Month: May 2014

In an attempt to broaden my interests and review types, I set out to watch more documentaries. You know whose documentaries I usually enjoy? Why, those HBO Documentaries! I really only remember one specific one, Hot Coffee, and that one was really good. So why not another?

I picked Miss You Can Do It mostly because I liked the title. I went in knowing that it would talk about the first woman with a physical disability making it to the Miss USA pageant, and that she started a pageant for young girls with special needs as well.

And uhh. Well. That is basically the story I guess. And that is basically the documentary. The girl in question is Abby Curran, who at 20 won Miss Iowa 2008, sending her to Miss USA. She has cerebral palsy, just a milder version that mostly messes up her walk only. She made the Miss You Can Do It pageant actually in 2004 though, when she was sixteen, which is the miraculous part.

People from all over the US come and compete. I can’t tell how often it happens, but it is for young girls, most likely middle and elementary school.

Look, one of the girls dressed up as a sailor for her casual wear. CASUAL WEAR. That’s how you know their lives are rough.

So let’s get to the real talk. Not a lot happens in this documentary. They show us the lives of ten of the pageant girls. Their home life, school life, interview process, talks with their parents and more. Good insight, some are harassed, we get that. Also over the last decade or more, it has gotten a lot better. Kids/students are being more acceptable of those with differences. You hear every year about how a girl with down syndrome or confined to a wheel chair gets picked for prom queen instead of some popular girl.

But how much of that is fair, really? This might be a tangent, but hey, it relates to the movie. It is now getting to the point that if there is a voting based competition, and someone has a disability, they have a good chance of winning it now. Which is fine, if they deserve it the most, but the ultra PC-ness has lead to people voting that way because they think its the right thing to do only. I feel bad for the other girls who might have been dreaming of this moment their whole life, only due to sympathy.

Is sympathy the right way to vote though? I don’t know. I feel like it might be one of several categories to consider.

I only assume people have these hopes and dreams thanks to movies. My own high school experience didn’t have anything ridiculous like that.

However, like this is awesome and helpful for a self-esteem point of view. Watching this documentary and watching the happy faces of these girls who live lives I can’t even comprehend was joyous. I also might think the sympathy vote is what a lot of girls would use to win a competition.

I don’t know if I fully made any points here actually. The TL;DR is that the sympathy vote is crap, and every time I see a disabled person win a popularity contest, I wonder how much of it was from sympathy and how much was from actually earning. It is the cynical part of my mind, I guess. I won’t go into any further thoughts my cynical mind might have.

This documentary on it’s own doesn’t do a whole lot, just showcases a thing that exists that you might not have known about. No debates, no changing point of views, nothing. So it is okay. Kind of disappointing from an HBO Doc point of view, but okay nonetheless.

The first and only time I heard about the movie Dom Hemingway was as a trailer before The Grand Budapest Hotel. The latter movie was fantastic, so that felt like a good sign for Dom Hemingway.

But the trailer? The trailer made me want to see Dom Hemingway right after I watched my Wes Anderson picture. You should watch the trailer right now. t

So, a few months and a move later, I can watch hopefully a very interesting character driven movie.

With characters who drink in the public with no regards to laws or facial hair restrictions!

Dom (Jude Law) has been in prison a long time, twelve years in fact. He hasn’t said a word about his former boss after the gig went south, but he is still kind of pissed over it all. Dom used to be the best safe cracker in the biz, now he is stuck in prison, missing his wife who died of cancer and daughter who was just a teenager when he left.

But then the call came through. Dom is free to go. So he reconnects with his old buddy Dickie (Richard E. Grant) and demands that he go see his old boss Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bichir) to get the money he is owed, plus interest, and maybe a little bit something extra for keeping quiet for so long.

But Dom? He is a drinker and a drug user. He has a lot of sex and rock and roll to catch up on thanks to the last twelve years, and his mouth and filthy habits might get the best of him. Like when he sees Paolina (Madalina Diana Ghenea), Mr. Fontaine’s girlfriend. Smoking. He wants that. He also wants to re-kindle the relationship with his daughter, Evelyn (Emilia Clarke). He also wants a shit ton of money and to never stop partying.

Good gosh, what will become of this sad little man? Also starring Kerry Condon as a very strange extra role and Jumayne Hunter as a new gang leader who might need a safe cracker.

Whatever it takes. That safe is getting opened. Maybe.

Dom Hemingway started out as everything I had hoped it would. A 1-3 minute conversation from Dom to what appeared to be the camera about his penis and how hard it was. Yes. That is exactly what I need.

But seriously, the beginning of the movie was fantastic. Dom living life up large, all the way to getting to Mr. Fontaine’s house. I thought I was on a wild ride that wouldn’t stop. Then a small twist happened, and the rest of the movie began to change as a result. Dom was left a broken shell of a man who had lost his way, with nothing going right. That part, although still acted really well, just kind of felt off from the first half. The second half definitely had some exciting moments, but it felt a bit slower and less exciting than the first half.

So that is where I am at. Jude Law? Fan-fucking-tastic. Really great. He killed this character and it was great. I want more Dom Hemmingway. I want a movie where he is just hanging out in prison for twelve years. I don’t want any character development, I just want the black comedy that I knew this thing could be.

The movie delivers on some aspects, but the ending just…loses so much interest for me. Hard to describe. But I think it failed to maintain the high bars it set early on.

I have been putting off watching Doubt for quite a long time. The only reason is, in 2007, before the movie came out, I ended up seeing the play version for free. The play version of Doubt has only four characters: priest, old nun, young nun, kid’s mom. That is it. No children at all in it, so side nuns, nothing. Just these four characters and it was a very powerful play. A play that asked a lot of questions, made a lot of assumptions, and did it in a very simple format.

So I never really wanted to watch the movie, as I would no doubt just compare it to the play. Who cares how many awards it was nominated for?

And then? Then Philip Seymour Hoffman died. I still haven’t reviewed a movie with him since his death, but was able to get a Paul Walker movie within two weeks of his death. Even had a shitty Cory Monteith tribute review, kind of.

But Mr. PSH was kind of special, and I knew I just would have to eventually go and watch this movie for him, before anything else of his came out. I just knew it had to be Doubt.

I guess you could say there was no doubt in my mind I would see this movie soon.

Doubt takes place in a land without cell phones, the past. I assume somewhere in the 1960’s, mostly because they are dealing with issues of segregation.

It also takes place at a Catholic Church / school, where nuns teach, and the word of God is rule. The most feared nun in the nunnery is Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), who is the main nun and will have no shenanigans. She doesn’t want the church to get away from its traditional teachings, or give into technology, or all of that crap.

But then the school has its first black kid in its midst, a boy. They were worried the kids would be picking on him, but no one seems to care. No one, except Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who takes the boy under his wing, makes him an alter boy and protects him.

However, Sister James (Amy Adams), a fresh new nun, who doesn’t want people to fear her, notices something strange about the boy. He seems dejected. He seems to have lost whatever spirit he had. He seems to have…alcohol on his breath?

Doubt asks the age old questions, really. Is the Catholic priest conducting in inappropriate behavior with a student? If so, is their any proof? Viola Davis plays the kids mother.

Red hot Catholic bench action right up in here.

In honor of the play I obviously only tagged the four main characters.

For whatever reason, the movie felt very short. It was only 1 hour 40 minutes, but the first 20 or so are just character defining scenes to get you to know our cast, and the rest of it feels like only four or five scenes. The scenes are all very long with tons of dialogue (see: the fact that it was a play), and they are also incredibly intense. All four of the main cast members had their moments to shine in the movie, displaying a lot of emotion in a simple way.

Was Hoffman good? Yeah, he was excellent. Was Streep good? Yeah, she was excellent. So were Adams and Davis, in fact, this may now be some of my favorite roles for the last two, even if it was arguably Streep’s movie overall.

Great plays make great movies. Simple fact as that. A nice watch, although again, the timing on it felt a bit odd while I watched it. Large cast was necessary I guess, but they could have given the kids less lines and made them mostly background characters.

X-Men, oh X-Men, where art thou X-Men?

This is the seventh film of the franchise. SEVENTH. X-Men: Days Of Future Past. When I first heard about this, I was excited. It was a very ambitions plot and storyline to go for, time travel tends to do that. Couple that with the fact that X-Men: First Class was actually decent meant the series might be headed off in a certain way.

But you know what was terrible? The advertisements for this movie. By having two time lines of cast, we have a shit ton of characters, and Fox decided the best way to advertise it was to give every character its own…thing, whatever. So, magazines would have 30 unique covers, or 30 individual character posters, or whatever. No giant cast pictures, no, just an overabundance of individual character shit.

Here is one of the real reasons this bugs me. Anna Paquin. It was stated a long time ago, in the year of 2013, that she was basically cut from the movie. Then it became a rumor. Then it became true and then changed to say that she would just be a cameo. Just a cameo? And still getting full ad treatment? Boo. That is almost worst than the 47 Ronin ad issues, because she is supposed to be a bigger character.

Finally, in the credits, her name was higher than many other people in the film. Because she is more famous? Than Ellen Page? Fuck that. She was in the original X-Men movies then a shitty TV show, while Page has had a big lucrative film career. It is just nonsensical, and most of this doesn’t matter for the actual movie.

No, but these robots matter. AW YEAH SENTINELS!

In the near future, everything is bad, lots are dead. Mutants. Humans who would give birth to future mutants. The sentinels have destroyed it all. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) has an unexplained ability to also let people go back in time with their consciousness to their body and like, change the future. But only for a few days, maybe a week. This is long enough to help their band of mutants survive and run, but not long enough to fix it.

No, they’d have to go back to the 1970’s, before Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) (who’s actual mutant power seems to be very limber leg maneuvers) kills the creator of the Sentinels (Peter Dinklage). But the process to send back a consciousness would tear apart a brain. Unless of course, the brain can heal itself. Hmm.

Enter Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) ready to travel back in time, convince past Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and past Xavier (James McAvoy) to work together, change the future, and fix their stupidity.

Here is where I talk about everyone in the film, but in one giant paragraph. Maybe the new people first? Like, Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Toad (Evan Jonigkeit), Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Sunspot (Adan Canto) and Warpath (Booboo Stewart).

Of course we have Old Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Old Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Storm (Halle Berry), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and of course ROGUE. Just kidding. Bullshit cameo.

Do we get Jean Gray (Famke Janssen), Cyclops (James Marsden), or Old Beast (Kelsey Grammar)? Well, maybe.

I will only advertise one character per picture, as per movie tradition.

Yay Sentinels! Like a lot a folks in my age bracket, the Sentinels were one of the first X-Men plots I was exposed to, thanks to the first two episodes of the X-Men Animated TV Series on Fox. Shit, that is where I learned most of my basic plot lines, and why to fear the motherfucking Juggernaut. They were fascinating to see and I love the changes made to them. They were TERRIFYING and kept the viewers on the edge of the seat.

What else rocked? Most of the movie. Sure, some plot elements could have been explained better. But the Xavier/Magneto back story was great, a good continuation from First Class. Speaking of dickheads, Fassbender as Magneto is a huge one, and it was awesome to see. The best part is, you can easily relate to where he is coming from and he isn’t just a mindless villain.

Speaking of even more awesome, Fox’s adaption of Quicksilver was so entertaining. He didn’t have the bigger role in the movie, but whenever he was on screen, you paid attention to him and no one else. They really went all out to make him stand out, kind of a big middle finger to Marvel, daring them to raise the bar in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

To make this long review a bit shorter, here is the quicker analysis: So many characters, but outside of tiny cameos, they all were great and wonderful. Special effects and action was good. Story and plot was good. Holy shit, give me Apocalypse.

Did this 100% fit the continuity issues between a few of the movies? Heck no, but at least it gave it a good try and an entertaining one to boot.

Milestone review. MILESTONE REVIEW. MILESTONE REVIEW!

This review is my 1100th from the site. I know, after 1000, what is the big deal? Eh, having a special longer review every 50 reviews gives me something to look forward to. It allows me to save particularly famous movies for ridicule. But not every one of them is actually bad. For instance, I last checked out Teen Beach Movie and it ended up being okay. So there is always hope. Maybe the hate these movies get is all internet hooplah.

Which is why I have decided to look at Dragonball: Evolution today. I, like every male in my age group, have seen Dragonball Z on Toonami as a youth. A nice anime, despite the 75 hour fights. Lots of story and backstory, and for what it’s worth, the show makes sense in the universe it created.

So when they decided to make a movie, clearly there would be an army of neckbeards furious if any part of it strayed from the anime, like any of their sacred source material. They don’t believe in movies telling their own similar story. I will do my best to avoid that in this review.

Well, so far the villains look power rangers quality bad. This should actually be good for my demographic.

This movie takes place on an Earth. But in this earth, two thousand years ago, this alien Piccolo (James Marsters, yes, Spike from Buffy) tried to destroy the earth with a giant monkey, but some people sealed him in the Earth. Now, Goku (Justin Chatwin) is a teenager. He is getting training from his grandfather (Randall Duk Kim). He knows how to fight, channel his Ki and all that. But why is that important? Hard to say. Buy kicking the butts of bullies at school is always fun.

Woo beating up regular school kids!

Anyways, his grandfather gave him a Dragonball, with four stars in it. He told them there were seven overall. These do stuff. We all know what they do. Get all seven, get an immortal dragon to come down and grant a wish! Yay! But not so fast. While Goku was trying to get his Chi Chi (Jamie Chung) on, this Piccolo fellow and his woman assassin friend Mai (Eriko Tamura) came by grandpa’s house and killed the old man, looking for the ball! Oh no! Sad times.

Anyways, those sad times don’t matter, because then some bitch comes into his house with a gun trying to take his ball! He beats the girl up, her name is Bulma (Emmy Rossum), and somehow she made a device that can sense local dragonballs. Of course, lucky timing. Yes, this is the same Emmy Rossum from Phantom of the Opera.

I honestly couldn’t find many more good pictures then generic character ones.

So they team up and go to find Master Roshi (Yun-Fat Chow)! Oh yeah, that is a guy that Goku’s grandpa told him to go and find before he keeled over. He can learn how to fight better with him maybe.

They actually find him next on accident! Yay dragonball locator. Mini fight happens, oh shit, he is Roshi. Big happy times. He joins them on their journey to help train and stop Piccolo.

Despite the age difference, this might be the closest good casting decision in the movie!

Then what? I dunno. Some training and shit. Let’s take a moment to talk about other things. Like about how un-exciting the Piccolo character is in this movie. He isn’t even scary, he just looks awkward. Let’s also talk about how our male lead and Bulma both went on to be major characters in the American remake of Shameless.

Anyways, while looking for another Dragonball, they fall into a pit trap from this fucker Yamcha (Joon Park). He doesn’t want to help them until he gets cash. Eventually he helps them and they fight off Mai and get another Dragonball!

Yay!

That’s the fucker, right there.

Did I tag everyone who was important by now? Good. Because no more new characters.

So, the rest of this movie is Goku training under Roshi, doing crazy things and feats of strengths, while Piccolo for whatever reason isn’t fighting them.

Speaking of Piccolo, why do they have such a hard time getting the dragonballs? He knew where some were, like Bulma’s, but couldn’t find Goku at the party? That seems strange. I am even more confused that he didn’t reach the Roshi or Yamcha ball before them either.

Bullshit training stuff.

Blah blah, training and stuff. Oh hey, Piccolo’s team has stolen the dragonballs and will now summon the dragon! Oh wait, Goku and friends crash the party and start to fight. Turns out, Goku is actually the big monkey demon that is supposed to be on Piccolo’s side, but that seems to be just a minor issue. Because he remembers his destiny and frienship and decides to not be a demon anymore.

They really dodged that demon monkey bullet, didn’t they?

Goku then uses the Kamehameha wave, takes out Piccolo and saves the day! But now they have a dragon to summon. They can wish for basically anything what will they do?

He wishes Roshi back to life. That’s it. Dragon says sure, then gets the fuck out of the way, and spreads his balls all around earth. I mean, he could have wished for all lives lost by Piccolo back to life or something, including his grandpa, but yeah, sure, just Roshi.

Man, Goku sure is a fuck face.

Does that not look like a fuck face to anyone else.

How about that analysis?

Well, Dragonball Evolution indeed was terrible. Not even basing it off of the cartoon, but you know, it’s own plotline and movie was just absolutely dreadful. Sometimes the internet is right about these things (although they always choose their opinion before it comes out).

The plot is all over the place, mostly nothing is explained, things happen so fast, and none of it in any way is believable. The villain is never seen as scary. The threat doesn’t feel real because it is accidentally too stupid. The fucking demon monkey scene took only a few minutes to begin and end! That should have been way scarier and had a bigger impact than what we got.

Acting was awkward too. Goku as a hero wasn’t relatable or really heroic feeling. Kind of felt like a whiny kid at times. Chi Chi is maybe the only character to be given a bigger role and expanded into someone you might actually like.

It also had no fun elements. Dragonball Z is kind of funny. The humor in this movie was practically nonexistent. If they attempted some humor in it, it would be a wildly better movie, because the plot is impossible to carry the serious tome without being overtly ridiculous.

Please, movie makers. Don’t do another live action anime anytime soon. Unless it’s Sailor Moon. I would watch that one easy.

I have avoided watching One For The Money for a long time. It came out in theaters before I went to them for every movie, but out on DVD after I left Blockbuster and before I needed more DVD filler.

But there it always was, on a rental shelf looking at me, begging to be watched. And every time I nope’d into something else. So why now? Well, I hopped on Netflix, picked a random film category, and went over until I saw a movie that I hadn’t seen yet that was recent to review. And that is how One For The Money finally got me.

Finally got me, like a prostitute, might finally get free of her pimp. Err.

Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl) is poor and out of work. Oh no! She needs cash fast, so she quickly finds out from her family that her cousin Vinnie (Patrick Fischler) runs a Bail Bonds business. You know, find people who don’t show up in court, bring them in, and get some of their bond money. Bounty Hunters, if you will. She has no training, no useful detective skills, doesn’t know how to fire a gun in anyway, but hey, whatever, she needs cash.

So grabs a high profile target. A cop who used to work vice, apparently murdered someone. It will net her a ton of cash. This Joe (Jason O’Mara) was also her boyfriend in high school though, and her took her virginity then dumped her. Awkwarrrrd. At least she will have the help of this Ranger fellow (Daniel Sunjata) who teachers her some gun tips and what not.

Oh yeah, and of course the Joe claims he was framed and needs time to fix it all. Ehhhh. Why can’t making money be easy?!

We also have John Leguizamo, Sherri Shepherd, and Debbie Reynolds playing decently big roles.

Hopefully she watched enough Dexter to help her with blood splattered crime scenes.

I like RomComs, I do. Katherine Heigl makes me laugh occasional. I had a hard time finding the Com elements of this movie. In fact, it might be closer to a RomAct. Feels more actiony than comedy, and there isn’t even a lot of action. The only time I really laughed was near the ending, but that was just because of how ridiculous a few people were acting, and not from any jokes on their own.

What I am really trying to say is this movie felt incredibly boring. I yawned a lot, fighting the sleep that tried to take hold over me (in the middle of the day, not even a late at night viewing). That is definitely not a good sign.

I think part of my boredom stemmed from the fact that everything moved so fast early on that it was kind of confusing just what was going down. I feel like 5 minutes into the movie she already became a bounty hunter. Then there came to be all this conflict for catching that dude who she was mad at. Why so much conflict? Because he is attractive or something? Bull shit, just get your money and let him do his court stuff.

So the chemistry felt very off between Heigl and any other of her costars. Nothing really felt too earnest. Add that with boring, not funny, and just an awkward movie? Yeah, no wonder I avoided it.

Documentary time!

This time, it was Forks Over Knives, recommended by someone to my fiance, so of course I said I would watch it too. It is in my range, came out in 2011. Title was a bit weird, mostly because I didn’t see the need for my cutlery to battle. I prefer them to work together in harmony. Where the fuck are my spoons at??? Represent!

Alright, so the tagline of this movie on its cover is “Warning! This movie could save your life”. Good, time to be a skeptic.

I will admit the beginning of the movie was a bit more interesting. The “reason” for this documentary is because the director Lee Fulkerson wanted to be healthier than he is, so he goes on a journey of self discovery that, miraculously, a lot of people have published papers on recently at the time of his documentary.

Long story short, Veganism. Or as they called it a “plant-based diet” void of meats and dairy. So you know, Veganism. There were studies that were interesting, showing people who switched over and got healthier. Studies that reported the same findings. They spent a lot of time talking about Cancer and China, because there was a “Cancer Atlas” or something, that showed cancer abundance over the entirety of China for each type. They related this to diet somehow too.

This is like my nightmare incarnate.

The one study I found really interesting was the one about Norway during WW2. Basically, because all documentaries need to mention Hitler, the Nazis invaded Norway, and fucked them up. They took away their meat and the citizens had to start eating basically just plants. Then a lot of diseases went away like the next year, instantly, and it had a drastic downgrade. Huh. Cool.

But if that was true, I wasn’t really ready to believe it. So I went and looked it up! Science bitches! Basically, I found that it was pretty misleading. The Nazis took away a lot of things. Like cigarettes, so there was a country wide shortage, a lot less smoking. They also increased in physical activity, so people had to move a lot more, doing healthy things. Shit, blaming it all on meat is kind of awkward, no?

Getting to that study lead me to this other “review” of the movie by MD Harriet Hall over at www.sciencebasedmedicine.org. Harriet looks at every claim and study the movie mentions, notes the inefficiencies of the studies (low sample size, no controls, whatever) and where the movie people make broad claims where the studies do not themselves.

So basically, OP is a liar.

Damn it, I hate bad science movies so damn much. Obviously this documentary would be biased, all of them are, but finding out how biased is just the worst. At least they didn’t also alter or have misleading interviews like another terrible science documentary.

You know there is an issue with a documentary if they seem to claim that humans were meant to be herbivores, not omnivores. Bitch, I know what these canines in my mouth are for.

So most of the claims are incorrect. Is Veganism healthier overall? Probably in some aspects. But it seems the science really goes towards living a healthy lifestyle, eating just not a shit ton of meat and diary, but still having it in your diet. Basically, increase fruit and vegetable intact will probably be the better results here, not an elimination of animal products completely.

I can say for certain that I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Blended. It looked like feel good trash. This is like the fifth movie in a row where Adam Sandler is playing a father like figure, and the third time he has had Drew Barrymore as the love interest.

It kind of just felt like a money grab from the start, where the jokes are mostly just Africa jokes with a shitty plot behind it.

But yet at the same time, something compelled me to watch this movie as soon as I could.

Basic plot time! Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Barrymore) are on a blind date. Lauren is recently divorced due to her husband cheating on her (Joel McHale). Jim unfortunately is recently widowed. But also, Jim seems to be a dick, taking his date to Hooters and stuff. Both are awkward. It is a bad blind date, they don’t want to see each other again.

Until they do. A lot. Mostly on accident. They are very similar. And due to strange circumstances, they are both able to take their families on a vacation to Africa! But they are also sharing a romantic getaway package. One meant for families made up of step-children/parents, half-whatevers. You know. Blended shit.

So now they are on a zany adventure, both in each others lives, with each others kids, and hey, maybe they will learn to love and trust again too?

Jim has three daughters (Belle Thorne, Emma Fuhrmann, Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Lauren has two sons (Braxton Beckham, Kyle Red Silverstein).

Who else do we got? Well, we got Shaquille O’Neal as a best friend and Wendi McLendon-Covey as a different best friend. Kevin Nealon is a guy on the trip, with his son Zak Henri who becomes a love interest to the older girl.

And last but not least, Abdoulaye NGom as the vacation host, and Terry Crews as a lead singer of an African A Capella group to serenade us the whole movie. Also, countless other guest stars, some from most of Adam’s movies and some that were only in one before.

Basically, here is most of the cast outside of a couple kids and best friends.

Sandler is such a jerk. He can do pointless ass movies involving as many cheap celebrity cameos as possible now, or a movie that actually has some heart behind it. I blame the director. The director did Click, The Waterboy, and The Wedding Singer before this. He knows how to make a decent Adam Sandler movie. Although this one didn’t have me cry like that sneaky movie Click, it did have a lot of touching moments behind it. All the asshole-ish behavior on both sides seem to get explained away with great excuses and reasons, and you can’t help but feel sorry for both sides.

But that is the surprise drama element of the movie! You don’t want that, you want the comedy promised to you in the trailers! Well, here are actually a decent number of laughs. I am a bit disappointed in how much of the funnier moments in the movie ended up in the trailers. Mostly since a lot of them were based on a surprise/sudden action. But thankfully the film had a few more surprises up its sleeve.

Funniest movie ever? No. Great drama/comedy? Debatable. Definitely at least decent. Crews was really awesome in his role, dude always gives it the 100%.

I am mostly thrilled this movie actually had a plot and a jokes derived from the plot and characters, and not just 50 sight gags with African related scenery. They have some, but a lot more is available than the “Random jokes” that I was afraid the whole movie would end up being.

Is it better than the last two collaborations between the two? Arguably not, but eh, it was still a pretty good experience on its own.

Who doesn’t love an older franchise getting a reboot? Well, older Godzilla fans for one. They probably wouldn’t even consider this movie a reboot, just a continuum in the long storied history of the Godzilla franchise. But me? Sure, it is a reboot. We all remember the 1998 Godzilla. Even you in the corner probably remember it. I don’t care how many movies came out since then in Japan, if any. I only know there was a sixteen year gap between this one and the old one, and no characters are the same.

Well, one character is the same, I guess.

But fuck those older movies. This one is newer! With graphics!

State of the art Robot Graphics!

The year? 1999. Probably to mess with the other movie a bit. Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is working at a nuclear reactor in Japan as a head Engineer, noticing some seismic waves, when holy crap, big disaster occurs! People die, questions are raised, and maybe, the whole thing is covered up.

Fast forward to now! Fifteen years later! Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Joe’s son is now a grown up, just a lad during the incident. He is in the armed forces, a bomb diffusion-er. I guess you can say he is good at calming high intensity situations. He is just arriving back home to see his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and kid when he has to go BACK to Japan to get his father out of jail.

He is now a conspiracy junkie and snuck back into the heavily radiated area they had to leave. Well, Ford joins his dad on a mission to go back to the plant, when holy crap, big disaster occurs! People die, questions are raised, and maybe, the whole thing is covered up. Just kidding, video footage gets out, at least one giant monster exists and it is about to fuck up a lot of shit!

But what do these creatures have to do with the mysterious Monarch group, lead by our only major Japanese character Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and his three lined assistant (Sally Hawkins).

Also, the role of Godzilla is played by Brian Posehn.

It has often been prophesized that Posehn given enough radiation could cause this must destruction.

I think I have admitted to past to not really caring about the large raging lizard known as Godzilla. I can’t get into those movies, despite having multiple friends who have been raving about them and awaiting this movie for a few years.

However, I am a fan of really well done, exciting and entertaining movies. So, I guess I am a pretty huge damn fan of this movie. Godzilla is only right around two hours and never really has any pacing issues. Do you get to see giant creatures battling in the first thirty minutes? No, of course not, but the build up and the human drama early on really set the tone for what was going to go down. Shit, Bryan Cranston’s role isn’t that big in this movie, but he damn near made me cry with his own intensity.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson has had a pretty good movie career over the last few years, some good movies, some bad ones, but usually solid acting. In this one, he mostly displayed a calming silent attitude when faced with near death situations, but I think it worked out well.

But who cares about HUMANS when we have giant monsters FIGHTING? Were the fights great? Yes. There are fights rhgouhout the movie, although some of them are teased or kept intentionally dark to only give you snippets, but by the end it is definitely worth it. A lot of fan service here for Godzilla junkies along with chances for easily made sequels in the future.

Even more exciting is the science! Obviously it isn’t 100% correct, because we’d probably have Godzilla-esque things now. But for the movie, it seemed to work out pretty well in my mind. Yay reasonable science in a movie!

Looking at the summer schedule, Godzilla is likely to be the best “disaster film” of the next few months.

Brought to you by the people who gave us Invincible and Miracle? Well, Million Dollar Arm is breaking up the one word name scheme then.

The two movies above were interesting, I guess. But even as a hockey fan, I didn’t really care too much for Miracle. Too much marriage drama over nothing coupled with some awkward inaccuracies like mixing up Sweden and Finland’s flags at the end.

So, knowing that those movies were just okay, I guess that is what this movie is going to aim for? But since it is based on a real event, that is extremely recent, I already know how it ends up. Dudes get signed by the Pirates. They spend a lot of time in the minors, some time in the MLB, and do okay to bad at pitching.

His big smile is due to the dollar signs that flash on the inside of his sunglasses.

This film takes back in the ancient time of like, 2008 or so. Just like the British Empire of yore, we have people hoping to exploit the rich untapped potential of a foreign nation. Err, also just like the British Empire, this land is India.

Things are going bad for JB (Jon Hamm) and his advertising firm. They wanted to branch out on their own, make their own mark in the world, and they are having trouble making money and signing any real clients. Once they fail for the thousandth time, JB decides fuck all this nonsense. Let’s create a gimmick, change some lives, and become famous that way!

He sees Cricket on TV and thinks he can turn cricket players into baseball pitchers in one year. The first Indian MLB player will bring in a ton of new fans to the sport and lots of advertising and endorsements. Bling bling, playa!

So he gets an investor, creates a reality show in India, eventually finds two young guys (Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal), and an Indian translator who likes baseball and will work for free (Pitobash) and begins the training to get them into the MLB. But can they do it in just a few months?! ?!!?!?!!? !!!!?

Lot of other people here of course. Alan Arkin, small role as a talent scout. Bill Paxton as a crazy method man for teaching pitching. Lake Bell as the tenant in JB’s guest house who is the romantic love interest. Aasif Mandvi is the Indian friend of JB to not make this whole thing super racist/imperial like. I guess it kind of works.

I think my two photos this time clearly represent business before pleasure.

Alright, first and easiest complaint about this movie is the length. The idea phase happens realitve quickly, so somewhere in the trip to India, finding of the boys and the training it just takes too long to get to the eventual end point. Too much of the movie is JB being an asshole, so it gets tiring. Maybe knowing the outcome doesn’t help this fact. But Lincoln kept up its entertaining aspects despite knowing how that finished too.

A lot of the characters are pretty good, but hats off mostly to our three characters from India. Sharma and Mittal aren’t similar in any way, both of their characters have personality and shine in different ways and excel for different reasons. Huh, kind of like the real life counter parts. But also Pitobash. Man was he amusing, probably made me laugh the most. I hope he is based on a real life person too, because that guy sounds like a cool guy to be friends with.

Hamm? Well, he played a dick sports agent who eventually found a heart to care for the kids he brought over and then they succeeded. But is it really a change of heart when it takes multiple people multiple times to tell him the same thing? JB is the type of character who will do almost anything to get ahead. He is desperate, that is why he went to India. Wouldn’t put it past him to fake the caring thing too, just because he knows it will make him that money.

So whatever, a pseudo inspiring tale I guess. It isn’t terrible, just is too long and again, is so recent we know that even though they came over and pitched, they didn’t revolutionize anything. They aren’t Jackie Robinson or anything.

Come on Disney. Find a sexier sports moment to make a movie out of next, please.