Tag: 4 out of 4

If I told you four years ago that not only would a 21 Jump Street comedy be made, but that Jonah Hill would be involved, and they’d have a sequel called 22 Jump Street, you would have kicked me in the nuts. Then publicly shamed me for being a terrible person. You also may have been slightly confused at the oddly specific-ness of that foretelling.

For all intents and purposes, 21 Jump Street should not have done as well as it did. But it ended up being funny, making a lot of money, and here we are. And this time, they don’t care what you think.

Picture speaks for itself.

College! That is where our heroes, Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) are going. Same aliases. There is a new new drug that has its own list of side effects that killed a girl. So they are going to infiltrate the dealer, find the supplier and take them down. Hmm, same plot too.

But this time it is different. Because in College, people can be free thinkers. You also don’t need a hall pass.

This time, Jenko is going to try out for football looking for dealers, where he meets the quarterback Zook (Wyatt Russell), who is basically Jenko’s clone and instant best friend.

Schmidt is going the art kids route, looking for drama and poetry geeks who might be hitting the WHYPHY up hard. That is where he meets Maya (Amber Stevens) and gets a girlfriend out of it. It isn’t creepy like the last movie, because she is of age.

But no! It is not just the same! After all, their bosses are still played by Ice Cube and Nick Offerman. Because that makes sense. But the new thug bad guy is Peter Stormare. That is different. Not to mention we have people from Workaholics, like Jillian Bell and uhh. That might be it.

Basically, what is important though is that they have the same blanket set as I do in real life.

After viewing, I determine that 22 Jump Street was like one very long and elaborate inside joke. That would be annoying normally, but here is the good news. You are in on the joke, too. It all makes sense, because you are a person who saw the first film and understands that everything probably has an extra layer of meaning to it.

That’s right. This film is really aware of itself/meta/whatever you want to call it. And it will beat you over head with the jokes and at least for me, it didn’t get stale at all. Not only did it just keep building and building, along with an increase in action, but they didn’t even stop when the movie ended. It had to be one of the more amazing/funny credits I have ever seen. And they didn’t even fill the credits with dumb outtakes or anything.

Tatum might just be a comedy guy. Hill’s character had its moments, mostly dealing with one fight scene near the end and his interactions with Ice Cube, but Tatum had so many laugh out loud lines and moments. Only a few were shown in the trailer. The “lightbulb” scene with Tatum might be the funniest thing I have seen in a movie in over a year. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.

I feel like I am giving out this rating far too much over the last few weeks, but seriously, movies are really earning their keep this summer. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are comedy gods and they should be worshiped as such.

For those with a lot of courage, you may have seen my review for How To Train Your Dragon. Why courage? because that review is old and weak and it certainly shows. It is weak because it was one of my first 100, which I made in like a month by adding words from my facebook status reviews that they came from. And because I tried really hard to avoid spoilers that basically didn’t exist.

Basically, parts near the end bugged me so much it lowered an overall fantastic movie to a meh movie. I still haven’t rewatched it for that reason.

But now we have the sequel, How To Train Your Dragon 2. This one perfectly allows for the crap that happened in the first to not happen again, because now we are based with the assumption that dragons are awesome, and we should train them.

Yeah. So you can stoically sit on top of them doing zero tricks. Good job, guy.

Set five years after the events of the first film, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is still a god amongst mortals in his small Viking town. Although technically not immortal, he does have cyborg parts now and a flame sword. So I mean, basically. He has his dragon, and now he is exploring more and more areas outside of the small town. After all, with dragons they now have the ability to explore, because Vikings rarely explored on their own.

While exploring he finds…dragon nappers! And giant sheets of unnatural ice through a fort. The nappers are lead by Erit (Kit Harington), who is collecting dragons with his crew for the great and powerful Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou). A mad man who claims to be able to control all of the dragons and wants to use them to take over the world. Your typical desires from an awkwardly darker skin character than everyone else in an animated movie.

Oh no!

It becomes up to Hiccup to use his excellent cyborg dragon abilities, and excellent sized human heart, to save the day. Especially if he can use the help of the mysterious dragon lady (Cate Blanchett), who you already know everything about if you watched the trailers. But in case you didn’t, you are welcome.

A lot of returning characters, such as his dad (Gerard Butler), the smithy (Craig Ferguson), his lady friend (America Ferrera) and his other friends (Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller). And of course, dragons.

And that is how I met and trained your dragon master’s mother.

First off, after the success of the first movie, DreamWorks starting thinking long term about this as a new franchise. So they put into development this sequel and a third film, at the same time. Which is why there was a four year delay between 1 and 2 (heavy CGI movies take a long time if done right (meaning not Planes)), but only two years before the third movie comes out.

Speaking of DreamWorks, I have hated or thought meh towards their last six movies. That is insane. Literally haven’t had a winner since Kung Fu Panda 2. Thankfully, How To Train Your Dragon 2 turned that downward spiral around. And I don’t just mean clockwise to counterclockwise, I mean up. Like a daring dragon flying maneuver.

This sequel has a lot going on for it. The CGI is extraordinary, which is probably too fancy of a word to describe it, but it really is gorgeous. They spent a lot of time and detail on every character, every scene, every dragon. Speaking of detail, the backgrounds of scenes are rarely pointless. They either showcase great scenes, or have hidden jokes and tomfoolery going on in the background as other characters are talking. It was awesome.

To avoid this wall of text, here is a bonus picture. Just. No. Bonus. Joke.

There is a lot of humor, there is a lot of character growth, there are more than one touching moments, and there is a lot of daring fight scenes. In fact, there were some terrifying scenes, and some darker moments, including some potentially heavy material for a PG movie. One drowning scene in particular still makes me shudder.

I will say there are some issues I found in terms of messages they are trying to convey. I think some parts of the ending directly contradict information said earlier in the film, a similar message given to us by Pokemon: The First Movie – Mewtwo Strikes Back.

But overall? Shit, this thing is enjoyable. Minor moral issues aren’t a big problem. The 3D only seemed blurry in the first scene of the film, so that is good.

For those who have saw it, I made a theory halfway through the movie on how the third one might go, and the ending seemed to solidify it. I’d love to talk to anyone in private about my theory, but if it goes the way I hope, then yeah, it will be epic. But this is all jibberjabber at this point. Awesome flick, and probably going to be one of the top 3 animated movies this year (to go with The LEGO Movie, and The BoxTrolls, based on its fantastic trailers alone).

X-Men, oh X-Men, where art thou X-Men?

This is the seventh film of the franchise. SEVENTH. X-Men: Days Of Future Past. When I first heard about this, I was excited. It was a very ambitions plot and storyline to go for, time travel tends to do that. Couple that with the fact that X-Men: First Class was actually decent meant the series might be headed off in a certain way.

But you know what was terrible? The advertisements for this movie. By having two time lines of cast, we have a shit ton of characters, and Fox decided the best way to advertise it was to give every character its own…thing, whatever. So, magazines would have 30 unique covers, or 30 individual character posters, or whatever. No giant cast pictures, no, just an overabundance of individual character shit.

Here is one of the real reasons this bugs me. Anna Paquin. It was stated a long time ago, in the year of 2013, that she was basically cut from the movie. Then it became a rumor. Then it became true and then changed to say that she would just be a cameo. Just a cameo? And still getting full ad treatment? Boo. That is almost worst than the 47 Ronin ad issues, because she is supposed to be a bigger character.

Finally, in the credits, her name was higher than many other people in the film. Because she is more famous? Than Ellen Page? Fuck that. She was in the original X-Men movies then a shitty TV show, while Page has had a big lucrative film career. It is just nonsensical, and most of this doesn’t matter for the actual movie.

No, but these robots matter. AW YEAH SENTINELS!

In the near future, everything is bad, lots are dead. Mutants. Humans who would give birth to future mutants. The sentinels have destroyed it all. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) has an unexplained ability to also let people go back in time with their consciousness to their body and like, change the future. But only for a few days, maybe a week. This is long enough to help their band of mutants survive and run, but not long enough to fix it.

No, they’d have to go back to the 1970’s, before Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) (who’s actual mutant power seems to be very limber leg maneuvers) kills the creator of the Sentinels (Peter Dinklage). But the process to send back a consciousness would tear apart a brain. Unless of course, the brain can heal itself. Hmm.

Enter Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) ready to travel back in time, convince past Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and past Xavier (James McAvoy) to work together, change the future, and fix their stupidity.

Here is where I talk about everyone in the film, but in one giant paragraph. Maybe the new people first? Like, Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Toad (Evan Jonigkeit), Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Sunspot (Adan Canto) and Warpath (Booboo Stewart).

Of course we have Old Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Old Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Storm (Halle Berry), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and of course ROGUE. Just kidding. Bullshit cameo.

Do we get Jean Gray (Famke Janssen), Cyclops (James Marsden), or Old Beast (Kelsey Grammar)? Well, maybe.

I will only advertise one character per picture, as per movie tradition.

Yay Sentinels! Like a lot a folks in my age bracket, the Sentinels were one of the first X-Men plots I was exposed to, thanks to the first two episodes of the X-Men Animated TV Series on Fox. Shit, that is where I learned most of my basic plot lines, and why to fear the motherfucking Juggernaut. They were fascinating to see and I love the changes made to them. They were TERRIFYING and kept the viewers on the edge of the seat.

What else rocked? Most of the movie. Sure, some plot elements could have been explained better. But the Xavier/Magneto back story was great, a good continuation from First Class. Speaking of dickheads, Fassbender as Magneto is a huge one, and it was awesome to see. The best part is, you can easily relate to where he is coming from and he isn’t just a mindless villain.

Speaking of even more awesome, Fox’s adaption of Quicksilver was so entertaining. He didn’t have the bigger role in the movie, but whenever he was on screen, you paid attention to him and no one else. They really went all out to make him stand out, kind of a big middle finger to Marvel, daring them to raise the bar in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

To make this long review a bit shorter, here is the quicker analysis: So many characters, but outside of tiny cameos, they all were great and wonderful. Special effects and action was good. Story and plot was good. Holy shit, give me Apocalypse.

Did this 100% fit the continuity issues between a few of the movies? Heck no, but at least it gave it a good try and an entertaining one to boot.

Who doesn’t love an older franchise getting a reboot? Well, older Godzilla fans for one. They probably wouldn’t even consider this movie a reboot, just a continuum in the long storied history of the Godzilla franchise. But me? Sure, it is a reboot. We all remember the 1998 Godzilla. Even you in the corner probably remember it. I don’t care how many movies came out since then in Japan, if any. I only know there was a sixteen year gap between this one and the old one, and no characters are the same.

Well, one character is the same, I guess.

But fuck those older movies. This one is newer! With graphics!

State of the art Robot Graphics!

The year? 1999. Probably to mess with the other movie a bit. Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is working at a nuclear reactor in Japan as a head Engineer, noticing some seismic waves, when holy crap, big disaster occurs! People die, questions are raised, and maybe, the whole thing is covered up.

Fast forward to now! Fifteen years later! Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Joe’s son is now a grown up, just a lad during the incident. He is in the armed forces, a bomb diffusion-er. I guess you can say he is good at calming high intensity situations. He is just arriving back home to see his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and kid when he has to go BACK to Japan to get his father out of jail.

He is now a conspiracy junkie and snuck back into the heavily radiated area they had to leave. Well, Ford joins his dad on a mission to go back to the plant, when holy crap, big disaster occurs! People die, questions are raised, and maybe, the whole thing is covered up. Just kidding, video footage gets out, at least one giant monster exists and it is about to fuck up a lot of shit!

But what do these creatures have to do with the mysterious Monarch group, lead by our only major Japanese character Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and his three lined assistant (Sally Hawkins).

Also, the role of Godzilla is played by Brian Posehn.

It has often been prophesized that Posehn given enough radiation could cause this must destruction.

I think I have admitted to past to not really caring about the large raging lizard known as Godzilla. I can’t get into those movies, despite having multiple friends who have been raving about them and awaiting this movie for a few years.

However, I am a fan of really well done, exciting and entertaining movies. So, I guess I am a pretty huge damn fan of this movie. Godzilla is only right around two hours and never really has any pacing issues. Do you get to see giant creatures battling in the first thirty minutes? No, of course not, but the build up and the human drama early on really set the tone for what was going to go down. Shit, Bryan Cranston’s role isn’t that big in this movie, but he damn near made me cry with his own intensity.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson has had a pretty good movie career over the last few years, some good movies, some bad ones, but usually solid acting. In this one, he mostly displayed a calming silent attitude when faced with near death situations, but I think it worked out well.

But who cares about HUMANS when we have giant monsters FIGHTING? Were the fights great? Yes. There are fights rhgouhout the movie, although some of them are teased or kept intentionally dark to only give you snippets, but by the end it is definitely worth it. A lot of fan service here for Godzilla junkies along with chances for easily made sequels in the future.

Even more exciting is the science! Obviously it isn’t 100% correct, because we’d probably have Godzilla-esque things now. But for the movie, it seemed to work out pretty well in my mind. Yay reasonable science in a movie!

Looking at the summer schedule, Godzilla is likely to be the best “disaster film” of the next few months.

Video on Demand is starting to be my favorite thing. A lot of indie movies are doing it now. Living in a place without indie movies, I have had to wait for DVD releases all the time. But Video on Demand lets me give them some actual money, and watch it at home in my own luxury.

This has let me watch Joe, a movie recommended to me.

I had no idea who was in it and what it was about either, so, another mysterious watch!

But it has railroad tracks, and you know what they say about railroad tracks.

Aw shit, it is based on a book. Oh well, hopefully no one actually read it.

Despite being named Joe, this movie is kind of really about Gary (Tye Sheridan). Gary needs a job for him and his dad (Gary Poulter). They move around a lot, just an honest labor job would do.

Gary finds Joe (Nicholas Cage). Joe works secretly for a logging company. They have forests that have some non useful trees in them. They basically poison the weak trees so they die, so that they can be replaced with an ideal lumber. Under the table, maybe illegal, but it pays nicely.

But Joe isn’t necessarily a great man. He used to be a con, gave it up for real work. He still made a lot of enemies. He has a huge distrust of cops. But he likes Gary. Gary works hard.

He doesn’t like Gary’s dad though. That man is an alcoholic and doesn’t do anything worthwhile. Despite the kinship, Gary might do better away from his dad. Looks like we have a lot of southern drama to look forward to with this film.

Also there is a Ronnie Gene Blevins and Adriene Mishler in this movie. Also a lot of locals from the area, but I don’t remember their names from the movie, and they don’t have IMDB photos, so uhh. I can’t really tag them.

Size does matter.

The absurdly big picture is there for a reason. Look at it. Bask in its glory. Look at that beard. It is lush and it is on Nicholas Cage’s face.

There are a lot of Cage haters out there, and honestly, a lot of that is probably valid. He has definitely been in a lot of terrible movies, but also quite a few good ones. He is just the type of guy willing to do anything and try any new role. This is basically just another new role he has tried and it worked very well.

Cage was really fucking good in this movie. It reminded me a bit about Mud, because it had a mysterious con man being the role model for some kids. Awkward enough, Tye Sheridan was the kid in Mud too. Also set in the south, 3 letter title about the main adult lead, and all that.

In fact, I think it’s better than Mud. There is more than just drama, but a lot of heartfelt scenes, and some surprising action too. This movie doesn’t hold your hand to explain every little thing. It is just really fucking good.

So there you go, for the first time in a long time, a really highly rated Cage movie.

Indonesia must be the most violent place on Earth.

At least it appears that way in movies. I have only seen two now that take place in there, The Raid: Redemption and its sequel, The Raid 2.

The Raid 2 is 150 minutes and a very significant portion of that is action heavy. This movie is definitely not for the faint of heart, as it is violent, gruesome, and just so dang fast. I know I have said that before, but this might be one of the most real examples.

Things sure have gotten rough for Michael since Lost. Will he ever fine Walt?!

I probably should have watched The Raid again before watching this movie. I really don’t remember much of the plot, since the plot aspects actually were pretty poor in the first film. But this time? This time they want plot. The plot itself is more detailed, with quite a few more characters, some backstories, some personal issues and the like. I guess that is why the run time is so long, to fit all this extra plot in the film. Note: Plot is not the reason to watch this movie.

This takes place right after the plot of the first film. Rama (Iko Uwais) succesfully took down the tower, and is talking to the only supervisor he can trust, Bunawar (Cok Simbara). Well, Bunawar cleans up the leftover messes, despite Rama’s surprise. He wants Rama to join his team, undercover, to help clean up the dirty cops in the city. He refuses. Until one of his family members is killed as a result of his own earlier actions.

Shit. He is in.

So he has to get sent to jail to meet Uco (Arifin Putra), son of Bangun (Tio Pakusodewo), the local crime boss from the area. He needs to infiltrate their organization by befriending the son and hopefully get a list of names of corrupt cops. He knows that one head cop Reza (Roy Marten) is clearly bad, but without knowing the rest, there cannot be a cleanse.

But what ends up happening is Rama gets caught up in a gang turf war between the two rulings gangs, and a third new gang lead by Bejo (Alex Abbad) who wants to make his mark by going straight to the top. Can he survive and put an end to all of the threats?

Also featuring a slew of characters, such as the return of Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian)! We also get a second in command Eka (Oka Antara), and some very intense hit men: Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle), Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) and The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman).

Basically one of the people is a real life Talim from Soul Calibur!

Technically, this is a bit of a hard film to give any real analysis to, because there are only so many words I know that mean “gruesome” and “fuck yeah violence”. There isn’t much else to say really outside of that for the action. Some of the best action scenes I have ever seen, just a bit cringey at times (note: most times). The first hour or so could have probably been cut some. A lot more plot vs action in that part, although it featured some sad moments. Thankfully the entire movie didn’t take place in prison like I thought it might. Only had two fight scenes in there, although the mud one was a whole tier on its own. Only thing I wish about that scene was making it easier to tell who was who so early in the movie.

I’d like to think if a bunch of white people were caked in mud, I would have an equally difficult time.

This is the type of shit American action movies need to be like. Especially the serious ones. Action on type of action with some little bit of action on the side.

I am curious where the third film is going to go. Apparently it will take place two hours before the events of the end of this film? Initially, that sounds terrible. But oh well, as long as it looks cool while it happens, right?

Ah, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I will be honest. I wasn’t really looking forward to this movie when it was first announced.

I like the Captain, sure. But the next two movies are Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron. This one was just giving me more of an already established character. Still, I was excited enough about it to make a fake review for April Fools Day.

Being a comic book fan is sort of a double edged sword with these type of movies. On one side, it is great experiencing the comics come to life with large enough budgets to make every fanboy cry out in glee. But on the other side, we know the stories they are inspired by, so most likely the bigger plot twists and turns won’t be surprises to us.

Unless of course they create new unexpected ones like Iron Man 3, but that is a different story.

“Hey, stop moving so the camera can focus on your backside.”

The Winter Soldier begins by showing us what life is like for the one and only Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a national hero and now high up in S.H.I.E.L.D. He is doing missions around the world! But S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) have their secrets and Steve doesn’t really like secrets.

So when things start to get a little bit feisty at the headquarters in DC, Steve isn’t sure who he can trust. Can he trust the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) who is known for half-truths and deception? Can he trust Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) head of the World Security Council? How bout Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)?

Yeah, he is kind of in a sticky situation. The spy game sure has ramped up its deception since the 1940’s, so if he is going to protect the world from a hidden threat, he will need all the help he can get. This movie introduces a few future characters as well, like the titular villain The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Sam “The Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp).

Holy shit the Vult-err.. Falcon. Sorry. Good Guy Falcon, Bad Guy Vulture. Got it.

Being the fanboy that I am, I have been trying to be more critical of Marvel movies lately. Just because I squeal in delight over almost every one doesn’t mean they are perfect. They don’t all deserve perfect marks.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier deserves perfect marks.

Everything about this movie is so spot on spectacular that I have a hard time believing it is even real. Captain America: The First Avenger was a good movie on its own right, but one I have never really been in the mood to watch again. I can see myself watching The Winter Soldier many times once it releases, maybe more than I saw the first Iron Man. It literally might be my new favorite Marvel movie.

It is hard to find something that is negative about the movie. It is over two hours, but never drags. There is maybe only one scene I thought was a bit pointless, but it doesn’t affect the overall movie. There is a lot of action and all of it is so well put together, from the choreography to sound editing. The movie itself is a lot more serious than other Marvel films, but it still has the nice jokes and references throughout it to keep you happy.

Did I know the big reveal? Yeah. But knowing it didn’t take away from my experience at all in the movie. This excites me because it means I will likely enjoy future viewings.

My last point I guess would be about acting. Evans gave a strong performance as the lead, but the side characters as well were all quite good. Mackie didn’t have too big of a role, but he kicked its butt and I actually enjoyed the Falcon. Redford was great, Jackson was great. Everyone was great.

To me, this movie is like an Avengers 1.5. I don’t expect Guardians of the Galaxy to have too much impact on the current Marvel universe, so this is the perfect lead up to next May. This movie has made me beyond excited for the Marvel future, and definitely for the third Captain America in 2016. Although, knowing the comic plots, I kind of already know what is likely to happen.

Sometimes life is hard. I get that. Life is hard over here sometimes too.

But movies tend to be great escapes from life, telling great stories, increasing your imagination. But then we have documentaries that bring reality crashing back down. They remind us that things aren’t always easy in the world, or that things aren’t so bad.

Rotisserie Chicken is a Netflix original movie that was only available for one day through its services. Personally I think that is because people couldn’t deal with the truths that were being shown. It created such a broad range of emotions. Anger. Apathy. Giddiness. Confusion. Hysteria. Glee. Depression. I have never seen such a polarizing movie, not since Napoleon Dynamite or something by Terrence Malick.

Speaking of that, I heard Terrence Malick hates chicken. Get him!

The story itself is relatively simple. You have a cooked turkey, almost at the end of its journey in the afterlife. It is basically a retelling of the end of the journey, but in reverse, so you know the outcome before you begin. Never has a backwards story been so real (after all, a documentary), yet so relevant to the lives of almost everyone in the world.

The chicken, that was set up and forgotten in its prison, roasting.

You want character development/change? You get that in this movie! It is slow/gradual, but if you pay attention you can see the changes as they occur. If you look away, you might have missed a lot and are left wondering how you even got to that point in the first place. Definitely a film that commands your full attention.

For those unlucky enough to have missed this opportunity, I am not sure what I can say. I guess I hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass some day or cause you to live in regret. That would be terrible.

But really, you should feel regret if you missed it.

Hah. Wes Anderson. For those that don’t read every post I make, Wes Anderson is a strange guy for me. Every movie I reviewed for the site that he directed, I have love love loved. But that was only two movies. The other one I saw I just didn’t really get, and thought it was weird. Yet still, I was excited for this new one.

So excited, I am pretty pissed off that they forced The Grand Budapest Hotel to be a limited release. It broke some records for its release. Like, most money gained from a super super limited release. But only two cities? That is crap. There is no reason for that. I am lucky I even got to see it so soon as I had to drive three hours to see it, weeks after its “release date”. Maybe I am more annoyed because it wasn’t even advertised as a limited release, so I have to imagine it was just a last minute change.

But I guess I expected Anderson to be a dick if he could, so there is that.

This story in a story is about The Grand Budapest Hotel, as you might have guessed. It used to be a…grand old place, but recently, it has gone under some bad times. The clientele is no longer the elite, the staff is no longer extremely efficient, and really it is in shambles. That is why a young writer (Jude Law) is so interested to meet its current owner, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), to hear his story about he acquired the hotel and his vast fortune.

M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is a man amongst boys. He used to be the concierge, a god amongst men. Working morning to night, every day, he made sure the rich guests felt welcome at the hotel and would do anything to please them. Including the extremely rich Madame D (Tilda Swinton) who stays at the hotel for weeks every year.

Well, she dies, mysteriously. Also, her will was changed last minute as well it seems. Apparently M. Gustave was left her priceless painting, pissing off the ungrateful and evil family. Now, they also think M. Gustave killed her!

It is up to the help of his Lobby Boy, Zero (Tony Revolori) to help prove his innocence, get him out of jail, and in general, save the day!

Also featuring a shit ton of people. Here they are, roughly, in order of importance: Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldbloom, Saoirse Ronan, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson.

This scene represents birth.

Ahhhh, quirky Wes Anderson movie!

This one took a little bit to get going, trying to figure out just what the movie would be about. It takes place over three time periods, technically, so the story needs time to get started.

But when it does? Man. This movie was hilarious. Ralph Fiennes, although I don’t know how to say his name, is a terrific actor and a charismatic character in this film. You can’t take your eyes off of him whenever he is on the screen. And it works so well. Much laughter, much ridiculousness.

This film has a lot of Anderson standards, with his camera work and use of colors.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is also a bit more crass than his other recent movies. Some nakedness, some death scenes, all a bit extreme. But I think that made it a little bit better.

Definitely as good as the trailer made it seem to be, and one of the best early movies of 2014.

Hello there kiddos!

Remember my last review of The Muppets? No? Well, there it is if you want to click on it. If you don’t want to, I gave it a 2 out of 4. I never watched The Muppets as a kid, so I had no sense of attachment. It was an okay movie on its own.

So when I heard that it was getting a sequel with even more cameos, even more Muppets and an even more ridiculous plot? Well, sure, why the fuck not? Muppets Most Wanted. We got a spy movie folks.

Walter from teh first film still not necessarily important enough to make it into this shot.

So, the Muppets gang has been given a sequel. That must be true. Why else would the cameras still be rolling? They are still voiced by their normal people who voice a shit ton of them, so here they are in a list: Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, and Matt Vogel.

They decide that the plot of the movie should be the Muppets going on a world tour! The idea is actually suggested by Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), who might have ulterior motives for getting The Muppets around the globe. At the same time, the world’s most dangerous frog, Constantine, has broken out of his Siberian Gulag and has a plan. If he covers up his mole, he looks a lot like Kermit. He can make Kermit look like him, allowing Constantine to steal more treasure and live a rich life.

Mwhaha! The perfect plan! Especially when Kermit is back in Siberia, with a mean old guard Nadya (Tina Fey) watching his every move and a bunch of evil criminals (Ray Liotta, Jemaine Clement, Danny Trejo).

Oh, and they have an Interpol agent on their trail kind of. He is played by Ty Burrell.

Is all the celebrities? Oh fuck no. We got a lot of them. Hell, some of these guys I didn’t even recognize before. A lot of them are only up for a second or two. So I would list them, but that would ruin some of the surprise.

Man, this plot was super simple.

It is impressive how well they sing in those frigid temperatures!

Smiles. I had a smile on my face more or less the entire movie. Everything about it felt cute and wonderful. I only remember one of the songs from the last movie, while this time, a bunch of the songs will end up sticking with me. I mean. I really really enjoyed the movie.

Then the credits rolled and I saw that Bret McKenzie wrote it all! That’s right, we got the entire Flight of the Conchords crew working with this movie. Jemaine as an actor, Bret as the song writer. Last film he was only the music supervisor, not the writer. Also, the director James Bobin directed like, half of the FotC episodes. That’s a lot of quality humor going into this movie.

Which is why I smiled the whole film. It was completely ridiculous but it just seemed to work. The cameos were great and plentiful. The plot was absurd, but interesting. And shit, it was funny.

The last movie, again, I thought was okay and admitted I never really grew up on The Muppets. This time, some how, I loved the sequel and want more Muppets in my life.

Definitely go see this quirky movie, a new clear favorite of mine for the month of March. At least, for the films that came out as wide releases.