Month: July 2015

Oh hey, look at that! A movie title with two clear meanings so it probably means both!

Let’s see, Self/Less. Let’s look at it without the slash first, because that is easier. Selfless. So someone in this movie will do something very selfless for other people. Okay, cool, sounds like a hero.

Self/Less. Meaning maybe, that someone has less of a self. Maybe no self. Does someone lose their self in this film (and not just to the phat beats on the radio)? That’d be the easy guess.

In other news, this is like the fourth movie for Ryan Reynolds this year. Save some acting for the rest of us, jeez!

Now go to your room and think about what you have done.

Before we get to Mr. Reynolds, let’s first talk about Damian (Ben Kingsley), a NYC real estate tycoon who amassed a huge fortune, and you know, built a lot of buildings. He is the head of a big company, kind of a shitty person, and has a bad relationship with his daughter, Claire (Michelle Dockery). He also has the cancers!

Thankfully, science is here and the rich can benefit! A group, led by Dr. Albright (Matthew Goode), wants to give those great thinkers a second chance and some extra years. They can grow bodies, transfer the mind of the great into the body of a young man, giving them more time to revolutionize the world! They would have to give up their past behind, of course, but they’d leave a small fortune for them to do whatever they want and become great again!

So now Damian is in a younger body (Reynolds), but it takes some time to get used to it. He has to go through rehab, to have his mind figure out how to use his body. He also gets strange flashes of hallucinations that are a side effect, but hey, they have pills to make those go away too! Yep. Life is awesome. Surely nothing is sinister about this operation.

Also featuring Brendan McCarthy, Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen, Natalie Martinez, Victor Garber, and Derek Luke.

Hey man. You got something on your face.

Self/Less is one of those movies that likes to pretend it is smart and dealing with deep philosophical theories, when in reality, it is a dumb bad action movie. Yes, this psychological thriller drama is secretly just a bad action movie. After all, it didn’t have enough action to just be an action movie. Maybe 20-30% of the film is action movie, where the other percentage lies in the drama ethics focused feature. Unfortunately, the action was the worse part, because when it started, it seemingly came out of nowhere. Suddenly, new Damian is super strong, breaking toilets, busting down doors and patio decks just by running through them. He becomes a super hero, just because why not.

If the film eliminated most of the action and instead focused on the human elements, delving just a little bit into the consequences of their actions, this could have been a smart and through provoking film. Instead it is dumbed-down. The main character’s actions are seemingly completely random. He seems to give himself justification for going on an action-spree at the end, killing a lot of people, when ethically they aren’t even doing something that bad. This is a film where just some bad communication causes all of the problems, but at least half of that stems from the antagonist refusing to even listen.

Shit, even the whole sub plot involving figuring out what was inside the drug ended up being super pointless. The filmmakers must have had only a loose idea on what they wanted in a movie, then filled it with bad science and terrible motivations hoping it would bring in the summer blockbuster crowd.

I think what I am most disappointed in with this film is that the acting wasn’t even bad. Sure, I couldn’t understand everything Kingsley said early on, but he was an old cliche dying man. But Reynolds was actually pretty good in this film, but the acting is wasted on the terrible story. Self/Less is a movie that will end up being completely forgettable in a few months time, which I am looking forward to doing.

There comes a time in every reviewers life when they have to watch a movie about Male Strippers. It isn’t a common topic. We got The Full Monty in the 90s, and then Magic Mike a few years ago, so we all just assumed it would be another decade and a half before a new one came along.

But Magic Mike was certainly popular and certainly made a lot of bank. And for good reason! It was the beginning of the Matthew McConaughey road to greatness. And it was directed by Steven Soderbergh! And yes, sure, some good dancing.

That doesn’t mean I am not worried about the sequel, a continuation that is loosely inspired by Channing Tatum‘s real life story. No McConaughey for one. And instead of having the director of Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen, we are instead stuck with the ASSISTANT DIRECTOR of Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen.

And to top it all off, Soderbergh is only the Executive Producer, Cinematographer, and Editor of this movie.

Yep, clearly Magic Mike XXL is going to be a wildly different film.

This scene is like an even more male focused erotic 80’s metal music video.

Three years have passed since the dangerous and deadly events of the first film. Mike (Tatum) is no longer magical, after leaving the world of Male Entertainment behind and focusing on starting his own business, making things with wood. After these few years, he has one employee and times are still tough. But at least he gets to keep his clothes on, and only has to dance in his workhouse, alone, late at night.

But then the gang is stopping by the city. I’m talking Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias), and of course Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello). No, not Dallas or the other guy. They apparently closed shop and moved over seas for that foreign money, leaving the rest of the gang jobless and forced to find new passions in life.

However, before reality sets in, they are going to the Male Entertainment competition conference thing in Myrtle Beach, where groups of men dance and strip for hundreds of ladies. It is a big event and they want to go out with a bang. And you know, tons of dollar bills.

They just have to get there first. And this road trip will have them stop at a few different types of clubs, meeting new people for their crew/team, and maybe even having the men discover what they want to do after they are done male entertaining.

Also featuring Stephen Boss, Donald Glover, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Andie MacDowell, and Elizabeth Banks.

I didn’t actively avoid shirtless pics, but the one group shot the internet has sans shirts is terrible!

Let me start this out by saying that Magic Mike XXL is a better movie than Magic Mike. And I have quite a few reasons too!

1) The sequel has more dancing. That is fantastic news, because that is one of the main focuses of the film. The worse Step Up movies are the ones that try to have too much plot and not enough booty shaking. I want to see awesome dances to hot beats, damn it, and there is a whole lot of that in this movie.

2) There is no Cody Horn in this movie. None. Not even a picture. Just a few references. She is out of the picture and was by far the worst part of the first film. And the film elevates because of it.

3) The other dancers have personality. This could be partially true about the first film, but I don’t remember that much at all about our other male dancers. It was all about Magic Mike and that new guy. The other dancers all feel like real people, and it was fascinating seeing them all get their moments, have their own unique dances at the end, and really bond with them. The male bondage in this film is extraordinary. They all feel like real friends and they have great chemistry.

And really, that is all I need. Sure, some parts of the movie get really awkward, and maybe some of the dancers are far far too sexual for my tastes, but I am able to forgive most of that. The romance in this film was bad, but not as bad as the first.

This film actually left me wanting more from these dudes, seeing how their lives turn out since they are more than just background characters now. Especially Big Dick Richie, who had the best subplots in the film.

There are a few “indisputable facts” to comedy.

1) Women aren’t funny. It must be true. Just last year there was a documentary called Women Aren’t Funny, so I assume its title/conclusion was found to be true, right?

2) The life of a comic is hard. Making people laugh all the time and not getting to laugh yourself can be a lonely life. Which leads to.

3) Misery loves comedy. It must be true. I am reviewing a documentary called Misery Loves Comedy, so I assume its title/conclusion was found to be true. After all, no one goes to see a comic who is happily married, with kids, talking about how wonderful life is. We want the guy who has to masturbate in his basement like a troll.

So the documentary heads decide to interview 50 or more comedians to find out the truth! And you know, hear their experiences and hear their stories.

I have never seen a more miserable group of people in my life.
And yes I am including Mr. Tom Hanks.

The documentary doesn’t jump straight into the misery portion. No, that would be boring and probably a bit sad. Instead, we start with where the comedians got their influences. For the most part, every single person said it was from their father (Rule 1???). How they then grew up, realized people thought they were funny and they could put on an act. And how comedy became sort of an addiction, better than drugs!

Another common theme amongst the comics was their need to be loved, how they would all bond over terrible bombs on stage, when they first got paid to make people laugh, hanging with other comics and doing it for a living.

Then we tackle the miserable question. After you get to here dozens upon dozens of stories of growing up, all through amusing anecdotes!

It is hopefully not a surprise that the reason this documentary was even made was due to the tragic suicide of Robin Williams. It made people wonder why someone who laughed all the time could be so sad. So if we can understand where they are coming from, we can laugh but also maybe…help?

Nah, probably not help, but at least we won’t be surprised should something happen like that again.

But let’s talk about the people. There are a lot of comics here, and some of them are surprising stand outs. Like Freddie Prinze, Jr., who I guess was in comedy, sure, but one guy I never really considered to be a comedian. He was awesome in this documentary and his stories were heartfelt. Martin Short talked about one of his breakdowns. I learned far more about Samm Levine than I ever thought possible.

The only real issue with this documentary, which is again wonderful and full of stories, is that it feels like not enough A list talent was interviewed. Where are our biggest stand up comics right now, all of them too busy?

Still a good use of 90 minutes of your time, and I bet there was tons of unused footage that would make an good movie on its own.

reddie Prince, Jr.

Hey, didn’t I just talk about this? Yeah, last week or so! The weird genre of watching a bunch of people famous from TV shows make a movie together. I just talked about it with Adult Beginners, and now I can talk about it again with The Lazarus Effect.

This time we have a guy from The League, a girl from House, and a guy from Community.

The good news about all of this is I have never really seen a group of TV stars do a horror movie. It is almost always, 100% of the time, an independent comedy drama where not a lot happens.

But this is a horror! Time to party because it is new and different!

Science! Party! Happy times!

This isn’t just a scary movie. It is a scary SCIENCE movie, about science going to far and playing god.

The scientists in question are Frank (Mark Duplass) and Zoe (Olivia Wilde), who are not only partners, but also dating. Oh snap. Personal lives mixing with work lives. How scandalous. They started their university research into something about coma patients, but now they are on to something even bigger and more sciency. Instead of helping coma patient, it might bring the dead back to life. Kind of fucked up, right? After doing some science stuff, they are finally able to get it to work on a dog. They had some assistants of course, Niko (Donald Glover) and Clay (Evan Peters), for more witnesses.

Speaking of witnesses, they even have a girl with a video camera, Eva (Sarah Bolger), so no one cries bullshit after success.

Well, obviously the dog is now alive, but the dog is acting a bit weird. Aggression based weirdness mostly. Oh well.

What’s that? They can’t do more research because it is awkward and sneaky and some pharmaceutical company is going to take it all? What’s that, Zoe is suddenly dead thanks to an accident while trying to re-do the experiment? Oh my goodness, Zoe is back alive? That is fantastic. It works on humans. Now they can find out what it is like to die and what she can tell them and hopefully she doesn’t turn all psycho and kill everyone.

That wouldn’t be okay!

I would also probably hide if Olivia Wilde came walking down the hall.

The first thing you will notice about The Lazarus Effect is that it is unusually short. Some horror films are short because everything takes place during a small amount of time, like in Unfriended, and it worked very nicely. Unfriended also got to the “horror” part of the film pretty early on, so there wasn’t a lot of time wasted.

This film, however, dawdles pretty hard core. They had what felt like several different plot lines going on to lead up to the sudden human trial to save Zoe’s life, but that also took up at least a third if not half of the film. That would be the plot about getting the science right, dealing with a slowly more aggressive dog, and the company coming in to take their work and having them lose everything. That is a big chunk of the movie, but none of it is really that scary. So that is pretty disappointing. You would think with less than 80 minutes of film, that sort of thing can be rushed or already assumed to get us to the part most viewers would care about. For instance, it can start with the formula just working on a dog? Yeah, that would give us more time to focus on scary stuff!

But alas, it is a mostly non terrifying horror movie which is a shame. The acting also is nothing special, and rarely is in a horror film.

The reason I am giving it the average passing score is that at least it tried to make a reasonable and not completely shitty plot. The main issue is that the plot seemed to also forget the fact that it is a horror movie. I need two things to happen in a horror film to give it a rating above a 2. It has to be both scary AND entertaining. This one has only minor scary parts near the end, and is average on the entertainment.

Should there be a sequel, which I doubt, it should be able to deliver more scares as we should be passed all the set up. But it also doesn’t really deserve a chance to make up the lack of horror.