d have think they would have done the things mentioned above (Free on the internet, or at least not wait a year to release it for purchase). I am sure the maker of the film probably disagrees with the way it was all gone down, but I can’t really take him away from the issue, since I don’t see him putting up a fight anywhere.

Either way, I think Bully is actually just a sensationalist piece, that tries to hit you in the feels, but offers no useful information. How sketch is this follow a kid around with a camera thing too? There is a principal that by observing something, it changes. These bullyies might have actually bullied harder or worse knowing they were on camera, to get famous that way. Who knows. I just know I can’t trust it.

If you saw the trailer for Side Effects, you probably found yourself confused. It tells you practically nothing; something about pills, a doctor/therapist/pharmacist getting in trouble, and maybe someone dying. There really isn’t enough here to convince the average person to check out the film. But what if “mysterious” is what the movie was going for? A trailer for a few weeks many months away, then nothing, and let the lack of any ads drive people in droves to figure it all out.

Yeah. That’s a terrible strategy.

No amount of thinking will make this a good strategy, Jude.

Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is a lonely woman. She used to suffer pretty hard from depression. Why? Because her husband (Channing Tatum) was sent off to jail for four years for insider trading.

Well he is finally back and they can get their life back on track and everything will be great again! Right?! Wrong! Bam, Emily crashes her car on purpose and sent to the hospital. There she meets Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who reluctantly lets her back home despite the attempt on her own life, but only if she will come to therapy sessions a few days a week and take some anti-depression pills.

But every pill has its own side effects associated with it, which could lead to irrational behavior and other strange issues. Also featuring Vinessa Shaw as girlfriend of Dr. Banks, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as her former psychiatrist.

“I just don’t understand doc, what’s wrong with sticking your dick in crazy?”

Hopefully you noticed I still tried to keep the plot description vague, because frankly, it helps. Going in to see this movie, I knew nothing, which is how I prefer to watch films anyways. I am glad the trailer was vague and didn’t give the entire movie away. So I tried to keep the favor for you readers, but give you a bit more detail to hopefully spark some interest. Because, as it turns out, Side Effects is pretty darn good!

Not only is it directed by Steven Soderbergh (Who has given us the Ocean’s Trilogy, The Informant!“, and “Magic Mike“. Okay, one of those doesn’t belong), but it is apparently going to be his last film for awhile. Officially, he is retiring, but I am sure that within a decade he will be back.  The only person to successfully quit the film industry has been Rick Moranis.

Side Effects is more than a simple “Who Dunnit” story by focusing more on the why and the how. Throw in some ethical debates about the role of doctors and medicine, and you might also earn a minor in philosophy by the time the movie is through. While watching the movie, I found myself getting angry in the best way possible. I was mad at the events happening on screen, at the loopholes and the needs for a scapegoat, but most importantly I was mad that it was incredibly realistic. The actual events in the movie I don’t think would ever happen in real life, but the reactions to those events were so spot on, I almost did a little “This is what’s wrong with the country!” rant in my head.

If you want to have some emotion evoked in your movie watching experience, I suggest checking out Side Effects. Give Steven Sonderbergh a reason to come back to film in a few years.

My quest to see The Master has been a long and lonesome journey. I guess with a name like The Master, it is kind of hard to NOT have a quest.

But this came out to the theaters before I had a chance to go to all the new ones, it never went to the cheap theater, and it doesn’t come out until the week AFTER the Academy Awards. No, this picture wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, but it was nominated for 3 of the 4 Best Actor/Actress/Supporting categories, making it just as important. Gosh, why did it have to make me go to such unsavory methods to see the film?

At least Amour has a BP nomination, so I can see it through one of those movie theater marathons.

Oh shit, you are a charismatic looking man. I guess if you tell me to like the movie, I will.

Sex. Sex. Sex. Some people can’t get enough of it. Take young Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) for instance. He just got out of the navy, maybe a discharge. Loves the sex. Loves the drinking. Kind of a lost soul after the navy, no one loves him. Might have accidentally poisoned a guy too, whoops.

But then he finds a boat, wakes up on it not sure why he is there. Bunch of weirdos though, talkin’ ’bout The Cause. Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is the captain of this here boat, and he is willing to take Freddie on. Just might do some testing on him, some personal questions to get into his core. He probed really deep.

Freddie finds himself attracted to Lancaster’s charismatic ways and agrees to stay on board and help him spread his message. A cult? Maybe, yes, but what else does he have going on?

Lancaster thinks he can help Freddie, cure him of his addictions to sex and alcohol, while Freddie is just looking for a place to fit in. But can he change? Just who is The Master anyways?

Also feautring Amy Adams as Lancaster’s wife, Ambyr Childers as his daughter, and Jesse Plemons as his son.

“You know what would make this morning go better? Some sex and alcohol.”

Before I saw The Master, I was pretty dang certain that Christoph Waltz would win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He was amazing in Django Unchained, he was a main actor in that movie, and there is no way that Philip Seymour Hoffman would have done better.

Well… I am not as sure anymore. PSH was excellent in this movie (and again, arguably just as important as Joaquin Phoenix). The scenes for everyone were really well acted, I just think PSH stood above the rest. There are so many examples of fine acting in this movie, the most famous of which will be the first “questioning session” between the two. Not a Doctor Who reference, but the not blinking scene? Great. I mean, yes, I am annoyed that there was blinking anyways, took a bit of it away, but still a pretty great scene. I also loved his reaction to the individual who was calling him a cult leader. Fantastic.

The Master has layers upon layers of potential themes you can take away from them, so I will not spend the time to go over any of them. Really, the movie is what you make of it. I know I am going to see it again, at least once, to try and get an overall better grasp.

Just some minor nitpicky things would prevent me from giving it the big score.

You gotta shoot ’em in the head. It is the only way to be sure. It is definitely a great statement for anyone who finds that they are stuck in an action movie or video game! Bullet To The Head takes that message and runs with it, basically making a whole movie around that simple(?) life rule.

Another is to always bring your own booze to the bar.

Our “hero” is named Jimmy Bobo (Sylvester Stallone) and — hey, wait, no, come back here. Yes his name is stupid, but let’s give him a chance. He isn’t really a hero, he is a hitman who has had problems with the law his whole life, all over the country. But now he lives in New Orleans, and just completed a job with his partner Louie (Jon Seda). But when they go to get paid, it is a set up! Louie is left dead, and Jimmy is left mad.

Turns out the guy they killed was an ex cop too. A scum bag, but still former cops have former partners, and his is Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang) who has flown in to investigate. But all he can find on his own is Mr. Scumbag up there, who shoots more people in the head than there are provinces in Canada. These two drastically different individuals have to team up to get retribution, but it will be pretty hard when they can’t stop shooting each other as well.

Also starring Christian Slater and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as the bad guys, Jason Momoa as hitman, and Sarah Shahi as the daughter.

Oh fuck yes, axe fight.

Surprisingly enough, Bullet To The Head is based on a french graphic novel and not a dream by Stallone. I had a lot that I disliked about the movie, and found them exemplified by what the men in charge had to say about it.

“[This] is exactly the type of fast-paced, universally themed project that suits our business model” – Production team. Unfortunately, the movie felt pretty slow. An awful lot of time was given to a plot that wasn’t good, meaning tons of downtime in between fight scenes. Half of these “plot scenes” consisted of Stallone being racist towards Kang. Fun fact, the graphic novel had a white guy, but they brought in Kang to appeal to a wider audience, so all of that specific acist dialogue was just for the movie.

Stallone had enough control over the movie to fire the original director because the director’s version of the film was darker than Stallone had wanted. This left us instead with a strange action movie (that had no problem killing/exploding dozens of men) with Stallone trying to be funny while transitioning between fights. Too bad the humor didn’t work for the most part.

Aside from that, there are other problems I had with the characters themselves. Adewale was a land tycoon, who claimed to never trust people who didn’t do things for money. Those are his last words, as he yells them to a man who is actually killing him (gasp) for the money. Completely nonsensical.

I actually liked John Momoa as the other hit man. His actions didn’t seem to fit his character description, but at least he had interesting fight scenes.

I found myself laughing more at the ridiculousness of scenes that were supposed to be serious, and fighting off sleep during the rest of the film.

Who doesn’t have fond memories playing Paperboy as a kid?

Oh wait, shit, I don’t. Huh. I never had that game. Ever. Or tried to play it. I think it involved throwing newspapers in mailboxes or porches, getting chased by assholes and dogs. Sounds about right. Either way, my intro has failed me.

Oh right, The Paperboy. some movie, based on a fictional book, and maybe creepy.

Zac Efron doing his best to not get type-casted is pretty dang creepy.

In this movie, there was a racist and bad sheriff, who got murdered. No one really liked him, but Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack) was sent to prison regardless.

Years later, a local paper is trying to prove his innocence. We have the brothers, Ward (Matthew McConaughey) and Jack Jansen (Zac Efron) and a black British man, Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo), all working on the case! I should probably mention this is also during the civil rights movement during the 1960s, which is why his Britishness matters.

But they have an additional ally. Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), Hillary’s wife. Yes, Hillary is a man. Kidman is white trash, yes, but she can let them get to Hillary, who for some reason doesn’t give a shit that he is in prison. Minus the fact that he misses dat body.

Either way, lots of dramatic shit happens, they might succeed, and other bad things might happen as well. Of course Jack also falls in love with Charlotte. Because that leads to drama. Oh, Macy Gray is also the narrator and a maid.

‘Fierce’ – A new perfume by Kidman

Well, this movie probably gets my “Weird movie of the week” award. It was eerie and strange to watch it, but it was hard to actually point out why.

Definitely a slow going movie, where everything is done for a reason. I found it a bit hard to follow the story, was a bit disjointed in the beginning. John Cusack definitely played a role like I have never seen before. Like a deranged Earl.

The real star of this movie is Nicole Kidman. She acted the fuck out of this movie, and she is the best part. But the eeriness and strange story kind of put me off, not to mention the slow moving plot points. Eventually on youtube will be a compilation of Kidman’s best scenes from the movie, and you should watch that. The actual movie itself? Up for debate, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Ah, another movie that I watch knowing nothing about. Who doesn’t love these?

But I will figure it out from the title. Cosmopolis. Uhh. City life. And Fashion. Yeah, lets’s say that.

Or a space odyssey. Yeah, I got nothing.

Featuring a kick ass limo. For 75% of the movie!

Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) is a big CEO billionaire in NYC. Yes, he is young too. Get at him girls.

But today, he wants a haircut. Only one place will do. Problem is there is bad traffic, and he is stuck inside his limo most of the way. Weird shit going on, protests, riots, whatever. So a lot of the movie takes place inside his limo, as he has meetings, sex, and appears elsewhere without notice.

I could describe it all and tag all the people, but frankly, it is confusing and hard to remember. I was lost, and I hated myself for watching it. Sounds intense, but it is true.

The last 20 minutes, however, features Paul Giamatti. Did you know someone was trying to assassinate Eric as well? Shit. That sucks. But who does Paul play and why would he want to kill a harmless billionaire?

Look at Robert. LOOK AT HIM. So fancy.

Cosmopolis is about 100 minutes, and that leaves about 70-80 minutes of confusing material.

I had to rewatch the ending before giving this review, because the conversation between the two is quite long and deep, and I wanted to make sure I got it all in. The conversation itself was a great one, but I wouldn’t say it excuses the first 4/5 of the movie for being confusing and strange.

If you watch it, and can understand it all, let me know. Again, the ending I thought was very deep and almost even well acted (thanks to Paul G). Robert Pattinson wan’t actually bad, just his character was emotionally distant so it was hard to like or care about.

Maybe the book makes more sense?

Warm Bodies, Warm Bodies.

Unfortunately, due to hearing that title said twice in a row, I really can’t stop doing it. It adds effect. It makes it creepy. I like creepy.

I kind of hate zombie based fan ficiton. More specifically, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a terrible book, seriously read it. It is P&P with another guy throwing in some zombie fight scenes and changing some words. But his writing style is so different than Jane Austin’s style that it is painfully obvious. But that was Zombies and Romance. How about Zombies WITH Romance?

You see the whole thing is a metaphor. A metaphor, for uhh, to be emo is to be dead.

R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie. Not much to talk else to mention about his life, he is a damn zombie. He doesn’t remember his old life, or his old name or anything. He has a “Friend” in M (Rob Corddry), but that means they sometimes go out on hunts together for food and grunt some.

On one of those faithful hunting missions, they run into a group of survivors looking for meds. That is where he meets Julie (Teresa Palmer). But something is different, something has changed. He doesn’t want to eat her body. Well, not in the traditional sense.

Could this be love? Necrophiliac love? Analeigh Tipton plays her best friend, Dave Franco her boyfriend, and John Malkovich her dad.

This is also a metaphor. A metaphor, for uhh, war. War is bad.

From what I can tell, the movie has differences from the book, but the author of the book is fine with it. He saw the movie and likes it, so I definitely won’t judge the two apart (not that I ever do that anyways). But I can say that after watching the movie, I want to read the book. Already ordered it online, can’t wait. The only other movie that I did that with was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Which, I might add, I liked the book as well and there were differences.

I thought the intro the movie was pretty dang hilarious. It begins with a nice monologue from R, as he shuffles about his normal zombie life, and we learn the ins and outs of his mind and actions. It just felt brilliant.

Rob Corddry stole the show with his zombie, but he was given the funnier lines, because he wasn’t currently in love with a living woman.

The movie has obvious references to a famous love story, which I figured out halfway through. I am glad they kept it somewhat subtle, I was afraid they would smash it over your head at the end, but thankfully they didn’t.

Shit, the only thing I really disliked would be that the change happening the zombies could have been more gradual and obvious. For R, it was slow and the signs of him getting better were clear, but for the rest of the zombies it felt rushed.

Fuck it. I loved this movie. Here is a high ass rating.