Month: August 2016

My All American is one of those films that came out in 2015 that I just flat out avoided. Football films have been extremely disappointing lately. Heck, for quite a few years I guess. After the extreme disappointment that was When The Game Stands Tall I knew I couldn’t see another one in theaters for some time.

On top of that, Aaron Eckhart has also been equally disappointing, almost entirely, since The Dark Knight. Dude needs to step up his game, I am tired of being let down.

According to IMDB, this movie is actually called Courage. I just have not heard that said about it in any other context, except for it being a big part of a title of one of the many books on this subject. Fucking IMDB, stop being weird.

There is no way this image is not a hand job. Can they show this in a family movie?

This is a true story of course, and of course, some of this is a bit unbelievable.

Despite the billing, it is about Freddie Steinmark (Finn Wittrock), a boy with a lot of heart. But you knew that, why else would he get his own movie? He is a smaller guy, like Rudy, sure, but he gives it his all, he is super fast, and smart on the defense. He is a safety, and fantastic. But because of his size, no one gives him a chance. Except for one guy, Coach Royal (Aaron Eckhart), at the University of Texas. The Longhorns.

He sees his drive. And he also has a friend, Bobby Mitchell (Rett Terrell) who might come by as well. A nice two for one.

Well, sure enough, Freddie becomes their main defensive player. He is on the highlight reels. He is top form. He wants a national championship. And he might be able to force his body to go places no single human body should go. But will he become an All American? That is really what is important. He won’t. Nope. Sorry. But they let you know that one right away.

His parents are played by Michael Reilly Burke and Robin Tunney, girlfriend by Sarah Bolger, and other quarterbacks are played by Juston Street and Donny Boaz.

Holy shit, is everyone on this college football team a guy in their thirties?

Heart. Drive. Inspiration. I already made the Rudy connection, but apparently Steinmark was a bit better than Rudy. Rudy got to play one game, because he was willing to practice so hard and make it his one goal. Steinmark had family support since he was kid to be the very best and it actually showed, despite his size. Steinmark helped championship games get won and rivalries get stomped down.

My All American is better than it has any right to be. It is more or less a by the numbers inspirational sports film. It is PG, it shows mostly just some personal struggle, and it is about an optimist. It has a lot of really easy material to pluck from to get people nostalgic and tearjerking. In fact, by the end it feels like it is trying to hard just to get some cries out. Did I cry? Yes, but only like half of a cry. It didn’t fully get to me, despite giving its best.

The film is also surprisingly well shot. You can generally tell what is going on during the plays, everything looks really nice and you can tell that someone wanted to put their best foot forward for the film. In terms of acting, most of the side characters are understandably average, being reduced to mostly one or two bit players. But Wittrock as our lead was a joy to watch and is the type of lead you want in a sports bio pic like this one.

My All American won’t be for everyone. In fact, I probably won’t watch it ever again unlike what I do almost bimonthly for Remember the Titans. But it was a better effort than recent fair and hopefully means we can get some better football movies in the pipeline soon.

Almost every single introduction joke I could think of for The Boss was incredibly lame. There are way too many Boss-based pop culture references that every single one became cringey at just the thought of them. I don’t think there is a single good joke or reference I can make without the readers closing their browser in anger.

If Kelsey Grammer and Tony Danza were locked in a room all night, even they couldn’t come up with something clever to make a chuckle.

Although they would have made something at least more appealing than this turd.

Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy) was an orphan kid and no one wanted her. She got returned a lot. Must be too much spunk. But now, as an adult, she is wickedly rich and famous. I can’t actually tell you what she does, but she is famous and sells stuff. She also sells her image, women love her, she is a rock star and she knows how to put on a show.

But then she gets arrested. For insider trading crap, even though everybody does it. But she is rich so she doesn’t have to go to jail for years, just has to post a bond and honestly, I think everyone forgets about it. Claire (Kristen Bell) doesn’t forget though. She was her assistant for years and never got the raises she deserved as a single mom. With the arrest she had to find a new job and quick. And now Michelle is showing up to sleep on her couch.

Long story short, the daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson), is in an off shoot girl scouts group. Michelle sees how much they make selling cookies, but dislikes that the girls don’t make anything out of it. So she makes her own alternative off shoot girl scout group, but this time the girls can get commission on their pastry sales and Michelle can also make a lot of money. Hooray money!

Also conflict about other business people, Michelle being not super nice, and girls beating up other girls in the streets. Starring Peter Dinklage, Tyler Labine, Kathy Bates, Cecily Strong, Kristen Schaal, and Eva Peterson as a tall teenage girl.

Because all out brawls make the best scenes in comedies.

I really need to harp on this. In my eyes, a comedy reaches the lowest levels of its potential if it resorts to an all out brawl between parts of the cast. It was the conclusion of Grown Ups 2, and the most advertised portion of The Boss. As you can see, it is hilarious because there are young teenage girls in the fray, along with overly concerned mom, all dressed super funny. Ha ha ha!

Anyways, outside of that scene there is little else I remember about the film. Wait, I remember Melissa McCarthy making fun of Kristen Bell’s boobs for a long time. And I remember never laughing.

A comedy without laughter is like torture without pain. Wait, no, it actually IS torture and very painful. Sorry, messed that up. The Boss offers nothing new to the movie experience, not even the comedy movie experience. It is a complete waste of space. Thank goodness Ghostbusters also came out this year and was at least mediocre, or else McCarthy would have had her worst year since starting this recent trend.

Don’t watch The Boss. After reading this review, don’t remember anything except for the last line. Just a disappointment all around.

I have never seen a DC animated movie before I watched Batman: The Killing Joke. Sure, I have heard a lot of good things about them, but I never really made time for them. They are supposed to be decently animated, well voiced, and of course, tell great plot filled stories, better than the current live action films.

I figured it was the best time to finally get on the train. The hype for The Killing Joke was insane. The graphic novel itself is incredibly well known and respected as one of the best Batman stories ever. This is the first R-rated DC animated film ever made. And of course they decided to release it in theaters for Fathom Events. It sold out. So they made a second showing for the one day only event. Then they added two more the next day. And some theaters had multiple screens each night at the same time.

I. Had. To. See. This.

And I have never been so disappointed to get so dang hyped for something I had little experience for.

King? That’s not the card that is super relevant, damn it!

The Killing Joke is a story about Batman (Kevin Conroy) realizing that one day, either he might end up killing The Joker (Mark Hamill) or vice versa. And Batman doesn’t want to do that. He wants to try to talk with The Joker. But The Joker has escaped again.

And The Joker wants to get revenge, harsh revenge. Mainly on Commissioner Gordon (Ray Wise) and his daughter, Barbara/Batgirl (Tara Strong). He wants to break Gordon and break Batman in the process, just like he was broken a long time ago. Yes, we get Joker backstory.

Oh, and also, there is a 30 minute intro or something completely unrelated, about Batgirl and Batman having a relationship and a sociopath gangster named Paris (Maury Sterling) who abuses Batgirl. John DiMaggio is also here for gangster voice work and Brian George as Alfred.

Life. Life is the real joke. HA HA HA HA!

Let’s ignore the story for a bit. Let’s just talk about the animation, a crucial part of any animated movie. It is hard to describe in any other way other than shit. It feels so cheaply done. When characters walk it feels sometimes rushed, sometimes blocky. It is a buzzkill to watch. If they were going for a comic book feel, I cannot tell. In addition to that, for whatever creative reason, the vehicles in the movie are very different visually and a lot more 3D feeling than the rest of the 2D film. It again just feels lazy, like they had to use a different program just to get the film out in time.

The prologue of this film is a big what the fuck. First, it is almost half the movie. I haven’t seen a prologue that long since Digimon: The Movie. They apparently added in this story, not attached to the comic, in order to build up Batgirl a bit more. In The Killing Joke she is seen as a prop just to get hurt and abused and it has its fair share of controversy. So they give her a bigger role with this aspect. It is meant to draw parallels between her feelings towards Batman and this new villain, with Batman’s own feelings towards her and the Joker.

And it fails. The random gangster objectifies her at every turn and basically always has the upper hand. Batman is seen as a huge dick in the prologue, void of any emotion, and a very out of place love scene. It also comes with a stereotypical gay character out of the 90’s! The prologue is meant to give the Batgirl more material to work with, but in all honesty just turns her into a sex object for a longer period of time. Yeesh.

As for The Killing Joke portion, it is still only okay. The voice acting is decent, the animation is poor, the backstory is interesting. But again, this portion of the film feels rushed. Joker’s plan to drive Gordon insane has only two or so components and clearly not enough to break him. The film has the R rating for subject matter, but so much of it is still implied. Show me animated dong, damn it. It felt censored.

This is not something you should have seen in theaters, but by the time this review is up, it is already out. They made their money, it is a financial success, and now people might buy it for their homes. But it is not worth owning or really watching. In all accounts, your money would be better spent just on the graphic novel itself most likely. Rent this one if you must.