Tag: Adrian Martinez

I was wrong! Recently I released reviews for all of the Disney remakes this year (2019 for you future folk), all together instead of spaced out throughout the week. It was Dumbo, The Lion King, and Aladdin.

Silly me, it looked like only three remakes would occur from Disney in this year. But as Yoda says, there is another.

Lady and the Tramp was probably meant to go to theaters at some point, but they realized it didn´t have as big of a draw as other remakes, and instead decided to just put it out on Disney+ as an opening day movie.

Heck, I saw it up there and for some days just assumed that it was a TV series. Well its out, and here is a damn rushed review.

Aww, look at the little puppy. Someone pet her right now!

Jim Dear (Thomas Mann) and Darling (Kiersey Clemons) are an American rich couple living in a nice house/city in the early 1900´s. If I had to guess, I´d say 1920´s or 30´s based on the cars at the time, and no talk of war. No one finds this weird, so let us move on! They also recently got a puppy that they named Lady (Tessa Thompson).

Well Lady has lived a privileged life, hanging with her neighbor dogs (Sam Elliott, Ashley Jensen), getting collars, and nice food. But her owners are pregnant and a baby is on the way. A scrappy dog named Tramp (Justin Theroux) warns her that babies mean bad news for doggies.

Sure enough, it does, because the owners are overwhelmed. Thanks to a trip and some cats and some confusion, Lady finds herself collar-less, and in the big city, having to rely on Tramp to save her from the dogcatcher (Adrian Martinez). This is also where she will learn that even the scrappiest of dogs have good hearts. Just not cats, they suck.

Also starring Yvette Nicole Brown, and the voices of Janelle Monae and Benedict Wong.

Let´s face it, this is the only reason you are here. 

In the original Lady and the Tramp, not a lot happens. It is a product of its time, no one is really too evil. We have a dog catcher, some cats, and a rat. And that is very much true here as well.

There are not many changes from the source material. Jock is now voiced by a woman, whatever. The couple is interracial and the town very diverse, really weird for the time, but again, whatever. They changed the Siamese cats, which makes sense, to two regular cats and they have a very different song. If they had to change one thing, that is the big one. Oh, and there is no Beaver.

So what we have is basically just a regular remake. Nothing fundamentally different, nothing new to offer, just showing it in a new way. And honestly, it looks really great. The CGI pets are all really well done, and the voice acting is not as jarring as it was for The Lion King.

The spaghetti scene was cute and the songs were fine.

I am giving this movie an average review, basically because of how nice it looks. It is not going to blow you away, it does not change the game, and it is not going to get an serious consideration for watching in my own household. But if they had to remake something and not completely make it worse, this is a good way to go about it.

I almost went to a screening of Focus. I swear. But then Fifty Shades of Grey got in the way, and the only other screening of Focus I could find was during a week I just didn’t want to go to anything. It happens.

And I will admit that I didn’t care about missing it either. I am still a white person, so I of course still really like Will Smith, but a lot of his movie choices recently have been quite disappointing. We all know about After Earth. He was in a small role in Winter’s Tale, which was a bad movie despite his relatively interesting role in it. He turned down Django Unchained. But hey, at least he is in Suicide Squad coming up? That is something unique and new for him.

I am probably still just a little bit bitter that he isn’t going to be doing Independence Day 2.

Or maybe, maybe what I miss the most is rapping Will Smith. If he would release a new single to go along with a movie, I would be sooooo happy. But for all I know, there is no secret Will Smith song in Focus. And thus, disappointment.

Not even Tar Heel themed drinks can make me forgive the lack of rap.

Con movie! That means stylish suits, stylish cars, big money, big boobs, and a lot on the line. It is like a gambling movie, but generally a lot more illegal.

Nicky (Will Smith), son of a famous con man, is a con man himself, because why not. This chick, Jess (Margot Robbie) hits him up at a bar and they go to do the nasty, when someone tries to rob them. Oh man, it is con. But you can’t con a con man they say in every movie where a con man gets conned.

Well, Jess likes Nicky more and wants in on his conning. So they give her a trial run and she helps out a lot of stealing of wallets and stuff. Not exciting. But their organization doesn’t work on he big con. It works on tiny things. It brings all the items and money, puts them through a third party, makes cash on the items, and of course divides it up among everybody. A nice secure organization.

And then you know, con plot line involving race car drivers (Rodrigo Santoro) their body guards (Gerald McRaney) and other big business men (BD Wong) eventually. It gets there, just wait for it. Also featuring Adrian Martinez as one of the con people. He is the one you want him to notice.

Although he becomes invisible next to a fat stack of cash. Can YOU see him?

After the fact, this movie feels incredibly disappointing. Not After Earth levels of disappointing. Just a regular amount. I don’t understand the love for Margot Robbie in things, because she is also in Suicide Squad with Will Smith. She was super naked and annoying in The Wolf OF Wall Street and I literally know no more of her roles. I could look them up, but that is besides the point.

This movie moved slow. A lot of fun cons didn’t happen. I’d say one middle one was fun, but that was it. One fun and interesting con.

Any twists and turns are either boring or super expected. That is a problem with con movies. You can’t expect anything anymore, so unless it is super creative, like an Ocean’s Eleven situation, it is basically easy to guess.

And a con movie is all about the surprise. The biggest surprise here is that it wasn’t straight to DVD.

The first trailer for The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is probably one of the best trailers of the year. Watch it, if you haven’t.

The next one was far more typical of a trailer, but it was still decent. Even better, the song in the trailer was actually used in the movie, a rarity these days.

The only thing I knew about this movie is that it took forever to get made, and it is based roughly on a short story written by James Thurber in the 30s. The next decade, it actually had a movie adaptation as well. I am pretty sure this is nothing like the short story, but eh, who gives a shit.

Look at all the fucks I give about the short story.

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) manages the negative assets of the Life magazine department. I don’t know what that means, really, but it involves receiving the print rolls of cameras, and using the negatives to put in the magazine. He only has one employee, Hernando (Adrian Martinez), so it is pretty slow, and only one photographer still uses an actual camera. That photographer is of course Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), a freelance photographer, and one of the best in the biz.

However, when the announcement that Life magazine is switching to an online only format, with some asshat manager Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott) coming in to handle the downsizing, it is unfortunate that Sean sends what he calls the epitome of Life magazine and an image that must be on the front cover. Especially since he telegrams the heads of the office and inform them of it too. The only reason it is an issue, of course, is because the picture in question seems to be missing from the film.

So what is a constant day dreamer to do? Why, go and find Sean in person of course, even if it means traveling halfway around the world to do so. At the same time, he is trying to build up his online dating resume, to do something cool with his life, to win the interests of one of his coworkers, Cheryl (Kristen Wiig).

Starring Shirley MacLaine as his mother, Kathryn Hahn as his sister, and Patton Oswalt as an overly helpful E-Harmony customer service representative.

I mean, I am a huge Adam Scott fan, but this beard is terrible.

Well, as expected, this movie sure was purdy. It had scenery from Greenland, Iceland, Afghanistan and more. Beautiful as fuck, really.

Not only was it pleasing on the eyes, both in terms of his fantasies and actual exploits, but it had a great soundtrack as well. Every time a new song played, it felt perfect.

Ben Stiller gets a lot of flack amongst my friends, but I always tend to enjoy him. I mean, did you see him in Heavy Weights? He treated this movie like a child, it being only the fifth movie he has directed. Everything really works together in this movie, and one of the best parts is that once the missing picture is found, it isn’t disappointing.

Sean Penn has only a small role in this movie, but his character was amazing in his only few scenes. Incredible impact for such little screen time.

As the film progressed, the day dreams became fewer and farther in between, and you get spoiled by most of them from the trailers. During the long fight scene between Ted and Walter, the CGI was a bit shaky, I am guessing because there weren’t any other action shots to worry about.

Overall, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is a great feel good movie, about living in the moment, and doing something important with your life. Yay happiness!

I don’t think the readers here are ready for this. I just don’t.

A Spanish movie, made by Americans, in America. Where we speak American, damn it!

First time I have put up the language tag without the “Foreign” tag. Because this is all USA baby. Just in Spanish.

Yeah, you were not ready for Casa De Mi Padre.

Gay cowboys eating beans around a campfire. Oscar gold.

Armando Ernesto (Will Ferrell) is the not so smart son of a rancher, and has lived at home his whole life. He has simple needs and pleasures, and loves spending times with his other ranch hand friends, Esteban (Efren Ramirez) and Manuel (Adrian Martinez). But his father, Miguel (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) is upset about something, but won’t tell his son about it, mostly because of his incompetence.

But thankfully, Raul (Deigo Luna) returns! Raul is the younger brother who left home some time ago and he looks rich and successful. Huh, wonder where it all came from? So does Armando. Miguel doesn’t care though, because his younger son is a smart man. Not to mention he brought Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez) and plans on wedding her the next day. Hooray, family growth!

Armando is super suspicious of all of this and of Sonia, she just looks like a money grabbing whore. But of course the suspicion leads to spying, and secret jealously and love. Come on Armando, don’t screw your brother like that. Even if he actually is dealing with drugs, and thus has the local cartel leader Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal) coming by to kill everyone, and also problems with the US DEA agents like Agent Parker (Nick Offerman).

Just by saying Nick Offerman, you should know exactly what kind of character he plays in this movie.

Alright readers, it is very possible I too was not ready for this movie. I just expected a normal comedy, set in Spanish though. I am fine with that. I don’t hate that. It’s weird, but could be good too. But what this ended up being is a larger parody/satire on the entire telenova experience, which is something I have definitely never experienced. Sure, I heard they were overly dramatic, basically soap operas amped up a bit.

Quite a few jokes probably relied on realizing the ridiculousness of it all, and this movie adding even more to that fact. But without knowing that? There will be few laughs. I noted that there was badly edited scenes, one in particular I loved was this fight scene involving coyotes and pumas, but the real humor will come in the smaller details. The scenes keeping the camera on the persons face just a little bit too long. Pretty much all the scenes just going on a little bit too long. Not to mention people getting offended quite easily.

Oh and the songs. There are two and there songs out of no where. Probably common place in Mexico, I don’t know. Hell, the Spanish might not have been real Spanish and I wouldn’t even know. So many layers of comedy I just couldn’t get, I think I have to watch this movie a second time to get a better grasp on it all. But for now, lets keep it neutral. Definitely a different film experience than you are used to from Will Ferrell.