Tag: 2 out of 4

For world building purposes in movies I generally like it if the characters have last names. Just makes it feel more “Real” to me, or at least gives the false impression that they spent some more time working on the plot.

But sometimes, movies can say fuck character names in general and go a more simpler route. For Faster, we get characters like Driver, Cop, and Killer! Yeah! Fuck names!

Guess which name he gets!

Dwayne Johnson is…the driver. Yes. Correct. He gets out of prison at the start of the movie, and he is mad. So mad that once he gets out of the gate (of course on an abandoned desert road?) he just starts running. He runs to a car, drives said car, and then kills a telemarketer. Damn.

Mike Epps plays the guy who got him the car, and with that car, a list of names of people who helped put him in jail. He was double crossed after a heist with his brother. They shot him in the head! But it ricocheted around his skull in one way, out the other, avoiding his brain, so somehow he survived.

At the same time, the cops Carla Gugino and Billy Bob Thornton (who is of course about to retire) are looking for him/trying to figure it out. Also also Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays the Killer, who is (re?)hired to kill the Driver, before he enacts revenge on all of the people who have mostly changed their lives around.

Like Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who is now a traveling Evangelist. And the last name on the list. But who actually shot him and failed at being an assassin?

And why does BBT look so sad when he is about to retire?

The movie is a pretty simple plot, so it will have to rely on at least decent acting or surprises along the way to keep interest. It kind of delivers on small scales. I think I have heard of people surviving shots to the head the same way. Maybe I have heard of that just in movies though.

I think the ending was decent given the premises too, was acceptable. I also liked that they tried to give the other non-Rock characters some story lines too. I really didnt like BBT or the other cops involvement though. Felt like a weaker plot line of the movie.

But hey. The movie is called Faster. What can you expect. Its not like they are going to one up it with an unrelated movie called Fastest, right?

Take Shelter is a…well it is a weird movie. Crazy shit happens, but only kind of. Crazy people happen, but only kind of, as well.

What a nonsensical thing to say!

Ahh birds!

Michael Shannon is just a normal individual. Has a wife (Jessica Chastain) and kid (Tova Stewart), and he works in a construction company. Sure, his kid is deaf and they are trying to learn sign language, but hey.

And sure, he is having some sleepless nights. Having very vivid dreams, with birds flying in weird formations, being attacked and grabbed by strangers, dogs biting him, and other giant ass scary storms! This changes his behavior unfortunately and doesn’t tell anyone about the dreams.

He secretly does make an appointment with a psychiatrist, after doing his own researching, trying to determine if he had some form of schizophrenia. Oh, and he takes it on his own time to borrow company equipment to turn his small storm shelter for tornadoes into a larger, more secure building with lots of food and gas masks and everything!

Eventually he does has to confront these dreams and decisions with his wife, but only after also losing his job and spending a lot of their necessary money.

But when a big storm does hit, who will have the last laugh?

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Writing this review bugs me because it is one of those that I want to spoil the whole thing for. So feel free to ask me later, hah. The climax was pretty powerful, and the final scene questionable. The film is about 2 hours but moves very slow. Like super slow. That is probably what would prevent me from ever re-watching. This could have been an epic 40 minute movie, which is a weird thing to say. Sometimes the long scenes help, but other times just doesn’t feel as much.

The acting though from Michael Shannon’s character is off the charts. Watching him become more and more paranoid, yelling, having the fear of the outside world once he is in the shelter. All because of some dreams? I mean, everyone knows but him that he is being ridiculous. He has to be crazy? Right? Right?

Shea Whigham and Katy Mixon are also in this movie, supporting roles, not as important.

So although the acting is so damn good, and deserves many accolades, the overall slowness of the movie really ruins it for me.

Remake alert!

Did anyone even know that? Did anyone even care that The Mechanic was a 1972 film? I know I don’t. Back to the violence, please.

I am cutting my original joke, because this screen shot from the movie is hilarious.

What is a mechanic? If you answer a guy who fixes shit, that is an acceptable answer. But in the world of assassinations, it is a guy who will kill and make it look like natural causes, or an accident, or suicide. Very useful, that ability to kill and make it look okay. Right?

Jason Statham is one of those guys, of course, and the movie opens showing him do that shit. He gets paid mad monies from Donald Sutherland, one of the few people he gets missions from. Good friends they are.

UNTIL TONY GOLDWYN SHOWS UP. He gives him a new mission, to kill Sutherland! Why? Because he might have intentionally failed a mission in South Africa, and blah blah plot. So he does it. Unfortunately. At Sutherland’s funeral, Statham meets his son, Ben Foster, who has that young guy rage. So JS is all, hey lets make him a mechanic too! So he uses him as bait / to help kills, get him in the know.

Sure, there’s the fact that JS killed his dad, and made it look accidental, but that probably won’t come back to bite him in the ass, right? Right!

That chihuahua is not Photoshopped in.

Overall though, the story I just didn’t find that interesting. It went the obvious route, especially the supposed “twist” near the end. That twist is actually what was expected. Not having the twist would be a better twist. But you know, billing order and stuff, that matters. Jason Statham is the star, damn it. Acting is as you’d expect for the movie.

Action scenes were fine. But its amazing how these professionals tend to have things go wrong so often, despite all the supposed planning. I guess we have to assume that in the movie, that first success he did is how it normally goes, and that every other time in the movie happens to be not the norm, despite evidence showing the contrary.

The Ugly Truth About Cats and [Slum]Dog Million Dollar Baby Geniuses.

Sorry, I just meant to write the review title, but it just kept flowing.

What do those movies even have in common? Practically nothing. What a nonsensical intro!

Oh! Like how every RomCom is nonsensical in that these attractive women apparently have such crazy personalities or demands that they can’t find “love” and their life is so hard. Yes! Nailed it!

Katherine Heigl plays that woman! She is consumed by her career, helping run a New program. So much work. Also, holy shit, is she in anything that is not a RomCom?

Well late one night she accidentally finds herself watching a show on a lesser network called The Ugly Truth. This is where Gerard Butler tells people why their idea of love and relationships are wrong, about how simple guys are, and whatever. Even takes in calls, and will argue with them. Heigl thinks he is wrong. So she hates him. Oh surprise, their news isn’t doing so hot so the head guy hires him to do a small segment every week. Well shit.

And he is popular and he helps the show. Thankfully the man of her dreams (Eric Winter) also moves in next door to her, and he is a doctor. But how will she get him to notice her? Oh of course, Butler will coach her through it. Blah blah, turns out he isn’t the one for her, and Butler is! Happily ever after!

They almost made a hockey reference in this scene!

So yeah, another obvious RomCom, another obvious plot. So really the only thing that can save this movie is how funny it is. Thankfully they made Gerard Butler’s “honest” character hilarious, and he will provide a bunch of blunt laughter. If you are a fan of When Harry Met Sally-esque dinner scenes, there is also a pretty big moment on that scale.

At the end of the day, this movie doesn’t add much to the R Rated RomComs. It has some laughs, but other movies definitely do it better still.

Finally, the long waited next Harold And Kumar movie, that technically no one saw coming. I mean, a Christmas movie? Have they jumped the shark? The first one is often seen as a pretty funny movie, with a sequel that is kind of lame in comparison. At least they kept the the anti-stereotype humor in the second movie, but that had enough mehh and overly outrageous moments to make it lackluster.

And they killed off Fake NPH, if only kind of.

This movie takes place six years after the events in Guantanamo Bay, and Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) don’t really talk anymore. Harold is now married to his elevator crush Maria (Paula Garces) and living in a suburban home, a wealthy job, trying for a kid, and trying to impress her Mexican family and dad (Danny Trejo). Oh yeah, and he is forced to be friends with fellow suburbanite Thomas Lennon.

Kumar is still a slacker though, living with new roommate Amir Blumenfeld, who seems obsessed with trying to deflower this woman of questionable age. He also has significantly less characters in his plot that I deem worthy of tagging. Oh well, he wants to get back with his ex, but he has to change his life a bit. Because she is pregnant. Someone mysteriously leaves a package for Harold at Kumar’s door, forcing him to visit his old friend to deliver it.

And it was a joint! Yay! And it accidentally helps burn down their epic Christmas tree, putting him in a position where Trejo might kill him, unless he can replace it before they get back from Christmas night mass. This leads to a series of adventures, involving the return of NPH, Santa, the mob, claymation, and Waffle Bot.

A dangerous, yet effective “toy”.

Obviously this movie is a parody upon itself and Christmas specials. It felt short though, despite still clocking in at 90 minutes. I know why new characters were brought in, six years, new lives, but they weren’t as good as one would hope. But the return of old characters is a nice surprise, and they do a good job of creating almost “inside jokes” that you would only get if you know a bit about the actors (namely NPH and Kal Penn).

Also a big part of the movie is the 3D element, which for most movies seem like a cheesy element, cash grab, or completely unnecessary. This is technically no different, but every 3D “Scene” seems to just be mimicking the industry in general, giving it better comedic value. I didn’t get to watch it in 3D my self, but it is definitely obvious watching the movie.

Overall, I’d say it was better than H+K2, not as good as the first movie, but still its own decent stoner parody of Christmas, 3D, and life.

Bottle Shock is a movie about Wine in the 1970s and how America is better than France. Honestly, if you made it past the first half of the sentence congrats, because you got to see the second half, and realized that it is in fact awesome. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Coming this summer on NBC.

Based on a real story, this tales the story of how Napa Valley, California made its mark in the world. They had winos there, but the rest of the world didn’t seem to care. Including Alan Rickman, a British man who really really loves his wine so he moved to France and opened up a wine shop. But none of the French people will invite him to their wine games. His friend says he is way too culturally wine-ist. He doesn’t even give USA wine a chance. So he says, fuck it, lets go to America.

In Napa, Bill Pullman is running his own wine colony. Left a high paying job, is a perfectionist, but no one cares. He is divorced, and his no good son Chris Pine is a damn hippie, despite it being the 70s still, and way too free spirited. Not to mention Freddy Rodriguez is working on his own secret bash. He also has to worry about the new intern Rachel Taylor screwing everyone really.

Rickman’s character travels around the US to find the best wines, even paying for samples. He wants to set up a blind taste test, the first of its kind. Where the judges give ratings without knowing what they are drinking. Something about French bias, but apparently it was never done before. Lot of drama occurs, lack of funds, wine going bad, fear that Rickman is just setting them up to bring them down, and questioning life choices. But since this is a real story, yes, the Pullman wine ends up winning, despite the judges best attempts to pick a french wine.

Those hippies have such soft hands.

Oh yeah, Eliza Dushku is in here too, as a sleezy bartender. What what!?

Now, parts of the movie seemed slow, and some of the drama associated with it seemed a bit unnecessary. The Rodriguez plot line, which you assume will be a major player, turned out to, well, not matter. Also, not as much Dushku as I’d have guessed. Also, pretty obvious at what would happen in the movie.

But hey, at least it was decently funny and entertaining!

The Big Bang! Huh. Okay, but are they talking about guns? Or are they talking about the creation of the universe?

MAYBE. Just maybe! A gun that can create universes when it shoots. That’d be wicked, if not super sci-fi.

But Antonio Banderas is normally more subtle than a universe creating gun.

So AB is an LA PI. He is hired to find a missing stripper girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) of a russian boxer (Robert Maillet). She is missing, obviously. But she also has about 30 million dollars in diamonds. But this turns into a zany adventure that might involve the destruction of the world!

And the plot is hard to describe. Lets just say it involves people actually trying to recreate the big bang under New Mexico (inspired by a True story?), and the Feds trying to find out where and stop them, you know. But first AB has to explain is story to the cops! Sam Elliot plays the madman, with Jimmi Simpson as his Physicist. We also have William Fichtner playing an FBI guy, and the Dawson playing another guy.

Oh yeah, and Autumn Reeser plays a waitress in a small town, who gets turned on by particle physics, and is part of probably one of the hotter sex scenes in a movie that came out in 2011, probably. Just so you know. And it is super, super nerdtastic.

Maybe the only reason to watch the movie. Maybe not.

I am torn on my opinions on this movie, which is why I am giving it the 2 out of 4. It reminded me of The Spirit, in terms of CGI cheesyness, mostly involving backgrounds and stuff. Seemed like they were just having fun with it all. But also the first bits were more confusing and made me un interested. But the plot, it was actually pretty smart, in its terminology, and in what ended up happening. It involves a lot of physics, obviously. But also it was super weird? I think it might need to watch it again to understand it all.

I don’t even know how understandable that last paragraph is! This movie is either incredibly great, or incredible stupid, and I just do not know. Try it out? Let me know.

In Time is a movie with a great science fiction plot, but going more the yay action movie route. This disappointed me, I will tell you up front. I think this movie could have been a LOT better had it focused more on some of the cool aspects of the world. Only thing we really know is that it is the future and somehow, the time stuff happened.

What time stuff? When people get 25 in this world, they stop aging physically…somehow. At that point they have a year on their time that counts down, they can accumulate the time, or spend it. No currency, people just spending and selling their own time. So some people who were born into wealth have thousands to millions of years available, so they can live forever. And stay young to boot.

Which is why this should make you uncomfortable. This is a rich guys mother in law, wife, and daughter, in that order.

Justin Timberlake is your everyday average guy. Living with his mom, because his dad died long ago, he is working with other people at the factories in a lesser time zone. His friend, Johnny Galecki (who they don’t even try to make look 25) is also struggling. Him and his mom, Olivia Wilde, are living day to day. That is until…

Some hot shot with a century of time hangs around the bar! JT saves him and, while he is asleep, the mysterious guy gives him most of his 100 years, except for the last 5 minutes. When he walks away to die, they assume it is JT’s fault. They being the time keepers, aka the police, and especially Cillian Murphy, who has been doing this for over 50 years.

Eventually, after some plot points, and questionable actions, JT decides its time to go all the way up to the big times. The best Time Zone. He is good at gambling, so he wins himself a lot more years. He also gets to meet Vincent Kartheiser, who is kind of the richest man ever, apparently. He also meets his daughter, Amanda Seyfried, if you know what I mean. It takes awhile to recognize that it is Seyfried too. In case you didn’t know, the chick on the right in the earlier picture is her.

So yeah. More stuff happens. Run from the law. Down with the man. Destroying the society. More people die. Questionable ending. And done!

Also running. Lots and lots of running.

I really wanted this movie to be awesome, but I had some issues with it. One was the lack of any real information to how this society could be formed. It also seems pretty unstable. For some reasons these people in the poor areas are just going to keep having kids, despite the fact that they will be pushing them into a life of poverty that they cannot climb out of, and early death, so to speak. So eventually the “workers” should all die out, and pretty quickly, leaving only the rich and no way for their society to work.

Also, the motives of JT were questionable. After an early “oh man, sad!” event, movie watchers couldn’t even dwell on the sadness. Because the next scene was already happening. The evidence the timekeepers have that makes them initially question JT is crap, because it also shows his innocence. Then every once in awhile, I didn’t know what was going on. The final “running scene” which also involved a very unwarranted death of a character, was confusing because we had no reason what they were running too.

Unless they were just running into confusion. So I think a lot of the film could have been better, but as it is, pretty disappointed.

You can really learn a lot about the world with movies. Not the bull crap happy ending stuff, and many other lines. But simple things! Like expressions. I never heard of a Dear John Letter before (or I might have in Serious Moonlight, but can’t remember). Those are letters telling your lover your breaking up with them, usually for some other lover. That adds more meaning to this movie title (Dear John, no shit). I think about that expression and I think “Man…people do dear john texts now. Even less effort.”.

“Now if only knew how to read…”

Let me just say that this is my favorite Nicholas Sparks movie based off one of his books. That being said, I still have only seen two, this one and The Last Song. Which I hated. So it didn’t have much to beat. The Notebook I own just…haven’t gotten around to watching it yet.

Channing Tatum starts off the movie being in the army and getting shot. He is narrating at this point, and tells of a story of him going to the US Mint when he was a child. He had a fascination for coins as a kid, and became a collector. Flash back time!

John starts off at a beach, meets Amanda Seyfried. She is in Wilmington, NC (whaaat) where he lives for spring break. In that small break, they “fall in love”. She even loves his dad (Richard Jenkins), who seems kind of crazy and invested most of their money into coins. Kind of obsessively.

A lot of this movie takes place a long time ago, like late 90s, early 2000s. Once she goes back to school they decide to write letters to each other. Once he goes back into the army the letters keep coming, albeit at a lesser pace. John feels a sense of duty to remain in the army after the 9/11 attacks, and constantly reenlists, but possibly just to escape his home life. He also gets mad at Amanda for suggesting his dad has Autism, just was never treated as such because back then, what was Autism? Just weirdness.

Eventually she sends him a Dear John letter, breaking up with him for someone else she grew to love. Fuck that shit. He re-enlists again, despite getting shot. After some more years of not talking, he finds out that his dad had a stroke and is in serious condition.

Can he forgive his dad for the years of awkward growing up in poverty, due to his obsession? Will he ever find Seyfried again (and you know, win her back despite the fact that she is married)? When will he ever leave the army? What the hell is up with all these coins?

“They’re mine! Mine I tells ya! (Hiss!)”

What surprised me about this movie is the layers. It is not very simple and obvious, like The Last Song (which also was pretty cheesy). It has a lot more serious stuff going on, and not everything is as peachy. The plot lines between JOhn and Seyfried, John and home (with his dad), John in the army, all interweave pretty snazzylike, and I thought that was great of writer.

Obviously the acting wasn’t that great. I think Tatum needs to learn how to make his big face show more emotion. Seyfried could have probably been any girl in this movie. Half of her lines were just narrating the letters they sent. Jenkins was great as “old man who is dying and confused and autistic” though. But ehh. Everything else could have been better.

The Thing! Because prequels or sequels that share an identical name to the the movie they are supposed to be connected with is apparently okay. The reason I hated that movie was because as far as I knew, it wasn’t billed as a sequel, but a remake. But then it was actually a sequel. Fuck that.

The Thing has taken a different approach. I new the whole time this thing was a prequel of the 1982 movie. Great. No false hopes then!

Here is a non descriptive picture of the movie.

Movie opens up in the arctic. Norwegian people are being Norwegian, it is 1982, and they are looking for a signal / spacecraft thing. But they die I guess. It is also assumed that you have seen that other Thing, so all the mystery and stuff is thrown out of the window in this movie. The viewers know. So fuck it. They turn that into a slasher flick kind of thing.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is brought to the arctic as a paleontologist or something. Why? Because Ulrich Thomsen found a life form, and for some reason picked her, damn it. Tissue samples, something new! Shit pops out and scares the shit out of Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

Oh well, lets all look for it! People end up dying, no one knows what is going on. Through like a couple of random clues, and some science, Mary pulls a Jeff Goldbloom out of her ass and figures out that “that thing!” can infect people and replicate the cells, and imitate a human or whatever perfectly. It wants to spread the disease, so it will infect others, but you know, while not trying to die itself.

Also involved are Eric Christian Olsen, who is actually wearing a shirt and playing a “scientist”, and Joel Edgerton, who is some sort of helicopter pilot.

Yes! Kill it with fire! Burn! Burn! Burn!

Here’s a fun fact. I never saw the 1982 movie. But I might. Yes, might. I might do it mostly because of this movie. But you know, I don’t like scary shit. But we will see. Apparently a lot of people who like the 1982 movie don’t like this version, because they are way different. Well, if it gets the “original” more exposure, then well done.

Despite the mostly cardboard characters (like Norwegian 1 and 2 and 3), I thought the CGI was kind of weak. I also mentioned the plot was kind of bad, especially in figuring out how the thing works. Just ridiculous. I feel ridiculous even typing that.

But even though I didn’t see the original or get any of their clues, I appreciate the hard work that went in to try and make it a real prequel. Lot of set up for the 1982 movie, and that was nice. The ending to this one was kind of meh though.