Tag: 3 out of 4

Generally I am able to separate the real world from the movie world. I know that I won’t get sucked into a video game, and that I won’t be chased by a serial killer (because hey, why would anyone want to kill me?). But then we have certain movies that say, “I’m gonna to take something you love and make it scary for you, so that you can always think about the fear every time you do that task!” I like to call those movies “jerkfaces”, and that is what Sinister did to me in regards to watching movies. It is probably the same exact thing The Ring dids, but I wouldn’t know because I value my sanity.
Fucking Sinister.

Presumably this is the same thing that happened after The Ring, but fuck if I’m ever gonna watch that.

Our story begins quite creepily with four members of a family being hung from a tree on a very old looking roll of film. Well, now that the mood is set, we introduce the actual new family, moving into a new house with a very familiar looking tree. Great! Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) is a famous-ish author, who got his big break when he began to write true crime style novels. His book, Kentucky Blood, based on a real murder and his own research actually helped bring a criminal to justice and got him mega bucks!

But he just hasn’t lived up to his former glory since then. His books haven’t been as good and local cops now hate him. But this time, this time he has it! Hell, he actually picked the murder house to live in instead of just being in the same town! The family was murdered (by hanging) and the youngest daughter is now missing. He could be a hero!

After this book he has promised to quit because his wife (Juliet Rylance) is tired of it and his kids (Michal Hall D’Addario, Clare Foley) are tired of moving. Not to mention their son now has night terrors. What a creepy kid.

But when Ellison finds a box in their attic entitled “Home Movies” with reels from the 1960s to 2011, his curiosity gets the best of him and gives them a watch. Each tape begins the same way, a nice family scene, spliced with the murder of said family.  They also all feature the youngest child missing in the murder scenes, hmm.  These series of murders take place all around the country, and with the help of Deputy So-and-So (James Ransone) he might be able to find a connection between them all, and save the day! Or you know, die himself. It is really 50/50 at this point.

Oh yeah, also this shit happening. Fuuuuuck.

This story also is about an ancient pagan demon who steals the souls of children. He also lives in any pictures of himself, including movies, and can move between them and out of them. Great! Movies are now forever ruined for me!

The movies drops enough clues for you to understand everything that is going on, so you should be able to figure it out halfway through. But don’t worry, if you still didn’t get it by the end, it is fully explained to you. Based on the ending, it also looks like this film is a “one-and-done” series. That should excite a lot of you, because it means we won’t soon get flooded with ten sequels to a new original horror movie!

Most of the film is Ethan Hawke walking around his house at night, with so little light, and it is absolutely terrifying. I wish he would have turned on a light more often, but when you are drunk you make poor decisions. I personally felt paralyzed when I watched the screen, afraid that if I moved I might be the next to go. I am disappointed that it did resort on more than one occasion to the sudden pop up scares, most notably at the end of the movie. It could have ended on a classy note, but instead went for one last “boo!”

The best part to me is that this horror movie actually has a plot that is believable enough in the world it created. That means it might actually make you think while you shriek. I’d definitely call Sinister my favorite new horror movie this month, and the one you should watch on Halloween night.

I am surprised at how little Lawless was talked about when it first hit theaters. They didn’t really give away any of the plot, but made it seem like a ganster/western movie of some sort, with some bad ass actors.

And you know, uhh, Shia LaBeouf.

Damn it Shia, what did I tell you about showing up in my movies?

Franklin County, Virgina, early 1900s, prohibition is a bitch. But thankfully this is the wettest county in the world and basically everyone is growing Moonshine, so much that even some gangsters from Chicago are getting their hands wet out here.

The Bondourant brothers are immortal, through legend and talk from their brother Forrest (Tom Hardy). He survived a flu that killed most people who got it, and his other brother Howard (Jason Clarke) was the only surviving member of his platoon in WW1. The youngest brother, Jack (LaBeouf) is the runt of the group and wants to join in on all of the activities but, you know, he is small.

He has big dreams though, and even worships the great gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman), and is hoping to start his own moonshine batch with his weird friend Cricket (Dane DeHaan) who is at least good with tinkering.

Things are going great! That is until some DA Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) is brought in, from Chicago, to clean up this moonshine business in the area, even though the local cops don’t care. His style and aura is definitely not welcome, you know, because he wants to arrest them and maybe kill them.

Kill them? Yeah, life is brutal in this time period. People die, lots of people, and it is fucking gruesome. Most people would fear for their lives, you know, if they weren’t immortal (and missing a lot of their brain cells). All while this is going on, Jack is working on seducing a local Amish like chick (Mia Wasikowska) and a former dancer from Chicago is here to work at their restaurant (Jessica Chastain).

Basically a nice quiet life. But with lots of guns and violence.

Despite my best attempts to make the movie seem lame, it was a blast to see. Hardy and Clarke as the older brothers were both unique and brought a lot to their characters, especially Hardy. His low witted self always made me either chuckle or grimace based on what he was doing (or had done to him).

Gary Oldman is barely in this movie, but Guy Pearce definitely plays his own extremely unique character, so much that I couldn’t even remember what Guy Pearce actually looked and sounded like.

But Shia? Well he did a fine job too. Didn’t ruin the movie like I thought he would, but I am disappointed that he was the main character and not Forrest.

I think the movie could have been a bit shorter than what happened though, or even better, just less “down” scenes. The church scene was really odd, and I do’t know why they never really explained what the heck was going on there. There won’t be any sequels to the movie, as the entire story is told, which is a shame. I’d almost want to see more of Forrest and Howard when they were younger and just getting started.

When I first heard about the film Seven Psychopaths, I was definitely excited. This movie is directed by Martin McDonagh, the guy who brought us In Bruges four years ago.

If you haven’t seen In Bruges, you definitely should. It is a dark comedy, and a pretty unique movie experience. But no pressure on McDonagh to recreate the magic of his last movie or anything.

Pictured above: Unique experience.

Marty (Colin Farrell) is a struggling screen writer and now alcoholic. He had some success, but he cant find the motivation for his next film, which is way past its deadline! Plus, his girlfriend is a bitch, maybe. His best friend, Billy (Sam Rockwell), an out of work actor really wants to help him on his new movie called Seven Psychopaths, so he puts an ad in the local paper calling all psychopaths to contact Marty and tell him their story. Ah jeez, thanks.

At the same time, Billy is working with an old friend of his, Hans (Christopher Walken) on a small time dog kidnapping business. Kidnap dogs from rich looking people, wait for them to post a reward, and boom, profit! Hans is working on money to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment (Linda Bright Clay). Unfortunately, they end up kidnapping the wrong man’s dog. Charlie (Woody Harrelson), a high ranking member of the local Italian mob loves his dog more than anything, and will kill anyone in his way to get him back!

Right. While all of that is going on, Marty is getting caught up in these shenanigans while also hearing stories from other psychopaths, such as Zachariah (Tom Waits), a Dexter sort of psychopath, and a pretty pissed off former member of the Vietcong(Long Nguyen). Not only does Marty have to survive the full wrath of the local mob, thanks to his friends attempts to help inspire the screenplay any way possible, but also stop drinking so gosh darn much!

You know where alcohol gets you? In the hospital. That’s the real moral of this whole movie.

If I am going to compare here, I can say that Seven Psychopaths is a bit more crazier than In Bruges, and you’d expect that with a film that had psychopath in the title. Unfortunately for myself, I had the displeasure of sitting behind a woman who cackled at every small amusing thing, ruining a bit of the humor for myself, but I still found it pretty damn funny. This film had large amounts of normal comedy and “dark comedy”, easily willing to make both groups happy (and potentially uncomfortable if you just want comedy). Basically, if you hate death, stay away.

But the person who really made this movie I think was Sam Rockwell, out of all the actors. His character just felt leagues above the rest of the cast, not that they were bad, just no where as near as awesome and crazy as his. He forces you to watch him every time he is on screen.

I think the only thing I didn’t really enjoy was the “movie in a movie” aspect of it. The movie, Seven Psychopaths, is about a guy trying to write a movie called Psychopaths, and very strange movie like circumstances occurring to his life as a result. Don’t get me wrong, the things that occurred were pretty fantastic, I just almost wanted a 100% real movie instead for a higher shenanigan potential. Definitely a great movie to watch with the friends however, with a fun time guaranteed.

Uh oh. Pitch Perfect. A movie with an overload of things I like!

Singing A Capella? Check. Anna Kendrick? Check. Remixes and mash ups? Check! Pseudo-satirical analysis of the college life style and “Gleeks” in the high school crowd? Check mate.

Don’t even get mad glee lovers. Its all just jokes. Jokes and raps.

This movie takes place at the fictional Carolina University. Probably somewhere in North or South Carolina, who knows. There are four main groups on this campus, a madonna group, a pot head group, The Treble Makers, and the Bellas, an all lady group who only sings women songs from before 2000. Kind of lame. But somehow they made it to the national championships, along with the Treble Makers, lead by Bumper (Adam DeVine).

Unfortunately, Aubrey (Anna Camp), the captain of next years squad blows it during their first number and they become a laughing stock. So much that they lose all of their members, except for Aubrey and the second in charge Chloe (Brittany Snow), and have to rebuild from scratch.

Enter Beca (Kendrick). Freshman, doesn’t want to go to college though. She wants to move to LA and become a famous DJ and produce songs! She loves mashing up music on her computer, but her dad and roommate don’t see the point. She also hates singing. But hey, her dad gave her a promise! If she can put forth effort into joining a group and actually giving college a chance, if she still wants to leave after a year, he will move her out to LA himself. Hells yeah!

So she joins the Bellas, who are more ragtag than ever. Yet for whatever reason, Aubrey refuses to take advice from others and makes them do last years set again. Over and over. Every competition. Can’t even spice things up. Unless you count letting Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) have a solo. They also have a rule of no fraternizing with the Treble Makers. Too bad another Freshman, Jesse (Skylar Astin) has the hots for her and won’t leave her alone. He joined only thanks to the obsession of his roommate, Benji (Ben Platt) who didn’t make the team for being “weird”.

But can the Bellas regain their former glory and win nationals again? Will this just be another stereotypical movie where the ending is obvious, along with relationships? Could John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks be any funnier as commentators of A Capella groups?

Women power! And etc.

I think my favorite character in the movie ended up being Jesse. Why him? Well, he is a guy who really likes movies. Wants to work on soundtracks for them though. Loves the Breakfast Club the most. People who like movies and can sing tend to be awesome people. Just saying, ladies.

After watching Pitch Perfect, I think my biggest complaint is that there wasn’t enough music. I immediately got the soundtrack after I saw the movie, but I was disappointed there wasn’t full versions of some of the songs, and a few of the songs felt a bit more polished than the movie counterparts. You probably wont get the full effect of the movie if you aren’t familiar with a lot of the more popular songs the last couple years, because knowing how a song normally sounds is half of the fun.

Like recognizing the Cups song Anna Kendrick did, seen here, popularized on the internet before hand. Most of the songs and videos appear to be on YouTube, so if that is all you care about, you are set.

But if you want some funny scenes with your a capella songs, some love dialogue, and a few more cameos that I didn’t feel like mentioning, then go see this movie with your friends.

Originally I was going to just ignore Dredd 3D. Hopefully it would go to the cheap theater at some point and I’d watch it then, but $10? It’s probably going to suck. But then something happened. People I knew were liking it. It was weird. The internet liked it. What? Don’t people hate remakes?

I never got to see Judge Dredd, I was like six at that time and it is violent. Hell, I still haven’t seen it. But what I do know about it is the pop culture references, of course. Basically it can be summed up in these 10 seconds for all I care. LAWWWGGHHH!

Yeah, well if anything, this new guy looks like the law.

Dredd 3D is set in…the future! Giant ass cities, so many people. Lot of them live in these big tower things. The police force are now called Judges, because they will find criminals and carry out the sentencing on the spot, and all of it gets recorded. It is just what has to be done with this many people. Too bad only some small percent of reported murders even get investigated by the Judges, they are so busy.

Who is the judgiest judge of them all? Judge Dredd (Karl Urban. Who is also a Doctor, sometimes). He knows all the rules, all the tactics, and is a bad ass motherfucker, more or less. He has no remorse, and will sentence without a care. Definitely won’t ever remove his helmet. But he is asked to train a rookie, Anderson (Olivia Thirby) who is also a psychic. Yeah, one of those mutants, who lucked out and got a useful transformation instead of an extra hand out of her stomach.

So yeah, she suggests a place to go. These three guys got skinned and fell about 30 stories. Could have been worse, could have been from the top, 200 stories up! They investigate, turn it into a drug bust. New “Gang” is in the area, lead by a Ma-ma (Lena Headey), who took over the entire complex. Hell, turns out they have a new drug that is hitting the market strong. Basically it makes your body feel like life is in slow motion. Kind of awesome. But one of the people she takes from the bust, Kay (Wood Harris), she can tell killed the people directly. He might even know the entire working operation of the drug place, meaning if he gets interrogated, he might spill the beans. Can’t have that happen.

So Ma-Ma does what everyone does. Gets the weird Technie (Domhnall Gleeson) to lock down the building completely, and shut off communication, and tell the residents to kill the Judges. Can they get out alive, and you know, actually still obey the law?

She has no helmet eh? Well that makes things easier. You know, shooting her in the head.

Wait a second. People trapped in a living complex, and wanting to take down the leader with the whole building trying to kill him? That unfortunately sounds familiar. If you read my reviews a month ago, it would sound like The Raid: Redemption. That really is unfortunate!

These movies were probably being made around the same time, so the similar plots were not intentional. Just ruined the awesomeness of this one.

Karl Urban? Wow, what a Judge Dredd. Obviously the best I have seen, but he kicked a lot of ass, and I was cheering him on. Never removed his hat, so really couldn’t tell it was him, but he made that character awesome.

How about the 3D? Well, I can say don’t watch this movie in 2D. I think the reason for the drugs was just to see that shit in 3D and make some super slow motion deaths. But it worked. It was killing porn, basically, and looked amazing. Plot not the best, but the twists and turns were fun to watch. Definitely see this bad boy either in theaters, or your 50 inch blu ray 3D TV.

My first thought when I heard of The Cabin in the Woods was of course, Evil Dead.

What? Evil Dead?

Yes. If you were awesome, you’d know why too. Not to like, immediately insult most of my readers or anything.

Why yes, yes that is Thor sitting on the chair.

Woo, trip to the woods! We got Curt (Chris Hemsworth) and his girlfriend Jules (Anna Hutchison) who just died her hair blonde! We also got a stoner, Marty (Fran Kranz, who you may remember from Dollhouse). On this weekend retreat, they really want to hook up their friend Dana (Kristen Connolly) with this new guy, who is also athletic, Holden (Jesse Williams).

Things are weird there though.

What else do we got? We got some scientists, kind of! Two head guys (Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford) talking confusing stuff about how the Netherlands and Sweden. They are being bugged by an assistant (Amy Acker) and have a new guard for their door (Brian White) who doesn’t want to be there.

And that is all you get, fuck you!

Well, they at least look like scientists. The validity of their science is another thing.

Pissed off at the shitty plot outline? Well good. Then you can go watch it and see what is up.

Never have I personally seen a more polarizing film amongst my friends, who all mostly got to see it before me it feels like. I didn’t see anyone say it was okay. It was purely a love or hate affair, which intrigued me. What does that usually mean? It means the film is either artsy, or weird. This one I would definitely describe on the weird side of cinema.

It just goes against the grain of what you expect, and rustles some of your jimmies doing so. Personally, I had a good time watching it. Wasn’t perfect. But super weird. So just give it a shot, and well, don’t get too upset when weird stuff happens.

I am pretty sure I heard about Hit and Run first from Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. Do you know them? They have been a couple for a few years, since they met on When In Rome. Both very delightful people that make me laugh. Well they wanted to do a movie together, damn it, where they can be in love on screen too!

Fun, face punching, bloody love.

Annie (Bell) and Charles Bronson (Shepard) are living in the middle of no where California. They have been dating for a year, but they really do love each other so much. Heck, Annie has a PhD in Conflict Resolution. What? Yeah. But she is teaching dumb sociology because she can’t run her own program anywhere. Until now. Her boss (Kristin Chenoweth) has to make some cuts to the department, and she is too awesome for them. Luckily, she set her up with an interview at UCLA, to run her own program there and have a real job with real monies!

The only problem is the city. LA. Turns out Mr. Bronson is in the witness protection program, and yes, he is from LA. That is literally the worst possible city to have the job at.

But he doesn’t care. Screw it, he will drive her to the interview himself. It has been four years for him, it shouldn’t matter at this point. She knows he is in witness protection, so even if his secrets come up, she should accept it right? Nope. Not if he used to be the getaway driver for his bank robbing friends (Bradley Cooper, Joy Bryant, Ryan Hansen).

Unfortunately during this routine trip to LA for an interview, Annie’s ex boyfriend (Michael Rosenbaum) gets a bit jealous, always has been, and actually figures out his real identity through his cop brother (Jess Rowland) checking up his old car’s plates. So course he contacts his old buddies, who he ratted out and are now free (technicalities), causing a race to LA with lots of guns and crazy chase scenes. Not to mention the Marshall assigned to check in on Charles (Tom Arnold) going along for the ride as well.

Oh no, looks like the find them and have an uncomfortable sex talk scene!

Hooo boy. This movie ended up actually having a lot more car driving chase scenes than I thought. Nothing to the level of Fast and the Furious craziness, of course. No, those people use NAS and stuff. Just straight up old school racing is what it felt like, with a soundtrack to match. They were thankfully exciting.

I also need to give a lot of props to Tom Arnold, he hasn’t been doing as well on the humor, being mostly a spaz in all of his recent roles. Well, it is true for this one too, but it works really well for once.

I was annoyed every once in awhile, I thought Bell’s character didn’t make that much sense, based off of her background. I don’t think anyone would actually assume someone was lying to them by not telling them about their witness protection circumstances. Probably laws about that stuff! But I found it pretty funny, with some nice chase scenes. Some over the top, unbelievable characters too. The ending wasn’t my favorite, just felt a bit weird. But hey, most of it was awesome!

The Great Buck Howard is definitely one of the movies I bought just because of the cast list on the front, and not really knowing anything about it.

I can definitely say I have heard zero things about this movie ahead of time, which means I can ruin that moment for you if you watch it with this review. Hooray!

Kind of like ruining a mentalists act. The claps will fade :(.

Turns out, this movie is actually about Troy Gable (Colin Hanks). He doesn’t like his place in life. Law School just is not fun. It sucks. His dad (Tom Hanks, yep) forced him to pick this path though. So he says enough is enough, walks out of law school, and time to find his calling.

Maybe a writer? Sure, but it doesn’t pay. So he needs a job for bills while he thinks about writing. Why not the stage manager of the Great Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a mentalist who he has never heard of. Sure, he has apparently been on Johnny Carson 61 times, but that is old.

Now he just travels from small town to small town, with a loyal fan base who love his acts and cheesiness. Troy quickly learns what to do from Alan (Adam Scott), the soon to be former tour manager, who eventually quits and leaves in a rage. Okay, so apparently Buck is not really so great, but more of a dick. But its a job, and why not stick around?

Well, he gets to see a struggling mentalist make it through life, without missing a beat. Just takes it all out on Troy. He even has an amazing act, where he has audience members hide his “fee” for the night, while he and his staff is away, and without fail he can find it every time. If he cant, it gets donated back to the town.

Even the build up of his new trick, putting a record number of people to sleep at a time. The problem is, shit keeps going wrong. His press person is out of town, so he is stuck with a rookie girl (Emily Blunt), has crazy drivers (Steve Zahn), and a generally apathetic manager (Ricky Jay).

Here is a look as shit hits the fan. Pretty hard.

I was worried about this film, just because it was John Malkovich in a PG setting. But what the fuck was I thinking? This is John Malkovich! He does things awesomely, and you can’t help but watch.

His character of Buck Howard was definitely an interesting one to watch, and clearly the most important part of the movie, despite it being a journey of discovery for Colin Hanks’ character. He is based on the The Amazing Kreskin , who was known for finding his fee pretty much every time (but nine, oddly enough).

Did I mention Malkovich kicked ass as this character? The rest of the cast was pretty decent as well. Especially the outrageous locals at some of the shows. It is hard to describe why this film is so great, but the only word I can think of is charming, I guess. The cast works well together, and it is strangely interesting despite the subject matter. Give it a chance, and maybe you will love it.

Confession time! From the original Bourne Trilogy, I only really saw the first one and I am pretty sure that was ten years ago. I just didn’t care that much, thought it was too slow. But you know, okay. So I had to rewatch it last week, and for the first time the second and third ones to make sure I was prepped for the newest installation, The Bourne Legacy.

Smiling Bearded Jeremy Renner wants to be your friend. Not really a joke, just a fact.

Remember everything from the first three films? Well too bad, not much of it matters. Basically, this movie takes place around the same time as the events of Ultimatum. Jason Bourne scared a lot of people when he showed up out of nowhere in NYC and started messing with them all. So much, the CIA went into lockdown.

Potentially a spoiler, but I think knowing the next part helps a lot.

A different program, called Outcome, was similar to the Treadstone program of the first three films. Instead of taking individuals who were already skilled to turn them into agents, they are taking individuals on the bottom of the totem pole and enhancing them artificially with pills.

Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is currently fucked, because he is almost out of pills. On a random mission in the Alaskan mountain range, he lost a bunch of his blues/greens, and is almost out. Even when he gets to the outpost and meets another agent (Oscar Isaac), he can’t get any extra from them. Have to file a report. Without the pills, his body will go crazy and crash. No good.

Too bad, thanks to CIA head person Eric Byer (Edward Norton), they have decided to wipe out the existence of all of the Outcome agents. Gotta kill em all, most by switching their pills, but, wouldn’t you know it, Aaron Cross escapes! Still needs the Blue/Green pills though. So he does the only thing he knows, kicking ass, to find Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who might know how to get more pills.

Or even better, a way to not need the pills anymore. Can he survive long enough to find a solution, when people with guns and other super agents chasing him? Can he stay ahead of the entire CIA and all of its surveillance long enough? Does the fact that Stacy Keach and Dennis Boutsikaris play other head of operation people actually matter to Edward Norton?

Whoa, two guns Renner? Amping up the violence here, eh?

Fuck. Not even a spoiler, but Extreme Ways by Moby does end this movie as well. Gah, when I first heard that note, I had a silent rage in my seat. I really don’t like that song.

But hey, other than that, I really like it. There were issues of course. I didn’t like the way it was spliced in the beginning, making sure you had no real knowledge of what was going on for awhile, and setting it up. Bump that, just tell me. I liked Aaron Cross better than Jason Bourne. Jason Bourne was almost emotionless, while, as you saw above, Aaron Cross at least smiled. The relationship between him and Marta also made more since than Bourne’s relationship.

When they are eventually in the Philippines, there is one chase scene that is incredibly long. Way too long. They split it up to involve different aspects (foot, vs motorcycle, vs what is chasing after them) but I felt like it got above ridiculous at that point. Either way, besides that, found it all pretty entertaining. Even the parts where Renner had that bad beard.

Yeah!

Another Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie, that is what you are thinking right? And with such a demanding subtitle of Rodrick Rules, there is no way it could actually fail.

Especially if all of the major cast are brought back, minus one notabale change. You know, because Chloe Grace Moretz had to become too much of a big deal to continue these movies. Or something. But that is an assumption. Hell, I don’t even know if the events in this movie or the others are actual book events, or just made up. So I guess her return doesn’t matter.

I guess they took that new bitch to a roller disco. Bitches love roller discos.

Remember Greg’s (Zachary Gordon) quest for popularity? Well, he still really isn’t popular. And he kind of still wants to be. Some would say that means he didn’t learn anything at all from the first film. But don’t worry, his quest for popularity at least doesn’t cause him to destroy his friendships again. Even though there are some mean pranks (like pretending that Chirag (Karan Brar) is invisible the whole film, as a big practical joke that the school joins in. Kind of a dick move, Greg).

He is real friends with Rowley (Robert Capron) still, just tries to avoid the fact that he is into magic now and wants to have Greg as his assistant for a talent show. Don’t be gross, Rowley. And of course Patti (Laine MacNeil) is still an unobtrusive whore, and Fregley (Grayson Russell) is still a gross loser.

So what the fuck is new? Well, there is the new girl, Holly (Peyton List) who is way too cool, and thus impossible for Greg to attain. He has to become cool himself. But he is lame, and not cool, so kind of sucks. But turns out there is a way to become cool, and that way is through his brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick).

The mom (Rachael Harris) actually devises a system called Mom Bucks to try and get them closer together, but it doesn’t really work. Thankfully, they end up bonding over an illegal house party the brother throws, since Greg was willing to cover for him. Hells yeah. That is when Rodrick starts teaching him how to be cool. Gives him a list of rules to follow (yeahhh). They aren’t all good, but damn it, they are trying.

Hopefully the dad (Steve Zahn) doesn’t find out about the party, causing a lot of other problems to occur, and banning Rodrick from performing at the talent show. That would surely drive a wedge in the friendship and coolness factor.

So I guess the title could be from Rodrick either being awesome, or his list of helpful hints. But where else might the title have come from? Hmm.

So uhh, shockingly this movie wasn’t that bad. I know, this is going to sound strange. But it was definitely better than the original one. Sure, it was still more of the same in terms of children shenanigans and some silly humor. But it was definitely just better.

Greg wasn’t as much of an asshat, and way more likable of a person. The relationship between him and his brother, obviously a major part of the movie, felt pretty real. Had some unusual circumstances come about, but just felt correct.

Maybe it is just because I have an older brother and it all made sense because of that, but they really hit the nail on the head.

So this movie actually is enjoyable, if you are in the kid mindset of course. So hopefully the third one is even more better!