I am not sure if I ever saw previews for Arthur at all. It just kind of came out and I was like “Oh whats this?? More Russell Brand Shenanigans? Jolly good.” or something British. All I knew was that it was apparently the way more RomCom based version of the 80s Arthur, another movie I really didn’t know existed.
If anything, once you knew the movie existed, it demanded attention like a spoiled rich adult.
Arthur is about a spoiled rich adult. He acts a fool, like that one song, more or less. And he is stupid expensive. Outlandish things are done in this movie with no regards to funds. So whatever it is, he is loaded.
His mom wants to keep the wealthy with the wealthy though. He is being forced to marry Jennifer Garner, a much better person to run the family company than Arthur, which will give the shareholders reasons to not flip out. I think. Garner is fine with marrying for business of course, but not Arthur. He doesn’t like her! He instead likes Greta Gerwig, this free spirited New Yorker.
But if he doesn’t marry Garner. He will lose his trust. Can he be poor for love? Also in this film is Helen Mirren as his caretaker and Luis Guzman as his manservant.
Also this scene happens early on.
As far as I can tell, they made Arthur in this movie more of a screw up because he is just spoiled and has no real parental love. But in the 80s it was because the guy was an alcoholic? Big choice difference right there.
Unfortunately, even if it was supposed it was supposed to be a comedy, I barely laughed. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Plot was basic, and full of mostly smaller scenes that kind of helped, but really didn’t advance the plot as much. I don’t know, I just didn’t find Russel Brand being stupid rich and childish. Thought it was a dumb, which is a shame.
So I’d say this movie is easily forgettable, and ignorable. Easier to ignore if there isn’t a review on it. My bad.
Welcome to my 300th movie review! I know what you are thinking. “Hey! But this is 3 movies? Shouldn’t this be 300, 301, and 302??”
Well, originally sure. But I really wanted to make sure my number of posts was equal to my number of reviewed movies. Easier for me to keep track of.
So my 300th movie review will be three movies that I count as one, and will just call them different Acts. If you missed it, here are my 150th, 200th, and 250th reviews. Why is this not the next twilight movie? Because I will be damned if I watch that in theaters where people can see me. Nope, alone in the room is the only way to go.
This story begins not in a high school. Our star, basketball hot shot Zac Efron (Troy) is at a ski resort for New Years. He just wants to play basketball with his dad, but his mom makes him go to a youth social. That is where he randomly has to perform a duet with Vanessa Hudgens (Gabrielle), who is nerdy. Neither wants to, but it turns out they both kick ass and sing well together. If only they hadn’t just met.
NOW TO HIGH SCHOOL. Oh man, Gabrielle randomly transfers to their high school. Awkward. No one knows Troy sings. He quickly sticks with his own group and friend, Corbin Bleu (Chad), and she gets an overachieving friend, Monique Coleman (Taylor). This is already too much plot. They get forced to try out to sing in the Spring musical kind of, much to the dismay of Ashley Tisdale (Sharpay) and Lucas Grabeel (Ryan), twins who run the theater at this school. But maybe if the composer, Olesya Rulin (Kelsi) can write the perfect duet, they can out perform the twins and get the lead roles. Even if the callbacks are during the championship game, and the quiz bowl thing.
Best Song?
My favorite song from this was “When There Was Me And You” by Gabrielle. Pretty much everything she sings is way too good for most of the other people, since they focus less on gimicks. This takes place after the friends have successfully tricked Troy into locker room talk, and saying he doesn’t care about her. Because boys with feelings are dumb! So the school is stoked, so he can “Keep his head in the game” and win the state championship! And she is all wtf. (This is after they make callbacks, but before they happen. Yes they fix it before callbacks).
Worst Song?
The worst song in this movie has got to be “Stick To The Status Quo” sung by everyone not Troy/Gabrielle. First, it takes place in the worst looking cafeteria ever (not practical, but they use that in each movie). Second, the message is horrible (on purpose, obviously). If you don’t feel like watching, it is people who are now willing to talk about their weirder passions, since Troy is a singer now, and everyone telling them to keep that shit inside. Bury it way deep. Cant be cool if you step outside the bounds.
Also, fun fact. In a South Park making fun of this, they show a scene from the first movie…and I thought it was fake. But that shit is pretty much identical to this song.
Yay everything from the first one worked out and nothing happens this movie! Just kidding. Taking place almost immediately after, the only High School part of this movie is the beginning (opposite of the last one). No, it is summer. Much like what the first song will drill into your head. But everyone has to get a job. Everyone. And because Troy is a big star now, they all can get jobs at the country club where the Twins planned on relaxing in peace.
WELL TOO BAD. YOU NOW HAVE THE WHOLE HIGH SCHOOL THERE. And eventually a musical is going to happen there too. Troy keeps getting all these awesome gigs, because he is awesome, and gets farther away from his friends, stuck with shitty jobs. Until he realizes that, and fixes it, and everyone has a good time again. Except for the Twins.
Worst Song?
I have to do the Worst Song first, because it happens early on. This is woman twin, being the worst kind of person ever. But the song “Fabulous” seems like it was written for the most stereotypical gay guy ever, not her. Either way. Holy shit is this character not only a Bitch, bu clearly way too annoying. Next thing you know she will get her own spinoff.
Other Worst Song?
Hah. Just kidding. As you will find out I HATE this movie. Either way, this is another early song. All the people are mad that they have shitty jobs, but don’t worry. Why don’t worry? Because Troy isn’t worried. It will all be good. They just have to “Work This Out”, together. (And as you know, it works out for him, not them. FORESHADOWING!!)
Ah, summer is over…and well shit. This one begins the final basketball game of Senior year. Afterall, they don’t care anymore that a guy can sing and play ball. Its all good.
What bugs me though is they make it seem like Troy is a freshman in the first movie. Made it seem like he was the youngest on the team. BUT NOW THEY ARE ALL SENIORS SO WHO CARES. Because now they won two years in a row. So to celebrate after the season, of course another musical is in the works. But this time after this is college. Where will people go? Gabrielle is smart and got into Stanford! Troy is not smart, and his parents want him to go to their old school and play ball.
But wait there is more! Julliard also will be coming by to watch the final musical. Why? Because they have only one scholarship for between Ryan/Sharpay/Troy/Kelsi (for composing). Yes. They are all being looked at, just them four, for one spot. No, that doesn’t make any sense. But whatever.
Anyways. In this movie, they almost break up again and have prom, and eventually all decide on their future. Troy picks a college for ball AND theater, near Stanford. Ryan and Kelsi both get into Julliard, and Sharpay sucks. Because she is mean.
Best Song?
“High School Musical.” No I didn’t repeat myself. The actual final song of the movie (this being the only one not made for TV) is called High School Musical. It has nice closure, but is still a bit repetitive. I said its the best song on the movie, not the best song ever.
Worst Song?
Maybe it is just everytime they try to be all hip and rap kind of, but songs like “The Boys Are Back” in these movies make me cringe. The background music is terrible, so is the song in general. Only positive is that this clip is in HD and some of the dancing is cool. This is them pumping each other up, to make their own decisions, or something.
Conclusion
Well, as I said, I hate the second movie. HSM2 was SO MUCH worse than the first one, it hurts me that it broke all those records due to hype alone. Because it was bad. Every song. Here is a link to a third one, Humuhumunukuapua’a, that is just WTF. It like that movie is a nice piece of shit, and a 0.
The third movie had a bigger budget, and therefore could do bigger/crazier numbers with their song. And they did. But too much. What was seriously wrong with the finale is that the plot was stupid. The final musical was supposed to just be them, doing high school things. So it had a song about prepping for Prom, and graduating, and shit. A different graduation song than the one above. It was stupid to watch. People in the audience would have left if they actually watched what we got to see. Especially the graduation song they did. Very awkward to single out the people and tell them of their scholarships. Very 1 rating.
The first one, however? It wasn’t all that bad. Especially for a TV movie. I mean, even the song I think is the worse at least has a decent enough beat and lyrics going on it. They probably spent a lot more time on the songs here, especially all the ones with Troy and Gabrielle. The plot, very kid feeling. Theres no way the ending conflict could have happened. Instead they would have said “Hey. Don’t change the callback dates. We have this game and this math shit to go to.” and problem solved. But the chemistry between the leads was great. So I’d call that a 2.
Final final thoughts:
I had to remind myself a lot that the twin characters were supposed to be twins, not lovers. It was a fine line in these movies. I linked three extra people up there, because their characters really don’t matter much. But the composer chick? She is stupid hot. Musicals about musicals shouldn’t be allowed. After Phantom of the Opera did it, it was fine, but now it is just creepy.
Get all of that? I linked to the links they provided. So don’t worry, I didn’t miss one.
The last picture on page 1 for SK3 is this, and the first one of the actual main characters. Go figure.
I wish I could say the guy on the left (Bostin Christopher) is there for comic relief. I mean. He is. But to me it seems that everyone is there for comic relief. I don’t think I single character is really that serious in the movie. Not campy, like a lot of The Mummy’s characters, but mostly just dumb. The main guy is played by Victor Webster, and for some reason he is a mercenary.
Ron Perlman! A king of some blah place hires them to go and fuck up another guys place. That other guy being Billy Zane with hair. Probably a Tyrant. Also is getting the Book of the Dead to cast some spells, get some ghost warriors, and become a god. Something like that. And they have to stop him!
Ron Perlman just wants the area to rule though. So he also might be bad.
He also has crazy hair!
So, this movie is a mess. Not only does it never grasp your attention (since everything seems like a Joke, despite the “Serious tone”) but it is also boring (Reader: “Didn’t you imply that with never grasping your attention?” No. No I did not). Plot is stupid, no one acts good, and not even funny.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME RON PERLMAN? YOU CAN DO GREAT THINGS. YOU WERE HELLBOY!
But he must have money problems or something. Because he seems to take every movie that comes his way.
Or maybe he is just bored, and realizes life is short, why not make some (a lot of) shitty movies?
To understand the important of 1911, is to understand China. I guess. You know how much they apparently love number symbolism, with the 2008 Olympics. THis movie was theatrically releases in 2011, 100 years after the events of the movie. It also happens to be Jackie Chan’s 100th acting appearance. Coincidence? Or Jackie Chan?
Often considered to be the Chinese Chuck Norris.
This movie is about the 1911 Revolution in China, which overthrew the last Dynasty (Qing) and lead to the creation of the Republilc of China. I think Dynasties existed for about the last 2000 years before that, so this was a big change indeed. Dynasties, however, are why there are so many historical Chinese movies from way in the past, full of war. So Dynasties, great for entertainment, bad for “freedom”.
Anyways. There are tons of characters in the movie. In fact, during it, a person will often start talking and on the side it will display their name and title, even if they are only shown once/have one line. If you are watching this movie with subtitles, it can be very distracting. Often instead of showing actual events, giant subtitles will pop up in the middle of the film, (usually when no one is talking thankfully) to explain what happened. Blah blah group got killed, blah blah happened, etc. This happens a LOT.
It was already a movie I was reading, so reading more wasnt the problem. Just seemed to take me away from the action. In American films usually that type of thing is only done at the end, to explain what happens next/after the movie. Not during the movie that they dont want to show. Just seems weird, like it could have been done way better.
Thanks to his goal of making it factually correct, I guess, Chan doesn’t fill it up with silly martial arts either. There is zero of that, but a few gun fights.
But that becomes the bigger problem. Boredom. It seems like a long history lesson on this event that, while important (maybe), just isn’t that interesting. A lot of the fighting was done with politics and arguing, and getting monetary allies. That is all. That could be entertaining, but it wasn’t in this movie. Bingbing Li played the other main role in this movie, but it didn’t seem to be particularly great, her role. There was a lot of scenes filled with people just yelling things at each other, as if their emotion went from dull to AHHH and no in between.
Here is a picture of Bingbing, you’re welcome!
Despite just watching a movie on it, and actually liking History (I majored in it), I cannot say I know anything more about the 1911 revolution than I did before. Well. I now know it was the Qing dynasty that was last? But uhh, that is about it. So I feel like having retained zero knowledge of the actual events seems to be another fault of the storytelling.
Hopefully Chan will get over his period piece obsession, and do something modern, if only to break up these films.
But theres more. Before he wears the wolf costume, and goes to wild land, Max (played by Max Records) is weird at shit. Starts snowball fights and cries when he loses. Then he bites his mom (Catherine Keener) and gets grounded. Then somehow, WILD LAND.
Lot of weird wild things, mostly looking like the books. And they all seem childish too. The “main one” was voiced by James Gandolfini.
So plot? Eventually Max becomes king, just by saying he is King mostly, and by lying. And he is bad at it. Eventually he is lonely and goes home. The end.
This movie is kind of fucked up. Not at all a kids movie. Kids might like it just because “Ooh, wild people!” in costumes doing stuff. But the kid in the movie is pretty damn near insane. He seemed psychotic to me. He is horrible at home, from what we see, and he is more horrible when he has no one to tell him what not to do. He even seems to laugh at the pain he ends up causing to the wild things.
The wild things are also screwy, they all are just depressed individuals. I am not sure what the movie is going for, but it is not a good feeling, that is for sure. It is very deep, and uncomfortable, and I hated it as it happened.
There is pain in his eyes.
By all means I may have missed the point, but this is definitely not a movie I was hoping to see a giant deeper meaning behind. The only reason I expect a better story from something like Transformers is that they have had series (namely Beast Wars) where about halfway through the first season, the writing in the show kicked it up a huge notch and became a work of art. But this went from kids book to movie, 50~ years later almost.
Just felt odd the whole time, and I did not have a good experience.
The Roommate tries to capture that niche audience of people who have ever had a roommate. Which I would guess is a lot of people. It takes the sentence “You think your roommate is bad, well check out this bitch!” and runs with it.
Oh god, she is so crazy!
So Minka Kelly goes to college! Yeah! Far from home. Has a dead older sister too. That is important. Her roommate isn’t there when she moves in, so she goes out to party, with other hall mates, like Aly Michalka, a drunk slut, and meets Cam Gigandet, a fray boy in a band.
When she gets back, she hits a bag, and bam! Leighton Meester is all chirpy and whats up! Wooo! So Leighton seems to be needy, and lonely. She wants to hang out a lot, and doesn’t approve of Minka doing bad things. In fact, they made up a social networking thing for their laptops, just to show that she was crazy by already making her roommate in the “best friend” spot.
I feel like that is enough of the plot. Eventually crazier and bad things happen, until (spoiler?) the roommate is killed and they can all go on with their lives.
Here are some things I dislike. Its rating is again PG-13, so although everyone can be promiscuous, and slutty, nothing is shown, so its like a tease the whole film.
Also shit like this. And 2 or 3 shower scenes. What?!
But this movie advocates something also that is horrible, and so you shouldn’t watch it. In the movie we find out that Leighton DOES have a disease/disorder whatever, making her all weird. In fact, apparently it is curable, if she takes pills she will be fine. We learn all of this. It is assumed she never takes the pills though, and that is the problem.
ASSUMED. But also once the discovery of the pills comes up, it is NEVER talked about again. Not even taking the roommate aside, especially if Leighton is fond of Minka, and going “Hey look, lets take the pills” and being there for her, or something. They never tell her to do anything with them. Instead after they find out, more weird stuff happens, so Minka leaves the room for good, causing Leighton to flip out and go real crazy, until she dies.
This movie condones killing people with disorders, even if a cure is readily available.
There is a very specific narrator voice, for trailers, that is very annoying. I want you to read the next part of the review in that voice.
“Sarah Jessica Parker is a hard working mother! She has a job that requires her to spend a lot of her time, on a moments notice, going other places! Why? Presentations! The most adult-like job that exists in the movies! But she also has two children, and her husband, Greg Kinnear, is about to have a big project at well as work. But if she has to go to NYC to get seduced by Pierce Brosnan, how will she be able to manage her motherly duties and her career? Herp a derp, and also a derp a teedle dum.
That is pretty much how I felt watching this movie. I don’t even care to see if it was based on a book or not, but man, was it not good. Skip, skip, skip to your loo right past this movie.
The easiest way to describe Land of the Lost is that it is nothing like the TV Show Land Of The Lost. Going in, I expected it to be very similar, in terms of characters, rough plot, etc, but instead all that really happened were the obligatory shout out references to the old show, without taking anything really that deep. But what else would you expect? That is an old show, and this is a new movie!
And all new experiences are exciting experiences.
Will Ferrell is a scientist who believes in different alternative dimensions, and people make fun of him. After a few years of “laying low” another doctor, Anna Friel has some more information to test his theory! She found a fossil with a cigarette lighter imprint. They go to get readings at this lame water raft ride lead by slacker Danny McBride where she found the fossil. Somehow, though, it opens a portal to a different land! Ahh dinosaur!
They meet Cha’ka (Jorma Taccone), a monkey hybrid thing. After more dinosaur trouble, they run into the Sleestaks, weird lizard people. The one they meet says the others are trying to take over the world. So they help him. Lalala adventures, dinosaurs, mosquitos, drug like fruit, and betrayal. Eventually they get back though, and all is right.
Well. All is right in the movie. But the movie still exists, so real world-wise it is not all right.
I guess I can start with the positives! This movie is a lot more risque than I thought there would be. With a long drug scene, and experimentation, and other sexual jokes, I realize now why it got PG-13. Danny McBride wanted to be himself, and they let him push the limits. His final scene too was pretty shocking. Technically not a kids movie!
But they still tried to make it way too kiddy. The CGI is horrible, very low budget, the plot was weak and boring. And overall it just was not satisfying. Just a mess on the screen, and every once and awhile a chuckle (but is it out of humor, or thinking “Oh they said that in a kids shoW!”? We will never know.)
I think everyone knows about Apollo 18 by now. A “Shaky cam” and “security cam” based movie. Of what? Of the Apollo 18 mission that was “canceled”, due to budget reasons.
Or was it?
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
So of course in this movie, it wasn’t canceled, just kept secret. Why? Because shit goes down that they want to keep secret. And no, they don’t find any old transformers.
They just have to collect some rocks? But then things go missing, they get scared, and paranoid, and it is all captured as they try to escape and fail. Yay.
I thought the beginning was super super slow. Really, I didn’t think it got interesting until the very end, then of course it ended. Making it very disappointing. The geologist in me is also displeased though.
Also, this guy.
This is supposed to have been edited down from 86~ hours of footage, over many many devices, and posted onto a fake website. (The website didn’t work for me. That is dumb…) And then made into this movie so everyone could get the truth.
Well if that was the case too, it would have worked better as a 10 minute thing, and not intentionally using the bad camera angles available. Don’t give me this “so the public can know!” message, and then try to make a (non scary) horror movie as the message conveyance. Would have rather had that explanation not as part of it.
The Pool Boys is a low budget attempt to provide, well, nothing. First look makes it seem like it wants to be a National Lampoon movie, selling sex and comedy. Maybe some stoner jokes too! But this fails at the comedy and sex part as well. Relying on the situation they are in to sell everything, I guess.
Shenanigans!
The movie is about Brett Davern, as he is abotu to graduate from High School. He is going to Harvard, and got a pretty neat scholarship. Just requires a summer internship and interview before he fully gets it. Too bad his internship in DC turns out to be a bust, company is going under.
But no worries! His brother, Matthew Lillard, is an aquatic specialist of some sort. Yes, it is a lie, he is just a pool boy in Beverly Hills. The apartment they are staying at is getting fumigated for about a week or more, leaving them homeless. A client is out of the country for six weeks though, so boom, House.
They also bring Rachelle Lefevre, a neighbor, who turns out to be a prostitute. Whoops. Eventually a money scheme is grabbed out, to rent out the mansion to a lot of prostitutes, to get Harvard tuition should the scholarship fail.
Eventually things go wrong, but eventually are fixed. Yay happy endings. Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite plays a neighbor gardener, and Tom Arnold plays himself. Just crazier.
Arnold is the only funny part of the movie really, and that is barely. Jokes don’t work, and it barely has nudity in to, which seems to be a bigger selling point of these kind of movies.
Hah. I can’t think of really anything else to say about this.
