Tag: Aidan Quinn

The 5th Quarter had a weird effect on me. I knew the basic story: guy dies, older brother of guy changes number, and also Wake Forest wins a lot of games, despite not being good on paper.

Alright, so cliche’d sports movie. Right? Wrong. Because this is horribly done.

It also apparently popularized something similar to the Nazi salute.

So yeah, Luke (Stefan Guy) is a high school kid. On the football team. From a pretty tight family. Kisses and acknowledgement of love at every greeting/goodbye. But his ride home is in question, and instead of calling his mom, he accepts a ride from a fellow high schooler. OH THE HUMANITY. Because that guy goes off road, and puts Luke in the hospital. Severe brain damage.

Eventually his brother Jon (Ryan Merriman) gets all mopey, and eventually rejoins the wake forest football team. Changes number to 5. And like I said, Wake Forest wins a lot. They call the 4th Quarter now the 5th Quarter for more inspiration I guess, to give them an end of the game edge. The parents constantly hold their hands up, to represent the five. Andie MacDowell and Aidan Quinn do a good job of staying sad the whole damn movie. Then they lose at the Orange Bowl. But hey, at least they made it?

But is Mr. “I’m Playing For Two!” happy?

So here is what bugged me about the movie. The first 35 minutes. It took awhile for the accident to happen, a while for the hospital stuff to happen, and a long time for pre football to happen. Most of it was in montage form. Video of people being sad with music playing over it. Also a long extra story about the dangers of teenage reckless driving, and organ donation.

Then another montage, of the brother training. Why does he need a trainer? I dont know, because as far as I can tell he was always on the football team. BUt for some reason he needs more training, and thus more images and music.

Then football happens. Most if not all of the scenes of the football games are actual footage. The only thing they did is showed the parents in the audience, doing that hand shit over and over. Also some made scenes to include Jons character talking with others. Eventually everyone does the hand thing.

But do I care? No. The movie makes it hard to care. They seem to be trying to do something just to make you sad, without substance. The amount of times in the movie where very little talking occurs and just a background song going on, I’d need to raise two hands.

They took a familiar story, and pretty much trashed it to try and make it a dedication to Luke instead of an actual good story. The people should be punished for making a poor movie of an actual good story. Captain Hindsight tells me that they should have done a documentary movie instead. I mean, this was in 2006. Can have the actual people talk about the experiences, talking about Luke, and a nice dramatic voice guy going over the game /win highlights.

But nope. Instead some filth. Filth I tell you!

As a general rule of thumb, I say hooray to all movies based off of graphic novels. As a rule of my pinky, I usually say “Oh damn it, a movie with Megan Fox.”
Thus the overall rule of my hand is that I had no emotion towards Jonah Hex, except one telling me to continue to put it off until I get bored enough to watch it.

She is why we can’t have nice things.

Josh Brolin plays Jonah Hex, also known as the guy who can’t really die. They tried to kill him, but apparently some nice Indian folk brought him back to life. So he also, having spent time being dead, can now talk to the dead. That’s nice. With his touch, the dead come back until he lets go, and its good for interrogating. For some reason its easier to bring back people who have been dead for a longer time.

He was killed for turning his back on former Confederate leader Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), so Turnbull and his assistant, Michael Fassbender, killed his family, scarred his face and killed him. Or so he thought! Then Hex killed him back, or so he thought!

Later he is a bounty hunter, living on the DL. Sometimes screwing Megan Fox. But the US government wants to hire him, because Turnbull is assembling a great weapon designed by Eli Whitney, that can destroy a nation on the 100th anniversary of America. Aidan Quinn plays President Grant and Will Arnett a high ranking officer (hah!).

Trick is to not look him in the mouth.

So this movie has a lot of negative stigma behind it. I guess bad acting mostly being why. And it is true, casting choices didn’t make sense. Why is Will Arnett in a “serious” action movie? Or Malkovich. He was the oddest casting for me, as main bad guy. I don’t think it worked at all. The only decent role would be Brolin as Hex. I’d say Quinn as President, but he really didn’t have many scenes.

But interestingly enough I actually found a lot of the action early on great. It didn’t bog me down with a lot of back story at the beginning, but gradually showed it throughout the movie. Was great to get you right into the story. Unfortunately the action by the end was a lot less interesting than the beginning. So poor ending, poor acting. That is a poor movie.

Another Irish movie! But this time I didn’t know it was Irish. I mean. I could have guessed it from the title. A Shine of Rainbows? Rainbows make you two things, gold pots/leprechauns, or gay people. Image association at its finest. But I didn’t even think of the title, just wanted to try something different.

Because I care, damn it.

I mean, those kids brutally beat up and trap poor Lucky and steal his damn cereal. What is that shit? How can he live in a world like that? Hey. Lucky. It might not get better.

The movie is about a poor orphan boy played by John Bell. He is picked on by the other orphans, because he is smaller, even more of a ginger, has a kind of stutter, and you know. Isn’t manly yet. But that doesn’t stop that crazy lady, played by Connie Nielsen. After a lot of research she picks him to adopt, and quickly whisks him on a boat to Ireland. Hooray Ireland. Now he is a small town boy from the big city. Well, a familyless big city.

Things are bound to get better right? Yes.

Because his mom is awesome. She wears pretty clothes, wants to show him the whole world, and help him have the best life he could possibly have. But the dad, played by Aidan Quinn. He is disappointed, thinking she brought home the runt of the litter. He also has a bit of problem connecting with him, since he is just a kid and not his own son.

This is potentially a spoiler? But it also happens like halfway through the story, so I deem it necessary.

The mom ends up dying about halfway through the story, leaving the boy an obvious wreck. What am I talking about. The dad was more of a wreck, he knew her a lot longer, the boy only a few months, if that. But he is in a strange place, with a man who he thinks hates him. The dad is left with a “son” who would never have been his first pick, and seen more as a thing his wife wanted to help out with.

Can they become a family? CAN THEY?

There is also a few scenes with a sick Otter, which is not pictured, because I suck.

I thought the movie was both pretty sad and pretty wonderful. It has such a good message throughout it, and is very well acted. The kid is going to be in Battleship and that Hobbit thing, so apparently other people like him too. Definitely was a great “Random pick up”.