Tag: Amy Poehler

The House is one of those comedies that if we ignored, collectively, we would have forgotten it existed in about two weeks max.

Or at least that is how it affected me. I saw some previews, was turned off from the film each time (And the color schemes are godawful), and forgot it existed. The only reason I watched it was to see if it was one of the worst of the year, like some of those summer comedies end up being.

And I am sad to say that it isn’t even bad enough for that list. It is just a regular bad film, spoilers, that now I unfortunately will remember for at least two more months before forgetting again.

And there is more of those hideous orange lights.

Scott (Will Ferrell) and Kate Johansen (Amy Poehler) are a couple, and you really just have to trust me on this. Although they have no chemistry, they both are actors and this is a movie, damn it.

They are also proud of their daughter (Ryan Simpkins), who is about to finish high school, heading to college, smart smart smart. They were hoping to help pay for it through a community scholarship that is given out every year, and their baby is the favorite. But when it comes time to receive the funds, it turns out the town is out of the money, being spent on water parks instead.

Through silly plot reasons, and from their best friend (Jason Mantzoukas) who is in a rut (because all of his characters are in ruts), they decide to open up an illegal underground casino in his home. They will get some locals hooked, split and take home the difference. If they work all summer, they can earn enough to pay for all four years of college and not have to worry anymore!

Minus the fact that cops, the local board, and maybe even gangsters will want to shut them down. And cheaters and people who are genuinely dicks. But you know. Shenanigans.

Starring Nick Kroll, Allison Tolman, Rob Huebel, Rory Scovel, Lennon Parham, and Cedric Yarbrough.

Or…or! Or or or! They are very successful, no problems happen, and the movie ends happy. There’s a chance for that?

The problem with The House is there are some moments where I actually smiled, or found something amusing. Sure, these moments were few and far between, which would be one of the many reasons to give it this rating. But I would rather it just be completely unfunny and terrible, so I could just bash it much easier.

Instead I just need to talk about normal things. Like the nonexistent chemistry between our leads. Like Mantzoukas playing a character I have seen him do a dozen times. Like a very boring subplot of an affair in their extremely local government, boring villains and just boring plot in general.

People will watch this film for zany casino problems handled by people who can’t handle them at all. But this film is not led by people who are interesting in these positions, especially not by Ferrell who is just digging this uninteresting hole of roles the more he gets old.

Forget about The House, forget about this review, just forget it all happened, and then the movie might be better. When it is off of our collective minds.

I know I know, why would someone review Chipwrecked when it is in the middle awards caliber movie time? Why something from 2011 at the end of 2015?

Well, I like to review anything I watch that came out within the last 5~ years, that way my recreational viewing isn’t completely “wasted.” And I had to watch a bunch of these movies to prepare for Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, coming out soon! I can’t go into that movie without knowing what happened in the first three movies. I’d be missing out on hours of plot!

As a quick recap, I liked the first movie enough because of the Christmas and Witch Doctor songs. Classic, not just new pop music all chipmunky. It had a bad acting love interest though. The second film was bad, it felt like an episode of a TV show and very little happened. And Zachary Levi was downright terribad. Now we have Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, which I thought was…oh wait. Yeah. Review.

Hmm. Yeah, review. Let’s get on that. This is what the people want.

The gang all here? Dave (Jason Lee) is actually in this movie and not awkwardly replaced by someone who looks like a younger Dave. That’s good. And they are going on a vacation cruise to then go to some vague foreign country for an International Music festival! Huzzah!

We have Theodore (Jesse McCartney), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), Eleanor (Amy Poehler), Jeanette (Anna Faris), Brittany (Christina Applegate), and of course Alvin Alvin Alvin (Justin Long).

But guess what, they get annoying and bad things happen. Next thing you know, they are all stuck on a kite and headed out to sea! Oh no! Not Dave, he can’t be on a kite. But he does jump in after them to save him, getting himself into a pickle as well.

Next thing you know, they are on a deserted island. Not super deserted, because the chipmunks meet Zoe (Jenny Slate), who apparently is a female version of Cast Away and has been on the island for 8-9 years. She is very clean and has a sweet hut.

Eventually a volcano will happen and some other bad things. Simon gets bit by a poisonous spider, which changes his personality to the outgoing Simone (Alan Tudyk), who yes, apparently needs a new actor to speak for him.

Also David Cross is in this one, again, because they need more boring plot lines I guess.

Not to be confused with their sexually confusing plot lines.

The third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie ends up being everything I expected. Which was very little and and bad plot.

But hey, at least some of the songs were good. They packed a bunch in the first half, because they were too busy to sing when “scary” things were occurring. The songs are the only real redemable part.

The villain was lazy and dumb, especially when they already had a volcano. Bringing back Cross was a complete waste, although he ended up having the best lines. I am stoked he isn’t in the next film.

Technically this film seems like it is more about Simon and Jeanette, which is a good change from the Alvin/Brittany show. This makes me hope that the spotlight shifts towards Theodore/Eleanor in the next film, which would make its existence at least a little bit worthwhile.

Hopefully they make it more entertaining than just some catchy song choices and an actual good plot.

As this is my intro, instead of talking about Inside Out (and how sad I was there was no 2014 installment), I will just talk about the intro to Inside Out, a short called Lava.

Lava is about love, volcanoes, and tectonic shifts with hot spots. HOT SPOTS.

Obviously some liberties are taken, but it tells a wonderful love story, to great ukulele music, featuring real Hawaiians, and it will win Best Animated Short this year. You are hearing it first. It is better than Frozen Fever. It is better than Feast and Paperman.

It united all of my emotions into the orgasm phase of existence.

Fine, fine, back to the movie. Inside Out is really about a girl named Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), growing up and trying to find her place in the world. She has a loving mother (Diane Lane) and father (Kyle MacLachlan), and enjoys the long winters in Minnesota where she can play the greatest sport ever made: Hockey. But all of that is about to come to a comical screeching halt, when suddenly they are moving to San Francisco for some “work reason” that is stressful and new and different.

To find out what is really going on inside Riley’s head, we have to go inside her head. Heyy brain stuff! That is where her emotions live! Right when she popped out of the womb and opened her eyes, she giggled and laughed, because Joy (Amy Poehler) was her only worker. It was almost instantly followed by gloomy as fuck Sadness (Phyllis Smith). As she got older, she gained more emotions, including Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling).

Together, working in harmony, they can make a fully functional girl. An honest girl, with friends, and family, and hockey, and a goofy side, all making up her core memories. They also work on putting her memories into long term and bring back appropriate memories when appropriate.

But with a half cross country move to a smaller house, no friends, no frozen lakes for hockey, whats a girl to do? Well, apparently have her emotions go all crazy and bad things start happening to her right when she needs them to work together the most. Of course!

And where the heck is her old imaginary friend, Bing Bong (Richard Kind)? He is important, damn it!

“Bing Bong is dead now, sweetie, so eat your imitation Chinese food please.”

Did I mention how good Lava was? Five out of four stars. I want to buy a Blu-Ray with it on it, just so I can get a digital copy and watch it with ease wherever I go.

The good news is, Inside Out was also awesome! Given its subject matter, it should come to no surprise that my emotions were all over the place. Thankfully Anger didn’t really show up, but maybe I did have a little bit of Disgust and some Fear. But hey, the Sadness came into full fruition too. I cried three times during this screening. Once for Lava, twice for this movie. Using literal emotions, it did a fantastic job of controlling my own emotions to make it an overall wild ride.

The film starts out cute, gets happy, stays happy, then gets into the sadness/fear territory, but by the end, it returns you back to the cute/aww feels by the end. A perfect journey, basically. The voice actors did a wonderful job, Lewis Black and Mindy Kaling in particular felt perfect for their roles. And of course Phyllis Smith, a wonderful choice for Sadness, who I assume they also based her design around.

The “hero” of our story in young Riley is a nice change of pace. She is a normal girl and one that most people can probably relate to. Not to mention she plays Hockey, which I must again note plays a significant role in this film. Hockey is slowly creeping its way more and more into mainstream, and I thank Pixar for doing something different.

Last but not least, this movie is for everybody. There are plenty of jokes and fun parts for the kids, but also of course a lot of higher concepts for the adults out there. When dealing with the brain, you should be prepared to use yours, for at least a little bit.

Heh. Heheheheh. They Came Together. That title. Oh man. Oh boy.

I’m done. I can’t even think of a good intro because of that.

However, I would feel like an asshat if I didn’t first mention that this movie had already been reviewed on my website. Yah! Here is a link! Because I totally have guest reviews on my website, not a lot, but they are there. And from them, of the seven, one I had reviewed already, one I reviewed soon after, and this one I reviewed way way later.

I think I am just stalling.

Like how I am avoiding cleaning up my leaves in my yard.

This movie is your classic romcom. And that is how they sell it. It is literally a spoof movie on romcoms, and they basically say that in the opening scene.

It is your classic boy meets girl. Joel (Paul Rudd) is a big corporate man working for a candy shop. Molly (Amy Poehler) is a klutz and owner of an independent candy shop. Oh my goodness, conflict!

Joel has a long term girlfriend (Cobie Smulders) who doesn’t love him like he does. Molly has an ex-husband and a kid.

Joel has a best friend (Jason Mantzoukas) who introduces him to a girl from work. Molly also has a best friend (Melanie Lynskey) who also wants to do that same thing!

Joel has a group of best friends who help him decide relationship advice. Molly has a black coworker friend (Teyonah Parris) who helps her keep it real.

Joel also has to deal with his younger brother (Max Greenfield) who is busy following his dreams and not making a living. Molly has other options, like a banker (Ed Helms) who wants to get closer to her.

I think you get the gist. It has a lot more people in it too! Like Christopher Meloni, Bill Hader, Ellie Kemper, Michael Ian Black, Kenan Thompson, Jack McBrayer, and Ken Marino.

I don’t have a joke here. I just like the picture a lot. 🙁

I felt ridiculous writing this, because in all honesty, it was a ridiculous movie. I actually put off watching it for so long, because I thought I wouldn’t like it, or it would be as average as a romantic realistic indie movie. And hey, it was weird and unique! So that was good.

It is hard to find a nice spoof movie nowadays. And I think They Came Together gave one of the better attempts at it. I did laugh at quite a few of the absurdities, and found it pretty funny. But, by the end, I thought aspects of it were going too strong and the joke was losing its luster. A bit. You know? Maybe too much of a good thing. Hell, I even had a good time explaining some of the jokes to others, but I didn’t think this is a movie I could really watch again and enjoy it as much of the first time. I think it will quickly stale out.

This is all conjecture. I might love it forever. But if anything, these reviews are first impressions and my impressions can often change through time. I usually don’t like changing a review later, because who would notice and ehhh, apathy. This time I am pretty sure that I would only enjoy this movie once though. And that is why it is just an okay film in that regard. Without staying power, I don’t want to buy it. If I don’t want to buy it, then is it really that great?

I will admit, when I first saw the trailer for Free Birds, I chuckled at a few spots. The nameless government entities making a pun and laughing throughout the trailer was great. A movie about a dumb animal trying to save the world with other dumb animals might lead to a lot of just tongue in cheek situations or rampant fourth wall breaking or who knows what. The possibilities are limitless.

But they also are including time travel, a known killer of many movies, if they define a version that doesn’t make much sense. None of this “its a kids movie!” bullshit either. No, the story has to be somewhat coherent, or else shit is going down.

“Down like a Tom covered in poults.”
“Hey, that’s not a joke, witty, or remotely funny.”
“It would be if we were dealing with chickens, not turkeys!”

Reggie (Owen Wilson) is a freak. He is a smarter than your average turkey, which isn’t hard, because turkeys are dumb. But he is too smart, and refuses to eat and get fattened up for Thanksgiving, which causes the flock to throw him out. Luckily for him, he gets pardoned by the President, which apparently means he can sit around all day, not worry about getting eaten, and just watch TV and eat pizza.

Well, his new awesome reality comes crashing down when Jake (Woody Harrelson) takes him from his home! Oh no! Another Turkey, not some random dude named Jake.

He wants to infiltrate a secret base in Camp David where there is apparently a time machine. He wants to use that time machine to travel back in time to the first Thanksgiving, to take turkeys off the menu. Err okay. Well they do that. And the time machine named S.T.E.V.E. (George Takei), which was built for humans, can somehow understand the gobbles from turkeys.

Then they get there. The turkeys are just extremely obvious metaphors for American Indians, being hunted by the colonists, for this important feasts in a few days. Except these turkeys are all smart. That is right, they are saying turkeys became dumb due to domestication and Thanksgiving. So we have a bunch of smart turkeys and really only one dumb one, Jake. CAN THE TIME TRAVELING TURKEYS SAVE THEIR RACE FROM DESTRUCTION? Will he be able to score with Jenny (Amy Poehler), a smart enough turkey to not believe he is from the future? WILL HUMANS BE CAST AS THE BAD GUYS?

Or you know, will anything really cool happen? Eh.

Does this turkey look high to you?

Man, Owen Wilson I tend to hate at voice acting. Aka Cars and Cars 2. But he was able to show some emotion this time. Well done. Woody Harrelson sounded nothing like himself, so I want to assume that means he put effort into his lines. Having George Takei as navigator of sorts was a “I see what you did there” moment.

But enough about that, lets talk about the plot and other things I disliked. The beginning of the movie is very fast, so much that I’d be willing to bet that 85% or more of the movie takes place in the past, whereas the trailer had mostly set just getting to the time machine. A little misleading. Most of the best jokes were also in the trailer, including jokes that weren’t actually in the movie (due to splicing of the trailer into new jokes, not taking them out of the movie). Meh. I don’t think I would have liked it more if I didn’t see the trailer, however.

Making the turkeys in the past smart is lame. That leaves only one stupid character, and not the hordes of them that they implied in the trailer. That would allow it to have a lot more zany shenanigans! So, overall, the humor in this film isn’t really existent. The theater was practically silent for the most part.

The time travel itself is super sloppy. It was fine early on, but they went back to the present, and all sorts of stuff started to occur that don’t make sense based on how they defined time travel earlier in the film.

The ending is horrible. It just…it just isn’t good. The conflict doesn’t happen, despite a resolution. The resolution leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

So we got an unfunny movie, that breaks its own definitions of time travel, and has a shitty ending. Yawn. Let’s just wait for Frozen at the end of this month.

Sometimes the Japanese don’t produce their own original content. Seriously, did you know that? I learned that last night. I never even considered that fact! But damn, it can happen.

So we have The Secret World Of Arrietty (or just Arietty if you have the fancy non American version), which is based on The Borrowers! And maybe I also just learned that they were a series of books before that movie in the 90s. Holy crap, there are like three Borrowers movies.

Fuck it, today is a day of learning and facts. It has been declared!

Don’t spray your house for bugs ever. Might end up killing a tiny human, you monster.

Shawn (David Henrie, some 23 year old who was a Wizard in a Disney show and the SON in How I Met Your Mother), is a 12 year old boy with a bad heart. So he goes off to live with his aunt for a week before his surgery, in the nice peaceful countryside.

At the same time, we have Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler who was…also a Wizard in a disney show?), who has just turned 14 but you know, is only a few inches tall, a borrower who lives in the house with her father and mother (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, who formed an incestuous relationship in Blades Of Glory).

Well on her first borrowing mission, she ends up dropping a sugar cube and accidentally waking up the delirious Shawn, who wants her to stay, quite creepily. But she runs away, and her parents are freaking out. Especially when he leaves the sugar cube near their home with a note “You Forgot Something”. Shit, this might turn into a horror movie soon, or the weirdest relationship ever.

Either way, she becomes more and more curious about the human, despite the parent warnings. Humans kill Borrowers, or other evil things. Especially that shady housekeeper, Hara (Carol Burnett, who I have nothing clever to add here for your knowledge), who thinks they exist but has no proof (yet). But if their shenanigans continue, they might have to move anyways. Especially if Hara gets involved. Hopefully they meet some savage Borrower who can help them find a new home, like that Spiller guy (Moises Arias, who was someone on a Miley Cyrus show and…maybe a wizard. What the fuck?).

To me this whole movie, her crazy mean face reminded me a bit of Stich’s face.

Now I am going to base this off the dubbed version of course, but I think unintentionally they made a lot of this really creepy. Like, having a 23 year old male voice a 12 year old kid. His voice was strangely deep, and spoke super slow. I felt scared that he’d turn out to be a serial killer or, you know, worse.

That with the ending are really my only complaints. It kind of left it super open ended, and didn’t really do much for my plot questions.

But outside of that, loved pretty much everything else. Especially the animation. I watched it on DVD and was still floored away with it. Obviously it wasn’t CGI, but it was just really really well done and processed I guess. If I had seen it on Blu-Ray I wouldn’t have believed it possible.

But the characters were nice, the music was nice, and the story was simple and only slightly felt stolen. Hey, its all good.

Most likely, every time someone heard of the movie Hamlet 2 they did a quick double take, and possibly throw in a “da fuq?” Presumably most of you knew what happened in Hamlet as well, because it helps.

A sequel to Hamlet doesn’t make any sense. And when you find out the movie isn’t even a straight sequel to Hamlet you got even more confused. A high school class putting on a production called Hamlet 2, and involving time travel and bad language? Well uhh.

Then you probably got curious, saw a zany trailer, and got turned off from watching it. I also assume most of you are identical to me, obviously.

HOW DO I TEEECH THEESE KEEEEEDS?

Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) is a going no where drama teacher. He tried to be an actor, but sucked, and is now a recovering alcoholic. But hey, he has a wife! (Catherine Keener) and they have a shitty income, so they take in a person to pay some rent too (David Arquette).

Despite all this, he continues to make shitty plays for the school which tend to be adaptions of Hollywood movies. Marschz finds out from the Principal (Marshall Bell) that at the end of the year, the drama department will be budget cut as well and his job gone. Well fuck that, he sets off to make the most original play he can possible. So why not a Hamlet 2, with time travel to save the characters, and Jesus and other historical figures? Why not?

Well for starters he only has two people who actually care about acting in the class, and they might be racist. Rand (Skylar Astin) and Epiphany (Phoebe Strole) are stoked about it, but how does he get the rest of the class to care? Turns out not too hard with the content material. Ivonne (Melanie Diaz) jumps on board right away, but when Octavio (Joseph Julian Soria) finally gets involved, he even gets to take over the main part.

This pisses off Rand, who takes the script the Principal who immediately tries to shut it down. This causes a big free speech uproar, and Marschz even gets represented by the ACLU (Amy Poehler). But despite all this publicity and uproar, is there even a chance that the play is even good? Also, Elisabeth Shue plays herself, as someone also living in Tuscon, where her dreams went to die.

I haven’t even made a reference to how I would describe Jesus in the play.

So uhh, the play was kind of awesome as shit. Which I didn’t see coming. The musical numbers were good, both directly involved in the play and from the helping choir, the plot was a bit touching, and no one really got offended too badly.

The film attempts to be a parody of other inspirational teaching movies, and makes reference to quite a few. Except the teachers are never as inept as the one in this movie, who acts way over the top and makes it quite obvious why no one takes him seriously. The kids all also don’t really want to act at first, and it is almost as if having controversy make them care more about the play, just to fight the bad press.

I really didn’t enjoy the first half of the movie. A lot of the jokes felt forced, even if it was a parody or satire or something. Just wasn’t amusing. The second half was a lot better though, which wheels were in motion and the play occured. Its like the intentionally didn’t improve the quality of the movie until the characters cared more about their own play. Is that clever film making? Or just a coincidence?

But seriously, I loved the play it self and made it worth it to see.