Month: January 2015

Honestly, there is a good chance of me never seeing The Guest until probably…well, never, if it wasn’t recommended to me by at least two other people.

It is just such a busy schedule, so many movies, only so many days a week, I would have ignored it like some straight to DVD trash on the bottom row at Wal-Mart.

Even the plot line is out of a cliched, over done pile of crap. But these people told me not to worry, just go into it and let the plot happen.

So I made sure I was loose and relaxed and watched The Guest on a Saturday night alone. You don’t have to watch it the same way if you don’t want to, but I am just setting the mood up for you all. Can you dig?

Unrelated: How do they shoot scenes with mirrors? And even harder with tons of mirrors? TELL ME!

The Peterson family is pretty sad because the oldest son died, fighting for the best country in a war overseas. David (Dan Stevens) was a member of his unit who just shows up one day. All he has on him is a duffle bag, but he came by to pay his respects to the family because Caleb was one of his best buddies and he promised him he would help look out for his family. He doesn’t want to impede, but Caleb’s parents (Leland Orser, Sheila Kelley) insist that he stay for awhile, free of charge, before he heads out again.

Cool, it is like he is Caleb. But not really.

Also, how much do they know about David? Basically nothing. What if he has those PTSDs and decides to kill everyone one night? That’d be crazy right? Right?

Heh. Heheheh. Hehhhh.

The other members of the family are daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) and son Luke (Brendan Meyer). Also featuring a daughter’s best friend (Tabatha Shaun), government agent (Lance Reddick) and two other dudes (Chase Williamson, Joel David Moore).

At least the guest can help with the interior decoration.

The Guest is clearly a spiritual successor of Houseguest. They took their time on it in order to not tarnish the memory of Phil Hartman.

Also, everything about the plot and idea behind The Guest seems cliched. Did I already mention that? It is amazing though that somehow the movie doesn’t feel cliched. It feels fresh and actually remains interesting throughout. David is an interesting individual and his layers of madness creep out pretty slowly though out the film, so it is exciting to see just how dark it can go by the end.

The action is also very smooth. Like butter. Yes.

What more can I say? The Guest entertained, and hey, good job Dan Stevens.

3 out of 4.

Welcome everyone to my first ever “Worst Films of 2014” list!

I have said before that for the most part, Worst Film lists are terrible. They usually end up having something completely average or regular bad on the top, just because people like to drink the internet hatorade. For instance, some people claimed The Lone Ranger was the worst movie of 2013. I thought it was exciting, or at least average/okay.

And as a reminder, 2013 also gave us such classics like Movie 43 and Scary Movie 5. Yeah. The Lone Ranger is clearly worse than those movies. Technically these things are opinions, but clearly opinions such as that can be wrong.

Either way. I didn’t see every movie that came out in 2014. I saw most of the ones that had a theatrical release. But there are a lot of movies that go straight to DVD or straight to VOD. Dozens every week. I didn’t get to see most of them, so this is the

WORST 15 MOVIES THAT I HAVE SEEN THAT CAME OUT IN 2014‘
Catchy title. Why 15? Because I had that many I wanted to hate on again. Also another note: All of the movies on this list were either rated 1 or 0 out of 4. Some 1s may be rated lower. Why? Well, when I rate normally, it is more first impressions/gut reaction. This list however had lots of reflection. The difference between dislike and hate is a fickle one, after all.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Winter’s Tale, Heaven Is For Real, Vampire Academy, Mr. Turner. They all just barely missed the list.

15) Leprechaun: Origins

First up is not only a horror, but a remake! Leprechaun: Origins is one of the few movies on this list that didn’t even make it to theaters. It got a straight VOD release in October, made by WWE Studios. Like all recent reboots, it decided it wanted to be dark and gritty.

And you know, get rid of any personality the strange as hell franchise had going for it. Instead of a leprechaun, we get some strange C.H.U.D. looking creature that took its scary cues from the raptors in Jurassic Park. It is boring, it is unoriginal, and it was a waste of internet space.

14) Moms’ Night Out

“Hey, this movie you are about to complain about probably wasn’t even meant for people like you. You’re not a mom!” Well, I have to admit I am not a mom. But Moms’ Night Out doesn’t seem to be made for moms either. It stereotypes and and gives us unoriginal and terrible caricatures of them.

The fact that it came out around Mother’s Day is just advertising. The idea of making my own mom watch this movie seems like a surefire way of making my mom hate me. I wouldn’t want my mom to think I think she needs to be doing housework all day. This film must have been made in the 1960’s, that is the only explanation.

13) Tammy

Being typecasted can be a good or a bad thing. I mean, it is good if it gets you roles and a steady paycheck, and it is great if it doesn’t make you seem like a terrible human being. But to be typecasted as an annoying friend? That can’t make people like you.

Tammy is a road trip movie with no real goals or focus. What is worse about the Tammy character is that Melissa McCarthy got to make this character herself and still put herself in that situation. We have seen her in other roles that have showed she has range, but this one is more of the same. An annoying amount of same.

12) Left Behind

While leading up to the creation of this list, I watched a lot of “supposed to be bad” movies to make sure I had a more complete feeling list. That is to say, I watched Sharknado 2 and it wasn’t bad enough for this list. But Left Behind and one other were bad enough to make the list, yet not have official reviews written for them yet! Expect them in the next week. 🙂

Either way, Left Behind is a sort of franchise reboot, but with more Cage and probably just as bad acting. The main plot point seems to be characters who realize what is going on, just to be badly cut to a different plot area, and then cut back and their idea be the wrong one. Over. And over. And over. In this movie universe, everyone is an idiot.

11) When The Game Stands Tall

There are sports movies, there are inspirational true story sport movies, and then there is this shit. Stretching the truth to tell a good message is one thing, but When The Game Stands Tall takes a relatively recent (ten ish years ago) story and decide to shit all over the facts and give us inspirational hogwash. Or at least it tries to be inspirational.

But who can really connect with the team that has won over a hundred games in a row and then they finally lose one? They manage to take a great story, keep about 10% of the truth, and give me 90% made up filler. Shit, they can’t even get the opponents and scores versus those opponents correctly. Please, get the fuck out of here.

10) Planes: Fire and Rescue

If I made a list like this last year, Planes would probably be number 1 out of principle alone. Now, less than a year after the first one, we have a sequel of a planned trilogy, where at least the third one isn’t coming out for awhile. Maybe they will work on making it decent.

Just like the first film, Planes: Fire and Rescue is completely lazy in its script department, features a main character who can be a dick, features racist stereotypes to make its characters, and has shitty animation. The type of film that doesn’t try to be good because it makes all its money back instantly in merchandise. The only thing better it has going for it is that at least it has a stronger female character. Just a bit.

9) Lucy

Luc Fucking Besson. This man has been ruining scripts for the last few years, either by writing them completely and directing them, or just adding his input. They are all the same, if I can describe them as terrible and featuring Europe in some way. 3 Days To Kill was terrible, but Lucy was even worse.

Lucy took an okay concept, made it extremely stupid (or dumbed down if you will) and turned the character into an unmoral boring “hero”. A hero who can really early on in the film alter reality in ways so that people don’t have to get hurt, but hurts them anyways. It ends with a slow motion gun fight where her “Friends” and other nice people die. For what? For no fucking reason other than the poorly put together plot.

8) Ouija

Ouija is my second horror film and last one on the list. That’s right! Ouija is the worst horror of the year! That probably isn’t fair, because out of all genres, I bet horror has the most straight to DVD/internet/indie release type of films, so there are probably a lot worse. But damn it, I didn’t see them.

Ouija is a board game company trying to get more people to by their board game. To do so, we get a PG-13 plot line that features some of the least innovative plot twists and scary situations known to man. You know, all about a board game. It is incredible how boring they made this movie. I’ve seen better Ouija board based plots in made for kids tv shows.

7) The Identical

The Identical is the second of the movies on this list that doesn’t have an official review yet. Why? Well, the movie came out the first week of September in theaters and was notable for basically being the only release that week. But I live in an area that frequently has pre-screenings, and they wouldn’t even bother with The Identical.

So I didn’t even bother with it til now, and I am glad to say I didn’t spend $10 on this trash. It is basically like a make believe Elvis story. But instead of Elvis, we have two Elvis looking mother fuckers separated at birth. One becoming a big star, the other being raised by a religious Ray Liotta with dreams of being a rock and roll star some day. The plot description alone should make you want to run away and read a book.

6) Sex Tape

We are getting closer to the bottom, so my hate for these movies will be stronger and stronger. Sex Tape this low makes it officially the worst comedy of the year for me. How bad was it? Well, I watched in theaters with a group of people. Not only did I not laugh, but I remember the theater being silent as well.

But to top it off, it was so boring that in my middle of the day Saturday show time, I fell asleep missing the last twenty or so minutes. Like, hardcore passed out. I never nap and I don’t sleep during movies. I didn’t just sleep during the ending. I slept through 100% of the credits. I was woken up when the lights in the theater were turned on and someone was cleaning up the mess. That’s how boring and un funny this comedy was.

5) God’s Not Dead

When I first saw a trailer for God’s Not Dead, I thought it was a joke trailer made for the lols. What? It was really coming out? Well, it was meant to be a very limited run type of thing, but because religious people went in droves to see it, it became wide release and I actually had to watch it.

Look, movies where some of the characters are dumb and bad at arguments. Sure. But not when the filmmakes are lazy, making terrible characters, in order to help convince millions of people how to argue badly. The main character is an awkward strawman who is just angry and terrible at arguing despite his PhDs. It’s side stories decide to also attack Islam (and make it seem violent), feature Duck Dynasty because they were popular for being anti-gay last year, and even make regular women seem to be the devil. It is the laziest Christian movie I have seen and doesn’t even attempt to raise any amount of intellectual discourse.

4) America: Imagine The World Without Her

That’s right, a documentary! I felt patriotic with this review, watching it in theaters so that I could release it for July 4th! I liked the title, America: Imagine The World Without Her and thought it could go into some interesting subject matter. But no, it was all a ruse. I talk specifics in my actual review, but it is just such an awful piece of propaganda. I cannot believe it got put in theaters.

It features lies, un truths, and a whole lot of unnecessary (and way too early) campaigning for the 2016 election. Seriously. That is what this misleading title documentary turned into. Not only that, but it has some truths also early on to trick you and keep you on your toes. A documentary that should have its biased ass thrown in the trash.

3) I, Frankenstein

Here we go. The final three. And this one is a January release! January releases are known for being generally shitty. It is after the last two months of Oscar bait films. Films they don’t expect to do good and just hope to get back some of their investments. I, Frankenstein takes a beloved fictional character and makes him a whole new level of stupid.

I am a fan of Aaron Eckhart, I am, but first off, he made a terrible Frankenstein’s monster. Second off, this film is a CGI orgy of explosions and fight scenes, all of which are painful to watch. Third, we got a forced awkward romance. And finally, the plot. Oh the plot is full of holes, terrible fantasy lore and it looks like they just threw together a lot of different ideas to make it stick. The only good thing they had going for it was at least a unique choice of weapons and not the same old sword action movie.

2) Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return

For whatever reason, people are super into the Oz based movies right now. That shit is old and every once in awhile, someone tries to remake the lore or re-tell the story and outside of Wicked, the story is always terrible. This time we have Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, an animated sequel to the classic tale, throwing more characters no one gives a shit at at us, with new songs and new tales.

Just kidding. Shit is shit is shit. What is funnier about this thing is that the makers believe there is some Hollywood conspiracy to make sure independent animated films cannot succeed. When in reality, they had shitty animation and a terrible terrible movie. That is why it didn’t make money. Shit, this movie took years to make and seemed like some sort of Ponzi Scheme in the end. Popular people to voice is does not a good movie make.

1) The Legend Of Hercules

Yay, number 1! The worst movie of the year in my eyes. Here is a check list of things going bad for The Legend of Hercules.

It came out in January.
It is a doppelganger film, but also the “rushed out to beat the other one and definitely far far worse” of the two. (Compared to just Hercules).
It is based on stories, and by that, I mean, Hercules is a character name and everyone else…? I don’t know if anyone is in his mythos. Every other plot point and character just seems generic and made up.
Terrible CGI.
Mostly just a love story and it seems like it wants to capture the Twilight crowd.
Kellan Lutz.

If you like Hercules, don’t see this movie. If you hate Hercules, don’t see this movie.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site! Check out my thoughts). Next week? I will have a list of movies you should actually watch.

Ah, I do love a good controversy to start a review off.

This movie is called Pride. For most of you, you can take a good guess at part of the subject matter of the movie. For others, it might come to a shock to you that this film deals with gays and lesbians.

In fact, it is about a true story in the 1980’s in Britain! But the US distributors of this film don’t want you to know that. Which is why they have seemingly gone out of your way to mention the gay/lesbian presence in the pictures and description of the film, despite being the main point.

Welcome to 2015, bitches.

And shout it from a megaphone!

1984, and Great Britain was under attack against the scary Iron Lady. Or at least that’s how I picture it.

Movies tell me nothing but bad things about Thatcher, and this one is another one of them. 1984 had a Great Britain Great Miners’ Strike. Thatcher was super anti-Union and so the miners went on strike to make more money. Well, this thing lasted a long time, with whole communities having no income. Kind of harsh, but they had to fight for what they believed in.

Which is what the gays and the lesbians were doing too. Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) decides that they should support the miners openly. They even want to start an organization LGSM, Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners. Sure, the Miners stereotypically would be people who used to beat them up for being “perverts” but Mark knows that a group who people hate should partner with other groups that people hate in order to make bigger noises towards bigger and better changes.

So it is that simple. They will start collecting money for them so that they can afford food and pay the bills, as long as they will accept their money first.

Starring as the perverts, George MacKay, Faye Marsay, Freddie Fox, Andrew Scott and Dominic West. Starring as the pits, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Paddy Considine, and Jessica Gunning.

The stereotypes are entirely true. The gays dance better than the miners, every day.

A feel good story about overcoming differences between two groups of people to kick ass together! That is what Pride is about. Not just one side or the other, but both.

I’m sure you could tell all of that from reading the description, no matter what country release you had. And hey, sure, it felt a bit standard at times. There were moments that felt like a made for TV film, and then other moments that made sure you knew it was rated R. I wasn’t sure what I would give it rating wise until the very end, when sure enough, they messed with my emotions enough to give me a little bit of a tear or two. Dicks.

And we had a few stand out performances, namely Dominic West/Andrew Scott, and Bill Nighy/Imelda Staunton. Both play couples and both amazing in different ways. Namely also that Dominic West looks like some strange version of Richard Branson in this movie. (I say that about anyone with an accent and long man hair).

Of course, more importantly, I learned a lot about one year in Britain. I have more reasons for movies to tell me why I should dislike Thatcher. And I got to talk about a controversial movie but not in the way it should have been controversial. Diary, today was a good day.

3 out of 4.

Sharknado 2: The Second One — Because people think that the first Sharknado was a bad B Movie.

That isn’t true of course. It was just a bad movie, worse than a B movie, and it tried too hard to make itself be funny bad, and instead was just terrible.

But forwhatever reason, the internet decided to run with this as a joke it definitely needed, and it got way too popular for no reason.

So now we have Sharknado 2.

Reviews of this are pointless, because I am under the impression that anyone who was going to watch this movie, already did. I do in fact believe I am the last person to watch this movie.

And if not, uhhh, spoilers.

The last movie was set in LA and starred some people. This time, it is set in NYC and the idea of a Sharknado is an actual thing. Hell, even the book How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack is in this movie, though written by one of the main characters from the last movie, April Wexler (Tara Reid).

April and Fin (Ian Ziering) are no longer together, but they are flying to NYC to visit family and friends, when, of course, a bunch of crazy weather shit happens. Huge storm, winter icy blast, and for whatever reason, a shit ton of Sharks, means NYC is about to get fucked up and a whole lotta people gonna die.

And that is all you really have to know. A lot of cameos of random people, but if I told you who, you’d know they would probably just end up dying.

The non cameo real roles include Vivica A. Fox, Mark McGrath, Kari Wuhrer, Courtney Baxter, Dante Palminteri, Judah Friedlander and Judd Hirsch.

Another maybe spoiler, but this one is cooler.

And there it is, a bad sequel to a bad movie. HOWEVER.

And it hurts me to say this. It hurts me so much.

Sharknado 2 > Sharknado. Sharknado felt like I was getting hit in the head with a shovel for an hour and a half. Shaknado 2 merely felt boring and you know what? I laughed occasionally.

The beginning of Sharknado 2 was just as bad as Sharknado, but it got a little bit better. Their jokes are bit funnier. Especially one Shark hopping scene, I down right smiled.

It is still just as cheesy, just as poorly conceived, but you know what. Just a tad bit better.

And thus, I do declare, that Sharknado 2 is not the worst movie of 2014.

1 out of 4.

Whiplash snuck into theaters way back in October was a limited release and I obviously didn’t get to see it. It left theaters quickly, and I was left on the internet cold and sad. You see, people kept talkin’ ’bout Whiplash. About how good the acting was. What a surprise. How cool it was.

And I was all like “But, but, but, but…I don’t know anything about this movie! :(“. And then they laughed at me of course.

But now I am back, having seen Whiplash, before I compile any sort of top of the year list for myself. It feels good to watch things before awards season. It must be similar to how people feel reading a book before it was even announced that a movie version was going to come out. Pretty intense, I do say.

You can tell you are being intense if you have your mouth open.

Andrew (Miles Teller) is a drummer. He likes to drum, he is in a great music school for bands, and he thinks he is decent. But he is his biggest fan, and who cares what his opinion is.

You see, there is an elite jazz group at his school, led by the legendary Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons). Everyone is crisp, always finely tuned, always with the right tempo, and always winning awards.

Andrew wants to be apart of that band, but Fletcher is mysterious and only has surprise auditions in the middle of other classes. And somehow, Andrew is able to win himself a spot.

Fletcher seems nice to him at first, but it turns out he is kind of a hard ass. He yells, he screams, he demands perfection and he can tell who is the best after only a couple of seconds of play. He wants to develop the next great star by forcing people to move out of their comfort zones and become an elite player. He also likes to mind fuck people, which I am sure is very helpful.

(Zany announcer voice) It looks like Andrew should have been careful what he wished for!

Also with Paul Reiser as his dad, Melissa Benoist as his girlfriend (and yes, she was on Glee), and Nate Lang/Austin Stowell as other drummers.

The closed mouth next to the open mouth amplifies the intensity levels.

Intensity is the key word of the review, because getting whiplash is an intense injury. Not as intense as a broken bone or falling off a cliff or anything, but it exists. The film is called whiplash for the feeling and the jazz song which is one of the main two pieces their group ends up playing.

And it is also the only way to describe J.K. Simmons’ character. I could listen to him yelling at teenagers every day of my life. His voice is why he became J. Jonah Jameson and is why this role was made for him.

In fact, I am pretty sure this movie exists entirely to get him an award, because he was a huge asshat and acted his hatass off.

Whiplash on its own is also a very entertaining film. A lot of energy is put into what most people would assume is just a drummer in a jazz band, but the quest for greatness has its costs. Hell, even the cinematography was great. The ending is basically a giant ball of emotion wrapped that is looking to escape, and then does, and hey credits.

Nothing I just said makes any sense. So I should just use the word intense again.

4 out of 4.

I’ll be honest, when I first heard of the movie Selma, I had no idea what it was about.

When I found out it was a pseudo-biographical film about a moment in MLK’s life? I assumed Selma was his wife.

Nopers, I was way wrong. Selma is actually a city in Alabama! Yeah, who knew? Not only that, but it was a huge staging ground for civil rights in the mid 1960s, and it had nothing to do with sit-ins, busses, or fire hoses. That is pretty exciting on my part, because that means I will actually learn something new instead of the same few tales they teach us about in school. As it deals with race relations, it will probably end up being topical too in some way.

Not sure how, but I am sure someway it could be topical. Hmmmm.

Martin (David Oyelowo) (We are on cool enough terms for me to just use his first name) had just received his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, but he wasn’t done yet. This was after his I Have A Dream speech. There was a big issue with Jim Crow laws in the south. Sure, technically, everyone now had the right to vote. But people were getting in the way of that.

Poll taxes, literacy tests, inconvenient hours, and rude as shit clerks made things like that hard. Not to mention the general threat of violence for those who might attempt if they were black. Martin wanted LBJ (Tom Wilkinson) to make fixing this issue a priority, but LBJ wouldn’t have it. He had other issues like poverty he wanted to work on. So Martin and his comrades (Common, Andre Holland, Wendell Pierce and more!) found the staging grounds for their next battle in Selma, Alabama.

A student group (Stephan James, Trai Byers) was already working there, building up community support, and of all the registered votes, only 1% were black despite about equal numbers. It was a great battleground. Even had a super racist sheriff (Stan Houston)! Martin just also has family issues with his wife (Carmen Ejogo) while all this is going down, so, pretty intense stuff.

Oh and a whole lot of people are in here as smaller or villainous roles as cameos. We have Tim Roth, Giovanni Ribisi, Cuba Gooding Jr., Martin Sheen, Dylan Baker, and Oprah Winfrey.

People walked a lot more back then, just a matter of fact.

Thinking back on it, I don’t think I have ever seen a high quality film about MLK and his life. He has appeared in other movies I have seen, like Nelsan Ellis last year in The Butler. But filmmakers seem to be afraid of his life, despite clearly being a popular figure. I wonder if people are afraid of doing him badly and not living up to his larger than life persona?

Well, if they were afraid in this movie they shouldn’t be. David Oyelowo did an INCREDIBLE performance. His walk, his talk, his power, he had it all. His looks weren’t perfect, but man were they believable. And when he did his speeches or sermons in this movie? Yeah, his voice carried it hardcore, and not in the same stereotypical way people normally do Martin’s voice. It had its own uniqueness and similarity that made it seem just as awe inspiring and just as real. Shit, the final speech he gave? I was almost certain it was an actual recording instead of Oyelowo, but I was wrong. It almost made me tear up.

My only issues with the film is that despite its superduper lead, the supporting cast didn’t seem to catch up with him. I think this is the worst ever portrayal of J. Edgar I have ever seen. Out of no where it all seemed more comical instead of serious. Roth was awkward as the evil Governor and he also felt quite cartoonish. I couldn’t take these guys seriously, limiting the seriousness of the film.

I learned a shit ton about the subject though and it is an incredible story, even if certain aspects are fabricated. A very nice watch to learn about a very overlooked yet important event in American history. And damn Oyelowo. You good, you good.

3 out of 4.

Here it is, 2015, and documentaries are still a thing. And some of the supposed better ones from 2014 are making their way for us to finally watch, just in time for awards season.

I picked Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger…mostly by accident. Was looking for something else, got lazy, and settled on this one. I knew it was new and I heard positive things, so it fit the bill well enough to just run with it.

Who is Whitey? James ‘Whitey’ Bulger used to be number 2 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List after Osama Bin Laden! Jeez! He was a crime boss in South Boston. Apparently killed dozens of people, racketeering, gambling, drug deals, sex stuff, you name it. He has been on the run for a long time too.

The only issue is, he also might have had permission from the FBI to do it all.

You know he is the real deal because he was once locked away in Alcatraz.

Informants are a tricky thing, so if Bulger was used by the FBI to tattle on other people and the FBI knew everything he was doing and didn’t take them in, that makes the government look bad too.

But the documentary does a far better job of explaining everything, way better than me of course. Because this documentary is LOADED with information. About two hours long, it has more information than it knows what to do with. I assume. I don’t know what they know about using information.

So one aspect of this whole thing is you definitely have to pay attention. It does its best job of walking the viewer through the clues and help draw its final conclusions with the craziness that ended up being this trial. A trial that I had no idea even happened.

But hey, apparently Jack Nicholson‘s character from The Departed was based on this guy, if that tells you anything.

Either way, a well put together documentary with a lot of information that I didn’t know a lot about, and one that might make you think.

3 out of 4.

Dolphins Dolphins Dolphins.

I remember Dolphin Tale just like it was years ago. An inspirational movie, for anyone who is a dolphin and who has lost their tail and thinks they can’t go on swimming anymore. It is based on a true story and I think used the actual dolphin in question. They just cheesed it the hell up and the actual true story was far more interesting than the melo drama the movie created. Just how it goes some time.

But now we have a sequel to Dolphin Tale. It is called Dolphin Tale 2! Presumably the Dolphin now loses a fin and they replace that too, right? Wait, this one is also a true story? Is there some guy just scouring the internet, looking for dolphin rescue stories just so they can make a dolphin tale movie?

I’m hoping for the eventual reboot as RoboDolphin.

The Clearwater Marine Hospital, in the last movie struggling to survive, is now struggling to fit in so many people. They have classes, volunteers, real staff, they have so much goin on. They still want to fix animals and return them to sea, but they have some permanent residents that people want to see, like Winter. Yay fake tails. Winter lives with Panama, because of some vague rule that a female dolphin needs another female dolphin to swim or play with.

Well, Panama dies. Super old. They only have one other dolphin, Mandy, but Mandy is perfectly fine and it is their duty to return her to real life. For some reason, they have thirty days to find a new female dolphin to play with Winter, or else Winter will leave. If Winter will leave, so will their fat profits, because a lot of crippled people come to see her for whatever reason. Thankfully they get another shitty dolphin, terribly named Hope, who is a baby and didn’t get to learn how to live her life in the wild. BUT CAN THEY BE FRIENDS.

Also the main kid, Sawyer (Nathan Gamble), now in high school, is debating as to whether or not he takes a super free Semester At Sea trip, as a high school student again, because he is sad about dolphins.

This movie also features, again, Ashley Judd, Cozi Zuehlsdorf, Harry Connick Jr., Juliana Harkavy, Kris Kristofferson, Morgan Freeman, and Bethany Hamilton. Yes that 1 armed surfer chick is playing herself.

I don’t care about her story, I just know her story gave us the shitty movie Soul Surfer.

The trailer for Dolphin Tale 2 featured an emergency vehicle showing up to the hospital with a dolphin, late at night, getting called Hope for some reason, and then a bunch of shots of people playing with dolphins, basically.

This scene takes place over an entire HOUR into the movie. Up to this point, we don’t get to the dolphin Hope or hear about her coming. It is all out of nowhere. IT TAKES AN HOUR OF SET UP TO GET TO THE MAIN PLOT OF THE MOVIE. Come on! So much damn bad filler up to that point. The worst of it being of course the angst of the kid throughout the film. Look. We all know he is going to take it. He would be stupid to not take it. It is completely bad drama filler for some reason, because obviously that part is based on no true story.

I think the only part of this movie that is the true story is that the CMH real life place got a new tiny dolphin named Hope. I don’t think they were going to lose Winter in any way, but they got a new dolphin in real life, so here is a new movie. That is what this movie has become and any future movies. They also had a Mandy dolphin that they released back and actually had a sick turtle.

Aka, normal life for a marine hospital. And now it is a pointless bullshitty movie.

The young people watched it too. They found it boring as shit. They got excited every once in awhile when dolphins were playing and that is about it. And because the ending featured a long drawn out cheering sequence, they were happy and cheering too because hey, something fun is finally happening. And then balloons. Either way, kids know this movie sucks for the most part too.

1 out of 4.

2014 has been the year of the Doppelganger. Not Doppelganger Movies, that was just two Hercules movies.

No, 2014 gave us Enemy and The Double (which may have been 2013) and The One I Love. Clones everywhere.

But The Imitation Game, despite its clone sounding title, is totally not about clones! What’s up with that? No, instead we are getting a historical drama about Alan Turing, a British man who did things during World War II. Yes, this is another World War II movie, but instead of bombs and death, we instead get math and death.

“The square root of a bullet is still a bullet.” – Albert Einstein

You see, Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) was one of those very eccentric individuals who also did smart man things. Aka, the perfect type of person to make a movie about, because acting!

Alan Tuning is most famous for kind of leading the science way towards real life computers. Back in the 1940s, they didn’t even have the internet, so presumably all their free time went towards doing crossword puzzles. Especially Mr. Turing! A professor at Mathematics, he loved puzzles and solving cryptography. So he gets himself into an interview with the British Royal Navy to join their puzzle solving squad. Namely, trying to crack the German Enigma Machine.

The Engima was thought to be uncrackable. They had a copy of it, but they didn’t know the code. The code changed daily, right at midnight, and their first message intercepted would be at about 6 am. So they have to go back to square one, even if they solve that days code, every morning. It would be a tireless effort, but these men (Matthew Goode, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard) are up to the job! Just not with the anti-social awkward Turing. Who also doesn’t want to help their daily efforts, but instead build a machine that can crack the code almost instantly and help the Allied forces win the war!

Hurrah!

And he was gay. That is important, because homosexuality in the UK was illegal at the time, so his mere existence was causing him to be an outlaw, yet a huge savior of World War II.

Also featuring Keira Knightley as Joan, a WOMAN on the team (kind of), Charles Dance as the head of the Navy, Mark Strong as a MI6 agent involved as an overseer, and Rory Kinnear as a detective trying to find out what Turing is really up to.

Being a woman in a male dominated field of doing puzzles really makes you stand out.

I am pretty sure a lot of this movie was fictionalized to increase drama and make everything a lot more exciting…and I am completely fine with that. Man, was this film tense and exciting. And well acted! Not just the Cumberbatch either, but the other guys and gals, they did pretty good too.

As for Cumberbatch, it is interesting that in an episode of Sherlock, he referred specifically to Alan Turing’s life and issues they had after finally solving the Engima machine. It was a huge plot point and involved moral ambiguity (which I am always a fan of), and shit, now he is Alan Turing doing the same thing he talked about in another role! Crazy! And a bit eerie. But even more importantly, like a lot of his recent roles, this role was very different from his past jobs and you could tell a lot of fantastic acting was going on there. So good the acting. Acting that shows a love of the craft and maybe a love of the subject matter.

Is it the best at acting? Nah, probably not. But it is up there for sure.

I found the whole thing easy to watch and follow, and it was great that we also got a story of Turing when he was in grade school before he got his PhDs. It is great having WW2 movies that aren’t just about how war is terrible and people are dying and all of that. Which is I guess what The Monuments Men tried to do and failed.

4 out of 4.

Tally-ho!

It is really hard to find a time to properly use the exclamation Tally-ho, so when I find an appropriate time, I kind of go all out. For those not in the cool kids club, tally-ho was a cheer for Fox hunting, a noble British sport about sitting on a horse while a dog finds a fox and you kill it.

Err yeah, not as popular nowadays I guess, but a sign of someone who has a lot of money back in the day.

Foxcatcher, taking a similar approach, is about rich people and men’s wrestling. Yeah, that makes sense.

I do believe that shirt is NSFW.

Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum). Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo). Brothers, both of them gold medal winning Olympic wrestlers. That is pretty good, especially since they almost kicked wrestling out of the Olympics for 2020 games and on, but those guys fought hard to keep it in, so we are still good. They both won gold in the 1984 Olympics, and they also won medals at World Competitions, World Championship games, and Pan American games. They were the cream of the crop.

Dave actually won a bit more than his younger brother Mark, so Mark usually felt like he was the lesser of the two, even if technically he was a bigger and stronger guy.

They were also living paycheck to paycheck, wherever they could make money at. Inspirational speeches, teaching camps, whatever. So when John du Pont (Steve Carell) invites Mark over to his mansion, of course he goes. du Pont is loaded, from a rich family of horse breeders, and for whatever reason really likes Olympic wrestling. Namely, he would love it if American could whoop Soviet Russia. So he wants to invite Mark down and a whole lot of other hopefuls for the Olympics to train at his facilities, live rent and utility free, AND earn a bi-weekly pay check at the same time. They can train for qualifiers and then hopefully the Olympics.

He wants Dave too, but Dave doesn’t want to uproot his family and move from his home. Other than that though, seems sweet.

But du Pont has a lot of secrets. He is already a very eccentric and strange guy and he acts like he is maybe fulfilling some weird fantasy that he never got to experience as a youth. Or maybe something even darker! Who knows!

Goodness gracious I think his nose can be used to literally catch foxes in!

So, this story is based on a story written by Mark Schultz of his life with du Pont. It was taken by another guy, written better, and the movie was based on that book. Originally, Mark Schultz was all about this movie. Loved how much of it was based on his notes and scenes he saw were based off of things he directly wrote about.

But now? Mark Schultz really really really hates this movie. He went crazy on facebook and twitter, click the link if you want some spoilers. He is all sorts of pissed about how it made him look and implied scenes that went on the film.

Despite this, he still wants to make sure the actors win some stuff though. And that is because the acting was definitely the best part of this movie.

Steve Carell is not Steve Carell in this movie. He also isn’t Michael Scott, and he definitely isn’t Brick. He is a completely different person, with a prosthetic nose, mannerisms, walk, voice, everything. I LOVE it when comedic actors go serious, and it is definitely an incredible performance.

It is a good story, but I feel like too much of it is focused on the not so important aspects of du Pont, and not the really really bad stuff. The really really bad stuff seems rushed and time wise, it makes it seem like in real life they happen quickly after the rest of the movie, when in real life, it is many years difference.

And you know, not knowing the real life stories of the Schultz and the du Pont brothers, it took a long time for me to realize just what the point of telling this story all was. It could have definitely been improved by some telling out of order, I think I would have had a deeper emotional level connection to the film.

But despite the issues, it is still a very well acted movie, and an interesting black spot on the sport of Olympic Wrestling.

3 out of 4.