Tag: 4 out of 4

I won’t begin this review with another boring introduction about how I know nothing about this film (I do!). I will instead mention a strange coincidence!

For the last two weeks I have been listening to the Blueprints of Armageddon, a seven part podcast series about World War 1 by Hardcore History/Dan Carlin. I have been taking a break from audio books for awhile on my drives to and from work and movies. It is pretty good so far and I am learning a lot. And earlier this week I watched Sunset Song (review at some point), which is a Scottish film based on a book that leads up to World War I. And much to my surprise, the next night, I watched The Light Between Oceans, a film that takes place in Australia, right after World War I.

Fuck. I am so god damn into World War I right now. This cannot be a coincidence, I should develop time travel. And you know, avoid World War I, because that shit was scary.

Awww, a nice happy and calming baby to make me feel better.

A lot of people died in World War I, and a lot of survivors had to kill people to do so. PTSD is real. It has fucked over people. Like Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), who just wants to be alone. He got a job manning a lighthouse on an island called Janus in Western Australia, which is a long long distance from any civilization. He has no family to bring with him, just a home, a lighthouse, a job and an island to himself.

But eventually, Tom does get a bit lonely. And in the “nearby” town, he has met and started writing to one Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander). They instantly hit it off and fall in love and knowing that only a wife can join him on the island, they get married and begin their lives together.

Unfortunately, their lives together begin with a rocky start. And no, I am not just talking about their island coast that they warn nearby ships about. Pregnancies occur, but so do miscarriages and they start to begin to lose hope. Sure, they love each other, but a death in the family is a hard thing to cope with.

However, miracles do happen. A small row boat washes ashore and inside is a dead man (Leon Ford) and a crying baby who needs help. Have their prayers been answered? It is Tom’s duty to report this incident, but if they do that, the baby will surely be taken back and there is no way they can adopt her. Maybe they can just…lie, raise the baby as their own.

Also starring Rachel Weisz, Benedict Hardie, Garry Macdonald, Jane Menelaus, Anthony Hayes, Florence Clery, and Jack Thompson.

Nothing really says love like turning yourselves into patio furniture.

Well, I cried. I cried a lot. I cried probably more than a grown man should in a film, unless it is somewhere in his first 1-3 times watching Les Miserables. This film had all of the correct notes to just wreck me emotionally.

It had romance and loniliness. It had pregnancies and miscarriages. It had depression and danger. It had the cutest baby girl, learning how to be a real human. It had a father figure who would do anything to protect his wife and daughter (well, “daughter”), both things I can relate to. And it had morally black situations. That is more hardcore than morally grey. Because, really, at some points the right decisions are easy to determine as long as you ignore the human factor. But eventually, the situation becomes so out of control that I didn’t even try to predict what would happen next. I just wanted the movie to decide for me and show me the consequences of these decisions.

For some, the film will drag at over 2 hours long. There are lots of scenes with no dialogue, especially early on, but the shots are beautiful and the emotions are showcased in our actors eyes. But it was just right for me. I almost never wanted it to end. I was shocked every time we had a large jump in story time, basically wishing I could see every decision and action that led up to the end.

And fuck, we cannot forget about our leads. Vikander and Fassbender’s chemistry (and last names) are so strong in this film, they feel like a real couple. And hey, it turns out that they are now still a couple thanks to the film. The film showed them falling in love so well because that is what was happening between them in real life. And damn it, it shows. Strong performances were also given by Weisz and Clery, our little girl.

The Light Between Oceans is a movie I never want to see again. It is also the type of movie that makes me want to read the book it was so good. I just cannot see myself dealing with all those emotions in such a small amount of time again that I just will probably avoid it forever, despite being one of the year’s best.

My decision to watch The 9th Life of Louis Drax seemed to happen almost by accident. In fact, I had four options for screeners to go see, an overwhelming number of choices. One of them was about to come out in theaters, so I didn’t want to rush the review. Another one didn’t come out for almost two months, and there would be more future screenings. So it came down to this film and a war film.

I settled on 9th Life merely because it seemed weird. Both films seemed interesting, both had mysterious components. But this title was just a bit stranger.

And hey, going on to read the IMDB page really didn’t answer any questions. I figured it was based on a book and would just be an actual unique movie to witness. I just didn’t imagine it would also be intense, haunting, and emotional.

And hey, you know what they say.
Wires on the head, sexy in bed.

Louis Drax (Aiden Longworth) is not your average little kid. On his 9th birthday, he finds himself falling off a cliff, straight into the ocean. You see, Louis Drax has always been accident prone. His birth was an accident, he almost killed his mom, Natalie (Sarah Gadon) in the process and needed an emergency C-Section. When he was a baby, a light fixture fell on him in his crib, breaking ribs. But Louis survived. Louis survived electric shocks, food poisoning, and more, and damn it, he is going to survive this.

Sure, he was declared legally dead for over two hours and is now in a coma, but he survived. Sure, his dad (Aaron Paul) allegedly pushed him over the edge and is now on the run missing, but he survived. He is now having visions in his coma, causing him to flashback through his life, but he survived.

And he has a great coma doctor to help him in Dr. Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan), who also gives TED talks about coma stuff that is totally relevant to the plot. However, Pascal’s relationship with Natalie, as they both mourn over Louis’ fate gets a bit too personal and with the dad potentially stalking around, it can get bad.

At the same time, they really have to get to the bottom of all these accidents. Why is God seemingly out to get this little boy, causing him to need to see a psychiatrist (Oliver Platt) for all of his issues?

Also starring Lina Roessler, Julian Wadham, Molly Parker, Barbara Hershey, and Anjali Jay.

Ah, what a happy little family. 9th birthdays are always full of falling from heights, right?

The 9th Life of Louis Drax is the type of film I would love to talk about, complete with spoilers, but that is now how my site has worked. So I will respect that and keep things vague.

9th Life was a movie going experience. Not in the same way of something like Lord of the Rings, but an emotional roller coaster, going more than up and down, but also backwards, looping, spinning, and in circles. I’m sorry, that hyperbole was kind of shit. The intro showed Louis going through accidents growing up, including as a baby, and it basically made me horrified. I cried. And that was just the beginning. (Editor’s Note: Yes, I also cried at the ending).

Louis in the coma was a strange place, full of flashbacks, weird creatures and demonic voices. What was happening in real life at the same time was just so odd and strange. In terms of the mystery, I figured it out for the most part about halfway through. However, I was wildly wrong on the smaller details and guessing a big part of the end didn’t take away from the actual experience.

No, we don’t get to see Dornan’s penis. Stop asking. This is like Fifty Shades of Grey all over again.

The acting from Gadon, Dornan, Longworth, and Paul were all top notch. This is probably the best acting I have seen from Paul since Breaking Bad. He had me in tears at one part as well. Gadon’s character was appropriately weird, Longworth carried every scene despite being such a young actor, and Dornan was a very relatable character. It was easy to see his mistakes and understand why he was making them, while also finding him sincere in all of his actions.

And shit. This movie despite being fiction is about real diseases and problems. Again, if I went into specifics, it’d count as spoilers. There was one really odd scene at first that didn’t feel realistic. However, it fit within the universe that the movie had created, so it wasn’t completely out of place. It did provide a very haunting and sad ending as all of the threads were finally unraveled.

The 9th Life of Louis Drax surprised me. I both want to see it again and kind of never again. Good performances all around and damn it, an original story as well.

Technically, yes, I have a few biases going into watching Kubo and the Two Strings. But for plenty of good reasons.

Laika, the makers of this film, have a pretty damn solid track record. Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, these guys are stop motion geniuses and their name means quality.

The Boxtrolls also had the best trailers of any film that year. Kubo and the Two Strings? The first and only trailer I watched was decent. It wasn’t as creatively done, but the story itself felt original, large scaled, and awesome awesome.

So yeah, I’ve been excited to see this movie for over a year. This has been my most anticipated animated film all year, even more so than Moana. I am only human, let me be excited.

Shit, this kid is so bad ass he only needs one eye.

Kubo (Art Parkinson) is a 10 or 11 year old boy, and yeah, he is missing an eye. He lives with his mother (Brenda Vaccaro) in a cave by a village. She is out of it, as she had a head injury when Kubo was just a baby, escaping from a threat. A lot of her day is spent staring out in the sea, but sometimes she remembers and tells him stories of his father, a great samurai.

His dad apparently died when he was a baby protecting him. From who? From his grandfather (mom’s dad), the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes) and her sisters (Rooney Mara). The Moon King took Kubo’s eye for reasons and he wanted the other eye as well. So they have been in hiding, Kubo has not been allowed out at night or else he would be discovered. During the day he would love to tell stories in the village, using a magical shamisen to bring origami and paper to life to create wonderful visuals.

Well, as we all know, eventually he is discovered. And a lot of bad things happen. But now Kubo finds himself in the middle of nowhere, with a talking monkey by his side. A talking monkey?! Yes, a toy he always carried was brought to life to protect him, named Monkey (Charlize Theron). And eventually, also a great samurai turned beetle samurai named Beetle (Matthew McConaughey). Kubo can tell a tale, but he is not a namer.

Kubo and the gang have to find three parts of a legendary armor, heard only in stories. They are the only things that might be able to protect him from his grandfather and protect his remaining eye. Oh, and sure, George Takei voices a villager, and I am 90% certain he says “Oh My” at some point.

Holy shit, the moon sisters are straight out of my nightmares.

Kubo and the Two Strings exceeded all of my expectations and gave me a tale for the ages. Laika, known for their stop animation films, still keep up with the design, but also use a lot of CGI for building backgrounds and certain special effects. Despite the CGI, the world is still incredibly immersive and easy to get lost in.

I unfortunately didn’t get to see the movie in 3D, but even without it, I felt like I was almost a part of their world with the large movie screen. Every character was rich and unique, the colors vivid, and of course the dialogue was amusing and dark intertwined.

Kubo goes to some scary places and deals with a lot of real and scary situations. They deal with death, being alone, mystery, and more death. They really went hard on those “thematic elements” in its PG rating. But it of course also deals with friendship, family (in the positive way), memories, and coping with loss. Some more heavy subjects, but more positive.

The voice acting was also better than I expected. Seeing the big names, I rolled my eyes, but McConaughey, Theron, and Fiennes all did amazing jobs.

Do yourself a favor. See Kubo and see him in theaters. Go on the adventure to hear and see his story. I for one want to see the adventure again and again.

“Welcome to It’s a Nutty, Nutty, Nutty World. We’re just nuts about nuts. Crunch nuts with your lunch. Buy them by the bunch. Send them to friends far away to munch.” That is by far my favorite quote from the TV show Daria, and technically, no, it has nothing to do with this documentary.

Because Nuts! isn’t about the kind that you eat as a light snack. Oh no, no, no. We’re talking about testicles. And I am not just talking about human testicles either. That documentary wouldn’t be ballsy enough. No, we are talking about human testicles and goat testicles. Goat testicles that built and industry and caused one man in the early 1900’s to rise above his citizen status and become a master. A master of what? Well, of testicles I guess. But also, technology and electioneering.

But I am getting ahead of myself. John Romulus Brinkley is a self appointed genius and sort of hero of this sort of true biographical documentary. He was raised poor and lived a meager existence, but one day he found himself in Milford, Kansas to start a new life. He opened a decent sized small town clinic, paid well and made everyone healthy and happy.

Then he also experimented with goat testicles. He had the idea to put male goat testicle glands into a human male testicle as a way of curing impotence. And guess what? Guess what? Are you guessing? Apparently that shit worked.

Because the Noble Goat is the healthiest of all mammals and a strong sex drive, just doing a nice transplant can help a man impregnant ladies! And don’t worry, the babies are all human, not strange hybrids. This is where he got his rise to fame.

Of course, absolutely no one in the medical community believed him. They called him a quack, a fraud, a faker, and wanted him to stop. But John Brinkley is a man who was ten foot tall and nothing was going to break his stride.

Or his stare into our souls.

Now, obviously Brinkley is quite an interesting character. But he kept doing the nut stuff. He also invested money in a giant radio antennae, which ended up being one of the biggest in the country at that point. So he also became a big name in the radio. Soon he had the precursor to the FCC also on his door, with the doctors, getting him to stop. So he then decided to run for Governor of the state, after all, people liked him. And he might have won too as a write in candidate, but there was some sketchy stuff there.

Eventually he moved to Texas, changed his radio tower to be a big one in Mexico to avoid US regulations, and developed a formula from goat testicles to cure impotence to not spend so much time in surgery. That’s right, this man, this genius, did so many things and none of you have ever heard about him.

And that is another reason why this documentary is so fascinating. Using archival footage when necessary, and animation at other times, we get to look into the life of a self proclaimed scientific hero, who dabbled successfully in many other aspects of life. The animation with real-ish dialogue from court room scenes and more are fascinating to witness and the voice work really brings out the personality of the characters. The real life historians who are familiar with Brinkley are also featured throughout to give his glimpses into his life.

Overall, this documentary is just so well crafted. Every scene, beginning to end, fully committed to this man’s story and to teach the viewer about someone unique in American history. So many documentaries exist on already incredibly famous people, teaching us only a few useful new facts and claiming to be the best. This is a story that most people would have never heard and actually accomplishes its point to inform the viewer. I loved it. I loved the way it was presented, I loved the topic man, and I loved how it unfolded.

I’m just nuts, about Nuts!

I totally forgot the film Experimenter existed. In 2015, I saw it was coming out, planned on watching it, and then, well, we are halfway through 2016 now. Shit.

The only reason I remembered it existed was browsing Anton Yelchin‘s IMDB page, looking for recent films he was in that sounded interesting enough to review. The title Experimenter seemed good so I figure’d I’d “randomly” give it a shot.

It wasn’t until I actually started watching the film did I remember that I totally knew about this film before and I once again have found myself being a forgetful dumbass.

But hey, Yelchin is in this movie! And some other folks, can’t wait!

And I also have a huge hankerin’ for some science, even if it is of the social variety.

Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) is a social psychologist in the 1960’s-80’s, known for quite a few extreme experiments that really got the world talking. And no, he didn’t do The Stanford Prison Experiment, he did all the other ones.

This is mostly about his super famous experiments, dealing with obedience, trying to figure out why so many people could commit terrible acts during the Holocaust. This had a great concern to Milgram, who himself was Jewish. So the main point of his experiment was simple.

He would have two people come in, one would randomly be assigned the teacher, the other the learner. The learner would be hooked up to an machine that would shock them every time they got an answer wrong and they would sit alone in a room. The teacher would ask them questions based on a memory assignment and if the learner asked the question wrong they would get an electrical shock. Every wrong question, another shock, but a higher voltage level. And the teacher got a sample low shock at the beginning to get a feel for it.

Over time, the learner would start to scream louder and louder. And eventually ask for it to stop and then refuse to talk and refuse to answer (which makes them more wrong). The teacher doesn’t know that the learner is actually someone in on the experiment and not getting shocked at all. And of course, Milgram’s results were shocking. The world wasn’t ready for his tests and they raised quite a hubbub.

The first half of the film is mainly about that experiment and its variations, with the second half being the rest of his life, his other smaller (and still brilliant) experiments, life with his wife (Winona Ryder) and eventual death. Sad face.

Also featuring Jim Gaffigan and John Palladino as assistants, and John Leguizamo, Anton Yelchin, and Taryn Manning as a few people who were paid participants. Aka, very small roles.

This unflattering freeze frame of Gaffigan gives him a mouth that can fit several hot pockets.

Experimenter ended up being a really strange movie and not your normal biopic. It is definitely a drama, but it still feels comedic in a way without telling a lot of jokes. Like, the whole film is saying his life is just one big joke, but again, not in a mean way. It is narrated by Sarsgaard, constantly breaking the fourth wall to discuss his life (and death), no shame at all. Hell, it even has an elephant in the background to not so subtly talk about the elephant in the room.

Speaking of backgrounds, a lot of them are just so incredibly fake it is beyond obvious. Like they made this film in the actual time period that it is set. You can notice it in the car rides, when they go to a one time scene, and it is just fake. It was intentional, perhaps because they are almost insinuating that the aspects of his life not in the university are just a series of tests and fake set ups for experiments.

Shit, from the last two paragraphs, you might think this movie is meta as fuck. And honestly, I think that was their point. Meta as fuck but in a strangely subtle, obvious way.

I clearly have no idea what I am actually talking about. This movie is really entertaining and just so damn odd. I want to learn a lot more about Milgram, so I should read that book that made people scared of him. Or a biography that goes over all of his most famous experiments.

Taika Waititi is a rising star in the director world, and not just because of his four i’s. No one saw Eagle vs Shark, but I did, and I loved it. Waititi is a New Zealander and he loves his New Zealand based cinema. NO, NOT LORD OF THE RINGS. But you know, he directed some Flight of the Conchords episodes. But more importantly he directed one of the better comedies last year, What We Do In The Shadows.

What We Do In The Shadows was so good and people were so impressed with Waititi, they gave Waititi a marvel movie and he is going to be directing Thor: Ragnarok. Big step up indeed.

But before we get to any of this, we have another New Zealand based film of course. Hunt For The Wilderpeople, a title with a lot of story behind it and a mostly local cast with a lot of local heart.

And a star who is clearly gangster as fuck.

Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is getting into his teenage years but has had a rough life. No more parents, he has been in the foster system. He has gotten himself into some bad stuff. Like kicking stuff, burning stuff, graffiti and more. Basically gangster as fuck, which I already said.

So he is sent to his last chance home. A nice farm on the edge of civilization. The woman there, whom he has to call Aunt Bella (Rima Te Wiata). She knows he needs just something to do and learn and work on to get back on the right path. She is married to Uncle Hec (Sam Neill), who is much more a loaner and really only cares about his dog.

Things actually go pretty okay. Life is decent, Ricky is finding a purpose and isn’t a complete shit head. Then bad things happen. Things that threaten his removal from the house. So he decides to fake his own death and run away. Screw it, he will live in the wilderness by himself. He can shoot a gun now, he has a dog. He’s got this.

Well, it is up to Uncle Hec to go and find him. However, once he does he gets hurt. They end up being in the wilderness so long that people now think he was kidnapped and a bad type of man. Ricky himself is afraid of going back because he thinks he will have to go to Juvie! So somehow they both find themselves running from the law, living in the woods, making a real good time of it all. All while the head CPS lady (Rachel House) is on their tale.

Also featuring Oscar Kightley as a cop, Troy Kingi and Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne as a few natives, and Rhys Darby as Psycho Sam.

You can find a whole lot in the woods. But mostly, you’ll find yourself.

Being my third Waititi, I have come to expect a certain sort of humor and this film is of course full of it. It is weird, it is unique, but it is also raw and real.

I don’t know a damn thing about living in New Zealand. But I do know the basic differences between “city folk” and “country folk” and that is really the most important thing to understand this movie. Will you get each and every joke? Hell no (unless you are really knowledgeable about New Zealand, I guess). But the themes are practically universal.

And this film truly is an adventure. The beginning is a bit slower when we are getting used to the characters, but once they hit the woods, are traveling, talking, running from the po-po, meeting unique individuals and situations. That is where it is fun. That is where the film starts to run with it.

I wouldn’t say the soundtrack is the same level of Sing Street or Swiss Army Man, but it is still really well picked and placed, highlighting the film to greater levels.

Dennison has a potentially great career in comedic films if he keeps it up, he felt like a natural. Neill? I didn’t even recognize Neill. I saw his name in the intro credits and assumed I just missed him. I didn’t really realize until looking at IMDB way later. He was super into his role as well and quite a damn surprise. House was also really nice surprise, with her motto of “No Child Left Behind” when it comes to CPS. A good motto and made her a weird antagonist.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is amazing. It is realistic, strange, and I think we all have a little bit of Ricky in all of us.

This review is published slightly early. Tickled will come to Houston starting Friday, July 15 at the Sundance Cinemas.

Documentaries come and go, but crime lives forever. I believe a famous philosopher of film said that once.

When I first saw the trailer for Tickled I knew I wanted to see it immediately. It screamed out that this would be a weird documentary, a unique documentary, a documentary that might involve a giant crime syndicate that no one knew anything about.

And yes, Documentaries do have trailers.

Tickled began with a simple premise. Journalist David Farrier, out of New Zealand, likes to investigate and report on the weird stuff. He runs into a flyer that more or less invites young, athletic males to come out and get tickled for a little bit, for up to thousands of dollars. And it is not sexual, it is part of competitive endurance tickling.

What is that? Well, I guess it involves being strapped down and tickled by multiple people, and seeing how long you can last? Obviously you also have to be ticklish, no cheating here.

So David figured he would check it out and asked the PR group behind it if he could interview them. He got a hard no. Like, a paragraph long no. One that also wanted to make sure that he knew it was not sexual and they didn’t want homosexuals involved with, noting David’s sexual preference.

Huh, okay. Normally the story would be over then. But then he kept getting messages from the group, being quite crude in their content. Telling him he isn’t wanted, he shouldn’t be gay, things of that nature. That is when they decided to make a documentary on these events, wondering where they would go and who the heck is behind all of this.

Because they already know who is on top of this.

Things of course got weirder for David and his crew. Now that the documentary was getting started, lawyers got involved. They cam all the way down to New Zealand to talk about things and they were not happy to be on camera. Things got defensive super quickly and left people in a sour mood.

So what is a journalist to do? Well, travel to America on a work visa! Not just to do lawyer things, but to better investigate. They get to talk to people who did the competitive endurance tickling. And by that, just one person would be willing to be interviewed, as most didn’t want to be embarrassed. We got to learn about other tickling things going on in the states, and just how many of these “competitive evnets” exist across the US. There used to be a woman early on the internet who paid men for tickling videos and it seems to be where a lot of it got started.

Oh, we also get to see how vicious these groups can be when their ticklees (If it isn’t a word I am making it one) would stop working or start being a nusance. They would try to destroy their careers, friendships, family relationships, everything, all on account of tickling. Huh, sounds familiar.

I am being vague on purpose of course, because the mystery goes much deeper. And what David and his team uncovered is an entire underground tickling empire that might all come from the exact same source. Spooky!

Not that there is anything wrong with tickling or fetishes. It is just when people get sue happy and ruin peoples lives over it, that is where the issue comes in. I am quite surprised at the results of this documentary. At times it felt like they lost track of what the goal was and were just getting Tickling Fetish 101, but all of it was bought back and connected and made a very cohesive journalistic documentary. It is also well shot, legally gray, and sort of like a mystery.

Did I think that a documentary about tickling would be one of the best that I had seen this year? Of course not. But that’s why actually watching the movie is so damn important.

Every once in awhile a truly surprising film comes out. It could be surprising by having incredible acting from people considered to be B-stars. It could be surprising by having some new technology and allowing great special effects.

Or it could be thanks to a truly absurd and original idea that just blows your mind as a viewer. Something that has never been discussed like it was in a movie before, something that will leave you as a changed movie goer by opening your mind just a tad bit.

I am about to fully review Swiss Army Man. But as a suggestion, if you know nothing about the film and want a crazy experience? I suggest you go and watch it without checking out the trailer, without my small plot synopsis, completely blind and just let the movie happen on you.

Uh oh, dead Harry Potter, that means this is your last chance.

Hank (Paul Dano) is on a tiny deserted island, like, really small, with only some rocks in a big mound. He has been there for some time and he is ready to kill himself. But then, a body washes on the shore.

Hank hopes it is a live person so he can have company, but nope, it is just another dead body. This dead body (Daniel Radcliffe) gave him one small glimpse of hope before smashing it all away. And this body keeps farting, almost constantly, making it even more bizarre. But then Hank sees the body floating on the water, almost propelled by these same farts. Since Hank has nothing else to live for, he hops on that body and rides it like Jetski to freedom.

Well, at least to somewhere else. He finds himself on a much bigger beach, with a forest and trash. He is now SOMEWHERE in the world and damn it, that body helped him. Maybe that body can help him some more too, or at least, he feels like he has to bring him to civilization to get the proper burial he deserves. So he brings him with it.

And sure enough, that body ends up helping him in more ways than he ever imagined. And when the body starts to talk back, Hank helps him more than he ever imagines as well.

Also featuring (slightly, very slightly), Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Richard Gross.

LIKE A GODDAMN JETSKI.

Are you still with me? Even though you found out the movie is about a farting corpse and a guy trying to make it back to civilization? I bet the Jetski gif made you stay. You’re welcome for that, and that happens in the first 10 minutes.

Speaking of time, Swiss Army Man is only around an hour and a half long and it ends up being the perfect time for a movie this long. We don’t get overlong sequences of them trying to survive and the ending goes at a good pace. We are given several different montages of the Radcliffe / the “Multi Purpose Tool Guy” being used in unique ways to help Hank survive and they are done in a strange way to really add to the magic of the whole movie.

Keeping with the slightly absurd concept, the music in this film is a phenomenal fit. The movie music is basically made entirely by Radcliffe and Dano. Okay, I know in reality, the music is done by some performers, somewhere else, with extra instruments and all. But as it is put into the film, it is mimicked after their own dialogue and noises and flows wonderfully. The music itself is an experience. It feels airy, full of adventure, and downright inspiring.

The reason this movie works so well is that Dano and Radcliffe fully commit themselves to their roles. There are no sly winks to the camera or hidden smiles. They are two people in this serious situation and despite how crazy it all feels, they work together to make it work. It takes some high level chemistry to pull it off. Both Dano and Radcliffe pull off extraordinary performances. Definitely Radcliffe’s best performance ever. And it is a top one for Dano, but for Dano, almost everything is top level.

Swiss Army Man is bound to be one of the most unique experiences in cinema over the last decade. It is a magical film with enough ambiguity to make the viewer think and draw their own conclusions. The ending gets a bit weird, but to me it really just shows that anything is possible. Just don’t give up and the weird can become reality.

Eddie The Eagle is one of those movies that I heard was coming out, I wanted to see, and then never saw. I know I know, it happens all the time, but usually I at least manage to see the movies that interest me.

Fun fact about watching the movie. Well, fun to me. The entire time, despite knowing the actual actors name, I assumed it was Emile Hirsch. The problem is that I could not remember Emile Hirsch’s name, but assumed it was very close to Taron Edgerton. They don’t really look alike, have no where similar names, but I finished the film thinking “Man, that guy from Prince Avalanche sure did nail it!”

It is one of the strangest mix ups I have ever experienced, so strange that I decided to write about it in the intro of a movie review.

“What is this, a ski jump arena for ANTS?”

Eddie Edwards (Taron Edgerton, not anyone else) always wanted to go to the Olympics when he was a boy. He was kind of nerdy, but he had a goal and put his mind to it. He just wasn’t very athletic. He tried so many types of Olympic actives but always came up short. His mum (Jo Hartley) encouraged him to reach for the stars, but his dad (Keith Allen) eventually got sick of it, wanted him to end his obsession and to focus on getting a job and an income. And then Eddie decided he was doing it all wrong. He should train for the Winter Olympics instead.

So Eddie learns to ski and heck, he becomes pretty good at it too. He gets decently fast, but he still doesn’t qualify for the British Olympic team. Partially because they think he is a weird guy and not “Olympic Athlete” material. You know, he is quirky. An embarrassment. So what does Eddie do? He finds a new thing to try. Olympic Ski Jumping. If he can learn how to jump and reach a certain distance, then he can qualify for the Olympics on his own, standards be damned!

Which is why Eddie heads to Germany to a Ski Jumping school. If he can learn to jump quickly, he can participate in a competition, qualify, and still make it to the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics! Yes, those Winter Olympics. The same ones that featured the Jamaican Bobsled team. And sure, he finds a gruff but eventually lovable coach (Hugh Jackman) and is faced with the fact that most jumpers start training when they are 6 and not when they are in their 20’s. But damn it, this is his best chance at going to the Olympics and he won’t let anything stop him!

Also starring Edvin Endre, Rune Temte, Iris Berben, Jim Broadbent, and Christopher Walken.

Yeah, technically this is not how an Eagle would fly. But if an eagle had Skis, maybe they would!

I am only human. That means I like to be inspired every once in awhile, and hell, I can find a sports movie inspiring as well. I love the classics but I have found lately that sports movies are trying to hard for inspiration and forcing too many changes into the story. Only a movie studio can take an amazing 100+ game winning streak and lie about everything after the team finally lost and think its a good idea. I’ve been needing something greater than Spare Parts or McFarland, USA or Million Dollar Arm to really get me going.

Thankfully, Eddie the Eagle had everything I wanted and fulfilled something missing in me for years. Hell, I felt inspired just six minutes into the movie. A lot of credit needs to go to the sound and music team. I don’t know what inspired the music, but the tune throughout the film just made me feel like I could do anything.

And heck, the movie is about a guy that constantly got shit upon by others. Especially those in charge. No one wanted him to succeed and constantly they blocked his attempts to go to the Olympics. But he made it. Did he medal? Nope. Did he do his best? You betcha! And he broke records too. Mostly because no one before him had really Ski Jumped in GB since the 1920s.

And what confused me the most after the film ended is that it DIDN’T give me a nice blurb about what ended up happening with Eddie after the Olympics. That is because the Olympics changed their rules to make people like Eddie ineligible for the Olympics in future years. Basically, modern Olympic people don’t know how to have fun and are jerk faces. But I had to learn that on my own.

Egerton was wonderful as the lead and I just wanted to hug him the whole film. This is a drastically different role than the one he played in Kingsman, so I am now excited to see where Egerton takes his career outside of that franchise. The guy can act.

Fly like and Eddie the Eagle. Do it or live in regret the rest of your life.

Just three years ago, The Conjuring was a big deal. It was my favorite horror film of the year, which is surprising because it was such a main stream film. For the most part, horror has been dominated with the unique indie horrors running around the last few years.

But that isn’t the only reason it was a big deal. It was also noted that it was rated R, not for gore, violence, nudity, language, or anything else. Just R for being too scary. Now, obviously, there are a lot of problems with the people who rate films. But that is still a rather unique reason to give something an R reason and hasn’t really been done much at all before or since then.

The Conjuring had a lot of hype behind it. So much hype that they didn’t just announce The Conjuring 2, but several spin-off movies, which is why we now have the shit fest that is Annabelle. It’s badness didn’t ruin the doll from the first film thankfully.

There is a lot of pressure on James Wan the director, because he can’t go and make a PG-13 sequel. Nor can he resort to gore just to force the R. He had to try and make something just scary enough without cheap methods to get his rating. And well, going into it, I only know that it received the R for “terror and horror violence.” Good job Wan. I hope I am shaking in my boots.

Good thing I have a nun fetish, or else this might have terrified me.

Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are a ghost exercisting (?) power couple, kicking ass and taking names. You know that, you saw the first film. They also helped all of that Amityville stuff, which you will see parts of early on in this film. During that, Lorraine gets a bad vision that shuts her down for awhile, but they still keep chugging along, albeit at a slower pace.

Across the pond, however, in the Enfield borough of London, England, a family is about to have a real bad time. The Hodgson family is a poor family, led by their mom (Frances O’Connor) who is raising four children on her own, because the father has walked out on them for another lady. Jeez. Her oldest are daughters, Margaret (Lauren Esposito) and Janet (Madison Wolfe), and then two sons, Johnny (Patrick McAuley) and Billy (Benjamin Haigh).

Things begin to go bump and clang in the night. Toys play with themselves. At first you assume poor stuttering billy will be the child in danger, but nope, it is Janet, who starts to sleep walk and yell at unseen demons, getting sick and quite violent. Oh shit, demons and a haunted house, again!

And the Warrens are the couple, reluctantly, who will help make things better. Man, it is really hard to kind of hype a haunted house / demon possession plot line. There are a lot of them after all.

The neighbos in London are played by Maria Doyle Kennedy and Simon Delaney. The local ghost expert is Simon McBurney, a different more skeptical ghost expert is Franka Potente (Hey, that’s Lola!), and Bob Adrian plays the main mean ghost guy!

And those pajamas were played by the same cloth that used to used to be a sail on a pirate ship!

James Wan is a really clever dude. He is consistently making better quality horror films than anyone else out there. I don’t even really like the Insidious films, but I recognize the passion and quality that went into them. I mean, he made the first Saw film! What a scary dude!

And he keeps the scares coming in this sequel. This is not like Annabelle. Fuck Annabelle. This is scary, this is well crafted, this has heart.

Horror films tend to start off of slow, a rare scare here and there, with moments in between scares to calm yourself down, usually before a hectic finale. Well, the scares are everywhere in this film. When I found myself in a time between scares to settle, it sometimes had scares of their own, keeping me on my toes. Hell, it had so many scares, I was even afraid to just hold onto my cup for a drink, thinking I’d shriek and spill it.

And when I say this is well crafted, I can’t believe the camera work for what is a mainstream horror film. The first time we see the house, the camera pans around with the family going about their day, zooming in and around rooms, around furniture, up the stairs, everyone feels like a big open house where tons of mischief can take place. The scenes are so well set up it is a delight on the eyes, even when there is something ghastly on the screen. The best scene was between Wilson and the demon, all one nice long shot, with a single focus and a lot of creepy atmosphere.

I was also excited that the polished look of the film didn’t take away from the fright. If something looks too produced, it can take someone out of the film. And in a lot of horrors, they make it look grainier, or extra dark, or whatever. But this movie wants you to see everything and it adds so much to the overall experience.

And sure, yeah, there are jump scares. But these are high quality jump scares. Jump scares you can see coming and have appropriate build up and aren’t completely random just for the cheap thrill. And audio based jump scares as well. The sounds? They will make you squirm.

Despite my rating, it isn’t perfect. I thought a few lines were cringe worthy, and Farmiga wasn’t on her A-Game. Which is a shame, given how excellent she is in Bates Motel.

I think the only reason I wasn’t scared going to sleep after watching this movie, is because I have had a shitty sleep week and couldn’t help but pass out despite glaring at the shadows in my room.