Month: January 2015

I have a good feeling a lot of you have not heard of the movie Project Almanac. But maybe, just maybe, some of you have heard of the movie Welcome To Yesterday.

Welcome To Yesterday was going to be released the end of February, 2014. I remember that month, because my local theater continued to be inept with their new releases. Despite three-ish movies coming out each week, we kept only getting like one of them. It made me mad. I was actually interested in watching Welcome To Yesterday.

So I figured I would wait to see it on DVD then forgot about it. I did think about it again finally a few weeks ago, and then I saw Project Almanac. Sure enough, it was the same exact movie, just with a different title and delayed about 11 months. What in tarnation! Just give me my shitty Michael Bay produced teen time travel movie, damn it.

Unless its release date accidentally time traveled to the future. Then it makes sense.

Technically high school kids could be smart. Like David (Jonny Weston Of Chasing Mavericks fame, ugh). He invented some tech, trying to get into MIT.

He gets in! But they don’t give him any in scholarship, just $5000. He needs like, $40000 more at least. But his family isn’t making a lot of money anymore after their dad died when he was 7. They might have to sell the house.

Unless David could find a new project to work on and quick to win a different scholarship. His dad was also smart, so maybe he has some blue prints. With his sister (Virginia Gardner), they find a video camera of his 7th birthday party. But David sees himself in the mirror in that video. But like, his current 17 year older self, not kid version.

What was his dad working on?! (Time machine stuff). Oh shit. Can it be real? (Yes!). Can they do it? (Probably!). Will there be repercussions? (Come on).

Also featuring Sofia Black-D’Elia as out of his league love interest, Allen Evangelista as other smart (younger?) friend, and Sam Lerner as dumber friend.

The sisters role is made to hold the camera and occasionally show cleavage on camera.

I really want to know why this film was delayed for 11 months. End of Feb 2014 wasn’t a strong area for film, so there is no reason to leave for competition. After watching the movie, I went back and watched the original trailer for Welcome To Yesterday, and all of the scenes in the trailer were in the movie. All of the characters the same, even the same major plot points.

I have no fucking clue what is different and it makes me feel like I am taking crazy pills. Apparently Michael Bay wanted to tinker with it? And he took that long? Jeez man. If anything I thought you were a quicker guy. I won’t even believe it had anything to do with your other two produced movies coming out last summer. Psha.

Anyways. This is a time travel movie. The hand camera does not detract from that fact, it is completely fine, get over it haters. The acting is okay, typical of what high school kids in that situation might react. I am happy that two of them are pretty smart too, because yay brains.

However, because it is a time travel movie, it can get really messy, and I think the end gets completely fuddled. The time travel physics that they brought in somehow get broken, and from that it makes not a lot of sense by the end. Booo. It also attempts some of the morally shitty areas that make the movie super uncomfortable and rapey, something which About Time did a good job of avoiding.

Movie could have been shorter too, definitely. The concert scene dragged on and on and on. Although there were some quite amusing moments too in their shenanigans. But hey, decent job.

It is a hard goal, but I figure I should also check out the best documentary nominees. I was really hoping that I would have seen a few of them before they were nominated, but apparently the ones I thought looked interesting weren’t good enough.

I really should have seen Virunga, because it was a Netflix documentary and has been made available for awhile. My bad. Either way, I can totally get these documentaries done ahead of time, I think.

Virunga! It is about the Congo! The only stuff I know about the Congo are from the movie, Congo, and apparently it grossly misrepresents what is going on over there.

Kind of. Because there is a big military presence ever. And there are definitely gorillas, which is really the point of this documentary in the first place.

Well, the love between a man and his gorilla.

Virunga is a national park in Congo. The gorilla there only lives there and is being hunted. They want to protect them and the land from being messed up like the rest of the Congo. But also, we have an oil company there who wants to determine if there is oil under the large lake and in the area. They aren’t allowed to drill there or extract anything, but they just want to “see”.

Apparently they might be doing more than that, too. Secret meetings, bribes, and mercenaries and fighters. Oh boy.

Virunga at points plays out like an action movie, as they had people recording the events happening right before people would get attacked or fights would break out. It was definitely a bit scary and intense. I was also really impressed by all the moving parts. A lot of different sources of information, from park rangers, to journalists, to everyone in between. They really branched out with their work.

I think what is best about this documentary is that it is set in the NOW. This type of stuff is happening, here are recent events, and we should be outraged about it. I would be, but I can’t muster it up. But I know I should be which is even more important. Great source of information coming from many different angles, and not very biased. Nice.

Fineeee. I will fucking write this review.

Sometimes it is hard to just get the passion or desire to write a review, even if it has been sitting blank on your draft board for weeks. Weeks! Sometimes the only decision you have made is the rating and pictures but no idea what to talk about or how short or long it will be.

But here we are. Taken 3. The film Liam Neeson said he wouldn’t do, I think, then they offered him like $20 million dollars, so here we are. Taken 3. The follow up to Taken 2, that was terrible, given the unique feel and interesting film that was Taken.

Okay sure, Taken might be bad now too. But it isn’t bad as Taken 2. And when good movies go bad and then get another bad sequel? It feels like the Men In Black series, but thankfully this one didn’t wait a decade for an even older action star.

If he gets any older he won’t be able to hold a gun straight.

Instead of being located half way around the world, Taken 3 is set in LA, California. You know, where they live. Bryan Mills (Neeson) is still divorced from his wife (Famke Janssen), and still has an awkward relationship with his daughter.

His daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who is college or high school right now. She definitely lives on her own or with her boyfriend. And she is pregnant. But it is almost her birthday so Bryan wants to surprise her with alcohol. Jokes on you, Bryan!

Anyways, ex-wife is having relationship problems with her husband (Dougray Scott), kind of wants Bryan back, so does Bryan. Next thing he knows, she is dead in his bed and the police are chasing after him for murder!

Something involving Russians (Sam Spruell), deals gone bad, blackmail, and money. No idea. This guy wasn’t in any other Taken movies, so it is even more unrelated than the other two. Also starring Forest Whitaker as a detective to be on the case, and find the “truth”.

The truth, like why is Bryan Mills smuggling a Panda out of China?

As you all know, I have begun a tirade against Luc Besson, and this movie is no different. Fuck everything he touches. I have never been so angry at a single person’s years of work, but there it is.

This might be the only Besson movie that doesn’t have a lot of events taking place in Europe. Instead we have a guy running around LA, getting chased by cops, destroying public property, killing “bad guys”, and doing a whole lot of crimes, just to clear his name. When he can JUST as easily have not run from the cops, and solved the whole thing much quicker.

We got a terrible plot, with terrible plot twists, and a whole lot LESS action than previous movies. At least before he was killing people who were bad guys doing bad things. Most of this movie is him avoiding the cops and fucking with them.

I think maybe three times he survived some sort of car crash. One time the car went off a cliff and exploded, out of nowhere, it was ridiculous. That is like a bad 80’s action movie. I mentioned confusion as to where his daughter went to school, because everything seemed to imply college, but when we got there it was clearly a fucking high school. Lockers and all.

And then it ends with the stupidest plane / runway scene I have ever seen. Completely ridiculous. More ridiculous than the ten minute runway in Fast Six.

I am glad this came out the first week of January, because films must be all uphill from here.

Ah yeah, Oscar Season!

As of this posting, I already have all of the Best Picture nominees, most of the Best Acting nominees, and 3/5 of the Best Animated films. But no Documentaries or Foreign Films!

So why did I pick Ida first? Well, this is one of the few nominees already on netflick. A-ha!

How could it be so simple? This one from Poland.

And it features women who hate fun things.

Not a lot of players in this one. The main character, Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), has lived in a nunnery most of her life. She is about to say her vows though, which I assume is at 18 or 21 or something. But instead of sending her off to experience life, they send her off to her aunt, Wanda (Agata Kulesza), who could never pick her up for whatever reason.

Well, the main reason is that Wanda doesn’t want to be a mom, and that she is a Jewish person living in Poland as a respectful Judge in the community. Anna’s parents were killed, and that is all Anna knows. So she goes to visit with her Aunt and hopefully see her parent’s graves to say good bye for them before taking her vows and giving up earthly pleasures.

Those earthly pleasures which she of course has never experienced or thought about, living in a nunnery that long amount of time. Wanda thinks she should drink and party first, or else her vows mean nothing. But nope. Anna has one goal. Find out about her parents, and live her life alone. How sad, Anna.

Oooh, but there is a boy. Maybe they will do it!

Sigh. I get it, I do.

Ida is a well crafted/beautiful-ish movie. It is in black and white (if you didn’t notice), and the director clearly put a lot of thought into each and every camera placement. You could watch the movie and pause it and think, “Huh, that is a pretty scene” for most of the film.

That is great!

However the story is dull as fuck. The description makes it sound a lot more ominous than it actually is. The story goes basically everywhere I thought it would go, and it goes there slowly.

I haven’t seen every WW2 movie that exists, but even thought it seems to have maybe a different plot, it still just feels the same.

I kind of hated this movie, regardless of beauty. It just dragged on and on, despite not even being that long. So far, I am pretty disappointed with the crop of these foreign films.

Normally when movies get pushed back, I wonder and worry. Sure, sometimes it is as simple as not being able to compete with a bigger movie coming out that same day. Sometimes it is due to a production company not wanting to compete with its own product.

I have no idea why Kingsman: The Secret Service got moved from November 2014 to February 2015. February/January are generally deader months where a lot of shit goes, so it feels like the studio just didn’t think it would be good enough to make it. So they put it at the beginning of the year to hide it.

That is clearly what is going on with Jupiter Ascending, which got pushed out of Summer to February, which means they don’t think it will succeed as a blockbuster.

But this is Kingsman, and the trailer actually looked interesting. Damn it. WHY DID THEY MOVE IT?

I can only hold on to my butts so long in anticipation!

Back in the day, Great Britain decided it needed to protect the world. That is a bit of paraphrasing. Either way, they made a secret service, based on the Knights of the Round Table. Each soldier is incredibly well trained, combat, spy gadgets, code names, Gentleman as FUCK, and lives a thankless life as they can never let their existence be known.

Galahad (Colin Firth) didn’t notice a bomb one time, and one of the new recruits died saving his life. He wanted to help out his family, so he gave them a medallion with a number on it to call if he ever needed help.

Now, seventeen or so years later, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is in trouble. Sure, he is a smart lad (British terminology), but he has wasted his life living on the streets. His mom never got over his dad’s death and is now dating an alcoholic. He is involved with gangs. He runs from the cops!

And guess what, he needs help. Quite obviously, Galahad thinks he has what it takes. They need a new member as one of their own was slashed down by rich tech billionaire Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) and his assassin Gazelle (Sofia Boutella).

So you know, training, spy stuff, gadgets, a shit ton of action, and everyone talking super funny.

Also with Jack Davenport as Lancelot, Mark Strong as Merlin, Michael Caine as Arthur, Sophie Cookson as the female main lead/training rival, and Mark Hamill as a professor. I normally wouldn’t even bring him up, but I mean, come on. Mark Hamill.

“I came here to drink tea and give someone a good going over, and the Americans dumped all of my tea.”

Right before the movie started, I found out it was 129 minutes and thought it was way too long. Now that it finished, I found myself only wanting more.

Kingsman is based on a comic by Mark Millar, the same man who wrote Kick-Ass. Hey. Matthew Vaughn, the director, also did Kick-Ass! How quaint! Matthew Vaughn had to leave Days of Future Past to do this movie, and that is fantastic, because it made it so we got two pretty awesome movies instead of maybe two terrible ones. I can’t believe how entertaining Kingsman ended up being. The action was high octane and firing on all cylinders, and the movie built a bigger body count than you would probably expect.

Samuel L. Jackson was in it, and of course he kicked ass as the villain. He had so much personality, I was almost rooting for him by the end. Colin Firth is usually fantastic when he isn’t in a super serious role as well, and I wonder if he backed out of Paddington to build up his R-Rating persona. Another movie with questionable things going on.

I mean. Honestly, the only thing I found super disappointing, was some really awkward stuff that happened at the end. It just felt so forced and childish. It felt like a 13 year old wrote the last minute, almost. It will be very off-putting to people, even if they enjoy it.

Kingsman may be truly the first very entertaining movie of 2015, and it helped kick start my hope for some unique things to come through the pipeline this year.

Left Behind is a serious of movies books that I remember hearing about when I was a kid. They were about The Rapture from the Christian Bible, where those who were judged holy enough got to go to Heaven, and the rest of the yokels on Earth had 7 years of destruction, sadness, whatever, before…I dunno, the apocalypse or something.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, one would imagine. At that point everyone would realize that Jesus was real, and start being super super religious and good. I couldn’t imagine any amount of chaos after like, a week, because people would generally prefer Heaven to Hell.

But it was a successful franchise, it had at least ten books and a couple movies that people enjoyed enough to enter our American conscious. And this…this is about the same thing? Maybe a reboot of some sort? Maybe a one off? Who knows.

Get on the phone and tell me all the information!

The Steele family is going through hard times. The dad, Rayford (Nick Cage), is a pilot and away from a home a lot because of it. A year ago, his wife found Jesus and got super awkward with the rest of her family. The daughter, Chloe (Nicky Whelan) is away from college and not home much. She is now! But her dad had a last minute flight thing, so she figured she’d see him in the airport before going home.

And look at that. He is fucking a flight attendant (Cassi Thomson). He even lied about the flight being last minute as he got concert tickets weeks ago for a concert in their location! He is avoiding the family. Must be from the weird mom.

Anyways, she also meets Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray), a TV correspondent of something. They hit it off too, and he will spy on her dad when she goes home. OMG RAPTURE. Hey, all the kids are missing and super religious people. Stuff starts to crash, people loot, people freak out.

But more importantly, people take a very very long time to figure out what is going on.

Long enough for a quick fly and fuck though.

I didn’t find out til after watching the film, but not only is this is a reboot of the franchise, but it was done by the same people who did the other Left Behind movies. So hey, they are trying. I guess. At least someone is famous in it!

And let’s talk about how annoying this movie was. Very. First of all, it took too long for the characters on the screen to figure out what was happening. Even the strongest of Atheists would figure it out in a couple of minutes. Honestly. If things like that start to happen, things that are magical in nature, the human being will go to the explanation that can cause everything the simplest way. All of your Christian friends and kids missing kind of feels like a dead give away. They turned the movie into a lot of scene changes whenever someone would exclaim they figure it out, just for them to come back and be wrong. It was totally annoying.

Follow up, the rapture wouldn’t be that bad. After like, a day or two, people would stop looting and doing terrible shit. You know why? Because then there would be a proven God. At that point they know that if they sin they go to Hell, and they have seven years of pious ness or whatever before the final shit goes down. The bad people would be quickly wiped out and hey, everyone would be too scared to do anything outside of the Bible and it would be peaceful.

That is just general thoughts. The second one not really based on this movie, but maybe based on future ones. Either way. Acting in this one was shit, drama was stupid, and the plot felt like a lot of filler. Pass.

You’ve seen the worst, now prepare for the best.

I had a lot of movies that I really liked this year too. And unlike the worst list, everything on this list I gave a 4 out of 4 too. This is the cream of the crop.

Some films I didn’t get to see yet from 2014 that may have made this list. I have heard good things about A Most Violent Year, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, many documentaries, and Two Days, One Night. I won’t update this list either, just know it in case you think one of these should be at the top.

Honorable Mentions: Fury, Joe, Whiplash. There were probably more 4 out of 4s, but these would have been the next in line I think.

The One I Love is one of those surprises to make my list. This film flew by me completely under the radar, only found it because I was looking up Mark Duplass movies in boredom. And hey, it was an incredible indie flick that was also very simple in nature.

The entire performance is resting on the shoulders of our two main leads, and their performances are incredibly realistic for this situation. It is a Science-Fiction movie without outer space or rockets or gadgets. Just love, romance, philosophical debate, and many questionable situations after another in a very morally gray way.

For those of you who read my The Muppets review, I thought the movie was okay. I didn’t grow up on the TV show, never watched it, but understood most of the pop culture references to it. I think I ended up watching more Muppet Babies, which I don’t think is canon. But the sequel? Muppets Most Wanted? I smiled from start to finish.

The music was basically done by Flight of the Conchords and it showed. Everything felt witty and original. I don’t think there was a single disappointing song in the whole picture. Which is why, awkwardly enough, this was my highest rated musical for the entire year. There were a lot of movies that should have been contenders, but some failed miserably, some were pretty good, but none made me this happy and excited.

Now my list might start looking like other “real reviewers”, but I warn you not to get used to it. The Imitation Game was actually nominated for Best Picture and there are many reasons why. Benedict Cumberbatch is awesome, generally taken as fact. It is about one of the most exciting non combat parts of World War II, the solving of the German Enigma Code.

Now, I don’t care too much if a movie takes historical liberties with the past, as long as we get a good story, and I am pretty sure that is what occurred here. I think a lot of the drama may have been exaggerated or created, but the important truths are still in tact, and it sucks what happened to Alan Turing. I didn’t think it would make me cry, but sure enough, the drama always wins in the end.

Comic movies?! It is hard to imagine that the same studio who makes The Wolverine and other shitty X-Men movies can put out a masterpiece like Days of Future Past. On its own, it is an ambitious title, because time travel is always a tricky subject. First Class was a good movie and a step in the right direction, but I couldn’t have imagined the sequel jumping this many leaps and bounds to give an incredible comic book movie experience.

Although not my favorite comic book year, it did help give some faith to Fox Studios and pump me up for the next X-Men flick, Apocalypse. I hope this leads to even more ambitions films in the future and willing to break the mold of a typical super hero plot line.

Yes, back to the “what? really?” aspects of my list. 21 Jump Street surprised me, mostly because it seemed like such a bad idea, the cast didn’t make sense, and the reboot felt unnecessary. I was wrong. The idea for the sequel, 22 Jump Street, I also thought was terrible. And I was wrong again, but more.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller must have been completely bonkers to write this movie, as they took the idea of a comedy sequel, and went meta as fuck with it. Channing Tatum is secretly a comedic mastermind. That has to be it. I was cackling in the theater, almost to the point of pain. I am excited for the next 20 sequels they produce.

2014 was also an incredible year for animated films. A lot of heavy hitters this year, definitely more than the last few years when there tended to be one film above the rest. Big Hero 6 was this years submission by Walt Disney Animation studios, who gave us Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph and Tangled. But it was also partnered with Marvel Studios, given the ownership and all, to give us an incredible animated movie.

What I remember the most about this movie is the color and imagery went into creating this futuristic cross-cultured city. Oh, an the fun action scenes. And the humor. And yeah, it is just a wildly fun movie. The studio keeps putting out incredible work, and honestly, I can imagine this taking best animated film just as easily as any other movie nominated.

Which brings me to How To Train Your Dragon 2. Me and Dreamworks have not been getting along, giving me mostly crap or only okay stuff for the last few years. For the first How To Train Your Dragon, I mostly just hate how lazy the ending riding conflict felt, and thought it could have done a lot better.

I actually don’t know what I like more, between this and the last movie. They are by far my favorite animated films of the year. The only reason I am giving HTTYD2 an edge is due to its vast improvement over the original. They both went to some dark places, both made me cry, and both were beautiful in every way. But a great story that wasn’t afraid to get dirty and wasn’t afraid to set the franchise up for bigger and more intense things.

Look, if you had told me I had to watch a movie about a guy on the phone for an hour and a half, I would have been probably upset with you. I get enough of that by riding public transportation every once in awhile. Unless that film was Phone Booth, I probably wouldn’t care.

But despite the plot, Locke is about Tom Hardy on a phone, driving along the interstate, making the hardest decision of his life. And that is it. And I was floored by how invested I became in his story and the choices he made. This plus The Drop cemented Tom Hardy as a wonderful actor, but we already knew that from Warrior, right?

The third and final comic book movie on my list, Captain America: The Winter Soldier started off the summer blockbusters right. And in April at that! Marvel is doing great things by making their different movies into different genres under the Superhero subtext. This one is spy/espionage/political action movie, with a few comedic elements as well to keep us guessing.

Before this movie, like most people, I would have said Avengers was the best Marvel film, but this felt like Avengers 1.5. Guardians of the Galaxy was a great movie, but not one that I thought was super great. Chris Evans is making himself the most important actor to the studios and I hope he gets a sweet ass pay check to represent what this film did to the MCU.

At first I was upset that Nightcrawler wasn’t about the X-Man. And then I was upset that Jake Gyllenhaal turned down his role in Into The Woods to do this movie. Then I watched it and I smacked my past self right in the mouth.

Gyllenhaal is also doing the best work of his career and it is amazing what he did with this role. Probably the best portrayal of sociopath in a long time, this Thriller/Drama explored the dark side of human nature and how just an individual with no schooling and a lot of can do attitude can become a success. No matter what.

I wouldn’t want to make a best list without featuring at least one foreign movie! And that same foreign movie is probably the best action movie in the last 10 years. That number is picked at random, I can’t think of a better action movie 11 years ago. I can only think of The Raid 2. You don’t even really need to see The Raid: Redemption to understand this one.

Admittedly, the plots of these films are a bit weaker. But if you want well choreographed and insane fight scenes, there is literally no better action movie to pick. Over two hours long, and slightly more plot, this movie has more action into its pinky than the entirety of Sylvester Stallone‘s last ten flicks.

David Fincher is probably one of the more celebrated actors of our generation, so whenever he has a new movie, you know peopl are going to rush and see it. I personally was more excited to see Gone Girl because of Ben Affleck. He was the bomb in Phantoms, he was the bomb in this movie. Hell, everyone was the bomb in this movie.

Rosamund Pike gave one of those terrifyingly creepy performances that don’t come along very often. Hell, the last time I saw anything remotely similar would probably be…Nightcrawler. Ah yes, the year of the crazy. But if a movie can feature even Tyler Perry and think he did a great job, you know something magical has happened on your screen. Ever twisting and turning, the wild book turned into a wild movie.

After I saw my first Wes Anderson movie, I was weirded out, didn’t get it, and thought I wouldn’t watch any more of his movies. Just like earlier, I was glad to be wrong, and I have definitely loved his last three movies. The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdoms were both top films the year they came out, but The Grand Budapest Hotel has to be the best movie he has ever made. He has always been great with his cinemetography and quirky characters, but he elevates his directing game to new heights with this picture.

At this point in the article, I am running out of things to say without sound repetitive. GBH is funny and dark, and a great performance from Ralph Fiennes. I think this movie will inspire a whole generation of youths to become Lobby Boys and Hotel owning enthusiasts.

Admit it, you probably figured out what the top two films were a couple movies ago. And that is because they have probably been the most talked about out of all the movies from 2014. I think Richard Linklater is one of my favorite directors. The Before trilogy is probably one of the best and most realistic trilogies ever produced. When I heard he was making a movie that took TWELVE YEARS capturing a boy growing up from 6 years old to 18, I could barely believe it. When I finally got to see Boyhood, the 2.5 hours seemed to flow by.

His journey was the audiences journey. I don’t know if I found it more relatable because I too am a white male or what, but it was like a nostalgia filled journey that I wish would never end. I demand a sequel, but from 18-35. Make this the closest thing I get to having a real life The Truman Show. A crowning achievement of film and directing and one that makes me feel like I gained a friend who I have known my whole life.

Ah Birdman. What a movie. 2014 has some of the most unique films of the decade, and it is a shame that they all had to come out months of each other. When I first saw Boyhood, I thought there was no way a movie would top it for me. It was such a great concept and just felt like the epitome of the movie experience. And then Birdman came along.

Birdman had everything. Deeply dramatic monologues. Comedy. Beautiful visuals. Many ways to interpret the movie after seeing it. Fantastic fucking acting. A great story line. Very meta at the right time. I was blown away with the “single shot” feel of it. Single long shots are some of my favorite things in movies, so making the entire movie with that experience blew every ounce of my mind. ALL OF THE OUNCES. Not to mention making the actors really know their stuff. Having to actually act, like people in a play! Which is what the movie is about! Agghhh! Even the soundtrack rocked.

Even. The soundtrack. Rocked.

And there you have it! The best of the best. Did I leave off anything you think should have been up here? Do you disagree with anything at all? Am I the stupidest person ever? Be sure to let me know and yell obscenities while doing it!

The Identical actually came to theaters first week of September, and, from what I can remember, it was the only thing to come out that whole week. Yet I didn’t see it til its DVD Release.

Why? Well. It didn’t have any pre-screenings at all, around the country. Popular movies have pre-screenings. Movies that end up sucking have pre-screenings. But the only thing coming out that week didn’t even think it warranted them? That is a big warning sign if anything. Not letting anyone see the movie before it releases. That means they are afraid of the critics voice or popular opinion fucking up their sales.

That’s really all I knew going into The Identical, outside of its story involving a musician.

And clones. Clearly this involves clones, right?

Back in the 1930s there was something going on called The Dust Bowl. Big storms, droughts, fucked up a lot of farms. Was after the Great Depression too, so that wasn’t a good thing for our economy. As for two unlucky folks (Amanda Crew, Brian Geraghty), they found themselves poor and struggling to get by. And with twins!

So after a long discussion, they decided to instead give away one of the kids to a traveling preacher (Ray Liotta) and his wife (Ashley Judd) as they were unable to have kids on their own.

Flash foward some years, Ryan Wade (Blake Rayne) wants to sing and play music, while his dad wants him to be a Preacher, obviously. He then basically invents rock ‘n roll somehow, with a friend of his on drums (Seth Green). But he doesn’t get famous from it. His dad sends him to the army, and then preacher school before he finally sets off on his own to do what he wants to do: automobile mechanics. Nope. He can’t be a star, too hard for him.

But not too hard for Drexel Hemsley, his twin, who became super famous and invented rock ‘n roll, or something. Everyone says they look alike. But that can’t be. Oh well, Ryan looks up to him and hopes he can meet him some day. Also with Joe Pantoliano as a mechanic shop owner and Erin Cottrell as the girlfriend/narrator.

This is the first time in his life Liotta did not play a gangster.

I am so happy that I did not shell out money for a movie ticket for this garbage. It had so many ugh moments, on almost every level, that made this movie bad.

Starting with my already made joke, Ray Liotta as a preacher? What? Every scene set in the 1930s was done in black and white. That way you knew it was the past, versus the “present” of the 1940s and 1950s. Tacky and terrible.

It is such an awkward story (/book), because it is clearly just trying to make a strange fan fiction Elvis movie. The main actor isn’t an actor at all, but someone who won an Elvis lookalike contest in the 1990s and has made a career out of it. So yeah, that guy is the guy they have to play these two people who are notElvisbutElvis.

Not only is the plot itself terrible, but every one of the characters is two-dimensional and lame for no good reason. SPOILERS, but he doesn’t find out he is a twin until his “dad” is about to die. Great. His real mom and twin are already dead now too, so all he has left is a father who got rid of him. Yay?

It was so slowly moving, it became infuriating at times at how dense and pointless the whole film felt.

The Wedding Ringer seems to fail at the most basic level, having an interesting title. A lot of movies begin with “The Wedding” and end with some noun. Ringer is really only associated with The Ringer and that is a weird movie to be kind of associated with. Or it might make it sound like a shitty horror, if you think about it hard enough.

Oh well. I will note that Sony Pictures really wanted people to see this film a head of time. I think I could have first gone to a screening in October or so. And then roughly 2 a week until it finally came out (exaggeration, but barely). I am normally a bit more weary about films that show too many screenings, because I think they don’t think they will be successful without a lot of positive word of mouth. Like, a lot a lot. And that means it is probably shit.

Not that I am judging it or anything. But Kevin Hart has been on a downward spiral in terms of film quality, with me hating the last few of his movies outside of About Last Night. But hey, despite all these negatives maybe I will be surprised.

This movie probably will taste better with copious amounts of alcohol.

Doug Harris (Josh Gad) is super rich. Like, parents died, took over their business, gained a lot of wealth, and makes a lot of income. He is also kind of fat and awkward and has no friends. But when the daughter of one of his clients suddenly gets interested in him and finds him interesting, he runs with it. Now he is marrying Gretchen (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) and it is expensive. She wants everything and he agrees, this includes a big bridal party. Now ten days away, all she knows about the bridal party is their names, weird things about them, but no pictures and none of them around. Shit.

So Doug finds out about Jimmy (Kevin Hart), who runs a Best Man for hire business. With the time line and the number of people needed, Doug needs The Golden Tux package, costing him another $50k, but he is doing it because he totally knows lying is the best option to make his soon to be wife happy. Inventing fake friends ftw. He just stills has to impress her much smarter sister (Olivia Thirlby) and angry dad (Ken Howard).

And we also have the 7 hired groomsmen. Jorge Garcia, Affion Crockett, Dan Gill, Corey Holcomb, Colin Kane, Alan Ritchson, and Aaron Takahashi. Also Ignacio Serricchio as a gay Hispanic wedding planer. And Jenifer Lewis as Hart’s assistant and advice giver. I think I got every one in there.

The most eclectic group of friends since All In The Family. Errr.

One of the most annoying parts of this movie is it just is an impossible service to imagine. Doug has to pay $50,000 for the service he offers, and the only other price we see is about $20,000. Some people apparently have a lot of money on the side that their soon to be spouse know absolutely nothing about. So it is not only a huge breach of trust, spending that much extra before you share things, but the other breach of trust about lying about someone in your life. It is crazy.

So after I get over that fact, there are quite a few amusing moments in the movie. I could tell how the whole thing would end after about 20 minutes, so they never really stray off of the beaten path. That is a bit disappointing.

The cast of extra characters was entertaining. Kevin Hart was his usual self. Gad was never really anything funnier than “That fat guy”, so his character needed a lot of work. They gave me a Lost joke, which is all I really cared for.

The Wedding Ringer is okay, and not the giant shit show I thought it would be. After all, Kevin Hart’s last January movie was Ride Along which failed to live up to its potential.

Time to start a movie with some controversy. Maybe two levels!

First of all, I remember when the book American Sniper came out. I remember a lot of people getting it and loving it too. Biography of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in military or something like that. I also remember all the controversy after that about all the lies in the book. He lied about several things, Jesse Ventura even won a lawsuit about the lies in the book, and the fact that he lied about seemingly random things, brings the whole truthfulness of the book into question.

How much of it is exaggerated? Apparently there isn’t even a stat of confirmed kills, so that part might have no merit either. Basically, a curve ball into the biography thing if it is based on a fictional book.

Second controversy? Oscars. American Sniper got nominated for a lot of awards and people are angry for some reason. Mostly people clamoring for diversity. Or that the Academy is old pro-war people. I dunno. I think it was mostly people who hadn’t seen the movie. Like me, until now.

Guns, America, Yee-haw, and patriotism!

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) came from humble beginnings. Texas. His dad told him he needed to help and protect others. He was a cowboy in the rodeo, but thought about going into a more noble career after seeing war news on TV. No, not 9/11. Some 1998 U.S. Embassy attacks in Africa.

He became a Navy SEAL, which lead to him becoming a sniper, and he went off to fight some wars. Namely, four separate tours of duty, which I have been told is quite a lot. He had a few important missions there and had to kill a lot of people, but he also saved lives. And some he did not.

Hey, and between these, he also met his future wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), who he had kids with. Being away a lot really caused a strain on the family, but at least he was doing something America.

Also with some other bros, like Kyle Gallner, Sam Jaeger, Luke Grimes, and Jake McDorman.

And here is the now infamous fake baby scene!

Since them movie is based on a book based on lies, it is probably okay not calling this a biography. Right? Yeah, if we just examine this as a work of fiction, it becomes easier to judge and biases can be ignored.

Nice and simple. On its own, it is actually a pretty good war movie. It has the training, the motive, the childhood story. We have several different war plot lines with some moral ambiguity. It isn’t just about “getting the brown people!” and never even gets close to implying that. It examines PTSD and ways to work through it. It covers the whole spectrum.

I didn’t get super emotional near the end, especially since I knew kind of how it was going to end, but I can see how it tear jerks.

Cooper still looks like himself, but like, a fatter, slightly more buff version. He also has a killer Texan accent. I can say he definitely acts really well in this movie. I can understand why he is considered for Best Actor, but he has no chance of winning. At least three or four people I can think of who acted better, unfortunately only a couple of them also got nominated for that category.

Despite the controversy, despite the lies, Clint Eastwood makes a pretty good modern war movie with a character people might find relatable, that examines a lot of issues with war. It also isn’t inherently pro or anti war. Just pro soldier. That is a fine enough message.